I HAVE already detailed my concerns with the claim by the Bureau of Meteorology that 2013 was the hottest year on record. Thank you for your many comments in the threads that followed the two blog posts. I am taking many of these comments into consideration in the development of a further set of questions.
In the meantime Bob Fernley-Jones, a retired engineer based in Melbourne, suggests that even if one accepts the truncating and adjusting that the Bureau has undertaken to arrive at the 2013 record annaul average temperature, given the actual temperature statistics published by the Bureau, David Jones was not justified in making the headline-grabbing statements that he did on January 3, in particular that there is a general warming trend and that it is Australia-wide.
Mr Fernley-Jones makes the following points, with the charts and supporting references available for download here:
1. One data point does not make a trend. There has been considerable variability over recent years in both the annual mean temperature anomaly and also the annual maximum temperature anomaly, Chart 1.
2. When regional variability is considered it is evident that only one state, South Australia, was signficiantly warmer in 2013, Chart 2.
3. The seasonal distribution of temperature is important, for instance warmer winters might arguably be a good thing for South Australia, while hotter summer are generally not. When the season mean temperatures for South Australia are considered for the period 1990 to 2013, the summer of 2013 was not particularly hot, Chart 3. In fact not a single season was hotter in 2013.
4. While much has been made of January 2013 being exceptionally hot, when the mean January temperature anomaly is plotted for South Australia back to 1910, Chart 4, it is apparent that 2013 was not an exceptionally hot January with hotter January’ occuring in the 1930s.
5. According the Bureau’s own time series data based on truncated and adjusted data series, mean January maximum temperatures have been flat since 1934 for the Northern Territory, and since 1947 for Queensland. New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have hotter January’s going back to 1938. South Australia, the hottest region for 2013, has eight hotter January’s going back to 1933. Tasmania has about 25 hotter January’s going back to 1917. Victoria has about 20 hotter January’s going back to 1939.
Mr Fernley-Jones’ critic can be read in more detail by downloading this document BobF-J_BlogVer2.
If you're really interested in the Moon guys this thread has one of the best discussions dealing with the Moon and the Greenhouse effect:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/06/03/lunar-madness-and-physics-basics/
Graeme M @ 11:34 am
I’m sorry Graeme, but I can’t cope with your questions, which will likely create ever more OT questions. Perhaps you could check-out an article I wrote over at WUWT a few years ago.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/26/does-the-trenberth-et-al-%E2%80%9Cearth%E2%80%99s-energy-budget-diagram%E2%80%9D-contain-a-paradox/
Take a gander at the first figure that is sometimes affectionately known as the Trenberth cartoon. This gives an idea of just how complicated heat loss from the Earth’s surface is, even if it is a tad controversial. (and a broad concept)
Albedos are a tricky issue and OLR is not alone for there is OSR from reflections which differ between Earth and Moon
Oh and the so-called average global temperature is derived from the near surface air T over land, and the so-called surface T of the water of the oceans comprising over 70% of the surface.
Oh, and the Moon aint got no oceans.
Interesting. Clearly surface temperature is a measurement of surface radiation, presumably from remote sensing of OLR.
However, I assume OLR for both earth and moon must be broadly similar if they are more or less in thermal equilibrium (with incoming insolation).
That means that the earth's average temperature as measured from space must be the same regardless of the presence of an atmosphere or not, surely? What I am driving at is that the temperature of the moon, or the earth without an atmosphere, would be its radiance (actual surface temps would vary broadly, but in sum the average is what is radiated). And that must be the same as earth with an atmosphere, excepting that we are now measuring radiance from TOA.
So, if the moon's average surface temp is -15C, we'd need to know the average surface temp of the earth to be able to judge what the GHE does on average. It is usually claimed that this is 14C or something isn't it? Making the GHE something like 30C of warming.
BUT, measuring average air temp close to the surface is NOT the same thing at all as I note above. What for example, is the radiating heat of the sands of the sahara, versus the air temp? Or the radiating heat of the polar icecap versus the air temps there?
Or am I missing something obvious? I guess it's all far more complicated and I am just fussing around with simplified explanations than the actual science. But I still think that claiming earth's average surface temp with an atmosphere is the temperature of that atmosphere is not the same thing at all as claiming the surface temperature of the moon is X after measuring the actual surface...
Graeme M @ 8:50 pm
I don’t want to go there Graeme because it is a minefield of controversy but you may find the following from three notable authorities interesting (including the JPL):
http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2014/pdf/1519.pdf
Such as paragraph 3 in the introduction:
The lunar surface has two properties that greatly
complicate the notion of surface temperature; 1) the
surface is extremely rough [3,8], and 2) the regolith is
highly insulating [e.g., 9]. These two properties ensure
that thermally isolated surfaces can be separated by
just a few millimeters and can have vastly different
temperatures depending on the local solar incidence
angles [10-12] (Fig. 1). Consequently, remote observations
of the lunar surface typically have a wide variety
of temperatures within the measurement field of view.
This leads to properties such as infrared “beaming”,
for example [13].
Ryan Maue rips into that idiot Kaku. This twit is about as genuine and rational as the Suzuki fraudster. Looks like Bill Nye may lose his position at the top of the hysteric's platform.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/14/kakus-kookoo-science/#more-103229
Anyone want free tickets to Summers and Flannery's latest lunacy? Barking mad is the only suitable description for these dummies.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/free_tickets_offered_to_flannerys_nightmare/
"The thermodynamics of the Moon’s surface and its rotational exposure to insolation and radiation to space and whatnot are mind-blowingly speculative in my view."
Now, I know I am showing my ignorance, and yes I could go look it up I guess. But when people talk of the average temperature of the moon's SURFACE, what ARE they talking about? Measured temp of the lunar surface itself? The temp of a thermometer ON the surface? A calculated value from the outgoing radiation? Completely off topic I know, I am just curious.