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)
Expect to see an even bigger spike, temperatures right accross southern Australia, a vast area, have gone through the roof with weeks of 45 degrees and higher, given that the long term average temperature for this time of year is about 26 degrees you get to see the picture.
UAH Jan temperature anomaly ‘plunges’ to +0.31. I think global cooling might be over.
Wondering Aloud
I anticipated when you read my list of luminaries more carefully you would be won over. Leonardo DiCaprio also has an impressive CV in the ‘saving the planet’ [from C02 presumably] domain.
To quote him eminence “It’s not about imposing a certain belief system or a way of life on people in any economic background. It’s about just being aware of this issue – that’s the most important thing – and really trying to say, ‘Next time I vote, next time I buy something, I’m just going to be aware of what’s really going on.’ ”
That’s all pretty clear – I think he’s talking about radiative forcing. Quite a cogent argument I thought.
Further to my recent post, the whole shooting match in Southern Australia has ignited into a conflagration with massive property and stock losses, 14 people have been confirmed dead and authorities say that number could go over 40, thousands of fire fighters are battling to save what they can as I type.
realitycheck (19:05:15) 4-02-2009
Thank you for the links to the papers fascinating reading.
This seems to be a large SSW (potentially a record or near record?) – after reading Ed Berry’s comments – do you think this could be significant for temperatures in the NH over the next several weeks?
@Tim (17:27:49) : just the facts
I dunno. Temperature forecast for the next few days in the DC area
56, 62, 49, 49, 59, 56. This is for the second week of February!
Here are some photos taken in the past:
DC 06 DEC 2003 The first week of December!
DC 14 FEB 2007
Don’t know about you but I call this winter mild.
FYI: I’m going by the thermometer outside of my house and I’m comparing to recent years. Just the facts.
@TIM(17:27:49) : just the facts
Just for reference, here’s the NWS noon report 2009-02-07. Note that DC is reporting 44 degrees at National while the rest of the area is 50 or above. The thermometer outside my house reported 55. BTW: Quantico is reporting 65! Maybe that’s because of all the hot babes the FBI has been hiring if TV shows are any guide. Not in my snapshot but BWI is reporting 48.
Just the facts.
Scweiz today:
http://i2-images.tv2.dk/s/21/12209721-b336dea4a793659f6ef0c8a0840b02d5.jpeg
Switzerland has had more snow this year than the previous 31 years.
I think many on this blog have fallen into the same trap as the Alarmists. Getting excited about monthly or annual trends is not where it is at. The 30 year trend is up, but the 5 year trend is down to neutral. Even without La Nina, global temperatures pretty much slowed thier rapid rise despite continued increases in GHG concentrations.
Here’s what we do know:
After the intense 1997-2000 ENSO event, the Central Pacific remained El Ninoesque from 2001-2007. The 2006-2007 El Nino was weak and short lived. On its heels, ENSO went neutral, and in late 2008 a moderate La Nina formed, follwed by another one in Dec 2009. According to NOAA, the PDO went negative in early 2008. This appears to have broken a 30 year cycle of El Nino dominated climate.
Since 1995, the AMO has been positive, and will probably remain so for at least another 5 years. The rapid increase in NH temps since 1988 can be correlated-at least on the surface- to a synchronization of the positive phases of the PDO and AMO. The Oceans cannot just exhaust 30 years of excessive heat energy in a year. El Ninos will continue to occur. The oceans can determine synopitc patterns in strange ways. La Ninas usually mean the formation of a stubborn winter time 4-Corners high pressure. This means way above winter time temps for the Far West with accompanying low precip. A cooling Pacific and a warm Atlantic usually spell trouble for the lower Mississippi Vallies and Southern Plains (dry, warm weather. For Europe one also has to take into account a combination of the NAO and AMO and not just ENSO. For Austrailia, the South IO (a large portion of the Walker Cell) determines much of thier precip patterns.
One thing that cannot be ignored is the 30 year divergence of NH and SH temps. Is it the NH diverging from the SH, or the other way around. No one really knows. Perhaps the NH and SH normally diverge; perhaps one follows the other, as what occured in the late 40s when the SH first cooled followed by the SH later in the 50s. We really don’t know.
The spike in January in a way doesn’t surprise me. An El Nino is expected to form by Autumn 2009. The Pacific still has plenty of excess heat energy as observed by continued Artic ice melt. And no, the warm Siberian anomalies do not mean that the tundra is thawing. As a few have posted already, a +8 deg C means that the median Siberian temperature is -25 deg C, not -33 deg C.
One last note, it would be interesting to see the year-to-year change in the RSS/UAH temps. It could be surprising.
woodfortrees (Paul Clark), the two down spikes in the mid 80s and early 90s were caused by major volcanic eruptions.
The recent downspike has no volcanic cause and is therefore ‘without precedent’ in the satellite era.
Also of interest, if you remove those volcanic down spikes from the record then the baseline from which the anomaly is calculated goes up and recent anomalies go down to the point we were recently around a zero anomaly.
Note, both volcanic eruptions were NH. Which partly explains why the NH warming is much larger than the (very small) SH anomaly.
In fact, the absence of very large volcanic eruptions in the 20th C may well explain the 20th C warming.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090105175356.htm
temperatures right accross southern Australia, a vast area, have gone through the roof with weeks of 45 degrees
It’s misleading to describe the affected area as ‘vast’. It’s just Victoria and part of South Australia.
By way of comparison, Western Australia which is about 15 times larger than Victoria has had an average summer, and Queensland which is about 8 times larger than Victoria, has had an unusually cool summer.
You can see in the January max temperature plot (annoyingly BoM doesn’t provide a mean temp anomaly plot) that the colder areas in the north are larger and relatively much cooler than warmer areas in the south (Victoria). Febuary to date has been more of the same.
Overall, this is likely a cooler than average summer in Oz. Again, annoyingly the BoM doesn’t publish Australia wide average data.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/temp_maps.cgi?variable=maxanom&area=nat&period=month&time=latest
One point of relevance to several posts here is that low humidity locations experience much greater temperature variation than high humidity places. So temperature variation in low humidity places like Siberia or southern Australia requires less heat gain or loss than in high humidity places like the Tropics or Western Europe. If we are interested in the heat gain (or loss) of the Earth system then we should weight temperatures by average humidity, which would make Siberia and South Australian temperatures less significant to the global average temperature than say the UK and the Eastern USA.
“UAH Jan temperature anomaly ‘plunges’ to +0.31. I think global cooling might be over.”
I readily admit to being baffled by this RSS average and La Nina weakness but I find your analyses only a little more reliable than those of Jimbo or Al. A stopped clock is correct twice daily.
I readily admit to being baffled by this RSS average and La Nina weakness
It’s not just RSS – it’s UAH as well. Why are you “baffled” there has been a steady increase in temperatures since Sept 2008. February is continuing this trend – despite the current La Nina conditions.
but I find your analyses only a little more reliable than those of Jimbo or Al.
I’d say my analysis has been pretty good thus far. I’ve made it clear that I think the 2008 dip in global temperatures was due solely to the La Nina. I’ve also said I think 2009 will be warmer than 2008 (so far so good) and I reckon there will be a more significant uptick in 2010/2011.
Finally, I also think that solar activity, over the timescale of the next few decades, will have no measurable effect whatsoever.
Title of this article = “Global RSS temperature makes a significant jump in January”, with a graph showing it come from a lower base shortly before.
In other words, you’ve spotted “weather”. Keep waiting over the next 10-30 years and beyond and then you’ll see “climate”. As we already have seen warming over the past 30 years.
Unfortunately too many of your amateur correspondents confuse “weather” with “climate”. Another batch of armchair experts confuse weather with climate in another way, as demonstrated by the following typical example “gee it’s cold here in Smalltown now, so therefore I don’t trust the global averaged temperature anomaly one bit”.
Errors in logic both times. I’d suggest the “experts” go an do a bit of study on climatology first, rather than coming to a blog to demonstrate a type of mental vacuum-effect.