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.
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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)