Global Average Sea Surface Temperatures Continue their Plunge
By Dr. Roy Spencer
Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) measured by the AMSR-E instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite continue their plunge as a predicted La Nina approaches. The following plot, updated through yesterday (June 17, 2010) shows that the cooling in the Nino34 region in the tropical east Pacific is well ahead of the cooling in the global average SST, something we did not see during the 2007-08 La Nina event (click on it for the large, undistorted version):
The rate at which the Nino34 SSTs are falling is particularly striking, as seen in this plot of the SST change rate for that region:
To give some idea of what is causing the global-average SST to fall so rapidly, I came up with an estimate of the change in reflected sunlight (shortwave, or SW flux) using our AMSR-E total integrated cloud water amounts. This was done with a 7+ year comparison of those cloud water estimates to daily global-ocean SW anomalies computed from the CERES radiation budget instrument, also on Aqua:
What this shows is an unusually large increase in reflected sunlight over the last several months, probably due to an increase in low cloud cover.
At this pace of cooling, I suspect that the second half of 2010 could ruin the chances of getting a record high global temperature for this year. Oh, darn.
Stephan says:
June 22, 2010 at 11:37 am
You have to start worrying about Leif when he goes fishing for other data graphs…..Either one is wrong or the other one is please provide back up evidence
should says Leif’s “data” not him my blooper
which ‘data’ are you referring to?
Gail Combs says:
June 22, 2010 at 11:55 am
It just has to be a minuscule change in a minor component of the atmosphere that is responsible for the ten fold decrease in IR radiation emitted from the upper atmosphere by nitric oxide molecules. GRRrr
To temper your anger, bear in mind that nitric oxide molecules are but some billionths of the molecules up there, so are not important for the energy budget.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 22, 2010 at 10:51 am
OOPS! You are correct, thank you – the graph was too small on my laptop. Should have used my Mac. Usually the Russians can be trusted to not fudge the data too much, as do the Americans, Brits, and Aussies, so I should have looked more closely.
Nevertheless, now that I look closer, the Kiel curve now is numerically slightly above the very similar slope rise in cosmic rays that occurred during the 70s minimum that preceded a higher C.R. minimum (higher low) followed by the curiously long and flat cosmic ray maximum (lower high) in the late 70s that coincided with “The coming ice age”. It will be interesting to see if the C.R. peak is sharp and descends, or if it plateaus like late 70s.
But, I think that correlations of only one parameter in this complex climate scenario will ever show a strong correlation. Then there is always the possibility of a lag of unknown duration further compounding the problem, due to the conglomeration of various heat sinks that protect the earth from drastic swings.
bubbagyro says:
June 22, 2010 at 12:50 pm
….Nevertheless, now that I look closer, the Kiel curve now is numerically slightly above the very similar slope rise in cosmic rays that occurred during the 70s minimum that preceded a higher C.R. minimum (higher low) followed by the curiously long and flat cosmic ray maximum (lower high) in the late 70s that coincided with “The coming ice age”. It will be interesting to see if the C.R. peak is sharp and descends, or if it plateaus like late 70s.
But, I think that correlations of only one parameter in this complex climate scenario will [N?]ever show a strong correlation. Then there is always the possibility of a lag of unknown duration further compounding the problem, due to the conglomeration of various heat sinks that protect the earth from drastic swings.
__________________________________________________________________
I certainly agree. If there was only one dominant factor driving climate, it would have been seen by now. Heck look at what Dr. Svalgaard just posted about the supposed “solar constant” or TSI. It is “a lot more complicated than we thought” and this paper by Cahalan, Wen, Harder, and Pilewskie was just published in April of this year. The data was gathered by SORCE since 2003.
Now I have to go back and read the paper more carefully. (thank you Dr Svalgaard)
….Nevertheless, now that I look closer, the Kiel curve now is numerically slightly above the very similar slope rise in cosmic rays that occurred during the 70s minimum that preceded a higher C.R. minimum (higher low) followed by the curiously long and flat cosmic ray maximum (lower high) in the late 70s that coincided with “The coming ice age”. It will be interesting to see if the C.R. peak is sharp and descends, or if it plateaus like late 70s.
But, I think that correlations of only one parameter in this complex climate scenario will ever show a strong correlation. Then there is always the possibility of a lag of unknown duration further compounding the problem, due to the conglomeration of various heat sinks that protect the earth from drastic swings.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 22, 2010 at 12:26 pm
[To temper your anger, bear in mind that nitric oxide molecules are but some billionths of the molecules up there, so are not important for the energy budget.]
Leif, are you sure about that?
“The primary radiative cooling mechanism in the terrestrial thermosphere is the infrared emission from the NO molecule at 5.3 microns [Kockarts, 1980].”
From: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/~kratz/ref/p32jgr.pdf
Dr. Mlynczak et al seem to think otherwise.
bubbagyro says:
June 22, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Usually the Russians can be trusted to not fudge the data too much, as do the Americans, Brits, and Aussies, so I should have looked more closely.
Kiel is in Germany…
The flux at every other minimum is slightly higher, that is in 1966, 1987, 2009, than in the intervening minima, that is in 1954, 1975, 1997. The reason for that is not directly in the Sun, but is an ‘extra’ modulation of cosmic rays due to sensitivity to the polarity [or sign] of the magnetic field of the Sun, which switches at every solar minimum. Keep in mind that we are talking about differences of a few percent only.
Brego says:
June 22, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Leif, are you sure about that?
“The primary radiative cooling mechanism in the terrestrial thermosphere is the infrared emission from the NO molecule at 5.3 microns [Kockarts, 1980].”
Yes, as the heat content of the thermosphere is so small that it has no influence on climate and weather down where we are [what I called the ‘energy budget’].
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 22, 2010 at 9:09 am
No, here is the
graph
Leif, that still looks high. coming down recently, but still high.
I went looking for something that would tell me how much delta would result from computing Wien’s Law from the last Solar Max to the 2008.8 Solar Min. Still scratching around. The remarks of a ‘bluer sun’ only tell me about ice crystals in the atmosphere, not whether the blackbody temp of the Sun has shifted due to spectral shift.
AGW’ers have been very vocal about temperatures the last five or six months during the peak of the El Nino. Prior to that, they were quick to point out that skeptics were trending the line from the 1998 El Nino peak to the 2008 LA Nina minimun. They have been taking a lot of credit lately for the El Nino affected temperatures erasing much of the cooling that has occured over the last decade. What will we hear when temperatures start responding to the demise of the El Nino? A lot of silence?
peterhodges says:
June 22, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Leif, that still looks high. coming down recently, but still high.
My graph was just intended to show the ‘coming down’ as the previous graph conveniently omitted that.
Oulu does not have ‘correct’ long-term calibration [this is hard because the local magnetic field and climate and instruments change over time]. Most other stations do not show ‘unprecedentedly’ high values, as several of my posts have demonstrated.
Robert says:
Two days ago I was in my garden and noticed the same thing. There were no clouds in the sky and the sun gave no heat. This time off the year here in Barcelona that´s not normal. Also temperatures are a lot lower than normal. Nature is about 2 or 3 weeks behind schedule and there is no way my tomatoes get red
It’s very warm here in the UK. I think the jet stream has moved south from us now, and there is more aerosol in the sky over southern Europe, blocking some of the sun’s warming rays. Our tomatoes are very late too however. There’s something they are not getting.
I look mostly at the Moscow Neutron Monitor, and that’s because it runs a bit ahead of the rest.
I see the Neutron Count as stepping down, last downslope was Jan – April, now running flat until further development.
Conversely, the Solar Activity is going up in steps, not in a steady incline.
Re: Leif Svalgaard says:
June 22, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Ah, my mistake. I thought you were referring to the energy budget of the thermosphere, as was the paper Gail linked to.
rbateman says:
June 22, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Conversely, the Solar Activity is going up in steps, not in a steady incline.
The cosmic ray flux shows an ‘average’ of solar wind left behind from solar activity from the past year or so and spread out through the whole heliosphere, thus will tend to smooth out any variation. There is an exception to this as the flux also is sensitive to solar wind near the Earth and that can vary on short time scales, e.g. a large solar storm causes a ‘Forbush Decrease’ and a recurrent storm will cause a recurrent wave of peaks and valleys every 27 days. both are visible in any of these plots, and also here: http://www.leif.org/research/FD-and-CRI-GCRs.png
I have marked the Forbush Decreases with ovals and the recurrent storms with a box.
Brego says:
June 22, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Re: Leif Svalgaard says:
June 22, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Ah, my mistake. I thought you were referring to the energy budget of the thermosphere, as was the paper Gail linked to.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Brego says:
June 22, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Ah, my mistake. I thought you were referring to the energy budget of the thermosphere, as was the paper Gail linked to.
Also my mistake for not being clear enough. Also Gail’s post was referring to “The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming”, and the thermosphere has nothing to do with that [does not influence the climate].
thanks Leif i did look at those too.
Leif, i saw that over solarcycle24.com the solar flux was back down to 70, which led me to reference one of your graphs. it looks like solar flux has been declining long enough and has been back down around the low of 70, creating a downslope in the average. peculiar?
i also wondered what your thoughts are on the length of the solar cycle: is there any forecast to be made regarding the length of cycle 24 based on the long, slow, ramp up?
I did search through old threads and comments first, but i would also be interested in your opinion on the correlation archibald shows between solar cycle length and temperature.
thanks!
Only the stupid ignore El Nino….
And we have lots of stupid leaders at the moment
http://www.amazon.com/Floods-Famines-Emperors-Nino-Civilizations/dp/0465005306/ref=pd_sim_b_3
peterhodges says:
June 22, 2010 at 4:22 pm
I saw that over solarcycle24.com the solar flux was back down to 70
The real Flux is 76 today. You have been a ‘victim’ of the confusion that arises from the fact that the Sun is further from the Sun about now. Radio hams care about the flux at Earth, so their number ’70’ is not wrong, just not what the Sun puts out.
I also wondered what your thoughts are on the length of the solar cycle: is there any forecast to be made regarding the length of cycle 24 based on the long, slow, ramp up?
statistically, slow starting cycles are long cycles [the reverse is not true].
I did search through old threads and comments first, but i would also be interested in your opinion on the correlation archibald shows between solar cycle length and temperature.
That paper is junk [IMHO] and there is no established correlation of that nature. More here: http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%20Length%20Temperature%20Correlation.pdf
Robert says:
… Nature is about 2 or 3 weeks behind schedule and there is no way my tomatoes get red…
tallbloke says:
June 22, 2010 at 2:45 pm
… Our tomatoes are very late too however. There’s something they are not getting….
we have the same problem, as we attempt to garden in a narrow canyon at 2300m, which even in california gives us at most 3 months between freezes. bring your tomatoes in at the first signs of freezing weather and hang them up to dry. the tomatoes will slowly ripen over several weeks. which meant we got freshly ripened garden tomatoes while the snow piled up outside 😉
Gail Combs says:
June 22, 2010 at 10:08 am
The magnetic susceptibility of ozone is about 6.7 x10-6 cgs
for oxygen O2 varies by temperature from:
3,449.0 x10-6 cgs@ur momisugly 293K
7,699.0 x10-6 cgs@ur momisugly90.1K
8,685.0 x10-6 cgs@ur momisugly70.8K
10,200.0 x10-6 cgs@ur momisugly 54.3K
So incoming energy converts oxygen to ozone to conserve energy by dropping the magnetic resistance by 3 or 4 orders of magnitude, when the levels of energy drops the o3 reverts to 02. Which is why the hole in the ozone layer forms at the South pole, and the size of it is regulated by the total magnetic flux it feels.
Gary Gulrud: When you look for replies to your comments, do you read through the entire thread or do you use the word find feature of your browser and search for your name? I, like many others who blog here, don’t have the time to run through all comments on a thread, so I use the browser to search for my name. With that in mind, how would you expect me to find your nonsensical reply to me…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/22/spencer-ssts-headed-down-fast/#comment-414603
…if you haven’t attributed the quote to me?
In the future, if you quote me, please include my name. Thanks.
Leif, very interesting thanks for the reply. you have inspired me to now go look up f-c&e
one thing i would say in their defense is we now know that the temperature record has substantially changed shape since 1991, distorting the record. so the 1991 record they use would have a much different shape for the same time period than your new hardcru. the newer, altered temperature record could be responsible for the uncorrelated scatter in your analysis.
as far as the solar cycle length, my laymans assumption is that there is consensus on the historical record for the length solar cycles. if this is not true i then would accept that anyone could ‘choose’ the solar cycle length record according to leif’s law. of course, i would also assume Leif follows leif’s law as well 😉
i appreciate your comments Leif because the correlation between sunspot length and temperature seems so simple and convincing. but alas i am a skeptic, so pardon me if rely on you to help further my inquiry
Toms need warm nighttime temps to develop as a plant. They are also difficult to pollinate. Especially in wet weather. Commercial toms are set on vibrator beds to get pollen up and in the air so that it falls on the female flower parts.
My understanding of Svensmark’s theory has the Muon count (not the Neutron count) influencing low cloud cover, but that seems to be heading down, http://www.bartol.udel.edu/~takao/test_nag.html at Nagoya, also at Hobart, Sao Martinho and Kuwait.
If you look at Sunspot activity since 1700 at http://www.climate4you.com/Sun.htm#Global ,we are close to the 1914 level and not that far from the zero at 1810 and 1712.