However, satellite data don’t agree with that finding
People send me stuff.
Today I got an email with an advance link to the NOAA/NCDC “state of the climate” briefing- that monthly phone call where Tom Karl’s NCDC staff spoon feeds unquestioning newsies like AP’s Seth Borenstein the latest worry over climate. Unsurprisingly, May 2015 is now anointed as the “warmest May on record”, thanks in part to the new and “pause busting” improved sea surface temperature record, all highly adjusted based on a variety of rationalizations.
This is what is being sent out today:
NOAA to Announce Key Climate Findings: Learn more about the temperature, precipitation and weather events experienced around the world in 2014, tomorrow at 11 am EDT. Dial 1-888-989-9791 with the password “Climate” to join the call and view the slides here (available at 10:30 am EDT).
It seems the oceans are now all the “Red Sea of climate despair”, except for that stubborn patch of low percentile blue near Greenland:
Wow, lots of red in the oceans, all based on percentiles (a statistical tool). Scary looking huh? I’ll bet AP’s Seth Borenstein (and others) will eat that right up and that global image they are pushing will be seen in news world-wide.
Of course, we knew back on June 19th this would be coming. Bob Tisdale wrote then:
NOAA recently published their State of the Climate Report for May 2015. Under the heading of Global Summary Information, they note:
Note: With this report and data release, the National Centers for Environmental Information is transitioning to improved versions of its global land (GHCN-M version 3.3.0) and ocean (ERSST version 4.0.0) datasets. Please note that anomalies and ranks reflect the historical record according to these updated versions. Historical months and years may differ from what was reported in previous reports. For more, please visit the associated FAQ and supplemental information.
But of course we know the adjustments that led to the new NOAA ERSST.v4 sea surface temperature data (the biggest changes to the NOAA data took place in the ocean portion) are not supported during the global warming slowdown period by the night marine air temperature dataset (HadNMAT2 from the UKMO) that NOAA used for bias corrections. (See post here.) In other words, it appears NOAA overcooked their “improvements”. Oops!
On the NOAA Global Analysis – May 2015 webpage they state under the heading of Temperatures:
The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2015 was the highest for May in the 136-year period of record, at 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F), surpassing the previous record set just one year ago by 0.08°C (0.14°F). This ties with February 1998 as the fourth highest monthly departure from average for any month on record. The two highest monthly departures from average occurred earlier this year in February and March, both at 0.89°C (1.60°F) above the 20th century average for their respective months.
Somehow I don’t think that will surprise anyone.
There’s another global graph that NCDC made, showing anomaly data rather than percentiles, but that didn’t quite make it into the press briefing, perhaps because there’s not as much red in it:
Aw, shucks, where did all the hot red go? Interestingly, there’s no link in the press briefing document that take you to the directly to the May 2015 SOTC page at NCDC that this is presented on, so folks like Seth won’t likely see this image unless they actually switch from regurgitator to reporter mode and spend some time to look for it.
If you want to look at both the press briefing and the SOTC page where that image exists, here are the links:
SOTC Press brief: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/201506.pdf
SOTC May 2015: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201505
But, never mind. Let’s look at the global temperature for May 2015 as seen by satellite data (click to enlarge):
![052015map[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/052015map1.jpg?quality=83)
And the graph (click to enlarge):
![2015-graph[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/2015-graph1.jpg?quality=83)
Looks to me like the pause is alive and well, and look at the rightmost datapoint, May 2015, nowehere near a record. Now to be fair, the satellite record is only from 1979, but, there’s certainly no indication of May 2015 being the hottest ever.
Or if you prefer numbers, here is what UAH said about May 2015:
Global Temperature Report: May 2015
Third warmest May in satellite record
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.11 C per decade
May temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.27 C (about 0.49 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.33 C (about 0.59 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.21 C (about 0.38 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Tropics: +0.27 C (about 0.49 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for May.
Source: http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/
Compare that to what NOAA/NCDC is saying:
The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2015 was the highest for May in the 136-year period of record, at 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F), surpassing the previous record set just one year ago by 0.08°C (0.14°F).
So for May 2015 NOAA says the globe is at 0.87°C above normal, and UAH says the globe is at 0.27°C above normal – a difference by a factor of three.
Who to believe?
UPDATE: In comments, there is this point about that dangerous climate change aka the 2°C limit that alarmists keep wailing about:
Well, it would seem so. But, 2F is not 2C. 2.30F works out to 1.27C. Close but no cigar. NOAA/NCDC could do a better job in their press briefing for the globe tomorrow by using both C and F, especially since many reporters can’t do this simple temperature conversion. Right now, they only have °F on their PowerPoint, which is curiously unscientific and Americanized.
Record highs or lows are meaningless when it comes to temperatures or other metrics of the natural world. Imagine you climb to a plateau and as you are walking along a plateau you come across a rock. That rock is a record high but it doesn’t mean anything other than its the highest point on the plateau so far. You’ll come across a slightly larger rock soon enough. In fact quite often, as maximum values on a fractal distribution follow an arcsine distribution so extremes are quite common.
Good point.
It seems that many tend to believe that every possible record, for a normal climate, has already been set and recorded for every single spot on earth. Hence every new record must be proof of climate change.
A prediction: we will experience a tipping in science soon, where even the staunchest CAGW scientists will be staring at gross misrepresentations. So gross, so enormously slanted will there foundational data be that they will by like Saul under the hot sun…pooof! Disgusted, they will turn on the violent wrongs they have partied with, they will cast off Mann and become chickens pecking into existence the new age of untrifled datasets
It seems like they say about the same thing every May or is it every month.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201205
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/ncdc-releases-may-2013-global-climate-report
http://www.weather.com/science/environment/news/may-2014-was-worlds-hottest-warmest-record-noaa-20140623
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/global/201505
Then, can anybody explain why the ice caps are not collaborating?
The North pole ice extension is normal right now and the South pole ice extension is above normal.
AGW changes the properties of water ….didn’t you get the memo?
From the middle of the hot spot in the Pacific Northwest USA, here’s the rankings of May temperatures from Oregon State University:
Year (Ave. temp F)
1931 61.32
1940 61.19
1992 60.34
1947 60.29
1897 60.18
1936 60.1
1997 60.02
1958 59.85
1928 59.55
1949 59.27
1946 58.98
1938 58.87
1939 58.84
1993 58.77
1890 58.71
1924 58.69
2014 58.4
1934 58.27
1925 58.27
1987 58.16
2013 58.1
1945 58.08
1937 58
1956 57.95
1969 57.81
2015 57.8
May 2015 was the 26th hottest May since record collection by the university began in 1893, not even close to the hottest.
For those with an eye toward Paris, be aware of the stakes.
Consider the Iran deal just cut. It will take a 2/3 majority of both houses to stop the executive order. The moment it is in force the money will flow almost overnight and the damage will be done. It will be hard to put that baby back.
Fast forward to Paris. The blueprint will have been created and tested via the Iran agreement. An executive deal will be made, money will start to flow like water and the damage will be done long before another administration can do a thing.
Karl, et al and its offspring such as this May report are just small bricks in the building of the temple. Call it an evil conspiracy or a confederacy of dunces, it makes no difference. The time to do the hard work in scientific and political communities is now…. January will be too late.
“So for May 2015 NOAA says the globe is at 0.87°C above normal, and UAH says the globe is at 0.27°C above normal – a difference by a factor of three.
Who to believe?”
#############
fallacy of the false dilemma.
They are both “correct”. These estimate different things. No one expects them to be the same.
Which of course statistically would question the robustness of the overall conclusion were this not the era of post-normal scientific methodology. Especially when combined with the noise of each individual station. My first born for NOAA ground level temperature series error bars.
NOAA error bars are – Floor, Ceiling.
Is she a redhead too?
Clearly we are not on the same page. Error bars should be determined for NOAA’s data set. Instead they dismiss the use of error bars by adjusting and/or smearing data from one sensor to other sensors or areas. Homogenization of noisy ill-kept sensors is an assumption unsupported in my view. I stand by my statement with one change. My first born son for NOAA ground level temperature series error bars.
And actually I wouldn’t give him away even to the Queen of England to be declared a prince. And why would I need to? If we had NOAA employees who understood what they were doing, we would have frickin error bars.
No connection between surface temperatures and the lower troposphere. They are two totally different things. They have no physical basis for any physical interdependence. none at all. They are just completely different things.
As both the anomaly data and the trend data continue to diverge, eventually the claim above will have to be made. On that day, it will be “Game Over” for the alarmists, and everybody knows it. The alarmists paint themselves into a corner with these claims.
BTW – satellite and weather balloon data are available, why do they never use it. It seems like the satellite data in particular would have much utility as an adjunct to a somewhat difficult data set. Possibly even for the use of making impartial corrections and adjustments. You know, unbiased.
You appear to be unaware of the meaning of robustness as it applies to different data sets and methods that attempt to measure Earth’s temperature. Temperature reconstructions are filled with different ways of indicating Earth’s temperature. And the robustness is not as good as some folks wish they were (right Michael Mann?). Ground and satellite ways of measuring temperature are of the same method. And to be robust, they should mirror each other quite well. It is clear they do not. That there is such a divergence between methods would be noted by other disciplines as having evidence of decreased hypothesis robustness, thus leading to caution in interpreting results. Would that climate scientists learn from solar scientists.
To clarify, they are of the same research method as multiple ways of reconstructions in that ground and satellite sensors are different ways of measuring Earth’s temperature, which is an excellent way of determining the robustness of one’s hypothesis.
How is global temperature defined in the global warming theory?
Which temperature product is the right one to use?
How is measured water temperatures combined with measured air temperatures?
Total mass and heat capacity of air and water is very different as illustrated by these estimates:
Specific heat capacity of air approximately 1.0 kJ/kg*K
Total mass of the atmosphere 5.14 x 10^18 kg
Specific heat capacity or water approximately 4.2 kJ/kg*K
Total mass of the oceans 1.4 x 10^21 kg
What is the definition of the measurand?
To illustrate why this may be relevant.
The amount of energy it takes to warm the atmosphere by 1 K would just heat the oceans by 0.001K.
S or F,
If I may,
– to illustrate why that is significant, we do not know the actual temperature of ‘the Oceans’ (big place, as has been observed before) to, I suggest, any accuracy better than 1 K.
Shed loads of Argo buoys – each measuring the temperature of [one spot in] on average many thousands of square miles, each averaging a couple of miles or so deep.
[The average width of Manhattan Island, about Central Park, is a couple of miles or so.
Turn that horizontal distance about one end, so it’s vertical – that’s the average [mean] depth of the world’s Oceans.
A lotta water – no?]
Satellites, measuring surface temperatures well enough – but not the depths [miles deep, often, as noted].
And, as I did in earlier decades, some ships’ officers taking temperatures with buckets . . .
Paucity of data.
Some not necessarily accurate [even if consistent].
And huge expanses of water
I get the distinct impression, Steven Mosher, that you are not a fan of satellites ‘measuring’ temps (OK, I get that they are actually modelling the temp: Models, huh?). I read on many posts here that you put all your faith/belief/trust (delete as applicable) in UAH. That said, had you been asked/consulted about RSS before it was launched, would you have told them not to bother as the satellites could never come close to the sparse array of surface stations, could they? I don’t know how they ever got off the ground, do you?
I think it is unfair to call “Who to believe?” a logical fallacy – I think it is reasonable to ask which temperature product to believe in. The answer that they are both correct can only only be correct if the global warming theory is not precisely defined – in which case it is not falsifiable – in which case the global warming theory should not be referred to as science.
Oh – by the way – I forgot to ask. I found this comment by Steven Mosher at Judith Curry´s blog:
“We are staring a blog at Berkeley. Thinking about 1/2 technical and the other half educational.
if I were commenting at our blog i would have banned me a long time ago.
so I am think of rules for the blog comments that will outlaw my most outlandish behavior.
I consider most blogging and comments on blog to be theatre…doing something non theatrical is tough.”
I happened to take your comment above, here at Wattsupwiththat, seriously. Was I right in doing so?
Also GISS is base-lined at 1951 to 1980 and UAH for 1981 – 2010.
Above in response to Mosher.
Correction: NOAA GHCN data baseline is 20th cent.
Thanks for your thoughtful answer to my questions in a previous story: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/13/a-return-to-the-question-was-2014-the-warmest-year/
One of your statements seems a bit contentious.
It seems to me that some folks think it matters a lot. 🙂
The above is a reply to:
Steven Mosher says: July 15, 2015 at 9:43 am
sciguy ….+100
The GISS set is obviously the more accurate set. The presence of snow cover over entire swaths of the upper latitudes smashes any extent previously recorded with this tool:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=07&fd=05&fy=2008&sm=07&sd=12&sy=2015
Lordy. Save us from skeptics who don’t know a damn thing about data limitations.
Pamela, you’re very grouchy lately! Everything alright in Pamelaland?
Did you click on the link Rob used? How in anyone’s world is that a snow cover support for his statement??????
The mistake Rob used was to see a picture with his rose colored glasses on, which prevented him from reading the cautions more carefully.
This brilliant little test by Tony Heller is quite telling when it comes to data tampering by
NOAA NCDC (National Climatic Data Center)
This is the only example of near perfect correlation within climate fiction.
Unfortunately – it indicates fraud:
CO2 Drives NCDC Data Tampering
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/co2-drives-ncdc-data-tampering/
After watermelons milk the anthropogenic bloody heck out of this turnip, a year from now some low level employee will write up a little non-media focused ditty about the causes of this heat wave being related to weather pattern variations that hit earlier than usual (you know, the random walk thing), thus breaking records for May. And it will be buried in an NOAA file far away from the public eye. But reality counts little, whether hidden or exposed. It’s the impression that matters and impressions must be early, as in your first impression of a date when you were 16. We have hormonal juveniles running the country.
Hormonal juveniles with the keys to the car and no need to answer to the car’s owners.
Re Title: Thanks partly to NOAA’s new adjusted dataset, tommorrow they’ll claim to reporters that May was the ‘hottest ever’
Only one “m” in tomorrow.
Keep up the great work Anthony!
And there is no F in way
Is it possible to generate a graph of temperature for the conterminous US from the GHCN-M to compare to the same from the USCRN for the last ~10 year period?
Has anyone ever seen/read through this article? http://www.1ocean-1climate.com/FIGURE_Engl1939_Aug14.pdf
Dan,
The link is interesting – but adduces no data for the number – or activity – of warships in the area of study, so, although the general drift – that the 1939-1940 winter repays study – is probably right, the specific – the vast numbers of warships sailing – and fighting – in that area precipitated a nastily cold winter remains, for me, unproven.
There is no comparison with current maritime traffic in the same study area that I noted.
I have saved the document, but . . . .
Incidentally the Kriegsmarine [German Navy] is recorded in Wikipedia, about 2115Z 15.7.15, [so accurate I can edit it . . . .] as having completed just four battleships, during the whole of its existence; and three pocket battleships. Three heavy cruisers [c. 18,000 tons displacement] too. I don’t think they were all active in late 1939 and early 1940. The light cruisers, of about 7,700 displacement, were materially smaller than HMS Belfast – moored in the Pool of London – see Google Maps for a view from London Bridge or, better, Tower Bridge.
Ten ships [on the German side] bigger than that [and some from Britain, France, etc.] caused a nasty winter.
Hmmm – maybe . . . .
Auto
Thanks Auto…, I have not had time to read through the article but right away my eyebrow “skeptically” arched a bit!
Dan
May was the hottest ever because they added 0.12°C to all the ocean buoy temperatures. Now that’s really man-made global warming.
What matters is what do the temperatures do going forward not what they have done looking back.
The answer is down and down and more down.
No. They will be noisy. Up, down, up, down. The overall direction of the steps depends on the trade winds. If they continue to be easterly weak with western wind bursts, we will continue to have warm spikes. However, the overall direction of the up and down steps will be down simply because of a lack of clear sky conditions in that all important equatorial band replenishing the ocean energy being lost to evaporation from the euphotic (sunlit) zone.
http://www.mbgnet.net/salt/oceans/zone.htm
Pam, are correct they will be up/down/up/down. I wanted to make it more dramatic.
…and Pam will only be correct if we continue in El Nino/El Nado land. However La Nina/La Nada will likely commence restoring at least some ocean energy. How much it restores will then tell us how much can be discharged again. My only claim is that of a cyclic intuition that says we will return to a 50’s and 70’s ish La Nina/La Nada colder period that recharges the oceans then followed again by a warmer El Nino/El Nado discharge period. I don’t see an ice age or even little ice age anytime soon.
One caution: if a super volcano goes off with lots of pulses of aerosols that make it into the stratosphere during a recharge cycle, the oceans won’t be recharged sufficiently to then allow us a return to our present and welcoming warmth with the oceans swaddling us in cozy Earth-greening growing seasons.
Yes. It’s very frustrating trying to to any analysis on this dataset because you have to download a new version almost every month. Even figures from more than a decade ago have changed again several times within the last year.
“Percentiles are a statistical tool.” Shows the level of scientific understanding this author expects of his audience. Sheesh!
NOAA map ignores the poles which were cold during May.
NOAA :
FORECAST CONFIDENCE BEYOND 72/84 HRS IS LOW.
in belgium after a good heatwave, we had ground frost on 10 july in the south… on one station we even had 0°C (32°F) just 0.3°shy of the coldest july minimum temperature ever recorded 🙂
groundfrost can still happen in the south due to it’s elevation (600 meter/roughly 1800 feet) and distance from the sea though it’s rare it happens once every 30 some years….
From what I can make out, it’s only been the past 20 years that automatic weather stations have been installed, with accuracies of +/- 0.1 deg C. In Russia and Antarctic, these weren’t installed till 2008. Prior to that time, recording accuracy was +/-0.5 deg C. Measurement errors were hence greater than =/-0.5 deg C.
Errors cannot be reduced by averaging (as claimed by Jones et al) because the data is not homogeneous.
Given that variation from current temperatures across the entire range (except for 1998) was less than 0.5, NOAA claims are meaningless.
At least the lawyers are on alert?
http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2015/07/15/sabin-center-supports-upr-recommendations-on-climate-change-and-human-rights/
Well yes, at a Law Center specifically focused on Climate Change.
http://web.law.columbia.edu/climate-change
World Meteorological Organization defines climatological standard normals as “averages of climatological data computed for the following consecutive periods of 30 years: January 1, 1901 to December 31, 1930, January 1, 1931 to December 31, 1960, etc.” (WMO, 1984).The latest global standard normals period is 1961-1990. The next standard normals period is January 1991 – December 2020.
The Data (1961-1990) is available for free download here,
http://data.un.org/Explorer.aspx?d=CLINO
(scroll down page)
Enough Data to Overwhelm most people on here.Is this Gold or Iron Pyrites for the ‘Data Miners’? Check out your Local Area for 1961-1990 period.
Have fun.
“NOAA to Announce Key Climate Findings: Learn more about the temperature, precipitation and weather events experienced around the world in 2014, tomorrow at 11 am EDT. Dial 1-888-989-9791 with the password “Climate” to join the call and view the slides here (available at 10:30 am EDT).”
This is about 2014. Why is everyone talking about 2015? Real sceptics notice such things 😉
Anthony you quoted this:
“NOAA to Announce Key Climate Findings: Learn more about the temperature, precipitation and weather events experienced around the world in 2014, tomorrow at 11 am EDT. Dial 1-888-989-9791 with the password “Climate” to join the call and view the slides here (available at 10:30 am EDT).”
That NOAA announcement tomorrow you quoted is to do with temperature, precipitation and weather events experienced around the world in 2014.
Your headline says “Thanks partly to NOAA’s new adjusted dataset, tommorrow they’ll claim to reporters that May was the ‘hottest ever’”
Your headline doesn’t make sense seeing that NOAA announced the May 2015 report back in the 18th June.
Did you mean to say the 2015 June report will be released tomorrow instead?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings