I suppose I should post something…

So much to do, so little time.  I seem to have somehow misplaced my HadCrut notes in the midst of my life.

 

For giggles, here’s a little “Life Update” that has absolutely nothing to do with climate, although I may add that it’s been very nice here lately, with perfectly warm temperatures that makes one yearn for more.

So, let’s see… 

1) I’ve managed to let my analysis here slide while I continue to forge ahead with my FOREX experimentation.  This is taking anywhere from an hour to 2 hours a day, but lately is looking as if it may bear fruit.  Only time will tell, as the market can turn on you in a hurry.   I’ll update you occasionally.  I’m an honest guy, so I’ll tell you right now that I am down in my account, but not as much as I was 2 weeks ago.  You really shouldn’t trade real money before you know what you’re doing, but it’s tough for me to really take it seriously otherwise.  But I don’t recommend it unless you just truly have some disposable income that you can afford to lose.   I’m still breathing!   I have started  a trading journal online that I’ll point you to some day if my current strategy continues in success.  (Big IF at this point, but we’ll see.)

2) Had to take some family time around the 4th of July.  Hope all had a happy Independence Day.

3) We are re-modeling our home.   Each step, unfortunately, requires multiple steps.  We replaced the counters and sink in the kitchen.  So everything got cleared out of the cupboards.   Unfortunately, the sink didn’t fit back in right and there are other problems, which will now cost me about an extra $400 in plumbing.   Ugh.    We put new carpet in three bedrooms so far, and tore wallpaper down and painted and all that stuff.  Plus, everything needs to be removed from the room (dismantled in many cases) and relocated, only to put it all back in.   Now, we’re in the process of removing wallpaper and painting in the main living area, which is just peachy.   I’m trying to make arrangements for new A/V equipment, as well.  All this really sucks, if I’m being honest.  I hate this kind of work.

4) Work is as busy as ever, and our company is relocating to a newly built headquarters (same town, so at least I don’t have to move).  But this has its own demands that spill into personal time.

5) I’m in a band that plays for a festival once a year, and we’ve been practicing a couple nights a week, which is also cutting into my time that would otherwise be spent analyzing data.  Let’s see…  music or data analysis…   tough call there.

6) We had a 2-month span of baseball everynight of the week, along with swimming lessons, along with ice-skating (indoors – even in Wisconsin we don’t ice skate outside in the summer), various camps, and so on.  Lots of running around.

7) Anyone who followed my personal posts in the past knows that we have a HUGE garden, which of course has now taken up additional time to maintain during the warm weather.

So, I’m afraid the blog is just firmly entrenched in the back seat at the moment.  As I look over my list, I’m wondering how I’ve even managed to fit all that in.   We’re all busy, of course, and I’m not complaining.  Just keeping readers in the loop.  As I said, I will be back.  Just a matter of when.

I’ll try to find my HadCrut analysis in the meantime.  Hopefully it didn’t get tossed out with the wallpaper.   I’ve also got at least one guest post to review that I can hopefully get up soon.

Here’s to an enjoyable summer to all!

I’ll Be Back Soon…

Sorry for the hiatus. I actually do have a HadCrut analysis worked up that’s been sitting here for over a week, but I’ve been caught up in other things. Hey… I warned everyone that there would be times like this, as I juggle a number of things. Blogging is cool, and I consider this important enough to keep doing, but at times it just needs to take a back seat. I’m during one of those times right at the moment.

But I should get that HadCrut analysis up sooner rather than later, and soon we’ll be talking about June anomalies.

Here’s my quick hits:

• Thank goodness the House of Representatives passed that climate bill.  They did it just when we in Wisconsin was enjoying some of the few unseasonably warm temperatures we’ve had in the last couple years.   Three days after passage, we’re back to 15 degrees below normal.  Coincidence?   I think not!  Thank you, Nancy Pelosi!
• Obama says the White House will be changing light bulbs.   If they are looking for a place to donate their old incandescents, please let them know that I am accepting.
• I’ve learned a great lesson in economics this week.  I’ve learned that passing a bill that restricts any development of energy that is efficient and trades it for alternative energy systems that are (as of now) inefficient, and that will increase electical costs, that it means “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs!”   To quote one of my favorite movies: “You keep saying that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.”

June 2009 Update on Global Temperature – UAH

The UAH anomaly this month was 0.043. The link to the data can be found on the right of the page, under the Temperature Resources section.

The May data point
If you think that an anomaly near zero sounds about average, you’re right. In fact, it’s also around median (slightly below, actually). Go figure… The current anomaly ranks 16th of 31 May anomalies (48th percentile) and 202nd out of 366 overall anomalies (44th percentile).

The anomaly is stated in terms of degrees Celsius, but I will use the convention of 0.01 degrees Celsius, which translates to an anomaly of 4.3. When I say “units” I mean “0.01 degrees Celsius.” Units is more convenient.

The May anomaly was 4.7 units less than the April anomaly. However, due to a sharp negative reading last year, we were up 22.6 units this May over last May.

Averages

The current 12-month average is 14.0. Despite the lower anomaly this month, the annual average actually increased due to the fact that a cold anomaly dropped off from a year ago in the 12-month average calculation. The current average is the highest since the period ending April 2008. I’ve shown the plotted running 12-month average below. Note the easily seen single-step upward that looks to occur around 1997-98. I’ve noted that in the past.

12-month running average anomaly - UAH

For giggles, I looked at a couple other running averages, as well. The 36-month average is 18.85 ending May 2009. Interestingly, this average had trended downward every month since September 2007 until this month. It blipped up a bit this time around from the last month’s average of 18.70. (For those who like to accuse me of cherry-picking data, note that all the averages from 18-month average to 30-month average declined, and then every average from 42-months through 108-months declined from last month). Obviously, if you’ve thought about the math on this, it means that a low anomaly from three years ago dropped off. Going forward, it is probable that this average will continue to decline, barring some major warming.

36-month running average anomaly - UAH

Finally, I pulled the 120-month running average anomaly, which was 20.26. This is the fifth consecutive increase in the 120-month average. It is likely that we will see this average continue to increase over the next year+, unless we start seeing consistent single-digit or negative anomalies.

120-month running average anomaly - UAH

One caution on that chart: don’t read it as a trend. Looking at the raw data, or the 12-month running average, it is evident that the smooth increase over time has to do with autocorrelation of the data. As I discussed here, a single step in the data will give the appearance of a gradual trend when a plot is presented in terms of long-term averages, or a best-fit single linear trend. So keep all the charts in the right context.

Consecutive month streaks
We’ve now seen three consecutive anomalies lower than the previous month, but at the same time this is the seventh consecutive anomaly higher than the prior-year anomaly.

Trend Lines:
Keeping in mind the caveat about context and single steps, we live in a world that loves trend lines. So, here is that information:

The overall trend is 0.10464. This means that the trend line indicates that, each month, the anomaly is, on average, 0.0010464 degrees Celsius higher than the previous month. All those digits make it difficult to realize whether that’s big or small, so I let you know how that translates into the rate of warming per Century. The overall trend indicates 1.26 degrees Celsius warming per Century (heretofore presented in the format 1.26/C). The decadal trend is one-tenth that amount, or 0.126 degrees Celsius per Decade.

Of course, we know by simple observation of the chart, as well as knowledge of past trend lines, that a linear trend is not representative of reality. All it tells us is that the best-fit trend line is what it is. From there, we look at other things, like how slope values are changing, cycles in the data, and so on.

Overall UAH trendline since inception

Another interesting trend line I keep track of asks the question “How far back can we go to see a non-warming trend?” This is, by design, an exercise in cherry-picking. But it serves a purpose. Obviously, the further back we can go, the higher the probability that the flat line actually means something. It’s valid to suggest that such periods can occur during warming trends. But it’s also valid to suggest that a long period could indicate an end to current warming. More likely, since we know that the long-term trend from surface measures – over 150+ years – indicates some warming, we can see this as an example of another part of the natural cycle taking place. It would be foolish to take the current non-warming trend and suggest that there will never be warming again. It seems every bit as foolish to be projecting runaway warming over the next Century in the midst of 12 years where no warming has occurred. My own analysis here, here, and here leads me to believe that cooling is on the way. But in each of those analyses, it recognizes cyclicality, and this cooling will once again be replaced by warming. And it has nothing to do with people, carbon dioxide, or plastic bags.

Anyway, here is the current non-warming trend:

Flat/Cooling UAH Trend Line - over 12 years

Let’s take a quick look at the other 5-year-increment trend lines:

60-month:
Value: -0.257894 (-3.09/C)
Comment: Trailing down after a slight move up from lows in early 2008.
Expectation: Using current average 12-month anomalies, will hit -0.47 by year end

60-month UAH Trend Line

120-month:

Value: +0.080864 (+0.97/C)
Comment: Note that the longest negative trend is over 12 years, while the 10-year trend is positive. There is a dip in some front-end anomalies that move the slope about. Trends are negative with starting points to current month from May 1997 through April 1998, then they go positive for starting points of May 1998 through February 2000, at which point they go negative again.
Expectation: Using current average 12-month anomalies, the ten-year trend line will go negative by year-end.

120-month UAH Trend Line

180-month:

Value: +0.083640 (+1.00/C)
Comment: Lowest value since the period ending December 1997.
Expectation: Using current average 12-month anomalies, expected to reach levels below 0.06 by year end.

180-month UAH Trend Line

Let’s also take a look at how the slope values have changed over time:

180-month UAH Slope Values over time

240-month:

Value: +0.134764 (+1.62/C)
Comment: Lowest value since the period ending December 2001.
Expectation: Using current average 12-month anomalies, expected to reach levels below 0.123 by year end.

Here’s how recent slope values have trended:

240-month UAH Recent Slopes

300-month:

Value: +0.141607 (+1.70/C)
Comment: Lowest value since the period ending January 2006.
Expectation: Using current average 12-month anomalies, expected to reach levels below 0.125 by year end.

360-month:

Value: +0.103487 (+1.24/C)
Comment: Lowest value in the data set.
Expectation: Using current average 12-month anomalies, expected to reach a low of 0.1017 at August month end, before increasing to just under 0.103 by year end.

Here’s how the recent slope values have trended, although it’s only a handful of data points:

360-month UAH Recent Slopes

Announcing the Winner of the “Guess the NOAA Anomaly” Contest

The anomaly has been released for May. The answer is: 0.5225.

Drum roll, please…

Congratulations to Bob Montle, who said:

My guess is +0.53

Not from the actual graphs but because the number seems to come out .5x(something) regardless of what common sense and intuition suggested before the actual posting.

For his efforts, he receives an “atta boy!” Great credit goes out to him for eschewing the urge to review maps and ocean data, like yours truly, and trying to make sense out of the temperature deviations on the maps and the anomalies released from satellites in order to hone in on the much-anticipated NOAA anomaly.

Clearly, he understands this process much better than the average layman, who might think that such indicators might make a difference.

Despite the fact that I was remarkably low in my guess, I will note that I followed up with the following in the comments:

My prediction is based on the observable maps and recent stats. If someone were holding a gun to my head and my life depended on it, I’d actually predict around 0.5, based on (1) the last few months of anomalies, (2) the fact that NOAA always seems high (I’m sure this is pure coincidence), and (3) the land masses missing will probably be assumed to have about a 5 degree Celsius anomaly.

But it really wouldn’t be all that imaginative to just pick an anomaly in line with the last 4 months. This way, if I’m right I look like a genius. If I’m wrong, I can chalk it up to conspiracy theory or something.

Oh, and the GISS anomaly was 55. It makes me laugh.

HadCrut has yet to be released.

The Passing of John A. Eddy

In a post at Watts Up With That? today, I learned that John A. Eddy has passed away. Please see Anthony’s blog entry here: Watts’ entry on Eddy’s passing.

As I mentioned in a comment there, this has relevance to me in that I was very taken by a coouple early papers that I tracked down, read, and summarized here at Digital Diatribes. Please check them out here:
Eddy #1
Eddy #2

One of the take-aways from that little research I did was not so much the scientific study, but an overall general conclusion. I had quoted it in the second post, and will do so again here:

It would seem that Maunder and Spoerer were right and that most of the rest of us have been wrong. As is often the case in the onrush of modern science, we had too quickly forgotten the past, forgotten the less-than-perfect pedigree of the sunspot cycle and the fact that it too once came as a surprise. We had adopted a kind of solar uniformitarianism, contending that the modern behavior of the sun represented the normal behavior of the sun over a much longer span of time.

-John A. Eddy

Even though he’s talking about the sunspot cycle, when I read that, I realized that the “consensus” on climate change in the scientific community is not necessarily a new issue. We are humans, and we tend to gravitate towards groupthink. It takes a special person or persons to question the consensus. Not willy-nilly questioning just to be a pain, mind you. But honest-to-goodness “I don’t think you’re right, and I have valid reasons for that” questioning.

Do not be afraid to question the current scientific consensus. They may just be blogs, but the blogroll to the right provides some excellent resources for understanding valid reasons to question the consensus. And there are scientists out there who have published papers who are questioning it. They get little press, but history will eventually lay all bare. We may never see it ourselves, but that’s OK.

Rest in peace, Mr. Eddy.

Comparison of UAH versus RSS – Lucia’s Blackboard

I’ve started looking at some of the other blogs I’ve noted over the last few months. I’ve added Jennifer Marohasy’s and Lucia’s Blackboard to the blogroll. More are sure to come, but since I don’t have all the time in the world to give them a good look, I’ll add as I come across sources that look to have value. Value is defined here as “any blog that I feel inclined to visit every now and then.”

It just so happens that as I checked out Lucia’s Blackboard, she had a post up that was very similar to one that I was contemplating once I had updated the UAH trends (to come soon…). There’s no point in me duplicating work, so I’m linking to her post here:

————–

UAH temperature anomalies were officially posted yesterday. I thought you all might like to see a graph of temperature anomalies with uncertainty intervals. I included a trend of 2C/century for references:

UAH vs. RSS

Click here for the rest of her post.

AMO Update – June 2009

The Antlantic Multidecadal Oscillation data has been released and the May index value is -0.014. That is the fifth consecutive negative value, and it’s the first time we’ve seen 5 consecutive negative months since the period ending October 1994. Previous to this negative stretch, there had been 77 consecutive positive months.

Similar to my look at the ENSO index, I have updated my best-fit sine wave against the AMO data. The chart is presented here:

Best-fit wave pattern against AMO data.

One nice thing about the AMO data as compared to the ENSO data is that it goes back to the mid 1800s. I cannot speak to the robustness of the index value, particularly for the older periods. I can only assume that it’s as good a measure as we have to work with.

A couple things can be noticed about this graph, especially in relation to the ENSO chart in the post referenced above. First of all, we are right now at the peak of the AMO wave. It last reached a trough in 1979, and has been increasing for the last 30 years. Since we are now at the peak, we will be descending down that wave now for the next 30 years, if the cycle is as presented. It should, however, remain in the warmer mode for the next 15 years of so, even though overall it is in a decline. Compare this to ENSO, where we just crossed the zero line.

It appears, then, that the ENSO (and PDO, as well) is offset almost exactly 90 degrees from the AMO. If true, this helps explain the contribution to warming over the last 30 years, and the stagnation of the last few years. 30 years ago, the AMO wave was at its trough, and the ENSO wave had crossed the zero line, moving upward. The next 15 years showed a situation in which all three waves were increasing. AMO from its trough up to the zero line, and ENSO/PDO from zero to its peak. Then, AMO increased while ENSO/PDO decreased, but both were above the zero line, so temperatures remained elevated, but the increase in temperature slowed and/or stagnated. Is it just coincidence? I suppose it could be. I consider that doubtful, however, because of the identification of waves in the HadCrut data that I presented.

Well, today, we are in the opposite siutuation as we were 30 years ago. The AMO is at a peak, and the ENSO/PDO index is at zero. It would seem, then, that we will experience significant cooling, along the same order as the warming of the 1980-2000 period over the next 20 years or so. Then, the period of time after that will likely be a stagnation of colder weather for 10-15 years, before we see the next warming cycle occur.

I’m sort of repeating what I did in this post. But it bears repeating. It seems fairly obvious to me, and it’s almost implausible to believe that such a relatively straighforward analysis that shows the Ocean cycles and how it affects the temperature cycles is not considered noteworthy when projecting forward temperature changes.

The other thing to note regarding the AMO chart above is that we seem to prematurely be getting some negative index values. I wouldn’t read much into that. Looking back at the chart, there are numerous times where negative readings – even consecutive ones – occur during the warmer side of the wave. In fact, the negative readings we see probably do indicate that we are in the warm wave yet, because the magnitude isn’t great, despite some persistence.

I may just be a layman and a data guy, but between this kind of analysis, a quiet sun and the analysis I’ve done as temperature relates to that, and the simple observation that we haven’t warmed in 12+ years, I can’t help but feel somewhat perturbed at the continuing warnings of global warming, and outright amazed at the audacity of predictions of multi-degree temperature increases by the end of the Century.

At this point, I would give odds on cooling until 2030 or so, regardless of what the fancy climate models say. It’s the only reasonable conclusion by looking at strict data. I suppose maybe the models say something that can’t be foound in the data. We’ll see.

And There it Was… Gone.

There’s an old Wisconsinism that people have some fun with. It’s often used in the context, say, of deer hunting. Somebody tells the story about how they were in their stand, and heard the big buck behind them. They glance around and catch a glimpse of the trophy rack. Slowly, they maneuver themselves into position, secure their rifle, and as they relay the story about when they turned around and looked past the trunk of the tree they were in, they say “And there it was… gone!”

A few days ago I mentioned a sunspot cluster that you could actually see pretty well. While you can still see some of the remnants of it, it didn’t last long.

Bob Heiderstadt, a guest poster who has occasionally commented here as well, sent me some data on the timing of when the sunspots have appeared.

The number of points observed doesn’t make for anything scientific, so all I can really say about it is that it’s an interesting exercise. The data showed the dates of sunspot appearances and whether or not the spots were Cycle 23 or Cycle 24 spots.

He noticed that in a previous stretch of consecutive Cycle 24 spots, there was an expansion of time between appearances, while recently there has been a contraction.

I took his numbers and further looked at that by simply ignoring Cycle 23 spots altogether.

The last 12 Cycle 24 spots have appeared with the following 11 gaps in between them (in # of days): 3, 10, 11, 14, 29, 31, 46, 55, 22, 10, 9, ?

I will be interested in seeing how this continues. One can’t draw any conclusions from one oscillation (or, almost like a contraction of labor) but as we move forward it may be interesting to see if there is some kind of a “breathing” or oscillation pattern to how the sunspots ramp up.

On the other hand, it could be entirely coincidental and mean absolutely nothing. Time will tell.

ENSO Update – A Bounce Upward

The ENSO Index has been updated for May month-end, and we see a two-month average index value of 0.344.

This is the first reading that is positive since last July, but last year the positive index values barely reached above 0 for a short, two-month stay before dipping back into La Nina territory.

The new value, strangely enough, seems to have certain pro-AGW members of the blogosphere salivating about how it looks like there is a new El Nino on the way. Interestingly, the same people who wring their hands about what warming is going to do to us can’t seem to wait for higher temperatures driven by a new El Nino. They are as much as telegraphing the fact that they will use El Nino-driven elevated temperatures, should they occur, to assist in their case for the idea that CO2 is increasing temperatures. It is unfortunate that they will likely have a voice in this claim – reasonable or not – since there is no correlation between the ENSO cycles and Carbon Dioxide levels (at least that I am aware of).

In the meantime, we can look at the data to see what’s going on with the index. El Nino and La Nina have somewhat sketchy official designations, but I think it’s a fairly common rule of thumb to say that when the index reads above 0.5 for three consecutive months, we’ve got ourselves an El Nino. When the index goes below -0.5 for three consecutive months, it’s a La Nina. I have an interesting observation regarding that a little later on. Based on that rule of thumb, it looks like we’ve come out of a recent La Nina in March. The last one wasn’t particularly strong or lengthy, though it did come on the heels of a stronger one the year before.

In April, the index increased quite a bit, though the 2-month average was still negative. The May value increased again from that level. However, talk about a new El Nino, while entirely possible, is a bit premature. We’re not even at one data point that qualifies yet.

We know that both the upside and downside happens whether we’re in a cooling or warming cycle, so regardless of what side of the argument you are on, you can’t really make any wild claims about what the latest cycle means. It’s probably more accurate to assess the ENSO index over time.

I have updated the best-fit wave pattern against the available ENSO data and shown it below:

Best-fit wave pattern against ENSO data.

The best-fit cycle shows around a 60-year wave pattern. We are now entering the downside of that wave. One thing I noticed is that the best-fit requires a vertical shift upward of the wave. This means that the zero-point of the index should probably be higher than it is. The latest maximum, for example, reached a level of 0.4687 on the crest of the wave (meaning that El Nino will be elevated by nearly half a degree during that time) and the latest trough of the wave was -0.3966 (El Nino will be lowered by about 04 tenths of a degree). The index should really be calibrated down by about 0.05 of a degree. Otherwise, the significance of El Nino will be overstated while the corresponding La Nina will be understated.

The best-fit ENSO wave pattern actually has a negative linear trend that makes a longer-term extrapolation questionable. I didn’t particularly believe that element of it. It fits the current data well, but the gut-check test tells me it would be best to simply leave this parameter at zero. When I run that, the least-squares fit is only marginally worse, but the long-term, extrapolated values make a world more sense. The graph as shown is not much affected, and the same vertical effect is still shown. Just another lesson in modeling, where simpler is often superior. The chart above excludes a linear trend assumption.

According to the chart above, the cold phase of ENSO is just beginning. Yes, we will have El Ninos, but the next 25 years or so will probably look closer to the left half of the chart than the right half of the chart in terms of magnitude of the peaks in relation to a zero index value. In relation to the wave, the peaks seem to ride the wave nicely.

Quick Follow-up to the June 6 Weather

It’s official. It was a record-breaking day on Saturday.

The high temperature in Green Bay was 52, setting a record for the lowest high temperature for June 6. The previous record had been set in 1943. Records fell in other parts of the state, as well. Where I live, the record that fell had been set in 1935.

Again, yesterday it only reached 51 degrees for the second day in a row. Today’s predicted high is 53. More records could fall. The average low for this time of year is 52 degrees.

This sucks. It’s bad enough that it’s been cold, but it’s been raining like crazy. Concern is starting to set in regarding the garden. Our soil is a little more dense than average, which means it doesn’t drain real fast. That usually works to our advantage, as we can weather some long dry periods pretty well. The downside is stretches like this, where it’s cool and rainy for extended periods of time. Once the plants are established it’s not as big a deal, but it’s a critical moment with the seeds just now sprouting.

So, in light of all this, our esteemed governor has a message for us: “The governor has proclaimed Thursday as “heat awareness day” in a campaign to remind people of the dangers of extreme heat and educate citizens how to take protective measures.”