UAH Temperature Update for May, 2011: +0.13 deg. C
By Dr. Roy Spencer
Little Change from Last Month
The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly for May, 2011 was just about the same as last month: up slightly to +0.13 deg. C (click on the image for a LARGE version):
Note the tropics continue to warm as La Nina fades:
YR MON GLOBAL NH SH TROPICS
2011 1 -0.010 -0.055 0.036 -0.372
2011 2 -0.020 -0.042 0.002 -0.348
2011 3 -0.101 -0.073 -0.128 -0.342
2011 4 0.117 0.195 0.039 -0.229
2011 5 0.131 0.143 0.120 -0.044
I have also updated the global sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies computed from AMSR-E through yesterday, June 8 6 (note that the base period is different, so the zero line is different than for the lower tropospheric temperature plot above):
Note the rapid drop 2010-11. The Warmists call this Climate Panic.
I keep coming across the misstatement “Global Warming causes Global Cooling”.
It now has a derivative: The Climate Panic is caused by CO2 and it was predicted by the Warmists.
There’s a problem with that idea.
More severe weather is caused by the clash of warm & cool air . A globally warmer planet would not have colder air masses than a decade ago, rather it would have all air masses warm equally.
Oceans cycles are switching to cooling phases, but not all at the same time, ergo the greater contrast.
The Warmists predicted more severe weather by global warming, but the climate is regionally cooling unevenly, thus they did not predict what is currently happening.
AGW and it’s derivatives are like the Grinch: They ruined the holiday from the severe weather of the past.
Looking at the UAH Global Lower Atmosphere plot it just occurred to me (it probably has occurred to many others) that we now have a 30 year period of the most reliable measurement of the Global Average Temperature Anomaly (GATA). While it extends back to before any climate model projections, it does cover a time span that warmists claim is required for “climate”, as opposed to “weather” measurements, and it does cover a period of relatively rapid warming.
As such, it would be interesting to see superimposed on the plot a linear line of best fit from the data, compared to the 0.3 C per decade predicted by most climate models. I think it would help to highlight the divergence that is currently taking place between the predicted and actual GATA.
According to prevailing sunspot/cosmic ray theories, we should be moving into a 15 year temperature decline now. So the uptick in temperatures should not last beyond about November, and reach perhaps +0.1C, before they begin the decline to -0.3 to -0.6C, depending on how you think -2.0C at the Canada/US border translates to global temperatures.
Getting closer and closer to falsification …. of something.
Am I correct in stating that if the anomalies were calculated from the average of TWO decades from 1991 -2011 then all the last decade would be above the zero anomaly line ?
Nino regions 1 to 3 are already in the positive territory, Nino 3.4 just touched the 0 level while Nino 4 is still negative. based on Australia’s BOM graphs. Somehow the other oceans like Atlantic are still in the negative temp. anomaly as Pacific Ocean may soon be starting the El Nino for another round of weather cycle.
Hmmm… Gibbs’ Phenomenon?
Given the importance of getting above the 1998 max, we should all recompute and publish anomalies wrt the 1998 max. This will help drive in the “real” message, be it temps being cool, or warm.
So the June value is around -0.25C.
“Am I correct in stating that if the anomalies were calculated from the average of TWO decades from 1991 -2011 then all the last decade would be above the zero anomaly line ?”
UAH only switched to the 30 year baseline from January this year so you can see almost all the last decade against the old one in the December 2010 update
It dips below average around 2000, 2004 and more extensively around 2007. If you compare 2007 in that chart to 2011 in the current it seems very likely we wouldn’t have gone below the 1980-2000 average at all this year.
Izen – “then all the last decade would be above the zero anomaly line ?”
You have forgotten the elementary scientific step of putting uncertainty calculations around the line data. There is simply no way that a few tenths of a degree C can be relied upon for global policy making. The most plausible explanation is that all the data are within the confines of natural variabliity, because no mechanism has been accepted as causing the observed effect.
I agree with Doug. I think they’ll be a small bump on the side of the early 2010 peak simular to the 2009 small peak. By November this year the UAH temp will be past this side peak and decline into a trough like early 2008. Thus it will complete a solar cycle transistion oscilation feature simular to SC22-23 1998 one.
0.13C?
This lies within the measurement error bands so is not significant.
If you exclude the 1998 El Niño (and there’s no reason to do so other than alarmists’ claims that if you don’t you are cheating), all the warming of the 30 year satellite record has, so far, has been confined a six year period 1994 – 2000.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/from:1979/to:1994/trend/plot/wti/from:2001/trend
Like the temperature stasis c 1945 – c 1975, that observation is not consistent with IPCC ‘climate change’ science viz. that the monotonic rise in human CO2 emissions have been the overwhelming post-WWII climate driving factor.
By my view of the graph, that makes it about the same as in 1983… so in almost 30 years we’ve warmed about nil… Oh…
This makes 12 month running mean of +0.22 C (I predicted +0.21). I still reckon November 12 month mean will be +0.01 and December (the 2011 year) 0.00. Some cooling to go yet so I could be wrong. I’ll be watching the turnaround from La Nina closely.
Ken
E.M.Smith says:
June 8, 2011 at 2:59 am
By my view of the graph, that makes it about the same as in 1983… so in almost 30 years we’ve warmed about nil… Oh…
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Astute observation EM…………..
However you overlooked the fact that 82/83 saw a strong El Nino, with the SOI peaking at approx -30. 2010/2011 saw one of the strongest La Nina’s on record with the SOI peaking at approx +27.
Now, just in case you had forgotten, El Nino = hot, and La Nina = cold………………..
Uh Oh………………………………………………..
Cheers!!!!!!!!!
@- Geoff Sherrington says:
June 8, 2011 at 2:25 am
“You have forgotten the elementary scientific step of putting uncertainty calculations around the line data. There is simply no way that a few tenths of a degree C can be relied upon for global policy making.”
Are you claiming that the sea surface temperature variations measured over the last two decades are so inaccurate that the graph is meanigless?!
That ALL the variation seen on the graph is within any error bars and therefore may NOT represent a real pghysical change. This would seem to be refuted by the confirming evidence from sea level rise, coral bleaching, salinity changes, ice extent loss etc that have been observed.
“The most plausible explanation is that all the data are within the confines of natural variabliity, because no mechanism has been accepted as causing the observed effect.”
I’m sorry but this statement makes no rational sense.
There MUST be a mechanism causing the observed effect – unless you are suggesting it is a supernatural, a-causal anomaly. ‘
Natural varaibility is NOT an explanation, it is at best a description that provides no information about the CAUSE of the observed effect.
If the data are within the confines of ‘natural variability’ what is the CAUSE of that natural variability?
None of this addresses the point I was initially trying to make; the ten year period of sea surface temperatures is too short to show much more than ‘weather noise’ from the ENSO cycle. It needs a longer time period to indicvate whether there is a persistant trend in temperatures.
Even the US political elite are laughing at Global Warming now, including Obama:
.
>>Bart says: June 8, 2011 at 12:34 am
>>Hmmm… Gibbs’ Phenomenon?
No – a ‘dead cat bounce’…
(Economic expression referring to a financial crash – even a dead cat will bounce if it hits the ground hard enough.)
.
Geoff Sherrington says:
“There is simply no way that a few tenths of a degree C can be relied upon for global policy making. The most plausible explanation is that all the data are within the confines of natural variabliity, because no mechanism has been accepted as causing the observed effect.”
True dat. Natural variability completely explains the current temperature variations, with no need for an extraneous variable such as CO2. Imputing that natural variability to CO2 has zero corroborating evidence. But then, the alarmist crowd has no use for empirical evidence, because they operate on religious faith and true belief instead of the scientific method.
There will be periods of falling temperatures. Why?
-because of natural variability.
There will be periods of stable temperatures. Why?
-because of natural variability.
There will be periods of rising temperatures. Why?
-because of human production of CO2.
URKidding says:
June 8, 2011 at 3:13 am
And you forgot the El Chicon!
Uh Oh ……
URKidding says:
June 8, 2011 at 3:13 am
And you forgot that El Nino/La Nina are generalized weather patterns. La Nina can be anything it wants to be, go anywhere it wants to go. All of which makes El Nino the more consistent one, La Nina the erratic child.
Eg: When all was said and done, the PNW snowpack from 1982-83 and 2010-11 differ little, being the result of El Nino the former and La Nina the latter.
@- Smokey says:
June 8, 2011 at 3:46 am
“True dat. Natural variability completely explains the current temperature variations, with no need for an extraneous variable such as CO2. ”
Natural variability never EXPLAINS anything, it is merely a DESCRIPTION.
You need to identify the extrinsic or intrinsic variable that is causing the ‘natural’ variation to provide an explanation.
“Imputing that natural variability to CO2 has zero corroborating evidence.”
Apart from the measured rise in CO2, the known radiative energy conversion properties of CO2 and the measured increase in downwelling longwave radiation and the measured decrease in the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation.
So not quite zero corroborating evidence.
And rather more evidence than there is to corroborate a ‘natural’ explanation.
Dr Spencer also points out on his website that AQUA channel 3 (lower troposphere) appears to demonstrate an unusually low response apparently due to the increased northern hemisphere snow cover. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/06/recent-cooling-of-northern-hemisphere-mid-latitudes-viewed-from-aqua/ The increasing Northern Hemisphere winter snow cover as documented by the Rutgers lab may well be a negative feedback from GHG forcing by increasing albedo. http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=namgnld&ui_season=1
Very cool video of the M2.5 flare yesterday. Look at all that debris(if you will) coming back and hitting the Sun.
Impressive! A little extra warmth for the solar system. Could use more of it around my house. Chilly Spring this year.