Reference:"temperature departure of 2.1 F (1.2 C) above the 20th century mean. Records kept since 1895."
Since there has been a population shift to the south and west since 1895 along with the percentage of thermometers, why are the average temperatures not skewed warmer as the populationed shifted simply because of the increased number of thermometers in the warmer climates of the U.S.?
Also, how do you reconcile the number and locations of ocean surface temperatures reported in 1880 with those of today?

I wonder how far back we could go without the earth making any changes.The earth is changing every day and man is not going to stop it. We can punch holes thru the ozone layer with Space craft that puts out lots of heat when it goes thru.What is that doing to the ozone layer.God forbid if we where to know the truth.
Planes that put out vapor trails that cause clouds where there would not be any if that plane did not fly there. I have seen beautiful clear days turned into cloudy days from vapor trails.I have seen this all my life.If clouds are being formed by planes in places where mother nature did not want it to rain.Isn't planes changing weather patents? I know they do.So here we have areas that should be getting rain and they are not because the rain has been deverted somewhere else.
Hurricane clouds. The government in there almighty wisdom started seeding clouds to destroy the hurricanes before they get to large.Changing mother natures weather patents.So places that should get rain don't.Is the planet getting hotter faster then normal? Sure it is.Man keeps sticking there nose into things that they shouldn't.
Man is like a virus on the planets surface.We keep producing more people and destroying more of the planet to make more room for more people.the planet earth keeps trying to kill us,or I should say "to stop us from spreading" .It is a cycle that will not stop until the human race stops themselves.How many billions of people have to be born before we consume the earth ?

Brett,

There is nothing in the press release about the global land temperature departure by itself, I guess it was not significant, but it would be nice to know.

The NCDC has global land temps for September as 2nd highest on record with a +0.85C anomaly. (Reply: Thank you Travis, I did not see it. Brett.) 2005 is tops with a +1.04C anomaly. Global land temps for the year to date are the highest recorded (+1.04C to 2002's +0.97C). I actually think they meant that global land surface temps were second warmest, not ocean temps. The NCDC data they link to shows global ocean temps for September at ninth.

Here's the link to NCDC's global temperature analysis:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/sep/global.html#temp

Bret, the upper great lakes that drain through the river St. Claire have much lower levels not neccessarily by lack of rains...I read recently that the dredging for ship channels has caused the River St. Claire to erode its banks and channel to such an extent as to lower the upper great lakes levels by several feet. There are local governments rallying for measures to restrict the flow and restore the banks. Just thought it should be mentioned.

Reply: Thanks for the info. on that George. Brett

Human waste can help save planet: Indian expert.

Here's more AGW "crap" that is helping to pave the way for a global economy. The UN Chief is calling on developed nations to assist. The "millenium developement goals" partly call for halving the global number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071016141117.ah36q4fz&show_article=1

And we "skeptics" are crazy for believing in ulterior motives behind AGW, right? There is no need to "believe" fellow skeptics, when the facts are quite evident. I am standing by for the "Don't you care about these people" guilt trip. Bring it on!

Having not regularly looked at previous such monthly reports, how does this compare with other months? Out of a large number of measurements you would expect a few records to be broken each time here and there.. Or is this really another record month and more evidence to counter the old argument that global warming stopped in 1998??

Reply: it might not seem that extreme compared to what NOAA has released about previous months and seasons recently, but by itself it is fairly significant. Does is counter the argument that GW stopped in 1998? I would say no, based on it is only one month. We need a lot more data than that. Anyone else have an opinion on that?

Bret,

Last week Joe B's site provided a link to an artical which stated this past September was the coldest since 2000. Could you please repost the link? My computer's memory got eraced.

Reply: I'll look.

I want to see who the link used, as a source.

I am starting to feel there is no data involving Climate Change that you can just accept. Everything needs to be double checked. Is it any wonder people from both sides are so suspitious?

And why wasn't it the first??? Oh, by the by, when was the first?? Back in 1875, when it was a free country???

DENY DENY DENY THE GLOBAL WARMING LIE!!!!!!

Pretty impressive ocean temperatures considering that a La Nina was in effect. But, from the following it is pretty easy to see polar amplification as predicted due to elevated CO2 levels is heating all the northern oceans just as the IPCC said it would.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/weekly-sst.php?year=2007&month=09&wed=19&submit_form=Submit&_submit_check=1#form

Also, according to the NCDC, the US drought expanded in the Southeast and parts of the mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley. Drought affected 78 percent of the Southeast, with almost one-quarter of the region affected by exceptional drought conditions, the highest stage of drought, according to the federal U.S. Drought Monitor.

Overall, drought affected 46 percent of the nation, including the Upper Midwest, where persistently dry and warmer than average conditions have helped bring Lake Superior's water level to its lowest point on record for this time of year, according to NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

Levels of all the Great Lakes, which together make up about 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water, have been in decline since the late 1990s. Lakes Huron and Michigan were about two feet below their long-term average levels, while Lake Superior was about 20 inches off, Lake Ontario seven inches below, and Lake Erie three inches below normal in September.

Brett,
Do you know what the warmest month on record was?

Reply: I will have to check. Where are you talking, the U.S. or World?

AAAAYYYYY....Run for the hills, 5th warmest September EVER! Or 8th or 2nd or whatever

Oh wait, really just over 127 years. Yep, that's forever in my book.

And in other news, I lost my entire harvest of apples and buckeye nuts due to the late frost. Guess it balances out huh?

That's interesting, according to the satellite temps, September 2007 is the coolest since 1995 globally and only the 14th warmest since 1979.

In the US, September 2007 is the 10th warmest since 1979 according to the RSS MSU satellite temps.

In the Southern Hemisphere, September 2007 temps were just a bit below average. Between -70 and -60 degrees South (the furthest south for satellite coverage), September 2007 was the lowest since satellite record keeping began in 1979.

Northern Hemisphere temps for September 2007 are the 11th warmest since 1979 and for the Arctic (60 to 82.5 deg N), September 2007 temps were only 0.04 deg C above average (18th warmest; 11th coolest).

I'm surprised they didn't tell us about these tidbits of information.

Well by the looks of the data from september we are experiencing global cooling. Come on. When are you guys gonna wake up and see whats going on.1000 record highs? We need to act now about what is happening instead of arguing about whether it is happening or not. Yet someone will still say it was an abnormally warm month. Well it has been abnormally warm for as many of the past months that I can remember. And gettting warmer.

It has been thousands of years Noah made his prophecy of flood. Al Gore warns us that green land will slide into the ocean. Soon the sins of Los Angeles and New York will be under 500 feet of water. No one listened to Noah either. A prophet is never respected in his own land.

Oiznop,

What is it about the fact that 1875 had the warmest September recorded that makes AGW a lie, or even causes serious doubts. It's a statistical outlier. The important thing to notice is that, on the whole, the majority of recent months have been above average. I have noticed that alot of us on this blog point out that the meterological record only goes back about 100 - 150 years in this country. Of course, we should always be aware of being mislead by things like small sample size and sample bias. That doesn't change the fact that the distribution of temperatures around the mean is way out of whack as compared to what you would expect if the actual global climate was stable in this time frame. Of course, that data says nothing about the cause of the variability. Many of you guys have made forceful arguments that this change is caused by natural variance. That's a completely different argument. What I mean to say is that our sample size is large enough to make meaningful conclusions about current climate stability, or lack thereof.

Nome has cooled 1.1 degrees since 1977. The thirty year trend less important to NOAA than one warm month.

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/7706Change.html

We are having a very cold October in Fairbanks. NOAA will not highlight that in the October summary even though one month trends are more important than 30 year trends. Only warm months are important.

http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Climate/Fairbanks/Temperature.jpg

Gabe:
" Well it has been abnormally warm for as many of the past months that I can remember. And gettting warmer. "

Can you back that up? Can you actually show a general global trend to higher temps from 1998 on?
Brett: Can you show any data that actually confirm a tempurature trend from 1998 on that shows a undeniable upward trend?
Can anyone?

Just saying it, does not really make it so. I know that is what they think over at realclimate but well... they are just activist advocates.

WHEN YOU GIVE ASTATMENT LIKE 5TH WARMEST, THE NATURAL QUESTIONS WHEN DID 1 THROUGH 4 HAPPEN

cmbclean, you said :
"our sample size is large enough to make meaningful conclusions about current climate stability"

Temperature change is the first derivative dT/dt. Temperature stability is the second derivate d2T/dt2. There is no reason to believe that either value should be close to zero. Indeed looking at the Vostok Ice core data, it appears that d2T/dt2 alternates between large positive and negative values. Your assmption that the climate is normally stable is probably erroneous.

Best Regards, Waclaw

Eva is right, Gore has spoken. Or more exactly dulled us.

Told ya it's a religion not necessarily a logically based debate.

Garry,

WHEN YOU GIVE ASTATMENT LIKE 5TH WARMEST, THE NATURAL QUESTIONS WHEN DID 1 THROUGH 4 HAPPEN

According to NCDC, 2005, 1997, 2003, and 2006.

See the top chart:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/sep/glob-sep-pg.gif

Reply: Travis, thanks for saving me some time on that one. Appreciate it. Brett

Gary,

Can you back that up? Can you actually show a general global trend to higher temps from 1998 on?

No, not if you consider the temerpature difference between 1998 and 2007 and simly look at those two numbers. On the other hand, you could look at a chart of yearly temperatures in context:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/sep/glob-sep-pg.gif

When you look at the combined land and surface chart, you see that Septembers 1997 and 1998 were anomalously warm when compared to trend. The anomaly in 1999 dropped to half that of 1997's anomaly, but then proceeded to show a consistent upward trend through 2005. The past two years have been cooler, but until they are put in context (i.e. several years from now), we won't know if they signify a change in the trend or simply a dip in the road.

Ditto for the annual temperature trend:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/sep/glob-jan-sep-pg.gif

You could perhaps argue that temperatures have been relatively flat since 2002, but it is evident that 1998 was ahead of its time as far as the trend goes.

Paul -

Interesting how you pointed out the discrepancy between NOAA's claim and the RSS-MSU data.

Here is a link to a short post by Dr. Lubos Motl pointing out the exact same thing.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/10/rss-msu-september-2007-was-7th-coolest.html

Makes you wonder just what Hansen-style adjustments NCDC has made to the raw temp data. Will have to see if Climateaudit is looking into this discrepancy yet.

Also, as far as the global SST being #2 warmest since 1880, given the LaNina, coupled with the fact that the Tropical Atlantic has cooled at least 1 C since the very warm summers of 2004 & 2005, this again begs the question - what are they doing with the raw data ???

Finally, regarding the 8th warmest in the US, everyone should take note : this was caused by a high pressure ridge parked over the SE US which became a semi-permanent feature during the summer. The presence of the ridge pumped hot air from the tropical regions of the Gulf, Carribean and Mexico into the Great Basin where dry conditions (low soil moisture) sent temperatures soaring. It was not due to the "Global Warming Boogeyman" ! AND, it was this same ridge that sent the two Cat 5 hurricanes almost due west into Mexico, and prevented them from turning NW into the US.

I'll take hot weather over landfalling major hurricanes every day of the season.

Is it just me or is all of this happening at a seemingly incredible rate? Is CO2 that potent of a greenhouse gas (record arctic minimums, decreasing lake levels, etc) that within a span of 20-30 years we would notice such a substantial increase in average temperatures?

oh eva,

your reference to ole mr gore is right on... he is of prophet status to the AGW cult...a cult whereby nothing is factually proven, dooomsday is right around the corner so just believe him nevermind he doesnt seem to live the lifestyle he preaches...a cult which is trying to indoctrinate little kids thru scary, scientifically faulty books and movies...i'm surprised he isnt rumored to make people faint by touching their foreheads...in addtition there is a legion of worshippers who's sole interest is promoting the farce to acquire government handouts...pretty pathetic if you ask me...in the context of noah, it is a sad TESTAMENT to the ilk this AGW thingy is all about when u consider the resources that are being wasted, resources which could be used instead to solve real world problems not some computer generated fairytale based on a miniscule increase of a beneficial, life sustaining gas...

Guys,

I'd like to start a dialogue with all of those on this blog who think that AGW is wrong. I'd like ot know (and this is in all seriousness, without any sarcasm). what would it take for you to change your minds? What sort of evidence would need to be shown or what sort of future weather events would need to happen for you to actually change your mind. I'll ask the reverse of all those who feel that AGW theory is essentially correct. What would make you believe that AGW isactually incorrect?
For example, I personally would begin to have grave doubts about the validity of AGW theory if the average temperature of the next 10 years is lower than that of the last 10 years. If the average temperature of the next 30 years is lower than that of the last 30, then I would really begin to have doubts. Also, if it is revealed that there has been alarge-scale error in calculating past temps, so that a specious warmign trend is created in past data, I would admit that AGW theor