RSS Data Source is here
The RSS (Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA) Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) lower troposphere global temperature anomaly data for January 2009 was published yesterday and has risen significantly. This is the new data version, 3.2 which changed in October. The change from December with a value of 0.174°C to January’s 0.322°C is a (∆T) of +0.148°C.
RSS
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3 0.079
2008 4 0.080
2008 5 -0.083
2008 6 0.035
2008 7 0.147
2008 8 0.146
2008 9 0.241 (V3.1)
2008 10 0.181 (V3.2)
2008 11 0.216 (V3.2)
2008 12 0.174 (V3.2)
2009 01 0.322 (V3.2)
I hope everyone commenting will stop using weather and climate interchangeably. It only confuses the issues.
Yes, the biggest change is in 60-82,5
Well, the cold arctic air that moved towards in US and western Europe had to be replaced by mild air…
Let’s see in June.
Even if I did not really like Archibald’s forcasting method (in a paper posted on icecap few weeks ago), I also think 2009 will not be a global warming year.
Our new energy secretary says global warming may destroy California agriculture.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-warming4-2009feb04,0,7454963.story
Inquirer: this UAH link shows near surface temps:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
Well, if they say it is. It must be right then, being a satellite an’ all.
Just seemed to me that Jan 08 was warmer than 09 in my neck of the woods, I’m in the SH tropics and it rained just about every day in January. Just suprised that it is th’ other way ’round everywhere else, is all.
Jan08 Rainfall=399mm mean min 24.3C mean max 32.2C mean RH=71%
Jan09 Rainfall+882mm mean min 24.1C mean max 30.9C mean RH+77%
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/200901/html/IDCJDW4024.200901.shtml
Tricky stuff this climate.
DAV,
Which DC were you living in? I live near DC right outside the beltway in VA and Jan was about as cold overall as I’ve ever seen it since the 70s. True, Superbowl Sunday was warm (and was actually in February, but why quibble), but the entire month before was on average about 6-8 F BELOW the long term average of 44 for my zip code. In no way could I describe overall temps in January as ‘mild’, we had multiple days where the high temp did not breach 30 (14 degrees below ‘normal’).
As mentioned earlier this does look a lot like january 2007. From that point temps crashed … yeah, that’s a few tenths ;).
The southwestern US, where I’m at, has been quite warm for most of Jan. This is not atypical winter “weather” where a ridge builds up of the west and a trough over the east. That’s why the overall number is very close to average.
It’s most likely going to be many years before anyone can say anything useful about how this years data fits into the overall picture.
Looking over that graph, it’s rather hard not to notice what usually happens after a lone spike.
Brace yourselves. This is going to be a bad one, and it’s not going to be tee shirts and flip-flop weather.
So it went from incredibly dangerously cold to incredibly cold.
Wow.
Call Lovelock, and ask him for his suicide potion. It is time for humanity to call it a day.
Warmer?
I think I will wait for Steve Mcintyre to sort this out.
Certainly caused by that tiny sunspot in January, as would a decrease in temps be hailed as caused by the lack of a sunspot, had it not been there.
Not that unexpected, since it seem that the ocean temps appear to have been above average for some time. Global sea temperature anomaly: http://earth.rice.edu/mtpe/hydro/hydrosphere/latest/avhrr_sst/avhrr_ssta.html. Does anyone know of a better site to get ocean temps?
alf
MIke:
“Perhaps this is the result of the rather large SSW that occurred in Jan.??”
I think so – here is a cross section of the atmosphere from 65 to 90 degrees North
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.ao.cdas.gif
all the red on the right is the recent (record) SSW, the y scale is pressure (altitude)
So heating over the pole for sure, but remember a SSW, particularly a Major one, causes the Artic Oscillation to turn negative which it has done recently
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.shtml
and when the Artic Oscillation turns negative – there are major cold outbreaks into the mid-latitudes – Western Europe and North America. Looks like Europe got their cold pretty quickly, and eastern North America has experiencing it currently (Artic air down into Florida).
In a nutshell……weather is interesting
Dave (08:23:51) :
… Where in the world has all the warming occurred?
This Japanese site maps anomalies on a weekly basis, giving a good idea of it. Select ‘Element – Temperature anomaly’, then select various weeks –
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop.html
You can see that there are many areas that have had notable positive anomalies for various periods during the month. It gives a nice illustration of the variability of one region against another!
We have seen similar monthly moves in the past, both up and down in direction. Still better to keep an eye on longer term trends. The North American temperatures are not in the NCDC database yet, by the way.
For those interested in SSWs – there is a neat 30-day animation of the recent SSW here
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp10anim.shtml
This is temperatures at 10 mb (up in the Stratosphere – well above where most “weather” occurs
Not just the intensity, but the coverage of this event (over the pole) is impressive.
I too have my doubts, the USA being an average of +1.0 above normal for January? not above last year but above mean? According to NSP we averaged 11 degrees lower than last year and last year was below the last several. while that is not a huge area it is way to big for the average overall to be +1 unless the average in a very large area is > +10. Believe me I wish January was 1 degree above average I’d have a couple hundred extra bucks in my pocket.
Of course the error one would expect from siting issues alone would be at least +1 in the US if we were talking about surface readings.
i just keep watching the “GLARINGLY BLANK” orange circle on the right side of this page……hmmm….
Leif,
Actually it was do to the Bz spike to the south causing the aurora to spike in the high latitudes. LOL
realitycheck, your SSW chart was very informative.
Since this has been accurately accounted for in the GCMs … what? There’s nothing in the GCMs? It’s a phenomenon that no one understands fully? Settled sicence?
Same animation as realitycheck linked to above for 10 hpa (lower stratosphere) except for this animation, it is the 200 ha (middle-top of the troposphere).
This is just at the top of (maybe actually just above) where the RSS lower troposphere temps come from.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z200anim.shtml
Note that this Sudden Stratospheric Warming event is the biggest ever recorded. Temperatures from 65N to 90N have been the highest ever recorded (beating even the summer records) from 5 hpa down to at least 70 hpa.
The effects of the event depend on whether the additional heat migrates downward to the surface or whether it just leaks out to space. And then it depends on whether it can migrate down to the middle latittudes where most of us live. Sometimes these events produce warming at the pole but very cold conditions in the middle latitudes 2 weeks to 8 weeks after the initial event.
Globally, Jan and Fed are the warmest months of the year, presumably because the earth is closest to the sun then. These are UAH numbers for the average monthly anomaly from 1979 to now:
Mon Anomaly
1 0.095
2 0.099
3 0.080
4 0.069
5 0.037
6 0.025
7 0.038
8 0.044
9 0.068
10 0.077
11 0.082
12 0.063
the change isn t very relevant.
but it might seem so, if one made (or somehow got stuck with people who did) the claim, that “100 years of warming have been erased in 12 months” some months ago.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/05/
looks like those months brought the (erased) warming back…
REPLY: You know “sod” that really disingenuous of you. I made no such claim, and if you weren’t so fixated on playing snark, you’ d note that I asked for a got corrections to statements attributed to me I never made. But what should I expect from someone who vehemently doubted the government plan in Iraq for the “surge” but takes global warming and climate change data from the same government without so much as a question.
– Anthony
If you’ll look over the graph you’ll find numerous examples of temperatures dropping, bottoming out and then around january (you have to think of it as a seasonal thing), spiking backup. It’s often the peak (or near it) until the next winter season spike. It even shows up during the infamous 1998 spike. Looking at past behavior I would expect it to drop off by .1C to .2C.
Must be warm somewhere else in the world. I live in Southern PA, about 30 miles north of Baltimore. My January heating bill just arrived and the average temperature was listed as 27.3F vs 33.9F last January. That matches my perception that it has been pretty cold here this winter compared to last year.