New Location for UAH Version 6 Text Files

December 13th, 2016 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Now that our paper describing the UAH Version 6 methodology is in-press (publication date unknown), the text files containing monthly global and regional deep-layer temperature anomalies are now in a new location, without the “beta” identifier:

Lower Troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt
Mid-Troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tmt/uahncdc_mt_6.0.txt
Tropopause: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/ttp/uahncdc_tp_6.0.txt
Lower Stratosphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tls/uahncdc_ls_6.0.txt


90 Responses to “New Location for UAH Version 6 Text Files”

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  1. barry says:

    Here is the parent web page that gives access to the above and previous versions with a bit of navigating.

    Dr Spencer, are there any differences between v6.0 and the Beta 6.5?

  2. barry says:

    Here’s the link to the parent web page:

    http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/

  3. Rick Kargaard says:

    Dr. Spencer This is a pretty basic question but I have never found an explanation. An anomaly is by most definitions a departure from the norm or expected. In the case of this data, how is that norm determined? Is it a constant or a running average?

    • Steven Fraser says:

      Rick,

      Others can correc me if I am wrong, but the left margin of the chart indicates that the climatology is ’81 to ’10, which I interpret as 1981 through 2010.

    • January anomalies are computed by subtracting each January average temperature from the mean of all January’s 1981-2010, etc. This is done at the 2.5 deg. gridpoint level. Then regional and global anomalies are computed from the gridpoint anomalies, with cosine-latitude weighting to make them area averages.

      • Rick Kargaard says:

        Thank you.

      • Bindidon says:

        Then regional and global anomalies are computed from the gridpoint anomalies, with cosine-latitude weighting to make them area averages.

        Exactly this I did two months ago, using the classical

        sqrt(cos(angle)) — (angle expressed in radiant)

        But surprisingly, the OLS trend computed out of the grid data for the Globe was, without weighting, at 0.124 C /dec, i.e. 0.002 C higher than that computed out of the data in the zonal/regional file.

        But when including the weighting function above, the trend went down to 0.099 C / decade, i.e. 0.02 C lower, a difference by far too high.

        Is UAH’s weighting factor so different?

  4. Geoff Wood says:

    Hi Roy. Would you have any idea if the following is closed permanently,

    https://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.govamsutemps/amsutemps.pl

    Thanks, and best wishes for the festive season.

  5. Walter Dnes says:

    One more note; some people prefer the 3-digit data. After some searching/fumbling-around, I believe that http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0beta/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0beta5.txt has beem replaced by http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0.txt Is that correct?

    • You are probably correct…John Christy made the final file location changes and might not have given me a complete list of the changes.

    • barry says:

      v6.0 and v6.0beta (6.5) are listed one under the other in the parent file, and are basically mirror copies except for the ‘beta’ and ‘beta5’ suffixes.

      From each you can get the 3 decimal files you listed, plus the other files that boffins may get into. It’s the same numbers (AFAIK) for each sub-file, just the slightly different naming system.

      Parent directory again:

      http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/

      For older UAH versions click on ‘t2lt’

    • David Appell says:

      Walter, you can’t give more decimal points than the methodology allows.

      Is UAH’s data correct to three, or two decimal points?
      What are the error bars on each month’s temperature anomalies?

  6. Bob Tisdale says:

    Hi Roy. Congrats on the acceptance of the paper and to having the version 6 data no longer as beta.

    Cheers to the holidays.

  7. Aaron S says:

    Roy, any fears about the proposed detachment of NASA from climate research and funding? Im confident this is NASA scope science, and i believe it is more the thermometer/ models causing the political stir, but it would be a real shame if this project was hurt as collateral damage

    • We definitely need NASA for designing, launching, and operating Earth observation missions. They don’t have to have a climate change focus…most all of them give us useful information for weather forecasting model improvement, natural hazards monitoring, understanding the Earth in general. But science performed with the data can arguably be done by other agencies. And the GISS climate modeling effort is not really state-of-the-art, and could be dropped as redundant with other agency efforts.

    • Too early to tell how the new administration will affect the UAH product. NASA hasn’t funded us for quite a few years anyway. They’ve preferred to fund the RSS effort for some reason.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        Roy….”NASA hasnt funded us for quite a few years anyway. Theyve preferred to fund the RSS effort for some reason”.

        You’re too diplomatic to say it. GISS is run by uber-alarmist Gavin Schmidt who hates anything skeptical.

        IF I remember correctly, RSS was set up initially to disprove UAH and ended up confirming them. That does not mean the folks at RSS have suddenly become skeptics. If you look at their graphics they often feature bright red and rust colours to suggest catastrophic warming.

        • Lance Wallace says:

          Despite the internecine sniping between UAH and RSS, and perhaps some efforts by RSS to “improve” their product, the fact remains that there is still no significant difference between the slopes. Checking the values out through Nov 2016, I get a slope of 0.123 (+-SE 0.008) per decade for UAH and 0.135 (+_0.007) for RSS. So RSS may be 10% higher but they are within each other’s 95% confidence interval.

          • David Appell says:

            There’s almost no disagreement for the LT. There is for the MT.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            Lance Walker…” Checking the values out through Nov 2016, I get a slope of 0.123 (+-SE 0.008) per decade for UAH and 0.135 (+_0.007) for RSS”.

            Your slope is meaningless. It involves two key parts: a slope from 1979 – 1997 which is solely in the -ve anomaly region, and a flat slope from 1998 – 2015.

            The former slope, being in the -ve anomaly region is obviously a warming slope from cooling and cannot represent true warming.

            True warming began with the explosive late 97 El Nino but it receded and the slope from 98 till 2015 is flat. The IPCC have confirmed that hiatus till 2012 and I have supplied the requisite link even though Barry, in his denial, has a modified version of the data that omits the word hiatus.

            The residual warming post 98 appeared suddenly circa 2001 where there was a global average temperature shift of roughly 0.25C compared to the baseline between 1979 and 1997.

            A similar global average warming shift occurred in 1977 meaning the warming of roughly 0.45C since then is unexplained. There is absolutely no proof that warming was caused by anthropogenic sources.

          • David Appell says:

            Gordon Robertson says:
            “Your slope is meaningless. It involves two key parts: a slope from 1979 1997 which is solely in the -ve anomaly region, and a flat slope from 1998 2015.”

            Gordon is again flat-out wrong.

            UAH trend from 6/1998 to present = 0.08 +/- 0.04 C/decade.

            Gordon needs to learn how to calculate.

          • barry says:

            “The IPCC have confirmed that hiatus till 2012”

            The IPCC used the word hiatus in the technical summary, and pointed out in the same paragraph that these trends are statistically non-significant and do not reflect the underlying trends.

  8. barry says:

    It concerns me too, Aaron. I don’t know the ins and outs of what’s possible at the US federal level to pull funding for the major scientific organizations and projects, but the US has key monitoring systems for and research on global and regional weather and climate. These are enormously important beyond the AGW debate. I would hope that no one would fail to recognize the utility of ongoing research on the impact to ecosystems of human endeavour, and to help us sustain our water and agriculture with populations growing worldwide.

  9. barry says:

    Having checked, there are a few very minor differences between 6.5beta and 6.0, where anomalies for months past have been adjusted by 0.001C. But 6.0 has been updated to Nov and 6.5beta has not. Should 6.5beta be updated Id imagine the small changes would reflect the values in 6.0.

    Click each link and scroll to bottom, then click between tabs to see the small changes.

    http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0beta/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0beta5.txt
    http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0.txt

    • no, those changes happen in every monthly update. They are because inter-satellite differences for currently operating satellites are updated as each new month of data is added.

      • David Appell says:

        I wish you would determine (and not just guess) at they uncertainty in the final LT anomaly due to all these cross-calibrations. It’s gotta be large.

        What are there, 7 or 8 now??

    • barry says:

      ‘No’?

      We’re saying the same thing, but you with more info.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        barry…”Were saying the same thing, but you with more info”.

        Why are you talking on the same level as the expert when you don’t know your butt from a hole in the ground about what he is saying? Roy explained it very clearly and I did not relate his explanation to what you were talking about.

        Roy explained the discrepancy as inter-satellite differences. Based on your inability to read IPCC literature when I give you a direct link to it I seriously doubt if your post about versions has anything to do with agreeing with Roy.

      • barry says:

        The thing we both said is that the monthly updates come with small changes to some previous values. Roy explained why.

  10. Dave says:

    People, I hate to be picky but as a programmer it is annoying to see people labelling the pre-release version as version 6.5… it was previously a beta release of version of 6.0 which is now declared as a release version (i.e. just 6.0). The “beta5” suffix just indicates that the initial beta release was modified 5 times before the settling on the final release version. Hence V6.0b5 NOT V6.5. I expect that when further versions are released to account for errors in V6.0, they will follow notation of 6.1, 6.2 etc. or (if major changes need to be made, e.g. to add a new satellite etc.) to V7.0

  11. Lance Wallace says:

    Forgot to mention above that the correlation between UAH and RSS thru Nov 2016 is 97%.

    Hmmm, where have I seen that number before?

    • fonzarelli says:

      Let’s see… 97% of scientists agree or kyoto ’97. Either way, perhaps we should treat it like it was the number 13 or something. Omit it like they do with elevators (and should have done with trips to the moon). Maybe name a horror movie after it…

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        fonzarelli…”Lets see…97% of scientists agree…”

        A number drawn out of a hat. It’s the numerical version of ‘vast majority’, a term used by alarmists to make what they have to say seem important. If what they had to say was important and backed by hard data they would not require superlatives.

        • David Appell says:

          Gordon, you should learn how these numbers are calculated. And, better yet, the 99% that came out a few years after Cook et al.

          Summarily dismissing numbers you don’t like is never very convincing.

          • Massimo PORZIO says:

            David, what I find ridiculous is that you give that numbers a meaning instead.
            That’s one clear case which (as I said) the statistic represent the “dark side of mathematics”.

            May the mathematics be with you.

            Massimo

          • Laura says:

            @Appell, what’s wrong with Cook et al? And where does this new 99% come from? It’s so difficult to tell what’s right any more. What are the sources of credit and discredit you are using? I hear nowadays that it is deniers the ones that claimed, all along, that climate warming was dangerous. Insane! If it is not dangerous, what are we fighting for?

          • ossqss says:

            Here is a start for you Laura. There is plenty more if you look for it.

            http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421514002821

          • barry says:

            Other studies over the last 15 years corroborate that the consensus is in the high 90s. Richard Tol, who criticised the paper, conceded that there is a high degree of consensus.

            Most of the other criticisms do not understand the methodology.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            David Appell,

            Considering that climate is the average of weather, anybody claiming to be a climate scientist is foolish. Gavin Schmidt claims to be a climate scientist, but is really an undistinguished mathematician. At least a mathematician should be capable of understanding statistics, but I believe that statisticians dispute Gavin’s grasp of basic statistical concepts.

            It’s not surprising that 97% of people sharing a common delusion agree on the nature of their fantasy.

            A motley crew of followers of Cargo Cult Scientism. Responsible for the waste of billions of dollars with exactly nothing of use to show for it. You may worship whom you wish.

            Would I be right in assuming that will not be contribute one red cent to their salaries, if Government funding dries up? Even you realise that if every climatologist magically vanished from the face of the Earth, very few people would realise, and even less would care.

            Cheers.

          • Massimo PORZIO says:

            Hi Mike,

            I partially agree with what you say, with a caveat: not all climatologists are the same, some are clearly in bad faith, some are just hijacked by their ideology but honest, and some other are perfectly aware of the limited knowledge of the matter at the moment but can’t tell it to much aloud to avoid the “consensus” censure and isolation.
            What disturbs me is how easily some people of a certain culture accepts proxies measurements such as dendro-thermology uses.

            I stand on my own “statistics in the wrong hands always lead to damages”.

            Have a great day.

            Massimo

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            Laura…”What are the sources of credit and discredit you are using?”

            Appell and his fellow trolls don’t deal in fact. They were trained at the alarmist school on how to respond to skeptics. Their responses are geared at upsetting objective scientific discussion hence the troll moniker.

          • fonzarelli says:

            Spot on, Gordon, spot on…

          • fonzarelli says:

            BTW, thanx again for the happy face icon (code), i’ve gotten a lot of milage out of it. (i now have a well nurtured “inner child”… ☺)

          • David Appell says:

            Laura says:
            “@Appell, whats wrong with Cook et al?”

            I give up. What?

          • David Appell says:

            Massimo PORZIO says:
            “David, what I find ridiculous is that you give that numbers a meaning instead.”

            I have no idea what that means. Sorry.

            Maybe English isn’t your best language?

          • David Appell says:

            Mike Flynn:

            Sorry, you’ve lied so many times here that you’re no longer worth a reply.

            — David

  12. ren says:

    The wave of very frosty air moves to the northeast USA.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      ren “The wave of very frosty air moves to the northeast USA”.

      And into the Pacific Northwest. Here in the greater Vancouver area we are having record breaking cold temperatures for December.

      That freezing air is pushing down from the Arctic where ice is allegedly melting. In Tuktoyaktuk, at the mouth of the Mackenzie River where it meets the Arctic Ocean, it is -31C and it’s not officially winter yet.

      • David Appell says:

        It’s about trends, Gordon, trends. Not what’s happening in your backyard today.

        • ren says:

          That is the trend this winter. In Russia, the same frost, as in the US.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          DA…”Its about trends, Gordon, trends. Not whats happening in your backyard today”.

          Will you take the blinders off? We are having a record low December when alarmists are screaming about record warming. We should not be setting record lows over an entire month if the planet is warming that much.

          There has been no average global warming the past 18 years and this record cold spell in an otherwise temperate rain forest emphasizes that despite the EN earlier this year.

          • Vancouver represents about .007% of the world’s surface.
            Therefore, who gives a freakin flying fig what happens there?

          • Bindidon says:

            Will you take the blinders off? We are having a record low December when alarmists are screaming about record warming. We should not be setting record lows over an entire month if the planet is warming that much.

            Unfortunately, UAH’s globe temperature chart for November 2016 isn’t available yet in the climate directory. You would have seen a giant warm spot above CONUS… But you may have a look at October!

            Unfortunately I can’t show you the spot using moyhu’s Globe viewer, because the upload link to my data lets the comment disappear.

            As usual, Mr Robertson simply confounds climate and weather.

          • fonzarelli says:

            Bindi, you seem to have a beef with “El Gordo”. Believe it or not, he’s actually more left leaning than you are…

          • David Appell says:

            Gordon wrote:
            “There has been no average global warming the past 18 years”

            That’s a lie.

            A pure, malevolent, dishonest lie.

            Gordon, you’re a liar. Nothing but a liar.

  13. ossqss says:

    Please show us all the studies you reference. Grad student studies don’t count. Just sayin, keep lookin..

  14. ren says:

    This is accompanied by a deepening of the Aleutian Low at the surface and an increase in blocking over Northern Europe and the North Pacific. There is also an equatorward shift in the Southern Hemisphere midlatitude eddy‐driven jet in austral spring. The occurrence of an amplified regional response during winter and spring suggests a contribution from a top‐down pathway for solar‐climate coupling; this is tested using an experiment in which ultraviolet (200320 nm) radiation is decreased in isolation of other changes. The results show that a large decline in solar activity over the 21st century could have important impacts on the stratosphere and regional surface climate.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4758621/
    http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/blocking/real_time_nh/500gz_anomalies_nh.gif

  15. ren says:

    Polar vortex is open to the United States.
    http://files.tinypic.pl/i/00851/e681taoa6emx.png

    • Aaron S says:

      This is interesting. I was reading about tree-ring climate reconstructions for a paper I am writing and came across this: During the Little Ice age there appears to have been a stronger ridge over western North America, with a higher pressure over Alaska. This was associated with higher temperatures and lower precipitation of much of the western and southwestern US, but cooler and wetter conditions in the east and northeast. In effect, the reconstruction points to an amplification of the Rossby wave pattern over North America, with an increase in cold airflow from central Canada into the central and eastern U.S. (Fritts, 1991 in Bradley, 1999 pg 417 & 418).

      So perhaps the little Ice age was the equivalent for a “SUPER La Nina”, or Super PDO negative phase.

  16. Greven says:

    Hey Dr. Spencer, was 5.6 really so different from 6.0?
    Oct 2016 Arctic temperature anomaly:
    version 6.0: +1.63C
    version 5.6: +2.53C

  17. RAH says:

    The EPA, the epitome of transparency an efficiency in the current administration:

    It’s good to know that this massive violation of well known federal law in the Federal Records Act wasn’t intentional and so ok and nobody will be held accountable.

    http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/21/epa-employees-are-not-intentionally-breaking-the-law-by-deleting-official-texts/

    https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/publications/documenting-your-public-service.html

  18. Bindidon says:

    An evaluation of UAH’s 2.5 grid data shows that for the latitude stripe ’80-82.5N’, from dec 1978 till oct 2016,
    – 74% of the 50 highest monthly anomalies (ranging from +3.85 till +1.36 C)
    and
    – 6% of the 50 lowest anomalies (ranging from -1.29 till -3.76 C)
    were measured by UAH since the year 2000.

    Merry Xmas.

  19. David Appell says:

    Roy wrote:
    “Government funds science to support pre-determined policy outcomes”

    Is that really the loudest you can whine, Roy?

    I know you think only YOU think you do honest scientific research.

    You’re the last honest man on the planet, right Roy?

    Of course that’s why you think — and not just about climate science, but economics too! And probably everything else.

    What an error that no one recognizes your global genius.

    How terrible that no one recognized only you have the truth, and no one else does….

    When you write this way, you need to realize that it only makes you that much easier to dismiss. You sound like A Watts, not a professional scientist.

    Seriously.

    — David

  20. David Appell says:

    Roy: Care to be honest about what you are paid to attach your name to the various “think tanks” and evangelical organizations regarding climate change?

    List
    – each org
    – annual amounts, now and in the past.

    Thanks.

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