by David Rose
New official data issued by the Met Office confirms that world average temperatures have plummeted since the middle of the year at a faster and steeper rate than at any time in the recent past.
Cooling: New Met Office world data shows a big fall from heat spike caused by El Nino this year
The huge fall follows a report by this newspaper that temperatures had cooled after a record spike. Our story showed that these record high temperatures were triggered by naturally occurring but freak conditions caused by El Nino – and not, as had been previously suggested, by the cumulative effects of man-made global warming.
The Mail on Sunday’s report was picked up around the world and widely attacked by green propagandists as being ‘cherry-picked’ and based on ‘misinformation’. The report was, in fact, based on Nasa satellite measurements of temperatures in the lower atmosphere over land – which tend to show worldwide changes first, because the sea retains heat for longer.
It is true that the massive 2015-16 El Nino – probably the strongest ever seen – took place against a steady warming trend, most of which scientists believe has been caused by human CO2 emissions
However, now the drop in temperature is also showing up in the authoritative Met Office ‘Hadcrut4’ surface record, compiled from measurements from more than 3,000 weather stations located around the world on both sea and land.
To the end of October, the last month for which figures have been released, Hadcrut4 had fallen about 0.5C from its peak in the spring.
The reason is the end of El Nino. The natural phenomenon, which takes place every few years and has a huge impact on world weather, occurs when water in a vast area of the Pacific west of Central America gets up to 3C hotter than usual.
It has now been replaced by a weak La Nina, when the water becomes colder than usual. This means temperatures may still have some way to fall.
El Nino is not caused by greenhouse gases and has nothing to do with climate change. It is true that the massive 2015-16 El Nino – probably the strongest ever seen – took place against a steady warming trend, most of which scientists believe has been caused by human emissions.
But when El Nino was triggering new records earlier this year, some downplayed its effects. For example, the Met Office said it contributed ‘only a few hundredths of a degree’ to the record heat. The size of the current fall suggests that this minimised its impact. When February produced a new hot record for that month, at the very peak of El Nino, newspapers in several countries claimed that this amounted to a ‘global climate emergency’, and showed the world was ‘hurtling’ towards the point when global warming would become truly dangerous. Now, apparently, the immediate threat has passed. It would be just as misleading to say lower temperatures caused by La Nina meant the world was into a new long-term cooling.
The Mail on Sunday’s report was picked up around the world and widely attacked by green propagandists as being ‘cherry-picked’ and based on ‘misinformation’
But the big question is: what will happen when both El Nino and La Nina are over and the Pacific water returns to its ‘neutral’, average state?
Professor Judith Curry, of Georgia Tech in Atlanta, who is president of the Climate Forecast Applications Network, said it would take years before it was clear whether the long-term warming trend was slowing down, staying the same or accelerating.
‘The bottom line is that we can’t read too much into the temperatures of a year or two,’ she said. ‘We will need the perspective of another five years to understand what is going on.’
Full story Mail on Sunday, 11 December 2016
But it’s quite okay to ramp up policy and politics in one or two years of data when it’s going up. Got it.
How dare they plot the global Temperature anomaly using 273.15 kelvin as the base period Temperature ??
How the hell are we supposed to compare that to the usual anomalies referenced to the 30 year period starting in 1066.
Well that’s the sorry state of climate science today.
We could be headed below 14.5 deg. C anomaly before Christmas.
G
George… I do not think that is an anomaly-based chart. I think it is an average temp reconstruction chart.
“I think it is an average temp reconstruction chart.”
Well the problem is just that Steve: we don’t actually know what that graph is supposed to be, because there is no reference to the data nor even any indication more specific than “New Met Office world data”.
OH, it’s “world data” . May pass with your average Tory housewife Daily Mail reader but won’t pass muster on an award winning science blog.
So if WUWT is going to reproduce this tabloid crap, can we at least have a proper reference for the data. It actually looks like a quite important change that needs to be communicated far and wide. But I will not be referring to it nor copying a meaningless, non scientific graph to anyone I know. I’d be embarrassed.
Maybe our host could ask David Rose what the data shown is and post a proper attribution.
Replying here to Greg, because WordPress won’t indent any further.
The HadCRUT4 data is available at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.5.0.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
Here’s monthly data from July 2015 through October 2016. It rises to a peak in February+March 2016, and then drops off
2015/07 0.696
2015/08 0.738
2015/09 0.792
2015/10 0.837
2015/11 0.836
2015/12 1.024
2016/01 0.906
2016/02 1.068
2016/03 1.069
2016/04 0.915
2016/05 0.688
2016/06 0.731
2016/07 0.728
2016/08 0.770
2016/09 0.712
2016/10 0.587
Thanks, I know how to find data once I know what dataset it is.
My point was there is NO indication of what “world data” is being plotted here. Is it land , sea, land + sea … ?
Now we could start guessing by look at the form but that is not the way science is done. Like I said, this may be good enough for a rag like the Daily Mail, but not on a science blog.
Now I congratulate David Rose on give thing some air time in MSM, more power to him. But if I’m going to cite this it needs a proper attribution, preferably on the graph, if not right next to it in a caption.
“However, now the drop in temperature is also showing up in the authoritative Met Office ‘Hadcrut4’ surface record”
If that is the “also” , what was the other one ?!
Reply to Greg December 13, 2016 at 1:43 am
The article mentioned satellite data had previously shown a sharp drop. The 2 best-known satellite data sets are…
* RSS at ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
* UAH at http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0.txt
***NOTE*** The UAH URL has changed this month. Ignore the location you see listed in my previous postings here. See Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog post http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/12/new-location-for-uah-version-6-text-files/
george e smith on December 12, 2016 at 9:32 am
Well that’s the sorry state of climate science today.
Climate science? What climate science? Do you see any of that here? That’s nothing else than worst “Fox News-like” journalism, made by one of these newcomer specialists in solely apparent information, which drops upon analysis down to simple-minded desinformation.
Below is an anomaly based chart with a correct, sharp-lined monthly plot of HadCRUT4 from january 1979 till today:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/161213/h6sudpbh.jpg
You easily find the “peak-drop” line, it is that from march down to october 2016, with an anomaly difference of 0.482 °C.
But a closer look at the plot should convince anybody that
– around 2007, a very similar drop-down of even 0.666 °C occured from january 2007 till february 2008, and that above all (!)
– nobody actually knows wether or not the actual drop will continue.
Instead of hearing some people shouting
„Temperatures going straight up! Something happens!“
we hear here somebody shouting
„Temperatures going straight down! Nothing happens!“
This kind of sensationalism in whichever direction is nothing else than useless alarmism.
It is in my opinion bare garbage, lots of levels below what WUWT is often enough able to present us, and then is worth a sound debate.
I now have a beautiful nickname in mind: „Plummeting“ Rose.
Yep, and very cold spells are just weather when just a day or so of hot weather is climate change.
Gerry… cold spells occur when the missing atmospheric or oceanic heat has in fact been transported to the bottom of the ocean where it is busy cooking the bottom dwelling crustaceans whose shells have already been dissolved by the highly acidic waters.
It’s a travesty that is beyond debate. It also makes for a great seafood buffet.
Yes, Greg, it would be nice to see the reference to the data. No matter how much one might want to agree with this point of view, it weakens our case to let such bad journalism in the door.
‘But it’s quite okay to ramp up policy and politics in one or two years of data when it’s going up’
It is when it’s simply a pretense to agenda-driven legislation.
+1
Aaack — I thought that was going to appear directly below Resource Guy — sorry. THAT WAS FOR YOU, RESOURCE GUY! 🙂
“El Nino is not caused by greenhouse gases and has nothing to do with climate change.”
This is a bit hyperbolic, I’d say it has “little to do with climate change.”
Or better yet, “little to do with AGW.”
Everything can be linked to climate change…as long as it is a negative!
The word “freak” is a poor choice, too emotional.
The larger spatial extent and precision of tropical Pacific ocean temp monitoring of only the past 40-50 years prevents knowing how much of an outlier event the 15-16 ENSO event really was.
I concur, we wouldn’t want to graft a instrument record onto the end of a proxy series now would we? That would be bad science. Now, putting on the same graph and showing it is a distinct different high-resolution time series plotted beside a low resolution and low pass filtered proxy could be interesting, but not particularly informative.
Amazing how an El Nino, which is a sea surface effect, creates a GLOBAL temperature peak.
The data includes both land and sea surface temperatures.
Maybe just as “amazing” how the burner flame in my forced air HVAC can warm my 2700 sqft home as the air circulates?
Or as “amazing” as a NewEngland oil burning furnance circulating warmed water to radiators throught a home?
Never thought of ENSO/AMO/PDO as a global HVAC system before. What can I say? Amazing.
Well sea surface is perhaps 73% of global surface, and sea surface is in intimate contact with the lower troposphere; AKA “Atmosphere” whereas deep ocean heat storage is not.
But then el nino, is just a very small spot of the total ocean surface, so it is still weird to talk of global effect.
G
The surface energy doesn’t suddenly disappear if by magic over a short time, but is transported away from this area across other regions by ocean circulation. In other words it also warms the atmosphere of regions not just where the ENSO is based on it’s way towards the Arctic ocean for example. The energy involved is much greater than any changes in the atmosphere due to the specific heat capacity of air and water.
@ Matt G…and transported by surface winds which is why land temps also warm during an El Nino.
Well Matt G, I didn’t say it would vanish but there is one little Gorilla in your wood pile.
If el nino ocean surface heating is carried everywhere by ocean current, howcome it doesn’t take its elevated surface temperatures along with it.
Or are you saying they are lying to us, and those bright red streaks across the near equatorial region like around the Galapagos for example, are actually transported all over the globe, even into the Atlantic oceans.
Can’t have it both ways. Either el nino locations are warmer surface temperatures than elsewhere or they are not. If they were transporting much heat elsewhere there wouldn’t be much of a temperature gradient to show up as different colors.
G
Which goes to show how ill conceived a global temperature is. Even more ridiculous when you see the spatial distribution of contributing regions to the “anomaly” – it isn’t evenly distributed across the globe at all, so why do we look at a global average?
Few people realize this.
Yes, surface winds play a part.
“If el nino ocean surface heating is carried everywhere by ocean current, howcome it doesn’t take its elevated surface temperatures along with it.”
The further away from the sub-tropics and tropics, the less surface area of the planet is able to be affected.
“Or are you saying they are lying to us, and those bright red streaks across the near equatorial region like around the Galapagos for example, are actually transported all over the globe, even into the Atlantic oceans.”
There are 3 main currents which transports ENSO surface energy (~100m depth) or lack off it depending on the phase.
One is the Kuroshio towards the north, the South Equatorial towards the Atlantic ocean and finally East Australia towards the south.
“Can’t have it both ways. Either el nino locations are warmer surface temperatures than elsewhere or they are not. If they were transporting much heat elsewhere there wouldn’t be much of a temperature gradient to show up as different colors.”
The energy source in ENSO regions is always generally much higher than most other regions what ever there anomaly. There is a huge difference to warming water in the top 100m for example at 27c to 31c, than warming say air temperatures on land by -10c to -2c for example near the Arctic circle. Temperature gradients don’t show up the energy gradients, as these are much different and the sub-tropics and tropics cover about 50% of the planets surface. Whenever the current is moving away towards the poles it slowly loses energy with time.
ok this WAS on spaceweather.com until a few hrs ago now superceded
tell me how come they can admit supercold air wipes out ozone layers?
and yet?
never a word prior
its always US and our cfs or whatever they want us to have to replace globall for their agendas n profit!!!
++++++++++++++++++++
“Polar stratospheric clouds are back in the subarctic,” reports photographer Mia Stålnacke. “They were brilliantly beautiful today.”
Icy polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) form in the lower stratosphere when temperatures drop to around -85ºC. That’s how cold it has to be for ice crystals to form in the very dry stratosphere. High-altitude sunlight shining through tiny ice particles ~10µm across produce the characteristic bright iridescent colors.
“Once seen they are never forgotten,” says atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. “Polar stratospheric clouds have much more vivid colors than ordinary iridescent clouds, which are very much poor relations and seen frequently all over the world.”
Once thought to be mere curiosities, some PSCs are now known to be associated with the destruction of ozone. Indeed, an ozone hole formed over the UK in Feb. 2016 following an outbreak of ozone-destroying Type 1 PSCs.
“Last winter we had these clouds almost daily for long periods of time,” says Stålnacke. Arctic sky watchers are encouraged to be alert for more in the days ahead. The best time to look is just before sunrise or after sunset
Matt G; apparently my English is not two good.
I completely agree that ocean currents transport water all over the place. You could say that the oceans are well mixed, just like CO2 in the atmosphere.
my problem is that the surface Temperature s in the recognized El Nino regions ARE NOT transported all over the globe.
Either El Nino regions are warmer than other places, or ocean currents distribute El Nino surface heat all over the oceans. it cannot be both. And I don’t see any red streak surface temperatures moving anywhere else.
G
“I completely agree that ocean currents transport water all over the place. You could say that the oceans are well mixed, just like CO2 in the atmosphere.
my problem is that the surface Temperature s in the recognized El Nino regions ARE NOT transported all over the globe.
Either El Nino regions are warmer than other places, or ocean currents distribute El Nino surface heat all over the oceans. it cannot be both. And I don’t see any red streak surface temperatures moving anywhere else.”
The oceans aren’t well mixed at all, but the surface (top 100m) interacts with many channels. Most of the surface energy in the central Pacific ocean is transported around most of the globe eventually, if not all.
The red streak surface temperatures don’t generally move elsewhere in ocean circulation because they are diluted and ENSO only affects these anomalies there. Upwelling of the ocean in the ENSO region during La Nina causes these large anomalies so the energy moving further west is diluted as an anomaly because there is much less upwelling there.
The SST’s below show the warmest region on the planet is the area west of the ENSO, where surface water has moved from NINO 4 and NINO 3 before for example. The ENSO fuels up the surface waters to the west and slowly cools down itself after the process with El Nino.
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst-161030.gif
But the oceans have 1000X the heat capacity of the atmosphere…
It is worse than that:
the energy content of the atmosphere is – 1005 *5×1018 kg =5 x10^21 Joules/Degree Kelvin
Energy content of the ocean is – 3993 *1.4×1021 =5.6×10^24 Joules/Degree Kelvin
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/energy-content-the-heat-is-on-atmosphere-vs-ocean/
co2islife, 5.6 x 10^24 is roughly 1000 times greater than 5 x 10^21. So I’m confused by your comment about it being “worse than that.” Yes, 1120 times greater heat capacity is worse than 1000 times, but not that much worse.
Oooops, my bad.
You will also find if you look deep enough that the oceans are warmed from the bottom. If they were not we would be a very cold planet. Check out the amount of what the universe is missing according to those that are supposed to know. It is energy in a different form that circulates thew the entire universe, what we get comes in the poles and out the equatorial regions. That is why tropical waters are so warm, not because of the sun. The world the galaxy and the universe is not as we are told.
Lesson learned – most of the energy In the weather-climate system is in the oceans, not the atmosphere.
Amazing how an unshielded nuclear reactor 93 million miles away makes it rain in Brazil.
Our magnetosphere and our stratospheric ozone layer shield us from high speed protons/nuclei and EUV, respectively. If they didn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
David Rose,
I love facts. Nothing like temperature profiles as facts.
The graphs are not labeled properly for the y-axis. The first graph looks like estimated global average surface air temperature. I am not sure what is in the second graph, but it whatever it is, it does not match the first graph in pattern. It shows the latest month much lower relative to previous months than the first graph. I’m guessing the second graph is estimated land-only surface air temperature anomaly or possibly estimated sea surface temperature anomaly. Did I miss something? Please clarify.
First graph is land/sea avg temp reconstruction. The 2nd is land-only anomaly from RSS satelite data.
Thanks Steve, I think you’re right, but it would be nice if this information was shown directly on the graphs or at least in the test of the post.
Typo: test>text
“it would be nice if this information was shown directly on the graphs”
Rose doesn’t like to burden his readers with information.
“The graphs are not labeled properly for the y-axis. The first graph looks like estimated global average surface air temperature. I am not sure what is in the second graph, but it whatever it is, it does not match the first graph in pattern.”
Compare the year 1998 on both graphs. One is much lower than the other.
Always check where 1998 is on the graph. If 1998 is not equal to 2016 with every year in between lower, then you are looking at a bogus, manipulated temperature chart.
I say 1998 and 2016 are equal but 2016 exceeded the high of 1998 by one-tenth of a degree in Feb. 2016 and then declined ever since, so 1998 and 2016 are for all intents and purposes, tied, and should be essentially the same height on the graph. That makes both years *almost* as hot as it was in the 1930’s, which was reported to be 0.5C hotter than 1998.
See the UAH chart at drroyspencer.com for the real deal. (I keep getting a 403 when I try to access the actual chart page)
“If 1998 is not equal to 2016 with every year in between lower, then you are looking at a bogus, manipulated temperature chart.”
Well, here is UAH6 shown with UAH5.6 (12 month running average, 1981-2010 anomaly base). Is UAH5.6 a bogus, manipulated chart?
“See the UAH chart at drroyspencer.com for the real deal.”
I notice that, with all this beat-up of plummeting temperatures since mid-year, for the first time in ages Roy Spencer’s monthly report for November has not appeared at WUWT. Perhaps because it tells a diffrent story. Here is the monthly 1998/2016 comparison. November is highest since May (June lowest).
Which one is much lower than the other ??
G
“Well, here is UAH6 shown with UAH5.6 (12 month running average, 1981-2010 anomaly base). Is UAH5.6 a bogus, manipulated chart?”
No, it’s not. I did say 2016 was one-tenth of a degree hotter than 1998, so it would show as slightly higher than 1998, which both charts show. The adjustment between the two does not change that, nor my description of what is and is not a bogus chart, specifically that all points in between 1998 and 2016 are lower and as you can see, that is the case on both charts.
““See the UAH chart at drroyspencer.com for the real deal.”
I notice that, with all this beat-up of plummeting temperatures since mid-year, for the first time in ages Roy Spencer’s monthly report for November has not appeared at WUWT. Perhaps because it tells a diffrent story.”
Sounds like you are suggesting some kind of conspiracy, Nick. What exactly is the effect of Dr. Spencer not doing his normal thing on WUWT this last month? Does that change anything? Perhaps there is a non-sinister explanation.
TA on December 12, 2016 at 12:53 pm
Always check where 1998 is on the graph. If 1998 is not equal to 2016 with every year in between lower, then you are looking at a bogus, manipulated temperature chart.
Aha. TA business as usual 🙂
TA, I started from the assumption that you know that UAH – be it 5.6 or 6.0, be it tlt, tmt, tls or ttp – exists in several zonal and regional expressions. One of them is “Tropics”.
Moreover, UAH exists also in 2.5° grid format, out of which you may extract temperature series for an arbitrary region of the Globe between 82.5S and 82.5N.
Maybe the following graph helps you in getting rid of this strange obsession:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/161215/86mdzjx7.jpg
1. In blue, you see your lovely UAH Globe data, with 1998 already less than 2016 by 0.1 °C (that’s still quite OK for you I guess);
2. In red, you see UAH’s Tropics zone, with 1998 far higher than 2016 (hope you’ll manage to live with it);
3. In green, you see, out of UAH’s grid data, the ENSO area (5S-5N — 170W-120W), where – oh no!!! – 2010 has the cheek to surpass 2016! That’s now definitely too much, isn’t it?
What would you have told us if (2) and (3) hadn’t been extracted out of original UAH, but out of some bogus, horribly manipulated surface temperature data?
Shall we send UAH ENSO data to some punishment park for appropriate reeducation?
The temp of the entire globe drops because of one hot spot in the pacific cools off?
No… NH winter arrived, the No. pacific cool blob developed and other effects.
I didn’t think winter had anything to do with it as these are “anomaly” measurements, am I wrong then?
The Pacific is massive and the Tropic’s drive the entire planets energy flow inward.
Not a small patch
John Boles, that’s what happens when one calculates a “new average” for a number “set” when one (1) [or more] of the numbers in said “set” decreased or decreases.
Iffen one (1) number in the “set” decreases …… and another number in the “set” increases the same amount, …… the “new average” for that number “set” will remain the same.
The average temperature of the globe increased when one large portion of the Pacific warmed up.
The average temperature of the globe then decreases when that same large portion of the Pacific cools back down.
Happens every time there is an El Nino. Perhaps you could read up on it.
Well since all Temperature graphs stop at zero K instead of -infinity, then one should NOT be differencing Temperatures at all, but should be ratio-ing them, since they all follow straight lines to zero K.
Another reason I detest anomalies; they aren’t even meaningful on a scale that as a real zero.
G
The temp of the entire globe drops because of a massive change in climate circulations, of which the most obvious symptom is a hot spot in the pacific, cooling off.
Next thing you will be claiming that a 0.00001% change in CO2 concentration makes a difference.
1) How could you ever have a record drop in temperatures if CO2 was the cause of the warming? CO2 continues higher.
2) Now that the Met Office has confirmed the drop, will all the warmists apologize for attacking the skeptics that were correct?
3) Now, will the warmists accept that the oceans control the atmospheric temperature?
co2islife: re 2) hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Do soothsayers ever apologize to anyone for being wrong?
What happened to all the heat ? If it dropped that much, that is an enormous amount.
Heat is always being radiated to space.
Remember the high temps in the Arctic recently…. The heat moved their, on its way to space.
@ rishrac…I think that “all of that heat” is what caused the warmth over the last 3 months. For example where I live {100 miles inland from the Pacific} this has been the warmest Fall pattern yet. Temps were well above average Sept through November with no freezes. In all of the fall/winter seasons prior to this one over the last 5 Fall seasons, there would be a sharp drop in temps typically by the end of September where temps dropped below freezing for one week or longer. The lowest temp drop went down close to 20F around the 3rd week of September 3 years ago.
In answer to: “What happened to all the heat ? If it dropped that much, that is an enormous amount.”
My Q.: Has anyone got a quantum on this ‘enormous’ amount?
If so, how does that stack-up against AGW Joules (whatever)?
I think the ongoing debate is missing a BIG POINT here … thet AGW is a very small proportion of other energy fluxes at work which have nothing to do with homo sapiens.
PUHLEASE …. tell me!
“Heat” (noun) is NEVER radiated to space. No thermal means of getting it there.
Only EM radiant energy can arrive or leave; not counting the minuscule cosmetic rays and space dust.
G
EM radiation IS heat.
“1) How could you ever have a record drop in temperatures if CO2 was the cause of the warming? CO2 continues higher.”
This question is going to be asked more and more as we go into the future. Assuming the temperatures will continue to decline, which I do. My guess is the aftermath of the 2016 El Nino will look like the aftermath of the 1998 El Nino.
NO NO NO they are preparing us for the coming Ice age. https://www.google.ca/search?q=montreal+snow+storm&biw=1024&bih=514&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiIqtbAn-_QAhXRdSYKHeWvBooQsAQITg
El Niño’s are a temporary heating of the atmosphere but lower the overall stored heat in the system (water, air, land). When the air temps drop back after an El Niño where does that heat go? It doesn’t just disappear. It get’s radiated to space and leaves the system.
The unusually strong El Nino may have been hiding global cooling that was occurring. As soon as it diminished a major temperature correction took place. Seems as though the oceans were hiding all the heat in El Nino.
[sarc]
Permit me to borrow a word from Mr. Tisdale.
Burrrrrr !
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“When February produced a new hot record for that month, at the very peak of El Nino, newspapers in several countries claimed that this amounted to a ‘global climate emergency’, and showed the world was ‘hurtling’ towards the point when global warming would become truly dangerous. Now, apparently, the immediate threat has passed. It would be just as misleading to say lower temperatures caused by La Nina meant the world was into a new long-term cooling.”
Hot = climate and is all your fault. Cooling = weather, and nothing to see here. The climate change alarmist farce/scam in a nutshell.
It will be interesting to see how low the temperature gets by next February and how the climateers will react to what is shaping up to be a steep year-on-year decline.
And especially with Gavin having the Trump acid poured on him over at the ministry of truth – NASA GISS. (We hope)
Scientifically speaking, the whole el Nino spike/collapse is not surprising or that interesting.
All the hub-bub is just political postering.
The only reason why it is interesting is that the warmists were busy proclaiming this year and last as the warmist years ever, and proof that CO2 was causing the earth to warm.
Now that the inevitable is happening, and the earth is cooling as the El Nino fades away, the rest of us are busy rubbing their noses in that fact.
” the whole el Nino spike/collapse is not surprising or that interesting”
Nor news, despite Rose’s beat-up. It was over by May. But it is still warm.
Not where I live, it isn’t.
Nor in South America, where I’m headed next month, despite summer a-coming in there.
“Not where I live, it isn’t.”
Or here. A couple of weeks ago the local Greenies were telling us the world was ending because the temperature was ten degrees above normal for the time of year. Now it’s ten degrees below normal, and has been for over a week. But that’s just weather.
“A couple of weeks ago the local Greenies were telling us the world was ending because the temperature was ten degrees above normal for the time of year. Now it’s ten degrees below normal, and has been for over a week. But that’s just weather.”
Yeah, hottest temps in 50 years is just standard, vanilla weather. http://www.9news.com.au/wild-weather/2016/12/13/02/21/early-summer-scorcher-to-hit-parts-of-australia-from-today
http://wermenh.com/wuwt/elninometer-current.gif
based on this, the current La Nina is so small, we are essentially in a neutral state.
I have stated this elsewhere in another thread. La Nina is just an enhanced version of the normal tropical Pacific SST pattern. Look up SST maps and you will see the cool tongue of cooler SSTs running along the equatorial Pacific region. This remains in place whether a strong Nina, weak Nina or neutral. It is simply the strength of the cool anomalies that determine the Nina category.
In all of these Nina/neutral SST states, the tropical convection (thunderstorm clusters) are shifted away from the tropical Pacific, usually towards Indonesia. This convection acts as a massive pump transferring heat from the oceans into the atmosphere and distributes it around the globe. Hence why global air temps spike in El Nino events where this tropical convection becomes stronger and more widespread over the tropical oceans.
The precipitable water content over Indonesia is high…https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-233.80,5.24,497/loc=117.507,-4.017
It reminds me of two years ago when there were mixed signals and opinions on whether there was an El Nino or not. I think most of the differences stem from the definitions being defined by arbitrary temperatures in an arbitrary area. This is like trying to diagnose someone having infuenza based on their temperature alone, and defining a positive or negative evaluation based on an arbitrary temperature.
It would be more useful to measure ENSO by looking at the big picture, like the multivariate index.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/imei.png
Wouldn’t it be interesting if a double dip La Nina occurred following this double dip El Nino?
We have yet to have a La Nina. It is not certain that there will be one, but it may happen in 2017. If it does then that would complete the El Nino/La Nina cycle which commenced in 2015, peaked in early/mid 2016 and is presently fading.
I’m sorry but this is totally incorrect and a result of lagged statistics. The criteria from NOAA is that you need to have 5 consecutive months where Nino 3.4 index which is a 3 month mean value and is -0.5 or below. This is their latest 2016 below. Note that we have been in a weak La Nina since last NH summer….but due to their lagged criteria it is not showing up yet.
See Ocean heat anoms which best show the transition.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/heat-last-year.gif
Nino 3.4 index
Jan to Oct 2016
2.2
2.0
1.6
1.1
0.6
0.1
-0.3
-0.6
-0.7
-0.8
IMO
The Nino 3.4 index is too ridgid because like this recent Nino, the main warm SST anoms fell outside the 3.4 index box.
If I relied on Nino 3.4 index to tell me when we were officially in a La Nina or El Nino then I would be about 3-6 months too late.
until you integrate it over how long it has lasted in negative territory
Bingo!
Data showing cooling must be due to Russian hacking.
That’s what we get for storing it on Hillary’s bathroom server.
So if a relatively small area of the globe (Nino 3.4) being 2 or 3 degrees above ‘normal’ can have such a major effect on Global Temperature – what sort of effect do large cities have, being up to 10 degC above ‘normal’
What sort of effect do ploughed fields and burnt bits of forest have on what the satellite sees?
If I shone a blue laser up into the sky as the satellite went over, or it caught sight of an exploding firework, would *that* create a Global temperature spike/Nino/Nana/Lala/spewing/hurtling/catastrophe?
Griff – we need answers!
Large cities or plowed fields do not generate circumglobal jet streams that warm the planet atmosphere. Where do you think arctic heat comes from. Certainly not from the sun. It gets transported in from the tropics whether by air or water.
Peta in Cumbria on December 12, 2016 at 10:54 am
So if a relatively small area of the globe (Nino 3.4) being 2 or 3 degrees above ‘normal’ can have such a major effect on Global Temperature…
Griff is tired of giving so many answers to everybody.
Peta, the 5N-5S–170W-120W is the area chosen to measure. The major effect is created by a huge area around (and above all below) it.
No idea about fires’ influence on troposphere measurements. So let’s talk about cities.
You can separate the GHCN land stations according to various criteria, among them:
– rurality factor (rural, suburban, urban)
– nightlight (low, medium, high).
Let’s take pure rural as rural + low nightlight, pure urban the inverse; the rest is all inbetween.
That gives for the CONtiguous US (USA48) the following chart during the period 1979-2016:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/161214/9kc5pn6v.jpg
In black on top: the troposphere measured by UAH.
The differences between the four plots couldn’t be more tiny…
How long before the record drop in temperature is “adjusted” out of the Hadcrut4 data?
“How long before the record drop in temperature is “adjusted” out of the Hadcrut4 data?”
It already has been in UAH6.0(beta5) (sarc)
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_November_2016_v6.gif
Tonedeaf
“It already has been in UAH6.0(beta5) (sarc)”
that’s OK you don’t trust UAH anyway
That’s where the joke lies my friend.
Bob Boder on December 12, 2016 at 12:18 pm
that’s OK you don’t trust UAH anyway
Interesting reaction!
It seems that exactly those people who don’t trust in surface measurements anyway think that who trusts in them automatically doen’t trust satellite measurements!
Wow Bob Boder… sorry: that’s a bit simple-minded. The situation is by far more complex than you think.
For example, I very well trust in UAH: because despite the tremendous changes applied between june 2011 and june 2015 (which were in either direction far bigger than those of GISS), I trust in Roy Spencer’s integrity (but in his chief’s I unfortunately can’t).
October 2016, the last data point in that top chart, was still the 5th warmest October since 1850 according to the database used (HadCRUT4). HadCRUT4 has poor coverage of the Arctic, which probably accounts in part for why its October value was low compared to other months this year. The Arctic was unusually warm; whereas parts of Asia, which are well covered by HadCRUT4, were unusually cool.
Still being missed by some here, possibly because, for whatever reason, this site has decided not to post its usual link to Roy Spencer’s monthly UAH satellite lower troposphere temperature estimate update, is that November 2016 was the warmest November in the satellite LT record, according to UAH: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/12/uah-global-temperature-update-for-november-2016-0-45-deg-c/
“2016 Almost Certain to be Warmest in 38 Year Satellite Record” [Roy Spencer]
Warmest.. I should hope so. When you combine the warming of the last 300 years with a giant El Nino, one should expect it to be the warmest. Human caused? There is no evidence of that, as the ‘hot spot’ is AWOL.
There is little in the way of Arctic measurements, so no one knows what the Arctic temperature was. In other land based data sets, it is mainly guess work otherwise referred to as infilling.
richard verney on December 12, 2016 at 4:03 pm
There is little in the way of Arctic measurements…
Are you sure? The Arctic regions are covered by UAH up to 82.5° N (the only measurement instance WUWT’s skeptic commenters seem to trust in).
And even if the troposphere isn’t the surface (the latter is warmer and has higher trends), UAH’s Arctic readings give a good feeling about the overall situation there.
Trends 1979-2016 in °C / decade:
Arctic region
– 60N-82.5N: 0.25 ± 0,023
Three topmost latitude stripes
– 75N-77.5N: 0.28 ± 0,034
– 77.5N-80N: 0.35 ± 0,038
– 80N-82.5N: 0.42 ± 0,044
Source: within http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0beta/tlt/:
tltmonamg.1978_6.0beta5 through tltmonamg.2016_6.0beta5
Where is Bernie telling this is just some right wing fake news story yet again!
Forget Bernie. Here is the Daily Mail telling you that. Not mentioning David Rose, of course.
I already knew about the steep drop by looking out my window.
From 115 F to 0 F in a few months.
And the El Nino snow drought is so over. Much to delight of snow sports fans. Although it’s really too cold to enjoy.
Soon another attack of arctic air.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2016/12/14/1800Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-102.82,54.98,596
Abstract
It has been suggested that the Sun may evolve into a period of lower activity over the 21st century. This study examines the potential climate impacts of the onset of an extreme “Maunder Minimum‐like” grand solar minimum using a comprehensive global climate model. Over the second half of the 21st century, the scenario assumes a decrease in total solar irradiance of 0.12% compared to a reference Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 experiment. The decrease in solar irradiance cools the stratopause (∼1 hPa) in the annual and global mean by 1.2 K. The impact on global mean near‐surface temperature is small (∼−0.1 K), but larger changes in regional climate occur during the stratospheric dynamically active seasons. In Northern Hemisphere wintertime, there is a weakening of the stratospheric westerly jet by up to ∼3–4 m s−1, with the largest changes occurring in January–February. This is accompanied by a deepening of the Aleutian Low at the surface and an increase in blocking over Northern Europe and the North Pacific. There is also an equatorward shift in the Southern Hemisphere midlatitude eddy‐driven jet in austral spring. The occurrence of an amplified regional response during winter and spring suggests a contribution from a top‐down pathway for solar‐climate coupling; this is tested using an experiment in which ultraviolet (200–320 nm) radiation is decreased in isolation of other changes. The results show that a large decline in solar activity over the 21st century could have important impacts on the stratosphere and regional surface climate.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4758621/
One thing I learned when I was taking an upper division mathematics course called “Numerical Analysis” was that any arbitrary series of numerical data can be exactly fitted with a numerical model of sufficient complexity. The theoretical implication is the following: Even if one is able to exactly account for all the data within a given set, it is impossible to reliably predict the exact value of the next data point to be acquired. Numerical methods are excellent for interpolation (estimating a value between two successive data points) and all but useless for extrapolation (forecasting).
The only time extrapolation is even remotely reasonable is when the underlying physical model for the data is known and well characterized, which is certainly NOT the case for climatological data.
You are right, extrapolation is the devil. Here’s my favourite quote on curve fitting.
Here’s a link to a demo including Python code. I had to install numpy and matplotlib. Matplotlib contains pylab. YMMV
As to a tmperature drop being a real thing, there has been rather cold weather in the Northern hemisphere, and a rather cold late spring in Australia and New Zealand. From various reports, this might even be a real thing, not just panic over a .1 C increase.
84% of the solar energy enters the atmosphere only after first going into and out of the ocean. It enters the ocean via radiation and exits the ocean via evaporation. This flow of energy is very uneven, that is why Hot spots on the ocean surface can indeed heat the atmosphere temps above average and create step changes in Global temps.
Clouds or lack of clouds ultimately control the worlds atmospheric temperatures. . . by regulating the incoming radiation. All the other energy flows are rounding errors by comparison.
With such a steep decline in average temperature, it’s going to take some serious data
adjustmentmanipulationfabrication to make sure that 2016 is still the hottest year “ever”.Or perhaps the alarmists will breath a sigh of relief and come out with “it’s not as bad as we thought”.?? I’m not holding my breath for that one.
“New official data issued by the Met Office”
What baloney. Here is a plot of HADCRUT 4 by month (more datasets here) and compared with 1998. I have green-ringed the period of actual drop, which was from March to May. After May, it remained warmer until October, which was cool because of the Siberia freeze. Even so, October was warmer than the 1998 annual average. It’s old news, and no surprise, and recorded in HADCRUT data issued in June. Not “new”. The passage of the peak was well discussed at the time.
“For example, the Met Office said it contributed ‘only a few hundredths of a degree’ to the record heat.”
They were talking about annual 2015, not 2016.
And again we have “have plummeted since the middle of the year at a faster and steeper rate than at any time in the recent past”. Middle of the year. Just check the graph. Just not true.
Nick
relitigating the definition of the imprecise term “…middle of the year…” is tiresome. Get over it.
Eyeballing the chart, the roughly 1.1 to 0.6 drop from Mar-Oct 2016 is huge and it occurred mid-year (the last data point is after what most would consider mid-year).
If someone wanted a more precise statement, they could have easily used names of months.
“If someone wanted a more precise statement”
So why didn’t they? The story has been bouncing around for about two weeks. Both Delingpole and Rose choose to talk about “mid-year”. Artful imprecision?
Of course, HadCRU is science fantasy. But surely looks to me as if the drop were much deeper and faster even in the shamelessly cooked book “data”.
Of course UAE is hoist by its own petard from trying to make the recent super El Nino warmer than it really was and the late 20th century one cooler.
No doubt in future they’ll adjust the 2015-16 El Nino cooler as well, and the lessen the drop.
@Chimp.. they are already doing that… which puts them in a very strange place, the warmers were saying during this el nino it was the strongest, and now with the dip, oh, wait it wasn’t as strong as 1998 after all…. They’ve produced several graphs here on what’s up to show that.
Nick, I’ve never replied to one of your posts before, but I always read them in earnest. If I were to try to make your graph show what there’s does, my green ring would cirlce the blue bar high in March, and the blue bar low in October. I think they’re trying to show how far down it has come over that time…none of the red bars nor orange bars have that kind of difference between peak and ensuing drop (although red March to Nov looks pretty close). And 2016 isn’t even over yet.
For the record, I don’t think any of this means squat in the realm of “I told you sos” for either side.
I don’t blame anyone for not taking me seriously, since I used some nonsensical form of possession on the word “there” when “theirs” would’ve been much better. Carry on.
“my green ring would cirlce the blue bar high in March, and the blue bar low in October”
Well, Rose says:
“New official data issued by the Met Office confirms that world average temperatures have plummeted since the middle of the year at a faster and steeper rate than at any time in the recent past”
So I guess his ring would go through about June/July to October. That wouldn’t show much. The fact is that May was the second coolest month in 2016 (in HAD4). The dip in October (Siberia) was nothing unusual.
I think again Nick a small detail is overseen: We are talking about global land temperatures, not global temperatures (sea temp included)
nobody here including me won’t disagree with your point if we take global land+ocean data. in fact then i agree 100%
However land only data shows this record drop. This may be a very interesting start or just a squibble in the graph. Only time will tell.
What is interesting about this is: 1998 did go from nino to nina, while this year it didn’t happen. That makes this global land only drop the more fascinating.
“I think again Nick a small detail is overseen: We are talking about global land temperatures, not global temperatures (sea temp included)”
Well, there is no indication of that in the heading or sub-heading
“New official data issued by the Met Office confirms that world average temperatures have plummeted since the middle of the year at a faster and steeper rate than at any time in the recent past.”
And he says lower
“However, now the drop in temperature is also showing up in the authoritative Met Office ‘Hadcrut4’ surface record, compiled from measurements from more than 3,000 weather stations located around the world on both sea and land.”
Odd notion of weather stations located on the sea, but I’m sure he means SST.
“It is true that the massive 2015-16 El Nino – probably the strongest ever seen – took place against a steady warming trend, most of which scientists believe has been caused by human emissions.”
This gives the false impression that ALL scientists believe this. Words matter.
If you don’t agree with them, than you aren’t a scientist.
At least that’s what they keep telling me.
Shock! Horror! The whole world dropped 0.5 degrees C temperature in just three months. If CO2 is the control knob, did too many people stop breathing or using carbon-based fuels?
What, you say? That’s just normal variation. But I thought I had been told that a 0.5 degree increase over the last 30 years was catastrophic?
What is the CO2 concentration for the period?
You can see it here:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/graph.html
“Shock! Horror! The whole world dropped 0.5 degrees C temperature in just three months. If CO2 is the control knob, did too many people stop breathing or using carbon-based fuels?”
Something must have happened to make the CO2 concentration go down in the atmosphere, to explain this temperature drop. We need to check into this.
An odd thing noted by ATTP. Here is the Daily Mail running a report of criticisms of Delingpole’s Breitbart report of this:
“The Weather Channel launched a scathing attack on Breitbart, accusing the right-wing site of ‘cherry-picking’ facts to ‘mislead’ the public about climate change.”
Doesn’t mention anywhere that Delingpole’s source was David Rose, of the Daily Mail.
You sound like someone who would let the whole story get in the way of a sensational headline.
You really don’t understand the Daily Fail’s readership do you?
They may be unsophisticated by your standards, but they have something you don’t have, in spades. Humour and common sense and the ability to spot BS.
Unlike readers of – say – the Guardian, they don’t expect what’s in the papers to be true. They like it to be amusing. Unlike people who read the Guardian, they don’t allow their opinions to be formed by a tabloid.
Its because they are tired of BS, and have a sense of humour that they voted Brexit and Trump. No point in telling them Trump is a bad joke. Of course he is, that’s why they voted Trump. To get the last laugh on the ‘sincerely concerned’ snowflake generation.
” they don’t expect what’s in the papers to be true.”
So here it is on WUWT. Do people here expect it to be true?
Who knows what the numbers are. I can confirm that they’ve been adjusted without basis. What is your basis with an appeal to authority ? Why do you believe those numbers ? I’ve been asked, ” where did you get those numbers ? That’s not what I have “….. NOAA. And if NOAA doesn’t have the right numbers, who does ? NOAA changes the numbers after the fact, not before when things are brought to their attention ? Then there is the constant churn of numbers so that only those sanctioned can make any kind of statement that holds any kind of validity. Have we acquired a level of priestdom in science ? Blessed are those that believe in religion, not so much in science.
As l pointing out back during last spring. The warming in the Arctic was highly likely to lead to noticeable cooling in the rest of the globe. Because one of the best ways to remove heat from the globe is to send it towards the poles. This current warming of the Arctic is a large drain on the heat that is stored across the planet. The fact that even though the Arctic has been very warm recently. When it sends this air southwards again it has quickly become cold enough to send temps falling well below average over these areas. This points out to me that there must be a large amount of heat been lost within this process. And if this process stays around for long enough it can lead to major climate cooling. Like what we saw during the last ice age.
Precisely. Conversely, if the bitter cold had remained up at the Pole, it would be losing far less heat, as it holds less heat to begin with.
However we have seen the cold displaced to the south, where it depresses the rain-snow line further south. This snow-pack-further-south in turn reflects the winter sunlight, and increases the cold further south.
I described this as a “double whammy” back in November, as the planet lost heat both at the highest latitudes, and further south where there was snow-cover (even on the sands of Saudi Arabia, briefly, at the end of November).
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/arctic-sea-ice-double-whammy/
Now the cold is swinging around to the North American side, and will likely make headlines this week. It will be thirty-above-normal at the Pole (heat being lost directly to outer space) and thirty-below-normal over the Great Plains of the USA, (losing further heat by reflecting sunlight.) Although temperatures will “average out” (because plus-thirty and minus-thirty negate each other), in terms of the planetary energy budget it’s a double loss. Or so I wonder.
It’s still an up trend.
That all depends on the time frame. Push the start back to the 1930’s, and it’s a down trend.
lts still an up trend.
Yes a lot depends on how often and for how long will these weather patterns form. What got my interest is this recent trend for “Tall” high pressure patterns. By which l mean they extend outwards to the north/south.
lts these sort of weather patterns that have been driving much of the warm air into the Arctic recently. We have one set up over the North Pacific, plus a other one over Russia. What these patterns do is draw warm air from as far south as 2000 miles or more up into the Arctic. This air when in the Arctic quickly loses it heat, and then sends this chilled air down southwards again. So the Arctic imports the heat and then in return exports its cold to areas to the south on the other side of this weather pattern. Am now convinced it was the formation of these type of weather patterns over the longer term, which lead to the climate cooling seen during the LIA and at worst the last ice age.
That’s at least hundred miles too far north. Rose should have said, “west of Peru.”
Oh crap!
If the Met Office confirms a drop in temps, probably means we got something wrong…
OPTION A: The Met Office should be telling England temps are going up, up, and up, as well as summer is only 30 days away blah blah blah.
OPTION B: The Met Office has screwed something else up and two wrongs do make a right blah blah blah.
Que the “But this is just ‘weather’, not Climate Change caused by Global Warming.”
Only slightly OT – a group at EZT have come up with a plausible mechanism for post-MPR glacial cycle of 100,000 years:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130807134127.htm
Its a sprinkling of Milankovich with a drizzle of chaos and nonlinearity with ice sheets going unstable as they expand across continents. Makes sense. Not much role for the Satan-gas.
This should NOT be surprising.
How long now have we been talking about the short-term impacts of the ENSO. Why is Nick Stokes on here complaining about something that was forecasted to occur exactly like this even 18 months ago.
This was live on SNL in Oct 1997. I first became interested in this topic during the 1982-83 El Nino.
LOL — Bill the World Class Scientist and Impeccable Data Expert! You have a sense of humor! And a fun one. Thank you for that. 🙂
I had to go back and look at what my forecast was 1 year ago. The closest time was the Hadcrut4 model run with December 2015 data.
The forecast was only off by 0.02C for the latest Hadcrut4 actual in October 2016. Not hard to do when the there is already data showing the ENSO peaked in mid-November 2015.
I have been running this same methodology since 2008 and it always works well for back-casting what has really happened and then forecasting for the future if you have good idea of what the ENSO has done and what it is going to do a year out. That is not always easy but if you have a Super-El-Nino, there is only one way it is going to go afterward and that is DOWN. And temperatures will lag behind it by 3 months on average.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090626174702/http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/25/adjusting-temperatures-for-the-enso-and-the-amo/
+ 1
I agree, rishrac. Bill Illis: “Not hard to do” — right. (smile) For YOU. ((applause)) We are SO BLESSED that you are here at WUWT! (along with many other Science Giants — very grateful for you all).
To soon to get excited but the trend is correct.
The temperature rise with El Nino and now the fall when El Nino ended offers strong evidence that the climatic system of the earth is governed by natural terrestrial factors which will swing the temperatures upward when in a warm mode and vice versa when in a cold mode.
Now with prolonged solar minimum conditions coming into play not withstanding another El Nino which is possible all the other natural terrestrial items which govern the climate will be trending toward a colder mode.
To digress for a second ,El Nino’s cause global warming by not allowing as much OLR to escape into space something which increasing CO2 has failed to accomplish. Another blunder for AGW theory.
The terrestrial items which govern the climate which I believe are influenced by solar activity.
atmospheric circulation patterns- such as the AO
global cloud coverage
global snow coverage
global sea surface temperatures
global sea ice
global major volcanic activity
The albedo of the earth will increase if the above terrestrial items which govern the climate move in the correct direction which in turn will cause the globe to cool.I think extreme minimum solar conditions can accomplish this and with expected very low solar conditions following several years of sub solar activity in general (post 2005) moving forward from here, we shall see if this indeed is the case.
I think by spring global average temperatures according to satellite data which are now around +.4c will be +.2c or lower.
I ask the question, ” where did the heat go ? ” it’s energy or watts or joules for those who are nitpicking over word usage. The point is, what constitutes warming or cooling ? The length of time it stays warm or cold ? What does it mean when you have a drop off in a temperature? Where is this energy, and if it escaped or a diminishing in energy input ? Should the satellites that keep track of the earth’s energy budget see that ? You can’t say that co2 is contributing to increased warmth when it’s not holding on to heat in this present time frame. There has to be one or other factors influencing global temperature. The other thing to consider is that a global average temperature may not be a valid way of determining whether we are in a warming or cooling trend. When the temperature falls off, isn’t the total temperature being reset back ? Even if it recovers quickly, it isn’t from retained warmth . Something blinked. We need to find that… quickly. You know, before the blink becomes a stare.
I agree, rishrac . . if a major volcanic event (or two) occurs in the near future, with the oceanic rhythms in cool mode, and a quite sun, we could see “dangerous climate change” for real. Our hypothetical contribution to “warming” might become “cold comfort” so to speak . .
With or without a volcano, 0.5 C in a matter of a few months is significant. I didn’t see where TSI was dropping either. So this is a big mystery. All that energy disappeared somewhere. Actually it’s a good thing that a volcano hasn’t gone off. This effect isn’t hidden by it. It can’t be said that the reason temps dropped was because of a volcano. There weren’t any of note.
(Fair warning.. A big “sarc” coming up.)
” where did the heat go ? ”
Well, the US elections are over and those who ascribed to “CAGW” for political reasons lost.
So, their authority to enforce “hot air” policy is about to be seriously curtailed.
(Maybe that wasn’t technically a “sarc”. I should study just what constitutes a “sarc”. More funds needed.)
I just had to respond to this. Exactly how is global temperature defined? And I do mean exactly. What does it mean? As an engineer, I learned to KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. If the GLOBE is warming or cooling everywhere, why do we need more than one thermometer situated somewhere remote (away from human effects) to read and use as THE data for obtaining a trend? Now I’m not stupid, I know there is a temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles. Yet at any given point, if the GLOBE is changing, that change should be apparent anywhere over a long enough period of time. in other words, a trend at my location should match a trend at your location wherever that is.
All this data, infilling, homogenization, complex software programs, etc. is simply a scientist’s wet dream of of statistical blah, blah, blah to most deplorables with any common sense. If they were scientific, all the different groups of global temperature should have the same trend and you should be able to convert from one to another using consistent equations.
Good to see the Met Office described as “authoritative” in an article on this blog.
Just running with what we have to work with. If you have a word speak going on about how warm it is and is referenced by tons of the CAGW crowd, it’s almost hectic to speak about dropping temperature. Or to admit it.
All the graphs presented here are total BS unless they show a temperature for 0.0,.
Like i have said before,not showing a temperature for 0.0 is just ‘smoke and mirrors’.
Don’t believe me? try finding the value of 0.0 temp for the graphs.
It’s no good the authors of the graphs just saying ‘based on’ without pointing to the actual source of the data, I think they are afraid to ‘Nail the data to the wall’ because it will show up all the adjusted data.
For example, if they ‘Nailed’ 0.0 equalled 14.5C in X graph in 1990 to the wall, and then 0.0 equalled 14.4 today for the same graph, people would ask questions as to why.
Does anyone on here understand the importance of putting a value of 0.0 on graphs?
Why are you discussing monthly changes in a global temperature data set ? This is no climate trend, this is noise. Climate trend is decadal ore multi decadal change. Not monthly up and down.
Then if the temperature drops on a global scale, how is that not a reset ? First, what happens to that energy ? Second, when it comes back more than what it was, where did it come from ? If co2 were holding that energy as claimed, there would be very few instances of temperature doing things monthly liking dropping. On a global scale. If it gets cold in one place, that’s to be expected with variation, but not on a global. So I’ve been told. The difference between climate and weather. Temperature dropping on a global scale is climate, monthly or otherwise.. within the parameters of current AGW. AGW has no problem claiming global warming when the temperature is going up.
“Why are you discussing monthly changes in a global temperature data set ? “
Surely that is the correct thing to do?
I mean ‘hottest July on record’ – ‘ Warmest February since 1979’ etc etc. I didn’t hear you complaining then…so I thought that was how the debate was engaged in, surely?
Where were you wen all the warmists were proclaiming that a climb that occurred over a few months was proof that CAGW was real?
MarkW. Sometimes you can look at something so long with out realizing what it means. In just the last week or so I realized that a any kind of drop in global temperature is a disconnect from AGW. It absolutely can not be. By the rules of AGW, HEAT outgoing greater than being received can not happen. There is no mechanism for it. Early on it was whether heat was retained or released during a rain event. As a way of asserting that the energy from the release of latent heat was being retained, AGW used the earth’s radiation budget, for which there is a satellite measuring that. The numbers happily coincided with all the other numbers, TSI, feedback loops and their models. I make a deal out of TSI at times, and co2 levels. How can temperature possibly fall with the constant increase in co2 ?
Long story short, global temperatures cannot ever fall below a previous high. That would mean the co2 is not retaining the heat. Remember the atmosphere with 1/10ths of a degree is a huge amount of heat (energy). In a matter of a few months the cumulative effect of the last 100 years is wiped out. While I doubt it will continue, with out being able to explain this drop, there isn’t any reason it couldn’t continue. What just happened to the temperature is unexplainable in terms of the scientific concensus. I don’t even need a trend. If the temperature was to come back in 2 months where did it come from ? Magic ?
It’s a total disconnect.
How can Judith say five years will indicate a clear trend? Last decade the alarmists kept extending out the time required for a trend to be established – under those rules it now takes ten years or more for a trend to be seen. (Pesonally, I think a couple hundred years or more is necessary.)
Since TPW has been measured (about 1988) the water vapor content of the atmosphere has increased about 4.27%. (see graph and links to data in http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com ). Water vapor is the most important ghg and has made the planet warm enough for life. Currently the increasing WV is countering the cooling that would otherwise be occurring.
For a global average WV content of 1.5% (=15000 ppmv) this amounts to an increase of 640 ppmv of WV molecules. During that same period, CO2 increased by about 50 ppmv. (ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt ) WV molecules have hundreds of absorption lines in the range of significant terrestrial radiation compared to only one for CO2. The water vapor increase is hundreds if not thousands of times more effective at warming the planet than the CO2 increase would be even if any effect of CO2 wasn’t made insignificant by thermalization.
Interesting. The more general view here seems to be that the atmosphere is not getting more humid, contra AGW. What you describe sounds like a powerful wv feedback.
The data, (did you look?) is that the water vapor in the atmosphere is increasing. That means there is more of the stuff in the atmosphere that made the planet warm enough for life in the first place. CO2 has no significant influence.
“Water vapor is the most important ghg and has made the planet warm enough for life. Currently the increasing WV is countering the cooling that would otherwise be occurring.”
WV is the most significant GHG but it is not the most important.
Reason:
It condenses.
CO2 DOESN’T.
Ever noticed that on calm still clear nights, fog forms?
Because the air temp has dropped and the WV has condensed out onto hygroscopic nuclei?
Ever noticed that your car windscreen mists up when the outside air is cold. WV condensing?
Ever noticed that cumulus clouds form as they rise to their condensation level?
Ever noticed that it often snows when temps are at 0C or below?
The last one is the crucial one.
CO2 provides a “floor” to prevent too much WV from condensing out and the GHE falling into a feed-back loop whereby snows gather in the high latitude NH land-mas and albedo increases – cooling – less WV – cooling – more snow – higher albedo – more snow sticking over land – cooling – less WV etc.
Ton – Perhaps you are overlooking that when water vapor condenses, the condensate is no longer a gas. Or perhaps you are not aware that when WV condenses in the atmosphere it does not all condense. It only condenses down to where its partial pressure is roughly equal to the vapor pressure at the temperature of the condensate. Even ice has vapor pressure. That means there is always the ghg water vapor in the atmosphere. The observation is the WV trend since 1988 has been increasing. This increasing trend is countering the global cooling which would otherwise be occurring.
Multiple compelling evidence as listed in http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com is that CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
Whatever the WV does or doesn’t do, once it gives up heat into a liquid that heat is retained according to AGW. Believe me, the extended arguments about the laws of thermodynamics literally is volumes. AGW thinks it won that argument, they don’t see my side and I think they are wrong, there is no point to it. I can and am doing something else. There is no scientific reason for temperature to drop 0.5 C globally under AGW. And there is no way for it in 6 months. None. Co2 is simply not the driver of temperature. Variations exist, this is a disconnect. It’s like looking at the coordinates (x,y) then wosh it’s over in the (t.z) plane.
Have you calculated how much heat that is for the planet to loose ?
It is time again for the REAL numbers on Water Vapor.
Right now, it is measured in real-time by two entities, NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis and RSS.
Both of these entities have water vapor levels at 2.4% above average in November.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl
http://data.remss.com/vapor/monthly_1deg/tpw_v07r01_198801_201611.time_series.txt
These numbers are down considerably from the peaks in Feb 2016 which were very high.
And that is because the ENSO completely dominates changes in global and tropical water vapor levels. The RSS water vapor levels have risen because its data starts in 1988 (the biggest La Nina on record) and then it ends in 2016 (the second biggest El Nino on record). Naturally, it has risen over time because the ENSO dominates.
Charted here back to 1948 for both measures (RSS starts in 1988) versus the ENSO and the IPCC AR4 forecast. Notice the very big drop in the later half of 2016. Exactly on schedule if it lagged behind the ENSO by 3 months. Water vapor levels are going to NEGATIVE numbers over the next 3 months. Imagine that.
And then how does the water vapor levels compare to Hadcrut4 temperatures. They are only increasing at 2.6%/1.0C versus global warming theory of 7.0%/1.0C. Less than half. Why does less than half always show up.
There you go. Spread this around to your other global warming colleagues and tell them to look at the actual data. And don’t forget to mention the ENSO’s impact.
Dan Pangburn December 12, 2016 at 8:10 pm
“WV molecules have hundreds of absorption lines in the range of significant terrestrial radiation compared to only one for CO2”.
Water vapor molecules have about 19,000 absorption lines between 5-25 microns, over the same range CO2 has 152,000!
Our story showed that these record high temperatures were triggered by naturally occurring but freak conditions caused by El Nino – and not, as had been previously suggested, by the cumulative effects of man-made global warming.
Absolute load of disingenuous tosh. Even spiced up the graph with “strong El Nino peak” and “very strong” on the wrong ninos. Not even good quality propaganda.
That’s the one I was after.
Griff will be along to tell us this is hooey in 3, 2, 1…
It was a very warm day here in Sydney, I work in the inner west and it got to over 39c, 20% (At the SMH, they post temps and say 30.2c, feels like 30.9c. Really? I can’t tell the difference in a 0.7c increase) 20% humidity and we have the alarmist media and shills running around with heads exploding. Sure it was and still is warm, but not unusual for a Sydney SUMMER DAY!
But ya know, I heard people say at work today “It’s REALLY hot outside. It’s 39c!”. I ask, “Where is that reading coming from?” And the most popular answer “The airport. (Either Sydney or Bankstown)” from their weather app on their phone. I just laugh point out that well AFTER records began, there were no AIRPORTS in Sydney. And The Observatory MOVED!
Am I in moderation for using the “G” word?
I believe it was Observatory this time.
Is it relevant that in Australia, the official ACORN mean temperature anomaly in October 2015 (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mwr/aus/mwr-aus-201510.pdf) was +2.89C, and the national mean temperature anomaly in October 2016 (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mwr/aus/mwr-aus-201610.pdf) was -0.5C?
That’s a drop of 3.39C in 12 months! It included the coldest mean temperature recorded since 1897 across the south-west of Australia.
In March 2016, the ACORN mean temperature anomaly for Australia (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mwr/aus/mwr-aus-201603.pdf) was +1.70C, so by October it had effectively fallen 2.2C.
In November 2016 (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml), Australia’s mean temp anomaly was +0.55C. In November 2015 (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mwr/aus/mwr-aus-201511.pdf) it was +1.87C, so in the 12 months it dropped 1.32C.
0.5C? You northern hemispherical lot really oughta catch up.
waclimate on December 13, 2016 at 4:26 am
Is it relevant that in Australia, the official ACORN mean temperature anomaly in October 2015 … was +2.89C, and the national mean temperature anomaly in October 2016 … was -0.5C?
No idea, waclimate.
Here is a chart
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/161214/hdqaqdjs.jpg
where you at least can see that your country shows since 1979 harsh peaks and drops at its surface (surprisingly as many as the troposphere above), and that this transition from 2015 to 2016 isn’t very unusual. Look at e.g. the 1980’s.
Yet again we have these tedious “discussions” about short term fluctuations in global temperature. The “warmist” side are mainly responsible for this pointless debate since they initially used the recent El Nino as propaganda for the CAGW case but it doesn’t really help when the “sceptic” side respond in kind when the inevitable decline in relative temperatures happens.
The ENSO (El Nino/La Nina) cycle should be a zero sum game, i.e. it should not affect the long term trend since ENSO does not directly add or remove energy from earth’s climate system. Ocean cycles simply amplify or dampen any exiting trend over time.
There is no question we have seen a long term (30+ year) trend of warming. Whatever arguments you might want to make about GISS, Hadcrut or whatever, all the main global datasets (including UAH) show a warming trend of at least 0.12 deg per decade This means the earth must have gained energy over the past 30 or 40 years at least. There are only a few ways this can happen.
1. The sun (our sole source of energy) has increased output.
2. Cloud cover (albedo) has reduced to allow more solar energy to reach the earth’s surface.
3. The increase in greenhouse gases has slowed the rate of earth’s radiative cooling.
4. Any combination of 1,2 and 3.
Since there is no evidence of a sufficient increase in the sun’s output which explains the temperature rise, it’s likely that greenhouse gases are responsible for a substantial part of the warming.
Is the warming a problem – or will it become one? I’m not convinced it will be but the argument that CO2 has no effect is a non-starter. We can clearly see the CO2 effect from emission spectra of the earth.
Sceptics need to concentrate on climate sensitivity to CO2 – as Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer and many other responsible scientists who are sceptical of Catastrophic AGW.
John great points, but OLR has not decreased due to more CO2. This appears to be tied just to ENSO.
blockquote> great points, but OLR has not decreased due to more CO2. This appears to be tied just to ENSO.
Hmm. Would we expect to detect a strong trend in OLR? Presumably the system will try to maintain equilibrium. While the incoming – outgoing balance is positive this will produce warming which will increase the surface flux which will, in turn, drive the OLR flux at the Top of the Atmosphere.
If the OLR remains constant (and equal to incoming solar energy) over time surely this just means there is very little “heat in the pipeline” – which might well be the case. This is one argument against high sensitivity. The “warmists” suggest a current TOA imbalance of around 0.6 w/m2.(i.e. incoming solar – OLR = 0.6w/m2). Unfortunately we have no reliable way of verifying this figure.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=out%20going%20long%20wzave%20radiation%20%20anamolies&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=out%20going%20long%20wzave%20radiation%20anamoli&sc=0-38&sk=&cvid=7235A765ACB442FFB3C6D71A2799B975
See the chart of OLR. . Scroll down some.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/enso/indicators/olr/
This is what I wanted to show made a mistake in the above post.
“There is no question we have seen a long term (30+ year) trend of warming.”
There is also no question we have seen a “long-term” trend of warming from 1910 to 1940 that is equal to the warming from 1979 to the present. There wasn’t nearly as much CO2 in the atmosphere back then. How do you explain that heat?
Mainly due to the ocean cycles mentioned in my original comment. If 1970-200 were a repeat of of 1910-1970 then we should have seen 10 to 15 years of cooling by now.
“ If 1970-200 were a repeat of of 1910-1970 ” should be “If 1970-2000 were a repeat of 1910-1940”
“If 1970-2000 were a repeat of 1910-1940 then we should have seen 10 to 15 years of cooling by now.”
I don’t think we ever get an exact repeat of anything to do with the climate, but I think I see your point: You are saying the 20-year pause we were recently experiencing should have gone lower than it did, istead of just flatlining. No decline, I assume you think means CO2 is keeping the temperatures up and preventing same. Am I correct?
John Finn on December 13, 2016 at 4:55 am
Excellent comment, based on a sound kind of skeptic observation.
Indeed, both TSI and Sun spot number evaluations show that Sun’s power actually seems to be on the decline.
And even more: ENSO (as depicted by the MEI index) is on the decline as well, despite its recent uptick:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/161214/wj3ypoz9.jpg
Sources:
– TSI: http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/TSI_TIM_Reconstruction.txt
– SSN: http://www.sidc.be/silso/DATA/SN_m_tot_V2.0.txt
– MEI: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/table.html
Well I’ll be buggered; a rational sceptic.
“In the Midwest and Northeast, some areas could experience their lowest December temperatures of this century,” according to AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams.
Abrams pointed out that while this air will probably not break any low temperature records, most places have set only record highs during December since 2000.”
Another bad North American storm system is now spinning up here on the West Coast. Warm front on its way in now, cold front to hit Th. Pretty much a repeat of last week / this weekend albeit the track looks a little more inland and lower latitude. For example, PDX may only get barely clipped by serious ice this time around. Intermountain, central midwest and beyond may get clobbered.
>Greg December 12, 2016 at 1:42 pm
>“I think it is an average temp reconstruction chart.”
>Well the problem is just that Steve: we don’t actually know what that graph is supposed to be, >because there is no reference to the data nor even any indication more specific than “New Met >Office world data”.
>OH, it’s “world data” . May pass with your average Tory housewife Daily Mail reader but won’t >pass muster on an award winning science blog.
>So if WUWT is going to reproduce this tabloid crap, can we at least have a proper reference for >the data. It actually looks like a quite important change that needs to be communicated far and >wide. But I will not be referring to it nor copying a meaningless, non scientific graph to anyone I >know. I’d be embarrassed.
>Maybe our host could ask David Rose what the data shown is and post a proper attribution.
Parrot much Greg? Is this your new toy, dunning everyone for data because you’ve been called out so many times for failing to do so yourself? Since you have such a low opinion of WUWT, why don’t you bugger off and save us having to skip your endlessly stupid comments? Or are you still being paid to troll?
As an example of how meaningless looking at short term fluctuations are (especially coming out of an El Nino), using UAH v6beta global, land and sea, during the 1998 El Nino, the anomaly peaked at 0.74C in April, and dropped down to 0.12C in November ’98. That’s a difference of 0.62 in 7 months.
Whereas during the 2016 El Nino, the anomaly peaked at 0.83C in February, and had dropped down to 0.45C in November – a drop of 0.38C in 9 months – at about half the downwards rate observed in 1998.
Whereas, if using last month’s values, the 1998 drop would have only been 0.34C and the 2016 drop would have been 0.42. With monthly fluctuations on that order, clearly such comparisons are frivolous; anybody publishing such an analysis shouldn’t be taken seriously.
+ 10 !
To sum up Sirs, is there any treat on climate change as we approach year 2100 as projected and predicted to us by our environmentalists?
Current temperature North America (F).
http://files.tinypic.pl/i/00850/wvm3k4z3s5cm.png
How often did we read that stuff! Werner Brozek wrote many posts based on that supposition.
Here is a comparison of the relative power of the ENSO events in 1997/98 and 2015/16, using five indices (JMA, Nino3+4, ONI, MEI, SOI):
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/161214/u9mxfln3.jpg
Why relative? Simply because we should never compare absolute values following in time when the recent ones possibly buid on inceases or decreases created inbetween.
But even when we compare the absolute peaks, none of the five ENSO indices show for the 2015/16 event a value above that of 1997/98! At best do Nino3+4 and ONI show the same for both. The other ones show 1997/98 clearly above 2015/16; SOI places even 1982/83 in front of the two.
The same hold for mean values computed over different periods.
It is very likely that this supposition (or inbetween: claim) of the 2015/16 ENSO event being probably the strongest ever seen does not at all originate from any comparison of ENSO events, and rather is bound to the comparison of temperatures, especially those measured in the troposphere by… UAH.
This in turn following the idea that if temperature increases during ENSO phases are solely due to the ENSO events themselves, then these temperatures conversely are a tool to compare the events.
But here as well, the temperature values measured in 2015/16 must be compared relatively to those measured in 1997/98, in order to offset any step up/down between the periods compared:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/161214/8efqoa8q.jpg
Though the situation here is less clear then in the ENSO corner, we see that the mean temperature‘s plots nevertheless show 1997/98 above 2015/16.
The temperature spike in 2015-16 may have been caused by the eruption of Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano in 2014-2015 (Aug-Feb), the largest since Laki in 1783. Chlorine, released by the eruption as HCl, would have depleted the ozone layer, admitting more UV-B irradiance to Earth, causing warming. More on this at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/10/interesting-climate-sensitivity-analysis-do-variations-in-co2-actually-cause-global-significant-warming/