Roy Spencer posted the June UAH TLT temperatures. I think few of us will be surprised to discover this is the 2nd warmest June in the UAH record exceeded by June 1998. A scatterplot of temperatures since 1980 are shown below.
Though Eric Steig would probably suggest it is disingenuous of me to say so, I observe that despite the fact that the earth is just coming out of an El Nino, and the temperature at the end point of the observed data time series is therefor high relative to months when we have just come out of La Ninas, the trend since 1980 remains below the nominal trend of 0.2C/decade discussed in the IPCC projections section of the AR4.
Because people have been watching for maximums in the 12 month average, I’ve plotted that below:
As you can see from the blue diamonds, the 12 month average of UAH is not an all time record. Though it may be disingenuous to observed this, the current 12 month lagging average was exceeded more than 10 years ago in 1998. But, on the other hand, the 12 month lagging average for June 1998 was lower than the current value. So, maybe it was disingenous of me not to circle all the Junes? (I guess I’ll have to add that next month; that would surely make me less disingenuous.)
Anyway, I have been wondering when the peak in UAH might be reached. To SWAG that, I computed the average assuming the current June temperature “sticks”. Those are indicated in “yellow/orange”. If the temperature “sticks”, the peak should occur in September. NOAA thinks conditions favor an approaching La Nina. Temperatures are likely to decline, so we will likely see a peak before them. Either way, it looks like UAH will not set an all time record for 12 month lagging averages and it probably won’t set an annual average record. (Of course, it’s probably disingenuous to note this.)
Can I be even more disingenuous?
Of course I can be even more disingenuous! I can point out that here we are near the top of El Nino, when earth observations are high owing to ENSO, and the 12 month lagging average for UAH TLT has just barely managed to reach the multi-model mean surface temperatures projected by the ensemble of models driven by A1B SRES. (Of course, I should really show TLT projections, but that wouldn’t make the model mean look better.)
But, of course, if I do that, I’ll never get on Real Climate’s blogroll. Oh well.
Betting!
John Leyland came closest with a bet of 0.433! Good job John! Winner, don’t spend all your quatloos in one place. 🙂
[sockulator(../musings/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/UAHBets2.php?Display=1?Observed=0.436?Metric=UAH TTL?Units=C?cutOffMonth=6?cutOffDay=16?cutOffYear=2010?DateMetric=June, 2010?)sockulator]
Of course it makes sense to compare the El Nino-Year 1998 to the El Nino-Year 2010 (which only half of the latter gone, so we have to wait until January 2011).
There seems to be no warming during this time, but there is no clear sign of a cooling, either.
But 2010 should have been 0.2°C higher than 1998.
haha. Is that a chill in the air?
I thought it might be bad…
Where can I spend all the negative quatloos that I’ve earned so far? At moc.nozama, perhaps?
I love how Spencer now has to append a note to every update, saying that the satellite record is not calibrated to the surface record, all because of Monckton spreading misinformation among the masses.
Warming up, but slooooooowly….
😀
Amac–
One of these days I really have to create a running tally. Who ever has the biggest negative balance needs to be given a crown of some sort.
I think I should also weight this by ratio of number of quatloos bet.
and the 12 month lagging average for UAH TLT has just barely managed to reach the multi-model mean surface temperatures projected by the ensemble of models driven by A1B SRES.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Couple of questions I imagine have been answered before and often.
Have the models included the current cooling in the antarctic in these projections?
Does the satelite datas lack of coverage at very high lattitudes affect the numbers provided (and make the earlier point null and void)?
Does the fact that these are mid troposphere rather than surface temperature data sets affect the comparison?
So much disingenuousness! How can you live with yourself??
😉
Re: dorlomin (Jul 2 09:37),
I’m not sure I understand the question, but I’ll try to answer:
1) The models include entire surface of the earth. So, the projections for surface temperature include the area over the antarctic in the projected surface temperature.
2) The models do not use any remotely recent observations to create projections. At most, they use observations to kick off the “spin-up” to create the a stable model hindcast for some past year– typically a year between 1850 – 1900. Using observations saves computational time relative to setting the initial conditions to get the hindcast for 1850 to some bizarre arbitrary value.
julio–
It’s difficult. Very difficult!
Now I think I’ll go work out to release the endorphins that help me deal with all the guilt I feel when I notice the multi-model mean happens to look high. Afterwards, I’ll go to church, kneel in front of the virgin and pray for the sun intensity to increase and exhibit an uncharacteristically high solar max and cause the observations to catch up and exceed the projections. I’ll also pray for the modelers to bother to include a nominal 11 year solar cycle in their projections — or even some variation around the 11 year solar cycle — next time around instead of just flat-lining the effect.
Let me try again….
Currently the antarctic is cooling.
This is thought to be related to ozone depletion although I guess this will be contested. It is thought it will reverse in the next couple of decades when ozone replenishment.
Does anyone know if the models show a cooling Antarctic or a warming one, just curious.
Alex
The MEI was higher for 1998 than for 2010, so it’s not quite fair to suggest 2010 should have been 0.2C higher than 1998. GISS is showing the 12month lagging average 2010 higher than 1998. Going forward into a solar max, we’ll see if part of the difficulty with the model-mean is owing to the models not including the solar cycle in projections.
Lucia:
Um… please don’t, if it’s all the same to you. 🙂
lucia (Comment#47701) July 2nd, 2010 at 10:21 am
The projections contain a rise of 1°C in 50 years (except those that say it is worse than they thought), usually drawn in a straight line, so 2010 should be about 0.2°C higher than 1998. You say so yourself. That is probably what caused Dr. Schmidt to predict that after the terribly hot year 2010 nobody would deny the warming anymore. I did not put any more thought into my statement than Schmidt did in his.
Lucia,
You know that selfish prayers never get answered ..yes.
Nice try, but I see through your evil plot
dorlomin (Comment#47700):
Anyone can examine the data from the individual IPCC AR4 GCM runs through the KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_co2.cgi?someone@somewhere
Those identified as 20C3M are the models of climate for the 20th Century, and TAS should be surface air temperature.
Select a run, enter the coordinates you want, and the KNMI Climate Explorer will create a graph for you. And if you want to plot the data yourself, you can download the data, too.
“I’ll go to church, kneel in front of the virgin and pray for the sun intensity…”
Do I detect some disdain and/or mockery in this? (Sigh)
Andrew
Alexej:
Picking out the highest point in the record, and then extrapolating a straight line from there, is simply wrong.
Alexej Buergin
I’ve never said you should compare individual years to individual years. The 1998 El Nino does appear to have been exceptional.
carrot eater (Comment#47708) July 2nd, 2010 at 11:42 am
Of course it is, and that is not what I did.
If there is an trend of +0.2°C/decade underneath all these wiggles, then one would assume that a COMPARABLE year a decade later might show about 0.2°C more.
But I would draw a linear trendline from 1998 to 2010 (because that is something Excel can do well). And I would probably get no significant warming or cooling.
Andrew_KY–
You know I am a culturally Catholic atheist. I thought that was self mockery– though it is true that in my youth I was often assigned prayers in front of the Virgin.
I’m pretty sure the Virgin would be astonished to see me appear.
Alex–
There is no reason to believe the 2010 El Nino is comparable to the 1998 El Nino. That one really broke some records for MEI etc.
The 2009-10 El Nino should be influencing the June 2010 TLT anomaly by about 0.08C above the trend.
The 1997-98 El Nino should have influenced the June 1998 TLT anomaly by about 0.10C above trend.
So June 1998 (0.562C) versus June 2010 (0.436C) should be close to comparable as far as the ENSO is concerned.
re IPCC models and ozone
10.4.3 Simulations of Future Evolution of Methane, Ozone and Oxidants
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-4-3.html
11.8.2 Antarctic
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch11s11-8-1-8-arctic-ocean.html#11-8-2
Slower warming in Antarctica compared to the Arctic
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch11s11-1-2.html#box-11-1
Tropospheric Ozone:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter10-supp-material.pdf
See col 10.8 for model projections
http://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/suppl/ch10/Ch10_indiv-maps.html
Several of them include initial cooling in high southern lats, although this projection is not very good for viewing Antarctica. I don’t know if that can be actually attributed to ozone cooling, though.
Also note the cooling of southern Greenland. What’s up with that?
I’m a culturally atheist Catholic, so in that respect we are quite different religiously, lucia. My religious status is the inverse of yours!
You don’t believe in culture?!
I understand perfectly well what this is
but this makes my head explode
Lucia,
I hate to break it to you, but your readership consists of culture-deniers and sphere-deniers.
Carrot–Well, I’m a music of the spheres denier.
Lucia and FL,
You do realize that atheism and Catholicism are mutually exclusive, don’t you? And that if you don’t engage in any of the practices or rituals of the Catholic Church anymore, you are not even a Cultural Catholic? Or do you just like to hang with us Catholics? 😉
Andrew
Andrew_KY–
You do realize the term “cultural Catholics” are not “religious Catholics”. Right? See Cultural Christian.
My mother, father and many members of my family– all practicing Catholics– use ‘cultural Catholic” this way (but with Catholic switched for “Christian”.)
You may not like this term, but the Catholic Church does not have jurisdiction over the English language. The term “cultural Catholic” is used and many people are familiar with it. It doesn’t happen to mean what you would prefer it to mean.
The fact that the term exists and I use the idiom the way it is used by many who speak English has nothing to do with wanting to hang Catholics. It has to do with recognizing that there are many people who grew up Roman Catholic, who are accustomed to the holidays, rituals and notions instilled by Catholics, but who do not adhere to the religion.
(BTW: Wikipedia has an entry on Cafeteria Catholic, which is a bit different from Cultural Catholic.)
lucia (Comment#47749)-Well, I don’t reach for my Browning when I hear about it (haha! Godwin’d myself!)
carrot eater (Comment#47750)-I means that I live like an atheist but I’m Catholic in terms of my beliefs. But glad I could make your head explode.
Andrew_KY (Comment#47757)-It is very difficult to be a good Catholic when your family are as lapsed as mine.
What I know, my well named friend, is that I will have to make up for it quite a bit, either later in my life or in purgatory.
Hm…That doesn’t seem to have gone through. Did my comment get sent or not?
I got an error, refreshed, resent, and got a “duplicate comment” message…but it isn’t here! Hm…
Lucia,
Catholicism is a religion. If you want to say that you are voluntarily non-religiously affiliated with a religious institution you don’t care for, go ahead. 😉
Andrew
FL,
“Andrew_KY (Comment#47757)-It is very difficult to be a good Catholic when your family are as lapsed as mine.
What I know, my well named friend, is that I will have to make up for it quite a bit, either later in my life or in purgatory.”
No time like the present to get started, A-FL. 😉
Andrew
Andrew_KY, I would also describe myself as cultural Catholic, although my worldview is more or less agnostic.
However, Catholicism is my undeniable cultural heritage and I don’t deny it – heck, I even insisted 35 years ago on being married in a church, althought it was rather frowned upon by the commie regime we had and my going-to-be-hubby was lectured about the error of our ways and asked why he didn’t persuade me to let this foolish idea be…
Catholicism isn’t just a religion, it brings a lot of culture and identity with it – you can see the difference quite well when visiting European countries which were Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox.
EW,
But the essence of Catholicism and the Catholic Church is religious. It’s spiritual. It requires a belief in God. If someone enjoys the trappings of the Catholic Church, they are only doing just that. They are not Catholic in any meaningful way.
The honest person would say, “I have rejected the essence of Catholicism but I still like Catholics” because that is really what it boils down to. Why would any Cultural Catholic bother with any of it anymore unless they knew and liked people who were doing it?
Andrew
Andrew_KY–
You are mis-interpreting the meaning of “culturally Catholic”. I’m not “bothering” with anything Catholic.
I was raised Catholic, and so my cultural heritage involves being familiar with the Stations of the Cross, recognizing the making the sign of the cross, knowing the holy days of obligation, knowing when Lent and Advent are, and various rules about them (including rule changes associated with the 2nd Vatican council,) knowing how to say the Hail Mary in Latin (and heck, remembering Sister Sumpter warbling it during mass at Woodlands) and being aware of many many other Catholic things. This makes me “culturally Catholic”. I’m culturally Catholic even if I don’t “bother” about any of them and even though I am an atheist. Culturally, I am what I was immersed in as a young person.
Seems like AndrewKY is upset that you’re using the word Catholic at all.
But the terminology you’re using is generally understood, I think.
I think that sort of language started with secular Jews, though that’s slightly different from Lucia’s case.
“The projections contain a rise of 1°C in 50 years (except those that say it is worse than they thought), usually drawn in a straight line, so 2010 should be about 0.2°C higher than 1998.”
But it shouldn’t be a straight line. It isn’t expected to be for the century, so why would it be for the first half?
Rather, the models find climate change to be accelerating. So if we expect it to warm 1C in five decades we would expect a pattern like .14, .17, .20, .23, .26. Right?
Of course the actual trend is either going to be faster or slower than the projections. I think we’ll need a couple more decades to have enough data to say where it will fall. Fortunately, as a guide of policy, it doesn’t really matter. Whether the rise is 3C or 5C with no action, either rise is too much. Even 2C is too much — because it’s going to keep right on rising, and in another 50 years we’ll be in that 3-5C range.
I’m as curious as anybody whether the car coming towards us is going 50mph, or 65, or 80. The consequences will be substantially different in different cases, but in no reasonable case would it be safe for us to just stand in the road and let the car hit us.
Andrew_KY (Comment#47791)
But the essence of Catholicism and the Catholic Church is religious.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Any half decent protestant theologian would suggest that since its calcification around Aquinus the essance of the Catholic Church has been Aristotle. Others would argue that its core reason de entre would be political (either since Gregory the Great or the council of Nicea) . Shall we all say that it is a most worthy and enlightening debate but just not for here and not for now?
Andrew_KY (Comment#47791)
But the essence of Catholicism and the Catholic Church is religious.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = + +
Any half decent protestant theologian would suggest that since its calcification around Aquinus the essance of the Catholic Church has been Aristotle. Others would argue that its core reason de entre would be political (either since Gregory the Great or the council of Nicea) . Shall we all say that it is a most worthy and enlightening debate but just not for here and not for now?
Lucia,
Little kids have a pretty good sense of who is disingenuous and who is not. Perhaps Eric was born an adult.
I think I have a 2nd cousin named John.
Three cheers for interpolated guesswork. I think I’ll buy me a Triskelian now.
Robert
SteveF (Comment#47807)-Eric Button? Hehe…
If the present El Niño replicates the 1998 then we should see the 12 month anomaly average drop down to just above zero like the 1998 did. Only time will tell. I think that these El Niños are outliers that bias the actual underlying trend.
I sing in a Catholic choir; does that count? 😉
I’m a little confused why there is 20 or so blog entries on religion in a science blog. Focus please.
While we are discussing sea ice betting, are the results in for the June average sea ice loss?
“John F. Pittman (Comment#47818) July 3rd, 2010 at 6:11 am
I sing in a Catholic choir; does that count? ;)”
Can you link us to some samples? 😉
Andrew
“John F. Pittman (Comment#47818) July 3rd, 2010 at 6:11 am
I sing in a Catholic choir; does that count? ;)”
JFP,
Can you link us up some samples? 😉
Andrew
“Robert (Comment#47802) July 2nd, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Of course the actual trend is either going to be faster or slower than the projections. I think we’ll need a couple more decades to have enough data to say where it will fall.”
Your comment would be better without the spelling mistake (the second last letter should be an i). But you need to take another look at the graphs of the IPCC projections.
What’s your basis for thinking this?
With regard to any statistical issue, it’s pretty widely accepted that many factors go into estimating the amount of time to show a projection was too high or too low. These factors include spectral properties and magnitude of the “noise” in the thing being observed and also how far off the projections are.
One of the difficulties with people insisting testing takes many decades is those making them never seem to understand how one might go about estimating how long it would take to detect any difference and often don’t seem to even understand what factors are important to consider when testing a projection against data!
Corn will be tasseling in northern Illinois on the fourth of July. First time I’ve ever seen that.
Catholic Haiku
.
It’s ironic that
In getting seven to church
I need Confession
My wife’s catholic
My kids are catholic too
I just pay the bills.
“What’s your basis for thinking this?”
Hey Lucia, sorry it took me a bit to respond.
My thinking about this is probably not clearly expressed by the words I chose. I probably ought to have said not decades to see whether the trend is above or below, but, rather, a couple decades to have an idea as to whether the prediction — 1C in fifty years — is an over-estimate or an under-estimate.
I’m not privy to the inner workings of the IPCC’s thought process, but I would imagine they chose the 50-year time period very deliberately, because there is really no way to use the long-term trends (even if you estimate them perfectly) to predict the trend over, say, ten years. Which is why climate researchers use a baseline of thirty years when they can get it.
The ad absurdum of failing to do this is Scott Armstrong’s imaginary bet with Al Gore, in which he starts with a decadal prediction he attributes to Gore and then breaks it down into the precise anomaly you would expect PER MONTH. Winner of the most months wins the year. I kid you not. This is what he calls “scientific forecasting.”
We can stretch the time series backwards to demonstrate robustly a warming trend. We know that trend will have to accelerate if the IPCC prediction is to be close to the mark. Will it? That’s more difficult to say. One can see why it would — more people, more per capita emissions (economic growth), cleaner power (fewer reflective aerosols), albedo change, release of natural methane and carbon stores in response to temperature change, observation of response to similar forcings in the record, etc. One can also see why it wouldn’t — each additional unit of CO2 has a lesser warming effect, perhaps Solomon et al are right, etc.
To test the hypothesis of warming versus no warming is easy — just use the last thirty years (or the last hundred). To test hypotheses of more warming circa 2050 versus somewhat less is trickier, and to test it according to observations I think we’ll need more than ten years — twenty or thirty at least.
But I think the key caveat here is that while the discussion and debate are endlessly interesting, as a policy matter its impact is small. Either case is highly dangerous and destructive, left unchecked. So the debate is comparable to trying to decide what specific bacteria is infecting your patient whilst having an antibiotic that kills both species. The precise diagnosis is less important when the treatment is similar.
Hi Lucia. Always enjoying your intellectually stimulating blog. Thank you. May I just share with your readerrs what I commented regarding solar cycles at “scepticalscience…” for your consideration in connection with your comment:
The memory of the climate system resulting from about +0.12W/m2 solar irradiance is now 60 years old. If, according to AOGCMs, only 60% of the equilibrum response is reached after 100 years for CO2 doubling, I deduce at least the same (if not longer periods) are required for an equilibrium response to solar forcing. Even though we are now in a sustained solar minimum, I believe it is safe to assume that at least [7] % of the current, estimated radiative imbalance of 0.85W/m2 since 1880 is still in the memory due to solar forcing. Why? 0.05W response is given after 100 years and later, this leaves a minimum of 0.06W in the memory after 60 years, in 2010. This leaves 0.79 W/m2 owing to human forcings, not 0.85W/m2, as “committed” atmospheric warming resulting from human activities for the future.
My point is that we probably “feel” only just half of any solar cylce in terms of temperature, the rest dissipates with water cycle feedbacks over longer time periods (Pielke, Spencer, you name them) and goes into ENSO, AMO, MOC, PDO cycles and so on. Ocean heat content is dropping right now owing to a lack of water vapor feedback. Seems like there is soon not much left from Hansen’s 0.7 W/m2. We’ll probably see during the next months how the earth is cooling. Can we soon cast our bets for UAH near surface temp. 2010?
“We’ll probably see during the next months how the earth is cooling. Can we soon cast our bets for UAH near surface temp. 2010?”
Betting against 2010’s being the hottest year on record is paying out 4-to-1 on Intrade right now. Mortgage the house and sell the car. Let us know how it works out.
the intrade contract is based on GISS, which makes a big difference.
“the intrade contract is based on GISS, which makes a big difference.”
How so? The trend you get is very similar. Regardless, if you believe “the global is cooling” you ought to like betting against 2010 as the hottest year, regardless of the instrument. Given 4-to-1 odds, it ought to be a no-brainer (no pun intended).
Anybody can predict the world is just about to pivot from global warming to global cooling — and many, many people do make that claim year after year. Yet what would seem to be great bargains on Intrade if there were even a modest chance those predictions are accurate go unclaimed . . . including by the people making the predictions.
Robert,
The trend can be very similar and indeed it is, but when you start getting into the nit-pickery of ranking years, differences sprout up. The #1 year in GISS will not necessarily be the #1 year in CRU, or UAH or RSS.
2010 will be ranked differently by the different records, which is perfectly possible while still having very similar trends.