Comments On The Current Record Global Average Lower TroposphereTemperatures
In the last couple of weeks, the onset of the El Niño, that was discussed on in my weblog on July 11 2009 would appear to be a possible explanation for the sudden increase in lower tropospheric temperatures to a record level (e.g. see the latest tropospheric temperature data at Daily Earth Temperatures from Satellite). This sudden warming is also discussed on other websites (see and see).
The current and recent anomalies at 500 mb (as representative of the tropospheric temperatures) are provided by the excellent NOAA analyses at
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_nh_anim.shtml
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_sh_anim.shtml
The location for the sudden warming (in the global average tropospheric temperatures as reported from the AMSU data) at 500 mb in the Northern Hemisphere is not obvious, however, except perhaps for a large area with weak positive anomalies in the lower latitudes. There is some warming in the El Niño area, but it is relatively small. In the lower latitude eastern hemisphere In the southern hemisphere, there is a strong warm anomaly near Antarctica. Maybe that is part of the reason for major region for the large positive AMSU temperature value.
This record event is an effective test of two hypotheses.
Hypothesis #1: Roy Spencer’s hypothesis on the role of circulation patterns in global warming (e.g. see) might explain most or all of the current anomaly since it clearly is spatially very variable, and its onset was so sudden. If the lower atmosphere cools again to its long term average or lower, this would support Roy’s viewpoint.
Hypothesis #2: Alternatively, if the large anomaly persists, it will support the claims by the IPCC and others (e.g. see Cool Spells Normal in Warming World) that well-mixed greenhouse gas warming is the dominate climate forcing in the coming decades and is again causing global warming after the interruption of the last few years.
Only time will tell which is correct, however, we now have short term information to test the two hypotheses. The results of this real world test will certainly influence my viewpoint on climate science.
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I do appreciate Dr. Pielke’s insights. However, I do have a problem with Hypothesis #2. Yes, the IPCC is right that there have been cooling spells in the past. But if (or when) this cooling spell ends, that does not prove that IPCC’s hypothesis that that “well-mixed greenhouse gas warming is the dominate climate” factor. The end of the cooling spell could mean that we have returned to the emergence from the LIA, and that emergence does not seem to be started by “well-mixed greenhouse gas warming.” Also, having lived off the land for decades, I sense that land-use patterns have a role on temperatures. (Of course, land-use patterns probably would not affect ocean temperatures.)
Is the warming the result of warming global SST. AMO and PDO have both been rising[indicates warming] for the last 2-3 months and most ocean SST according to Bob Tisdale’s posts show a warming trend also ? I have been noticing a lot of upper level lows recently over North America.
continuing or errors. If I estimate the wiggles on the plot above as a measure of the 1 sigma error, the current peaks is maybe 2 sigma out. Quite probable in statistical terms.
The satellite used for AMSU-E daily temps is not adjusted for orbital drift IIRC.
I’m wondering if this is a recovery from the SSW (sudden stratospheric warming) in January/February that really messed things up in the N Polar vortex bringing northern latitude temperatures down for four consecutive months. I don’t think it is any coincidence this is a cold summer for much of the NH.
Since this doesn’t really correlate well with Nino 3.4 at the moment, it appears to be not so much related to El Nino as it is to yet another belch of heat from the oceans to be followed by one to three months of warming, then another drop. The question in my mind is if the oceans are replenishing the heat lost from these events.
BTW, is there a comparison available of UAH vs GisTemp regional data? Personally I don’t buy the one month lag scenario given for the .4C difference for July temps, but am open for discussion. I think GisTemp extrapolation methods, particularly at the poles, are way off the mark.
Roger, Senior says “Maybe that is part of the reason for major region for the large positive AMSU temperature value.”
What does he mean? What is “major region”?
Regardless of the outcome, isn’t it nice to have real data (not filtered, adjusted, and model derived) with which to test competing hypotheses. Now, I know this might be somewhat heretical in the modern era of AGW hysteria (and Swine Flu hysteria, and _______ hysteria), but nothing like some actual hard science once in a while.
Hi all,
I would also tend to agree with hypothesis #1 in this case. Seems like a large area of subsiding air (which would warm, contrary to what is depicted in the movie Day After Tomorrow). This warming air is then being seen by the satellite sounder on AMSU. Our atmosphere is already saturated at CO2 absorption wavelengths. It could only absorb significantly more if we added enough CO2 to double atmospheric pressure, and by then we would all long since be dead of CO2 poisoning (it would displace oxygen near the surface, being a bit more dense). At least, that’s the opinion we arrived at in my graduate school class on atmospheric radiation, where my project focused on using this information to see how we would go about terraforming other planets.
Regards to all,
Paul
“The results of this real world test will certainly influence my viewpoint on climate science.”
Real world test. I wonder.
I say June 2007-and a weak El Nino…
It is very good to have this finally cast in terms of a relatively short scale, testable hypothesis. Of course I am inclined to believe hypothesis #1; but if the data turns out to support hypothesis #2, that will certainly change my view.
Dr. Pielke,
It’s interesting that just as the feds are gearing up for Cap and Trade, a bunch of studies are published saying “not so fast, you may have the wrong suspect!”
Now this…can I call it a watershed event? Interesting, very interesting.
I enjoy your writing and insights.
Thanks!
The atmosphere is only a minor player in global climate. The oceans are where the vast majority of our climate is determined.
If we see a rise in atmospheric temperature like this so suddenly, then this is almost certainly the result of heat release from the oceans.
UAH has been using the AQUA data since 2002 and therefore no longer applies an orbit correction however the reference data for calculating their anomaly was done with the satellites which used orbit correction. Since that time their anomalies show a pronounced minimum in May/June, it seems likely to me that this is a result of the shift in methodology and until UAH really resolve that I can’t take their monthly data seriously.
Anthony,
I recommend you the latest update on current and near future ENSO conditions by NOAA-CPC, issued on 13th July 2009. http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
According to latest measurements the equatorial ocean heat content anomaly between 100 and 180 Western longitude is the highest since 1998 (more than 1 deg.C above normal). It is possible that we are entering into the strongest El Nino event since 1998, see p. 9-10 for charts and further information on this topic.
There is an outlook and some model projections for the oncoming months on page 27, where you can read the following: The models disagree on the eventual strength of El Niño (+0.5°C to +2.0°C), but nearly all of the dynamical models predict a moderate-to-strong episode.
1998 was a significantly stronger El Nino event than the oncoming one could be with a negative PDO. But our warmest year occured 11 years ago and if the AGW hypothesis is correct, we should’ve seen a steady warming trend of about 0.2-0.25°c/decade. Now we have to see warmer temperatures in the case of a moderate El Nino for at least 3-4 consecutive months than in 1998 in order to confirm AGW. If it is not going to happen, then the ‘Hockey Team’ will be proven wrong again.
The results of this real world test will certainly influence my viewpoint on climate science. Maybe it will influence the overall viewpoint of thousands of reasonable people who are interested in this topic, including myself.
So, we’re getting blasts of Arctic cold air migrating South. That air is coming from somewhere. Doesn’t that necessarily mean that the Arctic will be a little bit warmer as that cold air driving South is displaced? That’s why I hate this Anomaly stuff, especially global anomalies. It’s meaningless. What’s important is weather, and temperatures, in the latitudes where our food is grown.
Jeff L. (06:10:41) :
Regardless of the outcome, isn’t it nice to have real data (not filtered, adjusted, and model derived) with which to test competing hypotheses.
Which data are you referring to? Certainly not UAH which doesn’t meet any of your criteria.
All in all, the current upward spike in AMSU-A Channel 5 (600mb) doesn’t seem so unusual. The same occured in 2005 and 2007.
Note the common “spiky” behavior of the mid-tropospheric temperature, possibly tied to tropical activity. If you can explain the exact cause of the periodic spikes you win 300 quatloos.
http://davidsmith1.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/0718091.jpg
This is the channel 5 temperature with the 10-year mean subtracted, to remove the annual cycle.
So, the expectation is that the current spike will settle, but to where?
Surely, you jest, Dr. Pielke. This must be a tongue-in-cheek hypothesis competition. The problem is that too many readers are taking the contest seriously, even though most of us know that Hypothesis #1 is the near-term winner. (Dr. Pielke must be talking to the scientists who are beginning to understand that they are caught in a web of [self-snip]).
“Hypothesis #2: Alternatively, if the large anomaly persists, it will support the claims by the IPCC and others (e.g. see Cool Spells Normal in Warming World) that well-mixed greenhouse gas warming is the dominate climate forcing in the coming decades and is again causing global warming after the interruption of the last few years.”
To make this latter case, even if sarcastically, is a problem. If Earth is in a cooling trend longer than “the last few years”, say, for the next 15 years or so, Earth should [Earth and Sun and Cosmos willing] return to warming “in the coming decades”. If we do so, is it because of “well-mixed greenhouse gases warming”?
msadesign (04:33:11)
Here is a partial list of acronyms commonly used in climate science and related fields:
14C, 12C_______Isotopes of Carbon
AAO____________Antarctic Oscillation
ABD____________Age Band Decomposition (tree ring standardisation method)
AC1____________Lag-one autocorrelation
ACE____________Accumulated Cyclone Energy
ACR____________Atlantic Cylclogensis Region (cyclones)
AFAIK__________As far as I know
AGCM___________Atmospheric General Circulation Model
AGG____________Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas
AGU____________American Geophysical Union
AGW____________Anthropogenic Global Warming
AIT____________An Inconvenient Truth (TV documentary)
AMIP___________Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project
AO_____________Arctic Oscillation
AOGCM__________Atmospheric/Ocean General Circulation Model
AR4____________Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC)
ARIMA__________Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average model or process
ARMA___________Auto Regressive Moving Average model or process
ATL____________Atlantic
Atm____________Atmosphere, atmospheric
AU_____________Astronomical Unit (average distance of the Earth from the Sun)
AVHRR__________Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers
BADC___________British Atmospheric Data Centre
BAU____________”Business-as-Usual”, IPCC scenario
BC_____________Black Carbon (climate forcing)
BE_____________Baroclinically Enhanced (cyclones)
BEST___________Bivariate ENSO Timeseries
Bin-And-Pin____Dividing data into bins, and then pinning the endpoints when averaging
BTW____________By the way …
CA_____________ClimateAudit website
CAR____________Caribbean SST Index
CC_____________Carbon Credit
CC_____________Climate Change
CCN____________Cloud Condensation Nuclei
CDIAC__________Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
CFC____________chlorofluorocarbon, e.g., ClCF3
CH4____________Methane
CI, 95%CI______Confidence Interval, 95% Confidence Interval
Climax_________Cosmic ray detector in Climax, Colorado
CMAP___________Climate Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction study
CME____________Coronal Mass Ejection (solar phenomenon)
CMIP___________Coupled Model Intercomparison Project
CO ____________Carbon Monoxide ( Poison)
CO2____________Carbon Dioxide
CoP____________Climate of the Past
CP_____________Cloud top pressure
CPC____________National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center (US)
CPS………………….Composite-plus-Scale – a common paleo reconstruction technique in which proxies are standardized to mean 0, sd 1, then averaged and then the average is re-scaled to match the mean and sd of the “target” temperature series
CPSST__________Cross Product Sea Surface Temperature
CRU____________Climate Research Unit attached to the University of East Anglia, UK
CRUTEM_________Land Temperature Record from CRU
CSIRO__________Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Australia)
CSM____________NCAR GCM, includes CSM2 and CSM3
CT_____________Cloud top temperature
CVM____________Composite plus Variance Method (for analyzing proxies)
delta____Net change in a value
DJF____________December, January, February (winter)
DLW____________Downwelling Long Wave radiation
DMS____________Dimethyl Sulfide, a precursor of various atmospheric sulfur compounds
dO18, ∂O18_____Change in oxygen-18 isotope level
DOE____________Department of Energy (US)
DW_____________Durbin-Watson statistic
EBM____________Energy Balance Model
ECMWF__________European Centre for Midrange Weather Forecast Model
EE_____________Energy and Environment (journal)
EEP____________Eastern Equatorial Pacific
ENSO___________El Nino Southern Oscillation
EOF____________Empirical Orthogonal Factor
EPA____________Environmental Protection Agency (US)
EPAC___________Eastern Pacific
ERBE___________Earth Radiation Balance Experiment
FAR____________Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC)
FOI, FOIA______Freedom Of Information Act
FOS___________Full Of Sh!t
FWIW___________For What Its Worth
GCM____________General Circulation Model (sometimes said to be Global Climate Model)
GCR____________Galactic Cosmic Ray
GCR____________Galactic Cosmic Radiation
GDD____________Growing Degree Day (agriculture)
GFS____________Global Forecast System model
GGWS, TGGWS____The Great Global Warming Swindle (TV documentary)
GHCN___________Global Historical Climate Network
GHG____________Green House Gases
GISS___________Goddard Institute for Space Studies, also their temperature datase
GISSE__________One of the GISS GCMs, which include E, F20, F23, M20, etc.
GLRIP__________Global Lake and River Ice Phenology database
GOM____________Gulf of Mexico
GPCP___________Global Precipitation Climatology Project
GPP____________Global Primary Production, total uptake of carbon by plant leaves
GPS____________Global Positioning System
GRL____________Geophysical Research Letters (journal)
Gt_____________Giga-tonne, 10^9 tonnes
GW_____________Global Warming
Gw_____________Giga-watt (10^9 watts)
GWD____________Gravity Wave Drag
HadCRUT________Combined land sea temperature database from the CRU
HadISST________Ice coverage and SST database from CRU
HadSST_________Sea temperature database from the CRU
HALOE__________Halogen Occultation Experiment
HCFC___________Hydrochlorofluorocarbon, E.G., Hcclf2
Hockey Team____Mann, Bradley, Hughes, Esper, Briffa, Schmidt, Thompson, those who support the Hockeystick
hPa____________hecto Pascals (pressure measurement)
HS_____________Hockeystick, see MBH98
HTM____________Holocene Thermal Maximum
IANAR or (D)——–I Am Not A Republican (Democrat)
IANAL__________I am not a lawyer
IANAS__________I am not a statistician
IB_____________Inverted Barometer (sea level)
ICOADS_________International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set
IIRC___________If I recall correctly
IMF____________Interplanetary Magnetic Field
IMHO___________In my humble opinion
INVR___________Inverse Regression (reconstruction method)
IO_____________Indian Ocean
IPCC___________Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IR_____________Infra-red (radiation)
ISCCP__________International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project
ITCZ___________Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone
ITRDB__________International Tree Ring Databank
J Clim_________Journal of Climate (journal)
Jason__________Radar sea level measuring satellite
JJA____________June, July, August (summer)
Jones__________Phil Jones of CRU
JPL____________Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US)
K/T____________Kiehl/Trenberth global energy balance model
Ka_____________Kilo annum (1,000 years)
LIA____________Little Ice Age (Maunder Minimum)
LOL…………………Laughing out loud
Lowess, loess__Locally Weighted Scatterplot Smoothing (mathematics)
LW_____________Longwave (infrared) “greenhouse” radiation
M&M____________Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick
MAM____________March, April, May (spring)
Mannomatic_____Michael Mann’s mathematical method used in MBH98
mb_____________millibar
MBH98__________The Mann/Bradley/Hughes 1998 Hockeystick study
MCSST__________Multi-Channel Sea Surface Temperature
MEI____________Multivariate ENSO Index
MEM____________Maximum Entropy Spectral Method (mathematics)
Mg/Ca__________Magnesium/Calcium seashell proxy record
MJO____________Madden-Julian Oscillation
MLO____________Mauna Loa, CO2 measuring station
MM_____________Maunder Minimum
MODIS__________Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (satellite instrument)
MOHSST6________Met Office Historical Sea Surface Temperature (UK)
MSL____________Mean Sea Level
MSU____________Microwave Sounding Unit (satellite instrument for temperature measurement)
MWP____________Medieval Warming Period
MXD____________Maximum Latewood Density (tree rings)
N2O____________Nitrous Oxide
NAO____________North Atlantic Oscillation
NAS____________National Academy of Science (US)
NASA___________National Aeronautic and Space Agency
NATL___________North Atlantic
NCDC___________National Climate Data Center
NCEP___________National Centers for Environmental Prediction (US)
NGO____________Non-Governmental Organization
NH_____________Northern Hemisphere
NIO____________North Indian Ocean
NIR____________Near Infra-red (radiation)
NLSST__________Non-Linear SST
NMAT___________Nighttime Marine Air Temperature
NOAA___________National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAMER_________North America
NOI____________Northern Oscillation Index
NOx____________Nitric Oxide (means the number of oxygens varies: 1,2,2.5)
NP_____________North Pacific Pattern Index
NSF____________National Science Foundation (US)
NSIDC__________National Snow and Ice Data Center
NTA____________North Tropical Atlantic Index
NVAP___________NASA Water Vapor Project
O2_____________Oxygen Gas
O3_____________Ozone
OC_____________Organic Carbon
OM_____________Organic Matter (diesel pollution component)
ONI____________Oceanic Nino Index
PBL____________Planetary Boundary Layer
PCA____________Principle Component Analysis, used by Mann to create the Hockeystick
PCR____________Pacific Cyclogenesis Region (cyclones)
PCs____________Principle Components
PDI____________Power Dissipation Index (cyclones)
PDO____________Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Pg_____________Peta-gram, 10^15 grams, 1 Pg = 1 Gt
PGR____________Post Glacial Rebound of continents previously covered by ice (sea level)
PNAS___________Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (journal)
PPT____________Powerpoint Presentation
PSMSL__________Permanent Service for the Mean Sea Level
QBO____________Quasi-Biennial Oscillation
R______________”R” computer language
r.m.s._________Root-Mean-Squared (Sqrt[Sum-Of-N (Errors^2))/N])
R^2, r squared_Predictive power of a model, varies between zero and one
RC_____________RealClimate website
RCS____________Regional Curve Standardisation tree ring standardisation method
RLR____________Revised Local Reference (sea level)
RSS____________Remote Sensing Systems, Inc.
RW_____________Ring Width (tree rings)
SAR____________Second Assessment Report (IPCC)
SAT____________Surface Air Temperature
SD_____________Standard Deviation
SEM____________Standard Error of the Mean
SF6____________Sulfur Hexafluoride (a very dense, inert gas)
SH_____________Southern Hemisphere
SI_____________Supplemental Information
sigma_________Standard Deviation term
SIO____________Southern Indian Ocean
SLP____________Sea Level Pressure
SO2____________Sulfur Dioxide (becomes SO3 in air)
SO3____________Sulfur Trioxide (becomes Sulfuric Acid in humid air)
SOI____________Southern Oscillation Index
SOI____________Supplemental Online Information
SON____________September, October, November (Autumn)
SPAC___________South Pacific
SPM____________Summary for Policymakers (IPCC)
SQA____________Software Quality Assurance
SS_____________Sea Salt (climate forcing)
SSA____________Singular Spectrum Analysis (mathematics)
SST____________Sea Surface Temperature
Sv_____________Sverdrup (flow rate = 1 million cubic meters per second)
SW_____________Shortwave (solar) radiation
TAR____________Third Assessment Report (IPCC)
Tg_____________Tera-gram, 10^12 grams
TGGWS, GGWS____The Great Global Warming Swindle (TV4 (UK) documentary)
THC____________Thermohaline Circulation
TIROS__________Television Infrared Observation Satellite
TLT____________Temperature Lower Troposphere
TMT____________Temperature Middle Troposphere
TNA____________Tropical North Atlantic Index
TNI____________Trans-Nino Index
TOA____________Top Of Atmosphere
TOMS___________Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (satellite instrument)
TOPEX__________Radar sea level measuring satellite
TOVS___________Operational Vertical Sounder (satellite instrument)
TRW____________Tree Ring Width
TSA____________Tropical South Atlantic Index
TSI____________Total Solar Irradiance
Tsurf__________Surface Temperature
Tw_____________Tera-watt (10^12 watts)
TWTW___________The Week That Was, Dr. Fred Singer’s newsletter
UAH____________University of Alabama Huntsville
UCAR___________University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
UHI____________Urban Heat Island
USHCN__________United States Historical Climate Network
UTH____________Upper Tropospheric Humidity
UV_____________Ultra-violet (radiation)
V&V____________Verification and Validation (for computer code)
W______________watt
WUWT___________WattsUpWithThat website
W/m2, W m-2____Watts/meter squared, a measure of radiation
WDCG___________World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases
WDCP___________World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
WEP____________Western Equatorial Pacific
WG1____________Working Group 1 (IPCC)
WHWP___________Western Hemisphere Warm Pool
WMO____________World Meteorological Organization
WP_____________Warm Pool
WPAC___________Western Pacific
It’s good to see the Air Con ad.
The comments were:
——————–
This record event is an effective test of two hypotheses.
Hypothesis #1: Roy Spencer’s hypothesis on the role of circulation patterns in global warming (e.g. see) might explain most or all of the current anomaly since it clearly is spatially very variable, and its onset was so sudden. If the lower atmosphere cools again to its long term average or lower, this would support Roy’s viewpoint.
Hypothesis #2: Alternatively, if the large anomaly persists, it will support the claims by the IPCC and others (e.g. see Cool Spells Normal in Warming World) that well-mixed greenhouse gas warming is the dominate climate forcing in the coming decades and is again causing global warming after the interruption of the last few years.
Only time will tell which is correct, however, we now have short term information to test the two hypotheses. The results of this real world test will certainly influence my viewpoint on climate science.
———————-
So sorry, but I MUST object for the following reasons:
.
[1] For the polar regions to have exhibited the thermal variations noted, then WHY, OH WHY were not those VERY SAME variations noted elsewhere on the globe, and with the VERY SAME intensities?
.
[2] For the polar regions to have exhibited said thermal intensities, there must have been co-equal thermal events ELSEWHERE.
.
Well, if the satellite is, indeed, drifting to a warmer part of the day by moving a little westward on the day side of its orbit then the temperatures can not be compared until, as kmye above noted, the diurnal adjustments are made after the end of the month.
So comparing data during the month to data that has had the proper adjustments applied is, as stated, an apples to oranges comparison.
It is like taking a daylight and a night reading and slowly changing the times you are taking the readings from say 11 o’clock to 11:30.
Phil,
The AMSU-E daily data is NOT derived from AQUA, so you are comparing apples to oranges. What exactly is your point?
UAH data is calibrated to traceable standards and verified by balloon data, whereas near surface data has never been calibrated, maintained or otherwise verified to any standard commonly used in industry. Yet some defend the surface station network is A-OK. Amazing.
What is your opinion of RSS?
msa design
Also, CA has an acronym list at
http://climateaudit101.wikispot.org/Glossary_of_Acronyms