Cool February ends cold, wet summer

[ben_meyers]

SYDNEY has had its first summer in 50 years without a day above 31C, with rainfall 40 per cent above average.
The summer of 2007-08 was colder and wetter than average over much of the country, with a particularly cool February, according to Blair Trewin of the National Climate Centre.
"Daytime maximum temperatures in February for Australia were the seventh-coolest on record," he said.
NSW had the second-lowest average daytime maximum temperature on record - figures have been compiled since 1950 - and Sydney received 422mm of rainfall, compared with an average of 298mm.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23314972-11949,00.html

But there is no "Global Cooling". :sarcasm:

[Berry Cool]

1. Thanks for posting this.

At this point in March, I especially appreciate the reminder that spring and summer are coming for me, while for someone else, fall and winter are coming.

[msongs]

2. hope they all enjoyed it! nt

[tom_paine]

3. You are rapidly becoming my favorite Climate Change Denier.

Please cherry-pick me a story so I can believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny again.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I hear that scientists have noticed the ocean is acidifying and losing it's ability to uptake excess CO2 because we are straining it's buffering capacity with our emissions. But if we take the measurements right outside an alkaline waste outflow tube, we see it is nothing more than a pointy-headed liberal scientists' lie and the oceans are actually becoming more basic!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[IntravenousDemilo]

4. Well, that should help ease their severe global-warming-induced drought, at least temporarily.

Just remember, Ben, "weather" is not synonymous with "climate".

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. We've tried to tell him...

but he refuses to listen. :shrug:

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. A recent presentation by James Hansen

(I have not included the referenced images. Follow the link to see them.)

http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/20080303_ColdWeather.pdf

Cold Weather

I usually start my climate presentations with a chart showing maps of the surface temperature anomalies in the last four months. My most recent presentation (at Illinois Wesleyan) is available at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/illwesleyan_20080219.ppt. The referenced chart is shown below.


Figure 1. Global distributions of surface temperature anomalies of the last four months (GISS analysis).

The maps are used to show that, even averaged over a month, local weather anomalies (dynamical fluctuations, more-or-less independent of forced long-term climate change) are much larger than the global mean temperature change of recent decades.1 Weather fluctuations or ‘noise’ have a noticeable effect even on monthly-mean global-mean temperature, especially in Northern Hemisphere winter. Weather has little effect on global-mean temperature averaged over several months or more. The primary cause of variations on time scales from a few months to a few years is ocean dynamics, especially the Southern Oscillation (El Nino – La Nina cycle), although an occasional large volcano can have a cooling effect that lasts a few years. The 10-11 year cycle of solar irradiance has a just barely detectable effect on global temperature, no more than about 0.1°C, much less noticeable than El Nino/La Nina fluctuations.

The past year (2007) witnessed a transition from a weak El Nino to a strong La Nina (the latter is perhaps beginning to moderate already, as the ocean waters near Peru are beginning to warm). January 2007 was the warmest January in the period of instrumental data in the GISS analysis, while, as shown in Figure 1, October 2007 was # 5 warmest, November 2007 was #8 warmest, December 2007 was #8 warmest, and January 2008 was #40 warmest. Undoubtedly, the cooling trend through the year was due to the strengthening La Nina, and the unusual coolness in January was aided by a winter weather
fluctuation.

The monthly fluctuations of global or near-global temperature, as well as the trend over recent decades can be seen in Figure 2 for the GISS surface temperature analysis as well as the lower tropospheric data of UAH (University of Alabama at Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems). The reason to show these is to expose the recent nonsense that has appeared in the blogosphere, to the effect that recent cooling has wiped out global warming of the past century, and the Earth may be headed into an ice age. On the contrary, these misleaders have foolishly (or devilishly) fixated on a natural fluctuation that will soon disappear.

...