RSS for November is out, up slightly

Hmmm.. very interesting, Perhaps I was right about the probability of 2008 being a mere blip, similar to earlier 1990s dips… but with La Niña coming back with a vengeance only time will tell!

The plot apparently omits the 0.241 C value for September. Or did that change during the v3.1 to v3.2 corrections?

Looks to me like the Southern Hemisphere warmed a little and the Northern Hemisphere cooled. The region between the -70 and -60 seems to have seen the most increase from the nominal.

anyone know why the link to RSS that i have been using for months doesn’t seem to have been updated since september data was updated in October? i am still waiting for the October data:
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_1.txt
is there a better link that i am not aware of?

As with Anthony’s La Nina post, the data have peaked and are poised for a drop. Perrhaps less impressively than winter 2007/2008.
QED, the ocean remix flushing the heat available to the surface is complete and an atmospheric capitulation appears some few weeks ahead.

“Time will tell”/Flannagan
Why don’t we do some real science while we’re waiting? Instead of going full bore ahead with an alleged cure to an alleged disease which can’t possibly work as administered – leaving countries containing 5 billion of the Earth’s 6.5 billion people out of it’s scope – and whose side effects are easily seen to be a real disaster.

Following on from your post a couple of month ago titeled: Ireland has 30 year cold event, plus coldest September in 14 years.
Well for October you could say: first month with below normal mean temperatures at all stations since October 2004, and it was the coldest October for 15 years in the east of the country.
And for November:Dublin Airport had its coldest November day since records began there in 1941 and lowest November ground temperatures at many stations for between 12 and 23 years recorded between the 28th and 30th.
Source: http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-summary.asp

So Anthony, just looking at the RSS plot, it is suspiciously like the last UAH I have seen.
It would be nice to see this updated RSS, and UAH on top of each other again.
That four layer plot you gave us a while back, with the Sat gurus, and the Owl box gurus all together, was very instructive.
Either these up and down steps are just noise or else they are real signal, and if they are real signal, then cooling is cooling. next month’s anomaly starts form this month’s temperature; not from the datum. The fact that it is up a bit is (presumably) very real but it is also true that it isa down from 1998 and also form 2007.
There is no mystery to the fact that some of the highest temperatures tend to occur around the maximum, just as some of the highest altitudes on earth tend to occur up in the mountains.

The slight warming for November makes sense if increased atmospheric moisture is slowing the cooling of the Northern Hemisphere. December should be slightly cooler, and January – February should take a dive. Patience.

The slight warming for November makes sense if increased atmospheric moisture is slowing the cooling of the Northern Hemisphere. December should be slightly cooler, and January – February should take a dive. Patience.
Increased atmospheric moisture? from where? Have I missed something? I don’t get it. We’re in a deep solar minimum that, according to what we’ve been reading on this blog for the last 12 months or so, is a precursor to the next mini ice age. We’ve also just emerged from a strongish, if fairly short-lived, La Nina yet over in Russia Moscovites are enjoying early morning coffee on the patio. That certainly is unprecedented.
“December should be slightly cooler” – should it? well it’s not made a very good start. Siberia is enjoying a ‘heatwave’, Africa is warmer than normal and S. America has long got over it’s chill from last year. Despite the solar minimum and current ENSO status, global temperatures are still higher than they were during the last major La Nina period (1998-2001).
Apparently, though, we now need “patience” because global temperatures are going to thake a dive in January and February. Why? Ok – it’s possible another moderate La Nina may develop but SST anomalies in NINO regions have been generally negative for the whole of the past year .

John Finn
Are you sure about that?? I live in South Africa, which although being a large country (doesn’t include the whole of Africa),, but still this year we have recored the coldest winter, record snow on the Spring Solstice of sept 21 (in places that have never seen snow since around 1890s) and currently we have NO physical summer, we have had constant rain since about April, temperatures which should be reaching 37degrees celcius today are, now as I type, hovering around 18 degrees. This weather is NOT warmer than normal. Locals are complaining about the excess rain and there has been flooding all along the coast.
Oh good grief.. Flanagan is “attacking” this blog as well…Denny and Conga are having a huge battle with him on globalwarminghoax.com!
I agree with some comments and anticipate Jan to June 09 measurements

I know anecdotal evidence is no evidence at all, but this is the coldest November/December I’ve experienced here in the UK for quite some time. There’s no way in hell this November was warmer than last!

Well, if you watch the maps you could have seen a bubble of warmth coming up from the Sahara region over Greece ( rains are muddy from the desert dust) and the Balkans and Turkey , into Russia. That is why the temperature for Europe is not showing the cold you all are anecdotaly reporting.
Speaking of anecdotes:
Our temperatures are mostly mild and over the expected for this time of the year, but not too unusual. In my over 50 years of following weather I have seen it as warm and warmer in December. There was one december way back when I was young when all the fruit trees thought it was spring and they blossomed. It has not happened yet and it may not, since the reports are for cooling after the middle of next week. ( cold in Attica is around and below 10C, cloudy and 18C at the moment).
Our problem is that for a year now not enough rain is falling. The clouds are very jealous and do not let go of the water. My anecdotal observation is that this happens when there are not enough electric storms. The storms that come with thunder and lightning are the ones that give us plenty of water ( and a leak from my vacation cottage roof 🙂 ). It is over a year now that my roof has not leaked :).
I do not remember the last time the weather was like this. It might have been during the previous sunspot minimum, anyway, some time ago .

“Yep. Been watching the SOI go more and more positive since August. Not a surprise…”
But as of today, 6 December, the 90 day running mean is actually lower, i.e. less Nina-ish, than it was at the beginning of November; the 30-day mean is virtually unchanged. Of course, ENSO events tend to strengthen during northern hemisphere winters.
Forgive me, but I am asking Santa Claus for a neutral ENSO in 3,4, since Ninas tend to produce bland winters hereabouts.

“Also what about Canada that seems to be pretty toasty at the moment.”
Well, that is about to change, if Environment Canada’s ten-day projection of anomalies pans out. Most of Canada east of the Rockies shows a standard deviation of -1, with a large core of -2 centered over Manitoba.

It isn’t that toasty here in Ontario Canada. The temp is -9 C and snowing in Hamilton at the moment

Canada is toasty? See Anthony’s map from above right:
MB
“toasty” is a relative term. You need to check out the proper scientific definition 🙂
Dan Gibson
Northern New England temps have been around average-but no where near the temps of the last negative PDO. So my serious question is-if we are in negative PDO, and solar minimum-when does the temp anomaly go negative?
The answer to your question is in “a few months”. A few months ago the answer was also “a few months” and in a few months time the answer will still be in “a few months”. So you can see there is no inconsistency here .
To be serious though, the effects of the sun on climate are unknown and are not likely to have much of an effect anyway (~0.1 deg at most) over the short term . No-one seems really sure if the PDO switch is a long-term event similar to those in the 1940s and 1970s or a much shorter event similar to the La Nina dominated interlude in 1998-2001, so the hype about that could easily fizzle out by the end of next year.
We’ve just had a La Nina – we might get another one. We haven’t had one for a while so this has created a bit of excitement – not least because it’s resulted in the first drop in temperatures for about 9 years. But as you (Dan) have probably noticed this doesn’t look to be a sustained drop and now that ENSO has returned to a neutral state both tropospheric and surface temperatures have rebounded to levels which are above the long term average. This won’t, of course, stop speculation about what the Sun’s doing, how many spotless days we’ve had or how many cosmic rays are entering the earth’s atmosphere. This would be all well and good if this new found interest in solar physics had any chance of being maintained. But I strongly suspect that when it becomes evident that the next LIA is not just around the corner, followers of the various solar theories will be deserting in their droves.
When do we see temps approach those that we saw in the 60’s?
We probably won’t.

I doubt that you can call the sun to “not likely to have effect” because without the sun we would be frozen solid, so to merely brush it past as irrelevant is rather careless. The fact is that the sun is the primary energy giver on earth, the trouble is HOW and WHERE that energy is distributed. It is not all direct, but the sun has both direct and indirect consquences and is the primary driver of climate ALTHOUGH it cannot be said that because the sun is quiet today it will mean that tomorrow it will be cold, it does however mean that various other forcings will now shift in away that could promote or restrict cooling.
ENSO is influenced by many factors, and so is the earth’s temperature… there are so many forcings on the climate it is impossible to fully understand what will happen or to predict exactly what the anomaly will be. Just because the anomaly is not yet negative does not mean that the sun has no effect. The oceans are still holding heat from the global warming that has been ocurring since 1800s so we can’t just flip into an ice age overnight, and the minimum we are having now is nothing really compared with the solar minimum during the maunder minimum.
Past records have shown PDO phases are 30 to 40 years and the warm phase began in 78 and ended this year so it is highly likely that the pattern will continue and PDO will be negative until about 2038. Although this contributes to cooling we cannot say ‘Oh well now we will have global cooling for 30 years and the anomalies should drop in a few months.’ PDO is not the only factor influencing climate so the discussion as to when or even if the temp anomaly will be negative is rather pointless to say the least.

Anna V
When I say “we” I am referring to those who are, broadly speaking, in my peer group rather than the human species, in general.
In your post, you say
An interesting and relevant curve, if you believe in the CO2 spectre
I don’t. I don’t believe there is an explanation for the 1915-1944 warming and I don’t believe there is an explanation for the post-1945 cooling. The latter can’t be due to an increase in aerosols because of the pattern of cooling. Aerosols are short lived in the atmosphere. The effect of aerosols, therefore, is “regionally specific” (See Mann & Jones 2000) . In other words the climatic effect of aerosols is greatest near the source of the aerosols. The GISS temperature record shows that the Arctic regions (64N-90N) cooled at 3 or 4 times the rate of the mid-latitude regions (i.e. the industrialised regions).
The oceans seem to hold the key which leads me on to Alex’s post.
Alex
I, more or less, agree with most of what you’ve written mainly because you highlight the huge uncertainties in what we know. But I have problems with your final paragraph, i.e.
Past records have shown PDO phases are 30 to 40 years
What past records? All we know is that there have been 2 or 3 PDO shifts over the past 100 years. Is this a recurring pattern? possibly but are you really prepared to extrapolate future trends on the basis of 2 or 3 data points.
You also say
and the warm phase began in 78 and ended this year so it is highly likely that the pattern will continue and PDO will be negative until about 2038.
No. There have been times when the PDO index has slipped into negative territory before but this has subsequently turned out to be a temporary state. It’s quite possible, or even probable, that the current shift falls into that category.
Although this contributes to cooling we cannot say ‘Oh well now we will have global cooling for 30 years and the anomalies should drop in a few months.’ PDO is not the only factor influencing climate so the discussion as to when or even if the temp anomaly will be negative is rather pointless to say the least.
1. Yes there are other factors but according to most of the posters on this blog those factors (e.g solar activity) also point to further cooling.
2. From the “past records” the cooling/warming became evident within a very short time, so lower anomalies should kick in pretty quickly.

we have 2-3 feet of snow here that we should have received at the END of December, not at the beginning. we are in trouble! our state is near bankrupt, no money for snow removal. we can get 30 feet of snow ! this anomaly of .1 or .2 is just the beginning of November that was warmer do to the arctic giving up its heat while freezing. they can not explain away 2-6 weeks of early excessive colder than normal weather! How can the UK receive 5 inches of snow and australa (down under lol), south Africa, Antarctica, North America all report colder than normal temperatures and still we get this it is not cooling the co2 has us warmer BS going on? what will it take for these fools to wake up?
ohh myyy my my

Anthony,
Have a look at Dr Roy Spencer’s website where he states that the November 2008 UAH global temperature anomoly is +0.25 degree C. His 4th order polynomial smoothing curve still shows a downward trend.
Thank you very much for all your hard work on running your website.
Very best wishes,
Mike

Dennis, if only we HAD global data. Unfortunately, the most widely cited temperature sets are not data, they are massaged pasteurized processed data product ….
What about RSS and UAH data? RSS is up; UAH is almost certainly up yet everyone carries on citing anecdotal evidence of cooling and blaming faulty GISS data for not showing it. Global temperatures are recovering (since last Dec/Jan) and they will continue to recover unless a substantial La Nina emerges.

John Finn:
“What about RSS and UAH data? RSS is up; UAH is almost certainly up yet everyone carries on citing anecdotal evidence of cooling and blaming faulty GISS data for not showing it.”
So this is part of the problem. “Up” from what? Where was it before?
GISS was shown awhile ago here on WUWT to have adjusted historical temperatures downward. How does that happen? How can we say that in Lincoln, Maine it really wasn’t 48degF on Sept 12th, 1918…it was really only 40degF?
That’s part 1.
Part 2 is ok, let’s say it’s going up. No one has been able to prove that C02 is the cause…in fact, there’s fairly significant evidence that it’s NOT the cause.
And, if it’s not the cause, then why are we preparing to tax the bejeezus out of anyone that farts?
The best the IPCC seemed capable of coming up with was “We can’t prove anything ELSE did it, so it’s C02”.
JimB (the “B” is for “Beano”)

John Finn
I have my doubts about warm Russia. I know that’s the story in the news but I often check weather at a couple of widely spaced places in Siberia for personal reasons; and it looks to me that the people who live there have missed this wonderful warm fall. some places may be a couple degrees warmer than average but others have been very cold. My guess is they just found a new way to fudge the data. Balmy -53 in Yakutsk right now. Imagine what it’s like in the far north… think I’ll buy a beach house.

WA
RE: previous 2 posts
My argument isn’t that it’s partcularly warm, or that it’s warmng at a particularly alaming rate. My argument is that it’s NOT cooling. There have been a whole host of posts on this and other blogs claiming that , because of quiet sun, PDO or whatever, we’re heading into a deep freeze. The lower temperatures of the past 12 months were presented as evidence that this cooling was now underway. I had always maintained that temperatures were simply tracking the recent La Nina and now that has faded temperatures are returning to recent ‘normal’ levels.
On the issue of Russia. Much of central Russia was ‘warmer’ than during November. Since the end of November, the ‘warmth’ has become less widespread and a cold area (anomaly wise) appears to have developed over northern Russia/Siberia.