Home/BlogThe Version 6.1 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for January, 2026 was +0.35 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up a little from the December, 2025 value of +0.30 deg. C.
The Version 6.1 global area-averaged linear temperature trend (January 1979 through January 2026) remains at +0.16 deg/ C/decade (+0.22 C/decade over land, +0.13 C/decade over oceans).
The following table lists various regional Version 6.1 LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 25 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 | +0.37 |
| 2026 | Jan | +0.35 | +0.52 | +0.19 | +0.09 | +0.30 | +1.40 | +0.95 |
The full UAH Global Temperature Report, along with the LT global gridpoint anomaly map for January, 2026 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:
Thank you, Dr. Spencer. A quick statistic from the table you provided: the NoPol series recorded its third warmest January on record. Below are the top 10 warmest NoPol Januaries (including ties), listed in ascending order:
Jan. 2016: +2.12C
Jan. 1981: +1.42C
Jan. 2026: +1.4C
Jan. 2018: +1.05C
Jan. 2011: +0.89C
Jan. 2010: +0.81C
Jan. 2022: +0.75C
Jan. 2025: +0.74C
Jan. 2005: +0.66C
Jan. 2017: +0.66C
Jan. 2014: +0.62C
’81 stands out as an early outlier.
And the rate of warming for NoPol January is 2.8C/century.
Kynqora: Dumb question, but what is NoPol?
Arctic region.
Does anyone have a graph of temps 1926-2026 (last hundred years) that overlays temps from UAH data set with temps from other sources over the satellite era for those regions where temp data going back to 1926 exists? What would that look like? All these people focused on 30 years (because THAT is climate?) are missing the bigger picture.
Why stop at 100 years?
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2511370123
For a discussion:
https://bsky.app/profile/hausfath.bsky.social/post/3mdvjbmqjm42l
My prediction was wrong, but I was right about a plummeting US48, but Arctic back up.
I had been expecting it to be a bit colder based on ERA5 graphs.
This is the 6th warmest January in the UAH data set. Though apart from 2024, there isn’t much to choose between the warmest months.
1 2024 0.80
2 2025 0.45
3 2016 0.42
4 2020 0.41
5 2010 0.36
6 2026 0.35
7 1998 0.34
8 2013 0.31
9 2007 0.29
10 2017 0.26
Could say it’s in a three way tie for 5th warmest.
Surprising that the USA is still above the 1991-2020 average, despite the very cold weather reported there. The ERA5 data suggests that there was a strong contrast between the east and west. Still, I expect there will be plenty of “whatever happened to global warming?” jokes.
https://sites.ecmwf.int/data/climatepulse/maps/download/monthly/2t/anomaly/climpulse_map_era5_download_monthly_2t_anomaly_202601.png
Still, I expect there will be plenty of “whatever happened to global warming?” jokes.
That’s because Global Warming Theory is consistent with anything and everything that happens.
So, I think you might be missing where the joke actually is.
One thing that stands out when looking at John Christy’s older UAH LT anomaly maps is how cold the late 1970s and 1980s now appear when referenced to the current 1991–2020 baseline.
For example:
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/Maps_1991_2020_base/FEBRUARY_1979_LT_6.png
As expected, much of the globe shows negative anomalies relative to the baseline. What’s more striking, though, is that some regional anomalies are so cold that they reach the extreme end of the color scale (pink/purple).
When the baseline is eventually updated again (to 2001–2030), the visual contrast will become even more pronounced, especially since that baseline will incorporate the sharp warming associated with 2023–24.
It is going to look almost glacial by comparison.
Kynqora, interesting observation.
What is your take on the reason to those large regional anomalies? Land vs. sea surface?
Best Regards
David
The anomalies reflect both the circulation patterns in Feb 1979 and the substantial upward shift in the mean climate since then.
Over land, especially continental interiors, colder winter anomalies are expected to be more amplified than over oceans because land cools more rapidly and snow and ice albedo (which were stronger in the 1970s) enhance winter cooling.
Ok, so the regional distribution of anomalies are as expected and can be attributed to albedo and surface properties, thank you.
Some of my family lives in Boise, Idaho in the Pacific Northwest of USA, I live in the s//w corner of Ohio in the eastern half of US. Quite often, especially in winter, our weather regimes are opposite one another due to a movement of the polar (?) jet north in the west, bringing them warmer weather (they are complaining about the lack of snow at ski resorts), and us colder weather back east because the jet takes a turn to the south.
In January a lot of the eastern and even southeastern U.S. has had record breaking cold and snow – kids in the South are improvising anything they can find to use as sleds – beaches are covered in snow. I have lived in this area for 75 of my 77 years and this brings back memories of the late 70s, which were the end of the 30+ year hiatus of warming (and even slight cooling from the 40s thru late 70s.)
Pardon me for being picky, but you have been inserting an extra “/” over at least the last 3 monthly reports
“……remains at +0.16 deg/ C/decade…..”
If one uses the *original* 20-year baseline average–derived from the end of 1978 through the end of 1997–there haven’t been *any* negative temperature anomalies since March of 2012. Not a single one. In almost 14 years.
Only by using a floating ‘baseline’ (now ~ .025C warmer than the original baseline) makes it look like we still have below-average anomalies. It’s misleading.
Yes, it’s misleading. For anyone who wishes to clearly see the underlying trend without the short term ‘noise’, I recommend the graphs over at https://datagraver.com/climate-data-set-uah/
The 30 year centered average graph there is particularly revealing.
Gadden
” The 30 year centered average graph there is particularly revealing. ”
*
1. I apologize a priori to say this: you are victim of an optical illusion, dur to the choice of window size and data scaling.
Look at the same info (13 month a la Spencer, 60 month a la Bin, 360 month a la Stephan):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PCn9TmNZwerWbsLzPCb6juYqF_GRi1oG/view
*
2. While the source and the 13 month mean are quite simlar (0.155 °C / decade), the 60 month mean is with 0.158 a bit higher.
And yes: the 360 month mean which looks so tremendously steep on the datagraver’s page, is with 0.152 the lowest of all.
Eh oui: l’habit ne fait pas le moine…
*
3. But the main question remains: what is the practical sense of this 30 year aka 360 month running average aka mean?
It telly you by lacking detail about as much as the linear trend.
Bindiddon, you think I’m the “victim of an optical illusion”. Why do you assume I can’t read graphs? It’s not the optical steepness of the graph that matters, OBVIOUSLY. The axes can be scaled to make the curve more or less steep, OBVIOUSLY. The point is the STRAIGHTNESS of the graph. The word “relentless” comes to mind.
(And OBVIOUSLY its rate of change per year is less than that of the 13-month, 5-year and 10-year average graphs since the centerpoints of the first and last 30-year period are only 16 years apart, from 1994 to 2010), so the recent acceleration of the warming is partly hidden. So what?)
MFA
” It’s misleading. ”
Why?
Why do the anomaly values matter so much in your mind? Is a series goes down from a peak into a huge drop: does it matter whether the lowest point is positive or negative? For me, solely the difference between peak top and drop bottom matters.
Is the trend among them (which keeps the same regardless the reference period chosen, by the way) not what even matters much more?
What rather disturbs me is that all institutions and private people publishing e.g. temperature, precipitation of snow data do this in pretty anomaly form, but crazily based on different reference periods!
– RSS: 1979-1998 (UAH’s first period)
– UAH, JMA, (in between) moyhu etc: 1991-2020
– MetOffice, CRU: 1961-1990
– OzCaster: 1971-2000
– GISS, Berk Earth: 1951-1980
– NOAA: 1901-2000 / 1991-2020
For me it’s not a problem, as I have all that data and can easily compute the anomaly averages wrt 1991-2020 for all these series and just displace them be their respective value when comparing them in a chart.
But what do other people who don’t know how to handle the problem?
That’s imho the real mess.
*
And, as said already, the transition from rev 5.6 to rev 6.0 in 2015 affected not only the anomalies, but above all the absolute temperatures the former are derived from.
The trends became lower, and that was really a much heavier change than moving the reference period.
It’s misleading because a basline shouldn’t change, or it’s not a *baseline*. The baseline was established over two decades. If you ‘float’ the baseline when the numbers are all continuing to go up, you’re just comparing to the average over the history. A baseline is meant to be a reference to prior conditions. Instead, UAH/Spencer reports a floating average.
Anomalies are departures from normal. If normal is ‘adjusted’ or floated over time, it hides the extend of the change from the initial two decades of measurements.
In fact, the gap between the baseline and the current floating average is part of the understanding of how relentless the change is. To bury that change is to minimize it. All of it should be visible in the graphic representation, which is how most folks interpret/perceive the patterns in the data presented here.
Anyway, that’s why it matters.
” Instead, UAH/Spencer reports a floating average. ”
MFA, you are as stubborn as the pseudoskeptics permanently denying GHE of the lunar spin (curiously, the very same people).
Why do you restrict your critique to UAH?
Apparently, you did not even read my comment above showing that some people move while others don’t.
*
What do you want, MFA?
That everybody comes back to 1979-1998 just because that’s what you prefer? This is nonsense.
Adjusting the 30 year baseline allows a better visualization of the data to recent climate levels. We are comparing current temps to a current 30 year range of temps. We could use the Earth average over 4 billion years and the anomolies would approximately be negative 8 degrees celcius below that baseline. Trends will be the similar regardless.
The trend is still identifiable, sure; but the extent is minimized.
The more recent the levels are, the more we’re looking at weather; within in the satellite record, the original baseline is the climate to which we should compare today. Not something arbitrarily halfway in between.
Thanks BillyBob for the comment, way more insightful than the Hunter boy’s post below.
MFA – The extents will have the same range if you use a linear scale. Using a baseline of 15-20 degrees C (Paleocene-Eocene) for average earth temperature, or 10 degree C (current 30 year average) or 5 degree C (Huronian Ice Age). It does not matter if my scale goes from -1000 to -990 or -10 to 0 or -5 to 5. They all have a 10 degree extent.
MFA
Apologies for insisting, knocking at the door again.
But… which extent, do you mean, is ‘minimized’?
Here is a graph comparing UAH’s absolute data (reconstructed out of anomalies and climatology) to anomalies constructed wrt 1979-1998 resp. 1991-2020:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QnYxAAyJykY4rqYKuDB6Dqo5JpC9y_FY/view
*
Please have a short look at the two following graphs I quickly generated out of WFT:
1. GISS wrt 1951-1980 vs. UAH wrt 1991-2020
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1979/mean:12/offset/plot/uah6/from:1979/mean:12
2. GISS vs. UAH both wrt 1991-2020
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1979/mean:12/offset:-0.613/plot/uah6/from:1979/mean:12
( The 0.613 value is the mean, within the period 1991-2020, of all GISS anomalies wrt 1951-1980.)
Which one do you prefer, MFA?
— Version 1 a la Robertson, who never understood that anomalies not only
– ‘show warming when being above the baseline and conversely cooling when below’
but also
– can only be compared when computed out of the same reference period
or
— Version 2 ?
*
What’s the sense of generating anomalies if you can’t directly, hence accurately compare them to other anomalies?
MFA says:
”In fact, the gap between the baseline and the current floating average is part of the understanding of how relentless the change is. To bury that change is to minimize it. ”
—————–
Don’t pay any attention to Bindidon. He is just our local defender of the scientific establishment.
He is essentially a science historian but seldom has any insight of what the science is all about.
I hear your concerns. But I am not too concerned about them because if you choose to its quite simple to produce any anomaly you want.
The extended databases listed at links below Roy’s chart has the overall trend calculated at the bottom of the database.
Converting that trend to an anomaly is as easy as multiplying the trend by the number of decades. The chart shows the overall trend as a graphic. The Anomalies tell you how much it has warmed recently.
So everything is provided by Roy for whatever purpose you want information about.
So why is it presented the way it is? IMO, anomaly was designed to signify continuing warming over a period of time that could not be explained by solar cycles or ENSO, about the only two significant climate events recognized by the original IPCC.
Folks argued about how long natural cycles exist and there needed to be an anomaly that shows warming due to the climate crisis over the shortest period they could argue for being a reliable measure of warming from CO2.
Around about the turn of the century science settled on at least 2 decades with shorter cycles being defined as some kind of subclimate that could be caused by the officially recognized natural cycles.
The last time that longer term cooling happened was about 1940 to 1980. And that was explained away as no longer possible because warming from CO2 is now overriding whatever effects that caused that.
The problem with that thinking is they hadn’t recognized what caused that cooling and since have operated on the assumption that it can not repeat itself without knowing what caused it. Thats embarrassingly shoddy science.
If you don’t know what caused it how can you know anything about it?
That uncertainty is largely what supports the skeptic viewpoint. Not many smart people bought into Al Gore’s Inconvenient truth (lies).
The cooling of the 1940’s to 1980 has been something a number of skeptics have tried to seize upon to predict cooling. But without a quantified mechanism for that cooling it isn’t possible to predict. My own opinion is that science supports a planet perturbation model as explaining the unexplained. It at one time was the favorite of NASA and supported by scientific papers. No papers have discredited these theories as near as I can tell and I doubt if our resident climate historian can come up with any either.
Bill Hunter – excellent point about lack of explanation for the 40s to late 70s cooling. Could we add to that the explanation for the hiatus on warming from ‘98 to about 2015 (approximate)?
Berkeley Earth claims the recent warming spike (during an El Niño) marks an acceleration in warming. They claim that the extent of the CO2 warming was being obscured by aerosols emitted during marine propulsion. The reduction of aerosols brought about by a move to cleaner fuels for marine propulsion has revealed, they claim, the true influence of CO2. But we have been reducing aerosols a lot since the early 50s, when much of the developed world began the move from coal to natural gas. Auto, truck, and other emission controls must have reduced aerosols a lot since the 70s. That has got to be a huge factor on temperatures, unless the increase of burning of coal by China, India, and others as a result of globalization of trade has negated the benefits from all those emission controls.
The cooling from the 40s to late 70s led most atmospheric scientists, the emerging environmental movement (and the media) to warn about “the coming ice age”, brought on by increases in albedo from aerosols. BTW, anyone who claims that was not the dominant view then is just plain wrong. A lot of apocalyptic language was used. I was engaged in atmospheric science study and research at the time. I met once with Dr. Reed Bryson from the University of Wisconsin, the leading proponent of the cooling thesis. We all (students, professors, attendees at conferences) believed in that thesis. I have seen some crazy stuff on the internet challenging that. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Thomas, the global dimming is still going on but to a lesser extent. There were documentaries, articles in the New Scientist on this going back to 2001.
On September 12th when all the air flights were grounded many people noticed how bright the sky was. There were warnings how global dimming was slowing down the excessive climate change.
My thoughts is that when you include orbital changes, atmospheric pollution reduction, urban heat islands and albedo changes then the rest of the climate change is very mild.
The Wikipedia entry for Bryson is laughable, totally taking a quote out of context, but that kind of distortion and rewriting of history is what I have come to expect from the left.
Virtually anyone can edit Wikipedia entries with the condition that edits are supportable with appropriate references. If you think the article is unfair and can make a coherent argument for improving it, then fix it rather than bitching about it.
Thomas Hagedorn says:
”Could we add to that the explanation for the hiatus on warming from ‘98 to about 2015 (approximate)?”
Yes but maybe not entirely. The orbit perturbation/change in mean annual global insolation would have peaks near but before 2000 and after 2020. Both Uranus and Neptune have been recently combined into a 42 year residence time in what is likely the warmest sector of the sky that only recently concluded for Uranus. Jupiter and Saturn had conjunctions in this time period first in 2000 and again in 2020. So Jupiter and Saturn negative influence would have peaked somewhere around 2010 when they are on opposite sides of the sun. However, in that period of time we also saw a weakening of insolation from the sun. Unfortunately careful calibrated measurements of that change in insolation wasn’t monitored over a 20 year or greater period of time. So the ”pause” may well have been exacerbated by solar changes.
Post 2020 Saturn and Jupiter continued to catch up with Neptune and Uranus and probably hit a maximum alignment with them in 2023.
In 2000 when Jupiter and Saturn conjuncted they had already passed neptune and Uranus who were only a few degrees apart. Jupiter passed them in 1997 and Saturn did in 1988 and 89. So Jupiter and Saturn in 1990 were having fighting each other.
So you can see a good portion of that entire event was likely orbit perturbation with an assist in 2008 of a very quiet sun. I can vouch that the more you dig into this the more interesting it gets. Since we really have no idea what climate sensitivity is without having much of an idea of what the primary forcing is its hard to do much other than match up the climate anomalies in the instrument and proxy records to those motions. And they match up outstandingly.
Do you have a link to the actual Berkeley Earth work on this or is it a media article?
Thomas Hagedorn
Your post seems to lack correct information on aerosols. Primarily SO2 for reducing surface temperature.
https://visualizingenergy.org/global-anthropogenic-sulfur-dioxide-emissions-1750-2022/
This article will help you update your current files on emissions. They did not drop globally until 2005. As US and Europe were reducing SO2 emissions, India was spiking. The graph in the article strongly shows that SO2 emissions were not decreasing in the 1950’s but actually going up in the US until they peaked in the 1970’s then started to slowly go down until the 2000 frame, then they went down rapidly as Coal Fired plants put in environmental systems to reduce SO2 after the big “Acid Rain” scare.
Bill Hunter – Here is link to latest Berkeley Earth annual report in answer to your question:
https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2025/
I don’t know if they have published research on this.
Thomas,
“The cooling from the 40s to late 70s led most atmospheric scientists, the emerging environmental movement (and the media) to warn about “the coming ice age.”
That’s not correct. The majority of peer-reviewed articles in the 70s considered warming from CO2 to be the likeliest global temperature change in the near future (IE, not geological time scales).
https://cnslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/Myth-of-1970s-global-cooling-scientific-consensus.pdf
There were some media stories in the 70s on imminent global cooling from popular sources that give some the impression that this was the scientific consensus.
Norman. Useful aerosol data.
The rapid post WW2 rise in CO2 emissions are matched by the rapid rise in SO2 aerosol emissions, perhaps explaining the flat T in this period.
Then with the reduction in global SO2 aerosol emissions post 1970, GW takes off.
The country SO2 emissions by year show a huge spike in early 2000s by China.
This could account for the hiatus in GW at that time.
Nate
Thanks for the correction. I misread the graph and thought India had the peak but it was China.
Mark B, you are wrong about Wikipedia. Sign up and try if you think it is easy to make edits. I am a Wikipedia editor. On minor low interest topics, there is a chance to make edits if they align with an outside reference. If it is a topic that has a strong edit-in-charge, you can forget it. The senior editors rule the day. In theory, if you find a reference that supports your edit, it should be allowed, but that is not how the game works. They decide which references are allowed. Game over.
That is how the ingrained system of bias works. They find a crappy reference that is pure biased BS and use as fact. There are discussions among editors about not wanting to appear biased and the head editor just shuts them down. It is a power structure of anonymous people who have full authority.
Where do these people come from? Who appoints them? Jimmy?
Mark B – There are not enough hours in the day to try to correct all the propaganda out there about global warming. Whistleblowers, including one of Wikipedia’s founders, have called it out for bias. I have better uses of my time – like educating the public about climate change. I know what I remember from those days. I participated in numerous conferences, we collaborated closely with the Air Pollution section of the EPA (and its predecessor), which happened to be located in my city at the time, I testified before a congressional committee. I lived and breathed this stuff (at the time, weather effects on particulate pollution, climate change, etc). Not gonna waste my time chasing down propaganda, even if it was published, that rewrites history. That seems to be one of the left’s specialty. They control the journals, publication process, etc.
Bill Hunter – I am not a scientist. Can you explain to me how your theory of planet perturbation works, using some numbers? My question is both about timing and scale. Don’t we measure solar insolation near the top of the atmosphere with satellites? I also assume that we can measure the change in AU pretty accurately. Are you saying the gravitational pull of the other planets is pulling us closer to the sun, at times, and further away at other times enough to affect global mean temps?
Thomas Hagedorn says:
”Bill Hunter – I am not a scientist. Can you explain to me how your theory of planet perturbation works, using some numbers? My question is both about timing and scale. Don’t we measure solar insolation near the top of the atmosphere with satellites?”
Sure great questions.
This link includes some important reading on the matter. Particularly the part about Velocity Changes, Altitude and Orbital Shift, and physical distance of displacement wrt Neptune affecting Uranus when Uranus was almost as far from Neptune as Neptune was from the sun.
https://tinyurl.com/56yeba2b
That has the physical basis of the effects of planets on the orbits of other planets.
As far as quantifying the various planets on earth when they all start working together when they are all located in a particular sector of the sky would require a significant modeling effort.
Also poorly documented is how the ice ages occur. It is believed by science to be related to frequency of planet positioning and there are just so many alignments in which the Jovian planets, recognized to be the most influential, max out once about every 3,600 years in time with the orbit ratios of Uranus and Neptune circumnavigation the celestial compass. Another recognized one is the ~900 year cycle (863 years from JPL) of Jupiter and Saturn (the most influential planets) that recognizes the filling of a transit of the compass to not leave any gaps larger than about 9 degrees.
How those two cycles line up in any given 900 year period leaves additional higher peaks in longer term cycles due to the ratio between the 2 groups not being a perfect 4:1 ratio so there alignment varies slowly stretching from zero years to + or – ~450 year misalignment over a longer termed cycle.
That’s the physical basis claimed for Milankovic.
Since it is estimated by Hays et al 1977 that orbit eccentricity variations which is 50 to 55% of total variation over the ~100,000 year pace of interglacials and is not likely a linear effect as proposed by some it makes sense that the paces and ratios of orbit periods have a high level of replication over about 3600 years for the most influential planets.
That’s interesting because eccentricity variations not only estimated as the strongest will affect the equator wrt to insolation a lot more than it does high latitudes potentially calling into question, without a model, the claims that global warming is a lot less than seen in the polar regions in ice cores extracted hundreds of miles from any coastline.
The prevailing theory, disputed by Hays et al, 1977, is that eccentricity variation occurs in small increments of orbital variation that ebb and flow over the course of a 100,000 years.
The timing of variations of natural change seen in the temperature records support Hays et al and anybody that wants to eliminate the LIA, and the MWP and the Roman Optimums is just full of BS.
Measuring the peaks in ice core data seen here:
https://co2coalition.org/facts/temperatures-have-changed-for-800000-years-it-wasnt-us/
Suggests that major diverting sustained peaks (without significant changes of say more than .5 degrees) last somewhere around 400-900 years. The 900 hundred is consistent with a relatively linear Jupiter/Saturn influence and shorter ones might be affected by the Neptune/Uranus which has a strong 85-86 year cycle as the conjunct once every 171 years and go to opposition half way inbetween. And that their major beat covers the entire compass ~3,600 years leaving no gaps larger than ~18degrees.
Finally we know there is an effect from the US Naval Observatory dominated by lunar variations which has strong 28 day and an orbit precessions of 8.85 years and 18.6 years. JPL claims that planet variations are negligible and does so with a handwave with zero other explanations much less calculations and quantification.
It doesn’t though dispute the accumulation and/or frequency of positive variations over long periods of time as proposed by warmist scientists struggling to explain the glacial periods.
Very clearly an major discrepancy in climate science foisted on us by folks who think they know better than anybody else that we must stop the western nations from burning fossil fuels, which is undoubtedly a political and not an adequately researched science conclusion.
I think I covered everything there but if you have any questions I will be happy to point you toward more stuff that helps.
Thomas Hagedorn says:
”Bill Hunter – Here is link to latest Berkeley Earth annual report in answer to your question:
https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2025/
I don’t know if they have published research on this.”
Thanks for that.
Criminey, they paid the consultant over $280,000. Of course that includes 2 annual updates and the spike analysis. I assume there was a 2024 update as well.
darn good pay for the work done here.
Anyway it appears he used the same approach as the annual update to do the spike analysis. A search of the literature. An extraction of estimates for each component. He doesn’t appear to list the sources.
Using his midline estimates he managed to explain less than 1/2 the spike (as estimated with my ruler) in 2015 the anomaly was about .1C and the 13mo running average on the spike was then about .8C, giving a spike .7C
He claims .17C comes from manmade; .13c from El Nino; .03 from solar; -.05 from Hunga tonga; and .05 from marine transportation cleanup. That totals .33 out of .7 at the time of the peak of the spike.
Taking it to the present his figures are: 21C comes from manmade; -.05c from La Nina; .023 from solar; +.05 from Hunga tonga; and .06 from marine transportation cleanup. That totals .29 out of .35 above 10 years ago thru 2025.
The present appears well accounted for but I would mention that Jupiter has rotated to the cool side of the orbit and is working against the other planets. Uranus is somewhere around the cusp of switching cold. Jupiter carries over 1/2 the gravitational effects of the Jovian planets for the purpose of a date specific temperature estimate. (the other jovians get a boost from slowness over time in a flatter longer term spike). And the warming expressed in the instrument records follows those 20/60 variations of Jupiter and Saturn and described as the 20 year step effect where a spike occurs and a significant portion of it is retained until the next spike I haven’t heard a explanation for how men create that effect.
So he has no explanation for the unprecedented spike and as such he seems to be making a fairly good mathematical case for orbit variations to replace the non-phase changing GHGs over the entire industrial age in accordance with the traditional isothermal atmosphere hypothesis and the temporary spike level.
One additional explanation would be needed as in 1820 when Uranus and Neptune conjuncted only 18 degrees away from the current conjunction and closer to the equinox with a lesser ideal combination with the Jupiter Saturn pair. you need for those effects to account for about 1.5C or more worth of warming over the past 205 years.
If you go back some before that you would need more warming coming off the Maunder Minimum and the warming that occurred between 1700 and 1820.
I have thought about that and have noted that there has been a lot of additional ice insulation lifted off the arctic ocean since then. The current ice retreat was considerably smaller than the one in the last half of the 19th century. That allows for an acceleration of ocean cooling over the past 205 years along with some affects of that melting ice releasing one heckuva a lot of heat as is seen in the arctic every summer resulting in an accelerated warming trend locally. The fact the ocean is warming according to BE at less than half the rate of the land, could be accounted for by the additional cooling resulting from a huge loss of ice cap area on top of the polar seas.
Before folks minds explode. . .I am just pointing out the dire need for a much better quantification of these effects done so as to be transparent to the public. They should do that rather than just wave their arms saying its inconsequential. Prove it.
Bill Hunter re: “Criminey, they paid the consultant over $280,000. Of course that includes 2 annual updates and the spike analysis.”
I’m not clear what the point of this statement might be, but I’m curious where this is coming from. Who is “they”, “the consultant”, and where did the dollar figure and alleged work scope come from?
“The fact the ocean is warming according to BE at less than half the rate of the land…”
You mean globally? This is accounted for by comparative heat capacity. It takes 3000 times more energy to warm to 1C an equivalent volume of ocean than air. The top 3 metres of the oceans holds the same amount of heat energy as the entire atmosphere.
Mark B says:
”I’m not clear what the point of this statement might be, but I’m curious where this is coming from.”
The point of the statement was that it seemed like a lot of money to spend on a project purporting to explain global warming and miss about 1/2 of it without a significant acknowledgement that there is a lot more to know.
As to who it is, its apparently the fact that Dr. Robert Rohde appears to have transitioned from employee to contractor.
So no big deal.
Much more interesting is how the close alignment where the sun earth and 4 jovian planets align in the shape of a right triangle with tangency of the strongest line of pull tangent to earths orbit as described in the tinyurl link to Thomas where orbit perturbation is at its greatest.
this was an unprecedented alignment wrt to the instrument temperature records. The last closest such alignment during the industrial age occurred in the 1940’s with the 3 largest of the 4 jovian planets.
So the report shares the same issue with the 1940’s, namely unexplained likely natural warming.
barry says:
”You mean globally? This is accounted for by comparative heat capacity. It takes 3000 times more energy to warm to 1C an equivalent volume of ocean than air. The top 3 metres of the oceans holds the same amount of heat energy as the entire atmosphere.”
while that’s true its not nearly as meaningful as it sounds. An equivalent volume of the atmosphere compressed evenly to sea level pressure would be 8.5 kilometers thick.
But the mean mixing zone applicable to a mean year of insolation is about 20 meters. And since during periods of about 1/2 a year you get a steep thermocline even in the 20 meters.
Bottom line is ice retreat causes the ocean to actually cool faster by adding millions of square kilometers of convective mixing areas.
The difference between land warming and ocean warming has doubled as a result between 1979-2006 vs 2007 to present and that is now seen as La Nina (upwellings driven by polar convective mixing) have become more common so ocean surface warming has slowed down even while land surface warming has accelerated from more mean annual global insolation due to variations of earth’s orbit. These variations may also offset some of the ocean cooling and increase some of the land warming due to the acceleration of CO2 emissions but the evidence of that is much weaker.
The reason to keep the baseline at the original 20-year average is for consistency. “Oh, last month is only 0.35 warmer than average? That’s not much. It was below average just a couple of years ago.” vs. “Oh, last month is more than half a degree warmer–and you know, we haven’t had even one colder than average in 13 years.” They are two very different perceptions.
While I agree it’s better for consistency – in terms of public understanding – researchers have little trouble navigating shifting baselines, and updating the baseline every 10 years to the most recent 30-year period is a recommendation from the WMO.
https://wmo.int/media/news/updated-30-year-reference-period-reflects-changing-climate
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has updated the U.S. Climate Normals to the 1991-2020 baseline period to provide a most recent baseline for climate information and services to climate-sensitive sectors and a standard reference to compare variations in temperature, precipitation etc to the 30-year average.
The move is in line with a World Meteorological Organization recommendation that the 30-year standard reference periods should be updated every decade in order to better reflect the the changing climate and its influence on our day-to-day weather experience.
Some climate datasets keep the original baseline (eg, NASA GISS Global Temperature Time Series, RSS), and some institutions use both updated and original baselines with different datasets (NOAA).
Within the range of normal monthly variation, January is clear evidence that the atmosphere continues to cool from the peak in 2024. It says absolutely nothing about future trends. Stay tuned.
It now seems very obvious that the peak in 2024 was not due to acceleration of warming from CO2 as some people claim. That is just more evidence of meaningless climate hype. In the same way, the very obvious decline over the last 15 months has no real explanation except the very obvious fact that it is occurring while atmospheric CO2 continues to rise.
Claims that variation in ENSO can explain this effect seem rather far fetched as well. It all seems rather mysterious, but it is consistent with a possible effect from the Hunga Tonga event. The question is why there was a delay and then a sudden surge in 2023. Were there different gases or different effects with different rates of dispersion?
Once again, we have very strong data to show that CO2 is not the “thermostat” that controls the temperature of earth. Nonsense about “the underlying trend” is equally meaningless as there are other possibilities to explain the current trend. The more important fact is that the effect of increasing CO2 is not accurately calibrated by speculative computer simulations.
The “delay” with the effect from Hunga Tonga was due to getting all the water vapor spread throughout the stratosphere. Now, the water vapor is leaving the stratosphere, so the effect is leaving.
https://postimg.cc/rKz8dxT4
Not only do Skeptics have “very strong data to show that CO2 is not the ‘thermostat’ that controls the temperature of earth”, but we also have the science.
Nonsense about “the underlying trend” is equally meaningless as there are other possibilities to explain the current trend.
How wooly can one sentence be?
Other possibilities have been poured over again and again and found rather wanting.
Specifically, solar, aerosol, cloud cover, black carbon on snow,PDO, AMO, GCR/cloud hypothesis, volcanism, orbital forcing etc have been explored.
None of these causes fit well or time well with the warming trend over the last century, or the last 50 years.
You and Nate remain very boring and irrelevant with your drive-by quotes. Are you that narrow-minded, or do you think others are the ones with the short attention span? Try this:
Once again, we have very strong data to show that CO2 is not the “thermostat” that controls the temperature of earth. Nonsense about “the underlying trend” is equally meaningless as there are other possibilities to explain the current trend. The more important fact is that the effect of increasing CO2 is not accurately calibrated by speculative computer simulations.
The AMO is still in the warm phase, and it aligns very well with the last century. I will wait, but I also have a prediction. It will help to define the accuracy of the computer simulations if and when it shifts to the cool phase. The future warming rate or cooling rate for that matter over the next 20 years will help to define things. Stock up on the popcorn! By the way, Michael Mann says there is no such thing as AMO. Imagine that!
Beyond that, calibration of climate models remains as circular logic. As someone who has actually worked with thermal radiation, I am very confident of that. Do you understand the concept? Look it up.
“we have very strong data”
Where?
The usual monthly airing of Tim’s grievances.
He also confuses long term and short term warming mechanisms.
”
It now seems very obvious that the peak in 2024 was not due to acceleration of warming from CO2 as some people claim. That is just more evidence of meaningless climate hype”
Again, no climate scientists is saying that the 2024 peak was due to just CO2.
As has been explained here many times, the 2024 peak was caused mostly by well understood short-term warming mechanisms. A strong El Nino. A solar maximum.
This was riding on top of a long term warming trend produced by increasing GHG.
In addition, since the early 2000s, we have had a decreasing trend in pollution: sulfur aerosol emissions, mainly due to China policies, as Norman showed us:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2026/02/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-january-2026-0-35-deg-c/#comment-1732927
This would reduce clouds and increase solar insolation, mostly over the N. hemisphere mid-latitude Pacific ocean.
This may explain the frequent recent appearances of the N. Pacific warm summer blob , which was prominent in 2024, and an accelerated long-term warming effect.
” The mid-20th century cooling (approx. 1940–1975) was a slight global temperature decrease (~0.1°C) driven primarily by
increased industrial aerosol pollution, which reflected sunlight and caused cooling, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. ”
That’s all about it.
You see that even when just looking at yearly averages of monthly data for UK+Eire:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TvGdx5awonQGDvZ-E-qTIAO2z_NiFpol/view
or at those for HadISST1 SST sea surface data:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13X64P9WzSnQS27tkqbqhavVvpg840o_m/view
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No idea why people endlessly debate about this stuff.
Thomas Hagedorn says:
“Could we add to that the explanation for the hiatus on warming from ‘98 to about 2015 (approximate)?”
Since 17 yr windows are apparently decisive, Jan 2008 – Dec 2025 yields 3.7C/century. Project that forward and -surprise- we have completed the “interglacial”.
TODAY’S CLIMATE SCIENCE DOUBLE SPEAK
Google AI:
Low-level clouds (e.g., stratocumulus, stratus) do not create a net greenhouse effect because their high reflectivity (albedo) for incoming solar radiation outweighs their capacity to trap outgoing longwave (infrared) radiation. These thick, dense clouds act as a shield, reflecting sunlight back to space and cooling the planet, rather than warming it.
————
OK, if we take the mean solar insolation as measured by solar brightness at a ‘mean’ distance from the sun we get 342w/m2.
1) If we take that as the basis of the GHE we get a 9.3C greenhouse effect that is in part caused by clouds and GHG combined because the mean surface temperature would be 278.7k if it received 342w/m2.
since the mean global surface temperature is 288k that gives a 9.3c ghe.
If on the other hand we subtract the effect of reflection know the radiation absorbed is 240w/m2 and the mean temperature is 255k.
so with a 288k surface we get a 255k temperature and a 33c ghe if we assume the surface to be a blackbody.
But if we adjust the emissivity parameter of the spectral calculator to .7 which is the emissivity of earth with a .3 albedo. 240w/m2 absorbed requires a temperature 278.7k as in 1) above.
So it seems the total GHE is 9.3c once you cut through the double speak. . .or about 3.5 times less than claimed.
Also the reflectivity of a surface has no radiative effect on a surface exposed only to radiation as heat loss.
Anyway you slice all that up it appears that clouds do enhance the net GHE since reflected sunlight does not reduce the GHE and if poorly treated scientifically may exaggerate it as the GHE is calculated either with or without the reflection which is NOT an element of GHE.
The double speak is clear in the Google AI output. Increasing clouds at all times of the day increase the GHE.
And we know that clouds are more prevalent during the night because the sun partially or wholly evaporates them during the day.
Finally, they assume it is ”thick, dense clouds”. but that certainly doesn’t in any way describe ”ship tracks” where you need a special instrument in space to even see them.
Bill Hunter
YOU: “so with a 288k surface we get a 255k temperature and a 33c ghe if we assume the surface to be a blackbody.
But if we adjust the emissivity parameter of the spectral calculator to .7 which is the emissivity of earth with a .3 albedo. 240w/m2 absorbed requires a temperature 278.7k as in 1) above.”
You are using two concepts and trying to use them interchangeably which leads you to an incorrect conclusion. Albedo refers to the amount of visible solar energy that is reflected so it does not reach the surface. Emissivity is in the IR band and related to the surface temperature. The emissivity of the Earth is over 0.9 and some suggest maybe 0.95
https://climatepuzzles.org/technical/surface-emissivity/
You would need to use at least 0.9 in the emissivity sector or higher.
Norman, first of all you apparently don’t understand the double speak.
Its not me that is creating the double speak its the explanation that low clouds do not create a net greenhouse effect because they reflect more light than the GHE they create.
When mainstream science tells us the GHE is 33C they are assuming a blackbody so the difference between the 33C and the 9.3C you have with the existing albedo means that the clouds are deemed to be contributing 23.7C NET to the GHE because when you use the albedo as a subtrahend to arrive at NET GHE by subtracting the albedo you are treating albedo as part of the GHE.
So in fact under the mainstream science claim where albedo is not subtracted from the calculation you arrive at 33C with 23.7C of it supplied by low clouds where low clouds are a huge part of the GHE as measured by Roy here years ago with his backyard experiment of monitoring the night sky and the large increase in downwelling IR when low clouds passed through.
When you do subtract the albedo you arrive at a GHE of 9.3C.
I suppose when they started divvying up the GHE by chemical specie they didn’t feel comfortable recognizing all the downwelling cloud IR and having that shrink the primary effect of CO2. We could be arguing that CO2 produces feedback of 8.1:1 as the keystone GHE specie and that 1.4C warming over the industrial age is .17c due to CO2 and 1.23C due to water feedback.
All you are arguing for a modest change in that ratio by admitting that the earth isn’t a blackbody and that its emissivity is actually 5 to 10% lower than the real (sic) NET 33C.
Even Tony Heller is alarmed by the snow drought in the Western US:
https://tinyurl.com/3ez2mx95
Tony should come to the UK,it has never stopped raining since the middle of January,only four dry days since December,not unusual just depressing,all down to a jet stream that has moved south of the UK, not only is it damp, but cold with daytime temperatures barely making 4c by day.the drought in the South is now a distant memory.
Jet stream path could be to blame. East coast ski resorts – West Va and New England – reporting adequate to robust snow pack and conditions. Weather, not climate.
Snow pack and skiing conditions are quite robust and good currently in the European Alps.
As I look out my window, we are receiving a heavy snowfall, although it is predicted to be a brief event. They used to call these “Alberta Clippers”, as they roar out of Canada and head south to torment us in the U.S. This January/February in southwest Ohio (Cincinnati area) has been a semi-historic period for cold temps and snowfall. It has been almost 50 years (1977-1978) since we have experienced weather like this. Smaller rivers are freezing over and lots of ice flows in the Ohio River. When I was a kid (60s) I remember a period of about 6 weeks of snow on the ground one year. In 1977-1978 and 1917 or 1918 the Ohio River froze over. This period seems a lot like those other periods.
So, global warming enthusiasts have to convince the general public, people who pay attention only to daily and monthly weather, that winters like this somehow fit into the CO2 warming thesis. That is a hard sell, even given their almost total control over k-PhD education and classic media. The sacrifices that the general public are being asked to make are huge and they just don’t see the threat. Is what I have described above weather, not climate? Yes. People don’t experience or feel a 1 degree increase in temps over decades. They experience what I am seeing out my window right now.
In addition to what Bindidon wrote, I also think there is merit to the idea that global warming has a role to play in the record warmth observed across the western US this winter.
While the western CONUS has almost certainly experienced winter synoptic patterns similar to this one during the 131 years of official record keeping, nine states still set records for their warmest December on record.
From:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/national/202512
Click on ‘December 2025 Statewide Temperature Ranks Map’
Eldrosion
It’s hard to believe how stubborn some people can behave.
On January 30, 2026 at 7:34 PM (i.e. about one week ago), I posted a graph showing that current temperatures measured in this January 2026 around Cincinnatti are by NO MEANS comaprable to those which prevailed in the years 1977/78, 1989, 1918 or even 2015:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ieJLGmAc698x-sOhl6V85zp-2d2UXJWc/view
But… this is 100% discarded, and the Hagedorn boy endlessly repeats his lies about 2026 winter being the same as earlier! Incredible.
The top 20 of a sort of the coldest temperature anomalies wrt the mean of 1981-2010, measured around Cincinnatti:
1977 1 -10.37 (°C)
1978 2 -8.88
1918 1 -8.57
1989 12 -8.57
2015 2 -7.78
1917 12 -7.36
1979 2 -7.18
1940 1 -6.99
2007 2 -6.61
1960 3 -6.27
2000 12 -6.01
1914 2 -5.93
1978 1 -5.84
2014 1 -5.84
1963 12 -5.59
1912 1 -5.56
1976 11 -5.41
1912 2 -5.11
1976 12 -5.07
1903 12 -5.06
Jan 2026 arrives at position 44:
2026 1 -3.95
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What the heck does this weather have to do with CO2?
NOTHING.
Fact is: it gets WARMER around Cincinnatti, point final.
OMG oh Noes: I forgot to sort Dec and Feb off the list – after all, aren’t we talking about January?
1977 1 -10.37 (°C)
1918 1 -8.57
1940 1 -6.99
1978 1 -5.84
2014 1 -5.84
1912 1 -5.56
1963 1 -4.85
1982 1 -4.75
1979 1 -4.35
1994 1 -4.29
2026 1 -3.95
1970 1 -3.77
1948 1 -3.74
2025 1 -3.67
1904 1 -3.49
1984 1 -3.23
1985 1 -3.22
2003 1 -3.15
1905 1 -3.03
1936 1 -2.98
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Wow! 2026 now moves up from palce 44 to place… 11! Wow!
Next time I’ll bring some info about snowfall around Cinci :–)
Bindi – I didn’t think you were speaking to me. Anyway, I await your next post with bated breath. Perhaps it will contain smaller error than the last one…from 44th to 11th. Really?
BTW, if you look at the incidence of those cold January’s by decade (20 in total) two have been in the last two years. 4 were in the 70s, near the end of the 4 decade cooling episode. 3 were in the 80s, as the recent warming was just beginning. Only 3 other decades had 2 cold January’s (1900s, 1910s, 1940s). The 2020s have two, with three more chances to go! The 1920s and 1950s had 0 cold January’s.
Global warming advocates like to talk a lot about extreme weather (hint: it scares people and you can motivate with fear). So why doesn’t warming seem to show up in Cincinnati January extremes? Local/regional variation? Some other mechanism?
Thanks for the research. The snowfall stuff will be interesting. Precipitation, especially snowfall amount, is about as variable and unpredictable as you can get.
Hagedorn
1. My comment was no more than a reply to your wording:
” I have lived in this area for 75 of my 77 years and this brings back memories of the late 70s… ”
which is very, very certainly far from reality.
In Feb 1956, Germany, France and Belgium experienced temperatures with also over 10 °C below the 1981-2010 norm.
This was incredibly different from the weak winters we have since about two decades.
*
2. The first list was by no means an error, as it more exactly described when it really was very cold in your corner.
I changed the list by restricting it to Januaries only for convenience.
Your January 2026 average is and remains at position 44, no doubt!
Dr Spencer,
Like many other scientists, I have high regard for your temperature work. However, I have long been puzzled by your reporting in anomaly form, when most of us would prefer actual temperatures. Yes,this would require calibration against another method of measurements but given an adequate estimate of the error involved the result would be acceptable and much easier to use.
I have spent very many hours since 1992 with Australian historic temperature data. It would be easier to contrast with satellite based methods in estimated temperature, not anomaly form. Any chance? Geoff S
Since the UAH values (call them “U”) are departures from a baseline (“B”), then the actual temperatures would be = U + B. Right?
So why not just prepare a basic spreadsheet to add UAH values to the corresponding baseline?
Clint is correct about this. UAH provides a monthly gridded baseline absolute temperature data file. One can then take the monthly gridded anomaly data and add it to the corresponding monthly baseline to get gridded absolute temperature data.
The baseline file is in the same directory as the anomaly file Dr Spencer links at the end of these monthly updates. e.g. the TLT file is here:
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.1/tlt/tltmonacg_6.1
I have a plot I generated a while back of the monthly baseline here:
https://southstcafe.neocities.org/uahTltMonthlyBaseline.png
It, unfortunately, doesn’t have a temperature scale, but the range is something like 200 to 290 Kelvin for the TLT data.
Geoff Sherrington
” However, I have long been puzzled by your reporting in anomaly form, when most of us would prefer actual temperatures. ”
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Who are you thinking of? The few who think like you?
I estimate that at least 90% of scientists working on this topic can’t do anything with absolute time series data, as they usually need to correlate multiple climate datasets whose value ranges and seasonal dependencies are often different, which inevitably leads to biased comparisons.
*
No: this is not my private opinion: Roy Spencer explained it in detail 10 years ago in a dedicated thread:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/03/uah-v6-lt-global-temperatures-with-annual-cycle/
The main point is the removal of the seasonal dependencies (what Roy Spencer names ‘the annual cycle) by constructing a 12 month baseline whose values are subtracted from the corresponding months in the absolute series.
*
Here is a graph comparing, for Australia, UAH’s absolute lower troposphere data with the daily absolute station measurements from GHCN Daily (imported by NOAA from BoM’s raw station data):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sV31jzNnNUJ0Qv3-pklaRXmbuL3v1hah/view
(Of course: this is not a comparison of the original absolute values, as these are distant by about 24 K; both series were displaced by their respective mean for 1991-2020.)
UAH’s absolute data is not available online; you have to reconstruct it out of a composition of the 2.5 degree grid cell anomalies with the corresponding cells in their grid climatology.
*
Here is the same data source in anomaly form:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bJTv5uspre9wgtzG3FGGC1RxDvCidp-Y/view
*
You decide what suits your needs… or tastes.
*
If you are interested in the absolute UAH-LT data for Australia:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vQeDArf_DyWcqLi-4Vd2qXxd7y0DOKw1/view
geoff…the response from Roy from Binny’s post…
“The answer, of course, is that the seasonal cycle is so large that it obscures the departures from normal. So, we (and other climate researchers) do departures from the seasonal norms. (If someone in Minneapolis exclaims, “Can you believe that 50 deg. temperature we had?”, it makes a big difference whether it occurred in January or July).”
***
Roy’s response makes no sense to me. Who cares about seasonal cycles, instrumental data is all we need? The instruments don’t measure in anomalies simply because they know nothing about baselines and departures from norms. They simply measure in real time and tell us the actual temperature they experience in a certain limited area.
Anomalies are a peculiarity of the human brain, which is never happy unless it is distorting reality. In other words, the human mind insists on imposing its thoughts and ideas on actuality. When you limit temperature to a narrow range of temperature changes, the changes become magnified immensely out of proportion, and alarmists begin raving about a 1C change in the average temperature over 175 years as more than significant. Based on such an insignificant change, alarmists are now raving about the end of life as we know it.
They don’t ask why the temperatures were what they were in 1850, or question that a mini ice age had just ended, the Little Ice Age, they presume temperatures were normal and began magically increasing due to human CO2 emissions.
If you plot the anomaly series on an absolute scale, it resembles more a straight line than a significant trend.
The basic problem arises when the human mind tries to arrive at an average global temperature using a small number of data points. For example, the surface temperature record relies on 1 thermometer to cover, on average, some 100,000 km^2. That includes the oceans, making up 70% of the planet’s surface and which are technically immeasurable.
One thermometer over such a wide area cannot possibly measure all extremes, therefore the human mind, trying to be inventive, invents theories that have little to do with the reality. Hence the anomaly.
Anomalies are good for number crunchers and statisticians but little good for anything else.
I was thinking the other day, what baselines was applied in 1979 when the UAH temperature series was born? No baseline existed, so someone had to invent one.
Another point is that temperature series these days have moved on from weather data prediction, the series are now used more to impose climates. That means, according to the current definition of climate, imposing a 30 year average on the data.
If you want to know the departure from ‘normal’, you use anomalies. If you want to know today’s weather, use absolute values.
Using anomalies removes the problem of variation in altitude and latitude for regional analyses of change over time. Anomalies reduce uncertainty and simplify the conglomeration of readings that have intrinsically different averages based on geographical and topographical differences. It’s an elegant solution to this problem.
You use the methodology that best suits the purpose. Anomalising off common baselines well suits the purpose of detecting change over time from observation sets that have uncommon baselines.
Barry…I get your point but what is the meaning of normal? I prefer a much longer definition of normal that takes in the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. If you try to find a norm (not Norman…tee hee) between today, the LIA, and the MWP, our current warming has a better explanation than a trace gas causing havoc.
Any way you look at it, normal becomes a human definition based on the math we invented. I think it would be very difficult to pin down nature as to the meaning of normal.
It becomes clear, as Syun Akasofu tried to insinuate, that we have erred by not including re-warming from the LIA. He worked it out to be about 0.5C/century.
Why do we want to remove variations in altitude and latitude? That is actuality and we are kidding ourselves by thinking we need to remove such variations to get a more convenient picture. After all, who really needs a global average, which is meaningful only to number crunchers and statisticians.
All in all, I don’t consider a 1C ‘average’ warming since 1850 anything to write home about.
Gordon, the late professor David Bellamy summed up the establishments take on global warming i one word, Poppycock has said , his argument was that atmospheric C02 a natural airborn plant fertilizer was not the main driver of todays modest warming , he pointed out that historic levels much higher than today had not driven any such warming in the past, and as make up C02 has not changed, what has? If 5000 ppm had not caused runaway warming, how could a trifling 400ppm ,the only thing that changed during that period of high levels of C02 was the explosion of flora world wide, huge plants and trees that would dwarf any that exist today,and that one word Poppycock ,saw him banned from the BBC and other media ,nothing much has changed today,so who is driving the narrative on such matters?
“I get your point but what is the meaning of normal?”
An average over a set time period, in this case.
“I prefer a much longer definition of normal that takes in the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age”
Fine. Your baseline will have a wider uncertainty envelope than the instrumental record.
“Any way you look at it, normal becomes a human definition based on the math we invented”
You make choices depending on what you want to understand. The baselines we use to compare temperatures in the instrumental record also happen to lie within the period of interest regarding anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.
If you want to understand global temperature change due to orbital variation in the Quaternary period, then perhaps a better ‘normal’ would be the long period of slow-changing temperatures prior to deglaciations. The prime choice is periods of little to no change – a stable baseline. But not every area of interest will include periods of no change.
Depends on what you want to test.
“It becomes clear, as Syun Akasofu tried to insinuate, that we have erred by not including re-warming from the LIA”
This is not a baseline question. This is an attribution question.
“Why do we want to remove variations in altitude and latitude?”
Because we want to identify global or regional change, not weather variation in distinct locations.
Adding or removing a population of mountain absolute temp readings from a larger data set skews the results.
Working with absolute temps with a changing spatial population of data sets skews the data towards the change in spatiality over time (one station has date from 1910 to 1980, another from 1950 to 2025).
Anomalisation greatly reduces these problems that can skew results if what you want to measure is an average change over time.
It’s an elegant solution that does much to reduce skew from many different kinds of bias, whether spatial, temporal, geographical or seasonal.
The trend resulting from using absolute temps that include all these potential skews can be quite different from a trend that reduces the biases in these elements.
You use the method that best suits your purpose.
If you want to look at weather patterns, anomalising is much less useful.
Ian,
Name the time period when atmos CO2 was 5000ppm.
What was the global temperature? How different was the rest of the Earth (continental configuration, for example).
And was the sun sending the same amount of radiation Earthwards, or more. Or less?
You’re not comparing like with like. So get specific.
barry
Thank you very much for your insightful reply to Robertson’s eternally incompetent stuff.
Please allow me though to add technical considerations when you write:
” Using anomalies removes the problem of variation in altitude and latitude for regional analyses of change over time. ”
This is of course 100% correct!
*
But you should also mention the original reason for this: namely, that, contrary to popular belief, anomalies are calculated locally for each weather station, buoy, or even grid cell in observed atmospheric layers.
Many people mistakenly believe that time series are first calculated by averaging numerous absolute values, which are then converted into differences relative to a common, e.g., 30-year average.
*
The opposite is true: anomaly-based time series construction initially consists of averaging locally calculated anomalies with respect to the same reference period.
These anomalies are then averaged, if necessary, in grid cells to neutralize biasing bulk data, and finally subjected to a latitude correction to account for the Earth’s spherical shape.
This is the real reason why, for example, anomalies from a weather station located on a coast in California, in the middle of a city in Nevada, high on a mountain in New Mexico or in Alaska landscapes can be combined, since a separate baseline is calculated for each station.
However, anomalies not only make time series independent of latitude, longitude, and altitude; they also abstract from the local environment (vegetation, buildings).
*
The fact that vegetation or buildings in the vicinity of weather stations can change is a separate issue, one that is orthogonal to the time series format used and must be addressed separately, regardless of whether the sources are absolute or relative.
Eli Rabett’s “Green Plate Effect” is debunked here:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2026/01/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-december-2025-0-30-deg-c/#comment-1732629
To assist in understanding points 1) – 5), we can consider there to be a switch which can turn on or off the “back-radiation” transfer.
The GP (Green Plate) is already in place behind the BP (Blue Plate). The switch is off, so there is no “back-radiation” transfer from GP to BP – but the GP is there, receiving 200 W/m^2 from the BP, and emitting 200 W/m^2 to space. Both plates are 244 K. Then, you turn on the switch, and the GP begins radiating from the side facing the BP. If the transfer is allowed to proceed to completion, the plates end up at 262 K…220 K, and that is all due to the “back-radiation” transfer. It is quite literally the only change that was made.
So, we know that the “back-radiation” transfer increased the temperature of the BP, and decreased the temperature of the GP.
So, we know that the “back-radiation” transfer builds up internal energy in the warmer object at the expense of the cooler object.
You can spread this manure wherever you want, it will still stink.
This was the linked comment, in case anyone can’t be bothered to click on the link:
1) If the “back-radiation” transfer (transfer from GP to BP) is not permitted to occur, the plate temperatures will be 244 K…244 K at equilibrium.
2) If the “back-radiation” transfer is permitted to occur, the plate temperatures will be 262 K…220 K.
3) The above two points demonstrate that the “back-radiation” transfer is solely responsible for the difference between the plates being 244 K…244 K and the plates being 262 K…220 K.
4) That means the “back-radiation” transfer is effectively increasing the temperature of the BP by 18 K, and reducing the temperature of the GP by 24 K. This could be clearly seen if the GP were introduced at 244 K.
5) Which in turn means that the “back-radiation” is transferring internal energy from the GP to the BP, where it builds up at the expense of the GP. Energy cannot just “organise” itself in this way. It’s a 2LoT violation.
6) Since 2LoT cannot be violated, but “back-radiation” exists, the “back-radiation” transfer must be returned from the BP back to the GP. See the diagram that Clint linked to: https://postimg.cc/F1fryx8h
7) Everything then balances at 244 K…244 K. Hence, that is the correct solution.
And it stinks, because, for the 47th time, you neglect the heat source, the Sun.
Which is the source of heat that flowed into the BP, at the same time the BP lost its ability to lose heat to space, when the GP is place behind it.
It is the Sun which loses internal energy, which is transferred to the BP, and it builds up internal energy in it.
The cold body, lacking sufficient heat input from the BP, but still radiating heat to space, cools..
. to space.
“And it stinks, because, for the 47th time, you neglect the heat source, the Sun…”
…obviously not, as the Sun is present throughout the described process with the “switch”.
“It is the Sun which loses internal energy, which is transferred to the BP, and it builds up internal energy in it.”
I asked you this before, and you dodged the question the last time. If you really believe that the build up of internal energy in the BP comes from the Sun…what exactly do you think the GP is transferring to the BP!?
“I asked you this before, and you dodged the question the last time. If you really believe that the build up of internal energy in the BP comes from the Sun…what exactly do you think the GP is transferring to the BP!?”
This has all been explained to you countless times. You dont listen.
Its nothing to do with belief. It has everythong to do with basic math.
When your switch is turned on, or equivalently, when the GP is brought in, the NET energy transfer BP to GP is 0. Because their enitted fluxes are EQUAL.
This is an undisputed mathematical fact.
Therefore, any gain in internal energy of the BP MUST HAVE come from elsewhere. We know where: it came from the SUN, which was continually feeding it 400 J/s.
Any gradeschooler can understand this. Why cant you?
And as the BP warms, while the GP cools, the NET transfer (heat) is always from the warmer BP to the cooler GP.
It never ever reverses and flows from cooler object to warmer object. It has no need to.
To claim that it must have done so, as you do, can only be explained by you ignoring the obvious truth, that the heat source (Sun) provided the energy that increased the internal energy of the BP.
It can do that because with the GP in place, the BPs HEAT LOSS to space has been REDUCED.
Reduced heat loss is not = reversed heat flow.
Yes, Nate, we know you can focus on only one half of the picture, the warming of the BP, whilst ignoring that the GP cools. My question was, what exactly do you think the GP is transferring to the BP!?
By the way – nothing needs to be explained to me. I understand your arguments just as well as you do.
“My question was, what exactly do you think the GP is transferring to the BP!?”
Answered.
“the NET energy transfer BP to GP is 0. Because their emitted fluxes are EQUAL”
Now you, my question was:
“Any gradeschooler can understand this. Why cant you?”
There should be no mention of “NET” in your answer, Nate. We’re isolating the effect of the “back-radiation” transfer, remember?
Now, try again.
Your claims were a Net transfer of internal energy from the GP to the BP.
We can only test that idea by looking at the NET energy exchanged between the plates.
No evidence of net energy flow from GP to BP is found.
As far as why the GP cools, its been explained 47 times. You don’t listen.
Again. The GP cools because it is losing heat ( emitting 200 W/m2) to space, and receiving 0 from the BP to replace it.
It has no choice but to cool.
No, there is no need for it to cool by sending NET energy (heat) to the BP.
Again no evidence that happens.
Im sorry that your narrative doesnt work and makes no sense.
Your starting position is non-physical. Your argumentation fails because of that. And also because you are defining heat flow incorrectly.
Heat flows from hotter to colder.
That’s the simplest definition of 2LoT.
Heat flow is not determined by an object changing temperature, only by its temperature compared to a thermally connected other object.
A blackbody emitting more energy to another blackbody is hotter than the other blackbody. The direction of heat flow is determined by subtracting the two.
Any other definition is a rationale begging its conclusion.
Back to the novel idea: If you “turn off’ GP emission to BP, then BP receives no energy. Turn it on and BP receives energy, slowing its rate of heat loss. It warms up (with a steady sun powering the other side).
Is this a violation of 2LoT? Nope. 2LoT would be violated if BP emits LESS energy than GP but winds up warmer than GP.
You’re redefining 2LoT, as well as arguing from non-physical behaviour, to try and make your view stick. Yes, talking about objects getting warmer is how you attempt to redefine 2LoT. The temperature change of an object is IMMATERIAL to 2LoT. If you stuck to the classic definition, you’d have no argument.
It’s not that your argument isn’t understood. It’s that it doesn’t work. You’re asking people to accept propositions that are flawed in order to accept a conclusion that is wrong.
Here is another flawed proposition of yours:
You ask us to accept (re MLI) that emitted radiation has some different property to reflected radiation that makes it non-absorbable by a (warmer) blackbody surface.
Here you redefine blackbodies and radiation. It’s completely unphysical, and you argue for this non-physical proposition by asserting your conclusion makes it so.
Non-physical propositions aren’t supported by circular reasoning.
You offer no sources, physics texts or anything else substantive to cause us to accept this proposition which goes against what physics tells us – blackbodies absorb ALL incident radiation.
“Your starting position is non-physical…”
It’s a thought experiment, so if I want to propose, for the sake of argument, that one side of the GP doesn’t emit, and then does emit, at the flick of a switch – I will do so. How else can we isolate the effect of the “back-radiation” transfer?
“Back to the novel idea: If you “turn off’ GP emission to BP, then BP receives no energy. Turn it on and BP receives energy, slowing its rate of heat loss. It warms up (with a steady sun powering the other side). Is this a violation of 2LoT? Nope. 2LoT would be violated if BP emits LESS energy than GP but winds up warmer than GP.”
barry, you’re missing the bigger picture. You are only looking at the warming of the BP…but, the GP also cools. It’s as I explained: the initiation of the “back-radiation” transfer is the only change made, and the plate temperatures shift from 244 K…244 K to 262 K…220 K. So, the “back-radiation” transfer warmed the BP, and cooled the GP. That means the “back-radiation” transfer built up internal energy in the warmer object at the expense of the cooler object.
“You ask us to accept (re MLI) that emitted radiation has some different property to reflected radiation that makes it non-absorbable by a (warmer) blackbody surface“
No, barry. This is what I have explained:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2026/01/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-december-2025-0-30-deg-c/#comment-1729893
“No, barry. This is what I have explained”
Your explanation requires that that emitted radiation from cooler blackbody cannot be absorbed by a warmer blackbody.
“Insulation does not involve internal energy from the cooler object being transferred to the warmer object…”
No, it is reflected energy that the warmer object absorbs. You accept this, but…
“Back-radiation warming/insulation” does involve that [the warmer blackbody warming]. Which is why it’s physically impossible”
So, according to you, it is physically impossible for a warmer blackbody to absorn energy emitted by a cooler object.
This is what is the complete opposite to what blackbodies do – absorb ALL incident radiation.
You cannot wave away this fundamental property of blackbody behaviour with circular arguments.
The BP IS a blackbody. It MUST absorb the radiation from GP.
You cannot argue otherwise, or you reject a basic physics concept.
So now you have to explain the physics whereby the blackbody BP absorbs MORE energy than it emits, and yet does not get warmer as a result, until it reaches equilibrium with all incoming energy.
Your explanation so far has the BP behave like both a perfect reflector and a perfect blackbody on the side facing the GP.
This is completely non-physical.
Because you think the GPE breaks 2LoT, you come up with non-physical ‘arguments’.
“It’s as I explained: the initiation of the “back-radiation” transfer is the only change made, and the plate temperatures shift from 244… 244 K to 262 K… 220 K
The starting position is unphysical, it is impossible. *
But let’s go with it – GP now loses energy at twice the rate it did before “switching on” the non-emitting face. Of course it will cool.
( * GP is transmitting the full energy received from BP away from the system. GP would have no temperature in this setup. It is perfectly transparent. But we pretend that it absorbs BP radiation as if it is a blackbody, which for some unphysical reason does not obey Kirchhoff’s law in the slightest)
Here’s what I actually said in the linked comment:
“The key problem is that “back-radiation warming/insulation” is not actually insulation, nor does it function like insulation. Insulation is like your “dam in the river” – a physical barrier to the flow of heat. Reflection provides that, for radiative insulation. Insulation does not involve internal energy from the cooler object being transferred to the warmer object where it supposedly builds up at the expense of the cooler object. “Back-radiation warming/insulation” does involve that. Which is why it’s physically impossible.“
Readers can decide for themselves what to think about barry’s manipulations of my meaning. I will also add:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2026/01/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-december-2025-0-30-deg-c/#comment-1733009
“GP now loses energy at twice the rate it did before “switching on” the non-emitting face. Of course it will cool.”
barry, you’re missing the bigger picture. You are only looking at the cooling of the GP…but, the BP also warms. It’s as I explained: the initiation of the “back-radiation” transfer is the only change made, and the plate temperatures shift from 244 K…244 K to 262 K…220 K. So, the “back-radiation” transfer warmed the BP, and cooled the GP. That means the “back-radiation” transfer built up internal energy in the warmer object at the expense of the cooler object.
“barry, you’re missing the bigger picture. You are only looking at the cooling of the GP… but, the BP also warms”
I am looking at the bigger picture. I see both energy vectors: BP –> GP and GP –> BP. I see the temperature changes. Crucially, they do not define heat flow.
Heat flow in a radiative environment is determined this way ONLY.
Q = σ(T₁⁴ – T₂⁴)
BP always transfers more energy to GP than the other way around. Therefore, the direction of heat flow is always BP –> GP.
The fact that energy redistributes differently within the system during intermediate states does not change the fundamental definition of heat flow. Heat is a process, not a property stored in an object. Treating it as something “contained” that can be transferred from GP to BP is a fundamental misconception.
To accept your argument — that ‘GP cools while BP warms because of back radiation’ — would require rejecting the proper definition of heat flow, ignoring net energy transfer. Why should I do that and take on your novel definition? Just because YOU believe it is compelling enough to reject the standard definition?
Energy is indeed exchanged both ways, and the internal energy of each plate can change depending on system configuration. But these reconfigurations of energy distribution do not redefine heat flow. Heat flow is strictly determined by net energy flux. Not some other propositions of yours.
Eli’s setup is fine. GP slows the energy loss of BP. It MUST, because BP is a blackbody and MUST absorb GP energy.
The fact GP cools is fine when YOU switch on a new vector of energy loss from it. That’s what MUST happen.
No one misunderstands your argument. It’s just non-physical. We don’t ACCEPT it based on physics. Not on recalcitrance or misunderstanding. that’s YOUR problem.
Now, tell me why a blackbody can absorb reflected radiation from an object cooler than itself, but not emitted radiation from an object cooler that itself. Deal with this.
barry, like most of his cult, relies on false beliefs and long, rambling comments. False beliefs like the bogus RHTE and the bogus “black body”.
When you prove him wrong, he then resorts to insults and false accusations.
If he really knew anything about radiative physics, he could solve the simple problems:
Problem 1: A perfectly conducting sphere (emissivity = 1) receives flux from four sources equally spaced around its equator. Each source supplies 1000 W/m² to the sphere’s “disk”.
What is the sphere’s temperature?
Problem 2: Two additional sources are added, above and below the sphere, each supplying 1000 W/m² to the sphere’s “disk”.
What is the sphere’s temperature?
Both problems are basic, with no advanced math. But barry can’t solve them.
“Heat is a process, not a property stored in an object. Treating it as something “contained” that can be transferred from GP to BP is a fundamental misconception…”
…and, not one that I’m making, barry. I keep using the term “internal energy”.
Look, we spent some considerable time in long back-and-forths with me trying to prove to you and Nate that the “back-radiation” transfer builds up internal energy in the warmer object at the expense of the cooler object. That key phrase “at the expense of” caused some considerable controversy. The thing is, I’ve now proven my case, logically. It’s a fact that the “back-radiation” transfer builds up internal energy in the warmer object at the expense of the cooler object.
Do you accept that? I will need you to confirm or deny that before we discuss anything else.
Hey Puffman, riddle me this –
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2026/02/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-january-2026-0-35-deg-c/#comment-1733390
Do you feel a little satisfaction in having trolled Team Science so much that Sky Dragon cranks only have abuse left to counter their response?
You can call that a decade well spent!
If putting words in other people’s mouths counts as an “abuse” then barry has been very abusive so far. And, Nate has been abusive in the traditional sense, of course. But, let’s not distract from all the questions barry has to answer.
Our Sky Dragon cranks’ have three talking points.
They all have been refuted.
Here’s the simplest refutation of the one they’re trying to peddle again:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2026/01/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-december-2025-0-30-deg-c/#comment-1732935
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2026/01/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-december-2025-0-30-deg-c/#comment-1732860
Meanwhile, Graham D. Warner has PSTered the thread more than 60 times. So far. He’s known to continue a few days after the month is past.
I do not understand why DREMT told Bindidon to stop trolling in this comment:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2026/01/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-december-2025-0-30-deg-c/#comment-1729414
I think Bindidon made a valid point that you would not expect news like this to be prominently covered by right wing outlets. It is not controversial to acknowledge that partisanship exists within mainstream media coverage.
DREMT also stated that he does not care for politics, which makes the response even more puzzling.