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.
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
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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
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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.
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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…”