December 2009 UAH Global Temperature Update +0.28 Deg. C
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
The global-average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly fell back to the October level of +0.28 deg. C in December.
The tropics continue warm from El Nino conditions there, while the NH and SH extratropics anomalies cooled from last month. While the large amount of year-to-year variability in global temperatures seen in the above plot makes it difficult to provide meaningful statements about long-term temperature trends in the context of global warming, the running 25-month average suggests there has been no net warming in the last 11 years or so.
[NOTE: These satellite measurements are not calibrated to surface thermometer data in any way, but instead use on-board redundant precision platinum resistance thermometers carried on the satellite radiometers.]
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 +0.411 +0.212 +0.610 +0.427
2009 8 +0.229 +0.282 +0.177 +0.456
2009 9 +0.422 +0.549 +0.294 +0.511
2009 10 +0.286 +0.274 +0.297 +0.326
2009 11 +0.497 +0.422 +0.572 +0.495
2009 12 +0.280 +0.318 +0.242 +0.503
Re: 1DandyTroll (12:35:15)
Rather than “5-month”, “13-month”, “25-month”, the thing to do is AVERAGE(A2:A6,average(A1,A7)) or AVERAGE(A2:A12,average(A1,A13)) or AVERAGE(A2:A24,average(A1,A25)).
Another way to look at the whole AGW situation is to put the whole thing in perspective. An anomaly of .28C over 30 years is just how serious?
Let’s say we follow the same path. That means in 2040 the anomaly will be all the way up to .56C. Wow, will we able to breathe? Where I’m at right now the mid-afternoon temperature is 5F. Is anyone really (I mean really) concerned that it might be 6F (or even 7F) in another 30 years.
Do AGW believers like MJK ever look at the situation logically?
Re: David Segesta (13:09:50)
People use odd-numbered boxcar-kernels for window-centering purposes, but the issues arising from missing the harmonics are easily avoided – [see my note at Paul Vaughan (13:22:25)].
Btw: You can do spectral analysis with simple boxcar-kernels – it’s a good way to learn how (very seriously) misleading FFT is for nonstationary series.
This story in the Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6975867.ece) quotes:
QUOTE:
Guo Hu, the head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, linked this week’s conditions to unusual atmospheric patterns caused by global warming.
END QUOTE
Well, there’s a surprise, the record cold is due to “global warming” after all.
They’ll still be saying this when Woolly Mammoths are roaming the snow covered streets of Cairo, when the glaciers invade Scotland and when we are up to our necks in polar bears – in London and Paris.
Wow, DirkH (12:06:59), you really contributed to answering my valid questions with your comment. You’re a stellar scientist or science educator. Top Marks – not! You get an F.
One of the main problems in the ‘debate’ about climate science is that people are so quick to use nasty or mocking or sarcastic ad hominem personal attacks rather than simply answering peoples questions straight up. Not everyone has the inside knowledge of the experts.
Asking Roy Spencer if he used a “weight” on the smoothing and to show his 25 month running average function are valid question. As is asking what information he gleens from such a running average on temperature graphs. Roy Spencer is the expert after all and I’m learning this subject so it’s appropriate to ask questions, even the most basic questions. Even if I wasn’t learning this topic it would be appropriate to ask someone to show their work so that it can be audited and checked and replicated on my own. It’s known as open (source) science. It’s what WUWT and Climate Audit and Paths To Knowledge dot Net (http://www.PathsToKnowledge.net) advocate.
Obviously DirkH one can infer from your comment that you don’t advocate learning about a scientist’s graph nor think it’s relevant to clarify it’s construction.
Maybe this has been discussed before, if someone could please supply a reference I would appreciate it.
Now often I get this type of response from those that are highly educated in their field. Often that is worse than if the person is just some random commenter since it shows that a scientist looks down at others learning or asking auditing questions. That’s part of the extreme arrogance that many scientists have and it’s a rather repugnant aspect of science as the Climategate Jones, Mann, et. al. alleged scientists have proven drives them. Even worse is when the person is not just educated but also a science educator; for some reason they think that their role as an educator ends when their class ends and they become monsters on the web blasting anyone who asks questions. Typically the worse of these in the climate debate are the “alleged professors”.
In any event, DirkH it’s a good thing that you’re not a science teacher of mine. Hopefully you’re not an actual climate scientist or scientist either.
Anyway the questions still stands.
1DandyTroll (12:35:15) :
“Who was the stellar brainiac that came up with the 25 month average?”
It’s nothing more behind it than that a 25-month average, unlike a strict two-year average, has a well-defined monthly midpoint to associate with the average value: for the latest period from December 2007 to December 2009 it’s December 2008.
On the other hand unlike a two-year average, any seasonal variation will be picked up, though not with much weighting (4%): there are three December values in the average above, but only two of every other month.
As to to the more important question of why Dr Spencer suddenly changed from a 13- to 25-month average, as I wrote yesterday:
“The much cooler temperatures of 2008 will now continue to contribute to the smoothed trend line for another year.”
Or as Leif Svalgaard more explicitly put it today:
“Changing to a 25-month smooth will henceforth be known as ‘Roy’s trick to hide the increase’ …”
Lief:
“Changing to a 25-month smooth will henceforth be known as “Roy’s trick to hide the increase” …”
“He’ll obviously then choose another interval as needed to maintain the trick :-)”
Very immature Lief. You know that hottest years are not selected from a smoothed line. They are selected based on the average for the twelve months.
Shouldn’t you be figuring out why the correlation between Svensmark’s theory and the climate is so good? I’m curious to see where you are going to come down with regards to that theory – now that you appear to have bought into the AGW fraud. You seem to be reluctant to place a bet one way or the other on Svensmark.
I agree with Dr. Svalgaard and I think Dr. Spencer will go back to the previous 13 month running average. However I disagree with Tom P (12:11:31) , our planet may not be warmer in a year or so, it may be colder:
We can approximate the 11.1 year solar cycle with a sine function
K(t) = A∙sin(ω∙t), where ω = 2∙π/T and T is the period = 11.1 year.
The accumulated heat from the sun according to the first law of thermodynamics is:
m∙cp∙dT/dt = Qin – Qout = K(t) – σT^4
As the temperature is the time integral of the radiation K(t) from the sun the temperature variation may be a sine function with a quarter period delay, which is 11.1/4 = 2.78 year. Thus, the minimum in temperature may come 2.78 years after the solar minimum….
Do you agree Leif?
Wayne, that uah plot-site is FANTASTIC!
But isnt this from UAH which started measuring in 1979 ?
I wonder why it starts in 2003, not 1979?
syphax (08:09:50) :
“Interesting footnote. I wonder if Dr. Spencer has caught flak from Monckton’s ‘the satellite record is just calibrated to the surface record’ meme.
Be careful not to eat one of your own in the frenzy.”
Actually, Spencer informed Monckton about Monckton’s misunderstanding of the satellite’s calibration, and Monckton promptly revised what he said.
Except, there are bugs.
Try;
-Tick all checkboxes ON.
-Click Readraw
-Then change to Sealevel.
-All checkboxes are unchecked unless 2009 and 2010
=>Thats too bad.
-Now you must check all checkboxes ON again
-Click Redraw =>It plots one year only…….
I love seeing Peter Garrett making a fool of himself. I hope he keep sit up all the way during the cooling cycle. People already are sick of him. Give it a year or two and he’ll have to go back to his music business. His view that 2009 was warm is nonsense. It has been a typical year not unlike many others over the pat 100 years. So much for rampant global warming. What global warming? Dream on Peter, and all other AGW crackpots.
I think I am missing something here, but all this jumping around from month to month worries me. Temperature is only a measure of energy and so if the temperature really is changing this much, there is one massive transfer of energy going on here. Take June to July this year – almost half a degree – and then October-November-December almost a quarter of a degree up and then down again.
Are we really seeing a true movement of energy into and out of the system – or is this just the noise generated by sampling and instrument variation?
I accept that what we are seeing is energy measured in one part of the atmosphere (or whichever part is measured by these satellites) and, since the surface temperature records also measure air temperature (although a different part) it makes sense that they correlate to some extent. But surely we have to be able to find where all the energy is coming from (and going to) before we can hope to get a handle on whether there is more or less energy in the system as a whole. Can sea (surface) temperatures account for this?
If this was a financial model, you can be d*** sure people would want to know where it all goes to and comes from each month! Maybe that’s why people like Steve McIntyre were the ones who first looked at the models.
I know I’m coming into this late, but I still don’t see anyone giving an answer on this and it worries me that we are considering temperature a thing in itself and not what it represents.
Paul Vaughan (12:20:00) :
Here’s a clue for MJK, who seems to have some of us pegged all-wrong:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/r.._-r…png
You should probably compare that to fig 32 in this documement.
http://semi.gurroa.cz/Astro/Orbital_Resonance_and_Solar_Cycles.pdf
If it turns out to be important, drop by on this thread at my blog and let us know. http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/meet-the-new-kepler-p-a-semi/
Cheers
Leif Svalgaard (12:41:15) :
This assumes Dr Spencer sticks to 25-month averaging.
He’ll obviously then choose another interval as needed to maintain the trick 🙂
Dr Svalgaard, sorry if you’ve answered this elsewhere, but what interval would you use?
Aha, now I see it. Instead of plotting all years from 2003 on left side to 2010 on right side…..as was done at first…its now suddenly plotted on top of each other. My mistake.
Very, very nice stuff! Thanks, UAH.
Murray (13:05:07) “[…] cute curves. Could you provide some labelling so us less gifted guys have some idea what they are trying to tell us?”
Think of it [very loosely speaking] as an index of radial acceleration of the ‘inner’ solar system relative to the ‘outer’ solar system, as viewed from a reference point at the north pole of the sun. Btw: This has nothing to do with TSI, sunspots, solar activity, etc. – this is about EOP (Earth orientation parameters). You can quickly derive the curve from NASA Horizons (online software) output. See the Russian literature, particularly Barkin & Sidorenkov for related ideas – note particularly Barkin’s challenges of conventional modeling assumptions that simplify math to make it tractable and Sidorenkov’s ideas about the hydrologic cycle (in the context of the Russian school of thought on zonal vs. meridional circulation regimes).
Regardless of the Australian numbers and disregarding Jo Nova’s raw data v BOM adjusted data, Tony Abbott is still correct in that there has been no discernable global temperature rise in a decade. If the WMO is still working where 2009 ranks globally presently at +0.44 deg anomaly plus or minus 0.11deg, I would say that after the NH December freeze that this number will go downwards rather than upwards.
But I guess after the Copenghagen debacle and the current NH weather Rudd is getting desperate to be able to hang his hat on something.
“RobP (13:50:40) :
I think I am missing something here, but all this jumping around from month to month worries me. Temperature is only a measure of energy ”
Consider for a moment that a temp. of say 0 deg C is about 273K, so when it goes up by a degree that’s about a third of a percent.
For the radiation emitted into space, the absolute temperature is decisive. Seen this way, it’s not much jumping. It’s of course a colossal amount of energy nonetheless due to the sheer size of the planet. If you divide the radiated energy by the area of the surface it gets more manageable again; hundreds of Watts per square meter.
Shouldn’t make you worry all that much.
I noticed in the emails it also states how bad the Aust data was ,and as we now know they have cooked the books everywhere with the temp data .
Invariant (13:38:39) :
As the temperature is the time integral of the radiation K(t) from the sun the temperature variation may be a sine function with a quarter period delay, which is 11.1/4 = 2.78 year. Thus, the minimum in temperature may come 2.78 years after the solar minimum….
That might work if it wasn’t for the fact that l Nino has occurred within 12 months of minimum over the last 5 solar cycles. Problem this time is, there’s no strog uptick in the following cycle to reinforce the warmth coming out of the ocean…
So you will get the cold 2 years after minimum this time, but not for the reason you thought exactly.
Re: tallbloke (13:55:30)
Good to see you pulling threads together tallbloke – intense work. I have those curves on file. Cophasing & collinearity are certainly hazards when working with thickly-confounded indices of SSD. I’ll drop a note [about QBO & related terrestrial indices probably] on your blog in the days ahead.
The tropics are warm … that’s laughter you hear … in SWFL, we been freezing cold the last week with a hard freeze predicted by the weekend locally.
Send some global warming our way, Floridians are not used to below 40F weather. The orange growers are going nuts trying to harvest crops.
The gulf water is getting so cold, fish kills are eminent.
Re: Invariant (13:38:39)
Interesting.
I would be interested in hearing if you know how to work (accumulations of) these oscillations into your model:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/QBO_fGLAAM_fLOD.png
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/GLAAM_LOD_SOI.png
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/fAO_fNAO_1a..png
What’s the resolution on UAH? Could it be used to QC the surface temperature products from CRU, GISS, etc?
Given the concerns around UHI, it would be interesting to see what UAH has for the area around Darwin Zero for example… or Siberia, or New Zealand for that matter.