Global Temperature 1979-2008 marks an anniversary of 30 years of temperature history of the satellite era. Since the World Meteorological Organization has defined “climate” as “the average weather” over a classical period of 30 years, we have now a record of a full climate period of near surface temperatures as measured by satellites. This is particularly interesting because surface temperatures records by surface stations are contineously critized as being contaminated by the urban heat island effect of a growing population around the station (UHI effect).

Let’s look at the above graph. At first glance, the five datasets follow more an less the same trend. I have re-baselined the graph by attributing index 0 (zero) to the average temperature of start year 1979 for each metric. Now look at the result:

 

The temperature of the satellite MSU unit of the University of Alabama indicated thus that temperature in 2008 was +0,28°C above 1979. At the same time, temperature by Giss Nasa land-ocean index rose +0,52°C which indeed means 85,7% more warming of Giss land-ocean compared to UAH-MSU after 30 years of satellite measurements of near surface temperature (lower troposphere). The long-term trendline shows a slope of +0,127°C resp. +0,162°C per decade, which means 27,6% more warming at Giss Nasa. The reason why the long-term trend difference (+27,6%) lags so much behind the difference in 2008 (+85,7%) is partly due to super El Nino 1997-1998 which boosted near-surface temperature (UAH and RSS) according to satellites significantly above surface temperature, thus partly offsetting the relative cooling. Moreover, opponants of the mainstream view regarding global warming suggest that Giss final temperature data is hand edited which raises questions why temperature of this most cited data set by global warming proponents rose strongly during the early eighties (which satellites didn’t confirm) and why in most recent years, Giss still claimed a slight warming while other measurements suggested a cooling, thus increasing the bias even more .

The stronger warming of the surface is particularly disturbing after reading that

Climate models predict that as the surface warms, so should the global troposphere. Globally, the troposphere (measured by satellites) should warm about 1.2 times more than the surface; in the tropics, the troposphere should warm about 1.5 times more than the surface.

Source: The Air Vent.

The opposite of what the climate models predict is happening. One last example. Remember when Giss Nasa published the October data which they had to correct down from + 0.73°C to +0.55°C. In the meantime, they corrected it back up to +0.58°C. It’s good there is competition between more or less different datasets and networks. Climate alarmist James Hansen heads the temperature index with the biggest warming and climate skeptic Roy Spencer the satellite unit with the least warming. Can it be just coincidence?