UAH Global Temperature Update for June, 2011: +0.31 deg. C
By Dr. Roy Spencer
Post-La Nina Warming Continues
The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly for June, 2011 increased to +0.31 deg. C (click on the image for a LARGE version):
The Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, and and Tropics all experienced temperature anomaly increases in June:
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 +0.133 +0.145 +0.121 -0.043
2011 6 +0.314 +0.377 +0.251 +0.235
I would like to remind everyone that month-to-month changes in global-average tropospheric temperature have a large influence from fluctuations in the average rate of heat transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere. In other words, they are not of radiative origin (e.g. not from greenhouse gases). El Nino/La Nina is probably the most dramatic example of this kind of activity, but there are also “intraseasonal oscillations” in the ocean-atmosphere energy exchanges occurring on an irregular basis, too.
YEARLY temperature averages probably provide a better indication of the existence of radiative forcings on the climate system (whether warming or cooling). Nevertheless, we must remember that even DECADAL time scale (or longer) changes in the ocean circulation could also be involved, which can cause long-term climate change independent of any kind of greenhouse gas (or cosmic ray-induced) radiative forcing. (That last sentence has not been approved by the IPCC…but I don’t really care.)
Unfortunately your recent musing about being a politician and a teacher, or even an econ expert, has seriously hurt your science cred with alot of people. And Rush Limbaugh’s climate scientist? All this hurts your cred, just like Hansen’s getting arrested destroy’s his cred.
I look at the above graph and see 1) No trend from 1979-1998, 2) A 0.2 to 0.3 step after 1998, and 3) No reason to feel confident we won’t get another step of similar magnitude within the next few years, in spite of the negative PDO and very low solar activity.
If that happens, I sure hope direct CO2 capture and sequestration ( CCS ) has made a lot of progress because transforming the global industrial civilization under the direction of the U.N. to reduce global CO2 emissions by 50% is something I don’t even want to comtemplate.
The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data is collected and processed, it is placed in a “public” computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.
Heat waves are Global Warming. Chills are Climate Change.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
That, and anecdotal cool temperature reports on this blog from around the world, together with the recent outage on the lower atmosphere chanel, leads me to suspect that the empirical evidence that produced this result might be questionable.
Perhaps a recallibration might be in order, possibly using a world wide network of tomatoes.
Well, all I can say is, that this measurement seems to bear no relationship to the conditions that I experience, here in Southern England. Bloody cold most of the time, and has been all through this “summer” with the exception of a few days.
Or is this measurement a reflection of the amount of heat leaving the lower atmosphere, so perhaps a little counter-intuitive, as this heat then departs into space?
Perhaps the last El Nino was a ‘step up’….warmer is the new ‘normal’ within ENSO neutral conditions….at least until the AMO decides to go negative.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
tonybr says:
July 7, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Here in Scotland it has also been a very cold year so far. I blame our First Minister Mr Salmond for covering the countryside with big white fans which he powers with electricity from the grid most days when the wind doesn’t blow .
I think it no coincidence that the more he builds each year the cooler it becomes.
that’s a surprise, given the volcanic activity in June!
I really had anticipated a cooling.
The average maximum temperature during June 2011 in Malaga was 26.6 Celsius (80F), and that was slightly below normal for the time of year.
http://www.malaga-weather.com/article.812.html
robb876: I agree, but that isn’t what John asked; he asked about 1998 on. To me, the temperature exhibits a step function. It oscillates around an average value of -0.15 from 1979 to the 1998 El Nino, then steps up to a new average of +0.2 degrees where it has been oscillating around since.
Bill Kropla says:
July 7, 2011 at 9:51 am
Hats off to you, Sir. Send it to poetry magazine, among other places. For we critics of climate science, it is a scream!!!!
“The Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, and and Tropics all experienced temperature anomaly increases in June”
Well, here in south of Brazil the temperatures dropped at levels of 1974/75. Ice, cold, and low temperatures in the last days are above the normal. The cold is going to central regions of Brazil and near Amazon forest. In Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru we have very low temperatures too. So… what is happen ? The cold is only in surface ?
JFB
What does everyone make such a big deal out of these numbers? No one has a scientific explanation for them. Some people have good rules of thumb based on things like ENSO, but those folks will readily admit that what they have is not up to the level of science. Of course, Warmista fetishize numbers because that is the slim thread that keeps their enterprise alive.
Would someone tell me again where the thermometers are? These readings do not agree with my experience of the southeastern US – Houston to Dallas to St. Louis to DC to Miami or my experience of the internet.
Would someone please tell me again what the Global Average Temperature is? It is a contrivance for sure and not a scientific one.
Would someone tell me why climate scientists insist on using anomalies rather than actual temperatures?
Finally, would someone tell me why climate scientists chose the word ‘anomaly’? The word ‘anomaly’ has a perfectly good meaning which has nothing to do with the use made of it by climate scientists. The fact that they use it in this way screams “not really literate.”
—I’m so glad you said that ‘in fact, the UK is cold’ — down here in the south it was all of 14C maximum today, 7th July. Yes, we have had some hot weather, with the odd day in the mid-80s, but ‘had’ is the word.
I for one plan to enjoy.
As far as warming since ’98, it must need be remembered, the contexts that EVERYBODY realizes, but that now seem to not matter.
AT THE TIME HE WAS SAYING THAT UNBEKNOWN to US, e.v.e.r.y.b.o.d.y. realized that the
precise
global temp
Phil Jones gave when he SAID “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms ***IF I SAID THE WORLD HAD COOLED SINCE 1998. OK IT HAS*** ” (asterisks and caps mine, this was an everyday email without any unusual puctuation)
“…Ok it has, but it’s only seven years of data ***AND IT I.S.N’T. S.T.A.T.I.S.T.I.C.A.L.L.Y. S.I.G.N.I.F.I.C.A.N.T.”
(Again, caps, asterisks, mine because it’s the internet and Anthony isn’t charging me by the word or character – but also to make it just how plainly the e.n.t.i.r.e. game is over, with Jones’ having said the “it isn’t statistically significant” part)
The important thing that *seals* *every* *word* *any* *of* *them* *ever* *utter*,
is that the
ENTIRE WORLD
READING THE RAW DATA
POSTED ONLINE
BY LAW
SPECIFICALLY TO PREVENT
WEATHER FRAUD,
was SHOWING that
***SINCE 1998, IT HADN’T WARMED, B.U.T. C.O.O.L.E.D. JUST A LITTLE BIT –
SLIGHTLY BELOW
STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE
level.***
And in ONE SENTENCE, he admitted
(a)lack of warming as REPEATEDLY CLAIMED
(b) the actual veracity of the raw data with the most minimal of adjustments ABSOLUTELY KNOWABLE to ANYONE of some vocational-quality grasp, of state-of-the-industry @ur momisugly the time weather forecasting,
(c)the ABSOLUTE ASSERTION in the language as lain down- it was patently obvious he knew precisely what he was communicating: DISCUSSING COMMITTING of FRAUD on MASSIVE scale with SPECIFIC INTENT TO HIDE IT HADN’T BEEN WARMING.
This was in 2005 and the v.e.r.y. month before the ClimateGate data were released, on ANOTHER email that made the rounds, THERE was JONES’ NAME, on the ”TRAVESTY” Email wherein they all took turns admitting it hadn’t been warming, or that it was very troubling to SEE THE ACTUAL TRUTH: that IT HADN’T WARMED SINCE ’98 or so – and there was
MANN
TRENBERTH
JONES
SCHNEIDER
CO-ORDINATING JOINT FRAUDULENT DENIALS – from SEVERAL DIFFERENT GOVERNMENTAL OFFICES –
on MULTIPLE CONTINENTS –
the ASSERTIONS of a BBC REPORTER: that assertion?
THAT IT HAD NOT WARMED SINCE 1998.
That, and that IT LOOKED LIKE IT WASN’T GOING TO START WARMING EITHER, to some fairly well known public figure; I can’t remember who the BBC Reporter had quoted.
But to SUM it ALL UP, all you have to do, is GO READ the Email where Jones discusses in 2005 the fact THEY WERE HIDING IT STOPPED WARMING:
then read the “Travesty” email.
And THAT is all you really need to know, to understand why suddenly every legal jurisdiction on earth was backing off further contractual obligation due to putative warming; why NOTHING they could say could ever put the genie back in the bottle.
Taking those two Emails along with some choice others, and a few paragraphs from the “readme.txt” file, where notes in a model showed the C.R.U. databases in utter disarray with everyone simply MAKING UP data and even stations to put out the next warmist propaganda paper, shows the more casual reader, just how exquisitely damning the entire ClimateGate situation became.
We should not expect the anomoly to correlate with our current view of how warm it is on land. The anomoly is dominated by sea temperatures since they represent two thirds of the data. One also need to take note of the point Dr Spencer makes regarding the real issue which is the global energy balance. The energy balance may well be negative during periods where the sea surface is unusually warm. By far the most important measure is the Argo buoy data for total sea energy content down to 700 metres, as Pielke Snr. constantly tells us. This is the real measure of the energy balance and is the only data that I am interested in seeing on a monthly timeframe. Yet I hardly ever see it reported. Is there a place where one can see it sumarised? These surface anomolies only begin to make sense when viewed over at least 60 years.
TimC says:
July 7, 2011 at 11:20 am
John B: even if you are correct (there is a warming) can anyone here say, seriously, that it cannot be due to a natural cause?
Would this be the very weak solar cycle cause?
Even if it has warmed since 1998, there still is the big problem of attribution. If CO2 is as nasty as claimed by the IPCC, then the anomaly should be significantly higher than it is. Therefore, it can’t be CO2, never mind that it is due to human created CO2. Could this anomaly be well within the expected range of the history of climate on earth? Until that can be answered with a “no”, then we need not even consider the causes.
John B says:
July 7, 2011 at 9:59 am
Can anyone here look at that chart and say, seriously, “no warming since 1998″?
Just asking…
Like many others, I have never said that our planet hasn’t warmed since 1998. In fact, there is no warming since 1997. Despite all the alarming predictions about a continuous and steep temperature increase, the globe has failed to warm for 15 years (and counting…). The latest GCM-based IPCC estimate was about +0.24°C per decade, with a 95% confidence range of +0.15-0.34°C. Where is Trenberth’s ‘missing heat’?
Our most recent, up-to-date observations say:
1. Zero or negligible surface and troposheric warming since 1997 (HadCRUT3, RSS MSU, UAH MSU)
2. SSTs have been steady since 1997 (HadSST2), global ocean heat content remains unchanged since the deployment of the ARGO network
3. AGW theory predicts stratospheric cooling. No cooling has occured in the stratosphere since the early 1990s (HadAT2 and other datasets)
HadCRUT3 data with a 15-year trendline: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/trend
RSS TLT data has no trend since 1997: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
UAH currently shows a modest, statistically not significant increase: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997/plot/uah/from:1997/trend
HadSST2 – the very same picture: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend
HadAT2 – lack of any cooling in the stratosphere since 1994: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadat/images/update_images/global_upper_air.png
tonybr says:
July 7, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Well, all I can say is, that this measurement seems to bear no relationship to the conditions that I experience, here in Southern England. Bloody cold most of the time, and has been all through this “summer” with the exception of a few days.
RSS have maps showing temperature distribution around the planet: http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_monthly.html?channel=tlt. You can see the UK is just on the edge of a cold spot. Initially I thought this must be because of the Icelandic volcano but, looking at the May map, it might just be a cold spot has moved East from West Greenland.
Many decades ago some poor teachers tried to convince me that the “scientific method” was a good thing. They said just about everyone agreed with that assessment.
Now I am faced with climate “scientists” who tell me that as CO2 rises we will see temperatures also rise — very sharply. CO2 has been rising, but there is not been a corresponding temperature rise. Is this not one of those “experiments” that shows one his hypothesis was wrong? If not, what would it take to falsify? (or did Karl Popper get outed as a fraud or something?)
I suspect most of the heat anomaly was located in the Southern US in the spring. We’re still warm, but I think it’s seasonal.
Higher than I expected. In fact this La Nina is not behaving correctly. Someone had best have a talk with it.
I have said this before: I suspect there is actually more “energy” involved in a La Nina than in an El Nino. The energy may not be in the form of heat, but it takes a lot to haul all that heavy, cold, dense water up from the depths, creating a La Nina. On the other hand, it seems a lack of energy is involved, when the trade winds slacken, and warm water comes sloshing back across the Pacific, creating an El Nino.
In other words, when the earth has less energy to work with, it may spark warming, which is counterintuitive. How can less energy cause more energy? However the huge 1998 El Nino may have been sparked by a double whammy of perfectly timed and huge volcanic eruptions, El Chiton and Pinatubo. (There seems to be an idea floating around that the “cooling” volcanoes cause is short-term, followed by a “warming” El Nino in the mid-term.)
I honestly believe we are barely starting to understand all the actions and reactions occurring . When you throw in the effects of the “quiet sun,” we are venturing out into a frontier we haven’t truly explored before.
People who pretend they understand this wondrous system are displaying the crassest sort of arrogance. But that has never stopped me before, and won’t stop me now. I just have to prepare myself for looking like a chump, and being humbled.