I’m just saying (see “Paging Neil Cavuto: UAH global satellite data has record WARMEST day for January“).
Yes, the UAH satellite data just keeps going up (click to enlarge):
This shouldn’t be terribly surprising: Long-term global warming trend + moderate El Ni±o = record temperatures, as predicted by NASA climate scientists, among others.
But it has the anti-science crowd scrambling for alternative explanations, since it just seemed so friggin’ cold out for a few days, which everybody knows is the best way to figure out climate trends. Anyway, here’s everyone’s favorite Czech anti-science guy:
According to UAH, January 2010 will almost certainly be their warmest January on record, and by its anomaly (which is likely to exceed 0.70 °C), it will be one of the 4 warmest months.
I was thinking how it was possible that such an unusually cool January is so warm according to this global methodology. Snow was almost everywhere on our hemisphere, wasn’t it? Well, it may actually be a reason.
First, I thought that a problem could exist with the satellite measurements of the solar infrared radiation reflected from the snow. But the solar infrared radiation is actually negligible….
Anyway, you can read the rest if you want in his post, “Warming induced by the latent heat of snow” — I kid you not, that’s the headline.
How about “Warming induced by human emissions” for a headline? So much for Occam’s razor.
Oh, I forgot, for LuboÅ¡ Motl, anthropogenic global warming is just a “fad.” Of course, snow in the northern hemisphere in winter is not actually counter-indicative of human-caused global warming. Quite the reverse (see “Was the “Blizzard of 2009″³ a “global warming type” of record snowfall “” or an opportunity for the media to blow the extreme weather story (again)?“).
Anyway, for the rest of us, the main news of the past week, besides the record-breaking satellite temperatures, is that the El Ni±o is staying pretty strong. You can find the NOAA’s “Weekly ENSO Evolution, Status, and Prediction Presentation” on their El Ni±o / Southern Oscillation (ENSO) page.
The ENSO is weakening a tad in the Eastern Pacific, but it’s still on the moderate to strong side, so NOAA’s overall prediction remains:
Based on current observations and dynamical model forecasts, El Ni±o is expected to continue at least into the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010.
Also, NOAA said its own CFS (Climate Forecast System) ensemble mean forecast “predicts El Ni±o will last into the Northern Hemisphere summer 2010,” by which time it’s going to be hard for the anti-science crowd to use snow cover as their explanation for record temps.
Related Posts:
- The hottest decade ends and since there’s no Maunder mininum “” sorry deniers! “” the hottest decade begins
- Must-read AP story: Statisticians reject global cooling; Caldeira “” “To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous”
- Following third warmest November, December not even close to contiguous U.S. record for cold
- Met Office: “It is not cold everywhere in the world.”
- Breaking: 2009 hottest year on record in Southern Hemisphere and tied for second globally
- Experts: Cold snap doesn’t disprove global warming
Previous in TP Climate Progress
I think you’ll like this new music video called “The Dream Reborn (My President is Green)”
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5379/t/4413/content.jsp?content_KEY=2008
Snow at 3,000 ft elevation in the summer in Australia.
[JR: Yeah, Australia's climate is strong evidence of global cooling. Seriously!]
In my view, folks should take UAH data with a grain of salt. One red flag is that it’s the favorite data product of global warming denialists. It’s run by contrarian types (Spencer & Christy), has been the most error-filled and corrected data product (it once showed cooling 1979-1997), and has a suspicious seasonal cycle that peaks in winter and valleys in late spring.
Denialists might think it’s credible since it’s managed by their own. Since they bury their head in the sand and irrationally discard all other data products, this post is probably good for them. I’ll wait until the other organizations (RSS,GISS,NCDC,Hadley) report official results next month.
[JR: Nothing I say moves the deniers. And I agree with you about UAH. But this year will probably be the hottest year on in every temperature record, which should keep them busy trying to explain how we're not warming.]
“Warming induced by the latent heat of snow” In the interests of adding verity to the Anti-Science dwindling list of excuses…
All those people with all those dogs = all that “yellow snow”! = Extra heat in it’s self but also darkening albedo. Now there is a theory you can hand your hat on, Neil!
PS: Please show me the effects of the “latent heat of snow” when Siberia melts each spring.
El Nino is about to make its mark on California over the next two weeks. The forecasts are calling for monumental amounts of precipitation, with possibly a week of low snow level followed by a week of high snow level, which is a recipe for major flooding and mudslides. Stay tuned.
I would also like to point out that those of us living in the wind shadow of the Great Lakes are getting a double whammy: We have the increase in precip Joe details in the piece he linked to above, but we also get a big bump in early-winter snow. The Lakes are warmer than normal, meaning wind picks up more moisture than normal then drops it over the colder land. We got walloped a couple of weeks ago, and then we warmed up, so right now the lawns in my neighborhood are mostly green, an increasingly common sight in Rochester in January.
(For those who like weird meteorological stuff, in the Rochester area the magic dividing line is US 90. Very often a storm comes off Lake Ontario and it dumps more snow south of 90 than north of it. This seems backwards, but it makes sense–the warm, moist air skips over the land closest to the lake before cooling enough to produce snow. I live very close to LO, so we routinely see storms drop 6 or 12 inches 10 or more miles south of us, but we get just an inch or two.)
Uh, Motl doesn’t even realize that the temperature proxies are created from measuring microwave emissions from the troposphere, not infrared from anywhere, much less the surface?
Wow …
Ah, had to check … Al Hunt got that Oz snow bit from WUWA (What’s Up Watts’ A**)
That, not the end of the cold snap, or the record heat wave in much of Oz, is the focus over there at the moment, of course.
I think that I have never said that AGW was a “fad”. I use the word “fad” only as a neutral description of memes and research programs that are based on some merits but that are overstudied – because their importance is overstated.
[JR: You might actually try reading your own posts! Go here: "So while it may be fun to watch the global temperature - a meaningless game that many people began to play in recent years because of the AGW fad (and yes, your humble correspondent only plays these games because others do, not because it is scientifically important)."]
This is clearly not the case of AGW which is not based on anything. One could call AGW a “scam” or a “hoax” but not a “fad”.
[JR: Only an anti-scientist, someone who disregarded all of the evidence and literature and wanted to smear the entire scientific community, could call AGW a hoax or a scam.]
My headline was not “emissions caused warm January” because only hopeless crackpots would be able to write something as nonsensical as that. We are discussing why the UAH temperature anomaly jumps by something like 0.45 °C from December 2009 to January 2010.
Even according to the IPCC forecasts which are artificially inflated by a factor of 3 or more, the CO2-induced warming is comparable to 3 °C per 100 years which means less than 0.003 °C per month – and it is nearly uniform because that CO2 anomalous concentration in the atmosphere increases uniformly with our continuous emissions.
This – hypothetical – 0.003 °C warming per month has clearly nothing whatsoever to do with our problem with is a month-on-month anomaly-wise warming by 0.45 °C, i.e. 150 times higher a temperature change, and whoever is incapable to understand this not so subtle point should ask his health insurance company for money for a brain transplant.
Cheers
Lubos
I love it. They trumpet the UAH data as the most accurate, and then when it shows warming, they go looking for errors in it. Coincidentally, this made #50 in my running list of ways that deniers are hypocritical (all denier arguments are of course either wrong or dishonest – these are just the ones that are hypocritical as well).
But, but look at that “global cooling” after August! Oh, wait…
Looks like Motl replied to your post over there, Joe. But he doesn’t seem to explain how snowfall events affect the global average anomaly calculated from the surface stations, when regional weather fluctuations tend to smoothen out in the averages. Even if the effect is as strong as claimed on a global scale, it would appear to be a source of short-term fluctuation from the phase change of water. How does that compare to a persistent, cumulative forcing factor like CO2?
Here are two fascinating bits of evidence of how wrong our weather has become in New Jersey.
First, on December 2, I took a photograph of emerging daffodils, which I uploaded at the end of this post on my blog: http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2009/12/lichen-bonanza.html daffodils
Since then, as everyone has noted, we had quite a cold snap, and some snow which has now melted – so I went back today and guess what? They are still there, even taller! I’ll post those photos tonight.
Second, on December 29, on a day that was 24 degrees following a warm spell reaching 53, I came across a hickory that was oozing sap that froze into a formation resembling a stalactite. Here are pictures: http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2009/12/here-is-article-about-shell-adding.html I’ve seen conifers oozing copious amounts of sap as well.
Today, as things here warmed up dramatically, I took photos of wet maples that I’ll put up later with the daffodils. These warm temperatures do not allow trees to go dormant, and when it gets cold the sap freezes and breaches the bark. That’s one reason why so many trees are hollow and their bark is falling off, and they’re dying!
I just love the 1/4-of-the-Earth’s-surface-(between-45°N-and-the-North-Pole) bit in Motl piece. I posted a comment on his site, but I don’t think it will pass moderation!
Lobos,
JR’s post is entirely in the context of ENSO. So I think he well realises that there are factors that bring about month-month variability.
Dear Raoul, thanks for the numerical correction, I fixed the numbers – it doesn’t change the result qualitatively. (The area of the segment is proportional to the height, not to the difference of the latitudes haha.) But your comment didn’t pass the moderation because it was extremely impolite, to say the least.
Carrot eater: Of course that JR doesn’t realize that. If he did, he couldn’t propose a title “Warming induced by human emissions” for a headline above an article about the month-on-month warming. If you understand why this is nonsense, you are just idealizing certain people. They really don’t get such basic points.
Dear JR,
I didn’t say that AGW was a fad. AGW is what people like you are trying to sell – but AGW is a scam, not a fad. Decent people don’t work on this stuff.
[JR: "Decent people don't work on this stuff"!!! Wow. Calling pretty much the entire scientific community and every major government in the world indecent. Now that is anti-science. And you clearly wrote "because of the AGW fad" so I don't see how you can claim you didn't.]
What I said was that the research into the behavior of *global mean temperature* was a fad. People including myself are looking at the global mean temperature often – because many others do. It’s a well-defined task but it is not an important one. It doesn’t affect anything. It’s just one artificially averaged global number whose precise size depends on many choices but that is completely decoupled with the diversity of the interesting atmospheric phenomena – which are mostly local. That’s why I call the obsession with the global warming temperature a fad.
But the measurements and predictions of the global mean temperatures have nothing to do with the AGW. The global mean temperatures are changing because of many reasons and AGW is not in the top ten among those that are relevant to explain what will happen in the next 3 months or 10 years. Whether AGW plays role after 30 or 100 years is yet to be seen but it is surely just an infinitesimal part of climatology. The people who say that AGW is important are not promoting a fad – but a downright scam.
Is that clearer now?
[JR: It is clearer just how anti-scientific you are. AGW is very much in the top 3 of what is relevant to explain what will happen in the next 10 years in terms of average global temperature. The rest of your paragraph is just nonsense.]
I also thank for the comment about the microwave vs. infrared. There was one misleading sentence – but the calculation of the ratio of Earth-emitted vs solar-reflected microwave radiation is actually done in the easiest way if one computes it for the infrared.
That’s how one avoids the small fraction of the microwave radiation relatively to the infrared radiation that makes up most of the thermal radiation of the Earth.
Cheers
LM
I am interested in the projection that the January ’10 UAH anomaly will exceed 0.70. I checked the UAH data, and this would be the highest Jan anomaly in the data, beating 0.59 in Jan 07 and 0.58 in Jan 98.
In addition, the UAH anomaly hit 0.50 last November, the highest Nov anomaly in the records. The runner-up was Nov ’05 with 0.40 and only two other Nov anomalies exceeded 0.30.
And the September UAH anomaly hit 0.42, the second highest for that month. The record was Sep ’98 with 0.43, and only other September reading to exceed 0.30 was Sep ’05 with 0.35.
And the July UAH anomaly was also 0.42, the second highest in the record. The record was Jul ’98 with 0.52, with the third place going to Jul ’05 with 0.33. Only one other July exceeded 0.30.
Notice that all the other years were El Nino peak years following the January El Nino, and 2010 will be the El Nino peak year, following this January El Nino peak. The UAH satellite data seem more sensitive to the ENSO cycle than other temperature records, and this could mean 2010 will be a barnburner year.
No wonder Watts seemed to be backing off a bit (see Revkin’s post on DotEarth:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/hansen-and-watts-agree-cold-weather-isnt-climate/
If January UAH data come in as Motl projects, then four of the last seven months are some of the hottest respective months in the UAH database. The lid is on the coffin holding the skeptical forecast of a recently cooling atmosphere, and each month drives another nail. By June 2010, the coffin lid will be nailed shut. And by September, the coffin will be buried. Watts needs to get the mob of deniers at his site ready for some data that should challenge any sane people sucked in by his propaganda.
Sooner or later, the UAH temperature record had to play catch up with the more accurate GISS surface record. And it looks like the UAH will catch up a lot in 2010 (proviso: no major volcanic eruptions). The only bright side of this, for those of us rooting for the planet Earth; perhaps the temperature data will be here in time, to help get a strong energy bill through Congress this year.
In the meantime, Watts and his gang need to cover their rears, and given the amount of mis-information they have claimed in the last several years, it will take a lot of material to cover. Looks like they need to take a trip to the fabric store, because it will take a lot of fabric(ation) to hide the exposure created by their previous positions.
Lubos: So why do you think JR is discussing El Nino in this article? Pure coincidence?
If you want to be willfully obtuse and pretend that people (including JR) don’t appreciate short-term variability related to ENSO and the like, go right ahead. But you’ll be dead wrong.
Just so I’m not misconstrued: a warm spike around now will be associated with ENSO, but that spike is on top of 30 years of warming forced by greenhouse gases. Combine the two, and barring a Pinatubo-sort of volcanic explosion or the sun doing something absolutely bizarre, and you get records or near-records. So JR is perfectly justified in mentioning both greenhouse gases and ENSO in this article.
“I just love the 1/4-of-the-Earth’s-surface-(between-45°N-and-the-North-Pole) bit in Motl piece. ”
Yikes! Dunning Kruger strikes again.
If Romm can be faulted, it’s for highlighting anything Motl has to say as the slightest evidence for anything related to climate science.
Regarding ENSO, I suspect the “el Nino is responsible for global warming” claim will become very popular among denialist circles this year.
And the DC area high temperatures for today are:
National 56°
Dulles 55°
Baltimore (BWI) 56°
Nowhere near a record, but 14-15° above average, enough to wipe out almost half of the accumulated negative anomaly for January so far.
As I walked around my neighborhood this afternoon, I saw crowds of people warming themselves by the latent heat of the few remaining snow piles . . . NOT.
It is interesting to see Mr. (Dr? the appropriate title is unclear) Motl publishing here with such evident disregard for anything like logic or critical thinking.
The simple and irrefutible fact of the matter is that, the reckless accusation of “scam” and “fraud” is one of the surest signs of the cognitive vacuity of the persons hurling such accusations about. This is generally true even if the disputing positions are supported by real evidence; but given the absence of any actual research &/or peer-reviewed publications to support their position, such accusations betray nothing but the shocking emptiness of the claims being made. Indeed, if you simply assume the accusers are merely blowing smoke, and even assume this w/o making the slightest effort to actually examine their claims, you will be right so very many more times than you are wrong that people will think you are some kind of psychic.
There are real scientific controversies in the world; one can find them in the real scientific researches published in real peer-reviewed scientific journals. But to be so desperately, even viciously, ideological in one’s commitments as to flagrantly accuse many tens of thousands of actual research scientists of fraud — on no other account than because of one’s flailing inability to legitimize one’s arguments with actual facts and logic — does not speak well for the person engaged in such behaviors. (And hopefully the gods of blogging will forgive my gratuitous resort to euphemism here …)
Logic Deferred (22) — You can look him up, probably even in Wikipedia. Be prepared for a serious shock.
[Fourth attempt to post this comment. Clearly the CP machine has a mind of its own.]
Oh No! The disinformers beloved temperature series is nearing an all time record global temperature anonymity, what an inconvenient time for it too, what with the record solar minimum and neutral PDO (http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest)
Damn all these records, first the recent sea temperature records then all the seasonal land based temperature records, now this!
JR: Check this report in Peruvian Media about flooding in Lima, the Peruvian Capital, thanks to the collision of El Niño warm waters from the North with cold winds+waters from the South (or being brief. El Niño Modoki):
“CRISIS CLIMATICA”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIxpELTacZE&feature=channel
NOTE: Is in Spanish. I hope you speak it.
Plus Part 2 of the report:
“17/1/2010: CRISIS CLIMATICA (2/2)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmAjgyWPsjI
What do you think about Peruvian media in this report?
Joe,
you’re wasting your time responding to Motl.
I’ve had exchanges with this character before.
Probably a relatively intelligent chap, but when it comes
to AGW — “bedeebedeebop… does not compute, does not compute…”
[JR: No doubt. Still, it's always worth giving people one shot. If nothing else, they reveal themselves.]
Jr. You are the best, most comprehensive, all-encompassing resource for climate change information. Thank you.
23. David B. Benson:
I actually checked his site, which had no mention of his educational standing. I’m not sure why I didn’t look at Wikipedia as well, as I’m not among its detractors. But Wikipedia does not say in so many words whether he has an earned Ph.D. or not either. Given the phrasing and the various opportunities for “tweaking” I cannot eliminate the possibility that he was only ever a graduate student at Harvard.
End of the day, though, no I’m not actually shocked. Having a Ph.D. myself (though not in the sciences) I respect the bull-headed determination needed to get one, but discount the authority of holders until they show me that they’ve “got the chops.”
And as for working in String Theory … well, my AOS is philosophy of science. For my money, far too many physicists have been bitten and turned into anti-empirical string theory zombies, shuffling down their departmental hallways moaning, “BRANES …”
(Also, I’ve had a lot of trouble posting in the past as well, FWIW.)
Logic Deferred
from Wikipedia:
Early life and education
Motl was born in Plzeň. He received his master degree from the Charles University in Prague, and his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Rutgers University.
–sounds to me like he got his PhD from Rutgers.
Lubos Motl is an outstanding example….
…of just how derelict and broken the “educational system” is! He’s just one of countless thousands that acquire a “degree” every year yet can’t exhibit that they learned a motherf#cking thing!
30. Dave E,
I obviously skimmed too quickly.
27 Keith:
The Motl appearance was useful, I suppose, in that I received a reminder in just how far gone he is.
When it comes to physics, he does some of the best blog posts on the web. I think he is pretty bright guy. He was a professor at harvard a few years ago and has done some good physics work (papers that have a decent amount of citations).
Some of his crackpot views with regard to global warming may be more ideologically driven than indicative of his intelligence. He has a far right-wing ideology. He probably has narcissistic personality disorder as well, which makes it impossible to argue with him. Still I find his blog worth reading, if only for his physics posts.
Just to be clear, the satellite data posted at the top of this post is from the NOAA-15 satellite, which is used by RSS to provide global temperature data.
UAH uses the AQUA satellite for its temperature product.
Generally, the 2 satellites give similar results, although the NOAA-15 requires an additional correction to account for drift (AQUA carries extra fuel to maintain its position).
So, its very likely that the UAH data will show January to be very warm, but we are NOT looking at UAH data.
Lubos,
My comment was not the least impolite, it was ironic. BTW, you didn’t fix the numbers, you replaced your flawed hypothesis by another even more flawed one. Now it’s the Northern Hemisphere from 30° up which was covered by snow last week? Let’s see, that’ll be Bagdad? Amritsar? Cairo? As the French saying goes: “Avec des “si”, on met Paris dans une bouteille”.
Logic Deferred (29) — He was an assistant professor at Harvard for awhile. Has returned to Charles University I think.
Probably moans “branes” even in the streets of Prague.
[Fourth attempt to post this comment.]
FWIW (clearly not much), both Washington National and Dulles exceeded expectations with highs of 60° today; still not records, but this brings the monthly departure to within about half a degree of average. On the other hand, colder temperatures are on tap for later in the week.
far too many physicists have been bitten and turned into anti-empirical string theory zombies, shuffling down their departmental hallways moaning, “BRANES …”
Why is that joke new to me? It’s good. I was an excessively empirical astrophysicist. I never had any urge to do particle theory beyond the standard model, but I have played soccer with this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Mart%C3%ADn_Maldacena
:-)
39. GFW says, “Why is that joke new to me?”
Well, I made it up myself (which is not to say that the same silliness never occurred to anyone else.)
But it is hard to find an audience that is so wildly amphibian that it has one foot in String Theory and the other in Night of the Living Dead.