UAH global temperature, down about 0.2°C in October

As pointed out last week, Sea Surface Temperatures and the daily lower troposphere temperatures continue to fall as La Niña looms large in the Pacific. We may find that the continued drop prevents 2010 from being the “hottest year ever” that many alarmists are hoping will to put some life back in the climate change meme.

Dr. Roy Spencer reports:

UAH_LT_1979_thru_Oct_10

As the tropical tropospheric temperatures continue to cool, the global average is finally beginning to follow suit:+0.42 deg. C for October, 2010. This is the lowest monthly temperature anomaly we’ve seen in what has been a very warm year.

 

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 0.555 0.650 0.285

2010 10 0.419 0.365 0.473 0.152

For those following the race for warmest year in the satellite tropospheric temperature record (which began in 1979), 2010 is still within striking distance of the record warm year of 1998. Here are the 1998 and 2010 averages for January 1st through October 31:

1998 +0.57

2010 +0.54

Note that the difference between the two is not statistically significant…just symbolically.

[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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Sera
November 2, 2010 4:05 am

Having trouble posting in tips and notes.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299697

DataLogics Admin
November 2, 2010 4:07 am

Whenever I see this graph it always causes me to go on a little search for the baseline temperatures. Finding Spencer’s page for the anomalies dataset (http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt) is never a problem. But where are the actual monthly temperatures used to calculate the anomalies kept? Or an even simpler question, is there a link (url) for the baseline temperatures for each calendar month?
Why do I ask? Because over a month ago someone asked me basically the following: “if the August UAH anomaly is +0.51, what was the actual August temperature then?” After 15 seconds of awkward silence, I admitted I did not know. (Then he asked me why Spencer uses a 13-month average and I did not know the answer to that one either.)
Any links to the UAH monthly baseline temps available?

Joe Lalonde
November 2, 2010 4:14 am

What is the function of an Ice Age?
To relieve pressure build up in the atmosphere.
What solution did this planet come up with to relieve this pressure?
By changing the salt content on the surface of the oceans so less sunlight is being absorbed by the oceans and more sunlight is reflected back into space.
By cooling the planet, this kills off life and allows the gases to slowly disipate through many years into space.
Then the oceans become fresher again to absorb more sunlight and the big melt begins. Until pressure builds up too great again.

Bill Marsh
November 2, 2010 4:45 am

Interesting to look at the AMSU sea surface temps. They’ve been running roughly .25-.4F below 2009 every day since June (when the El Nino dissipated and was replaced by the current La Nina). It appears from the graph that October 2010 sea surface temps are lower by .25+F than any year since 2003 (Aqua doesn’t have data prior to 2003).

Alexej Buergin
November 2, 2010 5:14 am

“geo says:
November 1, 2010 at 9:14 pm
So, not having Nov and Dec 1998 anomalies close to hand, what does 2010 need the next two months to stay under them?”
The numbers are here:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
If November and December both turn out to be 0.40°C, 2010 will equal 1998.
But 2010 should be more than 0.2°C warmer than 1998, which is more than a decade before (at least according to IPCC).

November 2, 2010 5:24 am

I disagree that 2010 won’t win out as the warmest year. It is still running ahead of 1998 and the drop in October was less than 1998.
More applicable numbers are:
Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1998 0.52 0.45 0.41 0.19 0.27
2010 0.51 0.6 0.419
Of course it means nothing… http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2010/09/2010-could-be-the-warmest-year-ever/
We will just have to listen to more smug comments that we are digging our graves faster and faster… Sigh.
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic

Bill Illis
November 2, 2010 5:27 am

The Tropics temperatures are likely to fall to the -0.3C to -0.4C range by March, 2011. Adding-in the UAH October tropics number shows pretty clearly how the pattern will develop in the coming months.
Tropics temps are already down 0.85C since the El Nino-influenced peak in February. Still 0.5C of decline to come yet.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/3655/ensotropicsoct10.png
Equatorial upper ocean heat content fell a little more in October so it looks like the La Nina will cool further yet (even though there has been some moderation in the past few weeks).
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/2195/ensovseuohaoct10.png
NOAA has a new graphic for how the La Nina will impact winter weather (at least in the Western Hemisphere). These patterns can move location a little from La Nina to La Nina but overall, it is usually quite predictable.
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/661/ensolaninawinter.jpg

Enneagram
November 2, 2010 5:48 am

That graph is evidently XXX massaged, as that high peak being almost the same as the 97-98 El Niño, which it has not happen as we are having, on the contrary, a very deep La Niña, it is absolutely FALSE.
Urgent correction needed!

November 2, 2010 6:00 am

“Bob Tisdale says:
November 2, 2010 at 1:11 am
I’ve posted the preliminary October (Reynolds OI.v2) SST anomaly update:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/11/preliminary-october-2010-sst-anomaly.html
The data for October won’t be official until next Monday, but the preliminary (based on an incomplete month) shows a sizable drop in global SST anomalies.”
Shouldn’t that be ‘a sizeable rise in global SST anomalies but towards the negative” ?

November 2, 2010 7:07 am

According to IPCC 2007 the the projected average temperature rise until the year 2100 is about 3°C, or about 0.3°C per decade. (A1B scenario, see Summary for Policymakers, page 8).
This means that the temperature peak in 2010 should have been some 0.36°C higher than the 1998 peak in the graph above (12 years). The 2010 peak should have been at around +0.85 in stead of +0.5, if the IPCC projection in Summary for Policymakers is valid.

MattN
November 2, 2010 7:37 am

If my math is correct, if we average .61 anamoly for Nov and Dec, 2010 ties 1998.

geo
November 2, 2010 8:35 am

I see three different answers to my question, btw, none of which seem to agree, but thanks for responding.
Good point that if the ipcc is right the real target should be +.2-.3C beyond 1998. One could make the argument that peaks and troughs is what we really ought to be paying closest attention to, and decreasing peaks is not good news for ipcc.

brokenhockeystick
November 2, 2010 8:59 am

“The PRT’s are individually calibrated in a laboratory before being installed in the instruments.”
What about recalibration at regular intervals? Or did they get calibrated in 1979 and have been left to drift pos or neg ever since?

DesertYote
November 2, 2010 9:20 am

Well, this news really sucks. When is this frigid ice age ever going to end? I know its abating, and some mistakenly call it an interglacial, but we are still 3 or 4 degrees C below optimum, and I am loosing patience.

richard verney
November 2, 2010 9:33 am

geo says:
November 2, 2010 at 8:35 am
“Good point that if the ipcc is right the real target should be +.2-.3C beyond 1998. One could make the argument that peaks and troughs is what we really ought to be paying closest attention to, and decreasing peaks is not good news for ipcc.”
I too have wondered at the validity of comparing peak to peak and trough and trough. However, since peaks are predominantly caused by El Nino events and since these vary in force from event to event and since these events are almost certainly not driven by atmosheric CO2 levels, it is difficult to see what the comparison would actually show.

Alan S. Blue
November 2, 2010 9:52 am

“These satellite measurements are not calibrated to surface thermometer data in any way”
I can’t begin to describe how strongly I’d like the reverse of this calibration performed uniformly on a station-by-station basis. Until this step is competently performed, we’ll be struck with decent satellite data and a disjointed “apples and oranges” plethora of inadequate “instrumental data” that actually covers the true regions of interest.

NK
November 2, 2010 10:01 am

“Agust Bjarnason says:
November 2, 2010 at 7:07 am
According to IPCC 2007 the the projected average temperature rise until the year 2100 is about 3°C, or about 0.3°C per decade. (A1B scenario, see Summary for Policymakers, page 8).This means that the temperature peak in 2010 should have been some 0.36°C higher than the 1998 peak in the graph above (12 years). The 2010 peak should have been at around +0.85 in stead of +0.5, if the IPCC projection in Summary for Policymakers is valid.”
Agust raises the ultimate point of this discussion. The AGW alarmist industry — IPCC, GISS, EAU, GE Windmills, Solar panel maufacturers, RealClimate etc, etc — all use some physical laws about CO2 to pose a theory, and then use “Climate Models” to “prove” their theory by PROJECTING future temps. The actual RELIABLE UAH temp data is INVALIDATING the AGW projections. Things are warmer than 1979, but no warmer than 1998, and LESS THAN .3/decade warmer since the early 1980s. The reliable evidence is disproving IPCC 2007, which was their fourth iteration at projecting temps. The AGW CO2 theory is being invalidated. So what is the cause of the marginal temp increases since 1979?– natural variability in a chaotic climate system? solar variability? CO2 but with no positive feedback? WHO KNOWS. But UAH’s actual data is invalidating IPCC EVEN IPCC 2007 (IV), which scaled LOWER the original 1990 projection (I).
Thanks Agust.

DesertYote
November 2, 2010 10:22 am

morgo
November 2, 2010 at 2:33 am
I live in Portland Oregon, USA. Our tomato’s did not do very well at all.
I believe that we had the coldest June on record, but NWS has tried to make that fact disappear. I should have done a page scrape on the day that they were projecting this in their forecast summary. An hour after that summery, another summery was posted that removed the projection. Funny how that works.

Alexej Buergin
November 2, 2010 11:53 am

The numbers from UAH:
1998 1 0.58
1998 2 0.76
1998 3 0.53
1998 4 0.76
1998 5 0.65
1998 6 0.57
1998 7 0.52
1998 8 0.52
1998 9 0.45
1998 10 0.41
1998 11 0.19
1998 12 0.27
2010 1 0.64
2010 2 0.61
2010 3 0.66
2010 4 0.50
2010 5 0.54
2010 6 0.44
2010 7 0.49
2010 8 0.51
2010 9 0.60
2010 10 0.42
The sum of the anomalies of the first 10 months of 1998 is 5.75 (average 0.575).
The sum for all 12 month of 1998 is 6.21 (average 0.5175).
The sum of the first 10 months of 2010 is 5.41 (average 0.541).
The difference between 6.21 and 5.41 is 0.80; so if both November and December 2010 have an anomaly of 0.4, the average for 2010 will be the same as the average for 1998.
Now: The numbers are only given to 2 digits after the decimal, and the months are of different lengt …

DavidS
November 2, 2010 12:08 pm

I live in Wales, our toms looked good in July but then August came along with rain and no sun and that was that.

Jimbo
November 2, 2010 12:18 pm

“We may find that the continued drop prevents 2010 from being the “hottest year ever” that many alarmists are hoping will to put some life back in the climate change meme.”

From what I have read Dr. Hansen had already hedged his bets a while back.
How anyone could have declaree “the hottest year on the record” before Father Christmas had gone back to his Waterworld is beyond me. ;O)

geo
November 2, 2010 2:58 pm

Alexej Buergin says:
November 2, 2010 at 11:53 am
++++
I think I take that as definitive, as not least in showing your work you hit Dr. Spencer’s 10-month results.

Robert of Texas
November 2, 2010 4:45 pm

Just because this year doesn’t end up hotter then 1998 doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future… Just wait for a few more “tweaks” of the data to come out and they will invaribly find some problems in 1998 that justify a slight downward nudge in its temperature, and a slight upward nudge in 2010. You go through enough tweaks and you can eventually achieve any amount of wamring per decade that is required to sustain belief in AGW.
You guys have too little faith in the clergy.

Mark.r
November 3, 2010 12:42 am

cool October here in New Zealand -0.5c.
In Christchurch -0.8.
NIWA have been saying it will be a warmer spring than norm.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/publications/all/cu/new-zealand-climate-update-135-a-september-2010/outlook—september-to-november-2010

Geoff Sherrington
November 3, 2010 3:05 am

What type of phenomenon allowed 1998 to be hot by satellite measurements of the lower troposphere, hot by measurement of sea surface temperature and hot by averaging conventional land stations? Surely each has a different lag to an external thermal shock.
I smell an instrumental rat. I think.