Climate Data: Siberia 1955-2010

The split between Siberia and the rest of Russia is usually defined as the Ural Mountains. Since I wanted to make it a rectangle is longitude and latitude, I chose 60 degree East for the leftmost cutoff point.

We think of Siberia as "frozen wasteland" and "place of exile", but I have read several Russian writer who say it has a meaning similar to the West in United States' cultural memory, a big, mostly empty place of challenge and opportunity.

Whichever it is, it certainly is not wanting for weather stations to measure its progress. Very good coverage from east to west and north to south.

The temperatures in Winter vary drastically. While the warmest Winters have spiked pretty close to each other all through the 1955-2010 era, the coldest Winters are getting generally warmer and the median keeps sneaking upward era by era.

Spring does not show as much fluctuation and the sequences show more steady increase.

Summer fluctuates even less and every measurement method shows consistent increase, but the total increase of the median from the 1955-1975 era to the 1999-2010 era is less than a degree Celsius, the mildest increase of all four seasons.

Like Winter, Fall temperatures jump around a lot. The warmest Fall are only slightly warmer, but the median has climbed over a degree and a half.

Confidence level of warming from time interval to time interval: 99.99%

Confidence level of the trend showing increasing warming: 65.8%

Average seasonal change in the medians of 1955-1975 to 1999-2010: 1.555° C.

1.555° C in 56 years is the number that matters. This is way too fast. More than that, the Siberian permafrost, like the Winter ice in the Arctic Circle, can become a really scary feedback loop. There's a lot of permafrost in Siberia, and most importantly there is a contiguous permafrost about the size of France and Germany combined. When permafrost melts, it changes the albedo, absorbing heat instead of reflecting it. If that wasn't bad enough, there is a huge amount of CO2 and methane trapped in the permafrost that will be released when it melts, things will only get worse.

I've only been looking at climate data for about ten weeks now, but I am pretty close to convinced it's real and it does not have to speed up for it to be a serious problem for humans, if not in my lifetime then in the lifetime of kids growing up today. Tomorrow, I will introduce another way to look at the data. I have not done the programming yet, so I don't know if the data will alarming or not, but it is an attempt to look at patterns worldwide instead of getting useful data region by region.

Climate Data: Sonoran Desert 1955-2010

The Sonoran Desert spans much of Northwestern Mexico and parts of California and Arizona. The best known cities north of the border are Phoeniz and Tuscon.

The coverage by consistent weather stations is much stronger in the United States than it is in Mexico. Those grid marks in the lower right hand corner are from the tip of Baja California.
 

While the record high temperature for Winter average is now nearly 20 years old, the other ways of measuring - the median in the red dotted line and the coldest winter, marked by the lower black line - are showing marked increase.

The Spring data is increasing using every measurement system shown here.

And the Summer is as well.

More than just steady increase, every season has shown a median increase from the 1955-1975 era to the 1999-2010 era of more that a degree Celsius, which is the simplest number that marks the Big Damn Deal cut-off point.

Confidence level of warming from time interval to time interval: 99.999%

Confidence level of the trend showing increasing cooling or warming: 50%

Average seasonal change in the medians of 1955-1975 to 1999-2010: 1.38° C.

The data says it's getting warmer but the trend is not currently on the upswing. This is some good news but not a lot, as an increase of 1.38° C in 56 years is already fast enough to be considered catastrophic. 

Four weeks of climate data: Southern Temperate Region #5

The fifth region of the Southern Temperate Zone is the last major land mass to be covered, as the last region which will be discussed later today is just two small islands in the south Atlantic.

As we can see, the actual land mass of Chile, Uruguay and Argentina is very well represented, as are a few islands both east and west.

The high temperature records haven't moved much in the Summer months, but the coldest Summers are getting warmer noticeably and the median has risen slightly.

Again, the record warmest in Fall is bouncing around, but the coldest Fall since the early 1970s has jumped up about a degree while the median is almost unchanged.

Winter gives us an idea of what data should look like if there was no overall trend.

Spring on the other hand shows upward movement in the low temperature measurement and two upward steps and one downward in the median and high measurement systems.

Confidence of the region warming: 97.7%
Confidence of decreasing rate: 88.5%
Change in median temperature from the 1955-1975 interval to the 1999-2010 interval: 0.15° C



There are important people in the history of statistics who were not in love with confidence tests, W. Edwards Deming being the best known. This data goes a long way towards proving Dr. Deming's point. We are confident of a warming trend because of 24 upward steps and 12 downward, and not quite confident of a slowing rate of warming because of 9 increasing steps and 15 decreasing steps.  More to the point, 0.15° C is really small for 56 years.

Later today, two little islands in the middle of the South Atlantic get their say, our last data points covering the globe.

Four weeks of climate data:Southern Temperate Region #4

Now we look at the temperate part of the South Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and South America.

Most of the famous South Pacific Islands are in the tropics. The best known of these islands are Easter Island, rightmost at (-105° long, -30° lat) and Pitcairn, where the Bounty mutineers settled, the second rightmost.

The low temperatures for Summer bounce around a lot, but the median shows steady increase.

Fall numbers show an increase at nearly every step.

Again, the low temperatures are bouncing around but the median grows steadily.

The cold Spring late last decade keeps this graph from showing steady increase everywhere.

Confidence of the region warming: 99.%
Confidence of decreasing rate: 65.8%
Change in median temperature from the 1955-1975 interval to the 1999-2010 interval: 0.45° C

We get a similar story to many of our regions. Yes, it's warming. No, we can't say if the rate is increasing or decreasing with any confidence and the amount of warming is in the range of a half degree Celsius in 56 years.


Tomorrow, our last two regions, Temperate South America and the temperate south Atlantic.

Four weeks of climate data: Southern Temperate Region #3

 And now we hit a big clump of land the the Southern Temperate Zone, Australia and New Zealand.

Unlike that one island in the south Indian Ocean, most of the land here is between the 25th and 45th parallels, which makes for more moderate weather in general.

All three of our measurement systems have two upward steps and one downward step. The increase in the median from the first era to the last is less than half a degree.

In the Fall, the general trend of increase is more noticeable, but the difference in medians from first to last is slightly less that the Summer change.

The increasing trend is more noticeable in the Winters and the median jump is over a half degree.

Spring is bouncing up and down more randomly than the other seasons, but the median shows a steady increase of about a half a degree.

Confidence of the region warming: 99.9%
Confidence of decreasing rate: 65.8%
Change in median temperature from the 1955-1975 interval to the 1999-2010 interval: 0.44° C

We get a similar story to many of our regions. Yes, it's warming. No, we can't say if the rate is increasing or decreasing with any confidence and the amount of warming is in the range of a half degree Celsius in 56 years.

Later today, the fourth region, the Pacific islands between New Zealand and South America.

Four weeks of climate data:Southern Temperate Region #1

Instead of starting the Southern Temperate Region with a series of maps, let me just say how the split works in words.
Region #1. Southern Africa and Madagascar
Region #2: Southern Temperate Indian Ocean*
Region #3: Temperate Australia and New Zealand
Region #4: Southern Temperate Pacific Ocean*
Region #5: Temperate South America
Region #6: Southern Temperate Atlantic Ocean*

The asterisks on the oceanic section are because I didn't just use the polar region to look at Antarctic, but the 60th latitude instead so that no part of Antarctica would be ignored.  In my defense, the region south of the 60th latitude and north of the Antarctic Circle is famously cold, choppy and nasty with almost no land mass except the Antarctic Peninsula.
 

Southern Africa and Madagascar are pretty well covered. The grid point out in the middle of nowhere is probably Iles Crozet, a group of islands still administered by France.

Summers are getting warmer and the median and lowest temperature trends are getting increasingly warm each era.

Both the warmest and coldest records took a dip this century, but the median is getting warmer, more quickly at the turn of the century than previously. More than that, the median increase is more than a degree Celsius, a cause for alarm.

The Winter is steady but slow. Every step would be upward except that the record high is from the mid 1990s.

Almost perfect increasing trends everywhere except that the record in the 1980s was warmer that the record in the 1990s. Again, close to a degree increase in the medians.

Confidence of the region warming: 99.999%
Confidence of decreasing rate: 79.2%
Change in median temperature from the 1955-1975 interval to the 1999-2010 interval: 0.79° C

It's warming for sure, and at 0.79° C, it's warming faster that the region just to the north, which is Southern Tropical Africa. I don't consider 0.79° C a cause for alarm, but neither is it a cause for complacency.

Later this evening, the section of the Indian Ocean south of the Tropic of Capricorn and north of the 60th parallel.

Four weeks of climate data: Southern Tropics Region #6

 The last slice of the Southern tropics is all in the Atlantic Ocean between South America and Africa.

One station reported enough to be noticed from 1955 to 2010. This is the island of Ascension.

Notice there are gaps in the record in the first era from 1955 to 1975. Even so, there is enough data to be used under my system.

This is a region much like the rest of the Southern tropics.

If there is one difference, it's Winter. The median from 1999 to 2010 is slightly lower than the median from 1955 to 1975. It's anyone's guess if this would still be true if the missing years in the 1950s and 1960s existed.
 

Here's the overall story.

Confidence of the region warming: 99.5%
Confidence of increasing rate: 89%
Change in median temperature from the 1955-1975 interval to the 1999-2010 interval: 0.37° C


The Southern Tropics have some variation, but the basic story is we are confident of the warming, not confident of an increasing rate and the difference in the median values from the first era to the last are all well below a degree C.


Tomorrow, we start out look at the last section of the globe, the Southern Temperate Zone, which has even less land mass than the Southern Tropics.

Four weeks of climate data: Southern Tropics Region #5

 One of the main reasons I made the slices of the Southern Tropics different widths was to make sure one slice covered all of the land mass of South America that lies inside this region.

As you can see, there are some grid points in the Amazon basin that aren't covered in the era of 1955 to 2010, but overall the coverage is strong.

The low temperature graph of the Summer data shows steady warming, but barely a half degree. The other measurement bounce around a little, but they also show mild warming.

Again, generally warming but only slightly.

In all four of the graphs, the warmest reading of these 56 years happened some time in the 1990s.

And the Spring most resemble the Winter data.

Confidence of the region warming: 97.7%
Confidence of increasing rate: 50%, could go either way which means no confidence at all
Change in median temperature from the 1955-1975 interval to the 1999-2010 interval: 0.33° C


Yet again, we have a warming region, but it is not warming by very much or is it showing signs of speeding up. Later today, the last slice of the Southern Tropics, a few islands in the tropical southern Atlantic.