RSS Global Temperature Anomaly also down in May, halving the April value

I distinctly remember being bombarded with “global warming” hysteria in my high school days of 1991 – 1994. looking at this temperature data, i’m wondering what exactly everyone was so worked up about?

What’s up with Arctic Roos? The graphs show 2009 at the 1979-2007 average for April and May:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic

File under ‘It’s only weather, not climate’, but for what it’s worth, it is not usual ten miles from Times Square to see people walking around on the 5th of June in heavy jackets, throats wound in scarves.
A nasty, nasty day–in the fifties all afternoon, steady rain with easterly winds gusting to 20 mph, and ‘Real Feel’ temps in the upper forties.
This weather weenie has been loving it!

” That’s not a theory…it’s just giving fancy names to observations.”
Well thanks be to God for that! Putting ‘theory’ before the collection of empirical observations is voodoo-do, not science.
More, and more accurate observations, uncontaminated by grand preconceptions would seem, for example, at least from my recollection of the history of the development of astronomy and physics from, say, the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries, to be the foundation of any scientific discipline.
More accurate observations of the position of heavenly bodies in the fifteenth century, as well as the more accurate mathematical expression enabled by European adoption of Arabic numerals and by early developments in algebra, preceded the work of Brahe, Copernicus and Kepler and then Galileo and Newton.
K.j. Burtt __The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science__- an indispensible masterpiece!

Global warming alarmism reaches a new high…err…low.
Did global warming help bring down Air France flight 447?
As the investigation continues as to what brought down the French airliner over the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people on board, a Russian climatologist believes global warming played a significant part. <—-opening paragraph.
*(This is not a fake article)

What I find somewhat disturbing is that believers in the CAGW hypothesis need (want) temperatures to rise, arctic ice melt etc. so as to prove the validity of CAGW. If the anomaly increases to, say, 0.3 next month you can almost picture them letting out a collective sigh of relief. I say this as a former extremely vitriolic believer in an oncoming climate catastrophe. From personal experience, holding onto any belief too tightly will often cause one to make an arse out of oneself.

Anthony: Thanks for creating and posting these graphs. As a group, they are the most useful global temperature information on the web.
skeptic: This information is as far from “cherry-picked” as one can get. The timeframe used is going to impact the look of the data. At one extreme we could start with the creation of the earth … 4.5 billion years ago. Actually the earth is much older … 4.5 billion years is when the earth cooled enough for the 1st rocks to solidify. The earth has been cooling since then. In the past billion years the earth has been in an ice age more often than not. Until satellite reporting began (Jan 1979) the accuracy of global temperature measurements was a constant debate. So what better presentation of factual information on global temperature could be provided than a graphic showing the global temperature reported by both agencies gathering satellite data? And graphs on temperature from agencies using land-based data as well? What more could you possibly ask? What could be done to be fairer?
Deniers like to use the 1998 spike (an El Nino event) as their starting point and claim global temperature has fallen over the past decade. But that is not what Anthony is doing … all satellite data is shown. Look at the graph … draw your own conclusions. Anthony did not make up the data he is just making it easily available to people like me.
You are right NSIDC does show a decline in arctic ice that approaches the worst recent year: 2007. But NSIDC is not the only agency reporting arctic ice extent. Here are links to both reports:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
Last time there was a huge discrepancy between these two sites it turned out NSIDC lost an area of ice about the size of CA. The arctic-roos site indicates 2009 has more ice than 2007 and 2008 … and is within “normal” (a standard deviation) for the past 30 years. Both sites can’t be correct. Let’s see how this washes out.
Filipe: “What’s the baseline period for the anomaly? It’s not indicated in the plot.” I have the same question. I seem to recall that GISS uses 1950-1980 but what about RSS and UAH?

RE: skeptic (12:20:59) :
The declaration that we are in the warmest decade ever is of little credibility given historic periods such as the MWP and the Roman Optimum and . . . . Furthermore, it is of little relevance in the last two centuries given that measurements started as the world started to recover from the Little Ice Age. Most observers would give you that we have trended upwards since the end of the LIA, but I am not so sure that the 140 years of HadCrut estimates are reliable – certainly the negative climatic implications of hot weather was much more severe in the 1930s than we are currently experiencing. Yet, perhaps the GMT is higher now the thirties, but I certainly would encourage you to get a handle on what the GMT is, the quality of the data, and the issues surrounding the estimates. Moreover, the GMT is basically back to what it was in 1980, and there is nothing alarming about the trend in the last 30 years for which we have three or four sources of relatively reliable estimates; in fact the record of the last 30 years suggest the GMT is driven more by oscillations than by CO2 concentrations.
And if GMT in the coming years returns to the high of eleven years ago, that still does not set off alarm bells. You mention Arctic ice for which we may or not have reliable current estimates given problems with certain satellites; the fortunes of Arctic ice depend more on winds, clouds, Asian pollution, currents and the PDO/AMO rather than the question if the GMT anomaly gets back up to .8.

“” Jimmy Haigh (20:19:01) :
When I was 15, it snowed in the UK on the 2nd June 1975. That was the first time I had seen snow in June. I never saw it again until June/July 2007.
I saw it again in June/July 2008. It has happened again in 2009! Is it only me, or is there a pattern emerging?…””
This might not stop politicians from shouting global warming. But it will stop every day people from listening to them. 🙂
I like snow. But crops don’t.

Peter Herndeen,
“Fact is the Met office is doing very well with it’s forecasts, that the rain atm is very localised (as in any high hills snow). Readers here need to know that and not be inadvertently misled.
Wrt the summer just started, it looks as if another (we’ve all ready seen warm weather this June) warm spell is on the card by next weekend. My advice is to not make it so obvious you’re getting you retaliation in early while we’re between hot spells ;).”
The Met Office has had their last five seasonal forecasts completely busted by the weather, as they were too reliant on their AGW models. Even their global temeprature forecast for this year is looking like it has been severely over-egged as per usual. You’d have thought they would have learnt from always being on the high side in previous years wouldn’t you? Maybe not.
As for the rain and snow being localised I suggest readers here consult the latest radar for the UK at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar (One of the few useful services the taxpayer funded Met Office does serve to its public). Localised I think not. Retract.
“In between hot spells”? The last weekend saw temperatures in the low to mid 20s (low 70s F) which is not a hot spell. Slightly warmer than average maybe, but nothing unusual. What is unusual however is the coldest June day for many decades experienced in North East England yesterday, with a maximum of 44F and a minimum of 34F which is January type temperatures.
I suggest you wake up from your AGW induced slumber and start to learn a bit about the Uk weather.

Peter Hearnden (14:03:03) :
Fact is the Met office is doing very well with it’s forecasts, that the rain atm is very localised (as in any high hills snow). Readers here need to know that and not be inadvertently misled.
Wrt the summer just started, it looks as if another (we’ve all ready seen warm weather this June) warm spell is on the card by next weekend. My advice is to not make it so obvious you’re getting you retaliation in early while we’re between hot spells ;).
Peter, I agree that last week’s warm spell was genuine (and very welcome), and also that snow, at least on the Scottish mountains in June (even July) is not that uncommon. But yesterday’s snow was much more widespread (and low-level) than that, as can be confirmed by the report in today’s Glasgow Herald: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2512765.0.From_hotspot_to_winter_wonderland_in_a_week.php
The fact is that we (in the Southern Highlands) had a long cold winter, (more akin to the average in the 1980;s than 21st Century):
first low-level snow October 28th, which stayed on the frozen ground for weeks, and apart from the cloud-covered mild week between Dec 23rd and Jan 2nd, the ground remained frozen/snow covered until Feb 10th. Then another mild (i.e above 0’C) week, until a further cold with ice/snow covered ground until the first or second week of March. April had a couple of warm and sunny weeks (not unusual), but until the warm spell last week (late May/early June) May has been colder than usual (with lots of new snow on the mountains early in the month), and just now people are still lighting fires or keeping the central heating on, despite the 20 hours of daylight at this time of year. And I don’t recall any warm or even mild days at all where the daytime temperature got into double figures (C), unlike many of the winters of the 1990’s-2000’s when south-west winds and even some north winds were sometimes above 12 or 13’C.
The point being that the Met Office’s Winter 08-09 forecast was for “a milder than average winter” and they got it completely wrong (again), at least for the northern half of the UK. To be fair to the Met Office, they are fairly accurate with the 24 hours and 2-3 day forecasts, but they consistently underestimate the minimum temeratures for Highland Perthshire, which on a typical winter’s day are between 3 and 5’C colder than in Perth itself (which is only 25 miles to the south). I suspect that their computer models don’t factor in the semi-permanent snow cover on the surrounding hills, and possibly the inability of the sun to penetrate into the deeper straths and glens, (not that the sun has that much warmth in mid-winter anyway).
p.s. I read on here that they were planting Spring wheat in fields still covered in snow in Canada recently – can anyone confrim this?