However, satellite data don’t agree with that finding
People send me stuff.
Today I got an email with an advance link to the NOAA/NCDC “state of the climate” briefing- that monthly phone call where Tom Karl’s NCDC staff spoon feeds unquestioning newsies like AP’s Seth Borenstein the latest worry over climate. Unsurprisingly, May 2015 is now anointed as the “warmest May on record”, thanks in part to the new and “pause busting” improved sea surface temperature record, all highly adjusted based on a variety of rationalizations.
This is what is being sent out today:
NOAA to Announce Key Climate Findings: Learn more about the temperature, precipitation and weather events experienced around the world in 2014, tomorrow at 11 am EDT. Dial 1-888-989-9791 with the password “Climate” to join the call and view the slides here (available at 10:30 am EDT).
It seems the oceans are now all the “Red Sea of climate despair”, except for that stubborn patch of low percentile blue near Greenland:
Wow, lots of red in the oceans, all based on percentiles (a statistical tool). Scary looking huh? I’ll bet AP’s Seth Borenstein (and others) will eat that right up and that global image they are pushing will be seen in news world-wide.
Of course, we knew back on June 19th this would be coming. Bob Tisdale wrote then:
NOAA recently published their State of the Climate Report for May 2015. Under the heading of Global Summary Information, they note:
Note: With this report and data release, the National Centers for Environmental Information is transitioning to improved versions of its global land (GHCN-M version 3.3.0) and ocean (ERSST version 4.0.0) datasets. Please note that anomalies and ranks reflect the historical record according to these updated versions. Historical months and years may differ from what was reported in previous reports. For more, please visit the associated FAQ and supplemental information.
But of course we know the adjustments that led to the new NOAA ERSST.v4 sea surface temperature data (the biggest changes to the NOAA data took place in the ocean portion) are not supported during the global warming slowdown period by the night marine air temperature dataset (HadNMAT2 from the UKMO) that NOAA used for bias corrections. (See post here.) In other words, it appears NOAA overcooked their “improvements”. Oops!
On the NOAA Global Analysis – May 2015 webpage they state under the heading of Temperatures:
The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2015 was the highest for May in the 136-year period of record, at 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F), surpassing the previous record set just one year ago by 0.08°C (0.14°F). This ties with February 1998 as the fourth highest monthly departure from average for any month on record. The two highest monthly departures from average occurred earlier this year in February and March, both at 0.89°C (1.60°F) above the 20th century average for their respective months.
Somehow I don’t think that will surprise anyone.
There’s another global graph that NCDC made, showing anomaly data rather than percentiles, but that didn’t quite make it into the press briefing, perhaps because there’s not as much red in it:
Aw, shucks, where did all the hot red go? Interestingly, there’s no link in the press briefing document that take you to the directly to the May 2015 SOTC page at NCDC that this is presented on, so folks like Seth won’t likely see this image unless they actually switch from regurgitator to reporter mode and spend some time to look for it.
If you want to look at both the press briefing and the SOTC page where that image exists, here are the links:
SOTC Press brief: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/201506.pdf
SOTC May 2015: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201505
But, never mind. Let’s look at the global temperature for May 2015 as seen by satellite data (click to enlarge):
![052015map[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/052015map1.jpg?quality=83)
And the graph (click to enlarge):
![2015-graph[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/2015-graph1.jpg?quality=83)
Looks to me like the pause is alive and well, and look at the rightmost datapoint, May 2015, nowehere near a record. Now to be fair, the satellite record is only from 1979, but, there’s certainly no indication of May 2015 being the hottest ever.
Or if you prefer numbers, here is what UAH said about May 2015:
Global Temperature Report: May 2015
Third warmest May in satellite record
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.11 C per decade
May temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.27 C (about 0.49 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.33 C (about 0.59 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.21 C (about 0.38 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Tropics: +0.27 C (about 0.49 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Source: http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/
Compare that to what NOAA/NCDC is saying:
The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2015 was the highest for May in the 136-year period of record, at 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F), surpassing the previous record set just one year ago by 0.08°C (0.14°F).
So for May 2015 NOAA says the globe is at 0.87°C above normal, and UAH says the globe is at 0.27°C above normal – a difference by a factor of three.
Who to believe?
UPDATE: In comments, there is this point about that dangerous climate change aka the 2°C limit that alarmists keep wailing about:
Well, it would seem so. But, 2F is not 2C. 2.30F works out to 1.27C. Close but no cigar. NOAA/NCDC could do a better job in their press briefing for the globe tomorrow by using both C and F, especially since many reporters can’t do this simple temperature conversion. Right now, they only have °F on their PowerPoint, which is curiously unscientific and Americanized.
“Land: +2.30 degrees F”
So… we can stop worrying about how a two degree increase is going to kill everything?
Good point, I’ll add that.
“Well, it would seem so. But, 2F is not 2C. 2.30F works out to 1.27C.”
Even a 2C increase won’t kill everything.
Seriously, is the US ever going to get ’round to using Celcius? I mean, come on, really. A scale that uses 0-100 is just so much simpler and clean to use. I can understand using inches and miles, but Celcius and kilograms just make more sense. I litre of water weighs 1 kilogram. It is so handy to use that in everyday life. I’m 56, British, but have little idea of what ‘pounds of weight’ is anymore.
Sure using Celsius makes using arithmetic for the boiling point appear easier. A little bit.
But even the thermostat need decimal Celsius divisions for the real life: 21 is too cold, 22 is too hot. 21.5 is needed. Or 18.5. Or 19.0 , 19.5, and 20.0, …
And the actual freezing and boiling points for EVERY other liquid and solid – even at laboratory conditions of the artificially-assigned “standard temperature and pressure” – are NOT 0.0 and 100.0 degrees.
For water, maximum density does not occur at STP, nor does water boil and freeze at 0.0 at any other pressure but nominal atmospheric conditions – which do not occur inside tanks, pressure vessels, vacuums, or other altitudes but sea level. So the “easy” Celsius approximations fail in every calculation needed at ANY design conditions.
Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley, I’m afraid that I will have to join with RACookPE1978 on this one. True totally going metric, might prevent such mishaps as crashing spacecrafts into the surface of “Mars”; but in the end the true flaw with metric was they used “I litre of water weighs 1 kilogram.” Should have used one litre of beer, more important don’t you think. Stout preferably.
michael
Stout! What are you, a Lancasterian?
A 2C increase will probably not kill anything. It is approximately equivalent to moving from Atlanta to Charleston. I think a lot of people would survive that.
there’s an unconsidered factor in going metric instead of english units. it clearly is easier to go with multiples of 10. one can do it without really thinking about it. using english units requires thought and calculations to convert – inches feet yards miles. an exercised mind is needed to think. make it so easy that switching units requires none – one gets flabby grey matter, making thinking much harder and consequently far rarer. mental exercise becomes the act of pushing around one’s mental blocks rather than solving problems
.
Hey Ghost of Big Jim Cooley (“Seriously, is the US ever going to get around to using Celcius”): Actually the English measurement system is far and away better than Celcius. One degree F is just about the minimum temperature difference that most people can feel on their bare skin and most weather on earth falls between zero degrees F and 100 degrees F. An inch is the size of your middle finger knuckle. One foot is actually about the size of a grown man’s foot. One yard is about the size of a walking stride. A mile is a comfortable walking distance. A cup is about as much coffee as you’d care to drink, a pint and a quart and a gallon are natural easy to use measurements when buying enough milk for the family. And a pound of something is heavier and easier to estimate than is a kilogram. The whole thing is a very human based system. And with computers and calculators conversion math is no big deal anymore. Celsius is fine for science. But I prefer the English measurement system for everyday life.
Ghost of Big Jim
If you want to express temperatures in Celsius, you should at least learn how to spell it.
It was named after the 18th century Swedish astronomer, Anders Celsius
Or do as I do when using the “other” scale. Just put “degrees F” for fear of getting a silent H in the wrong place.
Only 2.3°F? We, Belgians, added 2.3°C since the beginning of our measurements!
https://trustyetverify.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/coping-with-a-2-3-degrees-c-temperature-increase/
If a 2°C increase kills, we should all be dead already.
Disclaimer: although our weather service doesn’t admit it, but that 2.3°C comes from something different than global warming. 😉
No. The 2 degrees they’re talking about is in celcius, not farenheit.
‘Well, it would seem so. But, 2F is not 2C.’
Heh, let’s not get picky; there’s only 2 letters of the alphabet between ‘C’ and ‘F’.
/sarc
I definitely have to give a good word for the old imperial system of measure, it not only kept the mind active but it was based on some very real stuff. The universe does not operate on decimals it is base 12 and more importantly base 8. Go back far enough in history base 10 was never used it is a modern construct that is alien to science and confoundes those seeking the truth of our existence and universe.
NOAA is looking at the Oceans and UAH is looking where the effects of CO2 are manifest – in the air.
So why not believe them both? It just means that natural variation (water sloshing about) overwhelms the greenhouse effect.
As water has a far higher thermal capacity than air it’s what anyone with secondary school physics would expect.
“So why not believe them both?” – Simply because their adjustments to both land and especially ocean (Karl) temps are fraud. If you were in a business and you adjusted your books and got caught, you go to the slammer. But our Marxist government lies on all the data it publishes and doesn’t suffer any consequences. Human history does repeat, not just rhyme.
Believe NOAA? Are you mad? The raw data, yes, but NOAA lost track of reality a long time ago.
“So why not believe them both?”
Because it is physically impossible for the atmosphere over the oceans to be appreciably warmer (or colder) than the oceans themselves. The ocean has an immensely greater heat capacity than the atmosphere. The only places where a large difference is possible (and happens) is in the arctics where air and water are separated by an insulating layer of snow and ice.
Thanks for the “heads up.” Usually these press releases are dropped like a bomb on the science community, so if some enterprising reporter were to actually look for contrary commentary, any skeptics would be caught short. Forewarned is forearmed.
Well, the month of May, in fact the last three Mays, have been well below average in my region – and I live in the region where the Laurentide ice sheet grows.
I’m noticing in my area that monthly averages are consistently above normal despite the days being consistently cooler than usual. After noticing the trend and then following the local data, it seems to be because we are not cooling off as much at night. The variance in temperature has been shrinking, with the higher lows keeping the lower highs from being reflected in the daily average temperature. This is probably the UHI effect creating the illusion of a warmer climate despite clearly cooler seasons.
Tell you what I’ve noticed in England over the past few years (maybe just me!). When the Sun is out, it’s damn warm, warmer than it used to be, I think. But when the Sun isn’t out, then it’s cool, cooler than it used to be. There, how scientific is that? But that’s how it feels. We can have a fairly cloudy day here, then as soon as the Sun comes out from behind a cloud…bam! Even fairly late in the evening, the Sun pitching down at an angle is still very warm on your skin. I swear it never used to be like that.
Big Jim, it’s called aging. Unless you’re a vampire it happens. I never used to have to take breaks when working in the yard on a sunny day. I used to stay out in single digit F temps for 6-8 hours at a time. I just can’t do it anymore, when it’s hot it feels too hot and when its cold it feels too cold … or maybe i can assume that the world is both cooling and getting hotter at the same time.
Actually, you might be right.
You might be right because we are talking The One The Only CO2 (which can do just about anything and everything)
They also measure against a different baseline period. The warmists typically use 1950-1980, I think and UAH uses 1980-2010.
That’s NASA GISS, NOAA/NCDC use 1981-2010, as seen in the global temperature anomaly graph above.
Thanks for correction, Anthony. So yes they do compare the same baseline period except in the case of the scary record setting May graph which uses 20th century Jan. to May average.
Anthony, on the NOAA graph you posted, they say “departure from 20th Century Average”.
Cheers
The divergence between satellites and surface data is getting ridiculous. I like to look at the data starting right before the last big climate conference in Copenhagen.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2009.75/to/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2009.75/offset:-0.15/trend
The big yawning gap started in 1995, I think.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1994/to/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1994/offset:-0.15/trend
Anyone actually surprised by this? Every month of every year the data is adjusted up to a new record, then when it comes time for the next year to roll around they adjust it down and the new year up.
Repeat to infinity and with our news cycle it is always getting warmer.
They’ll be reporting the “hottest year ever” when the glaciers take back New York City and Canada has long been abandoned.
Yes , its called modern scientific matching , MSM if you will , reality must match the models. The temperature differences are so small and globally variable it will be 20-30 years before anyone finds out the truth and all the “Climate Scientists” concerned will have retired and the next batch of “Climate Scientists” will stand up to the mark and profess a new panic ?
it would appear these people attended the same school as the economic leaders of the european union. divergence from reality does not register on the radar, ever.
So for May 2015 NOAA says the globe is at 0.87°C above normal, and UAH says the globe is at 0.27°C above normal – a difference by a factor of three.
Who to believe
====
no one that claims to know what normal is
Their own NCEP temperature data does not agree with the garbage they are putting out much less satellite data.
thanks Anthony. Another fun press disconnect is the remarkable amount of glacial and ice loss reprted in Antarctica during the winter there.
https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi
The more they make the surface temperature trend rise above the lower troposphere trend the more they debunk the greenhouse effect. After all more infrared back radiation requires a warmer atmosphere.
Boston hasn’t had a 90° day yet. But the famous snow-pole finally melted today.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/15/last-trace-boston-snow-pile-finally-melts-away/
The divergence between the cooked data and the reality on the ground is becoming ridiculous. Eventually the cold hard facts of real weather/climate will overcome the mindless propaganda being spouted by NOAA and the rest of the Climate Lying establishment. People will finally wake up and realize they are being lied too.
You are far too optimistic,
If one clicks the link I just sent 7:57 am —Big Joe Bastardi. He shows the data NOAA has sent out is flat out wrong. No question about it.
It’s now eight years since the day when, through a process of polite inquiry, Steve McIntyre and Climate Audit caught Hansen with his hand in the cookie jar, and gave him a smack that forced him to readjust the adjusted readjustments.
http://climateaudit.org/2007/08/08/a-new-leaderboard-at-the-us-open/
Perhaps on August 8 we should have some sort of commemorative party.
It must be obvious to many in both NASA and NOAA that they are being used as propaganda spewers for dupes, and they must absolutely hate it. If the distortion of temperatures had happened only once in 2007, it could be called a “mistake”, but eight years turns it into a sort of bizarre addiction. In my mind’s eye I can see strange, green-faced zombies tottering around the hallways of NASA and NOAA, moaning, “Must have Distortion! Distortion! Must distort!” (I know that image is born of my frustration, and is disrespectful, but perhaps Josh could improve my bad image into a good cartoon.)
[SNIP wildy off-topic -mod]
I actually know such a young man, who I watched grow up. To some degree he is just as naive as I once was, and trusts authority he shouldn’t. In another respect he has the crazy confidence of youth, and thinks it is possible to achieve things which, thirty years down the road, he’ll become aware are not so easy to achieve. He believes all they need to do is fix the computer models here and there, and chaos will be fathomed.
I can recall an old man turning from a group of young men, many years ago, and jutting his thumb back over his shoulder at them, and saying, “These young fellows just got to learn.”
Disillusionment is involved, and that is never fun. Conscience stirs, and there is inner agony and crisis, and you are quite correct: It is a dilemma.
And you do bear the consequences of how you chose. You may not go to jail at age 94, but the face that looks back at you from the mirror judges you every day.
Well, the orders don’t come down to the rank and file. The WH works only with NOAA upper-management, who are only too happy to comply, partly because they believe in AGW and party because it advances their careers.
As part of the rank and file, I can tell you I’ve never been asked my thoughts on climate, and since it is not the main focus of my studies, if I ever receive a media request I am supposed to refer it to the NOAA ‘experts’ at NCDC (or whatever they’re called these days.)
Supposedly, NOAA has a policy protecting scientist from retaliation if they express their scientific opinions on weather-related matters. Never the less, we who don’t buy into the AGW hypothesis are reluctant to test this. Just look at how NOAA treated Bill Proenza for being an iconoclast. So we scurry along the halls whispering to each other, “The Emperor has no clothes.”
[SNIP wildly off topic -mod]
“[SNIP wildly off topic -mod]”
I agree with the snip, but you could have called your snip of my comment to the other snipped comment I commented upon to be to the point.
From https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/anomalies.php
My interpretation is that the 0.87 C is compared to 1900 to 1999. Is that correct?
I just saw the comment above about 1981 to 2010, but this seems to contradict it!
What is going on?
Werner, I just found this under the NOAA site.
11.What is the difference between the gridded dataset and the index values?
The land and ocean gridded dataset is a large file (~24 mb) that contains monthly temperature anomalies across the globe on a 5 deg x 5 deg grid. The anomalies are calculated with respect to the 1981–2010 base period. Gridded data is available for every month from January 1880 to the most recent month available. You can use it to examine anomalies in different regions of the earth on a month-by-month basis. The index values are an average of the gridded values (see question #7); however, the anomalies are provided with respect to the 20th century (1901–2000) average. They are most useful for tracking the big-picture evolution of temperatures across larger parts of the planet, up to and including the entire global surface temperature.
The percentiles data NOAA show are the anomalies against 1900-1999 average temperatures.
Any one see it different?
Yes that is correct . The .87c anomaly is against the 1900to 1999 temperature data.
However I am sure this value would be much lower if satellite data could go back that far.
Thank you! It would be nice if ALL data sets used the same baseline for EVERYTHING!
So the claim is that the extra heat is going to the oceans. Doesnt that support our premise that the planet has a natural buffering mechanism? The atmosphere can only get so warm, then the oceans start to absorb that warm, and send it to the depths to cool off?
Not sure if this will work, but here goes, 3 x May RSS Temperature Maps, 1998, 2010 & 2015.
http://images.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_1998_05_anom_v03_3.png
http://images.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_2010_05_anom_v03_3.png
http://images.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_2015_05_anom_v03_3.png
What do you see? (If it works of course
I would say more blue in 2015.
It has gotten darker over the ocean.
The third image was taken at night, you fool!
i do not see an el nino, 2015 must be wrong. 😉
lets see, the greenhouse effect takes place in the atmosphere including up to about 30,000ft, and yet the missing heat is transported into the ocean, acknowledging that there is no measurable warming of the air. So then the temperature delta from air (no change) to water (warmer) actually decreases. I wonder what mechanism of heat transfer would explain this?
Maybe a spike in undersea volcanic activity? Nah, we have no way of knowing how much, so that gets the “myth” tag.
Just keep repeating “it used to be cooler than this” and “numbers don’t lie”, especially when in politicly correct company.
I wonder what mechanism of heat transfer would explain this?”
Unicorn dust from Al Gore’s jet.
I have cannot remember having seen a proper explanation of this mechanism.
Maybe the energy is radiating from the air, where it is absorbed, into the oceans by the same mechanism the energy is radiating into space?
Or maybe the energy is jumping from the colder air to warmer oceans?
ref:
Temperature of Ocean Water, University of Michigan. August 31, 2001.
“The average temperature of the ocean surface water is about 17 °C (62.6 F).”
Between 1961 and 1990, the annual average temperature for the globe was around 57.2°F (14.0°C), according to the World Meteorological Organization.”
According to the map, I live right on the line between a warmer than average and a much warmer than average square. I can’t believe that is true. Spring this year has been very cool and only now in the middle of July have we turned on the AC. I can’t prove anything of course but I’m suspicious.
I am working on limiting my breathing by sleeping more, working less and just walking to mailbox to get my welfare check and food stamps.
We were taught back in the old day in a number od different science classes that correlation does not prove causation. When did that change?
It changed when the tobacco companies began to instill doubt in the findings of science.
Joel D. Jackson:
Really? You think that? How and why?
Richard
It changed with the release of the IPCC FAR, along with a lot of other things we thought we knew.
Some were also taught a modern scientific method – the empirical method by Karl Popper.
Characterized by precise, falsifiable statements and clever and eager attempts to falsify hypothesis and theories. We were taught that theories were more valuable the more they excluded from happening and that theories were merited by the attempts of falsification they has positively survived.
We were warned about inductivism – a scientific method from the renaissance – used by IPCC.
Poppers is soothing for scientific minds:
http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/popper-logic-scientific-discovery.pdf
(First part is easy reading)
then if you use GISS data, the May anomaly is less than half of what NOAA is using…
http://i59.tinypic.com/10i9oqv.gif
that’s even with GISS using the incredibly small range of -.25C to .25C as ‘normal’
it does seem though that NOAA is using the 20th century as their base peroid, which will of course make recent temps appear to be running warm
I notice that central Scandinavia which probably has one of the highest station densities in the World is a grey “no data” zone. Well, it was a bloody cold May there (and a bloody cold June and a bloody cold July so far).
Warning! If you plan to go walking in the Swedish/Norwegian mountains this summer, better bring skis/snowshoes:
http://www.klimatupplysningen.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/137.jpg
Sorry, did not see the spelling error – of