Although the webserver file for the UAH dataset has not been updated yet, the man who is “in the know” because he’s a major part of the process has released the December UAH global lower troposphere temperature anomaly value. It is 0.18°C down from .254°C the previous month.
2008 10 0.166
2008 11 0.254
2008 12 0.180
Here is what Dr. Spencer had to say on his website today:
Latest Global Average Tropospheric Temperatures
Since 1979, NOAA satellites have been carrying instruments which measure the natural microwave thermal emissions from oxygen in the atmosphere. The signals that these microwave radiometers measure at different microwave frequencies are directly proportional to the temperature of different, deep layers of the atmosphere. Every month, John Christy and I update global temperature datasets that represent the piecing together of the temperature data from a total of eleven instruments flying on eleven different satellites over the years. As of 2008, our most stable instrument for this monitoring is the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite.
The graph above represents the latest update; updates are usually made within the first week of every month. The smooth curve in the graph is a fourth-order polynomial fit to the data, which smooths out the large amount of monthly variability in the data and helps reveal the underlying ‘trends’. (There is no claim that this curve has any predictive power for the coming months or years.)
We are having a wicked Chinook along the Front Range today, with 60MPH winds and a massive fire in Boulder which has forced the evacuation of 11,000 homes. The fire started when a power transformer blew over.
Record high temperatures and rain today in Spokane. All that rain is going to make a supreme mess out of all that snow that had accumulated. Seattle is calling for floods until Friday. They set a record for most rain on this date.
We are over our Chinooks. For now. Twisted my satellite dish all to hell! Several country roads are still closed because entire wheat fields emptied their snow cover onto roads in big drifts. Now we are just trying to keep our feet dry while the rivers overflow. Who knows what January will bring yet. This is some strange stuff! Been watching the jet stream and wind patterns. The models give a pretty good idea of where it will blow next along with cold and warm fronts. This kind of weather sets us up for one storm after another seesawing between frozen snow and warm rain with high pressure/low pressure blows in-between them. With all the rain coming after HEAVY snow, the snow pack water equivalent is a higher over-percentage (yep it is plus 100 %) of normal than the snow pack is in nearly every snow basin that feeds into or is in Oregon. The little river that flows through Pendleton is flooding for godsake. Now that is a once in a lifetime event.
Who ever heard of a little pissant river that flows through high desert flooding in January?!?!?!?!?
A thought about the last month of weather. While you’all up north were having frigid temps we were having above normal temps down my way. Almost as if the southern jet moving across the south had bottled up the cold air in place, compacting it amplifing the effects. Now that the southern jet has moved south past my location, it seems that the trapped cold air is spreading out which allows it to warm, hence your modifying temps up their.
Just on observation.
Seems the dataset doesn’t actually have Dec ’08 in it yet.
Oh I am feeling my oats tonight! Just waiting for some nice young environmentally conscious man to sooth my fretted brow because flooding is to be expected in global warming.
correction on last word, “there”. Yes I know the difference, mind is wandering abit as this is the first night that Florida has PowerBall plus thinking about the big game tomorrow against the Sooners. Go Gators. FWIW, I do think Utah should get the National Championship at 13-0!
OT.
(please help I’m curious).
Could someone please point me to a viable description of the following points.
1. The component of the yearly increase of atmospheric CO2 that can reliably be attributed to man made emissions.
2. The component of the current atmospheric CO2 that can reliably be attributed to man made emissions.
Thanks.
Patrick Henry (18:22:21) Hope things settle down for you guys, I have a son in Longmont. The high pressure system that gave you the wind, at 6600 ft gave me a foot of snow in the Roaring Fork Valley. The strangest thing to get so much snow without a low pressure system, the north side of the high pushed the moisture stream from the north against the mountains, and it dumped. The valley is 140% of normal for snow pack, with a range of 133-158%. I’ll be interested to see what March and April bring when it really snows.
humph. Sunny and 65 in Dallas today. What’s the problem?
I think that number is a bit premature. On his website Dr. Spencer has the data truncated (not rounded off) to two decimal points compared to the source I use http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2 that includes three digits. I think this is your usual source as well. So I expect it to be between +0.18 and +0.189.
Regardless it makes 2008 a very average year not one of the hottest ever.
You look at that graph and realize all this hysteria is over a 0.2-0.3 C rise in temps over 30 years.
Can’t wait to see what the January numbers look like. The way the jet stream’s been setting up, I was getting a feeling that it was going to get mighty cold here in the lower 48 soon. Looks like my hunch was right. Just heard from the local weather forecast tonight that the forecast for next week is for some of the coldest temps of the winter; might even see highs in the single digits {Western NY}. Even looking at possible series of storms riding the jet stream, setting up a string of lake effect events. Looks like the Arctic air conditioner is working just fine.
Has anyone ever looked at the satellite data pre and post the 1998 El Nino by “area” or transit or whatever? Just for fun I looked at the data from the start to and including Nov 1997 and from including Nov 1998 to present. These were arbitrary points that seemed to me to perhaps be the approx start and finish of the El Nino as indicated by the satellite data. (not cherry picking to make a point)
Couple of things that seemed interesting;
RSS Post El Nino – All “areas” are still showing an increasing trend except -70/-20 and the Continental USA which showed a whopping -4.56 Deg C / century!!
60/82.5 showed what everyone knows a +5.4 Deg C / century and
-70/-60 showed a +1.54 Deg C /Century although it was a -0.24 Deg C/Cent Pre the El Nino
UAH Post El Nino shows all “areas” with a positive trend post El Nino except for the USA 48 which was a -3.6 Deg C/Cent. UAH NoPol was +4.44 Post El Nino and 1.56 Pre (4.44 overall !!)
UAH southern “areas” were all negative pre El Nino.
Hmmmm
I posted these questions on the RSS thread, and no one posited an answer. I think they are valid here as well, so I brought them over.
This is an anomaly chart, so what is the temperature used as the base line 0? Also, as this is a thirty year period of temperature measurement, what is the average median temperature that is available from this total data set? Could not this average median temperature now be used as the zero line to determine the anomaly listing for the chart? If the zero is reset to the average median for this thirty year period, where do we currently lie temperature-wise, above or below average?
I have a question related to the UAH lower troposphere data. When I look at the far right column I believe that’s the number of days in the yearly average. How come those numbers are always 365 – shouldn’t it currently be 366 since we’re in a leap year?
Hot air in Texas? Oh Mark I could say something but I will control my feistier side for AGW debate.
mark wagner (20:24:38) :
Dude, you’ve had two ice storms already and will likely have another hard freeze on Saturday (watch those pipes)! Maybe that’s normal for Dallas…
Snow here in Houston and icy bridges in December isn’t normal. It’s artic system, pacific system, artic system, pacific system with a smattering of warm up from the gulf. Lots of clouds – no sun (‘cept today/tomorrow finally). Enjoy it while u can.
Pamela Gray (19:17:09) :
‘Oh I am feeling my oats tonight! Just waiting for some nice young environmentally conscious man to sooth my fretted brow because flooding is to be expected in global warming.’
Darn, that leaves me out, I’m 60.
Now that was clearly articulated. I imagine the Arctic has some cause and effect here as well as :>).
damn send button…”as well as ;>) good articulation.”
Pamela Gray (21:07:02) :
Hot air in Texas? Oh Mark I could say something but I will control my feistier side for AGW debate.
As well you should. My current zip code ,77339, is for Humble, TX.
prediction = 2009 will be extremely cooler than 2008. Lets wait and see
The 4th order polynomial is a troublesome line. I just don’t like it, as pure data mining and especially with some conditional knowledge. What I see is a cyclic (sinusoidal) pattern with a frequency that varies from 3.5 to 4.5 years and with an amplitude of about 0.6 degrees C. The El Nino year 1998 is an anomaly. Otherwise the trend for 30 years has been upward at about 0.1 degrees per decade. Of course, during all that time we have been in a positive PDO. In roughly 2007 the PDO shifted to negative. It’s difficult to see it in the graph, but I suspect we doglegged about then, and the trend will be downward for the next 30 years. I can’t tell if the 3.5 to 4.5 year cycle disappeared or not; it certainly seems less pronounced this century.
This particular record does support the case that marginal warming has occurred over the last 30 years, up until 2007. The skeptic refrain that the globe has cooled over the last ten years is not strictly true, especially if 1998 is considered anomalous. This year should be very telling. If the patterns of the previous 30 years hold, 2009 should be warmer, with departures approaching +0.4 and above. If, on the other hand, 2009 departures drop to the 0.0 or even +0.1 level, that would indicate a major shift away from previous trends.
btw, if I had any say in the matter, I would choose the globe to be warmer, because I like warmer better. I suspect I am going to be disappointed in that.