I haven’t covered the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) dataset much lately, since not a lot of interesting things have been happening with it. October 2010 though is a different story. There’s been quite a significant drop in the RSS global surface temperature. Here’s the data plot:
Source: ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_2.txt
More info on Remote Sensing Systems here
The drop from July is significant, and very steep, losing more than half of the temperature anomaly since then. The last time we were near this temperature was one year ago, in October 2009, when RSS reported 0.282°C The rise and the fall of global temperature this past year approximates a square wave. A moderate to strong El Niño followed by a strong La Niña is the cause.
The southern hemisphere has dropped the most. Here’s a much larger comparison plot between the Global Anomaly. the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere:
The UAH Global Temperature anomaly data also reported a drop in October, through not as steep, and remains higher.
Nothing out of the ordinary when going from El Nino to La Nina.
Luboš Motl says:
November 5, 2010 at 3:07 am
If the average of the November 2010 and December 2010 anomalies will be below 0.525 °C, and given the much lower October reading, I guess that it will be, then 2010 will be cooler than 1998 according to RSS AMSU.
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Not so. GISS will pronounce 2010 warmest, regardless of facts. There adjusted data will prove it to be “true”.
Don’t worry… they’ll come up with another ‘correction’ shortly….
Those big drops have happened before Anthony. Check the previous fluctuations over 350m. Each time the upward trend resumes. I’m a skeptic. But each time I see that graph I start to think the warmists are right. It is clearly trending upwards.
I’ve now done the work on both dataset and in the process made a discovery.
Both datasets, rss/uah have a time offset to do with annual cycle and harmonics. This is mad. Guessing, it is to do with the quantised orbital period.
Allowing this to be taken into account produces a better result, but I am nervous without knowing what is going on.
The compensated figures for October 2010
RSS +0.279
UAH +0.306
Plot here.
http://daedalearth.wordpress.com/
Charles Nelson, there are a number of “scientists”, and others, worldwide who need a history lesson. But history is not their speciality and they can’t even remember their own historical (hysterical?) forecasts of the 1970s; the coming ice age. Yes, history will prove them wrong, and some of them will still be around to see it, but they had no shame last time and they will have none this time either.
Perhaps the NW passage will be open again: see, they were right. Perhaps temps will continue the downward trend; see they were right – taking action saved the world!
But whatever the future holds, Al has his millions, Mann has his day in the sun, and science has to recover from the new Dark Ages.
I don’t know why you are making such a big deal about one month’s figure – all you have to do is look at the graph and you see changes of that magnitude, or greater, several times in the past 30 years. Also all you have to do is look and see that the graph starts at -0.2 in 1979 and is currently at +0.3 – so what cooling is this that is happening?
R. Gates says: “Nothing out of the ordinary when going from El Nino to La Nina.”
I believe those are true words. In fact, you could leave off the last 8 words.
R. Gates says:
November 5, 2010 at 11:48 am
Nothing out of the ordinary when going from El Nino to La Nina.
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What you fail to realize is that, yes, there is a normal up and down from El Nino to La Nina.
And therefore we can undo these ups and downs – take them out – and there is quite a bit of consistency in how the temperatures respond to an El Nino, La Nina so it is not difficult to do.
And then … we can see how much global warming has actually occurred without having that being obscurred by the ENSO cycle.
And then we find out, there is far less warming than predicted by the theory and by the models – less than half of that expected.
We can check Lacis / Schmidt’s assertion that CO2 controls nearly the entire greenhouse effect (something I noticed the first time I charted up the theory’s predictions) and we find out that, so far, CO2 is controlling only about 30% of the greenhouse effect – not 85%.
And we then understand why Hansen plays-up the temperature trend when it is rising due to an El Nino – effectively allowing global warming to take credit for what the El Nino normally does. We also see that the pro-AGW set then downplays any reduction that occurs from a La Nina.
Objective scientific-minded people notice these things and start to lose trust in a field which insists that we just trust them – you shouldn’t check our results – that makes you against science. And objective, scientific-mided people continue to move toward the other side every time they see this.
Another Ian says:
November 5, 2010 at 3:50 am
This last spring into summer here in SW France the toms were selling at 6€ a kilo. I just wouldn’t buy them at that price. But having said that, the summer was long, warm (not as hot as it can be) and very dry. Only now are we getting our rainy season which normally comes at the beginning of Oct. We have had steadily dryer summers over the last 9 years culmination this year in a real doozy. In my long experience that signals the end of a climatic period. From now on it will become steadily wetter for about 8 years. On verra
Don B says:
November 5, 2010 at 4:40 am
Their predictions were miles out. In the beginning, Hathaway and team forecast the most violent and active SC ever ever. Since then they have steadily reduced it to where it is now and it is still running below their average forecast. We will see how it turns out, won’t we. Hathaway kept saying there’s nothing unusual to see here, move along. Oh how wrong can you be, and still call yourself an expert?
Where I live in Northern NSW, Australia, we just had our lowest maximum mean temp for October on record beating the previous record in 1914 by whopping 0.9C.
With a cool start to this November, we are on track for our coolest spring on record (maximum temp wise).
RE: jimmi says:
November 5, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Hey Jimmi, call back next April. I’ll bet a nickle the graph is at -0.2 or lower.
If the theory of PDO + continued recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA) is correct (and it is a far better predictor than the AGW hypothesis, which is scientific garbage), I would expect to see a trend of only about -0.01 ºC/year over the next two decades, 2010 to 2030, with shorter trend as high as -0.02 ºC/year between 2015 and 2020, when the PDO contribution dips below the LIA recovery line. So I expect the temperature anomaly should be back down to around the 1987 level (zero) in 2030. Remember the LIA recovery is about +0.5 ºC/century. The data is so noisy, climate scientists should be ashamed to proclaim a consensus based upon it, and all scientists should be ashamed to fight over it in public.
Bob Tisdale
Nov 5, 9:42 am
Thanks for the explanation, I’ll have to read up on Walker circulation. I had always thought of ENSO as an south-east Pacific phenomenon, it looks like the west Pacific plays an equally important role.
In all seriousness–
the UAH/RSS readings for the next 12-18 months are vitally important for ascertaining the underlying warming trend — if any– and plotting out what happened during the last 32 years and where the trend is going. We’ll have 3-4 strong el nino cycles, 2-3 strong el nina’s, a strong solar cycle and a weak solar cycle, plus 1-2 large volcanic events during those 32 years. Once the data shows us what the trend has been, then we can start testing theories. My guesses: GISS/IPCC does poorly, Solar cycle does worse, Natural variability in a chaotic climate system the winner? The data will tell.
The volcanoes that are popping off all over of late can’t be helping things either.
As I read WUWT, Steve Goddard, Matt Ridley etc. a question has formed in my feeble mind;
Given that there are serious questions about the quality of the Land Temperature records and in particular the Urban Heat Island effect and if industrial activity over the past 150-200 years has been digging up coal and oil and rapidly releasing this ‘stored’ solar energy into the biosphere, then how much might this be a component of the recent (albeit small) warming trend which the orthodoxy attributes to the greenhouse effect of increasing CO2 from human activities?
Has anyone attempted any calculations along these lines? Maybe the likes of Richard Lindzen or Steve McIntyre have the knowledge and skills to perform this sort of calculation? I certainly don’t, but I would be fascinated with the results.
O/T – BTW Anthony has anyone pointed out to you the article printed in Nova Scientifica a few weeks ago by one Michael Mann? I had a good chuckle over this one. Maybe it’s not worth giving any blogtime?