Global Temperature Trend Update - April 2013

Credit: Dreamstime

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 April 2013:

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

April temperatures (preliminary)

Global composite temp.: +0.10 C (about 0.18 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.

Northern Hemisphere: +0.12 C (about 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.

Southern Hemisphere: +0.09 C (about 0.16 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.

Tropics: +0.17 C (about 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.

Go here to see the monthly satellite data from 1978 to the present.

Comments

[Zakalwe]

Who farted radon?

[Lord Humungus]

radioactive cows?

[Episiarch]

Yawn. In much more interesting weather news, it was 81 degrees and perfect in Seattle yesterday (and today). This can last until real summer comes! It can if I just believe hard enough!

[some guy]

The East Coast is cold. Too cold. You stole our weather!

[Episiarch]

And you can't have it back!

[entropy]

It's not "global warming" it's a more equitable "tropic redistribution".

[Apatheist ?_??]

On a related note a cold front blew through Houston and it was in the 70s and sunny all weekend. This can last until fall comes if I just believe hard enough.

[Joe M]

I spent the entire weekend outside. It was glorious.

[some guy]

This can last until fall comes if I just believe hard enough.

I've been to Houston in summer. Good luck with that believin'. You're going to need it.

[CharlesWT]

We had record breaking low temperatures in north central Texas last Friday.

[Pro Libertate]

It's 75? here--in May. WTF?

[Auric Demonocles]

That does sound pretty high. Maybe this global warming thing is onto something. That's more like July weather.

[Pro Libertate]

I don't recall a spring this cool in Florida in the whole time I've lived here. I'm storing up some animal skins, just in case.

[Auric Demonocles]

I didn't realize python skin made good insulation.

[Sevo]

Great minds, AD...

[Pro Libertate]

No, it's strictly useful for wetsuits. We'll have to import skins from our leading trading partner, Nunavut.

[Pro Libertate]

Auric, on a different note, have I proposed this series before?

Pro Libertate| 5.6.13 @ 1:49PM |#

I still want my new Star Trek series proposal to get picked up: The Odd Couple.

Kirk and Khan get trapped in a time travel accident that indefinitely leaves them in the 1970s in New York. Forced by necessity to enter into a truce until they can return to the 23rd century, they get an apartment together and get jobs until they can resolve the temporal anomaly. Kirk is very neat and orderly; Khan is a slob. Hijinks ensue.

[Episiarch]

Wouldn't Kirk be the slob? Khan's a little too anal to be the slob. And where does Spock fit in? Is he the doorman like Bentley on The Jeffersons?

"You have been, and always shall be, my tenant."

[Pro Libertate]

Come on. Did you see the mess that was Khan's quarters? His clothes? He's a big picture, don't bother me with the details kind of guy.

Kirk is military. He's also very organized and points out the slightest error in his underlings. Sure, he breaks the rules, but those are other people's rules.

The one difference between him and Felix is that he will score weekly, all while Khan keeps pointing out that he could change the future, which doesn't really bother him that much, since the future sucks for him.

[Pro Libertate]

I didn't answer the rest of your question. I'm thinking just Kirk and Khan, with an episode here or there where Spock or someone else either shows up for a while, attempting rescue, or maybe can communicate with Kirk by voice only, giving you the Carlton the Doorman effect.

[Loki]

And they open a pizza place with Kirk Cameron, right?

[Pro Libertate]

No.

[Loki]

OK, but you at least end every episode with Kirk screaming "KAAAAAAAHHHHHHHNNNNNN!!!!!," right? 'Cause I would watch the hell out that as long as that's how every episode ends. Or at least happens at some point during the episode.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, that would be a regular line, kind of like "Kid Dyn-O-Mite" or "Ayyyyyyyy."

[Auric Demonocles]

If it's a cliffhanger-two parter, does he still yell Kahn in each part? Or is that the clue that it is 'To Be Kahntinued"?

[Pro Libertate]

I don't think you can overdo the Khan. One episode, for instance, will be called "Khan Game," where Khan cons Kirk into doing his dishes.

[Episiarch]

And then the canned "mwah mwah mwah" would play.

[Pro Libertate]

Laugh track? I can't decide.

[Episiarch]

Unquestionably. How could you even ask?

[Pro Libertate]

Well, there is the live studio audience option.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, and just for the record, when they occasionally have fisticuffs (I mean, they are archenemies), the "Star Trek Fightin' Song" plays.

[Auric Demonocles]

They should enter a boxing tournament for some prize money they desperately need for some reason.

[Pro Libertate]

And Khan should have a motorcycle and jump some sharks in the first episode.

[Auric Demonocles]

And he crashes the motorcycle into a house and they need to money to fix the house! Perfect.

[Pro Libertate]

Maybe Khan also does a sideline as a porn producer.

[Auric Demonocles]

He is obviously especially gifted.

[Auric Demonocles]

I assume Kahn has some job that he can use his superior abilities to exceed in? Or do you plan to stick him in some crap job and have him angry that his superior genetics aren't helping him get ahead in the janitorial field?

[Pro Libertate]

I was thinking about making him a sports reporter. Since he's from around the same time, he can be uncannily accurate in some of his predictions. We'll just assume that he followed baseball for some reason and, of course, soccer.

[Auric Demonocles]

Now I know you said Kirk was banging all over the place while Kahn wasn't, but I think Kahn should do the nasty in the pasty once and it can be implied that the resulting child is used as part of the basis for his genetically engineered DNA in 20 years, thus making him his own grand-template.

[Pro Libertate]

That's fine. I didn't mean to imply Khan would be celibate.

[Zakalwe]

Speaking of excellent Star Trek ideas, I watched JJ Abrahms' Super 8 last night, thinking I was going to watch Chronicle.

It was an impressively terrible reboot of ET.

[Episiarch]

That's too bad, Chronicle is quite good. plus it has some really good Seattle location-shot porn in it, though it was actually filmed in South Africa.

[JW]

I thought you lived in Washington state?

[Sevo]

"I'm storing up some animal skins, just in case."

Alligator coats?

[Pro Libertate]

We have deer. And some bears. And five or six wild cats.

[Auric Demonocles]

And that type of turkey that is only available in like 3 guys' lawns.

[Pro Libertate]

We have wild turkey and wild boar. And some now-wild monkeys.

[Auric Demonocles]

You guys think you are too good for an eastern turkey.

[Pro Libertate]

Florida is slowly being converted to Australia in its insanely dangerous fauna, so leave me alone.

[Episiarch]

We have the air conditioning on in the office. In May. I can go swimming after work. This shit is amazing. Suck it, Florida!

[BakedPenguin]

Ha ha ha! We mock you.

[Pro Libertate]

We see the sun close to 300 days a year here. And I don't mean on our monitors like you.

When you see the sun, do you worship it like a god?

[kinnath]

In the last week, we had 85 degrees one day followed by a major blizzard two days later, followed by major thunders storms the next couple of days, then 70s today and tomorrow, and then we dive back into the 50s for the weekend.

This is the fucking weirdest spring I have ever seen.

[Pro Libertate]

Fucking ice ages suck.

[kinnath]

No shit

[Clich? Bandit]

holycrap You live in Colorado?

[Clich? Bandit]

By the way, That is typical out here...our weather casters get a raise for being right 5% of the time...if they reach 7% there is a party at Mile High.

[Old Man With Candy]

Sounds like our area (northern Illinois).

[Episiarch]

No, I stand in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at me.

[Pro Libertate]

I have that dream all of the time.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Suddenly I want lots and lots of popcorn.

[Zakalwe]

You and Dunphy, but who else did they cut the pickles off?

[AlexInCT]

Liars.. you both dream about little coctail weeniers in a Freudian kind of way...

[Francisco d Anconia]

Sir, let me take this moment to compliment you on your fashion sense, particularly your slippers.

[A Serious Man]

It was almost 90 last week and today it's raining. I like our bipolar Southern California weather.

[CE]

Even when half the state is burning down?

[Loki]

We got snow in Denver last Wednesday. And then it was ~60 degrees and sunny this weekend. We've actually gotten mid-week snow fall the last several weeks and then a nice huge warm-up in time for the weekend. Springtime in CO. The weather could do literally anything from one day to the next.

[some guy]

Arctic sea ice extent is about 2 stdev below historic mean. Of course, history in this case only goes back to 1979.

[Suthenboy]

Didnt some ballsy dudes from the nordic regions sail around the north atlantic where there is currently ice, and name some island they ran across, which is also currently iced over, 'greenland'? I think they might have even farmed there.

[Ron]

The norther passage has been ope 5 times in since man started exploring it.
BTW the antarctic sea ice continues to grow. no link just google it.

[Tony]

Please do google it and make sure to click on the link that explains where this is a bullshit lie.

[KPres]

When I google it the first 15 sites are all left-wing alarmists sites saying that yes, in fact the sea ice has expanding...just that this is evidence of global warming, of course!

I think you need to read up on the party line some, Tony.

[Juice]

Tony, are you a science denier with respect to Antarctica gaining ice?

[DesigNate]

Tony is anti-science if it upsets his apple cart.

[some guy]

I hear they raised cattle and grapes there too. But that was, like, at least 100 years ago, so who cares, right?

[CE]

Does history include the last Ice Age, or any of those before? Or does history only begin with automobile manufacturing?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

History begins precisely where the data will best serve the narrative. It's been a long time tactic of warmists to only go back as far as is convenient to the point that they're trying to prove.

There was a "study" done a while ago that shows that hurricanes are increasing in frequency and power. Of course, it only used data back to the 1970s when there were very very weak hurricane seasons and shows up to today where there's a fairly normal (but weakening) hurricane season. If you pull the rest of the data going back to the beginning of when we started tracking these things... oops, our hurricane seasons aren't so "extreme" after all.

[Auric Demonocles]

What happened to that sinusoidal black line that was around for a while?

[Richard]

It's a polynomial curve fit. Here:

http://www.heurtley.com/richard/201303.png

[kinnath]

30 years isn't even long enough to be fucking noise.

[Auric Demonocles]

Isn't the "weather is not climate" thing supposed to mean you need 7 years for it to be called climate? If you did a 7 year running average it looks like it would be basically constant until 98, then spike up and settle at a new constant value after that.

[kinnath]

5 years ago, we had a 500 year flood that wiped out a huge chunk of downtown. Last year we had a 300 year drought that killed thousands of mature evergreen trees around the area. Last week, we had a 100 year snowfall in May (my departed grandmother remembered seeing snow in May once during her life).

I reject the notion that the thousand year trend that constitutes the "hockey stick" is actually representative of anything other than the climate changes all the fucking time.

So a 7 year trend means not that damn much.

[Auric Demonocles]

I believe you entirely misunderstood the point I was making.

[kinnath]

Could well be. One of the hazards of using one eye to do work and the other eye to monitor a thread at H&R.

[John]

And perhaps the "500 year flood" and the "300 year drought" were not 300 and 500 year events like previously thought?

[kinnath]

The 500 year flood was a weird thing. There had been massive rains storms up river in the days (basically week) before and river was rising. They day that the peak river level hit the local town, there was a full day of hard rain (4 inches in about 8 hours) that caused localized flash flooding that hit the river just as the peak arrived from upstream.

A couple of weeks later, somebody found a 40 year old report from someone that analyzed almost exactly that same event. This was purely the equivalent of rolling snake eyes and had nothing to do with climate change.

As for the drought, there was a report about a month ago that showed how the drought was a freak occurence that had nothing to do with climate change.

Chaotic system produce occasional extreme events. That's it.

[John]

That is true. But systems also change. And what is an extreme outcome can become less extreme because the system changed. Just because that flood only happened once every 500 years on average in the past, doesn't mean it will forever occur at that interval.

[kinnath]

If there had been a major change of land use from agriculture to industrial or residential then you would expect the flood models (and the 100 & 500 year flood levels) would change.

That has not happened. In fact, during 1993 when every city along the uppper Mississippi flooded out and people were waterskiing in cornfields around here, the river did not top the flood walls.

The flood 5 years ago was about 20 feet over flood stage even though the cities upstream did not top the flood walls and the cities downstream had flooding but not as bad. It was an extremely localized occurence.

[John]

That would be because of the levy system. You can't levy the entire river. So building them just ensures that the flooding is worse somewhere else. They should have never built on the flood plain and let the river do its thing.

[kinnath]

150 years too late to come to that conclusion. Some small towns have gotten smart and used FEMA funds to pick up and move to safe, dry land.

Some of us said they should bulldoze down everything that got flooded and build a green-belt, park system out of the land. And they are doing this with alot of the houses in the 100 year flood plain.

But everyone in the fucking county gets to pay an extra 1% sales tax to help build bigger and higher levies to protect the business district.

I say fuck'em all, but I only get one vote and the lemmings are in control.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Thanks to Climate Change, I had to mow my lawn this weekend. Nine or ten acres of overgrown, wet grass. Because of Climate Change, I burned up quite a bit of diesel into the atmosphere. How can we fight Climate Change if Climate Change won't let us?

[some guy]

9-10 acres? Damn. Where I come from we call that a pasture, not a lawn.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yeah, I am always tempted to let it go to pasture. I don't have farm animals and I don't have neighbors, but once I let it grow up again it will be tough to get it cut down again.

Looking at it like a yard makes me feel like I have something. The other part of my land is useless crap.

[Juice]

Goats.

[Suthenboy]

Hint for FoE: There is no profit in grass (unless you have cattle, in which case you dont mow )

You are mowing ten acres of grass? Christ man, plant some trees. Plant a garden. Where are you? What region?

[Bobarian]

Install a driving range or shooting range.

[Fist of Etiquette]

My old man and my uncle use it as such.

[some guy]

Maybe he's a real-life Forrest Gump. Mowing has been his hobby ever since his knees gave out.

[John]

It snowed in Arkansas in May for the first time in recorded history. History that goes back to 1819. That is one hell of an outlier. Sure, outliers happen. But shouldn't cold outliers not be occurring if the world is warming?

I would also note that 97-98 and 2010-11 were both El Nino warming periods. But the 10-11 peak is lower than the 97-98 peak. Again, it seems that if we are warming at some unnatural pace that wouldn't happen.

Meanwhile about ten years ago a group of Russian solar astrophysicists predicted that climate was driven by the sun and the world would begin cooling in 2012-13. And right on cue, the spring of 2013 is very cold. Perhaps it is a lucky coincidence.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Meanwhile about ten years ago a group of Russian solar astrophysicists predicted that climate was driven by the sun and the world would begin cooling in 2012-13. And right on cue, the spring of 2013 is very cold. Perhaps it is a lucky coincidence.

Ah, yes, coincidence. Just like it will be a coincidence that once AGW is no longer a supportable claim due to no warming, they will "coincidentally" find new evidence or theory that shows that we're causing Global Cooling (again).

"Huh, seems we were just holding the graphs upside down these last few decades."

[John]

Just like it was a coincidence that global warming became a cause celbre on the Left in the early 1990s right after the fall of communism.

[kinnath]

I found a scholarly document last fall that was published in the end of the 90s. This scholar was predicting massive famines around the world as the ice age kicked which his data showed was already starting to happen.

[Killazontherun]

Back in 2009 I had an argument with Chad where he stated that 10-11 would be bad years for for skeptics because of El Nino (regular patterns in the Northern hemisphere and Pacific happening to reach peak activity in their cycles at the same time). I asked him, so you understand what is occurring but you actually prefer to fear monger to advance your agenda? That is why I hate those people.

[John]

And even with all of that, 10-11 were not particularly warm.

[Auric Demonocles]

I had completely forgotten about Chad.

[Clich? Bandit]

Chad...lol

I miss our old trolls, where is Joe (RHETORICAL, NO I am not going to go over there to find him), LoneDipshit, Chad and Chony. Now we get the likes of Shriek and Mary...the sorry state of H&R

[John]

If they were still on here, they would be saying the same stupid shit Shreek says. It is not that Leftists have gotten dumber or these leftists are any dumber than the ones we had in the past. It is just as things have gotten worse, what can be said in defense of leftism has gotten smaller and smaller and more ridiculous.

[Killazontherun]

What ever happened to the great men of yore who walked amongst us with the jaws of cobras strapped to their ballsacks? Men like MNG and El Derondo?

[Clich? Bandit]

i have now destroyed company property (keyboard + nose coffee) due to your negligence in dispensing blisteringly funny humor...please let me know where to send the bill.

[Killazontherun]

http://www.schummer.senate.gov/public/contact

[Auric Demonocles]

Don't forget OrangeLineSpecial.

You know, maybe he's the guy who is in person for that YouTube video.

[John]

And one question, at what point do wildfires in California stop being newsworthy? I cannot remember a time when there wasn't huge wildfires in California every year. Yet, they are still treated as some kind of exceptional event. If they happen every year, they are not newsworthy and anyone who is victimized by them was kind of asking for it.

[BakedPenguin]

These were unexpected wildfires. That happened at government economist's houses, apparently.

[John]

Of course California isn't the only place in the world where there is a lot of brush, a long dry season and occasional high winds. Yet, California seems to get more wildfires. That couldn't be due to California's insane environmental laws making it impossible to clear out brush or do anything to reduce the fire risk. Right?

[itsnotmeitsyou]

No, John... That's just one of those "coincidences"

[Whahappan?]

This is called "bad luck."

[Jesus H. Christ]

Part of it is forest management, ie. not allowing forest fires at all. They do controlled burns now, which, of course, have set off some horrible fires. A nasty fire was set by a forestry service employee burning a letter from her boyfriend. Irony much?

Anyway, it's odd to have large fires so early. They usually hit a few months later, after summer has turned everything brown.

Lastly, some fires are started naturally by summer lightning strikes in the Sierras.

[cavalier973]

Is it true that "nine out of ten wildfires are caused by humans"?

Because that's what Smokey says.

[SugarFree]

They have the Superbowl each year and people still find millions of hours of time to run their mouths about it.

[John]

But that is different each year. It snows every year in Minnesota. Yet for some reason people never find that to be such a surprise.

[SugarFree]

I seen news coverage of Minnesota snow all winter.

[John]

On the Weather Channel maybe.

[Generic Stranger]

People in California seem to lack the concept of defensible space. Fuck 'em.

[some guy]

Just like when the Mississippi/Missouri/Red river floods. You people know this is going to happen. It happens every year. No one but you cares, so stop talking about it.

[John]

The Red River people are about to get on my last nerve. We have had three "historic floods" up there in the last 15 years, 97, sometime in the mid 00s and now they think this year. Maybe you ought to stop rebuilding there? Just a thought.

[SugarFree]

And if they didn't cover the floods it would be "coastal media elites don't care about deaths in 'flyover country.'"

[some guy]

The only outlets covering these floods should be YouTube and AFV.

[Ron]

I agree and as a Californian I'm already bored to death with the screams about fire. You'll like this sky is falling.
On dry years they warn of us of the high fire danger due to how dry it is and on the wet years they warn us about the high fire danger due to all the grass that grew. Just face it every year is a high fire danger thats the way nature made it.

[Francisco d Anconia]

So, what happened to the hockey stick Al? Wasn't Florida supposed to be under three feet of water by now?

[John]

Google "first victim of global warming sometime". You find media story after story going back to 2002 about this that and everything "could be the first victim of global warming". Being the first victim of global warming is like being Sasquatch. The guy that finds you is going to be a very famous person.

[Killazontherun]

By 2009 you may never see snow again in your life time.

[Clich? Bandit]

except for May 2013 Denver

[John]

And May 2013 in Arkansas and Kansas City. People in places that are used to snow will some day have to explain to their kids what it was like. Or they could just wait for the five to eight inch snow storm Kansas City got in the first week of May.

[Paul.]

It's the warmest year in recorded records!

[Suthenboy]

If yall want to know what all the weird weather is about, have a look at the jet stream.

Again Bailey, there is no AGW. I would be very hesitant to call a fraction of a degree above the 30 yr average warming.

I planted my garden in mid-march like always, betting we wouldnt have another freeze. I lost the bet and half my tomatoes and all of the cucumbers. I replanted the tomatoes and now they are all doing fine. I have some squash on the plants already, and the tomatoes are blooming like mad. Peppers too...I cant wait for them. It has been cool here, down into the 40's at night even, but very pleasant in the day.

In a bit I will be off to the bayou to land some more catfish. I think I will the biggest one I catch 'Al' and then pull his skin off.

This cool weather has made for some amazing fishing. I have around 20 lbs of catfish filets already. I will be frying them this weekend.

[Pro Libertate]

The blueberries here have been exceptionally good. And I harvested two very nice tomatoes from my one and only tomato plant.

[some guy]

Blackberries are rocking also. It's truly been a blackberry winter. Should be a tasty summer.

[Suthenboy]

Where are you?

Central Louisiana here.

Wait...I hear something.

*goes to window and cups ear*

The catfish are calling me. I will be back later.

[Clich? Bandit]

I have now planted flowers and veggies THREE TIMES!!!

First time I told her "Don't" ...didnt listen.

Second time I said "see NOW we are OK", then 8" of snow...fucking karma

[Clich? Bandit]

ohh...IN MAY

[OldMexican]

Global composite temp.: +0.10 C (about 0.18 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for April.

So much for the 2 to 3 deg C raise in mean temps that the AGW proponents had seen with the Eye of the Graeae, or something, 30 years ago...

[some guy]

Every time a new IPCC report comes out you can look at the low end of the error bars on their most "conservative" prediction and figure that is the upper-bound on what will actually happen.

[John]

Funny how those things get thrown in the trash after the couple of weeks of propaganda they produce after they are released isn't it? For some reason, no one ever seems to want to pull and old one off the shelf and compare the predictions to reality.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Just search google for "failed climate change predictions". The rate at which they move the goalposts would give Tulpa pause.

[OldMexican]

Indeed!

For instance: http://wattsupwiththat.com/201.....edictions/

Claim 1989: "Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010." Associated Press, May 15, 1989.

Data: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1989. And U.S. temperature has increased even less over the same period.

[Auric Demonocles]

You mean kind of like this?

[John]

They were doing okay for a couple of years there around the turn of the century. Now not so much.

[CE]

So the normal year-to-year temperature variation is +/- 0.4 degrees C, and we're running about 0.1 to 0.3 degrees warm lately, so we're within normal variation. Got it.

[WomSom]

Oh it is what it is dude, I like it.

http://www.Total-Anon.tk