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Scientists measure 6th warmest October, and debunk “global cooling”

November 20th, 2009, 2:46 pm · 15 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, green living, environment editor

Recent reports from U.S. climate scientists show that last month was the planet’s sixth warmest October ever recorded, but the third coolest October when looking at U.S. temperatures alone. warmingchartgoc

And a separate data check by the same scientists, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center, along with other experts, revealed no meaningful statistical trends supporting recent claims of “global cooling.”

The October monthly snapshot of global climate trends from the agency reveal the variability of the climate system, and the reality of short-term cooling and warming trends in different regions of the planet.

While the snapshots cover too short a time-frame to be useful in drawing conclusions about climate trends over decades, they do reveal a dynamic climate system. They also show evidence of the effects of regional phenomena, such as the periodic warming of the tropical Pacific known as El Nino.

One of the October reports showed that the average combined land and ocean surface temperature was 58.13 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.03 degrees above the 20th century average.

For the land surface temperature average alone, it was also the sixth warmest October, at 50.18 — 1.48 degrees above the 2oth century average. For ocean surface temperature alone, it was the fifth warmest October, at 61.5 degrees — 0.90 degrees above the 20th century average.

But while warming trends were strongest across Alaska and northern and eastern Russia, October was cooler than average in the continental United States, along with parts of northern Australia and southern South America.

October, in fact, had the third coolest average temperature ever recorded for that month in the continental U.S. — 50.8 degrees, a full 4 degrees below the 20th century average.

El Nino might have helped drive cooler temperatures in the middle U.S., said Deke Arndt, climate monitoring branch chief at the National Climatic Data Center, according to preliminary modeling.

It was also the nation’s wettest October on record, with average precipitation in the continental U.S. of 4.15 inches, 2.04 inches above the 2oth century average, despite persistent drought in the West.

How to make sense of such a conflicting welter of climate facts?

The real trends only begin to emerge when they are averaged across the entire planet, and many decades.

But recently, some climate-change skeptics have claimed to see cooling on the planetary scale as well. They point to an apparent cooling trend since 1998 as evidence.

But a recent check by scientists at NOAA, along with statisticians who analyzed climate trends for the Associated Press, found no true “cooling” of the planet is underway. Read the Associated Press story.

The trouble, they say, is that zeroing in on temperature fluctuations over a few years, or even a single decade, can give a false impression of climate changes over many decades.

When year-to-year variability of the climate is put in its proper context, the forecast remains grim: a strong warming trend that, despite the expected, short-term variations in temperature, shows no sign of abating.

“The 10 years that will make up this decade will be much warmer than the 10 years that made up the ’90s, which in itself was a really warm decade,” said Deke Arndt, climate monitoring branch chief for the National Climatic Data Center.

But he doesn’t blame those who think they see a cooling trend.

“It’s kind of the climate version of losing the forest for the trees,” he said. “If you focus in on the details, you lose the context in which the data’s occurring. It’s easy to do that. We all get trapped into doing that. But when you step back and look at the time series, it’s apparent what is going on.”

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 15 Comments

  • alleykat says:
    November 20, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    It’s been way too hot and dry until recently. It’s depressing. I dont’ see how people can say it’s getting cooler…

  • Rmoen says:
    November 20, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    The United States needs our own objective, transparent ‘Climate Truth Commission’ to think through global warming.

    For twenty years I believed in man-made global warming theory, but the evidence has changed. We’ve had ten years of warming then ten years of no warming. I blame my confusion on the United Nations for getting ahead of the facts. When they claimed CO2 drives global warming, they were more concerned about politics and funding than science. Just look at their predictions: UN forecasts for the last 10 years do not fit what actually happened.

    – Robert Moen, http://www.energyplanUSA.com

  • rick says:
    November 20, 2009 at 6:05 pm

    Here’s the tip of the new iceberg– CLIMATEGATE- hackers have broken into The University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit –found were E-Mails showing that temperature records have been manipulated, and scientists who were in disagreement with the status quo were ousted from peer review boards. And this is only part of it more to come…

  • greater scott says:
    November 20, 2009 at 6:20 pm

    wow, who would have thought that coming out of an ice age would reset in it being less cool (warming)

    What else heats the Earth?

    Yeah, the sun.

    What’s new about the sun these days?

    Increased solar activity.

    Think there could be a relationship with the greater heat output of the sun and the planet?

    (try thinking logically… it won’t kill you)

  • greater scott says:
    November 20, 2009 at 6:21 pm

    ^

    “reset in” == “result in”

  • Professor W says:
    November 21, 2009 at 7:09 am

    Somebody needs to show this story to Mark Landsbaum…

  • The Headline is Biased says:
    November 21, 2009 at 7:28 am

    OC Register. Your headline is biased. You are not the judge. You should have said “Attempt to Debunk”.

  • Geezer says:
    November 21, 2009 at 8:21 am

    The evidence that supports the notion that global warming is occurring is overwhelming. The only argument now is how much is the result of natural processes (certainly some is), and how much is driven by anthropomorphic contributions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

  • sangell3 says:
    November 21, 2009 at 8:25 am

    Aside from the fact that some of the leading ‘climate scientists’ appear to be frauds if not criminals there is just no way we can rely on data sets that purport to show overall sea and land temperatures over the past 100 years. They weren’t studying ‘global warming’ in 1910, 1930 or 1960 nor was there GPS, orbiting satellites with infrared sensors or any standards of when, where and how to measure temperatures.

    To take , e.g. ,sea temperature data based on ships captains logs in an era when a sextant and mechanical chronometer was the best available method of locating one’s position at sea and tossing a thermometer in the water out of curiousity does not meet any modern scientific standard of research. Yet such data is used by the climate frauds in their models and for their legislative agit-prop!

  • popcorn says:
    November 21, 2009 at 10:46 am

    I will be amusing how the MSM will handle the data leak out of CRU. Their “science is settled” meme took a fatal blow yesterday.

  • Paul Pierett says:
    November 21, 2009 at 10:55 pm

    Let’s see, this is the 6th warmest October.

    If there is global warming, shouldn’t it be number one.

    Sixth warmest October. So that means there are five others that were warmer. Then why is this colder or less warmer.