According to both RSS and UAH, the worldwide December to February period was colder than 2001, and the coldest winter since 1993. RSS showed temperatures below the thirty year mean for the period.
http://www.remss.com/pub/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_1.txt
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt

I wonder if NOAA funding levels are at all dependent on keeping the numbers up?

Hansen will probably declare it the second or third warmest winter ever, after weighting Finland as the most significant location on earth.

I find the terminology interesting, jumping between 'average' and 'mean' - and they are rather different; the use of 61st warmest rather than 42nd coldest (IIRC it is 1895 when they started record-keeping, but I'm close enough for the point I'm making). However, it still doesn't point to runaway heating and Tony Blair says we're only two years from uncontrollable warming. Nobody believed him and Al Gore when they were politicians, why should we believe them when they are 'climatologists'?

From the NOAA report:

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the 16th warmest on record for the December 2007-February 2008 period (0.58 °F/0.32 °C above the 20th century mean of 53.8 °F/12.1 °C).

Was it unusually cool this winter or unusually warm? It depends on your frame of reference.

There's this little thing called La Nina which cools the planet as a whole. Deniers may have heard of it. Of course, they seem to believe that ENSO events can't exist in an anthropogenically warming world. The previous La Nina we had was...you guessed it...2000-01. The sun was more active back then, so it's clear that the sun has very little to do with the cooling.

It's very interesting that even though we supposedly had a "cool" winter, it was still 0.2 degrees above average.

VG introduced this a few days ago.

This is my favorite IPCC graph of all time.

http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/gmt_testnoextra.jpg

I understand Lucia has done a great job on the statistics, Cochrane-Orcutt method, etc.

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/ipcc-projections-overpredict-recent-warming/

What do I know about statistics? I like the graph.

The global surface temperature sets have come under some credible criticism (in peer-reviewed papers) as having upward biases that have not been properly adjusted out. The U.S. temperature sets are considered more reliable, and I think puts the current climate in the proper perspective (from the NOAA release):

"* In the contiguous United States, the average winter temperature was 33.2�F (0.6�C), which was 0.2�F (0.1�C) above the 20th century average � yet still ranks as the coolest since 2001. It was the 54th coolest winter since national records began in 1895."

54th COOLEST, not 16th WARMEST.

B-b-b-but that CAN'T be true!!! We have had 2 record hot days in South Texas!! That means that AGW is going strong. You know all those CO2 producing ranch trucks are causing our heat here!!

///sarcasm off///

Honestly, can you send us some of that cool? 100 degree days kind of bite in March.

A good visual of how global warming has affected the ski industry out west.

http://www.newwest.net/snow_blog/article/spring_season_extended/C458/L41/

Some headlines cite "one of warmest winters in over 100 years; other cite "coolest since 2001". Both are right of course, if you believe the data. But any real science pays exhaustive attention to significant digits; that is the accuracy of the instruments and procedures used to collect data. Is the temperature data for the entire US, let alone the entire globe, accurate enough to report records within 0.2 degrees F? Considering the size of the globe, the local variability of temperatures, changing measurement technology, etc. this seems far fetched. Estimates are fine but NOAA needs to put a confidence interval around this data if it wants to be taken seriously.

Hey, Nobel Prize Winners, Answer Me This
by Roy W. Spencer
University of Alabama in Huntsville

A climate scientist asks some questions of the IPCC;

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Hey-Nobel-Prize-Winners-Answer-Me-This.pdf

Hmmmm...

Why should I read all of the information when it was plainly put out in the thread starter that "coolest" is a relative term?

Amazing that information such as this nearly always comes with a caveat.

Yet, when we are told that the planet is the "warmest" on record, I rarely, if ever, recall that we are told that it is relative.

Why do you suppose that is?

I can do a relativity thing too....

Just think, if the .2 F trend continues, in a mere 100 years, it will be 20 degrees F warmer.

PANIC! A new Ice Age is coming... lol! Coolest Winter since 2001? Wow... so now you care that it's a bit "cooler" (Still above average), but no one pays attention to the glaciers in Patagonia Argentina that are melting quite fast.

Follow the money.....

$1 million prize for climate change professor

A British scientist has won a $1m international award for his work on using chemical fossils to understand past climatic change.... Others honoured with the science prize include the former US vice-president Al Gore

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/17/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange

A few months ago, Australia was declared by alarmists to be a terminal victim of global warming. That was right before it turned cold and started flooding.

ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/temperature/maxanom/month/colour/latest.gif
ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/rainfall/percent/3month/colour/latest.gif

I'm an agnostic as far as global warming is concerned.
In the seventies I remember looking at tables showing the correlation between the number of growing days in Scotland and the 11 year sunspot cycle.Going on natural cycles this winter and probably next winter should be colder than recent averages.

Horrors!!!!

I found this headline this morning.

Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.

And the accompanying text: The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

Oh, did I mention that this article is from November 2, 1922? Thanks to Anthony Watt.

PANIC! A new Ice Age is coming... lol! Coolest Winter since 2001? Wow... so now you care that it's a bit "cooler" (Still above average), but no one pays attention to the glaciers in Patagonia Argentina that are melting quite fast.

REPLY: Have to ask, E. The Patagonia Glaicers couldn't be "melting quite fast" because it's summer time there, could it? Also, as far as this report. Ain't buying it. Why does this end in February? I thought winter began on December 21, and ended on March 21. To me, this report is incomplete. And it's still bloody cold where we are standing!

Pittsburgh weather. Proof that Glo-BULL Warming is a COLOSSAL CROCK!!!!!!

So now we are chasing 8 year departures from a subjective 30 year adjusted mean? And this is supposed to be climate? A little more than a year ago Phil Jones and Hansen predicted that the 2007 anomally would be higher than 2005 (which was allegedly higher than 1998). That is, 2007 was suppose to be the warmest year since records were kept. Instead, there was a 0.6 deg C drop-off. All of this is now being blamed on ENSO which wasn't suppose to occur, and which according to the IPCC and its minions can no longer drive climate (especially its cool phase known as La Nino). GHGs are and its feedback mechanisms are THE ONLY factor that drives climate.

The question now that is being asked by a small minority, has nothing to do with the 14 month temp anomaly, but whether 2008 will be known as the flipside of the 1976 Great Pacific Climate Shift. In 1976, oceanographers were not only surprised by an unexpected El Nino, but also by a general warming across the entire Pacific SSTs and a slight increase in temps worldwide. The Pacific has generally been warm ever since, as has global temperatures. In 1997, climate scientists dubbed the North Pacific SST fluxuation the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The PDO is tightly intergrated with ENSO, and a negative PDO means more La Ninas, less El Ninos. For North America this does not only mean cooler temperatures, but a drier climate -especially if the AMO remains positive.

WHOOPSIE !!
Well guy's, ya think they'll fall for the glacial thing again?
Keeps the ole check comin in anyway.

If nothing else, the this shows the danger of extrapolating from a data trend.

Patrick Henry,

We can joke about planning our winter vacations in balmy Finland, but I'll give you ten-to-one odds that we really do see an Alarmist artical about last winter's warmth in Finland, during the next ninty days.

I'll also give you ten-to-one odds we read nothing about the terrible cold in Cental Asia, where many, (perhaps even thousands,) of shepherds lost fingers and toes, and even froze to death.

If any person knows the outdoors, and local weather, it is a shepherd. For them to be caught off guard, it had to be really, really cold. But I bet we'll hear about Finland instead.

Mark,

I always try to be one step ahead of Alarmists, and to figure out their next alarming viewpoint ahead of time. Therefore I've been surprised there has been no notice of the fact the La Nina can be linked to polar melting.

It might seem a stretch that a cool event like the La Nina can be linked to a warm event like polar melting, but the opposite is also the case. A cool event, volcanic ash in the atmosphere, has been linked to the warm El Nino.

I think the reason Alarmists don't jump on this idea, and raise a ruckus about how the cold La Nina is a sign of warming and a global melt-down, is because they would have to give credit to Dr. Bill Grey. He noticed the corralation over 20 years ago, and asked for funding to study it, but was denied. The funding was all funneled to Hansen's models.

Such a pity. Here you have an perfectly good idea that could be used to generate panic and to cause worry and insomnia in school children, and you can't even use it.

Even nature seems to be ganging up on poor Alarmists. The earth is refusing to blow off volcanos and the sun is refusing to make sunspots. Therefore Alarmists can't blame volcanic ash for cooling, even as it gets harder and harder not to blame the lack of sunspots for cooling.

It's a really rough time to be an Alarmist. But don't worry. You still have Finland.

Snow dangers close Montreal French schools, again
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2008/03/17/snow-dangers-close-montreal-french-schools-again.aspx

Hi Mark - You claimed that the large drop in temperature is due to La Nina. However, in December, the "world's best climatologist" Dr. Hansen declared La Nina to be a "minor" effect. So what credentials do you have to disagree with your AGW Guru?
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20071210_GISTEMP.pdf

(I suppose that if Obama can suddenly repudiate his long time spiritual leader, you are entitled to as well.)

NOAA maps show that most of the country is below normal temps this year. I would be interested to understand how it can be both the 14th warmest year, and below normal at the same time. The record is more than 100 years long.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/YearTDeptUS.png

More statistical magic from the AGW world!

Folks,
THis is all interesting but......
No matter what, this is all just weather not climate. I could care less if the temp averaged for my place is -4 C or -3.8C these past few months. I still can’t grow anything because it is winter. The temperature difference really means nothing. All it means is, “Do I have to throw another log on the fire?”
This is all starting to remind me of the argument about “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”….completely meaningless, it’s just an exercise in intellectual flatulence.
…. besides Dr. Hansen will probably adjust the temperature at the rural weather station by my house up by 3-6 degrees convincing me I need plow my fields already in spite of the snow cover.
It is -11 C here this morning…..the horses are hoping Dr. Hansen is right…though they have severe observational doubts.
READ, learn, ask questions, and think for yourself...

Emiliano look at COLE again especially South America which I showed 5 months ago
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp8.html (it looks nearly the same as before)SA mostly cooling except for Argentina)

All I know is that here in northwest Jersey:

November was 1.95 degrees below average.
Average snow was +6.00" above

December was .78 degrees below average.
Average snow +3.75" above

January was 2.8 degrees above average.
Average snow was down -3.25"

Febuary was dead on average temps.
Average snow was up 6.38"

Ofcourse if you take November out the winter becomes much warmer than average, but with it, it hits the average! And dispite the storm track going into the great lakes this year we have a surplus of snow. March so far is below snowfall and about .10 degrees above average but it's only half way through.

When I compare this to my friends data in Bayonne near the city (about 45 minutes away) he has 30" inches less of snow and is well above average for the winter. So lets see, I live in a rural area, he lives in a big city. Could it be urban heating? I think so... but I also think the solar cycle minimum has something to do with it because a la nina winter should have been much warmer than my records show.

Paul,

Awesome post, thanks to you and Anthony. I hope we survive the flood.

Mark,

"So it's clear the sun has nothing to do with the cooling."

Really? What makes you so sure about this?