Lucia beat me to a post on this, so I’ll give her the honor here. Interesting thing though, the delay of Hadley may have provided a better data presentation. – Anthony
Guest Post by Lucia from The Blackboard
Guess what? The much anticipated Hadley monthly surface temperature anomalies are now available. I always use the NH+SH simple average.
Guess what else? According to this metric, the global surface temperature anomaly September 2009 cooled relative to August 2009 dropping from0.548C to 0.457C. In contrast, GISSTemp, NOAA/NCDC, UAH and RSS all reported distinctly warmer anomalies in September relative to August. This divergence is a pit surprising– though I’d have to plough through numbers to see if this sort of mismatch is unprecedented in the record.
One of the interesting happenings this month was Hadley’s decision to delay processing because they considered the some data they received to be obviously wrong. We don’t have details on precisely what was wrong about it, but I noticed large blanked out areas on their map:
Figure 1: Missing temperatures in Africa.
The blanked out areas do seem to be surrounded by warm regions. Maybe the computed value for September’s monthly average will rise when that region reports data Hadley trusts. In the meantime, Hadley’s September temperature is low relative to the other metrics.
Since we anticipate October temperature will be reported soon, and I suspect some revisions for September, I’ll just show the trends based on reported temperatures since both 2000 and 2001, and also compare them anomalies to the multi-model mean anomalies from the AR4 climate models driven by the A1B SRES.
Figure 2: Trends since 2000 and 2001As you can see, EL Nino has caused temperatures to rise; the anomalies for individual months values are currently approaching the mean value projected by the models. As El Nino warms further, the observations for individual months may finally catch and surpass the models, as the do from time to time. However, it’s going to take sustained warming for the trends since either 2001 or 2000 to catch up with the projections. Will it happen? We’ll wait and see.
I left this comment on Lucia’s thread, which I will repeat here:
Lucia, I don’t think this is anything out of the ordinary to have so may data holes. Look at GISS for September:
Link to original at GISS is here
The trend of missing stations in GHCN continues. It appears that Hadley actually has more stations than GISS. Maybe the delay was to allow more trickle in of late reporters. – Anthony
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Aaah, I think I see where this is going, ENSO? Maybe your just playing mind games. Anyhow, Pamela, you should know that the maximum correlation between global SATs and ESO has been found to occur for a lag of 5-7 months (don’t know the reference off the top of my head), and is at most ~0.2 C globally. So the maximum impact on global tropospheric SATs will most likely be felt 5-7 months after this current El Nino peaks. So I would not entirely attribute this past warm September to ENSO, the current El Nino only started in earnest late in the summer and in the past month or so with the formation of a strong eastward propagating Kelvin wave. The greater than average loss of Arctic sea ice in recent Septembers may also have played a nontrivial role in increasing global September temperatures in the GISTemp data, but not the CRU data. Maybe you could separate it out for us.
Now if it were only internal climate modes causing the globe to warm or cool the signal would be noisy, but would have no long-term trend, warmer years would typically follow El Ninos and cooler years follow a La Nina (just considering the impacts of ENSO alone). But, and this is a big but, that is not what has been happening has it? There is a long term upward trend in annual global SATs and SSTs. Why is that Pamela?
PS: As stated above this is why one should ideally be looking at long-term trends in annual, global temperatures. You are obfuscating with your classic “where do you think the data for linear trends come from? Climate or weather”. Why don’t you tell us all Pamela? Anyhow, you are detracting from what is important (see my question above).
PPS: And now you can tell us all what you hypothesis is for the warm September.
RockyMntn,
the people here are well aware of the difference between weather and climate, you are refering to.
I hope you are filling the threads of the maintream media as well with your advices, when another warm day or tornado or heat wave or flood or draught are attributed to climate change.
people here also well aware of issues regarding the (poor) quality of land based data, the incredibly poor state of many weather stations, the poor quality of processing code and the lack of interest to fix it, proven untrue statement of top officials who are in charge at NOAA and elsewhere, obstruction of making data public, upwards step functions when meaurement equipment was changed, etc.
RockyMtn (16:53:19) sez:
1) “Looking at month-to-month variability in the context of climate is just wrong”
Tell it to NOAA/NCDC – they do so every month.
Or, are only the alarmists allowed to do that?
It will be VERY interesting to see how NOAA/NCDC describes what is already apparent in their database.
2) “one gets the clear impression that warming projected to occur by 2100 should be occurring now, and b/c it is not then something is horrible wrong”
Even the alarmists at NOAA admit that:
“The [computer model] simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends [in global temperatures] for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
The satellite data indicate we are — even by NOAA standards — only 4 years away from creating “a discrepancy” in the IPCC computer models.
All other major datasets agree.
Additionally, peer reviewed science from May of 2008 suggests that:
“global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade”
OOPSIE!!!
Looks like we’re in for a NOAA/IPCC busting 20 years without any warming!
Personally, I’m betting on a 30 to 40 year cooling trend very similar to 1934 to 1979.
3) “one month’s data does not constitute climate”
How about 10,000 years of an on-going, uninterrupted cooling trend? Is THAT “climate”? Or, do only alarmists define “climate”?
A) 10,000 year trend at the Arctic Circle.
Click here for citation links and details.
B) 10,000 year trend at the Antarctic Circle.
Click here for citation links and details.
To summarize:
Click here for more on the current cooling trend (according to the standards defined by GISS).
Click here for a brief overview of the peer reviewed science which thoroughly debunks Global Warming Hysteria.
Yonason, if they really wanted to make their results look formidable they would have chosen the 1941-1980 baseline, or 1881-1910. Most agencies use 1971-2000 now, so I am not sure why they still use 1961-1990.
“Also, they always seem to be “adjusting” the numbers, which makes me nervous since I don’t know how they do that. And with their agenda pushing ”
Not sure the floats have an agenda. What agenda is that? The floats and array are complex, yes, but they represent an international effort to monitor and understand the oceans. If they fiddle the data as you suggest then they (oceanographers mostly) only screw up their data– it is their best interest to do it right if they want to understand the THC, for example. They are aware what the problem was with some of the floats and are dealing (or have dealt) with it. The Argo fleet is relatively new and a massive undertaking, so it was expected that there would be some teething problems. They’ll get the issues worked out.
PS: Go to the NCDC site at: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2009&month=9&submitted=Get+Report
They do do the comparisons correctly.
Anyhow, it is very late here. Good night.
SBVOR, is your idea of corresponding on these posts always akin to carpet bombing? Who are these alarmists at the NCDC and NOAA that you are so obsessed with? And what hysteria? I have not read any “hysteria” in the reputable peer-reviewed literature concerning climate change. Care to provide some examples from the reputable journals?
Anyhow, see my post above clarifying what the NCDC do, they do indeed compare all Septembers etc. rather, the folks here at WUWT are the ones seemingly set on comparing month-to-month changes in the global SATs. You have heard the Keenlyside paper (Nature, 2008)– if you had read the paper you would understand why we have and will again experience decadal cooling at some point. You’ll be sad to know that, up until now at least, the Keenlyside et al. forecast is not panning out very well (maybe b/c they ignored the OHC). While you are at it look at Smith et al. (2007) and Pohlmann et al. (2009) for other (better?) decadal forecasts.
SVBOR, rants like yours that only undermine your credibility and make you look alarmist and hysterical. I could practically hear you here. Calm down mate. Oh well, hopefully you feel better after purging all those pent up frustrations.
OK, now I really do need to sleep gotta work tomorrow.
Manfred “I hope you are filling the threads of the maintream media as well with your advices, when another warm day or tornado or heat wave or flood or draught are attributed to climate change.”
I do actually, for what it is worth.
Regarding the code and homogenization problems . Maybe Anthony can fix those issues for them…..
RockyMtn (00:05:00) :
I’m referring to what I linked to here
yonason (09:55:29) :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/02/seat-surface-temperature-makes-a-jump/
If you think John Ray’s interpretation is wrong, please explain. Thanks.
Right. And it’s later for me on the East Coast, so I’ve got to go as well.
rockymtn,
some peer reviewed information presented by pielke sr
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/05/pielk-sr-responds-to-ncdcs-talking-points-about-surfacesations-org/
RockyMtn (00:05:00) :
I provide mountains of evidence — SBVOR (23:44:41) — which you utterly failed to even address, much less refute. And, you provide little more than a personal attack.
How typical.
I could say how typical of your particularly intolerant religious cult. But, that might be construed as a personal attack (albeit — unlike yours — an immensely defensible personal attack).
When the quantitatively Leftist Slate.com openly fears the establishment of a state (environmental) religion, you know we’re facing a big, big, BIG problem.
When the air around the globe is cooling the equatorial air masses contract and all the main air circulation systems shift equatorward giving the mid latitude jets more freedom to swing about between equator and pole.
That is why we are seeing such ‘loopiness’ (a nice description from Pamela) in the jets and so many areas with widely contrasting temperature anomalies.
It also explains warmer temperatures at the poles. In this situation there are more flows of air in and out of the areas around the poles so that the poles become a little less cold but the areas around the poles, especially if continental as in the northern hemisphere, get larger cold anomalies than is usual. Currently the Arctic is warmer than usual but North America has been very cool in October as the Arctic air flooded south.
In a period when the global air temperatures are rising the equatorial air masses expand and push all the air circulation systems poleward. The mid latitude jets being pushed poleward are constrained to a narrower east/west band and there is less cold air flowing out of the poles with less warm air reaching the poles and warmer surface temperatures are noted especially over the northern continents in summer (but beware urban heat island effect).The poles can become colder during a warming phase just as the Antarctic has over the past 30 years. The Arctic does not get colder because the warmer water arriving past Spitzbergen from the Atlantic prevents it and may melt a lot of sea ice in summer. Just as we saw until 2007.
As time passes it is all becoming obvious.
Concord, New Hampshire was -1.8 For September.
On the above map all New England is a nice shade of pink.
Bunkum!
@Willy Nilly
“All the data holes are in the hottest places. That is not random. It is as though the cold readings were screened out, leaving only the hottest readings. Cynical I know, but why are all the holes just where the temps are hottest?”
Now, call me Fredwina and slap me with a badger, but wouldn’t having cold locations included and warm locations missing make the final number cooler than it would otherwise have been?
“…is wrong because– one month’s data does not constitute climate, not even remotely close. Also there seems to be an expectation that each month should be warmer than its predecessor– nope…”
Actually RckyMtn I am much more interested in the verification statistics of the long GCM temp trends. Once you remove the post hoc fittings it easy to see the warm bias these organizations build into thier models. One other thing, it is organizations like NOAA who are a monthly basis announce that such and such a month is the XX warmest since records were kept. Of course, one could argue that that is weather and not climate. Personally, I don’t get that excited about monthly or even decadal trends. Climate is about centennial or greater trends. As far as I’m concerned, we are still in the post LIA temp rebound.
Actualy the lowest temperature ever for september was meassured in the interior of greenland. The low temperature was -46 degrees celcius
Why is it that when I go to the HadCRUT temperature page I still can’t see the September data?
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
August is still the last month with data and the latest update for HadCRUT3 and HadCRUT3v is still 16 September.
??
You need to keep in mind that that 1.9% of surface area accounts for 28% of the thermometers.
RockyMtn (00:05:00) :
UPDATE:
Perhaps this is the basis of the decision to discount the ARGO data?
http://gest.umbc.edu/student_opp/2009_sies_reports/BYoung.pdf
Obviously if ARGO data is too low, then it should be discounted? Just because it “shouldn’t be?” It may be a reasonable assumption, but without trouble shooting and locating the problem.
Their “science” appears to be sloppy and agenda driven. What’s not to suspect?
Caleb (02:51:26) :
Check out Wolfram Alpha, which has data for Concord NH, from KCON (Concord Municipal Airport).
For “All” data, going back to 1958, they have a trend of linear trend: -0.0033 deg F/y+-0.0206 deg, i.e, really nothing to see there.
Also, they don’t have Sept., data separate, but for what it’s worth, they have the following stats for Oct.
minimum: 21 deg F Sat, Oct 17, 5:45am |
average: 43 deg F |
maximum: 70 deg F Sat, Oct 31, 12:30pm |
Bob Tisdale (18:01:52) :
Thanks for the link.
Wondering Aloud (08:42:07) :
Just as well their data has holes, as what remains is obvious crap. They show my area as +.5-+1 instead of the actual -1.5 we had. Take a look folks did they mess up your region too?
Well, they got KS correct as far as I can tell from the map. However, Oct in South Central KS was -7.1 F. We’ll see if that shows up.
As for the Sept. Hadcrut global anomaly and missing data, it’s obvious Phil’s dog ate the data and the reported temperature is that of the contaminated-food poisoned dog.
RockyMtn
I very much think that positive temperature departures in Siberia should be taken with a grain of salt.
Energy delivered in the form of fuel oil and electricity in the old Soviet Union was delivered based on temperature so the colder they reported the more heat they got. If you’ve ever lived even briefly in one of those buildings you know there was a HUGE incentive to report temperatures as cold as possible.
People who lived and worked in Siberia during that era freely admit doing exactly this. As a result they would show enormously above average temperatures now, even if there was no change at all.
SBVOR, I did not make a personal attack. I asked if overwhelming people with a myriad of “information” was your typical style. I also asked you to calm down– your post did come across as “hysterical”. If you took offense to my reply, my apologies, but try and not be so combative eh?
And actually I did address a number of your points, if not directly elsewhere on this thread (e.g., your point 1). Some of your observations were off topic (the Keenlyside paper), but I spoke directly to that. I did not address one point, and I’ll do that now:
Regarding “How about 10,000 years of an on-going, uninterrupted cooling trend? Is THAT “climate”? Or, do only alarmists define “climate”?”
How does one define climate? That is actually a nontrivial question. The definition, was definitely not determined by the alarmists SBVOR. If someone here knows the history of the 30-yr window please pipe up– it is my understanding that the 30-yr period originated form the WMO many decades ago. Many stakeholders use the climate data including agriculture, energy, engineers. Now we could estimate the climate going back 4.3 billion years, but to prepare a climate baseline which is useful one
needs good data (high spatial and temporal resolution). Also, using a baseline from two or three interglacials ago (for example) is not much, if any, use to for stakeholders to place today’s climate in the context of the current state of the climate system, the climate system evolves b/c drivers of that system evolve too (orbital parameters, solar variations, composition of the atmosphere, land use changes, volcanic activity, land-to-mass ratio). Not to mention the issue with using very coarse proxy data– can’t downscale those data, or interpolate those data to your state. So that essentially forces one to look at data since circa 1880, the data is not great, but one does the best with what one has and tries to improve the monitoring system as A. Watts is doing.
Now one could use the average conditions observed for the entire record, currently 130 years or so. But, not all stations in the USA have data for that period of time. Also, one has to allow for internal climate modes etc. And on it goes. Should the baseline be 10, 30, 50, 100 years? What does the PDF of the data look like for those windows? If you choose too short a window the data will be too noisy and not much use. So, this is a complex issue, so how about we let the professionals decide….
As for your references to cults and religion…..physics, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics etc are all blissfully unaware of ‘religion’. I take strong offense to you stating “your particularly intolerant religious cult.” Not only do not know me from adam, but you are wrong, read the judges ruling carefully. Not that is any of your business, I am agnostic and do not cater to any religion real or imaginary.
Now how about we be civil and agree to disagree?
Yonason “Their “science” appears to be sloppy and agenda driven. What’s not to suspect?”
Can you substantiate this assertion with some facts? Especially, the “agenda” part. Nobody disagrees that one has to be careful with new datasets, but that said, there is a difference between a questioning mindset and a cynical mindset. Unless you can provide evidence, I will remain cautiously optimistic that the Argo data will continue to improve, and will continue to prove to be a valuable tool (as discussed in the paper you provided).
PS: I had a look at the paper– I’m not sure how this is evidence to discount the Argo data. It is a paper in which they are using the ARGO data to calibrate the satellite estimates of OHC. The satellite data were underestimating the OHC as determined by the floats. Did you link the right paper? Maybe a better exercise would be to compare the Argo, satellite and TAO/TRITON data.
JL Krueger, “You need to keep in mind that that 1.9% of surface area accounts for 28% of the thermometers.”
Indeed you may be right. I am not sure what you point is? About 70% of the planet is covered by oceans, very few thermometers there, and we all know the importance of oceans in modulating/determining climate. One has to, ideally, monitor the entire system. So unless you are talking only of land temperatures, then my point stands.
Yonason, sorry, I only just read your last form from last night. I followed the link. Hmm, the blog sounds like a bit of conspiracy theory to me. Have you read this? The situation is more complex than one might think, and how they determined that the data was incorrect and how they fixed it is all described here on the NASA website:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
If the data have issues, but those issues can be addressed properly, then what is wrong with fixing the data? That does not automatically translate into “an agenda”.
OK, I really have to go