It is summer in the northern hemisphere and given the Americans and Europeans are pretty obsessed with temperatures records at the moment, and some with a fear that the Arctic might go ice free this northern summer, it was with some anticipation that the June 2008 temperature records were released.
According to the US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC) the Northern Hemisphere Arctic sea ice extent for June 2008 ranked third lowest for June since records began in 1979 while Southern Hemisphere Antarctic sea ice extent for June 2008 was above the 1979-2000 mean, ranking as the second largest June extent.
So there is still ice in the Arctic and more ice than usual in the Antarctic.
As regards the US, according to the NCDC, June 2008 was the 27th warmest June based on records dating back to 1895. Globally though June 2008 ranked eighth warmest for June since worldwide records began in 1880.
But according to Joe D’Aleo a meteorologist with a blog: Don't believe a word of it.
Joe prefers the NASA satellite data compiled by Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and it shows June 2008 was the 22nd warmest in its 30 years of records, Figure 1. According to Joe, this satellite data indicated the globe was a full 1.1F degrees colder than the NCDC guesstimate.
Figure 1. The NASA MSU June Temperatures since 1979 via Joe D'Aleo.
Joe explains that he prefers the satellite data because: the thermometer global data bases suffer from major station dropout after 1990 (number dropped from 6000 to less than 2000) and a ten fold increase in the number of missing months in the stations that report. Furthermore, there are serious problems with algorithms for assessing whether a station is urban or rural and adjusting for local land use changes. And there are major siting issues. You can find more information here: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DATA_ISSUES.pdf
Interestingly though, even James Hansen's monthly data for the last ten years to June 2008, shows some recent cooling and it looks like global temperaturs have plateaued, Figure 2.
Figure 2. The NASA GISS Monthly Mean Surface Temperature Analysis since 1998, (see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.lrg.gif ).
SJT
"Science is not faith based".
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/02/18/is-science-faith-based/
Wherein, the illuminated Mike Marsh said:
"In actuality, there is an omnipotent and omniscient deity watching over all of the Universe, coordinating all of the myriad interactions between objects to make them seem to be collections of particles and waves that behave in perfect harmony with an inviolate set of natural laws. This is all an illusion, however; this deity is the Great Comedian, Shecky. At some point, known only to the mind of Shecky, He will abruptly drop the facade that causes the Universe to appear to make sense. This will happen at the Moment of Greatest Comedic Effect, when all will know Shecky’s Truth, and there will be much wailing and moaning and gnashing at (SIC) teeth. So perfect and pure is the Comedy, however, that mere days later everyone will think back to the MGCE, nod their heads, and with a thoughtful and appreciate (SIC) grin remark, “Yeah, that was pretty funny.”
You can believe this bit.
SJT
"Does it matter if a forcing is internal or external? All you are saying is which side of the street it lives on. A forcing is by definition a forcing."
YES. It does matter. Very much. This is because internal forcings relate to terrestrial geology, which relate to terrestrial biology which relate to oceanic biology which relate to terrestrial physics, and so on and so forth.
For example: warmer, wetter continents produce more plant growth which increases soil partial pressure of CO2 which reduces pH of soil water and groundwater which increases weathering which absorbs more CO2 and puts more P and N and Fe and Si into the surface layer of the oceans which increases phytoplankton productivity which absorbs more CO2 etc., etc., etc.
The homeostatic Gaia system has developed over millions of years to incorporate (same as become a product of) all the ever-present internal forcings available to it.
But external forcings may arrive periodically e.g. Milankovich 100 ky, quasi-periodically e.g. 41 ky etc or chaotically e.g. meteorites and asteroids. There are clearly others we only have vague inkling about e.g. effects of travel around the galactic arm on cosmic ray flux, blah, blah.
How does the system adapt to those external forcings if their arrival is chaotic or their frequency is very large in terms of the frequencies of major internal forcing-driven cycles???? It cannot. Hence the slide into the interglacial/glacial cycles ~ 2.5 My ago.
Please, read Gerald Marsh's paper. It is clear you have not yet done so.
"Science is not faith based".
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/02/18/is-science-faith-based/
"As you would logically expect, the whole earth homeostatic biogeospheric system is far more unstable to external forcings rather than adapted internal ones such as CO2. By definition no such system can adapt over time to quasi-periodic external forcings. Even Lovelock never really sussed on to that."
Does it matter if a forcing is internal or external? All you are saying is which side of the street it lives on. A forcing is by definition a forcing.
"I agree Monckton is piffle. Didn't even know his Lindzen (2007) properly! A fair bit of other sceptical stuff is also rubbish but you can't ignore the facts of this (from the non-sceptic just bloody good camp):"
Would you be able to do us a service and let Jennifer and Paul know which is which? They don't seem to be able to tell the difference, which wastes a lot of time.
Ice-driven CO2 feedback on ice volume:
http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/2/43/2006/cpd-2-43-2006.pdf
See also the following (now old) article:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2000ESASP.463..155B/0000167.000.html
for what would happen in the presence (and absence) of anthropogenic CO2 at 400 ppmv plus.