While the official number for June 2008 global temperature anomaly from UAH is not out yet, Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit reports it to be -0.114 for the global number.
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A number of commenters there are puzzled as to how Steve might have this “inside information” when it has not yet been published. Normally you’d find that data here
Steve left a clue in comments at CA when Lucia asked:
Did you get Roy Spencer to email you the data? I cleared cache and I don’t see June.
Steve: No.
Knowing Steve, I’m guessing he wrote a script to scrape data from this page http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/ (or a page like it) and then calculated the June global UAH numbers from it. Steve McIntyre is careful and cautious about such things, so I would trust his number even though UAH has not officially released it yet.
Congratulations to Steve on getting the “scoop”!
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actually…the RSS data is out and so far we are having a colder year than 1980….so 28 years have passed and according to both the UAH and RSS data, this year is colder.
it was the 8th coldest june by UAH data and the 12 coldest by RSS data….meaning that it was from average to cool…….
sun correlation does seem high, but i realize the possible fallacy contained in making too much of that….
Surprising if it turns out to be accurate. Of course, GISS will show record temp increase after Hansen’s ‘magic adjustments’ are applied.
I didn’t scrape anything.
REPLY: Well then how about this? The RSS data is out, which I just noticed. Did you calculate an offset from that? The MSU source data is the same for both UAH and RSS, but with different processing methods. If you have one, and know the method, you should be able to calculate the other. -Anthony
[…] this on Climate Audit and on Watts Up With That? 2 July, 2008 Just the tip of an iceberg (we still have those things?) of the story in ICECAP […]
As always, the old saw “Weather is not climate” applies here. Global warming deniers seem determined to confuse weather with climate, and eagerly scour the databases for the latest low temperature in some random location. Every low temperature somewhere can always be countered with some high temperature somewhere else — and this kind of reasoning is ultimately a complete waste of time, because weather is not climate. To evaluate climate, you have to examine data over large areas over long periods of time.
Moreover, the data presented here definitely supports the notion that we’re seeing broad temperature increases. When I eyeball a line through that data, I get a result with a positive slope. I’m sure we could confirm my eyeball line with a linear least squares fit. But let me explain the point in a simpler way. Suppose we had the following high temperature data for ten day period:
Mon 88ºF
Tue 89ºF
Wed 98ºF
Thu 91ºF
Fri 92ºF
Sat 93ºF
Sun 94ºF
Mon 95ºF
Tue 96ºF
Wed 97ºF
Now, using the same reasoning used by deniers elsewhere in this blog, one might conclude that a cooling trend began on Thursday, because none of the temperatures after Wednesday were as high. However, when I look at all the data, I see a linear rise in temperature with a spike on Wednesday.
If we want to play cherry-picking games with the data, a denier could select the data from Wednesday to Friday to “prove” a cooling trend, and I could select the data from Thursday to Wednesday to “prove” a warming trend. The honest approach, however, is not to cherry-pick anything, but to look at ALL the data. And when you look at all the data, you get a warming trend with a spike.
REPLY: Please pick a different word other than “denier” to describe. I suggest skeptic. Nobody on this blog “denies” a temperature increase, but we are skeptical about the causes.
New RSS graph here:
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe.html
Great site Junkscience
Opi,
Yes, please plot the RSS data as I have. The temperature in 2008 is the same as it was in 1980 on an annualized basis. If CO2 is the all powerful god that global warming alarmists say that it is, then how can this be? Please apply linear least squares for the past 11 years using annualized data. You will find the trendline to be flat. If the current temperature extends into 2009, then the trendline is flat for 14 years. Some global warming.
Looks to me like the PDO phase reversal, coinciding with the new “Goreian
Sunspot Minimum” are absolutey destroying the IPCC GCM Global Warmng
model scenerio`s.
Please pick a different word other than “denier”
Agreed! The use of the expression should be deeply offensive whether one agrees with AGW or not. The implication (intended) is that no good faith rational dissent is possible.
There are cases where the expression is appropriate. An example that springs to mind is the Breathearians (who deny that eating or intake of food is necessary to survival). There are people who deny historical facts, such as the Gulag or the Holocaust, who are ideologically motivated.
Skepticism about the AGW hypothesis however is much more like skepticism of the efficacy of Psychoanalysis, or skepticism about whether obesity really is a public health crisis. Its a perfectly reasonable point of view, with evidence for and against it, where reasonable people in good faith looking at the same facts may come to different conclusions.
This is a situation that characterizes developing knowledge. For some time now the cholesterol/saturated fats/heart attack hypothesis has been in just this situation. Quite a lot of leading edge physics work is in this situation. Quantum mechanics went through a prolonged period of this sort in the 20c.
The use of expressions like ‘denier’ and the constant repetition of the claim that ‘the debate is over’ and ‘the science is settled’ do nothing to convince anyone. Like the use of the so called ‘precautionary principle’ they simply reveal someone trying to substitute bullying for argument. Characteristic of totalitarian ways of thought, and instanced, and taken to its logical conclusion, by Mr Hansen’s recent proposals to prosecute people for expressing opinions contrary to his own. A belief in AGW is not fanaticism. The style of argument revealed by these expressions and views is.
Whenever we read stuff like this, we should admire the wisdom of the framers of the US Constitution, who implemented provisions expressly designed to protect us and the country against such fanatics. Its been effective for a couple hundred years, and it will outlive Mr Hansen and Ophiuchus too.
So ‘deniers’ confuse weather with climate do they?
You clearly haven’t been keeping up with the peer reviewed literature. Whenever no warming or cooling is found the authors are at pains to describe it as ‘weather’. I have never seen an instance where warming is ascribed to weather.
Here’s an example I ran across yesterday that incidentally uses extreme weather events something you disparage, but then I am sure you know more than NASA, Harvard and the Smithsonian.
Changes in the frequency of threshold temperatures above 24.9°C (25°C days) and below 0°C (frost days) are strongly linked to atmospheric circulation changes, coupled with regional warming. From 1930-1950 more south to southwest anomalous flow occurred relative to later years. In this period, 25°C days were less frequent in all areas except the northeast, and there was markedly more frost days in all but inland areas of the South Island compared with the 1951-1975 period. There was more airflow from the east and northeast from 1951 to 1975, the frequency of 25°C days increased and frost days decreased in many areas of New Zealand. In the final period examined (1976-1998), more prevalent airflow from the west and southwest was accompanied by more anticyclonic conditions. Days with a temperature of 25°C increased in the northeast only. Frost day frequencies decreased between 5 and 15 days a year in many localities, with little change in the west of the South Island and at higher elevation locations.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001IJCli..21.1437S
BTW, Opichius, you look rather silly lecturing us on looking at ALL (your emphasis) the data and then immediately separating the data into the trend you like and the downward spike you don’t like.
Opiuchus…
Right, weather is not climate…unless it agrees with global warming. Haven’t you noticed all of the weather events that have been tied to global warming lately? Funny, I though global warming was a CLIMATE issue.
“Eagerly scour the databases for the latest low temperature in some random location”…well, that certainly doesn’t apply to this blog entry does it, since we are talking about GLOBAL ANOMALIES, not random locations. And what’s more, we are talking about six straight months of much lower global anomalies than have been seen in at least 10 years! Add that to the fact that most of the major temperature metrics show little or no warming trend this decade, and you have to realize we are no longer talking weather, we are most definitely talking climate trends.
If you look at all of the data for the past 30 years (and in the big climate scheme of things, how different is 30 from 10 or 20?), yes, one sees a warming trend through 1998, which is this spike you speak of. Since then however, there is no such linear warming trend. Global temperatures today are just as cool as they were during the La Nina of almost ten years ago (if not colder)…so tell me, shouldn’t the underlying AGW trend be causing today’s temperatures to be higher? What on earth has prevented the same rate of warming we saw in the 80s and 90s? I guess those were only two decades, though, far too short of a time period to draw any “climate” conclusions from.
Ophi
You raised two points: 1 weather is not climate. 2 Don’t cherry pick temp locations.
Please re-read the original post. It is talking about “GLOBAL” temperatures so your point about cherry-picking locations is well made but does not apply to the post. Please register a complaint when the location is somewhat smaller than all the EARTH.
All the key people here understand that weather is not climate. We all know one cool year does not mean much in the grand scheme of things, and neither does one hot year. HOWEVER, it is the global warming religious zealots who are claiming that the earth is heating up in an expotential way in a proverbial “hockey stick” manner as outlined in Gore’s movie. If temperature was increasing in this manner then the actual data is quite contradictory as we have witnessed rapid cooling over the past 2 years and net cooling for the past decade.
I think your mind is closed because you are making claims that while true: weather is not climate, don’t cherry pick, global warm has happened – you don’t seem to actual read what you respond too – rather you have emotional response and make attributions based on green propaganda. Please think next time you write and make sure you are actually responding to what is being posted and don’t get so caught up in your own truth and misperceptions of others.
Ophiuchus:
That is an absolutely pathetic retort you just made. Is that really all you have, a hilariously irrelevant analogy? Do you really think we are all going to go crying home to mommy, and ask the Supreme Green Soviet for forgiveness under Barack Hussein’s regime next year for being Holocaust deniers? Do you really think that is a good counter to the high quality UAH satellite data, which shows absolutely no alarming warming trend despite skyrocketing universe-collapsing CO2 levels? Let me ask you this: you think that all temperature increases since 1850 were caused by humans right? Do you have any idea how much colder and unpleasant the planet’s climate was back in 1850 in comparison to today? But who cares right? The polar bears loved it, and they are superior creatures to humans.
We are not deniers. We are skeptics. We acknowledge warming in the 20th century. We are NOT denying this. But warming is a relative term.
Relative to the time scale you’re using. And by whom is the warming primarily responsible from? I used to believe in AGW blindly…before researching extensively and then later entering into a atmospheric sciences degree.
So, as for us skeptics – we have arisen as a pseudo-natural mechanism (aka damper) for the accelerated belief of AGW.
To pull zealotry and hype back to zero so to speak…and to doubt this century’s warming with an intellectual perspective.
It is not to bash people or to bury our head in the sand – hell no! – it’s about discussion of possibilities. One that is very compelling: we are not in control of our surroundings.
To many, this is a given belief. We are born without consent, live without much purpose (on a galaxy/universe scale), and die just as quickly.
All existentialism aside, we have the earth, the sun, and the rest of things. Out of everything, what should we weight the most importance? Things that correlate best? Okay, that’s a start.
If you do that…(large time frames):
1. Temperature preceeds CO2 rise on long time scales.
2. Temperatures have been considerably warmer than today.
3. CO2 levels have been higher than today.
4. Sunspot activity and temperature correlate well.
20th Century ’til 2008:
1. Temperature and CO2 correlate poorly.
2. Sunspot activity/ENSO correlate decent.
I’m sure there are many other ways to ‘nail the coffin’ shut, but I am not against other input. I encourage my ex-collegues to chime in and state their cause. However, most agree with me.
So, in the end, it’s not about who’s better, not about having a tantrum over changes in the earth, or restricting our current freedoms.
It’s about observation, learning, and appreciation for climate & weather.
Otherwise I wouldn’t type all this.
“Ophiuchus (20:57:20): As always, the old saw “Weather is not climate” applies here. . . . . . . . . . . . . .” –and on and on and on–
All regulars here know. That’s why few of us are really looking for a photo counterpoint to a polar bear sitting on a lone ice cube.
Anyone that hangs around for a while knows — the discussion is about the science — not the curtain.
UAH LT daily data is available here-
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/data/amsu_daily_85N85S_chLT.r001.txt
Ophiuchus:
Well, gosh, sure the temps are up since 1979. That was near the pit of “eenie-weenie” ice age that started in 1951.
From 1977 to 2001, the “Big Six” temperature-affecting Oceanic-Atmospheric cycles (PDO, IPO, AMO, NAO, AO, AAO) all switched from cold phase to warm phase.
What’s noticable is that either from the peak in ’98 or, if you prefer, from 2001 skipping the 1998-2000 El Nino/La Nina cycle, the trend is noticeably down. And in the last 5 years, oceanic temperatures have cooled slightly (According to the Argo Buoys). This in spite of a 4% increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last decade.
Sometime towards the end of last year the PDO went back into cold cycle. The other cycles are due to follow. (Not to mention the “dead sun”.)
In any case, the “weather” over the last 30 years is certainly not conforming with the climate models.
Ophiuchus:
“To evaluate climate, you have to examine data over large areas over long periods of time.”
…quite right too but the key is what is defined as “long periods of time”? Geologists would argue that millions of years are required…most AGW advocates like to use 1880 or thereabouts as a bench mark….
The fact is that any period of time can be seen as arbitrary and misleading. What is important is scientific evaluation of the hypothesis that recent warming has been caused mostly by mankind and that this warming will reach catastrophic levels if we don’t largely dismantle our current way of life. The crux of the scientific debate surely has more to do with the mechanisms of atmospheric reaction to C02 than any of the temperature graphs we all love to play around with (myself included!).
It seems to me that there is ample justification for questioning this hypothesis and little verifiable evidence to support it. As such the debate will and should continue.
Unfortunately, your use of the word “denier” infers a kind of heretical quality to those who question AGW theory – Is it really your wish to further strengthen the notion that AGW has become more of a religion than a scientific theory?
There are plenty of genuine scientific opinions on both sides of this debate, of which I’m sure yours is one. Let’s try to avoid the unpleasantness and focus on the facts.
Oph:
One thing’s for sure–you have certainly set a cat among the pigeons!
We don’t mind disagreement, however we are pretty down on the term “denier” because of its WWII connotations.
(And yes, I recognized your Ides of March ref. you posted earlier.)
At any rate, I don’t this should not be a liberal-conservative issue. It should be one of empiricism. (FWIW, I consider myself a liberal).
(Sorry about that double-negative, but you follow my meaning.)
UAH anomaly will be 0.10 to 0.12 degree lower than RSS due to the annual cyclic error. In may-jul the error reaches it’s maximum.
My qualified guess is that UAH anomaly for June will be -0.07 to -0.09
If Hansen can’t indict St. Mac for heresy, maybe he can nail him for insider trading?
I disagree with ‘Ophiuchus’. In his numerical example, he gives a spike on Wednesday. If we disregard this exceptional spike, what remains is an evident gradual rise of temperature.
Not so, however, in the graph given by Anthony. Neglecting the spike of 1998, we notice that the mean global temperature no longer increased since about 2001, and even decreased in 2008 (contrary to the expectations of the IPCC).
Sure, weather is not climate. Weather is local and refers to a short period (less than one year, and often only a few days). But global trends over a period of 8 years, that is more than just ‘weather’.
Interesting how a rather moronic post by a GW Believer produced a series of very good and lucid responses by sceptics.
Intellectually, we (the sceptics) are winning this debate hands down.
Otherwise, and at the risk of stirring the pot, No one disputes the accuracy of the surface temperature record, despite its know problems and questionable adjustments.
It doesn’t follow that we accept this is proof of x amount of global warming over period y.
In fact, I think a statistical average of n non-random sites says absolutely zero about a global effect, which may or may not exist.
The key metrics I would look for simply aren’t there. For example, a high proportion of sites don’t show any warming or have cooled. The sites that do show warming are geographicaly clustered and clustered around large and increasing population areas.
I have yet to find a pristine site remote from local and regional influences that shows a warming trend comparable with the claimed global warming. Without exception they show little or no warming or are cooling.
This leads me to conclude there is no significant global warming occuring, although there is significant local and regional warming.
Want to prove me wrong and the global warming theory at least not DOA? Find just one pristine site that shows a significant warming trend since 1950. Just one thats all I ask.
Actually, I’m the guy who tried using UAH daily temps to predict UAH and RSS monthlies. I posted in the article http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/thanks-again-to-all-my-readers-another-record-month/#comments
My swag was…
UAH ==> -0.025
RSS ==> 0.061
So much for that idea.