by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Yes, Virginia, it really has been a cold winter.
The winter months of December 2013 and January 2014 averaged over the contiguous 48 United States were the 3rd coldest Dec/Jan in the last 30 years.
The analysis is based upon ~350 NOAA/NWS stations that measure temperatures every 6 hours (or more frequently), many located at airports. This is different from the official NOAA temperature product (update not yet available), which is based upon daily max/min temperatures measured at 1,000+ co-op stations. Those stations have had large adjustments made due to (among other things) changing time of observation (TOBS) over the years.
Here’s a plot of the Dec/Jan averages for the last 41 years (click for large version):
An interesting feature is that 5 of the last 7 years have been below the 41-year average, which has happened only one other time in the 41-year period.
The data I use are adjusted for average spurious urban heat island (UHI) warming that increases with population density around the thermometer site. That relationship is shown at the end of this article. The analysis starts in only 1973 since that is the first year with a large amount of quality-controlled 6-hourly temperature data archived at NOAA.
So, does the cold winter disprove global warming theory? No more than an unusually warm winter proves the theory. It’s just what we used to call “weather”.
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More interesting stories about this winter are at Dr. Roy Spencer’s website: http://www.drroyspencer.com/ be sure to bookmark it.
It will be interesting to see what NOAA/NCDC comes up with for the December-January ranking in their “state of the climate” report due in a few days. My guess is that it won’t be anywhere close, probably something like 9th coolest.
Place your bets.
The chart shows 5 colder December-January periods over the last 40 years, so despite all the publicity surrounding this winter, it is not unusually cold for the continental US as a whole. Perhaps the better media coverage these days compared with the 70’s created the impression that this year’s weather was more unusual than was really the case?
@ur momisugly richard baraclough
YES!
and we have had the opposite of it .
It is the S for Snake or Serpent, and here we have been in the opposite swing for whole December with no snow and frost at all.
Snowdrops Galanthus nivalis is coming, 60 deg North, 120 moh. Enviroment:=good enough for oaks apples and cherries to seed out naturally.
At the same time 30 cm Snow in Jerusalem and snow on the sphinx of Egypt.
Those events are extreemly rare and due to another Snake or Serpent down there..
So, does the cold winter disprove global warming theory? No more than an unusually warm winter proves the theory. It’s just what we used to call “weather”.
When does a series of ” weather” winters become “climate “? I think we are there already.
. Global annual temperatures have not risen now for 16 years and there is a global warming halt since 1998. Northern Hemisphere winters have been cooling for the same period. Winters in Contiguous US have been cooling in every state since 1998. The same is happening in Canada. So this frigid weather is not just weather as some imply but part of a winter climate change that has been happening for nearly 2 decades. The Northern Hemisphere Oceans are cooling especially the North Atlantic and the North Pacific which has been cooling since 2005. Cooler ocean cycles can run for 30-35 years as we saw in 1880-1910 and again 1945-1975. To me this current winter is part of a colder winter climate that will be with us for the next 2-3 decades .
@herkimer
Your model theory has got 2 quite typical and basic doctrinary errors.
1, confusing or rather even exchanging temperature with heat and warming and building your proof procedure on that.
2, confusing or rather even exchanging surface area with content, weight, and volume, and building your proof procedure, “opinion” and political “sceptical” sales argument on that.
Correct those 2 basic errors first, and see what remains of it all.
@richard Barraclough
You have not got a clue. We have not even arrived at the bottom of the (relevant) sine wave, defining energy coming in
we are now in 2014.
the bottom is 2016 (comparable with 1927)
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
from there onward it will be another 5 years before the return of the major droughts,
famously called the “Dust Bowl droughts” (1932-1939)
@Carbomontanus
There are always those who don’t want to see what is clearly there, right in front of them (ehhh, snow?)
@Stephen Fisher Mosher
Come on Stephen, you can do it. Give me another reply on my comment
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/03/u-s-decjan-temperatures-3rd-coldest-in-30-years/#comment-1558127
@Herkimer
Your comment is spot on. My calculation (for the end of the current cooling period) is 2038.
Carbomantanus
Suggest you blog in simple English . Your blog is baffling .
Herkimer
Plain English = Englischer Platt
(London cockney & similar….. a local mental and socially provincial illusion)
Did nobody tell you that?
jai mitchell says:
February 3, 2014 at 9:49 am
meanwhile, arctic temperatures have been 12 degrees above normal and the 7-day temperature anomaly is showing incredible Alaskan warming.
—————————————————————-
It is easy to see why that is, when one looks at the current sst anomaly in the north Pacific and the jet stream pattern that has been in place for several years now. This should not be mysterious. Yes, No California has enjoyed spring like days, just like Alaska, since early December, and after ten weeks of bitter cold in the fall. Let us see what happens over the next several months. When I moved into the mountains in April of 2011, I was surprised at how cold it was, and then at how cold it stayed until the end of May of that year. From the 3rd week of April 2011 till the end of May 2011, the daily temperature did not rise much past 50 F at the highest. Ironically, the places where I have stayed in the past 3 years are cold spots in the local area.
Carbomontanus says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/03/u-s-decjan-temperatures-3rd-coldest-in-30-years/#comment-1558292
henry says
this is coming from the man/woman who has not presented any results him/herself….
Just a few final notes
1) Pity that dr. Roy has not reacted to my comments
2) if you look carefully at the graph presented by Roy
note with me that you can easily draw a parabolic curve (binomial best fit)
probably with high correlation!
if somebody can give me the original data I can work it out it for you,
[I just don’t have the time to try and work out the figures from the graph]
Depending on the correlation, you can project that best fit curve a bit forward,
and see that the worst of the big freeze in the next 5-10 winters is still coming up.
That would be in line with my own and herkimer’s findings…..
now that I’m freezing, remember this article?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/05/how-long-to-the-2425-solar-minimum/
now that we are in 2014 and the poles flipped, etc. can you post an updated chart of green corona emissions diagram produced by Richard Altrock?
and a new estimate on the end point of SC24??????
@freezing in Alaska
a good proxy for evaluating energy coming through the atmosphere is maximum temperatures.
I have done that already for you (47 weather stations, globally balanced)
What you end up with (unless we all freeze to death, look at the drop of the blue line)
is this graph here:
\
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
from there onward, you can see that in 2016 we will be in the deep end of the wave,
comparable to 1927.
I find that as we are moving back, up, from the deep end of the 88 year sine wave, there will be standstill in the change of the speed of cooling, neither accelerating nor decelerating, on the bottom of the wave; therefore naturally, there will also be a lull in pressure difference at that > [40 latitude], where the Dust Bowl drought took place, meaning: no wind and no weather (read: rain). According to my calculations, this will start around 2020 or 2021…..i.e. 1927=2016 (projected, by myself and the planets…)> add 5 years and we are in 2021.
Danger from global cooling is documented and provable. It looks we have only ca. 7 “fat” years left……
WHAT MUST WE DO?
We urgently need to develop and encourage more agriculture at lower latitudes, like in Africa and/or South America. This is where we can expect to find warmth and more rain during a global cooling period.
We need to warn the farmers living at the higher latitudes (greater than 40) who already suffered poor crops due to the droughts that things are not going to get better there for the next few decades. It will only get worse as time goes by.
We also have to provide more protection against more precipitation at certain places of lower latitudes (FLOODS!), at less than [30] latitude, especially around the equator.
HenryP says:
February 5, 2014
(47 weather stations, globally balanced)…..not exactly, 7 of them are in South Africa, 8 if you count Marion Island, and 2 are in Anchorage
@ur momisugly Richard Barraclough
you are referring to my tables, here,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
note that I spent considerable time in thinking of a proper sampling technigue and in the end I decided that longitude does not matter,
because
1) earth turns every 24 hours
2) we are looking at the change in degrees C per annum at the station and one whole year includes the seasonal shifts within that year.
The rest of my sampling procedure is described before the tables begin and I suggest you read that. Note that the number of stations NH must be (more or less) equal to those from the SH.
This is what made me stop at 47, otherwise the sample would become too skewed, because it must also balance on latitude.
I am confident that anyone/class of students can duplicate my results and come to the same conclusion if they follow the given sampling procedure. If they took 5 stations in New York, that is fine. but they must balance on latitude and 70/30 @ur momisuglysea/inland
Longitude does not matter for what we want to see: change in (maximum) temperature per annum,i.e. the amount of energy being let through the atmosphere.(99.5% correlation for the binomial for the change in speed of warming)
For the means and minima tables there is some more noise, but even here you can also make good binomials of the 4 end results, with high correlation (95%)
So, in the end it is a combination of simple physics and good statistics.
Anyone can do it, if they were not so lazy and /or prejudiced
@ur momisugly all and everyone exept Henry P
“Henry says
This is coming from the man/ woman who has not presented any results him/ herself”
Henry P is apparently scoring results and points here for him/ herself in the Party, as you can rather easily see. ( I have no other reference for it. P for Pure and for Party and Procedure, even the Peoples Party. the blood group P, you see)
That proceduse of exchanging heat with temperature and surface with volume and tension or voltage with energy is very common and standard operational procedure for bluffing and cheating, and should allways be remarked.
Never rely on and never buy anything from, never trust people wo demonstrate that kind of typical crooky or silly or mad manners or procedures.
And never trust or buy anything from people who rush out immediately to the defence of that kind of crooky and cheating and bluffing behaviours.
Because it is very standard and common operational routine and procedures for those who are most likely also to keep a fraud budget for instance.
Richard Barraclough says: @ur momisugly February 4, 2014 at 6:40 am
The chart shows 5 colder December-January periods over the last 40 years, so despite all the publicity surrounding this winter, it is not unusually cold for the continental US as a whole…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The last five out of seven Dec/Jan in the USA have been below average in temperature which may indicate the end of the ‘plateau’ at the higher temperatures. There have certainly been some nasty winters in the last half decade with livestock freezing to death in the USA, Scotland, Tibet and South America.
carbomatanus says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/03/u-s-decjan-temperatures-3rd-coldest-in-30-years/#comment-1559062
translation
(seeing some might be confused)
I am the party pooper
there is no global cooling
everyone says it is still warming
so we must believe them
(never mind the snow in front of my door in late spring)
Henry says
it is cooling from the top [90] latitudes down
1)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/05/cryosat-shows-arctic-sea-ice-volume-up-50-from-last-year/
2)
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2ql5zq8.jpg
cooling in Alaska at -0.55 degrees C / decade
3)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/22/nasa-announces-new-record-growth-of-antarctic-sea-ice-extent/#more-96133
just found all of that in 30 seconds
only fools would keep on thinking the agw route
and all of them (97%?) stand in the way of progress….
Sad, sad,sad.
God willing, I am in LA from 22-02-2014 until 02.03.2014
to discuss my results with anyone interested.
I think the 7 year warning (before the droughts) is important?