El Niño conditions are in and it looks like the HadSST’s temperature anomalies may finally break their all time high temperature anomalies. The June anomaly of 0.50 C is a big jump up from 0.355C for May:
It’s worth comparing the June anomaly of 0.50 C these to previous values:
- May 2009: 0.355C.
- June 2008: 0.251C
- June 1998: 0.519C. (Record June.)
- August 1998: 0.555C (Record.)
- June 1997: 0.324C. (Summer before record. )
Least squares trends for this century remain negative. (This is true whether we follow traditional calendars starting in 2001 or more modern definitions starting in 2000) are negative. )
If we use the Lee&Lund Nychka correction for red noise, the uncertainty intervals for trends are
- m= -0.44 C/decade to 0.39 C/decades since 2000. This includes the nominal 0.2C/decade for earth’s global surface temperatures projected by the IPCC.
- m=-0.31 C/decade to 0 0.05 C/decade since 2001. This does not include the nominal 0.2C/decade for the earth’s global surface temperature projected by the IPCC.
Bear in mind: The IPCC did not make formal projections for SST, so those comparisons are for reference only. Owing to thermal mass, ocean temperatures may be projected to warm more slowly initally. (I’ll see about grabbing the runs from The Climate Explorer.)
Watch for the trend since 2000 to go positive soon.
Update June 12
Adam suggested
I think you really ought to be comparing this June’s SST anomaly to June 1997 not 1998. Remember, what is usually referred to as the ‘1998’ El Nino actually started during early 1997. By June 1998, the El Nino was over (ONI was 0.0) and transition to La Nina was underway.
That seems like a fair comparison to me. Plus it makes a useful graph for El Nino watchers. Here is a graph, with all Junes circled, and a “connect the dots” trend between June 1997 and June 2009. The anomaly in 1997 was 0.324C.
I wonder if something is off kilter. The RSS ocean values (admittedly they may be behind the sst) are not showing this jump.
Quite a jump!
BarryW–
This is a big jump, and it doesn’t seem consistent with those values. However, I did check whether the jump is a record as a jump. It’s not a record either since 1880 when ssts were first recorded or since 1950, when we might trust them a little more.
Obviously, I’ll check this next month. Do you have the link for the RSS ocean temps?
Hi all,
Lucia, do you see any gaping holes in this? http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m7d11-Does-global-warming-diminish-when-measured-accurately-Part-5
Thanks
Tom
Tom,
Those are more SteveM and RyanO’s areas. I don’t know that much about either the paleo (hockey-stick) history or analysis, or the Antarctic reconstructions. I follow along with what they write, but I haven’t dug into it.
Hi Lucia–thanks, anyhow. Just thought I’d ask, as I’ve never been in touch with either Steve M or Ryan O.
I just went to the Pielke comment. What I gathered from it was that there are huge anomalous masses of cool and warm water in the ocean. Could that be all there is to the cooling and warming trends that we are trying to discern? The atmospheric temperature is probably less than a rounding error when it comes to the heat content of the ocean.
Here’s the directory with all of the RSS Time series
http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/
I wonder if the Hadley sst data leads the RSS oceanic and by how much.
Maybe someone will estimate the rate of energy addition that would have been necessary to increase the thermal energy content to the value represented by the change in temperature.
I’ll bet the number cannot be supported in any ways whatsoever. Whole-body waving can’t get you there.
Dan– This may be more like a mixing problem. ENSO causes some amount of sloshing in the ocean. Either warmer or cooler water is exposed and mixed permitting the surface anomaly changes quickly.
The long term climate is determined by looking at the collection of monthly data. Each month matters to the diagnosis of what is happening, but no individual month matters a lot.
Thomas, the part on the Antarctic paper looks OK as written, but I think there has been some backtracking by the critics. RyanO update his work, and concluded that the peninsula contribution was much less than the 75% he first reported. I think it’s closer to 50% now, still too high. Also, I’ve seen the Antarctic warming get mentioned on many sites, even after RyanO’s evisceration, but it’s possible it may have been highlighted even more before. Finally, RyanO and Jeff Id both calculated warming for Antarctica, just lower than Steig’s number.
Comparing June 1998/June 2009 ocean temp data, there is a complete disconnect between satellite and SST.
SST June 1998/2009 = .519/.50
UAH ocean June 2009 = -.06
UAH ocean June 1998 = .45
I never reported “Peninsula contribution” at 75% or any other number. I only participated in a theorization about where Steig’s trends may have come from. Based on weight calculations, rather than being from the Peninsula, they are more likely to be an artifact of the low number of PCs used to approximate the AVHRR data. But the magnitude of the “incorrectness” of Steig’s result has stayed the same. We just narrowed in on the source.
BarryW (Comment#16143) July 11th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
If you plot the Hadley SST against RSS Ocean, RSS lags Hadley SST by about 4 or 5 months.
This is about the same as ONI against RSS land/Ocean which I happen to watch.
So by this metric we are likely to get a big jump in global temps. Bad news for BC’s Winter Olympics?
Dan Hughes (Comment#16144) July 11th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Dan,
Could you explain this assertion?
Lucia and others…
I think you really ought to be comparing this June’s SST anomaly to June 1997 not 1998. Remember, what is usually referred to as the ‘1998’ El Nino actually started during early 1997. By June 1998, the El Nino was over (ONI was 0.0) and transition to La Nina was underway.
DG… I think this may explain the ‘disconnect’ you mention. UAH satellite temps lag ocean temps, thus, the warm ocean temps preceding June 1998 caused the high ‘UAH ocean’, but cool ocean temps have preceded June 2009 so that the ‘UAH ocean’ hasn’t had time to feel the effects of the current El Nino yet (which is only just beginning).
Hi Adam–
June 1997 was 0.324C. I’ll make a graph.
Lucia, and any others experienced in thermodynamics, may I request a clarification of the implications of this?
http://books.google.com/books?id=uOiZB_2y5pIC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=Le+Chatelier-Braun+Principle&source=bl&ots=y_ypjfsQTj&sig=zZnDTKNyHUM0unusg1XyfQUc6ec&hl=en&ei=k9pZSp_YCJCoNvfPoUM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7
hunter–
It says it’s focusing on topics from the last decade. So…
I can only see the introductory material. I suspect it’s a book oriented toward chemists trying to do ab-initio calculations to determine various properties of substances. But, I’m not sure.
Thanks. It seems to be offered as a general application of thermodynamics. But I will try to learn more before I ask anything really stupid.
I guess hunter is interested in Le Chatelier’s principle, and is interpreting this as perhaps implying the necessary existence of stabilising feedbacks in the climate system. That would, however, be an over-interpretation of the principle.
Jonathan,
Thank you for your clarification.
What evidence is there that destabilizing feedbacks dominate?
This definition seems to imply that it might be difficult to over interpret the principle:
“Le Chatelier’s principle
Principle that if a change in conditions is imposed on a system in equilibrium, the system will react to counteract that change and restore the equilibrium.
First stated in 1884 by French chemist Henri le Chatelier (1850–1936), it has been found to apply widely outside the field of chemistry.”
http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Le+Chatelier-Braun+principle
And it well falls within the general views of our hostess, as well as Spencer, Lindzen, and others.
To me, it seems to underscore the idea of entropy, but on a system-wide basis. IOW, if the climate system is constantly seeking to lose energy, and it takes energy to drive and maintain change, then the trivial amount of added heat from CO2 is not likely to produce dramatic changes. And it tends to put the burden of proof squarely on those who claim that cascading positive feedbacks will spiral up and out of control. And by proof, I mean actual measurements, not the behavior of models.
All-in-all, I see this as strong evidence that we will see a very lukewarm response from the climate forcing of CO2, and that the consensus models are not looking at things correctly.
My bad Ryan. I hadn’t noticed that Jeff did the Pacman post and the followup weight calculations.
Hello Hunter,
Thinking a bout how “CO2 forcing” might not be the same as introducing bunnies into Australia, or provoking a perturbation without a pre-existing form of negative feedback:
The bunnies were not part of a system at equilibrium.
The CO2 is a part of a system at equilibrium.
If someone has already covered this please feel free to delete/ignore.
High ENSO (MEI) values seem to correspond to periods when the OHC numbers trend downwards. It is perhaps a good example of the difference between the Temp & Enthalpy approaches.
Drops in OHC occured in the following years.
1957, 63/64, 66-68, 72, 76, 78/79, 81/83, 86, 90, 92, 98, 2001, 05, & 07.
Not all of these correspond with High MEI values but I think enough to show a relationship. Unfortunately the OHC figures being annual do not have the fine detail of the MEI data so it is allways going to be a little vague particularly regarding timing
Perhaps if someone has some time to compare the MEI with the the annual OHC differences they could produce a graphic.
But my point is that El Nino could be seen as a cooling event as much as it is normal seen as a warming event. And as OHC has been pretty flat since 2004 an El Nino could push Temps up but OHC down.
Alex
In essence Le Chatelier applies to simple changes made to simple systems. Whatever the climate system is, it is not simple, and claiming that Le Chatelier like behaviour must occur is naive. Personally I think it’s more helpful to study the actual behaviour of the system, rather than to try to deduce it from dubious arguments from first principles.
Hm, interest that the connect the dots line in the new graph is almost parallel to the trend line over the entire period. Coincidence? Or has modest warming returned?
Andrew–
We’ve had warming over longer time periods for some time now. In terms of what I look at the question is only: Do the models accurately predict (or project) the magnitude.
On this graph, I only showed the line as a connect the dots. Adam pointed out we may be near comparable points in terms of the MEI index, so this might be a rough guide to comparing this SST level to previous ones. (Or not.)
Jonathan,
I appreciate not trying to do too much deduction, especially at the expense of observation.
It would appear to me that observation shows feedbacks of very limited range, like the El Nino.
The ocean heats up, heat leaves the ocean, and it cools back down. {very simplified} It flips from El Nino to La Nina, but behavior clusters around a center.
Yeah, just a little speculation on my part 🙂
Lucia: The OI.v2 version of Global SST anomaly data is showing a similar upsurge:
http://i30.tinypic.com/2h7qpw6.png
But, unlike the HADSST data, the 2003 and 2005 peaks in the OI.v2 version are higher than June 2009.
An SST anomaly map:
http://i26.tinypic.com/23tl3xg.jpg
The two biggest contributors to the increase last month were the North Pacific with a rise of 0.24 deg C and the North Atlantic with a rise of 0.19 deg C.
From my monthly update for June 2009:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/07/june-2009-sst-anomaly-update.html
Alexander Harvey: You wrote, “Drops in OHC occured in the following years.
“1957, 63/64, 66-68, 72, 76, 78/79, 81/83, 86, 90, 92, 98, 2001, 05, & 07.”
It depends whose OHC data you refer to:
http://i44.tinypic.com/5uizit.png
The graph is from my post on the data presented by Levitus et al:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/07/ohc-trends-presented-by-levitus-et-al.html
Regards
Adam, yes I understand the lag issue, however going back and starting Jan 97, I fail to see the similarity between then and now.
http://tinyurl.com/nxgm4g
If there’s a lag, I sure don’t see any pattern. Something isn’t right.
Just now SBS Australia has reported the Skeptic side (protesters outside Gore’s talk etc) not even mentioning anything about Gore’s AGW talk but the skeptic’s view that Gore’s AGW theories all unproven. This is quite extraordinary as both the ABC (Australia) and SBS have rigourously towed the AGW line.
The biggest El Nino that we know about (reconstructed temperatures for more accurately that is) was 130 years ago in 1877-78. That El Nino peaked at +3.4C versus the 1997-98 El Nino at +2.8C.
Hadcrut3 global temps peaked at +0.364C in 1878 (versus last month’s Hadcrut3 at +0.400C). HadSST2 peaked at +0.264C in 1878 (versus last month at +0.500C).
So, there are cycles up and cycles down which is more clear with a longer-term perspective [and don’t forget, they have been playing around with these historical indices (SSTs and land surface measurements) and past temperatures were almost certainly higher than is being recorded in the databases now.]
DG, thanks for showing that SST/UAH ocean plot. I agree, it is difficult to see a lag for the 97/98 data. However, right at the beginning of the time series I would argue that you can see the lagged response of UAH ocean. Also, for the current time period the lag is obvious. Furthermore, the AMSU daily temps have been rising and imply that July will see quite a jump in the satellite temps, so one would assume that UAH ocean would follow.
Have you seen the latest post on RealClimate suggesting a pause in global warming til 2020?
Mike N–
Yes. I also read the paper, which, then suggests that the trend that existed prior to 1998 would resume. It does not, however suggest what that trend might be. 2.0C/century? Well… that didn’t exist for very long. So, 1.4 C/century? Who knows.
MikeN,
Just for clarity, can we tell with certainty that RC is:
a) predicting a pause in Global Warming? or
b) projecting a pause in Global Warming? or
c) something else?
I ask seriously because as a Denier, I can only interpret this as a small defeat for the AGW Movement. The books are still cooking. Why turn down the heat? It’s not like we are currently experiencing a mass exodus from the AGW ranks. Or are we?
Andrew
Not to make too much of the Le Châtelier Braun principle,
but at least some people think it works on large scale systems.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009GReGr..41….1P
I am not suggesting that climate be forced to fit into LCB. I am suggesting that the LCB might help make more sense of the data.
I doubt RC agrees with Swanson, but did want to give him an opportunity to put his paper into context.
>I doubt RC agrees with Swanson
Maybe not, but at least now if things do stay cooler, they can say it doesn’t change things, just a pause, and point out how they’ve already posted about it.
Mike N,
I just read your comment about the 75% weighting of trend in the peninsula. It did have an error but by the same method when corrected I get about 50% weighting. Nic made a nice post by adjusting trend but I don’t think that gives us a true weighting either because the regression can (and of course does) compensate using other station information.
When I ran the B matrix version of the calculation I found about a 50% weighting of the infilling of all stations based on the peninsula information. This doesn’t give us the reconstruction final weight because the satellite PC’s need to be separated out. I think what I took away from it all was that the peninsula weight was overstated in all reconstructions so far but not as badly as my first calculations showed.
Nic also made a good point that with regard to trend, most of the negative weighted stations subtract trend from the total whereas my initial calculations assumed the stations were positive contributors. A negative station with similar information to other stations would remove trend from the reconstruction.
Any way I think about it, the true weighting is difficult to express since the weighting changes as more or less data is available in the individual rows (months) of the matrix.
If you are wondering how over weighted the peninsula is, you can see it visually in the difference between area weighted and EM plots at this post.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/area-weighted-tpca-check/#more-4448
One thing I hope to try this week is to re-weight the stations in Ryan’s EM algorithm according to area to insure that high concentrations of surface measurements (as in the peninsula) don’t over weight information in the reconstruction.
“Maybe not, but at least now if things do stay cooler, they can say it doesn’t change things, just a pause, and point out how they’ve already posted about it.”
lol, I’ll give you that. But if that’s true then we can all jump on them for not getting internal variability right.