Hot off the press from Dr. Roy Spencer. After being essentially zero last month, we have a jump to .410°C in July. This was not unexpected, as a El Nino has been developing.
July 2009 Global Temperature Update: +0.41 deg. C
August 5th, 2009
YR MON GLOBE NH SH TROPICS
2009 1 0.304 0.443 0.165 -0.036
2009 2 0.347 0.678 0.016 0.051
2009 3 0.206 0.310 0.103 -0.149
2009 4 0.090 0.124 0.056 -0.014
2009 5 0.045 0.046 0.044 -0.166
2009 6 0.003 0.031 -0.025 -0.003
2009 7 0.410 0.211 0.609 0.427
July 2009 experienced a large jump in global average tropospheric temperatures, from +0.00 deg. C in June to +0.41 deg. C in July, with the tropics and southern hemisphere showing the greatest warming.
NOTE: For those who are monitoring the daily progress of global-average temperatures here, we will be switching from NOAA-15 to Aqua AMSU in the next few weeks, which will provide more accurate tracking on a daily basis. We will be including both our lower troposphere (LT) and mid-tropospheric (MT) pre-processing of the data.
Lucia at the Blackboard has an analaysis of RSS, which came in higher this month also, at 0.392°C.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/rss-for-july-0392-c-graphs-to-follow/
Oh, how cruel you are, Anthony! All your frequent posts about a bit of cool weather somewhere in the word have so misled your readers that many of them are clearly confused and upset by even one month of rising global temperatures. Perhaps you need to make it clearer, whenever you are posting about cold weather, that you are deliberately highlighting things that are unrepresentative of the whole.
It seems that the most heat anomaly comes from the antarctic, from Lucia’s board:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/noaa-surface-temperature-animation-for-july/ .
Here is a temperature map of the antarctic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctic_surface_temperature.png
Now look at the two maps and gauge: does it really matter that from -70 the temperature went to -55C?
or from -10C to -7?
It certainly will not melt, it certainly is not from CO2, no CO2 in the winter in the antarctic, it certainly is not the sun.
It just shows vividly how nonsensical is the concept of global average temperature and anomalies thereof. Temperatures are not additive linearly and the whole thing has no obvious meaning except for people who see the sky falling.
Rather the meaning, for me, is that there has been a large movement of cold air being replaced by warmer air over the antatctic: some places must be getting really cold, as can be seen in a finer graph provided by a commenter at Lucia’s http://web1.cdc.noaa.gov/map/ANIM/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.14.gif more clearly than in the Noa plot above, the cold going down to south america and south africa.
Richard (23:14:05) :
I downloaded the SORCE data for TSI. From 1st of July to 29th July the Earth received 38,212.13 W/m^2 of irradiance and for the previous 29 days it was 40,899.10 W/m^2. We received 2,686.97 W/m^2 less and yet the temperature shot up.
For the previous 29 days we received 38,252.21 W/m2, not 40,899.10
Dr David Jones of Ferny Creek (15:40:16) :
That makes July 2009 the second warmest July on record.
It would be the warmest were if not “adjusted”.
Perhaps on paper, but not from my personal experience. In the mid-south where I live, typically, July is lower-to-mid 90s for highs every year. This year we’ve had an 70’s and 80’s for the most part with an occasional 90. This has truly been the coolest July I’ve ever experienced. One morning I had to wear long sleeves as it was unseasonably cool.
Do we get a map of the temperature highs and lows? While the Med has been hotter than average, northern Europe has been decidedly cool.
Mary Hinge wrote: “They [painted lady butterflies] were trying to find suitable food plants but because it had been so warm and dry they had to go further north to cooler environs. Good thing they are very strong fliers!”
You mean critters adapt to changing weather patterns by moving? Who’d have thought it?
For all the people grousing about the “weather,” with the exception of the Pacific Northwest and interior Australia, most of the hot spots this past month were over oceans:
http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_2009_07_anom_v03_2.png
Unseasonably cool temperatures in the US east of the Rockies, in South America, and in South Africa are apparent on the above map. Great Britain is undoubtedly being affected by the anomalously cool North Atlantic. Notice that north central Asia (Siberia) is devoid of red in the above map. It will be interesting to see if GISS smoothing creates a big blue blob for July in this region, from dragging the few stations in this area over a continent size land mass.
I like to follow these maps, for surface temperatures, on a weekly basis:
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop/td20090708_e.png
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop/td20090715_e.png
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop/td20090722_e.png
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop/td20090729_e.png
and for good measure
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop/td20090805_e.png
Everybody who says that what they are seeing outside their window doesn’t match up with the MSU satellite measurements for July, look at the above maps and see what they shows for your neck of the woods. In the most recent map, interior Australia has gone blue again, cooling off noticeably from 3-4 weeks prior.
Then there are the oceans:
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/images/archive/weekly_anomaly/wkanomv2_20090708.png
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/images/archive/weekly_anomaly/wkanomv2_20090715.png
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/images/archive/weekly_anomaly/wkanomv2_20090722.png
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/images/archive/weekly_anomaly/wkanomv2_20090729.png
You can see the progression of “El Nino conditions” over the tropical Pacific, plus the development of a large warm pool in the south Atlantic.
One major area of discrepancy I see, between these SST maps, and the RSS global map is the southern Pacific. While the southern Pacific (look eastward from the tip of South America) is warming somewat the month, the SST maps never turn yellow in this region, meaning temps stay at or below (the green areas) the anomaly baseline. But the RSS map has a big red blob in this region. What’s up with that?
So what is going to happen with GISS and HadCRUT? If things stay true to form, they will not bump up as much as the RSS/UAH estimates have. The satellite measurements traditionally show greater variation than the surface temp land-sea based measurements do. Since July was likely something of a local peak or spike in the grand scheme of things, the corresponding peak or spike in GISS/HadCRUT should be something less. Again, watch for a big blue blob over northern Asia this month in GISTemp.
So what about satellites?
July certainly was not warmer in northern Vermont above 44 N latitude. We have seen one day of sun for very five days of rain this summer. It was a cooler July than normal with lots of rain and little sunshine. The flocks of summer migratory birds that nest in our pasture skipped the second brood in July, packed up a month early, and left ten days ago. They must have forgot their houseboats this year as the pasture was under heavy rains most of the month. The grass and flowers are doing well but food crops are taking a hit. A farm in the warmer, and normally drier Champlain Valley of Vermont, lost its entire tomato crop to blight. The Vermont agriculture department also warned of potato blight this summer.
Lets get some perspective here. Today is the funeral of Harry Patch aged 111, the last person to have fought in the trenches of WW1. Imagine how the world has changed since his birth in 1898, imagine all the things he has seen. Of all the things i can think of i cannot convince myself that the fact that the world warmed slightly should be high on the list nor when i think of the future does the idea that it might warm slightly more concern me.
Mary Hinge
Did you just make this up “The large numbers of Painted Ladies was due to particularly warm temperatures first in North Africa/Southern Europe then Northern Europe in June” (to borrow a movie line) That is not entirely accurrate, Mr President.
This migration was a result of POPULATION EXPLOSION due to a wet winter in Africa that fuelled a large survial rate due to food plants were available for caterpillers. In other words a GREENER Africa was responsible because of increased rain in a COOLER winter season.
The butterflies are migrating as normal but in numbers far greater than normal, not due to climate along their path as was eluded to, but hey the narrative fits the preconception so who am I to question.
>——
“Painted ladies reach our shores every summer, but the last major migration was in 1996. This year, rumours of an impending invasion began circulating in late winter. A Spanish scientist, Constanti Stefanescu, reported seeing hundreds of thousands of them emerging in Morocco in mid-February after heavy winter rains in north Africa triggered the germination of food plants devoured by its caterpillars.” – UK Guardian Newspaper ( Wednesday 27 May 2009 )
Ed (22:05:39) :
Gene:
link to ‘wobble’ reference from Richard Lindzen, a radio interview, starting at the 16:00 minute point :
FYI…The Lindzen link is timing out, at least for me.
It is a slow opening page. Do you use Firefox browser? You could say it is faster and stronger than Windows browser. Firefox is a free download. Maybe that will fix the problem.
link to Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
link to the Richard Lindzen interview again :
http://wrko.everyzing.com/m/audio/24111309/richard-lindzen-global-warming-denier.htm?q=%22United+States%22&seek=394.089
Today’s NOAA SST:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2009/anomnight.8.6.2009.gif
7/23/09:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2009/anomnight.7.23.2009.gif
It appears that the ENSO is not building-infact it seems to be weakening…
Bob Tisdale (02:03:41) :
Michael Hauber: “It isn’t CO2, because that only causes about 0.0015 degrees increase each month. Just like the previous short term cooling trend was not Co2, or the failure of Co2 to warm, but something else.”
Really? Care to illustrate where you got that figure of 0.0015 degrees from.
I’d like to see it too! Why didn’t he pick 0.0016, or 0.0014? 😉
ENSO affects are not turned on or off. El Nino vs La Nina is not some hard shelled lightbulb with a switch. And oceans care not one wit for what month it is. What we are seeing is interseason variability with El Nino neutral affects. Neutral does not mean there are no affects. On the contrary, vehemently so. This means that we could have slightly cooler temps, slightly warmer temps, slightly dryer air, and/or slightly wetter air. Any weather person willing to predict under neutral conditions has cahones.
But the idea that ENSO is neutral and therefore cannot be the cause is not logical and reveals a lack of understanding of trade winds, oceanic conditions, and jet stream affects of weather pattern variations. The ONI index is slightly positive but in neutral territory. We could get anything but only a little bit of anything. We will not be overly hot, nor overly cold. That said, extremes are still a possibility but more so only locally. You can safely disregard both solar and CO2. This is mother nature pure and simple.
Roy Spencer (16:48:33) :
Large month-to-month changes in tropospheric temperature are likely to be dominated by non-radiative transfers of heat, that is, changes in the rate at which convection transfers heat from the surface to the atmosphere.
Surface to atmosphere transfer will still be dominated by long wave radiation, distribution within the troposphere will be dominated by convection.
Since June surface temperatures were so high, the July warming of the troposphere might just be reflecting that temporary increase in heat transfer. In the tropics, intraseasonal oscillations are the largest source of this variability.
I suggest that there is a real possibility that the July spike is closely related to the July 22nd solar eclipse which was one of the longest eclipses in the last 100 years . As the sun and moon come into conjunction we are simply seeing the combined gravity effect pulling up the atmosphere – this appears as a warming which is enhanced by the current El Nino warming over the tropical Pacific. We might look at past records to see if similar effects can be observed, The correlation betwen temperature spikes and eclipses will not be simple as the effects would vary according to whether El Nino or La Nina conditions prevailed and the declination of the moon etc. etc.
Douglas, I’ve been watching the El Nino conditions weaken for the entire month of July. Given the definition of what constitutes and El Nino event, there is no way that can happen this winter. It appears more likely that the powers that be will have to change their tune from El Nino condition to El Nino neutral pretty darned soon or continue to look like a playpen instead of a scientific body.
I plotted the ENSO Multivariate Index for 1997, 2006 and 2009…
ENSO Multivariate Index
2009 looks a whole lot more like 2006 than it does 1997.
Richard Heg wrote:
“Lets get some perspective here. Today is the funeral of Harry Patch aged 111, the last person to have fought in the trenches of WW1. Imagine how the world has changed since his birth in 1898, imagine all the things he has seen. Of all the things i can think of i cannot convince myself that the fact that the world warmed slightly should be high on the list nor when i think of the future does the idea that it might warm slightly more concern me.”
Let’s get even more perspective here. Imagine the funeral of Perry Hatch 80 years from now, the last person to have fought in Gulf War II and having survived not only the war, but also the effects of experimental vaccination, depleted uranium and hamburgers and pizza served by Halliburton or some other beneficiary of the war. Imagine all the things he will see. Somehow I cannot convince myself that the not so slight warming that will occur if AGW will turn out to be true will not be high on the list.
Well, after a warm week up here on Vancouver Island where the mercury hit over thirty six degrees Celsius, which is above the seasonal average. Temperatures now are down to the low 20’s again with rain forecast for Sunday, which is below the seasonal average. Nice Weather. On average.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
Appears that the trend is downward now….any thoughts? Can someone explain how many data points this graph contains? Where is the data coming from ect?
With regard to Antarctica, Svensmark’s theory of cloud nucleation by galactic cosmic rays indicates that when GCRs are few, global cloudiness decreases (including over Antarctica). This raises the frozen continent’s albedo, cooling it (clean ice having a higher albedo than clouds). Conversely, when GCRs are many, global cloudiness increases (including over Antarctica). The continent’s albedo declines, and the atmosphere warms.
All of that relates to a full year of weather, of course, albedo not pertaining during the dark winter months. But clouds’ tendency to act as a blanket would pertain. It would be interesting, therefore, to learn what the amount of cloud cover over Antarctica has been this winter. If it has been unusually high, for whatever reason, the explanation for the anomalous warmth could be as simple as that.
LionelB (02:42:03)
I’ve previously suggested that the air circulation systems move poleward or equatorward in direct response to changes in the rate of energy release from the oceans.
You have correctly noted the cooler conditions poleward of the jets and warmer conditions equatorward of them.
The latitudinal positions of the air circulation systems globally tell us whether the global air temperature is rising or falling.
At present there is a slight rise in air temperatures after a cooling period. That has been caused by the rate of energy emission from the oceans increasing somewhat. The downside is that the ocean heat content is being depleted unless the sun is putting enough solar shortwave into the oceans to counter the loss.
The purpose of the latitudinal movement of the air circulation systems is to adjust the speed of the hydrological cycle ( which ensures approximate long term equilibrium between solar shortwave arriving at the Earth and longwave leaving it whilst at the same time maintaining approximate sea surface/surface air temperature equilibrium).
The change in speed of the hydrological cycle directly affects the rate of energy transfer from surface to space and in doing so prevents changes in the air alone from affecting the global equilibrium temperature set by sun and oceans combined.
The difference between average TSI in June 09 with respecto to July 09 is only +0.03 W/m^2. For the last 29 days of June and the period 1st July-29th July the difference is -0.08 W/m^2.