January 2010 UAH Global Temperature Update +0.72 Deg. C
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
UPDATE (4:00 p.m. Jan. 4): I’ve determined that the warm January 2010 anomaly IS consistent with AMSR-E sea surface temperatures from NASA’s Aqua satellite…I will post details later tonight or in the a.m. – Roy
YR MON GLOBE NH SH TROPICS
2009 01 +0.304 +0.443 +0.165 -0.036
2009 02 +0.347 +0.678 +0.016 +0.051
2009 03 +0.206 +0.310 +0.103 -0.149
2009 04 +0.090 +0.124 +0.056 -0.014
2009 05 +0.045 +0.046 +0.044 -0.166
2009 06 +0.003 +0.031 -0.025 -0.003
2009 07 +0.411 +0.212 +0.610 +0.427
2009 08 +0.229 +0.282 +0.177 +0.456
2009 09 +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 +0.288 +0.329 +0.246 +0.510
2010 01 +0.724 +0.841 +0.607 +0.757
The global-average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly soared to +0.72 deg. C in January, 2010. This is the warmest January in the 32-year satellite-based data record.
The tropics and Northern and Southern Hemispheres were all well above normal, especially the tropics where El Nino conditions persist. Note the global-average warmth is approaching the warmth reached during the 1997-98 El Nino, which peaked in February of 1998.
This record warmth will seem strange to those who have experienced an unusually cold winter. While I have not checked into this, my first guess is that the atmospheric general circulation this winter has become unusually land-locked, allowing cold air masses to intensify over the major Northern Hemispheric land masses more than usual. Note this ALSO means that not as much cold air is flowing over and cooling the ocean surface compared to normal. Nevertheless, we will double check our calculations to make sure we have not make some sort of Y2.01K error (insert smiley). I will also check the AMSR-E sea surface temperatures, which have also been running unusually warm.
After last month’s accusations that I’ve been ‘hiding the incline’ in temperatures, I’ve gone back to also plotting the running 13-month averages, rather than 25-month averages, to smooth out some of the month-to-month variability.
We don’t hide the data or use tricks, folks…it is what it is.
[NOTE: These satellite measurements are not calibrated to surface thermometer data in any way, but instead use on-board redundant precision platinum resistance thermometers (PRTs) carried on the satellite radiometers. The PRT’s are individually calibrated in a laboratory before being installed in the instruments.]
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NOTE: Entire UAH dataset is here, not yet updated for Jan 2010 as of this posting
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George E. Smith (14:09:01)
Are you the George E Smith who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics?
REPLY: Yes that’s him, though he’s too modest to mention it. – Anthony
“yonason (12:56:47) :
sunsettommy (12:28:20) :
“I implore you to stop bashing the satellite data.”
No. You say it must be the oceans, since it probably wasn’t the land. Well, like I said above, show me where exactly the alleged warming is coming from, and support the result with another method, and I might reconsider, but failing that, the result is so beyond what is expected, that it must automatically become suspect.
As to, “it must be the oceans,” I’m afraid there are is some hint that might not be true.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/03/the-ocean-really-is-cooling/
If it turns out that’s true, fine. But don’t expect me to buy it when so many other, and more direct, indications say, “NO!” without further, and a lot more, details.”
Sigh,
I am commenting on the CURRENT warming phase,and noting that most of it is over the ocean areas of the world,which is 70% of the surface.Yet we read and talk about large scale snow and cold in the Northern Hemisphere,as if it means the world is cooling down.It is not because of several different satellite data,showing why it is a very warm January.
Most of the reason for such a warm January occurred over the ocean waters.
I never claimed that the oceans are in a long term warming trend at all,please disabuse that thought.
I know about the ARGOS project and even have a link to that website,at my climate skeptic forum.I agree that there is a small cooling trend in the ocean since at least 2003.
I do not accept the AGW hypothesis,but do accept the fact that since 1979,there has been small warming trend,but a cooling one since 2001.
This El_nino will fade away and a few months after that,the main warm pool of air will also fade away as it gets absorbed in weather systems.
The satellite data is superior to ground based data,because it measures by far a much larger area.Ground based measurements are very narrow and usually within 30 feet of the surface and lower.
In my view most climate researchers are looking in the wrong place,to find out why there is a “recovery” trend ongoing from the LIA climatic epoch.
Thus the reason why I have suggested not to blast a single month data,simply because it was very warm.
Actually, he disavowed the credit a few months ago, stating that although their middle initials are identical, the actual middle names are not.
Try CFCs: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/22/study-shows-cfcs-cosmic-rays-major-culprits-for-global-warming/
The earth hasn’t been in a warming trend since 1959. It was flat-to-cooling from 1942 until about 1978.
REPLY: Hmmm last conversation I saw about GES with CTM says otherwise, but I’ll have to run this down again. – Anthony
“Yes, I agree that what you say is probably true. But why not state where the heat is coming from and confirm your (and my) analysis? Leaving the statement the way it stands opens the door to the propagandist.
Mike Ramsey”
I did state that most of it was coming from the oceans,the part that is NOT getting all that snow and cold,that we read and hear so much about.
There is an moderate EL-NINO going on.
Hmmmm. Interesting. The reality is that no scientist of Nobel calibre would be seen dead within several miles of this blog. The fact that you assert that the George Smith who posts here (at some rambling and incoherent length) is the same guy who was awarded the Nobel for his work on CCDs suggests a hitherto unsuspected level of delusion, and further, since Mr Smith has denied it several times over implies that you don’t actually bother to read the comments on your own blog …
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22George+E+Smith%22+Charged+Coupled+Device+Nobel+namesake+site%3Awattsupwiththat.com
George E. Smith (14:35:16)
George, knowing now who you are, as a non-scientist I will definitely tread extremely carefully in my quest for better understanding.
There was nothing hard about the above post which explained clearly why due to differences in radiation emission it takes 11 times as much input energy to raise the hottest tropical deserts by one deg C than it takes to raise the Vostok station by one deg C.
The problem I have is with the statement in your previous post (10:54:33) that “the polar cold regions … are incapable of disposing of this excess heat because of their low temperatures”.
Should I be thinking along the lines that the polar cold regions accept all the heat emitted from the hottest tropical deserts (“excess heat”) and other sources and retain most of it because of their low radiation emissions (“low temperatures”).
The question I would now ask is “What measuring work has been done in the cold polar regions to prove that energy inputs exceed radiation emissions?.
Henry Pool
“But I want to make it clear again: how do we know for sure that earth has warmed
compared to say, the past 100 years? Or even when you compare 1930 with 2010?What equipment was used in those days? What we are measuring now is in 0.1 of degrees C. Did they have that kind of an accuracy 80 or 100 years ago?”
Because we have thermometer readings going back over 150 years indicating that it is warming. The equipment being used to measure temperatures 150 years ago was sufficiently accurate. But don’t take my word for it, do some research, instead of just jumping to the baseless conclusion that “the readings must have been wrong”.
“The problem could simply be the amount of heat that we produce to fly, to drive, to cook, to cool, or to stay warm or cold. Simple arithmetic. I can see a rise of 2.5 degrees in temp. when I drive at night from the country into the city.
Missingo, do you not believe the outcome of that experiment?”
You are arguing for the urban heat island effect, which has been proven to have negligible effects on thermometer readings, but don’t take my word for it, look it up.
Roger Knights
“The earth hasn’t been in a warming trend since 1959. It was flat-to-cooling from 1942 until about 1978.”
What on earth do you call this then?
http://climate.nasa.gov/images/GlobalTemperatureGraphicCRU.jpg
If that isn’t a warming trend I don’t know what is.
It is unfathomable that anybody can contest that the Earth HAS been warming, skeptics can question the causes of that warming, no worries, but denying that temperatures have actually increased? That really is nothing but low rent denial.
“CO2 also absorps in the UV, visible and near IR, meaning it also reflects sunlight like ozone and water vapor does. So what is the net effect?”
Again, Co2 does nothing of the sort, it allows all UV wavelengths to pass through it when entering the Earth and does not reflect sunlight, but absorbs it as it bounces back into the atmosphere as long wave radiation.
So the net effect is warming.
An extremely belated response to “vibenna (14:53:07) :
……It will show a warming trend in the UAH data stronger than that stated by the IPCC.”
How will that apper if we take into account the two coolings, that occurred during fairly strong El Nino periods, caused by El Chichon (80s) and Pinatubo (90s) eruptions?
Ian M Campbell (14:51:36) :
No he’s not, George posted some notes a while back, no hope of finding them
now, I think it was last year when you were in Europe.
The two GES both work on semiconductor fabrication, so the confusion is natural.
A flat-to-cooling trend from 1942 until about 1978. The level in 1959 was well below that peak in 1942. That’s why there was such a furor about the threat of global cooling in the 1970s. It wasn’t until 1980 or so that what looked at the time like a mere slight “correction” (as they say on Wall Street) in the downtrend turned out to be the start of an uptrend.
Not from 1942 to 1978. 1978 was lower than 1942. Only by 1980 was the 1942 peak exceeded. So it’s fair to call the period from 1942 to 1978 flat to declining, although 1978 was slightly warmer than 1959.
OTOH, since 1959 was the low point after the decline from 1942, you could say that temperatures have been in an uptrend since 1959. But that would be wrong, 🙂 because there was no significant turnaround in the sideways drift until 1978. I had the impression that most warmist scientists agree with the interpretation I’ve just given. Let me know if I’m wrong.
Strawman.
I personally seem to be in a minority here (among those who post, who may not be representative) in that I think that, despite problems with the instrumental records (which ought of course to be fixed, and whose sloppiness or worse lowers the credibility of those who have curated them), the end-result will be only a minor adjustment. The satellite record and various natural proxies indicate that global warming is occurring.
I attribute the warming to a rebound from the LIA (i.e., to chaotic system vainly seeking an ever-shifting point of equilibrium) supplemented in recent decades by warm phases of the PDO, etc. Prof. Akasofu has a highly illustrated and educational 50-page PDF on this: http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/little_ice_age.php
Missingo, study the relevant solar radiation spectra – note the difference between what is read on top of the atmosphere and what is measured below at sea level – even on a sunny day….. The difference is mostly caused by: oxygen/ozone, water vapor and yes, believe it or not: carbon dioxide! As I said before: they even use the absorption of carbon dioxide in the UV part to see if there is carbon dioxide on other planets. Did you have a good look at the spectra of CO2 and that of the sun?
So carbon dioxide blocks some radiation from the sun. If I stand in the sun here in Africa and I feel the sun on my skin it becomes warm but if the humidity goes up in the day then I can feel that that same radiation becomes less warm. Why? The water vapor blocks the hot IR. CO2 does the same thing, to a lesser degree at various wave lengths.. That is why I asked: what is the net result? How do you know what the net result is unless someone has done some decent testing on this? You have not commented on this and the results of my testing. Read all of my entries on this post carefully and you will get the picture, I am sure.
Leif qualifies. And I wouldn’t rule out one of the fringies here, if his theory gets confirmed. As Mark Twain once said; ‘a crank is a crank only until he’s been proved correct.’
[Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC has also written a guest article here. ~dbs]
Roger knights, I misread your post, “there has not been a warming trend since 1950” incorrectly, I assume you meant the Earth had not warmed at all, that there had been no warming trend since then. Yes, average temperatures where flat from around 42-78, and then shot up into a sharp warming trend. You’re right about the straw man, it is unfathomable “to me” I should have said.
But you at least accept the obvious, that temperatures have been increasing. I don’t like to use the D word if I can help it, but the only true denialism surrounding this whole issue is coming from those who can stare 150 years of recorded temperatures (not to mention proxies) in the face and deduce that the Earth has been cooling/not warming.
Henry Pool, I’ll admit I don’t know the intricacies of Co2, but I’m pretty sure decent testing has been done on those things, I’ll leave the digging on that to you. If you are challenging the very assumption that Co2 is a greenhouse gas then I don’t think I can debate you further, because I am operating on the premise that Co2 IS a greenhouse gas, based on 150 years of research about it, whereas you are operating on the assumption that it is not, I suppose we have to agree to disagree.
But nevertheless you can’t explain away recorded temperatures by drawing a conclusion, based on nothing, that the readings must be false simply because it would fit better into your own explanation if they where. You are going to have to reconcile your position of Co2 not being a greenhouse gas (or not being potent enough) with recorded anomalous warming. If it is not Co2 it is something else, because the Earth IS warming, and something is causing it, it is not just happening spontaneously.
yonason (12:19:45) :
if at some time you can supply some good references that you think address/refute what I said, by all means let me know what they are. I would be happy (and quite surprised) to see them.
There are so many that the mind boggles, but two good ones are two books by Richard Dawkins:
“The greatest show on earth” ISBN 978-1-4165-9478-9 and
“Climbing mount improbable” ISBN 0-393-03930-7
There contain more references than you would care to examine.
But it is not enough to ‘see them’, you must actually open them and read them.
Missingo, you have not answered me on the results of my experiments 1+2? Anyone can see what the argument is about: the 100 ppm CO2 (0.01%) added since 1960 changes nothing on heat retention in my experiments. The amount is too small. Now if you were to introduce 1 or 2% water vapor in those experiments, you probably would see some heat retention taking place but it would still be small compared to doubling of energy release due to the doubling of the population over the past 50 years.
If I had found results from proper research showing me what the net result is, I would have been happy. But it does not exist. It seems everybody thought that somebody would do and in the end nobody did it. If I look carefully at the spectra I would say it is close to 50/50 i.e. it cools as much (by reflecting radiation from the sun) as it causes warming in the 14-15 um range by trapping radiation from earth … Even if the balance is more toward GHG: remember we only talk about 0.01% compared to 1960 and it is a much weaker greenhouse gas then water vapor.
Whatever is causing global warming (if it still happens) Co2 is not causing it.
Why does nobody talk about reducing water vapor to combat global warming? Because it is silly. Where there is no water vapor in the air, everything turned into a desert.
Same argument applies to CO2. In fact, more CO2 would be benficial as is promotes crop growth and forest growth. In fact, everything you eat today depends on CO2.
Henry @ur momisugly Missingo
Assuming global warming is still happening.
I would still believe in the thermostat hypothesis.
Go back to my step 6.
there are variations. Even the ancients knew about the 11 or 12 year suncycles.
The only variation that can cause global warming or cooling is in the amount of clouds formed. The Svensmark theory holds that galactic cosmic rays (GCR) initiate cloud formation. I have not seen this, but apparently this has been proven in laboratory conditions. So the only real variability in global temperature could be caused by the amount of GCR reaching earth. In turn, this depends on the activity of the sun, i.e. the extent of the solar magnetic field exerted by the sun on the planetary system. Apparently we are now coming out of a period where this field was bigger and more GCR was bent away from earth (this is then what I would say really caused “global warming”, mostly).
Apparently now the solar geomagnetic field is at an all time low.
Look here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/07/suns-magnetic-index-reaches-unprecedent-low-only-zero-could-be-lower-in-a-month-when-sunspots-became-more-active/
Note that in the first graph, if you look at the smoothed monthly values, there was a tipping point in 2003 (light blue line). I cannot ignore the significance of this. I noted tipping points elsewhere round about that same time. From 2003 the solar magnetic field has been going down. To me it seems for sure that we are now heading for a period of more cloudiness and hence a period of global cooling. If you look at the 3rd graph, it is likely that there wil be no sun spots visible by 2015. This is confirmed by the paper on global cooling by Easterbrook:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/29/don-easterbrooks-agu-paper-on-potential-global-cooling/
In the 2nd graph of his presentation, Easterbrook projects global cooling into the future. These are the three lines that follow from the last warm period. If the cooling follows the top line we don’t have much to worry about and the weather will be similar to what we had in the previous (warm) period. However, indications are already that we have started following the trend of the 2nd line, i.e. cooling based on the 1880-1915 cooling. In that case it will be the coldest from 2015 to 2020 and the climate will be comparable to what it was in the fifties and sixties. I survived that time, so I guess we all will be fine, if this is the right trendline.
Note that with the third line, the projection stops somewhere after 2020. So if things go that way, we don’t know where it will end. Unfortunately, earth does not have a heater with a thermostat that switches on if it gets too cold. Too much ice and snow causes more sunlight to be reflected from earth. Hence, the trap is set. This is known as the ice age trap. This is why the natural state of earth is that of being covered with snow and ice.
As shown previously in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data ice ages have a better claim on being the natural state of earth’s climate than interglacials. According to the records, we are in fact pretty lucky to be here in this rare, warmer period. The broader lesson is: Climate does not stand still. And global cooling could be on its way.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that this is not a hoax (like the carbon dioxide scam – and the carbon footprint nonsense)
However, man is resourceful and may find ways around the problem if we do start falling into a little ice age again. As long as we are not ignorant and listen to the so-called climate scientists who really have other agenda’s. A green agenda is still useless if it has the wrong items on the agenda… Obviously: As Easterbrook notes, global cooling is much more disastrous for humans than global warming.
Re: George E. Smith (Feb 5 14:35),
Hi George,
I have been thinking of this T^4 dependence for some time now.
Take this plot http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
There is a 15C change in January , and I suppose it is the temperature of the air, and not of ice bulk that is being measured day by day.
This means that air has been cooling by conduction and convection with the ice from a high in the beginning of the year to a low at the end of January.
How can this happen ? December, when it started rising, it was a 240K and turned in a few days +10K. No sun. The only way is large masses of air by convection coming to the pole sending back all that cold air that froze the northern land masses. The ice keeps radiating at its basic black body which should be at least the minimum values seen, and the bulk air will radiate with its peculiar gray body constant until it comes into thermal equilibrium with the ice surface. Since the mass of air(energy content) in the atmosphere is so much less than the mass of ice, ice will prevail, until a new input air mass from hotter regions.
I think that the anomalies have really a very distorted connection with the energies involved and are misleading , and that is why we get the dissonance between perception and anomaly data. To take this 10 degree anomaly, that is actually air froth, and average it with the 2 degree anomaly in France, for example, where the ground has really frozen by the snow and ice precipitation seems adding apples and oranges.
You postulate that we are ignorant of what the warmers say, but we are not.
Thank you for the Bob Carter video, wherein he uses a three-year and a nine-year period to tell us what is happening climatically.
The first section of the video, Carter puts a dictionary definition of the word ‘science’. Beneath are 2 entries, numbered 1 and…. 4. They both describe empirical science only, the science of ‘fact’. Apparently Carter believes science theories are not science, deduction has no part in science, nor correlation or any of the multitude of mathematical and theoretical tools that have been employed to make planes fly safely, cars drive smoother and computers talk to each other over long distances. I wonder what the definitions were for entries 2 and 3.
The first entry in the Free Online Dictionary provides a clue:
Carter does not, however, project a definition of ‘climate’ onto the screen. Which is a strange omission considering the topic. And it typifies the point I made in my post above. Cheers. He broaches the topic once, after pointing to the 3 and 9 year trend. He says, “you can argue over what is a climatically signficant period…”
And that’s it.
So, for him, it is ‘disinterest’ regarding the definition of climate. Were he to project it onto the screen during his oratory, it would rather undermine his argument.
And ‘disinterest’ followed my post. No one here spends a moment’s thought defining, discussing or ‘arguing about’ what a climatically significant period is, because an honest appraisal would render thousands of posts here moot.
For you, though, yonason, who troubled to take up the subject, your reply was a consequence of cognitive dissonance. Carter has nothing of value to say about the definition of climate. Thinking you were rebutting the point, you actually demonstrated it.
And so it will go on. This post may provoke more off-the-point remarks (“Hey, how about this blog page on climategate!”), but it is a wondrous black hole on this and other skeptical sites – that there is so much talk on climate trends and statistics, and none at all on what a statistically significant climate trend actually is.
If you don’t understand the terms you are using, there can be no value in what you are saying.
Here are statistical tests for (1) a reasonable, and (2), an absolute minimum climatically significant period.
1. 20 – 30 years
2. 14 years
I would like, for once, to see anyone skeptical of AGW make a substantive, mathematical rebuttal of these analyses. And having done so, present a well-reasoned argument, complete with maths, as to why one month, one year, or even 10-year temperature variations are statistically significant regarding climate.
Amendment to the last post
“there is so much talk on climate trends and statistics, and none at all on what a statistically significant climate period actually is.”
yonason,
I was very surprised to see Bob Carter’s graph in the video showing “no trend” for the satellite record up to January 2008. Running a trend analysis for the same period using the UAH data, as he did, I get a positive trend of 0.13C/decade, not far off the HadCRUT record for the same period.
You can check yourself – the data link is at the bottom of the top post of this thread.
I wouldn’t set much store in Bob Carter’s presentations. Fair showmanship, lousy science, under any definition.
MikeP (10:27:22) ,
I believe you mis-read Ray’s post. He was quoting Romm.
“barry (06:26:55) :
[…]
was a consequence of cognitive dissonance. […]”
With growing disinterest i see you are completely omitting an explanation for the “A” in AGW.
I find it humorous that missingno would actual say that there is little else to raise the temperature than CO2. What cave must he live in?
Let’s see. There’s ocean oscillations like ENSO and PDO; Changes in the Sun’s irradiance (small but nonetheless real); GCRs; ozone depletion that a Canadian researcher matched up perfectly to the late 20th century warming; long term ocean currents; Volcanism (geothermal); Lunar modulation of tidal forces; magnetism changes; soot and other black carbon emissions, etc. Yes, I could go on but hopefully you get the point. Not to mention the impacts of things we haven’t even discovered yet.
With growing disinterest i see you are completely omitting an explanation for the “A” in AGW.
Dirk, as I said:
Thank you for demonstrating my speculation on digression, and reinforcing my point on avoidance.
Seeing as a vast number of articles and comments at this site are premised on the assumption that short-term trends (< 14 years) are climatically significant, a post reinforcing this assumption is long overdue.
Mods, please see this as a request.