As La Niña fades, this is not surprising. Dr. Roy Spencer is back at work and reports the new lower troposphere number. Note also the global sea surface temperature graph below, which is quite interesting. I’m sure Bob Tisdale will be interested. – Anthony
UAH Temperature Update for April, 2011: +0.12 deg. C
YR MON GLOBAL NH SH TROPICS
2010 01 0.542 0.675 0.410 0.635
2010 02 0.510 0.553 0.466 0.759
2010 03 0.554 0.665 0.443 0.721
2010 04 0.400 0.606 0.193 0.633
2010 05 0.454 0.642 0.265 0.706
2010 06 0.385 0.482 0.287 0.485
2010 07 0.419 0.558 0.280 0.370
2010 08 0.441 0.579 0.304 0.321
2010 09 0.477 0.410 0.545 0.237
2010 10 0.306 0.257 0.356 0.106
2010 11 0.273 0.372 0.173 -0.117
2010 12 0.181 0.217 0.145 -0.222
2011 01 -0.010 -0.055 0.036 -0.372
2011 02 -0.020 -0.042 0.002 -0.348
2011 03 -0.101 -0.073 -0.128 -0.342
2011 04 0.120 0.199 0.042 -0.229
NEW! Monthly UAH temperature reports and global images.
La Nina Fades
The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly for April 2011 jumped up to +0.12 deg. C, further evidence that La Nina is fading.
I have also updated the global sea surface temperature anomaly from AMSR-E through yesterday, May 9 (note that the base period is different, so the zero line is different than for the lower tropospheric temperature plot above):
@george E. Smith at May 12, 2011 at 2:18 pm
“But the real surface is anythin but optically smooth (down to submicron surface features), so in fat even the sea never reflects a vertical beam straight up, and most real surfaces would be highly scattering.”
George, I’ll always be grateful to you (and some others) for being so gracious in your comments to me when I first discovered WUWT a couple of years ago! Thanks again.
I wonder about the quoted section above, though, since I’ve flown in many airplanes over the ocean and seen the sun’s reflection in the surface around the noon hour. Sometimes it is very, very bright. Also, I’ve seen the sun reflected almost each evening at sunset from the Pacific – I live in Los Angeles near the beach. The sun is reflected over a very wide part of the ocean, and again is sometimes very, very bright.
It seems to me, based on those observations, that some of the sunlight is indeed reflected from the ocean, even when there are swells and waves.
I do agree that the oceans absorb the non-reflected light, otherwise solar ponds could never work. http://www.solarponds.com/
I fail to see the significance of George Smith, rackopee, jp argument for the AGW case, it would all seem rather simplistic to me. Arguing in a world with no day and night, no seasons, no air currents, no sea currents, no temperature changes outside of global mean and “the anomaly”. only averages and many many broad assumptions. Arguing in the world of global warming.