While we find cooling trends now in RSS and UAH global data from 2002, the US contiguous temperature record for 2009 seems to be returning to very near the normal baseline for temperature in the last century.
From World Climate Report: Another Normal Year for U.S. Temperatures?
Early last January, when the final 2008 numbers were in for the U.S. annual average temperature, we ran an article titled “U.S. Temperatures 2008: Back to the Future?” in which we noted that “The temperature in 2008 dropped back down to the range that characterized most of the 20th century.”
2009 seems to be following in 2008’s footsteps.
The national average temperature had been elevated ever since the big 1998 El Niño, which was leading some folks to clamor that global warming was finally showing up in the U.S. temperature record. “Finally,” because prior to 1998, there was little sign that anything unusual was going on with U.S. average temperatures (Figure 1). The end of the record was hardly any different than any other portion of the record. The slight overall trend arose from a couple of cool decades at the start of the 20th century rather than any unusual warmth towards the end.
Figure 1. United States annual average temperature, 1895-1997 (data source: National Climate Data Center).
Then along came the 1998 El Niño, which raised both global and U.S. temperatures to record values, and our national temperatures remained elevated for 10 years thereafter (Figure 2). Instead of looking for some explanation of this unusual run of very warm years in the (naturally) changing patterns of atmospheric/ocean circulation in the Pacific Ocean, it was often chalked up to “global warming.”
Figure 2. United States annual average temperature, 1895-2007 (data source: National Climate Data Center).
But then something unexpected (by the global warming enthusiasts) happened in 2008—the U.S. annual average temperature returned to normal.
In reporting this in our World Climate Report article last January, we noted the drop in temperatures and wondered about the future:
But now, 2008 comes along and has broken this warm stranglehold. Perhaps this is an indication that the conditions responsible for the unusual string of warm years have broken down—and maybe they weren’t a sudden apparition of anthropogenic global warming after all.
Only time will tell for sure. But, at least for now, things seem like they have returned to a more “normal” state of being.
Now, 10 months have passed and we are starting to get a good idea of how 2009 is shaping up temperature-wise for the U.S. We may be jumping the gun a little here, because there are still two months (17%) of data still outstanding, and November has started out pretty warm across the West, but, in any case, Figure 3 shows the national temperature history for the first 10 months of the year.
Figure 3. United States January-October average temperature, 1895-2009 (data source: National Climate Data Center).
Thus far, 2009 is looking like another normal year—further indication that the warm period from 1998-2007 was an anomaly, rather than a step change to a new climate across the U.S. (be sure to check back in two months to see how the final 2009 numbers pan out).
No wonder the U.S. Senate is slow to get behind the need for restricting our fossil fuel-related energy supply in the name of climate change.
Geoff Sherrington (02:03:57) :
Bob Tisdale (07:45:14) :
Bob, maybe you could expand some on this El Nino – temp thing for Geoff. Or Geoff, maybe you could go to Bob’s site and read some of his stuff. Way too much for me to jump in and try to summarize so all I could do would be to cut and paste.
So, Geoff – go here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/
Excellent chart, i particularly like how well that temperature trend shows the catastrophic warming & associated tipping point.
RR Kampen (04:47:54) :
The Netherlands today has a population of 16.5 MI people. That gives a population density of 397 per square kilometer (1027 per square mile) or if one only count land area (that is minus rivers, lakes and so on) 487 per square kilometer ( 1261 per square mile). That makes the Netherlands one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
1900 the Netherlands had a population of 5,1 MI people. The population has increased more than 3 times during the last 100 years.
If there is any place in the world where you would expect UHI effects it must be in the Netherlands.
I would be extremely cautious in drawing any conclusions from the Netherlands temperature record until somebody has given a satisfying explanation of how the temperature recording authorities has dealt with the UHI problem.
RR Kampen (04:47:54) :
If one is the type you puts their shirt on backwards or gets up on the wrong side of the bed habitually, then that graphic is the misconception of choice.
“”” roddy baird (02:21:25) :
Is it possible that El Nino events influence temperatures partly by increasing the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere? If they did, how persistent would this effect be? Years?
Also, surely given the physics of how CO2 “traps” heat, the effects of an increase in CO2 levels on the temperature of the atmosphere should be immediate? “””
Well H2O vapor “traps” heat in the same manner as CO2; although the exact molecular oscillations are different because of different molecular structure. And there is way more H2O in the atmosphere all the time, than there is CO2; and the observed effects of variations in H2O are arguably immediate; note Iris; the latest southern rainstorm.
To find more long term effects you need to look where most of the incoming energy is going; which is into the world’s oceans. The atmosphere may give us our weather; but I suspect it is the oceans that give us our climate.
John B (09:11:30) :
1030 is another fine example of one too many twisted spots for SC24. Since this is the 1st time anybody has seen such a cycle in modern times ( a very low cycle) it is premature to declare a jump to SC25. Most spots that start life twisted 80 degrees out of whack to the E-W flow don’t get as far as 1030 has.
I prefer to call such an occurence a blinker, because that is what they do, blink in and out while untwisting.
Better yet, why are we getting so many blinkers with SC24? Does the weakness of SC24 magnetic signatures that come from very weak polar fields mean that Dr. Leif Svalgaard and company are looking at the right indicators? I think it does. Company includes Livingston & Penn, who are right on the money with the lowering contrasts of sunspots.
Every time I look at the number of Active Regions vs # of Spotted Regions, I see a falling ratio, and I see L&P and Leif’s forecast of a weak cycle playing out.
Guy Fardell (09:53:16) :
You hit the nail on the head.
Besides one of the highest population density the Netherlands has one of the biggest refineries in the world, one of the biggest harbors, one of the biggest airports,
about 10 million cars, and many more on the roads, millions of boats, millions of cows, millions of pigs, millions of chicken and thousand, thousands of gigantic greenhouses, thousands of industrial area’s and the most dense highway infrastructure of Europe.
Every street and every highway is equiped with street lightning.
The Netherlands is an excellent location to study the Urban Heat Island Effect.
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml;jsessionid=1E4WUQJGQKWRCCQCEAQCCZQ?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1257873084028.xml
Remember a couple of years ago when outside money started pouring into the grain trade, derailing it from its relationship with traditional fundamentals? As economic uncertainty continues, that’s starting to happen again.
That’s the main message analysts say they took from USDA’s monthly crop production and world supply and demand figures, released Tuesday morning. The reports show that while corn yields have suffered from poor harvest weather this fall, that crop will end up the largest it ever has in the U.S. Similarly, the U.S. soybean crop is seen breaking previous production records. (See more from USDA’s Crop Production report).
http://www.usda.gov/nass/PUBS/TODAYRPT/crop1109.txt
Though there’s a lot of uncertainty remaining in what’s left of this fall’s harvest — which will likely extend into December in some parts of the country — analysts see more price stability in grain futures contracts. And, amidst a lot of general economic malaise as the nation starts to take small steps out of recession, that makes futures an attractive buy for outside investors, says eHedger market analyst Gavin Maguire.
I think I agree with part of RRKampen’s take –I’d like to see something significantly below the normal line before I pop the champagne and declar a “return to normalcy”. One cannot show from that graph that this isn’t the making of a “new and higher bottom to natural variability”.
I’ve always said I’m willing to spend a lot more time and money being sure we know what’s going on here. . . I’m just not willing to remake the world economy and spend trillions on it. . . .yet. Nor do I see any urgency in doing so. The folks who argue “tipping point! tipping point!” are the ones that are particularly irksome to me. I see no reason to think another five years of data gathering and research (at a minimum) isn’t an entirely reasonable position to take.
I think it is the other way around. The oceans provide weather systems within climate zones. Climate zones are determined based on topography, proximity to jet streams, and large bodies of water, which is to say, your GPS address. Climate is a rather stable band of temperature and weather range. Weather is what you get from day to day within that band. Much like personality and behavior. Personality is a rather broad range of behavior possiblities. Behavior changes from day to day within that range, but the range or rather, personality, is stable.
geo (10:43:47) :
“significantly below the normal line”–normal is a funny word. In the case of this blog, it means “average”. Next, what would be “significanly below” the average? 1 degree F, 2 degrees F, more? 1 degree F is a return to the 1970 temperatures…I’m old enough to remember the brutal winters of the 70s. I like the current weather better. 2 degrees F is too long ago to remember..more… can you say “year without a summer”?
jeffrey (09:23:52) :
The USA is only is small part of the world. Globally 2009 will be warmer than normal.
Link Please.
OT question – What happened to Erl Happ’s post ? I was hoping to try and digest it a little at a time , and was looking forward to comments . Thanks .
Unprecedented “normal” temperatures!
I’d say 2009 being above the 0 line is a safe bet if you take into account SST’s a few months ago and ENSO judging from how the same thing has played out in the past. I’m not sure whether we’ll see it increase or decrease though in the UAH data.
Bob Tisdale showed SST’s still at elevated levels, despite seeing a graphic showing AMSU reporting things a bit differently. (it also showed the July SST peak as the highest in the AMSU record.)
OT I know, but Solar Wind speed is dropping off the bottom of the chart at the moment…
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_6h.html
Anyone know why the coronal holes are on a go slow?
Geoff Sherrington (02:03:57) : Regarding your questions about El Nino and global temperatures, I just happened to have posted a discussion today that might be helpful:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/11/global-temperatures-this-decade-will-be.html
Anthony, I wonder what the curve would look like if ti was only high quality weather stations, which begs the question – “When will you publish your paper comparing good and bad stations’ results?”. I’ve been hoping to see the averaged trend of all of the good stations, and a parallel curve for a set of bad stations matched as closely as possible to the good ones in lat/long/alt/weather pattern. Even if the results prove to be inconclusive we will know a bit more. Murray
Pamela Gray (10:49:20),
A neutral observer would surely readily conclude that the oceans, comprising 70% of the Earth’s surface, must have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and temperature.
In that regard an earlier poster said something to the effect that temperature over the last two years in the US is not representative of the whole Earth. As the US represents about 2% of the Earth’s area this is probably true. But it has always puzzled me how proxy temperatures derived from a few Bristlecone Cone Pines contained in a really, really, really small part of that 2% can have somehow been considered to teleconnect with the whole world and produce a hockey stick representation of temperatures over the last 1000 years!
Could you make this up? Well, yes, apparently.
Here’s an article that shows some observed solar effects on Earth. (by D’Aleo)
http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=207
I find interesting the argument for the Svensmark hypothesis, because I do note here in Wichita we’ve had a number of days in the last month or so where the clouds are more stubborn than predicted when they predict a bit of cloudiness for that day, but also predict the sunshine to peek through as well.
Heck it’s flat-out cloudy outside my window despite that same site’s hourly forecast saying we should be seeing some sunshine peeking through by now, though we do get sunny days on some days they predict will be sunny and when it’s obvious the cloud cover is moving out.
I’m just waiting for some alarmist to issue the press release that 2009 is going to be the 9th hottest year in this century. 🙂
Steve M. (11:57:43) :
I’d take anything (going forward that is) at 55.25F or lower on the third “January-October” graph above as an example that the “old bottom” is still roughly in place. Sure there were lots of years colder than that, but lots of “cold years” pre-1998 look to my eye like roughly 54.75-55.25 from the late 30s to the late 90s.
I should add I mean give me *just one* year like that going forward, not every year. Give me one year of those and I’ll give you another ten year pass before fretting about the lack of a second one.
Sorry to spoil the party (if that’s possible), but I look at those graphs (even figure 1) and I see an upward trend.
The selection of a 30 year period ending in zero (0) for climatic variables and the term “normal” was set so as to give people a standard with which they were familiar (that is, one reading the numbers in a newspaper or hearing them on radio had lived through some or all of the time from which the standard is derived). When these issues were being decided ( mid-1930s ) computers, TV, iPhones, and the Web were not much in use; that is, real time data distribution was not on the minds of the folks hashing out these issues.
Likewise, the choice of the ‘mean’ as the average (for ‘normal’) would have seemed a reasonable thing to do. However, the mean has the unfortunate tendency to be sensitive to outliers. Thus, if you have a cold spell the mean (average) gets pulled down and a following warming seems all the more so when compared by the numbers but not necessarily to people who are internally less arithmetic.
Now consider what will happen when a new 30-year normal is set in 2011, using the thirty years ending in 2010. The temperature either warmed some following the late-1970s or it didn’t, but some folks numbers say it did. Then we have the “string of warm years, 1998-2007” [Bob’s Figure 2] and the last couple of years “near-normal.” Because of the bias of a mean toward its most wayward data, the about to be “re-set” normal will have a greater average than the last one (the one ending in the year 2000 and including the 1980s). The new period should be 1981 through 2010 – dropping out what seems to be a cooler 10 years for a warmer 10 years. (Note the “should be” in the previous sentence.)
Unless there really is significant warming, it will be more unlikely that any experienced temperature will be much above average. There should be a lack of unprecedented warm temperatures compared to the calculated normal=average=mean. A ways off, but still …
Hurray for our side!