UAH anomalies have gone more negative since La Nina ended. August is looking to be a very cool month.

Nice try, Met.

It has been cooler up here in Alaska all year even as the La Nina has went away. You have to really lack any science education to promote AGW theory when the data shows otherwise. It is sad how ignorant most AGW promoters are when they don't have anything to back up their theory. Have a great day from Fairbanks, and don't let AGW liars get you down.

Reply: It looks like some of the decidious trees around Fairbanks (based on webcams) are starting to change color now. Do you see that as well and is this about the normal time for this?

Sea surface temps in the arctic are still well above normal.
Sea Ice Extent as of Aug 26/08 5,222,969 square kilometers.It's getting close.

Sorry,I know it's a little off topic.

Wha...Wha...WHAT????....COOLER 2008???? B-B-But BRETT...I thought temperatures were UP?...I thought the summer was ABOVE NORMAL???...I thought that those evil Americans were COOKING THE EARTH and needed to be TAX FOR IT???...I thought the SUV was the reason for all of our problems????...Why, this is an outrage! I demand a recount. And to our Chicken Little Friends. I am still laughing at you!...ROFLMAO!!!!

Ain't I a Stinker????....:-DDDDDD....

Oh and with regard to this:

But for those who are rooting for an ice age, don't get too excited.

REPLY: You'd have to be high on crack to be wishing for a new ice age.

La Nina has faded for now and the ENSO is fairly neutral, so global temperatures will be rising again, according to Met office scientists.

REPLY: We can only hope for next summer, as this one, like last year, is obviously shot to hades. Still waiting for it to start.

Let me get this straight:
There is a naturally occurring El Nino and the temperature rises so we blame the high temps on man and an increase in CO2.
Now with CO2 still rising to even higher levels but there is a natural La Nina and the temperature plummets worldwide we blame the decrease on natural forces.
Oh yeah the logic behind this postulation makes Absolute sense! (Could it be that Maybe they were imbibing in too much Absolute when postulating this story)
Question! Has anybody used a computer to figure out just how low the temps would have dropped without our co2 induced heat blanket?
How about we call this weather and leave it at that.
For you folks worrying about whether or not you can swim at the North Pole this summer ruminate on this. Corn can grow well in 80 or 100 degree weather (Caused undoubtedly by man made CO2 increase or not) but below 60 corn kind of just sits there doing nothing.
So far Central NY is has averaged -2 F below normal this month with 68 heating days and only 20 cooling days. Lots of folks had to replant their fields this spring because of the cold wet weather (caused by natural forces). Plants need X number of days of warm temperatures and X hours of sunshine for the plants to mature. With the days getting shorter and these low temps to deal with….. if we get a frost before early October…plan on dieting or getting a second job to pay for food.

It would be entertaining and educational to see this same plot of predictions from this time last year.

Hmmm, lets see.

Since 1850 there have been dozens of La Nina events, but this year ends up among the 10th warmest even with all that cooling. This goes to show how much CO2 levels have driven our climate.

Now, even with strong cooling signals from La Nina and the Atlantic cycle, we are still looking at the top decile of warmest years.

What's to come when El Nino returns within a few years and the solar cycle kicks up again?

Why don't you just admit it? The climate is controlled by the sun!!! And right now, it's at a historic minimum!!!

So wait, let me see if I get this right.

The previous temperature increases (since 1978) have been caused as a result of man's addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. Further, the increase has not been caused so much by the direct affect of the CO2 increase (which would be very small as shown in the IPCC report, but by positive feedbacks that result from the CO2 addition. Those positive feedbacks are caused not by CO2, but by the temperature increases from the CO2. If there are no temperature increases (or even decreases), then where does the positive feedback come from?

Interesting that this implies that natural cycles (La Nina, PDO, AMO, ENSO, etc) are not responsible for warming, but are responsible for cooling. If La Nina is responsible for this cooling, then why wasn't the El Nino of 98 responsible for the warming during the period 98-2002?

It seems to me that we're starting to argue that natural cycles overwhelm AGW.

Brett

I assume the light blue outlier on the spaghetti graph is the all new super duper high resolution 10 year forecsting model of the Brit Met office. The one they are using to sell their climate/weather forecasts?

If they didn't cost the UK citizens so much money they would be laughable but they cost millions.

Brett

I hope you didn't get that twice because my browser came back with URL not found when I posted.

Just another quick comment though. Perhaps you can help me here.

This graph. It shows models forecasting everything from La Nina to Le nino, am I right.

Reply: The graphs are still close enough to 0 that they would be considered near neutral.

They seem to be pretty meaningless models if that's so.

It Don�t Add Up! [Marlo Lewis]

There�s been no net global warming in the 21st century. Although seldom reported by the mainstream media, it�s quite a story, because no climate model predicted it.

http://www2.nationalreview.com/dest/2008/08/11/ipccchart.jpg

This graph, courtesy of atmospheric scientist John Christy, shows how climate models and reality diverge. The red, purple, and orange lines are model forecasts of global temperatures under different emission scenarios. The yellow line shows how much warming we are supposedly �committed to� even if CO2 concentrations don�t change. The blue and green lines are actual temperatures as measured by ground-based (HadCrut) and satellite (UAH LT) monitoring systems.

What�s really rather remarkable, is that since 2000, the rates at which CO2 emissions and concentrations are increasing have accelerated.

According to a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, fossil fuel and cement emissions increased by 3.3 percent per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.3 percent per year in the 1990s. Similarly, atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by 1.93 parts per million per year during 2000-2006, compared to 1.58 ppm in the 1990s.

And yet, despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there's been no net warming in the 21st century. It don�t add up!

Skeptics have long said climate models aren�t accurate enough to base policy decisions on. That may be truer now than ever.

You know, not every El Nino is the same, the atmosphere does not react the same way each time. The Hysterics faces are starting to turn blue.

Great comment Bill Marsh on why natural cycles are only are accused of cooling and not warming.
Andrew, I do hope you find time and go to the couple previous blogs and answer my question as you seem to know what is happening with Globull warming.

My August 10 of the last 12 nights have had lows in the 40's, todays low was 51 only due to cloudcover{or was it global warming,lol} but the high today was only 58 with a cool east wind and some drizzle, and it is August..August, this is summer, this is in the midst of global warming, in the midst of out of this world co2, can you imagine how cold it would have been if not for this, so my thanks go out to all of you suv drivers, without you, maybe, just maybe it would be snowing in August, so please drive on.

I don't know about the leaves in Fairbanks,Alaska but I'm still picking blueberries here in upstate New York. I don't remember the 70's but in recent years they've all been gone by early August.

Bob Tisdale: Thanks for teaching me what dogma means. I always thought of it as a religion. WoW!
Time to abnegate your historical place and let the little people think among us.
Although I bellieve in AGW I find this factor of unpredictability to be a flaw in the IPCC. Long term predictions are by nature uncertain, because we do not live in a fish bowl, or a test tube. The Gaia Philosophy doesn't work for me as there are so many mitigating factors, and natural or anomalous accidents that are part of a much larger canvas to draw from. That is why I always want to learn science but will never know it all. There are to many things to learn, and the facts are universal.
KIPP

Updated IRI figure here: http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/currentinfo/SST_table.html

Reply: Thanks Fred!

I think Ted makes a good bit of sense. We can't blame humans when it heats up and then say that naturally the planet cools. Doing so, makes it appear to be agenda driven.

I would like to comment on crop production here in western WI this summer. First, it only hit 90 a couple times this summer. Thank goodness. We had a very cool spring - so much so we lost our first crop of hay because it grew but not enough heat/sun to ever get it dried. We were not able to plant our garden until the middle of June which is really late. The corn, soy bean, crops looks dismal this spring. I comment before how nothing except grass grew until July. The corn was barely knee high at the 4th of July which as we all know is corn not growing very well at those levels. We had a fair amount of rain until this month which has been awfully dry but beautiful weather. All that being said, I think the crops look super. Our garden has NEVER, EVER produced so much. The corn is standing at heights I have never seen. The beans look equally as good. Our second crop of hay was outstanding which the 3rd cut was dismal because of the lack of rain the past month. The nights have been very cool. No air conditioning needed lately. I would conclude that 2008 has been a cool one.

Andrew: You wrote, "Since 1850 there have been dozens of La Nina events, but this year ends up among the 10th warmest even with all that cooling. This goes to show how much CO2 levels have driven our climate."

Andrew, I thought your logic was better than that. Please go back and count the number of El Ninos too. And while you're at it, factor in the intensities of the El Ninos and La Ninas. What you'll find if you go through the exercise is that the frequency and amplitude of El Ninos far exceeds that of La Ninas. Then, after you run through that process, find the coefficient derived from a peer-reviewed study by Trenberth et al for the global temperature response to changes in NINO3.4 SST, apply that coefficient to the NINO3.4 SST for each year, add them all together, but take a running total as you do. If you plot the running total of the NINO3.4 data, the curve of that running total mimics the time-series plot of global temperature anomaly. What a coincidence!! It's almost an exact fit. Don't believe me? Click on my name. It'll run you through the whole thing. I go through the process in a slightly different manner in that post, but the end result is the same.

It's not a trick. It's there in the data. The links are all there. Take the time. Repeat the process.

Please show me how to do that with your beloved CO2.

Regards.

Brett,

To your reply about the trees changing early. Yes, the trees are changing about three weeks sooner that I have seen for the 15 years I have lived up here. Driving down to Anchorage today I also noticed that the snow levels on the lower peaks are still there which is odd since they are normally gone by the beginning of July.

Reply: Thanks for the info.

Kipp: You're cross-threading comments again, which is confusing to anyone trying to figure out what you're talking about. And that includes me sometimes.

Brett - deciduous trees here in central NH began turning 2 weeks ago. Very early. Mast production is also very high. Troubling signs - after 2 consecutive brutal winters, we don't need another.

It is interesting that the dynamical models tend to predict warming, and the statistical models cooling...or perhaps I am just seeing things...of course, with variation such as is seen in these predictions, they have very little value. I wonder what the uncertainty is decades out?

Kricki highlights the convergence of global cooling (okay, regional or local cooling) and increased CO2: cool nights and great crops. Living in DFW, I'd be very happy with cool nights (or days).

Met rules:

1. If temperatures are above normal during El Nino, it is due to CO2

2. If temperatures are below normal during La Nina, it is due to La Nina

3. If temperatures are below normal and there was a La Nina at sometime in the past, it is due to the past La Nina.

4. When comparing temperatures vs. the past, always pick a time period or geographic region which best supports the climate models.

Bob,

I read your blog. You basically took two plots, superimposed them, and then used filters, scaling factors, offsets, and any other transformation you could think of to make the two plots "fit."

And you claim Hansen maniuplates data? Ha!

quote Ted
"ted:
Let me get this straight:
There is a naturally occurring El Nino and the temperature rises so we blame the high temps on man and an increase in CO2.
Now with CO2 still rising to even higher levels but there is a natural La Nina and the temperature plummets worldwide we blame the decrease on natural forces.

How about we call this weather and leave it at that."

ROTFL

Exactly

.

Brett,

I believe your words to describe the predictive value of these ENSO forecasts last time were:

"...nothing too great."

Although a comparative newbie, I'd put it:

"They're for jollies."

The SH has had a rough winter, I'd like to see the the JJA and JAS numbers before I conclude there isn't wishful thinking in the overall forecast.

Brett,

I believe your words to express the value of the ENSO models the last time was "There accur