Confirming what many of us have already noted from the anecdotal evidence coming in of a much cooler than normal May, such as late spring snows as far south as Arizona, extended skiing in Colorado, and delays in snow cover melting, (here and here), the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) published their satellite derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008.
It is significantly colder globally, colder even than the significant drop to -0.046°C seen in January 2008.
The global ∆T from April to May 2008 was -.195°C
UAH
2008 1 -0.046
2008 2 0.020
2008 3 0.094
2008 4 0.015
2008 5 -0.180
Compared to the May 2007 value of 0.199°C we find a 12 month ∆T is -.379°C.
But even more impressive is the change since the last big peak in global temperature in January 2007 at 0.594°C, giving a 16 month ∆T of -0.774°C which is equal in magnitude to the generally agreed upon “global warming signal” of the last 100 years.
Click for a larger image
Reference: UAH lower troposphere data
I’m betting that RSS (expected soon) will also be below the zero anomaly line, since it tends to agree well with UAH. HadCRUT will likely show a significant drop, I’m going to make a SWAG and say it will end up around 0.05 to -0.15°C. GISS; I’m not going to try a SWAG, as it could be anything. Of course anomalies can change to positive on the next El Nino, but this one seems to be deepening.
Update 06/05/08: Per MattN’s suggestion, changed link above for snow melt to news stories from previous link to National Snow and Ice Center
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That sort of argumentation is pseudo-science best contained in sunday-school….much like man global warming catastrophic predictions based on computer models that can’t predict chaotic systems, but none the less are taken as gospel?
Face the fact, dropping temperatures are in direct contradiction to the IPCC’s calculations of radiative forcing. “Greenhouse” gases are supposed to have the strongest positive forcing of all, and the sun’s not even close according to their charts. CO2 has gone way up, since ~2000 temperatures have stabilized and in the last year have gone down.
How would the IPCC explain that? With a computer model?
lennert,
My comment ”
Lennart,
True, but aren’t these the same guys who predicted that cycle 23 would end in Sept 2006 :-)?
”
and your response, “Terry S + Bill (about the cycle predictions): And your point is?”
My point is that you are making claims (below) about the relative strength and length of solar cycles based on predictions and estimates by NASA, who has been shown to be less than skillful in making said predictions. I don’t think you can make statements about the strength of the next solar cycle based on NASA. Fact is we don’t know enough about the sun’s dynamics to make skilfull predictions, just like we don’t know enough about the complex, chaotic system that is our climate to make skilfull predictions about its future state or the effect that one particular component will have on that state.
“Next cycle (24) will probably be strong, so in around 5-6 years we will see global temperature records broken again.
Good news is that cycle 25, that peaks 2022 will be weak, so global warming will be felt less then, presumably. And with some serious efforts we could lessen greenhouse production before cycle 26, which starts sometime around 2030.”
“No, but this is what NASA and other solar scientists claim. But maybe their science is “alarmist” too?”
Lenny appears to be confusing absolute temp from winter to spring or cycle to cycle with what is actually measured in the charts we all use. The charts look at deviation from whatever “zero” is picked and then averaged over time, comparing same month to same month, year by year, change from the initial average (which keeps changing). It isn’t comparing winter to spring. The latest drop in May compares just May to May to May, etc. Mays’ are getting colder. Aprils’ are getting colder.
Re: his argument that CO2 warming is masked by cycle cooling is a simplistic view of climate change that smacks of one rearranging his prejudices, not thinking or reasoning scientifically. However, It IS a classic debate technique and I give him 4 marks. As to whether or not his side’s theory proves correct, here is a tip just in case the other side of the debate is correct: Pendleton Woolen Mills blankets are TOASTY warm and well worth the price.
[…] And this debate comes even as it is clear that there has been no warming in the past decade and recent data shows that global temperatures are cooling. […]
Lennart says:
“First of all, if humans are contributing to it or not is really besides the point.”
Well, there you have it! We should therefore not try to “control” the climate by imposing the silly “cap and trade” nonsense. I’m glad the warm-mongers and I can agree on something…
“There seems to be little evidence that human beings are contributing much — if at all — to global temperature variations.”
First of all, if humans are contributing to it or not is really besides the point. It’s a problem no matter what. Secondly, the evidence is overwhelming, if you just dare look at it.
Wrong on both counts, Len. It’s called Anthropogenic Global Warming for a reason, and to deny that is just silliness on your part. If humans aren’t contributing much, if at all to global warming (which is, in fact the case), then adaptation is all we need to be concerned with, not idiotically trying to reduce the completely beneficial gas C02.
Climate change is a fact here on earth, Len. Get used to it. It’s only a problem when we fail to adapt. And, believe me, global warming is benign, and in fact a benefit to mankind, particularly compared to cooling, which we appear to be headed for now, based on what the sun is doing (or not doing, rather).
I wish the major newspapers would cover this news. This is the first time I am hearing about this. Shouldn’t the UAH study have been in the front page everywhere? It is not being alarmist to report the facts..
[…] Imhofe (”We Don’t Need a Climate Tax on the Poor”; HT Captain Ed at Hot Air). Related reminder: “UAH: Global Temperature Dives in May” (HT to a CCnet […]
Lennart:
“The point is that when the temperature rises, skeptics come with all sorta of arguments of why it’s not relevant. One being: “It’s just the solar cycle”. But ever time it drops, then that is somehow a real change showing that global warming isn’t happening.
Actually I think the skeptics point is that the warming and cooling is not PRIMARILY driven, if at all, by AGW / CO2. “When it warms it’s just the solar cycle” [not CO2 driven AGW]. “But everY time it drops [while CO2 levels are still rising therefore nature over AGW CO2].
Skeptic blogs might watch the temperature a little too closely when temps are falling [as does the Warmist media when it rises] but their message is consistent, nature over man made (or Mann made?).
Now, if you want to point to an inconsistent message try these
1) “Global Warming Catostrophe” was changed to “Climate Change Catastrophe”.
2) “Hurricane / storm FREQUENCY is being increased due to global warming” to “Hurricane / storm SEVERITY is being increased due to global warming.”
3) “Ocean temperatures are the single most important measurement global temperatures”. “The ARGOS cooling since 2003 is interesting but doesnt impact the GCM’s.” “The SST bucket/inlet bias does impact the historical temperature records, but the land date is more important anyway.”
4) “GCM’s show us that temperatures will CONTINUE TO RISE throughout the 21st century” to “a 15 – 20 year leveling off or cooling is consistent with the GCM’s. “After all, we didnt say the temperture rise would be monotonic” though as an engineer I kind of thought that’s what runaway positive feedback is in the first place.
Ludicrous.
I will let the sunspot numbers speak for themselves: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/zurich.gif http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif Today’s sunspot number is zero.
Lennart:
I think I see. You believe that the 11-year +/- solar cycles have a significant impact on global temperature, but that the long-term trend toward increased solar activity does not. Presumably you would say that the earth quickly reaches equilibrium temperature for any given level of solar activity, so that a series of relatively strong solar cycles has no cumulative impact, it just makes for increased variability around the underlying trend. Are those fair statements?
There is hyperbole on both sides, to be sure. But when absolutely every weather event/natural disaster (drought/flood, hot/cold, many intense TCs/few mild TCs, even earthquakes and volcanoes) are attributed to AGW, the theory becomes unfalsifiable, and is no longer a theory, but is instead wishful thinking.
Not to mention the faulty data being portrayed as gospel. There hasn’t been any net warming since the 1930s. And best evidence suggests it was warmer 1000 years ago and 2000 years ago. If you insist on focusing only on the last 30 years, then you’ve started your own sunday school.
Lennart:
John, an AGW climatologist, has his own blog & site much like RC, and he tackles all the skeptic arguments with aplomb.
I asked him about TSI, he told me point blank: The sun’s avg. output has decreased by about 0.33 W/m-2, easing Earth’s temperatures by -0.1 degrC over a 17 year period, and essentially masking greenhouse gases by the same amount.
Now, I’m a skeptic to the extent I think it has yet to be proven CO2’s warming effects are being buried in the seas & enhanced via water vapor, so I am OK with asserting that a dimming sun would mask GHG effects.
Barring there being a huge dangerous backlog of heat in the seas heretofore undiscovered OR some emergent factor that’d enhance water vapor feedbacks, please consider this:
If “natural variations” and a slightly lower TSI are all that’s required to mask the effects of man made GHG and those “masking” agents themselves have a minor effect, then the man-made GHG (I’ll just refer to MM-GHG as GHG from hereon for convention) effect is mild as well.
Or of both those factors are large, they could be temporarily masking a *large* GHG effect.
However, if we accept Dr. Svalgaard’s point that a large drop in TSI-effective is unlikely (and assuming TSI serves as a decent proxy for composite solar influence) then that’s one factor that can’t only contribute a minor masking effect.
That leaves us with “natural variations” (which Roger Pielke has described as a misnomer).
If natural variations are large & noisy, and only temporarily offset GHG effects then we have a problem.
Obviously GHG have helped bring the average up. But what if something else is going on, such as GHG not only adding extra amplitude on the peaks and bringing the average up, but also possibly even extra lows in the troughs as excess heat is offloaded more dramatically by a system that may want to tend toward thermal stability. The average might go up just a small bit, but the anomaly swings (up and down) would become more pronounced. A moodier system may not be a healthier one, but it’s not necessarily portentous of catastrophe.
And then there’s the other question of how long are we to accept that natural variations are still just variations and not long-term climate, as with the sun?
Just to interrupt the regularly-scheduled flames, we’re supposed to have snow in the mountains today in Colorado. I remember this happening in late sping when I was a kid in the 50’s, not so much recently.
If we’re really back where things were 44 years ago (4 11-year cycles) we should expect mountain snow as late as July out here: I remember snowball fights in La Veta Pass (37.5N 105W) about then, and ice staying on the north side of the house in Alamosa (37.5N 105.8W).
Does anyone else have a problem with the first 100 years of data (i.e., 1860 to 1940) in HadCRUT?
Does anyone know how bootstrapping can provide a “Global” “Average” temperature using thermometer data from less than 16% of the globe? (as is the case for the year 1860)
Is anyone else concerned with comparing a “Global” “Average” temperature which does NOT include data from Central Africa in year X to a “Global” “Average” which DOES include data from Central Africa in year X+1?
Is anyone else concerned that bootstrapping is only reliable when applied to Normally Distributed data — which Global temperatures clearely are not?
[…] THE MONTH OF MAY CERTAINLY SEEMED CHILLY: But that’s just weather, not […]
I’m not any sort of scientist, but just a lay person. The thing I keep coming back to is that as of now, its been warm for a few years and the media is hyping Global Warming. In the 70’s, it was cold for a few years and the media hyped Global Cooling and the coming of the Next Ice Age. In the 30’s it was warm for a few years and if you go back and look at the papers, they hyped a Global Warming crisis. And, if you go back all the way to the papers in the 1880’s, it was cold for a few years in a row, and they talked about the coming of a new Ice Age too!
In a few years, it will be cold for a few years in a row and the same people telling us about the Global Warming Crisis will be telling us we are all doomed to the coming of a new Ice Age.
All this while carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb. So either carbon dioxide emissions have no relation to temperature or carbon dioxide lags temperature.
david,
See link below where May anomalies are compared by latitude:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/UAHMSUMAY.jpg
As you can see, the difference between May of this year and other cool May’s is NH anomalies. May of this year had very low anomalies for Tropics and SH, but slightly warmer for NH (when compared to the cooler May’s). This is where aerosols fit in. 85% of all aerosols are in the NH. Lower sulfate emissions in NA/Europe and higher soot emissions in China are the reason why NH anomalies are consistently higher now – not CO2. Plot the SG anomalies for the past 30 years (satellite data). The trend is flat.
Also, why would you believe the temperature trends prior to satellite-derived data? That is the very definition of wishful thinking. Also, if you are going argue against a 10-yr trend by suggesting a 30-yr or 100-yr trend, why stop at that? How about a 1000 or 2000 yr trend? Reconcile this fact: 2008 ytd temperature is roughly the same as it was in 1940 (Hadcrut data). I will be more specific when the latest Hadcrut data is out.
[…] that conventional climate science is at loss to explain. Most recently, for example, Anthony Watts made much of the latest satellite data out of Huntsville: Confirming what many of us have already noted from […]
Anna v: “A mild warming of the lower temperatures in the northern hemisphere of a degree or two ( which is where the warming comes from) will be beneficial to agriculture and even by IPCC numbers will not raise sea levels more than 50cm. Humanity is adapting daily and weakly to much larger variations. So a mild warming is not a problem.”
Well, “mild” could be defined as “not being problematic”, so yes. 🙂 But I don’t think most climatologists are of the opinion that one or two degrees is “mild”. 🙂
“The evidence is not overwhelming that the warming is due to anthropogenic CO2.”
Possibly not, but so far we have in this thread yet to agree on if the arming even exists, and that’s what is discussed now. Lets keep on track for that topic for a while.
“All we need is 100 years grace to have lots of energy from fusion reactors”
Oh, yeah, that would be nice. But how much do temperature have to go up until you agree that we’re not gonna get that?
Philip_B: “I have yet to see any persuasive evidence that CO2 is responsible for significant warming in the last 100 years. ”
See above.
Kuhnkat: “These are things the MODELS PREDICT. In other words, for their physics to be correct, and the models relevant, these things MUST happen.”
No, for global warming to happen, the globe needs to get warmer, long term. Again, this discussion hasn’t gotten to any theories yet. The post claims that because the temperature has been dropping, there is no global warming. We haven’t gotten further than that in the discussion yet.
Bob B:
“go look at the 700Kyr ice core record. The very small temperature rise is a tiny tiny blip on the record.”
What kind of screwed logic is that? With that sort of reasoning the last ice age wan’t really an ice age, because compared to the temperatures during “snowball earth” 700 miljon years ago it was just “a blip”. It’s completely irrelevant if temperatures was higher hundreds of thousands years ago. This is NOW.
“Second, the beginning of 2008 is about “average” global temps”
Read my previous answers.
Pamela Gray:
You talki about some “Lenny”. As I can find no Lenny in the discussion, I suspect she meant me, but found my name to complicated. Please accept my excuses if you isn’t talking about me at all. However, if you DO talk about me, then you could stop doing that, and talk TO me instead.
“Lenny appears to be confusing absolute temp from winter to spring or cycle to cycle with what is actually measured in the charts we all use.”
I nether do not appear to do this. Try again.
“The charts look at deviation from whatever “zero” is picked and then averaged over time, comparing same month to same month, year by year, change from the initial average (which keeps changing).”
Since we are talking about 12 month averages, I.e YEARLY averages, it doesn’t matter if each deviation for each month is relative to the monthly average or any other point. It would end up being the same anyway, since it’s a 12 month average. And one of my main point here is that not even that can be used to say of it’s getting warmer or colder, since some of the cycles that affect climate, like the solar cycle, are several years long.
Bruce Cobb: “then adaptation is all we need to be concerned with, not idiotically trying to reduce the completely beneficial gas C02.”
No, you see, even if the temperature increase isn’t primarily caused by humans, that doesn’t suddenly make greenhouse gases non-greenhouse gases. And it doens’t make the temperature increase benign. And it doesn’t make adaptation any easier or any better. An increase in temperature i an increase in temperature, no matter what caused it.
Dan: “Ludicrous.”
If you say so. But calling it that will no make it go away.
For your other comments, see my answers to others above.
Morgan: “You believe that…”
No, I don’t. Don’t try to guess what I believe, you will be wrong. Read what I write, and answer/criticise that. Do not start criticising beliefs which I have not expressed.
There. Now you know. So, try answering again, and you probably will come with a much better answer. 🙂
Jeff: “If you insist on focusing only on the last 30 years, then you’ve started your own sunday school.”
Why? How come the warming that has happened the last 30 years doesn’t count in your opinion?
skepticsglobalwarming: “All this while carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb. So either carbon dioxide emissions have no relation to temperature or carbon dioxide lags temperature.”
OR, the temperature measurements are in fact correct, and temperature HAS risen.
chasrmartin
Decreasing global temperatures does not mean everything will be as before. There are many factors that change where the heating/cooling appear.
For example check UAH data.
Tropics has cooled alot.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
Also the lower part of troposphere, around 1km, is still above 20 year average from 1979-1999.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+001
Check year 1999 and compare it with 2008. We are globaly currently at same level as 1999 but the cooling is appearing at different parts of the atmosphere atm.
In the same way the temperature can be different in one geographic region if you compare 2 years 40 years apart with same global temperature.
It certainly is interesting to see how the same global temperature can be reached in different ways.
US temp data from the NOAA is in their database, but not updated on their website and it still shows the summary for April 2008 (as of 06/05/08 at 1:30 pm EST).
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
However if you put in the Month as May, it will calculate and give the results for May 08.
It comes up with these results for May 2008.
Average temp 60.30 F
Ranks as 35th coldest May out of 114 years (80th Warmest)
-.85 Fdegrees below average (1895-2008 base) of 61.15
This is -5.11 F below the hottest May on record which is 1934.
Lenart:
“No I don’t (hold the beliefs you’ve attributed to me – that solar cycles have a significant short term impact but no cumulative impact)…”
Well, then I’m glad I asked for confirmation. I’ve observed that discussions frequently go off track because one or both parties mistakenly attribute beliefs to the other.
Here’s where my confusion came from. Previously you commented: “Solar cycles have a short-term impact on climate no matter how hot the planet is. Even if the planet would get so hot that the polar caps melted, global temperatures at solar minima would still be colder than at solar maxima.”
That seemed to imply that you believe solar cycles do have a short term impact.
Later, you commented that “the evidence is overwhelming” that warming is anthropogenic.
That would seem to rule out any significant cumulative impact of solar activity.
So where did I go wrong?
Wattsupwiththat is mentioned in this Register article about the discrepancy between GISS and, well…everyone else: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/goddard_nasa_thermometer/print.html