Dr. Roy Spencer sent me a notice of his most recent post in email. He offers an invitation for anyone to help “figure this one out”. The result could be “worse than we thought”. – Anthony
(edited 8/23/09 0710 CDT: Changed plots & revised text to reflect the fact that NCDC, not CRU, is apparently the source of the SST dataset; also add discussion of possible RFI interference in satellite measurements)
(edited 8/22/09 1415 CDT: added plot of trend differences by month at bottom)
By Dr. Roy Spencer
In my previous blog posting I showed the satellite-based global-average monthly sea surface temperature (SST) variations since mid-2002, which was when the NASA Aqua satellite was launched carrying the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E). The AMSR-E instrument (which I serve as the U.S. Science Team Leader for) provides nearly all-weather SST measurements.
The plot I showed yesterday agreed with the NOAA announcement that July 2009 was unusually warm…NOAA claims it was even a new record for July based upon their 100+ year record of global SSTs.
But I didn’t know just HOW warm, since our satellite data extend back to only 2002. So, I decided to download the NOAA/NCDC SST data from their website — which do NOT include the AMSR-E measurements — to do a more quantitative comparison.
From the NOAA data, I computed monthly anomalies in exactly the same manner I computed them with the AMSR-E data, that is, relative to the June 2002 through July 2009 period of record. The results (shown below) were so surprising, I had to go to my office this Saturday morning to make sure I didn’t make a mistake in my processing of the AMSR-E data.
As can be seen, the satellite-based temperatures have been steadily rising relative to the conventional SST measurements, with a total linear increase of 0.15 deg C over the 7 year period of record versus the conventional SST measurements.
If the satellite data are correct, then this means that the July 2009 SSTs reached a considerably higher record temperature than NOAA has claimed. The discrepancy is huge in terms of climate measurements; the trend in the difference between the two datasets shown in the above figure is the same size as the anthropogenic global warming signal expected by the IPCC.
I have no idea what is going on here. Frank Wentz and Chelle Gentemann at Remote Sensing Systems have been very careful about tracking the accuracy of the AMSR-E SST retrievals with millions of buoy measurements. I checked their daily statistics they post at their website and I don’t see anything like what is shown in the above figure.
Is it possible that the NCDC SST temperature dataset has been understating recent warming? I don’t know…I’m mystified. Maybe Frank, Chelle, Phil Jones, or some enterprising blogger out there can figure this one out.
UPDATE #1 (8/22/09)
Here’s the trend differences between the satellite and in-situ data, broken out by calendar month. The problem seems to be mainly a Northern Hemisphere warm season phenomenon.
UPDATE#2 (8/23/09)
Anthony Watts has suggested that the radio frequency interference (RFI) that we see in the AMSR-E 6.9 GHz data over land might be gradually invading the ocean as more boats install various kinds of microwave transmitters. While it’s hard for me to believe such an effect could be this strong (we have never seen obvious evidence of oceanic RFI before), this is still an interesting hypothesis, so this week I will examine the daily 1/4 deg. grids of AMSR-E SST and compute a spatial “speckle” statistic to see if there is any evidence of this kind of interference increasing over time. I should note that we HAVE seen more RFI reflected off the ocean from geostationary TV communication satellites in the AMSR-E data in recent years.
UPDATE#3 (8/24/09)
OK, gang, this is what I found out today before having to leave work. I downloaded the monthly grids of SST from NCDC (both their v2 and v3b products), and I computed the monthly anomalies at each gridpoint relative to the June 2002 through July 2009 period (since that is the period we have AMSR-E measurements for).
I then differenced the later part of the period (since 2007) with the earlier part (during and before 2004), separately for the NCDC and AMSR-E products.
Then I differences THOSE differences.
What it shows is that AMSRE has either spuriously warmed, or NCDC has spuriously cooled, by 1 to 2 deg C over all of the ‘warmer’ waters of the globe. The problem seems to diminish and then go away poleward of about 30S latitude, and poleward of 45N latitude.
This does NOT look like an RFI issue…it is too uniform spatially. Someone has made a major boo-boo…and I hope it isn’t me. 🙂
Question: if the oceans were losing heat into space more rapidly than before, what would be the impact of temperatures at the water/air phase boundry? Would they not increase with the increased transfer rate?
My thin ceramic coffee cup, with its high loss rate, gets hotter to the touch than my insulated cup with its lower rate of transfer. That’s why I use the ceramic cup when I don’t have much time. The coffee gets cooler quicker.
Anthony and Dr. Spencer:
As discussed in my 13:00:38 comment above, the NCDC’s SST data…
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
…is the NCDC’s ERSST.v3b data…
ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ersstv3b/pdo/aravg.mon.ocean.90S.90N.asc
…with different base years. Here are the two plotted together:
http://i27.tinypic.com/2mrrv4i.png
Here’s a graph of the NCDC SST anomalies MINUS the ERSST.v3b SST anomalies over the term of the data:
http://i29.tinypic.com/339kchz.png
And a short-term (5-year) version of NCDC SST anomalies MINUS the ERSST.v3b SST anomalies graph:
http://i28.tinypic.com/2hnns0k.png
A few days ago, Lucia @ur momisugly TheBlackboard posted that NCDC had announced the update of their global temperature product:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/noaa-new-and-improved/
The NCDC Announcement:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/README
And my comment at Lucia’s read:
############
Lucia: The new NCDC dataset should be based on the ERSST.v3 data they released last year [It is as confirmed above], then updated this year (ERSST.v3b) due to complaints about the downward satellite bias. Refer to the following link. Although the dataset is ERSST.v3b, they also discuss in the links the changes they made to their calculations of land surface temperatures.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/ersstv3.php
I’ve discussed the new dataset in a number of posts:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/search?q=ersst.v3b
Steve McIntyre also had a few:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6038
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6100
My favorite ERSST.v3b dataset is the Southern Ocean SST anomalies:
http://i41.tinypic.com/29zxus7.jpg
It gets even funkier when you compare the Southern Ocean South of the Southeast Pacific with the remainder of the Southern Ocean:
http://i41.tinypic.com/qsjwwp.jpg
Note how the “Remainder of Southern Ocean” appears to have what could be a 100-year cycle, but that portion South of the Southeast Pacific has all of the unusual variation. Curious.
##############
And I can assure you that the new NCDC dataset is not based on and Hadley Centre dataset. The Hadley Centre SST data has a step change in 1998 that results from the merger of two incompatible datasets:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/12/step-change-in-hadsst-data-after-199798.html
The Hadley Centre step change does not appear in NCDC Minus ERSST.v3b graph above.
Regards.
I recall reading a number of comments suggesting that the AMSU data shows a systemic error during the june july period each year. Could whatever is causing that be responsible for this discrepancy?
just some thought as I was reading that news:
could it be simply due to some difference in adjustment due to “time of reading”?
DTR is said to decrease with a larger up trend in minima and a weak up trend in maxima.
I remember reading taht CRU was adjusting the data to homogenize the time of reading. I think for middle of afternoon (not sure…)
I expect satellite to adjust for middle of the day, that is solar noon (1pm or 2 pm depending your part of the world).
That is CRU has reading temperature at a later time in the day than satellites. So satellites should have a larger up trend than CRU.
Of course from back of the envelop calculation, the trend Dr Spencer observes is 30 to 1000 times larger than what I expect from this effect as I present it here (depending more exact time of reading). So it cannot be the entire story (I just spent 5 min on this, not a thorough thinking at all). Perhaps a start though, time of reading and method for homogenization.
Hi folks, this could be a silly idea, but we not measuring SST.
We measuring the sea surface and whatever in there!
Like plankton’s, and other living organisms. They absorb more of the incoming radiation. Now this swarm of the bottom of the food chain is riding the currents and dependent of the sea temperature.
Is there any analysis of the biological entities albedo variation?
Perhaps migration with seasons?
GLOBAL COOLING HAS ARRIVED. GLOBAL WARMING IS DEAD
By Terri Jackson
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environment/pouring-cold-water-on-global-warming-14299972.html
“The Russian physicists have analysed sun spot activity from 1882 to 2000 and have noted that the minimum of the cycle of solar activity will occur around 2021 to 2026 and that we will be facing not global warming but global cooling leading to a deep freeze around 2050.”
I would agree, there is a possibility of a prolong minimum 2021-2026, as this graph predicts:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PolarField1Cr.gif
I am rather sceptical about ‘deep freeze’. If the Sun is driver of the temperature anomaly, activity is predicted to increase post 2025. If there is a strong influence of some other factors (e.g. possible link to the geomagnetic activity) than temperatures may decline but not at a rapid rate.
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/40/88/86/PDF/NATA.pdf
Terri Jackson(climatologist) (12:13:36) :
You can go to this link to read a little more about Phil Jones :
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6691
vukcevic (14:15:38) :
I would agree, there is a possibility of a prolong minimum 2021-2026, as this graph predicts
Since your graph is just curve fitting it has no predictive power. It already fails to post-dict the polar fields before 1967.
From Bob Tisdale’s blog:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/05/recent-differences-between-giss-and.html
“The bias was strongest in the middle and high latitude Southern Hemisphere where in situ data are sparse.”
http://i43.tinypic.com/6yfx8h.jpg
“[…] note that the trend increases with each SST dataset improvement. […] It looks as though, if you’re a SST data producer, downward biases are bad, but increases in trend with each update are good.”
Good digging Bob – and thanks TonyB for the valuable notes & links.
This ties in with:
Sidorenkov, N.S. (2003). Changes in the Antarctic ice sheet mass and the instability of the Earth’s rotation over the last 110 years. International Association of Geodesy Symposia 127, 339-346.
and the article Basil recently featured:
Carvalho, L.M.V.; Tsonis, A.A.; Jones, C.; Rocha, H.R.; & Polito, P.S. (2007). Anti-persistence in the global temperature anomaly field. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics 14, 723-733.
http://www.uwm.edu/~aatsonis/npg-14-723-2007.pdf
–
So:
What has been happening in the deep south & Antarctica in recent months? I imagine many (or at least some) here are capable of supplying some good links?
Roy Spencer, Bob Tisdale…I just wanted to say thanks for being a consistent voice of sanity in this ridiculous debate! Please keep up the good work.
Just a thought – thinking aloud –
The atmosphere could not cause SST’s to rise suddenly, or in any dramatic fashion. A sudden jump in SST’s points to an oceanic event.
Possibly a sudden mixing of the warmer waters of the tropics with the cooler waters closer to the poles.
The regional picture will have to be looked at. Is this true? Have the waters warmed more towards the poles?
I remember Tallguy (where has he gone?) had a hypothesis that geothermal heat could have a significant impact on the climate. I have gradually come to think there maybe something in this.
70 % of our globe is covered with water. If a terrestrial event like Mt Pinatubo could lower global air temperatures by 0.5 C practically “overnight”, a large sub-terrainian event like Pinatubo might have a similar effect on SST’s, both by warming the waters directly and also causing more mixing.
I guess undersea earthquakes could do the same?
Nogw (12:55:38) :
I agree. The black lines on my old tried and trusty mercury thermometer are about 0.15 deg C thick…
Jimmy Haigh (15:05:46)
Can I add that it still measures freezing water at 0C (32F) and boiling water at 100C (212F)?
All the above assumes of course that the data is correct. If the data has a bias or error – that will have to be uncovered.
Undersea Volcanic Eruptions Spotted in Action: Michael Reilly, Discovery News
June 5, 2009 — A crack team of “rapid response” volcano experts scrambled to the South Pacific Ocean last month to find something rarely seen by human eyes: an underwater eruption exploding into the inky, cold depths and spewing lava onto the ocean floor.
The realm of underwater volcanic eruptions is a strange, uncharted one. As much as 80 percent of the planet’s volcanic activity is thought to occur on the sea floor, but scientists are rarely able to witness the events.
Last November, a team led by Joseph Resing of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle detected a plume of volcanic material floating in the water column, above the Lau Basin, 140 miles southwest of Samoa.
http://jisao.washington.edu/print/news/Discovery_6-5-09_UnderseaVolcanicEruptionsSpottedInAction.pdf
March 19, 2009 Undersea eruptions near Tonga
Scientists sailed out to have a closer look at the eruptions of an undersea volcano off the coast of Tonga in the South Pacific Ocean today…Officials also said it may be related to a quake with a magnitude of 4.4 which struck last March 13 around 35 kilometers from the capital at a depth of nearly 150 kilometres. (I know this is an off-day posting, but really, thought the images were worth it – 12 photos total)
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/undersea_eruptions_near_tonga.html
I am sure there are others too.
Bob Tisdale (14:01:59) :
“My favorite ERSST.v3b dataset is the Southern Ocean SST anomalies:”
The absence of Volcanic “forcing” in the 19th century eg Krakatoa 1883 and Tarawera 1888 seems to be absent in this dataset,is this a mix of hadcru ? Problematic issue due to inhomogeneous sampling. eg Stenchilov 2006
“The observed value no doubt has substantial temporal sampling errors, and the observations for the earliest eruptions considered may suffer from inadequate
geographical sampling or other data quality issues. It is noteworthy in this respect that the global-mean surface temperature record used in this study surprisingly shows no global cooling following the very large 1883 Krakatau eruption [Jones et al., 2003]. However, the surface air temperature reconstructed by Hansen and Lebedeff [1988] shows a more sizable cooling effect of Krakatau, which
indicates the level of uncertainty in the observations themselves, especially for earlier volcanic events.”
I can’t believe all those temperature sensors in the oceans are wrong. My gut feeling is that something is drifting in the satellite sensor unit.
Now if there is more than one satellite showing this drift upwards, then my hunch is wrong. I’m assuming there is only one satellite (these things don’t grow on trees).
maksimovich (15:43:16) :
Tarawera should read 1886
My first question is “Are we comparing raw data?” If not, then maybe we should re-examine the adjustments made to each data set.
I recall some years ago, there appeared a great debate as the satellites weren’t showing any global warmign and, then, hey presto, the correct corrections were dutifully discopvered and made. A very similar thing occured with the AQUA diving buoys.
Leif Svalgaard (14:37:50) :
“Since your graph is just curve fitting it has no predictive power. It already fails to post-dict the polar fields before 1967.”
I am well aware that such an interpretation may be entertained by some. The fact that more and more serious scientists, after much effort and studious work, are reaching same conclusion is a delight to the formula’s author.
Although most of predictions are mater of opinion, and often just a guess work, my prediction is a mathematical operation on the past, with set of constants sufficiently robust to outlast most of the current crop of predictors.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PolarField1Cr.gif
From Bob Tisdale’s blog:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/12/step-change-in-hadsst-data-after-199798.html
“The change of data set also helps explain why HADCRUT3 Global, Northern Hemisphere, and Southern Hemisphere data sets consistently run high since the 1997/98 El Nino when compared to other land and sea surface temperature data sets.”
I’ve always wondered about that ….another mystery down.
– –
Bob Tisdale (14:01:59) “My favorite ERSST.v3b dataset is the Southern Ocean SST anomalies:
http://i41.tinypic.com/29zxus7.jpg
It gets even funkier when you compare the Southern Ocean South of the Southeast Pacific with the remainder of the Southern Ocean:
http://i41.tinypic.com/qsjwwp.jpg
Note how the “Remainder of Southern Ocean” appears to have what could be a 100-year cycle, but that portion South of the Southeast Pacific has all of the unusual variation. Curious.”
Priceless (bold quote-emphasis mine). Bob, you couldn’t have addressed my upthread-question better.
This ties in with:
1) Sidorenkov (2003).
2) Carvalho et al. (2007).
3) Ian Wilson’s contributions during the past year.
4) The last few minutes of Scafetta’s Feb. 26, 2009 presentation.
5) latitudinal variations in:
(a) rate of change of CO2.
(b) ocean net primary productivity (NPP).
6) Earth’s polar motion.
7) paleoecological studies that highlight north-south asymmetry on longer timescales.
Further reinforcing this, Bob’s ERST v3b plot shows the same annual-timescale pattern that one sees in LOD (length of day) & AAM (atmospheric angular momentum).
http://i28.tinypic.com/wwho49.png
(This further underscores my concerns about working with only anomalies.)
Bob’s observation about the deep-south anomalies is anything-but trivial. Thanks to Dr. Spencer & Anthony for sparking up a potent one.
–
Bob, where do I find those exact series?
http://i41.tinypic.com/29zxus7.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/qsjwwp.jpg
This is important. Thanks if you can provide the links.
Regards.
Dennis Wingo (12:17:08) :
You hit me with this Eureka suggestion. To me, the height of the atmosphere is an indication of the energy content of the atmosphere.
I do not know whether this does have an imapct on the measurements; it is a good question.
Richard (15:02:40) :
If you look at Google Earth for example these days you can see what are termed ‘spreading ridges’ running across the oceans, for example, all up the middle of the Atlantic. Basically this is a line of underwater volcanoes which are constantly exuding basaltic lavas as the American plate moves westard relative to the Euro-African plate as sea floor spreading continues its merry way onward at several cm/year. We’ve probably all seen videos of undersea volcanic eruptions and also videos of ‘black smokers’ where super heated brines containing dissolved metallic ores such as lead and zinc sulphide (galena and sphalerite respectively) are deposited into the oceanic waters and onto the sea bed. These waters are over 300C!! (570F!) So I guess this could have an effect on overall sea temperatures. Many of the world’s largest metal ore deposits are believed to be derived from black smokers, e.g., the Navan lead/zinc/silver oredbody in Ireland.
I would like to think that this phenomenon has been fairly stable over the last say 100 million years and will continue to be so and that it won’t constitute the next scare story.
I can see the headlines!: “man made global warming causes increased sea floor spreading. Experts predict that the oceans will boil by the year 2100. But don’t worry – we we can fix it but, phew, it’s going to cost you…”
Interestingly my old geology professor now works in NASA on his theory that life itself evolved at the sites of these black smokers. I’ll see if I can find a link…
In my last post I mentioned the paucity of genuine SST’s for all but a very limited number of places for a very limited timescale and yet that global sea temperatures-despite this lack of data-were being constructed and used as factual ‘proof’ of warming.
I also mentioned Plymouth so I have retrieved this from another thread as it shows the data in a historic context and illustrates that-like global surface temperatures-if you wait long enough temperatures will go down as well as up.
“As with surface temperatures we need to step back and
a) wonder at the practicality of a global temperature
b) Look back in time to ascertain how temperatures respond over a long period.
Last year I wrote a series of short pieces on ‘Fish as a temperature proxy’ which traced back the change from warm, to mid, to cold water fish around the south west coast of Britain. We can trace these from actual records of catches back to around the 13th Century and which also live on locally in place names such as the Pilchard Inn.
This extract from the University of Plymouth gives us some idea that -like surface temperatures- sea temperatures are constantly fluctuating (Also note that historic records are being constantly ‘adjusted.’ See the CA debate on ‘buckets.’)
“Detection of environmental change in a marine ecosystem—evidence from the western English Channel
References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.
Stephen J. Hawkins, , Alan J. Southward and Martin J. Genner
Marine Biological Association of the UK, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth PL1 2PB, UK
Received 28 January 2002; revised 1 November 2002; accepted 25 November 2002. ; Available online 4 February 2003.
Abstract
To separate human-induced changes from natural fluctuations in marine life requires long-term research. The western English Channel has been investigated from Plymouth for over 100 years. The abundance of marine life has been recorded and related to physical changes in the environment. By comparing different parts of the ecosystem we can demonstrate historic natural fluctuations, allowing prediction of effects of future global change. From the 1920s to the 1950s there was a period of warming of the sea, with increases in abundance of species of fish, plankton and intertidal organisms that are typically common in warmer waters to the south of Britain. After 1962 the sea cooled down and northern cold-water species became more abundant. Since the 1980s regional sea surface temperature has increased again and warm-water species are once more becoming abundant.”
This is part of an aeons old natural cycle-unless someone can demonstrate that Man has interfered with that cycle?
Tonyb
maksimovich: You asked, “The absence of Volcanic “forcing” in the 19th century eg Krakatoa 1883 and Tarawera 1888 seems to be absent in this dataset,is this a mix of hadcru ?”
No. It is an NCDC product, ERSST.v3b. It is not a product of the Hadley Centre. The paper discussing the ERSST.v3 data and the differences between it and HADSST data is here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/papers/SEA.temps08.pdf