2015 Global Temperatures

[FloridaJohn]

The arctic sea ice summer minimum has declined since 1979 but the Antarctic sea ice is at or near record levels so global sea ice is near normal.

 

I just want to point out that this statement is false. As you can see from the chart below, the Arctic sea ice has decreased much more than the Antarctic sea ice has increased. This leads to a net loss in global sea ice.

 

[Isotherm]

I just want to point out that this statement is false. As you can see from the chart below, the Arctic sea ice has decreased much more than the Antarctic sea ice has increased. This leads to a net loss in global sea ice.

 

 

 

 

I believe you misinterpreted his statement. Yes, there's been a net loss, but currently global sea ice area is above normal, and generally has been for the past 2 years.

 

[AvantHiatus]

Just a blip on the downward trek.

[FloridaJohn]

I believe you misinterpreted his statement. Yes, there's been a net loss, but currently global sea ice area is above normal, and generally has been for the past 2 years.

 

 

Pehaps. You bring up an intersting point, which is what measurement is he referring to. My chart was Global Sea Ice Extent, yours is Global Sea Ice Area. As you know, those are two different measurements. It did get me thinking about the Volume measurement, which isn't measured as well in Antarctica as it is in the Arctic, but I did run across this paper from last year which says this about Antarctic Sea Ice Volume:

 

"This ice volume increase is an order of magnitude smaller than the Arctic decrease"

 

This particular study is based on modeling, since there are currently no direct measurements of Antarctic sea ice volume, but I thought it was interesting none the less. Overall, though, the trend for global sea ice is down, and I don't see how Antarctica will ever "make up" the loss of ice in the Arctic, aside from a year here or there where everything lines up (i.e. low loss in Arctic in same year as large gain in Antarctica). As the globe warms, it will become harder and harder to get those two conditions to line up.

 

In any case, the sea ice is not the concern, it is the land ice that will cause the problems to humans. There are reasons to believe, for example, that the additional sea ice in Antarctica is being caused by additonal melting of the land ice.

[Jonger]

There is definitely some internal tinkering... Data is being sexed up.

 

I'm basically done looking at this data. If the sexed up data leads to quicker transition off fossil fuels, great. I mean, that's probably the intent anyhow. My local weather has been unchanged, I can look at logs and cross check with surrounding sites, but new "data" shows my location warming much faster that the data I can see.

[Sophisticated Skeptic]

So basically all the warming in Maine (and other parts of the country) are due to adjustments. Nice. We are comparing apples to oranges. The satellite record does need adjustments for orbital drift but it goes both ways, colder at times and warmer at times too.  The surface record is warmer now, colder 100 years ago. It exaggerates the trends. Also climate stations measure microclimates too, especially on clear calm nights, like in winter for example. You move one of these stations you begin measuring another microclimate that is exaggerated on a calm cold night. Since most of these stations are located near humans the trend is up for nighttime mins. The best measure of temperature macroscopically is during a well-mixed atmosphere usually during the max temperature. Surface stations are just not a good measure of long term trends. And the oceans....bah. How do we know the oceans were so much colder 100 years ago. Give me a break. All we know is that there has been a small warming trend since 1979. The arctic sea ice summer minimum has declined since 1979 but the Antarctic sea ice is at or near record levels so global sea ice is near normal. 2014 was not the warmest on record by .03C that is a ridiculous statement. The measurement error is so much bigger. anyway, sorry to rant as you tend to be one of the more "professional" posters on this page.

 

 

I like your level-headed posts.  stay here..

[skierinvermont]

There is definitely some internal tinkering... Data is being sexed up.

 

I'm basically done looking at this data. If the sexed up data leads to quicker transition off fossil fuels, great. I mean, that's probably the intent anyhow. My local weather has been unchanged, I can look at logs and cross check with surrounding sites, but new "data" shows my location warming much faster that the data I can see.

 

Show us the tinkering.

[ORH_wxman]

There is definitely some internal tinkering... Data is being sexed up.

 

I'm basically done looking at this data. If the sexed up data leads to quicker transition off fossil fuels, great. I mean, that's probably the intent anyhow. My local weather has been unchanged, I can look at logs and cross check with surrounding sites, but new "data" shows my location warming much faster that the data I can see.

 

 

The adjusted data shows a very weak warming trend in SE Michigan over the past 85 years.

 

[nflwxman]

Whether or not the IPO is moving into the truly positive phase, surface temperatures seemed primed for a large jump over the next 5 years or so.  Early indications from 2015 show that a 0.8 C anomaly on the GISS might not be out of the question this year (though I'd hedge closer to 0.76-0.78C).  This would be the largest single record year jump since 1998.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/02/3640842/global-warming-jump-imminent/

 

 

 

I like to use statistical analogs in predicting global temperature change.

 

This year has the feel of 2004/2005 in terms of TSI and ENSO. Using the following very simple formula and following an anthropogenic forcing of 0.02 C/yr.  One could get the following resulting temperature prediction this year,

 

Using the 2004 analog: 0.76 C (weaker analog)

Using the 2005 analog: 0.86 C

[chrisf97212]

The adjusted data shows a very weak warming trend in SE Michigan over the past 85 years.

 

 

How was that blue line derived?

[StudentOfClimatology]

Whether or not the IPO is moving into the truly positive phase, surface temperatures seemed primed for a large jump over the next 5 years or so. Early indications from 2015 show that a 0.8 C anomaly on the GISS might not be out of the question this year (though I'd hedge closer to 0.75C). This would be the largest single record year jump since 1998.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/02/3640842/global-warming-jump-imminent/

That ThinkProgress blog isn't exactly the most credible source out there, to put it lightly.

I could see a record in 2015, but the idea of a bi-modal multi-year jump based on a linear ENSO/PDO relationship is pretty risky, considering a lot of the warmth in 2014 was driven by factors outside ENSO.

Not saying it can't happen, but it's mostly speculative.

[ORH_wxman]

How was that blue line derived?

 

 

Linear regression

[nflwxman]

ThinkProgress isn't exactly the most credible source out there. I could see a record in 2015, but the idea of a multi-year jump based on a linear ENSO relationship is pretty sketchy considering a lot of the warmth in 2014 was driven by factors outside ENSO.

 

The article had several papers listed in the text.  Rather than post every individual paper, it made more sense to have it nicely laid out there aka journalism. ENSO was a portion of the warming in 2014, in that it wasn't a La Nina.

[StudentOfClimatology]

The article had several papers listed in the text. Rather than post every individual paper, it made more sense to have it nicely laid out there aka journalism. ENSO was a portion of the warming in 2014, in that it wasn't a La Nina.

They actually listed just one peer reviewed study, from the PNNL, and it's a theoretical extrapolation based on a few modeling scenarios. Furthermore, Joe Romm's interpretation of it is sketchy at best. Here's the link: http://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4186

Also, Joe Romm's first paragraph is flat out incorrect and is unsubstantiated by the research he cites.

We may be witnessing the start of the long-awaited jump in global temperatures. There is “a vast and growing body of research,” as Climate Central explained in February. “Humanity is about to experience a historically unprecedented spike in temperatures.”

The majority of the paleoclimate data would suggest otherwise.

I'm not saying the idea of a jump is ludicrous, but it's highly speculative and not quantitatively predictable at this time.

[AvantHiatus]

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html

Can someone explain what is happening at Mauna Loa. Influence from local weather patterns?

[nflwxman]

They actually listed just one peer reviewed study, from the PNNL, and it's a theoretical extrapolation based on a few modeling scenarios. Furthermore, Joe Romm's interpretation of it is sketchy at best. Here's the link: http://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4186

Also, Joe Romm's first paragraph is flat out incorrect and is unsubstantiated by the research he cites.

The majority of the paleoclimate data would suggest otherwise.

I'm not saying the idea of a jump is ludicrous, but it's highly speculative and not quantitatively predictable at this time.

 

I agree with that.  Modern humans would have been a better descriptor.  Regardless of the source material, a global temperature jump does appear likely with the onset of long lasting ENSO + conditions.

 

Of course it's speculative, as predicting global temperature often is.  There is solid reasoning on why it will happen, but noone can say for sure what we come to pass in the next 5 years with any modicum of certainty.

[ORH_wxman]

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html

Can someone explain what is happening at Mauna Loa. Influence from local weather patterns?

 

 

I don't see anything out of the ordinary on the behavior of that graph...there is a seasonal peak and valley in the CO2 concentration every year

[nflwxman]

I don't see anything out of the ordinary on the behavior of that graph...there is a seasonal peak and valley in the CO2 concentration every year

I think he's talking about the daily values, which do appear to anomalously high relative to the monthly.  There is always scatter though.

[ORH_wxman]

I think he's talking about the daily values, which do appear to anomalously high relative to the monthly.  There is always scatter though.

 

 

Well they havent plotted the April bar on there yet, so it looks a bit strange, but if you look at last March, there were a lot of values way higher than the March bar.

[Msalgado]

There definitely appears to be a larger spread on the daily values recently there but I'm not sure why.   Also that graph doesn't go back far enough to see if that simply isn't unusual.

[FreeRain]

Linear regression

A non linear regression would show a recent pause just like the global data.

[Sophisticated Skeptic]

It's gettin interestin...   (el nino)

 

not so interesting...is all that fukashima in the water.  (west coast)

 

 

 

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2015/04/06/fukushima-radiation-reached-north-american-shores/25322871/

 

Seaborne radiation from Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster has reached North America.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution detected small amounts of cesium-134 and cesium-137 in a sample of seawater taken in February from a dock on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

It's the first time radioactivity from the March 2011 triple meltdown has been identified on West Coast shores.Scientific models have predicted that in general, the plume would hit the shore in the north first, then head south toward California.

[AvantHiatus]

Doubled edged vice for marine life in that area. The SSTA profile is so reinforced by the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge that it is persisting on its own for longer amounts of time. Quite literally uncharted waters.

 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-west-coast-is-in-hot-water-18813

 

 

 

One of the main causes has been the unusual and in some cases, record setting — warm water off the West Coast of the U.S. and stretching all the way to the Gulf of Alaska. The warm water is less rich in nutrients and the types of microscopic organisms and fish upon which sea lions usually feed. That has forced sea lion moms and pups alike to forage further for food, a tiring proposition for young sea lions. 

The warm water in the eastern Pacific over the past two years is a harbinger of things to come for the region. Ocean temperatures have been rising around the world and are expected to keep warming, and the eastern Pacific could see the odd conditions of the past two years become commonplace by mid-century. Just how far-reaching the impacts will be and which species will adapt and which will fail to is something scientists are still trying to untangle.

[frontranger8]

Thanks...I've dug a lot into the subject ever since it became popular on skeptic blogs several years ago. So many were convinced that the adjustments were greatly exaggerated and that the trend was much closer to the raw data. But as people like Anthony Watts have found out, when you start digging into the data deeper, the adjustments aren't crap and they make a lot of sense.

 

The past is actually colder and the present is warmer the more data you gather. It might not be what the skeptics of the adjustments want to hear, but that is what the data shows.

 

The NCDC site that many were talking about had graphs of state data in the US (and for the U.S. as a whole). The graphs they showed from that older dataset was not the same data that was used to calculate NCDC global temperatures. It was an archaic out-of-date dataset that was missing a lot of the necessary adjustments. So it showed a much flatter trend in temperatures versus "official" data such as adjusted USHCN data (the U.S. component of GHCN). When they corrected it last year, it caused a lot of stir on the blogs once again. They all initially viewed it as nefarious adjustments that got rid of flat temperature trends because it disagreed with their views on climate change, but in reality, it was just updating an already obsolete dataset.

 

Discrediting the temperature record is a loser's path for being a skeptic. There's plenty of aspects of climate change to be skeptical about, but the land-based temperature datasets shouldn't be one of them. There's errors/uncertainty in there for sure, but nothing so egregious as to change the trendlines more than about 10-15%. It's pretty good data.

 

I think there is a distinction though between the adjustments made to the past and the adjustments made presently for UHI. As can be seen from numerous stations like Phoenix (though that is an extreme example), the effects from increased UHI can be very significant. I haven't seen anything terribly convincing that they are completely accounted for.

[frontranger8]

Its still real tho.

On a local level UHI should stay. It its what it is.

Of course it should be

Weighted at largest regions to not skew that regions average temp

 

Well, the changes seen in thermometers "is what it is", too. But a lot of care is taken to remove that effect from the record. I would like to see regional trends that remove stations that have seen big UHI increases. That would more accurately effect the actual change in the regional climate.

[nflwxman]

I think there is a distinction though between the adjustments made to the past and the adjustments made presently for UHI. As can be seen from numerous stations like Phoenix (though that is an extreme example), the effects from increased UHI can be very significant. I haven't seen anything terribly convincing that they are completely accounted for.

Please read any NOAA/NCDC paper on UHI adjustments ever and see if you can determine a better way to remove UHI influenced data.

 

This argument has been thoroughly debunked over and over.  Not to mention, even when UHI is NOT removed from the global dataset that GISS uses, it accounts for a change of the global trend of -0.001C/decade.  This is hardly significant.

[frontranger8]

Whether or not the IPO is moving into the truly positive phase, surface temperatures seemed primed for a large jump over the next 5 years or so.  Early indications from 2015 show that a 0.8 C anomaly on the GISS might not be out of the question this year (though I'd hedge closer to 0.76-0.78C).  This would be the largest single record year jump since 1998.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/02/3640842/global-warming-jump-imminent/

 

I like to use statistical analogs in predicting global temperature change.

 

This year has the feel of 2004/2005 in terms of TSI and ENSO. Using the following very simple formula and following an anthropogenic forcing of 0.02 C/yr.  One could get the following resulting temperature prediction this year,

 

Using the 2004 analog: 0.76 C (weaker analog)

Using the 2005 analog: 0.86 C

 

2005 was when GISS really started diverging warmer than most other sources. That was the first year it was the only one that showed a new record.

[nflwxman]

2005 was when GISS really started diverging warmer than most other sources. That was the first year it was the only one that showed a new record.

Really?  2014 was the warmest year on HadCrut4, GISS, NOAA, JMA, and every major surface data source out there.  Prior to that Hadcrut4 and GISS both had records in 2010.  I would hardly call GISS statistically divergent from the other surface datasets.

[frontranger8]

Please read any NOAA/NCDC paper on UHI adjustments ever and see if you can determine a better way to remove UHI influenced data.

 

This argument has been thoroughly debunked over and over.  Not to mention, even when UHI is NOT removed from the global dataset that GISS uses, it accounts for a change of the global trend of -0.001C/decade.  This is hardly significant.

 

Most papers I have seen claim that UHI is adjusted for, but then say that the UHI effect is actually insignificant when comparing urban and rural trends. I can point to dozens of stations that demonstrate this is simply not true. 

 

Fact 1: Over the past 100 years, not only have urban areas grown, but overall land surfaces have become much more covered by concrete/asphalt, which absorb and hold heat extremely well. Logically, this dictates that many areas have seen increased surface warming not related to climate trends. I have yet to see a paper that really quantifies how much warming has been generated by the changes to land surfaces in the vast majority of areas where people keep temperature records.

 

Fact 2: If you compare stations that have seen increased urbanization/concrete/lighting over the past 50-100 years to nearby stations that have remained relatively unchanged, the difference is often massive. But there is little to no mention of this in studies I have seen. Yet they point to much rarer situations like NYC moving their station to Central Park (right, cause every city has a giant park where the weather records are kept). Why is that?

[frontranger8]

Really?  2014 was the warmest year on HadCrut4, GISS, NOAA, JMA, and every major surface data source out there.  Prior to that Hadcrut4 and GISS both had records in 2010.  I would hardly call GISS statistically divergent from the other surface datasets.

 

Nothing you said contradicts what I said.

 

Overall, GISS has been the warmest source and set the most records, and that started around 2005.