From the University of Alabama, Huntsville.
Global Temperature Report: December 2017
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.13 C per decade
December temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.41 C (about 0.74 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.50 C (about 0.90 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.33 C (about 0.59 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.
Tropics: +0.26 C (about 0.47 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for November.
November temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.36 C above 30-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.33 C above 30-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.38 C above 30-year average
Tropics: +0.26 C above 30-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 30-year average (1981-2010) for the month reported.)
Notes on data released Jan. 3, 2018:
Globally averaged, 2017 was the third warmest year in the 39-year satellite temperature record, according to Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. The average temperature in the lower troposphere over the globe in 2017 was 0.375 C (about 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms.
Warmest years (global) 1979 to 2017
2016 +0.513 C
1998 +0.484 C
2017 +0.375 C
2010 +0.336 C
Since the satellite-based global temperature record began in November 1978, the fastest warming region on Earth has been around the North Pole. The troposphere over the Arctic Ocean has warmed at the rate of 0.28 C per decade, or more than twice the global rate of warming. By comparison, the Antarctic continent is warming at the rate of about 0.07 C per decade, while the air above the ocean around the Antarctic is cooling about 0.04 C per decade. (The satellite instruments that collect temperature data do not see all the way to the poles. The satellite orbits miss about the top five degrees latitude in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.)
The continental U.S. (both contiguous 48 and the continental 49) have been warming at the rate of about 0.18 C (about 0.32 degrees F) per decade. That means that in the 39 years since satellite instruments started collecting atmospheric temperature data, the air temperature above the U.S. has warmed an average of about 1.25 degrees Fahrenheit.
Compared to seasonal norms, the coldest spot on the globe in December was near Timmins, in eastern Ontario. Temperatures there were 3.51 C (about 6.32 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms.
Compared to seasonal norms, the warmest place on Earth in December was near Qambo, in the Eastern Tibet autonomous region of China. Tropospheric temperatures there averaged 5.27 C (about 9.49 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms.
Christy and Dr. Richard McNider, a professor emeritus at UAH, recently published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences a study that mathematically removed from the satellite temperature record the effects of volcanic eruptions and of El Nino and La Nina Pacific Ocean heating and cooling events. This was done in an attempt to identify that part of the overall warming during the 39-year period that might be attributed to human influences. The 0.155 C per decade trend reported in that study differs from the 0.13 C per decade trend reported here in the Global Temperature Report. That is because this most recent research in the APJAS was done using an earlier version of the satellite microwave sounding unit dataset. That dataset was revised and updated, and the revisions published (Spencer et al., APJAS 2017) while the research looking at the effects of natural climatic events was under peer review.
As part of an ongoing joint project between UAH, NOAA and NASA, Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer, an ESSC principal scientist, use data gathered by advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.
The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data are collected and processed, they are placed in a “public” computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.
The complete version 6 lower troposphere dataset is available here:
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt
Archived color maps of local temperature anomalies are available on-line at:
Neither Christy nor Spencer receives any research support or funding from oil, coal or industrial companies or organizations, or from any private or special interest groups. All of their climate research funding comes from federal and state grants or contracts.
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Only reporters think like that headline. What is the trend?
“But, but … we have to do something!”
The bottom line is the amount of the warming trend remains pretty unspectacular, given the hype on this issue. It’s completely compatible with a net anthropogenic influence of zero. I’m not saying it is zero — only that’s it compatible with zero.
Also, when the amount of the trend can be wiped out by just a month or two of cooling, that’s a clear sign the trend isn’t very big or significant.
Outer space, hot or cold?
Now, the consensus answer is cold, 5 Kelvin or 3 Kelvin.
But there are no molecules in outer space so what do the concepts of hot, cold, heat, energy even mean without the kinetic motion of molecules?
The International Space Station has not one, but a redundant pair of ammonia refrigerant cooling, air conditioning, refrigerating/freezing systems.
Why? If space is cold? Why not just put that ice tray or margarita blender out on the back step and let outer space do its thang?
Well, because when the solar luminosity/irradiance reaches earth’s orbital distance it has a power flux of 1,368 W/m^2 and an equivalent S-B BB temperature of 394 K, 121 C, 250 F. That’s not hot by galactic standards, but it will cook earthly flora and fauna (That’s us – people.) Everything in the path of that irradiance, barring extenuating circumstances, will be heated to 394 K.
In fact, the lit side temperature of the moon actually measures a peak of 390 K.
What does that say about the earth minus an atmosphere?
An S-B BB temperature of 394 K or 21 C is higher than the boiling point of water under sea level atmospheric pressure, which would no longer exist. The oceans would boil away removing the giga-tons of pressure that keeps the molten core in place. The molten core would push through the thin crust flooding the surface with dark magma changing both emissivity and albedo. With no atmosphere a steady rain of meteorites would pulverize the surface to dust same as the moon. The earth would be much like the moon with a similar albedo (0.12) and large swings in surface temperature from lit to dark sides. No clouds, no vegetation, no snow, no ice a completely different albedo, certainly not the current 30%. No atmospheric molecules mean no convection, conduction, latent energy and surface IR absorption/radiation would be anybody’s guess.
Without an atmosphere the earth’s temperature would be similar to the moon’s, say, 390 K or 102 C hotter than the WAG’d average of 288 K and not 33C colder per RGHE theory.
Now before y’all start hatin’ on me about comparing peaks and averages remember what an average is all about. Two scenarios can have widely different ranges and still have the same average. For instance:
Earth w/ atmosphere: max 88 C, 361 K; min -58 C, 215 K; average 288 K, range 73C.
Moon/Earth w/o atmosphere: max 390 K, min 186 K, average 288 , range 204C.
Earth’s atmosphere/albedo moderate both the peak and range temperatures with an overall result of cooling the earth compared to no atmosphere.
One of these scenarios is correct and the other is false. I’ll go with the one that has real, actual, lunar and ISS observations and that would NOT be RGHE theory whose attempted explanations truly violate thermo.
I’m a bit concerned about version 6 of the UAH processing algorithm. They have gone to what is reported as a more accurate direct grid measurement system vs. the older versions that slant angle estimated areas they could not get the claimed resolution to they now say they are getting, but it makes little sense to me that in the current La Nina, the December temperatures do not seem to represent the colder tropics like they did in 2008. I looked at the NOAA/NESDIS December composite for the tropics and the amount of colder than average sea surface area and magnitude between December 2008 comparing December 2017 to is nearly identical.
In Roy Spencer’s tabular results, in December 2008’s La Nina, the tropics weighed in with a -.11 degC anomaly compared to this years + .26 degC, a difference of a rather large . 37 degC. Likewise, the USA lower 48 had an anomaly of -.13 degC in 2008 compared to December of 2017 of + .44 degC, again, a rather large difference of .57 degC.
In light of the severe cold east of the Rockies that was underneath enough of the influence of the polar vortex to avoid a LT inversion, it seems to me that the December anomaly is too warm, maybe significantly compared to surface station reports and low temperature records. In the west, the anomalies make more sense because of a persistent subsidence inversion under a blocking high pressure ridge.
I would like to know what Roy Spencer and John Christy might add to this. Something seems off kilter to me to see global temperatures rise again in December with all of the North American and similar tropical cold sea surface area and magnitude such as in 2008.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist