Global Temperature Trend Update -- October, 2010

Every month University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer report the latest global temperature trends from satellite data. Below are the newest data updated through October, 2010.

Latest Global Temps

The 'coolest' month in 2010 ties second warmest October

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Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade

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October temperatures (preliminary)

Global composite temp.: +0.42 C (about 0.76 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for October.

Northern Hemisphere: +0.37 C (about 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for October.

Southern Hemisphere: +0.47 C (about 0.85 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for October.

Tropics: +0.15 C (about 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for October.

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September temperatures (revised):

Global Composite: +0.60 C above 20-year average

Northern Hemisphere: +0.56 C above 20-year average

Southern Hemisphere: +0.65 C above 20-year average

Tropics: +0.29 C above 20-year average

(All temperature anomalies are based on a 20-year average (1979-1998) for the month reported.)

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Notes on data released Nov. 2, 2010:

How warm has 2010 been? So warm that although October was the coolest month so far this year year (compared to seasonal norms), it tied October 2006 as the second warmest October in the 32-year satellite climate record, according to Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Warmest Octobers*
Year   Globe   NH     SH    Trpcs
2005   0.47   0.48   0.45   0.15
2006   0.42   0.38   0.47   0.33
2010*  0.42   0.37   0.47   0.15
1998   0.41   0.51   0.31   0.34
2003   0.41   0.55   0.27   0.3
2004   0.36   0.33   0.38   0.19
2009   0.36   0.33   0.39   0.39
2001   0.3    0.25   0.36   0.21
2007   0.26   0.31   0.22  -0.11
2002   0.25   0      0.49   0.2

*Compared to seasonal norms.

2010 remains the second hottest year in the record, with average daily temperatures through October that were only 0.03 C -- a difference that is not statistically significant -- cooler than the record set in 1998 during an El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event.

Comments

[Max]

This climate change hoax if very sophisticated. I wonder how they're pulling it off.

[SugarFree]

Gullible morons like you are the key.

[Episiarch]

"If" very sophisticated? Edward, this isn't the Jefferson attack ads thread. What's wrong with you? It's like you're a complete moron. And we all know that can't be true.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Max,

Max, H&R's pet yorkie.

Here boy! Here, go fetch! That'a good boy!

[Mike M.]

Damn, I was really hoping that maybe you had killed yourself last night. That's a shame.

[joshua corning]

This climate change hoax if very sophisticated.

Not really...it is diabolically simple in its ability to convince those who have simple minds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded

Just come up with a really stupid claim and repeat it over and over again.

[Holy Cow]

20 year warming trend of half a Celcius. Scary scary! I can't stop sweating!

Please give all my freedoms away in oppressive govt. schemes before I fry to a crisp!

[vanya]

Only complete morons believe at this point that the earth is not going through a warming trend. However, what's causing the trend, how serious a trend it is, and what we can actually do it about it, are still open questions.

[Max]

As long as we don't have to do anything that goes against our core beliefs. Give my core beliefs, or give me death!

[Corduroy]

At least you're being honest about it

[Old Mexican]

Here's some hemlock, Max. Go for it.

[TheOtherSomeGuy]

Can someone please tell me how "The 'coolest' month in 2010" compares to the coolest month in 460 million BC when warm blooded reptiles ruled the Earth?

[TheOtherSomeGuy]

Whoops. Scratch that one.

[TheOtherSomeGuy]

Can someone please tell me how "The 'coolest' month in 2010" compares to the coolest month in 460 million BC when cold blooded reptiles ruled the Earth?

[Aresen]

Uh. You might want to check your paleontology text.

The "age of reptiles" started about 200 million years later, IIRC. If there was any land animal with an endoskeleton at all in 460 million BCE, it was an amphibian.

[0x90]

"when cold blooded reptiles ruled the Earth"

Some things never change.

[Nancy Pelosi]

My reign may have ended...but I'll be back! Wuhahahahahahahaha!

[joshua corning]

460 million BC when cold blooded reptiles ruled the Earth

Dinosaurs were warm blooded.

Birds, mammals and dinosaurs evolved from a common ancestor. The idea that Birds and mammals evolved to be warm blooded separately after their split from their common pre-dinosaur ancestor is unlikely.

[joshua corning]

opps...never mind. dinosaurs were from 230 million BC to 65 million BC

[TheOtherSomeGuy]

Spin spin spin! Anything but acknowledge the point that we don't know what the temps were like before the Civil War, and that's a really long stretch of time...

[joshua corning]

Anything but acknowledge the point that we don't know what the temps were like before the Civil War.

The exact temperature?

No.

But we have a pretty good idea that 10,000 years ago it was colder then it is today and colder then it was during the civil war.

By the way you are barking up the wrong tree. I am a skeptic.

There is strong evidence that there was a global medieval warming period and a global roman warming period...and both were warmer then it is today. But yes we do not know the exact global temperature back then....but we do have a pretty good idea what the temperature was like....it was like today only warmer.

[Holy Cow]

"Only complete morons believe at this point that the earth is not going through a warming trend."

What about those of us that really don't care about the natural minutiae of global temp. fluctuations?

Can I still be in the 'not a moron' camp? I'm probably going to soccer camp in the summer, so no big deal if 'not a moron' camp won't take me, but it'll look good on my permanent record.

[rac]

Hot, cold, who gives a fuck?

[Hopey McChangey]

You should brother man, 'cause for voting for all your tea party wackaloons you're going somewhere where it's hot, mighty hot.

[rac]

It's not the heat, it's the humidity. And I know even you had to have been impressed by some of the hot, moist tea partiers.

[Christine O'Donnell]

I'm a little crackpot
Moist and hot
Extremism is good
But masturbatin's not.

[Zeb]

Is there an El Nino this year>

[John]

Yes. It is now turning into one of the biggest la nina years ever. This winter is expected to be a real bitch.

[Tman]

I'm assuming you read this already John, yeah?

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/t.....ng-winter/

[John]

yes did.

[?]

Can someone please tell me how "The 'coolest' month in 2010" compares to the coolest month in 460 million BC when cold blooded reptiles ruled the Earth?

460m BC Africa wasn't full of useless eaters who needed to be wiped out to make Dark Continent Vacationland pristine, so no one bothered to check the temperature.

[rac]

Did they ever think of building a fence to keep the growing mammal population out?

[Cindy]

Whether or not global warming is scientifically true is only part of it. For something to be true it must be both scientifically and politically true. Since the republicans won all the elections yesterday means that the global warmings is not true because it is not idealogically and politically true. The global warming doesn't exist because it is too small, it is just a liberal plot concocted to stop Bush from fighting for our rights in Iraq, because Hussein caused 911.

[Tman]

That's some quality crazy you got there. Does it come in to-go packs or do you have to finish it in-store?

[George Carlin]

Cindy, did you know that the King of Norway uses my penis as a radio transmitter to broadcast anti-Semitic lesbian meatloaf recipes to Soupy Sales and Marvin Hamlisch?

[Old Mexican]

Re: Cindy,

Since the republicans won all the elections [sic] yesterday means [sic] that the global warmings [sic] is not true because it [sic] is not idealogically and politically true.

"Idealogically"? Logically, it's not ideal?

Also, since when did plural become singular in the same sentence?

You certainly had your "Obama is not a Keynesian! He's an American!" moment there...

[James Ard]

I really don't see the point of this. Other than an opportunity for government to claim there's a problem that needs central planning to solve.

[John]

Posting monthly climate statistics is Ron Bailey's rosary.

[Tman]

And only starting in 1978. I understand that Ron does this because it's the earliest we have official data that includes a wider variety of sources, but it's farking ridiculous to use this as a baseline, and borderline unscientific.

I prefer a more realistic outlook on global temperature.

[John]

I hate the way he calls things "warmest on record" implying that thirty two years of records means anything.

[wylie]

But LOOK at that red line! If it keeps going the way it is, water won't be able to remain liquid by next June!!!11one

[joshua corning]

I really don't see the point of this.

The story goes like this. Ron was a skeptic but he hung his skepticism on one piece of information: That the satellite and weather station data did not match. Then a mistake was found with the satellite data that slightly raised the data to be more in line with the weather station data. Ron then switched from a skeptic to a believer....there was tons of other information that confirmed that global warming was not happening due to CO2 emissions but Ron had hung his hat.

Now he posts monthly stats trying to convince himself he was right to accept the "consensus"

[Patriot Mike]

I'm just glad gov't solved the glaciers that advanced and receded over Ohio several times. Before libertarians walked the earth. Would have been a bitch to scrape the ol' windshield of 1 mile of ice.

[Jack]

I had to walk ten miles to school each day on top of a glacier.

[wylie]

To be fair, you school WAS closer to home before that glacier picked it up.

[Old Mexican]

Weather is not climate!

Uh . . . unless weather confirms AGW. Then it is climate.

That's how the cookie crumbles in "tingling-up-my-leg" land.

[Fatty Bolger]

I like how they call AGW skeptics "climate change deniers."

Show me one person who denies that the climate ever changes! That's your climate change denier. Good luck finding one.

[In Time of War]

Until the Baltic rises enough to refill Lake Malaren and the Vikings restore the trading city of Birka, I ain't really worried.
Then...from the fury of the Norsemen, etc. etc.

[sarcasmic]

If it weren't for cavemen driving SUVs we'd still be under a mile of glaciers.

[joshua corning]

cooler than the record set in 1998 during an El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event.

So 2010's El Nino was cooler then 1998's El Nino?

That looks like a trend of colder El Ninos over time.

[Fleeing Cali]

I think it's man's arrogance that causes people to jump on the 'global warming is going to destroy the world' bandwagon. To get worked up over it you have to 1)ignore the fact that the earth was both much cooler and much hotter before man existed than it is today and 2)This we can fix/reverse it if we make a few changes.

From talking to friends, I notice there is a high correlation between atheism and gaia/global warming fervor. This leads me to believe that global warming is filling some deep seeded human need for religion.

I've long supposed there was something genetically wrong with me for believing neither in traditional religon or new-age beliefs and various end of the world scenarios (including AGW.)

The 'spiritual need' gene must have skipped me.

[bookworm]

I'm another atheist who doesn't accept the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming religion.

[Torontonian]

ditto.

[Fleeing Cali]

There's some of us. But I still think that the overwhelming number of 'true believers' of AGW would otherwise describe themselves as atheist. I think there are different types of atheists. Some don't believe in religious gods because they either just don't like them, or don't think it's cool. But they want to believe in SOMETHING (AGW, ghosts, 2012, etc.) Then there are those of us who are broken that just don't have faith in anything.

I actually 'tried' being religious in my youth. I wanted to believe, but I just couldn't.

[John]

Good for you. Atheists who buy into that crap, especially ones who pursue symbolic but meaningless actions like buying hybrid cars prove the old canard "the danger of people not believing in God is not that they will believe in nothing. It is that they will believe in anything".

[Mike M.]

This temperature trend bullcrap just reminded me that arguably the best part about yesterday's election results is that the so-called "Cap and Trade" bill that our current vile House of Representatives barely snuck through a year and a half ago is now officially dead as a doornail.

For that alone the American voters deserve a huge dose of all our gratitude.

[Fear]

the dead duck congress.

[joshua corning]

Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade

This comes out to be +1.4 C per century which is well below IPCC's estimates and well below the claim that a doubling of CO2 will cause from +3 C to +6 C per century.

In fact it is pretty close to the +1.2 C per century warming expected with a doubling of CO2 without forcings. (There really is only one forcing: climate models assume the increases heat will cause more water vapor to accumulate which in turn will cause more warming)

It should also be noted that there is a saturation point. At around 600ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration all the IR radiation is absorbed. So no matter how much more CO2 you add it is impossible to get more heat retention....there simply is no more heat for CO2 to absorb and prevent from escaping. It should also be noted that even if the water vapor forcing is true (more heat causes more water vapor) that there still will not be any IR radiation for the water vapor to absorb.

[jtuf]

Hmmm. Stable during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, rising during Clinton's administration, stable during Bush Jr.'s rule, and rising during Obama's presidency. Base on a statistical review of the data, you can conclude that Liberals bring on a fiery wrath.

[angus]

This rise in global temperatures proves big government is destroying the planet. It corrolates therefore that small government is the solution to climate change.

[coarsetad]

Here's an interesting scenario to ponder:

For billions of years the Earth has gradually been slowly cooling. Cumulating with the start of cyclical ice ages several millions years ago.

Possible cause of these ice ages?
Larger and larger amounts of atmospheric carbon is being sequestered in the form of fossil fuels taking it out of the normal carbon cycle.
Locked deep in the lithosphere, this carbon is outside the reach of most carbon recyclers (bacteria, fungi, etc). Each ton of oil or coal formed results in smaller heat capacity of the atmosphere; slowly turning this planet into a frozen wasteland. As the ice ages become more and more bleak; a new species evolves with capacity to access these lost carbon sources and return it to the normal carbon cycle. The presence of this lithospheric carbon consumer causes a replacment of the locked atmospheric carbon which, in turn, brings an end to the periodic ice ages and restores a long term climatic balance to the planet.

Every species that has lived on this planet has changed it. It's inevitable and unstoppable; but few people stop to think that it may be beneficial.

[nfl jerseys]

two