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)
So indeed there must be some places on the Earth that were significantly warmer than average .
And this time it is sure , it is not Siberia because the exceptionnal cold in Europe was offered us courtesy a high pressure by Denmark that channeled the Siberian air right to the whole of western Europe .
I’n not sure of the logic behind this argument. Even if Siberia was anomalously it would still be a good deal colder than Western Europe, so any weather which comes from Siberia would produce very cold weather in the UK and France. In fact there is an argument that given the current atmospheric conditions the UK should be much colder than it is currently. And I have to say, compared with 1963 and other similar winters, it’s still not that cold.
Correction: in previous post 2nd sentence should read “anomalously warm”
Funny how we all jump on monthly data points. Today’s data will be harped by side AGW, tomorrow’s by Side SKEPTIC.
Can we bring it back to a worthy discussion. What about discussing the concept of temperature. If my thermo introduction is correct it is an indirect measure of heat content.
OK, given that step back and look at big picture:
Sun is source of heat.
ICE Ages: they come and go.
This means relative heat of earth goes up and down
The only explanation for pre inductrial variation is what?
DUH!!!
Sven (03:02:54) :
AMSU has stopped declining and is going up again. Though too early to tell, of course, but it might predict a warm year again
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
The ‘near surface layer’ has a global mean temperature of -15.5 C. Please give me some global warming.
realityCheck:
On this RSS data point for January, I am tired of the discussion on the significance of this here. This spike has as much signficance as the 10 year cooling trend before it or the 50 year warming trend before that. NONE
I was hoping the author of this post would explain why he thought the change was “significant” and now you’re tired of the discussion! I guess I’ll just go out and play in the snow.
La Nina has waned a little lately but the newest map is looking interesting again.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.2.5.2009.gif
The trade winds which drive a La Nina have picked up again in every one of the different regions. There was some slowdown in these winds over the past three weeks but they are all well above normal now.
Paul Clark: “This last reading is an almost perfect return to trend (0.16K/decade). It was the downwards spike of the last couple of years that was off trend.”
Depends on what trend you’re looking at:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2009/trend
“A trend is a trend until its end!”
guys/gals climate is measured probably in 1000’s of year you will not see anything major in your lifetime.. sorry. this is whu AGW is wrong but so are sketpics who wanna see plummeting temps right now… LOL ask any meteorologist
That’s really weird. Here in southeastern Michigan its been very cold this winter. January was about 5 degrees F colder than normal. From news reports it seems much of the rest of the country had similar cold weather.
On a somewhat different topic our governor has announced that she wants a moratorium on construction of new coal fired power plants. She refers to coal as “imported”. The article later states the coal is imported from other states. That’s a bizarre use of the word imported. It’s like saying other states “import” their cars from Michigan. According to my dictionary “imported” means brought in from another country. My comment to the governor is that oil which powers the cars we build is mostly imported from other countries. Coal which powers our electricity generating plants is not imported. We have an abundance of it right here in the USA.
The governor wants to build alternative energy plants using solar and wind. How well will solar work here in Michigan where we can go for a week at a time without seeing the sun? And how many windmill will be spoiling the scenic coast of Lake Michigan to take advantage of the winds there. And where will we get electricity when the wind is not blowing?
During the last gubernatorial campaign the governor enthusiastically described how things would improve under her leadership. She said; “And in five years you are going to be blown away.” Well here we are… blown away!
“‘We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California,’”
Uh, Steve, California ag is H2O-limited. Remember the organic spinach recalls? Wasn’t migrants peeing in the fields but cryptosporidium from recycled waste water. Same infection in Milwaukee required addition of sub-micron filters as they ‘reuse’ lake water. We have aquifer problems all over the Great Lakes too.
Cali, its time to spend some of your bounty on desalinization. Oh, run out of bounty?. Listen up, if you come around here with your buckets in hand, we’ll “blow your head clean off”.
“There was some slowdown in these winds over the past three weeks but they are all well above normal now.”
Whew, Gaia is being very, very good to me.
Yesterday at 16:01:02 I wrote:
This link should provide the RSS global TLT map for Jan 2009. Click on “Anomaly”.
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_monthly.html
The hot spot over the Northeast Pacific does not appear in SST data.
Curious.
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Let me correct that. Using the apparent coordinates of the hotspot (30N-60N, 170W-120W), it does not appear in the SST data.
http://i40.tinypic.com/jpd2kp.jpg
Using the NOAA NOMADS system to zero in on the hotspot, it does appear.
http://i39.tinypic.com/r06p8w.jpg
Here’s a time-series graph of the coordinates of that hotspot (35N-45N, 166W-140W)
http://i44.tinypic.com/2uihtaq.jpg
I didn’t want anyone to think there was something wrong with the RSS TLT data after my earlier statement. The TLT depiction is different than SST.
Regards
“I read somewhere that “space” does not have a temperature because it is void. Am I right on this?”
The space outside the Earth magnetosphere is not a void. The solar wind flows through there. The typical temperature of the solar wind around the Earth is 100,000 K. The thing is that particle density is so low that collisions between particles are not the way to reach thermal equilibrium. There’s also a much colder flow of neutral gas from the interstellar medium (and that one dominates the particle density after Jupiter’s orbit).
I would be interested to see where exactly the warm anomalies lie. Not only did they offset significant cooling in places like the eastern half of North America, Western Europe, portions of the Middle East and Asia, but they also had to more than compensate for the current La Nina. I know portions of Austrailia have had record heat waves, but other portions of that continent did not. Perhaps Sibera and the Atlantic had record temps and SSTs. Or maybe the Indian Ocean.
The UAH data earlier in January showed a likewise strong spike. Can’t wait to see GISS. Perhaps Jan 2009 will be recorded as the warmest Jan since 1850.
I have noticed some scepticism about AGW on this site, and talk of a political agenda at the IPCC. Whilst to lay people it is unclear how miniscule changes in the composition of the atmosphere by a few molecules of C02 in 100,000 of atmosphere can cause catastrophic warming of our planet this is because we do not understand the maths behind radiative forcing and the ‘al gore ‘ithms’ behind the brilliant climate models, produced by some of the finest minds money can buy. This month’s increase in RSS is enough to convince me that AGW is real – we all have our tipping points. It is best to leave this stuff to the experts who really do understand the complexities of climate science and the maths behind RF before coming to their considered judgements – Al Gore, Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop Dogg, Bon Jovi, Foo Fighters, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow and the Black Eyed Peas.
[/sarc]
If looking at the weather underground’s heating degree days means anything, it looks like the eastern US was colder than normal and the western US has been warmer than normal since July. Kansas City seems to be about the boundary which runs nnw to the North and sse in the South. Just east of the Rockies it seems to be warmer, notably warmer. But the eastern US has been notably cooler. The one exception seems to be the northwest — Seattle/Portland area. That has been cooler as well.
“the brilliant climate models, produced by some of the finest minds money can buy.”
Indeed, their reflected luminence frequents WUWT in the beneficent personages of acolytes to their most sacred offices.
Wow! I’m so confused. Why does the snow keep rising around the AWS when the Antarctic ice is melting… and now this:
ews.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/abc/home/contentposting.aspx?isfa=1&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&showbyline=True&date=true&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20090205%2fsea_levels_090205
Nice to see that Kenn Borek who medivaced Dr Shemenski from the South Pole during the Antarctic winter 8 years ago is still providing great service in a difficult environment.
Today in Toronto this morning it was -20C without the windchill. Don’t even ask what it felt like with the light breeze. I spoke with my dad today who is wintering in North Miami Beach and he said it had gone down to 38F. I hear that the jet stream has bent so far down that Florida is getting quite cold weather. On top of our ridiculously cold winter right across Canada and much of the USA is news this week of record breaking high temps in parts of Australia. Then we know that La Nina has been reborn and so what sort of a summer do we expect up here? Extremes are the norm?
Ed Scott: I suspect you meant 10 micrometers. 10 nm is rather hard x-ray energy. Your point is still valid.
Southern Colorado has had a warm January, almost no snow. Could even drive the ragtop in the down position. Feb is starting out warm as well. Which could change overnight. Yet we are told this is the climate of the future, while the very cold temps in December were just weather.
As for greenhouses, of course the analogy is wrong. Still, every week I read some expert explaining that the evil CO2 molecule traps or reflects heat. Perhaps man-made CO2 is silver plated?
The late Art Buchwald said it was hard to write good sarcasm as reality had gone so far off the rails.
gary gulrud
Cali, its time to spend some of your bounty on desalinization. Oh, run out of bounty?. Listen up, if you come around here with your buckets in hand, we’ll “blow your head clean off”.
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I was gainfully employed and working in the San Diego area referred to as Point Loma during the construction and initial use of a Westinghouse flash distillation plant used as a government (federal) demonstration project. When the relatively pure water from the plant was introduced into the water system, it dissolved the years of mineral deposits in the pipes and leaks began appearing everywhere. They solved the problem by decreasing the purity of the water. The use of the plant for water in the San Diego area was cut short when Castro cut the water supply to Gitmo. In record time, the Navy packed up the plant and moved it to Gitmo.
We lived in Santee, a community of 10,000 population at the time, east of San Diego, The water supply for Santee was water reclaimed from sewage. It sounds repulsive, but the water tested to be the purest in San Diego County.
I have never heard of any follow-on projects to take advantage of the lessons learned in either of the above pilot projects. My conclusion is that, true to form, government does not reward success.
We Californians will not come with buckets in hand, we will send the feds to do the dirty work. It’s the American way.
To correct you Bill, there is no El Nina at present.
“We Californians will not come with buckets in hand, we will send the feds to do the dirty work. It’s the American way.”
I don’t expect to survive the exchange, but do find it a likely start to the hostilities.
Ed Scott, re desalination
There is a fairly big DS plant almost ready for construction near Carlsbad, owner is Poseidon, capacity to be 50 million gallons per day. It probably will not be operable soon enough to help the impending drought. Their technology is reverse osmosis, not flash distillation.
David S (08:42:43) :
“How well will solar work here in Michigan where we can go for a week at a time without seeing the sun?”
FWIW, passive solar for heating and air conditioning in Michigan’s homes is very workable from the engineering point of view. Sunlight from a clear sky is unnecessary. Overcast skies still transmit enough energy to heat a home quite well. Snow on the ground actually improves the efficiency and can provide more energy than a home in the Southwest desert.
Problems to be overcome are good design and construction, higher initial building costs, and higher property taxes. Larger homes produce more useful passive heating and air conditioning, while current poperty tax schemes penalize.
Off-grid active solar power is technically feasible in Michigan; but it is still a very expensive souce of electricity, prohibitively so for most folks.