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
WRT “masking” of AGW by natural events (Solar, ENSO / PDO):
If these cycles are strong enough to negate the effects of CO2 – even when we would have gotten warming with zero emissions after 2000, yet we have increased emissions since then – then we must consider the possibility that attribution studies may have seriously underestimated the contribution of natural variations, and adjust our estimates of CO2 forcing downwards. After all, if the negative (cool) phases of these cycles can pull several degrees C out of temperatures, is it not likely the positive (warm) phases add a similar amount?
Mrs Gray,
Right on!!!
Dum da da “dumb”.
There are a lot of them out there.
We just have to re-educate them. They are victim’s of our country’s failed education system, with the help of indiviuals like Al Gore.
Pamela Gray,
Is it discreet
to say you “fleet”?
No wonder you fly,
so would I!
Halls Creek rain: I hope you’re getting all you need.
I found an aerial image. It’s a very small community and it does look dry there.
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200707/r161094_589968.jpg
[…] Reposted from Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation by Anthony Watt, June 3, 2008 http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/uah-global-temperature-dives-in-may/ […]
“They are victim’s of our country’s failed education system, with the help of indiviuals like Al Gore.” BUCK036
BUCK,
The schools are doing what they are intended to do, indoctrinate students.
Thank God for foreign competition to show up our government school system.
[…] Anthony Watts: Compared to the May 2007 value of 0.199°C we find a 12 month ∆T is […]
Steve Stip! Get a grip!
Leave that lass alone.
Mrs. Gray is OK, I say,
she doan need any yo lip.
If you don’t atone,
I’ll put you in your tomb.
I can do this too,
cause, ya see, I’m you.
And I heard references from many historians stating the opposite, buildings which were originally built near the shore are now hundreds of feet from the shore. I guess we both need to find some references.
And the data we do have show that the majority of modern glacial retreat occurred before 1950. So how’s that calling me on it?
The new book “Blue planet in green shackles” by Vaclav Klaus, the Czech President, is available and recommended:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001A3W3BK/?tag=lubosmotlsref-20
As a complete newbie (despite my username which I use in many forums) I have a question in relation to the GISS figures.
I have plotted two maps from the GISS/NASA website for April with a 250km radius with and without the Hadreyn Ocean figures and there is a significant difference in the apparent overall global anomaly. When GISS publish their global temperature anomaly does this take into account the Ocean figures or does it just use the GISS measurements. Also do they make any attempt to fill the large areas where they have no data (Africa, Greenland, Northern Canada for example)
REPLY: See these articles by my friend John Goetz, they should shed a lot of light on the issue:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2964
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3094
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3100
[…] Thanks to http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/uah-global-temperature-dives-in-may/ […]
Lennart in response to my post: ” But it HAS risen. Or are you taking a relative fall as proof that there is no absolute rise? ”
When I posted,“as CO2 rises, temperature rises” that is directly from the guru of gobbledygok himself, Algore. I didn’t say it, he did. And as every honest person admits, he flipped the graph from Co2 follows temp to temp follows Co2 in order to match his claims. I also qualified my next statement with ” Acording to algorean science” and yes, according to Big Al’s “theory” rise in CO2 should continue to raise Earth’s temperature accordingly. No ups and downs, only a claimed direct temperature response to CO2 increase. He said it, not me. And finally, you said,
“With that logic, every winter is proof Al Gore is wrong, because temperature falls compared to the summer. Climate doesn’t quite work like that. ”
Exactly, this point has been made often in response to the “tipping points” scare. Climate doesn’t quite work like that is exactly correct. Thank you for the verification, welcome to our side of the debate.
Hey Buck and Steve,
I’m a middle school teacher in the public school system. I teach mostly boys who have serious emotional or behavioral problems. Occasionally I have a girl referred to my class. Most are highly intelligent but socially unaware. Their scientific minds are astute. We discuss the entire realm of theories. The other science teachers do the same. Public school teachers have not caused global warming, 9/11, high gas prices, or your ingrown toenail. Nor did we put the sun to sleep. You get a referral to the timeout room and I’m calling your mother!
This is so much fun for an avid weather freak like me!
Leif provided a GREAT source for looking at current cosmic ray data as well as time scaled data:
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
We already have ozone data and maps as well as water vapor data and maps. Plus temp data and maps.
Would it be possible to layer these maps on a day to day basis? Temp combined with water vapor/cloud stuff combined with ozone maps? The theory is that cosmic rays, which are hitting earth in an onslaught during minimums, destroy ozone, allowing ray particle penetration into lower atmospheric levels thus more effectively seeding through ionization which creates cloud cover and temp changes. I wonder how it affects the jet stream. From there pressure changes set up warm and cold fronts. That would be a cool map.
Could it be that solar forcing is far more active during minimums than at any other time? And planet reflective heating is active during maximums? Maybe we should be looking at two models.
Here in Everett, WA yesterday it never got above 50f according to my balcony thermometer, which might be getting a little heat from the apartment building, but 50f is still damn cold for June. The previous day the high was about 60f. And it’s still raining, for about 4 days now. More rain than the June, July, and probably August averages combined.
“Public school teachers have not caused global warming, 9/11, high gas prices, or your ingrown toenail. Nor did we put the sun to sleep”
Pam,
Actually, I blame fractional reserve banking for those things.
AND
Don’t worry or be blue;
they’ll always be work
for someone like you.
Even AFTER we destroy the government school system and sow salt on the ground. Oh, and you’ll get a raise too. Perhaps a bonus if the administrators can be sold for body parts:)
If you run the Oulu data for the whol time period from 1964 to present you get an interesting graph.
Oh darn. NOW what will the fear-mongers cook up for us?
Thanks for bringing balance and sanity to an unbalanced reporting of global warming.
I’ve been saying lately to my fellow Michiganders, following the winter of ’07-’08 “If it wasn’t for global warming we would all freeze to death!”
Brian D.:
You are correct of course, I misreported a tribal report of two weeks, not three, for the Central MN lake of my acquaintence. The sample size of one may shock but awe was not my end goal.
Mrs. Gray,
Your a “minority exception” in the US education system. “Thank you for your service and God Bless You”!!!
Wichita!
I thought y’all might be amused by a local annual average temperature model I developed for Wichita, KS. I like the Wichita data because it has no missing points in the time series, which starts in the late 19th century – pretty amazing.
I’m still searching for a rough mathematical definition of the construct “average global temperature.” Here I was positing that surface temperature follows a multifractal distribution, so that increasing the number of stations contributing data actually *increases* the variance of the measurement. I think the hypothesis is roughly worked out using station data from Canada for the month of April.
Fractal Properties of ST data
Enjoyed reading the posts here – science will prevail, it always does. Even though progress is being delayed by the current Stalinization of climate research for the benefit of the Inner Party.
Philip_B Wrote: “For example a Roman map shows a substantial island between England and France. We know this island was inundated by the sea around 1100.”
I suppose you are referring to the fact that the Romans referred to the Scillies as “Insula Sylina” = “The Scilly Island” which may indeed suggest that there was a main island in the archipelago at that time. However southern England is in the forebulge zone of the last glaciation which is sinking for glacioeustatic reasons, so sea-level changes there have no climatic significance.
In the same way I can easily see that the sea-level on the Baltic Coast near my home in Sweden has sunk a few centimeters since I was a boy 40 years ago. This too is a legacy of the last glaciation – not a sign of climatic cooling.
In the Cascades we have record snowpack. But don’t tell that to the liberals – they do not deal with reality very well.