Lots of clima-hullaballo this week in the media thanks NOAA and this announcement in NOAA’s “State of the Climate” report seen here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/
They state:
The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for November 2013 was record highest for the 134-year period of record, at 0.78°C (1.40°F) above the 20th century average of 12.9°C (55.2°F).
Much of the global “record highest” claim hinges on this one point about Russia:
Note the +5C anomalies in that region in the map cited by NCDC:![201311[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/2013111.gif)
Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/
But, according to satellite temperatures, the ranking claimed by NCDC isn’t anywhere near to “record warmest”. Dr. John Christy gives these values for the satellite data sources of global temperature and their ranks:
- UAH Nov 2013 9th warmest Nov (0.20 C cooler than warmest Nov.)
- RSS Nov 2013 16th warmest Nov (0.22 C cooler than warmest Nov.)
And, when we look at the UAH map of the world, while Russia was certainly warmer, it wasn’t as warm as NCDC makes it to be:
Source: http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/
Other maps from GISS suggest the NCDC presentation might be stretching the November temperatures a bit in the SOTC report, possibly because of the NCDC choice of baseline period.
GISS says 0.40 in November for the 1981-2010 base period used by UAH:
….and just 0.38 in November for 1981-2010 base period if 250km smoothing used:
Clearly, how you calculate and present global temperature anomalies makes a difference in the answer you get for November.
The difference here is that NCDC is using the “20th Century Average” where the other sources are using accepted 30 year climatology periods. Choosing that period can make a big difference in the outcome.
For example if I tweak the GISS parameters to use the 20th century, we get this, a value of 0.76C above normal, which is closer to NCDC’s value:
Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=11&year1=2013&year2=2013&base1=1901&base2=2000&radius=250&pol=reg
[Added: Also pointed out in comments NCDC has a lot of data gaps in Russia.
![201311[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/20131111.gif)
Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-land-sfc-mntp/201311.gif
When the data finally arrives (due to late reporting stations that trickle in), one wonders what the smoothing over Russia will look like and how much the global temperature value for November changes. NOAA/NCDC has to produce “State of the Climate” report each month, and they often do so before all the data is in, but we don’t ever see any update of those values sent to the press. ]
Another source using the GHCN surface land data and surface ocean data in an NCEP analysis, WeatherBell, agrees that Russia was quite anomalously warm, but gives a global temperature anomaly of only 0.17C:
The point I’m making is that global temperature can be significantly different, depending on how it is calculated and presented. Which way is the right way? More importantly, since monthly temperatures still fit into the scale of synoptic meteorology, i.e. affected by “weather”, does it even matter to the global warming debate?
Along the same lines, with year-end approching, we’ll soon see pushes from government and media sources to position 2013 in some rank of “warmest year ever”. With that in mind, here are some maps and temperature ranks to consider:
WeatherBell year to date shows only o.049c globally for the year, hardly alarming:
Source: http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/ncep_cfsr_t2m_anom_ytd.png
NCDC, using their century scale base period, says: “The globally-averaged temperature across land and ocean surfaces for the first eleven months of 2013 (January–November) was 0.62°C” Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/
GISS says only 0.19C so far for 2013, and it will likely go down with the cold December Arctic outbreak which has been seen in the Northern Hemisphere:
Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=3&type=anoms&mean_gen=1212&year1=2013&year2=2013&base1=1981&base2=2010&radius=1200&pol=reg
Global temperature on monthly and yearly time scales varies greatly depending on how it is calculated, how it is presented, and who presents it.
Which one is the real global temperature?
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Addendum: I have been wondering about that Russian red spot for 5 years. I’ve seen this red spot come and go in Russia, and I don’t know what the reason is.
I do know this: neither I nor NOAA has a good handle on the siting characteristics of Russian weather stations. I do know one thing though, the central heating schemes for many Russian cities puts a lot of waste heat into the air from steam pipes:
![russia-pipes[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/russia-pipes1.jpg?quality=83)
In the cities, it’s the municipality that supplies the hot water. There’s a huge network of giant pipes that move the water all over the city. It’s a closed circuit that eventually leads back to a steam plant – a huge factory that does nothing more than heat water and force it into the system.
The pipes enter practically every building within the city limits and the heat from uninsulated pipes (radiators) is what keeps everyone’s living space toasty warm throughout some extremely cold winters. A side benefit is that they never have to wait for the water to warm up in their showers!
– See more at: http://blog.arlomidgett.com/2012/01/16/thoughts-on-russia/#sthash.1gu8As1U.dpuf
While the silver pipes in photos above have insulated cladding, the steam pipes seen below are un-insulated:
The caption was telling: Smaller Russian era dwelling – blue is typical color. Pipes outside are for the steam heat that is distributed to all buildings.
Note the waste heat keeps the snow off the street in Siberia:
Above: Central heating, Novokuznetsk, Siberia, 1991 Photo by Bertien van Manen
See more about Russia at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/15/giss-noaa-ghcn-and-the-odd-russian-temperature-anomaly-its-all-pipes/
(The addendum was edited for clarity)
Related articles
- November 2013 Global Surface (Land+Ocean) Temperature Anomaly Update (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Toasty November Vaults 2013 Into Top 5 Warmest Years (climatecentral.org)
- November Was the Warmest November Since We Started Keeping Track (theatlantic.com)
- Earth had its warmest November on record (usatoday.com)
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The BOM in Australia is already getting ready to say that Sydney has had its hottest year ever, and that station’s records go back to 1959 or thereabouts. However, I had a look at the station near where I live in Western Sydney, and it’s been quite an average year. The record only goes back to 1995, but nevertheless, there have been hotter years previously.
I don’t think urban heat losses, however substantial, can explain all of this anomaly. Russia is neither densely nor uniformly populated, and on a map like this all towns combined will hardly fill a pixel.
It is true that towns leak a lot of heat due to central heating, although recently many central heating systems were dismantled or upgraded to use local regulators, so many people today can turn their heat down instead of opening the window. In the old days, we lived with windows open all year round; the only difference between seasons was in how widely open they were. I say, that was a much healthier lifestyle. Permanently fresh air at somebody else’s expense.
But even then, the effects were localised. I remember seeing CIA-sourced winter-time infrared images of parts of Moscow and of my home town showing multiple intense hot spots. The resolution was so good I could see my car parked near the building where I lived. The story was that the authors of those images were puzzled, theorising about the kinds of activities that could create such a weird infrared signature. They did not see that anywhere else in the world and could not believe it was simply due to central heating and open windows. But in the big picture of things, those hot spots looked like sparsely located point sources. Spaces between buildings appeared just as cold as the empty field out of town.
These temp anomaly maps would be great to see presented on a map of just the Northern Hemisphere (centered on the North Pole). I imagine that the Arctic would look quite ridiculous (unbelievable perhaps) with below average temperatures in the Western Hemisphere right next to greatly above average temperatures in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Anthony (and Mosher):
The WMO disagrees with both of you. The WMO states that climate (except precipitation) can use 5 to 10 years as the base period.
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/ccl/documents/WMO_100_en.pdf
Section 4.8.1
In general, the most recent 5- to 10-year period of record has as much predictive value as a 30-year record. Shorter reference periods allow normals to be calculated for a much wider range of stations than is usually possible for a standard normals reference period. For elements that show a substantial underlying trend (such as mean temperature), predictive accuracy is improved by updating the averages and period averages frequently.
My emphasis.
The sea ice page has been showing extensive snow cover in that Russian hot spot area for quite some time … at least a month it’s been this way … eyeballing it, it is further south than 5 years ago.To me it seems like if was well warmer than normal there would be less snow cover.
Plenty of cold in America and Global Sea Ice 7th highest in 35 years….yawn. Please drop your data sets of 20 years…134 years et al. You need to compare over thousands and millions of years. This is the hottest we have ever been?…Someone is having a laugh. So what if the trend is up since the Solar Minimum’s…..the overall temp graph for our Holocene clearly shows we are much cooler than 10,000 years ago so the overall trend line is down.
When ever Russia has a significant warm anomaly in places it always skewers global temperatures by the awful lack of stations there that rely on 1200 km interpolating. Only reason why there is a huge massive area well above average. No other data when not limited, shows much smaller areas with a anomaly anywhere near that big. Illustrates how interpolating at least 250 km to 1200 km messes up the data and gives false readings. The satellite data is superior in this sense by far and a shame media hype such alarmism when only cherry picking one data set that has been crudely put together.
Looking back at some GISS maps, its seems clear that Russia has massive temperature swings. Gotta be the geography. But go look at some plots. One month they’ll be large sections 3-5C below normal, the next month the same area is 3-5C above normal. It looks like the “average” there is an average of extremes which NEVER happens. Huge fluctuations seem to be completely normal.
It is not beyond president Putin‘s regime to make Russian met stations ramp up temps a bit, just to con the West and keep the ball rolling. They profit tremendously on self inflicted decommissioning of western industry. As the Soviet Union met its fate, the KGB survived intact, it owns the country.
Steve Mosher But there is more ice in the arctic!
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
REPLY: Sorry Steve, you are wrong on that count…yes, there is an acceptance of a 30 year period, so says the World Meteorological Organization:
Climate Normals
Climate “normals” are reference points used by climatologists to compare current climatological trends to that of the past or what is considered “normal”. A Normal is defined as the arithmetic average of a climate element (e.g. temperature) over a 30-year period. A 30 year period is used, as it is long enough to filter out any interannual variation or anomalies, but also short enough to be able to show longer climatic trends. The current climate normal period is calculated from 1 January 1961 to 31 December 1990.
Source: http://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/climate/climate_data_and_products.php
– Anthony
*********************************************************************************************************
So to summarize there is a standardized 30 year reference period spanning 1961-1990 which is apparently not used in any of the graphics? Got to love standards – there’s so many to choose from . . .
I thought cherry picking season hasn’t yet started! OK, let me start my cherry picking then. Almost 1 year ago to the very day it was reported:
There are many examples of cold WEATHER records around the world as well as odd snow in places like the Amazon and the Mediterranean. Need I go on? Have I made may point?
For regular updates on the sure signs of a new ICE AGE see below.
http://iceagenow.info/
Mosher,
What does the IPCC define as the period for climate?
Take a look at HadCRUT4 and GISS for 2013. HadCRUT4 has been offset by 0.18 to make them both the same for January. Look at the many wild swings in opposite directions during the year. Something does not look quite right.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2013/offset:0.18/plot/gistemp/from:2013
Hmmm, record heat in Russia for November! Thank God!
Steven Mosher says:
December 19, 2013 at 1:39 pm
WeatherBell year to date shows only o.049c globally for the year, hardly alarming:
###########
Weatherbell is NOT OBSERVATIONS.
Weatherbell uses NCEP
NCEP is a MODEL not observations
NCEP uses datasources that are highly suspect. for example thermometers on rooftops. thermometers on roads.
So, even Weatherbell is too warm. Interesting.
In January of this year Russia saw more SURE signs of GLOBAL COOLING. I like this weather is now the climate game. 😉 We must act now! As you can see I can go on and on about cold WEATHER records making my case for an upcoming ice age. 😉
uah and rss temp. data is the most accurate we have.
So a warm November in Russia is bad? What kind of sick thinking is this?
Mosher has just hoisted himself on his own petard and argues like a sceptic without knowing it.
On a different note, I spent time in Ukraine in the mid-90s. The distinguishing characteristic of the – barely – post-Soviet infrastructure was that it was mostly falling apart. For instance they don’t have trees of significant size in Russia so the middle and lower range electrical transmission lines, that we – in the US – suspend on wooden poles, are instead on reinforced concrete poles. The scary part is that the concrete doesn’t handle cold all that well – or theirs doesn’t – and the lower meter or two of the poles often consisted of nothing but exposed steel reinforcing rod.
Poor and badly conditioned power supplies are a fact of life. In our project we needed clean power for or computers which were switchable but couldn’t handle the filthy power supply at any voltage. The line supply, nominally 240 volts, was measured oscillating from about 150 to over 300 volts within less than a minute. Electrical motors frequently failed in spectacular fashion. Our surge protectors, we carried a case of 12 in with us, all died within two weeks. I don’t think of them lasted longer than two and a half days. Happily, we had, despite insistence from Russian colleagues that it was unnecessary, brought in a small US built transformer that stepped the power down and produced clean, steady output. The Russian electrician became a convert to the idea of immigrating to the west after watching the input and output meters for 15 minutes and shaking his head. He expressed the opinion that there might be a market there.
With respect to November 2013 being the hottest November. Clearly this was an isolated event that mostly happened in Russia and Asia due to an extra high positive AO. For Contiguous United States ,November was the 49 th warmest and most of North America was below normal temperatures.
Most of ordinary people are concerned about and judge global warming by events in their area; in Central England both maximum and minimum daily temperatures this November were lower than in 2012
No, It really IS warmer in Russia,
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/features/no-snow-in-siberia-locals-marvel-and-worry-at-the-snow-shortage/
As in many areas of Siberia this winter, the thermometer is reluctant to plummet to customary bone-chilling temperatures. Last night when we checked outside, it was a mere minus 3C. Day time temperatures lately have been warmer. As mother-of-two Anastasia said from Krasnoyarsk: ‘I’m reading a book to my children and I hear the tapping of the rain in my ear. Rain? Rain??? Rain in the middle of December? In Siberia?’
The ‘missing heat’ sure gets around….