UAH Global Temperature Update for October 2011: +0.11 deg. C
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly for October, 2011 dropped , to +0.11 deg. C (click on the image for the full-size version):
The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel) is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever.
Here are this year’s monthly stats:
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 +0.374 +0.344 +0.404 +0.204
2011 8 +0.327 +0.321 +0.332 +0.155
2011 9 +0.289 +0.304 +0.274 +0.178
2011 10 +0.114 +0.169 +0.059 -0.056
The Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, and tropics have all cooled substantially, consistent with the onset of another La Nina, with the tropics now back below the 1981-2010 average.
[Since AMSR-E failed in early October, there will be no more sea surface temperature updates from that instrument.]
For those tracking the daily AMSU 5 data at the Discover website, the temperature free-fall continues so I predict November will see another substantial drop in global temperatures (click for large version):
WHAT MIGHT THIS MEAN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE?
…taking a line from our IPCC brethren… While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.
Thank you Sir………….
may I enquire what happened to the LT 1km level temperatures which were discontinued in 2009. These were showing a .9C rise from 1998 to 2009. I see even the early data has been expunged from the discover page.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/–0yttATfXBw/TgYPk6xfuVI/AAAAAAAAAIU/MynlTkN63mM/s1600/low.jpg
Also is there any record of the reason for the changes to data occurring around July last year (not massisve but noticable).
Quite a sizable drop there, as trailed by Dr Spencer in his post about daily temps being at record lows for UAH. Fully expecting the trend to continue, I wonder if the November anomaly could be written up on a banner to be trailed by a light aircraft over Durban next month? Perhaps the trick could be repeated in Rio next June, where you just know that the pressure to conclude a global dodgy deal will be huge.
Pedant point: I’m not sure I’d say that the temperature is “down over half in October from September” though. The anomaly is, but the actual surface temperature is down about 0.06% in Kelvin terms.
2012 is shaping up to be as cool as 2008–or cooler. Cockle-warming.
North Atlantic’s ‘Natural variability’ suggests rapid cooling:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
So, just what is happening every 4 and 40 years?
“While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change”
You want to bet that? I think there will be someone somewhere in the world who will. High rainfalls probably caused by climate change in certain areas producing more vegetation which has lowered the average temperature of the Earth. Or how about all the energy has gone down below 2000 metres in the sea where there are no proper measurements yet. Some volcanoe errupted somewhere. etc. etc.
If this continues I’m going to have to replace my compact flourescents with incandescents. There’s such a thing as overkill, ya know. We may have done too much already in the way of stopping global warming!
“The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data” has a half-cycle of around 25 years, not too far off the very roughly 30 year half-cycle we’ve seen since the end of the Little Ice Age. It also has an upward slope of 1.6 °C per century. Not too bad a fit for the short period of satellite data that we have.
WHAT MIGHT THIS MEAN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE?
…taking a line from our IPCC brethren… While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.
SWEET
“half”? half of what?
“…The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel) is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever…”
But if that “3rd order polynomial fit” WERE to have some predictive value, exacly when would we expect to see the “line” go back through zero?
The 4-year cycle is easy:
It’s the Olympics. Once the torch is lit, the particulates generated block out so much incoming shortwave radiation that temperatures drop worldwide.
Just as a hoot…
IF catastrophic cooling were to become the prime perceived threat. What would the best mitigation method be, to warm the earth? How could we best force AGW? Just pondering… is all. GK
Keith says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Now that DID make me laugh. Great stuff Keith
November december will be 0 to -something anomalies and so will most of next year AGW is dead
Keith: Only one problem… there’s both Summer and Winter Olympics, so it happens every 2 years.
And as I typically do around this time every month, here’s a link to the preliminary (NINO3.4 and Global) Reynolds OI.v2 Sea Surface Temperature anomaly data for October 2011.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/preliminary-october-2011-sst-anomaly-update/
The detailed monthly post will be available Monday, November 7th, when the monthly data for October becomes official.
okie333: Ah, but given it’s at the Winter Olympics site the flame causes mass melting of snow, reducing Earth’s albedo and cancelling out the particulate effect. It’s only the summer Olympics where the overall OFE (Olympic Flame Effect) is negative.
No, okie333, there are two separate 4 year cycles for the winter and summer games.
G Karst: “How could we best force AGW?”
Good question, since it appears burning vast amounts of coal in China makes it cooler. As does erecting windmills and solar panels.
I know. Knock down the windmills and solar panels. Switch from coal to oil. Return to the 1990s.
Roy Spencer writes,
“…taking a line from our IPCC brethren… While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.”
Have any IPCC scientists actually said anything like that? I’ve seen statistical analysis of record temperature and extreme events, but this October value is not a record or an extreme event. Lookiing at your data it seems a pretty ordinary change, an odd thing to be making this point over — unless other scientists really did do something similar with your June temperature, which went up about as much as October went down.
This is OT, but thought it was worth posting anyway. After reading a recent NY Times article (from instapundit) about the fraud committed by the psychology Professor Stapel
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/health/research/noted-dutch-psychologist-stapel-accused-of-research-fraud.html?_r=1&ref=health
I couldn’t help noticing the many parallels to the bad behavior of the original climate alarmists. The phrase “lord of the data” (used to explain how Stapel got away with his fraud for so many years) leaps off the page — exactly what skeptics have been complaining about the way temperature data is handled. Also, according to the article, a survey of similar psychology papers by other authors showed widespread mis-use of statistics to slip unfounded claims past peer review — just like in the hockey stick episode. Really, it seems like the only major difference between this area of psychology and climate science is that no politicians and activists have yet gotten involved in trying to push their own agendas. This sort of scientific malpractice may well be widespread in other scientific disciplines — we just don’t know about it because no one important cares (yet).
Keith says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Ralph Dwyer says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:05 pm
So, just what is happening every 4 and 40 years?
The 4-year cycle is easy:
It’s the Olympics. Once the torch is lit, the particulates generated block out so much incoming shortwave radiation that temperatures drop worldwide.
No. Every 4-years there is a presidential election in America. That is the real cause for AGW.
Keep Smiling 😉
Jeff
That was a huge one month drop from 0.29 to 0.11! Keeping in mind that the August number was 0.33 and the September number was 0.29, it would be reasonable to make that the assumption that the value on October 1 was in the neighborhood of 0.25. Then since the average for all of October was 0.11, I would further conclude that the anomaly on October 31 may have been -0.03. All indications are that November will see another huge drop. Not only is the November 1 value for 14,000 feet the lowest since 2002, but the relative value at 25,000 feet is possibly even lower.
Werner Brozek (retired physics teacher)
“…taking a line from our IPCC brethren… While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
A truism if there ever was one!!
Mike McMillan says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:15 pm
> “The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data” has a half-cycle of around 25 years.
A periodic polynominal? Well, Roy did say “for entertainment purposes only.”
You might see how the polynomial does a few multiples out in either direction. That x^3 term is a killer.
I am still amazed anyone thinks we can determine the average global change in temperature when all we come up with is changes like 0.11 degrees or even 0.5 degrees. Surely claiming this is anything other than statistical garbage is nonsense.
Jeff Wiita,
“No. Every 4-years there is a presidential election in America. That is the real cause for AGW”
You sayin’ somethin’ about the emissions of the media and politicians?? 8>)
JJThoms:
AMSU ch. 4 *failed* on Aqua, it wasn’ t “expunged” from the record. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. 🙂
G. Karst says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:27 pm
“IF catastrophic cooling were to become the prime perceived threat. What would the best mitigation method be, to warm the earth? How could we best force AGW? Just pondering… is all. ”
Don’t try CO2. It might actually cool the Earth (very slightly, says Nasif Nahle; I don’t have the slightest clue whether he’s right, but his argument is interesting).
http://www.biocab.org/Mean_Free_Path.pdf
“How to force AGW?” The answer is obvious. Since burning oil and coal produce particulates which reflect sunlight back into space, we must begin to push even harder to convert to clean energy sources like wind and solar. Just kidding… but they won’t be.
Gneiss says:
November 3, 2011 at 1:34 pm
“Roy Spencer writes,
“…taking a line from our IPCC brethren… While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.”
Have any IPCC scientists actually said anything like that? ”
see
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2011/09/12/floods-droughts-wildfires-hurricanes-yes-there-is-a-climate-change-connection/
linking to
http://climatecommunication.org/new/articles/extreme-weather/overview/
Expert Reviewers:
■Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research
■Jerry Meehl, National Center for Atmospheric Research
■Jeff Masters, Weather Underground
■Richard Somerville, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
Gneiss says:
November 3, 2011 at 1:34 pm
=========
Of course they never said anything like that, they know who signs their checks.
Roy was playing with their usual mantra.
at this very moment I have the heater on in sydney 4 weeks till summer ??????
Dr. Theodor Landscheidt predicted a deep Gleissberg minima around 2030 – similar to the Maunder minimum. From his paper – New Little Ice Age Instead of Global Warming? – he wrote this long before the recent press releases by the solar scientists stating the sun was entering a period of decreased activity.
“We need not wait until 2030 to see whether the forecast of the next deep Gleissberg minimum is correct. A declining trend in solar activity and global temperature should become manifest long before the deepest point in the development. The current 11-year sunspot cycle 23 with its considerably weaker activity seems to be a first indication of the new trend, especially as it was predicted on the basis of solar motion cycles two decades ago. As to temperature, only El Niño periods should interrupt the downward trend, but even El Niños should become less frequent and strong. The outcome of this further long-range climate forecast solely based on solar activity may be considered to be a touchstone of the IPCC’s hypothesis of man-made global warming.”
There is certainly time for many alive today to test his predictions.
From what I can find Dr Landscheidt has many successful predictions verified by later observation against the IPCC’s record of removing web pages and posting error messages to hide the link removal from numerous failed predictions – some of which were so stupid you’d have to doubt the integrity of an organisation that would allow them in the first place.
Dr Spencer’s research will play a pivotal role in monitoring the future.
The recent BEST debacle demonstrates that the IPCC et al will arrive at a “it’s worse than we thought” message no matter what the data shows.
Mike McMillan says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:15 pm
“The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data” has a half-cycle of around 25 years, not too far off the very roughly 30 year half-cycle we’ve seen since the end of the Little Ice Age. It also has an upward slope of 1.6 °C per century. Not too bad a fit for the short period of satellite data that we have.
__________________________________
It is SOooo nice to see a curve fit instead of the ever popular CAGW straight line heading for the sky.
Thank you Dr. Spencer
The Olympic cycle is amplifying too, suggesting positive feedbacks. The computer-generated fireworks at the Beijing opening ceremony in 2008 added to the cooling in the models, and did you see the effect the flame had on Cypress Mountain near Vancouver in 2010, even causing El Nino of last year to be Worse Than We Thought?
Looking back, the hi-tech flame the Japanese generated at Nagano in 1998 was particularly effective. Perhaps we can expect another Super El Nino in 2014 due to the Caucasus oil-fed flame in Sochi, Russia?
I tell thee, there’s a paper in this. The trouble will be getting it funded and through peer review past the vested Green interests, as it’s Greek solar power that gets the flame started…
From Tom Nelson’s Blog
(AP) WASHINGTON (AP) – The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.
The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.
…
The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That’s an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries – China, the United States and India, the world’s top producers of greenhouse gases.
It is a “monster” increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past.
…
“Really dismaying,” said Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are building up a horrible legacy for our children and grandchildren.”
you cannot tell anything from one off events you need 10 years or was it 12 , or 15 ,or 17 or 30 or 60 years of data to be certain, expect when it can be tortured to get what you need they you hardly need any data or to be frank you can just make it up , this is after all climate science.
Do you think will be worse drop temp nov to jan?
I predict that Cuba and the South Pacific will have a great winter vacation season. Euro’s galore!
D. Cohen says:
November 3, 2011 at 1:46 pm
This is OT, but thought it was worth posting anyway…. about the fraud committed by the psychology Professor Stapel
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/health/research/noted-dutch-psychologist-stapel-accused-of-research-fraud.html?_r=1&ref=health
….. Really, it seems like the only major difference between this area of psychology and climate science is that no politicians and activists have yet gotten involved in trying to push their own agendas.
____________________
There is no difference!
You forgot about the drugs pushed on school children whether the parents approve or not!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/readings/publicinterest.html
(I recently read it is now up to 20% of male children drugged)
That is just ONE drug and what is worse it is the TEACHER that is the one “identifying” the child in need of the drug. There have even been court battles between the schools and parents over medicating their kids. http://familyrightsassociation.com/bin/white_papers-articles/drugging_our_children/
Also see: http://familyrightsassociation.com/bin/white_papers-articles/drugging_our_children/
From my point of view the worse part of this is the children identified as needing to be drugged are the bright inquisitive kids bored to death with “No Child Left Behind” These are the kids who would be our next generation of leaders if they were not drugged out of their minds and irreparably harmed if not killed.
(Sorry this is one of my HOT BUTTONS even though I have no kids)
D. Cohen, thanks for the NYT reference. I especially like it when they say:
Gee… that sounds like some other “scientists” I have read about recently.
You say the 3rd order polynomial is for “entertainment purposes only” and has no use in predictions. Could you please explain why standard mathematical analysis, especially where one seems to show semi- or pseudo-sinusoidal behaviour of the type we might expect in a “natural” system, is not appropriate for serious consideration?
It is assumed that the multiplicity of factors creating climate changes in general and temperature changes in particular, are so complex and interactive that no “simple” expectation is reasonable. Why is this?
D. Cohen says:
November 3, 2011 at 1:46 pm
————————————–
I’m looking forward to the day there’s an article like that about AGW.
One could use that same article, just change the names and the papers!
DirkH, “Jeff Masters, Weather Underground” is an expert reviewer? Expert in what? I looked at the first page, Meehl has added his misleading graphic showing lots of new record highs compared to record lows which are not adjusted for UHIE and site effects. A cooling bias, such as a growing tree, is unlikely to cause new record lows. At the bottom of the page they have the magically moving “probability distribution” as if “global warming” has more to do with such completely fabricated curve shapes and shifts than weather. Very little science to put it charitably.
________________________________
And I am sitting in the sunny south, well North Carolina with my heater on. October should have highs ~ 70F to 75F ( ~20 – 24C) and lows ~45 to 55F (7 – 14C) (I am trying to read off a graph)
It is NOT supposed to be in the 30’s to 40’s (F) with freeze warnings darn it.
M.A.Vukcevic says: “North Atlantic’s ‘Natural variability’ suggests rapid cooling…”
Have you written a post or paper about the “North Atlantic Precursor” yet, or do you intend to continue to leave us in the dark? Is the “Natural Variability Law” something new? Mother Nature may feel obligated to break it, you know.
Off topic: Seth Borenstein posted an article regarding greenhouse gas emissions and the state of the world economy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/jump-global-warming-gases_n_1074482.html
It’s so nice to see the trolls refering to the political entity call IPCC as if it has credibility.
“Gee… that sounds like some other “scientists” I have read about recently.”
Ironic then that the UAH satellite temperature record, the subject of this post, has hidden source code that hasn’t been made available to the public, despite requests. Also – where’s the raw data?
“The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel) is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever.”
Hmm, so OK, then why plot the 3rd order polynomial to begin with in the first place?
Why not plot the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, or 6th order polynomials that are available in Excel?
Could it be that all other Excel polynomials show a leading positive coefficient, while only the 3rd order polynomial shows a leading negative coefficient?
Absolutely.
Misleding?
Absolutely.
Cherry picking?
Absolutely.
Never mind that a 3rd order polynomial has no predictive value whatsoever, at what level of statistical confidence does this 3rd order polynomial pass for it’s four coefficients?
Here’s a list of R^2 vs polynonial order (order, R^2, delta);
1 0.3520
2 0.3678 0.0158
3 0.3889 0.0211
4 0.3895 0.0006
5 0.3942 0.0047
6 0.3960 0.0018
Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases per the AP:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20111103/D9QPH4J81.html
From this source apparently:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
Summation
After a short cooling trend despite poor siting practices, denial of FOIA requests, etc, etc.
We need to redistribute wealth now, NOW godammit NOW.
L Nettles says:
November 3, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Looks like Europe will have to redouble its efforts to pull the World into another recession.
L Nettles says:
November 3, 2011 at 2:45 pm
“Really dismaying,” said Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are building up a horrible legacy for our children and grandchildren.”
All right! For the childrens sake; Start paying us, now. We can pass the bucks to our children, later;
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/japanese-satellites-say-3rd-world-owes-co2-reparations-to-the-west/
G. Karst;
Fighting cooling is going to require one of those geo-engineering projects, like putting big mirrors in (distant) orbit to put more sunlight into play. But where to direct it? The poles? The tropics? The ocean? Many studies will have to be funded, ASAP!
Gneiss says:
November 3, 2011 at 1:34 pm
“Have any IPCC scientists actually said anything like that?”
Aside from the fact that the IPCC only has a “core staff of 10 people” and is a governmental, not a scientific body, yes, the IPCC reports have said things very much like that. A couple examples are:
“Changes in climate extremes are expected as the climate warms in response to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases resulting from human activities, such as the use of fossil fuels. However, determining whether a specific, single extreme event is due to a specific cause, such as increasing greenhouse gases, is difficult, if not impossible.”
and
“it is not simple to detect a human influence on a single, specific extreme event. Nevertheless, it may be possible to use climate models to determine whether human influences have changed the likelihood of certain types of extreme events. For example, in the case of the 2003 European heat wave”
Both from AR4, WG1, p.696
Smoothed trend line starting to look like a sine wave.
Sorry for this additional post but I couldn’t stop myself. Is this the sort of stuff that our politicians listen to?
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ea14eufiEq8 ]
G. Karst says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:27 pm
“IF catastrophic cooling were to become the prime perceived threat. What would the best mitigation method be, to warm the earth? How could we best force AGW? Just pondering… is all. ”
The last scientific consensus has already done the work on this question. We can now just go back to the future!
http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
L Nettles says:
November 3, 2011 at 2:45 pm
From Tom Nelson’s Blog
(AP) WASHINGTON (AP) – The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record,…..
________________________________________
That is a sure sign of global COOLING.
Everyone is running their heaters to stay warm! With the cost of energy rising only necessity has people turning on the heat as “Fuel Poverty” increases.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2011/10/18/u-k-citizens-face-increasing-fuel-poverty/
The UK is the hardest hit or at least the country with news coverage but with a real unemployment rate in the USA running between 20% to 22% for 2010, and high fuel costs, no one is wasting a penny on extra heat. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
It certainly is not a sign of Economic “prosperity” either, the GDP nose dived: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/update/01/images/fig1.jpg
DirkH, those are examples of the extreme-events analysis that i mentioned. My question to Roy was whether anyone had done something as silly as what he suggested, using an unexceptional one-month change in global temperature to claim evidence of climate change, in either direction.
Eric (skeptic) says:
November 3, 2011 at 3:29 pm
“Jeff Masters, Weather Underground” is an expert reviewer?
Jeff Masters is a dyed in the wool believer in CAGW. THAT makes him an “Expert Reviewer”
Although the current 2011 AMSU is about 0.56 cooler than 2010, it will tick up about 0.2DegC over the next few of days.
This La Nina is not accompanied by strong trade winds. What’s making this years Ts cooler than last is the waters just north of the Pacific Equator.
I can clearly see why there was widespread panic in 1988/89. people could really have imagined that the trend would continue.
What I cannot for the life of me understand, is why they cling to that decade+ old fear when we can clearly see it was not warranted. Is it really too hard to reassess your position? I do this all the time when I come across new data, or a plausible alternative explanation (to my own) is presented to me.
That’s an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries – China, the United States and India, the world’s top producers of greenhouse gases
================================
The Japanese satellite says it’s Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa……
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/japanese-satellites-say-3rd-world-owes-co2-reparations-to-the-west/
Brian H says:
November 3, 2011 at 3:56 pm
I already have a thesis in mind. I would like to study the effects on living conditions if we have to move to the tropics in order to keep warm. Obviously we would have all possible available mod cons, so these should be included.
So, that would make it a hard research session in a gruelling tropical environment, say a beach in the south pacific, and using the sort of accommodation we would be able to mange by then, say a nice beach-front villa, or failing that , 5 star hotel.
Please send grant money fast!
Om my gosh! It’s a multi-decadal sinosoidal wave! Whoddathunkit? Almost as if there’s casual ups and downs about a stable equilibrium, that itself gently rises and falls across the millenia. Kinda like the casual bops and weaves of the Moon about the rotational axis of the Earth, as the Earth itself bobs and weaves about the plane of the ecliptic.
Interesting. I noticed last month from the 0-700m temp anomalies that there didn’t seem to be a particularly large sloshing of warm water to the west, which suggested that trades weren’t that strong and that consequently the amount of cold water upwelling in the east may not be abnormally high either. This could suggest that, rather than just the to and fro of Nino and Nina, we’re actually seeing reduced Pacific oceanic heat content, and that the upward spike in the middle of the year as per UAH may have been down to oceanic heat transfer to the atmosphere. Might this indicate a prolonged period of anomalously low SSTs ahead? Have I made any glaring errors in my reasoning here?
Why do you say it will rise 0.2C over the next few days, by the way?
Sorry for all the questions!
Should be interesting to see what happens when the Atlantic heads into its cool phase…
Roy Spencer says: November 3, 2011 at 2:07 pm
JJThoms:
AMSU ch. 4 *failed* on Aqua, it wasn’ t “expunged” from the record. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. 🙂
Channel 4 was not the one I was referring to – it was channel LT the 1km temperature.
The data is no longer available from your discover site.
I understand that satellites die and you use another. However in the swap to AQUA many of the same-named channels have large errors compared with original. if you are measuring the temp at the same height why is there this error. For example the data for CH13 shows an error of up to 0.3C in 2002 see
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3TGf7juf3EM/TgYCVKXHwBI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/00YqMQ_RRGc/s1600/36km.jpg
Is it possible that the current qua temperatures have a possible 0.3C error – if not how can you prove it?
Thanks
as others have noted, it appears like a sine wave (going back further it does to IIRC). The hal-cycle appears to be 25 years, making the full cycle 50 years. I believe the full cycle has been estimated at 60 years (but cannot recall from where or by whom). If so, we may still be on the slow up-curve for another 5 years.
That would agree with my thoughts that the whole pattern is a sine wave with a 60 year cycle, but rising at between half and 1C a century (from way back before eeevil CO2 existed).
I use the full weight of my experience in this area (ie extremely little) to predict a very slow warming for another 5 years, and then a very slow cooling for 5 years, followed by increasingly fast cooling from about 2030 to 2040. In 2035 I confidently predict another ‘the ice age cometh’ scare from the descendants and students of the current scaremongers.
Funnily enough, that would be about 60 years from the last one. Accordingly, in 2048 I predict another warm scare starting, etc, etc. Fortunately I’ll be too old to care, but think of the grand-children!
James Hansen and his minions were pretty darn sure the global mean temperature would be more than 1°C higher in 2012 than it was in 1980 (referencing his graph used in his 1988 Congressional testimony). Now, 25 years since his models were run, the observed record shows his work was no where close to what really transpired. And yet they insist the skeptics have no handle on reality. What will it take for them to give the skeptics some credit for being more on the mark than the alarmists?
I would like to point out that the winter and summer olympics used to take place in the same year and only in recent times have they been offset by two years to each other.
Gneiss…perhaps you think you’re sounding cute with those comments, but here we all are well aware of the extremest language used every time some weather event happens.
Where you’re being obtuse is in suggesting October was something like June — look again. June temperature (for channel 4) was in the middle of the pack, for October, it was a record low…although the satellite record is only 10 years.
One thing to keep in mind about the timeline of this record is that there were two large stratospheric volcanic eruptions in the period. These eruptions do distort what the temperature trend looks like and how much warming the trend works out to.
In one of the few times you will see me arbitrarily adjust raw data (unlike most climate scientists), I’ve applied an adjustment to the UAH/RSS lower troposphere temps to reverse out the effects of these two volcanoes.
It makes a big difference – in terms of how closely tied the record is to the ENSO and to the overall warming trend over the period. (The adjustments are arbitrary but are consistent with most estimates of how much the volcanoes reduced temperatures over time.)
Warming is reduced to 0.094C per decade (less than half that expected by the theory) and a much closer relationship to the ENSO emerges.
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1907/volcanoadjuahrssenso.png
G. Karst says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:27 pm
IF catastrophic cooling were to become the prime perceived threat. What would the best mitigation method be, to warm the earth?
Anyone want to wager that if cooling was the prime threat, that Hansen would still be calling for an end to CO2 pollution? And that GISS would still show warming.
Both DirkH and OldOne have now quoted one sentence from my post above,
“Have any IPCC scientists actually said anything like that?”
Both left out the next sentence of my post which said I knew about statistical studies of extreme events and wasn’t asking about them. And both DH and OO then cited some extreme-events items as if they answered my question. Here’s my original quote again, this time with emphasis added to the part DH and OO left out:
“Have any IPCC scientists actually said anything like that? I’ve seen statistical analysis of record temperature and extreme events, but this October value is not a record or an extreme event. Lookiing at your data it seems a pretty ordinary change, an odd thing to be making this point over — unless other scientists really did do something similar with your June temperature, which went up about as much as October went down.”
I understand that Spencer wrote his comment to attack other scientists, and it also seems to have dropped a “global cooling” hint that was picked up by several posters. I just wondered whether he was attacking a straw man to make his point. Or have other scientists really used a one-month, non-exceptional global temperature change to argue for global warming? Where?
Just been reading up on death, famine, high grain prices war, beheadings, floodings the end of countries … during the Sporer, Dalton and Maunder minima.
Just in Scotland the 0.7C higher temperatures would be expected to reduce winter deaths by 5000 over the last decade – we’ve been extremely lucky.
Please don’t anyone celebrate this drop.0.3C drop is around 200 extra deaths this winter JUST IN SCOTLAND!
Jer0me says: November 3, 2011 at 5:08 pm
“… The hal-cycle appears to be 25 years, making the full cycle 50 years. I believe the full cycle has been estimated at 60 years (but cannot recall from where or by whom). If so, we may still be on the slow up-curve for another 5 years.”
This website has a synthesised temperature plot that seems to predict no real warming until after 2026. This is caused by a downswing on a 60 year cycle which started in about 2002:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n2QrVS5mqbM/TeMJxz5DXrI/AAAAAAAAAGo/omwtGqh6x5A/s1600/Image3.jpg
Note that the underlying trend does not change it is simply the 60 year cycle modulating the trend.
“analysis” here (many pages):
http://climateandstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/temperature%20synthesis
Jer0me says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:24 pm
I already have a thesis in mind. I would like to study the effects on living conditions if we have to move to the tropics in order to keep warm.
I’m prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. I’m prepared to live under even harsher conditions that the worst IPCC Wiji Board forecast for the tipping point and run away global warming.
Please, if there are any children in the audience, turn away now. I’m prepared to “shudder” move to the tropics where it is on average 10C warmer than where I was born and grew up.
That’s right, I’m prepared to expose myself to conditions a full 10C warmer on average than my natural environment to see if human beings could possibly adapt to such harsh conditions!!!
I’m assembling a team now and planning our survival strategy. We know it will be tough, but when the going gets tough, the tough get going. After careful research it looks like I will need swimming trunks, a credit card, and some honey on my arm.
Indeed, and it only strengthens the hypothesis:
1980 and the flames in Moscow and Lake Placid cause a net warming of those areas and the world with it.
1984 and the particulates mix with LA’s smog to overpower the warming of Sarajevo for net cooling.
1988, the at-times chilly Korean peninsula feels the warmth (helped by Reagan and Gorbachev thawing the Cold War and Jim Hansen turning the aircon off), to join Calgary in the warming effect.
1992 and Barcelona’s dusty Mediterranean skies are made dustier by the torch, overcoming the melting of Albertville and sending global temps down.
Then we get the split, but a new regime takes time before it’s able to affect the system greatly. Hence,the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer of 1994 only providing a slight warming and Atlanta 1996 a slight cooling. What really kicked things off was Nagano 1998 as mentioned, with further heat added to the flames that year by the corruption scandal at the IOC.
Evidence of the Olympic flame as the control knob of our climate is unequivocal. The IPCCIOC is the most authoritative body in the field and its reports make clear that recent climate cycles can’t be fully explained until the Olympic Flame Effect is incorporated. Its members are the most decorated in their fields and therefore cannot be refuted. Only an Olympic tax (or, in the UK, a Lottery Fund and an £8bn cost overrun) can hope to mitigate its effects.
I need to get out more…
Gneiss, I think you need to get out more too. Dr Spencer is flippantly paraphrasing those in scientific, political and media circles that try to link weather events, in a delicate way, to AGW. What next? A lawsuit?
OT, but kind of temperature related. Richard Black educates BBC staff re. hide the decline 2000/2010 http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/3/blackening-the-name-of-the-bbc.html
MikeEE writes,
“Gneiss…perhaps you think you’re sounding cute with those comments,”
Not at all, it started out as an honest question. Where are Spencer’s IPCC “brethren” who used a one-month temperature to suggest global warming? That’s the flavor of Spencer’s post, but I’m wondering what others, among scientists, are as bad.
“Where you’re being obtuse is in suggesting October was something like June — look again. June temperature (for channel 4) was in the middle of the pack, for October, it was a record low…although the satellite record is only 10 years.”
Obtuse? Spencer above is highlighting a drop in the global temp anomaly from .289 in September to .144 in October, a decline of .175. (“Down over half”? I hope some non-scientist wrote that!) I compared it to June because the May 2010 global anomaly according to Spencer’s data,
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
was .14, and the June anomaly was .32, which is a rise of .18. So I compared that .18 rise with the recent .175 fall, commenting on “June temperature, which went up about as much as October went down.”
“for October, it was a record low…although the satellite record is only 10 years.”
Who’s being obtuse? The time series Spencer graphs above goes back to 1979 or maybe December 78. October 2011 was above average for that month, not a record low.
Heavily OT, but one-star reviews, with potitive feedbacks, are now growing proliferously on the Donna’s book at Amazon.
WUWT???
Gneiss says:
November 3, 2011 at 6:01 pm
“I understand that Spencer wrote his comment to attack other scientists, and it also seems to have dropped a “global cooling” hint that was picked up by several posters. I just wondered whether he was attacking a straw man to make his point. Or have other scientists really used a one-month, non-exceptional global temperature change to argue for global warming? Where?”
==========
Attack seems a strong word. How about “having fun with” ?
Skeptics like to poke fun at others when we can.
IMHO, he was making a play on words re: the one-month change.
Nothing definitive, just a taste of ones own medicine.
Humor. (skeptic)
Well, that’s a bummer considering this news:
http://newssun.suntimes.com/news/8599925-418/biggest-jump-ever-seen-in-global-warming-gases.html
That happened almost two years ago. Sorta widens the energy defecit, doesn’t it?
Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel. Those forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees.
I wonder if, for pure entertainment value of course, someone could draw the third order polynomial based only on the data up to the last 5 or 10 years, and then see what it predicts for the most recent data.
ferd berple says:
November 3, 2011 at 6:15 pm
I’m assembling a team now and planning our survival strategy. We know it will be tough, but when the going gets tough, the tough get going. After careful research it looks like I will need swimming trunks, a credit card, and some honey on my arm.
Eeew, honey is sticky. Couldn’t you just buy some honey with the credit card once you got there?
Not sure if this is a 3rd order polynomal fit, but it is certainly entertaining 😉
http://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard….gecontent341734
[Link failing, please check. Robt]
“WHAT MIGHT THIS MEAN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE?
…taking a line from our IPCC brethren… While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.”
Funny + 100% pure logic.
If temperatures in Eastern Australia are anything to go by, yes it has been cool. Average temperatures down 6c in Sydney yesterday, and I think Brisbane was 10c below. Its been like this all spring, with summer being only a few weeks away.
Believe it or not, I actually remember reading this exact edition, back in ’75. I recall how depressed, it made me feel. There were some crazy, drastic proposals being suggested, as now. Huge sums of treasure, are/have been thrown in into climate research… so I assume, we can be somewhat more sophisticated and subtle than 1975. My assumption may have been wrong. GK
Looks like the ever-reliable “The Watts Effect” strikes again. It was first encountered in this forum when talking about low solar activity, which suddenly shot up. Now with all the talk about falling UAH Channel 5 daily temps, they’ve turned around. After falling sharply for the past couple of weeks, they’ve turned upwards as of Nov 1st data, which was posted today.
Dave Springer says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:09 pm
If this continues I’m going to have to replace my compact flourescents with incandescents. There’s such a thing as overkill, ya know. We may have done too much already in the way of stopping global warming
===============================
Dave, I will pay you to replace your mercury-bearing, twisty CFs with incandescents. Have never bought one just by its look, but now I know the back story I would never buy one if my life depended on it.
Your friend,
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Victor says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:05 pm
The last scientific consensus has already done the work on this question. We can now just go back to the future!
http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
______________________________
G. Karst says:
November 3, 2011 at 9:14 pm
Believe it or not, I actually remember reading this exact edition, back in ’75. I recall how depressed, it made me feel. There were some crazy, drastic proposals being suggested, as now. Huge sums of treasure, are/have been thrown in into climate research… so I assume, we can be somewhat more sophisticated and subtle than 1975. My assumption may have been wrong. GK
_______________________________
I remember that too and all the ruckus.
What is interesting is the chart in the paper shows an increase in temp from 1880 to the 1940’s of 0.8F and then a decrease of 0.6F by 1970. (Data from the National center for Atmospheric Research.) The text says the ground temperature in the northern hemisphere dropped 0.5F from 1945 to 1968. It also notes that the sunshine reaching earth decreased by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
Not exactly the temperature changes we see in Mann’s Hockey Schtick is it?
Interesting how much the “message” has changed in a quarter century.
Scott Ramsdell says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Om my gosh! It’s a multi-decadal sinosoidal wave! Whoddathunkit? Almost as if there’s casual ups and downs about a stable equilibrium, that itself gently rises and falls across the millenia. Kinda like the casual bops and weaves of the Moon about the rotational axis of the Earth, as the Earth itself bobs and weaves about the plane of the ecliptic.
______________________________________________
NO! NO!
You have it all WRONG, It is a straight line shooting straight up off the paper until the earth catches fir and becomes another sun…..
HELP I’m Melting……
OOPS, I guess I need to turn the space heater down.
Gail Combs says:
November 3, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Victor says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:05 pm
The last scientific consensus has already done the work on this question. We can now just go back to the future!
http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
,,,
Interesting how much the “message” has changed in a quarter century.
—————————–
But the message hasn’t really changed:
Cooling “…causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as draughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsuns and even local temperature increases…”
First, thanks Dr. Spencer for following and publishing this info. My one suggestion would that instead of a third order polynomial with no predictive value show 5, 10, 20 & 30 year moving averages. I realize that 30 years is now the standard def for climate but I’m not sure its a good number. I think it’s highly likely there are natural cycles longer than 30 years that are not now considered. I’d ask for 60 years but I’m willing to wait until the satellite data gets that long.
Jer0me says:
November 3, 2011 at 5:08 pm
as others have noted, it appears like a sine wave (going back further it does to IIRC). The hal-cycle appears to be 25 years, making the full cycle 50 years. I believe the full cycle has been estimated at 60 years (but cannot recall from where or by whom)….
_____________________________
Here is one reference and analysis: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm
And another: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/157752-Ocean-oscillations-are-not-masking-global-warming-the-cooling-is-real
Woods Hole: New Study Reports Large-scale Salinity Changes in the Oceans
Saltier tropical oceans and fresher ocean waters near the poles – http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=897
(Has the usual CAGW get pass peer review card)
Anthony is on Coast To Coast AM now! just listened to the segment. very good interview by George Noory
KnR says:
November 3, 2011 at 2:54 pm
you cannot tell anything form one off events you need 10 years or was it 12 , or 15 ,or 17 or 30 or 60 years of data to be certain, expect when it can be tortured to get what you need they you hardly need any data or to be frank you can just make it up , this is after all climate science.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
A good illustration of the overlap between comedy and tragedy. Just imagine what Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes and Aristophanes, Terance and Plautus could have done with material like this..
Phil R says:
November 3, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Eeew, honey is sticky. Couldn’t you just buy some honey with the credit card once you got there?
Sticky maybe, but tasty! Credit card or a pension, they both are honey magnets in the tropics.
Scottish Sceptic says:
November 3, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Just been reading up on death, famine, high grain prices war, beheadings,floodings the end of countries … during the sporer, dalton and Maunder minima.
Just in Scotland the 0.7C higher temperatures would be expected to reduce winter deaths by 5000 over the last decade – we’ve been extremely lucky.
Please don’t anyone celebrate this drop.0.3C drop is around 200 extra deaths this winter JUST IN SCOTLAND!
___________________________________
Unfortunately we are caught twix and between.
If it stays the same temperature or warms we get taxed to death and watch our civilization killed by taxes and energy starvation as our wealth is transfered to the “greener (dollars) pastures” of India, China, Africa and Brazil.
If it cools enough to kick a few butts so people notice and toss the politicians under the bus, the elderly and the ill will die.
Hypothermia or starvation, take your pick because those are the actual choices our politicians are giving us. We are in a war and we do not even know it. It is a war for who will control all the world’s resources and therefore holds all the power and we, the little people, are losing. CAGW and “Socialism” are just the circuses to divert our attention.
I give glimpse of the road to starvation in these comments (The whole discussion is good of course)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/13/borlaug-2-0/#comment-766861
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/13/borlaug-2-0/#comment-767501
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/13/borlaug-2-0/#comment-767575
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/13/borlaug-2-0/#comment-767559
I feel sorry for you.
@Gail Combs says:
November 3, 2011 at 10:50 pm
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I fully agree with the points made regarding fuel povery and how cold will lead to extra deaths. The UK has the highest rate of winter mortality in developed Europe due to a combination of poor housing stock, damp weather, low pension income and high energy prices. I have posted similar points before, however, regretfully, I consider that we need a sustained period of cooling to bring this madness to an end.
I know that unfortunately this will cause suffering to many and regretfully there will be deaths (which could have been avoided) but if this eventually brings about a reversal of the UK’s present energy policy (similar policies being experimented elsewhere), it will in the long run be a good thing. If this leads to a reversal of policy eventually we will be putting an end to this misssery brought about by fuel poverty (because it is only a political reason as to why energy costs are high) which in tunr will lead to a better way of life for all and eventually the reduction in needless deaths etc.
“…taking a line from our IPCC brethren… While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.”
LOL. Dish these phrases back at them. I love it!
We could also add in the phrase “consistent with the predictions”
e.g. The drop in global temperatures is consistent with the predictions of some crazy loon who hangs out in the subway and lives in fear of being eaten by a giant intergalactic mutant ice goat….
😉
Walter Dnes says:
November 3, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Looks like the ever-reliable “The Watts Effect” strikes again. It was first encountered in this forum when talking about low solar activity, which suddenly shot up…..
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Of COURSE it shot up.
Cycle 19 peak 31/2 to 4 years @ 200: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl19.html
Cycle 4 peak 31/2 to 4 years @ 140: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl4.html
Cycle 5 peak 31/2 to 4 years @ 50: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl5.html
(Cycle 5 then went “flat”)
Cycle 24 “On January 4, 2008, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared—and this signals the start of Solar Cycle 24,” says David Hathaway of the Marshall” http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/10jan_solarcycle24/
It has almost been four years and we see a spike in Sun Spot numbers as would be expected. The SIDC number is about 130, NOAA X 0.6 = about 120. http://www.landscheidt.info/images/lay_monthly.png
This aligns rather nicely with a low level cycle like Cycle 4 and not a high level cycle like Cycle 19. So as usual we will have to just wait and see if Cycle 24 stays at this level of activity or continues up. However the chances are still good it will be weaker than cycle 23. (peak @ 175)
NOTE: Dr Svalgaard states: ” We changed the way sunspots were counted way back in 1882. 17 years of counting both ways have shown that there is a simple proportionality between the old count and the new count, namely old = 0.6 * “ http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=user/571
Bob Tisdale says:
November 3, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Have you written a post or paper about the “North Atlantic Precursor” yet, or do you intend to continue to leave us in the dark? Is the “Natural Variability Law” something new? Mother Nature may feel obligated to break it, you know.
I wouldn’t think that the mother nature cares much for my ‘straw in a churning tornado’ musings; but since you ask:
there are four or five apparently unrelated processes that are following similar trend for number of centuries, as the relevant data show ( the graph with the three of them CET, NAP and SSN is already overcrowded anyway ). For some of the links physics is clear but not for all. One coincidence lasting 350 years may be, but is unlikely to have three or four, so I suspect a common cause, which eventually ‘has’ to lead to the sun, governed by some kind of ‘natural variability law’, (in the graph represented by the blue line) derived from the CET.
As far as writing is concerned, it looks like that the two main combatants are rapidly running out of ammunition (CO2, TSI, UV,GCR etc), and when they do, the search for the true ‘natural variability’ will be ‘plat du jour’. I am certain that there will be someone out there with sufficient knowledge, expertise and the writing dexterity required.
For time being it’s pointless running into crossfire without suitable ‘body armour’ protection.
the graph in question: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
& left out
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NA-SST.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/HmL.gif
and possibly
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LL.htm
Could I make a suggest with respect to the most appropriate scaling for these temperature anomally charts.
Since our interest in these anomallies concerns the possiblity that they might deviate to more than 2-3 degrees above the historical averages, would it not be most appropriate to havea scale that runs from -4 degrees to +4 degrees (or at least +/- 3) so that the true materiality of what we are observing is made more transparent?
Such a kerfuffle over CO2, enough already, we know the earth is cooling and the only possible remedy is to move the earth closer to the sun, but first we need to get rid of our freeloader (the moon). Oy gevalt what a schlep. Oy vey.
Geckko – I like that idea!
C’mon folks, we know we can’t control the weather. We adapt like Fred implied – sorry no funding for that one 🙂
Just like catastrophic warming, adaptation to catastrophic cooling would be great for all. A common goal to provide a shared vision for humanities struggle against the elements. the ‘green jobs’ stuff never seemed to stack up economically against the idea of simple adaptation to a real problem.
It looks like a 50 year cycle to me. Maybe the Hebrews were on to something with the jubilee cycle?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)
“NOTE: Dr Svalgaard states: ” We changed the way sunspots were counted way back in 1882. 17 years of counting both ways have shown that there is a simple proportionality between the old count and the new count, namely old = 0.6 * “ http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=user/571”
The link doesn’t take you to Svalgaard’s comment but even so it’s meaningless as you can compare the counts from the first to the second half of the 20th century and see there there were almost twice as many in the second half.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
Geckko says:
November 4, 2011 at 3:40 am
While considering making the charts more appropriate for the size of the changes, I’d like to suggest that instead of the “Anomaly” from the established temperature of 1981 or whatever it is, we chart real temperatures. The issue is (according the the Warmists) is radiative delay due to increased absorption rate the atmosphere (by the introduction of more CO2), so we need to use the temperature band of the Earth in space. Space temperature is nominally 3 degrees Kelvin, and the Earth is at about 287.5 Kelvin, right?
Right now, we’re within a couple tenths of a degree of that number (give or take, depending on which measure you’re using). Since the measurements disagree by as much as half a degree, we can easily say that we are within the range of error of measurement, which means that we don’t even KNOW if we are above or below the normal temperature.
Even if we KNEW we were 0.11 degrees Kelvin above the normal temperature, the actual variance from the norm is only 0.038% above where we expect to be. How is that news? How is that statistically even relevant? Why are we spending one dime on a change of less than a departure from normal of less than four-ten-thousandths of a percent?
Even if we were a full degree above the “normal” temperature, that would still be only about a third of a percent difference. Glaciation periods are ten degrees cooler than that, and we KNOW that there have been periods of several degrees warmer.
If we charted the actual temperature of the planet, in kelvin, with all of the relevant deviations since the 1600s, using the full scale, it would look like a flat line with no trend at all, just a bit of bobble that would be smaller than the thickness of the line depicting it.
Using the anomaly difference based around the very top end of the scale is a bad way to depict the data. It’s as if someone were showing changes in the price of some commodity that costs $300, but only charting the change in the pennies, because the dollar amount is stable, and claiming that the cost is rising out of control because it went from $300.45 to $300.49 in a decade.
We are cooling, folks; for how long even kim doesn’t know.
================
Gail Combs: 40% of school districts in the USA do not have recess due to concerns abou test scores and injury liability, and yet they have the gall to say our kids are being too active in the classroom? On the flip side, parents do not let their kids go outside due to a fear of abductions which is about as rational as a fear of lightning (and WAY LESS rational than a fear of cars) when you look at the statistics, and yet THEY have the gall to say they’ve done all they can?
Manfred: So cooling causes checkers?
Here in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. We have had an abnormally cold spring with temperatures some 10 degrees below normal .I have noticed that each of the last 3 springs have been colder and colder with winter temperatures and rain now extending into November.
Lew @ 11:46 PM.
How do you know about the ice goat?
=============
“…taking a line from our IPCC brethren While any single months drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.”
HEH! And what REALLY gets our CAGW friends is that this statement is, in fact, TRUE!
—
A public service announcement for our CAGW friends who visit WUWT:
I hope you haven’t used any petroleum-based products or energy derived from petroleum or coal today – doing so would be hypocritical and just plain wrong. Please use alternatives. Thank you for your cooperation.
Doug Proctor says:
November 3, 2011 at 3:21 pm
The “standard” says polynomial regression has no predictive power (unless you’re trying to fit to a polynomial, I suppose). I don’t have a good example, apparently few people make that mistake or even illustrate it. One that does is worth reading, even though the topic is an attack on climate Deniers (capitalized!). Mike Kaulbars takes his May 2008 temperature data and with a 2nd order polynomial shows the temperature should drop to -90° (C, I think), by the end of June.
http://greenfyre.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/may2008-four2.jpg
The basic problem is that each term in a polynomial fit has little to no connection to the physics behind the data. Outside of the math to force a fit, there’s nothing to constrain the values of each term outside of the fitted period.
Another site I found has an example of what can happen when you use to high an order. In this case it was to demonstrate that if the order equals the number of data points, you can make a fit that goes through each and hence have a r^2 = 1.000 despite being a meaningless fit.
http://www.arachnoid.com/sage/graphics/polynomial_regression/pgraph2.png
Scottish Sceptic says:
November 3, 2011 at 6:03 pm
“Please don’t anyone celebrate this drop.0.3C drop is around 200 extra deaths this winter JUST IN SCOTLAND!”
No braveheart will even notice–unless one of the 200 is a single-malt distiller.
From a longer-term perspective, all we’ve really had since the 1998 super El Nino is an elevated plateau with a ~44-month oscillation. For a meaningful dowturn to occur, the global anomalies would have to go negative and stay there for a protracted stretch of time. Next year will be critical in confirming/dashing cyclical expectations. Nature can be full of surprises!
Random Thesis says:
November 3, 2011 at 10:25 pm
Dont forget that there can be many curves summed up. And you know what that means. You could even get a …..square!
Dr. Spencer, have you (or anyone else) ever plotted a CuSum of the satellite temperature anomaly?
Janet Rocha says:
November 4, 2011 at 7:46 am
Here in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. We have had an abnormally cold spring with temperatures some 10 degrees below normal .I have noticed that each of the last 3 springs have been colder and colder with winter temperatures and rain now extending into November.
Interesting, because I could say exactly the same thing about here in Perth, Western Australia. Although here near the coast its more like 5C lower daytime temps. 10C lower would be occuring further inland.
It’s clear the PDO has turned and we can look forward years of cooler, wetter springs.
Let me break in here with a “different” take on the oscillations and chart from UAH.
We “know” that this chart represents ‘world-wide” values for temperature, based on continuous bands of surveyed data from Arctic to Antarctic; therefore, regardless of ANY previous or future ‘proxies” of ANY method over ANY time frame (trees, dendroclimatology, corals, ice, resins, fossils, pollen, written records, cats, mice or frog legs) EVERY past and future world-wide surveys of the ANY temperature-dependent world-wide temperature proxies MUST include this measured, irregular but known oscillation.
Therefore, let me modestly propose what should be called “Alabama’s Approximate Law of Temperature Proxies”
1. Temperatures have been measured on a worldwide basis to irregularly oscillate about a global mean by +0.2 degrees and – 0.2 degrees on a two to four year basis.
2. NO global temperature proxy in ANY given year (or over ANY given time frame of ANY study) can produce results more accurate than this 0.4 degree year-to-year worldwide oscillation.
DirkH says:
November 3, 2011 at 2:28 pm
G. Karst says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:27 pm
“IF catastrophic cooling were to become the prime perceived threat. What would the best mitigation method be, to warm the earth? How could we best force AGW? Just pondering… is all. ”
Don’t try CO2. It might actually cool the Earth (very slightly, says Nasif Nahle; I don’t have the slightest clue whether he’s right, but his argument is interesting).
http://www.biocab.org/Mean_Free_Path.pdf
Very interesting and important paper, thanks! Has this work by Nasif Nahle been the subject of a post here recently?
WUWT search returned:
.
Nasir Nahle is listed as an important signatory:
This paper and Nasir Nahle deserve a thread onto themselves. Thanks DirkH! GK
Gail Combs says:
November 4, 2011 at 12:21 am
It has almost been four years and we see a spike in Sun Spot numbers as would be expected. The SIDC number is about 130, NOAA X 0.6 = about 120. http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/lay_monthly.png
Not sure if you are still around Gail but there is some confusion in your statement brought about by the positioning of the Y axis. You are reading the F10.7 flux values which are about double of the sunspot numbers. I have reversed the order of the Y axis to hopefully avoid this problem in the future.
Keith says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Sorry about the late response Keith. I do some weird shift-work hours.
I say it will rise 0.2C because of trends. Here is the latest AMSU..
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
There is a pronounced up tick already.
Regards the current SSTs. Yes you are correct in that this years La Nina is NOT accompanied by strong trade winds (as last years La Nina was) meaning the cool upwelling waters of the Eastern Pacific are not being pushed in a westerly direction.
I think a lot of the cool Antarctic waters are getting through the Drake passage into the South Atlantic which is showing much cooler waters than last year.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif
As for prolonged anomolous low SSTs, we won’t know that until after half way through January at which time the key Nino 3.4 SSTs should be down to just short of -1.5degC but will it linger there until next July or swing back up towards El Nino conditions is anybodys guess.
I hazard a guess that we will see neutral to weak El Nino in early 2012 followed by another La Nina.
The solar cycle is still in it’s ascending phase. The really strong La Ninas will happen in a few years when the cycle goes into it’s descending phase.
These are just my worthless laymans opinions with no scientific data to back them up. A bit like a farmers gut feeling about weather. (I am a hobby farmer by the way)
“The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel) is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever.”
Then why leave it on there?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/03/uah-global-temperature-down-over-half-in-october-from-september/#comment-789396
“Then why leave it on there?”
To be misleading. That would be the short answer.
See posts 786831, 786991, 787016, 787058, 787104, 787121, 787181, 787373, and 787437 as examples of being misled.
Or running with the ball, after having it handed off by Dr. Spencer, as being just “for entertainment purposes only.”
I was surely entertained, by the replies to Dr. Spencer’s post
Also note my earlier post where I asked the same basic question.
Note also, that of Excel’s first 6 polynomial fits, the 3rd order fit just happens to be the only fit to show a downslope at the end of the UAH time series.
Maybe it was just chance that Dr. Spencer happened to choose a 3rd order polynomial, I mean it’s just so difficult to just flip through Excal’s various curve fitting options.
@Dinostratus says:
November 6, 2011 at 5:30 am
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Perhaps so that people can draw their own conclusion as to whether it might have any relevance
Gneiss says:
November 3, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Think about it a bit longer, it will come to you…