Posted on 01/09/2007 11:32:42 AM PST by cogitator
Jan. 9, 2007 — The 2006 average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S. was the warmest on record and nearly identical to the record set in 1998, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Seven months in 2006 were much warmer than average, including December, which ended as the fourth warmest December since records began in 1895. (Click NOAA image for larger view of U.S. state temperature rankings for 2006. Please credit “NOAA.”)
Based on preliminary data, the 2006 annual average temperature was 55 degrees F—2.2 degrees F (1.2 degrees C) above the 20th Century mean and 0.07 degrees F (0.04 degrees C) warmer than 1998. NOAA originally estimated in mid-December that the 2006 annual average temperature for the contiguous United States would likely be 2 degrees F (1.1 degrees C) above the 20th Century mean, which would have made 2006 the third warmest year on record, slightly cooler than 1998 and 1934, according to preliminary data. Further analysis of annual temperatures and an unusually warm December caused the change in records.
These values were calculated using a network of more than 1,200 U.S. Historical Climatology Network stations. These data, primarily from rural stations, have been adjusted to remove artificial effects resulting from factors such as urbanization and station and instrument changes, which occurred during the period of record.
An improved data set being developed at NCDC and scheduled for release in 2007 incorporates recent scientific advances that better address uncertainties in the instrumental record. Small changes in annual average temperatures will affect individual rankings. Although undergoing final testing and development, this new data set also shows 2006 and 1998 to be the two warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S., but with 2006 slightly cooler than 1998.
The unusually warm temperatures during much of the first half of the cold season (October-December) helped reduce residential energy needs for the nation as a whole. Using the Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index (REDTI—an index developed at NOAA to relate energy usage to climate), NOAA scientists determined that the nation's residential energy demand was approximately 13.5 percent lower than what would have occurred under average climate conditions for the season.
After a cold start to December, the persistence of spring-like temperatures in the eastern two-thirds of the country during the final two to three weeks of 2006 made this the fourth warmest December on record in the U.S., and helped bring the annual average to record high levels. For example, the monthly average temperature in Boston was 8 degrees F above average, and in Minneapolis-St Paul, the temperature was 17 degrees F above average for the last three weeks of December. Even in Denver, which had its third snowiest December on record and endured a major blizzard that brought the city to a standstill during the holiday travel season, the temperature for the month was 1.4 degrees F warmer than the 1971-2000 average.
Five states had their warmest December on record (Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire) and no state was colder than average in December.
The unusually warm start to this winter reflected the rarity of Arctic outbreaks across the country as an El Niño episode continued in the equatorial Pacific. A contributing factor to the unusually warm temperatures throughout 2006 also is the long-term warming trend, which has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases. This has made warmer-than-average conditions more common in the U.S. and other parts of the world. It is unclear how much of the recent anomalous warmth was due to greenhouse-gas-induced warming and how much was due to the El Niño-related circulation pattern. It is known that El Niño is playing a major role in this winter's short-term warm period.
U.S. and global annual temperatures are now approximately 1.0 degrees F warmer than at the start of the 20th century, and the rate of warming has accelerated over the past 30 years, increasing globally since the mid-1970s at a rate approximately three times faster than the century-scale trend. The past nine years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S., a streak which is unprecedented in the historical record.
Which raises the question, if they have this much trouble trying to figure out the average tempreture for the US with all the data and technology they have today, how did they do it for earlier years with much less data was available? But yet they will claim some number to the hundreth degree, when they are probably lucky if they are within 1 degree.
If its global warming shouldn't every state be warmer? And every country be warmer than normal?
you won't hear Al Gore mention that will you?
Yeah? Well I live in Colorado and it's not exactly a tropical paradise out here.
I guess that's why everybody says, "The 70's were pretty cool, man."
If you want to know, start here: Quality Control of Monthly Temperature Data: The GHCN Experience
Being from the NE, I LOVE global warming !
"These values were calculated using a network of more than 1,200 U.S. Historical Climatology Network stations. These data, primarily from rural stations, have been adjusted to remove artificial effects resulting from factors such as urbanization and station and instrument changes, which occurred during the period of record."
I wonder if the raw station data are available?
Perhaps "Mother Earth" is fixing herself.
She knows warmer temperatures reduces fossil fuel usage, so she's raising the temperatures to save her ozone layer.
Envirowackos should think about it.
I saw a report last week that New Zealand is having a record cold summer.
In Cleveland, OH 2006 was a warm year. January started the year warm and December ended it warm with mostly normal months in between. Summer didn't seem all that hot this year, though.
I think that the raw data are available, but finding it quickly is beyond my powers.
The only thing that matters is that the sheeple buy into "global warming" so the libs can score political points and the universities can score federal cash.
Althought the choice of words is usual sloppy in this sort of article, I notice undue care here to mislead by ambiguity.
"Historical record"?
Truly reliable records (accurate and continuous for all data sites) only go back about a hundred years, for every site.
Trying to draw conclusions from such imperfect data is like trying to characterize a teenager's behaviour from the last ten minutes of his life --- while he's asleep.
Or precisely defining my route from San Francisco to New York, knowing only the last 200 feet before reaching my destination.
I would love to see (not holding my breath) the presumed record of the last 5000 years of population numbers and global climate by whatever means they choose to present them both on one graph. Real or imagined, but supported by some sort of attempted scientific method.
The point being underlined being that this brouhaha is not about global warming, but about civilization's role in it. And the parasites' attempt to push us back to the stone age; with them as our leaders, of course.
Because there were only 5 thermometers to start with. ;)
Of course, "On Record" is synonymous with "in the last 120 years or so." Interesting from the perspective of the country's history, but pretty meaningless from the perspective of earth's history.
As they keep seeking to improve the data set and refine the way they come up with global averages, who's to say they aren't introducing bias? How do we know they not judging the merits of various reckoning methods by the degree to which they "prove" the known "fact" of Global Warming?
How does one produce an average, or two to allow comparison, from a three dimensional data set, temperature, time and location? Two are continuous, time and temperature, while the third, location is discrete. Temperature is not a simple measure of anything, but measures the effect of energy on the specific heat of stuff. Oh well. It is for the children to worry about, glow-bull warning.
Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns and the truth. NRA KMA
How does an eight year cycle support the idea that CO2 buildup from human activity causes global warming? I say that it does not.
and even if it is the somewhat controversial "Hockey Stick":
Great site with LOTS of information, more than the layman or even the non-specialist engineer or scientist can understand.
But this little bit aroused my curiosity"
This embodies the systematic observations of our environment by tens of thousands of individuals over centuries of human history. We feel honored to be a part of this process and gratefully acknowledge the debt we owe to the largely selfless work of individual observers.
Having worked with moderately lengthy data sets, unless multiple complete checks have been performed, the human interface will always introduce errors. The number are in direct proportion to the number of data sets. When multiple humans interact with the same data sets, the errors compound.
Not much sense drawing conclusions to 8 decimal places --- or extrapolating conclusions 50 years...
Start by examining the linked Web page in post 7.
We had fewer 90 degree days than normal but overall temps actually were about 2 degrees above average.
Supposed to cool off next week though.
I just looked at our outside thermometer and it is 48 BELOW zero. Please send global warming.
Thank you for sharing.
To the uninitiated, it would seem a slam dunk to conclude that since CO2 and temperatures track for the last 300 years, and population induces CO2 by various means, people are the ultimate cause.
Thinking outside the box, however, it is possible to reverse cause and effect: might not increased temperatures due to entirely non-human-caused phenomena be responsible for the explosion of longer-lived humans? Not the other way around?
Then there's the confounding contribution from science, that damnable human tendency to use man's intellect to cure diseases, prolong life and general mess with that fictional "person", mother nature.
And then there's the other contributor: natural thermal disasters...
*sigh*
So what caused all those other, warmer Decembers? Squirrels driving tiny little squirrel SUVs?
Gee, was it warmer than 1,000 A.D.? No, but we only look back a century or so for the "record".
It was even warmer in 5,000 B.C., and much, much warmer in 60,000,000 B.C.
Close to 80% of what is in the database now and increasing daily is coming from the AWOS systems under the ASOS umbrella which leaves human observers just about out of the picture; this makes it easy to pick and choose.
Torticelli actually made a mated pair (Mercury and his partner Alcohol) and evolution took over from there.
See post#32
GOOOOOOOOD MorNINNNG, Fairbanks!
LOL! Actually I'm about 200 miles east of Fairbanks, but I'm sure Fairbanks is probably in the "brutal cold" category today too.
On the above graph, I noted that the most relevant datum on the chart -- the so-called "long-term mean" -- started in 1895 at a skosh under 53 degrees. And ran dead straight to a 2006 reading of...a skosh under 53 degrees.
Thus, I am compelled to ask, "What global warming?"
I don't think the long-term mean is for the entire record.
It has warmed considerably today. -36 now. This time last year it was -38, so NOAA is right on the mark!
Toss Mann's hockey-stick stuff in the trash. (The graph above looks like the one he inserted in the TAR).
Note, no LIA; no MWP. There's a lot of evidence for both. The proxies were selected based upon their agreement with a pattern, and even then, according to the NAS evaluation by an ACTUAL statistician, you still don't get that shape unless you overweight foxtails and bristlecone pines (which aren't a demonstrated proxy for temperature, much less a precise one) by 390 times.
Here's another record that goes back a bit further:
"Controversial?" It's downright fraudulent. Here's a similar graph from a non-fraudulent source:
Doesn't quite look like a "hockey stick" anymore, does it?
What's more, your temperature/CO2 correlation has some holes. The following uses the Vostok data (temperature/CO2 data pairs, going back 400,000+ years) to show that there is a correlation, but the best data fit matches a time lag of 1073 years from the temperature data point to the CO2 data point.
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html#III_F
Actually, it's worth reading the entire article linked to above. It shows that there probably is a causal relationship between global temperature and atmospheric CO2 level, but that the temperature change is the cause and the CO2 level change is the effect. After all, the effect can't come before the cause.
What's more, the best curve fit for the data, matches the CO2/water solubility curve, which suggests a mechanism for the relationship (ocean absorption of CO2 at high latitudes, and release of CO2 at low latitudes).
With the 1073 year, average time lag, it is likely that today's rise in CO2 levels was actually caused by the global temperature rise during the Medieval Warm Period, rather than today's warming.
As far a population changes go, today's increase is mostly due to changes in technology, but there was an increase during the Medieval Warm Period (when there was more food and less disease), and a drop during the Little Ice Age (when famines and epidemics became more common).
as I recall, that is not really a graph, but a "cartoon" to illustrate a point - thus it is very low precision.
LOL!
It shows that there probably is a causal relationship between global temperature and atmospheric CO2 level, but that the temperature change is the cause and the CO2 level change is the effect. After all, the effect can't come before the cause.
I'm aware of this. While major glacial and interglacial shifts apparently were initiated by Milankovitch cycle solar forcing, once the changes are underway, atmospheric CO2 variation acts as a positive feedback "amplifier". I.e., if its warming up, increasing CO2 in the atmosphere accelerates and increases the warming. And vice versa when the climate cools off.
What's more, the best curve fit for the data, matches the CO2/water solubility curve, which suggests a mechanism for the relationship (ocean absorption of CO2 at high latitudes, and release of CO2 at low latitudes).
Warming oceans release CO2, cooling oceans absorb CO2. So this is generally correct.
With the 1073 year, average time lag, it is likely that today's rise in CO2 levels was actually caused by the global temperature rise during the Medieval Warm Period, rather than today's warming.
This is incorrect. The minor MWP temperature increase was insufficient to cause the size of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere, which coincides with the Industrial Age and which can be shown by multiple lines of evidence to be due to human activities.
Here's a little food for thought. We don't have precise data, or long term data (it goes back less than 40 years) for Mars, but the Mars has also warmed significantly, since we have been able to get good pictures of it.
An intelligent (and honest) person would acknowledge the liklihood of a common cause.
There is much more in your statements than I have time to respond to, at this time, but here's a little food for thought.
For more than 1/2 billion years, the average temperature of the Earth has fluctuated between 50 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit (with, likely, brief excursions to higher and lower temperatures). At the same time, atmospheric CO2 content has fluctuated between somewhat less than (perhaps as low as half) and as much as 10-20 times current levels.
If the feedback system were as simple as you want to believe, why have we never had either a runaway greenhouse effect (ala Venus) or a runaway icebox effect (ala Mars)?
For extra credit, answer this one.
There have been suggestions that the Ross Ice Shelf could break away and quickly melt. Some scientists have projected that this would result in sea levels rising by several feet. Accepting the first sentence as a postulate, what do you think about the second one?
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