January 2008 was an exceptional month for our planet, with a significant cooling, especially since January 2007 started out well above normal.
January 2008 capped a 12 month period of global temperature drops on all of the major well respected indicators. I have reported in the past two weeks that HadCRUT, RSS, UAH, and GISS global temperature sets all show sharp drops in the last year.
Also see the recent post on what the last 10 years looks like with the same four metrics – 3 of four show a flat trendline.
Here are the 4 major temperature metrics compared top to bottom, with the most recently released at the top:
UK’s Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature anomaly (HadCRUT) Dr. Phil Jones:
Reference: above data is HadCRUT3 column 2 which can be found here
description of the HadCRUT3 data file columns is here
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Dr. James Hansen:
Reference: GISS dataset temperature index data
University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) Dr. John Christy:
Reference: UAH lower troposphere data
Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA (RSS):
Reference: RSS data here (RSS Data Version 3.1)
The purpose of this summary is to make it easy for everyone to compare the last 4 postings I’ve made on this subject.
I realize that not all the graphs are of the same scale, so my next task will be to run a combined graphic of all the data-sets on identical amplitude and time scales to show the agreements or differences such a graph would illustrate.
UPDATE: that comparison has been done here
Here is a quick comparison and average of ∆T for all metrics shown above:
| Source: | Global ∆T °C |
| HadCRUT |
– 0.595 |
| GISS | – 0.750 |
| UAH | – 0.588 |
| RSS | – 0.629 |
| Average: | – 0.6405°C |
For all four metrics the global average ∆T for January 2007 to January 2008 is: – 0.6405°C
This represents an average between the two lower troposphere satellite metrics (RSS and UAH) and the two land-ocean metrics (GISS and HadCRUT). While some may argue that they are not compatible data-sets, since they are derived by different methods (Satellite -Microwave Sounder Unit and direct surface temperature measurements) I would argue that the average of these four metrics is a measure of temperature, nearest where we live, the surface and near surface atmosphere.
UPDATE AND CAVEAT:
The website DailyTech has an article citing this blog entry as a reference, and their story got picked up by the Drudge report, resulting in a wide distribution. In the DailyTech article there is a paragraph:
“Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.”
I wish to state for the record, that this statement is not mine: “–a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years”
There has been no “erasure”. This is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected, but it does not “erase” anything. I suggested a correction to DailyTech and they have graciously complied.
UPDATE #2 see this post from Dr. John R. Christy on the issue.
UPDATE #3 see the post on what the last 10 years looks like with the same four metrics – 3 of four show a flat trendline.
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Can someone please explain to me why the NASA site is displaying diametrically opposite temperature data for 2007???
At http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/ is the NASA temp data for
2007. They say: “The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period
of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard
Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had
leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the
“El Niño of the century”. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy
because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and
the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El
Niño-La Niña cycle.”
REPLY: Because they haven’t put in the data for January 2008, which was a huge anomaly. NASA has not updated that graph. The source tabular data is all there from NASA GISS, which is what I used. See links below each graph above. You are welcome to plot it yourself.
Additional plots and analysis are here with additional analysis coming in parts later.
Around 1996, the scientific community was abuzz with the discovery of a mysterious “anomaly” in the equatorial pacific which they referred to as the “Warm Pool.” The “Warm Poll” was a 13.5 million square mile body of unusually warm water sloshing back and forth between Indonesia and the west coast of South America. As an individual who had already spent 10 years studying climate change, I jumped into this with both feet (no pun intended). Over the next ten years or so, amazing discoveries were made surrounding this “anomaly.”
First of all, it wasn’t an “anomaly,” but something that had been referenced as early as the mid 1500’s. Secondly, scientists discovered the linkage between its “sloshing” back and forth and the ENSO phenomenon. They also quantified (to a certain extent) its movement with La Nina and El Nino.
But more importantly, certain scientists (and I can’t locate the names right now) drew a linkage between the “Warm Pool’s” movements and the PDO. Basically, the theory was that changes in ENSO directly impacted the PDO which in turn impacted the NAO.
Then along came Svensmark and his theory on sun spot’s activity in relation to world temperatures. Now considering the WP lies predominantly across the equator where the sun has its greatest impact, and that sun spot activity has been strangely quiet (in theory meaning colder climes), it seems to me someone must have connected the dots by now. By the way, I’ve begun posting data about the WP at epwp.com and am open to any papers.
Any comments?
Just for grins, I arbitrarily chose the GISS data, downloaded the raw data, ported it to Excel, and plotted it (1880 to 2008). Without reading all posts, I don’t know if anyone has done this yet, but lo and behold. the Jan 08 data appears to be an anomaly. That is, only ONE point is out of line with the rest of the data. The data does NOT refute the global warming theory, it’s just noisy because of the very short time period of one month. The fact that four independent sources correlate means it is probably a good data point. It doesn’t give any special significance; in fact, I would guess the temperatures will return to “normal” in the next few months, maybe even February.
Bottom line? Don’t make wild assumptions about one lousy data point. Look at all the data.
REPLY: When you say “it’s only one month or year, it doesn’t mean anything” I’ll remind everyone how folks like Mr. Gore insisted that the terrible hurricane season of 2005 spurred their predictions of worse to come with global warming to blame, followed by the two calmest hurricane seasons in a decade. And NOAA recently published a paper saying that there is no global warming link to frequency or hurricame damage.
I drew no conclusions from it other than to say that 4 metric agreed and that the anomaly was large. But it is not just Jano08, there was the entire year of 2007, as evidenced by the three other metrics also, or did you look at them?
I don’t claim that I’m right, or that I’m wrong. I only claim that such a temperature anomaly and agreement of the metrics is an unusual occurance.
“One of the most resilient skeptic tropes is the notion that back in the ’60s and ’70s the scientific community predicted that the globe would cool in the coming century. “Those scientists … first it’s one trendy theory, then it’s the opposite. You just can’t trust ’em!””
Now comes a new study showing, once and for all, that:
* there was no such consensus in the scientific community — quite the opposite, and
* there was no such consensus in the popular press.
Forthcoming in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the study “surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. [Study co-author Thomas] Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends.” Added Peterson, “I was surprised that global warming was so dominant in the peer-reviewed literature of the time.”
This is according to “The Nation” which I am pretty sure will be met with jeers from those Gore haters… Has anyone seen this survey? Can we drive a stake through the heart of the meme about all those dumb scientists thinking we were going to have an ice age?
And btw, Frank, yeah I did that Excel graph too. Pretty amazing how so many of these guys can STARE AT THAT and still throw rocks at the evidence. I wonder if, ten years from now, they will say they are sorry? I will if we are ankle deep in snow in July. I promise. 🙂
But if we are ankle deep in sea water in Kansas, I am going to go buy Al Gore a nice mint julep instead.
Why, yes, as a matter of fact, the “librul media” IS saying “OH NOES TEH ERF IS GETTING HOTTER! SHAME, SHAME UPON YOU AMERICA!11!!!”
Libruls, go home.
Why? If it’s true he’s the one causing a lot of it!
[…] global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out […]
What’s interesting about ALL of these posts is that there is clearly dissenting opinion of the final “consensus” of scientists and data.
How many scientists become the criteria for the final stamp of approval?
If we are discrediting some scientists and some data, what is the criteria for this discredit? Who gets to decide?
It’s clear that, at the very least, we are still observing the actions and could not possibly come to “absolute” conclusions by which we should be altering massive economies to promote political agendas.
Emotional reaction feigned as intellectual relevance.
In fact, there has not been any winter in Finland this year.
Today’s news tell the current ‘winter’ is the warmest ever recorded. The average temperatures between Dec 2007 -Feb 2008 are about ONE degree above the previous record warm wintger 1924-1925.
So if you are wondering where all the thermal energy is now, look no further it’s in Finland.
** Before you judge this post, please read it in entirety **
I think this is another area where the ego of the human mind has inflated itself to the point of utter nonsense. Science has become another competitive sport where one intellectual tries to beat the other intellectual to print by publishing his next big theory before anyone else.
I watched almost 30 minutes of “An Inconvenient Truth” and had to turn it off when Al Gore himself accidentally demonstrated that humans were NOT causing global climate change. When he pointed to the large graph with all the peaks and valleys representing global warming and cooling trends based on CO2 levels over the past eons, he made some interesting remarks. At several peaks he said, ‘ Ice age, ice age, ice age, ice age’ to indicate that at these elevated CO2 levels the earth was thrown into several ice age periods because of the influx of higher CO2 levels resulting in higher temperatures. Then he proceeded to today’s numbers to which he needed a scaffold to reach because they were SO much higher than any in history. The problem: First, in EVERY instance of the past ice ages, there were no humans present and yet the CO2 levels were high enough to cause global climate change. Second, at current levels, based on his graph, we should be immersed in the largest ice age in the earth’s history, however we are only seeing small changes in temperature.
It boggles the mind that we are looking at data from 30, 50, and even 100 years and calling them trends on a planet that is over 4.5 billion years old. Do you realize how small that actually is? It is a sample of .0000000222% of the total time the planet has been inexistence. Comparing that to a human being with a life expectancy of 80 years, which equates to 29,200 days or 700,800 minutes or 42,048,000 seconds. A stopwatch would be needed to get this sample. It is .9334 seconds of a human life. Do you think that is an adequate sample size to tell the average temperature of a human being? I had the flu this winter and my fever reached 102. This is certainly not indicative of my mean temperature, surely not irreversible, and NOT fatal.
Allow me to CORRECT my math: An average human life would be 80 years or 29,200 days or 700,800 HOURS or 42,048,000 minutes or 2,522,880,000 seconds. The correlation between gathering 100 years of global temperature data as a measure of earth’s average temperature, equates to approximately 56 seconds out of an entire human life. Still nowhere near the needed sample size to measure the average temperature of a human being. Sorry for the error but the argument still stands.
timbscmidt, I’m afraid your analogy fails. Your observation on timescale is correct. You are incorrect in your assumption that the rules that apply to changes in a human system (our physiology) may be similarly extrapolated to our ecosystem.
The problems are:
1) type – the earth is an “open” system, which has boundaries which can change, and in fact can change structurally (e.g. transformation from an anaerobic to an aerobic atmosphere 600my bce). People are a “closed” system, which cannot realistically continue to function if modified beyond limits defined by our genetics.
2) size – scale does count, as the rules of physics apply. The earth is a system which is over *6* orders of magnitude larger than we are. The movement of energy and matter through it’s system is far more restricted. There is proportionally far greater inertia in the larger system than in a person. As newtonian physics breaks down when applied at a quantum level, so also does the application of rules pertaining to a “human” system when applied to a planet.
To everyone generally – I’m hearing inconsistent references regarding the actual changes in temperature. I’ve also heard some appropriate comments regarding the effect of phase transition (ice to water) taking a large amount of energy out of the environment.
I will repeat what I posted earlier. It is not the absolute content of energy which will cause change in the environment. It is the rate of energy exchange between the equator and higher latitudes. That changes in temperature across the globe are inconsistent neither confirms nor refutes global warming. It *could* be evidence of increased movement of energy *around* the system, which *might* be evidence of a small overall increase in energy retained by the system.
Do also note that, in some models, global warming provokes the start of an ice age, depending on predictions of a breakdown in oceanic currents and air flow, which in those models in turn were caused by increases in global temperature.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080116/
2007 was tied as the second warmest year in a century.
One weird month means nothing. The month of January 2008 was a cold month, fine. We’re in a trough of cyclical solar activity, it’s not hard to see how one month could be aberational. One swallow does not a spring make, right? Let’s see how 2008 plays out.
REPLY: ” One weird month means nothing.” I agree, but you are saying something that is not correct in the context presented.
It is not a single month, it is an entire year. January 2007 to January 2008. 4 sources all say the same, HadCRUT, GISS, RSS, UAH. The data plotted is for one year. In the case of GISS, I plotted all the January data because they don’t format the data like all the others and the plotting program I use won’t read in the GISS data without re-formatting. GISS does not publish a linear list of months like all the others.
In a case of selective vision, you and many others are erroneously focusing on that one plot and that alone, ignoring the other 3 datasets, and saying “its only one month”. Yes, one month, one year apart for GISS only. That doesnt change the fact that the GISS data was .87°C for January 2007 and in January 2008 it was .12°C for a yearly drop of -.75°C. It also doesn’t change the fact that all three other datasets plotted show the same trend with similar magnitudes.
Read the post again: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
Jeff, You may have read more into the analogy than I assert. My analogy with a human life span was not to say that it has a direct correlation to the earth. Both of the points you raise are absolutely true. However, my analogy with a human life span was not to say that it has a direct correlation to the earth other than, put into practical terms, it shows how tiny a sample size science is working from to extrapolate a theory of any kind. The analogy holds. It was this: To look at only 56 seconds from a human life is not an adequate sample size to determine its average temperature. Similarly, measurements of global temperature, taken since the 1880’s, does not constitute a trend of any kind for a system that is over 4.5 billion years old. Such a small amount of scientific data indicates nothing worth noting. We are still merely a blip on and ancient scale of time.
(sarcasm)Minor point(/sarcasm) — You did note that the total observed warming is based on averages, not based on 1998 alone, right? Well, just as 1998 was one year, which on its own does not make a trend, so too 2008 is one year that does not make a trend. So, I’d mostly call this whole non-peer-reviewed post a complete non-data-point. Wake me when you have a decade like this. Or, better yet, wake me when you have some peer reviewed data, preferably in a climatology journal. (Last one I saw was in a journal of medicine and surgery for some bizarre reason. What a crock that was. Of course, that was the one from the 19000 scientists site, where I counted under 17000 names and found many with no credentials to speak of when I googled some at random.)
But, keep up the good work. Maybe all the denying of the peer-reviewed work will actually save our species from extinction. I have no clue how that could happen. But, keep trying.
REPLY: And keep up the sarcasm, maybe all of the snark will save our species too. 😉 /sarcasm
How about if I try it with a little less snark then.
Your first graph makes it very obvious that the downward deviation of 2007-2008 is less than the upward deviation of 1997-1998. Neither of these indicates a trend in and of itself.
So, moving to the second graph. Does anyone not see that the overall trend is still strongly up? In fact, the low point still comes out above the zero mark. To me, that says that even our coldest years now are warmer than our warmest years from about 1920 and earlier. What point was this graph supposed too be making again? I forgot.
Now onto the third and fourth graphs. Does anyone here think that 4 years indicates a trend in a global climate scheme? Even if you stretch it out and add a couple of months, 50 months is not going to show us any long term trends. We’re not looking for weather patterns.
This is a La Niña year. They’re typically colder. Duh!
Well, I’m probably not snark free. But, I think this is a bit more serious than my prior post. I hope you won’t mind if I point people to this blog page. The first two graphs are actually quite good for making the point that global warming is real.
In fact, that second one is quite scary!! Damn. The coldest year since about 1990 is still warmer than the warmest year before about 1925. Yikes!!
REPLY: Point all the people here you wish. Since you like the charts I make, please be sure that you also show them this one: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/surfacestations_ushcn_crnmap.png
Surely a a man as smart as Al Gore (remember they said he was the one to invent the Internet) could not have been wrong about Global Warming!!
I’ve added it in a reply to my own post. Feel free to take a look.
Global Warming Denier Proves Global Warming is Real?!
If I have mischaracterized you in any way, please feel free to let me know. I will correct any misstatements about you. I have toned down what I wrote last night if you had already seen it. Or, feel free to post your own reasons why you believe you know more about climatology than the 1,700 climate scientists on the IPCC or the vast majority of the rest of the published climate scientists on the planet.
REPLY: Thank you. I did read it last night, the correction you missed (probably since you have gone back through posts here) is that I don’t deny global warming has occurred. Certainly the earth has warmed in the last century, no dispute there. I also don’t dispute the magnitude of the surface record being about 0.7°C during that period. What is unknown at this point is the magnitude of human contribution such as CO2, aersols, UHI, etc., compared to the magnitude of other drivers such as the sun, GCR modulation, measurement biases in the surface record (a big topic here) etc.
So to be fair, I’m not a “denier”. That is an inaccurate characterisation, but often just thrown at anyone who ask these kinds of questions. I’m curious, informed on the issues, and do my own investigative work, which would classify me as a skeptic, not a denier.
Incidentally, I used to be very much in belief that AGW was the main driver, in fact I was way ahead of the curve on the. Back in 1990 I did a special program for about 300 TV stations nationwide for the National Arbor Day Foundation. I provided TV meteorologists with a short program on trees and their benefits to show their viewers. The result was there was about 250,000 trees planted Nationwide using the seedling kist NADF provided. It was my way of making a dent in the issue back then after hearing Jim Hansen testify before congress.
But As I learned more about eh issue, and started working with the former state climatologist here, I began to realize I was wrong about the issue.
I don’t want to mischaracterize anyone. I have changed the title of my post to say skeptic. I apologize for the misunderstanding. Unfortunately, changing the post slug is considered very bad form. So, I will leave that alone.
As for the relative contributions of human and solar causes, I agree there is some debate. I have seen some claims in several peer reviewed papers that show 5-15% caused by increased solar radiation. I have have even seen one paper claim 5-30% though I personally tend to ignore the most extreme papers and go with the more mainstream claims. Even if you take the most extreme estimate of 5-30% though, it still leaves humans responsible for at least 70%. I go with the 85-95% human caused.
From a climate science text book, I have seen that the Earth’s temperature absent GHGs would be -19 degrees C. With GHGs, the number is about +15 degrees C. Since we’ve already increased GHGs from 280ppm to at least 380ppm and probably already 450ppm, do you have any explanation for how that could NOT have an enormous effect?
Keep in mind, the albedo of Venus is so high that it actually receives less Sun than Earth despite it’s proximity to the Sun. And, it’s brutally hot there due to runaway GHGs, especially CO2. Do you have any explanation for why you think our increase in GHGs would NOT have the same effect as our baseline GHGs or the same effect as the GHGs on Venus?
REPLY: Thanks for making those corrections. The change from rhetoric to gentlemanly debate is appreciated. My specialty is not the GHG equations, it is instrumentation and measurement. A good question though about Venus. I would say this: there are significant differences between Earth and Venus related to TSI, concentration, partial pressure, water vapor and a whole host of other atmospheric chemistry issues. So Venus and Earth are truly “apples and oranges” when looking at the components of their atmospheres and their TSI from the sun.
There are many other educated people far more in tune with atmospheric chemistry and GHG that can help answer your question. Folks?
timbsmidt:“Jeff, You may have read more into the analogy than I assert. My analogy with a human life span was not to say that it has a direct correlation to the earth.”
I adjust my perception then. I also agree with you that the temperature data since the 19th century is very much a blip, and must be evaluated in that context. It is very dangerous from an analytical standpoint to base too many conclusions on that data alone.
That said, cognitively, I have been following the impact of human activity on the environment, in detail, for 40 years. My direct observations on two coasts of this continent are of profound changes, not necessarily tied to carbon release, but of activities that affect albedo and heat retention, changes in local species (example: the persistent northern migration of the Eastern Mockingbird, which started wintering over in Massachusetts in the early 70s) and other similar changes.
The smoking gun may not be atmospheric carbon. Mechanically, we know the increase does not help. Your opinion of Al Gore aside (mine is indifferent) not withstanding, It is very had to prove a hypothesis that human activity is *not* responsible for many of the climatic changes we have seen over the last century. Presented with two industrial economies (India and China), collectively with 10 times our population, which are attempting to ramp up to the same level of consumption we have in this country (US), my concern is very great. From the consumption standpoint *alone*, even if we find more reserves, I believe absolutely that we *MUST* find alternatives and improve efficiency. The competition for energy alone requires it. *That* is more immediately pressing than global climate change. We also cannot ignore the indirect effects of that much more active technology. I absolutely do not wish to deny anyone prosperity, but I think it imperative we find ways to mitigate impact. I also believe it can be done.
-Jeff
Wasn’t there a theory:? First some warming and the seas
evaporate more, making more clouds, and the clouds do their albedo bit,
reflecting sunlight back into space!!
[where it keeps going until caught in nearest Black Hole].
And we are left here freezing our ass.
Question: how the hell do you measure the earth’s temperature? (esp. when 1/2 is dark?) How many data gatherers are there? and who correlates them?
What day of the week do they use? What year?
How many scientists become the criteria for the final stamp of approval?
Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? In science, there is no criterion. But when it comes to policy it always comes down to an up-or-down vote.
Bill in Vigo (06:02:58) wrote:
“I surely wish that we could have unadjusted records over the peroid of record. I am not a scientists but am having trouble with the current adjustments They seem to be designed to make the recent trend warmer. The raw data dosen’t seem to be doing that.”
But that’s exactly why we need the “adjusted” data. Otherwise the lie wouldn’t wash with us. Never mind the facts, adjust the data so it suits the agenda.
The earth has actually been cooling over the last 7 years. But you won’t hear that on CNN.
Mars is the key. The polar ice caps on Mars have been melting at roughly the same rate as the earth has been warming. Some scientests insist that there is no correlation, as Mars may be having “dust storms.” However, if the polar ice caps on Mars return in keeping with the sudden cold on Earth, then the argument is settled. Global warming is NOT then a result of man, but rather, the effects of solar activity alone. If mars cools as does earth, the arguments for human caused global warming fall a little flat. I would suggest, having seen the graphs, that we keep a close eye on Martian ice caps. They will tell us if our data is sound, or reasoning solid, or if the “Goreans” are a total fraud.
I’ve heard the argument that Mars’ orbit is undergoing an eccentricity and that is to blame for the warming. (I have no idea if that is true.)