But this is badly biased because most of the measurement stations are in areas that have been cooler. The stations are not evenly spread out over the country, tending to be in areas with greater populations, which have been cooler. In some areas of the west that have been hot this year there are relatively few stations. I am not arguing for GW — just pointing out the bias.
Not sure about bias here.
From my vantage point it seems right on the money.
I live in Wichita Falls, TX, and the summer of 2011 we had over a 100 days in a row with highs above 100 degrees.
This July we have seen several days with highs in the 70s, and we have had very few days over a 100.
I know that’s just one city, but we were declared by the Weather Channel to have had the most brutal summer in the country in 2011.
The article says the cool records outpace the heat records 2-1, so there are obviously some places with record heat.
I’m definitely not trying to argue with a fellow FReeper about the weather.
I’m just saying that from where I sit I can see a tangible relief from years past.
As an aside (and I think funny), we have been in stage 5 drought for a good while. That’s not funny, but the government has been “cloud seeding” and we didn’t get a drop of rain from it.
They have been spending $40,000 a month trying to make it rain.
They took off July and August because those months we just never get rain for the most part.
Well, in July we have had three significant rain events totaling around 8 inches of rain. That is huge for us any month, let alone July.
Maybe if the local officials will take a permanent break from playing god we will actually get out of the drought.
FReegards
“But this is badly biased because most of the measurement stations are in areas that have been cooler. The stations are not evenly spread out over the country, tending to be in areas with greater populations, which have been cooler. In some areas of the west that have been hot this year there are relatively few stations. I am not arguing for GW — just pointing out the bias.”
The same argument was made years ago by some people who disputed evidence that temperatures appeared to be rising at the time. Metro areas were said to be warmer, the stations were disproportionately located in areas that had experienced the largest increases in temperature, etc. The bias argument doesn’t hold if the station locations are fixed or at least are not systematically relocated to areas experiencing disproportionately large changes in temperature.