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.)
I have a strange feeling that the 2009 temps will be higher than 2008…
Graeme Rodaughan (20:17:18) : OT – 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.
Hi Graeme, it’s an area that I got interested in. Have a look at my web pages here and here, and at the Forum discussions with Ferdinand Engelbeen and others here and elsewhere. We know that the yearly increase is about half the human emissions. But I don’t think we know for sure how much of the increase is due to us, how much is due to, say, slow ongoing ocean warming recovery from the LIA, and how efficiently the biosphere can sink the CO2 (which I rate highly). What I’m certain of is that the IPCC have been playing fast and loose with the science, that the oceans have a HUGE power to outgas and sink CO2, and that we forget the marine homeostasis involving free Ca radicals ever-ready to turn CO2 into CaCO3 (acidification – humph!).
Anyone interested, don’t go further OT here but post on our forum please!
Keith: The base years for the AHU MSU data are 1979 to 1998, I believe.
The average for the above AHU TLT over the entire term of the data is approx 0.66 deg C, so the present values are not below the average for the past 30 years.
“I have a strange feeling that the 2009 temps will be higher than 2008…”-Alex
Perhaps they will, but I doubt it.
Per UAH, I’ve got 2008 with a +.048 anomaly, putting it 17th out of the last 30, also the coolest year this decade, and suprisingly cooler than 1980 (+.0878) and 1981 (+.053).
It’s the “Force” Alex – listen to the force…
Steve Hempell: I posted a video on my website a few weeks ago that illustrates the reason for the post 1997/98 El Nino warming.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/12/lingering-effects-of-199798-el-nino.html
I borrowed a couple of the graphs from the video to help illustrate what I’m discussing in the following.
El Nino events that aren’t impacted by volcanic eruptions create significant step changes in East Indian Ocean and West Pacific Ocean SST anomalies.
http://i44.tinypic.com/flf42v.jpg
The East Indian and West Pacific Oceans don’t react significantly to the La Nina that follows.
http://i42.tinypic.com/zmidg3.jpg
They slowly lose that extra heat as some of it accumulates in the Pacific Warm Pool (to depths of approximately 300 meters), which removes it from the surface temperature record. The East Indian Ocean and West Pacific Ocean also lose heat through mixing with the other oceans.
http://i43.tinypic.com/6til42.jpg
The mixing raises the SST anomalies of the East Pacific, Atlantic, and West Indian Oceans, so that there is an overall rise in global SST anomalies that takes a few years to show up. If the next El Nino event occurs before all of the heat from the prior El Nino has dissipated, the process starts again but at the higher global SST. And if global SST anomalies have risen, global LST anomalies rise as well.
http://i43.tinypic.com/14n1mo8.jpg
I guess I need to clarify those points in a follow-up post. It also shows up in the data for the 1986/87/88 El Nino. Refer to the last graph above. And going back a few years, it should also appear after the 1976/77/78 El Nino. This and the two significant volcanic eruptions should then explain why there are the three upward steps in global temperature anomalies since 1975.
Good, now I’ve got a task for the next few days.
My projection was as follows:
UAH: +0.25°C (actual: 0.180)
RSS: +0.28°C (actual: 0.174 )
GISS: +0.51°C
HadCRU: +0.47°C
NCDC: +0.57°C
(0.2°C simply added to Tom Woods’ ).
And I expect my GISS and HadCrut numbers to be too low.
Heard on the Bloomberg today that the airports in Milan were closed for snow. They only report this kind of thing if it is unusual…
Anyone know what the normal snow is for Milan?
Graeme Rodaughan (20:17:18) :
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.
This is being batted about toward the bottom of
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/03/4000-year-o18-histories-of-new-zealands-north-and-south-islands/
Though my response is still in the moderators queue. FWIW, I don’t think it is possible to make such an attribution to MM vs nature. There are too many unknowns.
It’s all based on a presumed C12:C13 ratio in plants vs the air (and the assumption that fossil fuels are ancient plants). This fails on several counts not the least of which is that the ratio in various coals, oils, and natural gas all vary and that bacterial source ratios vary. With everything moving and lots of unknowns (What is the ratio in smokers on the ocean floor?) it looks to me like any attribution will be more arm waving than fact.
See: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070611/cockburn
He also points out the large number of plant sources that are not from fossil fuels and could be getting into the air, like, oh, soils. And I’d ask does anyone really know how much clathrate out gasses on the ocean floor? How much natural gas is eaten by bacteria? etc.
I’m sure folks can make up numbers that sound good, but I’m also sure there is no way they can be shown to be right.
What, no hat tip to Steve Berry?
REPLY: Hi Steve, I’m truly sorry if you felt slighted. When some new info becomes available, I often get notice from many different channels; here in comments, emails, sometimes phone calls. In this case I had such a flurry of notices all within an hour and picking the h/t winner was tough since I lost track of who/when by the time I left my office and went home, where I wrote the post.
So to everybody who contributed the tip, “thank you”.
But please, keep up letting me know. When I can clearly pick a hat tip winner be assured I’ll always make a note here. – Anthony
Oooh! And this one covers the trouble with ratios too:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/
Mark, Alex
I agree with both of you. My gut feeling is that 2009 will be warmer than 2008. I think the current ENSO shift to La Nina will be short lived, and ENSO will return too neutral by late Spring and we will see a weak, short lived El Nino beginning in the autumn of 2009. One thing that could work against an Pacific El Nino is a shift in the AMO. Despite fairly warm Atlantic waters, Northwest Europe has suffered through bouts of cold wet weather in 2 of the last 3 years. This could be an indication of a return to an NAO driven climate pattern for Northwest Europe. The positive AMO has driven much of the very warm climate Europe has seen since 1995.
Overall, I think 2009 will be slightly warmer than 2008, but a cold PDO will continue to slowly drive NH temps downward over time.
Any chance of getting all four main temperatures shown with a trend line for the past ten years? A lot of people made a big deal out of 1998 being included last year so I’ll like to see the trends based on a start date of 1999.
Patrick Henry: You may be having a Chinook along the Front Range, but the AGW Schnooks are still at your former hang out.
The update of RSS, GISS gives present length of stagnation in temperatures:
GISS: 8 years 0 mth (since jan 2001)
RSS: 11 year 11 mth (Since feb 1997)
Graphic:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/temp08.gif
SOLAR CYCLE 24 – Hathaway, new interesting correction, sorry if others has mentioned it:
Hathaways predicted max, oct 2008: 137
Hathaways predicted max, jan 2009: 104
– A decrease in expectaion for solar cycle 24 of 30 % ! By the scientist who most of all scientist expected rather powerful solar cycle 24.
Graphic:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/s24correction.gif
Keith (21:04:41) :
There’s no one temperature that represents the 0 line. Every month has its own mean for calculating the anomaly. As it stands, the base 1979-1998 (20 years). It would be nice if they would change it now to a 30 year base, now that 30 years of data are available, since that the climatological norm.
Basil (06:58:32) “There’s no one temperature that represents the 0 line.”
But Basil, there has to be a base temperature. That 0 line represents 0.00 degrees difference from the baseline, as this is an anomaly graph. If they are recalculating the baseline average each month, don’t even worry about putting a zero line there, just give us the raw data number. Somewhere, there is a baseline average that is being used. I’m asking if it is now time to recompute that baseline based upon 30 years of available data compiled using the same metric? Also, with a recomputed baseline, are we currently warmer or colder than average?
It is pretty cold in Alaska right now (below normal):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090108/ap_on_re_us/alaska_extreme_cold
Lucy Skywalker,
I don’t find it very plausible that half of our emissions end up inte atmospere. All our emissions end up in the atmosphere and the biosphere takes up an amount that is currently half of our emissions. There is an important difference: the take-up rate seems to be fairly well proportional to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Hence, if we would cut down emissions in a few decades – which is very likely as alternatives fuel becomes economically viable – the more than half of our emissions will be eaten up by the biosphere.
Johnnyb (02:43:47) :
“I have a strange feeling that the 2009 temps will be higher than 2008…”-Alex
Perhaps they will, but I doubt it.
One of these guys is spot on. 🙂
My prediction (FWIW) is that temps will fall until may, then recover a bit, then fall again from september. Sharply.
Pete (05:31:37) :
Any chance of getting all four main temperatures shown with a trend line for the past ten years? A lot of people made a big deal out of 1998 being included last year so I’ll like to see the trends based on a start date of 1999.
Here you go.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1999/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1999/plot/uah/from:1999/plot/rss/from:1999/plot/wti/from:1999/trend
Including the hansen/Jones effect, looks like a rise of ~0.065C over the dacade.
Global temperatures were a lot colder this time last year
RSS 2007 2008
Nov. 0.131 0.216
Dec. 0.096 0.174
Unless this downward trend established in December continues for several months it looks like 2009 will be warmer than 2008. It is difficult to believe with no sunspots and the negative PDO
You also need to take into account the almighty rebound downwards following the big ’98 spike. The negative forcing was probably mostly cloud related albedo change, though others will want to weigh in on that I would think.
I have a feeling that they will be higher or lower or the same. And I predict that “global mean temperature” will still be a meaningless metric.