By Dr. Roy Spencer
Despite cooling in the tropics, the global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly has stubbornly refused to follow suit: +0.60 deg. C for September, 2010.
Since the daily global average sea surface temperature anomalies on our NASA Discover web page have now cooled to well below the 2002-2010 average, there remains a rather large discrepancy between these two measures. Without digging into the regional differences in the two datasets, I currently have no explanation for this.
For those following the race for warmest year in the satellite tropospheric temperature record (which began in 1979), 2010 is slowly approaching the record warm year of 1998. Here are the 1998 and 2010 averages for Julian Days 1 through 273:
1998 +0.590
2010 +0.553
YR MON GLOBE NH SH TROPICS 2009 1 0.251 0.472 0.030 -0.068 2009 2 0.247 0.565 -0.071 -0.045 2009 3 0.191 0.324 0.058 -0.159 2009 4 0.162 0.315 0.008 0.012 2009 5 0.139 0.161 0.118 -0.059 2009 6 0.041 -0.021 0.103 0.105 2009 7 0.429 0.190 0.668 0.506 2009 8 0.242 0.236 0.248 0.406 2009 9 0.505 0.597 0.413 0.594 2009 10 0.362 0.332 0.393 0.383 2009 11 0.498 0.453 0.543 0.479 2009 12 0.284 0.358 0.211 0.506 2010 1 0.648 0.860 0.436 0.681 2010 2 0.603 0.720 0.486 0.791 2010 3 0.653 0.850 0.455 0.726 2010 4 0.501 0.799 0.203 0.633 2010 5 0.534 0.775 0.292 0.708 2010 6 0.436 0.550 0.323 0.476 2010 7 0.489 0.635 0.342 0.420 2010 8 0.511 0.674 0.347 0.364 2010 9 0.603 0.556 0.651 0.284
[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.]
Meanwhile, Sea Surface Temperatures Continue to Fall
Since I just provided the September 2010 global tropospheric temperature update, I decided it was time to update the global SST data record from the AMSR-E instrument flying on Aqua.
The following plot, updated through yesterday (October 4, 2010) shows that both the global average SST, and the Nino3.4 region average from the tropical E. Pacific, continue to cool.
(click on the plot for the full-size, undistorted version. Note that the global values have been multiplied by 10 for easier intercomparison with Nino3.4)
Past experience (and radiative-convective equilibrium) dictates that the global tropospheric temperature, still riding high at +0.60 deg. C for September, must cool in response to the cool ocean conditions.
But given Mother Nature’s sense of humor, I’ve given up predicting when that might occur. 
Never mind hansen has covered every possibility that could occur in this article!!!
“The news here isn’t just that Hansen is no longer calling for an all-time record warm calendar year this year. Rather, it’s that next year — due to the lag between ocean and air temperatures — likely won’t be a record hot year in the NASA GISS record, at least the way it looks right now, but that 2012 currently looks like a prime opportunity for the atmosphere to go for the title.
“It is likely that 2012 will reach a record high global temperature,” Hansen wrote. “The principal caveat is that the duration of the current La Nina could stretch an extra year, as some prior La Ninas have.”
However, according to Hansen, the calendar year temperature ranking is not as relevant to monitoring long-term global climate change as the 12-month running mean — which did hit a record high this year.
FAQ: Did climate change cause…?
A deep dive through Hansen’s analysis provides yet more compelling evidence that despite shorter-term ups and downs, the overall climate is warming, due largely to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It also provides interesting advice to Hansen’s fellow scientists about how to address the relationship between extreme events and climate change, a topic of great interest on this blog.
His comments are worth quoting in full, since it’s unique to see a scientist considering both the message and how the public receives that message, since the two are often quite different:
“…A comment on frequently asked questions of the sort: Was global warming the cause of the 2010 heat wave in Moscow, the 2003 heat wave in Europe, the all-time record high temperatures reached in many Asian nations in 2010, the incredible Pakistan flood in 2010? The standard scientist answer is ‘you cannot blame a specific weather/climate event on global warming.’ That answer, to the public, translates as ‘no’.”
“However, if the question were posed as ‘would these events have occurred if atmospheric carbon dioxide had remained at its pre-industrial level of 280 ppm?”, an appropriate answer in that case is ‘almost certainly not.’ That answer, to the public, translates as ‘yes’, i.e., humans probably bear a responsibility for the extreme event.”
“In either case, the scientist usually goes on to say something about probabilities and how those are changing because of global warming. But the extended discussion, to much of the public, is chatter. The initial answer is all important.”
“Although either answer can be defended as ‘correct’, we suggest that leading with the standard caveat ‘you cannot blame…’ is misleading and allows a misinterpretation about the danger of increasing extreme events. Extreme events, by definition, are on the tail of the probability distribution. Events in the tail of the distribution are the ones that change most in frequency of occurrence as the distribution shifts due to global warming.”
“For example, the ‘hundred year flood’ was once something that you had better be aware of, but it was not very likely soon and you could get reasonably priced insurance. But the probability distribution function does not need to shift very far for the 100-year event to be occurring several times a century, along with a good chance of at least one 500-year event.””
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2010/10/scientist_projects_hottest_yea.html
Cooling ocean SSTs, less water vapour in the atmosphere, more rapid solar heating as we go into the SH summer.
As others have pointed out heat content is what matters and temperatures in isolation mean little. Although the diurnal variation in the satellite temperatures would be interesting. Warmer days would be consistent with less water vapour in the atmosphere (at this time of year). Warmer nights would indicate the opposite.
Actually R Gates, you’ll find reinsurers would disagree with you. There has been no statistically significant increase in extreme events over the past 100 years.
Extreme heatwaves and floods have occurred throughout recorded history. Even with massive increases in global populations over the past 100 years there is absolutely no evidence to show the incident rate or mortality rates for these events has increased in recent decades. You have statistical data that says otherwise then present it.
And for the record the last 2 major floods in Brisbane where I live occurred in 1974 and 1893. Were probably over due now for another event given 200 odd years of records seem to show one occurring every 50 years.
Reading through the past 75 comments, you guys look a like a backseat full of kids playing 20 questions with your mom in the front seat. I am not mocking your efforts to discern what is going on – it is a noble and important endeavor. But GIVEN YOUR OWN UNCERTAINTY, WHICH TO AN OBJECTIVE VIEWER, IS AT LEAST TANTAMOUNT TO THE UNCERTAINTY YOU ATTRIBUTE TO THE AGWers – I am troubled by the arrogance of so many of the articles and comments across this website.
It really takes a certain kind of hubris to sit around playing the same guessing games you condemn WHILE AT THE SAME TIME denouncing those who are trying to exercise the precautionary principle by stopping the alteration of greenhouse gas concentrations in our atmosphere. As a young person, do you know how frustrating this is to watch?
On a socioeconomic vertical scale and on a horizontal linear scale YOU ARE THE WORST PEOPLE TO BE MAKING THESE DECISIONS. Economically, you wouldn’t be the ones to bear the greatest effects of climate change – that would be those living modest subsistence-based lifestyles – these people can’t absorb commodity fluctuations (resulting from bad harvests) of staple items like maize and potatoes. I can’t remember the last time that issue was discussed, but daily I ready many of you you moaning about the fluctuations in energy prices to fuel gadgets and houses the most vulnerable wouldn’t dream of. Temporally, you are on the way OUT of the world yet have the most stake in the CURRENT structure of the world. That’s a conflict of interest in any profession.
I’m not a NWO Al-Gore clone trying to control your life – and I don’t think you are oil-backed conspiracy theorists. But I am a part of the 18-25 demographic in this country that overwhelmingly supports climate change legislation and I think that we, along with those people in vulnerable countries, deserve a little more humility from those on this site effectively seeking to limit our ability to control our future when you can’t even explain the anomalies yourself.
The problem JD is that you may be more likely to harm or even kill those vulnerable people by instituting various policies, such as biofuel production, than would be harmed by doing nothing at all. That is the great uncertainty which needs to be addressed.
If a policy has no value but has enormous costs, those costs at some point are likely to be borne in some way by the impoverised. Wasted money or resources could lead to increased poverty and suffering for those you seem to care about.
The old platitude that the road to hell is paved with good intentions is far more relevant to politics than most young people realize.
Jeez –
1) false premise that regulating has no value (even an unused (if we had the CO2 thing wrong) insurance policy has value)
2) I agree that who bears the costs of regulation and the means used to regulate are VERY important questions – they’re ones that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and if I didn’t believe that we could find equitable solutions I wouldn’t be advocating for it
JD,
1. I did not use a false premise. I did not say that regulating has no value. I stated clearly that some policies can do more harm than no policy at all. Burning food for fuel is one of them, and can easily lead to food shortages and starvation. Please do not project your own unrelated feelings about the value of government regulation onto my point.
2. It is not necessarily a matter of who bears the costs INITIALLY. If the cost to society as a whole is high enough, the vulnerable will suffer. This is the age of global economics. Slow down the economy in the US and there will be less imports from vulnerable societies. So you better be damn sure there is a net positive from the policy before implementing. This is the great uncertainty.
Oh and JD, the Greens answer to my 2. above is often some sort of fantasy often going by the word localization, where they imagine getting everyone in the world to stop international and long distance trading with each other and live in some Return to the Garden of Eden, Utopian, Agrarian society, where everyone grows their food, makes their own computers, clothes, DVD players, cell phones, windmill and microhydro generators, and medicine themselves, or trades with their generous neighbors in walking distance for them.
The NH and SH anomalies are still high but the tropics have fallen for the last four months and if it continues this trend then the NH and the SH ,I think ,should follow also in time.I do not think that the changes we are seeing are because of AGW just natural variability.
jeez @2
Yes, the joys of being born into a world where grownups tell you there are two options:
1) the vicious (and growing) disparities of the global “free market” run by corporations and the US military, or 2) the mirage of a utopia that is really just masking a direct patch to a poverty-stricken brutish society deprived of all human progress.
thanks but no thanks – i’m not ready to give up on believing that we can do better than that.
Well JD, you could always try for another totalitarian centrally controlled regime, despite the fact that almost every time this is tried, millions of people end up murdered.
The mantra of the socialist/communist is that these authoritarian policies weren’t implemented “correctly” in the past. We can do it better this time around.
Remember, a good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.
That’s all for tonight. I’m going to go debate Nietzsche with strippers.
No totalitarianism, I promise ; ) – just price signals that would probably no longer make it profitable for us to export our recyclables to India and import our beef from argentina.
peace and progress Jeez,
JD
p.s. did you hear Obama’s putting up solar panels on the white house?! yes. we. can.
Given up guessing when, huh? Me too. (but I refuse their Uahes god that conjures heat from the cool seas and their Gisses god that brings forth fire from the ice) ☺
JD says:
October 5, 2010 at 9:27 pm
But I am a part of the 18-25 demographic in this country that overwhelmingly supports climate change legislation and I think that we, along with those people in vulnerable countries, deserve a little more humility from those on this site effectively seeking to limit our ability to control our future when you can’t even explain the anomalies yourself.
======================
And your frontal lobe has not fully developed until about ~25 [assuming you are a male…and considering the aggression, pretty sure on that].
So hush up and learn with silence for a few more [ten] years or so, before you speak.
You have much to learn [However, I respect your passion.].
-Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
JD says:
October 5, 2010 at 9:27 pm
On a socioeconomic vertical scale and on a horizontal linear scale YOU ARE THE WORST PEOPLE TO BE MAKING THESE DECISIONS. Economically, you wouldn’t be the ones to bear the greatest effects of climate change – that would be those living modest subsistence-based lifestyles – these people can’t absorb commodity fluctuations (resulting from bad harvests) of staple items like maize and potatoes. I can’t remember the last time that issue was discussed, but daily I ready many of you you moaning about the fluctuations in energy prices to fuel gadgets and houses the most vulnerable wouldn’t dream of. Temporally, you are on the way OUT of the world yet have the most stake in the CURRENT structure of the world. That’s a conflict of interest in any profession.
=============================
These broad-brush, emo words are rather insulting, JD.
You are guilty of stereotyping and it is wrong.
We are all in the same boat, brother.
That quote “temporally you are on the way out of the world, yet you have most at stake in the current structure of the world,” is a gross, egregious generalization.
Feel free to email me personally and we can continue this discussion there without hijacking this thread. sharkhearted@gmail.com
I respect your passion. What leaves much to be desired are your broad-brush categorizations about people whom you know absolutely nothing about.
You don’t know they are “on the way out.” [That is prejudiced in and of itself].
You don’t know they have the “most at stake in this current structure of the world.”
You don’t know any of that.
Show a little respect.
-Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
JD says:
October 5, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Reply;
There are other options, each of us regardless of age can choose for our selves and vote with our, spending habits, dietary habits, choice of vocations, participation in by voting with your feet, don’t add to the problems, work on what you see in your local environment as the symptoms of the problems, lead by example has worked well for me over the years.
One of my main goals is to increase awareness of each persons individual skills, drives, ideals, and attachments to these in others. Be yourself first, let others be comfortable with them selves, support those things you like with your excess production, and free time as they become available, mostly by recognizing ways to be more efficient, not just less consumptive.
Work in areas that you have skills and interests that drive you and add to the overall efficiency of the composite system you can help to evolve, by adding input and feed back as you go along. Always be your true self in all relationships, as you will then attract those who like you for who you really are, steer clear of drama Queens, and psychic vampires, users that will just drag your vitality, love of life, and physical resources down for no net gain to anyone.
If each of us vote for the type of world we would like to see, by our choice of actions and dedications to the solutions that we can see from our limited environmental input sources, then gradually the whole world will improve, and the combination of input of actions and options will generate as many answers as there are THINKING people, who apply themselves to the worlds problems, doing so with out uselessly dragging down the resources that any one, (self included) needs to stay healthy.
We are all different in some small way at least, it is this variety of skills, talents, viewpoints, and drives, that make individuals as well as nations successful. Bring to the table what you have, be open and frank about what you think, and be not afraid to question opinions of others, know for yourself, do the research needed to figure out YOUR answers to problems you understand by seeing them first hand. DO NOT get swept away following blindly, anyone not even your self, question your goals frequently, choose directions as guidelines to follow rather than blindly and rudely make for end point goals.
Maybe the real answer is just to the left or right, further or closer, than you thought, be not afraid to stay in touch with your feelings, but still use logic whenever possible. The mark of mental stability is in the ability to maintain the balance between feelings and logical thought processes. When decisions are needed, try to consider every one involved, not just one other, yourself, or a tight nit group, this helps avoid stupid, embarrassing, costly, unrepairable mistakes.
If I had a life do over, there are not many things I would change, except getting an education on paper as well as in life, I have found it is much easier to get things done that need doing if you have both.
JD says:
October 5, 2010 at 9:27 pm
It really takes a certain kind of hubris to sit around playing the same guessing games you condemn WHILE AT THE SAME TIME denouncing those who are trying to exercise the precautionary principle by stopping the alteration of greenhouse gas concentrations in our atmosphere. As a young person, do you know how frustrating this is to watch?
=========================
Don’t blame us. Blame the individuals of the “intelligentsia” that you trust who DELIBERATELY conflated issues of climate with pollution and with CO2.
Two separate issues. Rather, THREE:
(1) Climate change. Climate changes…that is what it does, as it has done for 4.6 billion years.
(2) Homo sapiens are polluting the earth [true].
(3) Irrespective of that pollution, CO2 a beneficial trace gas that fluctuates through the eons, is not the culprit in so-called “climate change.”
Don’t confuse anthropogenic pollution [a solvable, fixable problem that our species is morally obligated to solve], with the natural variability on this Earth.
The oceans…and maybe just maybe the sun and maybe even parts of the universe beyond that….govern Earth’s climate….on times scales from decades to hundreds of millions of years.
Again, don’t confuse anthropogenic pollution [a solvable, fixable problem that our species is morally obligated to solve], with the natural variability on this Earth.
Two separate arguments.
This is the crux of the matter.
There IS such a thing as catastrophic anthropogenic global pollution [in many forms].
But not CAGW.
And this has been deliberately obscured…by the profit barons eager to capitalize on carbon credits.
-Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
JD,
So potentially you don’t care if Argentinian ranchers go bankrupt or if Indian factory workers lose their jobs.
I prefer less uncertainty before causing such hardship, but hey…that’s climate science… I mean politics.
(Posted via blackberry from The Gold Club in sf)
I think it is rather hypocritical to insult the intelligence of all people below the age of 25, who have a much more vested interest in the long term future than older people, while expecting them to respect people who come out with remarks that the rise of Co2 over the last 200 years is not the cause of global warming when they can not possibly know that with 100% certainty or even 1% certainty. Especially as there is clear correlation. On the other hand I am not saying that there is 100% certainty that Co2 is the cause of global warming over the last 200 years.
It is also hypocritical to accept personal insults on this site against people like Al Gore while removing or denouncing those against skeptics. But not at all surprising.
“Since the daily global average sea surface temperature anomalies on our NASA Discover web page have now cooled to well below the 2002-2010 average, there remains a rather large discrepancy between these two measures. Without digging into the regional differences in the two datasets, I currently have no explanation for this. ”
Could extra NH cloud have biased the algorithm used to produce the global anomaly?
R. Gates says:
why is it so remarkable that the troposphere could becoming less sensitive to the fluctuations of ocean temps?
This is incorrect, check out the La Nina in 2008, global temps dropped to approx 1980 levels in response.
Give it a few months.
savethesharks says: October 5, 2010 at 11:20 pm::: (2) Homo sapiens are polluting the earth [true].
Take issue with you there, Chris. My personal belief is that Earth is greener and sweeter now than it has been for some centuries (maybe even since time began), and is continuing in that direction. There are blots on this landscape, but less than there were, and as more of us reach basic levels of comfort those blots will contract…
…unless starry-eyed dreamers of noble savagery and Eden disrupt the roll we are on — but I don’t think they will (may be close…).
Please pardon my ignorance but I followed your link to your “NASA Discover web page” which took me the AMSU-A page and I could not see anything abnormal temperature wise in the atmosphere. On the contrary, it all looks pretty normal or slightly cooler to me.
Perhaps you would care to explain how it is scientifically possible for a mechanism to exist that correlates changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide to commensurate changes in global mean air temperature in the present 200 years, while the same scientific mechanism allowed the same carbon dioxide and air temperatures for the past 500 million years to be highly uncorrelated and often anti-correlated? In other words, we know over very long periods of geological time the carbon dioxide and temperatures are highly uncorrelated, so how is it possible for the same laws of physics to suddenly demand and allow correlation only during the most recent 200 years or 800,000 years. Perhaps you may wish to consider the probabilities that like a clock which displays the correct time twice a day despite being broken and inoperative, chance correlations of carbon dioxide and temperature occur in sufficiently short time periods of observation?
Given Al Gore’s frequently videotaped descriptions of skeptics of AGW as “Liars”, “crooks”, and worse while censoring and suppressing the free speech of his opponents; it can be argued as hypocritical to say Al Gore has not earned such criticism from the targets of his abusive conduct.
When you discriminate between the vested interests of older people versus younger people, you may wish to contemplate the fact you too will grow older barring misfortune, and you may find some day that your vested interests are even greater in your old age than in your younger years because of the vested interests you have in your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, great-nephews, great-nieces, and their descendants.
Why does the tropospheric global average temperature peak near the NH summer? Is this related to the fact that the majority of the landmass is on the NH? As far as I know the earth is closest to the sun in the NH winter but that does not factor in apparently. The SST has a different pattern with a peak near spring equinox but the seasonal temperature difference is much less pronounced near the surface.
Is there a launch date overview of the different satellites used to measure the tropospheric temperature? Were the same satellites in operation for measuring the 1998 temperatures that are used for 2010?
Theo Goodwin says:
October 5, 2010 at 7:11 pm
R. Gates writes:
“I find it curious that it comes as a mystery to certain skeptical “experts” that any of this is occurring…With 40% more CO2 in the troposphere now than there was in the 1700′s, why is it so remarkable that the troposphere could becoming less sensitive to the fluctuations of ocean temps?”
We sceptics do not find it a mystery. We find it a puzzle. And we are looking at a lot of possibilities. Everyone is doing puzzle solving work and having a blast. Apparently, you suggest that we should conclude that “40% more CO2 in the troposphere” is the unique explanation that we seek. But what does the “40% more” have to do with this particular puzzle? In other words, if we accepted the “40% more” as the explanation, what more would we know about this particular phenomenon than we know now? As for the big picture, and speaking just for myself, I believe that these puzzles exist simply because the measurement system that we have deployed is hopelessly inadequate to the task.
_______
Science is about solving puzzles, and when a piece fits that consistently gives the answer to so many puzzles (i.e. stratospheric cooling, declines in summer sea ice extent, permafrost melt, ocean acidification, increases in ocean heat content, etc.) you have to start to think there is a better chance than not that it is the RIGHT piece. The factoring of the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s into GCM’s seems to be that right piece…and honest (i.e. not politically motivated) skeptics do a service by making honest (i.e. not politically motivated) scientists continue to make sure that the piece that looks to fit so well really is fitting.
so the record high temps will continue ?
R. Gates writes:
“The factoring of the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700′s into GCM’s seems to be that right piece…”
Actually, it is not even a potential piece. The “40% increase” is what you should call a fact and it is explained, according to you, by the characteristics of the CO2 molecule, generally speaking. To get from your starting point, the “40% increase,” to work on the puzzle that Spencer introduced in this forum, you have to introduce hypotheses which explain the forcings that might cause the particular phenomenon under discussion. As Spencer has so eloquently shown in his recent book, “The Great Global Warming Blunder,” the pro-AGCD folk have not produced hypotheses that can explain the kind of phenomenon under discussion here.
Science is puzzle solving only in the same sense that fixing a flat tire is puzzle solving. The purpose of climate science is to create hypotheses which explain the phenomena of climate and which provide a record of well-confirmed predictions of that phenomena. Yes, in this forum, we are puzzle solving. But as yet not one person has introduced something that could qualify as a hypothesis of climate science. Hunches and guesses, however good, are not hypotheses.