Bishop Hill via correspondent Gras Albert noted this event early today:
![acqua[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/acqua1.jpg?quality=83)
I looked through the entire satellite record, and couldn’t find any similar event. That meant it was either unique, or indicative of a technology failure like we witnessed with NSIDC when one of their sensor channels gave out. I asked Dr. Roy Spencer if he thought this was real, and he responded with an update, seen below:
Aqua AMSU ch. 5 Bites the Dust
March 25th, 2013By Dr. Roy Spencer
Many people have noted on the satellite temperatures webpage the plunge in temperatures as recorded by AMSU channel 5 on the Aqua satellite. Since it looked pretty suspicious, I decided to investigate.
The following plot shows 3 satellites’ global AMSU5 measurements (Aqua, NOAA-15, and NOAA-18) that I computed this morning from the raw orbit files. The dates run from Feb. 1 through yesterday, March 24:
Clearly, Aqua AMSU ch 5 is now “out to lunch”. The reason why the plunge in Aqua temperatures in the above plot is so much stronger than what is displayed on the daily update website is that the latter shows running 3-day averages, and is only updated through March 23.
We knew that this channel has been slowly failing for a long time, which is why we have not been using it in our monthly updates. We will discuss the possibility of switching to the NOAA satellites on the website, although since the site is NASA-funded, they are reluctant to spend resources on NOAA satellite data. But, given the popularity of the page, we will work something out even if we have to make our own web page.
It reminds me of the time-vs-current plot for a superconductor as the refrigerant ran out.
Well, Aqua AMSU Ch.5 may have bitten the dust, but our cold weather is now forecast to be with us for a while…
From Accuweather…
Midwest, Northeast to Endure More Cold Well into April
By Alex Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist
March 25, 2013; 2:16 PM
…, the overall weather pattern into the first part of April will continue to run about a month or so behind schedule. March behaved a lot like a typical February, and it appears the first half of April will be what March should have been like.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/midwest-northeast-to-endure-mo/8833275
I have to admit, I was sort of excited!
It’s the same on ch’s 6, 7 & 8. Do they use the same satellite?
Record March cold in Europe and North America! Historical proportions. Who’s zooming who?
can’t they just adjust or improve this somehow….
…and go on about their business
SNARK
It’s CAGC (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Cooling)! We were told authoritatively, by Professor John Beddington, on the BBC today, that the severe cold in UK is caused by too much CO2. Looks like he was right! And Mr Mann was right too (but he just got his hockey stick upside down, that’s all – an honest mistake that anyone could make)!
</irony
Roy Spencer confirms that Channel 6 & 7 are unaffected by the Channel 5 failure, both show around 0.4degC decline in the past 9 days
Roy’s plot of the two NOAA satellites AMSU5 (see above) shows a similar fall in 600mb GAT.
While unusual, a fall of this rate/magnitude in March is not unprecedented, see March 2004 & 2007 for similar events. It will be interesting to watch what happens for the rest of the month.
As an aside, March CET in the UK is now on target to be the coldest since 1962 and among the coldest five March months for a century
It dropped another half a degree today so I think it is now pretty obviously a malfunction. Hopefully, we get the newer satellite data soon.
@ur momisugly Bryan A says:
My vote is yes–the failure has been driving the recorded temps higher making a bitterly cold December and January in the NH look as if it were above the anomaly. I have wondered and whined about this here at WUWT and Dr. Spencer’s blog several times–we have had a bitterly cold NH winter with record breaking cold all over the place and the satellite data reported that we were above the anomaly… Dr. Spencer, could you revisit this?
Doug Proctor:
He he he–lets do it!
I love it…the contrast is so evident…Skeptics see data that makes no sense whatsoever, but in the direction of their argument and say “that data looks bad, let’s investigate why.” Warmists see data that makes no sense but in the warming direction and immediately say “It’s worse than we thought!”
“Currently using Central England Temperature (CET) data the mean temperature for March is a fraction under 3.3C.” That’s a 38F mean!
There is now everywhere more snow than 5 years ago. In the past cold weather in Europe correlated well with warm weather in North America and vice versa. Now it is cold in Europe, the US and Asia.
http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/cryo_compare_small.jpg
Dare I say it? It’s unprecedented!
How bizarre. It was my understanding that these satellite systems were programmed to display higher temperatures upon catastrophic failure, so that their data would not have to be eliminated from the record.
As Tony so astutely commented after the NSIDC incident:
“This is an interesting admission……This makes you wonder what other kinds of issues remain undetected in the satellite data.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/21/greenland-ice-melt-overestimated-due-to-satellite-data-algorithm-issue/#more-82559
So if it was known to be faulty, why was the plot allowed to continue?
I am sure this Thing of the Past is nothing but a sensor error as well.
People like Village Idiot predictably cast doubt on satellite data knowing that it is the only way to measure global average temperature without homogenizing urban heating into large areas. They can’t be denied their 0.2C per decade even though that itself doesn’t ensure catastrophe.
The “Year to Date” CET negative anomaly will, within several weeks, almost certainly surpass anything seen since the 1880’s. More importantly, the Northern Hemisphere cold is widespread and severe. It will be interesting to see how the Instrumental vs. Satellite data depict this in coming months.
@- Rob
“More importantly, the Northern Hemisphere cold is widespread and severe.”
There have been weird and extreme weather patterns in the N hemisphere this winter, but while the temperate zones are unusually cold, the Arctic is unusually warm. Part of the ‘Lance Armstrong’ climate and caused in part by the increased variation on the path of the jet streams as the temperature difference between the temperate and arctic regions is reduced.
These extremes, coldest winter in N hemisphere and hottest summerin the S hemihere are just the sort of thing that is predicted from climate changes.
From past viewing the AMSU graphs 600mb changes are usually about twice those of the 400mb so the decline maybe not be too far off but probably exaggerated by technical error.
To Michael Mann that is some solid data.
Izen, the Eath’s global temperatures have been flat for more than a decade. That is just the sort of thing not predicted by climate change.
izen said “These extremes… are just the sort of thing are is predicted from climate changes”.
What is predicted is a less variation in the polar jet because a stronger (and thus less variable) jet will be produced by a lower continent to ocean temperature gradient (mainly within the Arctic) and other reasons.
Essentially the Arctic will become more like the Antarctic with less N/S wave penetraton. See Held 1993: http://courses.washington.edu/pcc587/readings/Held1993.pdf