It has been a while since I’ve presented the GISS, UK Met Office and NCDC global land surface air temperature plus sea surface temperature products. I’ve decided to add them to the datasets I update monthly.
I’ll present each of the datasets individually, starting in January 1979, using the suppliers’ standard base years for anomalies. 1979 is the start year of the lower troposphere temperature products (not included), so it’s a logical start time for these short-term data presentations. The GISS, UK Met Office and NCDC products with linear trends are then presented in a comparison graph, using the base years of 1981-2010. And for those wanting a better look at the most recent wiggles, the last comparison graph starts in January 2003—the last decade plus. The final graph is the average of the 3 products.
GISS LAND OCEAN TEMPERATURE INDEX (LOTI)
Introduction: The GISS Land Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) data is a product of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Starting with their January 2013 update, it uses NCDC ERSST.v3b sea surface temperature data. The impact of the recent change in sea surface temperature datasets is discussed here. GISS adjusts GHCN and other land surface temperature data via a number of methods and infills missing data using 1200km smoothing. Refer to the GISS description here. Unlike the UK Met Office and NCDC products, GISS masks sea surface temperature data at the poles where seasonal sea ice exists, and they extend land surface temperature data out over the oceans in those locations. Refer to the discussions here and here. GISS uses the base years of 1951-1980 as the reference period for anomalies. The data source is here.
Update: The February 2013 GISS global temperature anomaly is 0.49 deg C. It dropped -0.11 deg C since January 2013.
GISS LOTI
UK MET OFFICE HADCRUT4
Introduction: The UK Met Office HADCRUT4 dataset merges CRUTEM4 land-surface air temperature dataset and the HadSST3 sea-surface temperature (SST) dataset. CRUTEM4 is the product of the combined efforts of the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. And HadSST3 is a product of the Hadley Centre. Unlike the GISS and NCDC products, missing data is not infilled in the HADCRUT4 product. That is, if a 5-deg latitude by 5-deg longitude grid does not have a temperature anomaly value in a given month, it is not included in the global average value of HADCRUT4. The HADCRUT4 dataset is described in the Morice et al (2012) paper here. The CRUTEM4 data is described in Jones et al (2012) here. And the HadSST3 data is presented in the 2-part Kennedy et al (2012) paper here and here. The UKMO uses the base years of 1961-1990 for anomalies. The data source is here.
Update: The February 2013 HADCRUT4 global temperature anomaly is +0.48 deg C. It increased +0.05 deg C since January 2013.
HADCRUT4
NCDC GLOBAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES
Introduction: The NOAA Global (Land and Ocean) Surface Temperature Anomaly dataset is a product of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). NCDC merges their Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature version 3b (ERSST.v3b) with the Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly (GHCN-M) version 3.2.0 data for land surface air temperature anomalies. NOAA infills missing data for both land and sea surface temperature datasets using methods presented in Smith et al (2008). The data source is here. NCDC uses 1901 to 2000 for the base years for anomalies.
Update: The February 2013 NCDC global land plus sea surface temperature anomaly is +0.58 deg C. It increased +0.04 deg C since January 2013.
NCDC
COMPARISON
The three datasets are compared in the next two time-series graphs. The first graph compares the GISS, HADCRUT4 and NCDC global surface temperature anomaly products starting in 1979. It also includes the linear trends. Because the three datasets share common source data, (GISS and NCDC also use the same sea surface temperature data) it should come as no surprise that they are so similar. For those wanting a closer look at the more recent wiggles, the second graph starts in 2003. Both of the comparisons present the anomalies using the base years of 1981 to 2010. Referring to their discussion under FAQ 9 here, according to NOAA:
This period is used in order to comply with a recommended World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Policy, which suggests using the latest decade for the 30-year average.
Comparison Starting in 1979
###########
Comparison Starting in 2003
AVERAGE
The last graph presents the average of the GISS, HADCRUT and NCDC land plus sea surface temperature anomaly products. The flatness of the data since 2001 is very obvious, as is the fact that surface temperatures have rarely risen above those created by the 1997/98 El Niño.
Average of Global Land+Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Products
” Unlike the UK Met Office and NCDC products, GISS masks sea surface temperature data at the poles where seasonal sea ice exists, and they extend land surface temperature data out over the oceans in those locations. Refer to the discussions here and here. GISS uses the base years of 1951-1980 as the reference period for anomalies. The data source is here.”
NCDC uses the hadsst ice mask.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1979/to:2014/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014/plot/wti/from:1979/to:2014/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014/trend
Steven Mosher says: “NCDC uses the hadsst ice mask.”
Irrelevant, if it’s correct, because the NCDC does not then extend land surface temperature anomalies out over the oceans as GISS does.
Gary Pearse says: “Bob, if March also shows anomalous warming over Feb 2013, then I have to protest.”
Sorry, Gary, this is the February 2013 data. I held this post until the UKMO data was released last Friday.
Not sure why Steven Mosher pubilshed this 1979 to 2014 Woodfortrees plot above as Bob Tisdale has already demonstrated the upward trend since 1979 above combining Hadcrut, Giss and NCDC.
“Steven Mosher says:
April 1, 2013 at 9:22 am
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1979/to:2014/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014/plot/wti/from:1979/to:2014/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014/trend”
We can all play with Wood for Trees and at this particular juncture the key issue is surely that there is a temperature standstill whilst CO2 emissions continue to go up. I can play as well changing Mosher’s graph to start with 1998 and I get a clear linear trend pointing in the opposite direction or
straight. The key is (in my humble opinion) that Gavin Smith suggested 10 years without a temperature increase in the face of increasing CO2 could be a problem. Noaa extended this to 15 years and then Santer produced a peer reviewed paper with 17 years. We are now at the point where Santer or whoever have to come up with another paper to avoid the “warmers” or “lukewarmers” having to concede that their AGW or CAGW theories are falsified. That is the issue. Perhaps Steven Mosher as a prominent “lukewarmer” (I think) could address this issue of global temperature standstill and attribution. I would appear that as time goes by the CO2 forcing at doubling of CO2 is creeping down towards Lintzen and Spencer’s 1C near enough. That is rather less alarming I think.
Is it just me, or do I see the apex of a peak and the start of a downwards trend?
Chris says:
April 1, 2013 at 10:18 am
“Is it just me, or do I see the apex of a peak and the start of a downwards trend?”
No! There’s still more warming “in the pipeline”. /cagw
(I find it amusing that the warmists use the imagery of a “pipeline” given their virulent opposition to ALL oil and natural gas production…)
D. Cohen says: “Roughly speaking, the first third and last third of the data look flat, while the middle third looks like it could be represented by an upward trend. Isn’t that more suggestive of some sort of oscillation rather than an overall upward trend?”
It’s much easier to make out what’s going on if we look at sea surface temperature data. The sea surface temperatures of the East Pacific Ocean haven’t warmed in 31 years:
http://oi47.tinypic.com/hv8lcx.jpg
And sea surface temperatures of the Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific oceans only warmed during strong El Niño events:
http://oi49.tinypic.com/29le06e.jpg
For more info see “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge” (42MB):
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/the-manmade-global-warming-challenge.pdf
Regards
Bob Tisdale says:
April 1, 2013 at 5:42 am
…
It’s quite remarkable how the linear trend line obscures the recent flattening of rise in global temperatures.
=============
Absolutely. Just as it hides the flat-line for Jan ’80 thru Feb ’93 {roll eyes}.
This ubiquitous image never rang more true → http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Escalator_2012_500.gif
John@EF:
I enjoyed your All Fools Day joke at April 1, 2013 at 11:58 am. Very funny.
For those who looked at your link and are unaware of how funny your post is, I link to a WUWT thread which discusses that risible SkS graph
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/25/skeptical-science-misrepresents-their-animation-the-escalator/
In that thread even supporters of the graph admit it is misleading and try to excuse it as “satirical parody”.
Thanks for the laugh.
Richard
The perfect article… ahead of AR5, with the sea level rise fearmongering to boot!
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1767.html
R. Bintanja
G. J. van Oldenborgh
S. S. Drijfhout
B. Wouters
& C. A. Katsman
Abstract: “Changes in sea ice significantly modulate climate change because of its high reflective and strong insulating nature. In contrast to Arctic sea ice, sea ice surrounding Antarctica has expanded1, with record extent2 in 2010. This ice expansion has previously been attributed to dynamical atmospheric changes that induce atmospheric cooling3. Here we show that accelerated basal melting of Antarctic ice shelves is likely to have contributed significantly to sea-ice expansion. Specifically, we present observations indicating that melt water from Antarctica’s ice shelves accumulates in a cool and fresh surface layer that shields the surface ocean from the warmer deeper waters that are melting the ice shelves. Simulating these processes in a coupled climate model we find that cool and fresh surface water from ice-shelf melt indeed leads to expanding sea ice in austral autumn and winter. This powerful negative feedback counteracts Southern Hemispheric atmospheric warming. Although changes in atmospheric dynamics most likely govern regional sea-ice trends4, our analyses indicate that the overall sea-ice trend is dominated by increased ice-shelf melt. We suggest that cool sea surface temperatures around Antarctica could offset projected snowfall increases in Antarctica, with implications for estimates of future sea-level rise.”
Seems pretty clear to me. If the GISS monthly temp drop continues (-0.11 C), by end of century it will be -114.84 C colder. Nearly the ‘temperature of Space’ per Poisson.
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/greenhouse%20revisited2.pdf
Fantastic paper by Dr. Vincent Gray…stunning revelations about the ‘scientific underpinnings’ and history of the CAWG fiasco (was linked in earlier post by Anthony – the weekly SEPP review).
I’d never known how fragile was the ‘science’ and provenance of Arrhenius’ theory of CO2 IR ‘heating’, (and that he was actually measuring WATER VAPOUR!!!)
Would be a priceless April Fool’s joke, if it wasn’t so real (and serious).
CAGW…alphabet soup error.
I suspect the increase in Feb is down to the stunning Summer in New Zealand. Our seven official surface stations cover tens of thousands of square kilometres of southern ocean once gridded. All hail the magnificent seven.
richardscourtney says:
April 1, 2013 at 12:20 pm
John@EF:
I enjoyed your All Fools Day joke at April 1, 2013 at 11:58 am. Very funny.
{link to tisdale’s petty analysis}
Thanks for the laugh.
Richard
=============
Now that is funny. You link to an ultra-petty analysis indicating one of the five mini-trends was slightly askew???? In my mind it was always a spot-on parody of cherry-picked “skeptic world” mini-trends within noisy time series data … that’s what makes it funny. Now I know it’s even more spot-on. Thanks for the laugh, Richard.
John@EF:
I am replying to your post at April 1, 2013 at 1:19 pm.
I admit to being bewildered. I enjoyed your All Fools Day joke which presented the SkS escalator as though it were serious. And I said I enjoyed it.
But you now press the matter as though you were being serious in posting that fallacious and ridiculous nonsense. I find it hard to believe that anybody would seriously present that refuted piece of nonsense, so it seems most likely that you are pressing the joke.
However, it is possible that you are being serious, and I intend no offence by responding as though you are so stupid as to be seriously ;presenting that nonsense. I do this because there may be onlookers who are taking your joke seriously.
The SkS escalator is a construct which attempts to mislead by selecting arbitrary zones in a time series graph of global temperature. As I said, it was discussed in the WUWT thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/25/skeptical-science-misrepresents-their-animation-the-escalator/
People who want to really enjoy the joke can read that thread in which the providers of the graph from SkS participated in the discussion.
In that thread even supporters of the graph admit it is misleading and try to excuse it as “satirical parody”.
Richard
Gary Pearse says:
Gary, I’ve been protesting since Dec that something is wrong with all the data–Satellite and other wise both here and on Dr. Spencer’s site–not that I don’t trust him, I do–but you are right–it has been a bitterly cold winter in the NH. You can’t have as many record breaking colds–it was 91 F below zero in Russia for heaven’s sake–weeks and months of record breaking cold all over the NH and we keep hearing that the we are above the anomaly for the globe. Jeef’s explanation is one that I keep hearing:
Jeef says:
BUT–the anomaly is also for the NH in Spencer’s readings. I am protesting. I think the data reporting is wrong and at some point we’ll find out about (too late to make a point) –we also have that satellite that just went down–how long has that data been compromised?
No Gary–don’t wait for March to protest–we are facing this problem with the data readings since December 2012–some thing is wrong….
John Peter
“We can all play with Wood for Trees and at this particular juncture the key issue is surely that there is a temperature standstill whilst CO2 emissions continue to go up. I can play as well changing Mosher’s graph to start with 1998 and I get a clear linear trend pointing in the opposite direction or
straight. ”
The point of the chart had nothing to do with the supposed standstill ( there is no standstill, statistically speaking). The point was something else
“The key is (in my humble opinion) that Gavin Smith suggested 10 years without a temperature increase in the face of increasing CO2 could be a problem. Noaa extended this to 15 years and then Santer produced a peer reviewed paper with 17 years. We are now at the point where Santer or whoever have to come up with another paper to avoid the “warmers” or “lukewarmers” having to concede that their AGW or CAGW theories are falsified. That is the issue. ”
Theories are never falsified. They are typically amended to make sense of new information. In the case of climate science one could expect to see people adopt a climate sensitivity below the IPCC average of 3.2. If you want to “falsify” AGW, attacking models is a loosing battle since models have nothing to due with the truth of the basic science.
Perhaps Steven Mosher as a prominent “lukewarmer” (I think) could address this issue of global temperature standstill and attribution. I would appear that as time goes by the CO2 forcing at doubling of CO2 is creeping down towards Lintzen and Spencer’s 1C near enough. That is rather less alarming I think.
Actually back in 2008 I suggest that looking at models was a good way to see that sensitivity was less than 3.2C, When the IPCC was predicting .2C per decade, I thought .15C was a better number and said so. In fact it was one of the early definitions of lukewarmer.
The standstill; Statistically speaking there isnt one. When Santer published his 17year number, I said the real number should be around 25. Attribution? attribution is a meaningless exercise. We know NET increased forcing causes increased warming. We know that C02 increases forcing. If one could hold other variables constant increased C02 would lead to an increased NET forcing. In reality as c02 goes up other forcings ( solar, aersols, ozone, UV) have changed. Parsing out why the last 15 years have only seen a small net forcing increase and a small temperature increase ( not significant) is an active area of research, but nothing can be found to contradict what we have known for over a hundred years; increased net forcing means higher temps. C02 can contribute to positive net forcing. And other forcings ( negative forcings) can and will counteract it
‘April 1, 2013 at 9:29 am
Steven Mosher says: “NCDC uses the hadsst ice mask.”
Irrelevant, if it’s correct, because the NCDC does not then extend land surface temperature anomalies out over the oceans as GISS does.”
Also wrong. The final SST product has land values blended into the SST cells.
I notice in one figure at least you present a straight line trend for the data.
Given that it appears that climate is dominated by cycles – take the 60 year cycle for example – I dont know why you dont attempt something a little more courageous and fit a 60 year cycle to the data
It would make much more scientific sense than a line that starts at an arbitrary year just because someone launched a satellite.
I think the IPCCs fantasy of a linear upwards trend has passed and its really time to be a bit more creative in your thinking.
richardscourtney says:
April 1, 2013 at 1:35 pm
John@EF:
I am replying to your post at April 1, 2013 at 1:19 pm.
I admit to being bewildered. I enjoyed your All Fools Day joke which presented the SkS escalator as though it were serious. And I said I enjoyed it.
=======
Did you really enjoy it, Richard … Of course it’s parody. It was Tisdale who went thru the petty exercise of trying to make it seem serious in a technical sense. What makes parody funny is kernel of truth within. SkS was mocking the use of cherry-picked time lines to provide nonsense support, or self-deception, re: a dogmatic POV.
A great example in your link is the silliness of selecting a temperature trend staring in 1880 in an attempt to lend weight to the “discovered” trend in the scrutinized PARODY mini-trend segment. Of course that was just nuts ‘cuz he was serious, and in so doing justified the parody all the more. Do you know how many years it took for many “fake skeptics” to pull back from pointing at temperature trends for timelines starting in 1998???! … several.
… nilyisoeopbbtjy
Here we show that accelerated basal melting of Antarctic ice shelves is likely to have contributed significantly to sea-ice expansion. Specifically, we present observations indicating that melt water from Antarctica’s ice shelves accumulates in a cool and fresh surface layer that shields the surface ocean from the warmer deeper waters that are melting the ice shelves.
Try as I might, I can’t interpret this as anything other than contradictory nonsense.
Melting ice shelves create a surface layer of cold water that promotes sea ice growth. That’s possible.
Then they say observations show the surface layer of cold water protects the ice sheets from melting. Fair enough, a negative feedback, limiting melt.
So how does the accelerated basal melting happen, when they have shown a negative feedback limits melting?
Bob, apologies for taking your thread OT.
Steven Mosher:
At April 1, 2013 at 3:11 pm you assert
Oh! So you think the Earth is the centre of the Solar System and combustion is an effect of phlogiston?
Since you say “theories are never falsified” it follows that you accept the phlogiston theory of combustion and can tell me how to get some phlogiston. I want some and eagerly wait your telling me how to find some.
Richard
John@EF:
Your post at April 1, 2013 at 3:30 pm displays a misunderstanding.
If you want to know how long it has been since there was any discernible global warming at 95% confidence then you have to start from now. Any other date is ‘cherry picking’.
It turns out that – depending on which time series is analysed – the time of no recent discernible global warming at 95% confidence is between 16 and 23 years. In other words, discernible global warming stopped at least 16 years ago.
That refutes the AGW hypothesis as exemplified by global climate models.
This is explained in IPCC AR4 (2007) Chapter 10.7 which can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-7.html
It says there
In other words, it was expected that global temperature would rise at an average rate of “0.2°C per decade” over the first two decades of this century with half of this rise being due to atmospheric GHG emissions which were already in the system
This assertion of “committed warming” should have had large uncertainty because the Report was published in 2007 and there was then no indication of any global temperature rise over the previous 7 years. There has still not been any rise and we are now way past the half-way mark of the “first two decades of the 21st century”.
So, if this “committed warming” is to occur such as to provide a rise of 0.2°C per decade by 2020 then global temperature would need to rise over the next 7 years by about 0.4°C. And this assumes the “average” rise over the two decades is the difference between the temperatures at 2000 and 2020. If the average rise of each of the two decades is assumed to be the “average” over those two decades then global temperature needs to rise before 2020 by more than it rose over the entire twentieth century. It only rose ~0.8°C over the entire twentieth century.
Simply, the “committed warming” has disappeared (presumably it has gone to sup at the same pub as Trenberth’s ‘missing heat’).
I add that the disappearance of the “committed warming” is – of itself – sufficient to falsify the AGW hypothesis as emulated by climate models . If we reach 2020 without any detection of the “committed warming” then it will be 100% certain that all projections of global warming are complete bunkum.
Richard
The standstill; Statistically speaking there isnt one.
By that I assume you mean tell people the standstill isn’t statistically significant. Which is of course utterly false. The temperature trend of the last 15 years is based on millions of observations, and assuming those observations aren’t massively biased, any change or lack of change, even over a much shorter period, would highly statistically significant.
When Santer published his 17year number, I said the real number should be around 25. Attribution? attribution is a meaningless exercise. We know NET increased forcing causes increased warming. We know that C02 increases forcing. If one could hold other variables constant increased C02 would lead to an increased NET forcing. In reality as c02 goes up other forcings ( solar, aersols, ozone, UV) have changed.
We don’t know that net increased forcings causes increased warming. The forcings theory predicts this, but the empirical evidence is weak. A strong correlation between forcings change and temperature (or heat content) is needed, and that has never been demonstrated.
As forcings become better quantified over time, one would expect predictive accuracy to improve. This hasn’t happened, and over the last 15 years predictive accuracy has got markedly worse. Suggesting the forcings theory is seriously flawed.