October's significant chill – take your pick on descriptors

October, a time for great pumpkins, but not higher US temperatures this time around.

http://www.coyoteblog.com/photos/uncategorized/pumpkin1.jpg
Image: Warren Meyers Coyote Blog

In our last climatic episode from NCDC we had: NOAA: September Temperature Above-Average for the U.S.

The average September temperature of 66.4 degrees F was 1.0 degree F above the 20th Century average.

This month’s NOAA climate press release hasn’t been issued yet, but it will be interesting to see what they say about it.

In the meantime, using the NCDC database, you can come to your own conclusion about what October 2009 was like and if it matches what the upcoming October climate press release will say.

Have a look at this:

NCDC-October-2009
Highlighting and numerical annotation is mine - Click for a larger image

Note the yellow highlighted area and the October 1901-2000 average:

October 2009 50.80 degF Rank 3

October 1901 – 2000 Average = 54.77 degF

That makes October 2009 in the USA almost 4 degrees F colder than the 20th century October average.

You can try the plotting and ranking web tool out yourself here.

So we can call October 2009:

The third coldest on record

The 111th warmest on record

It will be interesting to see what descriptors NOAA/NCDC uses when they issue their climate press release for October, which should be any day now.

h/t to WUWT reader “Crosspatch”

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RR Kampen
November 6, 2009 5:30 am

Johnny, most likely there was no such thing as a ‘Roman warm period’.

Wade
November 6, 2009 5:39 am

AndyW (22:49:39) :
When are you guys over there going to drop F and go to C ? F is a silly temperature scale !
Andy

Fahrenheit is actually more precise than Celsius because there are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling in F, whereas just 100 for C. We landed on the moon with imperial measurements. Of course, the advantage of Celsius is it is better for science. This is my opinion on the matter. Why should you have to adapt to us and why should we have to adapt to you? If I go to India, I shouldn’t expect people to serve me a hamburger. However, a person from India shouldn’t expect me to stop eating hamburgers when that person comes here. We should never demand or expect people to adapt and conform to everyone else. That is why I will use Fahrenheit and feet and pounds to the day I die so long as I live in America. But if for some reason I move outside of the borders, then I will change.

Fred from Canuckistan . . .
November 6, 2009 5:43 am

“Hang on a minute folks…….it hasnt been Hansenised yet. Wait till the adjustments are in!!”
And in a couple of years, some tree rings can be “Mannified” or “Teamified”.

November 6, 2009 5:43 am

RR Kampen (05:30:56) claims:
“Johnny, most likely there was no such thing as a ‘Roman warm period’.”
Do you want to go ahead and try to prove that negative statement?
Why can you not accept the mainstream science POV that there are naturally recurring warm and cold events?
The answer, of course, is that if you accepted the fact that the climate fluctuates naturally, you would also be accepting the fact that Mann’s hokey stick is debunked.

RR Kampen
November 6, 2009 5:47 am

Smokey, climate fluctuates naturally and, today, also by man’s change to the chemistry of the atmophere. This reflects in the largest fluctuation in thousands of years.

November 6, 2009 5:48 am

Anthony: Caution. Are those Official U.S. temperatures at the Climate At a Glance webpage? They haven’t released their official data yet. Don’t be surprised if the official version is different, if the data on the Climate At A Glance webpage are preliminary.
NOAA releases incomplete, unofficlal data on at least one of its websites prior to the official release dates. I’m not sure why they do it, but it is very evident on their NOMADS OI.v2 SST webpage. Here’s a gif animation of the graphs of the Northern Hemisphere SST anomalies including the October 2009 data. Both are preliminary. One dataset was released on October 26th and the other on November 2nd. But the October 2009 OI.v2 data is not official until November 9th. (The date of the offical data varies per month.)
http://i33.tinypic.com/wgx3yw.gif

Bertie B
November 6, 2009 5:56 am

In the UK, we’ve had the hottest October for years. But we did have a bad summer the year before last so you can use that to disprove all the general climate trends if you like. It’ll be a long while before the planet gets so hot that we can’t cherry pick results to “prove” that there’s nothing to worry above. And by then it will be too late, so it still won’t be worth worrying about. So let’s stop worrying!

November 6, 2009 6:02 am

RR Kampen (05:47:41),
Wrong again. The Medieval Warm Period [MWP] was warmer than today. Alarmists can’t admit it though, because they’re… well, they’re being alarmist.
For example, this testimony before congress shows how climate alarmists lie in order to advance their agenda:

Statement of Dr. David Deming
University of Oklahoma
College of Earth and Energy
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, and distinguished guests, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I am a geologist and geophysicist. I have a bachelor’s degree in geology from Indiana University, and a Ph.D in geophysics from the University of Utah.
My field of specialization in geophysics is temperature and heat flow. In recent years, I have turned my studies to the history and philosophy of science. In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science.
In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years.
The week the article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.
I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the “Little Ice Age” took hold in the 14th century. Warmer climate brought a remarkable flowering of prosperity, knowledge, and art to Europe during the High Middle Ages.
The existence of the MWP had been recognized in the scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century warming was truly anomalous. It had to be “gotten rid of.”
In 1769, Joseph Priestley warned that scientists overly attached to a favorite hypothesis would not hesitate to “warp the whole course of nature.” In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became known as the “hockey stick,” because of the shape of the temperature graph.
Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its extent.
There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed on this and other environmental issues.
Earth’s climate system is complex and poorly understood. But we do know that throughout human history, warmer temperatures have been associated with more stable climates and increased human health and prosperity. Colder temperatures have been correlated with climatic instability, famine, and increased human mortality.
The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the past 150 years is poorly constrained, and its cause–human or natural–is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty. If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of misinformation and irrational hysteria.
[my emphasis.]

I’m sure you’ll understand why I place more credibility in Dr Deming’s expertise than in your unfounded belief.

tallbloke
November 6, 2009 6:06 am

RACookPE1978 (03:32:27) :
My opinion – for “watts” little it’s worth 8<) – is that degrees C are too coarse: A European rental car can't adjust closer than 1/2 of one gree C.
And setting the thermostat at 21, 21.5, or 22 doesn't give you the fine degree of control needed. Worse, in a hotel room, being "required" to set a digitial thermostat at no points other than 22, 23, 24, or 25 degrees guaranttes everybody will be unhappy.

You’re not the sort of person who would worry about 1/2 a degree C global warming are you? :o)
Other than an even 100 degrees between two arbitrary points, there is nothing “better” about degrees C.
Arbitrary? The freezing and boiling points of pure water??

tallbloke
November 6, 2009 6:08 am

Following up the Hadcrut data holes, it woulod seem to be the inner continental areas which are experiencing the worst cold. This is consistent with what I’ve been saying about the elevated SST’s arising out of heat leaving the oceans everywhere, and heading straight for space…

RR Kampen
November 6, 2009 6:10 am

Well, Smokey, for the so-called ‘Western European Climate Province’ there are numbers for winter seasons going back to 1200, in particular because local rural agencies would note first and last frost days, and time waterways were unnegotiable due to ice.
These show a slight increase in average winter severity and length, which we know as the ‘LIA’ followed by a slight decrease. The thirteenth century was comparable to the periode 1880 – 1950. It was not comparable to the periode 1980 – 2009.
I know this since far before the hysteria began.

Jon Jewett
November 6, 2009 6:10 am

AndyW (22:49:39) :
When are you guys over there going to drop F and go to C ?
F is a silly temperature scale !
I gather that you may be from the Mother Country.
Don’tca know that we Colonials are just Rubes, clinging to our guns, bibles, and Fahrenheits?
Besides “a pint of Guinness” rolls off the tongue so much better than “a liter”!
Regards,
Steamboat Jack

David Ball
November 6, 2009 6:11 am

RRKampen, you have got to be kidding!! Now you’re going to rewrite history? Let’s put on our jackboots and stomp all over the historic record. You still have not answered my query as to the fascist nature of such actions as rewriting history. So did the dark ages exist? Or are you going to deny that as well because it makes the periods surrounding it look warmer? How about the paleo record that show the huge range of temps that existed on earth? The earth’s temperature is not static. Mankind’s contribution is indiscernible from the natural variation of the climate. Show that we are outside of natural variability.

November 6, 2009 6:15 am

Smokey (05:43:59) :
RR Kampen (05:30:56) claims:
“Johnny, most likely there was no such thing as a ‘Roman warm period’.”
‘Do you want to go ahead and try to prove that negative statement?’
RR Rampken and his proof is??? ‘Smokey, climate fluctuates naturally and, today, also by man’s change to the chemistry of the atmophere. This reflects in the largest fluctuation in thousands of years’
Smokey, he sure showed you. (-:

November 6, 2009 6:15 am

Bertie B:
Climate trends? OK, look here.
Of course, on a less alarming y-axis, there’s no reason to panic.

Leone
November 6, 2009 6:17 am

Is there really “hot” in UK in October? But wait couple of years, then you can go and skate in the Thames ice…

Bill in Vigo
November 6, 2009 6:23 am

I think I have finally figured out the climate scenario.
1. report the temperatures in “raw data” actual measured readings=weather.
2. Hansonize the raw data=manipulate for homogenized data still=weather
3. GISSerate Hansonized data=manipulate homogenized data for removal of
natural variation from data still=weather
4. Then use Schmidt Extrapolatorator to interpretatorate the raw/homogenized/
non natural variated data and now that = climate.
Yep now I think I have figured out just what climate is = to.
(sarc now off) (some spelling intentionally confused)
Bill Derryberry

Arthur Glass
November 6, 2009 6:23 am

” Besides “a pint of Guinness” rolls off the tongue so much better than “a liter”!”
Make mine Boddington’s, and make that pint Imperial.

Glenn
November 6, 2009 6:29 am

Smokey (06:02:05) :
Deming, “He said, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”
Speaking of the roman warm period, someone at Wiki has “scrubbed” the article on the subject. I’m reminded of an Obama staffer who had said that they hadn’t “scrubbed” history of an individual from the Internet, apparently in defense of bad news of the person being found. I think the person was the guy who quit over Beck finding out he was a communist.
But there are still some records:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&source=hp&q=roman%20warm%20period&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws
so I’ll wait with you for Kampen’s to support his claim that there was “most likely” no such thing as the roman warm period.

paulID
November 6, 2009 6:31 am

RR Kampen (05:30:56) :
johnny, most likely there was no such thing as a ‘Roman warm period’.
It is known as the Roman optimum. Go back in time and tell the hundreds of thousands who died from not only the plague(made worse by bad nutrition because of crop failures brought on by a greatly shortened growing season) but also the bitter cold of the little ice age that the winters were only slightly colder.

Barry Foster
November 6, 2009 6:31 am

Fahrenheit to Celsius? Not a chance! The US is still stuck with 24 hours as well! Yes, I know, incredible, isn’t it? Most of them don’t even realise that we here in England (and now most of Europe) are using metric time. 100 ‘minutes’ to an hour seems to have passed most US citizens by. I was even talking to a tourist couple here (from Wyoming) that didn’t even know anything about Europe’s switch to metric time. The Americans can be so out of touch with what’s going on around the world!

Barry Foster
November 6, 2009 6:37 am

Bertie B. The UK has indeed just had an October that was half a degree C warmer than an average of the last 10 years. However, September was half a degree COOLER than an average of the past 10 years. January was over 2 degrees C cooler! So far, this year is considerably cooler than an average of the past 10 years – as was 2008.

P Wilson
November 6, 2009 6:39 am

Bill in Vigo (06:23:17
But what of past climate reconstructions?
they would have to be Mannified, or Briffatized. Hansenizing only plays with present temperatures to exagerratify the presentoratus as made up by Hansen

RR Kampen
November 6, 2009 6:40 am

David, the subject is climate and climate change. Let’s try to stick to it. I have the inclination to totally depoliticize on this subject. This means I’m wary of any numbers given – but less on e.g. records from and about my region (Holland) that have been compiled before the AGW-stuff became hysterical.
Ik do not wish to be bogged down in discussion about things like this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/jul/01/bob-ward-exxon-mobil-climate

D Johnson
November 6, 2009 6:43 am

Sometime in my distant past (probably high school chemistry) I learned the conversions between Deg F and Deg C. But I also learned the following to help in interpreting Celsius temperatures.
30 is hot!
20 is nice
10 is cool
0 is ice
Good enough for deciding what to wear when going outside when visiting a metric country.

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