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Record Year-to-Date Temperatures in the US


PhillipS

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From the September 2012 National Overview:

The first nine months of 2012 were the warmest on record for the contiguous United States as a whole, and for many locations across the United States.

This NOAA site has a lot of interesting data. I particularly enjoy the Haywood plots, but there is something for everyone. I could not find a single city listed that has had their coldest year ever recorded (though AK, WA and OR have had chilly years), but I did see 109 or so cities that have January through September as their hottest YTD on record.

Does anyone else find that dichotomy interesting?

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From the September 2012 National Overview:

The first nine months of 2012 were the warmest on record for the contiguous United States as a whole, and for many locations across the United States.

This NOAA site has a lot of interesting data. I particularly enjoy the Haywood plots, but there is something for everyone. I could not find a single city listed that has had their coldest year ever recorded (though AK, WA and OR have had chilly years), but I did see 109 or so cities that have January through September as their hottest YTD on record.

Does anyone else find that dichotomy interesting?

It's not hard to do when temperature's have been adjusted the way they have. Also you fail to mention that there has been little change in Tmax temps and large changes in Tmin temps over the past 100 years. Credit to Dr. John Christy for the graph.

fig2.3.gif

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It's not hard to do when temperature's have been adjusted the way they have. Also you fail to mention that there has been little change in Tmax temps and large changes in Tmin temps over the past 100 years. Credit to Dr. John Christy for the graph.

I was waiting to see whether the pseudo-skeptical clowns would bring up temperature record conspiracy theories or UHI nonsense first. Thank you for settling that question.

What you seem to have overlooked, or ignored, is that the 100+ year-to-date temperature records are from cities spread all over the map, each with their own meteorological staff (some of whom are active in this forum) - so your hypothetical conspiracy would have to involve thousands of people all working together over a period of decades, and tens of thousands of emails, letters, and phone calls to coordinate. But not a single shred of evidence - not one email, not one disgruntled conspirator - exists to support your claim.

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I was waiting to see whether the pseudo-skeptical clowns would bring up temperature record conspiracy theories or UHI nonsense first. Thank you for settling that question.

What you seem to have overlooked, or ignored, is that the 100+ year-to-date temperature records are from cities spread all over the map, each with their own meteorological staff (some of whom are active in this forum) - so your hypothetical conspiracy would have to involve thousands of people all working together over a period of decades, and tens of thousands of emails, letters, and phone calls to coordinate. But not a single shred of evidence - not one email, not one disgruntled conspirator - exists to support your claim.

Not a single shred of evidence? You deny that temperatures have been adjusted upwards?

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Perhaps not - but it certainly backs up Hansen's predictions.

Terry

By just looking at the US? The US temps are a combo of an AK vortex aided by IO convection and strong solar bombardment. This in turn blowtorched the US with lack of snow and spring time moisture really setting off the torch. I don't think this has a single fingerprint of what Hansen states.

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By just looking at the US? The US temps are a combo of an AK vortex aided by IO convection and strong solar bombardment. This in turn blowtorched the US with lack of snow and spring time moisture really setting off the torch. I don't think this has a single fingerprint of what Hansen states.

Exactly this really doesn't pertain much to climate change and should have been posted on the weather side.

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Exactly this really doesn't pertain much to climate change and should have been posted on the weather side.

Well, it's certainly consistent with a warming climate, and the United States has been getting warmer. Per Spencer & Christy, the U.S. has warmed an average of 0.25C (0.45F) per decade since 1979, and 2012 has averaged 1.1C (2.0F) above the 1981-2010 normal.

Source: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt (This data includes the recent update made by Spencer & Christy.)

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Exactly this really doesn't pertain much to climate change and should have been posted on the weather side.

I don't see how it doesn't? The warmest period in multi-month US history is almost certainly tied to climate change. Unless you think it was just random to be a couple standard deviations above the normal.

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Well, it's certainly consistent with a warming climate, and the United States has been getting warmer. Per Spencer & Christy, the U.S. has warmed an average of 0.25C (0.45F) per decade since 1979, and 2012 has averaged 1.1C (2.0F) above the 1981-2010 normal.

Source: http://vortex.nsstc....t2lt/uahncdc.lt (This data includes the recent update made by Spencer & Christy.)

Well the 80s and 90s rapidly warmed, but basically flat lined in the 00s. While there probably is an underlining AGW signal as we have been saying, the cause to the US warmth really was tied into the previous post I made. If you can't get good moisture into the Rockies and Plains...that sets the seed for ridging to take shape there and at times spread east.

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I don't see how it doesn't? The warmest period in multi-month US history is almost certainly tied to climate change. Unless you think it was just random to be a couple standard deviations above the normal.

I understand that there is an underline warming trend but then some think that what we are seeing now is going to be the new norm when it really pertains to the pattern we are in. We have seen the mega + departures on the decline now since august compared to the previous months.

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Not a single shred of evidence? You deny that temperatures have been adjusted upwards?

No, I do not deny that the temperatures have been adjusted - but I do deny any allegations or innuendo by the denialist community that the adjustments have been done for improper reasons, or that adjustments are politically motvated, or that the adjustments have skewed or corrupted the US temperature record.

The adjustments have all been documented, the raw station data are still available, and the metadata and methodology for why the adjustments have been made are also documented. The BEST project analysis compared raw versus adjusted, rural versus urban, and found that the temperature trends are robust. The temperature record is an accurate metric of warming.

So any claim that the staff and/or management of NOAA and the NWS are up to no good is just another lunatic fringe conspiracy theory.

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No, I do not deny that the temperatures have been adjusted - but I do deny any allegations or innuendo by the denialist community that the adjustments have been done for improper reasons, or that adjustments are politically motvated, or that the adjustments have skewed or corrupted the US temperature record.

The adjustments have all been documented, the raw station data are still available, and the metadata and methodology for why the adjustments have been made are also documented. The BEST project analysis compared raw versus adjusted, rural versus urban, and found that the temperature trends are robust. The temperature record is an accurate metric of warming.

So any claim that the staff and/or management of NOAA and the NWS are up to no good is just another lunatic fringe conspiracy theory.

You are still the only person I've seen on this board recently use the term conspiracy. Keep building that strawman. The temperature record is far from accurate and the AGW signal could be in part largely due to the adjustments in the temperature record.

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Well the 80s and 90s rapidly warmed, but basically flat lined in the 00s. While there probably is an underlining AGW signal as we have been saying, the cause to the US warmth really was tied into the previous post I made. If you can't get good moisture into the Rockies and Plains...that sets the seed for ridging to take shape there and at times spread east.

The phrase I bolded is the error/lie/disinformation that has been refuted countless times on this and other forums. Several La Nina years and a solar minimum certainly reduced the pace of warming in recent years - but we are still observing warming.

And the reality check for your claim is easy to do. If temperatures had truly 'flatlined' for the past decade or so there would be a balance between the number of cities experiencing a record cold YTD and cities experiencing a record warm YTD. Simple natural variability would dictate that. Now, the number of record lows might not equal the number of record highs because, as you pointed out, there was warming in the last decades of the 20th century - but given a complete shutout (no record low YTDs and over 100 record high YTDs) that is a clear indication that our climate is warming.

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No, I do not deny that the temperatures have been adjusted - but I do deny any allegations or innuendo by the denialist community that the adjustments have been done for improper reasons, or that adjustments are politically motvated, or that the adjustments have skewed or corrupted the US temperature record.

The adjustments have all been documented, the raw station data are still available, and the metadata and methodology for why the adjustments have been made are also documented. The BEST project analysis compared raw versus adjusted, rural versus urban, and found that the temperature trends are robust. The temperature record is an accurate metric of warming.

So any claim that the staff and/or management of NOAA and the NWS are up to no good is just another lunatic fringe conspiracy theory.

This. One thousand times. Anyone who chooses to take the "much of the recent warming is due to bad data" route is a hack, plain and simple.

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Well the 80s and 90s rapidly warmed, but basically flat lined in the 00s. While there probably is an underlining AGW signal as we have been saying, the cause to the US warmth really was tied into the previous post I made. If you can't get good moisture into the Rockies and Plains...that sets the seed for ridging to take shape there and at times spread east.

We know why global temperatures flatlined in the last 10 years. There is no secret that the ENSO and SOLAR trends have been strongly negative on both accounts. This will "counterbalance" over the next 15-20 years (when the PDO flips). This is why climate scientists prefer to use 30 years as their baselines.

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Even with the sky high warmth anomaly of March, this year still will finish below 1998.

The gap between 2012 and 1998 has closed and here is how Oct-Dec 1998 finished up.

cd24.236.176.141.283.9.25.18.prcp.png

Are you claiming that 1998 and 2012 January through September had similar El Nino conditions?

Here is the current NOAA ESRL ENSO chart (looks to me that 1998 was about three times more severe and lasted about three times longer):

ts.gif

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This. One thousand times. Anyone who chooses to take the "much of the recent warming is due to bad data" route is a hack, plain and simple.

Yeah, it should just be ignored and we should all take comfort in our heads being firmly planted in the sand.

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Perhaps not - but it certainly backs up Hansen's predictions.

Terry

Fact check: exactly what Hansen prediction are you referring to? Are you aware of what kind of temperatures he was predicting for the U.S. back in the 1980s?

And one year (to date) wouldn't prove anything anyway, not when the running 5 year average is still well below those predictions.

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You are still the only person I've seen on this board recently use the term conspiracy. Keep building that strawman. The temperature record is far from accurate and the AGW signal could be in part largely due to the adjustments in the temperature record.

There is no strawman. A conspiracy is two or more people working together for some nefarious purpose. Unless you are claiming that ALL of the adjustments are being made by just one person then, yes, you are claiming that there is a conspiracy. Granted, you've tried to weasel word your posts and use innuendo rather than being up-front - but any suggestion that the temperature adjustments are being made for less than professional reasons is a claim that a conspiracy exists.

Now, you could have claimed that the adjustments are appropriate but are being done incorrectly - and that sort of claim wouldn't involve conspiracy - but then you'd have to show solid evidence to support that claim. And, no, charts by Goddard, Spencer, Christy, Humlum or others of that ilk don't qualify as solid evidence. Peer-reviewed - yes, blog posts - no.

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Pretty impressive warmth when you take into account the summer downward revisions according to Capital Climate.

Rather than being 10th warmest, as the preliminary data indicated, August came in at 16th warmest with an average of 74.4°, nearly half a degree below the raw estimate of 74.8°. This is a pattern that CapitalClimate has seen since we started tracking weekly averages at the beginning of summer: The weekly raw averages from 200+ NWS stations are adjusted downward by NCDC, and the monthly averages end up being even more conservative.

http://capitalclimat...cists-noaa.html

For good reason, assuming most of that adjustment is because of UHI. Many cities run several degrees warmer than nearby rural locations at night, so .4F downward is probaby a conservative adjustment.

Sep/Oct have been running much cooler than the summer so far, so there is no guarantee that once everything is accounted for, 2012 will be the warmest year for the U.S.

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The phrase I bolded is the error/lie/disinformation that has been refuted countless times on this and other forums. Several La Nina years and a solar minimum certainly reduced the pace of warming in recent years - but we are still observing warming.

And the reality check for your claim is easy to do. If temperatures had truly 'flatlined' for the past decade or so there would be a balance between the number of cities experiencing a record cold YTD and cities experiencing a record warm YTD. Simple natural variability would dictate that. Now, the number of record lows might not equal the number of record highs because, as you pointed out, there was warming in the last decades of the 20th century - but given a complete shutout (no record low YTDs and over 100 record high YTDs) that is a clear indication that our climate is warming.

I don't think you understand what flatlined means. It doesn't mean temperatures have returned (dropped) back down to the exact average for the period of record. It just means they are not really warming or cooling currently. But still remaining warmer than the longterm average, which would mean more record warm temps most years - and by the way, records are not adjusted for UHI, which means it is easier for some stations to achieve record warm lows just based on that factor alone.

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The phrase I bolded is the error/lie/disinformation that has been refuted countless times on this and other forums. Several La Nina years and a solar minimum certainly reduced the pace of warming in recent years - but we are still observing warming.

And the reality check for your claim is easy to do. If temperatures had truly 'flatlined' for the past decade or so there would be a balance between the number of cities experiencing a record cold YTD and cities experiencing a record warm YTD. Simple natural variability would dictate that. Now, the number of record lows might not equal the number of record highs because, as you pointed out, there was warming in the last decades of the 20th century - but given a complete shutout (no record low YTDs and over 100 record high YTDs) that is a clear indication that our climate is warming.

Nice of you to attack, but that is to point out things like natural variation. It's all part of the reason why temps soared in the 80s and 90s. You can go back to previous decades to see for yourself. If anything, 2012 proves things like natural variation can have a substantial short term effect. Nobody is denying an underlying AGW trend, but you and others continue to get defensive.

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Fact check: exactly what Hansen prediction are you referring to? Are you aware of what kind of temperatures he was predicting for the U.S. back in the 1980s?

And one year (to date) wouldn't prove anything anyway, not when the running 5 year average is still well below those predictions.

One year does nothing statistically and if anything..goes to show you how natural features can greatly have an effect on a regional area for 6-12 months. Our weather over the past 12 months have certainly not been the same globally.

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The phrase I bolded is the error/lie/disinformation that has been refuted countless times on this and other forums. Several La Nina years and a solar minimum certainly reduced the pace of warming in recent years - but we are still observing warming.

And the reality check for your claim is easy to do. If temperatures had truly 'flatlined' for the past decade or so there would be a balance between the number of cities experiencing a record cold YTD and cities experiencing a record warm YTD. Simple natural variability would dictate that. Now, the number of record lows might not equal the number of record highs because, as you pointed out, there was warming in the last decades of the 20th century - but given a complete shutout (no record low YTDs and over 100 record high YTDs) that is a clear indication that our climate is warming.

That is totally incorrect. If we warm up to levels that are consistently challenging record years....but then we flat line...we would still be challenging record warm years on a consistent basis. Flat lining does not mean cooling....and certainly not cooling back to levels where coldest years on record get consistently challenged in equal numbers as warm records.

But he is correct in that the temperatures since the late 1990s have flat lined in the U.S. There's actually been a slight (but statistically insignificant) cooling trend since then for the U.S. Its not hard to calculate the numbers. La Nina/PDO and solar are likely reasons for the flat line, but we don't ignore them because they are masking anthropogenic forcing.

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