Global Temperature Trend Update - 2013 Was Fourth Hottest Year

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Every month University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer report the latest global temperature trends from satellite data. According to Christy, 2013 was the fourth warmest year since the satellite data era began in 1979, trailing only 1998, 2010 and 2005. Just in time for the launch of the annual United Nations' climate change conference in Warsaw in November, the World Meteorological Organization reported that 2013 was on track to be the seventh warmest year since 1850.

Below are the newest satellite data updated through December 2013:

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

December temperatures (preliminary)

Global composite temp.: +0.27 C (about 0.49 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.

Northern Hemisphere: +0.27 C (about 0.49 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.

Southern Hemisphere: +0.26 C (about 0.47 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.

Tropics: +0.06 C (about 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for December.

Roy Spencer

Go here to download monthly satellite temperature data since 1978.

Comments

[Enough About Palin]

Every month University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer

Hey Sugarfree. You know these guys?

[SugarFree]

Wrong University. Mine's the one with the moonshine and seedy state park weed.

[Copernicus]

"Every month University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer"

Every month Ronald Bailey writes essentially the SAME FUCKING STORY!!

Hey Ron, Nobody should give a flying fuck what the Global Temperature is doing on a monthly or yearly basis, and if you do, that just proves you are the idiot I have suspected for quite some time.

"the World Meteorological Organization reported that 2013 was on track to be the seventh warmest year since 1850."

Fuck you again. Global Temperature records from the year 1850? What was the margin of error back then, +/- one bear skin parka?

[Enough About Palin]

Also, why against the 30-year average?

[Ron Bailey]

E: Everybody uses a baseline. For example, the WMO report referenced in the post averages the temperatures between 1961 to 1990 as its baseline.

[robc]

Rolling baseline is better than static baseline.

As Ive pointed out to you nearly every month.

[robc]

Rolling has the advantage as it acknowledges that there is no period of time which is the "correct" temperature.

Same reason stock markets use rolling trend lines (you do use the 13 month one, which is weird...12 month I could see, but 13?)

[kinnath]

Current month plus and minus N samples is always a odd number of samples.

[robc]

Gotcha. I thought the red line was going all the way to the end, but it isnt, I dont think.

If only the graphics blew up in size when clicked.

[Note to Ron: that last line was a suggestion]

[Clich? Bandit]

they do on the original site linked below.

[robc]

Yeah, I saw that. Even more reason for Ron to make it happen in his posts. The image can link to the large image at the original site.

[GILMORE]

And *I* continue to point out that James Jamerson and Chuck Rainey's basslines are better than any other ones ever for the rest of time so there.

[Lurker Jack]

You are correct, Gilmore.

[BakedPenguin]

Ahem.

I said, AHEM.

[Enough About Palin]

Why not 50 or 100 years?

[Ron Bailey]

E: Satellites have only been measuring temperatures since November 1978. Don't know why the WMO folks selected their baseline.

[Swiss Servator, Mehr Schnee!]

Hide the decline?

Here's the trick?

[Copernicus]

Which is why Gloval temperatures are cited from 1850?

[Copernicus]

Or "Global"

[robc]

Where was hot?

It was a year without a summer for me.

2012 was MUCH hotter.

[Ron Bailey]

r: Sorry about the baselines, but I just report what the climatologists - UAH and WMO - provide.

As far as where it was hot, this is what the UAH folks report:

The warmest areas during the year were over the North Pacific and the Antarctic, where temperatures for the year averaged more than 1.4 C (more than 2.5 degrees Fahenheit) warmer than normal. There were small areas of cooler than normal temperatures scattered about the globe, including one area over central Canada where temperatures were 0.6 C (about 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than the 30-year norm.

[robc]

Spreadsheets are real easy things to use.

Just sayin'.

Also, thanks. I wish your monthly updates had that info. "Northern Hemisphere" is a little large for figuring anything out. Regional breakdowns would be nice.

[Enough About Palin]

The warmest areas during the year were over the North Pacific and the Antarctic

So where those icebreakers are getting stuck then?

[R C Dean]

Allow me to pick a semantic bone with the UAH folks:

small areas of cooler than normal temperatures

"Normal" is an awfully loaded, even judgmental term. Now, I know that it can have a scientific usage (generally to modify the term "range", in my limited experience), but unless you give a clear definition of "normal", it has no (non-political) purpose in a report such as this.

So, what are they defining as a "normal" temperature, and what is their basis for doing so?

[Azathoth!!]

Wait--so this 'warming' was in areas where the temperature is routinely below freezing by multiple degrees--and the 1.4C 'rise' meant still below freezing?

When you're defining 'warming' as 'imperceptibly less bone chillingly cold' there are some serious problems.

especially when, in the areas of the globe that have large temperature swings, it was cooler.

[Copernicus]

"r: Sorry about the baselines, but I just report what the climatologists - UAH and WMO - provide."

That's my point. Just cause they report it doesn't mean you have to repeat it. It is worthless information. To "seriously" discuss monthly or yearly temperature changes is to give the liars and scam artists legitimacy.

Ron, do you print every Science report that crosses your crt or only the ones that make you feel warm and fuzzy?

[titmus]

Cold and fuzzy.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You weren't up in the stratosphere or mesosphere or wherever the satellites take their readings.

[robc]

You sure about that?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Well not anymore.

[tarran]

Where was hot?

Anthony Watts has a lovely set of maps showing the temperatrue anomalies.

[Clich? Bandit]

Perhaps I don't understand but December was a deep freeze for much of the northern hemisphere this year. We saw below zero for over a week (1/4 of the month) in the vast majority of North America. FFS, it was warmer in Gnome AK than Denver for two days (and no, not due to warming in Gnome). All the numbers seem to NOT reflect that big purple splotch that was on the globe temp maps.

[Zeb]

Perhaps I misunderstand you, but the purple splotch is lower temperatures than usual/average/whatever. But North America is not the whole world and the rest of the world has a lot of yellow and orange.

[BigT]

Don't forget that the satellites measure the temperatures at some elevation(s) above the ground. Ground temperatures could be quite different.

While satellite temperatures are the 'gold standard', there is much room for improvement. I am not sure there is a correct way to get a single temperature for the planet that accurately reflects the total energy of the earth.

[Zeb]

The black body temperature based on what the Earth radiates would be pretty close.

The satellites certainly don't tell us everything, but they do tell us something.
What really irritates me is that hardly anyone seems to want to know what exactly that is. It has become such a political issue that everyone seems to need to pick a side. But I just want to know because climate is an interesting an potentially useful thing to know about. Fuckers.

[Clich? Bandit]

There is no question that climate study is now fucked due to the stupidity of the last 40 years. Science hasn't seen such a setback since Galileo.

[Winston]

There is no question that climate study is now fucked due to the stupidity of the last 40 years. Science hasn't seen such a setback since Galileo.

True. The Antivaxxers and the Creationists must be having a field day since I doubt most people who support vaccines or evolution have a real understanding of the scientific theory.

If TOP. MEN scientists are wrong about climate change then what else are they wrong about?

[Clich? Bandit]

I was more referring to the "purple splotch" from three weeks ago of that big ass arctic front that froze my man parts off. A good portion of the Northern Hemisphere experienced record breaking cold for a week to two weeks. That does not seem reflected in a number like +.27 December...I am just curious why that is.

I should have been more descriptive. I did see the image on the linked site and was NOT referring to that.

[Zeb]

Ah, I see. I was a bit surprised that it was a warm year as well after such a cold Fall.

[Clich? Bandit]

I am not even referencing the year...they provide december numbers and they look high to me.

[Homple]

Temperatures, I understand. What are anomalies? Deviation from normal, yeah, but what is normal and who gets to define it, and why do they pick the basis they use?

[GILMORE]

A watched pot never boils

[Swiss Servator, Mehr Schnee!]

A watched Weeping Angel doesn't tear your face off?

[Clich? Bandit]

I hate them as enemies...daleks are better.

[AlmightyJB]

Not blinking sucks

[R C Dean]

To me, it still looks a punctuated equilibrium. A slightly lower range before the big El Nino, and a slightly higher range after.

The big question that chart presents to me is: did the El Nino somehow trigger the shift to the higher range? If so, how?

I'm also still wondering why the 2010 El Nino isn't labelled as such.

One thing I don't wonder is whether any of the much-touted models are consistent with this kind of punctuated equilibrium chart.

[Zeb]

What pisses me off the most about this debate is that there are a lot of really interesting questions about the climate, such as those that you ask, that no one is looking into. It's a very interesting subject and it might also be useful to actually know about climate systems in case there is any legitimately threatening climate change that people need to deal with, like another major glaciation.

[tarran]

One thing I don't wonder is whether any of the much-touted models are consistent with this kind of punctuated equilibrium chart.

No the models are completely incompatible with reality. They all run hot. Most of them run so hot that reality is outside their error bars (link points to central chart in the link above).

[some guy]

So, we know that only temperature measurements from the last ~35 years (satellite era) are (sort of) trustworthy. We also know that many mechnaisms that affect climate operate on timescales larger than 35 years. Furthermore, we know that the actual temperature has always been outside the confidence interval (low side) of every prediction ever made by models published by the IPCC.

What's the big deal?

[Homple]

The big deal is billions of dollars in research, green technology boondoggles, carbon tax revenues, carbon trading profits for the big financial houses, and a population sufficiently frightened of the Thermal Bogeyman to put up with crap like subsidized forests of ugly windmills, bans on incandescent light bulbs, more expensive energy, idiotic regulation....

That's the big deal.

[nailzer]

I assume nothing but temperature is read and weather conditions are excluded such as high pressure or low pressure systems that influence hot and cold temperatures?

[CE]

So once again, the supposed "trend" is within the average annual variation.

[Jayburd]

Argentina : Frost affects stonefruit in Mendoza

Mendoza has 55,000 hectares planted with fruit, 22% of the province's productive area. Of these, 39,400 hectares are stonefruit crops, which were severely damaged by the frosts in last September.

The October 2013 study indicates that, in the case of peaches (fresh and ) and fresh plum, 85% of the crops were lost, 35% of the plum, for processing, 75% of the cherry crops and 90% of the apricot crops were also lost.

Australian: Freeze destroys wine grapes

Some growers have reported losses of 50 to 100 per cent of their wine grape crops in low-lying areas in Murrumbateman, on the southern tablelands of New South Wales, near Canberra. Others say their vines survived unscathed.

Winemaker, Tim Kirk, from Clonakilla vineyard says overall he's lost 60 to 70 per cent of his fruit.

Chile: Worst cold in 80 years hammers fruit and grapes

The worst frost since 1929 has damaged 50 million boxes of Chilean fruit exports ? causing the country to declare a state of emergency in its agricultural sector.

The wine industry was hit hard by the frost as well.

Estimates put the total damage to Chilean crops at $1 billion. The damaged crops include almonds, kiwis, grapes, peaches, nectarines and plums. The U.S. imports about 42 percent of the country's grapes.

[Mumu Bobby]

All true but you have an agenda so it doesn't count.

[RishJoMo]

Sometimes man you jsut have to re up, its all good!

http://www.Total-Privacy.us

[thorax232]

And we know for a fact that this is natural and unavoidable. Next.