We’ve talked a lot about record cold and snow, now more from the “weather is not climate department”, and this time there’s a warm side to the story. I’d planned to write something about this, since several people left the UAH numbers in Tips and Notes, but Luboš Motl beat me to it, so I’ll give him the honor here. It will be interesting to see what some pundits do with this number, especially if they compare it to the longer 100+ year instrumental surface temperature record. – Anthony
From his post:
Global UAH: warmest January day on record
Source for this graph is here
Many people think that the globe must be terribly cold these days. We’ve seen huge cold snaps and snowfalls in Britain, Eastern parts of the U.S., Western Europe, Central Europe, China, Korea, and India where hundreds of people have frozen.
So these are almost all the important places, right? (At this moment, the speaker forgets that there are places such as Latin America, Australia or the Balkans which have been warm.) So the globe must be cool – cooler than average, people could think.
However, the daily UAH global mean temperature shows a different story. The early January 2010 was warm. And on January 13th, which is the latest day whose temperature is known, we have seen the warmest January day on their record. The brightness global temperature near the surface was
T = -16.36 °C
which may not look excessively warm 🙂 but it is actually 0.11 °C warmer than the warmest January temperature recorded by UAH so far – which was on January 5th, 2007 (-16.47 °C). Of course, some alarmists might feel happy for a while. They’ve been afraid that the worries about a new ice age could escalate. And they’ve been saved: the global weather is warm again. The strong El Nino episode could have helped them – or someone else. It’s important that they’re saved. 😉
However, there is another, more important consequence of these numbers. And it is the following: the global mean temperature is irrelevant for you and for everyone else, too. It didn’t help the hundreds of frozen people in India, the passengers whose flights were canceled, and millions of other people in the European, Asian, and American civilization centers.
If you actually draw the monthly data from 1979 to 2009 – the global ones and those in e.g. Prague – you will find out that the correlation coefficient is just 0.17 – well below the maximum possible value of 1.00. It won’t be much higher outside Prague, either. 🙂
The Pythagorean average monthly anomaly in Prague has been something like 1.95 °C. Imagine that you want to use the global temperature in order to improve the estimate of the temperature in Prague for a given month. If you add the global anomaly and the expected local average temperature in Prague for the month, you will reduce the typical fluctuation from 1.95 °C to 1.92 °C or so – almost no change. The swings in the global temperature won’t visibly help you to improve the predictions of the local temperature.
So while it may be fun to watch the global temperature – a meaningless game that many people began to play in recent years because of the AGW fad (and yes, your humble correspondent only plays these games because others do, not because it is scientifically important) – it is very important to realize that the changes of the global mean temperature are irrelevant for every single place on the globe. They only emerge when things are averaged over the globe – but no one is directly affected by such an average.
Even if you accumulate a whole century of changes, the relevance of the global temperature will be essentially non-existent. A 1.5 °C warming of the global mean temperature is still less than one standard deviation of the monthly average at a given place. And the “local” climate may also shift – the January 2100-2150 average may be warmer than the January 1950-2000 average in Prague by much more than those 1.5 °C. Different regional climates change differently and most of these changes have nothing to do with the changes of the global mean temperature!
By the way, it’s almost certain by now that January 2010 will also be the globally warmest January on the UAH record – the anomaly will likely surpass 0.70 °C. It may even see the highest (or at least 2nd highest) monthly UAH anomaly since December 1978. I will print more exact predictions in a week or so.
@Malaga View
“Seems like global satellite data is just another can of worms…
Theory, calibration, measurement, coverage, continuity, adjustments…
Aren’t global temperatures just a bogus concept based upon bogus data?”
Yes. But the important thing to realise is that they have spawned a market in emissions trading which could be worth around GBP2 trillion. That’s twice the size of the entire oil market, with the extra advantage that nobody has to do any real engineering, and all the profits are available for the bankers…
it’s just weather
Could someone please answer this…
The temperature variations are always expressed only as drybulb temperature variations. Wetbulb temperature variations are never discussed. Since AGW is really a discussion about HEAT at the Earth surface, if both are not known, how can we possibly know if heat at the Earth surface is rising or falling?
It seems to me that a record of drybulb temperatures withouth wetbulb temperatures is a completely meaningless record (heat wise).
Am I wrong?
Paul Coombes (04:31:29) :
I am very naive when it comes to climate but this graph surprises me. If somebody had explained to me that the average temperature was calculated from readings taken all over the globe on each day of the year and then asked me what the graph of these averages would look like, I would have said a straight line. I would have reasoned that when the northern hemisphere is hot then the southern is cold and vice versa so that it all ends up cancelling out. This graph clearly show an annual rise and fall. Not only that but the values are so low. Could somebudy either enlighten me or point me in the direction of some explanation?
In the middle of the year, it is summer in the NH, and winter in the SH, and vice versa. Land masses have greater range in temperature than oceans. There is much more land mass in the NH than in the SH. So the average temperature in the NH winter, will be colder than the SH winter, and the average temperature in the NH summer will be warmer than the average temperature in the SH summer. Your intuition that the hemispheric temperate ranges would counterbalance is incorrect because of the hugely disproportionate balance of land mass and oceans in the two hemispheres.
Oliver K. Manuel (20:41:13) :
It is interesting that the UAH global satellite data is so well insulated from the record cold here on the ground.
If that is in fact true and not the result of manipulation, then there is no reason why anyone should be concerned about UAH global satellite data.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Your focus on the “record cold here on the ground“ is the problem. The southern hemispheric oceans are very warm right now, in anomaly terms, and this is enough, apparently, to offset the record breaking land (“ground”) surface temperatures in the NH. The arctic has also been very warm. All the “record cold here on the ground” is happening primarily over continental land mass. There is a lot of the earth’s surface besides that. For a good look at what I’m saying, go here
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_monthly.html?channel=tlt
and select the radio button for the “anomaly” view. You’ll see the blue (cold) over the US and continental Asia, but then look at the north polar region, and the southern oceans (not to mention the warm spot in Africa). The latter apparently are offsetting the former, so that the “average” is warmer than usual for this time of year, over the whole earth.
tallbloke (04:28:43) :
I’m wondering how many times I’ll have to explain the post solar minimum modoki el nino to you before you stop making dumb statements like this one.
So why is this “post solar minimum modoki el nino” much warmer that the others. Solar Cycle 23 wasn’t a particularly active cycle. Solar Cycle 19 was a big cycle why wasn’t there similar spike in the early 1960s.
You’re just grabbing at straws. Increasing activity from SC24 will push temperatures up another ~0.1 deg over the next few years.
Richard M (05:40:36) :
We have had a significant downturn in hurricanes lately. I suppose the warm oceans could be a side effect of limited heat release by hurricanes.
Warm oceans? Since 2005 there has been a statistically insignificant decline in measurements taken to 2000m. You must mean SST. To some degree El Nino, La Nina are merely changing the surface pattern of relative anomalies. However they can indicate a overall change in the SST. , and they can raise or lowere land temperture. In fact they do this quite well. But warmer oceans, not happening.
val majkus (02:12:05) :
Did anyone respond. I have limited time. I suggest you smoke out Smokey, he has on hand numerous charts of every flavor to counter these alarmist claims, or to show there inconsequence, as some are.
I see have seen no public evidence to suggest the data was tampered with, but even if it was, the data being presented doesn’t even support a warming conclusion. A single data point comparing one day this year versus one day last is meaningless. Further, the data being presented is the “near surface” channel which includes land masses. They may only account for 25% of the earth surface, but they suffer wild temperature swings over short time periods that are not indicative of over all global temperature or long term trend. Switch to the sea surface channel and look through the years one by one.
2003 appears to have been a high followed by stable or cooling years until warming resumed in 2007. Since there is no data before 2003 on that channel, one can draw no conclusions as to how long the cooling trend was in place.
Even if one wants to look at the near surface channel only, the first 9 days of January 2010 were COOLER than the first nine of 2007.
This isn’t about discrediting the data, it is about learning how to look at it in proper context so the while planet doesnt got into a tizzy over a single data point.
But if you look at the explanation of the AMSU you will see that the channel 5 weighting function is pretty broad and has a finite value at ground surface, which means that surface emissivity in the microwave spectrum may, in fact, have some impact on the measurement. I do not know how the microwave emissivity of snow compares to vegetation or soil, so I have no feeling for what the effect of substantial snow cover might be.
Phil A (04:43:14) :
It’s best advised not to write things like “warmest January on record” otherwise unscupulous warmists like the BBC are bound to take it out of context. We may know it only refers to 30-odd years of satellite readings and not 300 years of temperature records, but using a short-term record to imply “ever” is something they’ve done before (e.g. arctic ice) and no doubt will do again.
Interestingly we don’t see such concerns when similar headlines refer to ‘record’ cold!
The very warm Arctic and Greenland shown in the TLT channel is particularly interesting. The air involved in the ferocious outflow southward in continental regions of the NH has been replaced with warm southerly flow over Alaska and Greenland heading poleward. I have watched the persistence of this flow day after day over Greenland and the Labrador Strait all through December and early January in the SSEC composite animation at the University of Wisconsin. I wonder if there has been unusually heavy snowfall in Greenland and/or islands in the Canadian Arctic?
Dave F (20:17:19) :
Basil (18:24:50) :
Here is a statistical beef. The temperature of a 10km^2 area can contain a standard deviation equal to 1.5C. How large is the finest resolution of grid box used in standard practice?
GHCN uses 5×5 degree grid boxes:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ghcn/ghcngrid.html
I’m not denying statistical issues entirely. There are two sources of “standard deviation” in the global temperature data set: a standard deviation from averaging the temperature at a given point in time (spatial variation), and the standard deviation over time. I’ve long wondered if the error bars we sometimes see around the global mean plotted over time take both of these into account, or just the spatial distribution at each point in time. I think they are focused on the latter, but I’m not sure.
Still, I think the notion of a statistical mean global temperature, as a statistical metric, is not per se invalid, and is certainly not invalidated by the greater volatility of local temperature variation, any more than the greater standard deviation of a single stock invalidates the use of a stock market index to track movements in stock markets. That is a red herring argument. There may be valid questions to raise about how we measure the standard deviation of a global temperature metric, but that was not the basis of Luboš argument. I’m not persuaded that his argument has merit.
anna v (00:32:08) :
Once more, I suspect that the error in an average global temperature is much bigger than the anomalies shown. I suspect if a true propagation of errors was done on the plots shown and displayed with the nice curves, the error would overwhelm any differences.
Sources of systematic error:
1) emissivity, how much the gray constant is different from the black body constant of 1
This table of emissivity for some materials
shows a large percentage deviation from black body ( sand is 75% of black body, water 95-96% etc). Suppose we take this 350watts per meter square that have to be radiated by infrared for the energy to balance, ten percent is 35 Watts per meter square, so how can one talk of a radiation budget to the accuracy of 1 Watt/m^2 ?
As to the emissivity of the atmosphere , ( the percentage difference from black body) the gray body constant of air which can be calculated as in formula 8 in link and is temperature dependent: for 10C it is 0.74, at 20C it is 0.79. for 30C it is 0.85 introducing more errors.
These errors can be of the order of 10% the transformation of temperatures into energy, and it is energy that is important.
But Anna we’re talking about the emissivity of molecular oxygen at a variety of frequencies from 50-60 GHz if you want to talk about the uncertainties talk about the quantities actually being measured.
2) the geographical disposition of emissivity, errors coming form the maps, and changes of the maps due to cloud cover snow cover etc changes. I suppose even wind, when it is loaded with dust from the deserts is a time dependent phenomenon
The microwave frequencies chosen are used because they aren’t effected by clouds like IR is. Ice does interfere though which is why RSS doesn’t report TLT outside 70ºS-82.5ºN.
John Finn (08:13:38) :
….
You’re just grabbing at straws. Increasing activity from SC24 will push temperatures up another ~0.1 deg over the next few years.
Even numbered solar cycles tend to be associated with epochs of cooling. As the cycle ramps up, the rate of cooling declines, but not enough to translate into a warming of the degree you expect.
Look at it this way. We’re supposedly in a negative phase of the PDO, but that doesn’t eliminate the warming influence of El Nino’s entirely, it just moderates their warming influence. In the same way, the ramping up of a solar cycle may moderate the cooling influence of a PDO, but not necessarily enough to translate into positive warming, just a reduction in the rate of cooling.
Climate is nothing, if not messy.
val majkus (02:12:05) :
For a good perspective on the CO2 emitted by human activities: click.
Sea level rise has flattened: click
Depending on the time frame, either warming or cooling can be shown. For example, today is warmer than the same day last year. But over the past 12 years, the trend is down: click
“The warming has been fastest over land, and greatest in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere.”
Add in enough selected parameters and you can show just about anything. The chart above is from satellite data – the most accurate global temperature measurements.
“Global ocean temperature rose by 0.10 ºC between 1961 and 2003, to a depth of 700 metres.”
The 3,300 ARGO deep sea buoys show a cooling trend since they were deployed: click
“We have already observed changes to our climate that are more rapid than anything the earth has experienced for at least 1800 years.”
Again, not true. The climate is well within its historical parameters. There is nothing unusual occurring, as we can see by looking at the past three decades of global temperatures: click
“There is greater than 90 per cent likelihood that most of the global warming seen since the mid 20th-century is due to increases in greenhouse gas emissions.”
There is no credible basis for that statement. It references computer climate models, which cannot accurately predict temperatures: click. The statement comes from the UN’s IPCC, written by its 100% political appointees, who would be replaced if they admitted that there is no empirical evidence supporting that statement [empirical = real world, unadjusted raw data].
Here are the temperature parameters for all Decembers going back to 1928: click. Here are October temperatures going back to 1895: click [these two months are all I have available, and I can’t seem to find these charts on the NOAA website any more]. Here is an NOAA chart of raw temperatures vs “adjusted” temperatures: click [it’s a blink gif – takes a few seconds to load]
As we can see, there is nothing unusual going on. The climate naturally fluctuates. The current climate is very benign by historical standards. CO2 is rising, but 95%+ of the rise has nothing to do with human activity. CO2 may have a slight effect on temperature, but it is insignificant; many other factors have a greater effect. If that were not so, then the continuing rise in CO2 would be causing the global temperature to rise: click.
I trust that those charts will help you to counter the disinformation used by climate alarmists. If you need more, ask. And if you follow this site for just a few weeks, you will see that the enormous amounts of money granted to scientists who promote the AGW hypothesis have corrupted climate science. For more detailed information on the corruption of government/university climate science, see the comments under the “Climategate” tab at the top of the page.
Smokey’s comment above (10:42) is an example of going to the other extreme. Which isn’t advisable in my opinion. While it is true that the CO2 hypothesis has been over-hyped it isn’t completely implausible and without merit as a hypothesis. And not all the scientists who believe in CO2 driven climate catastrophe are intellectually corrupted. Just a few them at the top. Pointless antagonism won’t be fruitful for the debate. Everyone should follow McIntyre’s example in this.
True it isn’t looking good for the CO2 hypothesis at the moment, but let us not forget that it has not been disproven either. We should be able to know much better by 2020, and I don’t think there is any justified basis for multi trillion dollar investments in renewables before then. But still it is a valid hypothesis to keep in mind if temperatures keep raising.
Buddenbrook (11:03:12),
I wasn’t being antagonistic. val majkus asked us for information to counter the alarmist talking points he was hearing. If you have better information than what I provided, then by all means, post it here.
And if you believe that the information provided is ‘extreme,’ please show me where. I was not trying to be extreme; I was simply countering the misinformation we see everywhere: sea levels are not rising faster than expected. Quite the opposite. And CO2 has no measurable effect on global temperatures. As I explained, the effect of CO2 is not significant, meaning that it will not lead to runaway global warming. The deep ocean is cooling, not warming. And the global temperature is well within its long term natural parameters.
If we don’t decisively debunk false alarmist claims like those, who will? Turning the other cheek will just get skeptics slapped twice. The CO2=CAGW hypothesis is not based on empirical, measurable evidence, and pointing that out is hardly being “extreme.”
***************
Buddenbrook (11:03:12) :
Smokey’s comment above (10:42) is an example of going to the other extreme. Which isn’t advisable in my opinion. While it is true that the CO2 hypothesis has been over-hyped it isn’t completely implausible and without merit as a hypothesis. And not all the scientists who believe in CO2 driven climate catastrophe are intellectually corrupted. Just a few them at the top. Pointless antagonism won’t be fruitful for the debate. Everyone should follow McIntyre’s example in this.
True it isn’t looking good for the CO2 hypothesis at the moment, but let us not forget that it has not been disproven either. We should be able to know much better by 2020, and I don’t think there is any justified basis for multi trillion dollar investments in renewables before then. But still it is a valid hypothesis to keep in mind if temperatures keep raising.
**************
That’s a good point. In a matter of years we should have results from the cloud experiment and more measurements of the Earth’s radiative balance. We will have a longer sea level and heat content record. We will probably have the surface instrument record re-processed to give us as good a record as is possible with sparse and changing thermometers. Just another 5 – 10 years will give us a clearer picture of the situation.
The most important thing about the climate of the future is not so much to accurately predict it but for humanity to thrive in it. And, within likely limits, thriving depends far more upon the powers of human adaptation and invention, upon the free commerce of free peoples, than the tax-funded prophecies of the hierarchy of the Church of Science Alarmist and End of Days Saints.
Phil. (09:42:14) :
anna: “As to the emissivity of the atmosphere , ( the percentage difference from black body) the gray body constant of air which can be calculated as in formula 8 in link and is temperature dependent: for 10C it is 0.74, at 20C it is 0.79. for 30C it is 0.85 introducing more errors.
These errors can be of the order of 10% the transformation of temperatures into energy, and it is energy that is important.”
Phil. “But Anna we’re talking about the emissivity of molecular oxygen at a variety of frequencies from 50-60 GHz if you want to talk about the uncertainties talk about the quantities actually being measured.”
You made me go back to a previous post :
At these microwave frequencies, the intensity of thermally-emitted radiation measured by the instrument is directly proportional to the temperature of the oxygen molecules.
I see that my objections are for translating temperature into energies, and in the satellite case only the atmospheric emissivity would play a role in errors in energy determination.
You are right,for the plot in this posting, I should be asking to see the errors coming from corresponding the microwave lines to temperature.
The monthly TLT values are calculated by weighting the anomalies at different heights. On the graph above the recent spike is the record warmest for this time of the year, but on a different level (400mb) I see nothing unusual. http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+003
I think an anomaly of 0.7°c is almost impossible, it will be around 0.4-0.45 wrt 1979-1998, slightly cooler than last November and significantly warmer than December.
Thank you for all those that have responded to my plea for an explanation of my lack of understanding. The land mass distribution makes perfeect sense.
So, it’s on to data sets and channel 5 weighting functions next.
Buddenbrook (11:03:12) :
“Smokey’s comment above (10:42) is an example of going to the other extreme.”
Your comment is complete and utter nonsense.
If you don’t like the tone of his posts (and it really is not bad at all), then go back and look at the content.
Perhaps somebody that can lay out the truth in a point by point fashion, referencing SOLID scientific evidence as he goes…is foreign in your world… and thus “extreme”,
Hell…a little “extreme” is good for the soul….extreme weather, extreme sports, etc.
Separates the wheat from the chaff and thins the herd.
Milk-toast mediocrity, cajones-clipped pundits, and “political newspeak” is killing this world today.
Sometimes the only way to say it is to say it.
You wanna talk “extreme”? Here’s a good one. But also darkly funny.
And 100% true. Gore is an out and out fraud:
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I think it’s pretty obvious that the NH is having a coldish winter. For the SH to not just cancel that, but exceed it by enough to make it a record high beggars belief. That would mean the SH was seeing not just highs, but super-hot days. As I live in the SH (NZ) I am surprised that we aren’t seeing that.
It may be scientifically accurate, but I’m struggling to find it even remotely plausible.
So even though the Earth is closer to the sun in Austral summer, the atmosphere gets warmer in N.H. summer.
I know many (perhaps most) people believe that summer is caused because the “earth is closer to the sun” but, really, on this site we should be able to do a bit better than that!
The SH and NH are the same distance from the sun, and a moment’s reflection will make that obvious. It is the angle of inclination which causes the seasons.