UAH Global Temperature Update July, 2011: +0.37 deg. C
By Dr. Roy Spencer
How ironic..a “global warming denier” reporting on warmer temperatures 
The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly for July, 2011 increased to +0.37 deg. C (click on the image for a LARGE version):
Even though the Northern Hemisphere temperature anomaly cooled slightly in July, as did the tropics, warming in the Southern Hemisphere more than made up for it:
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 +0.315 +0.379 +0.250 +0.233
2011 7 +0.372 +0.340 +0.404 +0.198
For those who want to infer great meaning from large month-to-month temperature changes, I remind them that much of this activity is due to natural variations in the rate at which the ocean loses heat to the atmosphere. Evidence for this is seen at the end of the sea surface temperature record through last month, which has a down-tick during the recent up-tick in atmospheric temperatures:
Global Sea Surface Temperature through July:
Here are the SST anomalies from AMSR-E on the NASA Aqua satellite (note the different base period, since Aqua has been flying only since 2002…click for a larger version):
I say this practically every month when the UAH resulkts come out, they bear no relationship to the real world we are experiencing.
They show the SH as being above normal when most of the SH is below normal temeratures as measured by thermometers and human skin.
Steven Mosher: “how do you figure that?”
It’s what my lying eyes tell me when I look at the chart. I see a divergence of almost .1C since 98. Plus the people from RSS tell us that their divergence of the mid troposphere is even much larger with UAH. Plus Spencer admits that RSS and UAH are diverging. Plus there have been errors found in one dataset or the other when the divergence was even smaller.
Mosher: “Do a statistical test and see if the difference between the datasets is non zero. statistically”
Do the test yourself; I don’t care about what statistics considers the difference? The divergence is plain as day and statistics can consider it whatever it wants. I’m willing to bet you a twenty that one or the other of the satellites finds and error in the next couple of years. My guess is that it will be UAH, since it’s trend changed so much in just 18 months.
Anyway, your position is that there is no statistical difference between UAH and RSS when UAH is warming and RSS is cooling; and yet you consider it significant that UAH shows warming – what nonsense.
Tim Folkerts, Smokey clearly does not need any help. He’s the master at debunking CAGW believers’ arguments.
However, what you just wrote at August 2, 2011 at 6:03 am merely establishes a correlation. Nice job! Correlation is not the same as causation. If you want an equally strong correlation, try plotting out the annual sales of computers versus the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1959. That will yield a pretty strong correlation, also.
Is there any evidence that CO2 is the cause of measured temperature increase?
However, we DO have direct evidence that CO2 does NOT cause temperature to increase. In fact, rising CO2 occurred while temperatures decreased, from 1940 to approximately 1975. We also have direct evidence that temperatures increased from about 1910 to 1940, while CO2 concentrations were hardly changed.
To paraphrase the classic line from the movie “Jaws,” — You’re gonna need a better argument.
Concerning the “clear, established green house effect that should be related to temperature”, it happens not to exist.
(What does exist is a straightforward degassing of warmer waters which dumps more CO2 into the air from the oceans.)
Check out the comments and main article here:
http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html?showComment=1309701737932#c2996401267831418580
which demonstrates that the presence and concentrations of CO2 have zero differential effect on temperatures comparing Earth and Venus.
Awkward, that.
Werner Brozek-Roy had been advising people to look only at the Channel 5 data and the sea surface temps, because they were coming from AQUA, while the other channels were coming from NOAA-15. It appears AQUA channels for other layers are now available. I suspect that over fairly short periods the channel 5 values will vary a little differently than the weighted product using multiple AQUA channels. It’s worth noting that UAH relies on AQUA in recent years to produce the stable “backbone” with no long term biases. They are using other satellites with drift to supplement the information from AQUA and so AQUA alone won’t give the exact month to month values. But AQUA constrains the relatively long term variations in recent years. Also, although AQUA is not requiring drift adjustment, satellites require other bias corrections to produce accurate anomalies which, I assume, influence AQUA like other satellites (for instance there is an “instrument body effect” where the satellite itself’s temperature can change from time to time) Obviously the corrections to the data cause concern as to the adequacy of the methods to do so. Extensive comparison with weather balloon results by John Christy suggests that UAH’s bias correction methods and technique for stitching the different satellites together over time produces a reliable long term trend and inter-annual variability.
Tim Folkerts:
At August 2, 2011 at 6:03 am you assert:
“In anyone’s book, p = 0.000 constitutes “evidence” of a relationship.”
No! It does not!
It merely proves they correlate. Many things correlate but have no relationship.
Correlation does NOT indicate causation, but absence of correlation disproves causation.
Try again.
Richard
Paul H: “By the way the UAH site seems not to show the running graphs any more which gave current month data as well as comparison with earlier years. Are they available elsewhere?”
I’m not 100% on this; but I think the problem was that the running graphs were unadjusted and there was too much problem with satellite drift, calibration, etc. You can still look at AQUA 5 because it has station keeping (they fire satellite thrusters to keep the orbit from drifting).
Steve Mosher: “GHGs cause the earth to be warmer than it would be naturally. But you will always find people who refuse to accept the physics we used to defend this great country.”
Holy cow. GHGs are natural and you have no clue what “would be naturally” even is. I have said this to you many times: The problem is you keep refusing to take a geology course. Your “physics” don’t cut it on a planetary scale and you’d understand that if you took the class. Studying Earth’s processes is GEOLOGY. You are skipping years and years of education and field work while pretending to be expert on such things. You are disregarding huge amounts of information from a huge branch of science. You don’t know what you are talking about at all. The Earth as a matter of fact has been warmer then now in its recent past without all your “unnatural GHG’s” belief or mumbo jumbo.
The temperature record covers .0000035% of the Earths temperature history. Making statements about variations in that short record as though they actually have meaning is ludicrous. That’s like using the last 68 seconds of the average humans’ life as an assessment of the whole life.
Tim Folkerts says:
There is a clear, well established green house effect (caused by the CO2) that should be related to temperature, so theory supports this hypothesis.
Henry@Tim
That is not so clear cut.
To start off with, I found Svante Arrhenius’ formula completely wrong and since then I could not find any correctly conducted experiments (tests & measurements) that would somehow prove to me that the warming properties of CO2 (by trapping earth’s radiation between the wavelengths 14-15 um) are greater than its cooling properties (by deflecting sunlight at various wavelengths between 0 – 5 um).
For proof that CO2 is (also) cooling the atmosphere by re-radiating sunshine, see here:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
(follow the green line fig 6 bottom and see this few peaks turn up in fig. 6 top – besides those noted in fig.6 there are even more absorptions 0-5 um, namely in the UV and between 4-5))
Even more disconcerting to me was finding that pupils at school and college are shown experiments with 100% carbon dioxide (representing earth’s atmosphere of only 0.04% or 380 ppms CO2!) and a light bulb as an energy source (representing the sun!). Obviously such crude experimentation can only lead to incorrect results and completely incorrect conclusions…e.g. what about the IR and near IR absorptions of CO2 and the UV absorptions of CO2 that have only been discovered recently and that also deflect sunlight?
I also found untruths in Al Gore’s story (An Inconvenient Truth). A lot of CO2 is dissolved in cold water and comes out when the oceans get warmer. Any chemistry student knows that the first smoke from the (warmed) water in a kettle is the CO2 being released. So, quite a number of scientists have reported that the increases of CO2 in the atmosphere in the past lagged the warming periods by quite a few hundred years. e.g. see here:http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/ice-core-graph/
Cause and effect, get it? Smoking causes cancer but cancer does not cause smoking. But Al made it look from the past that our CO2 output must be the cause of global warming.
Just to put the carbon dioxide content into the right perspective: it has increased by about 0.01% in the past 50 years from ca. 0.03% to 0.04%. This compares with an average of about 21% for oxygen and 0,5 – 1,2 % for water vapor in the air. In fact, nobody knows exactly how much water vapor is floating around in the whole of the atmosphere at any given time. Most scientists do agree that water vapor (=humidity) is a much stronger green house gas than carbon dioxide… (if indeed carbon dioxide is a green house gas, which, like I said before, has yet to be proven to me). According to some sources water vapor accounts for at least 95% of the greenhouse effect. It is also logical for me to suspect that as a result of human activities relating to flying (including rocket fuel H2/ O2) , driving, burning, bathing, cooking, boiling, countless cooling processes (including that for nuclear energy), erection of dams and pools containing very shallow waters, for hydro energy, irrigation, consumption and recreation, etc. etc., a lot more water vapor than carbon dioxide is put up in the air.
For instance, I observed that in my 50m2 pool, 2500 liters of water evaporated in one week (no leaks, no swimming/splashing, no discharge, no clouds!). Compare this to the 40 liters of patrol I use in a month….Although references on this subject are scarce, I did find someone who also had it figured out : http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/its-water-vapor-stupid
Another problem that I picked up are the overlaps of the absorption of water vapor and oxygen in the 14-15 um band where CO2 also absorbs. Oxygen has a very weak absorption at 14-15 but its percentage is high, and this could well account for a very large portion of earth’s missing 14-15 radiation. Obviously with much higher percentages of O2 and H20 in the air, a small deviation in the applied compensation formulae may lead to enormous errors. In fact, I can antipicate that it must be near impossible to do any (theoretical, mathematical) calculations without messing up something here or there. For example, take the fact that we cannot even be sure of the exact water vapor content in the atmosphere, e.g. if we missed 0.01% water vapor? Most references I could find did not even mention or acknowledge that oxygen is a weak greenhouse gas….. (no compensation?!!)
Everybody knows that CO2 stimulates growth and greenery. It is afterall the “breath” for plants and trees and plays a distinctive role in the process of photo-synthesis. An interesting observation I made here in Africa is the cooling that you feel at dawn when you enter a forest. You can clearly feel the freshness in the forest coming from the bottom up. Greenery and forests absorb heat from its surroundings which it needs for growth. Hence, the reason why there is no growth of forests in winter or at higher altitudes and latitudes. There is also new evidence of earth having become quite a bit greener during the past 40 years or so. So in addition to the radiative cooling caused by CO2 I now also found another part of the CO2 that causes cooling and not warming……These observations of the need of plants for carbon dioxide and warmth for growth, led me on a path to thinking: carbon dioxide and global warming is not so bad. …
My question on the CO2 is: what is the net effect of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere? Is it cooling or warming or is it simply that the warming is canceled out by the cooling? Either way, all the facts that I could find or that are presented to (me) us on the issue of the increase in carbon dioxide are still all assumptions based on mathematical approximations. I could not find any results of any real physical tests on the exact warming and cooling properties of each of the CO2, O2 and H2O. What the IPCC did, is look at the problem from the wrong end. They assumed that global warming is caused by an increase in CO2 (even though not everybody agreed with this at the time) and made an allocation (forcing) largely based on the observed global warming since 1750 versus the increase of the gas noted since 1750. None of the IPCC “profs” ever seem to have realised that CO2 also causes cooling…..it appears that this was simply forgotten or ignored.
Global warming caused by CO2 therefore comes down to a belief system: you just have to have “faith”. There is no real proof. It is all in the mind of man behaving badly. The applied logic is simply: “let us have a planet, let us add some CO2 and let us see if the temperature went up. It did. So that must be it”. My question is: how could this type of logic have passed the desks of so many scientists without them having raised one single flag? The only answer that I can give to this question, is: money…..A whole “green” industry has been built up in the last 2 decades on the assumption that carbon dioxide is bad….
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
timetochooseagain: “It’s worth noting that UAH relies on AQUA in recent years to produce the stable “backbone” with no long term biases.”
The RSS people say that they use AQUA now as well. But still there is a divergence. The UAH people seem to think that the RSS drift model is not correct for the non AQUA satellites. I’m not sure what their evidence is. Right now RSS is closer to HadCrut3 than UAH. Just eyeballing the data, in the past it looks like UAH had an amplified swing around the trend that was caused by El Nino and La Nina cycles. But the swing was more or less balanced and proportional to the size of the events. But in the last 2 ENSO events, 1 El Nino and 1 La Nina, it wasn’t balanced at all. The reaction to El Nino was very strong and the reaction to La Nina was short and small – not in proportion to the ENSO events themselves. When you compare that to the HadCrut3 reaction to those 2 ENSO events, it was more balanced. Keeping in mind that the satellite reaction to ENSO is expected to be larger than that of ground instruments, the long term effect should still not produce a different trend.
Henry P: “For instance, I observed that in my 50m2 pool, 2500 liters of water evaporated in one week (no leaks, no swimming/splashing, no discharge, no clouds!).”
I think that this is an important observation, Henry. I want to mention that when I was flying over Kansas and Idaho I noticed hundreds of miles of circular agricultural fields. And I obviously saw only a fraction of what there was. I have to think that there are tens of thousands of square miles of these kinds of fields. The circular patterns are caused by sprinkler systems where there is a water source at the center and where a long extension on wheels carries a set of sprinklers around that center point. I have never seen a study that showed how much water is added to the air using this type of agriculture. I have to believe that it is significant.
Caleb says:
August 2, 2011 at 3:49 am
davidmhoffer says:
August 1, 2011 at 9:07 pm
“…it takes a LOT of change at hot temperatures to get a 1 degree change and much less to get a 1 degree change at cold temperatures…”
David, could you explain this further? I have taken people at their word when they state this concept, (Joe Bastardi uses it,) however when I repeat it during discussions with Alarmists I get soundly rebuked, and I’m told a degree is a degree, whether you are up at a hundred or down at zero. With great authority they state that the same amount of heat raises a thermometer one degree. Are they talking about some different measure? Am I involved in some case of comparing apples to oranges?
If they say “a degree is a degree” when you talk about differences in degree change, then they are employing the classic Alarmist ploys of misdirection and/or red herring. I think it has to do with negative feedbacks kicking in more and more, a concept the Warmistas either studiously ignore or are woeful ignorant of.
Henry@Tilo
I have also thought about all those thousands and thousands of sprinkler systems.
not only for farming but for private gardens & golf courses & and what not as well.
I admit: I am one of them using that.
They must put a lot of moisture in the air. Much more than the CO2.
My question is: how come is everyone picking on the extra CO2?
@ur momisugly author
The first thing I usually point out is that I absolutely do not deny that the globe is warming. I am not sure about the human contribution to that warming.
So unless you actually do deny a historical global warming, you can happily report on any warming there is, there is no contradiction in that. 🙂
What not= botanical gardens,
for instance.
Henry@Tilo& TimFolkerts
Sorry I forgot to say that a random sample of analyses of results from weather stations by myself does not support the theory that global warming is caused by GHG’s,
In fact not even our extra water vapor seems to matter much
Sorry.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
“God gave Noah the rainbow sign.
No more water, the fire next time.”
How many of you know where that couplet is from?
Warming is coming. It’s upon us. Be scared, very scared.
I predict that we will have over twice as many record highs as record lows, at least twice as many. Be scared. Oh, we’ve had 300 years of gradual inconsistent, warming since the beginning of the instrumental temperature record around 1700. Oh, we already have twice as many record highs as record lows. Let’s see. With a 300 year warming trend already, new record high temps are often only a few tenths of degree higher, but new record lows are often degrees lower. So be scared. We will have many, many record high temps and far fewer record low temps, and the alarmists and the journalists and the politicians will tell us to be scared, that we don’t understand the consensus science. It will happen, I tell you. Be scared, very scared. Oh, and CO2 levels are rising. OMG, and temperatures are rising. CATASTOPHE. WE ARE DOOMED.
Nothing to worry about. Just regular cycle if you look out of history.
Dear Doug
Cast your burden (scare,fear) onto Jesus, for He cares for you (Quote from?)
And if you want to be one of those who are saved
through faith by grace (Quote from?)
then always remember to follow the truth
because He is the Truth (Quote from?)
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
jim hogg says:
August 1, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Pity about the “read and write yet” insult! The guy’s surely entitled to his opinion. Fundamentally most of the comments on here are nothing more than opinion, as we don’t know what the future holds. And as we don’t know what the Earth’s climate trend (it’s always varied before, right?) would have been without our presence/contribution (if any), how do we know if we’re making a difference or not? I’m just a wee bit sceptical that anyone on here, or on the planet, has an answer to either part of that question that is more than conjecture – possibly very sophisticated conjecture, but conjecture just the same.
Firstly, he made a number of spelling mistakes and secondly he has quite clearly not be able to read much scientific literature. That’s not an insult it’s a statement of fact.
Robert Sheldon S.C. says:
August 2, 2011 at 12:21 am
If you want to find side you are thinking incorrectly. Bishop Hill did a survey recently on the qualifications of his readers, seek the site and read. Secondly, real scientists don’t need to exaggerate to expalin their science. Quiet, precise science and maths with a mixture of humble “I don’t know” is usually a good indicator of honest scientific endeavour.
Other than that, read, read, read.
Tilo Reber says:
August 2, 2011 at 8:20 am
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Agricultural sprinkler irrigations systems lose 5 to 10% of the applied water to evaporation depending on the sprinkler type and atmospheric conditions.
I notice that the BBC (as in ‘Points West’ earlier this evening) are trying to brainwash people here in the UK into believing we are having a heatwave, by describing the present weather as ‘scorching’ (eh?…at c. 26C!). Yes, it is nicely warm, but hardly temperatures in the 30s or worse. It is still cool at night, needing the odd blanket or two. Do you think this is a deliberate attempt to convince people that AGW is actually happening?
I know from various offspring DownUnder that they have had a very chilly, wet winter. Where actually is the warming going on in the SH?
Parts of the USA are having a real scorcher of a summer, but what about the rest of the country, not to mention the rest of the NH?
That graph looks to me like things are headed downward in temperature, big time, too. I mean, the oceans are cooling in July, something just tells me this is a beginning to a new, and deeper drop than already happened with the La Nina of 2010. I could be wrong though…. the science is definitely NOT settled 🙂