A few days ago I highlighted the drop in global temperatures as measured by satellite from UAH, the University of Alabama, Huntsville. They published their satellite derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008 and it showed that it is significantly colder globally, colder even than the significant drop to -0.046°C seen in January 2008.
The global ∆T for UAH from April to May 2008 was -.195°C
RSS (Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA) RSS Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) lower troposphere global temperature anomaly data by For May 2008 is published and has moved below the zero anomaly line, with a value of -0.083°C for a change (∆T) of -0.163 °C globally from April 2008.
RSS
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3 0.079
2008 4 0.080
2008 5 -0.083
I had predicted when I posted the UAH data that the RSS value for global temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere would end up around 0.05 to -0.15°C. Coming in at -0.083°C, I was on target.
This value is greater in magnitude than the drop seen in January 2008 to -0.07°C
click for a larger image
Reference: RSS data here (RSS Data Version 3.1)
Anthony,
Thanks the detailed explanation of Channel 4. I’m learning something here every day.
Concenring weather anecdotes, I’ve got nothing against them, and indeed some are interesting. But it seems too many people , especilly the alarmists, misuse them in an attempt to “settle the science”. I guess if you keep repeating them, then they start to become trends.
If someone goes out in his back yard and collects data for 10 or 20 years and plots trends, well then that’s really something. Or if he goes back in the records 30 years and analyzes data and plots trends, that’s something too.
I just think we should not stoop to the same desparate tactics that the alarmists use…the constant citing of anecdotal data as proof of warming. To me it’s a weird way to debate science. But I guess I can understand people wanting to tell us about their local weather.
For the lovers of anecdotes:
Currently it’s 79°F and sunny here in Quakenbrueck, Germany. Heck, aint been this warm here since yesterday.
Pierre,
I’ll agree to a ban about discussing local weather temperatures in this blog as soon as the mainstream media stops using every single instance of storms, high temperatures, floods, tornados, hurricanes, low temperatures, big winds, sunburn, slippery ice, and trees shedding their leaves in October as “proof” of manmade global warming.
In the meantime we have our first hot days of the year here in Michigan. Run for the fricken hills and stop exhaling your CO2!
Pierre,
The Atlantic is in the middle of a positive AMO. The postive anomalies there coincide with a persistent blocking high which has remained anchored across much of Western Europe these last several month. Couple this with a “positive” NAO, and it isn’t surprising that Europe is above average as far as temperatures go. The positive AMO began around 1995, and on average last around 25 years.
The Pacific is steadily coming out of a moderate to strong La Nina event. Again, I don’t think anyone is surprised that the anomalies are positive there. However, the Pacific is in the beginnings of a negative PDO (whether this will be long term 30 year pattern or a shorter one remains to be seen).
For those living in North America, one should brush up on the positive AMO/negative PDO analogs. There is still quite a bit of work that needs to be done fitting this anaologs into medium to long term synoptic weather patterns, but much of the ancedotal weather information from North America coincides with past -PDO/+AMO patterns. The watchword here is precipitation and not temperature. When observers on this blog quip that they hope the -PDO will be short lived (I am one of them) point to the drought/heat waves of the 1930s/1940s. Currently, the Plains in NAmerica are setting up for an early summer/late spring heat wave. Northern Florida and Georgia have been in drought for several years.
Europe is a different animal entirely. The NAO/AMO mix as well as patterns over East Asia have a more direct effect on European climate than does the Pacific.
Short term (0-15 month) temp/precip patterns may not be that important when speaking of climate , but when they extend in 16-24 or 26 months) they may indicate something more. Overall, SSTs have cooled since 2003 (5 years). Perhaps this slight cooling means nothing, but then again it is something that the Alarmists did not expect and continue to ignore or at the very least minimize.
Pierre: About your question, “It’s getting cooler?!?!” The NOAA maps are of SST anomalies. The comments I made earlier about SSTs were actually mislabeled. Those temperatures are lower troposphere over oceans. My mistake. The following is a graph of global SST anomalies from Jan 07 to April 08.
http://i26.tinypic.com/29dg07l.jpg
Based on this data, SSTs have risen since the first of the year. The data’s from the most current Smith and Reynolds SST data set, ERSST.v3, linked here.
ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ersst/pdo
Good eyes.
Philip_B, that first link does not show ice thickness, only ice concentration, i e the part of the water surface covered by ice. Ice thickness is not reliably measurable from satellites.
The issue here is that the cryosphere ice extent curve shows this year’s ice area as smaller than the same time last year, while the MK I Eyeball (and other measurements, e. g. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/) clearly indicates that it is larger. This is not surprising since there have been big data problems at cryosphere for several months. This is obvious if you look at the curves for sub-areas. Just now the ice area for Baffin’s Bay has decreased by a third from one day to another. This has happened repeatedly in different areas but usually the lost ice comes back after a few days. However in Berings Sea the ice area went to Zero on June 1, though there is still some ice there a week later. In short: don’t trust that curve.
A related matter: during 1989-2003 the satellite maps definitely show too much ice. I can see this by checking the Baltic where I know the actual ice conditions. The maps show ice there into July, long after it has melted.
Pierre G:
Hey! Send some of that cold air this-a-way. Right now, the unofficial temp here near DC is 100+F in the shade. Warmest its been all day. 😉
The RSS 12-month running mean July 2007..June 2008 is +0.143.
The RSS 12-month running mean April 1987..March 1988 is +0.144.
RSS joins UAH in showing no net global warming over the past 20 years.
Hadley isn’t out for May yet, but it’ll take approx 4 months to get to 1988 levels (12 month running mean) at the current rate of descent. It is conceivable that Hadley can match late 1995 if May falls steeply enough. My latest spreadsheet is zipped up at http://clients.teksavvy.com/~walterdnes/temperatures.zip
Hey Pierre, I used to live out DC way. Here in Seattle it’s 50 and rainy, still. Darn Cascades won’t let the cold air by.
It was 45 in Spokane at midday…how lovely for June 7th.
I wonder if this recent cooling…which caught a lot of people’s attention earlier this year…will continue.
Time will tell. Same goes for how television media portrays ‘that warming.’
What warming? Mother Earth…please let us know that we are wrong in absolute assertions…via an ice age. Actually, learning a lesson and suffering because of it probably wouldn’t be all that fun…come to think of it.
Guess I should be careful what I wish for…
Don’t worry folks, for a cool $45 trillion, all this global warming will go away. Better hurry up and pay or else mother nature might up and solve the problem all on her own and all those poor bureaucrats will have to dream up another doomsday scenario.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080606/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_iea_climate_change
Predicting RSS once UAH is available is not as hard as you can think. The difference between RSS and UAH is not a random noice but 12 month cyclic error.
This diagram shows RSS minus UAH on monthly values.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3116/2559561428_0210c72355_o.jpg
The question is, which one of them is causing the cyclic error?
It is in fact not as small as you can think. If you look on the last 10 years there is a peak to peak change of up to 0.2C which I think is rather large.
The error seems to be very predictable since 10 years.
If looking on the yearly average, since the error seems to repeat in a 12 month cycle, the error is not that very large, up to 0.08 degrees.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3049/2558758077_cba278dcf4_o.jpg
Another thought I have had about the satellite records is how we can have same global temperature as in 1999 but the heat are distrubuted differently.
For example look at the altitude 1km and compare with 1999.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+001
It is still rather warm at the lowest part of tropossphere.
If we climb up a bit to 7.5km it is the oposite.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+003
The temperature is lower at this altitude.
Are there any explanations why it is this way? Does it mean anything?
I have my own most non scientific theory what has happened.
The major way the atmosphere at 7.5 km can heat up is via heated air raising from the surface. The reason why it is cooler up there now is because less heated air is raising up to higher altitudes.
This might also be the reason why we still do not see as much cooling at the lowest part of troposphere. I would call that a positive feedback that prevents earth from cooling too fast.
I would guess there is the same negative feedback preventing earth from heating too fast when the temperature raises.
This is just my most unscientific reflection on the subject.
Maybe the answer is out there somewhere allready?
May and whole spring temperature averages in Croatia were above 30 years average.
In terms of the above average European temperatures, if you look at SSTs worldwide right now, you’ll see that the North Atlantic is much, much warmer than normal right now.
There are large areas which are up to 5C above average which is quite unusual.
It won’t last long, of course, because the Gulf Stream off North America is up to 3C colder than average and will be coming your way shortly. That section of the Gulf Stream was 5C warmer than normal about two months ago and has now migrated its way up to Norway.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.6.5.2008.gif
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/anom_anim.html
Pierre-
Yes, global SSTAs have been rising as the La Nina has weakened. However, the satellite readings UAH and RSS measure the temperature of the lower troposphere, which matches general trends at the surface. So even though the oceans have started warming recently, the air temperature has still been decreasing. Make sense?
Anthony. Could you place trend lines on your graphs where possible, as I have no time to take the data and place it onto a spreadsheet.
PS . If a Maunder Minimum is on the way, then down here in Brisbane Australia we will be inundated with climate refugees from the North.
REPLY: AB, every time I put a trend line on a graph a fight breaks out. I prefer to let people see their own trends.
Is there a standard explaination for the spike in 1998 temps ?
REPLY: Yes, a huge El Nino that year.
See this image:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a001400/a001402/f08_sstanom_web.jpg
The issue here is that the cryosphere ice extent curve shows this year’s ice area as smaller than the same time last year, while the MK I Eyeball (and other measurements, e. g. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/) clearly indicates that it is larger.
you are mixing up the terms “sea ice area” and “sea ice extend”.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
this site does meassure “extend”. that is why the number is BIGGER than the one from cryosphere, which does meassure “area”.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
i am not an ice expert, but here s my idea on this:
the massive amount of thin ice of this winter has left plenty of “extend” and little “area”.
REPLY:
…you are mixing up the terms “sea ice area” and “sea ice extend”.
I think you mean “sea ice extent”
Sorry if I am repeating something here. Also verifying that I am reading this correctly.
National Snow Ice Data Center (NASA, NOAA) is representing the sea ice as above average. How so? This link:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/archives/image_select.html
shows both
1. The current sea ice extent. Select the drop down button for “sea ice extent” …default setting
2. And what the average is for that SPECIFIC month. Select “extent anomalies”
So for N Hemisphere:
1. the May 08 extent is 13.2 M sq km
2. the May 08 mean is 13.6 M sq km
The N Hemi. is .4 M sq km BELOW the mean
The S Hemi is .8 M sq km ABOVE the mean
So currently the total sea ice is net +.4 M sq km above the mean.
This page image loads slowly so wait a few seconds. You can also the downtrend at the N Pole and uptrend at the S pole when you look at the “extent anomaly” setting.
Sorry, Pierre, but I enjoy having on-the-spot weather observations. The weather reports say things like “cool weather in Missouri and Illinois with continued rain”. The people that are there talk about their garden running two or more weeks later than normal and farmers not being able to plow and plant summer grain because the fields are too wet and cold. As a livestock producer, I know that I am going to have to cull the flock heavily if the drought continues here because I can’t count on inexpensive grain to substitute for my nonexistent pasture from this multi-year drought.
I think you mean “sea ice extent”
hm, yes. looks like it was a bit late…
The N Hemi. is .4 M sq km BELOW the mean
The S Hemi is .8 M sq km ABOVE the mean
So currently the total sea ice is net +.4 M sq km above the mean.
that is true. though the problem with this view is, that the arctic sea ice is showing an obvious downward TREND. while the south has been fluctuating wildly for quite some time.
your argument boils down to this:
while my salery has been shring continously over the alst 10 years, i won the lottery this year, so it balances out….
The beer last night was extra cold and the conversation warmer than usual. However, I don’t see a trend up or down over the longer term. The uptick in warm conversation coincides quite well anecdotally with election time so there could be a connection there. Further studies could verify this anecdotal observation by setting up experiments to more accurately gage the conversation warmth when a political topic is brought forth.
sod: In any case half of the 200,000 sq km of ice that disappeared in Baffin’s Bay yesterday was reincarnated today so for the moment both ice area and ice extent in the Arctic is officially slightly larger than last year….
sod: In any case half of the 200,000 sq km of ice that disappeared in Baffin’s Bay yesterday was reincarnated today so for the moment both ice area and ice extent in the Arctic is officially slightly larger than last year….
yes. actually, i don t expect this year to bring a new summer low.
but reading this “cooler may2 topics, shouldn t you guys expect this years summer ice to be above the long time averages?
On local weather reports and anecdotal evidence.
I’ll often tack on a local obs at the end of a more useful post. Not much server load, easy to skip over.
One form of anecdotal evidence are reports of things that haven’t happened in long-term memory and things that are happening like they used to back in the last negative PDO. These are good to use as examples and make a good balance when talking about harder evidence. You can talk and talk about negative PDOs and La Ninas until you turn blue (in the cold), but a good May snow storm will get locals’ attention. (We didn’t have on this year, but did blast away a lot of snowfall records.
– Ric
Oh, Concord NH set a record high today, 94 or 95. We won’t break tomorrow’s record, 98, set in 1933. Yes, the year with a Summer. A lot of times when the west coast is cool, we’re warm. Nothing exciting, and I’m almost embarrassed to note it. 🙂
I normally read and don’t post here… lots to learn.
But a comment for Pierre, who seemed surprised at the response:
Here’s a fun experiment you can try at home; go to a local meeting place, where people commonly have discussions. Wait for a discussion to start, then after a few minutes, chime in and tell those people that they shouldn’t say what they’re saying because it doesn’t interest you. Observe their responses.
Over time, those responses may be instructive.
Besides, anecdotes are data points, like thermometer records – more detailed but less precise, perhaps.