NZClimate Truth No 83, November 16th 2005 was about the claim that 2005 is the "hottest year in the Northern Hemisphere since records began", based, presumably, on only ten months' data. I attached two maps showing temperature anomalies with respect to the 1961-90 average  for each 5°x5° box on the earth's surface,  which were available from the website of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia.The first map, which claimed to represent 2005, was at

 

 

It showed that most of the warming took place in North America and Northern Europe. However, . Siberia, North Africa, the Eastern Atlantic and the Southern Ovean all cooled. There were no measurements on the Antarctic continent, but other evidence shows that it also cooled. There were also no measurements around the North Pole, but other evidence, summarised in Newsletter No 85, November 30th 2005 (originally mis-numbered No 84) shows that Arctic temperatures show a strong correlation with solar radiation, but not with greenhouse gas concentrations..

 

I also gave you the map from

 

 

which gives temeperature anomalies for the months December/January/February for 2004/2005

 

I commented that the changes for the winter months were very similar to those for the whole (?ten month?) year, indicating that the warming was mainly in the winter months. Other evidence shows that it was also mainly at night. This behaviour is incompatible with an influence of increased greenhouse gase, and is best explained by additional buildings, energy usage and agricultural change in developed countries.

 

You have to ask why should anybody want to draw such devastating conclusions from only ten months' data? The answer, surely, is, that it a politically inspired campaign to influence the recent meeting in Montreal to discuss the future of the Kyoto Treaty. Normally, surely. the scientists would wait to some time in  February (as they state in the document) before they pontificate about the temperature for 2005. We don't hear from people measuring greenhouse gas emissions or concentrations in 2005 until after they have happened.  Indeed, since the concentration of methane in the atmosphere may be falling, we may not hear what is happening for several months.

 

The CRU have now produced a comprehensive Press Release on "The Hottest Year" at

 

 

 

which must also have been a politically inspired attempt to influence the Montreal Conference.

 

 

It is a very well illustrated scientific  document with references  and would normally be considered as a proper scientific paper, to be submitted to a Journal, and subjected to peer review. It has no author

 

It contains a map of  "temperature anomalies, relative to the 1961-1990 mean, for the period January to November 2005". So they have added another month. But it is quite different from the January to October map I sent to you, since, now, the warming in the Northern Hemisphere takes place in Siberia and North Africa as well as everywhere else. , So I went back to the first website given above, and lo and behold, the map has cnanged. It still claims to be "2005", but it was updated--- wait for it---- on December 25th 2005!. Do these people always work on Christmas Day?

 

The new map, which I invite you to contemplate, which now, presumably refers to 11 months, January to November,  has eliminated almost all the cooling regions in the Northern Hemisphere. The cooling is all in the South. Indeed, in the Press Release they give several gobal average anomaly plots. The temperature in the Southern Hemisphere South of 30S has been cooling since 1998. The Tropics have shown only a slight rise since 1998. Most  the warming took place North of 30N.

 

Now, the December/JanuaryFebruary map is out of line with the (11 month) annual average. So November must have been very warm in Siberia and North Africa. One wonders whether the cold December weather, already evident in UK and USA, might change the annual figures back again.

 

All of this is a bit baffling. These patterns  do not  correspond with any climate model. The climate models predict that warming should be greatest at BOTH poles, not just at one. Also, for some time now the modellists have had to moderate the rather extreme predictions of the models by feeding in variable amounts of cooling aerosols, which are thought to be greatest above the industrial nations of the Northern Hemisphere. So it should get hotter in the Southern Hemisphere, not in the North.

 

Another feature of this Press Release is the claim that the temperature change in the lower troposphere is now the same as on the surface. This seems to go against my Newsletter of December 1st where I attached the radiosonde results of Thorne et al (with a rather poor diagram) which showed no change between 1958 and 2002 in the Lower Troposphere. Well, the CRU Press Release has put all the measurements on top of one another, so as to conceal individual uncertainty bars, and it does seem  that the radiosonde measurements have gone up a bit between 2002 and (? 2005). But can you rely on only three years?

 

If we agree that the troposphere warms the same as the surface, then what has happened to the greenhouse effect, which was supposed to be GREATEST in the lower troposphere.

 

 

To conclude, it is all very confusiing, but regional temperature information seems to be completely incompatible with the greenhouse theory. No wonder the Chapter on "Regional Climate Change" in every IPCC Report, including the current Draft, always deals entirely with models and never includes actual regional climate observations.

 

Well, have a Happy 2006.

 

Vincent Gray
75 Silverstream Road
Crofton Downs
Wellington 6004
New Zealand
Phone/Fax 064 4 9735939
"It's not the things you don't know that fool you.
It's the things you do know that aint so"
Josh Billings