It’s a Warm January – What Gives?

It’s kind of humorous watching the blogosphere play “It’s cold / it’s hot” tennis when these things happen. When it gets cold, the AGW-proponents grumble to themselves in silence as the skeptics/deniers/ throw out anecdote after anecdote of cold weather. Then when it gets hot, Gore’s fan club, no doubt emboldened and perturbed at the previous volley, come out swinging to once again announce the science is settled and Watts and Cavuto and others are nitwits with their collective heads in the sand.

Of course, we all try to adhere by a few rules, and few of us really adhere to them as completely as we should. The first is that “weather is not climate.” The second is that “the earth is complex, and variation happens on a day to day or month to month basis.”

But what fun is that?

And so, we delve into the question that has the pro-AGW crowd giddy with all sorts of excitement: Why did we just recently have the warmest January day in history (history meaning, since 1999), according to UAH? You can link to the site that tells us that here. You may need to recreate the chart, which is easy enough. Just hit “draw” and then select all the years and hit “redraw.” Make sure you’re on the “near surface” option.

As an official member of the community of skeptics, should I hide from this? Should I explain it away?

Nope. And the reason is simple: it is what it is. More important than any agenda-driven concerns, I’d rather give puzzling news that’s true, rather than a bunch of mumbo-jumbo that isn’t.

The truth is, I don’t know why we saw that sudden jump in temperature, just after a period where many places in the globe were seemingly getting hammered by cold and severe winter weather. And the real truth is that nobody else can possibly know why one or two days is suddenly so high. And let’s be honest – it was an impressive temperature reading. It’s not like it just barely nipped the 11-year record. It left no doubt. Further, the entire month of January promises to show a warm reading. Don’t fret about it. Accept it as the truth it is.

As I’ve said many times, we skeptics are somewhat in a corner. Most of us actually prefer warming – I know I do. But we don’t accept the AGW premise, and we see other evidence suggesting that we’re not warming – at least not catastrophically – and we have a desire to see these alarmists get their come-uppance that we, in a way, want to see it cool. But as perverse as that may be, it doesn’t hold a candle to the AGW crowd. You see, they get themselves so worked up over warming that they start seeing nice, warm, weather as a threat to existence rather than a nice, warm day. Instead of enjoying it, they lose sleep over their children’s futures and wonder why we can’t go back to the “good old days” where we had freezing rain throughout the month of April.

So, given all that introspection, let’s at least take a look at some obvious contributors to the warm beginning of 2010.

Exhibit One: El Nino.

There’s an El Nino that is impacting temperatures right now. Whenever there’s cooling during a La Nina, the pro-AGW crowd trips over themselves to point it out, but when there’s an El Nino up and about, they somehow fail to mention it when talking about -for example – how warm this January is shaping up to be.

The last 7 readings have exceeded 0.500, the traditional benchmark for El Nino. 3 readings in a row makes it official, so were well into a good old El Nino, which we know affects temps in an upward manner. And this may well make 2010 a nice, cozy year, since the December reading is the largest of the seven.

We know there’s a 4-6 month lag effect of El Nino (if I remember my facts as related to me from Bob Tisdale), so the first half of the year should reflect that, and if the El Nino persists we could see warmer temps throughout the year. This is a good thing, because my garden has had major issues the last couple years. Cool, damp weather really sucks for raising a garden.

It’s probably a stretch to suggest, as some do, that 2010 will be the warmest year ever, though. While we’ve gone up over 1.0 on the El Nino reading, it is by no means an unusually high value, and it pales in comparison to the consistently super-high values from 1997-98, which almost hit 3 at the highest point. There is nothing to indicate that we can expect such high values from this El Nino. I suppose anything can happen, though.

Exhibit Two: The AMO cycle.

The AMO had taken a dip below zero preceding last year’s ridiculously unpleasant summer, but the values jumped back up to levels above 0.2 a couple months ago, which is likely contributing to the January temps. But the AMO cycle overall has peaked, and while it will probably remain around these current levels, it won’t continue to rise any more, at least not on a prolonged basis. But current levels will contribute to a warmer 2010 than last year, but the contribution is really no more than the couple years before that and is very unlikely to reach levels from 2005-06.

Exhibit Three: Even the PDO is joining in the fun.

The PDO has gone into its long-term cold cycle, but variations about that wave still occur for short-term periods. We can see that it was quite negative over the last couple years. Over the last five months it has increased, even above zero in four of the five months. No doubt the lack of a negative PDO influence has also contributed to our nice January, and will start off 2010 with more pleasant temps than the previous couple years. There is little likelihood, though, that this will soar to levels that push 2010 to record temps, though temps are certainly likely to be higher than the last couple years.

Now, as for the spiking temperatures of a single day, you’re just going to have ask God about that when you see Him next. Even these shorter-term variations in these indices don’t explain day-to-day variations, but they can certainly help explain our elevated temperatures in January on a general basis. I’m sure there are numerous other contributors to climate and temperature that play a part, and sometimes these things happen to align themselves in such a way that a spike or dip occurs.

Quite honestly, it’s really a silly proposition to constantly be arguing about how climate change is about long-term trends, and then trumpet a daily temperature reading, but we’re all probably guilty as charged to one extent or another.

September 2009 Update on the AMO

I’ve looked at the AMO data set to see what it’s been up to lately, and after a brief plunge into negative territory, it’s come back to a level in accordance with the current sine wave path of the cycle. If you recall, there was a period of 77 consecutive months of positive AMO anomalies, with January 2009 finally breaking that string of positives. We then had 5 consecutive negative anomalies. Historically, such a deviation is not necessarily unexpected, as can be easily enough seen from chart observation. However, it was not an expectation for a persistent state, and we’ve now seen the last three anomalies come in at 0.175, 0.282, and most recently 0.205.

While these are positive anomalies, viewing them relative to the red wave line on the chart shows us that they are right around what would normally be expected.

When looking at certain Oceanic oscillations, the cycle is very clear, and the strength of a given anomaly should be placed in the context of the overall wave path. Deviations from the wave are a stronger indication of the unusualness of an anomaly than the actual value of it.

As I’ve noted in my previous write-ups, we’re nearing the peak of the wave. We should expect many more positive AMO anomalies. In fact, we should expect more positive AMO anomalies for the next 20 years (well, sort of – I’ll explain why this is probably shortened artificially in a bit). Since the wave is at its peak, we will soon see continually cooler anomalies for the next 34 years or so. However, the next few years will still be positive, but dropping.

Here’s the chart:

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation Data as of 200908

Maybe it’s just me, but this is one of my favorite charts. Admittedly, the change in it is nearly imperceptible on a month-by-month or quarter-by-quarter basis. But one reason I present it occasionally is because I think it really tells a good story.

The story begins with the cyclicality, which is very evident. This, combined with ENSO and PDO (and I’ll keep looking at other indices) show a clear cyclicality in Ocean Temperatures. In my humble opinion, this should raise a red flag with regard to temperature correlations to anyone who even remotely wishes to get to the truth of what drives global temperatures. Making this cyclicality more clear is the fact that the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations do not show this behavior at all. Click on the link related to the Arctic to read more about the PDO and ENSO cycles as well.

The next story is, where are we in the cycle? As I’ve alluded to, we are at the peak of the cycle. That means that the anomaly has, on average, risen continually for over the last 30 years. The most rapid point of acceleration of the wave occurs in the early-mid 1990s. Since then, it’s been increasing at a decreasing rate. In a couple years, it will start decreasing at an increasing rate for the next decade and a half.

The AMO is about a quarter-phase out of sync with the PDO (Again, see link above – click on the word “Arctic”). Thus, the PDO has been decreasing over the last number of years. As we’ve seen in the Temperature Charts we’ve been flat for about 12 years now, and we’ve actually seen decreasing temperatures over the last handful of years. This seems to correspond will with an AMO that is only slightly increasing and a PDO that is cooling off more rapidly.

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.

A Look at the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) Index

Previously, I took a look at the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) Index and showed that after a fairly long period of persistence in an average state above zero, it has dipped back down into the negative. It has now been in the negative level enough that the 10-year smoothed chart is actually negative. This has coincided with generally flat to cooling global temperatures, and colder weather patterns in the United States over the last few years.

I also took a look at the ENSO index over timeand showed that, while the ENSO cycle is much shorter-term, it also has been in a persistently warm state since the late 70s. I was one of the first I am aware of to point out the very recent readings in the Index pointing to another La Nina (there is some debate as to whether or not it is a “true” La Nina, since the cooler PDO could be driving this measure down. That seems silly to me. If you’re going to start arguing about influences to the index, then you can’t stop at the PDO.) In any case, the ENSO index is also running into recent negatives, and the persistent warm state appears to have finally come to an end.

It is reasonable, then, to wonder why global temperatures haven’t plummetted. While it is true that, current non-warming trends go back to May 1997, according to UAH anomaly dataand that all temperature measures show a declining trend line since 2001 to one extent or another, we have not been in a freefall on a global basis.

Certain regions appear to be more impacted than otehrs to recent cooler temperatures. The United States and Canada have had a much cooler time of it than Russia, for example. In fact, I previously took a look at the temperature anomaly maps and questioned why Russia seems to show consistently higher anomaliesthan the rest of the globe. I’ve checked the NOAA maps pretty consistently over the last couple years, and I have seen a lot of blue in the United States and Canada, and Russia burns bright red. This appears to be the most significant driver in temperature anomalies not hitting bottom.

It would appear that the PDO and ENSO do not drive Russian anomalies. At least, anyway, not as significantly as they seem to drive our region.

And so I decided to take a closer look at the other Ocean Index data. I have downloaded a boatload of data, and will be getting to each one in time. But I started with the other index we seem to hear a lot about – the AMO index. I started here because from what I understand, this is a pretty key index to keep track of. It also has the longest data history. In full disclosure here, I have not yet taken the time to look at the history of how these temperatures are recorded. I don’t know if they are direct measurements or modeled or some combination of the two. So, I simply present the data as given.

Starting out with the Raw Data:

The overall AMO index data since 1856.