Global Temperature Report: December 2013

@charlie 11:09
Now there is the rub.
The temperature records from the world were in the hands of the Climate Research Unit, who produced the official IPCC record of land temperatures 1850 to present.
When asked for their data, methods and error ranges…. they created the Climate Gate fiasco.
Harry Read Me…
Now the subsequent inquires were very revealing, in a back handed kind of way.
As in a blinder well played, old chap.
The CRU admitted they had “lost” the original data.
The MET was supposedly tasked with regathering this data, they said it would take about 3 years.
3 years is up.
Data?

heysuess says:
January 4, 2014 at 6:19 am
Total atmospheric CO2 = ~400ppm and total anthropogenic CO2 = ~13ppm.
There is no way that I want to get into a discussion about the sources of CO2, but many feel that since it was presumably 280 ppm in 1750, mankind has contributed 120 ppm since then. In the minds of many, you have to differentiate between man’s yearly input and man’s cumulative input.

Pippen Kool says:
January 4, 2014 at 8:53 am
So 98, 05 and 10 were high because of the preceding 97/98, 04/05 and 09/10 ENSO events.
That means that 2013 is the highest year with _no_ ENSO event, preceding or otherwise, which is something of a record.
That ranking of 4th applies to UAH version 5.6. For version 5.5, it is 7th for the year. RSS ranks 10th for the year. And after 11 months, the ranking for HadCRUT4, HadCRUT3, Hadsst3 and GISS are 8thfor HadCRUT4 and 6th for the last three.

Ronald says:
January 4, 2014 at 2:35 am
J Abbott,
Classic AGW, and thus showing no competence to the matter.
99% of the skeptics know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is warming the planet. But the important question is by how much. And we skeptics know that’s very little. In fact you could know it yourself by a test, you probably know, to scare the crap out of students. You know the experiment with the 2 closed boxes and the light bulbs? Yes you know and you love it because it proves you’re right; wrong. In 1 box there is 100% CO2 and in the other 100% air with 0,4% CO2. If the result for 100% CO2 is 6 you can calculate what 0,4% CO2 does. Thats 0,004%, wrong again. CO2 radiates only 8% of the warming back and 5% of that goes back to earth. So the number is even lower.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ronald:
I’m afraid you miss out a vital variable that need to be added to your above “experiment”…
Your “boxes” (usually the experiment is done in tubes), need to change to properly quantify the CO2 concentration GHE in them. Because of the nature of transmission decay (logarithmic).
When IR first encounters CO2, it’s soon absorbed as its near the peak of the absorption spectrum. Because of shape of the curve of absorption vs. wavelength, the transmission decreases rather quickly, but as path-length grows due to lower CO2 then there is increasingly less absorption (molecules further apart).
The GHE of Earth can be simulated by a 2.5m tube of pure CO2 (SL pressure at 20C). In order to simulate the effect of repeated doubling of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere we need to keep doubling the LENGTH of the tube and keep the CO2 concentration the same (in exp it’s already 100% anyway).
In other words – if the concentration of the obscuring molecule decreases then the effective time/length of a photon’s path through the medium before encountering a CO2 molecule will be longer, and vice versa. So to quantify the effect of 0.04% concentration vs 100% then a much longer tube (box) is needed for the rarefied gas molecules to intercept the IR.
The Earth’s atmosphere has a very long absorption path available and this needs to be properly quantified in lab experiments.
Also we need to understand how pressure affects absorption lines, at low pressures it narrows them so they do not overlap, leaving narrow emission windows between the absorption lines. That is, the absorption coefficient on the whole tends to go down linearly with pressure. So high in the atmosphere adding some greenhouse gas must warm the Earth regardless of how the absorption works.
WV is much less abundant aloft and this combined with the narrowing of the absorption lines means that what IR the WV would normally have intercepted WILL instead be made by CO2. Which if NOT there would go straight to space. It is high up that is important, as that is where LWIR is finally emitted to space. It’s the outside door and the more CO2 put into the atmosphere the more that door closes.
In the high/thin layers of the atmosphere where LWIR from lower down slips through, if we add more greenhouse gas molecules the layer will absorb more of the rays. So the place from which most of the heat energy finally leaves the Earth will shift to higher layers. Those are colder layers, so they do not radiate heat as well. The planet as a whole is now taking in more energy than it radiates (which is in fact our current situation). As the higher levels radiate some of the excess downwards, all the lower levels down to the surface warm up. The imbalance must continue until the high levels get hot enough to radiate as much energy back out as the planet is receiving.

Richard Barraclough says:
January 4, 2014 at 7:07 am
One or two people seem to have latched on to the idea of temperatures following a 60-year cycle. So how do today’s temperatures compare to those in the early 50′s?

I suspect the cycle is not a pure 30 year + 30 year – cycle. You are dealing with cycles imersed in other cycles, plus random chaos effects, but there is clearing a cyclic nature to the variations.
In the central Rocky Mountain West we had much colder winters when I was younger. In the mid 1950’s I remember a local lake in Metro Denver being frozen over with ice thick enough for people to drive cars out onto the lake to go ice fishing. It has not frozen like that since the mid-late 1960’s. The first time I was old enough to really be aware of temperatures were in the early 1960’s and we got down to -30 deg F in the west metro suburbs, and deep in the -20’s on several occasions. I remember that very vividly due to struggling to get cars started in those severe cold temps. It was cold enough that motor oil turned to jelly at those temps (before multi-weight motor oil was used by almost everyone). We had to put a charcoal BBQ grill under the car to warm the engine oil enough to get it to crank (good way to set the car on fire, several people managed to do that by not watching it closely). My Dad would put a heavy blanket over the hood at night, and place a 60 w incandescent drop light on top of the engine to keep the engine warm enough to be easily started. From about 1962 (year we hit -30) until the 1980’s we had very difficult winters on a regular basis all over the plains states up through the great lakes region. This is why the media was talking about the coming ice age in the late 1970’s. Not every winter but often enough that they were considered normal.
During the winter of 1973-74 the City of Denver ran out of room to pile the snow plowed off the streets and had to use the center of major down town streets to stack the snow. There was a pile of snow 3+ ft deep, covering the center lane of Broadway for miles and miles so the other lanes could be cleared. It was tall enough it was difficult to see over it when sitting in a car to check for cross traffic at the intersections. During the blizzard of 1982, it was worse simply shut the city down for several days (and cost the mayor his job due to is poor efforts to clear the streets.)
Some reports of major storms of that period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_Storm_of_1962
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEfjAn7KUIc (blizzard 1964)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-1967blizzard-story,0,1032940.story
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/cle/wx_events/Blizzard78/blizzard/blizzard78.html

http://ww2.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/swio/pages/content/1977_blizzard.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Blizzard-77-Great-Plains/dp/1478718846
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2013/01/lookback_blizzard_of_1978_buri.html
http://www.julesburgadvocate.com/ci_22395163/blast-from-past
http://www.examiner.com/article/storms-of-christmases-past-denver-s-christmas-eve-blizzard-of-1982
On the west side of town snow drifts 4+ ft deep blocked access to entire neighborhoods.
I was pushing through snow head light deep on a 1976 Jeep Cherokee. People were going to local stores on skies and snow shoes for bread and milk. Stores were sold out within 12 hours after the weather cleared enough for people to move. Two days later the local bakery announced they were baking bread but would not deliver. Using my jeep I picked up a load of bread for a local convenience store. It was the only way she could get bread to sell to snow bound residents who were walking to the store in knee deep snow.
http://voices.yahoo.com/top-10-snowiest-winters-chicago-history-7537216.html
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pub/climate/co1900.txt
1977 March 19…Colorado Springs receives 13.4 inches of snow
with winds gusting to 52 mph. East of the city, 82 mph
winds were reported. The worst of the storm was from
Colorado Springs to Limon. Army helicopters and half-
tracks were used to rescue stranded people. Five known
dead, and $4 million in property loss and damage.
1982 December 24…Snow started falling in the early morning on
Christmas Eve and continued until sunrise Christmas Day.
Winds gusting to 45 mph kept visibility near zero most of
the day. Snow plows were unable to keep up with the storm
until the 25th, as snow drifts of 6 to 10 feet were common.
Pueblo only received 2 inches of snow from the storm.
1984 October 15-16th..The BRONCO blizzard. Storm started while
the Bronco’s were playing on national TV. Denver received
1 to 3 feet of snow; only 15 inches in Colorado Springs
and 1.4 inches at Pueblo. Winds gusted to 55 mph shutting
down I-25 from Denver to Colorado Springs, and numerous
flights in/out of Colorado Springs and Denver were canceled
due to blowing and drifting snow.
1987 January 15…Winter storm system arrives late on the 14th
covering the area from Colorado Springs to Pueblo, and the
surrounding area. Snowfall totals include: Colorado Springs
22 inches; Rye 42 inches; Colorado City 20 inches;
Pueblo 9 inches; Canon City 10 inches.

TB says:
January 4, 2014 at 12:26 pm
WRT to your experiment…
So we can calculate how much energy the CO2 will aborsorb and then with proper instrumentation we can then measure that energy given off, right?