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. 
Where is the cooling, Anthony?
REPLY: Ah, the impatience of trolls.
[snip – not going there with snark on snark -Anthony]
R. Gates says:
October 6, 2010 at 3:38 pm
[snip – not going there with snark on snark -Anthony]
____
Mine was not meant as a “snark on snark” at all. I hadn’t heard that a cooling had been predicted by you as was only curious as to its duration, cause, etc. If this is a short term La Nina event, that’s one thing, but something that would prevent 2010-2010 being warmer than 2000-2010, that’s something else entirely as it would fly in the face of that which in general is predicted by GCM’s. I would think you’d know me better than attempt a “snark” on you…
Doesn’t the thermometer’s measure heat radiated rather than temperature?
More precisely, the heat efflux of the atmosphere, rather than its temperature?
Well, I’m certainly expecting a downturn. The RSS satellite temps fell by 0.06C in September, about as expected, even though they also found an unexpected bump in SH temps.
Last week, the Nino 3.4 Index fell to -1.84C (from -1.5C in the previous 3 weeks) and the best models predict it will fall to -2.0C by December and stay in La Nina territory well into 2011. There is still a huge amount of cooler than normal water (as much as -9C) below the surface in the Pacific waiting to influence the surface so I think it will go down to -2.5C or so (the record level) and a La Nina conditions will extend into the summer of 2011. [The upper ocean heat content anomaly pattern predicts that an El Nino will develop late in 2011 but that is for another day].
The AMO has declined by about 0.3C in the last 5 weeks.
Southern Ocean SSTs declined to -0.018C last week, a remarkable decline of 0.45C since the beginning of the year [Think about how much ocean the southern hemisphere represents and that declined by 0.45C in the past 9 months].
Put it all together and there is only one conclusion and that is cooling until at least April next year.
You can start with our gardens. The plants have been very unhappy with the colder weather the past number of years. NOAA keeps reporting higher temperatures,, which is a mystery. You cannot find those higher temperautres on our thermometers or among the palnts in the gardens. The rosemary plants that thrived in the 1990s are being systematically frozen out of existence in recent Winter and Spring weather. Many of the flowering plants have failed to ripen and blossom because the April-July weather was too cold for them to their duty. The Spring weather has become so unpredictable, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival found it necessary to change their traditional festival dates. The blossoming period kept getting earlier, then it began to occur later than the planned festival dates. Finally, they gave up trying to outguess the changing blossom times and made the festival a month long.
All the time the weather has been getting colder, NOAA keeps trying to tell everyone that its hotter than alsmost ever before. Yeah, right. Next they’ll be telling us that’s water they’re running down our pant legs.
Roger Carr says:
October 6, 2010 at 3:21 am
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…).
=========================
Yeah but “greener and sweeter” thanks to massive fertilizers which run off into the oceans and create massive dead zones…is not the “greener and sweeter” that I personally want.
And “contracting” blots on the landscape?
Sort of like the toxic man-made lahar that just happened in Hungary?
Or most of the dismal environmental record of the world’s most populous country, China?
Or the giant Pacific (and the recently discovered one in the Atlantic) trash gyres?
Give me a ******* break.
As much as I vigorously oppose the radical Rousseauian / Noble Savage /Radical Green agenda…
I also oppose members of our species who have their heads in the dirty, stinking sand of the pollution that we have created.
It’s bad, dude.
And, unfortunately, the reports of “higher temperature” which is the subject of this thread, get blown up in the media along with myths of ocean acidification and CO2 that the world is at the tipping point.
It isn’t.
Climate will self-regulate, as it has always done for billions of years.
But pollution. We CAN do something about pollution and disastrous overfishing and other things that ARE…without a shadow of a scientific doubt…anthropogenic in origin.
-Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
savethesharks says: (October 6, 2010 at 8:44 pm) Or most of the dismal environmental record of the world’s most populous country, China?
Give them a little time, Chris. One step at a time in the massive changes they need to make to bring their country into this new age. It is unlikely they like living dirty; just an unfortunate, but necessary, step along the road.
And I’ll drink to your saving of sharks.
Roger Carr says:
October 6, 2010 at 10:29 pm
========================
Cheers, mate.
-Chris
Bill Illis says:
October 6, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Well, I’m certainly expecting a downturn. The RSS satellite temps fell by 0.06C in September, about as expected, even though they also found an unexpected bump in SH temps.
Yes, of course, we’re all expecting a downturn – and there will be one- but how far will temperatures fall. Will they fall as low as 1999-2000, say, or even down to mid-1980s levels? If not, then it suggests that, even with a negative PDO and a weak solar cycle, we still have an underlying warming trend.
Slightly off topic – I couldn’t find better thread. I see Nansen has the Arctic dipping into Summer again. Massive loss of ice as of the last few days. Back to the lows after a big rise. I do love the quality control these guys have in place.
Hey guys. Rather than look for reasons why the obvious could not be happening, why not actually look at the data trend – and look at it over the full record period, not just the bit that makes the increase seem a bit less impressive. Of course temperatures will come down again, but the baseline is clearly moving up – there is obviously a one way valve in the system.
And hey, its good to see that the more active sun can be wheeled out again. It had to be put to bed during the past few years, since the temps kept on trend through the strongest minimum for a long time, but now that it’s becoming more active – and the temps are still going up – it’s time to resurrect it.