Hadley Climate Center HadAT2 Data shows global cooling in the last year

Counters: You write about the PDO as if it is the SST of the North Pacific. It is not. It is a statistically manufactured index that pulls the ENSO signal out of the North Pacific. This is a graph of North Pacific and Global SST anomalies.
http://i25.tinypic.com/2cyg07k.jpg

Joel Shore (14:10:39)
‘Sometimes, scientists tend to point to such extreme events as illustrative of the effects of AGW. When there is more serious research to back up the idea that these events are or are expected to become more likely,’
More likely than what? Bigger storms bigger drought since the CO2 drives the climate theory began than in all the history of mankind? There have not been enough hands on studies to use the term more likely, but yet you believe in forecasting models without using forecasting principles.

In addition, Joel, you cannot claim that decade long absences of global warming were expected by the AGW community. Looking at statements by NASA, the IPCC and others, it is clear that they have expected the warming to continue.
This is why GISS/NASA predicted that if an El Nino formed in 2006 or 2007, a new global temperature record surpassing 1998 would likely be set. The El Nino formed, but no new temperature record. Not even close, according to most metrics. In addition, the 2007 IPCC report predicted that half of the years between 2009 and 2015 would exceed 1998’s temperatures.

It can clearly be seen that the volcanos are responsible for the temp drop in the stratosphere, so what is the mechanism. Is it possible that the SO2 acts as a nucleation centre causing an loss of water vapor from the stratosphere? Could volcanoes cause short term cooling but long term heating at the surface due to an increase in short wave caused by a decrease in clouds? I did read that the observed cloud decrease has resulted in an extra 6w/m2 reach earths surface, compared to all of 2.4w/m2 for CO2 doubling.
Cheers

Being a little nostalgic here, but any old mets or vets remember using the GMD RAWIN system?(radiosonde tracking system)
When I was in the service, I used it. That was a lot of work, until they switched to the MDS system, which was computerized. “Cutting” those charts from the recorder was intense and you had to be good. If the artillery was missing its target, they would call “bad met”, and you’d better have your ducks in a row when you evaluated the chart, and they start checking. No time the first time around to sit and make sure it was right before you sent the data to the Fire Direction Center.
Here’s some pics of the old system.
http://www.tpub.com/content/meteorology/TM-750-5-3/TM-750-5-30015.htm
http://www.tpub.com/content/meteorology/TM-750-5-3/TM-750-5-30042.htm
And before they came out with precalibrated sondes, which I used, you had to do that yourself with this.
http://www.tpub.com/content/meteorology/TM-750-5-3/TM-750-5-30019.htm
Not sure when the NWS switched to computerized system, but the Army didn’t until the late 80’s-early 90’s. And I’m sure the NWS had the time to go over their charts to make sure they evaluated them correctly.
We did have a small computer with the GMD RAWIN system that printed out messages from the chart data, azimuth, and elevation angles we had to put into it, manually. It weighted the data for the artillery and also produced AWS messages, if needed. The computer would be able to send the info, encrypted, to the FDC.
The precalibrated sondes had tags on them with info that would also get entered in the computer along with surface temp and humidity, derived from wet/dry bulb readings( the old hand whirl method, forgot the name of it) And with surface baro in MB’s.
I was also involved in balloon testing. A company was trying out different materials to get the best consistency in burst altitudes. Results really varied depending on the batch and materials used. I’ve seen them go to 100,000ft+ many times, though( artillery didn’t need those heights, but the AWS did). And windy days really sucked when trying to launch. You need a BIG field on those days for your 100yard dash. LOL Balloon trains were 50ft long(to keep the wild swinging to a minimum) and that dumb balloon didn’t want to go up as fast as it did going forward. It would pass you up, and hopefully you didn’t get caught up in the train. Balloons were 8-10 high and 4-6ft in diameter, and we used hydrogen. You had to be grounded(because of static electricity) and NO SMOKING around that thing. A few thousand degree fireball would make for a bad day. It would be like having the Sun right next to you for a second. Melt your clothes/uniform right to you, and burn your hair off. Not good. Helium was too expensive, but we did use it sometimes, which I liked. Calcium Hydride charges sunk in water when in the field.(makes hydrogen)

DaveK: Yes, the temperatures reported were probably highly accurate… but were the altitudes/pressures just as accurate?
The pressures were also quite accurate even in my day. Altitudes were calculated, but I suspect (emphasis on suspect) that altitudes were not bad especially through 100mb or so.
Do they use GPS altitudes now?
Brian D: I first trained on the old Signal Corps “bedsprings” model. It was on a gun-mount affair with a sort of bicycle seat and hand cranks to train the “bedsprings” antenna. Our tracking device was a small telescope — really a bear right after launch. It was a tough job in bad weather too!
This was in what I now refer to as the “Bow and arrow” phase of our Air Force, and I worked with for years with dropsondes.

Rod Smith
“Bow and arrow” would be appropriate for that set up. Never seen anything like that. The hardest tracking setup I dealt with was pilot balloon tracking using a theodolite. Near surface was extremely difficult to follow that darn thing. And then to do it at night with a small cluster of lights on the a short string under it was even more difficult. At some point, most everyone ended up tracking stars on a clear night when it had gotten some altitude.LOL We did have some guys that were really good at it though. It was a two man operation, with one guy tracking, and the other reading azimuth and elevation angles.

Dennis Sharp (14:09:39) :
‘Let’s wait a year and see what reality tells us about the winter of 2009.’
Or you could pick up a copy of old farmers almanac, at least they are right 80% of the time.

Dennis Sharp says: “I’ve read all your replies, and I must say, I have rarely seen such arrogance.”
Dennis, I apologize if I sometimes come across as arrogant. However, I would ask you to consider who is truly more arrogant: (1) a person with little training or research background in a field who thinks that he or she knows more about a subject than most of the scientists who have spent years training and then researching these issues OR (2) a person who suggests that these scientists may actually know more than you do and tries to explain the ways in which you are deceiving yourself.

Jared says: “There should be scientific reason for ‘decadal variation’. What conditions changed that would cause the temperature trend to turn flat for this long, after rising steadily for 20 years? ‘Noise’ or ‘decadal variation’ offers no real explanation.”
Jared, first of all, the temperature rise had not been “steady” when you look at it over timescales of several years…It is only when looked at over a sufficiently large time that the trend clearly emerges from the noise. (See, for example, the HADCRUT record here http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ ) Second, whether the trend has been flat for the last several years or not depends strongly on which temperature record one looks at and the exact number of years one looks over…further evidence of how trends over time periods of less than about 10 – 15 years can vary quite a bit.
Jared says: “In addition, Joel, you cannot claim that decade long absences of global warming were expected by the AGW community. Looking at statements by NASA, the IPCC and others, it is clear that they have expected the warming to continue.”
Again, that expectation is that the warming would continue when looked at over a long enough time period. As I have noted, the models that they are basing their predictions on clearly show large variations in shorter periods.
Jared says: “This is why GISS/NASA predicted that if an El Nino formed in 2006 or 2007, a new global temperature record surpassing 1998 would likely be set. The El Nino formed, but no new temperature record. Not even close, according to most metrics.”
Actually, the NASA GISS data itself does show that there was a new global temperature record, so by their own metric it was. HADCRUT and the satellites (which measure a somewhat different thing) do not show it to be a new record…but it was second in those records only to 1998.
Jared says: “In addition, the 2007 IPCC report predicted that half of the years between 2009 and 2015 would exceed 1998’s temperatures.”
Where in the IPCC report does it say this? (I am not saying it doesn’t, it well may…but I remember this as being a specific prediction made in one recent paper by the Hadley group.) At any rate, since we are still in 2008, I would say that we know very little about whether this prediction will turn out to be correct or not.

Re cold outbreak in Australia. I live in the norther suburbs of Sydney and as I type it’s about 4C outside and it will get down to < 1C by morning, and just as it did today the temperature will rise again tomorrow to about 14C (57F) under clear skies and without much wind. This isn’t really very cold by North American standards but this is definitely below average for the Sydney region in late winter and it’s been pretty much this way since the start of July. Actually some days have struggled to exceed double figures.
Today there was an avalanche in the Snowy Mts and a person unfortunately died. The cold weather has resulted in heavy snow in SE Australia and it been falling to as low as 300m (1000Ft) both here and in Victoria and down to sea level in Tasmania.
Of course none of this has anything to do with global warming or global cooling but it’s of interest because it’s been nearly 20 years since we’ve had a winter like this even though this type of winter was perfectly normal in the 1960’s and 70’s. It will be interesting to sea how the Norther Hemisphere fares in about 4 month’s time just as it will be interesting to see if next winter is also like this again here in Australia.
Whatever the cause, i’m going to take full advantage of this cold winter next weekend because I’m packing up and going cross coutry skiing for a few days in part of our alpine wilderness to the south. At the moment there’s about 2m (6ft) of virgin powder snow awaiting.

Joel-
“Well, I cannot vouch for everyone else talking about such events.”
“Sometimes, scientists tend to point to such extreme events as illustrative of the effects of AGW.”
I take this at face value. However, I do not recall that ANY such scientists, nor indeed others advocating the AGW hypothesis, corrected the impressions left by Mr Gore’s film. I do not recall that they criticised the award of a Nobel Prize to that gentleman. So much uncontradicted rubbish has been spouted on the subject that you may forgive some (less than scientific comments) from those who consider the matter as completely undecided.
I am not a scientist, but I can read. I can understand the papers and make judgements as to whether or not the methods are rigorous. I can follow the calculations, the statistics and so on. Please let’s not hear any of this “we scientists know better than you laymen” talk.
At this point in time, AGW is an unproven theory which should be open to vigorous scientific scrutiny. Since there may be important changes in the world which I inhabit consequent upon government reaction to the theory, I am afraid you will also have to put up with non-scientific scrutiny.
With others, I claim my right as a citizen to involve myself in the debate notwithstanding the greater knowledge of “experts”.
On a lighter note, I am reminded of the old definition –
‘Expert’ (pronounced ex-spurt)
‘Ex’ – a has-been ‘spurt’ – a drip under pressure.
(sorry bout that)