Assessing Climate Trends: Eyeball versus Regression

In a previous post, I showed the Lower Stratospheric Temperature Anomaly (TLS) Trends (link).  A reader submitted the following comment:

“The lower stratosphere temperature profile is essentially flat from ca. 1995 to the present. This approximately mirrors the temperature trend for the surface temperature. From 1980 to about 1995, the surface temperature increased while the lower stratospheric temperature decreased. After that both went flat.” tony

In the words of Edwards Deming:

In God we Trust, All Others Must  Bring Data”

Since tony didn’t bring any data to back up his  claims, I’ll do the analysis for him.

Atmospheric Temperature Structure : 2 – Stratospheric Cooling

In this  post I review the temperature structure of the atmosphere and lower stratosphere temperature (TLS) anomaly trends.

Temperature Structure in the Atmosphere

In post 1 of this series, I developed this RClimate chart of temperature soundings which I update daily: (Click to enlarge)

Nov 2010 Year-To-Date Global Temperature Anomaly 1st in 2 Series, 2nd in 3 Series: Update

This post shows the YTD global land – ocean temperature anomaly (LOTA) trends for the 5 major series through November, 2010 and how  2010 YTD ranks over the entire record for each series.  The source data  file link is provided.

Oct 2010 Year-To-Date Global Temperature Anomaly 1st in 2 Series, 2nd in 3 Series

This post shows the YTD global land – ocean temperature anomaly (LOTA) trends for the 5 major series through October, 2010 and how  2010 YTD ranks over the entire record for each series. The source data  file link is provided.

2010 On Track to Being 2nd Warmest Year Since 1880

In this post I present a 5 panel trend charts which show the year-to-date  anomaly trends for the 5 major global temperature anomaly series and a table that shows how  2010 YTD ranks over the entire record for each series. The source data and RClimate script file links are provided.

Click to Enlarge

September Anomaly Trends Show Global Warming Continues: Update 1

In this post I present a trend chart which shows the September anomaly trends for the 5 major global temperature anomaly series and a table that shows how September 2010 ranks over the entire record for each series. The source data and RClimate script file links are provided.

Update 1: In a comment,  ChristianP  suggested the addition of a loess regression fit to the trend line chart. Thanks ChristianP.

Click to Enlarge

Checking Do-It-Yourself Climate Science

Do-it-yourself citizen scientists need to conduct proper data analysis to reach valid conclusions.

In this post I show how the blogger Inconvenient Skeptic misleads himself on the role of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation in  global warming because he misinterprets his own trend charts and implies causation from correlation.

Arctic Sea Ice Extent Trends: 1979-2010; Update 1

Now that the 2010 Arctic sea ice melt season is over, we can see how 2010 fits into the long-term trends Arctic  Sea Ice Extent. This post shows an R Climate chart that I have made to look at the annual  NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice Extent maximum, minimum and seasonal melt trends for the 32 year period, 1979 to 2010. Data and RClimate scripts are provided.
Update 1 (10/6/10) Added trend lines to plots based on suggestion from reader.

Here’s my RClimate script trend chart of 1979-2010  NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice Extent data.  I have plotted NSIDC’s maximum and minimum sea ice extent for each year and my calculated value for seasonal melt (maximum – minimum). (Click image to enlarge)

Arctic Oscillation: 1 – Trends (Update 1)

arctic oscillation (AO): 1 -  trends Since 1950

In this post, I begin a series on the Arctic Oscillation (AO) .  This post  presents a chart of monthly AO Index from 1950 to the present and introductory information on AO .  I will be updating this chart each month as NOAA updates the data series.  A link to the RClimate script that downloads the source data from NOAA is provided.

Update 1: Reader skrafner noticed that my plot legend indicated a 60-day moving average while the script actually calculated a 60-month moving avg. I’ve updated  the script and plot.

RClimate Tools for Do It Yourself Climate Trend Analysis

In this post I introduce my RClimate functions which allow R users to easily download and plot monthly temperature anomaly data for the 5 major global temperature anomaly data series: GISS, HAD, NOAA, RSS, UAH.

Consolidated LOTA Data File

In this previous post I introduced my global  Land Ocean Temperature Anomaly (LOTA) monthly csv file that Excel and R users can download to conduct climate trend analysis.

In this post, I introduce my RClimate.txt R scripts that users can source() to simplify access to the LOTA data.  Please note that I have used the “.txt” descriptor  for my file type to avoid download problems encountered when I use the standard R file descriptor.