NOAA: 2012 was the hottest year in the history of the U.S. (lower 48)

[KingOrfeo]

So says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

Driven by a warmer-than-average June, the hottest ever July, and a warmer-than-average August, the summer of 2012 will go down in the history books as the third-warmest summer on record for the lower 48 states, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Monday. The nation’s second-warmest summer occurred just last year, and the only other summer that was warmer than the past two occurred during the Dust Bowl era of 1936. This summer was just two tenths of a degree cooler than the summer of 1936.

For the year-to-date, the U.S. had its warmest eight months of any year on record, and the past 12 months have been the warmest such period as well. During the eight-month period, 33 states were record warm and 12 states ranked in the top 10.

Sixteen states in the West, Plains, and Upper Midwest had summer temperatures among their 10 highest, as did seven Northeastern states from New Hampshire to Maryland. Colorado and Wyoming each had their record hottest summer. In Wyoming, the seasonal-average temperature was nearly 5°F above average.

The summer heatwaves this year were not quite as intense as the heat in 2011, but they affected more people. According to NOAA, more than 80 million people — about 10 million more than 2011 — experienced 100°F temperatures this summer. Climate change studies show that heat waves are becoming more common as manmade global warming continues. For the summer as a whole, warm-temperature records outnumbered cool-temperature records by a ratio of 3.5 to 1.

The extreme heat helped spread and intensify a massive drought that has shown no signs of abating in many areas, particularly across the West and High Plains. Nebraska and Wyoming saw their driest summers on record, and several other states in those regions saw one of their top 10 driest summers.

As of August 28, nearly 63 percent of the lower 48 states were experiencing moderate-to-exceptional drought conditions, and NOAA reported that the percentage of the nation experiencing the most intense drought doubled from 3 to 6 percent between July and August. The drought has led to a record wildfire season so far, with 3.6 million acres burned during August alone, mainly across the West. This was about twice the August average and the most for the month in the past 12 years. Interestingly, the number of fires was down this August, but the fires that did burn were larger than normal.

It's too darn hot . . .

 

[RobDownSouth]

TrySail will be along shortly with pretty graphs to attempt to change the subject.

 

[akatrex]

What about Global Warming?

The lower 48 is a Fraction of the Planet.

The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html

 

[Sean Renaud]

Nope. 1998 will forever be the hottest year on record and since then it's been cooling.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Nope. 1998 will forever be the hottest year on record and since then it's been cooling.

Have you informed the climatologists of this? I'm sure they would love to put this issue to bed.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Have you informed the climatologists of this? I'm sure they would love to put this issue to bed.

Yes I have. One day very shortly I'll be receiving the Nobel PEace PRize.

 

[Lancecastor]

It was a great year for motorcycling!

 

[KingOrfeo]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html

Editor's Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:

<snip>

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

Typical of this sort of thing. Only one climatologist in the bunch, and that one a whore.

 

[phrodeau]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/australia-weather-heats-colors-added-weather-map-195717230.html

As a record-breaking heatwave hovers over many regions and territories (which are in their summer months now), the (Australian) continent’s Bureau of Meteorology has added two new colors to the weather map to reflect the rising mercury.
The map currently shows the weather in orange tones at the top, which indicate temperatures 40 to 48 degrees Celsius. But forecasts are predicting off-the-charts weather. As a result, pink and purple will now cover temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius—should it climb that high.

 

[a1eyeblind1]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/australia-weather-heats-colors-added-weather-map-195717230.html

Yeah I know it's not original but pretty much sums up my opinion of global warming man made or not .

Why Worry? In life there are only two things to worry about:
Whether you are well,
or whether you are sick.

Now if you are well,
You have nothing to worry about.

And if you are sick,
You only have two things to worry about:
Whether you get better,
or whether you die.

If you get better,
You have nothing to worry about.

And if you die,
You only have two things to worry about:
Whether you go to heaven,
or whether you go to hell Now if you go to heaven,
You have nothing to worry about.
And if you go to hell, You’ll be too busy shaking hands with Your friends,
that you won't have time to worry.
So Why Worry?

I don't believe in heaven or hell so I ain't worried in either case.

 

[akatrex]

Yes I have. One day very shortly I'll be receiving the Nobel PEace PRize.

It don't take much.

 

[Bert Notorius]

time to build that huge set of geosynchronous mini blinds.

 

[the_kuntess]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/australia-weather-heats-colors-added-weather-map-195717230.html

Well they are picking Alice Springs will set a record tomorrow and get to 48C.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Yeah I know it's not original but pretty much sums up my opinion of global warming man made or not .

Why Worry? In life there are only two things to worry about:
Whether you are well,
or whether you are sick.

Now if you are well,
You have nothing to worry about.

And if you are sick,
You only have two things to worry about:
Whether you get better,
or whether you die.

If you get better,
You have nothing to worry about.

And if you die,
You only have two things to worry about:
Whether you go to heaven,
or whether you go to hell Now if you go to heaven,
You have nothing to worry about.
And if you go to hell, You’ll be too busy shaking hands with Your friends,
that you won't have time to worry.
So Why Worry?

I don't believe in heaven or hell so I ain't worried in either case.

That kind of thinking could never have stopped the rise of Hitler or Stalin -- what makes you think it could stop the rise of anything even more universally disastrous, e.g., temperature?

 

[blobfish]

I'm not going to deny the science, but there's a reason that the name has been changed from "global warming" to "climate change".

 

[Wrong Element]

So says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:



It's too darn hot . . .

You are wrong. Here's proof.

voilà!!!!

 

[phrodeau]

It don't take much.

You know how ridiculous that sounds, right? Or do you honestly feel that the cause of world peace would be helped by allowing Osama bin Laden to live?

 

[Wrong Element]

I'm not going to deny the science, but there's a reason that the name has been changed from "global warming" to "climate change".

You're correct, but not for the reason I suspect that you suspect:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange

 

[KingOrfeo]

I'm not going to deny the science, but there's a reason that the name has been changed from "global warming" to "climate change".

One reason is that climate change probably would -- will -- disrupt the flow of the Gulf Stream, which is the only thing that gives Western Europe a warmer climate than same-latitude Russia. To put that in perspective, Rome has roughly the same latitude as New York, which is much, much colder.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Organized science has become another special interest group lobbying for government favors. The temptation to present special-interest appeals as urgent public necessities has become not just irresistible, but commonplace. It is well-known that global warming skeptics are shut out of the pages of Alberts's magazine. Nothing is allowed that might derail any of the many federal gravy trains. The National Academies of Science, supposedly the government's science adviser, frequently issue lobbying appeals disguised as research plans, plans to improve national competitiveness, or plans to support economic growth. For example the Academies, in 2012, published a 241-page committee report: "A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling." The committee consisted of scientists who are a part of the climate modeling establishment. They envision a vast expansion of their own industry at taxpayer expense. This they justify on the grounds that it will help farmers and insurance companies. Obviously they are interested mainly in helping themselves to a serving of federal pork. The well-connected Alberts was president of the National Academies of Science for more than a decade. Another important science organization, the American Geophysical Union, sends delegations of scientists to Washington to speak with the congressmen about the need for more money for science -- that is to say more money for scientists.


The true believers in the threat of global warming use "education" and "communication" as euphemisms for suppressing and marginalizing dissenters. This crowd is strongly tempted by totalitarian solutions. The leading advocate of global warming fear, Dr. James Hansen, wants to put people who don't toe the line on trial for crimes against humanity. Peter Gleick, a scientist, a well-known advocate of global warming, and formerly the chairman of the American Geophysical Union task force on scientific ethics, impersonated someone else in order to steal documents from the Heartland Institute, a think-tank known for global warming skeptic leanings. When those documents were not incriminating, Gleick apparently forged an additional document designed to cast the Heartland Institute in a bad light. He then leaked these documents, to great fanfare among the left. He was, however, soon caught. The Obama administration declined to prosecute him for his obvious violations of federal law, and the American Geophysical Union quickly rehabilitated him. This happened so quickly that one has to wonder if Gleick knew too many secrets.


It is clearly open season on global warming skeptics, given that you can apparently get away with committing serious crimes against skeptic organizations if you are associated with the right people. Science magazine never mentioned the Gleick affair.


The science behind the global warming scare was never very strong, and there have always been plenty of skeptics, including skeptics with high qualifications in the relevant fields. The science is based on complex computer models of the climate that disagree wildly one with another. Many aspects of climate are unsolved puzzles. One such puzzle is the strong warming trend in the early 20th century, for which nobody has a good explanation.


The state of climate science is well-described by a quote attributed to Paul Ehrlich: "To err is human, but to really foul things up, you need a computer." In the last decade, the advocates of global warming have become increasingly desperate due to the failure of the Earth and oceans to warm. Rather than admitting that they have a problem, they simply change the nature of the predicted disaster. Now, instead of the original global warming, we have climate change, and that is being displaced by extreme weather and acidification of the oceans.


Like any aggressive political group, the advocates of global warming attempt to demonize their opponents. Skeptics are depicted as spreading misinformation and confusion, supposedly tactics pioneered by tobacco companies. They are depicted as being in the pay of fossil fuel companies, and if that doesn't work, they are depicted as being religious or ideological extremists. Rarely are they afforded the opportunity of having their scientific claims seriously considered. The advocates of global warming refuse to engage the skeptics in scientific debate lest it lend credibility to the skeptics.


Closet climate skeptics in the scientific community are everywhere. They are afraid, with good reason, to voice their doubts. They are afraid for their jobs and their grants. They are afraid of being attacked by green students or colleagues. Even public skeptics are restrained and speak quite differently in private from their public personas. One reason so many skeptics are retired, or from fields not under control of the climate science establishment, is because, as pensioners or outsiders, they have less to fear from the anger of that establishment.


Science is important. When establishment scientific organizations squander the credibility of science for short-term gain, that really is a crime against humanity.

Norman Rogers is a retired physicist.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013...ce_cast_self-interest_as_public_interest.html

 

[RobDownSouth]

Norman Rogers is a retired physicist.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013...ce_cast_self-interest_as_public_interest.html

Took you long enough to come up with an American Thinker rebuttal!

You're slipping.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You should check and see if Asia is having a warm winter...

2012 was a scorcher, but was it the warmest year ever?

A report released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) called it "the warmest year ever for the nation." Experts agree that 2012 was a hot year for the planet. But it’s that report -- and the agency itself -- that’s drawing the most heat today.

"2012 [wasn't] necessarily warmer than it was back in the 1930s ... NOAA has made so many adjustments to the data it's ridiculous," Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, told FoxNews.com.

A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperatures up last year, to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit according to the government. That's a full degree warmer than the old record set in 1998 -- and breaking such records by a full degree is unprecedented, scientists say.

But NOAA has adjusted the historical climate data many times, skeptics point out, most recently last October. The result, says popular climate blogger Steve Goddard: The U.S. now appears to have warmed slightly more than it did before the adjustment.

"The adjusted data is meaningless garbage. It bears no resemblance to the thermometer data it starts out as," Goddard told FoxNews.com. He's not the only one to question NOAA's efforts.

"Every time NOAA makes adjustments, they make recent years [relatively] warmer. I am very suspicious, especially for how warm they have made 2012," Spencer said.
The newly adjusted data set is known as "version 2.5," while the less adjusted data is called "version 2.0."

NOAA defended its adjustments to FoxNews.com.

Government climate scientist Peter Thorne, speaking in his personal capacity, said that there was consensus for the adjustments.

"These have been shown through at least three papers that have appeared in the past 12 months to be an improvement,” he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013...-skeptics-question-revisions-to-climate-data/ ?test=latestnews#ixzz2HfKcbnQf

True Believers "believe." That is their purpose, their duty, their devotion to their cause and if the government is paying them good money and creating a secure future for them, they are going to keep making adjustments and models to prove to their employers that what the consensus believes is in fact reality...



<insert P.T. Barnum quote here>

 

[KingOrfeo]

Took you long enough to come up with an American Thinker rebuttal!

You're slipping.

And when will they learn that physicists are not climatologists?

 

[RobDownSouth]

You should check and see if Asia is having a warm winter...

"2012 [wasn't] necessarily warmer DERP DERP DERP ... NOAA has DERP DERP DERP," Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, told FoxNews.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013...-skeptics-question-revisions-to-climate-data/ ?test=latestnews#ixzz2HfKcbnQf

True Believers "believe." That is their purpose, their duty, their devotion to their cause and if the government is paying them good money and creating a secure future for them, they are going to keep making adjustments and models to prove to their employers that what the consensus believes is in fact reality...

Oh, AJ, I love your little "experts"!

Roy Spencer (wiki article) is noted for his "fundamentally flawed" research. It seems Dr. Spencer has adopted the "AJ Method" of scientific research: he routinely ignores any and all research that runs contrary to his preconceived notions of The Way Things Ought To Be.

He's also an expert on Intelligent Design.

Great counter-argument there, AJ!!

 

[shoulderblade]

True Believers "believe." That is their purpose, their duty, their devotion to their cause and if the government is paying them good money and creating a secure future for them, they are going to keep making adjustments and models to prove to their employers that what the consensus believes is in fact reality...

Thing is here is that the best "proof" you can get here is "the consensus of the scientific community" not real scientific proof. When you are loking at climate charts going back tens of thousands of years a single year or even a single century is of no real consequence. A blip on the screen.

"Science" is certainly political and climate change may well be a scam serving special intrests. (Does the ethanol thing make any ssense?) I think you can only believe that but not prove it.