GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies) Surface Temperature Analysis (GISSTemp) released their monthly global temperature anomaly data for August 2008. Following is the monthly global ∆T from January to August 2008
Year J F M A M J J A
2007 85 61 59 64 55 53 53 56
2008 14 25 60 42 40 28 50 39
Here is a plot of the GISSTemp monthly anomaly since January 1979 (keeping in line with the time period displayed for UAH). I have added a simple 12-month moving average displayed in red.
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Clearly no warming since 2002, even with “adjusted” data.
May has been adjusted to 0.39.
Plus, with 250 km smoothing radius, anomaly is 0.35.
When you post these graphs could you add a note about what ∆T is exactly? In this case it looks like difference from the baseline year 1979 in degrees C (or hundredths of a degree) but ∆T could also be (depending on the source and presentation method) difference from last month or difference from the same month last year.
[Reply by JG: Good point. In this case, ∆T is the anomaly, which for GISS is the difference between the actual monthly temperature and the average temperature for that same month for the 30-year period 1951 to 1980.]
I am not as familiar with the GISS “adjustment” procedure as others are but from what I have been able to glean over at Climate Audit, these drops in temperature now are likely to cause past temperatures to change somewhat because of the way missing values are filled in and how UHI is “adjusted” in to the records. Well, the temperature if the past isn’t really going to change but the “adjustments” and extrapolations and estimations of past temperatures are going to change. I have a suspicion that De. Hansen’s methods have some assumptions about temperatures always rising with the passage of time and it will be interesting to see how his “adjustment” methods cope with declining temperatures.
Isn’t there some further adjustment Hansen could make to fix this obvious mistake?
There’s lots of room in the urban heat island adjustments to play with temps further.
Hmmmm, what’s the vertical scale?
[Reply by JG: 100ths of a degree C. Thus “80” means 0.8C.]
A new La Nina is on the way too. I guess that’ll be the excuse for 2009 temperatures continuing to plunge.
When all the warmth gets eliminated from the eastern pacific this winter with the upcoming La Nina and replaced with colder sea surface temperatures that’ll drag the average down even further.
Using 250 smoothing radius you get:
Jan08: 0.17
Feb08: 0.29
Mar08: 0.55
Apr08: 0.33
May08: 0.31
Jun08: 0.31
Jul08: 0.40
Aug08: 0.35
Looks like 250km is more often down than up relative to 1200km. Anybody know if that is indictive of past years as well?
What’s also interesting is the warmest anomalies over Antarctica were included in the analysis, but the cold anomalies over Antarctica are mysteriously left out.
Still love this ‘reality vs model’ for Dr Hansen. Has he ever addressed the growing disparity between his Scenario A (unabated CO2 increase) prediction and observed temperatures, which is now outside of a 95% confidence interval?
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GISSvs_Hansen.JPG
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/RSSvs_Hansen.JPG
Off topic: The latest from ICE… a jury in Great Britain gave ordinary citizens permission to vandalize coal powered electricity producing plants to protect the environment. James Hansen testified during the trial. Just wait until GB freezes in the coming winters and see how miserable the citizens are. Total insanity.
http://icecap.us/
Richard. You have to understand that here in the UK we’re fed a daily diet of global warming from the BBC and the independent news channel, ITN (ITN is a bit like National Enquirer). Our newspapers are also doing very well out of it too. Hence any jury is made up of people very used to hearing about the dangerous gases like carbon dioxide (often referred to simply as carbon!) and how the “planet” is going to die. Anyone attempting to emit noxious gases will probably be hung, drawn and quartered here in the future (look up that phrase to see how civilised we used to be here in England!).
Minor point, but ‘Great Britain’ refers to only part of the UK, so technically it should be a ‘UK jury’ or even ‘British jury’. Sorry, I’m a pedant.
Kate: You have a good eye. The South Pole (Amundsen-Scot Station) data is missing. That usually fills in the rest on the Antarctic. Check out the Zonal Means plot at the bottom of the link, though. It appears they do give the cool area in the Antarctic some weighting.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2008&month_last=8&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=08&year1=2008&year2=2008&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=pol
When and if they fill in the data, the monthly anomaly for August is sure to change.
Hi Anthony,
OT but it is about Pastor Hansen and his parishioners.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/kingsnorth-trial-breaking-news-verdict-20080910
REPLY: I’ve been aware of this for awhile. I’m thinking about how best to present this story. – Anthony
Bob. From the site “Grahics bug (sic): Occasionally the color for the .5-1C range is replaced by gray”.
2007 was the hottest year on record? Is that what that GISS graph is saying?
How’d this happen, by Hansematic adjusting or is it right that ’07 was the hottest year?
Re; the coal-power ‘campaigners’. It’s been really funny watching what’s been happening in the past few years here in the UK. The Greens hate nuclear power, but by walking into the climate debacle with their eyes shut, they’re going to force it in by the back door! It’s most amusing. We have to generate our electricity somehow of course, and nuclear is emission-free(!). But by these pathetic campaigns the Greens will shoot themselves in both feet. Hilarious!
http://climate.uah.edu/august2008.htm
the opposite temperature anaomalies at both poles is interesting.
Is there a transfer of energy form south to north related to the ocean oscillations and may the anomalies reverse with the reversal of the oscillations ?
(if this happens, we will hear a lot of news about the antarctis, I think)
Apologies for being slightly off topic, but can someone point me to where I can find the different methods used for calculating ‘anomalies’? I got GISS identified above thank you… for GISS it’s, month vs that month average from 1951 to 1980.
Manfred,
Well, it is winter in the Antarctic, summer in the Arctic.
Where is that pesky tropic tropospheric warming tho?
Check out http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+003 i.e. MSU daily temperature trends at 25,000 feet, and add ticks to the boxes for 1999 and 2000 (Back-to-back La Nina). Then repeat for all available higher altitudes.
This is the true cooling. As long as temperatures at higher altitudes continue to be even cooler than in 99/00 the globe overall will arguably be losing more heat than then. Especially if surface temperatures (e.g. shown by GISS, or MSU at lowest altitude) continue to be show higher anomalies than the satellite temperatures at altitude, since heat loss by convection especially will be even faster.
Why the cooling at altitude? Most probably PDO shift coinciding with reduction in solar activity. PDO shift to cool phase means warm anomalies in Pacific shifted away from tropics http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/ This cools the upper atmosphere overall since it is warm anomalies in tropics that have the greatest positive effect on temperatures at altitude – add tick to box for 1998 at 25,000 feet.
Reduction in solar activity means cooling of Stratosphere (via UV reduction) propagating downwards, and possibly more cloudiness via cosmic ray increase.
Things just ain’t what they seem. The Arctic warmth of the last two summer could represent a particularly efficient form of global cooling rather than warming – not just in terms of warmth being siphoned off via the polar atmosphere, but also in terms of vast expanses of open water being left in the autumn to radiate away yet more heat from elsewhere to space.
La Nina could in fact have slowed down global heat loss over the winter, while the warmer surface temperatures over the summer have increased it again. The next La Nina may bring even colder global temperatures, while the next El Nino may represent a further loss of heat from the oceans.
The below-average sea ice in Antarctica in the last month or so despite very cold anomalies may mean that warm currents siphoned towards it have prevented net ice formation……. except that the water carried by the warm currents will no longer be nearly as warm! Hence below-average sea ice can represent a net cooling.
In other words, the more you look into this stuff, the more things get turned on their head……..
What’s with the spike that pops up every 2-3 years? What’s that in sync with?
In Enterprise, Oregon, it continues to be cooler than last year. It is 2:52 PM and it is 10 degrees colder than this time last year. It is also colder than last month but that is to be expected. Looking ahead, I believe September will also come in with a dropping trend globally.
Large areas of the northern US Rockies are having their coldest beginning of September on record.
Montana’s cold September
…BILLINGS…
Period of record 1934-2008
NORMAL AVERAGE HIGH TEMPERATURE 79.1
2008 AVERAGE HIGH TEMPERATURE 63.3
COLDEST ON RECORD
NORMAL AVERAGE LOW TEMPERATURE 51.6
2008 AVERAGE LOW TEMPERATURE 44.2
3RD COLDEST ON RECORD
NORMAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE 65.3
2008 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE 53.8
COLDEST ON RECORD
…SHERIDAN…
Period of record 1934-2008
NORMAL AVERAGE HIGH TEMPERATURE 80.7
2008 AVERAGE HIGH TEMPERATURE 62.6
COLDEST ON RECORD
NORMAL AVERAGE LOW TEMPERATURE 47.4
2008 AVERAGE LOW TEMPERATURE 38.7
2ND COLDEST ON RECORD
NORMAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE 64.1
2008 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE 50.6
COLDEST ON RECORD
Any guess how to how the GISS analysis will adjust for this?