This graph needs little comment as it is evident from the data fresh in from the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) Microwave Sounder Unit for the lower troposphere where global temperatures are headed. As in this post in March, I have plotted both northern (red) and southern (blue) hemisphere temperatures, along with the global average (black). While March was notable due to a large divergence in temperatures between the hemispheres, in May the divergence has been completely retraced, and the NH is following the SH temperatures downward.

Global anomalies are now at levels experienced 30 years ago at the start of the satellite record.

Global temperature is clearly moving down as sea level, stratospheric temperatures and other long term integrators of global temperatures suggest. The view expressed by the lead IPCC authors in Rahmstorf et.al. (Science Brevia, 4 May 2007, p709 [1]) that the climate “may be responding more quickly to climate change than our current generation of models indicates” is looking very ‘premature’ (as they say in the journals). The Interim Report of the Garnaut Review advocating prompt and extreme action on carbon emissions (Section 2.4 Consequences of Climate Change, Observed Climate Change), is a rather ‘courageous’ policy direction (Yes. Minister).

Meanwhile, “Houston, we seem to have another problem.”

Hat tip to Anthony Watts and the UAH data.