Kind of a slow day today in the global warming department. Most of what is out there the past couple of days is about John McCain and his stance on global warming, which we covered in the past and will do so again later this year as we get close to the general election. Anyway, I figure today is as good as any day to check out some of the latest global temperature anomalies.

Here is the link to the latest Remote Sensing Systems MSU global temperature anomaly for the month of April. Note: You NEED to click the Anomaly button at the top to see the anomalies for April. I have not seen the GISS data yet.

The biggest things that stick out on this map are.....

1. Strong positive (warm) anomalies over eastern Europe.
2. Strong negative (cold) anomalies over the northwestern U.S. and western Canada.
3. Strong negative anomaly over eastern Australia.
4. Strong positive anomaly over the northern/northwestern Pacific, which is one of the signatures of a switch to the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).

Time to compare the latest global sea-surface temperature anomaly as of May 12th with the one from last year at around the same time in May.

May 12th, 2008

1. Note the strong negative (cool) anomalies from south of Alaska down along the West Coast of the U.S. (Again, this is another signature of a cool phase PDO.) I suspect we may see cooler and wetter-than-normal conditions across the Pacific Northwest into the Fall if this holds.

2. Eastern Atlantic waters (Cape Verde Hurricane development area) are slightly warmer than normal, but the Caribbean is slightly cooler than normal.

3. Strong positive anomalies in the waters around northern Europe.

4. La Nina continues to slowly fade. Most of the negative anomalies are now out into the central equatorial Pacific, while the eastern equatorial Pacific,close to South America is close to normal now.

5. Much of the Indian Ocean is slightly cooler than normal.

Below is May 13th, 2007......

1. Note the narrow band of strong negative (cool) anomalies extending west from South America along the equator.

2. Most of the North Pacific was not to far from normal a year ago.

3. The Indian Ocean was close to normal.