Home/Blog2025 was the 2nd warmest year (a distant 2nd behind 2024) in the 47-year satellite record
The Version 6.1 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for December, 2025 was +0.30 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, down from the November, 2025 value of +0.43 deg. C. (In the following plot note that the 13-month centered-average trace [red curve] has now been updated after several months of not being updated).
The Version 6.1 global area-averaged linear temperature trend (January 1979 through December 2025) remains at +0.16 deg/ C/decade (+0.22 C/decade over land, +0.13 C/decade over oceans).
2025 Ended the Year as a Distant 2nd Warmest Behind 2024
The following plot shows the ranking of the 47 years in the UAH satellite temperature record, from the warmest year (2024) to the coolest (1985). As can be seen, 2024 really was an anomalously warm year, more than can be attributed to El Nino alone.
The next plot shows how our UAH LT yearly anomalies compare to those posted on the WeatherBell website (subscription required) for the surface air temperatures from NOAA’s Climate Data Assimilation System (CDAS). There is pretty good correspondence between the two datasets, with LT having warm outliers during major El Ninos (especially 1987, 1998, 2010, and 2024). This behavior is due to extra heating of the troposphere (which LT measures) during El Nino by enhanced deep moist convection in the tropics when the tropical Pacific Ocean surface warms from reduced upwelling of cold water from below, an effect exaggerated by the several-month lag of tropospheric warming behind surface warming during El Nino:
The following table lists various regional Version 6.1 LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 24 months (record highs are in red).
| YEAR | MO | GLOBE | NHEM. | SHEM. | TROPIC | USA48 | ARCTIC | AUST |
| 2024 | Jan | +0.80 | +1.02 | +0.57 | +1.20 | -0.19 | +0.40 | +1.12 |
| 2024 | Feb | +0.88 | +0.94 | +0.81 | +1.16 | +1.31 | +0.85 | +1.16 |
| 2024 | Mar | +0.88 | +0.96 | +0.80 | +1.25 | +0.22 | +1.05 | +1.34 |
| 2024 | Apr | +0.94 | +1.12 | +0.76 | +1.15 | +0.86 | +0.88 | +0.54 |
| 2024 | May | +0.77 | +0.77 | +0.78 | +1.20 | +0.04 | +0.20 | +0.52 |
| 2024 | June | +0.69 | +0.78 | +0.60 | +0.85 | +1.36 | +0.63 | +0.91 |
| 2024 | July | +0.73 | +0.86 | +0.61 | +0.96 | +0.44 | +0.56 | -0.07 |
| 2024 | Aug | +0.75 | +0.81 | +0.69 | +0.74 | +0.40 | +0.88 | +1.75 |
| 2024 | Sep | +0.81 | +1.04 | +0.58 | +0.82 | +1.31 | +1.48 | +0.98 |
| 2024 | Oct | +0.75 | +0.89 | +0.60 | +0.63 | +1.89 | +0.81 | +1.09 |
| 2024 | Nov | +0.64 | +0.87 | +0.40 | +0.53 | +1.11 | +0.79 | +1.00 |
| 2024 | Dec | +0.61 | +0.75 | +0.47 | +0.52 | +1.41 | +1.12 | +1.54 |
| 2025 | Jan | +0.45 | +0.70 | +0.21 | +0.24 | -1.07 | +0.74 | +0.48 |
| 2025 | Feb | +0.50 | +0.55 | +0.45 | +0.26 | +1.03 | +2.10 | +0.87 |
| 2025 | Mar | +0.57 | +0.73 | +0.41 | +0.40 | +1.24 | +1.23 | +1.20 |
| 2025 | Apr | +0.61 | +0.76 | +0.46 | +0.36 | +0.81 | +0.85 | +1.21 |
| 2025 | May | +0.50 | +0.45 | +0.55 | +0.30 | +0.15 | +0.75 | +0.98 |
| 2025 | June | +0.48 | +0.48 | +0.47 | +0.30 | +0.80 | +0.05 | +0.39 |
| 2025 | July | +0.36 | +0.49 | +0.23 | +0.45 | +0.32 | +0.40 | +0.53 |
| 2025 | Aug | +0.39 | +0.39 | +0.39 | +0.16 | -0.06 | +0.82 | +0.11 |
| 2025 | Sep | +0.53 | +0.56 | +0.49 | +0.35 | +0.38 | +0.77 | +0.30 |
| 2025 | Oct | +0.53 | +0.52 | +0.55 | +0.24 | +1.12 | +1.42 | +1.67 |
| 2025 | Nov | +0.43 | +0.59 | +0.27 | +0.24 | +1.32 | +0.78 | +0.36 |
| 2025 | Dec | +0.30 | +0.45 | +0.15 | +0.19 | +2.10 | +0.32 | +0.38 |
The full UAH Global Temperature Report, along with the LT global gridpoint anomaly map for December, 2025 as well as a global map of the 2025 anomalies and a more detailed analysis by John Christy, should be available within the next several days here.
The monthly anomalies for various regions for the four deep layers we monitor from satellites will be available in the next several days at the following locations:
Only the 6th warmest December
1 2023 0.74
2 2024 0.61
3 2019 0.43
4 2015 0.35
5 2017 0.31
6 2025 0.30
7 2003 0.26
8 1987 0.25
9 2021 0.22
10 2016 0.16
Interesting that 1987 was so warm.
This is the first time since May 2023 that the anomaly has been below the current trend line.
The anomaly for the USA is very high. Second warmest anomaly for any month, and the warmest December.
Bellman
” The anomaly for the USA is very high. ”
Although the CFS V2 forecast for the US in January only includes land data, it can still be a meaningful hint to the previous December:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/imagesInd3/usT2mMonInd1.gif
A comparison with the forecast for Europe is interesting:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/imagesInd3/euT2mMonInd1.gif
Maybe it’s better to save them.
US
https://i.postimg.cc/SK0GX1fL/us-T2m-Mon-Ind1-050126.png
EUR
https://i.postimg.cc/qvKsdXHp/eu-T2m-Mon-Ind1-050126.png
Was 1998 warmer than 2020? I can’t tell what year is in 4th place behind 2016.
Greyhound81
I just had a look at a descending sort of the yearly averaging of UAH’s monthly LT data since Jan 1979:
2024 0.774 (C)
2025 0.472
2023 0.431
2016 0.389
2020 0.351
1998 0.348
2019 0.296
2017 0.265
2010 0.193
2022 0.148
*
You may mean the 5th place in between…
The 1877 spike continues to serve as a template. I wasn’t sure if the tail would be longer this time given the origin of the spike is different.
https://localartist.org/media/HTvAkjsaENSO2512.png
I’ve nearly finished a paper explaining why climate largely repeats after 3560 years. I hope to make it public in January.
https://localartist.org/media/NGRIPCores3500shift.png
Dr. Spencer, let me know if you’d like to see a draft copy.
I posted this comment last month, and now I see that the linked graphs have been viewed over 100 times.
I’ll re-up the graphs https://ibb.co/chfy3mmq and the accompanying follow up post for the benefit of any new lurkers.
Ark, why do you keep avoiding the issue?
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2025/12/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-november-2025-0-43-deg-c/#comment-1726504
Arkady, I am also curious about these graphs, can you accompany them with some sort of analysis and what conclusions that can be made?
Today’s entry notes that December, 2025 was +0.30 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean. However, the earliest mean, covering the first 20 years of observations (1978-1999) was about 0.22 lower than the current, meaning the departures you report appear smaller because of the use of a later baseline average–otherwise Dec. 2025’s anomaly would be something like .52 Deg C.
Why raise the baseline other than to reduce the apparent anomaly?
MFA
” Why raise the baseline other than to reduce the apparent anomaly? ”
This was not the reason, even if many of those I name the pseudo-skeptics would welcome it.
The reason to the change of the reference period, first from 1979-1998 to 1981-2010 and then from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 is manifestly the will to be in agreement with WMO’s respectively newest recommendation.
Some follow it too, e.g. JMA, the Japanese Met Agency.
Others don’t, especially NASA GISS (1951-1980), RSS (still on 1979-1998) or partly NOAA which for global time series keeps on 1901-2000.
My guess (!): this might be due to how these climate data providers construct anomalies out of historical data; the probably tend to keep as reference the period with the most available absolute data, what reduces the standard deviations and gives thus better estimates.
But it downplays and therefore misrepresents the amount and rate of change.
To remain honest, Dr. Spencer should display the original baseline as well as the later one.
” But it downplays and therefore misrepresents the amount and rate of change. ”
Not so. The reference period shifts change the anomalies but don’t significantly change the trends in the time series, even if the shifts result in obtaining the data from sources slightly differing over time (satellites, surface stations).
However, what very significantly altered the rate of change in all UAH time series has been the transition from revision 5.6 to 6.0 in 2015, with a downward change from 0.14 to 0.11 °C per decade in LT.
MFA,
You are correct that the placement of the axis affects the interpretation of the data. Well know effect. It’s why pie charts are often used to disguise the numbers or why certain colours are used to highlight the message.
People like Bindy don’t really understand this.
In a few months we may start to see negative anomalies.
Sure, Jan. But if so, not for long.
Recent 30-year baselines are traditionally used by most weather and climate data reporting organizations, and the most recent baseline is 1991-2020. But the linear trend is the most important metric if you are interested in how much warming there has been over the entire period, which I also document every month. If I wanted to “hide the incline” I’d just compute anomalies relative to the most recent 10 years rather than the 30 year baseline.
Thank you for the reply. The incline is visually obvious from the graph; what isn’t as clear is how far the anomalies have already departed from the original baseline–which tells a different, less attenuated story than variations from a floating/rising baseline. On the same front, I hope you will consider updating this 2010 post…
https://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-background-articles/carbon-dioxide-growth-rate-at-mauna-loa/
…to reflect the additional 15 years of collected data that to my eye show a clear acceleration in the accumulation of CO2 at Mauna Loa.
I often cite your work/this site in discussions with Climate Torporists as it is the most conservative popular outlet with legit data. Thank you for continuing it.
MFA,
The CO2 Concentration measured at Mauna Loa (and elsewhere) is accelerating, but the effect on temperature anomalies is expected to be logarithmic and CO2 concentration has been approximately linear in recent decades when plotted on a log scale.
Here’s my graphical version of global land temperature using the Berkley Earth time series with atmospheric CO2 levels on a log scale overlaid.
https://southstcafe.neocities.org/climate/bestAndCO2.png
An alternate way of looking at this is to plot the regression of log(CO2) and temperature anomaly which is an simplistic estimate of climate sensitivity.
https://southstcafe.neocities.org/climate/bestAndCO2.png
I say this is simplistic in that it presumes CO2 alone is responsible for observed warming, but in reality there are contributions from other greenhouse gases, aerosols attenuating warming, and variation in natural forcings and internal variation that are not considered.
Whoops, the correct link for the regression plot is here:
https://southstcafe.neocities.org/climate/best_land_vs_co2_doubling_long.png
Hi Mark B,
I am looking at the log CO2 charts.
What is the reason for only including land temperatures?
/David
David,
There’s two motivations behind that particular graph.
First, Berkeley Earth’s land-only is the longest running, nominally global temperature anomaly dataset available (1750-present), thus allowing a longer time period over which to illustrate the CO2-temperature correlation. Global land/ocean series including the BEST and HadCrut start in 1850.
Second, in the estimation of climate sensitivity, land temperatures respond more quickly to changes in forcing whereas ocean including ocean surface temperatures are subject to the considerable thermal inertia of the oceans. Thus the sensitivity estimate is plausibly a better estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity rather than a transient sensitivity subject to thermal inertia.
The broad shape of the land, ocean, and land/ocean time series is the same except the magnitude of ocean (thus land/ocean) anomaly is smaller which results in a smaller calculated sensitivity, albeit one with a different meaning.
For example, here’s the regression for GISS land/ocean with CO2 since 1959, that being when the Mauna Loa CO2 record starts:
https://southstcafe.neocities.org/climate/giss_vs_co2_doubling_1959.png
Thanks Mark,
The risk of using only land-only temperatures is that the stations are subject to heat the heat island effect. Especially for those stations that have long time series.
Dr Spencer have some extensive articles about it here on the blog.
Have you taken that into account when performing the regression analysis?
Mark, you can be easily tricked by charts and graphs. For example, there has been a huge increase in ice cream production in the last 100 years. Companies like Ben & Jerry’s, Haagen-Dazs, Baskin-Robbins, and Cold Stone Creamery, didn’t even exist before 1900. So you could prepare a chart showing a link between CO2 and the increase in ice cream. Does that mean CO2 is causing more ice cream?
You have to be careful. Don’t be tricked. There are many frauds and cultists out there….
David,
For the graphics linked above, I’ve simply taken the BEST series at face value. If one were inclined to be more rigorous, they could incorporate the BEST uncertainty estimates in the analysis but my educated guess is that the issues I mentioned earlier are more significant than potential residual UHI induced bias.
I say this because the BE project was undertaken specifically to address perceived potential issues with existing temperature anomaly series including UHI induced biases.
https://berkeleyearth.org/methodology/
https://berkeley-earth-wp-offload.storage.googleapis.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/03232406/UHI-GIGS-1-104.pdf
My impression is that they’ve done so far more rigorously and transparently than have their remaining critics, so until and unless the counterargument becomes more robust and compelling, I’m not inclined to spend much time dwelling on it.
Well, it’s not really transparent to present the data series starting from 1750 in a line without confidence interval implying that the precision is the same over the entire timespan.
If their method is a “rigorous” as with the other temp datasets where old stations are interpolated over time and sensors mounted near heat absorbing objects it does not really hold much quality.
Also I don’t really understand why it always has to be a fixed reference period. In your regression you are indexing against 1750 which do not make sense. If the warming effect works as stated a delta value between two consecutive years would suffice.
Indexing two values with two completely different precision over 100 years apart does not make sense.
https://youtu.be/l2QjDA9QgNE
20 years ago 60 Minutes ran a segment titled Rewriting the Science, in which James Hansen spoke out about White House censorship of climate science.
The amount of CO2 in the air then was ~382ppm; it’s now ~428ppm.
So it will take 186 years to double CO2…which would give us perhaps less than 1°C. So need to worry, then.
I don’t know where I’ll be then, but I sure as hell won’t smell too good.
No, it won’t take that long, because the rate of CO2 increase is accelerating.
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
Try to keep up.
MFA: The amount of plants also accelerate at the same rate. It’s a well known fact that CO2 boosts plant growth. Plants tend to use all extra CO2 they can get. The average residence time of CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is found to be 3-4 years.
MFA:
185 years, then.
I get about 120 years to double from the current level (428 ppm to 856 ppm) and about 50 years to double from preindustrial (280 ppm to 560 ppm).
This is using compound growth with 0.6% increase per year.
Obviously this depends upon the actual trajectory of future emission.
Using the trend of the last 5 years, and having it staying constant, we reach 560, double the preindustrial value, in 56 years.
It will likely takes some time to slow down from our present rate of increase.
I remember this event regarding Jim Hansen, and I was a NASA employee at the time. Hansen wanted to say whatever he wanted to congress and the press, whenever he wanted. But there are NASA rules against unilateral interactions with congress and the press. You are supposed to go through the chain of command, including the Public Affairs office. Hansen didn’t want to do that. So, since NASA is an Executive Branch agency, all the WH did was tell NASA to rein Jim in and make him follow the rules. Then Hansen went to the press (of course) claiming the WH was muzzling him.
A member of congress asked me, “How does Hansen get away with this?” The only conceivable answer was that Hansen’s alarmism helped support NASA Earth science missions, the funding for which was directly proportional to the amount of alarm over the threats of anthropogenic climate change.
I personally decided I didn’t want that kind of control over me anymore, so I resigned from NASA and joined UAH, even though I continued on as the U.S. Science Team leader for the AMSR-E instrument on Aqua for many years afterward.
If Jim didn’t like NASA rules, he should have resigned, too.
First and foremost, happy new year, and welcome to the future.
Respectfully, focusing on intent (“alarmism,” “agenda,” “seeking patronage”) rather than engaging the substantive evidentiary claims makes Hansen look like a modern day Galileo, no?
There is no publicly verified evidence that Hansen’s communications were deliberately used by NASA administrators to secure funding.
I get your overarching point about internal coordination requirements, but the specific enforcement at that time was less formal than you imply. NASA’s written policy did not strictly prohibit direct scientific communication until it was formally codified in the 2006 policy update; from the IG Report dated June 2, 2008:
Ark, Roy is likely referring to the Hatch Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act
…which is, of course, exemplary and a testament to your integrity and honesty.
Typo in the table? Dec (2025) has a 2026 year ?
yes, thanks, fixed -Roy
So…what caused the 2024 spike in the LT? If it was CO2, why wasn’t it sustained?
Can it be anything other than Hunga Tonga?
The evidence is very strong, but like everything in climate science, it is complex and there are competing theories. The best case is that there were different effects from the various gases, such that the initial effect was cooling and the long term effect was warming. This concept would explain the lag between the eruption and the sudden and strong effect in the atmosphere in early 2023.
You can find alternative ideas (post + comments) here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/12/20/scientific-report-or-legal-brief-the-hunga-tonga-assessment-and-the-anatomy-of-narrative-closure/
These spikes are frequent throughout the holocene and in the instrument record in the late 19th century, mid 20th century, and 1980-2024.
They are in time with the motions of Jupiter and Saturn operating on a 60 year pattern.
Insolation models used by NASA decades ago built the idea of longer term variations by retained heat from variations in the motions of Jupiter and Saturn leading to the idea of perhaps a linear 100,000 year cycle via the retention of heat in snow and ice and the resulting albedo effects of advances and retreats of glaciers. This brings us to longer termed cycles of the planets.
These effects are variously thought to also build up over time into a 100,000 year linear effect on earth’s eccentricity. But this is more science community myth than anything available in print as what is in print suggests strongly otherwise.
The pattern lines up with 20 and 60 year period motions of Jupiter and Saturn. This creates the major spikes and stepped warming noted in the instrument record. The physics is based on the gravitational influence on variations in earth’s speed in its annual orbit. Through half of earth’s orbit this influence changes the time earth spends in its orbit furthest and closest to the sun. Each ~450 years it moves from a warming influence to a cooling influence as it takes 900 years for jupiter and saturn close encounters to cover the entire celestial compass.
So for ~450 years earth’s travel closest to the sun move 1/2 an orbit more slowly and then the next ~450 years it moves faster. These are only approximate because the outer gas giants have an influence on the timing on longer term orbits and there may be yet to be identified space objects beyond Neptune that cause other perturbations that are too distant or too distributed to be observed regularly because they emit nor reflect significant light.
These forces create the major bumps in the temperature record that some have attributed to AMO and PDO variations in temperature that are seen in the instrument records.
In addition to the combined motions of jupiter and Saturn (20 year pattern of conjunctions each occurring about 240 degrees apart meaning over 60 year period they will line up once or twice in one half of the orbit with that pattern which half gets 2 varying once every ~450 years in a 900 year cycle. These variations created the larger bumps seen in the ice core records, like the MWP period, Roman Optimum, and the Minoan Warm Period. Likewise between the MWP and the present its responsible for the LIA.
The combined motions of Uranus and Neptune besides influencing the 60 year pattern and 900 year pattern of Jupiter and Saturn, moves slowly around the heavens over an approximate 170 year cycle via the close 2:1 orbit ratio between those two major gas giants. The effect is very small but it lasts a long time creating short term effects of ~80+years and 170+ years (also creating the conditions for the Voyager expeditions using planet gravity to cover vast distances in space for those space vehicles that NASA says occurs about once every 175 years)
It is also believed that axial motions of earth while not influencing the mean annual insolation received by earth, influences how much of that is reflected from variations in snow and ice cover.
CO2 may have some effect in that the recent peak is a good deal warmer than late 19th century effect. And in the 1940’s peak Uranus was in opposition to Neptune having a cancelling effect. But effects if CO2 still needs sorting out from these longer termed natural cycles.
Thanks for that. I feel that there are many planetary effects (on Earth) that we have yet to discover.
To what do you attribute the 45 year drop in global cloud cover (which coincides with the modern warming period)? Do you believe it is cosmic rays or, I read only yesterday, yet another effect from CO2? However, even many proponents of this theory say that the level of CO2 would have to be very high to affect cloud formation.
Since cloud cover is heavier later in the night and early in the morning while cloud burn off occurs later in the morning through the warmest parts of the day; a loss of cloud cover is consistent with an increase in annual mean global insolation due to the orbital speed effects of the shorter term Milankovic cycles.
Earlier this year I posted references to a review of Milankovic’s work that shows a orbital variation that occurs on a 20 year cycle which happens to correspond to conjunction cycle of Jupiter and Saturn. All these individual orbit cycles are influenced by other cycles not on exact short term ratios moving dates. That is why a significant modeling effort is needed to fully understand mathematically what is going on. In 1980 the 4 major planets were all left (on the cool side) of earth’s major orbital axis. From then until now Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all moved to the right side (warm side), while Jupiter moved from the cool side an entire rotation and then into the warm side with the 4 major planets becoming most closely aligned on the warm side between mid 2023 to mid 2024. . .very close to 45 years.
If CO2 does the same then I would expect you would see above the clouds a warming sky moving closer to the temperature of the cloud tops to fulfill the GHE requirement of something above getting warmer than before. I can’t speak to that because I haven’t seen any compilation of data over long enough periods to deign what might be happening there. At least there are available ephemeris to track the planets.
Bill,
The Jovian planets are the primary drivers of the 3560-year pattern I mentioned above. While they certainly affect Earth’s orbit, they also modulate solar activity.
The effect of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions on climate is not immediate; for 20- and 60-year conjunctions, there’s a ~15-year delay, likely a bit less a few hundred years ago. Some of this delay is likely in the Sun, but I suspect most of it comes from the delay of ocean heat integration.
Not all Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions are the same. Here’s a plot of conjunctions delayed by 15 years.
https://localartist.org/media/JupiterSaturnConnectionAMOLong.png
In the upper panel, the x-axis labels are the dates of the 60-year conjunctions (delayed by 15 years). The most recent 20-year conjunction (delayed) lines up with the 2016 El Niño event. I believe this is the start of what will be at least a 20-year cooling period which we should return to as the HT anomaly fades.
Because CO2 has absolutely nothing to do with it. !
Agreed!
Why should such a short, sudden increase be attributed to any source identified as having rather long-term effects?
Buzz,
There’s a nice article by Zeke Hausfather looking at attribution of 2024 exceptionally high temperature anomaly here:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-what-are-the-causes-of-recent-record-high-global-temperatures/
The summary attribution is shown in this figure from that article:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/recent-warming-7.png
CO2 isn’t responsible for the annual departures, only the background average climate over which the interannual departures sit.
CO2 isn’t alone in this function. Orbital variation changes background temps over millennia, for example. But CO2 is the dominant driver of the increasing background temps.
What’s the quote? Climate loads the odds, weather rolls the dice.
barry just keeps parroting the cult nonsense: “But CO2 is the dominant driver of the increasing background temps.”
He’s got no science, only beliefs.
Nothing new.
Robert Cutler says:
”The Jovian planets are the primary drivers of the 3560-year pattern I mentioned above. While they certainly affect Earth’s orbit, they also modulate solar activity.”
I agree. I came up with a number roughly around 3,600+ years based upon ephemeris data on conjunctions of Uranus and Neptune, very near a 2:1 orbit ratio in about 17 degree steps, between 1607BC and 1993AD.
With Jupiter and Saturn having a conjunction every 20 years in its 2.5:1 orbit ratio one could say it roughly circumnavigates the compass once every 60 years in 3 steps and then fills in that circumnavigation to within about 5 degrees once very ~900 years.
Robert Cutler says:
”The effect of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions on climate is not immediate; for 20- and 60-year conjunctions, there’s a ~15-year delay, likely a bit less a few hundred years ago. Some of this delay is likely in the Sun, but I suspect most of it comes from the delay of ocean heat integration.”
What I did was a mean half orbit gravitational influence calculation of the Jovian planets to get an idea of what the possibilities are. And to explain the warming we have experienced from that in the past 45 years I came up with a number that seems pretty reasonable with a water feedback at the popular number. but with that number in contention there could be room for significant CO2 warming (but I am not convinced)
Robert Cutler says:
”Not all Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions are the same. Here’s a plot of conjunctions delayed by 15 years.
https://localartist.org/media/JupiterSaturnConnectionAMOLong.png”
Very good!
The shifting of the conjunctions back and forth from the cold side of the orbit to the warm side over a 900 year cycle in 60year increments is due to the shifting of the conjunctions in any particular location by about 8 degrees every 60 years.
You can take your methodology out to the 900 year and 3600 year cycles and match it almost perfectly with this ice core sample with the roughly 4:1 ratio between the J&S conjunctions and the U&N conjunctions landing them into unique alignments.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/temperatures-have-changed-for-800000-years-it-wasnt-us/
Bill, I wish it were as simple as warm and cold sides. The J-S conjunctions give us a basic 20-40-60-year patterns, but the Sun’s orbit is also involved and there are many more cycles — too many to model. For example, there are at least three 900-year cycles all having periods within a 60-year span.
> https://localartist.org/media/JupiterSaturnConnectionAMOLong.png
Let’s see.
The cycle keeps making lower highs since 1579.
The 20y conjunction is clearly non-cyclical.
Yet there’s a hockey stick after 1937.
As a famous contrarian astrologer would say: LOL!
there is no doubt that there are a huge number of influences.
but the major forces of just the 4 jovian planets give a good approximation quantitively to the relative anomalies seen the instrument temperature record. i plotted out the 4 largest warming peaks since 1860. every one had three or four jovian planets on the warm side. and both the most recent ones are the only ones that had all four.
venus is the planet with the 2nd greatest gravitation effect on earth. but its orbit period only affects earth’s orbit in one direction for less than 4 months. so it can enhance a few months but it doesn’t add up to a significant effect on mean annual global insolation.
i think other important work is related to longterm carefully calibrated solar brightness measurements and feedbacks from cloud variations. if you get those on track you should be able to show that while climate change requires adaptations as it always has there simply isn’t much of anything remaining to worry about.
there are challenges in dealing with newtons three body problem limiting long term predictions but that shouldn’t amount to much afa adaptation planning goes unless of course you put somebody like gavin newsom in charge of the planning. then you will need lead times to be 4 or 5 times longer.
i don’t understand you point about 3 900 year patterns. one 900 year jupiter and saturn alignment pattern covers 360 degrees of sky down to less than 5 degrees increments in one 900 year period. 5 degrees has a very small effect on a gravity vectors force.
Bill Hunter:
“i don’t understand you point about 3 900 year patterns. one 900 year jupiter and saturn alignment pattern covers 360 degrees of sky down to less than 5 degrees increments in one 900 year period. 5 degrees has a very small effect on a gravity vectors force.”
The Sun has it’s own orbit that interacts with the Jovian planets. The plot I showed only accounts for the interactions between Jupiter and Saturn. A faster 900-year cycle is found in the orbital motion of the Sun around the barycenter. Right now those two cycles are coming into phase with each other. ~4000 years ago they were out of phase.
The third cycle relates to Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions, but beyond establishing its period, all I can say at this point is that it may relate to the 70k-year cycle associated with glacial cycles. The 70k-year cycle can be seen in my 3- and 12-term harmonic models.
https://localartist.org/media/EPICA3term.png
https://localartist.org/media/EPICA12term.png
Robert Cutler says:
”The third cycle relates to Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions, but beyond establishing its period, all I can say at this point is that it may relate to the 70k-year cycle associated with glacial cycles. The 70k-year cycle can be seen in my 3- and 12-term harmonic models.”
I mucked around with barycenters early on and got tangle footed. Computer models have to deal with the 3 body problem but its really only a major factor for longterm predictions beyond thousands of years. Predictions of a few hundred years have been easy to handle for some time and is central to planetary mission planning and the Voyager expeditions launched in 1977. Building a computer model to redo Milankovic’s work for the glacials might be difficult but probably manageable and produce much stronger evidence beyond yeah his theory makes the most sense.
I don’t pretend that this will end the search for all factors of climate change but the association of these easily calculated cycles corresponding to ALL our climate observation data provides an order of magnitude more evidence than the popular science CO2 theory.
Further to discount the fairly easy calculable results over a few hundred years, those calling it into question will have to attack the sensitivity estimate of a 3:1. . .and with that mission accomplished.
The end result will be yes we should have some good information to aid adaptation to whatever climate change that occurs, either anthropogenic or natural. But I am convince that the natural processes that are responsible for climate change in the past up to 3C during the Holocene take considerably longer than 100 years.
Bill Hunter:
“But I am convince that the natural processes that are responsible for climate change in the past up to 3C during the Holocene take considerably longer than 100 years.”
I’m convinced that rapid warming and cooling events are solar in origin. I have more evidence than this single data point in my paper, but if you look at the left panels of this data I showed earlier (repeated below), after shifting 3560 years the termination of the Younger Dryas lines up with the 8.2ka event (6200 BC). These transitions take less than 200 years.
https://localartist.org/media/NGRIPCores3500shift.png
BTW, I use data from the JPL Horizons system.
I am going to take a wild guess that whatever effect raised the temperature so dramatically in early 2023 has now changed. Was it the Hunga-Tonga effect?
I thought that Dr Spencer attributed it to be Hunga Tonga a couple of years ago, but he now states that there was no such effect. Bill Hunter’s is plausible.
I think we will find that the super El Nino in 23-24, after several La Ninas, was the main cause of the warm spike, riding on top of the ongoing long term warming trend.
Some ocean warming cycles appeared to also play a role by warming parts of the N. hemisphere ocean significantly.
Given that 2025 was the second warmest year, it appears that are cooling from these events to a new higher plateau, similar to what happened after 1998, and 2016 El Ninos.
SOLAR MINIMUM UPDATE
It’s the most magical time of the year — when estimates of last year’s global average temperature anomaly come out. Time to dust off my “last year was hot” auto-response.
https://bsky.app/profile/andrewdessler.com/post/3l7yxx4mc4b2h
According to MEI (Multivariate ENSO Index)
https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/data/meiv2.data
the UAH-LT anomalies could remain low for some time due to the time lag between ENSO signals (here: La Niña) and their appearance in the LT data.
However, La Niña will not last longer if the prediction nino3+4 is correct:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/imagesInd3/nino34Mon.gif
Do you think the record from 2024 will be broken before the end of the decade?
¡No sé!
Unlikely.
well finally some of you guys are starting to join the dots up.
For many years I have been reading these blogs, and rarely do I see any comments or theories put Forword, as to why earth rapidly warms up about 1°C over about 16 months AND THEN rapidly cools, about 1°C during the next 2 years, (as occurred 1997 to 2000 and 2023 to 2027 my prediction)
I have observations 14 of these rapid warming cycles and rapid cooling cycles embedded in the UAH RECORDS since 1979.
THESE warming cycles coincide with high gravity anomaly periods, and the cooling cycles coincide with the following weaker gravity force periods. the strongest Planetary alinements for 174 years = 50 years of Global Warming, “just finished”.
PLANETARY ALINEMENTS such as the Earth the Sun Veins Mars Jupiter Uranus are the most powerful warming periods.
Vee shaped aliments such as the planetary positions as of 15th MAY 2024, was the strongest Alinement possible for the current 174-year planetary cycle. I forecast Rapid global cooling will now dominate most of 2026.
A new global cooling trend will dominate the next 100 years.
The Key to the recent 50 years of global warming was the recent conjunction of URANIS and Neptune
well done Bill Hunter.
Correlation alone does prove causation.
To demonstrate causation you need a credible mechanism.
Entropic, that could easily be said about the rise in Co2 that is good for the plants and the rise in global temperature.
The arguments for it being a causation is problematic to say the least.
Of course EM. The physics is gravity and the fact that a distant planet will maximally affect the speed of an object through space by alignment of the pull of gravity tangent to a point on its orbit path.
This effect is monitored astronomically and is known as an orbit perturbation. It creates a significant perturbation of an orbit to have allowed for the discovery of Neptune by first observing Neptune’s influences on Uranus, plotting the forces and vectors and then looking closely in the sector of the sky where those vectors converged. Viola Neptune was found sitting right there. The perturbation isn’t in question its known to exist by physics.
The next question is whether the perturbation affects mean annual global insolation on earth. Well that also can be figured out by physics and given an invariable source of insolation. Now we know the orbit influence correlation has a physical connection to how much radiation impinges on the earth system. Well we know that the sun gives us 7% more sunlight at perihelion than at aphelion. So you spend more time at or near perihelion vs aphelion you will be gaining more sunlight.
The only thing you have to do is 1) account for changes in solar brightness over time and 2) account for how much additional orbit time you get languishing in the various points in the orbit.
This sounds easy peasy but it requires careful calculations as you have many perturbations going on simultaneously affecting not just earth but also the other bodies in the solar system.
To figure it out how important this is its a no brainer it accounts for significant amounts of climate variation as the correlation is very strong virtually all the climate records. . .despite Al Gore spending a lot of money to convince us that we can just ignore that without producing anything scientific.
These effects cover the multi-decadal stepping of warming, the major peaks and valleys of the entire instrument record and I have matched the periods to ice core data as well.
Finally the lack of perfect ratios in orbit periods tells us the variations may occur regularly but with a lot of variations in intensity.
Anon, it might be less easy to say that the evidence is very clear that, on net, the changes going on in the atmosphere, including all the climate changes, are a risk to a lot of major production systems and to a lot of food insecure areas. So there’s definitely a reason that we that we continue to work on how to adapt to these changes.
But it’s truer than what you said:
https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/is-co2-plant-food-why-are-we-still
Bill, the calculations for earth exact orbit is a three body problem, so you need very accurate observations and a super computer. I find it amazing that there are many who believe in a fluctuation of a trace gas will have a huge impact and yet ignore the simple inverse square law.
I think it was last Sunday that the earth was at its closest. A few million miles difference between closest & furthest points has a impact on the whole planet which is only a few thousand miles across.
Evidence.
https://davidappell.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-testable-falsifiable-science-that.html
Bill Hunter
To show that planetary influence has caused the 1.4C warming you need to show
1) How the planetary influences have changed Earth’s orbit since 1880.
2) How this has changed solar insolation.
3) That the change in insolation accounts for the change in temperature.
Please supply references which will allow us to check your calculations.
Entropic, using anything from David Appell is not credible.
Sure!y a man of your expertise would understand the inverse square law. Do you really believe that the earth follows a simple ellipse?
If you understand that the orbital path is never duplicated then you may start to understand that your simple dismissal is pure Willard.
Entropic man is now a comedian. I hope you are not trying to fool educated people. David Appell is not a credible source for anything, but neither is Gavin Schmidt. Claiming that a particular theory is false does not in any way validate your own false claim.
This is the whole problem with climate hype. The base science about the effect of increasing CO2 does not in any way validate any of the extreme claims. In fact, they cancel each other.
There have been enough claims that are already debunked. In addition, with such a diversity of wild claims, they cannot all be true at the same time. Therefore, none of them can be taken as valid. The only result is that science cannot define the present case when highly complex known and unknown interactions are involved, and it certainly does predict the future.
Entropic man is now a comedian. I hope you are not trying to fool educated people. David Appell is not a credible source for anything, but neither is Gavin Schmidt. Claiming that a particular theory is false does not in any way validate your own false claim.
This is the whole problem with climate hype. The base science about the effect of increasing CO2 does not in any way validate any of the extreme claims. In fact, they cancel each other.
There have been enough claims that are already debunked. In addition, with such a diversity of wild claims, they cannot all be true at the same time. Therefore, none of them can be taken as valid. The only result is that science cannot define the present case when highly complex known and unknown interactions are involved, and it certainly does NOT predict the future.
My apologies. There is no edit feature here, so I need to proof read before, not after posting. Here is the correct final sentence:
The only result is that science cannot define the present case when highly complex known and unknown interactions are involved, and it certainly does NOT predict the future.
Tim S,
You say:
“Claiming that a particular theory is false does not in any way validate your own false claim.”
Then immediately after, you proceed to label Appell and Schmdit as ‘not credible’ and use that label to dismiss Entropic man’s references, without addressing the substance the references provide.
If simply asserting that a claim is false does not validate your own position, then simply asserting that sources are ‘not credible’ does not invalidate theirs either.
That should say:
But immediately before
My statement is fully logical and consistent. You cannot prove a negative, or prove that pure speculation is true. The criticism directed against my statement is not logically valid. Sorry.
Tim S
I see now that I misunderstood the statement I quoted, and I apologize for that.
That said, you may want to consider how your argument comes across when you make assertions such as:
“David Appell is not a credible source for anything, but neither is Gavin Schmidt.”
without providing any justification.
Entropic man says:
”Bill Hunter
To show that planetary influence has caused the 1.4C warming you need to show”
I agree EM!
The correlation is very strong, at least an order of magnitude stronger than CO2 theory.
But causation requires careful and deliberate calculations. All I have done I have already described making shortcut calculations used by auditors to assess risk. Should I spend more time in this area because the test says substantial risk exists that this effect is capable of explaining a major piece of climate change.
A climate model centered around widely accepted Milankovic principles will require a substantial effort.
This is the reason that David Appell has zero credibility. Actually, he is reliably unreliable.
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2024/09/david-appell-awaiting-the-death-of-climate-skeptics/
[This blog received the following comment from our alarmist friend David Appell, freelance writer:
“Roy, nobody who is serious about climate change takes you seriously. You’re a denier who has made too many mistakes. No one who knows anything is going to bother commenting here–they upset you so much that all you can think to do is block them.
You long ago left the realm of science. As they say, science advances one funeral at a time. Nobody believes your time series anyway. You did that to yourself.”
As many here know, our UAH temperature dataset is used by researchers around the world, including those who believe the more alarmist narrative of anthropogenic climate change. It has been validated with global weather balloon data in multiple peer reviewed studies.]
I count no more than 2 times in the UAH record where the temperature “rapidly warms up about 1C,” so your thesis is false from the start.
But I found a couple of data sets that do correlate well.
First up, the S&P 500 has plenty of high years that correlate with the peaks every few years in the UAH record.
https://www.slickcharts.com/sp500/returns
The other one, that is possibly much less related to global temperature than the stock market, is the interannual temperature oscillations in the Pacific Ocean, otherwise known as el Nino and la Nina.
https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/dashboard/img/nino34.png
Now that LOOKS to be closely correlated with the UAH peaks in the temp record, but I don’t trust the statistics of a natural system based on temperatures across a swathe of ocean.
No, I think the stock market probably has a much stronger mechanism driving global temperature swings.
Correlation is not causation.
Nobody will accept this planetary alignment nonsense without a proper mechanism.
Yep.
Entropic man,
The mechanism is called the inverse square law that affects how much energy the planet receives.
Of course go and prove the inverse square law is false. Or prove that the earth’s orbit is identical each year.
I’m not surprised that Nate is riding on your coat tail, just need Bindy to form the trio.
Ent January 6, 2026 at 6:07 AM: “Correlation alone does prove causation.”
Ent January 7, 2026 at 8:23 AM: “Correlation is not causation.”
Ent has no knowledge of science, and now he’s even confused about his own beliefs.
Typo in table last row, first column should read 2025 vs 2026 for December.
Typo in Table, first column, last row, should read 2025 vs 2026.
More alarmism…
Parkinson’s is the Canary in the Coal Mine Warning Us That Our Environment is Sick. https://www.ru.nl/en/donders-institute/news/bas-bloem-parkinsons-is-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine-warning-us-that-our-environment-is-sick
TL;DR
If only we had a dedicated public Agency tasked with evaluating Environmental risks on the basis of scientific evidence rather than political convenience, and Protecting us from said risks.
Happy October 98th
https://www.tiktok.com/@weatherchris/video/7592312748533419319?_r=1&_t=ZP-92rFylTgZd1
BREAKING
ClimateWorkingGroup.com
Another Donald win!
Willard: Thank you for the link. I bookmarked it. I hope the site opens soon despite of legal battles. According to news articles the DOE Climate Working Group has been disbanded, but it is still working independently.
“True science is never settled”.
-Stephen Hawking
Then you might also bookmark this other resource, Max:
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/doe-factcheck/index.html
Do you think the DOE will publish the thousands of comments they requested before they promote the assessment they ordered from the group they disbanded?
“Renee Nicole Good and pronouns in her bio and leaves behind a lesbian partner and a child from a previous marriage” – Jesse Waters