Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade
March temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.18 C (about 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for March.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.33 C (about 0.59 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for March.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.04 C (about 0.07 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for March.
Tropics: +0.22 C (about 0.40 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for March.
February temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.18 C above 30-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.37 C above 30-year average
Southern Hemisphere: -0.02 C below 30-year average
Tropics: +0.17 C above 30-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 30-year average (1981-2010) for the month reported.)
Notes on data released April 1, 2013:
UAH climate dataset offers new products
Two new climate ‘products’ will soon be available from the UAH temperature dataset, while a long standing product has been improved to make it more accurate, according to Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. The “USA48” data, which tracks month-to-month temperature anomalies and the long-term climate trend over the contiguous 48 states, has been made more accurate by using a more precise tool for including the pieces of land adjacent to oceans.
The two new products are a USA49, which includes Alaska with the lower 48, and a listing for Australia, which includes Tasmania. Both of these new products will include temperature anomaly and trend data going back to the beginning of the UAH dataset in December 1978.
Compared to seasonal norms, during March the coldest area on the globe was in northeastern Russia, where the average temperature was as much as 6.49 C (about 11.7 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms. Looking at the global anomaly map also shows the eastern U.S. and central Canada becoming much cooler than normal in March.
Compared to seasonal norms, the “warmest” area on the globe in March was middle of the Davis Strait, between Greenland and Baffin Island. Temperatures there averaged 6.49 C (about 11.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms for March.
Archived color maps of local temperature anomalies are available on-line at:
The processed temperature data is available on-line at:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
As part of an ongoing joint project between UAHuntsville, NOAA and NASA, John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Dr. Roy Spencer, an ESSC principal scientist, use data gathered by advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.
The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data is collected and processed, it is placed in a “public” computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.
Neither Christy nor Spencer receives any research support or funding from oil, coal or industrial companies or organizations, or from any private or special interest groups. All of their climate research funding comes from federal and state grants or contracts.
— 30 —
Rob Potter says:
April 2, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Can people take a breath here – this report is the satellite record for the lower troposphere – it is not the land record.,
==============================================
True, but it is curious and an opportunity to learn. Before the satelite era, especially in the warm 40s, we had neither satelites or weather ballons. If we were to only judge todays surface T, by the same long running well situated stations active in the cooler early 1970s, I wonder how they would compare?
In the comment above (david says, april 2nd 3:40) I do mean the same stations from the 1970s that were used to establish the global meant T, compared to those same stations now. With a proper adjustment for UHI of course.
richard verney says:
April 2, 2013 at 3:29 pm
A more significant fact that has not yet been picked up by MSM is that for the UK the winter average has fallen some 1.5deg C since 2000. It would appear that UK winter temperatures are falling, and falling fast. The UK is not well prepared for this since the UK Met Office is always forecasting warmer temperatures.
====================================================
Indeed. Which is why our airports and local government were unprepared for heavy snow (that stuff of which children would know nothing) a couple of years ago, resulting in transport chaos. And right now our gas (cooking & heating, not autos) supply is close to being on a knife edge as a result of this winter’s prolonged cold. But still the major political parties are of the same voice re CAGW.
John Parsons AKA atarsinc
View from the Solent says: “But still the major political parties are of the same voice re CAGW.”
Solent, you may have a legitimate beef with your regional weather forcasters, but that says nothing about the veracity of AGW. The regional affects of AGW are going to be filled with surprises for scientists and lay folks. Many will undoubtedly be unpleasant. JP
atarsinc says:
April 2, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Don’t conflate Lower Tropospheric Temperatures with surface temps.
—————————————————–
They are very similar you know.
The UAH anomaly map is very similar to the surface temp map.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/march-2013-1_thumb.png?w=640&h=396
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_30a.rnl.gif
If you plot the UAH numbers against surface temps, they are very similar.
But most importantly, UAH is an objective source and does not continually cool the past and warm the present like the surface temperature recorders (NCDC, HadCru and GISS) do.
This is the only objective source we have which is semi-keeping-the-adjusters honest now (at least staring in 1979). Even RSS would happily jump on the adjustment train without Roy Spencer and UAH there to keep them honest.
I would throw out all the surface temperature records and have real statisticians redo the whole thing from the beginning. Hansen, Jones, Karl, Peterson and all that. (Can you imagine being a lowly IT/data processing person when the monthly numbers come out and Hansen is leaning over your shoulder. Of course, you are going to say, “you know James, I could just make an assumption about … and the number would go up 0.1C, just like last month, and the month before that …”.
Thank you Dr Christy for including Australia. That will be a great help to us all.
To those concerned about the difference between surface and tropospheric anomalies: annual means match quite well, at least for Australian land grids. As well, land surface temperatures have much greater fluctuation from hot to cold than tropospheric temperatures (and of course sea temperatures).
Ken Stewart
atarsinc says:
“The regional affects of AGW…”
That kind of fuzzy thinking is typical of the climate alarmist crowd. AGW refers to “global”, not “regional”.
Extreme weather events are always regional, and they have been decreasing for decades. Trying to label them as “AGW” shows, I think, considerable desperation; reaching for support. As a matter of scientific fact, AGW itself is only a conjecture.
AGW may well exist. But its effect is so minuscule that it cannot even be measured. AGW will remain a conjecture unless and until reliable, verifiable, testable measurements of it are produced — measurements that cannot be attributed to another cause.
UAH Global Temperature Report
A chart of y/100000 truths and x/100000 lies that misses uvwxyz/100000 unknows, to convey a certainity that doesn’t exist.
OK–right. the “The satellite-based microwave global average sea surface temperature (SST) update for March 2013 is -0.01 deg. C” and “global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for March, 2013 is +0.18 deg. C” BUT as G. Karst, Gary Pearse, Box of Rocks, Robert Wykoff, geran, and many others are astounded and question the anomaly being above average again in the face of bitter cold, explanations for us “laymen” rather than condescending quips are more in order, don’t you think? As A C Osborn so clearly says,
Temps have been tumbling–No it is not a falling into the “where I live is the world” trap. It is very real and enough of us are noticing it and now pointing it out and it appears that some at WUWT are thumbing their nose at us for noticing the extreme cold in wide areas of the NH*–and questioning the data and conclusions.
Rob Potter says: Can people take a breath here – this report is the satellite record for the lower troposphere – it is not the land record.
Thanks Rob–that actually is one of the best (not condescending) explanations–but still, why would the lower troposhere not reflect what we see on the surface?
Then Dr. Spencer let us know the SST is -.01, but Tisdale comes in saying “The global sea surface temperature anomalies are presently at about +0.21 deg C so WTF is anyone supposed to believe? (the “F” stands for frack, I’m a Glatica fan)
I would like to see an article or explanation on the discrepancies–not that any of us have much time to be researching articles–but if someone out there has the time and talent—- 🙂
* (as others have pointed out in “Japan through the Himalayas, Russia, Scandinavia, over almost all of Canada and halfway down the Central Plains of USA” in England and Germany and Belgium, Alaska—and sorry but parts of Africa and Asia being slightly warmer doesn’t undue the bitter record breaking cold in the rest of the NH)
Gary Hladik said
“South Park: “Tom, I’m currently 10 miles outside of Beaverton, unable to get inside the town proper. We do not have any reports of fatalities yet, but we believe that the death toll may be in the hundreds of millions.”
http://southpark-zone.blogspot.com/2008/01/s9-two-days-before-day-after-tomorrow.html ”
That South Park episode is a good one for kids having been forced in public school to watch Al Gore’s fictional /non scientific CAGW propaganda “film”?
I think that this South Park episode deserves the peace prize more than Al Gore’s film?
I would like to reword this and ask if anyone has the capacity and or intrest to check.
Rob Potter says:
April 2, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Can people take a breath here – this report is the satellite record for the lower troposphere – it is not the land record.,
==============================================
True, but it is curious and an opportunity to learn. Before the satelite era, especially in the warm 40s, we had neither satelites or weather ballons. If we were to only judge todays surface T, by the same long running well situated stations active in the cooler early 1970s, I wonder how they would compare? Also this time frame, as well as earlier cool periods would eliminate much of the SST factor in todays global average. (Yes, I know the pit falls of equating energy content with an average T, but it is what we have to work with.)
John Parsons AKA atarsinc
D.B. Stealey says: Climate Change cannot have regional affects. That’s “fuzzy thinking”.
Oh really? So the last Ice Age had no regional affects. Interesting. JP
atarsinc,
^That comment^ is not even wrong.
What is it about A •G• W that you can’t understand? AGW refers to global temperatures, not regional temperatures. It’s really as simple as that.
Also, I made no mention of “climate change”. Only you did. Red herring arguments like that are the result of fuzzy thinking.
atarsinc says:
April 2, 2013 at 8:36 pm
John Parsons AKA atarsinc
D.B. Stealey says: Climate Change cannot have regional affects. That’s “fuzzy thinking”.
Oh really? So the last Ice Age had no regional affects. Interesting. JP
============================================
The last Ice Age was globally cool. Currently we are not outside of historic norms, and have had no warming for 16 years.
John Parsons AKA atarsinc
D.B. Stealey says: Well…a bunch of stuff.
D.B. Do you not understand that global climatic affects create regional changes that vary greatly?AGW is one type of Climate Change. Ice Ages are another. I used the latter example so you might see the point without triggering an autonomic abnegation response. JP
david says:
April 2, 2013 at 8:53 pm
David, Please see the reply to D. B.
Climate is not measured in periods as short as sixteen years. It certainly is not measured by a sixteen year period begining with the year with the highest temperature recorded in a hundred years. (Or even the second highest) NCAR has a nice glossary that might help. JP
Affects ??
Is your first language Moronish ?
…. like your science.
philincalifornia says:
April 2, 2013 at 11:02 pm
Affects ??
Is your first language Moronish ?
Your grammatical point is correct. Why do you need the snide remarks? JP
Astarsinc said
“Solent, you may have a legitimate beef with your regional weather forcasters, but that says nothing about the veracity of AGW. The regional affects of AGW are going to be filled with surprises for scientists and lay folks. Many will undoubtedly be unpleasant. JP”
When we have natural GW(NGW) or hypothetical AGW. Equator will not get much warmer than it is, but polar areas will. The temperature gradient/difference between equator and the polar region will be less and give less wind and “weather”. Just like in the summer with regional warming of the North Pole and and equator more or less the same, mostly weak low pressures with less wind and less strong low pressures autumn/winter” storms lookalike?
The energy is the temperature difference and that should decrease with NGW or hypothetical AGW.
There must be hundreds of regional study’s globally showing more extreme weather in periods with natural global cooling and less extreme weather with NGW. Well documented in studies from our region, Svalbard to Norway and Iceland.
But climate change due to CO2 at calculated sensitivity levels should be detectable across a dozen years, according to the IPCC. Those sensitivity levels are going to need dialing back soon.
Day By Day says:
April 2, 2013 at 7:17 pm
///////////////////////////////////
You can add to your list of cold places, Southern Spain. Apart from a week at the beginning of January and a week at the end of Januray/beginning of February, the first 3 months of the year have been very cold.
I would normally be swimming at Easter but my swimming pool is at least 8 degC colder than is usual for this time of year. Warm weather is not being forecast in the next 10 days (a high of 23C with nighttime 14C is the peak). But surely this is hjust weather since we are sitting at the edge of the low which sits over the UK/Belgium/Holland.
But in the NH around UK, there does seem to be a change in temps on the way. Average winter temperatures in the UK have fallen by 1.5deg C since 2000. This drop is more than the 20th century rise! However, this is just the winter (3 month average Dec to Feb inclussive) average. The entire yearly average has fallen by 0.5degC. It does appear that the UK (and other European countries situated at similar latitude) are heading towards a period when winter temperatures will be cooler than the 30 year average. Probably this is something to do with ocean cycles.
Whilst the satelite data set has some issues, I prefer it to the other repeadedly adjusted thermometer data sets which have unfortunately become so basterdised to be next to useless. If only we had some decent ocean temperature records, we would know a lot more. Ocean temperature is the only important metric since their heat capacity dwarfs that of the atmosphere, and it is the ocean that drives the climate. Hey ho, that data simply does not exist.
atarsinc:
You are building yourself a reputation for being a conveyor of climate disinformation of the type supplied by e.g. SkS. This is annoying because – in this and other threads – your posts consume space by requiring corrections to prevent your assertions misleading the uninformed.
You provide such disinformation in your post at April 2, 2013 at 11:01 pm where you write.
That is plain wrong!
Climate is the summation of expected weather behaviours in a region, and can be expressed as an average of weather parameter(s) over ANY time period but the used time period must be stated.
For example, the 1994 IPCC Report used 4-year periods to determine climate and to assess climate change as indicated by frequency of hurricanes.
And
the various compilations of global temperature anomaly (including UAH) assess an observed climate metric for individual months.
If – as you assert – “Climate is not measured in periods as short as sixteen years” then the shortest climate period would be 17 years, and we would only have 7 or 8 data points for global temperature because measurements only began around 1880.
The datum being debated in this thread is “UAH global temperature for March 2013”. This datum is one measurement of the global climate for the month of March in 2013. It will be compared to other monthly climate data.
I suspect you may have been misinformed about the definition of a Standard Climate Period (SCP) which is 30 years. In 1958 the International Geophysical Year defined 30 years as being a SCP for the purely arbitrary reason that it was thought there was then sufficient data to deduce global climate data for the previous 30 years. Hence, comparisons of climate data should be made to a 30-year average (i.e. mean). The arbitrary choice of 30-years for SCP is unfortunate because 30 years is not a multiple of the 11-year solar cycle, the 22-year Hale cycle, or several other climate cycles.
The various global temperature data sets (i.e. UAH, RSS, HadCRUT, GISS, etc.) do not present temperatures but present ‘anomalies’ which are differences from an SCP average temperature. Importantly, each of them uses a different 30-year period as its SCP.
This adoption of global temperature anomalies is useful because it e.g. permits anomalies from different data sets to be adjusted so they have the same start values for comparison of their variations with time.
Importantly, the anomalies remove seasonal variation from global temperature. In each year the global temperature increases by 3.8degC from June to January and falls by the same amount from January to June. The use of anomalies removes this variation to reveal, for example, the rise of ~0.8deg.C in global temperature over the last century and to permit the UAH datum for March 2013 to the UAH value for February 2013..
In summation, your post at April 2, 2013 at 11:01 pm is bunkum.
Richard
I cannot comment about the recent weather (spring temperatures 2013) in southern Spain, but up on the north coast of Spain, there is still well-packed snow across all of the mountain peaks, and wet, cold weather below in the valleys.
Regular news reports about excess water, higher-than-usual water flows and high water across roads, reservoirs near-full, etc. Now, what’s this “crisis” about drouts we read from the well-funded CAGW publicists?
atarsinc says:
“AGW is one type of Climate Change. Ice Ages are another. I used the latter example so you might see the point without triggering an autonomic abnegation response.”
atarsinc, with our ‘automatic abnegation response’ antennae we can smoke out a climate alarmist from three states away. One large clue: you all seem to misuse language.
AGW is not “regional”, as you keep trying to assert. It is specifically global, by definition: ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’. But by admitting that fact you lose your mini-debate, so you keep backing, filling, and tap-dancing. Why not just admit that you were wrong, and we can move on? You’re only giving us a cudgel, and asking us to keep hitting you over the head with it. You’re making it too easy from a skeptic’s perspective. That’s the result of fuzzy thinking.
While you’re at it, face the fact that AGW itself is a non-issue. AGW, if it exists [and it probably does], is so small that it can be completely ignored for all practical purposes. Thus, the entire “carbon” scare can be ignored for the grant-fueled scare that it is.
The Hagerstown, MD (definitely UHI affected) station recorded 3.5F below average. The UAH shows -2.5F over that area. http://i4weather.net/mar13.txt
Mid-troposphere temps don’t perfectly reflect surface temps — inversions can cause that.