From Philip Gentry at UAH April temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.19 C (about 0.34 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade
Northern Hemisphere: +0.36 C (about 0.65 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.02 C (about 0.04 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.
Tropics: +0.09 C (about 0.16 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.
March temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.17 C above 30-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.34 C above 30-year average
Southern Hemisphere: ±0.00 C at 30-year average
Tropics: ±0.00 C at 30-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 30-year average (1981-2010) for the month reported.)
Notes on data released May 6, 2014:
Compared to seasonal norms, the coldest place in Earth’s atmosphere in April was over the western Antarctic by the Ross Ice Shelf, where temperatures were as much as 3.32 C (about 6.0 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms, 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 warmest departure from average in April was in southeastern Russia near the town of Chita. Temperatures there were as much as 5.69 C (about 10.3 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 —
Warmist deviants will doubtless spin this every which-way. Let ’em.
Steven Mosher says: “Next, these are temperature anomalies for the atmosphere 8 km UP.
not the surface!”
Lower troposphere temperatures are from the surface to about 12.5 km, but weighted to the lower 3 km.
http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature/validation
“Do you guys ever look at data and its documentation?”
6 May: Phys.org: Sweden’s Vattenfall abandons research on CO2 storage
“Vattenfall will discontinue its R&D (research and development) activities regarding coal power with CCS (carbon capture and storage),” the group said in a statement explaining its new research plans.
The state-owned giant had been investing in this technology for more than 10 years, with plans for a power plant equipped with CCS in 2016…
Capturing and liquifying CO2 coming from carbon combustion to later store it underground was meant to curb greenhouse effect gas emissions, but its costs and the energy it requires make the technology unviable.
These difficulties had already forced Vattenfall to give up in 2011 a large project at a pilot plant in Jaenschwalde, in eastern Germany.
The European Union then demanded the reimbursement of funding worth 45 million euros ($62.75 million), but neither Vattenfall nor the EU ever said whether the group complied with the request.
In late 2011, the Swedish company said it still believed in the project and stated that it expected to build a coal power plant equipped with CCS by 2025.
But Tuesday, the group said that CCS was not among its priorities anymore…
With a capacity of 11,300 megawatt in 14 plants in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Vattenfall is one of the biggest European coal and lignite—a combustible rock considered the lowest rank of coal—electricity producers, which accounted for 40 percent of its total production in 2013…
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-sweden-vattenfall-abandons-co2-storage.html
Village Idiot says: “Our education is well under way (free of charge) just in case. Negative PDO…”
The PDO has been positive for the 1st 3 months of 2014.
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
7 May: Bloomberg: Eric Roston: Climate Change Impact No. 326: The Birds Start Sleeping Around
Those monogamous birds? Another casualty of climate change…
“Climatic fluctuations increase the probability of infidelity in birds that are normally monogamous.”
— U.S. National Climate Assessment…
The Assessment, which comes out every four years, cites a 2012 paper published in the journal Plos One, titled “Fluctuating Environments, Sexual Selection and the Evolution of Flexible Mate Choice in Birds.” Or, in the tabloid version: “Birds Get Hot, Start Spouse-Swapping, Page 4.”…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-06/climate-change-impact-no-326-the-birds-start-sleeping-around.html
The negative trend on this dataset goes back only to August 2008 (5 years 8 months).
The 60-month average has reached a new high (0..235), and is likely to go even higher over the next few months, as mid-2009 was relatively cool
The 120-month average (0.191) is a tiny fraction off its all-time high (0.193), reached in September 2011
Anthony – don’t expect a call!
6 May: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: Barack Obama to make climate change case to weather forecasters
US president signs up for eight interviews with TV meteorologists to defend landmark climate impacts report
PHOTO CAPTION: Barack Obama wipes sweat off his face as he unveils his plan on climate change, June 2013, at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
Barack Obama has signed up for eight interviews with TV meteorologists on Tuesday to defend a landmark report against those who deny climate change.
The interviews were scheduled as part of a carefully co-ordinated rollout of the National Climate Assessment…
TV weather forecasters remain among the most trusted sources, according to opinion polls.
Some 89% of Americans rely on local television for their weather news, according to a 2012 report from the Pew research centre.
The same report said 62% of Americans trust television weather reporters on climate change far more than they do climate scientists.
The problem is, however, that there is a strong current of climate scepticism among weather forecasters. Some of the most prominent television meteorologists deny a human cause in climate change – or insist there is no evidence of climate change.
A 2010 study by George Mason University’s centre for climate change communications found that only 19% of TV weather forecasters accepted that human activity was the main driver of climate change…
(Andrew Freedman, who covers climate change for Mashable): “Many TV meteorologists also lack specific training in climate science.”…
Meanwhile, the campaign group Forecast the Facts complained that broadcast meteorologists do not do enough to explain how climate change is contributing to heatwaves, drought, and other extreme weather events.
“I don’t talk about [global warming] on television … because I don’t see it as part of my short-term forecast,” the group quoted Tampa weatherman Steve Jerve as saying. “I don’t think it’s good for a scientist to talk about an opinion.”
The meteorologists interviewing Obama on Tuesday include: Al Roker, co-anchor of NBC’s Today Show; Ginger Zee, meteorologist on ABC’s Good Morning America; John Morales, chief meteorologist of NBC 6 in Miami, Florida, and Jim Gandy, meteorologist of WLTX-TV in Columbia, South Carolina.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/06/barack-obama-climate-change-us-weather-forecasters
@richard Barraclough
It is pointless to look for “records” in smoothed out data.
EPA has had a intermal Home Land Security operation, operated by White House people who will be asked questions by House Committee tomorrow.
Well I always get giddy when I see these various and sundry “lower troposphere” Temperature Anomaly reports.
I understand how the sun heats the surface, whether ground or ocean. I live on the surface (ground not ocean) All the trees and plants and animals live on the ground or close to it.
And I’ve seen some of those boxes alongside the Weber grills, for recording the official “surface Temperatures”. I assume that they record Temperatures in the usual scientific SI units.
Presumably, somebody else, somewhere else converts these temperatures into “anomalies”.
I understand how conduction, convection and evaporation, which are macroscopic thermodynamic processes, “heat” (verb) the lowest atmosphere, and add moisture to it, transporting “heat” energy (noun) and moisture to the upper layers of the atmosphere, where it is normally both lower temperature, and lower pressure and density.
I understand that the second law of thermodynamics says that this hot to cold direction is the normal direction of net heat energy flow, and unaided, it will not (net) flow the other way.
I understand how these processes warm the upper atmosphere up to much higher altitudes than I live (or the trees).
Finally, I understand how the warmer solid and liquid surfaces radiate thermal LWIR electromagnetic radiation energy similar to ideal black body thermal radiation; but with less than unity total emissivity, which cools the surface, And I understand how select portions of this radiation spectrum are captured by various so-called green house gases, and hence warm the lower and upper atmosphere through molecular collisions, and I understand how visible moisture clouds absorb significant portions of this LWIR radiant energy that they intercept., thus delaying the otherwise prompt ( 1 msec.) escape to space of that energy.
And I understand how during daylight hours, that delayed escape allows additional solar energy to arrive, and that offset results in an increased surface temperature, over what it would be if the radiant cooling was not delayed.
Of course, at night time, there is no incoming solar radiant energy, so the delay in escape of the cooling LWIR radiant energy does not result in any temperature offset; it still cools down; just takes longer to make the exit; maybe even a few seconds, instead of a millisecond.
But for the life of me, I don’t understand why I should care what the atmospheric temperature is at 8 km above the surface, since everything lives on the surface; or within a few meters of it.
We measure with thermometers what it is at around sixty inches, or maybe it’s two meters above the ground on a pole. So why don’t the satellite thermometers just read the temperature at two meters, just like the pole thermometers ?? That’s where the CO2 is densest anyway.
I haven’t watched the evening news in years, but tonight, as I ate dinner in Laramie awaiting a final exam, I watched Brian Williams. My god. It is worse than I thought. Williams has that constant look that is a cross between pained sincerity and smug sanctimony, while his minions in the fields recited a list of weather phenomena–tornadoes, fires, floods, drought and scorching heat, and on ad nauseum. I wanted to ask Brian, personally, what about the tornadoes, floods, and so forth? For him, It is as if merely repeating this list over and over is enough to convey the gravity of the situation.
This is where we have arrived. No-nothings repeat lines written for them on a teleprompter–politicians, actors, and newspeople–the priesthood of a strange new tribe.
Still pretending we measured the GTA in 1938 sufficiently to claim the GTA in ’98 was higher?
If so you’re a whore, not a scientist – and that’s a fact – deal with it.
Just reading Mosher’s comments; don’t you see why we can only trust the satellite temperature measurements.
BEST, NCDC, GISS have no objectivity that would cause us to have trust in the surface records produced by these organizations.
I mean let’s say Mosher is completely wrong about the global warming theory. I mean 95% or completely wrong.
And then he has to be the one to actually prove just how wrong he is through the data he/BEST is producing. I don’t see it happening.
After RSS May 2014 release, the latest 9 years on that record is no longer the warmest (unless I made a mistake). What does it mean? Probably nothing much, but some parties (Met Office?) have been pointing at decadal averages as a disproof of the pause. That “disproof” now seems to rely on an arbitrary selection of time period and dataset.
Bob Tisdale says:
May 6, 2014 at 4:03 pm
Steven Mosher says: “Next, these are temperature anomalies for the atmosphere 8 km UP.
not the surface!”
Lower troposphere temperatures are from the surface to about 12.5 km, but weighted to the lower 3 km.
http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature/validation
“Do you guys ever look at data and its documentation?”
According to the OP itself:
“The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level.”
When your seeking dis-information the temp up at eight kilometers might just help fudge for the cause.
pat says:
May 6, 2014 at 4:06 pm
7 May: Bloomberg: Eric Roston: Climate Change Impact No. 326: The Birds Start Sleeping Around
Those monogamous birds? Another casualty of climate change…
“Climatic fluctuations increase the probability of infidelity in birds that are normally monogamous.”
Like the robin that did it for a lark?
@Mosh, Phil
“The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level.”
Note the up to- not at
Well it’s up, however minimally, and it’s been up more than down since 1997, however minimally, which is totally different from the last midpoint of a PDO nina phase when dT actually DROPPED.
Since for all we have learned and all the dizzying information at our fingertips, we remain naked apes staring into the sunrise, I offer here the Dud PDO index of climate sensitivity.
In 1962, the current analogue of the last nina phase, temperatures had dropped from d.1 in 1945 to d.04 in 1962, for a drop of .07C, delta on delta.
We take the difference of atmospheric CO2 from Hawaii, 334ppm in1976 (the PDO transition year) to 400 today for an increase of 66ppm.
Dud PDO index of climate sensitivity =.001C/ppm CO2
Given that the climate models predict the surface should warm at a lower rate than the troposphere, why don’t the climate scientists stop using the surface temperature records – with all their sparse data problems, kriging infills and complicated homogeneity adjustments – and instead simply infer the surface temperature (anomaly) from the satellites?
“but natural factors are sure to reverse and create another warming cycle. ”
Or plunge us back into a little ice age or indeed a full one.
The only thing I am sure of is that if sure bets were the order of the day gamblers would be rich and betting shops would not make money.
I know an El Nino is supposedly in the works but the graph has an obvious sin wave that shows we should be bottoming out in 2015 or 2016.
Bottomed out in
2012
2008
2004
2000
1997
1993
1989
1985
1982
1979 – could have been 1978 – data doesn’t start until 1979
Daniel G
You may think it’s pointless to look for records in smoothed data, but there are plenty of them about. Whenever you see comments such as “warmest month”, “coldest spring”, “hottest decade”, etc., isn’t that exactly what you’re looking at? They are averages of the much smaller daily (or perhaps hourly) parts.
Alittle high. Observer at Hagerstown, MD shows -1.7 F (-.8 C) for April. Satellite shows -.5 to +.5 C.
http://i4weather.net/apr14.txt
george e. smith says:
May 6, 2014 at 5:04 pm
We measure with thermometers what it is at around sixty inches, or maybe it’s two meters above the ground on a pole. So why don’t the satellite thermometers just read the temperature at two meters, just like the pole thermometers ?? That’s where the CO2 is densest anyway.
Hi George, it’s a case of S & C realizing that they could use the existing microwave scanning instruments onboard satellites to infer temperature, by using different channels they were able to readout at different altitudes, not possible to resolve the 2m temperature. The original problem that they had was due to overlap between the troposphere and the stratosphere which they had to correct for.
Christopher Monckton, would you “do that thing” where you start with the current temperature, and calculate backwards as far as you can go while the slope remains zero? I’ve been using that as the yardstick, and th RSS data, if I remember correctly, was seventeen years nine months… Thanks in advance, Brian