UPDATE: Corrected the typo in Figure 3. 1988 now correctly reads 1989.
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There’s lots of blogosphere chatter about the warm temperatures in Russia in November 2013. In their global State of the Climate Report this month, NOAA stated:
According to Roshydromet, Russia observed its warmest November since national records began in 1891. Some areas of the Urals, Siberia, south of the Far East region, and on the Arctic islands in the Kara Sea had temperatures that were more than 8°C (14°F) higher than the monthly average.
NOAA even discussed the record warm temperatures on their global map here.
It might be true that Russian land surface air temperatures were at record levels for the month of November, but NOAA failed to present something that’s blatantly obvious in the data. In 1988, surface air temperature anomalies for much of Russia shifted upwards by more than 1 deg C.
The Russian “hotspot” stands out very clearly in the NOAA map presented in Figure 1. Based on it, I’ve used the coordinates of 50N-70N, 30E-140E for the NOAA NCDC data, and the climate model outputs, presented in the following graphs. That region covers a major portion of Russia.
Figure 1
Figure 2 presents the NCDC land surface air temperature anomalies for the Russian “hotspot”, for the period of January 1920 to November 2013. I’ve highlighted about when the shift occurred. Before that shift, surface temperatures there warmed very little, if at all. And after it, surface temperatures appear to have warmed, but not at an excessing rate. We’ll confirm that later.
Figure 2
The shift is much easier to see if we smooth the data with a 13-month filter, minimizing the visual impact of the monthly variations. In fact, with the aid of period average temperatures (the horizontal lines) and with some color-coding, the shift in 1988 becomes obvious. See Figure 3. Based on the period-average temperatures before and after 1988, that climate shift raised Russian “hotspot” surface temperatures by about 1.1 deg C.
Figure 3
MODEL-DATA COMPARISON BEFORE AND AFTER THE 1988 SHIFT
Figure 4 is a model-data comparison graph for the surface air temperature anomalies of the Russian “hotspot” for the period of January 1920 through December 1987. Both the NCDC surface temperature data and the climate model outputs have been smoothed w/ 13-month running average filters. The climate models are the multi-model ensemble mean of the models stored in the CMIP5 archive, using the historic and RCP6.0 scenarios. The CMIP5 archive, as you’ll recall, was used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report. And we discussed why we use the model mean in the post here.
Figure 4
NOTE: The trends in Figures 4 and 5 are based on the “raw” data and model outputs, not the smoothed versions.
The models did a reasonable job of simulating the warming rate from 1920 to 1987. In more than 65 years, they only overestimated the warming by about 0.23 Deg C. But the models perform quite poorly for the period from January 1989 to November 2013. See Figure 5. During this much-shorter 25-year period, the models overestimated the warming by more than 1.1 deg C.
Figure 5
Let’s state that again: the models overestimated the warming by more than 1.1 deg C over the most recent 25-year period.
Climate model failings at the regional levels are not unusual. We discussed those failings in numerous posts over the past year and in my book Climate Models Fail.
WHAT CAUSED THE SHIFT?
The timing of the shift in the Russian surface temperatures is similar to the shift in Scandinavian surface air temperatures. See the post here. There we discussed that the shift in surface temperature was possibly a response to a shift in the sea level pressure and interrelated wind patterns associated with the Arctic Oscillation.
Additionally, see de Laat and Crok (2013) A Late 20th Century European Climate Shift: Fingerprint of Regional Brightening? The authors argue that a shift in the North Atlantic Oscillation (similar to the Arctic Oscillation) in the late 1980s caused more sunlight to warm European surface temperatures in an apparent shift. I would suspect that something similar occurred over Russia at that time as well.
CLOSING
Like other regions, a climate shift, not the long-term effects of manmade greenhouse gases, is responsible for a major portion of the warming that occurred over much of Russia.
And, of course, climate models performed poorly when attempting to simulate the warming that occurred there since the 1988 shift, overestimating the warming by a large amount. So what else is new?
SOURCE
The NCDC surface temperature data and the CMIP5-archived climate model outputs are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer.
Isn’t 1988/89 also when the ‘great dying of thermometers’ took place? Large numbers of Soviet military bases with weather stations, many in cold remote locations, closing post Glasnost.
But let’s not forget the governmental change at that time. How many stations were reporting pre- and post-1988? Does it make a difference? Given the well-documented fudging of other data by the former USSR, people have speculated that temperatures were under-reported for reasons of convenience (do you want to trudge out to the thermometer station in the depth of winter?) and to support pleas for more heating fuel from central control. This timing coincidence is precise enough to warrant verifying that the measurements are accurate before saying the step increase is real.
The climate shift seen in Russia coincides with the rapid rate of ice loss in the Arctic that started in the late eighties as well as warming in Scandinavia.
It is most likely a response to the polar amplification of the AGW which was predicted, with warmer air moving further North. It is not possible to find a previous episode of similar magnitude of warming that correlates with changes in the Atlantic Osscilation. The fact that models do not duplicate this local detail is a red herring. Models do not simulate the local climate and regional shifts with this level of detail.
Ascribing the observed warming to an unforced variation when there is no historical precedent, but a forced climate change does account for the observations might be mistaken.
Well, frankly, I rather suspect a sensing issue or data-processing issue, combined with the collapse of the soviet heavy industry after the collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980ies to be the cause of the shift in Russia.
The shift described here has taken place exactly during the times of the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the fall of the Soviet Union, thousands of meteorological sites had been abandoned, due to further lack of funding. Therefore, a failure of a station still in use would weigh in much heavier to the combined result of all stations, because the size of the sample was substantially reduced.
Also, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union’s heavy industry had taken a serious blow, which MUST have had a substancial effect on the cleanliness of the air over Russia and, hence, on the resulting land temperatures.
Yes , Bob, you are right about the AO index being a factor . There was a major shift of the AO index from negative to mostly positive in 1989, allowing more warm air north . The AO index has has again been strongly positive the last 2 months.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/JFM_season_ao_index.shtml
@- Gary
The claim it might be connected with the change of political control and the closure of observation sites is refuted by the observations being confirmed by satellite data.
“….and on the Arctic islands in the Kara Sea had temperatures that were more than 8°C (14°F) higher than the monthly average.”
The Kara Sea has approx 50% more ice area than this time last year. I wonder how quickly it would have frozen if it hadn’t been subjected the Nov “heat wave”?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.7.jpg
The temperatures went up in Siberia when Perestroika led to the collapse of the soviet union. This caused a collapse in their production of sulfur dioxide emissions which, up to that point, had provided a significant and localized cooling event.
http://www.manicore.com/documentation/petrole/picp_charbon_graph10.jpg
Let’s ask the Russians in west Siberia — are you suffering from the November “heat”?
Nothing new, happen before.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/69-71.htm
Need to ‘persuade’ citizenry that working in Siberia ain’t that bad, a convenient temperature chart helps a bit
We have family in Russia and it was one of the coldest Autumns in recent history. As usual with the warm-tards, eco-fascists, the devil is in the data details. I would not bet Sheryl Crow’s square piece of toilet paper, that the Russian data has anything to do with reality or is reliable.
There was a large drop in the number of weather stations worldwide following the collapse of the USSR. These stations were mostly lost from Siberia. At the same time global average temperatures were reported to be increasing. Clearly the problem was introduced sample bias due to loss of stations from a colder than average area of the globe.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.html
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.jpg
I question whether new remote electronic equipment started being used. Electronics providing heat inside the temperature sensor box.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/06/weather-stations-disappearing-worldwide/
As fast as it came , the hot spot is gone and North Asia is back to the cold weather ahttp://www.findlocalweather.com/weather_maps/temperature_north_asia.html
Forgive the tangent, but here’s something that seems to be apparent to everyone but me: Why the 13-month filter? I know that’s what everyone does, but if a 12-month filter were used instead it would essentially eliminate the 1/ year component, and the resultant values could be placed at the month boundaries.
I’m sure I’m going to be embarrassed by how obvious the answer is, but I’m too curious to hold back. Can someone help me out?
I can’t remember where I read it, but at some point in the past local russian authorities had an interest in showing their temperatures as low as possible, because that meant that they were entitled to a bigger ammount of gas for heating. I don’t recall the dates, though. But it would not surprise me if this practice of fabricating lower temperatures had ended around 1988. Anyone here remembers about it?
Seems hard to believe you could have a one-time shift in almost 100 years of temperature data caused by an effect that is defined as an “oscillation”. A shift up should be followed by and preceded by a shift down. Where is the shift down?
Gary says: “But let’s not forget the governmental change at that time. How many stations were reporting pre-and post-1988?”.
Under the old order when almost everyones paycheck was issued by the state , the people who lived in the northern Siberia usually got some extra cold weather incentives inversly proportional to the locally recorded temperatures added to the standard fare, and I have been told that this practice did have some effect on the low temperatures recorded there, and that when this custom was abandoned or changed under the new political system , it may have had something to do with the big step change in the temperture history that occured after the demise of the USSR. I have never personally seen any concrete proofs that it is true though, so it could just be an urban myth.
From Wikipedia…”In June 1988, at the CPSU’s Nineteenth Party Conference, Gorbachev launched radical reforms meant to reduce party control of the government apparatus. On 1 December 1988, the Supreme Soviet amended the Soviet constitution to allow for the establishment of a Congress of People’s Deputies as the Soviet Union’s new supreme legislative body.”
Was there a loss of some weather station reporting during the collapse of the Soviet Union? I visited Russia several times a decade ago and recall the stories of rapid infrastructure change. One day the geologists are working in their offices, the next day the offices are condominiums with a new owner and the geologists are out on the streets with their maps and rock samples.
My previous post did not show the current weather in NORTH ASIA properly
http://www.findlocalweather.com/weather_maps/temperature_north_asia.html
Nice catch on the shift Bob Tisdale. From your Figure 3 it looks “obvious”. The minimums after 1988 barely reach the average prior to the shift. Has anyone else ever reported on this and if not, did you just recently find the shift? If the latter it makes me wonder what to think of world temperature data.
Yes it was indeed very warm this autumn in Russia. Let’s compare snow cover with 2008 another year of rapid refreeze in the arctic:
http://tinyurl.com/nmhdp6a
Anyway the relative warmth in Russia is more then compensated by the cool in the US, north Africa, Middle East, Southern Asia, Caraïbs and Northern South America.
Regarding the model temperature graph, are you saying they overestimated global temperatures by 1C, or temperatures in Russia?
Bob or Others:
SHORT VERSION: I have seen this 13 month averaging a number of times now and cannot see the justification for that time period. It would retain a sinusoidal element in the calculated data as periods are over-represented by the first month.
EXTENDED VERSION: For instance, a 13 month average, centred on January 1, 2012 will have July 2011 and July 2012 included. In my neck of the woods, July is the hottest month. This average would, all other things being equal, be hotter than the average centred on August 1, 2012 which will include February 2012 to February 2013. I realize that an odd number is preferred for centred moving averages as this allows the averaged data point to be located and associated with a raw data point. This would seem to be outweighed by the implications of retaining a sinusoidal element that I assume we are trying to smooth out. This element would be inverted relative to the original data, with the maximum during the coldest month and the minimum during the hottest month. Try it out in excell.
Data and method follow.
Use this data:
10 01-Jul-11
9 01-Aug-11
8 01-Sep-11
7 01-Oct-11
6 01-Nov-11 December, January and February
5 01-Dec-11 are the same temp. to effect
5 01-Jan-12 a mirror like data set with January
5 01-Feb-12 as the mirror line. Note that this
6 01-Mar-12 is necessary with an even number of
7 01-Apr-12 months in a year.
8 01-May-12
9 01-Jun-12
Copy and paste the numbers on the left as the “temperature”. Increase the months for a few years (3 will do)
The centred 13 month average for 01-Jan-12 will include the data from 01-Jul-11 to 01-Jul-12 (a 10 not shown). This gives a value of 7.308 (for all Januaries).
The centred 13 month average for 1-Jun-12 (and July and August) is 6.923.
Note that the correct point for a centred moving average is at the centre of the data used, hence the preference for an odd number of data points.
We have indeed smoothed the data, somewhat, but we now have a new sinusoid that reflects the periodic change in data, but is shifted 6 months. If we use a 12 month moving average each average is 7.08 (the true average of the periodic data) and we have smoothed the variance associated with the 1 year period. I won’t get into the implications of months with fewer days, etc.
Just curious.
Cheers and Merry Christmas
JE