by Philip Gentry, UAH and Dr. Roy Spencer
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade
May temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.07 C (about 0.13 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.16 C (about 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Southern Hemisphere: -0.01 C (about 0.02 degrees Fahrenheit) below 30-year average for May.
Tropics: +0.11 C (about 0.20 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
April temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.10 C above 30-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.12 C above 30-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.09 C above 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 June 4, 2013:
Global average temperatures and the tropics continued a slow cooling drift in May, downward from a warm January, said Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Compared to seasonal norms, during May the coldest area on the globe was in northern Greenland, where the average temperature was as much as 3.75 C (about 6.7 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms. Compared to seasonal norms, the “warmest” area on the globe in May was in the northern Siberia. Temperatures there were as much as 3.91 C (about 7.0 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms for May.
Archived color maps of local temperature anomalies are available on-line at:
http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/
The processed temperature data is available on-line at:
vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
As part of an ongoing joint project between UAHuntsville, NOAA and NASA, Christy 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 —
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The nearest station to me (~50 miles south, 1,000 feet lower) with a report shows 10 days in early May as warm but not record-setting. Otherwise all is pretty “normal.” At the site below the top middle chart is for May.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/temp_graphs.php?stn=KYKM&wfo=pdt
The current week is expected to have night time temps high enough to get tomato set. So no more of this drift to lower temps, please.
Whoa – I need to check this more often… lol.
I said our street was snowed IN a few times in the 70s, which means there was so much snow you couldn’t get through it. Usually that was a combination of heavy snow and wind drifting it in. This has not happened on that street since then, which doesn’t mean there has been no snow!
During the 88 Olympics the bipolar nature of Calgary weather was demonstrated for the world to see. I went to Olympic Plaza every night with my camcorder for the medals ceremony.
The first half was COLD, -30C and less with a vicious wind-chill. Some of the events were delayed in hopes of getting better weather. Then a Chinook rolled in, and suddenly it was too warm for some events. I distinctly remember watching Eddy the Eagle jumping and it was something like 20C. If Canada Olympic Park (formerly Paskapoo ski hill) hadn’t been loaded with artificial snow there would have been none. We were sloshing around in slush as it was.
Myself, I don’t trust my memory too much. I was born in 1963, and I was a teenager from the late 70s to the early 80s. I realize that childhood memories are not reliable, kids notice things that adults don’t, and miss things that adults worry about. But I do remember (and my parents have confirmed) that the 70s were, generally, a colder time than now. But, according to them, it was also colder than the 50s.
This year is not warm, by the way. Just like the last few years, everything seems to be running late. At least in this part of the world, the concept of “warming” is laughable.
@Bill Marsh
The UK certainly had a cold spring, and according to the locals in this part of France so did we, they reckon since the 60s rather than the 80s though.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2013/cold-spring
http://www.english.rfi.fr/europe/20130526-frances-spring-coldest-1987
Robert Wykoff says:
June 4, 2013 at 5:07 pm
I cannot imagine how cold it must have been in the old days. No matter how cold it gets, the anomaly is always positive. Beginning to think glaciers must reach the equator in July in order to get -0.1C
You may well be correct .
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/06/brrr-europe-is-suffering-through-coldest-spring-in-20-years-may-be-looking-at-a-year-without-summer/
The UAH satellite analysis is very interesting as it is not contaminated by the urban heat affect and it provides a single source view of planetary temperature for all regions.
As many are aware, there is correlation of high Northern latitude temperatures and solar magnetic cycle activity for the last 100 years and for the last 11,000 years. As there has been an abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle it appears we now will be able to determine by observation which portion of the 20th century warming was due to the increase in atmospheric CO2, as opposed to the changes to the solar magnetic cycle.
Multiple analyses for different periods indicate that there is a delay in cooling of 11 to 12 years when there is an abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle. It appears there is some mechanism that inhibits GCR modulation of planetary clouds when there is an abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/
The following is a comparison of the past solar cycles 21, 22, and 23 to current solar cycle 24.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3256
Solar activity and Svalbard temperatures
The long temperature series at Svalbard (Longyearbyen) show large variations, and a positive trend since its start in 1912. During this period solar activity has increased, as indicated by shorter solar cycles. The temperature at Svalbard is negatively correlated with the length of the solar cycle. The strongest negative correlation is found with lags 10 to 12 years. … ….These models show that 60 per cent of the annual and winter temperature variations are explained by solar activity. For the spring, summer and fall temperatures autocorrelations in the residuals exists, and additional variables may contribute to the variations. These models can be applied as forecasting models. … ….We predict an annual mean temperature decrease for Svalbard of 3.5 ±2C from solar cycle 23 to solar cycle 24 (2009 to 2020) and a decrease in the winter temperature of ≈6 C. … ….A systematic study by Solheim, Stordahl and Humlum [15] (called SSH11 in the following) of the correlation between SCL and temperature lags in 11 years intervals, for 16 data sets (William: solar cycles), revealed that the strongest correlation took place 10 to 12 years after the mid-time of a solar cycle, for most of the locations included. In this study the temperature series from Svalbard (Longyearbyen) was included, and a relation between the previous sunspot cycle length (PSCL) and the temperature in the following cycle was determined. This relation was used to predict that the yearly average temperature, which was -4.2 C in sunspot cycle (SC) 23, was estimated to decrease to -7.8 C in SC24, with a 95% confidence interval of -6.0 to -9.6C [15]. SSH11[15] found that stations in the North Atlantic (Torshavn, Akureyri and Svalbard), had the highest correlations.
William: Latitude and longitude of Svalbard (Longyearbyen)
78.2167° N, 15.6333° E Svalbard Longyearbyen, Coordinates
What is becoming increasingly apparent is that temperatures, over the last few months of ENSO neutral conditions, are running below 2001-02, the last time we had a long run of neutral conditions.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/waiting-for-hadcrut-again/
I’d be most interested to know whether any long-term comparison of manual/satellite measurements occur in a variety of locations. It’s clearly imperative that, if satellite data becomes the standard used, that it remains accurate and shows congruence with longer-validated measurement technologies.
“If solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
– MacRae, Calgary Herald, September 1, 2002 (based on a phone conversation with Dr. Tim Patterson)
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
– Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae, November 2002
– http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
“Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens.“
– Richard Lindzen, Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2001
– http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/OpEds/LindzenWSJ.pdf
I see no relationship between temperatures and CO2 levels what so ever?
batheswithwhales:
The resolution in the tropics is not any worse than at high latitudes…but the temperature variability there is typically weaker.
-Roy
I cannot imagine how cold it must have been in the old days. No matter how cold it gets, the anomaly is always positive. Beginning to think glaciers must reach the equator in July in order to get -0.1C
We haven’t really gotten cold enough (on average) for most glaciers to do more than hold their own, let alone grow. One also does have to allow for the fact that the baseline for the anomaly (compared to the historic past) has thumbs on the scales that artificially warmed the present compared to the past — not in the satellite data, but in the ground data. If we had a century of satellite data instead of a bit over 30 years, who knows what it would show? Temperatures might really have been nearly flat since the early 40’s.
But anyway yes, in “the old days” — late 60’s — it was colder in upstate NY, at least, where I lived at the time. That was when the coming climate catastrophe was the next ice age, as it appeared that global temperatures had peaked and were falling, and of course humans (pollution) were blamed.
rgb
Codetech
About 8 years ago we went to an April wedding in Calgary. It snowed so heavily the reception was cancelled, I spent an hour pushing people out of the church parking lot, and the next day the roads to the east of the city were still closed. I built a snowman on the bride’s deck.
I discovered the close relationship between dCO2/dt and temperature in late 2007 and in January 2008 I published the paper below at:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
I concluded that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with Lower Tropospheric (LT) temperature and CO2 lags LT temperature by ~9 months.
When I wrote this conclusion I was criticized by both sides of the global warming debate.
Initially, this relationship (dCO2/dt varies with T and CO2 lags T by 9 months) was deemed incorrect.
Then it was accepted as valid by some on the warmist side of this debate, but dismissed as a “feedback”.
This “feedback argument” appears to be a “cargo cult” rationalization, derived as follows:
“We KNOW that CO2 drives Temperature, therefore it MUST BE a feedback.”
As noted below, my “climate heresy” is now gaining some traction.
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Faites vos jeux.
Regards, Allan
Notes:
The above was written ~3 years before Murry Salby’s address to the Sydney Institute in 2011.
Here is a more recent presentation by Salby to the Sydney Institute:
Also the 2012 paper by Humluma, Stordahlc, and Solheimd in Global and Planetary Change that reaches similar conclusions. Please note the conclusion:
“Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.”
Whee! We Finns got the biggest +anomaly, the weather has been perfect here for a couple of weeks. The only downside is the constant climate change news reporting. It’s kind of funny when we have had 4 hard and snowy winters and the spring was very cold. But hey, those things were weather, now it’s definitely global warming (tough they fail to mention it that there hasn’t been any for the last 16 years).
Drs. Gentry and Spencer, the 14,000 ft/ 600 mb Aqua 06 sensor failed around Mar. 10, 2013. How does its loss effect the current temperature reading? Is there a similar sensor being used as a replacement?
Ric Werme says:
June 4, 2013 at 7:19 pm
“Robert Wykoff says:
June 4, 2013 at 5:07 pm
I cannot imagine how cold it must have been in the old days. No matter how cold it gets, the anomaly is always positive. Beginning to think glaciers must reach the equator in July in order to get -0.1C
That year also froze in the Cape Cod Islands, lessee. Ah, this might be about what I had in mind, http://www.csmonitor.com/1981/0116/011642.html is from mid-January 1981.”
Historical climate – an area not sufficiently explored. I was a newspaper boy in the late 40s and early 50s in Winnipeg. When collecting in the evening for the paper in the winter on many very cold nights, my mother used to come with me because she feared for my safety – the route was about 2 miles long, heading out of the city with the last customer a dairy farm – (they used to warm me up with a cup of cocoa before letting me make the trip back home – my mother got one too when she was with me). I used to take my mother to a movie on the walk back to Portage Avenue – so I got to see all those adult black and white movies (25c for my mother and 12c for me -it was only 5c for the kid’s Saturday afternoon “horse operas” my uncle called them – Hoppalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers ….. where the air was about 10% lead as they chased the bandits around the same pile of rocks out in the desert during every episode.).
Winnipeg Januaries are still cold, but the average in the 50s were a lot colder
http://robsobsblog.blogspot.ca/2012/02/warmer-winters-new-normal.html
Here in the UK over the last 14 months only 2 of them have been above the average.
William Astley says:
June 5, 2013 at 1:29 am
… As many are aware, there is correlation of high Northern latitude temperatures and solar magnetic cycle activity for the last 100 years and for the last 11,000 years.
….Solar activity and Svalbard temperatures
The long temperature series at Svalbard (Longyearbyen) show large variations, and a positive trend since its start in 1912. During this period solar activity has increased, as indicated by shorter solar cycles. The temperature at Svalbard is negatively correlated with the length of the solar cycle.
Thanks for the post William. I like the idea to correlate with the lengths of the solar cycle.
Will be interesting to watch for the coming years.
RE: Ric Werme says:
June 4, 2013 at 7:19 pm
Hi Ric. You might want to check out the winter of 1976-1977, if you’re looking for sea-ice down the east coast. That was the winter Time Magazine had “The Big Freeze” cover, and as I recall they had problems with sea-ice clear down to Virginia. Up in Maine, where I lived back then, Casco Bay had ice nearly out to Halfway Rock, and many lobster men pretty much had to quit going out around Chirstmas, and stay ashore until Late February or early March. (It was one of the winters when the crazy lobster men who docked out on exposed points and islands did well, because the sheltered bays were frozen up so solidly.)
Another late planting year like 2011. Cold and wet. 2011 turned out to be a record yield, we could sure use another one. Plenty of replanting needed though.
http://agfax.com/
Here in Maryland we’ve had a very cool Feb-May. Since I don’t see that reflected on the map above I realize these satellite-based temperature reports are of something completely different then what the earth bound sensors tell us. I’m a little disappointed because I had hopped for something more equivalent.
Well, let’s see here: The past few months have a decreaing global temperature trend, and …
Looking at the red line (running average) we get essentially no increase in temperature since:
2008 => 5 years of increasing CO2
2001 => 12 years of increasing CO2
2000 => 13 years of increasing CO2
1998 => 15 years of increasing CO2
1996 => 17 years of increasing CO2
1991 => 22 years of increasing CO2
1988 => 25 years of increasing CO2
1981 => 32 years of increasing CO2
Watch the 10.7cm Flux! :
1) 70 – 100 -> Cooling @ur momisugly -0.1C/2.5 years [Sunspots 0 – 50]
2) 100 – 120 -> Neutral [Sunspots 50 – 100]
3) 120 – up -> Warming @ur momisugly +0.1C/2.5 years [Sunspots 100 – up]
Since this Solar Cycle Peak [24] has passed, we are now entering years of low Sunspots and low Flux. Since the Global temperature recording started at the “peak” of this 350 year Solar Cycle, we can expect significant rapid cooling.
Based on previously recorded temperatures:
1) The high was ~ +0.4C [1999,2011]
2) The low was ~ -2.1C [1650 “England”]
If the Sun goes quiet for 50 years the average global temperature will drop from +0.1C to -1.9C or cooler.
Note 1: I use Flux since it is a “mechanical measurement” that is not subject to “human raw data interpolation”.
Note 2: The values of warming, neutral, cooling were determined from a simple Sun, Earth model that incorporates a simple technique to deal with the heat storage in the Oceans. The model uses Flux as the input and produces Global temperature for the output.
I have a critique of the TSI number. This number is averaged over the planet. This is not the way that Solar energy enters the biosphere. The most energy enters where the Sun is perpendicular to the surface tangent of the Global Sphere. Of course, the least energy enters where the Sun is parallel to the surface tangent. Between these two extremes, there is energy reflection off of the Ozone layer, etc.
This means that most of the energy is supplied directly under the Sun. This is between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. Since the TSI is a global average, a small change in the average must have been created by a large change between the “Cancers”. I feel that we need a change in the TSI formulas to remove this “average”, and report intensity directly under the Sun’s perpendicular position.
Thanks, good scoop! 😉
May 2013 is not yet available at http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/