UAH Global Temperature Update for February 2014: +0.17 deg. C
(Note, my original headline number was unintentionally misleading, using a percentage to illustrate the drop rather that the absolute number. While the calculation was correct, it gave an impression of overall magnitude across the entire scale rather than the month to month change. It has been corrected. – Anthony)
by Dr, Roy Spencer
The Version 5.6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for February, 2014 is +0.17 deg. C, down 0.12 deg C from January (click for full size version):
The global, hemispheric, and tropical LT anomalies from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for the last 14 months are:
YR MON GLOBAL NH SH TROPICS
2013 1 +0.497 +0.517 +0.478 +0.386
2013 2 +0.203 +0.372 +0.033 +0.195
2013 3 +0.200 +0.333 +0.067 +0.243
2013 4 +0.114 +0.128 +0.101 +0.165
2013 5 +0.082 +0.180 -0.015 +0.112
2013 6 +0.295 +0.335 +0.255 +0.220
2013 7 +0.173 +0.134 +0.211 +0.074
2013 8 +0.158 +0.111 +0.206 +0.009
2013 9 +0.365 +0.339 +0.390 +0.190
2013 10 +0.290 +0.331 +0.249 +0.031
2013 11 +0.193 +0.160 +0.226 +0.020
2013 12 +0.266 +0.272 +0.260 +0.057
2014 1 +0.291 +0.387 +0.194 -0.028
2014 2 +0.172 +0.325 +0.019 -0.102
Note that most of the cooling was in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere, less in the Northern Hemisphere.
The global image for February should be available in the next day or so here.
Popular monthly data files (these might take a few days to update):
uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt (Lower Troposphere)
uahncdc_mt_5.6.txt (Mid-Troposphere)
uahncdc_ls_5.6.txt (Lower Stratosphere)
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Global Temperature Report: February 2014
March 5, 2014 Vol. 23, No. 11
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade
February temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.17 C (about 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit) above
30-year average for February.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.33 C (about 0.59 degrees Fahrenheit) above
30-year average for February.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.02 C (about 0.04 degrees Fahrenheit) above
30-year average for February.
Tropics: -0.10 C (about 0.18 degrees Fahrenheit) below 30-year average
for February.
January temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.29 C above 30-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.39 C above 30-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.19 C above 30-year average
Tropics: -0.03 C below 30-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 30-year average (1981-2010)
for the month reported.)
Notes on data released March 5, 2014:
Warm temperature anomalies in the Arctic during February indicate a
displacement of cold air from that region to other areas, such as from
North America through the North Atlantic into eastern Russia,
according to Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and
director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of
Alabama in Huntsville.
Compared to seasonal norms, the coldest place in Earth’s atmosphere in
February was over the southwestern corner of Canada’s Saskatchewan
province near the town of Eston, where temperatures were as much as
4.68 C (about 8.42 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms.
With Arctic air holding sway over much of North America, temperatures
in the Arctic were generally warmer than normal in February. Compared
to seasonal norms, the warmest departure from average in February was
over the Arctic Ocean northeast of Svalbard, a group of islands about
halfway between Norway and the North Pole. Temperatures there were as
much as 6.16 C (11.1 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms.
Archived color maps of local temperature anomalies are available on-line at:
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 —
Gail Combs says:
March 5, 2014 at 4:24 pm
However WUWT is also for those without training above a high school education and at least in the USA most people haven’t the foggiest what a standard deviation is or have even heard of the term.
It always is smart to remember we have an unseen unheard ‘Peanut Gallery’ who are the people we really want to get information out to.
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(Anthony: apologies for breaking house rules and earning myself a “snip”; attempting to rephrase without losing the essence of my thought)
The “little people” are indeed fortunate to have such a gifted communicator.
Actually, I don’t think the problem is with the technical capability of the “little people”. Rather, it appears to be the failure of the academy that somehow allowed a bunch of PhD dudes (lots without science PhDs) to hijacked the scientific methodology (as known to Feynman, Einstein) and the concept of peer reviewed publication.
I doubt the “peanut gallery” is going to fix this problem for you. Just saying…
Scarface says:
March 5, 2014 at 2:56 pm
> BTW, what ever happened to the always entertaining 3rd order polynomial fit to the data?
I haven’t seen that for several months. I suspect too many people took it seriously and looked at its trend.
Re: 40%
Thanks to our host for fixing that gaffe. Kudos to Nick Stokes for the best dope slap comment. Understated but very much to the point.
Mario Lento says:
March 5, 2014 at 4:36 pm
For the first part, the replacement headline would be UAH Global Temperature Anomaly Down by 0.12 K in February. I have no trouble with that.
As for the second part, I’ll pass. A percentage relative absolute zero would make the difference between winter and summer misleading. People (and plants, minerals, etc.) can see a much larger impact to a doubling of temperature than a doubling of light we typically see or sounds we typically hear.
Phil. says:
March 5, 2014 at 5:37 pm
Chip Javert says:
March 5, 2014 at 4:50 pm.
…Palin actually said: “They’re our next door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
She also pointed out (in that foreign policy interview) that they share a maritime boarder. Unless I’m mistake, all three statements (i.e.: maritime boarder, neighbors, see from Alaska) are accurate (the Bearing Sea’s Diamonde islands are about 2 miles apart – one is USA territory and the other is Russian).
My issue was an off-topic and deliberately inflammatory political statement has no place in an analytical science discussion.
Chip Javert says:
March 5, 2014 at 5:40 pm
…..I doubt the “peanut gallery” is going to fix this problem for you. Just saying…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The people in the “peanut gallery” VOTE. They also talk to other people and if they hurt enough (home foreclosures or high heating bills) they will turn on the entrenched political parties.
You can see the start of that in the UK with UKIP and in the USA with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.
Therefore it pays to educate those people and make sure they have the information they need to make informed decisions when they vote.
It is called waking the sleeping giant.
Thanks for the change, Anthony. I look for the UAH anomaly every month–it’s the key metric I track. So I don’t need much more than “UAH Anomaly for Feb is [x]”. The number speaks for itself, at least for aficionados.
I didn’t mean to imply it’s uninteresting or not worth tracking, not at all. But if we say it’s down 40% at 1.7 C, if it goes back to 2.6 C, which it easily could, then the alarmists will bash WUWT for concealing that “the anomaly leapt 50% last month”.
Now, if the anomaly went negative, and stayed there for three months, yes, that would be noteworthy. That would warrant some drama in the headline.
What about the wet bulb effect? Would the energy (or lack thereof) required to precipitate a -0.1 C drop in the tropics be more significant than a 0.1 C rise in a colder subtropical region? I heard that the amount of energy required to raise the temperature from -30 to -29 was much less than the energy needed to raise the temperature from +29 to +30. Has anyone on/in this thread heard of anything like this?
The difference between UAH and RSS is probably due to the larger area that UAH measures. Since this area is at the poles it probably means there has been a warming trend at the poles. Since RSS did not measure the poles when they were cooler that means their anomaly would have been higher than UAH. Now, with the recent warming missing from their data they come out lower than UAH. I suppose one could look at the detailed data to get a better idea if this theory is right.
One might ask if anyone really cares about the polar areas. The difference isn’t that big and since almost no one lives there, does it really matter?
Steven Kopits says:
March 5, 2014 at 6:20 pm
Even then we’d need a few caveats. UAH reports anomalies from the 1981-2010 average. RSS uses the 20 (21?) year average 1978-1998. Plus, the two data sets have diverged a bit, so perhaps we should wait for both datasets to be negative for a few months.
Gail Combs says:
March 5, 2014 at 6:05 pm
…The people in the “peanut gallery” VOTE. They also talk to other people and if they hurt enough (home foreclosures or high heating bills) they will turn on the entrenched political parties.
You can see the start of that in the UK with UKIP and in the USA with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.
Therefore it pays to educate those people and make sure they have the information they need to make informed decisions when they vote.
It is called waking the sleeping giant.
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You are correct – some Europeans are indeed voting against the pain of high energy costs (Germany’s average cost is 300% that of the USA). However, this appears to be a vote for lower costs EVEN IF it increases global warming.
In any event, AGW global warming will NOT be settled at the ballot box; it will be settled by mother nature & reported by science. Leaving aside the disturbing concept of deciding science by vote, it should be noted that AGW is (almost) never explicitly on the ballot. When it is (e.g.: CA voter initiatives), AGW appears to be winning.
Yes, science needs to communicate observable facts to the general population, but science and the academy need to clean up their own house. Good luck with waking up your giant, but be careful: that giant might look at the current academic & science community and decide it strongly resembles the Augean Stables.
Am wondering if the cooling in the tropics is linked to the jet stream which has been rather powerful and southern tracking during this winter. During January a very powerful jet stream started to form in the eastern Pacific and flowed all the way across to europe. Also with there been a strong and southern tracking jet flowing across Africa and to the far east. lt does seem to have had a noticeable cooling effect on the NW lndian Ocean between Africa and India.
“Note, my original headline number was unintentionally misleading …”
~ Dr. Roy Spencer ~
======
Yeah, right. Nothing unintentional, at all. And no, not technically correct. {rolls eyes}
Nick Stokes says at March 5, 2014 at 12:49 pm
What would the headline be if the anomaly went negative?
January 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months
Posted on February 19, 2008 by Anthony Watts
For all four metrics the global average ∆T for January 2007 to January 2008 is: – 0.6405°C
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
Ahh, it wasn’t Dr. Roy. I should have guessed who …
Measurements mean nothing without properly calculated error margins also reported.
Thanks, Dr. Christy, Dr Spencer. I have updated your graphs in my pages.
Mario Lento says:
March 5, 2014 at 4:57 pm
[snip wildly off topic – Anthony]
++++++++
I hope I did not write anything offensive. I don’t understand what was off topic, but respect mods’ decision to keep us on track.
Better to report it as Dr. Spencer did in his own headline: “…anomaly for February, 2014 is +0.17 deg. C, down 0.12 deg C from January”, or just “…down .12 deg C from January”. An anomaly is relative to a long-term average. The current headline is also misleading since it appears to suggest a trend dipping negative to the baseline rather than saying that it is just down a squinch since last month.
Ah, I see I’ve alarmed my spell-checker. Didn’t know that one did you?
Nick Stokes says:
March 5, 2014 at 12:49 pm
What would the headline be if the anomaly went negative?
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Hallelujah, hallelujah halle..luuluu..JAHHH. I think that would cover it.
Blue Sky says:
March 5, 2014 at 1:53 pm
“”Creditability””
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You wouldn’t be Italian by any chance?
Marcos says:
It was cold in the NH breaking all kinds of records again. Yes the arctic was “warmer” and parts of Europe–and California–but come on, with the record bone breaking cold we still get a positive anomaly? Is there something wrong with the satellites? Are we missing something in this picture–a crucial bit of insight that has escaped us all? I say yes…because I say we’re colder–OK I’m not a satellite and I’m Not Christy and Spencer–so I don’t’ know what I’m talking about, But Marco is making a good point–place by place, the temps are not being recorded properly…or something,, Boy its maddening.
So even after Willis E’s comment I still see folks arguing about the “40%” thing with recalculations etc. etc.
Willis seems to be in a good mood and refrained from further comment.
Temperature reports using F and C are “interval” scales. Had Roy reported in F rather than C, the ratio being reported would differ. Thus, wisely, Willis used the K scale that is a ratio scale and presented a correct number. Some say math or “maths” is hard, but this is just arithmatic.
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And to John EF at 7:06 pm
The headline is not attributed to Roy Spencer. A. Watts has taken credit.
March 5, 2014 at 3:53 pm | AndyG55 says:
My wife and I were just commenting how summer in Queensland feels quite cool this year … we’ve only turned on the AC for 3 nights to take the edge off the humidity.
I assumed the 40% headline was an ironic comment on the usual doom-monger presentation. You certainly rattled another NS’s cage (although his response was stylish). Keep up the good work please. Some of us get (most of) the jokes.
With La Nina on the way it could continue downhill for a while.