Watch our world warm! How warm was June? What’s the trend?

Larry Kummer, Editor

12 years ago

Summary: Each month brings forth a crop of cherry-picked news from climate alarmists about rapid and severe global warming, usually with little or no reference to any historical context. Why do people listen, as the world’s climate science institutions show us a broader and more accurate picture? Here we look at what scientists tells about the world’s temperature in June. This tells us what’s happened in the past, the trend. It does not tell us what the future hold in store.

“… we also know that the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated 5 or 10 years ago”
— President Obama repeating the big myth, speech at Chicago on 30 May 2013

Contents

Summary for June
What do the satellites tell us about global warming?
What does the surface temperature data tell us?
Who produces this data?
Some of the key things to remember about global warming!
For More Information

To the right is the usual over-the-top image, about a world for a world roughly one °F warmer than the 30-year average.

(1) Summary for June

Summary for June by Ole Humlum (Professor of Geoscience, U Oslo; bio here):

“On average, global air temperatures were near the 1998 – 2006 average , although with large regional differences. For all three surface air temperature records continue to show negative temperature trend for the last 5 and 10 years.”
“All five global temperature estimates presently show an overall stagnation, at least since 2002. There has been no increase in global air temperature since 1998, which however was affected by the oceanographic El Niño event.”

Posted at Climate4You, which has a massive storehouse of easily accessed climate data.

Update: putting these numbers in a historical context, from page 10 of “The Recent Pause in Global Warming” just published by the UK Met Office:

(2) What do the satellites tell us about global warming?

The June 2013 Global Temperature Report
by the Earth System Science Center of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (blue is cold; red warm}

By the U AL-Huntsville for NASA. Click to enlarge.

Key points from the report:

Global composite temperature in June: +0.3°C (0.5°F) above the average for June during 1981-2010.
Global climate trend of temperature starting in 16 November 1978: +0.14°C (0.3°F) per decade.
Anomalies are computed vs a 30 year base period. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recommends using the latest decade for the 30-year average.

Let’s look at the data since 1979. The following graphs show 20 years of cool weather, then 15 years of warm:

Done for NASA by the U AL-Huntsville. Click to enlarge.

Roy Spencer (principal scientists on the team) shows another perspective on this data (at his website). Wide swings in temperature; relatively flat trend since 1998:

Data from the U AL-Huntsville. Click to enlarge.

(3) What does the surface temperature data tell us?

Bob Tisdale shows the data from the Land Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The average global temperature for June was +0.67° C (1.2°F) above the 1951-1980 average. Again, relatively flat since 1998:

**A Land Ocean Temperature Index by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)**

This graph focuses on the data since 2000 from the three major sources of global surface temperatures, compared to the 1981-2010 average:

(4) Who produces this data?

(a) About the global satellite data

As part of an ongoing joint project between The University of Alabama in Huntsville, NOAA and NASA, John Christy (professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at U AL-Huntsville) and Dr. Roy Spencer (an ESSC principal scientist) use data gathered by advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.

The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about 8,000 above sea level.

Neither Christy nor Spencer receives any research support or funding from oil, coal or industrial companies or organizations, or from any private or special interest groups. All of their climate research funding comes from federal and state grants or contracts.

(Source here)

(b) The Land Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)

The GISS Land Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) data is a product of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Starting with their January 2013 update, it uses NCDC ERSST.v3b sea surface temperature data. The impact of the recent change in sea surface temperature datasets is discussed here. GISS adjusts GHCN and other land surface temperature data via a number of methods and infills missing data using 1200km smoothing. Refer to the GISS description here. Unlike the UK Met Office and NCDC products, GISS masks sea surface temperature data at the poles where seasonal sea ice exists, and they extend land surface temperature data out over the oceans in those locations. Refer to the discussions here and here.

GISS uses the base years of 1951-1980 as the reference period for anomalies. The data source is here.

Source here.

(5) Some of the key things to remember about global warming!

While cheering for their faction of scientists, laypeople often lose sight of the big picture — the key elements for making public policy about this important issue.

The work of the IPCC and the major science institutes are the best guides for information about these issues.
The major global temperature measurement systems tell — broadly speaking — the same story since the 1970s: two decades of cooling, two of warming, followed by a pause.
This is consistent with the larger firm conclusions of climate scientists: two centuries of warming, coming in pulses (ie, waves), with anthropogenic factors becoming the largest (not the only) driver since roughly 1950.
There is a debate about the attribution (causes) of past warming — which probably varied over time — between natural drivers (eg, rebound from the Little Ice Age, solar influences) and anthropogenic drivers (eg, CO2, aerosols, land use changes). Other that that stated in #3, the IPCC’s reports make few claims about attribution of climate activity, as this remains actively debated in the literature.
There is an even larger debate about climate forecasts, both the extent of future CO2 emissions and the net effects of the various natural and anthropogenic drivers.

For the past five years my recommendations have been the same:

More funding for climate sciences. Many key aspects (eg, global temperature data collection and analysis) are grossly underfunded.
Wider involvement of relevant experts in this debate. For example, geologists, statisticians and software engineers have been largely excluded — although their fields of knowledge are deeply involved.

(6) For More Information

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