THERE has been some anecdotal evidence suggesting that last month, October 2008, was unusually cold. The sophisticated weather-watcher, of course, waits for some official global temperature data to be published before concluding very much.
Al Gore’s scientific advisor, James Hansen from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), publishes a monthly mean global surface temperature.
Some dispute the methodology Dr Hansen uses to arrive at his monthly mean values, but nevertheless I have observed that his GISS data is usually somewhere in the vicinity of the data from the Hadley Centre at the UK Meteorology Bureau and the Satellite data compiled at the University of Alabama, Huntsville – though yes Dr Hansen’s data is usually on the warm side.
Furthermore, while many warmaholics, like Dr Hansen, claim the last ten years of no increase in global temperatures is insignificant in the scheme of things, they at least don’t deny the actual measurements and despite their protests, and media headlines continuing to suggest a climate crisis, their actual data shows no warming.
Then there was that recent article in one of the more prestigious journals suggesting global warming has probably stalled until at least 2015.
So, who would have expected a sudden spike in the global temperature record for October? Not me.
Contrary to the expectations of many climate change sceptics, and much to the delight of many warmaholics, the recently published GISS global temperature anomaly for October 2008 of 0.88C shows warming.
Not just a bit of warming, but to quote meteorologist Anthony Watts, the anomaly is the largest ever for October, and one of the largest anomalies ever recorded.
Some sceptics are claiming that the spike is a mistake, that it’s all to do with wrong temperature recordings in Russia. Dear oh dear, as long as it’s not a case of NASA attempting to correct again for the apparent recent cooling.
Anthony Watts is posting updates at his blog on the unfolding saga, including information direct from Dr Hansen's GISS team.
Update November 13, 2008
The corrected temp anomaly now posted at the GISS site is 0.68C
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
The temp anomaly for October according to the UAH Satellite data is 0.167C
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/uah_october_2008.pdf
A big difference.
And so much for the anecdotal.
Update November 13, 2008 PM
It was thought that the issue with the GISS temperature anomaly for October related to the northern hemisphere, in particular, parts of Siberia. But the corrected map from the Hansen team, to accompany the corrected anomaly, now shows changes to Australia and the Canadian Arctic Islands in particular warming for October since Monday, November 10. Read more here.
Well what do you know. I went back to see who kicked off that moronic first post. Thinking wrongly that it was Malcolm Hill. So I was just about to launch into Malcolm Hill and then I saw it was that compulsive liar SJT.
I would have thought that the global warming fraud would have died out and you would be all worshipping Barry Too-white Soeloro aka Barrack I "The Usurper". But no. There you are still SJT. Making a complete ass of yourself. You just read the post. You saw what happened. You saw how they tried to overstate the October temperatures. And so why did you come up with this "conspiracy theory" idiocy for.
We've just got to hunt you frauds down and get you fired somehow. Thats what this counterattack against the malicious fraud lacks. It lacks a real determined strategy to bring this compulsive lying to an end. And that can only happen with a concerted campaign to deny the liars stolen-money-funding.
"Dear oh dear, you will be wondering if NASA really made it to the moon, next. Surely such conspiracy theories are beneath you?"
What is this IDIOCY where you say the phrase "CONSPIRACY THEORY" and think you have made a valid argument?
We all know what herd-animals and compliant insects you dumb-leftists are? These things could be a conspiracy. Or they could be standard leftist idiotic behaviour. The point is that saying the phrase "conspiracy theory" isn't some magic incantation that can take the place of making a valid argument.
[...] recent debacle with the global temperature data set compiled by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) from [...]
Cohenite
I can't help you if you refuse to see that CO2 has any impact on climate. The problem is that you simply refuse to acknowledge it. You keep showing lots of graphs that are published and every one of them is published by a researcher who agrees that CO2 imacts climate. I have patiently described to you that there are other climate drivers, yet you still demand that CO2 be forever in lock step with temperature.
I am not going to discuss this anymore because you have simply proved yourself incapable of understanding fairly simple concepts.
"Well, they don’t use the same base period NT, and even if they did, as WFT has demonstrated, they are still profoundly different with GISS consistently warmer than the satellites; and this when the satellites have proven they have a greater sensitivity to genuinely warmer conditions such as prevailed during 1998;"
In the first case, so what? It makes no difference if they are all trending the same way. Typically they all go up the same time and go down at the same time.
Are you seriously saying that this shows they are out of step?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.15/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.24/mean:12/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/rss/mean:12
This is madness!
How big is the deviation? Is it within error?
You are again simply demonstrating that you just want to put doubt where there is none.
I can't take you seriously Cohenite. You are as bad as Louis with his abiogenic oil and no plate tectonics.
[...] recent debacle with the global temperature data set compiled by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) from [...]
from Bill Kininmonth:
"From Steve’s comments it appears that the Australian data were not in when GISS did the original analysis. It used to be normal practice for the Australian station summaries to be compiled in the National Climate Centre from field reports and sent as a block to GHCN, Asheville. Maybe the Melbourne Cup holiday meant the summary was late being dispatched. If that was the case, what was the basis for first guess field that, in the absence of real data, became the real solution. A mixture of last month’s pattern and climatology?"
Can we get an explaination from David regarding the late addition of the Australian data?
"all four systems actually give similar results (if you use the same base period for all 4)"
Well, they don't use the same base period NT, and even if they did, as WFT has demonstrated, they are still profoundly different with GISS consistently warmer than the satellites; and this when the satellites have proven they have a greater sensitivity to genuinely warmer conditions such as prevailed during 1998;
http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes
This 'debate' has now become totally surreal; there is no correlation over the longer, geological, timescales between CO2 and temperature, and there is none over the short-term; GISS and Hansen have had their hands in the cookie jar so often only a fool or a fanatic would trust them; and if the official IPCC source of data has a track record of unreliability and obfuscation then how can its hypothesis be trusted.
MOre issues with the GISS database:
"All of a sudden, a "hot spot" has developed over the Canadian Arctic Islands and the Arctic Ocean north of North America, that wasn't there on Monday (it was gray on Monday). A smaller hot spot also developed over Australia.
I had downloaded the GHCN file on Monday (and saved it). I downloaded the GHCN file once again and checked for stations that had October values today, but not on Monday. All but two were in Australia with the other two also in the SH.
I haven't crosschecked the Australian data but at least there's some new data to support this part of the change. There was no new information from GHCN on the Canadian Arctic Islands. So what accounted for the sudden hot spot in the Canadian Arctic Islands??
Why can Hansen obtain values for October in the Canadian Arctic Islands today when he couldn't on Monday?"
from http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4332
Jennifer,
You avoided my question.
And it's not strange at all that all four systems actually give similar results (if you use the same base period for all 4).
I don't think that UAH or RSS will be used that much, I think there will have to be a dedicated system designed to measure temps at particular heights. Don't forget that the satellites used by UAH and RSS aren't designed specfically for temp. They have to process their data and are similarly afflicted by glitches.
I don't understand why you have it in for GISS. The reliability of station data is a different story. I think it's incredible that the anomaly data is actually quite good. There are few spikes and the data is confirmed by the other 3 data sets. Also note that 70% of the Earth's surface is water, this is affected by UHI. And the station data that is affected is corrected. You can argue all you like that it's not good enough, but it's a trivial argument as there is no evidence that UHI is biasing the results - just look where the higher anomalies are...
Ian.
Yes you made my point for me re: the interpretation. However, when I made that statement it was replying to Jennifer's assertion that temps had been falling during 2008. This is why I said they had been rising since about March. Actually you could probably say they have been rising all year.