UPDATE - see new graph of global ∆T for the past year below. There has been a global drop in temperature of 0.63 degrees Centigrade in the past 12 months.
Of course we already have had a heads up from all the wire reports around the world talking about the significant winter weather events that have occurred worldwide in the last month, but until now, there hasn’t been a measure of how the planet was doing for the winter of 2007/2008.
Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa just posted the latest MSU (Microwave Sounder Unit) data.
January posted a -.08°C near global anomaly between -70S and 82.5N latitude (the viewshed of the satellite sounder). That makes it the coldest month since January 2000, and the 2nd coldest January for the planet in 15 years. Both northern and southern hemispheres posted negative anomalies of -.120°C and -.038°C respectively, happening for the first time since January 2000.
The United States posted a -.557°C anomaly for January 2008 and a -0.196°C anomaly for December 2007.
Here is the raw anomaly data for January 2008
| Year | Month |
|
-70.0/ 82.5 | -20.0/ 20.0 | 20.0/ 82.5 | -70.0/ -20.0 | 60.0/ 82.5 | -70.0/ -60.0 | CONUS | 0.0/ 82.5 | -70.0/ 0.0 |
|
| 2008 | 1 | -0.080 | -0.188 | -0.063 | 0.025 | 0.288 | -0.833 |
|
-0.557 | -0.120 | -0.038 |
Which can be viewed in its entirety here (.txt data)
Here is my plot of the raw, unedited Global anomaly data (-70S to 82.5N) supplied by RSS per month. Note that the anomaly trend between late 2007 and early 2008 is quite steep and that the period leading up to 2008 is relatively flat.
click for a larger image
UPDATE:
I decided to plot a magnified graph to show the global change in temperature over the last year from January 2007 to January 2008, the ∆T of -0.629°C is quite significant for a 12 month period, rivaled in the last 10 years only by the 1998 El Nino warming peak.
Probable cause- Mucho Grande La Nina. It looks like we may have a PDO shift as well. But as some say, trying to correlate such things is a “fools errand”. But, judge for yourself.
click for a larger image
We live in interesting times.
(h/t MattN)
