Global Surface Air & Sea Temperatures: Current Conditions and Future Prospects

[knocker]

Nick Stokes has written a piece on HADCRUT 4 updates

CRUTEM (HADCRUT) versions are documented and accessible

Quote

I have encountered at WUWT ongoing complaints about HADCRUT 4 updates. It is currently in a thread here, but goes back to an earlier post here. The complaints typically say that the new versions always raise current anomalies, and suggest that they are poorly documented. In fact, the changed are extensively noted; see directory here.

In the earlier thread Tim Osborn commented here, to say mainly that the changes were due to changes (mainly additions) to station data, and listed the particular additions to HADCRUT 4.3. He also later made the important point that there is a good reason why the trends rise with new data. HADCRUT is a land/ocean set, but the empty cells are mainly on land, and the new data allows some of them to be filled. HADCRUT is an average by grid (area-weighted), in which cells without data are simply not included. That has the effect of assigning to them the global average, which is dominated by sea temp. If new stations assign to empty cells genuine land values, that will increase the trend, because land is warming more rapidly. HADCRUT had artificially low trends because of this missing value policy, as was remedied by Cowtan and Way (2013) - discussed here in a series of posts, with links here.

But another feature of HADCRUT transparency is insufficiently appreciated. For Ver 4, at least, they give a complete listing of station data for each version, with each station file documented. Here is a typical version file; it is for 4.4, but just change that to 4.2 or whatever you want. Each links to a zip file of the station data for that version (except for Poland), which has a URL like http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/crutem4/data/previous_versions/4.4.0.0/station_files/CRUTEM.4.4.0.0.station_files.zip. I'm spelling out the URL because if you click on it, it will immediately download about 18Mb. But again, you can edit for other versions.

https://moyhu.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/crutem-hadcrut-versions-are-documented.html

[weirpig]

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-xkcd-comic-20696?utm_content=buffer68ee5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

Wonderful comic book timeline which illustrates and debunks the theroy that the world was once this hot and it goes in cycles 

[knocker]

 

[Gray-Wolf]

Well we had been forecast a La Nina, and it may well still occur next year?, but after a short slow down in the speed of warming we appear to be going back up to the speed of warming we  were seeing during the Nino'? When I look at global temp anoms I see a lot of reds on the Map but the two I find most alarming are at our poles? Shouldn't the poles be a crude cooling mechanism for our World? If they are showing big positive temp anoms will that not restrict their function as air con. for our planet?

Could that be what is causing temps to stubbornly rise even though we thought we'd be cooling to a La Nina?

 

[knocker]

Update check on Hansen's 1988 projections

Quote

Hansen's famous 1988 paper used runs of an early GISS GCM to forecast temperatures for the next thirty years. These forecasts are now often checked against observations. I wrote about them here. That post had an active plotter which allowed you to superimpose various observation data on Hansen's original model results.

I did an update in 2015 here, and a lot of text from there is repeated here.. I think Hansen's projections had stood up well, but they ran ahead of warming during the "pause" of around 2006-13. That pause is now over, so the interest is in whether Hansen's projection is still running warm.

I've updated to Oct 2016, or latest available. Hansen's original plot matched to GISS Ts (met stations only), and used a baseline of 1951-80. I have used that base where possible, but for the satellite measures UAH and RSS I have matched to GISS Ts (Hansen's original index) in the 1981-2010 mean. But there is also a text window where you can enter your own offset if you have some other idea.
 

https://moyhu.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/update-check-on-hansens-1988-projections.html

[knocker]

Current global temps compared with CMIP 5

https://moyhu.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/current-global-temps-compared-with-cmip.html

[knocker]

According to GISS NASA, the average global surface temperature anomaly for November was 0.97 °C, which is the second hottest November on record, and only 0.07 °C lower than the hottest November during the El Niño in 2015.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

Edited December 16, 2016 by knocker

[BornFromTheVoid]

Warmest year on record, yet again.

NOAA

NASA

JMA

Met Office

UAH

[Gray-Wolf]

I become more concerned as to just what this 'warming spurt' ( if this is what we are seeing?) might drive around the planet  should it maintain for a decade or more (as 'natural; drivers' assume a 'positive, augmenting of AGW , phase.?) ?

We were told , back in 2013 I think?, that a rise of 1.5c over pre-industrial would cost us our Northern Permafrost.

Even if only a small portion of those losses were immediate and rapid it would place significant amounts of GHG's into the atmosphere driving further warming.

And what will this 'warming spurt' drive within the Arctic Basin? This winter has been the most extreme I've ever witnessed and I now fear for the ice over the melt season coming. How will increased ocean heat uptake over that region impact on global temps?

[knocker]

just for a change some musings from Eli

http://rabett.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/gravity-in-greenhouse.html

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

2nd warmest January on record, according to the JMA

1st. 2016(+0.52°C),
2nd. 2017(+0.39°C),
3rd. 2015,2007,2002(+0.29°C)

http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/jan_wld.html

[knocker]

Hadley sea surface temperature for Feb 2017: 2nd-warmest in their records, after only Feb 2016.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/

[BornFromTheVoid]

2nd warmest February on record according to the JMA

1st. 2016(+0.62°C)
2nd. 2017(+0.44°C)
3rd. 1998(+0.43°C)
4th. 2002(+0.28°C)
5th. 2015(+0.26°C)

http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/feb_wld.html

[Gray-Wolf]

It appears that if we keep to the trend of Jan/Feb through the rest of the year 2017 will be another record breaker!!!

Now how would the folk denying climate change driven by human produced Carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning explain that? A Nina winter, with low to no Sunspots, followed by a record warm year beating an alleged 'super Nino' year into second place and bring us Four year on year records for global temps? What's that about then???

With the end of summer in the south showing record breaking heat across some of the land areas ( with extreme rain in others?) are we to see that 'heat' pass across into our hemisphere over the next week? Land responds to warming faster than water and there's a lot of land in the northern Hemisphere!!!

I imagine by May land surfaces will begin to have an impact on the global average if the south's heat does travel North with the Sun?

And then what of low solar and global temps? Maybe the folk that keep peddling 'Maunder minimum coming' scare stories (whilst we have been seeing fine aurora from a spotless solar disc) ........might have mistaken poor optical equipment and volcanic dimming over the Maunder Minimum period for an actual Solar driven event whereas it was the volcanic's that were driving cooling across the planet back then and its dust blinding observers to the small sunspots present on the solar disc?

Our Human take on Volcanic dimming, from our sulphate/particulate pollution, is failing and 'Hey Presto' Global temps are on the way up again at what appears to be an accelerating rate ( well it would would it not as China reduces her impacts and 'dimming' drops out ever more?) even with approaching low solar and La Nina's attendance?

This will be an interesting Summer for both Climate and Weather. With Climatic means being a rolling 30 yr average this 'spike' will drive some monumental anom's above the current mean of 1980 to 2010. Sadly there are issues already in Africa and this will not help esp. if grain growing areas ( Russia/Mid west/Europe) are impacted as they were in 2010 , and so food aid is cut again as Russia bans exports, then things will get worse!!!

 

[jonboy]

2 hours ago, Gray-Wolf said:

It appears that if we keep to the trend of Jan/Feb through the rest of the year 2017 will be another record breaker!!!

Now how would the folk denying climate change driven by human produced Carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning explain that? A Nina winter, with low to no Sunspots, followed by a record warm year beating an alleged 'super Nino' year into second place and bring us Four year on year records for global temps? What's that about then???

With the end of summer in the south showing record breaking heat across some of the land areas ( with extreme rain in others?) are we to see that 'heat' pass across into our hemisphere over the next week? Land responds to warming faster than water and there's a lot of land in the northern Hemisphere!!!

I imagine by May land surfaces will begin to have an impact on the global average if the south's heat does travel North with the Sun?

And then what of low solar and global temps? Maybe the folk that keep peddling 'Maunder minimum coming' scare stories (whilst we have been seeing fine aurora from a spotless solar disc) ........might have mistaken poor optical equipment and volcanic dimming over the Maunder Minimum period for an actual Solar driven event whereas it was the volcanic's that were driving cooling across the planet back then and its dust blinding observers to the small sunspots present on the solar disc?

Our Human take on Volcanic dimming, from our sulphate/particulate pollution, is failing and 'Hey Presto' Global temps are on the way up again at what appears to be an accelerating rate ( well it would would it not as China reduces her impacts and 'dimming' drops out ever more?) even with approaching low solar and La Nina's attendance?

This will be an interesting Summer for both Climate and Weather. With Climatic means being a rolling 30 yr average this 'spike' will drive some monumental anom's above the current mean of 1980 to 2010. Sadly there are issues already in Africa and this will not help esp. if grain growing areas ( Russia/Mid west/Europe) are impacted as they were in 2010 , and so food aid is cut again as Russia bans exports, then things will get worse!!!

 

Perhaps the last of the heat stored saying a fond farewell!!!

[BornFromTheVoid]

13 hours ago, jonboy said:

Perhaps the last of the heat stored saying a fond farewell!!!

Unfortunately, ocean heat content is still climbing so our stored heat capacity is growing. Would take quite the "farewell" to get rid of all that heat!

[Gray-Wolf]

I am now more convinced than ever that we have now reached the point that I had been warning about since the early noughties? The Naturals have now flipped in the Pacific so they now Augment warming ( as opposed to the 'burying the heat' IPO-ve/favours La Nina PDO-ve)  whilst China is rushing head long into their clean air technologies/renewables due to the death rates from urban pollution they have been seeing. This is the third year that they have reduced coal use and they have also cancelled 103 coal fired power plants this year! This means that the Pacific regions most impacted by the 'Dimming' that China's pollution drove will now be lessening? So more solar that is available at the top of the atmosphere will be getting through to the Ocean Surface and so warm it and re-radiate ( under the IPO+ve) so leading to warming.

We have also seen dramatic reductions in Sea ice across the Arctic ,since we last saw a warming Spurt ,so there is more energy being absorbed across the North that used to be harmlessly bounced back into space ?

We have a fatter GHG blanket since the last time we saw a warming spurt.

All in all , and as I had been warning, we now face warming at a rate above that which we endured through the 80'/90's.

We appear to have put on 0.2c over the last 3 years.

Over the 1900's we put on 1c so that was 0.2c per 20years........

The worry comes with the approach to 1.5c above pre-industrial as we are cautioned that such a global temp consigns both the northern permafrost and Arctic Sea ice into history. There is an awful lot of carbon stored in that permafrost and a lot of energy to be milked by an open Arctic ocean over the high solar/long day length months.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Gray-Wolf

[cheeky_monkey]

2 hours ago, Gray-Wolf said:

I am now more convinced than ever that we have now reached the point that I had been warning about since the early noughties? The Naturals have now flipped in the Pacific so they now Augment warming ( as opposed to the 'burying the heat' IPO-ve/favours La Nina PDO-ve)  whilst China is rushing head long into their clean air technologies/renewables due to the death rates from urban pollution they have been seeing. This is the third year that they have reduced coal use and they have also cancelled 103 coal fired power plants this year! This means that the Pacific regions most impacted by the 'Dimming' that China's pollution drove will now be lessening? So more solar that is available at the top of the atmosphere will be getting through to the Ocean Surface and so warm it and re-radiate ( under the IPO+ve) so leading to warming.

We have also seen dramatic reductions in Sea ice across the Arctic ,since we last saw a warming Spurt ,so there is more energy being absorbed across the North that used to be harmlessly bounced back into space ?

We have a fatter GHG blanket since the last time we saw a warming spurt.

All in all , and as I had been warning, we now face warming at a rate above that which we endured through the 80'/90's.

We appear to have put on 0.2c over the last 3 years.

Over the 1900's we put on 1c so that was 0.2c per 20years........

The worry comes with the approach to 1.5c above pre-industrial as we are cautioned that such a global temp consigns both the northern permafrost and Arctic Sea ice into history. There is an awful lot of carbon stored in that permafrost and a lot of energy to be milked by an open Arctic ocean over the high solar/long day length months.

Hasn't virtually all of the 1c occurred in the last 40 years though not since 1900?

[reef]

3 hours ago, Gray-Wolf said:

I am now more convinced than ever that we have now reached the point that I had been warning about since the early noughties? The Naturals have now flipped in the Pacific so they now Augment warming ( as opposed to the 'burying the heat' IPO-ve/favours La Nina PDO-ve)  whilst China is rushing head long into their clean air technologies/renewables due to the death rates from urban pollution they have been seeing. This is the third year that they have reduced coal use and they have also cancelled 103 coal fired power plants this year! This means that the Pacific regions most impacted by the 'Dimming' that China's pollution drove will now be lessening? So more solar that is available at the top of the atmosphere will be getting through to the Ocean Surface and so warm it and re-radiate ( under the IPO+ve) so leading to warming.

We have also seen dramatic reductions in Sea ice across the Arctic ,since we last saw a warming Spurt ,so there is more energy being absorbed across the North that used to be harmlessly bounced back into space ?

We have a fatter GHG blanket since the last time we saw a warming spurt.

All in all , and as I had been warning, we now face warming at a rate above that which we endured through the 80'/90's.

We appear to have put on 0.2c over the last 3 years.

Over the 1900's we put on 1c so that was 0.2c per 20years........

The worry comes with the approach to 1.5c above pre-industrial as we are cautioned that such a global temp consigns both the northern permafrost and Arctic Sea ice into history. There is an awful lot of carbon stored in that permafrost and a lot of energy to be milked by an open Arctic ocean over the high solar/long day length months.

The long term trend is about 0.8C per century. That may be accelerating but we wont know for decades if that is the case. The above trend temperatures over the last three years are more likely to be El nino related. We also dont know how a quiet sun or changes to ocean currents from a more exposed Arctic ocean could affect things. The path is clearly up but it could be a bumpy one.

[Thundery wintry showers]

One useful comparison point is probably the 1998 and 2015/16 El Ninos.  From HadCRUT4 I get the impression that we've warmed by about 0.25C between the two El Ninos, indicating a warming trend of approximately 0.14C per decade, while from GISTEMP (which includes the Arctic and Antarctic but at the cost of using heavy interpolation) the warming is nearer 0.35C, suggesting roughly 0.2C per decade.

I think all we've seen is an abrupt correction to the "pause" or "hiatus" in global warming that occurred between 1998 and 2014, which has brought us back into line with the projections of the likes of the IPCC.

[knocker]

 

[knocker]

 

[knocker]

 

Great video shows global temperatures rising, with ups and downs from El Niño / La Niña

 

[knocker]

April 2017 was the second warmest April in 137 years of modern record-keeping:

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/news/20170515/

[knocker]