Monday, May 17, 2010

Strangely High Temperatures

It's not just that globally average temperatures are currently high -- it's that they're very high. Even strangely high. Look at this graph from the University of Alabama:

If the top line (in orange) were as far below the "average" cluster as it currently is above the cluster, do you not think skeptics would be shouting about it from the rooftops? Of course they would be.

And yet no one seems to be pointing these temps out at all -- even the mainstream press. Is it just me?

6 comments:

Cthulhu said...

At first sight I would think that was an error. But yeah, if it was in the other direction this is exactly the kind of thing skeptic blogs would be all over.

And if this was being reported not by UAH but by GISTEMP or CRU they would be all over the error/fraud angle.

Hank Roberts said...

Not just you; I've been puzzling over it for a few days, mentioned it here and there (most recently at Stoat's thread about your thread), and dropped email to the NASA contact named at the bottom of the chart asking if there was anything to say about it.

Note Spencer recommends Ch 05 (the 14,000-foot range); I recommend looking at that with the 20-year record lines displayed, and with all the years since 1998 displayed.

Hey, what's most likely to be broken, the satellite or the climate?

Oh, wait ....

Mark said...

A couple of idle thoughts.

Has anyone done a similar plot of GISTEMP? It's pretty warm too.

If this is a global average temperature, why does it have a significant seasonal cycle, in phase with the Northern Hemisphere?

Gareth said...

Mark: Much more land 'oop North, and it gets hotter than the oceans down here.

Anders Emretsson said...

Actually, the pseudosceptics have found another line of argument lately: That global temps don't really matter, you should focus on regional temperatures instead. The timing seems peculiar ...

Hank Roberts said...

Here's a summary I posted of Spencer's instructions for charting the 05 channel, with my note for adding the additional checkmarks.
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=1916#comment-174889

No reply from the NASA guy named on the page there, not that he owes me one, but I hoped they'd find a bug and post about it if the satellite's wonky.