3rd Coldest October

From NOAA
Temperature Highlights - October
* The average October temperature of 50.8°F was 4.0°F below the 20th Century average and ranked as the 3rd coolest based on preliminary data.
* For the nation as a whole, it was the third coolest October on record. The month was marked by an active weather pattern that reinforced unseasonably cold air behind a series of cold fronts. Temperatures were below normal in eight of the nation's nine climate regions, and of the nine, five were much below normal. Only the Southeast climate region had near normal temperatures for October.
Precipitation Highlights - October
* The U.S. recorded its wettest October in the 115-year period of record. The nationwide precipitation of 4.15 inches was nearly double the long-term average of 2.11 inches.
* Unusually cold and wet conditions across the middle of the country led to several snowfall records.

Temp Data Glitches

How bad is the global temperature data?
Watts UP With That 10/13/09

Excerpts Include:
The world’s climate data has become increasingly sparse with a big dropoff around 1990. There was also a tenfold increase in missing months around the same time. For many, many stations, you will see the data set in a monthly tabular form has many missing data months mostly after 1990

Most of the stations that dropped out were rural. More of the missing data points are having their missing months filled in with more urban data in the grid boxes.

Numerous peer review papers suggest an exaggeration of the warming by 30%, 50% or even more

One example.. from Maine. Volunteers completed surveys....The survey determined that every one of the stations in Maine was subject to microclimate or urbanization biases.

One station especially surprised the surveyors, Ripogenus Dam, a station that was officially closed in 1995. Despite being closed in 1995, USHCN data for this station is publicly available until 2006!

Part of the USHCN data is created by a computer program called “filnet” which estimates missing values.

How can we trust NOAA/NASA/Hadley assessment of global changes given these and the other data integrity issues? Given that Hadley has destroyed old original data because they were running out of room in their data cabinet, can we ever hope to reconstruct the real truth?

NYC - JUNE IS TIED FOR THE 8TH COOLEST ON RECORD.

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY
455 PM EDT WED JUL 1 2009

...UNUSUALLY WET AND COOL JUNE FOR CENTRAL PARK...

FOR SOME PERSPECTIVE...HERE ARE THE TOP TEN COOLEST AND WETTEST
JUNES ON RECORD SINCE 1869 FOR CENTRAL PARK NY:

COOLEST
AVG.TEMP. YEAR
64.2 1903
65.2 1881
65.7 1916
66.8 1926/1902
67.2 1958
67.3 1927
67.4 1928
67.5 2009/1897
67.7 1878
67.8 1924

WETTEST
INCHES PRECIP. YEAR
10.27 2003
10.06 2009
9.78 1903
9.30 1972
8.79 1989
8.55 2006
7.76 1887
7.58 1975
7.13 1938
7.05 1871

DUE TO THE UNUSUALLY COOL AND WET CONDITIONS IN JUNE...HERE ARE SOME
INTERESTING FACTS TO NOTE:

THIS JUNE IS TIED FOR THE 8TH COOLEST ON RECORD. THE AVERAGE
TEMPERATURE WAS 67.5...3.7 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL...WHICH ALSO
OCCURRED IN 1897.

NOAA: April Temperatures Slightly Cooler Than Average for U.S.

NOAA: April Temperatures Slightly Cooler Than Average for U.S.

May 8, 2009

The April 2009 temperature for the contiguous United States was below the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC.

The average April temperature of 51.2 degrees F was 0.8 degree F below the 20th Century average.

Temperature Stations

A must read for anyone serious about studing global warming SCIENCE.
Anthony Watts, Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable? Chicago, IL: The Heartland Institute, 2009
Link
http://www.heartland.org/books/PDFs/SurfaceStations.pdf

Excerpts include:
"we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements"

"The official record of temperatures in the continental United States comes from a network of 1,221 climate-monitoring stations overseen by the National Weather Service, a department of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Until now, no one had ever conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of the measurement environment of those stations."

"During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found."

"9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited"

"We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend."

"We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors."

"We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government
agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher."

"This report presents actual photos of more than 100 temperature stations in the U.S., many of them demonstrating vividly the siting issues we found to be rampant in the network. Photographs of all 865 stations that have been surveyed so far can
be found at www.surfacestations.org, where station photos can be browsed by state or searched for by name."

"The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable."

Heroes of Science:
Author:
Anthony Watts is a 25-year broadcast meteorology veteran and currently chief meteorologist for KPAY-AM radio. He got his start as on-air meteorologist for WLFI-TV in Lafayette, Indiana and at KHSL-TV in Chico, California. In 1987, he founded ItWorks, which supplies broadcast graphics systems to hundreds of cable television, television, and radio stations nationwide. ItWorks supplies custom weather stations, Internet servers, weather graphics content, and broadcast video equipment. In 2007, Watts founded SurfaceStations.org, a Web site devoted to photographing and documenting the quality of weather stations across the U.S.

Acknowledgments
The author thanks Gary Boden, for his extensive work in implementing Excel and Google Earth algorithms, plus quality control;
Evan M. Jones, for his untiring assistance in station surveys and quality control checking;
Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr., Colorado State University, for his guidance and assistance in providing resources that enabled this project to become a reality;
Barry Wise, for his assistance in linking Google Earth to the SurfaceStations.org photo gallery;
and the more than 650 volunteers who have tirelessly driven thousands of miles to survey and report stations, with particular thanks to the volunteers who have surveyed 25 or more stations, including Craig Limesand, Eric Gamberg, John Goetz, Don Kostuch, Russell Steele, Kristen Byrnes, and Liz and Don Healey.

I also thank Steve McIntyre, who provided a large measure of assistance in collating station data.

Record CoLd

You must love the confusion of "journalists":

From MyWay Dec 14
Obama left with little time to curb global warming.
"Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming."

That poor "journalist" never bothered to look at the temp data for the last 10 years. Finding the data is no small task as NASA and NOAA continue to revise numbers and change press releases.

Then from the Great Falls Tribune Dec 14,2008
Cold weather sets records in several cities
Several places in the state have already shattered daily record lows, and more are expected to be broken as the sub-zero temperatures continue through Sunday night.

New Record low in Denver
NWS
THE LOW TEMPERATURE AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ON DECEMBER 14TH
DROPPED TO -18 AT 635 PM AND NEVER DROPPED BELOW -18 PRIOR TO MIDNIGHT.
SO THAT ESTABLISHES A NEW RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 14TH
BREAKING THE OLD RECORD OF -14 DEGREES SET IN 1901.

THEN ON DECEMBER 15TH...THE TEMPERATURE BOTTOMED OUT AT -19 DEGREES
AT 231 AM. THIS IS A NEW RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 15TH
BREAKING THE OLD RECORD OF -6 SET IN 1951.

Hadley Climate Center HadAT2 Data shows global cooling in the last year

Hadley Climate Center HadAT2 Data shows global cooling in the last year

Two sources:
Watts up with that
Climate Change Fraud
The HadAT2 dataset from the Hadley Climate Center takes in balloon radiosonde measurements taken twice daily from hundreds of points around the globe and compiles it.

Global Cooling 2007-2008

Now Public, May 9, 2008
Last year, a dramatic cooling of the planet was measured by all four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California). It is now estimated that the Earth cooled by about 0.7C in 2007 which is the fastest temperature change on record.

The unfortunate truth is that if the planet continues to cool in the years ahead there will be less total global agriculture and much higher food prices than in these forecasts. A lack of proper planning for global cooling will result in millions of people starving due to a lack of food or from cold-related diseases because the world will not be prepared for the colder climate solution.

Therefore, agricultural and climate planning should include all possible future climate scenarios, both warm and cold.

eWorld VU
In 2008, nearly every day of each of the first four months of the year has recorded an observation of sunspot activity that is equal to zero. In fact, there have been only two days in the last four months when there has been any sunspot activity at all and each small event disappeared very quickly.

Sunspots can be historically correlated with temperature change on Earth. Weak sunspot activity correlates to colder temperatures on earth. In fact, low sunspot activity in the past has led to decades of extremely cold worldwide temperatures.

1934 Warmest Year, Not 1998

I found a very odd foot note in an article. Why has this not been discussed in the media?
This is an "odd" oversight by Hansen et al. Or did McIntyr find yet more of the conveniently massaged data?

In August 2007 blogger Stephen McIntyr noticed that many U.S. temperature records from the Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) displayed a discontinuity around the year 2000. NASA corrected the mistaken data and reported that "data for 2000 and later years were inadvertently appended to USHCN data for prior years without including the adjustments at these stations that had been defined by the NOAA National Climate Data Center." The correction resulted in a slight (0.15 degree C) decrease in U.S. average temperatures post-2000, and 1934 replaced 1998 as the warmest year in the U.S. Note that the years have changed rankings before: in a 2001 paper 1934 was marginally warmer than 1998.

NASA
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/200708.html
Recently it was realized that the monthly more-or-less-automatic updates of our global temperature analysis had a flaw in the U.S. data. We wish to thank Stephen McIntyre for bringing to our attention that this flaw might be present.

And NASA states:
Also our prior analysis had 1934 as the warmest year in the U.S. (see the 2001 paper above), and it continues to be the warmest year, both before and after the correction to post 2000 temperatures.

Temperature Data

Temperature data. There is confusing temperature data out there. The best summary showing the 0.6C temp
Comparison of 4 sources
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
HadCrut Data
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/another-global-temp-index-dives-in-jan08-this-time-hadcrut/

Recent History of Sunspots

In an atmospheric science class at CSU in the late 70's the professor provided a fairly convincing discussion that sun spots control human activity and the earths climate. Sunspots are historically correlated with temperature on earth. During the Dalton Minimum, beginning in 1790, the number of sunspots was low, as the earth's climate turned cold for a few decades. I had not heard nor read much on sun spots until recently.

Background
Sunspots are areas of strong magnetic activity, where material wells up from below. The sun goes through a number of cycles, one including 11 year cycles on sunspots. The dark spots are like tops on a soda bottle, and sometimes they erupt and send bubbles of superheated gas called plasma, into space.Solar storms spew charged particles into space, and when they interact with Earth's protective magnetic field, electrical charges can dip into the lower atmosphere and even to the ground. These can disrupt radio transmissions and sometimes even power transmission.

Solar Cycle 23 peaked in 2001
Solar Cycle 24 is predicted to start about now

Current situation
You can see the current sunspot activity at SpaceWeather.com
As of today, April 25 - NO SUNSPOTS?

Implications of low activity?
Geophysicist Phil Chapman was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut and served as mission specialist on the Apollo 14 lunar mission. Chapman has written that the previous time a cycle was delayed like this was during what was called the Dalton Minimum, a particularly cold period that lasted several decades starting in 1790. "Northern winters became ferocious," he says

So far this year, SOHO has detected just three sunspots, including number 992, which appeared on April 23. One was found in January and lasted only two days. Another appeared earlier this month but vanished within 24 hours. There should be more, many more.

Recent Prior Predictions/Observations
Looking back at recent predictions regarding sunspot activity:
Sun.com May 26, 2008
Adding to the tangle of understanding, the new sunspots have a magnetic polarity consistent with Solar Cycle 23 rather than the new cycle, proving yet again that much remains to be learned about the temperature of the sun. One of the new sunspots, No. 989, kicked up a moderate solar flare Tuesday. NOAA forecasters put the odds at 50-50 for additional moderate flares today.
Sun.com Dec 2007
"New solar cycles always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot," Hathaway explained in a NASA statement. "Reversed polarity" means a sunspot with opposite magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle. "High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude. Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude. The shift is not certain, however. If it's really the start of a new cycle, there ought to be a sunspot associated with the magnetic knot, but there is none. In fact, Hathaway announced a possible beginning to Solar Cycle 24 back in August, 2006.

Sun.com July 2006
Astronomers say the sun has begun its next cycle of activity, part of an 11-year ebb and flow in sunspots and solar flares. Solar activity is near the low point in the cycle now. Few sunspots appear and solar flares are rare. But on July 31, a tiny sunspot appeared and then vanished after a few hours. It was a normal event, except that it was magnetically backward. "We've been waiting for this," said David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. "A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning."

The sophisticated models at UCAR in Boulder predicted increase sunspots for cycle 24, beginning in 2007. "The scientists have confidence in the forecast because, in a series of test runs, the newly developed model simulated the strength of the past eight solar cycles with more than 98% accuracy."
UCAR Boulder CO March 6, 2006
The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The NCAR team's computer model, known as the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model, draws on research by NCAR scientists. he scientists expect the cycle to begin in late 2007 or early 2008, which is about 6 to 12 months later than a cycle would normally start. Cycle 24 is likely to reach its peak about 2012.

Global Cooling

The Australian April 23
It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.

Sunspot activity has not resumed up after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that — far from warming — the globe is about to return to an Ice Age, says an Australian-American scientist.

All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.

Physicist Phil Chapman said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," "If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930.

there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.