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 March 2009 was published today and has dropped for the second month after peaking in January. The change from February with a value of 0.230°C to March’s 0.172°C is a (∆T) of -0.058°C.
Recent RSS anomalies
2008 10 0.181
2008 11 0.216
2008 12 0.174
2009 01 0.322
2009 02 0.230
2009 03 0.172
Like RSS, UAH was also announced today, on the blog of Dr. Roy Spencer here who is co-curator of the data with Dr. John Christy at the University of Alabama, Huntsville.
It showed a significant drop, more than double that of RSS:
The change from February with a value of 0.347°C to March’s 0.208°C is a (∆T) of -0.139°C
Recent UAH anomalies:
2009 1 0.304
2009 2 0.347
2009 3 0.208
Oddly, a divergence developed in the Feb 09 data between RSS and UAH, and opposite in direction to boot.
I spoke with Dr. Roy Spencer at the ICCC09 conference (3/10) and asked him about the data divergence. Here is what he had to say:
“I believe it has to do with the differences in how diurnal variation is tracked and adjusted for.” he said. I noted that Feburary was a month with large diurnal variations.
For that reason, UAH has been using data from the AQUA satellite MSU, and RSS to my knowledge does not, and makes an adjustment to account for it. I believe our data [UAH] is probably closer to the true anomaly temperature, and if I’m right, we’ll see the two datasets converge again when the diurnal variations are minimized.”
Looks like the data sets are converging now.
UPDATE: Barry Wise decided to contribute a plot in comments that I thought readers would find interesting.
He writes:
The 1997/98 El Niño temperature spike seems to have had a long lasting effect that is dissipating. This graph shows what the trend was before the event and how the trend was affected by it. The dashed red line is the trend with all of the data and the purple is the trend based on the data before the area highlighted in red. Notice that there appears to be a decaying oscillation. If correct we’re in the third peak which is less than the previous two, and is much closer to the purple trend line.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
John Good:
I think that was an April Fools joke.
From an ex Australian airline pilot:
It was April and the Aboriginals in a remote part of Northern Australia asked their new elder if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.
Since he was an elder in a modern community he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn’t tell what the winter was going to be like.
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the tribe should collect firewood to be prepared.
But being a practical leader, after several days he had an idea. He walked out to the telephone booth on the highway, called the Bureau of Meteorology and asked, ‘Is the coming winter in this area going to be cold?’
The meteorologist responded, ‘It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold.’
So the elder went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared.
A week later he called the Bureau of Meteorology again. ‘Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?’
The meteorologist again replied, ‘Yes, it’s going to be a very cold winter.’
The elder again went back to his community and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.
Two weeks later the elder called the Bureau again. ‘Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely,’ the man replied. ‘It’s looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ the elder asked.
The weatherman replied, ‘Our satellites have reported that the Aboriginals in the north are collecting firewood like crazy, and that’s always a sure sign.’
Ron de Haan: “Hansen’s institute at NASA was recently caught cooking the books on global warming again. Hansen proclaimed…”
No it wasn’t, and Hansen made no proclamation. As you will know, the original data was recorded in error and automatically updated to GISS. The mistaken data was human error exacerbated by technology.
It’s understandable that sceptics will have strong views about global warming, but spreading misinformation about your enemies and accusing them of fraud and deception fatally undermines your argument. Stay with the data and science and you can make a much more persuasive case.
This is OT, but the RSS and UAH shouldn’t mind the distraction. I’d post at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/21/weather-channel-nixes-forecast-earth-possibly-cullen/ but the comment box went away.
At the time of the Novemeber announcement I printed a copy of http://www.weather.com/tv/personalities/ to keep handy. A time honored technique in companies I’ve been involved with during layoff cycles is to take an old group photo and blackout people as they leave the company. Thank you Weather Channel for providing a very useful page for that!
I took a look today and noticed that several people beyond the November crowd are gone. Apparently some more changes happened in February or March, I did check the list in late February to see if Heidi Cullen was still on. She was, but isn’t now.
People disappeared in November:
Eboni Deon
Cheryl Lemke
Dave Schwartz
(Several others where are not “on-air personalities” and hence not on the page.)
People disappeared in February/March:
Kristina Abernathy
Heidi Cullen
Kristin Dodd
Jorma Duran
Rich Johnson
Mark Mancuso
Sharon Resultan
Mancuso’s Wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Mancuso was edited on March 2nd to say formerly employed by TWC, but apparently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_meteorologists_on_The_Weather_Channel was edited early in February.
Apologies if this is old news of if no one cares. I get most of the weather I need locally or on the web, but spend way too much time on WUWT.
> vukcevic (03:05:04) :
=======================================
A possibility of false reading should be considered. Rapid increase in 1998 appear to be unlike anything recorded before.
It should be noted that in 1998 number of observatories recorded unusual burst of cosmic radiation. They of cause could have caused increase in temperature, but more likely affected RSS sensors.
An extraordinary increase in cosmic-ray intensity has been recorded on September 29, 1998 by the Rome detectors (rigidity threshold 6.2 GV).
=======================================
Sorry, I disagree with that line of thought. Check out the raw data for for Hadley and GISS and UAH and RSS. All 4 series started climbing in the first half of 1997, rose for almost a year, peaked in early 1998, and were on their way down by September 1998, hitting a local bottom around mid 1999. 1998 was *NOT* a “one-month-wonder”. There were several months of well-above-normal temperatures, and they happened well before the September 1998 cosmic ray event you refer to.
The 1998 el Nino was not without precedent, either, but you do have to go back 120 years. See the 12 month running mean graph of Hadley data at
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/mean:12/from:1850 and also, take a look at Hadley’s monthly data from August 1877 to April 1878. The 1877/1878 spike was just as big, if not bigger than, the 1997/1998 el Nino spike. How warm was it, you ask? Hadley’s February 1878 anomaly, +0.364, was actually warmer than their February 2009 anomaly, +0.345
By the way, that +0.144 UAH prediction was mine. I think I’ll give up for good this time. If anything, satellite data appears to be a trailing indicator for Hadley data.
Bill Yarber asks at (04:47:59) :
“You can break these charts into two sections – 1979 to mid 1997 and 1998 to today. First half shows no appearant trend, up or down. But something happened in late ‘97/early ‘98… Any…suggestions? ‘98 is definitely an outlier and suggests some anomaly other than normal variations.”
Has anyone considered the oblateness shift that occurred just prior to the spike?
Steve Hempell (15:31:30) :
For me
RSS red is 1.55 per Century and purple is .69
UAH red is 1.2 and purple .3
GISS red is 1.6 and purple 1.0
Hadley red is 1.58 and purple .89
Answers depend somewhat on where you decide the El Niño started and the differences between “pure” surface and lower Trop. Eyeballing it still looks like the data is returning to the purple line.
Brendan H: point taken and rightly so, no exaggerations are required by either side of the argument. I myself was a bit of a skeptic idiot when I posted (not here I think) that RSS axis graphs were squewed down a bit on the right margin “0” which “apparently” exaggerated the anomaly on TLT temps. My sight must be deceiving me, because when I actually measured with a ruler they are exactly spot on. My apologies. Lesson… double and triple check before making assumptions
What caused the spike of 1998?
See this quote: “Since the energy of that 1998 warming peak did not come from the ENSO system it is entirely unaccounted for and could well be cosmogenic. Gamma ray burst GRB 971214 is a possible candidate
source.”
Entire paper here: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ThereWasNoGlobalWarmingBefore1997(February15th2009).pdf
Interesting conjecture, anyway.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
But the rogue wave of the steep-walled spike in 98 is an interesting idea.
(Thanks again, Hotrod.)
Remember….waves (be their periods a a matter of seconds…or a matter of years) are still transfers of energy.
Super Statospheric Warming event possibly related to the GRB (from a neutron star about 30,000 light years away) at around the same time Jan 21-22??
Back in February I and others were raising the question about the remarkable juxtaposition between the GRB and the SSW…
Now the SSW had already begun a few days before the GRB….but the SSW definitely seemed to amplify after the GRB hit on Jan 21-22.
You all have seen the you-tube vid of earth’s magnetosphere getting hit by something really big.
At the same time, when the polar vortex in the NH literally got blown apart and such a fantastic warming of the entire column ensued, the CPC chart showing the cross-section of the polar vortex, showed this…..and continues to show. You can still see the big red month-long blob from the 200 mb level on up.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.shtml
All of the other charts that i have seen, including the 10mb animation on the same CPC site, show much-quicker significant cooling after the SSW….in direct contradiction to the above.
Can anyone explain this? I have emailed the CPC and never got a response.
If the above is malfunctioning? (perhaps from the GRB burst, as Lief postulated)
And if it is a malfunction, then why has it not been pulled?
So…in conclusion: The above chart shows a clear correlation with the GRB that hit Jan 21-22.
But the 10mb animation (from the CPC site) shows significant cooling…long before any cooling took place (if one is to believe the above link).
Anybody have some answers?
BarryW
A number of observations:
Pre El Nino trend of UAH is much less than RSS.
The overall trends are quite close (UAH being the “outlier”).
The Pre El Nino trends are significantly different from the overall trend for all groups. The satellite groups being much the lower. ??????
Another index I am watching is the ONI. I have posted the graphs for ONI compared to RSS. There seems to be much more recognition of the role of the oceans now. These graphs (no smoothing) certainly are interesting. I tried to take out the influence of the two major volcanoes. Interesting how the temperature/ONI trends match better around 1992. I’m watching this to see if the pattern continues as new data comes in.
RSS/UAH
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37061901@N05/3413677242/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37061901@N05/3412581353/
ONI
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37061901@N05/3413677220/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37061901@N05/3413677224/
(Anthony: Using your site to try posting graphs on fickr. Hope you don’t mind. Will not make it a practice!!) :]
Does anyone know why they are no longer putting out actual maps of the satellite temp on
http://climate.uah.edu ?
Those maps were much more useful than “.172”!
Savethesharks
From “Eureka Alert” ; Cosmic rays detected deep underground reveal secrets of the upper atmosphere;
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/tncf-crd012109.php
Also “Science Daily”; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090325155429.htm
MarekT (05:48:52) : About temperature jump in January. Something hit magnetosphere in January 21 it was HUGE
look ant this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqWNNhsYrdI check temperature probably will be higher too..
That was well worth looking at Marek. Thank you. For those who don’t know, we got hit by a pulse from an anomalous x-ray pulsar and that caused the SSW (Sudden Stratospheric Warming) event which caused weather soon after. It’s not a frequent occurrence.
I looked further and found a whole series of U-tubes that I can warmly recommend to everyone here as utterly magical to watch. I listed them here on our Forum
Meanwhile down in the Antarctic …
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7984054.stm
Amazing videos Lucy! Thanks for posting.
Thanks lucy. All I can say is WOW.
The contract killers of AGW:
http://penoflight.com/climatebuzz/?p=474
ROM (21:48:38) :
> From “Eureka Alert” ; Cosmic rays detected deep underground reveal secrets of the upper atmosphere;
Don’t forget http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/22/correlation-demonstrated-bewteen-cosmic-rays-and-temperature-of-the-stratosphere/ . 🙂
Lucy Skywalker (02:03:35) :
One that you listed, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXnSOQBv8XI seems to have been updated a couple days later by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgcd3diPNm8
The new version cleans up a few things and has some new animations. Well worth watching.
Very good article from Jennifer Marohasy’s blog helps to explain feedback using common sense, experience and data.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/role-of-water-vapour-in-climate-change/#more-4654
Pamela Gray @05:11:58
Just about the only other data sets that flow/tract with the general up and down noise and gradual rise then fall of these various global temperature graphs are SST data sets/oscillation indicators. Sun output does not. Cosmic ray data does not.
Well, as I see it, the oceans are basically sloshing around and distributing the heat, not creating or destroying it. The only longer term internal factor of note would be albedo change. The only things to effect the planet’s heat are external factors, solar & cosmic.
Nice video Lucy. How were Earth’s temps looking during and after the blast?
It was either cosmic rays, Al Gore inhaling or a failed attack from a prototype Death Star. I put my bet on the second option.
Wow, Lucy!
So, that darn natural X-ray event upset the cooling trend for January and Febraury. When the “Sudden Stratospheric Warming Event” was announced, I wondered what could have caused it.