(Edited headline to reflect ongoing discussion of the satellite data)

Seriously though, has everyone seen the UAH site that gives you MSU data on a daily basis? http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/ It is pretty cool, but I must say that I am a little confused on what the difference is between what the daily data shows and what the monthly data does. If anyone has any idea, post it here.

The reason why I ask is that according to the daily data, for the lowest atmospheric level that they report, we are now warmer globally than at any point back to 1998 for mid-June. When I tried to pull the graph straight from the site it looked like crap, so I made my own excel graph with the raw data. And not only that, 2007 is much higher than 1998, but that certainly is not the case with the monthly data (nor reality, likely).

Click to view attachment

I mentioned this is my post about tropospheric temperatures a couple weeks ago. While I don't get how the lowest level of the troposphere shows so warm on the daily data either, the daily data does match the monthly data in terms of comparing past months to current month. That's how I was able to conclude that May would be a much cooler month than April before the official monthly numbers were released.

I was waiting for LEK to respond.

Oh well just read an article in the Inquirer about the methane gas contribution to global warming and belching from cows being one of the greater contributors. But, (LEK you're ), they say chickens and fish are not big contributors to this greenhouse gas at all.

Can we wait until June is over or is that too much to ask?

The headline was intended to get a few more hits. I was curious about the lowest level MSU data from UAH and how it does in fact show that we are the warmest at 900mb in the last 10 years. ElTacoman noted above that there is some usefulness in comparing the daily data to the monthly data, so maybe an increase will show up in June, but I don't have any real insight into how warm this June will end up being, but I am virtually certain it will not be the warmest June.

Yes, even though May was quite cool compared to most other recent Mays (according to all of the metrics), the UAH daily data still showed the lowest troposphere temperatures as being above the 20 year average for the whole month. But of course, the actual monthly temperature ended up below the 20 year average for May. So who knows...what is discernable is that June has had warmer anomalies than May so far, though those appear to be leveling off or going down. It certainly won't be anywhere close to the warmest June on record, but it does look like it will have a warmer global anomaly than May, unless things really tank from here on out.

A bounce up wouldn't surprise me and neither would a downward one in July either.

Was poking around the RSS site and found a couple of interesting things.

For the basics, here is the weighting function for each of the channels.



This graph was really interesting:



You can see the impact of the '98 El Nino plain as day, and also the warming of the Arctic, while the areas near Antarctica don't show much at all. The current La Nina also shows up well.

You can see some simialrities around the equator between these two, which I have added below your own. But you've got to consider the qbo (BDC related) with the ozone one.

I also wonder about the possible PET Cycle effect for the Arctic temperatures since 1998. A weaker CPV (Warmer stratosphere) would not let as much cold air build up in the Arctic. Hence a warmer Arctic. Just a minor piece to consider of course.

I added in the TLS channel also for comparison.


http://pm-esip.nsstc.nasa.gov/amsu/index.phtml?4

So, here is an example of the AMSU temperature for Channel 4 (900mb).


However, when you go to the UAH site, it gives Channel 4 as a standalone option (with trends that at first glance look to match their monthly data better), then a different channel (LT) as the option for 900mb which is the one that I plotted as the first post. Confusing.

Ironically, since you posted this the tropospheric temps have been in a freefall.

Yeah, I was going to note when it fell back down below 2007 on the Channel LT. Only up by 0.02°F on Tuesday. 2008 was ahead at the end of April too, but then fell off sharply at the start of May. Channel 4 and 6 are now back below 2007 after a short period above.

Yeah, considering June 2007 was not a particularly warm month (it had a +.204 anomaly, I believe), it looks as though June 2008 will probably have a warmer anomaly than May did, but could still end up at least a cool as April was, depending on how long the temperatures continue to trend downwards. 2007's temperatures keep going up from here on out, so it is highly unlikely that June 2008 will end up as warm as June 2007 at least.

It's interesting how well the satellite temps have correlated to temps in the East the past month or so. Probably just coincidence, though.

You can really see how different the LT channel is. I wonder if it is an instrument or processing error.

(The base periods on these are Aug 98 to this week, so that is part of the reason why they look a little different from the 5.2 analysis that we are used to)

PS - don't shoot me for starting the graph where I did, those are the available data on the UAH AMSU site.

Click to view attachment

Yeah, it really is a mystery to me, considering how the LT channel temp trends do not correlate well to the surface-based metric trends (overall over the past 10 years, not month-to-month variation). Ch. 4 definitely seems to match the surface records the best.

If you added Channels 6, 7, and 8 to the graph (the other tropospheric levels), it would be very interesting. From Ch. 6 on up, there definitely appears to be a cooling trend since the last La Nina.

For example, 2008 has been a little warmer than 1999 at the Ch. 4 level. And 2008 has followed 1999 fairly closely at the Channel 5 level, but then when you go to Ch. 6 (just 3 km higher), 2008 has been quite a bit cooler than 1999. 2008 has also been cooler than 1999 at Ch. 7 level (upper troposphere), but not by as much. At the highest level of the troposphere (perhaps very lowest stratosphere), Ch. 8 has also been a little cooler in 2008 compared to 1999. So the most cooling appears to have been in the mid-troposphere.

I worry about those upper tropospheric level trends because of the amount of the stratosphere that they are observing. If you look at this graph, even 6 and 7 are grabbing a good amount of area above the tropopause. I'd stick with the analysis from the groups for that because they attempt to reduce this effect.

Ok, but that doesn't explain why the greatest amount of cooling shown is in the mid-troposphere. If the cool stratosphere temperatures were affecting the tropospheric readings that much, you would expect the upper troposphere to be the most affected.

Ah, gotcha. Missed what you meant the first time around. Interesting, I'll take a look at it sometime.

Meanwhile, I downloaded the weighting functions for RSS's version of the TLT, just to see a little more clearly how they do it.

Click to view attachment

Ooh, nice. Yeah, it makes sense that they weight channel 4 the highest and don't even use the data from above channel 7, even though it is technically still mostly troposphere.

ElTacoman,

Check out the Channel 4, 2003 vs 2008.

Yeah, it's just a less extreme difference than ChLT. Like I said before, it doesn't make any sense, since the surface data records as well as the monthly satellite records agree that 2003 was definitely warmer than 2008 has been.

On the other hand, the Ch. 5 level matches up quite well overall with the data sets...even though it is at 14,000 ft.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting how closely June is tracking. But March also tracked extremely closely, and the "final" 2003 number was much higher than 2008, so obviously just Channel 4 AMSU data is not a good predictor of what the UAH monthly anomaly will be.

Well, it does work fairly well to determine the UAH monthly anomaly if you compare to the previous year. Right now, looking at June daily data, I expect the monthly UAH number to come in around -.010 to -.050...definitely warmer than May, but also definitely cooler than April.

I guess that I can do a prediction also. I'll go a little warmer, -0.03 to +0.02.

FWIW, I've heard rumors that the discrepency in the daily data that we have discussed (being so much warmer now at the 3300' level than 10 years ago) is due mainly to "satellite drift"...and that the monthly data is corrected for this, while the daily data is just raw. I don't know, I'll have to look into it more.

Interesting. If you find out more, let us know.

edit - I did run across this a while ago

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2/readme.03Jan2008

Ok, yeah, that's pretty much the only information I've found on it as well. I guess it makes sense...you would just think they would make corrections to the past data as well on the site, so one could accurately compare all levels of the atmosphere the past 10 years.

Well, according to McIntyre, the number is -0.114. I wonder how he knows that though, since it isn't released on the website yet. Wonder what the RSS number will be.

I am always looking for this data....This very early.

Thats cool...er cold.

Yeah, it feels a little fishy too. Who is leaking him this data? Why does a skeptic website get a jump? UAH has always been the coldest of the satellite measures (vs RSS normally, but also vs studies from Univ. of Washington and the Univ. of Maryland). I'm not accusing any malfeasance, but considering the bashing that Hansen gets for being a pro-AGW person and being in control of the GISS data, why are Spencer/Christy (both skeptics) off the hook? The satellite data is very much a massaged number.

I don't know how he knows it, but it's only a day earlier than it was released last month. Colder than I thought it would be...but I don't know what correction they do for satellite drift, so I didn't account for that. It was, however, considerably warmer still than May, and quite a bit cooler than April, so we had that part right.

A couple of people on another site I visit said they were pretty sure it would come in around -.110 (this was several days ago), so maybe they know something we don't about figuring the final number.

1. It is odd that he got the data early, but if there was some conspiracy, don't you think they would be more careful not to draw attention to it?

2. UAH and RSS have tracked much closer together than the surface data metrics (and they haven't grown further apart in recent years), so let's not go there. RSS has consistently been just a little warmer than UAH, so take it for what it's worth.

3. I agree that there should not be a double standard (which is why I try not to jump to conclusions about Hansen's results), but you have to admit that Hansen goes much further than Spencer/Christy to push his position. He is, after all, the guy who put the whole global warming thing on the map. Not to mention, his dataset diverges from the others more, so that is naturally going to lead to more questions. If AGWers could find holes in the UAH results/methods or inconsistencies in the trends with RSS, you can bet they would point them out.

4. What do you mean by "massaged"? Do you intend to start a satellite-skeptic blog, a la McIntyre?

May/June 2008 are the two coldest consecutive months in the UAH record since 1993. Let's see if RSS follows suit.

Yeah, massaged is probably not the right word, it kind of implies a more sinister meaning. But at least you know what I'm talking about, the numbers that come from the satellite have to go through a lot of stuff before they are spit out on the other side as a temperature reading. And different people can interpret different ways of accounting for land vs ocean issues, as well as how to exactly account for the stratosphere. As far as AGWer pointing out UAH mistakes, it has actually already happened. Back near the start of the decade there was a big debate because the satellites didn't show warming at all. Turns out, there were some mistakes made.

Well, McIntyre has RSS too. Maybe you just need to ask nicely.

+0.035

So are you disputing the following http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3231#comments, where McIntyre shows temperatures BELOW 1988 (Hansens testimony) levels? I thought we had reached the tipping point? Why is it even debatable? According to that windbag Hansen, we should be boiling over by now.

That's 20yrs and we're right back where we started. Funny how climate works. It goes up and it goes down. Regardless of what we do.

Now it's satellite error. Hmmm, maybe if we placed more temp captures in parking lots we could salvage GW. "turn the machines back on, turn the machines back on..."

The end of this charade is coming soon.

Forward 30 years.....2038: Average #'s coming in at -0.250 for the previous decade or so.....Some forseen commentary:

Widremann (as an example of "that" ilk, not singling out, per se):
"You guys just keep clinging onto the temperature data. It's been shown throughout this argument that Climate Change meant more than temperatures. Look at Polar Bears, even though there numbers are up...they look skinny....and the flooding in the Everglades...."

LEK: " "

The graphs show global temperatures increasing.

Oh yeah! That sure looks like a hockey stick to me! (and I know the timescales are WAY different then the "famous" chart)
Not even the "broken" hockey stick looks close.....I see something that has taken place, probably, since Earth's begining.....and even MUCH less dramatic......I'm sticking by what Hansen said in the '80's and 90's, because he seemed SO SURE and ADAMENT!!! He hung himself with those predictions!

But as I've pointed out before, the satellite data is still much less open to interpretation and goes through fewer adjustments than the surface data - which is the main reason it comes out so much earlier.

And you illustrate my point exactly: there are watchdogs just waiting to pounce if they see anything suspicious with the satellite data or any possible mistake...one was found before, it was corrected for. So, the satellites showed basically the same amount of warming leading up to 1998 (after the correction)...thereafter, they agree on no such warming.

He got RSS after it was already available to everyone. And he specifically said that he didn't receive the data from Spencer before everyone else, he just found a way to calculate it apparently.

Yup, as expected RSS is considerably warmer than UAH....however, it is still cooler than March/April, so it fits the same general trend. And May/June 2008 from the RSS data are the two coolest consecutive months since 1997. Still pretty impressive.

Mystery solved with his post #42, he did get the UAH data, but from one of Spencer's collaborators.

Connect the red dots and you tell me which way the line is pointing, up or down. Even I can get this one. Global temps are down.

I'm not going to post his graphs, but go see for yourself. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3231

So, you are doing a trend analysis off of two data points. Yikes.

So, if Hansen's testimony was delayed for 6 months and we were doing a La Nina to La Nina comparison...?

edit

Even better:

RSS - January '89 -0.344, June '08 +0.035

That is somewhere in the realm of +2.0C per century.

Nope, just pointing out that McIntyre pointed it out with the dots. You can infer what you'd like, I certainly infer that Hansen is off his rocker.

One thing is for sure, we aren't getting warmer.

Hansen looks like a fool, and the more he opens his yapper the more foolish he looks.

And we've been trending colder for a while now.....

Yep, a year and a half of one of the stronger La Ninas in recent history.

How do you determine that this is one of the stronger La Ninas in recent history?