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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Austin,
I did exactly what you did. Notice that last rise above “0” in this minimum? And that it is staying above “0”? Wonder how high it will go and how long it will stay high. I am guessing this shape will be broad, not sharp. I noticed broad versus sharp shapes to the rise and fall of the graph. Given that these particles eat ozone and in their absence allow ozone to build up, I am also guessing that ozone depletion would not be uniform. Ozone maps of the globe demonstrate this. Maybe that’s why during minimums, cooling is not uniform.
er….Dennis…I am a liberal…and life long resident of Oregon.
Anthony, can we get the Oulu cosmic ray data file sent over to Woodfortrees? I would love to superimpose and play with that data on the stuff that is over there.
REPLY: I’ll send a note off to Paul Clark, though he often monitors these pages for new ideas.
My SWAG is that the owners of the GISS data will simply shift the baseline down to get a positive reading of around 0.6 for May. That’s how you keep the AGW dream alive, keep your job and stop the politicians from kicking your ass for leading them up the wrong path.
It is becoming more apparent that man made CO2 emissions have little affect on global temperatures, compared to the uncontrollable forces of nature. The late finish of SC23 and the delayed start of SC24 is becoming very interesting.
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 clearly are not?
Bob B: “troll”
Yeah, very creative. Do you have any actual criticism to anything I says, or any questions of what I said? What is it you don’t understand?
Leebert: “dangerous AGW”
Tom in Florida: “Al Gore”
You guys are still trying to change the topic I see. Well, I’m not gonna. I don’t fall for that kind of cheap debating tricks. You are only fooling yourselves, but nobody else.
Pamela Gray: “Do you believe that warming is caused by CO2 and cooling is caused by the sun? Jez askin cuz I’m wonderin how you wood modul that.”
Answer: No.
—————-
A reminder: The blog post to which we are commenting is trying to claim that global warming is not happening, because global temperatures on the short-term scale has been sinking. I’m trying to explain that this is bogus reasoning.
Since everybody now seems to want to switch topics, my question is: Is there still somebody who does *not* understand why that kind of reasoning is incorrect?
Apparently not. Good.
Then next question: Is there still somebody that want to claim that temperatures have not risen over the last 20-30 years?
[…] Anthony Watts: Compared to the May 2007 value of 0.199°C we find a 12 month ?T is […]
Lennart Regebro: “The blog post to which we are commenting is trying to claim that global warming is not happening, because global temperatures on the short-term scale has been sinking. I’m trying to explain that this is bogus reasoning.”
The post never claims this. Read it again. You are the one going off topic.
Lennart Regebro: “Is there still somebody that want to claim that temperatures have not risen over the last 20-30 years?”
No. But the temperature rise is not significantly different than the warming earlier in the 20th century and it doesn’t appear to be accelerating.
True, it’s just what the earliest comments say. My bad.
“No.”
So, then we agree. Global warming is happening.
This is interesting and well and good. It’s June 11th and the ski slopes are going to open in Colorado this weekend and it’s snowing in Montana and Wyoming. I’m not sure when Going-to-Sun Highway will open, but there is no plowing due to snow and rain. NOW let’s break down one thing. We need a corn crop and we may not get it. The mid-west is flooding and the report today said they didn’t have enough growing season left to plant corn, Burma has lost some rice production area and maybe a couple hundred thousand farmers, China is supposed to be planting but is recovering from an earthquake and lost farm acres. It sounds like the volcano in Chile is starting to quiet down, after over one month of eruptions. No real reports on how that is going to affect agriculture in the South America or temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere. We have a problem with UG 99 rust in the wheat in Africa and possibly the Middle East. We are running low in reserves of ALL grains – WORLDWIDE. Is it climate change, sunspots, CO2 (probably not), beetle killed forests, gas guzzlers or little green men? Al Gore told the Future Farmer’s of America to get out of farming because the third world could feed US (the United States) cheaper and better than we can ourselves, that is not going to work! There is something at work in the world and it seems to be ‘let someone else take care of me’. Whatever the cause, we need to take care of ourselves and be responsible with our resources. Watch your top knot and keep your powder dry.
Lennart,
Are you suggesting that Global Warming is proven by a 19-year (not 20-30) period during which temperatures rose by 0.134 degrees Celsius (0.24 degree Fahrenheit)?
Lennart,
OR, the 12-month running mean indicates an increase of 0.116 degree Celsius (0.21 degree Fahrenheit) over the last 19 years. Is that the number you’re using to prove the existence of Global Warming.
Lennart,
Are YOU the only person who does not understand why that reasoning is incorrect?
(HINT: It’s the same “global temperatures on a short term scale” reasoning that YOU are were rightfully dismissive of)
Where does the “Zero Anomaly Line” in this graph come from? Is it the mean of the temperatures over the period from 1979 to 2008? Or, does it come from somewhere else?
The graph show 0.1 degree; -0.1 degree; 0.2 degree; etc……. relative to what?
Are they using the 1961-1990 mean used by the IPCC, or the mean of the very data in the graph?
When we are 50% short of the amount of food we need is that based on 1980’s starving in Ethopia, the famines in Turkey during WWII or just based on regular type, common starving?
It’s increased 0.25, for a 5-year mean during these 19 years, and even more if we look at the last 100 years.
What would be proof for you? When would you no longer be able to fool yourself that it hasn’t gotten warmer?
REPLY: Hey now slow down, nobody, including me, says it hasn’t gotten warmer. Don’t ascribe words not written.
Credible evidence of warming over more than a century would convince me of a warming trend.
Once such trend is established, nothing short of showing that the warming is unprecedented in scale and scope would convince me that such a trend is anything other than natural variation attributable to any of a multitude of causes.
Temperature data prior to 1940 is not statistically reliable.
“Hey now slow down, nobody, including me, says it hasn’t gotten warmer. Don’t ascribe words not written.”
Oh, really. Nobody?
“*OVER 20 YEARS WITH NO NET WARMING. I REPEAT, OVER 20 YEARS WITH NO NET WARMING*.”
“speaking of inconvenient truths, it is getting colder. ”
“I recently stated that there was no net global warming since ~1940, in spite of an almost 800% increase in humanmade CO2 emissions.”
“Looks to me like global temps have been pretty much flat over the last 30 years.”
“But by the next election period in 2010, global temps will have in reality plummeted another 0.5°C,”
“And yet the AGWarmiots will soldier on bravely, with a trembly voice, saying “the warming is currently on hiatus, having gone into hiding deep in the oceans”. The warming trend is still there, they will say (and are saying), just is being masked by a short-term natural (gasp!) variation. Then, they will point to any and all “extreme” weather, and say, “see, this is unprecedented, and is the result of the hidden man-made GW.” And, they’ll add, “when the warming does resume, it will do so with a vengeance so we need to stop all this C02 pollution now, before it’s too late.” AGW religion is resilient, if nothing else.”
“I realy don’t think there is any long term trend.”
That’s enough I think. And that’s just going through a small fraction of the comments here.
Loads of people here have claimed there is no warming.
REPLY: You make a point, and I should have been clearer in the timeline and what thread I was referring to, I was considering the current thread. Yes it has gotten warmer in the past 100 years. No dispute there. How much is attributable to CO2 and errors in surface temperature measurement is the question.
Feel free to dispute the recent temperature trends, particularly the last 10 years.
David:
“Credible evidence of warming over more than a century would convince me of a warming trend.”
Practical then that you dismiss all that older than 50 years.
“Once such trend is established, nothing short of showing that the warming is unprecedented in scale and scope would convince me that such a trend is anything other than natural variation attributable to any of a multitude of causes.”
The word “natural” is meaningless. If humans caused it, it is still natural, as we are a part of nature. The word “natural” here is used by you to convincce yourself that your arguments are meaningful. They aren’t. They warming is happening and it has the same effects no matter how “natural” it is. That it is “natural” does not make it good.
That data is only of the lower trophosphere just as it states. You can’t
base your conclusions about the temp of the earth on such a thin slice of the
the earth.
Nasa has data of the entire earth. It also covers a greater timespan.
HEre it is:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/
It shows just the opposite. Its already a fact theat the earth is warming. The only question left is how much of the warming is caused by burning of fossil fuels.
Have either of you looked at the HadCRUT data used by IPCC?
Not the nice, pretty, bulls**t graphs; but the actual data?
Radiosonde measurements by the U.S. military began in the 1940’s. Temperatures prior to that were gathered from any source that was available and, especially prior to the 1920’s, not much was.
In 1860, for example, thermometer measurements were available for less than 16% of the globe. From that 16%, IPCC (Specifically P.D. Jones) magically derived a “Global” “Average” Temperature.
Or, if you’d prefer to see the true statistical uncertainty in the data (in a pretty, multi-colored graph) take a look at page 21 of P. Brohan, J. J. Kennedy, I. Harris, S. F. B. Tett & P.D. Jones; Uncertainty estimates in regional and
global observed temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850.
Look at some actual data!
Read some actual scientific papers!
Take an introductory statistics class!
Lennart,
You never explained why accepting one year’s cooling is faulty reasoning, but 19 years of minimal warming is perfectly acceptable.
If all you want is someone to admit that warming has occurred over the last 20 year period, I’ll give it to you — it has.
However, the fact that it has, has no more bearing on a long-term global trend than the fact that it has warmed in the Northern Hemisphere since February.
Those temperatures look even flatter when you stop plotting them as “anomalies” and start plotting them as you would a proxy for the mean kinetic energy of a system.
Of course if you do that, you suddenly discover that the charts are REALLY BORING.
flat lines all of them.
I know, I know, that isn’t the party line. Viewing data as it relates to the absolute nature of the system is not in vogue these days.
Pamela Gray (05:56:31) said:
“I’m a middle school teacher …”
Pamela, you may or may not be typical of public school teachers. Consider this drawing that my fifth-grade daughter brought home from school one day in 1994.
Sheesh!
I brought a book in to class. I made up a whole set of vocabulary tests on it.
It was Otto Bettmann’s classic: The Good Old Days: They Were Terrible.
No complaints from anyone. (I left the book and the tests behind when I moved on. I heard they were still using both the book and the vocab tests three years later.)
I was very non-political as a teacher, but that was my blow in favor of modernity.