NOAA: April warm, dry over much of nation; second-warmest April since 1880 globally

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ^ | May 16, 2002

[ricer1]

They won't run the numbers for the month of May, for the simple reason that's it's been freezing in the northeast the last several days, and everyone knows it.

In Texas, we've had some chilly days in May. April was unusally warm... I would have expected May's weather in April and April's weather in May... This is definitely a goofy spring.

[raygun]

Uh, noooooooo.... For the month of May, Cleveland, OH averages 0.1" and max snowfall is 2.1", according to Cleveland Intl Airport a trace of snow has been recorded for the month (that is below normal snowfall for May in Cleveland). Contrast that with Detroit were average snowfall is a trace (we've gotten that), and max snofall is 6". By the way normal heating degree days for Cleveland is 250 (cooling degree days: 33). Thus far Cleveland has had 242 heating degree days, for the season 5179 (or 925 below normal), and no cooling degree days have been logged (16 below normal), but for the season 37 cooling degree days have been logged (14 more than normal).

[FreeTheHostages]

This is definitely a goofy spring

Could be El Nino.

[cogitator]

The seasonal total of heating degree days thus far is 5496 (979 heating degree days below normal).

You mean for the winter season, I presume. Can you get the number for Frederick, MD this winter?

[raygun]

O.k. this wasn't very easy, and it seems that meteorological data is something kept quite close to the vest and considered national security available on code-word need to know basis only (sheesh) in your neck of the woods.

Anyway, for Hagerstown (best I could do, buddy), MD the average temp for May was: 58.5 Deg. F. (3.9 Deg. F. below normal). There have been 137 heating degree days, 2 more than normal. Seasonal total is 4258 heating degree days (1068 above normal). Cooling degree days for May is 12 (or 46 below normal), seasonal cooling degree days totals 65 or 7 above normal).

Seasonal totals are year to date.

[88keys]

The "record" I referred to was the late date of recorded snowfall....sorry if I wasn't clear about that! It was the late date, not the amount, that was the record, and I guess it just makes up for the week or so of really nice weather we had in April! (no record-breakers, though, hehe!)

Caveat: I got that "stat" from the Plain Dealer...still, it has been pretty darned COLD around here, and wet, and we are all complaining about it...maybe it's just a slow news day...

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Out of curiousity, how much snow did you get this year? And how many days were the natural ice rinks skate-able?

I grew up in central Wisconsin, and according to my friends, this was an abysmal winter for winter sports. I know that here in Maryland we had hardly any snow at all.

They are correct. We didn't get much snow. We had one snowstorm around Christmas and that was it. The temperature fluctuated a lot too. We'd get a few days of freezing weather, then up to 35 degrees for a few days, then freezing again. But it made the skiing much nicer.

[Crusher138]

By "they" I meant the press, not the scientists themselves.

Global Warming is news. Lack of global warming is not.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Global warming is, as a matter of scientific fact, occurring.

Depends on what you mean. Its warmer than it was 600 years ago, but still several degrees cooler than it was 1000 years ago. The current trend is for a slightly warmer northern hemisphere, but a slightly colder southern hemisphere. But the trends are highly dependent on which data you choose. The NOAA has been funded to find data to support the global warmers and did exactly that. If you choose the data from weather stations in the US that are not near large urban centers, we are in a cooling trend.

Carbon dioxide is not an important factor in driving global temperature because any affects it might have are swamped by water vapor. Its been recognized as a secondary secondary greenhouse gas for over 40 years. That means when the temperature goes up, there's more carbon dioxide. When the temperature goes down, there's less carbon dioxide. But most gases behave this way.

One simple weather model that helps explain why the earth's temperature has been so stable over the last couple billion years is the water cycle. If the earth heats up, more water vapor is stored in the atmosphere. At some point the cloud cover becomes sufficient to reflect enough sunlight into space to cool the planet. The earth cools. Water vapor rains (or snows) out of the atmosphere. The earth heats up again, etc., etc.

And one last tidbit - industrial nations on this planet are carbon dioxide absorbers, not emitters. The US removes one third of the carbon dioxide from the air that passes over it from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The study that established this was published in the November Science in 1998. Don't hold your breath waiting to see this info on the evening TV news.

[FreeTheHostages]

Carbon dioxide is not an important factor in driving global temperature because any affects it might have are swamped by water vapor.

?? A lot of what you're saying is just not true. This one is particularly fascinatingly not true. Satellite photos show ozone depletion at just the levels where carbon dioxide *will* rise -- of course fighting various natural elements as it does. When, most unfortunately, many rocket scientists were laid off and re-engineered, some of them starting doing weather science with NOAA. I know such a guy. He's a rock-solid conservative and an excellent scientist. He believes carbon dioxide is causing global warming. I have a science degree from a very good university and can't be easily tricked/condescended to by psuedo-science statements such as the above that make no sense.

The really interesting question is why why conservatives want to fight science on this: there's plenty of political room here about *how much* warming there is and *whether* we really need to do anything about it. It's just a fact that many affects of global warming are good, such as increased agriculturally beneficial planting times along our Northern border. But this effort to confuse politics with science -- nah, it makes us too much the enemy of Galileo. Let's not persecute the science on this one.

[FreeTheHostages]

I can't resist, one more thing:
The NOAA has been funded to find data to support the global warmers and did exactly that. If you choose the data from weather stations in the US that are not near large urban centers, we are in a cooling trend.

Well, for the government conspiracy crowd (and there's too much of that here) will eat this one up, but once again I'm not an idiot and don't bother making such broad declarations. I can't resist adding that this statement is very interesting in light of the very carefully controlled scientific peer-reviewed science that NOAA has done. One of the things -- Mission to Planet Earth -- involved sending weather balloons to *a representative* strata of the atmosphere to see precisely at what altitudes what's happening. They get the creation of ozone and breakdown at the altitude consistent with whether rising carbon dioxide would meet it. Not, e.g., from volcanic ash.

I once had the misfortune of attending a Smithsonian Institution lecture by some of these NOAA weather scientists -- who I assure you, despite whatever you apparently think about the gov't being out to get you -- are generally not a Democratic group of guys, where there was an annoying type of conservative in the audience. The type, unlike me, that wants to turn their political viewpoint like a laser on not Democrats, but scientists!! And this guy was asking repeatedly about Mount St. Helen ash etc etc. And I'll never forget, the third time he asked, the most eloquent, eloquent response from the scientist. It was kind of like this:

The science tells us this is not true. And history tells us this: in the long run, science wins these debates.

Only he said it better. I can't remember exactly. But it's precisely my point: don't politicize the science here. Politicize our response to by all means. But this psuedo-science gunk you recite, really, you're not going to fool anyone who's informed. And you do a disservice to conservatism. The real place to form a conservative consensus on this issue is whether any of the science data means we all have to rush out tomorrow and go solar etc. There's plenty of political and economic arguments on why we shouldn't. But you just look silly, and make other conservatives look silly, fighting science on this one. Science wins these.

I brace myself for the predictable oh-you-poor-person-you've-been-fooled-by-the-liberal-government-weather-scientists response. That's the problem with debating with a conspiracy theorist. You have like zero chance of persuading them. Someone should do a study on that . . . .

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Satellite photos show ozone depletion at just the levels where carbon dioxide *will* rise -- of course fighting various natural elements as it does.

So you'll be eager to explain to me why there's an ozone hole at the south pole when the majority of carbon dioxide is released in the northern hemisphere.

[FreeTheHostages]

You'll be eager to explain to me . . . .

Why not at all. Put it is definitely consistent with carbon dioxide as the cause of ozone depletion -- and not just at the south pole, to a lesser extent at the North pole. There's a lot of data on why this is so as a result of carbon dioxide (and in fact was predicted before they could visually confirm via satellites in Mission to Planet Earth). There's tons of established scientific data on this.

As the NASA website puts it:

[T]he link between CFC's and Ozone depletion, and the major factors creating the antarctic ozone hole, are considered by most researchers to be well established facts. Scientific models of the atmosphere are being constructed in order to assist scientists in looking for other factors in Ozone depletion, evaluate their importance and predict what may happen to our atmosphere in the future.

Check out the here or go generally to http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/polar/polar.html for more bibliographic data.

Again, I do emphasis: this is well-established fact recognized by people such as my die-hard Republic re-engineered rocket scientist who does climatological work now. There's plenty of good honest conservative positions in this debate and I don't attempt to disown you from taking one. But I truly worry that we embarass ourselves and our cause if we don't get the science right. The Earth *is* round.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I think it's great that you and your friends have all this unseen data at your fingertips. Unfortunately the ozone hole at the south pole results from the eruptions of Mt. Erebus, not CFC's. This volcano has been spewing tons of chlorine containing compounds over Antarctica for over 3 million years.

Why am I not surprised that you don't seem to know anything? You must be another feelgood lefty trying to be trendy by calling yourself a conservative. I can't wait to hear about your sources for the model that ties "ozone depletion" to global warming. You do know this thread was about global warming don't you?

[FreeTheHostages]

Unfortunately the ozone hole at the south pole results from the eruptions of Mt. Erebus.

Volcanic ash and the consequent chemical reactions in the atmospher which *do* occur have been excluded as a cause. Sampling of where the chemical reactions that occur in association with ozone depletion -- what strata of the atmosphere -- by NOAA weather balloons have led to this result. It's on a link to the sites I gave you, but, hey, why confuse your mind with scientific facts.

But if you can't beat science, I think then you should call me "trendy" and a "lefty" and all kinds of names I would find injurious if spoken by some one informed on this issue. I'm surely not a lefty. I'm a conservative. And not just the type that posts away into cyberspace: I'm a very active member of these local DC Freeps. I've given you links to NOAA and NASA websites where real scientists post the result. You respond with untrue declarations and name calling. I'm afraid I must declare myself the winner. A lot of conservatives, the informed ones, kinda resent people who say they're conservative coming in and saying the Earth is flat. It would be *much* better if you spent your time pointing out that we have few alternatives, that solar is prohibitively expensive, that we need to expand oil leasing rights and do more off shore, and that we have to, in short, balance ecological interests with other legitimate concerns. Off-shore oil drilling is much safer and cheaper, even year by year, but many federal laws and regs restrict it anyway.

I'm not a lefty. I'm a conservative, even about global warming: I just don't fight science on the cause of it. But I don't think the solution is to go back and live in a pre-industrial era. If more conservatives would deal with the public policy issues and stop saying the Earth is flat, it would be better for our cause.

Galileo was right.

[SAJ]

SSMB = Salomon Smith Barney. As to why more trustworthy, that's easy; they're not politicised, hence have no motivation to willfully skew their analysis according to the preferences of their political masters. One cannot say the same for NOAA.