UAH Global Temperature Update for February 2012: -0.12 deg. C
By Dr. Roy Spencer
The global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly cooled a little more in February, 2012, again not unexpected for the current La Nina conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean (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 the 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 +0.116 +0.169 +0.062 -0.054
2011 11 +0.123 +0.075 +0.170 +0.024
2011 12 +0.126 +0.197 +0.055 +0.041
2012 01 -0.090 -0.057 -0.123 -0.138
2012 02 -0.116 -0.014 -0.217 -0.281
Progress continues on Version 6 of our global temperature dataset, which will have a better adjustment for drift of the satellites through the diurnal cycle, and an improved calibration procedure for the older MSU instruments (pre-1998).
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Wade says:
March 2, 2012 at 9:57 am
Frizzy says:
March 2, 2012 at 9:41 am
Did anyone else notice that the ENSO meter moved to neutral a couple days ago?
I did. And then I went on the ENSO page and noticed two things. First, the first graph, the NINO 3.4 index, had a HUGE spike up. Then I went down to the NOAA SST anomaly graphic and noticed a big spot of yellow off the coast of South America that wasn’t there last month. It appears to me that the oceans have really warmed over the past month, so I suspect the UAH temperature anomaly with creep up next month.
But the Indonesian warm pool that normally recharges the El Nino is absent. A very strange pattern of temperatures at the moment. With these extensive cold temperature anomalies outside the constraints of the ENSO box perhaps the metering may not be so predictive. Have to wait for Bob Tisdale to comment.
And, by the way, Columbus’ critics preceded any thought or conception of helio-centric theory’s.
His voyage (and fund-raising) in 1492 HAD to use accurate and repeatable Ptolemaic geo-centric star-charts to plot his path to and from the West Indian islands. Magellan’s fleet circled the globe in 1522-1523 using Ptolemy’s geo-centric star charts before Copernicus published his helio-circular – but wrong – theory in 1543.
Brahe and Copernicus and Ptolemy correctly predict the position of the planets with respect to the earth with considerable accuracy. Magellan and hundred’s of other Europeans used Ptolemy’s geo-centric star charts 80 years before Kepler first published his – totally wrong – first religious-based theories about why the sun held an attraction for its planets.
Hint. Read: Owen Gingrich’s “The Book No One Read” about the publishing, editing and numerous edits and revisions to Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus before you go further.
It’s worse than we thought!
Someone had to say it.
What’s happened to January’s Hadcrut ?
DirkH says:
March 2, 2012 at 11:50 am
“Certain people really seem to be annoyed by that polynomial…
So leave it in!”
Yes, consider it to be the “Anti-Hockeystick”.
Re Dino and the polynomial, which I agree with Seth and others is a bit of a tease: You can be sure that if the right end of the curve pointed up, the AGW crowd would be touting it as “settled science.”
TallDave says: March 2, 2012 at 8:57 am
“I have a computer model that says your experimental data is wrong.”
Well I have an experimental computer model that says observations are wrong.
Why is it that you big oil funded denialists have such a problem understanding the new consensus based science? As CO2 emissions cause the planet to heat up it has the effect of cooling the planet down, simple cause and effect isnt it? Simple physics dictates that heating something makes it cooler. And as the planet gets hotter and hotter which the the computer models have conclusively proved the planet in turn gets cooler as the observed data proves. What could be simpler to understand? And yet the big oil funded denier industry constantly attempts to confuse the issues and refuses to enter a rational dialogue in the simple form of an abject grovelling apology and conversion to the universal consensus. We simply must continue to drastically slash CO2 emissions whatever the cost, its the only way to stop the global warming that leads to the planet cooling leading to utterly disastrous warming/cooling/droughts/floods/too much snow/not enough snow. In short CO2 causes everything to happen or not happen as the case may be. CO2, its not a trace gas, its an evil genius out to deceive and conquer us using big oil funded deniers as its agents.
Come and join the consensus, we are not a cult you know.
REPLY: Stephanie, this is a joke, right? You just forgot to add the /sarc tag right? – Anthony
The funniest thing about that 3rd-order polynomial fit is that historically, by chance, it does have predictive power.
If you delete the last 10 years of data and draw a 3rd order polynomial through the remainder, and then project that line forward 10 years (Excel will do that), you get an excellent prediction of actual temperature, and a line very similar to the current one.
As such, it has vastly greater predictive power than any climate model of ten years ago. Yes, this is just a statistical fluke, but it also tells you something about the the models. They can’t even get it right by chance.
“braddles says:
March 2, 2012 at 1:20 pm
….As such, it has vastly greater predictive power ….”
NO! A 3rd order polynomial has 1 maximum and 1 minimum. It is now heading down forever hence no predictive power at all just chance over the last 10 years.
I wonder how you have to draw the trend line to make the ridiculous claim it’s still warming? (Getting warmer.)
I know, just draw a line from the start point (1979) to the end point (2010) and just continue to infinity.
Ah, but what does an sinusoid curve predict?
Cassandra King says:
March 2, 2012 at 1:07 pm
WTF?
I hope to goodness Anthony’s reply is valid or else we really do have some completely deranged ‘faithful’ out there in la-la land!
“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.”
Neither do the climate models. Looks like a pretty sinusoidal function to me. Why would it be any less predictive than said models?
joshua says:
March 2, 2012 at 10:44 am
Mildly interesting that the averages for January and February 2012 are both lower than their respective averages last year. (Does anyone have 2010 handy? How many years back, if any, does that go?)
See
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
You may also want to see the following which ranks all 33 years on this set from hottest to coldest:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/01/uah-amsu-2011-was-4th-coldest-in-this.html
Dr Burns says:
March 2, 2012 at 12:17 pm
What’s happened to January’s Hadcrut ?
I was wondering that myself. The January 2012 value for HadCrut3 at about 0.22 certainly does not help THE CAUSE. At 0.22, it would rank 18th hottest. And UAH for February certainly will not help either.
http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#HadCRUT3%20TempDiagram
Time and tide wait for no man. But we all wait for Hadcrut.
Jim G it is not a sine wave, as son of mulder says it can only go down now. Go to fooplot.com and enter y(x) = x – x^3 to get a more complete picture of what a third-order polynomial looks like.
I think Dinostratus’s point is a fair one and I am glad that Spencer always posts the disclaimer clearly.
Dinostratus says:
March 2, 2012 at 9:14 am
“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 take it off. It implies a pattern.
And a pattern is such a bizzare, forbidden idea? Oh – I forgot – nonequilibrium/nonlinear pattern formation is to current climate research what the periodic table of elements would have been to 13th century alchemists.
Cassandra King says:
March 2, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Come and join the consensus, we are not a cult you know.
Sarcasm has to be used sparingly on sites like these, go too deep into cover and folks lose the plot and get nervous.
Kev-in-UK says:
March 2, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Cassandra King says:
March 2, 2012 at 1:07 pm
WTF?
I hope to goodness Anthony’s reply is valid or else we really do have some completely deranged ‘faithful’ out there in la-la land!
Folks here should know Cassandra King better than that!
Bob Tisdale says:
March 2, 2012 at 11:45 am
And, as I usually write about this time each month, for those interested, I’ve posted the preliminary February 2012 sea surface temperature anomaly data here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/preliminary-february-2012-sst-anomaly-update/
The full update will be available on Monday March 5th.
Thanks Bob. I guess the usual hue and cry for el Nino will go up. However such is the intensity and persistence of the south west Pacific surface warmth that it is interesting to speculate that, even in the (temporary) absence of Peruvian coast cold upwelling, an east-west equatorial temperature gradient will remain sufficient to cap off the growth of a strong el Nino (by sustaining the trades, preventing them from turning into doldrums) and keep renewed La Nina upwelling not too far away.
Dinostratus, it could be that the entertainment value lies in the responses to it such as yours. I agree on a scientific basis but its easy to ignore the poly curve if you try.
Dr Burns, I am not sure when HADCRUT are switching to version 4 of their model, the one that apparently makes 2010 hotter than 1998 by changing to CRUTEM4. Maybe it is imminent so updating HADCRUT3 might finish soon or at least be a low priority? Might explain the delays in releasing figures under the old model.
P.D. Jones, D.H. Lister, T.J. Osborn, C. Harpham, M. Salmon, and C.P. Morice, “Hemispheric and large-scale land surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2010”, Journal of Geophysical Research
joshua says @ur momisugly March 2, 2012 at 10:44 am
> Mildly interesting that the averages for January and February 2012 are both
> lower than their respective averages last year. (Does anyone have 2010 handy?
> How many years back, if any, does that go?)
Click on the link http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.4 to get UAH monthly data all the way back to December 1978.
Dinostratus says:
March 2, 2012 at 9:14 am
“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 take it off. It implies a pattern.
Only Dr Spencer can say for sure why he includes it, but I have always interpreted it as a sly dig at the climate models. Rather clever IMO. His trend is for entertainment purposes, while the climate models’ trend is the basis for changing the entire world economy.
I’m only lukewarm on AGW, but to say UAH shows cooling is jumping the gun. Here it is with a 2 yr avg. (I find 2 years gets rid of a lot of noise and makes it easier to see what’s going on.)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/mean:24
It’s going to take several years of cooling for the graph to look convincing.