Global Temperature Trend Update - November 2009

Ronald Bailey | November 17, 2009

Every month University of Alabama at Huntsville climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer report the latest global temperature trends from satellite data. Below are the newest data updated through October, 2009.

Latest Global Temperatures

The data for the chart can be found here. The global average temperatures are increasing at +0.13 degrees Celsius per decade. The northern hemisphere is warming at +0.19 degrees per decade and the southern hemisphere is warming at +0.06 degrees per decade. Interestingly, the satellites show that the north polar region is warming at +0.40 degrees per decade and the south polar region is cooling at -0.06 degrees per decade.

Comments

creech|11.17.09 @ 12:33PM|#

It is kind of interesting how the temp starts up everytime there's all the hot air of a presidential campaign.

|11.17.09 @ 12:34PM|#

And so we must have cap and trade . . . right?

|11.17.09 @ 12:41PM|#

CORRECTION: The gubmint must have cap and trade revenue. You know, cuz its not like they squeeze enough from the productive bit of the economy already right?

Attorney|11.17.09 @ 12:36PM|#

It would be interesting to see a larger data set. Maybe for the past century, if the data exist.

John Tagliaferro|11.17.09 @ 1:01PM|#

There is satellite data for the last 1000 years, but a government conspiracy is keeping it from us.

TP|11.17.09 @ 1:30PM|#

I think ice cores go back about 2000 years, depending on where they were taken from.

tokodave|11.26.09 @ 10:53PM|#

Actually there are several ice cores extending back past 100,000 years

Episiarch|11.17.09 @ 12:38PM|#

OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS GOING TO END...oh wait, that was a trailer for 2012. I hate Roland Emmerich thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much.

|11.17.09 @ 12:39PM|#

The poles are gonna get offed balance from the ice melt at the top and the planet is gonna flip upside down. That means the magnetic poles are gonna be backards and catechismic calamities will destroy life as we know it. I predict it will happen in December 2012.

¢|11.17.09 @ 12:40PM|#

The northern hemisphere is warming at +0.19 degrees per decade and the southern hemisphere is warming at +0.06 degrees per decade.

Which, if it's not evidence of garbage data (but it probably is), is almost enough to make one suspect that some extra-Global factor might be at work.

Good thing there aren't any of those.

Geotpf|11.18.09 @ 12:42PM|#

More global-warming-causing pollution is generated in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere?

Mike|12.1.09 @ 2:13AM|#

Also/alternatively, there is more landmass in the northern hemisphere. The south is mostly ocean.

|11.17.09 @ 12:46PM|#

Props, Ron, for posting this data periodically.

I would note that this year's uptick looks a lot like the El Nino uptick. And we are supposed to have an El Nino again this year.

John Tagliaferro|11.17.09 @ 1:02PM|#

I am more convinced by the drowning torch in the upper right corner of the page.

Paul|11.17.09 @ 2:47PM|#

It's an allegory for rising sea levels.

Michael Ejercito|11.17.09 @ 1:45PM|#

El Nino will be a boon to agriculture, delivering much needed water.

Paul|11.17.09 @ 2:41PM|#

I hear that El Nino will be blowing the short skirts El Norte pretty soon! I'm all tingly.

Xeones|11.17.09 @ 1:04PM|#

I hate Roland Emmerich thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much.

Nice try, but i still think you are actually him.

Episiarch|11.17.09 @ 1:05PM|#

I still hate Michael Bay and you more, Xeones, so don't worry.

MP|11.17.09 @ 1:10PM|#

$225M worldwide opening weekend. I hope 2012 comes true, for all our sakes.

Episiarch|11.17.09 @ 1:15PM|#

Roland Emmerich makes money and Joss Whedon shows get canceled. This is a sad world we live in.

Thomas|11.17.09 @ 1:31PM|#

Joss' shows always die young; that's why I've stopped watching them...to save myself the heartbreak.

Paul|11.17.09 @ 2:42PM|#

Ok now I really am weeping for my country...

Thanks Episiarch.

|11.17.09 @ 6:26PM|#

To be honest Joss kind of deserves it.

For every awesome "Captain shot on his deck running out of oxygen alone left to die" moment there is an equally cutie hunk of crap moment.

Anyway Firefly was the only show that got canceled early...Dollhouse, Buffy, and Angel all got their fair chances.

Xeones|11.17.09 @ 1:08PM|#

I wasn't worried, Epi. I just happen to have figured out you're real identity. That's all.

Xeones|11.17.09 @ 1:08PM|#

should be "your" goddamn

Spanish Bombs|11.17.09 @ 2:38PM|#

I thought you hated threaded comments

Paul|11.17.09 @ 2:42PM|#

We all do.

NeonCat|11.17.09 @ 4:53PM|#

I prefer them. No having to scroll three quarters up the page to figure out what someone is responding to.

Unless they hate threaded comments and do it old-school. Which probably means they hate America, too.

Marc|11.17.09 @ 1:21PM|#

Anyone know why Mt. Pinatubo gets a shout out, but the cooling a decade earlier remains anonymous?

H. Protagonist|11.17.09 @ 1:24PM|#

It is generally attributed to the eruption of El Chichon.

Marc|11.17.09 @ 3:21PM|#

Thanks, Hiro.

Al Gore|11.17.09 @ 1:47PM|#

This graph is inconvenient.

|11.17.09 @ 2:20PM|#

Cool. Let's go to the beach.

|11.17.09 @ 5:39PM|#

didn't you know? it's coming to you!

|11.17.09 @ 2:38PM|#

What? But the 2001 IPCC report predicted about a 1.5 degree Celsius temperature rise by now. This must denier misinformation funded by evil oil companies!

|11.17.09 @ 3:28PM|#

Ron,

You might check your 13-month running average. For a running average it seems to hew awfully close to the month-by-month data.

|11.17.09 @ 4:10PM|#

True. I don't see the running average lagging that El Nino spike, for example.

A running 5 year average might be more useful, anyway.

|11.17.09 @ 3:55PM|#

What about the claim that past 10 years have seen on-net cooling? 98-08

|11.17.09 @ 6:42PM|#

Probably a case of choosing a convenient goalpost. 1998 was the warmest year in the survey, so choose that as a goalpost and claim we have a cooling trend.

Chad|11.17.09 @ 8:05PM|#

But we have had MASSIVE, OUT OF CONTROL, WILD global warming since 1997 and 1999.

Two out of three, I win. You lose. Game set match.

PS:) Never get into a cherry picking contest with someone who owns a hundred cherry trees to your one.

Xeones|11.17.09 @ 4:13PM|#

I thought you hated threaded comments

In my hurry to correct my erroneous grammar, i clicked the wrong thing. Do not construe my accidental use of the threaded comment feature for approval.

Tony|11.17.09 @ 4:19PM|#

Can none of you douchebags see that this graph shows a definite warming trend?

Garybus|11.17.09 @ 4:28PM|#

Warming trend 1979-1998, cooling trend 1998-2009. Also cooling trend 1934-2009 fwiw, 1930's were warmer than 1990's or 2000's.

Then again, the Depression did produce a lot of co2!

Chad|11.17.09 @ 8:22PM|#

Ummm, we are talking about world temperatures, not some little piece of land somewhere. You have them confused.

NAL|11.17.09 @ 4:38PM|#

Looks more like a warm period than a warming trend. Yes, the period of 1998-2009 is ~0.2 degrees warmer than the period of 1979-1997. That's all any honest, objective person can say given that data.

Tony|11.17.09 @ 4:43PM|#

But who cares... this data is not presented honestly or objectively. Christy and Spencer are chosen for this site for one reason: they oppose the mainstream scientific consensus on this topic. One's a creationist for Christ's sake. As long as we realize that Reason on the topic of climate change has a political agenda rather than a scientific one, we're good.

Isaac Bartram|11.17.09 @ 5:42PM|#

Tony, Christy is on the IPCC. He's one of the most respected climate scientists in the world.

Chad|11.17.09 @ 8:03PM|#

Yes, and Christy's data is in contradiction to most of the other data.

Merely showing this data, and not the corresponding data from such places as NASA, is proof of Reason's bias. Not that anyone should doubt this.

In any case, everyone else is picking up the uptick as well. For example,

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

|11.17.09 @ 11:02PM|#

Chad, I did look at the NASA data to which you linked. It shows roughly a 0.8 - 0.9 degree C change from 1880 to 2009. Given the historical variability of climate, I'm not sure what makes this start date that interesting - except of course that Krakatoa exploded in 1883, leading to the cool period at the start of the dataset.

Surely a coincidence. No motive for them to cherry-pick their own data - after all, no vile creationists there, just honest dependable public servants.

Chad|11.18.09 @ 6:59AM|#

Dumbass, you could pick any of the first fifty years on that chart and come to the same conclusion. Are you blind or retarded?

Isaac Bartram|11.17.09 @ 5:48PM|#

Furthermore, he was the lead author on the 2001 IPCC report.

While it's true that he's questioned the urgency that some GW zealots see it's pretty hard to tie that skepticism to some kind of know-nothin creationism.

Kind of makes me wonder who has the political rather than scientific agenda.

|11.17.09 @ 6:16PM|#

Kind of makes me wonder who has the political rather than scientific agenda.

Really? I don't wonder at all. I know Tony has a political agenda and I know Christy has a scientific agenda.

Chad|11.17.09 @ 8:23PM|#

An objective person would also look at other data sets which show a stronger warming trend, and conclude that the answer probably lies somewhere between them.

A libertarian would assume it lies outside of the bounds of either data set, because that best conforms with his or her ideology.

|11.17.09 @ 11:05PM|#

Find something other than the NASA data that starts roughly at the time of the Krakatoa explosion of 1883. Also reference the remarks regarding the effects of the Pinatubo and El Chichon eruptions, above.

|11.17.09 @ 6:14PM|#

this graph shows a definite warming trend?

no doubt...but it is not hard to find graphs of temperature before the industrial revolution that have warming trends...in fact i can find graphs of warming trends that occurred before there were even human beings.

Kroneborge|11.17.09 @ 4:43PM|#

Actually, a warming trend can be definired as one with higher lows, and higher highs.

If you look at that trend that's pretty much the case.

Come on, people now|11.17.09 @ 5:39PM|#

Some of you trolls really do need to get a life.

What can be said of this research? Is it definitive? Objective? What sort of criteria can be used to establish legitimacy of climate research?

It sure would be nice to have some metric upon which everyone could point to and agree upon.

|11.17.09 @ 5:42PM|#

we have one. al gore is an (admitted) liar.

Fist of Etiquette|11.20.09 @ 8:39PM|#

He admitted it?

|11.17.09 @ 5:55PM|#

south polar region is cooling at -0.06 degrees per decade.

that implies it is warming at 0.06 degrees per decade. if you subtract a negative...
is this intentional?

|11.17.09 @ 6:10PM|#

The northern hemisphere is warming at +0.19 degrees per decade and the southern hemisphere is warming at +0.06 degrees per decade. Interestingly, the satellites show that the north polar region is warming at +0.40 degrees per decade and the south polar region is cooling at -0.06 degrees per decade.

and this looks exactly like it would look if you simply threw a bunch of dice.

Seriously how big of change is 0.13 degrees per decade over a 30 year period? How much up and down would one expect if the climate was "balanced"?

|11.17.09 @ 6:16PM|#

Temperature data for the past 2000 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....arison.png

Make of it what you will.

dave c|11.17.09 @ 7:21PM|#

That graph uses Briffa's and Mann's bullshit.

Random Dude|11.18.09 @ 4:19PM|#

dave c is correct.

Mann's data has already been thoroughly ass-raped for the algorithm's tendency to create hockey sticks no matter what the input.

Briffa's tree data is now under heavy criticism as the temperatures vary dramatically based upon the sampling set.

Chad|11.17.09 @ 7:57PM|#

El Nino is back! I am still taking bets that either 2010 or 2011 will set the record. Any takers? You should be willing to pay at least 20:1 if you honestly believe that AGW is bunk. The odds that one of two years chosen out of over a hundred in the instrumental record would be the tops is actually less than one in fifty.

Orlean|11.17.09 @ 10:17PM|#

Just to be clear, which is the 20 and which is the 1? And we'd only use the CRN 1&2 stations to determine how warm the year was, right?

(You can find the CRN ratings here: http://www.surfacestations.org/)

Chad|11.17.09 @ 10:39PM|#

No, we would have to use something by real scientists that is subject to peer review...and something that hasn't been torn apart by NASA scientists, or on realclimate here...

http://www.realclimate.org/ind.....roundup-2/

Of course, you have to pay ME more. After all, if there is no AGW, then there is no reason to expect next year to be any warmer than, say, 1943, right? Since I am only taking a 2 out of >100 chance, you should be glad to pay only 20:1.

|11.17.09 @ 11:12PM|#

"After all, if there is no AGW, then there is no reason to expect next year to be any warmer than, say, 1943, right? "

Absolutely! After all, there is no external source of influx radation to the Earth which is known to be variable over various timeframes... Oh wait, there is. It's called the sun. If the sunspot frequency stays low for a few years and we start having killer winters will you STFU?

|11.18.09 @ 1:45AM|#

Yeah, like scientists could ever know how to figure out solar actvity...wait, what?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....e-data.png

*GASP* The sunspot activity IS lower right now.

Chad|11.18.09 @ 6:57AM|#

Yes, we don't have a fleet of instruments measuring the suns output, and we haven't repeatedly found that any changes are contributing little or nothing to climate change.

|11.20.09 @ 2:13PM|#

Chad, you are simplying wrong. Ref. "Maunder Minimum".

Are you blind or merely a dumbass (to use your phrasing)?

Orlean|11.18.09 @ 8:00PM|#

Assuming that you are talking about the NOAA July 6th, 2009 talking points, two rebuttals:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....s-project/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....ints-memo/

If this is wrong, could you please post a link to the paper(s) you are talking about?

I couldn't find any mention of the Surfacestations project in the Friday roundup proper, are you referring to something in the comments? If so, which one?

If you don't like the ratings of the Surfacestations project, what alternate source for the CRN ratings would you suggest?

I have no problems with putting up more, as I said I just wanted to be clear.

Some other points I'd like to be clear about, you'd only win in the case of record high temperatures, not record lows, and this would be about the year as a hole, not individual days/months, right?

Wildmonk|11.18.09 @ 8:37AM|#

Chad and Tony - you guys seem to look at this data a lot so I'm wondering if you can offer some insight into a couple of things.

First, the UAH data seems to use a baseline (0 point) that is about .3 deg. higher than the NASA Land-Ocean temperature index. That's easy: the UAH data uses 79-98 as the baseline period and NASA appears to use an earlier period.

The harder question is why the UAH data seems to show *warmer* temps for much of the 80s compared to the NASA data. It is somewhat difficult to pin down because of differences in scale (both X and Y), but it seems pretty clear to me. Of course, this contributes to the perception that there isn't as dramatic an increase in temps in the UAH data as we see in the NASA data because the older data doesn't start from a cooler base. Any idea about this? Both say they use satellite data (NASA for their "land-ocean temp index"). So why the difference?

Second, I've heard many times that the 1930s were as warm or warmer than the 90s-00s. The NASA data, however, show them as being about 0.6 degrees cooler. I had heard that Hansen got into some hot water (pun intended) for some "normalization" that ignored the 1930s - does he stand by that? Is that why the NASA charts don't show the 1930's the way other people have described it?

Thanks!

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