The RSS Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) global temperature anomaly data has been published this morning by RSS (Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA).
For March 2008 it has moved a little higher, with a value of .079°C for a change (∆T) of 0.081°C globally from February.
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3 0.079
RSS data here
Reference: RSS data here (RSS Data Version 3.1) click for larger image
The interesting news is the divergence between northern and southern hemispheres, and the plunge seen in the continental USA. I’ll have more on that coming up.
Curiously, at almost the same time the BBC has published an article today headlining: Global temperatures ‘to decrease’
On a related note:
Lucia over at The Blackboard just posted a very well done analysis that takes ENSO into account in falsifying the IPCC AR4 projection of +2.0C/century. Here is her graph showing IPCC AR4 projections compared with observations and best fit trend:
Click for larger
And already the BBC has altered the headline. Decreasing global temperatures was too strong; now global warming has only ‘dipped’.
==================================
I want to see the UAH, by my calculations, we should see the trend move from 0.14 C to 0.13 C within in the next month or two. It’s a small victory but it shows most of the last 30 years is not an alarmist rate of warming and the rate is lowering not increasing.
Shame the only temperature measurement taken as gospel is Hansen’s GISS, and Anthony has shown us all just how accurate the GISS really is.
Well the warmies will be relieved. However, with the renewed absence of sun spots, and cycle 24 still not ramping up, I think it is safe to assume that the temperatures will be droping in the next few months.
Small error in your second paragraph: 0.079 – 0.016 = 0.063 not 0.061
I hope you don’t get the impression that I don’t enjoy these posts. They are great!
John M Reynolds
REPLY: Thanks for pointing out the typo, all fixed now.
Just based on anecdotal evidence, ie the incredible cold spell throughout the world, I find these claims highly improbable and more than likely fraudulent. I’ll be anxiously awaiting UAH readings and Anthony’s take on it all.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Hi,
Anthony here is David Stockwell’s chart on the divergence of NH and SH, also his thread at CA.
http://landshape.org/enm/march-2008-temperatures/
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2961
Correct global temperature anomaly acording to RSS are
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3 0.079
It seems you have read the January and february values from the UAH table.
A thought I have had for some time is how the temperature has changed in some semi regular cycle.
For example 1979-1998 it had a saw tooth shape with up to ~0,8C peak to peak that ended with a strong El Nino.
From 2000 this pattern seems to have disapeared and is now replaced with a downward pike pattern the repeats itself every 20th month or so.
I wouldn’t be surprised if next big temperature drop will happen near the end of 2009.
A new pattern in the sea oscilations emerging that will rule the short time climate shifts for the next decades?
REPLY: Oh today is messed up in a lot of ways. I’m fighting a cold, plus fighting a new WordPress upgrade at the same time. Who does major software updates affecting hundreds of thousands of people on a FRIDAY? So I’ve been quite distracted dealing with it, some things broken, lots changed/missing. I redid all the graphs to fix the error, thanks for pointing it out.
After that story in the Australian, I am interested in the “other side’s” take on the Aqua Satellite, but that one interview and a noncomittal 2005 article from NASA is about all I can find on it.
Now I’m not so sure about the headline change. Icecap claimed it changed, but I still see ‘decrease’ not ‘dip’.
======================
The BBC article blames La Nina for the drop in temp. There’s no mention of solar.
In Trenberth’s “The Evolution of ENSO and Global Atmospheric Temperatures” (2000), they state “It shows that for the 1997-98 El Nino, where N34 peaked at about 2.5 dec C, the global mean temperature was elevated as much 0.24 deg C…” (The referenced ENSO index in the study appears to be ONI based on the peak of 2.5 deg C.) The coefficient of ONI to global temperature would be 0.096 if we divide global temp response (0.24) by ONI (2.5). Assume the Trenberth correlation and the coefficient are correct. Between Nov 2006 and Jan 2008, ONI has dropped 2.6 deg C (1.2 minus -1.4). Multiply the 2.6 deg C drop in ONI by the 0.096 coefficient and the decrease in global temperature attributable to the change from El Nino to La Nina would be 0.2496 deg C. Yet on this index, global temperatures have dropped 0.629 deg C. Either the Trenberth correlation of ONI to global temperature is flawed or there’s something else driving the decrease in temperature. A five-year lag between solar and global temperature falls into line if the secondary solar max for solar cycle 23 is considered.
This could get interesting over the next four to five years.
Anthony,
I do a lot of stock chart analysis, and climate data are surprisingly similar to stock charts. Using simple resistance and support lines, one can identify an ongoing trend since 1979 of about .12 C/decade. We just about touched the support line at -0.1 in February. It seems to hit the support line about every 4 years, so if this was a stock I held, I would expect it to drop a little more by the end of 2008, and then rebound,… or not. If temperatures were to drop past the support line, say below -0.1, that would mean a trend reversal… bad sign for a stock! Given that it has been constantly well above the support line for the past 15 years, I’d say it’s been overbought, and due for a correction.
But that’s just speculation of course… If I was that good at analyzing charts, I would be a lot richer…
REPLY: Well if it does do a trend reversal, I expect Gore will get a margin call from a lot of folks.
And BTW, it’s still snowing here in Montreal. This winter simply doesn’t want to end!
The NH/SH divergence is interesting and of course completely contrary to GHG theory.
It’s either a land/ocean difference (oceans warming less than land) or a seasonal effect (winters warming less than summers or cooling more if you like).
The upcoming SH winter should be interesting. The last 2 winters in Australia have been cool and that was without a La Nina.
McGrats / Jack Koenig:
“Just based on anecdotal evidence, ie the incredible cold spell throughout the world, I find these claims highly improbable and more than likely fraudulent. I’ll be anxiously awaiting UAH readings and Anthony’s take on it all.”
Check out http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_monthly.html?channel=tlt and click on anomaly. Very toasty in an area that’s just next to the cold and messy winter in China. Apparently northern China is in a severe drought, dry soil may be one factor in letting the temperature rise (and fall), but it is an impressive arc of big warmth.
1.2″ of snow this AM near Concord NH. I’m down to a foot or so of snow. April snow isn’t too unusual. April snow on top of 12″ on the ground is.
Anthony better get well soon so he can post something cogent. Does anyon have good pointers to synoptic and upper air wx charts for the last month in Asia?
My guess is the satellite is undergoing “adjustments” to be less skeptical.
Sorry to hear you are under the weather, Rev. Hope you are feeling better soon.
Thanks for the link Ric. The graphic shows the “toasty” anomoly centered over China, parts of Russia, and a couple of “Stans.” But isn’t “global warming” supposed to be universal? If so, than this is still another contradiction (or the rest of the world is a contradiction) to the Pogie’s claims. Considering China and Russia’s political agenda, I would say these temperature were very suspect had they not been recorded by satelyte.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Francois,
Thanks for doing the stock chart analysis. I suggested it about a month ago on this board (got one negative response). Since I don’t know how to do them myself, I was hoping someone would pick up on it. Please revisit this on occassion throughout the year. 2008 should be an interesting year.
Anthony,
On his blog Climatescience, Roger Pielke Sr has offered the most complementary blog about your efforts with the weather stations and the siting problems. OT but it was a very nice plug for you.
Bill
I don’t know if anyone else already posted this (I can’t quite keep up with the new comments in every post), but I saw an article on Universe Today titled “There is No Sun-Link with Global Warming.” I thought this crowd might want to know about it if they hadn’t seen it already.
REPLY: I’ve seen the Sloan paper. There are issues.
1) In the paper’s conclusion:
On the surface it seems the time scales of the effects they looked at and what Svensmark proposes are vastly different. They are looking at Forbush decrease for the signatures, but they are short period events (hours/days) compared to the much longer GCR modulation by long period changes in the suns’s magnetism, which is said to be the driver.
It just seems disconnected. Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me that you can’t draw a conclusion about something that operates on timescales of years to short period events lasting hours or days.
2) In the interview Sloan gave to BBC he said:
Now I don’t know if he was misquoted or not, but particle bursts/CME’s (and resulting Forbush decrease) from the sun are an entirely different thing than GCR modulation by the suns magnetic change over a long period.
Asked to comment, Svensmark said in the BBC article:
If Sloan was looking for correlation between charged particle bursts instead of GCR’s I’d have to agree with Svensmark. We’ll see how it all shakes out. Maybe the BBC just did another crappy job of reporting a science interview and that’s not what he said at all, but it sure seems odd.
Here’s another paper that looks at the much larger view of GCR modulation:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
Kim
It did change and several took note of it but appears to have been changed back to original headline. One British skeptic commenter noted:The text has been changed as well – it no longer refers to the forecast of a new record temp within 5 years, at the end with: “probably associated with another episode of El Nino.” Looks as though the Ministry of Truth have been busy!
Will remove comment.
Joe D;Aleo Icecap
Anthony,
I don’t think there is anything unusual about the RSS data showing a significant difference between N and S hemispheres. I’ve been studying the differences on the HadCRU data set for a while now and noticed that the N Hemisphere has been warmer. My first thought was that it was a problem with the temperature stations in the land record (of which I am sure is a part of it) but I checked the Hadley SST data and found that the oceans in the N Hemisphere are also warmer than in the south.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2nh.txt
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2sh.txt
On a different note, I guess ATMOZ has ended his short effort to be open and honest. After his little April Fools stunt, intended to bring you ridicule, failed miserably.
After we learned that he was using 13-year-old metadata to analyze current temperature stations.
After we learned he is actually a student at the famous Arizona parking lot station when he tried to lead people to believe that he is a climate scientist.
He went back to moderating posts.
Tonight he wrote a post poo pooing Cryosphere Today, I responded with a post telling him how useful it is to me. For instance I pointed out how there was an Antarctic sea ice maximum last year at the same time there was a sea ice minimum up north, also how the ice up north has recovered and that both poles have over a million square km more ice now than at the same time last year. I also pointed out how NASA studied the sea ice minimum and found out it was caused by winds. I also pointed out how the Wilkins ice shelf is in one small area of Antarctica where ice is not accelerating, and that it collapsed after a series of storms. I also pointed out how the Larsen Ice shelf sits on an active volcanic formation, something ignored by the scientists and Al Gore.
He deleted my entire post. This is the same tactic that Gavin Schmidt uses at Real Climate. Gavin’s excuse is that he only deletes posts that accuse him of beating his wife etc. But hey, this is climate science and the debate is settled!
REPLY: Hi Mike, The only thing I could say is that we are all human.
I’ll bet if you write it again he’ll put it up.
We all have our foibles, our hot buttons, and our blind spots. Science has always fallen victim to human failings, more so lately. But I believe that science is also self-correcting. Nature will be the final arbiter of the correction process.
Re: Lucia’s Review of NOAA MEI and Temperature
Recently I had looked at measures of MEI. I observed a basically bimodal-type trend. It occurs to me that you and Basil may be able to apply a higher level of analysis than I can.
My simple approach was to:
1) Obtain the MEI down load to a spreadsheet. In my case I had to do a series of cut and paste to get it into a column format.
2) I determined the average of the entire set of MEI.
3) In the spreadsheet calculate the monthly Cumsum of deviation from average.
4) Plot the monthly Cum sum versus date.
The plot showed a significant (to me) shape of nearly continuous decline from Jan 1950 to May 1976 and a nearly continuous increase from May 1976 to Jul 1998. Since Jul 1998 a decrease then increase but no continuous pattern. This looks like a case for the H-P Filter.
Oh, that’s very funny Joe. It’s hard to keep a story straight when it is disintegrating before your eyes. The dissonance is deafening.
========================================
Anthony,
I sent three emails to Richard Black filled with complaints about his trashing of Svensmark. My first email had Svensmark’s phone number and email address in it and I berated Black for not bothering to contact him before he filed the story. Happily, Black called Svensmark up and rewrote the story. Probably a hundred other people did the same so I take no credit.
Your point number 2 above was one of the points I made. I wonder how many others made the same. He doesn’t have much respect for his audience does he?
REPLY: Thank you John for the info and the effort. I don’t know that Black has a lack of respect for his audience but I suspect he has the same ills as many other reporters of our age: lack of due diligence and making certain claims are well researched.