In this post, we’re going to present monthly mean TMIN and TMAX Near-Land Surface Air Temperatures (not in anomaly form) for a group of ten (10) Countries in an effort to add a little perspective to global warming. The list of countries, which follows, will, hopefully, reflect the home countries of recent visitors to WattsUpWithThat. The list is based on the number of visitors per country to my blog ClimateObservations during my peak year of 2014.
And, as always with my posts, as part of the text, there are hyperlinks to the data that were used to prepare the graphs. Just click on the links if you’re looking for the data.
This series of posts are logged under the Category of “Global Warming in Perspective” at WattsUpWithThat, with the link to that category here. The category link at my blog ClimateObservations is here.
INITIAL NOTES
First of all, TMIN is described by Berkeley Earth as the “Mean of Daily Low Temperatures”, while TMAX is described as the “Mean of Daily High Temperatures”. Berkeley Earth provides monthly TMIN and TMAX data until partway through 2013. The start month for individual-country datasets at Berkeley Earth depends on data availability from the individual country. Sometimes they start in the early 1800s, maybe even the mid-to-late 1700s for countries like the United Kingdom, and other times they start in the mid-to-late 1800s, so I’ve chosen 1900 as the start year for this post. The year 1900 is the end year of the IPCC’s new definition of “pre-industrial” times, so starting the graphs in 1900 is also appropriate in that respect. The exception to the 1900 start year in this post is New Zealand, because there are missing data for New Zealand in 1905 and 1906, so the data in the graph for New Zealand begin in 1907.
The illustrations in this post are intended to show the difference in magnitude between (1) the rise in global mean land+ocean surface temperature anomalies, which is how “global warming” is normally presented, and (2) the range of the lowest annual TMIN and highest annual TMAX temperatures (not anomalies) for each country. Rephrased, we’re going to illustrate, and confirm something you already know, that the magnitude of the changes every year from the lowest TMIN to the highest TMAX for each country—that is, the wide ranges in the annual variations in surface temperatures for individual countries—dwarf the 1-deg C rise in global mean surface temperatures that has been experienced since the end of pre-industrial times (per the IPCC’s new definition of pre-industrial times). These are being presented because the United Nations has recently established a goal of limiting global warming to 0.5-deg C above the 1.0-deg C rise already seen, when in reality a 0.5-deg C change in global mean surface temperatures would hardly be perceptible to anyone or anything on our lovely planet Earth, especially when we consider the wide variations in ambient outdoor temperatures we experience locally every year, every month, every week, every day.
COUNTRIES PRESENTED IN THIS POST
The countries for which data are presented in this post are (with hyperlinks to their data pages at Berkeley Earth, the source of data for this post):
- United States (Contiguous) – Again
- United Kingdom (Europe)
- Canada
- Australia
- Germany
- Norway
- India – Again
And because they were requested at WattsUpWithThat in comments on the thread of an earlier post in this series:
Please keep your requests coming in, and please make those requests in the comments on the thread below.
For the countries discussed in this post, let’s also take a look at the ranking of “Action on Climate Change” in the UN’s My World 2015 poll, where there were 16 topics the UN wanted ranked as priorities:
- United States: 10th
- United Kingdom: 9th
- Canada: 9th
- Australia: 12th
- Germany: 6th
- Norway: 3rd
- India: 15th
- Netherlands: 5th
- New Zealand: 7th
- Switzerland: 6th
Considering that “Action on Climate Change” ranked dead last globally (see the MyWorldAnalytics webpage here), having it rank anywhere but near the bottom in individual countries is interesting.
UPDATED INTRODUCTION FOR THE “GLOBAL WARMING IN PERSPECTIVE” SERIES
A small group of (1) international unelected bureaucrats who serve the United Nations; (2) environmental activists; (3) businesses with financial interests in climate change laws and subsidies, and (4) scientists who subscribe to the groupthink of the political-agenda-catering climate science industry, now want to limit the rise of global land+ocean surface temperatures to no more 1.5 deg C from pre-industrial times…even though we’ve already seen about 1.0 deg C of global warming since then. So we’re going to put that 1.0 deg C change in global surface temperatures in perspective by examining the ranges of surface temperatures “we’ve been used to” on our lovely shared home Earth.
The source of the quote in the title of this post is Gavin Schmidt, who is the Director of the NASA GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies). It is from a 2014 post at the blog RealClimate, and, specifically, that quote comes from the post Absolute temperatures and relative anomalies (Archived here.). The topic of discussion for that post at RealClimate was the wide span (about 3-deg C) of absolute global mean temperatures [GMT, in the following quote] found in climate models. See the graph here from the post here for confirmation of the wide range in modeled absolute global mean surface temperatures.
Dr. Gavin Schmidt wrote in that RealClimate post (my boldface):
Most scientific discussions implicitly assume that these differences aren’t important i.e. the changes in temperature are robust to errors in the base GMT value, which is true, and perhaps more importantly, are focussed on the change of temperature anyway, since that is what impacts will be tied to. To be clear, no particular absolute global temperature provides a risk to society, it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters.
Anyone with the slightest grasp of reality knows that, annually, the local ambient temperatures where they live vary much more than the 1-deg C change in global surface temperatures that data show Earth has experienced since preindustrial times and way much more than the 0.5-deg C additional change in global mean surface temperatures the UN has set its sights on trying to prevent in the near future.
Please keep that 0.5-deg C in mind as you view the graphs and read the text that follow.
BTW, there were two posts at WattsUpWithThat about global mean surface temperatures in absolute form that preceded Dr. Schmidt’s post, and they may have prompted his post. The posts I’m referring to at WattsUpWithThat were Willis Eschenbach’s post CMIP5 Model Temperature Results in Excel and my post On the Elusive Absolute Global Mean Surface Temperature – A Model-Data Comparison. (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
DATA SOURCE
The source of the data presented in this post is Berkeley Earth. Why Berkeley Earth? In addition to furnishing their datasets in anomaly form, Berkeley Earth also provides monthly period-average surface temperatures in absolute form for the base period (1951-1980) they use for the anomalies. So with those monthly absolute values, it’s easy to convert the monthly long-term temperature anomaly data into absolute temperature values, which is what we want for this presentation. (And before someone complains about my use of the term absolute, it is commonly used by the climate science industry when describing temperatures in their observed, not anomaly, form.)
Mean near-surface land air temperature data for individual countries can be found here at Berkeley Earth. Specifically, for each of the countries this post, we’re presenting data for the TMIN (which are described as “Mean of Daily Low Temperatures”) and data for the TMAX (which are described as “Mean of Daily High Temperatures”).
As references for the lowest TMIN and highest TMAX time series graphs in this post, I’ve also included the curve of the monthly Berkeley Earth global mean land+ocean surface temperature anomalies data…found here. There are two versions on that webpage, I’ve used the data with air temperatures above sea ice, because it has a slightly higher long term linear trend. With a linear trend of 0.084 deg C/decade, over the 113+ year term of the graph, and based on that linear trend, the data show the average temperature of the Earth’s surface has risen about 1.0 deg C.
HOW SURFACE TEMPERATURE DATA ARE NORMALLY PRESENTED
Normally, global mean land+ocean surface temperature data are presented in anomaly form, with the scaling of the y-axis as tight as possible to make the long-term and short-term variations appear large, when, in reality, they’re very small…so small you’d never notice them if it wasn’t for the constant browbeating with alarmist propaganda we’re receiving daily from politicians, from the mainstream media, from businesses whose profits depend on the climate change scare, and from members of the publically funded climate data and modeling businesses, which have to keep their funding alive. An example of a normal presentation of global mean surface temperature (GMST) data can be seen in Reference Figure 1. It is a graph created by NASA GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies) and was available at their website here in .png form.
Reference Figure 1
When viewing the following time-series graphs, the black curves in my graphs are the Berkeley Earth-based monthly global mean land-ocean surface temperature anomalies equivalent of the curve above in Reference Figure 1.
AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT’S BEING PRESENTED
Reference Figure 2 is an example of what’s being presented in this post, but instead of TMIN and TMAX data for individual countries, the data in Reference Figure 2 is derived from the global mean data for near-surface land air temperatures. The Berkeley Earth global TMAX data for land surfaces are here and the global TMIN data are here. The blue curve toward the bottom includes the data for the annual lowest TMIN Near-Surface Land Air Temperatures (not in anomaly form) and red curve toward the top includes the data for the annual highest TMAX Near-Surface Land Air Temperatures (not in anomaly form). As noted above, the black curve toward the middle is for the Berkeley Earth annual global mean land+ocean surface temperature anomaly data, referred to on the graph as GMST for Global Mean Surface Temperature. For illustration purposes, and depending on the data for the individual country, I shift the curve of the GMST data so that it remains between the curves of the TMIN and TMAX data. With some countries, it’s not necessary and the GMST curve hugs 0.0 deg C. Also included on the graphs for each country are the trends—the warming rates as calculated by MS EXCEL—for the highest annual TMAX temperatures and the lowest annual TMIN temperatures.
Now notice how small the short- and long-term variations in global mean surface temperature (GMST) look. That’s because they are small, but you wouldn’t know that looking at a graph like the one prepared by NASA GISS in Reference Figure 1, above.
Reference Figure 2
As you can see, the trend of the highest annual global mean TMAX temperatures for land surfaces is slightly lower than the trend of the GMST data, which includes the surfaces of lands and oceans. On the other hand, the trend of the lowest annual global mean TMIN temperatures for land surfaces is noticeably higher than the trend of the GMST data, roughly twice as high. That is, globally, Earth’s daily high near-surface land air temperatures are warming much slower than Earth’s daily low near-surface land air temperatures. But data for the Earth’s countries hold surprises and the warming rates of the highest TMAX and lowest TMIN will differ with each country as you shall see. In one example in this post (for The United Kingdom in Figure 2), the warming rate of the highest annual TMAX was slightly more than the lowest annual TMIN, though both were comparable to or lower than the trend for the annual GMST (land+ocean surface) data.
So there’s lots of information provided in each graph.
To aid in your understanding of what’s being presented in this post, see Reference Figure 3. It shows the monthly global TMIN and TMAX temperatures (not anomalies) for the global land surfaces with their wide annual variations. From the data used to create the graph in Reference Figure 3, I’ve extracted the highest annual values of the TMAX data and the lowest annual values of the TMIN data for Reference Figure 2. In other words looking at Reference Figure 3, I’ve gathered the annual extreme highest (peak) values of the red curve and the annual extreme lowest (valley) values of the blue curve to create Reference Figure 2. That way, as noted above, we can have the spreadsheet software calculate the linear trends of the high temperature extremes and low temperature extremes for the air temperatures near to the surfaces in each of the countries. And we can compare those to the warming rate of global mean surface temperatures, which is how global warming is normally presented.
Reference Figure 3
IMPORTANT NOTE: For the individual countries, if you were to attempt to extract the highest annual TMAX temperature and lowest annual TMIN temperature curves from anomaly data you will likely wind up with decidedly different results, as discussed and presented in the post here. (The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
There seemed to be some disagreement about the use of actual temperatures (not anomalies) versus temperature anomalies in the comments at WattsUpWithThat for that post, so, as they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words.
In Reference Figure 4, I’ve plotted the mean TMAX temperatures for the Contiguous United States for two years (1958 in dark blue and 1959 in red). Also included is the respective average TMAX temperatures for the period 1951-1980 (black dotted curve), which is the 30-year period that Berkeley Earth uses when calculating temperature anomalies. As you can see, in 1959 (red curve), the highest TMAX temperature occurred in July, same month as the base-year average. But, in 1958 (blue curve), highest TMAX temperature occurred in August. For a time-series graph of the highest TMAX temperatures for the contiguous USA (Figure 3), the curve includes the July 1959 and August 1958 values, because they were the highest TMAX temperatures in those years.
Reference Figure 4
Now let’s take a look at the TMAX temperature anomalies for those two years. See Reference Figure 5. As you know, temperature anomalies are calculated as the difference between the actual temperature for a given month and the average temperature for that month base on a reference period, which is 1951-1980 for Berkeley Earth. If I were to plot the highest of the TMAX temperature anomalies in this post, they would likely have little to do with the highest actual TMAX temperatures, because the highest anomalies may occur randomly based on the local weather for a given month. In 1958, the highest TMAX anomaly happened in May, which was not the warmest TMAX month that year. Likewise, in 1959, the highest TMAX anomaly occurred in December, which was not the warmest TMAX month in 1959.
Reference Figure 5
[End note.]
I hope the preceding discussion and illustrations help you understand what’s being presented in Figures 1 to 10.
THE FOLLOWING TIMES SERIES GRAPHS HELP TO PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE THE 1-DEG C RISE IN GLOBAL MEAN SURFACE TEMPERATURES WE’VE ALREADY SEEN SINCE 1900
The initial 10 time-series graphs that follow (Figures 1 to 10) are provided for one simple reason: They compare the silly little 1-deg C rise in global mean surface temperature anomalies to the magnitude of the temperatures differences in the annual extremes we deal with every year, in terms of TMAX and TMIN surface temperatures (not anomalies) for individual countries. This allows viewers to the put into perspective the 1.0 deg C rise in global mean surface temperatures. In fact, there is even a note in dark blue in each graph that lists the difference in temperature between the Lowest Average TMIN and the Highest Average TMAX for the commonly used and WMO-recommended “climatological-standard normals” period of 1981-2010. (See the post here for a discussion of the WMO’s two sets of “normal” periods. The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.) As you shall see, those differences can be many, many times greater than the 1 deg C rise in average surface temperatures the Earth has experienced since pre-industrial times.
In other words, with reference to the above quote by Dr. Schmidt, every year, we, the residents of the countries presented in this post, are “used to” much greater variations in the surface temperatures of the countries where we live than the teeny little 1-deg C rise in global mean surface temperatures over a past period of 100+ years. How great? The following are those differences for the countries presented in this post:
Country: Average Temperature Difference Between Average Annual TMAX High and Average Annual TMIN Low for the Reference Period of 1981-2010
- United States (Contiguous): 37.3 Deg C
- United Kingdom (Europe):19.0 Deg C
- Canada: 46.1 Deg C
- Australia: 27.7 Deg C
- Germany: 28.2 Deg C
- Norway: 28.1 Deg C
- India: 25.6 Deg C
- Netherlands: 24.1 Deg C
- New Zealand: 18.4 Deg C
- Switzerland: 28.9 Deg C
Now consider, in our hometowns, local ambient temperatures can easily change more than 20 deg F (11 Deg C) in one day, on top of the slower monthly variations. See Reference Figure 6 below. It is a graph of actual and average temperatures in Washington D.C.—where politicians propose goofy stuff like taxing U.S. citizens to reduce U.S. carbon emissions 90% by 2050 (Thanks, Willis). It’s for the month of November 2018, available from Accuweather, specifically their webpage here. The inhabitants of this planet are quite adaptable, obviously.
Reference Figure 6
All of those are good numbers to recall when you hear some goofy politician talking nonsense about raising our utility costs or taxing us to provide a “stable climate”. Oy vey!
And now the much-awaited time-series graphs for the top ten countries who visit WattsUpWithThat:
Figure 1
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Figure 2
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Figure 3
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Figure 4
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Figure 5
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Figure 6
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Figure 7
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Figure 8
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Figure 9
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Figure 10
A FEW THINGS STOOD OUT TO ME
The first thing that stood out was the relatively high warming rate of the annual highest TMAX temperatures for Germany. In a future post, we’ll plot the data for all nearby European countries for comparison to see if the trends for some of the nearby countries are similar or if Germany is an unusual case. Next was the high trend of the annual highest TMAX temperatures for New Zealand for the period of 1907-2012, which was roughly 3 times higher than that trend for nearby Australia for the period of 1900-2012…curious.
And the other things that stood out were the early annual highest TMAX temperatures for the United States, Australia, Norway, and India. I’ve plotted the TMAX data separately for those countries and presented them in Figures 11 through 14 for your viewing pleasure and comment.
Figure 11
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Figure 12
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Figure 13
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Figure 14
NEXT POST IN THE SERIES
The next post will be a special edition for the United States, where most of the visitors to WattsUpWithThat hail from. The data will be presented in—ready for this—degrees Fahrenheit (Deg F). That should be fun. In addition to the data for the U.S.A. as a whole, we’ll look at the data for the top ten most-populated states (listed below), and the coldest (Alaska) and hottest (Arizona).
According to the U.S. Census Bureau website (on December 2, 2018 at 7am…just in case the numbers change significantly in the future), the top ten most populated States are, with populations in millions in parentheses:
- California: (39.6 million)
- Texas: (28.7 million)
- Florida: (21.3 million)
- New York: (25.4 million)
- Pennsylvania: (12.8 million)
- Illinois: (12.7 million)
- Ohio (11.7 million)
- Georgia: (10.5 million)
- North Carolina: (10.3 million)
- Michigan: (10.0 million)
CLOSING COMMENTS
Yes, I understand there can be wide differences in ambient temperatures within a country. The average annual surface temperatures in Chicago, IL and New York City, New York are roughly 12-deg C (22-deg F) cooler than they are in Tampa, Florida.
Further to this end, globally, in locations where humans, animals and plants reside, there can be very wide differences in the TMIN and TMAX temperatures as illustrated in Reference Figure 7a (Celsius) and 7b (Fahrenheit), which show the average annual cycle of TMAX temperatures for a “hot” country Oman (data here) and the average annual cycle of TMIN temperatures for a “cold” country Russia (data here), where the period used for the averages is the Berkeley Earth standard reference period of 1951-1980. Specifically, there’s a 70-deg C (126 deg F) temperature difference between the highest average TMAX in Oman and the lowest average TMIN in Russia. Obviously, the residents of this planet—animals, plants, and humans—are “used to” a very wide range of temperature extremes.
Reference Figure 7a
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Reference Figure 7b
But as alarmists would like us to believe, we’re all going to roast in our self-imposed, fossil-fuel-burning, CO2-emitting hells if global mean land+ocean surface temperatures rise another 0.5 deg C (0.9 deg F). And then they get all huffy when people disagree with them. Go figure.
That’s it for this post. Thanks for taking time out of your day to read the text and examine the graphs.
Have fun in the comments below, and enjoy rest of your day.
STANDARD CLOSING REQUEST
Please purchase my recently published ebooks. As many of you know, this year I published 2 ebooks that are available through Amazon in Kindle format:
- Dad, Why Are You A Global Warming Denier? (For an overview, the blog post that introduced it is here.)
- Dad, Is Climate Getting Worse in the United States? (See the blog post here for an overview.)
And please purchase Anthony Watts’s et al. Climate Change: The Facts – 2017.
To those of you who have purchased them, thank you. To those of you who will purchase them, thank you, too.
Regards,
To all of you celebrating Christmas tomorrow, MERRY CHRISTMAS!
To those of you who celebrate something else this time of year, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Regards,
Bob
Right back at ya, Bob!
Merry Christmas!
It reminds me of Shakespeare ” Much ado about nothing”
Tisdale seems to suffer from a major misunderstanding about the differences between long-running averages and the actual fluctuating, daily seasonal or yearly measurements. If the long-running average increases one or two degrees, the climatic figures do shift and it’s simply fact that this does indeed impact plant growth, presence of species, weather, average water temperatures, precipitation records, drought numbers, to a notable degree. It cannot be denied. And really, nobody denies it but it seems this article attempts to do just that?
Now I’m all for discussing the amount of effect or the expected anomaly being 1, 3 or 6 degrees over the decades. Or discussing the exact causes of flux in long-running averages. But to skip over the factual causality of these numbers in relation to actual living circumstances looks to me like a wilful, simplistic kind of ignorance, mostly hidden by meaningless graphics and the oversimplification of reality, making the models as promoted by the IPCC seem almost sane in comparison.
I’ll ask you my standard question, which is rarely in ever answered, what was so good about the Little Ice Age and more importantly why do you want it back?
I’ll also ask..
Do you have any real empirical evidence that the slight but HIGHLY beneficial warming out of the coldest period in 10,000 years is anything but natural ?
Any real empirical scientific evidence of human causation?
During the LIA, Kings were real kings. And the serfs knew their place.
They always forget, it is rarely the scribes or clergy who get to be kings. It’s the aggressive brutes who are good with a sword. The kind of people who in today’s society either become soldiers or inmates.
Typical copremesis of a progressive.
Fastyr Mie.
We seem to have an evolution denier.
The point the article makes, very well, is that it is the rate of change that matters. And that the rate of change needs to be considered relative to the rate of other changes.
The impacts of climate change seem to be negligible relative to the impacts of weather changes. This has important policy implications. Namely that mitigation is worthless while adaptation will help (with all the changes).
John Dowser, you began your rant, “Tisdale seems to suffer from a major misunderstanding about the differences between long-running averages and the actual fluctuating, daily seasonal or yearly measurements…”
Obviously, you can’t comprehend written English or read graphs.
Good-bye, troll. I have no need to deal with a troll today.
John, get back to us when they are growing bananas in Cleveland…..
..in the mean time, the same crops are grow in the exact same places they were grow 100 years ago
Latitude,
Indeed, they are the same.
And after 100 years of cultivation, how are those lands faring with respect to yields of those crops?
Most every year new records are set for the bounty of our croplands.
Even poor countries now have obesity as a leading health concern.
“Now I’m all for discussing the amount of effect “….
100 years ago there were orange groves up the coast as far as North Carolina…
Do you have a citation for this? I’ve heard about citrus being grown by the Spanish well North of Florida in the 1500’s.
One day oranges will grow in Canada, and we will be happy. I have an avocado in a pot already.
https://m.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/darren-sheriff-aka-the-citrus-guy-is-an-expert-at-making-stubborn-citrus-grow/Content?oid=5488026
Lot’s of insults & indignatiom and not a single FACT.
TROLL.
“If the long-running average increases one or two degrees, the climatic figures do shift and it’s simply fact that this does indeed impact plant growth, presence of species, weather, average water temperatures, precipitation records, drought numbers, to a notable degree”
You don’t have data to make that kind of generalized statement applicable to all scenarios. It may or may not affect any of the things you mentioned “to a notable degree”. I seriously doubt that one or two degrees is going to make that much difference in most places. In some places it might.
“I seriously doubt that one or two degrees is going to make that much difference in most places.”
One can experience a two degree temperature increase just by driving from the rural country into a large city (UHI increases the temperatures in cities). I bet most people who make this drive don’t even notice a difference.
Only if it’s snowed!
Two degrees is the equivalent of moving a few hundred feet in elevation, or a hundred miles or so in latitude…perhaps in some places considerably less or more than this distance.
Also we know that the majority of any warming has consisted of less cold winters, less cold night times, and a less cold polar region in higher northern latitudes, where it nonetheless remains very cold.
If not for the awful effects these evil rats have on our children, one might choose to simply laugh at these inane Chicken Little doomsday cultists.
Just another sophist, its all so simple to them icisil .
…. and John, you seem to suffer from the misunderstanding that TMAX and TMIN necessarily are reflected by the “average”. Looking at the graphs, the rising average is mostly influenced by TMIN …. thus from a plant life perspective, the temperature range is becoming more habitable. ……. and that is a good thing. (I.e., if a plants temp tange 10-20C, and the Tmin increases such that the range is now 11-20C, it moves the range away from the lower extreme …. and that is good).
I think BOB NAILS it with theses presentations, showing the change in temperature range over time, which includes the real fluctuation and impact on plant life with no assumptions.
I think Bob understands perfectly. Maybe it’s you who doesn’t understand
Dowser, take a look at Bobs’ Canada chart, why don’t you go there? You would be better off for thousands of years with your fear of rising temperatures and their politics are almost certainly much more to your liking. And when I say Canada, I don’t mean where 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the lower 48 USA border, I mean TAKE OFF HOSER TO THE GREAT WHITE NORTH! Merry Christmas, Bob.
And don’t forget yer touque eh, hoser?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DTwLqR071M
That’s what I’m talkin’ aboot. Sorey Canadians, Merry Christmas and Good Day, eh!
I like your description of the IPCC models as “almost sane”.
I live on planet earth. Stop telling me to not believe my “lying” eyes.
They do it for the money, the lovely holidays, being praised by stupid politicians who control the money…….
I’m sick of it.
I like the way Bob’s charts hide information about el Nino. Wait, didnt that tiny perturbation in temperature used to be important to him?
Berkeley’s data Mr Mosher, say no more.
I like them too Steven, but I think you are wrong that they are hidden.
The way they are presented in the context of long term averages and trends, it is clear that fluctuations and cyclical trends in ocean currents and weather are negligible, and are barely visible in the context of both long term and short term natural variations…both on a local and a more regional basis.
Do you have a point?
John Dowser –> “does indeed impact plant growth..”
Since you don’t really say how plants are affected, I assume you mean more plant growth due to longer growing seasons. In other words, spring comes sooner and fall comes later so instead of say, 90 growing days, there will be 100 growing days.
See, you have just become a climate change denier. Welcome home!
John D says: “. . . looks to me like a wilful, simplistic kind of ignorance, mostly hidden by meaningless graphics and the oversimplification of reality . . .”
This “oversimplification of reality” reminds me of the narrative that “CO2 is the control knob for everything bad.”
“Tisdale seems to suffer from a major misunderstanding…” – I think he is trolling us because it is hard to image somebody being that…
“But to skip over the factual causality of these numbers in relation to actual living circumstances looks to me like a wilful, simplistic kind of ignorance, mostly hidden by meaningless graphics and the oversimplification of reality, making the models as promoted by the IPCC seem almost sane in comparison.”
This comment would apply to most alarmist literature!
An excellent, laudable idea and I hope that the results will cure some alarmists from their “this planet has got a fever”infection. I dare to submit to include some parts of the world with prevailing landmasses, as Russia (or parts of it) or Mongolia due to its extreme exposition to an entirely continental climate .
Anyway: thank you, Bob.
“The results of multiple studies are relatively consistent and show an average relationship of 2% decrement in work performance per degree oC when the temperature is above 25oC.”
https://eaei.lbl.gov/publications/control-temperature-health-and
“…transmission [by mosquitoes] occurs between 18–34°C with maximal transmission occurring in a range from 26–29°C.”
https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0005568
Is an average region-wide one degree difference between 25°C and 26°C really not that important for people affected by these diseases?
“Is an average region-wide one degree difference between 25°C and 26°C really not that important for people affected by these diseases?”
These consequences are easily adapted to. More mechanization or a change in work hours are just two examples for the first assumed problem.
Insecticides, mosquito netting or immunization are some answers to the second.
Perhaps not perfect solutions but certainly more than enough to offset the negative effects of a slightly increased warmth.
Easily adapted to, as we are constantly being assured. And yet nearly half a million people die from malaria each year. Easily adapted to?
The key is to control the mosquito population. Both through spraying and the elimination of breeding environments.
Regardless, the benefits of a warmer world far out weigh the few disadvantages.
JMurphy,
It is a well known fact that the reasons for malaria remaining endemic in some regions is due to cultural practices and the effects of poverty, as the way these diseases are spread, as well as methods for preventing the vector insects from spreading them, are well known and very effective when the proper steps are taken.
Numerous mosquito born and commonly fatal diseases used to occur in the continental US, but this is no longer the case.
Perhaps if even a fraction of the billions spent on redundant and pointless climate mafia funding was instead diverted to solving actual problems with well known and implementable solutions, we could eliminate these deaths.
Or, we could just end the policy that prevents them from acquiring the means to build their own economies and wealth.
Energy taxes are designed to keep the people of whom you speak in perpetual poverty, so the question remains…why are doomsday cultists so dead set on seeing the poor of the world suffer so?
Or it might be helpful if we didn’t help contribute to the increase in minimum temperatures such that more mosquitoes survive, even in America, thereby requiring even more money to be needlessly thrown away creating, and then trying to solve, a problem?
“Easily adapted to?”
Yes, no problem at all. Where I grew up in S. Africa malaria had been eliminated. Humans transmit malaria. Put those infected into mosquito proof hospitals (they called them fever hospitals) where they are treated and stop them infecting mosquitoes and bingo! No more malaria. I’m pretty sure now that China is colonising Africa (and building lots of coal-fired power stations there) we’ll soon see history repeat itself with regards malaria.
“Is an average region-wide one degree difference between 25°C and 26°C really not that important for people affected by these diseases?”
Depends on when the heat increase occurs. If the average temp increase is due to increased temps in the colder part of the year when temps remain below 25*C then it’s unimportant to this context. That’s one example where temperature anomaly really doesn’t convey much useful information.
If. And if not?
Try referencing the data in just assuming it must be bad.
OK.
“One of the best predictors of West Nile infection rates in Ontario is the minimum temperature reached during February. If the coldest temperatures in February are warmer than usual, more people become infected with West Nile virus during the summer months.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-your-summer-might-be-full-of-mosquitoes/
I live in Canada. Many functions in the economy virtually cease in winter. The ground is frozen and people have to dress in extreme layers and wear gloves. everything costs more and takes longer-if it is even doable.
Why don’t your statistics bother to look at this fact for everywhere on the planet North of approximately 40 degrees?
Willfull ignorance?
What do you understand as being an average?
Your trolling is quite transparent, not to mention, tiresome.
Do you have anything helpful to say, informative to add, or even simply interesting, intelligent, or funny?
What’s funny about mosquitoes? As for the rest, there are links and information available in my comments above. You don’t want to accept them for some reason?
@ JMurphy,
Is 60 +40 =100 average =50
is that the same as 30 + 70 = 100 average = 50
or in a 24 hour period
30 for 12 hours
40 for 4 hours
50 for 4 hours
60 for 2 hours
70 for 2 hours which is an average of 40.84 that a fairly big difference in averages…
You think it evens out? You think the absolute temperature swing of the earth around the sun is the same. It is a 4 C difference. Further, during aphelion when it is 4 C absolute difference, that lasts 5 days longer.
If you are purporting that co2 has some kind of influence on temperature, then look at the sine wave made by co2 during the year. Last May, it was 411 ppm/v. What what was it by September? 405? 406? Is that the entire year’s production of co2 in a year that gets taken out of the atmosphere in 4 months or more? Where does it go? Did people stop driving? Did they turn off the air conditioners, lights, making cement and so forth? Putting it into perspective, that’s the entire year’s worth of anthro co2 PLUS those 4 months. The total co2 amount went backwards.
Perhaps you can assure me that the temperature decline after Pinatubo, el Chichon, after the el Nino of 1998, while significant, weren’t enough to make the total co2 go negative for the the year, that it won’t happen if the world cools beyond a certain degree?
There isn’t a tipping point for co2 causing temperature to increase. There is a tipping point for co2 based on temperature. Seasonal variation? There sure is, the total heat the earth receives. The total heat is directly related to co2 levels.
You’re a scientist, you tell me when in the earth’s orbit at what temperature does co2 stop increasing? Are you going to provide a link to some idiot that claims the earth’s orbit doesn’t matter when they haven’t done the math? It does mater.
Never heard of DDT then?
Don’t talk to us about not caring.
Who, me? I have heard of it, certainly, and note it’s use in the fight against malaria. Why do you ask and where does ‘caring’ come into it?
Because the Greens had it banned that is why, surely you know that banning it has killed millions do you not?
So that is where the caring comes in to it.
Because it was banned by the Greens and since then millions have died.
That is where the caring comes from, 1 or 2 degrees increase is nothing compared to that.
You are correct, Dave. It’s amazing how some people believe something without checking, especially if it means they can advise Greens, Socialists, Communists, Al Gore, whatever:
Criticise, not advise!
“…The results of multiple studies are relatively consistent and show an average relationship of 2% decrement in work performance per degree oC when the temperature is above 25oC…”
A 2% decrement in an 8 hr workday is not even 10 minutes. Let’s ignore the fact that the study is regarding indoor temperatures and HVAC, not regional outdoor temperatures. What do colder temps do to work performance, BTW?
“…transmission [by mosquitoes] occurs between 18–34°C with maximal transmission occurring in a range from 26–29°C…”
So there’s a range of 16 degrees and an optimal range of 3 degrees, and you’re arguing 1 degree amounts to a hill of beans? Sure, some people move from 25 to 26 degrees into that “optimal” range…while some people move from 29 to 30 degrees and out of that “optimal” range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_Iceland
They grow bananas in Iceland.
Iceland is the third largest producers of bananas in Europe. (It is a European country.)
No, it isnt.
It imports 18kg of bananas per person per year, it hasn’t grown bananas since import duties on fruit and veg were abolished in 1959.
The 3rd largest producer myth was a BBC claim and went urban legend, nuff said.
oopsey,……
grown bananas commercially.
Well, I have survived numerous trips from the northern US to various locations in the Caribbean in the winter.
But I am a survivor. Things I personally have survived, which no one would be expected to survive today:
1) Riding my bike to school
2) No child seats in cars
3) No seatbelts
4) Riding a bike without a helmet
5) Drinking water from a garden hose
6) Swimming without a lifeguard
7) Playing softball without adult supervision
8) Cooking over an open fire
9) Playing with a homemade slingshot
Others can add to the list.
Yeah, but TonyL, what about the long-term effects?
/grin
JohnWho
He’s here isn’t he? The long term effects bode well. 🙂
Climbing a tree to get an apple. Then yelling bloody murder that I couldn’t get back down. I got a spanking for not knowing how to get down by myself.
Wading across swift cold waters waist deep holding hands between two taller kids while my feet dangled and twisted in the water just to eat huckleberrys on the bank. Adults hardly paid attention sitting round the campfire.
I have way too many things I’ve survived. I’ll only list a few;
1. Swimming across a lake. Parents noticed when we were about 3/4 finished and picked us up on the other side. I believe they were impressed.
2. A canoe ride on what was supposed to be a mild river, but, a thunderstorm turned it into a raging torrent.
3. Most recently, sepsis of the organs. I owe my very existence and the ability to still type to the technology that is available today due to the usage of energy.
TonyL
I still ride my bike without a helmet, and I’m in my late-70s.
10 walking up icy hills in tight jeans, and hands in the pockets.
11 fishing the river alone
12 riding a bike on main roads to the rivers.
13 going to the beach.
14 beef paste sandwiches
15 setting off fireworks
16 conker fights.
17 Tony Blair
18 go karting
19 skiving school
20 measles/mumps/ tonsils
etc
I will add using:
BB gun unsupervised.
Shooting a 22 unsupervised.
Guns in home not locked up.
Wandering through the Minnesota North woods deer hunting by oneself at age 14, had to have older brother along from when 12 and 13. Often nearest road half to mile away.
Having a knife in school sometimes required for shop class(kind of hard to carve without one.)
Guns at school was a common if not everyday occurrence.
Having Mercury in the chemistry/physic lab.
Leaded gas
Lead used in Plumbing.
Tree houses built by ourselves.
Running a power mower at the are of twelve or younger.
Farm kids running tractors at that age, if not younger.
Riding horse bare back(never found that pleasant.)
Skinny dipping in the river, unsupervised.
Weekly mosquito fogging.
Wading through sloughs.
Drinking water from water lakes Creeks.
Having a camp fire in the woods unsupervised.
Burning trash.
It a wonder how my eleven siblings, are still alive after all these years, I an in the of the seven boys and I am 65.
It is interesting that the UK, Germany and the Netherlands have higher trends in their Tmax than their Tmin, which appears to go against the world trend.
The othe rquestion is what data do Berkeley use for New Zealand, there has been much acrimony between Sceptics and the New Zealand BOM about their data.
A C Osborn
The UK particularly is influenced by the Gulf Stream which brings variable weather almost day to day.
I suspect the Netherlands are also influenced, but to a lesser extent as they are partially sheltered by the UK.
No idea about Germany.
Just my tuppence worth.
Hotscot
Temperatures between England and holland are so similar that when Manley was creating CET to 1659 he used some of the data available from holland
As regards Germany, I don’t know if the temperatures for east Germany were incorporated with those for west Germany on reunification, which might make a difference
Tonyb
Thank you for that. Sometimes I feel like an idiot when I post what I think is obvious, well…..I am an idiot, I just feel more of an idiot sometimes.
Hotscot
I have seen many of your excellent posts and you are very far from being an idiot.
tonyb
If everyone who ever had a brain fart was banned, only the trolls would be left.
After all, nearly three decades have elapsed since the Cold War ended…
Maybe I missed it. I was looking for a graph of max-min by year for all the countries to soon if climate was becoming more or less extreme, and by how much.
Expanding the “Y” axis so that the data is a straight line across the center of the plot area is just as bad as reporting insignificant figures out several places.
If you’re interested in how much temperature varies in tenths of a degree then the “Y” axis and the plot area should be displayed in a manner to reflect that.
steve case
A subject I always note with the way temperature anomalies are displayed. It seems to me the ‘Y’ axis should be stretched considerably, but of course this couldn’t effectively be displayed on a computer screen so scientists squish it which exaggerates temperature fluctuations.
The problem is, of course, most scientists understand (or should) this so allowances are made.
The real problem is the MSM hasn’t a clue, nor have their readers/viewers and these graphs are presented to the great unwashed without any attempt to explain.
I prefer data tables along with statistical calculations that start with descriptive analysis (mean, median, mode, range and slope) along with error bars and significance above and below the mean range for the entire series.
Pamela Gray
Yes the range, especially when it comes to “Climate” Our wonderful biased news media never tells its audience that it’s the minimum temperatures that mostly contribute to that 0.8°C rise (slope) in global temperature since 1850.
Since we can’t measure air temperature accurately to tenths of a degree with existing instruments in the field, it doesn’t make sense to blow up the Y axis to that degree. Whole numbers of degrees is sufficient.
Best comment ever!
This series of posts leads me to a question. I apologize if a thorough understanding of these posts would have answered it. Honestly my eyes glaze over on these after a while and I apologize for that. Statistics was never my favorite subject.
My question comes with a concern over what is described as the definitions of TMIN and TMAX as respective monthly means. Has there been any analysis of the standard deviation and variance of the data that make up TMIN and TMAX and the relationship between the trends of the standard deviation and variance compared to the trends of the means? I ask because it seems to me that if the trend of changes in standard deviation and variance are not symmetrical around each of the means, then is it possible that what appear to be temperature trends based on means could have potential to mask multiple long periodic natural cycles that would manifest as changes in the standard deviation of mins and maxes that when analyzed as means look like an unnatural or at least underlying one-way temperature trend? For example, could we be seeing what appears to be upward temperature trends be due to less variance below the mean low and above the mean high? In other words, if we saw the standard distributions later start to increase, could we possible see the expansion be more to the low side of the TMIN and lesser expansion on the high side of TMAX, which would then result in what would appear to be a negative temperature trend? I wish I had more patience for statistical analysis as I have the mathematical ability but no longer the focus as I get older.
Again, I apologize if the analyses in this or any of Willis’ excellent posts answer this already, but TMIN and TMAX using monthly means just strikes me as dangerous unless we know something about the corresponding trends of the standard deviation and variance. Note, I do not mean that to sound like I am questioning the value of this excellent series by Bob. This seems like great analysis. It is these posts that caused me to think of the question (hoping it is not a meaningless or irrelevant thing to question.)
We are told endlessly that there was no MWP because, among other things, global warming was not synchronous. Apparently, there is no modern warm period either, because the different temperature trends between New Zealand and Australia is just another example of how every spot on the globe doesn’t follow the exact temperature paths.
When will climate science discover common sense?
Haha!
You so funny!
They discovered power and crave nothing else.
They willfully and studiously ignore anything that prevents their having and keeping ever more of it.
Next time you talk to an Warming Alarmist, tell them this with a smile:
If it is man’s actions that result in preventing the coming of the next glacial period, it should be hailed as civilization’s greatest achievement ever. Once they chew on that for a moment, they should support the global warming effort. 🙂
Merry Christmas everybody.
Just suggesting there are actually benefits from more CO2 & higher temperature is enough to boggle most alarmists’ minds.
It is such an alien concept, so brainwashed are they 🙂
What’s most interesting to me about these graphs how Canada’s highest annual TMAX is almost a flat line.
I think it would be useful to have all the graphs produced with the same scale. As it is, it’s very difficult to compare variability from country to country.
I think it would also be very interesting to put Statistical Process Control bands on the max/min data sets. I don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate, but a lot of times you learn interesting things by doing unconventional analysis. If we started out assuming that the weather system was a process that was under control, then we’d find that nearly all the data points fell within the limits.
Bob,
Since the temperature datasets are composed of a mish mash of measurements taken by different instrument types and protocols, it’s not really possible to calculate a formal error envelope. So estimates are used, but of course they vary considerably depending on the assumptions used. Personally I assume a base +/-1 degree C error based on the worst case instrumentation used (dual mercury thermometers) and sloppy recording. I justify this by the reasoning that no amount of averaging can improve accuracy (only precision can be improved in that way). There’s undoubtedly other sources of error on top of that, but I think the +/-1 probably accounts for the majority of it.
Bob Tisdale
You remarked, “Yes, I understand there can be wide differences in ambient temperatures within a country.” And, especially for a country like New Zealand that is much longer than it is wide, and has a NS orientation, there are going to be extremes. It might be better to look at the North Island and South Island separately, if that information is available. You will be confronted with a similar challenge with California in your next submission.
I live on the Island called Cebu.
I know that monsoon rains have caused devastation for many a year or 2 and massive loss of life and infrastructure even before the UN decided.
What really frightens me is EARTHQUAKES.
Until you have lived through 1 or 2 or 3 you have NO idea of the power of Gaia and what a viscous ‘bitch’ it really is.
I want CO2 at least 800ppm.
Krakatoa is showing the way.
How do the “experts” differentiate between ‘man made co2’ and NATURAL CO2?
model it out.
Resuls not worth a carrot
New Zealand’s climate data was rorted about 20 years ago, changed from essentially level to a 1C increase over the history. This was done all-at-once by a well-known AGW alarmist (Sallinger or something like that). A climategate email (sorry, no reference) shows the “team” discussing whether to adopt the new NZ figures — one member shows some incredulity because they all knew it was a rort, but the main player — Jones I think — says yeah we’ll go ahead and use it. Sorry I don’t have links.
NZ Willy.
Haha that’s too funny. You must be a member of the Climate science coalition. If so, why haven’t you paid the NZ tax payer back the 80k you owe us for wasting everyones time? You know the court case you bought against NIWA saying they fudged the data only to have a judge laugh it out of court.
https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/climate-change-deniers-shot-down-high-court-challenge-niwa-bd-127869
Yes, the Judge found for the status quo and establishment after throwing out the data of the claimants because the claimants weren’t “Experts” in his eyes.
Now there’s a surprise
Because they weren’t experts, they were novices who didn’t know it. Skeptics claim time and time again that the data is corrupt and manipulated to fit the current consensus. But they have never proved this despite trying. BEST was an attempt and thankfully the people doing it were honest enough admit they got it wrong. Still waiting for the global Warming Policy Foundation to release their results….
“In April 2015 the GWP Foundation announced it was “launching a major inquiry into the integrity of the official global surface temperature records”,[26][27] under the chairmanship of Terence Kealey, a member of their advisory council.[28] Submissions were invited, all of which would be published. In July 2015 the review announced that it had decided that its principal output will be peer-reviewed papers rather than a report.[29] As of February 2017, the project’s website lists no submissions.[30]”
“Obviously, the residents of this planet—animals, plants, and humans—are “used to” a very wide range of temperature extremes”
I can’t speak for the animals. I don’t know how they do it, survive in all sorts of weather and climate. Incredible.
I do know how humans do it. They build fires, they build houses, they make clothing, they do all sorts of things to keep themselves in a bubble of near ideal conditions. Doing that requires a lot of energy and resources.
If you take away the energy sources used to heat and cool our little bubbles, we would all be climate refugees to …. where? Africa? South Pacific? South East Asia? Where are the places where it is not too hot in the summer and not to cold in the winter? Seasonal migration would be a solution. That also takes energy, so that is ruled out.
Being good at it is why we are near hairless apes.
The hairy apes are to dumb to light fires and make clothes, thats why they still have thick hair.
Toto,
It would be a fleeting worry, because the vast majority would starve rather quickly… and long distance global travel without abundant and inexpensive energy takes forever and is expensive.
BTW…between the first pangs of hunger and the ultimate death by starvation…they would not be sitting quietly and waiting for the end.
I notice that the cottontail rabbits in my native Minnesota have small ears(I assume large ones only freeze off in the winter,) here in the desert southwest they a huge. The same is true in the North Dakota Badlands large ears I assumed are user for cooling. Yet some idiot not long ago was talking about how climate change was going to limit the range of the cottontail rabbit, which by the way is not a native species of North American and yet they thrive in climates where -50 degree is not uncommon or 119 is not uncommon. Yet a 1 to two degree higher was going to limit their range. How can one be so stupid, animals adapt ofttimes quite well to a new land and different climate zones. Those that can’t go extinct and then mother nature will try something different. Darwin called that evolution did he not?
Mark Luhman
Are you comparing cottontail rabbits to jack rabbits?
“To be clear, no particular absolute global temperature provides a risk to society, it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters.”
Six days ago I was in Prince George BC; the temperature was hovering around 0 C and the ground was bare. Being curious, I looked up the record low for Dec 18: around -43 C in 1955.
Gavin implies that the old-style weather is preferable if not essential, but I had no problem getting used to 0 C. Meanwhile the society that surrounded me seemed to be coping despite having to endure about 10 degrees of above-average heat.
But of course that’s just weather. Who knows what demons will be unleashed if climate change brings us a future where those values could be +0.5C and -42.5C?
While Bob might not be able to notice a one degree change in average temperature there
are lots of things that will. That one degree corresponds to a large amount of extra energy being
stored in the atmosphere and that will have an effect. Similarly even a small change in Tmin can convert
ice to water with potentially distasterious effects. You will certainly notice if your house is flooded even
if you don’t notice the rise in temperature.
Percy.. why do you see trouble ahead?
TMINs are rising.. that’s good. TMAXs are not rising much at all. That’s good.
Where is the house flooding coming from? What are the “lot of things?’
Percy, what is the integrated average temperature of the atmosphere or the surface of the planet? half is in darkness, a significant portion is in winter and summer or the shoulder spring and fall at any time T. The specific heat of the atmosphere varies with the water content and active phase changes so that temperature is not even a good proxy of entropy, the oceans cover 70% of the planet with vertical and horizontal currents and it’s own phase changes from liquid to solid to vapor on and on. Does anyone really know what temperature it is? (With apologies to Chicago – that’s the band, not the town)
Forget about temperature then. Would you agree that adding extra energy to an energy-sensitive system could reasonably cause some observable changes?
So what? Do you have any evidence that these small changes are going to be bad?
So far the real world evidence has not shown any bad results.
Are you one of those people who believes that any change is bad, if it was caused by man?
What “Energy Sensitive System”?
The oceans are the biggest buffer possible, that is why we do not see the kind of swings you see on the moon.
Forget about temperature then. Would you agree that adding extra energy to an energy-sensitive system could reasonably cause some observable changes?
Certainly. But my point is how do you get the fully integrated starting baseline entropy at time T, not just picking out specific tiny delta slices that are continuously -/+ over a time t. Without the global baseline, you “don’t know nothin'”.
Once again Zeus’s son can only issue vague warnings of disaster’s that might happen.
Over the last 10K years, the earth has been warmer than today for about 95% of the time. At times as much as 5C warmer. Why didn’t these vague disasters that you constantly wish for happen then?
Bob
Further to what NZ Willy wrote, in New Zealand there were a lot of undocumented weather station changes. Many reporting stations got moved to airports, with all the UHI that causes.
Why do so many people live in places that get very hot, and others in places that get very cold? Isn’t there a place that is “just right”?
Heaven, but it is pretty restrictive.
San Diego.
Don’t know but am looking. At 62, there is no too hot.
There’s no arguing with this post. Unfortunately there’s no understanding it either.
Happy Christmas to all at WUWT from a token ‘warmist’ 😉
You shouldn’t be so eager to brag about your mental short comings.
The harmony here has just gone for a burton
Merry Christmas Bob, and thanks for your relentless work. Ignore the mindless trolls and deluded ignoramuses and continue to study your results.
“make the long-term and short-term variations appear large”
You mean appear visible. Large/small… the graph tells us that, not the scale. I don’t understand the reason you’d try and make the variations appear invisible. The variations are what they are.
Bob I was looking at all of the 110 nation TMAX TMIN graphs, 1929 (approx) on the TMIN has drop for most of countries. Makes one wonder.
Anyway the information is useful, and merry Christmas,
michael
oops 10 nations
A worthwhile exercise is to seek out locations where an older station has been coupled up with a new one and both kept operating for a number of years at the same location
I have no time to elaborate now but in NZ some interesting results emerge e.g. at a location I have just looked at station A’s mean temperature trails station B by anything from 0.1 C to 0.4 C throughout a 20 yr period. These anomalies are random and not obviously due to a distinct change in one instrument at one particular time.
What does this tell us about readings accuracy?
I will do a more complete analysis down the track
Cheers
M
Some work has been done on this and mostly it shows that New Electronic stations react much faster to Transient temperature spikes, mercury being too slow to react before the spike disappears.
See Joe Nova’s and Jennifer Marohasy’s sites.
The key take away from Bob’s excellent analysis is that life exists in various climates due to the temperature range, not the variations within that range. Plants and animals are equipped to deal with variations within the range of temperatures experienced in a certain climate. If months near the solar equinox vary by a degree or two it is unnoticeable and will not result in changes of behavior or survival rates. If months near the solar solstice vary by a degree or two, it is much more difficult for plants and animals to adapt and survive. These are times of stress on life, and minor changes can result in significant mortality.
Anomalies treat all variations from average as the same. They are not the same. And they are not significant in regard to plant and animal mortality. The normal variations in daily and seasonal “weather” are so much larger, that a few tenths of a degree change in anomalies per DECADE, is undetectable and insignificant.
And most of the anomaly change is likely a statistical artifact of changes in the methods, and locations used to gather and process the data.