UAH Global temperature, up in April

mfo says:
May 10, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Speaking from a position of total ignorance on this subject I do find it curious that sea surface temperature sometimes seems to correspond with submarine volcanoes.
It may be there is a common denominator – the heat of the Sun.
The global temperature (UAH, land, sea) is impressed by the impedances of the terrestrial continents and tropic physics.
This complex impression is minor on the oceans, so the ocean temperatures are follow the heat load of the Sun, more directly and time coherent to some solar functions, which is to be seen from the variations of the sea level. in this graph.
Because it is a global effect, coming from the Sun, it may impress also the vulcanos ?
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/uah_comp_tfsl.gif
My 2cnt.
V.

lookupitseasy
So, HenryP, I guess then you disagree with the claim (as Smokey put it) that “there is no testable, empirical evidence that can provide a measurement [of global temperature]“?
Henry says
Interesting you should ask. The net sum of all of my tables tell me basically that earth dropped by about 0.2 degrees K since the turn of century (12 x 0.017). . .. Can you feel it? No…it is still an awfully small amount. In fact I doubt if the thermometers in the satellites are that sensitive (which is why I was asking Roy about this) and how often they are calibrated?
So your question also depends on an answer to that question, as well. If we go my results only, – and I do think that my method depends a lot less on calibration – consider:
I think my sample was well balanced by latitude and 30/70 in-land/on sea. (Longitude does not matter as earth turns every 24 hours). However, the continent not represented was Antarctica. For some strange reason I cannot get access to the raw data coming from Antarctica. I suspect it is already getting cooler there and somebody is just trying to hide that. (Then they rather want to blame warm(er) sea currents for the disintegration of the ice there – I have to laugh).
Nevertheless, without those raw data coming from Antarctica I would not put my head under the block for that 0.2 degrees C/K
So in this respect I have to agree with Smokey.
If you were to change your statement to:
that “there is no testable, empirical evidence that can provide a judgement whether earth has entered a warming or a cooling phase, ”
then I would disagree with that statement. I think it is possible to determine whether earth is in a general warming or in a general cooling phase. As stated before, the signal is very clear that we entered a general cooling phase and you can repeat it by simply repeating my work (preferably using 44 other weather stations – mind the balancing acts though).
Personally I think the climate is on this curve:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo3.png
Study this curve carefully and you will see that around 1994 temps went down (negative/decline) as correctly predicted by me whereas the green line from the IPCC still wants us to believe that it goes the other way (positive/incline). If the Orssengo curve is correct we will drop a total of about 0.3 or 0.4 degrees C before things turn up again beyond 2030.

Village Idiot says:
May 10, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Are we warming or cooling
That is an excellent question and the answer depends to a large extent on the time period you have in mind and the data set being used. The graph below illustrates this point well.
RSS has a straight line since November 1996 or 15 years, 6 months. UAH has a straight line since October 2001 or 10 years, 7 months. And from where RSS is straight, UAH shows a rise. And from where UAH is straight, RSS shows a drop. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/rss/from:2001.75/trend/plot/uah/from:1995/plot/uah/from:1996.83/trend/plot/uah/from:2001.75/trend
The bottom line for me is that there is nothing too alarming happening now and we should wait a few years to see what develops before spending huge amounts of money.
According to the two satellite records.
RSS
1 {1998, 0.55},
2 {2010, 0.476},
3 {2005, 0.334}.
UAH
1 {1998, 0.428},
2 {2010, 0.414},
3 {2005, 0.253}.

Village Idiot says:
May 10, 2012 at 10:31 pm
The fact is that scientific skeptics have known for decades that the globe is warming [naturally], and has been warming since the LIA. Only an idiot would misrepresent the skeptical position: the planet is warming, but there is no testable, empirical evidence that can provide a measurement.
That the global temperatures today are higher then in LIA can be a personal knowledge from many indicators known in science. It is not a fact, because if one have this personal knowledge he cannot give prove of it. Skeptics is not a valid method in science, because it never has shown any knowledge on anything. A personal knowledge is not equal to a shown relation in science. Every personal claim on ‘there is Nothing’ is scientificly worthless, because it is never able to give a prove on ‘Nothing’. For this, this claim have no existence. Moreover, the personal claim suggest that the claim is an valid scientific argument, but it is not; it is a personal statement without any scientific value. Science, or the methods of science still argue on things which ARE, and not on No_things. Your example does show this, because you argue on ‘no … measurement’.
Therefore, although emissions may add a little to the natural warming, at this point AGW is an untested and untestable conjecture.
The AGW is an idea. It must not be true, that the idea is untestable, because it is not out of the question that the natural warming can be understood as a physical process of nature in the solar system.
Are we warming or cooling, can we measure it or not?
Dr. R. Spencer can.
There is great evidence that the global warming with its warming and cooling follow synodic cycles centred on the Sun. The warming and cooling of the global oceans changes the volume of the upper ocean and modulates the increasing sea level (blue curve) , and is time coherent with the function of three synodic cycles (orange). Taking 11 synodic cycles (thick lightgray) it correlates with the measured global UAH temperatures (thick black) by. Dr Roy Spencer:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/uah_comp_tfsl.gif
This result suggest the idea that there is no need to add AGW to the plot. There are other facts that the increasing CO2 level is superimposed by time coherent modulated measured temperatures. This means that one can see that the oscillating CO2 follows the temperature.

The most important tool in climate science is not a thermometer, it is logic.
V.

Village Idiot says:
May 10, 2012 at 10:31 pm
…. Are we warming or cooling, can we measure it or not? I feel our creed is falling apart at the seams!
Is that why the Masters attacks on the evil enemy have had to become increasingly violent??
____________________
It depends on your prepective. from Green World Trust org.:
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/ice-HS/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_adj.gif

Ian W, since I haven’t said anything whatsoever about enthalpy, it seems rather presumptous of you to declare I don’t know anything about it. (The use of the word “shreiking” is also quite rude — my understanding was that skeptic blogs tended to pride themselves on their levels of civility, but perhaps I was wrong about this; I’ve only recently started hanging out in comments sections here.) A better guess would be that I’m more interested in my own hobby-horses than in yours, and so (as long as I’m interacting with you) I will tend to ignore it when you try to change the subject.
In that spirit, I’m fascinated by your claim that -50C to 50C is “a normal scale” for average global temperature (regardless of whether you think “average global temperature” is an interesting or meaningful metric). A traditional approach to choosing a “normal scale” for a time-series would be to use a scale that includes the range of the data over some reasonable time-period, and not too much else. Has average global temperature ever been -50C? When was the last time it was 50C?
Let me make my point directly, not just via rhetorical questions: this exercise in choosing an abnormally large scale for your axes to make data look flat is silly and misleading. Any data set can be made to look flat by choosing the range too large in this way, and it doesn’t reveal anything at all to do so. If you don’t think average global temperature is interesting or important, that’s your business (you’ll notice again that I’m not arguing with you about this), but you’d be much better off making that point with honest arguments.

Ugh, that’s “shrieking”, of course, not “shreiking”.

lookupitseasy says:
May 11, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Ian W, since I haven’t said anything whatsoever about enthalpy, it seems rather presumptous of you to declare I don’t know anything about it. (The use of the word “shreiking” is also quite rude — my understanding was that skeptic blogs tended to pride themselves on their levels of civility, but perhaps I was wrong about this; I’ve only recently started hanging out in comments sections here.) A better guess would be that I’m more interested in my own hobby-horses than in yours, and so (as long as I’m interacting with you) I will tend to ignore it when you try to change the subject.
In that spirit, I’m fascinated by your claim that -50C to 50C is “a normal scale” for average global temperature (regardless of whether you think “average global temperature” is an interesting or meaningful metric). A traditional approach to choosing a “normal scale” for a time-series would be to use a scale that includes the range of the data over some reasonable time-period, and not too much else. Has average global temperature ever been -50C? When was the last time it was 50C?
Let me make my point directly, not just via rhetorical questions: this exercise in choosing an abnormally large scale for your axes to make data look flat is silly and misleading. Any data set can be made to look flat by choosing the range too large in this way, and it doesn’t reveal anything at all to do so. If you don’t think average global temperature is interesting or important, that’s your business (you’ll notice again that I’m not arguing with you about this), but you’d be much better off making that point with honest arguments.
I agree – you have not said anything about enthalpy or heat content – yet the debate is about ‘heat being trapped’ – it is not about temperature being trapped. If you want to measure the heat being trapped then you must know the enthalpy of the atmosphere. As you are so concerned about the average of a meaningless metric and then displaying it in a way that hides its error bars expands its scale you will understand that you will be taken as someone who either doesn’t understand or someone trolling.
If you want to lookupitseasy to know about enthalpy you can go to http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/enthalpy-moist-air-d_683.html
Atmospheric heat content cannot be measured by temperature alone it is the wrong metric. Arguing about hundredths of a degree C of this wrong metric when that is unmeasurable, and based on averaged values over a set of random land based polygons with a bias to developed areas and values obtained at time of day for the reading or maximum and minimum regardless of how long particular values were observed; this is just so totally unscientific – it is pure climate ‘science’.
As an example – a day starts out misty at dawn with radiation fog and say 60C the sun comes up and the fog ‘burns off” the humidity drops and by mid-afternoon the atmospheric temperature peaks at a dry 95C. The air will have had more heat content in the humid misty morning than in the hot dry afternoon. Atmospheric heat content can drop as temperature goes up.. You have to know the enthalpy of the atmosphere to know its heat content.
But you believe it is useful to display on an expanded scale the variance (anomalies) of averaged atmospheric temperatures from long term averaged atmospheric temperatures with a precision of hundredths of a degree?

Volker Doormann says:
May 12, 2012 at 1:17 am
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/uah_temp_vs_ghi11_4.gif
Interesting predictions – the next few years – even few months, will provide confirmation or otherwise. You are courageous to make such a detailed forecast.
Never quite understood the problem people have with the idea of a solar system and solar system gravitation affecting climate.

Phil said:
“But if the ‘effective radiating height’ is raised and the lapse rate remains the same then the surface temperature must increase!”
The lapse rate doesn’t stay the same.
Humidity and convection alter the lapse rate.
That is the whole point.

Ian W:
“But you believe it is useful to display on an expanded scale the variance (anomalies) of averaged atmospheric temperatures from long term averaged atmospheric temperatures with a precision of hundredths of a degree?”
Hum, well, I suppose there’s no point in carrying on this conversation if you find yourself unable to read what I’ve written. Just to recap: you asserted that it is sensible to display global average temperature on a scale with axes going from -50C to 50C. I pointed out that this is obviously a misleading way to present data, and that (if you don’t like average global temperature as a metric) you should stick to honest arguments. Since then, you have repeatedly refused to justify your original assertion, and instead repeatedly change the subject to discuss a different metric (about which I have yet to offer any opinions) or to spend time musing about what I know or believe (as in the bizarre paragraph quoted above). Frankly, I’m not surprised that you haven’t tried to justify your original assertion on its own terms, because what I’ve said about it is correct: it’s a stupid, misleading trick to present data on a misleading scale in order to make it appear flat. And this is true regardless of the nature of the data in question! Your sin here, as far as I am concerned, has nothing to do with the nature or details of the metric being discussed.
If you want to have a discussion with someone about the importance of enthalpy versus temperature, that’s fine by me (though I’m not interested in being your counter-party). But when having that discussion, you should stick to honest methods of data presentation and argument. This is not a difficult point, and I hope that maybe now that I’ve repeated it three times you’ll finally acknowledge it.