May 2016 was 2nd warmest May in satellite record
When is an anomaly just an anomaly and not necessarily part of a larger trend? Perhaps, when the anomaly is a significant outlier that can be linked to a specific cause.
May 2016 was the second warmest May in the satellite temperature record, trailing only May 1998 by 0.11 C, according to Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Compared to seasonal norms, May 2016 was the 8th warmest month overall since the satellite temperature dataset began in December 1978.
The 16 warmest months (and 21 of the warmest 25) on the record, however, all happened during one of three El Niño Pacific Ocean warming events (1997-98, 2009-10 and 2015-16). The effect is especially noticeable when comparing temperatures from a specific month. In the May data, three El Niño Mays are warmer than the other 35 by an amount that is statistically significant.
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.12 C per decade
May temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.55 C (about 0.99 degrees Fahrenheit) above
30-year average for May.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.65 C (about 1.17 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year
average for May.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.44 C (about 0.79 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year
average for May.
Tropics: +.72 C (about 1.30 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for
May.
April temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.72 C above 30-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.85 C above 30-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.58 C above 30-year average
Tropics: +0.94 C above 30-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 30-year average (1981-2010) for
the month reported.)
May anomalies
(compared to 30-year May norm)
1998 +0.65 C
2016 +0.55 C
2010 +0.41 C
2015 +0.27 C
2002 +0.25 C
2014 +0.25 C
2003 +0.21 C
2001 +0.20 C
2007 +0.14 C
2005 +0.13 C
That effect is more pronounced when looking at May temperatures in the tropics:
May anomalies, tropics
(compared to 30-year May norm)
1998 +0.98 C
2010 +0.80 C
2016 +0.72 C
1983 +0.28 C
2002 +0.27 C
2015 +0.26 C
2003 +0.19 C
2014 +0.18 C
1988 +0.18 C
1991 +0.17 C
The upshot, said Christy, is that while there is a clear warming signal in the satellite temperature data, caution should be used when trying to extrapolate long-term conclusions about climate change based on months and years whose temperatures are obvious outliers driven by El Niño warming events.
The 2015-16 El Niño appears to be fading fast. Sea surface temperatures in the east central Pacific have fallen below norms, and a La Niña Pacific Ocean cooling event may be on its way. It is a tiny sample, but 3-year La Niña cooling followed immediately after strong El Niño events in 1972-73 and 1997-98.
“We should expect continued, but erratic cooling through the end of the year,” Christy said. “In comparing the current El Niño to the major 1997-98 event, we see that globally the last two months have fallen below the values seen in 1998. The ‘race’ for the hottest year is getting closer. (See attached graph.) Through May, 2016 (+0.67 C warmer than seasonal norms) is leading 1998 (+0.60 C). Annual anomalies, however, are accurate to only ± 0.1 C, so the two years are really in a statistical tie.”
Compared to seasonal norms, the warmest average temperature anomaly on Earth in May was just off the western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Bellingshausen Sea. May temperatures there averaged 4.10 C (about 7.38 degrees F) warmer than seasonal norms. Compared to seasonal norms, the coolest average temperature on Earth in May was near South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic, where the average May 2016 temperature was 3.08 C (about 5.54 degrees F) cooler than normal for May.
The complete version 6 beta lower troposphere dataset is available here:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0beta/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0beta5.txt
Archived color maps of local temperature anomalies are available on-line at:
As part of an ongoing joint project between UAHuntsville, NOAA and NASA, Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer, an ESSC principal scientist, use data gathered by advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.
The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data are collected and processed, they are placed in a “public” computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.
Neither Christy nor Spencer receives any research support or funding from oil, coal or industrial companies or organizations, or from any private or special interest groups. All of their climate research funding comes from federal and state grants or contracts.
Mid-latitudes, where the anomaly is negative, receive above average rainfall last month?
“When is an anomaly just an anomaly and not necessarily part of a larger trend?”
It seems fairly clear that without the Mongo El Nino we just had this May would have had “also ran” status vs. close to the hottest “Evah”. It would not have been newsworthy in the liberal press.
Ever notice how low temps are unreported, but high temps mean the earth is about to conflagrate?
Lower temperature days are cold weather.
Higher temperature days are global warming.
Warmistas are happy with this news but are disappointed Colin isn’t devastating. If only one of those major hurricanes could have taken his path.
Extreeeeeeeme low temps are climate change!
Mike J , if only Colin had a son.
“Ever notice how low temps are unreported…”
Which low temps have not been reported?
It is the nature of “news” that something has to be a bit out of the ordinary to get attention. We have had out of the ordinary high temperatures recently. I don’t think there has been anything like a record low global temperature since about 1985 from the chart above. You can be sure that if we had a record low temperature for any month it would be reported.
seaice1,
Global warming changes the most at night, and at higher latitudes, and in the winter, and low temperatures are much more affected than the highs.
But those still sounding the false alarm over global warming presume that the high temps will shoot up, causing runaway global warming. But the reality is more mundane.
Low temperatures set records in the ’70’s. That was during the global cooling false alarm:
http://www.science20.com/files/images/global.png
And as we see, the current high temps are only ‘record’ highs if tenth- and hundredth-degree axes are used. Those tiny divisions magnify what in reality are simply natural wiggles:
And despite the fervent hopes, prayers, and deception of those pushing the current false alarm, they still can’t seem to show that last year or this year are ‘The Hottest EVAH!!‘™
There is nothing happening now that hasn’t happened naturally in the past, repeatedly, and to a much greater degree — and before human emissions could possibly have mattered. Several global warming episodes during the earlier Holocene were much warmer than now.
Skeptics ask for evidence showing that current temperatures exceed past parameters, and if so, evidence that human emissions are the primary cause. But the only such ‘evidence’ is flimsy and unconvincing; based mostly on assertions and weak chains of inference.
Alarmists can’t understand why skeptics don’t buy their explanations. The reason is simple: their explanations are just a sciencey veneer covering a data-challenged belief system.
The simplest explanation is almost always the right one: we’re watching natural variability in action. What we’re observing is well within past parameters. And there has been no acceleration in global warming, which would be happening if the steady rise in CO2 did what is claimed.
By now many of those who used to believe that rising CO2 is the primary cause of global warming are changing their minds. The ones remaining may still believe what they’re preaching, but they aren’t scientific skeptics. They can’t be; real world observations contradict their conjecture, which falsifies it.
Curious Through the first 5 months, is this not the warmest start on the satellite record?
NCEP CFSR had it as warmest May and front 5
Keep in mind there is a major cooling of the Indian ocean, at least back to average, showing up on most modeling. The coming 2-3 years should see as big, perhaps bigger magnitude of fall off the peak as we did after 9-10. The field day for the heat is coming to an end, ( for what its worth)
But is seems mass media a prog’ing a brutally hot summer for most of CONUS (not that I believe it).
Joe,
there’s lots of talk about this summer being very hot in the continental US, but that could imply a potential hangover from the El Nino that seems contradictory to the talk of a rapid La Nina – what’s your take on the situation this summer (I live in Maine, so a littler warmer wouldn’t be bad…)?
Well, if you say so….
compare and contrast
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GMFd.gif
it is said that correlation is not necessarily causation if spread over millions of square miles
but I would not exclude an ASSOCIATION between two.
I can’t even see any correlation.
compare locations of the orange (top) to red (bottom) coloured (bottom) areas, mainly associated with the high latitudes in both hemispheres.
What is the “total intensity F”?
It is intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field, mainly concentrated in the higher latitudes. Large dark blue area is the South Atlantic magnetic anomaly.
Its definitely freezing here in South America last 5 weeks
I agree. 10 feet of snow outside of Santiago in the mountains last week. A lot colder than last year.
Yeah, over 3 days.
So, chilemike, would this be a good year to go skiing in Chile? In say, August?
Good post.
I can see four scenarios for temperature going forward: 2 that warmists will like and 2 they won’t.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/the-coming-climate/
The widespread cooling of the North Atlantic area between Greenland and Portugal (an area larger than Greenland) is probably of even greater importance to future climate trends than the observed cooling of the Indian ocean. Why? Because this same cooling was also observed before the last two cold 30 year periods (in the years before 1886-1916 and before 1946-76) really got started. Just wait and see 🙂
Interesting observation. Could you please point to some supporting literature? I would like to study up on this, as have long suspected the North Atlantic (main driver of thermohaline circulation) has an outsized influence. Younger Dryas being just one example.
ristvan,
unfortunately most of the literature I find most useful about this, is in Norwegian. Including reports and measurements done by both old Norwegian seal hunter crews and polar expeditions. However, some standard descriptions of the AMO cycle etc is roughly indicated here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation
I guess you see why I pointed at the specific years before 1916 and 1946? According to that, we should have entered a new SURFACE cooling period (as defined above) a few years ago – and we have!
Re: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/25/for-those-watching-the-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies-of-the-equatorial-pacific-and-the-decay-of-the-el-nino/
Here’s also an interesting Nature article from 2015 that explained the appr. 30 year AMO cycle between warm and cold periods with “ocean circulation responds to the first mode of Atlantic atmospheric forcing, the North Atlantic Oscillation, through circulation changes between the subtropical and subpolar gyres”, re title of study: “Ocean impact on decadal Atlantic climate variability revealed by sea-level observations”
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7553/full/nature14491.html
Also, take a look at these linked, but highly disputable “observations” by NOOA in 2005:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/d2m_shift/applications.php
They actually know there is a “natural” case there, but won’t admit it in plain words…
A lot depends on whether a strong La Nina sets in quickly. I think this is a reasonable possibility, as unlike the 1998 Nino the 2015 event was almost also a 2014 Nino. So a lot more western Pacific warm pool water got vented over a longer period this time around. The subsurface water temp profiles also suggest a rapid onset strong Nina. Interested to see what Bob Tisdale thinks.
The sharp drop now happening in RSS and UAH, if continued by Nina onset into below trend territory, could well re-establish the infamous pause. That would be a huge problem for AR6.
ristvan
Lots of back & forth about yes/no La Nina in this thread. I understand different countries use different definitions of “La Nina” – what would you suggest as a general benchmark (I’m looking for a statement something like x degrees below normal in the the such-and-such region)?
I apologize if this has been stated previously and I missed it.
3 months of above 8 (or 7?) SOI values for La Nina, below -8 for El Nino. Also Below -0.5 on NINO 3.4 Index for La Nina or above 0.5 for El Nino.
A La Nina will be declared (I think) when the list of 3 month periods of Nino3.4 values that started one month apart has three periods with an anomaly below -0.5C°. E.g. suppose August, September, and October (ASO) average below -0.5, and also SON and OND. When the December data comes in, a La Nina will have been declared to start in August.
(Financial type do a similar thing with recessions. By the time it’s declared, everyone knows it’s happening.)
More simply, La Nina conditions are when the NINO 3.4 value is below -0.5°C.
Given the near real-time discussions here, talking about La Nina conditions is the only thing that makes sense except for posts announcing the La Nina’s start and end.
I calculated the mean Temperature (0-700 m depth) of the tropical Westpacific and comared it’s differences for the two leading years of an ElNino:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/160607/u595p8xc.gif
In 1995 the Temperature went up ( LaNina) before the event, also in the 1983-event. In the actual case the Westpacific lost much more heat over the time then in the other events. This could account for the higher globals in the firts part of the ElNino. It wouldn’t make me wonder when the globals will drop now much faster then in the compared ElNinos.
Interesting. What will the orange line do the next quarters? And, the early disappearance of warmth this cycle, could this have something to do with the development of the Blob?
If you look at the change in min/max surface temp as measured at stations, and divide by the solar that location received, when you look at 10 degree bands, the 97 El Nino was an event in the N20 to N30 band climate sensitivity that never went away
http://wp.me/p5VgHU-1t
“…a clear warming signal in the satellite temperature data…”. Enough said.
Doesn’t say much of anything at all.
It says… the use of ellipses…from the greek élleipsis, “omission” or “falling short”…is all you get…
remember to state the same when there is clear cooling in the satellite temp data over the next few years.
La Nina isn’t happening. Ironically, this means that the legacy of the last “el Nino” will be cooling, not warming.
Yo scientist brethren please start plotting the 95% confidence bars on your time series graphs. It could often change the analysis from warmer/cooler to “about the same” and that is important to understand!
“The 2015-16 El Niño appears to be fading fast”
Mate, I live in Tasmania and as my fellow citizens in Queensland and New South Wales will confirm its faded away, its gone, its deceased, its snuffed it…. its a dead El Nino, Long Live La Nina!
In Launceston its the worst flood since 192 bloody 9! (bigger actually). ( El Nino is a big dry on this side of the Pacific).
Tim Flannery really should just shut up. He needs to understand that Gaia just cannot stand him and every time he opens his big mouth she just loves to remind the world just how small his brain is.
Thank goodness May of 2016 didn’t request a silver metal for his part,
Nobody has dough for this.
silver metal?
Which one? Aren’t most of them kind of silverish?
I’m sitting here wondering why anyone would care what May’s temperature was, as it’s part of only 30-odd years of satellite records.
Versus 200-odd years since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which followed the Little Ice Age.
Up or down, what does it matter? Seems to me it’s essentially an Analysis of Noise.
will someone set me straight?
Anna, there are a few good reasons to pay attention to monthly data.
1) It’s your job, you get paid.
2) Sometimes, like now, we have big dramatic events which unfold relatively rapidly.
But in general, it does not make a whole lot of sense to get all torqued up over every new month in a system which takes decades to do anything really interesting. Although I myself have been guilty of that.
If we take a step back, we realize that, for non-professionals, getting all worked up over monthly data makes about as much sense as racing Caribbean land crabs.
http://www.largeup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/crab-racing-buccoo-tobago.jpg
and
http://clubbalihai.com/05images/crab5.jpg
Which I have also done.
The difference is that in racing Caribbean land crabs, you personally have a chance of winning cold hard cash. With climate professionals, it’s guaranteed fodder for more useless papers and government grants.
It depends on your interests. Some people check the price of gold every day. Others check how their sports team did on their last game. As for the May anomaly, many people here are wondering if 2016 will finally beat 1998 for the record hot satellite year, so they are very interested in every month.
And whether 2016 does or does not set a record can have implications for carbon taxes our government wants to impose on us. If heat records are shattered, governments may feel justified with imposing carbon taxes.
I’m glad you said “record hot *satellite* year”, Werner. 🙂
Anna pointed out that there is a longer temperature record.
Anna, the reason the monthy temperture record is important is because as long as it goes lower, we won’t have to listen to the Alarmists crow about how hot it is getting. Every month of relief from that is worth its weight in gold.
Anna
Don’t know if this will set you straight, but we’re discussing a huge transient event (El Nino) that may or may not transition into a La Nina. May is simply the last piece of data we have & lots of folks are making speculative comments.
If this is not your cup of tea, please check back in in 200 years (or so).
You are correct that having (much) more data is much (more) better.
Can the author present the temperature pattern by eliminating El Nino and La Nina component, 60-year cycle component!!! After that it may be easy to eliminate urban heat island effect.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Me thinks that would leave the linear ramp from cooking the temperature data.
To estimate the UIE you would need the raw data which doesn’t exist in the US.
Anomaly is defined as a departure from the expected or normal. Since variation in temperature and climate including mean temperature on the order of +/- several degrees C is completely normal on decadal and geological time scales, where’s the anomaly? AGW is, IMHO, much ado about nothing.
“much ado about nothing”
and
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Nick Stokes,
” several degrees C is completely normal on decadal and geological time scales”
– About 20K years ago, the global anomaly was down about 6°C –
what’s your point.
” several degrees C is completely normal on decadal and geological time scales”
Yes. About 20K years ago, the global anomaly was down about 6°C (estimated). It did make a difference.
Nick Stokes: You’re right. I overstated a bit. Should have said +/- a degree or so over the last 20 centuries. Frankly, I’m about as concerned about the state of the climate in 200 centuries as I am about what happened 200 centuries ago. Weather and climate seem to me to be the most clear examples of stochastic processes in nature. Weather forecasters can’t project tomorrow’s high/low temperatures to better than +/- 4 F (2.1C) with a confidence of 95%. Yet “climate scientists” claim to be able to project global average temperature to tenths of a degree 100 years from now? Sorry, that is truly “a tail full of sound and fury told by an idiot”.
“Yet “climate scientists” claim to be able to project global average temperature to tenths of a degree 100 years from now? Sorry, that is truly “a tail full of sound and fury told by an idiot”.”
No they don’t “claim” anything about the GCM projections.
For a start they cannot know the future RCP.
As for the 10th’s claim … that is just a number derived from a process, like 2.1 children/family.
Also, why does a “forecast” of anything have to be correct to “a 10th” or else be a failure (if it does to anyone here)?
I found this with weather forecasts – an unrealistic perception of what is achievable ( and modellers know this better than anyone).
As I said – no claim – just the latest in a series of ongoing projections from climate modellers – that give us something to learn from.
Whether we do or not in terms of action is up to the politicians.
Which climate scientists are not.
AAll of these reports of “warmest ever” years of the twenty-first century are a result of ignorance. These people simply don’t know that global temperature was raised by a step warming at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This warming started in 1999, in only three years raised global temperature by a third of a degree Celsius, and then stopped in 2002. Those who manipulate temperature curves for IPCC and friends obviously don’t know what is going on here. To see this step warming, look at figure 15 in my book “What Warming.” The source of it was the huge amount of warn water brought across the ocean by the just-departed super El Nino. The greenhouse effect is ruled out. This is because in order to stop greenhouse warming you must pluck every absorbing carbon dioxide molecule bout of the air which is an impossibility. Because of this fact it is impermissible to compare the temperatures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries directly. If you do want to compare them, however, you mist first subtract the contribution of the step warming from the observed temperature of the twenty-first century you are comparing. And if you do that you will find that the corrected twenty-first century values are pretty similar to twentieth century values. The first to note the rise of twenty-first century warming was James Hansen who observed that nine out of ten warmest years to date were part of the first decade of the 21-st century. He attributed it to greenhouse warming without a thought. Another notable observer was Obama himself who noted that “14 out of 15 warmest years” belonged to the 21-st century. It is quite impossible for this warming to be greenhouse warming because it simply stopped ln 2002. These notable observations and other similar ones are direct comparisons that must all be adjusted as above to find out where they belong in the temperature hierarchy.
Arno Arrak. ” The source of it was the huge amount of warn water brought across the ocean by the just-departed super El Nino.”
Can you explain why the heat released into the atmosphere by the 1998 El Nino remained rather than radiating into space? On the face of it that goes against thermodynamics.
I doubt the El Nino had anything to do with the warming that followed. Data corrected for climate noise from ENSO and volcanoes shows the warming really occurred in the mid 90s after Pinatubo cooling ended. The stratosphere cooled due to that eruption which is what led the way to warming. The energy was provided by the warm phases of the AMO and PDO.
seaice1 June 7, 2016 at 4:43 am says: “…Can you explain why the heat released into the atmosphere by the 1998 El Nino remained rather than radiating into space? ”
I am glad you asked that question. I was thinking the same thing when I looked at the 21st century segment of my figure 15. It looks there like a horizontal warm platform instead of a down-slope I expected. But this is an illusion you will realize when you bring in subsequent observations. If you look at more current data such as the UAH temperature curve issued May 2016 you will notice a distinct downturn as the century progresses. First, there is a La Nina in 2008 and an El Nino in 2010 that disrupt the regularity of the temperature platform. Resulting temperature drop between 2002 and 2009 becomes then a good 0.25 degrees Celsius. Beyond this 2010 El Nino the temperature curve turns up again because of buildup to the coming 2015/16 El Nino. That El Nino is expected to be followed by a La Nina that will lower global temperature again. Just how much is still a question. This expected La Nina cooling will then combine with the continued cooling of the warm background water and it would not be a surprise to me if their combined total coolth goes down as low as the end of the twentieth century was.
Arno Arrak
“It is quite impossible for this warming to be greenhouse warming because it simply stopped ln 2002.”
______________________
Every data set we have, including the satellites, show continued global warming since 2002. In NOAA it’s statistically significant (0.174 ±0.157 °C/decade (2σ): http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend/trend.html
It’s less fast in the satellites, but it’s still there (0.07 C/dec in UAH v6.5 beta, 0.04 C/dec in RSS v3.3). Not only that, but ocean heat content has also increased considerably since 2002:
How come surface and atmospheric temperatures have warmed during a period when ocean heat content also grew? We know it wasn’t the sun, because sunspot numbers have been relatively low during solar cycle 24. What explains the observed warming better than an enhanced greenhouse effect?
The oceans warm the atmosphere…..
They boil water, huge volumes of warm water blow poleward, where they warm the surface as it cool and rains out.
This warm water warms everything.
The other day we had +90F humid tropical air, today we have Canadian air, and it’s 66F and nice out.
What, so the greenhouse effect warms the oceans first then the atmosphere, do you have any clue how dumb an agreement that is for AGW induced global warming? If the oceans are warming faster then the atmosphere it ain’t AGW pal!
The oceans.
But when you look at actual min and max temp measurements, you see they change is a way a constantly increasing forcing would not do, it is not a slow trend, the changes to our climate where big changes in min temp at different places at different times.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/evidence-against-warming-from-carbon-dioxide/
and
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/measuring-surface-climate-sensitivity/
skeohane
“The oceans warm the atmosphere…..”
__________________
They can do; but over the longer term you would expect to see a net loss of heat energy from the oceans at the expense of a net gain in atmospheric warming.
We don’t see that. Over the longer term we see both the atmosphere and the oceans warm together. This suggests that the heat source for both is independent of both.
What do you suggest this might be?
DWR54, Notice how the atmosphere responded to the El Nino? That was water warming the atmosphere.
@DWR54…the oceans are now cooling. The OHC graph which you have linked to ends in March. The oceans have already had significant changes take place since then.
The reason why the oceans continued to warm alongside global temps is due to the fact that we have been in a natural warming phase of climate. You assert that CO2 is a prime explanation for this warming as what else could it possibly be. The “what else” part is easy to understand when you look at any long term temp graph. There it can be seen that over time global temps continually rise and fall. So to answer your question “what else?”, I would answer that it was the same combination of drivers that drove all the other warm phases of the past, including the previous leg of warming from the mid 1910s to the mid 1940s.
Hold it, Anna. I have proved that there was no greenhouse warming whatsoever in a thirty-year stretch from 1910 to 1940. That being the case, using any earlier period like the Industrial Revolution is not permissible in comparisons of global warming temperatures. From this lack of greenhouse warming in mid-century it may be extrapolated that there was no greenhouse warming at all during the entire twentieth century. Let the IPCC try to deny this or stop telling us that greenhouse warming exists in the twentieth century.
It is interesting that RSS came in below UAH this month. It came in at .525 which ties 2010 in 2nd place behind 1998. It has now fallen. .45 C in the past 3 months. If this continues we will be headed into another ice age by next summer. 😉
I think this now shows exactly how much of the warming was due to the AMO driven sea ice loss in the Arctic. The effect of that ice loss on global temperature goes away as the NH moves into spring and summer. What this means is the current El Nino can now be more accurately compared to the 97-98 El Nino as far as global temperatures go. What we see is the pause continues unabated. Climastrologists are going to be so disappointed.
I am a disbeliever in anthropological global warming, but I dislike what I have seen out of the skeptical circles this El Nino.
1) The pause has disappeared from our rhetoric, but if it is a pause at an all time high temperature, did it even matter to begin with? When are temps going to revert to the mean? Never?
2) A record high El Nino is what you would expect from a warming world: ever increasing highs at the high end of the cycle, and throughout the cycle.
The pause was used to falsify global warming, what falsifies it now? Record high temperatures? Obviously not. The Earth has been warming for 10,000 years and more, not a new trend, not even necessarily a bad trend. But obfuscation and dishonesty is always bad,and I’m getting a strong whiff of it from skeptics.
Yes warming, No not SUV’s. Period.
I think a big part of it is the hesitancy to speculate about how the El Niño will turn out. We don’t know what will happen.
As to obfuscation or dishonesty.. IMO you are looking on the wrong side of the aisle.
Ever hear of the Holocene Optimum? The earth has been cooling over the several thousand years since then.
The slope since 1998 on RSS is 0.2 C/century. That small warming is nothing to get alarmed about. See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
Werner,
Two things: 1) if the revised RSS TLT raises the overall RSS warming rate by ~ 60% (as it has done in TMT) would it be alarming? 2) Why use 1998 as the start date in RSS? It runs from 1979 and the full rate is 0.13 C/dec.
When comparing 1998 to 2016, we are comparing like with like. Both had very strong El Ninos. However 1979 was a neutral ENSO year. 1983 also had a very strong El Nino, but it also had a strong volcanic eruption which dampened the effect of the El Nino. So when comparing a trend with two strong El Ninos 18 years apart at each end, we get a good picture of what is happening. As for a possible 60% increase, so if we now have a slope of 0.20 C/century, a 60% increase would give 0.32 C/century. That is still nothing to be concerned about.
I would hope that if there is indeed a 60% increase, that it is due to valid adjustments and not due to any nefarious reason.
Werner,
“1983 also had a very strong El Nino, but it also had a strong volcanic eruption which dampened the effect of the El Nino.”
_____________________
There were also two consecutive moderate to strong El Ninos in 1986-87 and 1987-88 with no significant volcanic eruptions to dampen their impact. The warming trend in RSS since 1986 is 1.3 C/century; same as it is since 1979.
There is also the point, I think generally accepted by all, that lower troposphere temperatures react more strongly to ENSO fluctuations than do surface temperatures. Substituting RSS with GISS and comparing the 1997-98 and 2015-16 El Nino peaks produces a trend of 1.7 C/century (same as the GISS rate since 1979): http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/plot/gistemp/from:1998/trend
See:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
In 1987, it only reached 1.6. In both 1997 and 2015, it reached 2.3 so both periods had many months that were above 1.6.
When a post begins with such an obvious lie, is there any reason to give serious consideration to the rest of it?
1) I love the way the troll assumes what we have been saying regarding the pause is just “rhetoric”.
Of course we aren’t talking much about the pause at present, because as we predicted it disappeared under the influence of the now dying El Nino. It will resume if there is an even moderate La Nina in the coming months.
2) It wasn’t a record high El Nino, depending on which standard you use it was about the same size or smaller than the 1998 El Nino.
3) The data has always refuted global warming. The pause was just one piece of data, far from the only one.
The troll declares that just because we haven’t been talking about the pause, that the pause was nothing more than obfuscation and dishonesty. Go clean up your own act, then come back and see if you have standing to lecture the rest of us.
It is too early to say that the pause has ended, imo. If this El Nino is to be considered as a pause buster at this point in time, then every high and low from the past would at the time have also been either an end to warming or an end to cooling. Example, early 2008 would have been the end of global warming, The beginning of 2009 would have been the return to global warming, Early 2011 would have been a return to global cooling, the start of 2012 even more cooling, and so on. Let us wait 3 years or more to see what happens before making an assessment of what the long term trend is up to. Also, the world has not been warming for the last 10,000 years.
I predict the climate will change.
Maybe
I predict that predictions will change.
It’s so amazing to look at all these nice comments pretending all the time “there is no warming since year x”.
Here is a plot of 3 El Niño anomaly records (ranging from january till april of the consecutive year) for 1982/83, 1997/98 and 2015/16:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/160608/eqvuqog8.jpg
All data is normalised wrt UAH’s baseline (i.e. the average of 1981-2010).
It should be evident to anybody that if indeed there had been no warming, then these 3 El Niño anomaly plots would be exactly superposed…
What is worth a remark is that the 1997/98 event has had a much bigger effect on the temperature in the lower troposphere than the two others. At surface level, the differences are much smaller, but here it is the 2015/16 event that shows a slightly higher trend slope.
On va voir si quelqu’un s’aperçoit de la petite supercherie, hum hum…
An interesting comparison…
It seems that Paul Clark at Wood for Trees is about to shutdown: only data that is automatically processed is shown for recent periods.
That is the reason why UAH data still is shown at revision 5.6 instead of revision 6.0beta5.
This is a pity, but is somewhow good as well: it allows us to show the concordance of UAH5.6 data with that of GISSTEMP:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/uah/from:1979/mean:12/plot/uah/from:1979/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1979/mean:12/offset:-0.428/plot/gistemp/from:1979/trend/offset:-0.428/plot/uah/from:1997/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1997/trend/offset:-0.428
Using RSS3.3 TLT (quite similar to UAH6.0beta5) we can show how these compare:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/rss/from:1979/mean:12/offset:-0.083/plot/rss/from:1979/trend/offset:-0.083/plot/gistemp/from:1979/mean:12/offset:-0.428/plot/gistemp/from:1979/trend/offset:-0.428/plot/rss/from:1997/trend/offset:-0.083/plot/gistemp/from:1997/trend/offset:-0.428
I am responding here to: DWR54 June 7, 2016 at 6:27 am. He has some searching questions about global warming for us. First, he points out that “Every data set we have, including the satellites, show continued global warming since 2002. In NOAA it’s statistically significant (0.174 ±0.157 °C/decade (2σ): ” http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend/trend.html ” And then he follows it with: “How come surface and atmospheric temperatures have warmed during a period when ocean heat content also grew? We know it wasn’t the sun, because sunspot numbers have been relatively low during solar cycle 24. What explains the observed warming better than an enhanced greenhouse effect?”
These are important points about which much misinformation has been spread. I will take care of this nisinformation below. To start with, , let us agree on the basics. I exclude the sun like you do because there is no observable connection between sunspot numbers and climate. The validity of past connection between them is a hypothesis to me that has not yet been proved. IPCC doctrine today takes it for granted that the greenhouse effect is caused by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and this claim embraces the whole lower troposphere. When these gases are analyzed it turns out that carbon dioxide we are supposed to fight is neither the most important nor the most abundant greenhouse gas in the air. Water vapor is both. It makes up 95 percent of greenhouse gases present while carbon dioxide is only 3.6 percent. Ignoring water vapor, the greenhouse effect itself is said to be produced when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs infrared radiation and thereby warms the air. Hansen knew in 1988 that this had not been proven and took it upon himself to prove that the greenhouse effect is real. First he claimed that a 100 year warming curve existed hat had to be produced by the greenhouse effect. Then he said that more greenhouse effect could be observed at high latitudes than at low latitudes, and that more warming took place in the winter than in the summer. But when it came to actual data all he could say is that “…in all of these cases, the signal is at best beginning to emerge, and we need more data.” At this point he had no actual data but nevertheless claimed having discovered the greenhouse effect with his famous statement that “…global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.” You can paraphrase this as: “Global warming itself is proof of the greenhouse effect. “ This is not science but it is nevertheless accepted as proof of the existence of the greenhouse effect by IPCC and other global warming advocates. When it comes to the real world, observation of the global temperature curve by NOAA shows that large parts of it cannot possibly be caused by the greenhouse effect. For example, there is a thirty-year period of warming that starts in 1910 and ends in 1940. Checking the extended Keeling curve to see if carbon dioxide was involved we discover that no carbon dioxide was added to the atmosphere during this period as is required to create greenhouse warming. To this you must add the fact that the warming stopped in 1940. It so happens that in order to stop greenhouse warming you must pluck all of the absorbing carbon dioxide molecules out of the air. That is an impossibility and therefore the the fact that warming stopped in 1940 tells us that this warming could not possibly have been a greenhouse warming. This means hat one third of the twentieth century is now proven to be greenhouse free. Your hope of finding greenhouse warming in some other part pf the century is also greatly diminished by this because there is no reason to think that the greenhouse effect will suddenly come alive elsewhere in that century. We know of other related warming-cooling situations where the same rule about stopping applies. They are associated with the periodic appearance of El Nino peaks and their associated La Nina valleys as part of the global temperature curve. No one so far has claimed that El Ninos have anything to do with the greenhouse effect. The spacing between El Nino peaks is approximately five years but it can vary. Each time an El Nino appears it starts with a clear warming period, followed by a clear cooling period that descends to the bottom of its neighboring La Nina valley before turning to the next El Nino in line. An excellent view of the global temperature chart showing the location of all El Ninos from 1850 to 2016 is in the paper by Kevin Cowtan referred to by the first quote above. This chart is taken from HadCRUT4 according to the author. Ignoring the errors in HadCRUT4 and the trend shown by his graph shows that from the beginning to the end of this time period the entire graph is completely filled with a shoulder-to-shoulder mass of El Nino peaks, separated by La Nina valleys. These are the so-called “noise,” usually eliminated by a running mean. No one thinks about them – out of sight, out of mind, and we pay dearly for this lack of thyought. . Now, think about what this mass of El Minos tells us about the greenhouse effect. Or don’t think, I will tell you. A total failure of institutional science pushing for irrational decarbonization goals. This array of El Ninos tells us that no greenhouse effect can exist anywhere in the recorded global temperature records. None. The alleged anthropogenic global warming is a total myth. The billions spent on decarbonizing are a total waste. The Copenhagen and Paris conferences were organized under false premises. And we have a huge institutional cleanup of damage done by the global warming movement ahead of us.
Arno, you what is really useful? PARAGRAPHS.
Paragraphs?
Paragraphs?
We don’t need no stinkin’ paragraphs !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinking_badges
Dude…. Paragraphs! Use ’em! Makes you more readable, and also forces you to organize your ideas in a logical fashion.
Using paragraphs to present ideas does not make them logical — just easier to read.
I didn’t say using paragraphs makes your ideas logical, but that it forces you to organize them in a logical fashion. Well, forces is a bit strong, but it sure as hell helps.
I tried to read your comment, but my eyes were not good enough — I got so dizzy and fell off my bar stool.
… so I created another version in my own easy-to-read non-traditional format, and fixed a few minor typos I found.
You had some very interesting ways of describing some things, such as:
“Global warming itself is proof of the greenhouse effect.”
If you use some spaces in your future posts, more people will read them.
Just like you, I do not believe in paragraphs … but I eliminate them in a different way, which I used when I re-formatted your comment (below):
I am responding here to: DWR54 June 7, 2016 at 6:27 am.
He has some searching questions about global warming for us.
First, he points out that:
“Every data set we have, including the satellites, show continued global warming since 2002.
In NOAA it’s statistically significant (0.174 ±0.157 °C/decade (2σ):
http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend/trend.html”
And then he follows it with:
“How come surface and atmospheric temperatures have warmed during a period when ocean heat content also grew?
We know it wasn’t the sun, because sunspot numbers have been relatively low during solar cycle 24.
What explains the observed warming better than an enhanced greenhouse effect?”
These are important points about which much misinformation has been spread.
I will take care of this misinformation below.
To start with, let us agree on the basics.
I exclude the sun like you do because there is no observable connection between sunspot numbers and climate.
The validity of past connection between them is a hypothesis to me that has not yet been proved.
IPCC doctrine today takes it for granted that the greenhouse effect is caused by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and this claim embraces the whole lower troposphere.
When these gases are analyzed it turns out that carbon dioxide we are supposed to fight is neither the most important nor the most abundant greenhouse gas in the air.
Water vapor is both.
It makes up 95 percent of greenhouse gases present while carbon dioxide is only 3.6 percent.
Ignoring water vapor, the greenhouse effect itself is said to be produced when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs infrared radiation and thereby warms the air.
Hansen knew in 1988 that this had not been proven and took it upon himself to prove that the greenhouse effect is real.
First he claimed that a 100 year warming curve existed hat had to be produced by the greenhouse effect.
Then he said that more greenhouse effect could be observed at high latitudes than at low latitudes, and that more warming took place in the winter than in the summer.
But when it came to actual data all he could say is that:
“…in all of these cases, the signal is at best beginning to emerge, and we need more data.”
At this point he had no actual data but nevertheless claimed having discovered the greenhouse effect with his famous statement that:
“…global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.”
You can paraphrase this as:
“Global warming itself is proof of the greenhouse effect.”
This is not science but it is nevertheless accepted as proof of the existence of the greenhouse effect by IPCC and other global warming advocates.
When it comes to the real world, observation of the global temperature curve by NOAA shows that large parts of it cannot possibly be caused by the greenhouse effect.
For example, there is a thirty-year period of warming that starts in 1910 and ends in 1940.
Checking the extended Keeling curve to see if carbon dioxide was involved we discover that no carbon dioxide was added to the atmosphere during this period as is required to create greenhouse warming.
To this you must add the fact that the warming stopped in 1940.
It so happens that in order to stop greenhouse warming you must pluck all of the absorbing carbon dioxide molecules out of the air.
That is an impossibility and therefore the the fact that warming stopped in 1940 tells us that this warming could not possibly have been a greenhouse warming.
This means hat one third of the twentieth century is now proven to be greenhouse free.
Your hope of finding greenhouse warming in some other part of the century is also greatly diminished by this because there is no reason to think that the greenhouse effect will suddenly come alive elsewhere in that century.
We know of other related warming-cooling situations where the same rule about stopping applies.
They are associated with the periodic appearance of El Nino peaks and their associated La Nina valleys as part of the global temperature curve.
No one so far has claimed that El Ninos have anything to do with the greenhouse effect.
The spacing between El Nino peaks is approximately five years but it can vary.
Each time an El Nino appears it starts with a clear warming period, followed by a clear cooling period that descends to the bottom of its neighboring La Nina valley before turning to the next El Nino in line.
An excellent view of the global temperature chart showing the location of all El Ninos from 1850 to 2016 is in the paper by Kevin Cowtan referred to by the first quote above.
This chart is taken from HadCRUT4 according to the author.
Ignoring the errors in HadCRUT4 and the trend shown by his graph shows that from the beginning to the end of this time period the entire graph is completely filled with a shoulder-to-shoulder mass of El Nino peaks, separated by La Nina valleys.
These are the so-called “noise,” usually eliminated by a running mean.
No one thinks about them – out of sight, out of mind, and we pay dearly for this lack of thought.
Now, think about what this mass of El Ninos tells us about the greenhouse effect.
Or don’t think, I will tell you.
A total failure of institutional science pushing for irrational decarbonization goals.
This array of El Ninos tells us that no greenhouse effect can exist anywhere in the recorded global temperature records.
None.
The alleged anthropogenic global warming is a total myth.
The billions spent on decarbonizing are a total waste.
The Copenhagen and Paris conferences were organized under false premises.
And we have a huge institutional cleanup of damage done by the global warming movement ahead of us.
” The alleged anthropogenic global warming is a total myth.”
And, if you look at the rate of change of min and max temps individually (ever wonder why only mean is examined)across different regions, it’s obvious a global, uniform, homogenous forcing could not possibly be the source of those changes.