The global surface temperature anomaly data from the UK Hadley Climate Research Unit (Temp anomaly is plotted below) has just been released, and it shows a significant drop in the global temperature anomaly in January 2008, to just 0.034°C, just slightly above zero.
This caps a full year of temperature drop from HadCRUT’s January 2007 value of 0.632°C
above data is HadCRUT3 column 2 which can be found here
description of the HadCRUT3 data file columns is here
The ∆T for the past 12 months is minus 0.595°C which is in line with other respected global temperature metrics that I have reported on in the past two weeks. RSS, UAH, and GISS global temperature sets all show sharp drops in the last year. We are in an extended solar minimum, we have a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to a cold state, and we are seeing arctic ice extents setting new records and rebounding from the summer melt.While weather is defined as such variability, the fact that so many things are in agreement on a global scale in such a short time span of one year should give us all pause for consideration.
UPDATE: see all 4 global temperature indexes compared in this next post
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OK–but how much long term trending is really seen in this downshift to slightly cooler temps worldwide?
This February in SC is VERY mild. Granted we get flows of Gulf of Mex. air that surge in, but very little cold right now. This is not the warmest winter on record for the south, I know. Still, its been quite a while when I could wash the car in the winter and the days of pipes bursting due to bad insulation seem long gone in the Carolinas.
The US east coast has had a mild warming all winter (including January). The rest of the world, however has not.
If the PDO is in remission, we can expect a twenty-to-thirty year cooling trend. The current warm phase has lasted 28 years (and has flattened over the last 5 or more), and last time the downturn occurred it was heralded by a La Nina. (A waning solar trend may or may not contribute.)
None of that proves anything (“90%” or otherwise), but it’s a reasonably fair indication, and I bet it beats the so-called reliability of the Global Climate Models out there.
BTW, I’d like to see the 1990s and 2001 GCMs plotted against the “adjusted” temperatures to date (even though I think the current upward swing has probably been exaggerated).
Sam said “They probably will also claim that the Kyota Protocol is working and starting to rein in temperatures. “
Well, no. I wouldn’t put THAT on them. They might be in the wrong, but the explanations for Kyoto would be truly absurd. It is not even kicked into full effect and not signed by the United States. Elsewhere it does little to offset carbon emissions or the plans, say, of China to bring dozens of Co2 belching coal fired plants online between now and 2020. And the whole issue of biofuels (burning and clearing vast swatches of food supply and/or land in order to have richer people well carred and jetted) is fraud, as are carbon credits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=b90a6c6cca379cde&ex=1202792400&oref=slogin
On carbon credits:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/48e334ce-f355-11db-9845-000b5df10621.html
So far, Kyoto is only piddling and little more than posture. The problem is the costs are high, the returns on environment are low to imperceptibale, and the hypocrisy is immense across the globe from those pundits yelling the loudest. Just like it was when it was written about by Robert Samuelson:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/28/AR2005062801248.html
See also George Will’s take on this, also worth a peek:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/11/AR2007041102109.html
But then to add some balance that SOMETHING IS happening here due to AGW, we have this, which I think is the best precis on environment to date and a more balanced view that those of the “think tanks” which give us men like Singer and the other naysay experts in verbiage:
http://wsbradio.com/weather/global_climate_change3.html
Since Watts is a meteorolgist by trade also, I’m quite sure he’s heard of Mellish. Mellish is pretty good, and answers the myth that “the earth has been through all this before” and that “heat island effect” is what we’re seeing OR that “there was a consensus in the 1970s” that the earth was cooling off.
Mellish points out that whether or not “consensus” on something is valid depends on whom you’re dealing with. Radicals? Think tanks from libertarian groups” Leftover hippies with an axe to grind? Cocktail waitress chatter?
It is the exception, not the rule, however, that consensus being bucked by a lone wolf in the night means something. There IS consensus among most meteorologists and climatologists about AGW being the proximate cause of slight warming over the past century. Mellish makes sure we understand that cyclic variations in snow or hurricane intensity and dry or cold spells in and of themselves cannot prove anything one way or another. Al Gore is just as wrong to use hot summers for his concerns in saving Mother Earth to prove something as are kids playing in snow in Madrid.
There was not a consensus outside of Newsweek, however, that the planet was heading to an ice age in the 70s. Oopsy.
true believers never apologise or recant……in this case too much money and power at stake for a”nevermind”
Lots of deep thinking going on here but seems like the main point is very simple. The dramatic drop in the temperature average over the last year indicates that something well beyond CO2 is driving this. There are much bigger hammers driving global warming or cooling than what might come from our CO2 input.
At least use the same reference time…..
RSS,UAH: 1979-1998
Hadley: 1961-1990
NASA: 1951-1980
calculate data so that reference time is 1979-1998 for ALL the time series.
Since 1951-1980 it’s colder than 1961-1990 which is colder than 1979-1998 it is quite likely that nasa giss shows very few negative points….and satellite much more
Furthermore a more realistic comparison would require that data measure the same quantity(SST+T2M is not the same of troposphere temperature) and that dataset are defined in the same area…but…
Hadley is not interpolated…a lot of missing pixels in areas that shows great warming(north eurasia,arctic), NASA GISS is interpolated up to 1200Km and so covers almost all the globe unless west antarctica….
REPLY: Read other posts please, mire work on this has been done
[…] deniers/delayer-1000s cite recent UK Hadley Center data to promote their “climate is cooling” disinformation. Even Roger Pielke, Jr. is […]
Paul Clark asks a very valid question. Could it be that there is still an underlying anthropogenic warming trend?
I believe the answer to that question would be given by a proper scientific review of the IPCC Report. My reading (and re-re-re-reading) of the IPCC report tells me that they have ignored or dismissed all natural factors and then applied artificial factors for CO2 into their computer models which will give them figures that match the observed warming of the late 20th century. Then when they run the models, surprise surprise all the warming was caused by CO2.
So, to answer Paul’s question – the underlying anthropogenic warming trend is so much smaller than calculated by the IPCC that it can safely be ignored.
It also flows from this that, if we do get serious global cooling, there will be no point at all in burning more coal in order to try to combat it.
Burning coal will be a good idea here in the Northeast US as it will be cheaper to keep my home warm than oil, gas or electricity.
Mike
“So, to answer Paul’s question – the underlying anthropogenic warming trend is so much smaller than calculated by the IPCC that it can safely be ignored.”
Have you seen the trend calculated by the IPCC in 1990?
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_etal_science_2007.pdf
What have you read that make you think your claim is true?
Buzzo
“The dramatic drop in the temperature average over the last year indicates that something well beyond CO2 is driving this.”
It’s called ‘La Nina’, the cold part of the ENSO (El Nino Souther Oscillation). Basically the heat is taken to deeper waters, and it later resurfaces as ‘El Nino’. Global temperature oscillates due to ENSO, PDO, etc that’s why longer trends are more meaningful than a year or two.