While there’s wailing and gnashing of teeth over the US CONUS surface temperature being the “hottest ever” a cursory review of the sea surface temperatures in U.S.Coastal waters shows no cause for alarm, as they aren’t even close to record levels. It’s just one more reason to suspect that UHI and thermometer siting issues are a major forcing component of the surface temperature record. – Anthony
Are July 2012 Sea Surface Temperatures for U.S. Coastal Waters Also At Record Levels?
Guest post by Bob Tisdale
The map in Figure 1 shows the July 2012 sea surface temperature anomalies, based on NOAA’s ERSST.v3b dataset, for the coordinates of 24N-50N, 130W-65W.
Figure 1
We’ll use those coordinates for the sea surface temperatures (not anomalies) of the U.S. Coastal Waters in the following two graphs. Figure 2 illustrates the July sea surface temperatures for those coordinates from 1854 to 2012, and Figure 3 shows the annual (ending in July) sea surface temperatures for U.S. Coastal Waters from 1855 to 2012. I’ve also plotted the July 2012 value in Figure 2 and the value for the period ending in July 2012 in Figure 3 to simplify your task of comparing the most recent temperatures to the earlier values.
Figure 2
HHHHHHHHHHH
Figure 3
The sea surface temperatures of U.S. Coastal Waters are nowhere close to being at record levels for the month of July 2012 or the 12-month period ending in July 2012. I’ll let you decide (speculate about) what that means with respect to the claims of unprecedented U.S. land surface temperatures in July 2012.
My priority is finishing my book about ENSO and its multiyear aftereffects. I’ve only got a few more chapters to write and then I’m done with the first draft of Who Turned on the Heat? The Unsuspected Global Warming Culprit, El Niño Southern Oscillation. Then I have to go back and read the 500+ pages to see what I wrote.
SOURCE
The map and the data presented are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer.
HenryP says, August 10, 2012 at 1:13 pm…
HenryP, you have done some excellent research! Measuring regression slopes often reveals underlying trends very clearly. I did something similar for UK rainfall. See http://www.thetruthaboutclimatechange.org/rainfall.html
My first graph simply shows the annual rainfall statistics. You will see that the overall change over the 241 year period is an almost insignificant +2%.
But my second graph plots regression slopes over each successive 50 year interval since 1770. This quite dramatically shows that the rates of change in rainfall (up and down) have reduced significantly in the last 50 years compared with earlier times.
The fact is that temperature, like rainfall and other climate variables, oscillates up and down by a few percent from decade to decade in a natural and un-alarming way. So…
1. Temperature data show a thoroughly un-alarming long term positive trend of 0.41degC per century. See http://www.thetruthaboutclimatechange.org/tempsworld.html
2. Rainfall data show an equally un-alarming long term positive trend of 2% per century, with a recent distinct reduction in extremes.
Despite these facts, the climate alarmists apparently want to close down Western civilisation without any empirical data at all to back up their theories.
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Over the long term however, the ocean with a mass 1400 times that of the atmosphere dictates just how far atmospheric temps over land can stray. The ocean is like a large adult dragging a tiny child by one hand through the mall. It is the screaming, crying, and kicking of the child that we notice, but these have little to do with the direction of the child’s motion.
Thank you for that analogy. Very appropriate to climate as against weather as well. I hope you won’t mind my using it on occasion.
Once again my considered and highly scientific opinion on the subject of sea temperatures:
The global sea temperature has been more or less the same give or take a degree or so over the last 1000 years. Get over it.
Ivor Ward
Vukcevic says, August 11, 2012 at 1:56 am:Steven lives in a convoluted subroutines of many computer programming languages. Analog thinking process causes crush in his undutiful capacious processing intelligence. Otherwise he isn’t a bad guy.
That is beside the point. Nobody is saying that Steven Mosher isn’t intelligent, kind to animals and young children, etc., and has probably never, ever committed a crime.
What we are objecting to is that he is being incredibly rude and insensitive whilst a guest at Anthony’s private party.
That big curve from 1860 down to 1920 and up to present agrees with the record of Armagh, presumably “non-continental” and non-air-conditioned.
http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2012/08/christys-minimum-temp-hypothesis.html
Can’t really blame NCDC for using 1895; that’s when the Weather Bureau set up its telegraph observation network, so it’s the start of regular records for most of America. It’s not a deliberate fudging of timeline. But starting at 1895 skips half of the curve, so most records are heading mainly upward since then.
Steven Mosher says:
August 10, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Not suggesting heat in the pipeline.
MAT is well known.
Another interesting source of data are the bouys that take air temperature.
looking at the difference between SST, SAT and MAT is fun and instructive.
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I mentioned the buoys (learn to spell) years ago, and Moshers response “Giss doesn’t use the buoy data.” Kinda late to the party, eh Mosh? Did you ever figure out ICOADS? Need help?
PRAT!
David Socrates says:
August 11, 2012 at 3:49 am
What we are objecting to is that he is being incredibly rude and insensitive
Hi David.
Not disputed, it is his trademark
This comment attracted my attention to Steven Mosher’s existence :
steven mosher ( Earth’s Magnetic Field & Global Warming Comment #48007)
July 6th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
theres a guy on WUWT who blathers on about this. i think. i generally tune out
Mosher was referring to my WUWT posts.
I am looking forward to hearing (sooner than later) that Steven may be eating his hat.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-074
March 09, 2011
…one possibility is the movements of Earth’s core might disturb Earth’s magnetic shielding of charged-particle (i.e., cosmic ray) fluxes that have been hypothesized to affect the formation of clouds. This could affect how much of the sun’s energy is reflected back to space and how much is absorbed by our planet.
henrythethird: Check the last month of the MOHMAT data. I believe you’ll find that it’s 2007.
Arno Arrak says: “Bob – Sea surface temperature in general has very little to do with continental interiors with the exception of the SST in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific.”
You need to study a subject, Arno, before you make general statements like that that have no basis in fact.
I believe you’ll find that about 85% of the variations in short-term and long-term land surface temperatures are in response to variations in sea surface temperatures. There are a multitude of observation-based and model-based studies about that subject. I’ve even written posts about it, using data to support my findings.
BTW, your descripton of an El Nino event’s impact on surface temperature fails to consider that the majority of El Nino events are central Pacific, not east Pacific El Nino.
Steven Mosher says:
August 10, 2012 at 12:35 pm
“It would be instructive to actually look at the historical relationship between land temps and SST.”
You can do it by looking at the graph of the first temp plot. Remembering in a general way the warm and cool period of the last century – hot 30s -not so hot sea temps, cold 50s-60s hot sea temps but it seems that the sea lags the land by several years – probably decadal oscillations at work rather than lagging land heat.
Arno: Further to my comment above, your description of El Nino cause and continental U.S. land surface temperature effect should exclude your reference to Kelvin waves crashing against the shore of the Americas. During an El Nino, it’s the change in location of the primary place of convection (from the Pacific Warm Pool to the central and sometimes eastern equatorial Pacific) that causes the shift in the jet streams, which in turn cause warming in some places and cooling in others.
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Steven Mosher says:
August 10, 2012 at 12:35 pm
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Mosher, bit of advice. Stop (deliberately?) alienating Anthony. He’s your host here.
How to break an egg to know what’s inside
I surprised the low correlations with regions of ENSO and PDO.
http://oi49.tinypic.com/6pxbhi.jpg
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…… Not so simple: [/ crypto]
Silly, though realistically, this (follow the link) is about all they’ve got, isn’t it…
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=346150228804087&set=a.170722733013505.44509.167318430020602&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf
davidmhoffer:
Thankyou for your permission to use your analogy.
I, too, am shocked by the REP news. He was the best moderator I have seen on any blog. It is a terrible loss to us so I dare not think about the magnitude of the loss to his family.
Richard
davidmhoffer:
You mentioned the death of Moderator REP in your above post addressed to me. I wonder if you have noticed that the egregious Eric Grimsrud has used the REP condolences thread to make more of his disgraceful assertions.
I have not answered because so-doing there would be very wrong. But you may be interested to know that according to him you and I are “quacks” and “professional deniers”.
That anybody would post such comments on that thread emphasises what we already know of him.
Richard
You’re not going to find a good correlation of US temperatures to surrounding sea surface temperatures.
One issue is that US temperatures are so variable – they can be +/- 5.0C on a monthly basis while sea surface temperatures never have that kind of variability.
I’ve tried dozens of different sea surface temperature metrics before and have not found any kind of good match. A simple one that is as good as any other is the AMO index covering most of the north Atlantic and it is not good enough in my opinion.
http://s10.postimage.org/o5h5k5iw9/CONUS_and_the_AMO_July2012.png
The prevailing wind patterns means that the North Pacific and the Tropical South Atlantic ocean should be influencing US temperatures but this is nothing to write home about either.
http://s16.postimage.org/riycv45at/CONUS_and_N_Pac_Trop_N_Atl_July2012.png
Global temperatures for July are not that hot either.
UAH Global Temperature Update for July 2012: +0.28C,
COOLER than June, 2012: +0.37 deg.
If one wants to argue about GLOBAL warming, should one not look first at GLOBAL temperatures?
Allan MacRae says
UAH Global Temperature Update for July 2012: +0.28C,
COOLER than June, 2012: +0.37 deg.
If one wants to argue about GLOBAL warming, should one not look first at GLOBAL temperatures?
Henry says
I think we argued about this before
UAH is nowhere near global, I think it covers only the tropics?
David Socrates says
HenryP, you have done some excellent research! Measuring regression slopes often reveals underlying trends very clearly
Henry says
there are not too many people who figured this
as far as I am concerned I have come to the end of my research because now there is not much for me to learn /
give me some time to check you research, thx, I don’t have time now…
David Socrates says
But my second graph plots regression slopes over each successive 50 year interval since 1770.
Henry says
I got your first graph on rainfall: not much change -looking from 1895 to 1995.
What happens to that slope if you remove everything before 1895?
(I don’t trust too much of anything before 1900)
I did not get your 2nd graph, you did not give me a link?
HenryP says:
August 11, 2012 at 10:51 am
Henry says
UAH is nowhere near global, I think it covers only the tropics?
IIRC, the UAH dataset covers 82.5° N to 82.5° S. A fairly good chuck of the globe. Given that the Arctic is likely on the warm side while the Antarctic slightly on the cool side, it might underestimate the temps slightly. However, I don’t think it’s anything meaningful. In addition, Arctic temps in the summer are always consistent so for the June/July numbers it should be very accurate.
richardscourtney;
re: ericgrimsrud
It looks like the offensive parts of his comment have since been snipped (which is appropriate).
As for Grimsrud himself, one rarely runs into such a complete package of pompous arrogance mixed with complete ignorance of the subject matter he purports to have expertise in. Being called a quack by someone like Mann or Hansen would be validation. Being called a quack by Grimsrud is just amusing.
R.S.Brown says:
The flow into the Great Lakes as a collective whole comes from U.S. states
not totally within the “2012 Dought” area, but well within the region that’s
had temperatures elevated (not necessarily record highs) since June.
I suspect that there might be the odd river or stream in Canada flowing into the Great Lakes.
Richard M says
IIRC, the UAH dataset covers 82.5° N to 82.5° S. A fairly good chuck of the globe. Given that the Arctic is likely on the warm side while the Antarctic slightly on the cool side…
Henry says
going from the end of that statement to the beginning:
On the one side of the arctic it is warming a bit: e.g. if you look at Norway, where a lot of condensation takes place, releasing energy,
but if you look on the other side, e.g. at Anchorage, the amount of cooling is frightening.
Check it up in my tables, http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
Indeed, as you seem to know and, as, until now, I suspected, in the antarctic I think the cooling down is even worse, but, strangely enough, I cannot find reliable original data showing me maxima, means and minima, from weather stations in the antarctic, to include in my tables….(I am more interested in maxima data then average temp.data)
Someone or some body is trying to hide that data. Help me if you can.
Looking at my own data, I think UAH is out by a bit. We are down by at least o.2K on earth since 2000.
I would have to know the UAH calibration procedures and accuracy and precision data before you can convince me that I can trust UAH.
HenryP says, August 11, 2012 at 11:43 am: I did not get your 2nd graph, you did not give me a link?
Scroll down from the 1st graph on the same page!