Not much global warming this June. If this trend keeps up AGW will be laughed at by all. Except for Gore and Hansen, they need more money. Global warming is DEAD!!!!!!!

June was plenty miserable. Cold and rainy and dreary. Not as bad as May, as we had a few nice hot sunny days, but still very below normal. Again, by looking at these maps, we can pretty much determine that there is more blue for 08 that for the other two. Boy, I really wish it were 1988 again. For more that one reason. That third map being one of them. By the by. Where have our "progressive" friends been lately? I am starting to miss there open minded, non-biased, non-political, ever compassionate rants.....:-DDDDD.....

(Reply: Oiznop, The June temperature data from Pittsburgh.......

PIT.......1.6 degrees above normal
Allegheny Cty. airport......1.7 degrees above normal

But it was indeed cloudier and wetter than normal. Two days at or above 90. )

May and June 2008. Proof that Glo-BULL Warming is a CROCK!!!!!!

RSS data just happens to start in 1979 during the ice age scare minima, so not particularly surprising that it has increased. What is more interesting are the satellite 10 and 20 year plots.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1988/plot/rss/from:1988

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998

The trend over the last decade is downward.

Reply: From what I see on their remss.com website the trend from 1998 to now is still slightly upward. Just look at the bottom graph on this post. The recent downward shift in temperatures is still too short a period to reverse the upward trend over the past 10, 20, 30 years. Now, that could change in a short amount of time if we continue to see similar readings like what we have have had over the past year.

Brian,

I find it interesting on how you look at the same data that Brett presents here and you come up with totally different perspective of what the data suggests than I do.

The graph shows a continually upward temperature trend of 0.171K per decade which equates to an overall temperature increase of 0.51K over the entire 30 year record since 1979.

This data is consistent with the RSS temperature data for the month of June, also for the same 30-year period of record:

1) 70S to 82.5N -> +0.44K
2) Continental U.S. -> +0.70K
3) 0 to 82.5N -> +0.65K
4) 20N to 82.5N -> +0.85K
5) 60N to 82.5N -> +1.20K
6) 20S to 20N -> +0.33K
7) 0 to 70S -> +0.24K
8) 60S to 70S -> +0.06K

All of these regions have shown an increase in temperature for the past 30 years.

Obviously the very far southern latitudes in the Antarctic region shows the smallest change, which again is consistent with the observed slight increase in the extent of ice cover down there.

Meanwhile the relatively large temperature increase of 1.20K in the far northern latitudes is also consistent with the 10.2% reduction in the sea ice coverage in the northern hemisphere:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

By the way, the RSS 0.44K rate of change of the global temperatures is also consistent with the rate of change noted in the CRU data set:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/themi/g6.htm

Just look at the RSS, MSU, and CRU data sets in comparison to each other and explain to me how the latest little cooling noted since 1998 really changes the overall pattern of increasing temperatures. Even if you draw straight lines through the minimums in each temperature graph, the latest minimum only meet or are just above that straight line, which means the overall upward trend since the early 1900's is still in effect.

Oiz,

Again we are talking about climate changes, not short-term localized temperature cycles. The same old arguments that you present in your short-term localized temperature reports are meaningless to this whole debate. Thanks to Brett, he shows you how incorrect you are in presenting your weather observations without any data to back up your statements.

If you choose the year 2000 as a baseline it appears temperatures may actually be dropping. (Reply: But we are not.) For the GBW enthusiast, the concern is not only the flattening of the temperature curve, but that there has been no similar hiatus in the rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. If the concentration of CO2 is the controlling factor or even a major factor controlling temperature change, it gives those few who remain objective some pause. Why the steady or accelerating rise in CO2 in the face of a relatively long period of global cooling? Perhaps there is more to climatology than certain fanatics would care to admit.
Of course, if you are the Savior and High Priest of the new lo carbon life style, you cannot afford to get too technical.

Dennis,

No one doubts that it is warmer now than it was in 1900. The problem is that the temperature increases have dropped below even the most conservative IPCC projections - invalidating the climate models.

PH: "RSS data just happens to start in 1979 during the ice age scare minima, so not particularly surprising that it has increased."

Wait one minute, wasn't it you that posted so many arguments in the past that the RSS data is the most reliable data out there, particularly for the far northern latitudes? I didn't see this caveat in your earlier arguments about the data starting in 1979 in regards to the trends we are seeing in the data set. Why is that beginning date of 1979 a problem now?

Does the same hysteria of global cooling back then apply to the skeptics in their current arguments since 1998? Trying to cherry pick the data to only look at 10 or 20 years is a method you obviously learned from the ICECAP group.

Dennis: Your list of temperatures versus latitudes illustrates very nicely that the trends increase as you travel north. This is also plainly evident in the last line of the UAH MSU data set, which lists trends.

What you fail to mention is the contribution of thermohaline circulation or meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific and the impacts of ENSO on the Northern Hemisphere. The more I delve into the Smith and Reynolds SST data set, the less I see available for an AGW contribution over the past century or over the past 30 years.

Regards

Brett - something may be lost on the monitor but that trend line was perfectly straight when I put a ruler on it ( or is straight to the degree it resolves on my screen ) ... therefore what kind of a trend line fit is it?
Obviously it looks like there is no allowance for any sort of curvature since as another poster noted the trend is flat to down for the last decade.
Is this more of the GW communities fun with figures?
Cheers,
Rick.

Dennis,

The point that should be understood about the recent cooling is that it is happening while the atmospheric CO2 level has continued to increase. This implies that CO2 is AT MOST a minor player in atmospheric warming. There is NO logical reason to inject it into the ground. That money should be used instead to develop alternative energy.

Mr. Hinka:
It is fortuitous that you linked to the Hadley data which clearly shows that the slopes for temperature change for the periods 1910-1940 and 1980-2008 are nearly the same. For the latter, there was a small increase in CO2 concentration while for the former, there was a large increase in CO2 concentration. This is just one of the reasons why some of us, while acknowleging the plausibility of a large human signal, believe that a convincing argument for a large human signal has yet to be made.

Look at Northern China and Mongolia: warmer than average in all three images, particularly in June 2007 and June 2008. This is consistan with the forecasts provided by www.wxmaps.org, which most of the times show these areas warmer than average.

And for those who say global warming has ended... it only takes 5 sec. and a look at the graph to see it's nonsense to say GW has ended.

Does anybody believe they can really measure variations at the level of a thousandth of a degree?

OIZNUP: Did you believe in the Ozone Layer; following your logic, you did not. What Irony, some American businessmen are chomping at the bit to get into this new green technology, and here the compulsive deniers are railing against climate change. The leftover arch conservatives and wing nuts holding on beyond all hope, that it gets COLDER? AGW exists and Hansen was right. From the blue to the red goes Greenland, but it's not really melting.
KIPP

Am I the only one here that doesnt understand how the trend line is determined? Should it not start at the far left start temp line and end at far right end temp line? I guess if it did than the high 98 temps would'nt be brought into the graph.

You can imagine how confused I am that Brett says even measuring from 98 to present shows a slight trend upwards....Oh well you guys are the brains. :)

Reply: I learned it in statistics.

dennis not to start an argument but short term temperature changes such as being below normal/above normal does overall affect the long term i mean read what you just wrote thats like saying a warming trend in the near term doesnt affect the long term

sorry guys another 2-3 years of this trend and AGW is finished. This is most likely to happen. Have you not noticed the beginning maybe of an El Nino pattern? and yet temps continue falling?
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.7.10.2008.gif
and it looks like there will be one hell of a drop in temperatures for July 08
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
java 400-600mb heights

Dennis Hlinka:
Than you for your article and the work you put into it. The sccientific approach is usually the most honest.This is not always the case, and people use different yardsticks to judge your conclusions. Something�s are obvious to me, that everyone else is avoiding. Increased extreme weather events, the verified melting of old ice in the arctic Greenland and the tunnels in the Antarctic. But the most basic and obvious problem are the Greenhouse gases. From ice core we can tell when CO2 was present, when volcanoes occurred and what the levels of gases where for the last 760 million years. The correlation between CO2 and global changes is accepted science. The levels of CO2 today and in such a short time scale have risen dramatically. Sinks on Earths surface can no longer hold CO2 and they retain CO2 only to be respired back into the atmosphere causing a feedback and more warming. This might be mitigated by burning less fossil fuel, and we are playing with nature. In a natural cycle CO2 has always stabilized temperatures on Earth. Without CO2 we would be a planet frozen over and it is CO2 not water vapor that has kept our planet in its natural state. An increase in warmth would be due to an abundance of CO2. It is not an absorber of heat, and the more abundant it is the warmer we will be. George Bush gets it, John McCain gets it, and Obama gets it. I talk to conservative businessmen every day and they get it. America is loosing its opportunity to be the world leader in alternate energy. This is time to build our economy, and take advantage of new technologies, and sell them to other countries. It's time to climb on board, and stop this endless disinformation campaign!
KIPP

Goldfinger,

Am I the only one here that doesnt understand how the trend line is determined? Should it not start at the far left start temp line and end at far right end temp line? I guess if it did than the high 98 temps wouldn't be brought into the graph.

Most trend lines are determined not by simply drawing a line from start to finish; a trend line includes all data from the intervening years.

In this case, the decade starting in 1988 (to cite a commonly used date on this thread) was cooler than this past decade, hence the upward trend of the past two decades.

Similarly, though the time period 1998-2008 started out with a record warm year according to RSS data, the two years directly following it were the coolest of that decade until this year. The temperature anomaly generally increases as the graph gets closer to the present. Then comes the decline of the past seven or eight months.

Statistically speaking, while temperatures are significantly lower now than they were in 1998, the current conditions have persisted only long enough to balance the trend, not long enough to tip it significantly negative.

Hope that helps.

~Travis

Goldfinger: Am I the only one here that doesn't understand how the trend line is determined? Should it not start at the far left start temp line and end at far right end temp line? I guess if it did than the high 98 temps wouldn't be brought into the graph.

Goldfinger, it's a "least-squares regression line," which is the line that minimizes the sum of the squared errors. Which is to say, if you take all differences between the actual measurement for each particular time and the corresponding approximation given by the line, square them, and add them up, it's the line that produces the smallest sum. The reason you add up the squared differences instead of just the differences is 1) it makes them all positive so both positive and negative differences increase the error sum; 2) by the Pythagorean Theorem, the total distance is the square root of the sum of the squares, and minimizing the sum of squares also minimizes the square root of the sum of squares; 3) it leads an easily solved equation (which, for instance, using absolute values would not).

You can imagine how confused I am that Brett says even measuring from 98 to present shows a slight trend upwards.

Looking at the graph, I can't see how the line would be slightly upward, either. It looks like it'd be downward to me, though I haven't calculated the regression line. Perhaps Brett meant the 1988 to present line, which does look like it'd go upward.

The History of Climate Change according to those who don't believe in GW:

1st decade - Its getting warm - great for crops and vacation.
2nd decade - El Nina, its snowing outside - there's no such thing as global warming.
3rd decade - Warmer year than average - maybe global warming?
4th decade - Mt Shasta glacier is expanding, its raining and cold out side - absolutely no global warming.
5th decade - Warmer than usual - maybe global warming, not sure? probably not, because... blah blah blah.

Mean while:
Ice sheet as large as xxx are breaking off Antarctica; The Arctic ice cap is disappearing; California is burning; Coral reefs are dying; Sea level is steadily rising over the last 100yrs; Majority of world glaciers are receding/dissapearing; Perma-Frost is melting in Alaska swallowing houses;

What could be the cause of all this?
Maybe, just maybe, the average global temperature is going up and reeking havoc on our environment?
mmm Not sure...lets wait a few more decades, its been colder than average for the last few years.

20yrs or so later:
Most of ice is completely gone. We are in dire straits.
Sucks, I guess GW was occurring - We better find a new planet to live on.
Oh oh, we've run out of Oil!

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
Predicting 2009 NORMAL artic ice or greater.

I find it interesting that the "trend" line disects the temperatures that are plotted on the graph in the middle (average) of each temperature swing.

Except for the very beginning.

Where the "trend" line starts at the lowest possible temperature.

It's rigged, what a crock.

Reply: It's not rigged.

Dennis' response does illulstrate the oppurtunity to "cherry pick" data. However, I must interject that much of the "noise" concerning weather events and thier relationship to AGW (or GW) has been partially caused by the constant media drumbeat. I first noticed it during that awful summer in Europe in 2003 when 35000 people died from heat related deaths. Until recently, a day did not go by without some new "study" pointing out that the drought in Austrailia, or the warm winter in New England, or a blizzard in Virginia was caused by GHG increases.

Dennis is both right and wrong. The data does sh