RSS AMSU, Jan-Jul: 2011 second coldest in this century

According to RSS AMSU, the first 7 months were the 2nd coldest January-July period in this century so far (second among 11 candidate years).




The top 15 ranking of the years 1979-2011 according to the average temperature during the first seven months is as follows:

1. 1998: 0.652
2. 2010: 0.545
3. 2002: 0.373
4. 2005: 0.356
5. 2007: 0.310
6. 2003: 0.295
7. 2004: 0.230
8. 2006: 0.206
9. 2001: 0.195
10. 2009: 0.168
11. 1991: 0.163
12. 2011: 0.138
13. 1995: 0.134
14. 1988: 0.121
15. 1983: 0.118

You can see that the first seven months of 2011 were colder than the same period of 1991 which was 20 years earlier; and of course, 1998 remains the leader of the league: its first 7 months were more than 0.5 °C warmer than the same months of 2011. At the 12th position, 2011 is out of top ten. Only Jan-Jul 2008 with -0.024 °C managed to be colder than the same period of 2011 among the years of the 21st century. So 2011 is helping to make the preliminary 21st century temperature trend even more negative than before; this is no bulšit, angry Al.

Some warming may have been taking place in recent months - because of the delayed effect of the disappearing La Nina a few months ago.

Right now, the ENSO oscillations are finding themselves in ENSO neutral conditions. However, the latest weekly ENSO report says that the ONI 3.4 anomaly is at -0.4 °C - it went down again and is approaching -0.5 °C, the boundary of the La Nina conditions, again.

Also, their models show that there are equal odds that we will see continuing neutral conditions in the Fall - or that we will see another La Nina episode. In fact, the picture from Thursday shows a nice blue spot near the South American Western beaches:



I think that the blue spot sits at an important place - and is already big enough - and could help to decide that La Nina conditions will return. Just to be sure, that would be the second consecutive La Nina episode.

Whatever will happen to ENSO in the Fall, I think that it will only substantially influence the global temperatures in 2012. In the rest of 2011, we will almost certainly see higher temperature anomalies than in the first half of 2011. That will mean that 2011 will jump from the 12th warmest place (preliminary ranking) to a spot in the top ten - but surely not at the medal places.