chubbs

Water vapor feedback is very well established in climate models and observations. The feedback is well explained by basic thermodynamic theory (below). https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/27/19/7432/34587/An-Analytical-Model-for-Tropical-Relative-Humidity

Yes, NCEP is unreliable vs other re-analysis products. This was established 10 years ago, yet climate4you continues to display the unreliable data. I don't trust any chart from that site. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2010JD014192

Below is upper troposphere humidity (UTH) chart from recently released AMS state of the climate report. As expected, relative humidity in the upper troposphere is flat, indicating an increase in water vapor since temperatures are increasing. Many of the charts on the "climate4you" site are bad data or misleading. https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/state-of-the-climate/

There is no way to isolate an urban heat island effect from Chesco's plot because he has inappropriately combined different stations into a single record for comparison to the Philadelphia airport. Per the chart below, the pre-1950 data from Coatesville ( a steel town) has a warm bias. Also the Coatesville data are collected at a site that is further south and lower elevation than the post-1983 data. The second chart below shows that Chesco's recent data (C2WKQMS+E Nant) are warming at roughly the same rate as the Philadelphia airport (phl) and the region as a whole.

Unusual late-season surface melt has dropped NSIDC area slightly below 2012. Looks like we are headed for a strong #2 on most metrics.

From Hanson's latest monthly temp report. Raising of the lower ECS bound consistent with the recent spike in global temperature, well above the 1970-2015 trend. https://mailchi.mp/1342a49ee5d3/july-2020-global-temperature-update

Near-term forecast of global temperatures based on surface temperature patterns i.e. ENSO, PDO etc. Dots show how method has performed. Website will be updated monthly - site has links to a paper describing method. https://www.weatherclimatehumansystems.org/global-temperature-forecast

GISS at record levels for April edging 2016. Keeps a record possible this year; depends on ENSO and spring/summer fall off.

Stations observing a record mean temperature for the month of March. Consistent with warm GOM. Severe/tropical dice have an extra snake eye.

This year staying within striking distance of 2016

Here is UAH6 - RSS. Almost a decade of cooling in UAH6 relative to RSS after the MSU to AMSU transition in 1998. Recently introduction of satellites with limited diurnal drift has reduced the trend differences between RSS+UAH (see link above).

Will need to see more evidence re; smoke/volcano. Spencer is missing the two obvious factors for UAH warmth: GHG and improved satellites with no diurnal drift. Evidence for the last point is the UAH trace - the period after the 2016 nino is much warmer relative to the super nino peak than the period after the 1998 nino. What happened in 1998? the MSU to AMSU transition. Scientists still don't know which satellite was right NOAA-14 or NOAA-15. UAH picked the colder satellite, of course, which looks like the wrong choice when compared against other series. Meanwhile per the article below, recent satellites have essentially no diurnal drift, with very stable performance for climate detection. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/10/eaau0049.full

Unfortunately, we have been running above the trend-line used for the prediction the past 4 or 5 years.

Winter temps From Karsten Haustein's twitter.

Summit station is a research site, uninhabited, 10500', Jan avg temp is around -40C, short record (roughly 30 years, with gaps), apparently not an all-time site record (colder temp in March 2011 below), during an extreme strat polar vortex event when mid and upper troposphere was very cold. With no background on technical aspects of the record in the article, looks more like an opportunity to cherry pick and whine about the media.

Meanwhile in Antarctica, the recent record wasn't an isolated event. Temperatures have been well above normal all summer (4th from top). Surface melting has been off the charts (2nd from top), causing below average surface mass balance (top) despite average snowfall ( link). http://climato.be/cms/index.php?climato=the-2020-melt-season-over-antarctica-as-simulated-by-marv3-10

Thanks, the article made me chuckle: "Rarely, for the times we’re in (where historically low solar activity is weakening the jet stream, reverting it’s usual tight zonal flow to a wavy meridional one), the cold air has actually remained locked in the Arctic Circle, and the results have been punishing for the region. Though skipping forward 7-or-so-days, another violent buckling of the jet stream looks due to arrive by mid-January, and should once-again funnel dangerously cold polar air masses to the lower-latitudes. Watch out North America, as according to latest GFS runs, a pulse of brutal Arctic air will have engulfed practically all of Canada by Jan 09, and should have swept the Central & Western U.S. by Jan 17: This could be big. Prepare. The cold times are returning, in line with historically low solar activity. The jet stream is weakening, diverting brutal polar cold to the lower-latitudes:"

Decent shot at a record this year https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/202001/supplemental/page-2

This years decadal forecast from UK MetOffice. " The forecast remains towards the mid to upper end of the range simulated by CMIP5 models that have not been initialised with observations (green shading in Figure 3). " https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/long-range/decadal-fc/index

You are right. The earth's climate varies. When CO2 is high - hothouse; when CO2 is low - ice age. The change we are causing now is no big deal to the planet as a whole. It will shrug it off and keep on ticking. It may be problematic to us and other species though due to the speed at which it is occurring. When we came out of the last ice age the earth warmed at a rate of roughly 1C per 1000 years, currently we are warming at 1C per 50 years. During the last ice age - 2 million hunter gatherers were able to adapt - they could move as ecosystems changed. Different situation today.

Watch the video, Australia is a big country. Fires in unpopulated dryland is not the same as fire in forested SE with more towns, people.

You don't have to go back very far to for record high global temperatures, December for example.

Here are 0 to 700m ocean temperatures. Your estimate is pretty good. The top 100m have warmed twice as fast.

From Lijeng Cheng's twitter - 2019 ended on a high note.

Haven't seen the commercial. Natural gas is better than coal, but need to get to zero emissions eventually to halt warming. Most of the improvement in long-term outlook is due to the big cost drops this decade for solar, wind and batteries. For me highest priority is introducing some kind of carbon pricing, which would improve economics of nuclear and all other improvement options.