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. Read the rest of this entry »
