December 2016 Projected Temperature Anomalies from NCEP/NCAR Data

Guest Post By Walter Dnes

In continuation of my Temperature Anomaly projections, the following are my December projections, as well as last month’s projections for November, to see how well they fared.

The Data Sources

The latest data can be obtained from the following sources

• HadCRUT4 http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.5.0.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
• GISS http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
• UAH http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0.txt
• RSS ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
• NCEI https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/p12/12/1880-2016.csv

Miscellaneous Notes

At the time of posting all 5 monthly data sets were available through November 2016. The NCEP/NCAR re-analysis data runs 2 days behind real-time. Therefore, real daily data through December 29th is used, and the 30th and 31st are assumed to have the same anomaly as the 29th.

The global NCEP/NCAR monthly anomaly for December has fallen to approximately midway between June and July 2016 levels. Both daily and and monthly annual averages set record highs in 2016. The centred 365-day-running-mean daily data peaked in late March 2016. Similarly, the 12-month-running-mean monthly data peaked at March, 2016. The data set started January 1st, 1948.

The graph immediately below is a plot of recent NCEP/NCAR daily anomalies, versus 1994-2013 base, similar to Nick Stokes’ web page. The second graph is a monthly version, going back to 1997. The trendlines are as follows…

• Black – The longest line with a negative slope in the daily graph goes back to early July, 2015, as noted in the graph legend. On the monthly graph, it’s August 2015. This is near the start of the El Nino, and nothing to write home about. Reaching back to 2005 or earlier would be a good start.
• Green – This is the trendline from a local minimum in the slope around late 2004, early 2005. To even BEGIN to work on a “pause back to 2005”, the anomaly has to drop below the green line.
• Pink – This is the trendline from a local minimum in the slope from mid-2001. Again, the anomaly needs to drop below this line to start working back to a pause to that date.
• Red – The trendline back to a local minimum in the slope from late 1997. Again, the anomaly needs to drop below this line to start working back to a pause to that date.

NCEP/NCAR Daily Anomalies:

NCEP/NCAR Monthly Anomalies: