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.
NT,
Your question 'How do the temps since March compare to the temps in the last thirty years?' proves my point that your statement was open to different interpretation. You didn't say anything about 30 years the first time, and my point was that temperatures in 2008 were COOLER than the average for those months during the five years 2001-05. I didn't pick those years as the basis for comparison - Phil Jones did. He could have predicted in 2003 that 2006-10 would be warmer than the average for the last 30 years but he didn't: he specified that these years would be warmer, by a stated amount, than between 2001-05.
I don't know about McIntyre being a loose cannon - he's hit the target fairly often in the past few years. And how long would it have taken before the faulty GISTEMP results for October were detected, if McIntyre hadn't advised Hansen of the error? As I understand it, there are about 100 stations that had the same reported temperature in September and October - and they were in many countries including Russia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Finland, UK and Ireland. As McIntyre points out, if HadCRU made a similar mistake, we wouldn't know about it. I think that IS particularly bad.
NT,
I suspect one day soon, GISS and other systems that rely on weather stations, will be done away with.
And sooner or later it will be the satellite data (UAH etcetera) that is relied upon.
I think the work by Anthony Watts (and others) has shown how unreliable weather station data can be in the US ... so imagine how much worst it might be in other parts of the world.
Ian
"I don’t know why you think that my drawing attention to Jones’s secretiveness is a ‘rant’. Do you defend his unwillingness to share data with others? What purpose is served by CRU’s (non)disclosure policies?"
I was saying that they were unrelated.
No I don't defend it, nor do I think it's particularly bad, I have no idea what is going between Jones and McIntyre... I think McIntyre is a loose cannon.
Ian,
"Your claim that surface temperatures since last March have been ‘moderate’ to ‘warm’ is open to different interpretations, "
So what? You imply there is some confusion. Look at all the datasets, GISS Hadley, RSS and UAH
How do the temps since March compare to the temps in the last thirty years?
Jennifer
"A big difference. "
That's like saying there's a big difference between an apple and an orange. Either you have no idea what you are stalking about or you are deliberately attempting to mislead people into thinking there is something anomalous between GISS and UAH.
Which is it?
"And so much for the anecdotal via Marc Morano."
Yes, it was garbage, I am glad you see that now.
And Jones was a Coordinating Lead Author, not a Lead Author.
Sorry, In the first line, 'CruTEM' should be 'HadCRU'.
NT, I said that IF your two statements were right (i.e., that CruTEM was a ‘perfectly good dataset’ and that 2008 temps from March onwards have been ‘normal’ to ‘warm’) it would follow that Phil Jones had made a bad prediction.
We’ll know more about the standard of the HadCRU record when (and if) inquirers such as McIntyre, Holland and Keenan are able to gain access to information about the identities of the weather stations used and the procedures used to convert station data into global and hemispheric averages. It seems that Jones won’t willingly disclose such information, or explain why Jones et al (1990) was cited in the IPCC Chapter of which he was a lead author even though he knew there were serious problems with (at least) the Chinese data. But, although it’s like drawing teeth, there are grounds for hope that Jones and the CRU will be obliged to come clean in the end.
Your claim that surface temperatures since last March have been ‘moderate’ to ‘warm’ is open to different interpretations, but if the implied comparison is with the trend values for 2008 there are many mainstream scientists who would disagree with you.
I don’t know why you think that my drawing attention to Jones’s secretiveness is a ‘rant’. Do you defend his unwillingness to share data with others? What purpose is served by CRU’s (non)disclosure policies?
And by now Jen you'd be able to tell us what GISS includes that UAH does not ?
Update
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 via Marc Morano.