US roasts to hottest year on record by landslide
WASHINGTON (AP) - America set an off-the-charts heat record in 2012.
A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced Tuesday. That's a full degree warmer than the old record set in 1998.
Breaking temperature records by an entire degree is unprecedented, scientists say. Normally, records are broken by a tenth of a degree or so.
The National Climatic Data Center's figures for the entire world won't come out until next week, but through the first 11 months of 2012, the world was on pace to have its eighth warmest year on record.
Scientists say the U.S. heat is part global warming in action and natural weather variations. The drought that struck almost two-thirds of the nation and a La Nina weather event helped push temperatures higher, along with climate change from man-made greenhouse gas emissions, said Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. She said temperature increases are happening faster than scientists predicted.
"These records do not occur like this in an unchanging climate," said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "And they are costing many billions of dollars."
Last year was 3.2 degrees warmer than the average for the entire 20th century. Last July was the also the hottest month on record.
Nineteen states set yearly heat records in 2012. Alaska, however, was cooler than average.
U.S. temperature records go back to 1895 and the yearly average is based on reports from more than 1,200 weather stations across the Lower 48 states.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. last year also had the second most weather extremes on record, behind 1998. There were 11 different disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damage, including Superstorm Sandy and the drought, NOAA said.
The drought was the worst since the 1950s and slightly behind the dust bowl of the 1930s, meteorologists said. During a drought, the ground is so dry that there's not enough moisture in the soil to evaporate into the atmosphere to cause rainfall. And that means hotter, drier air.
The last time the country had a record cold month was December 1983.
"A picture is emerging of a world with more extreme heat," said Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M University climate scientist. "Not every year will be hot, but when heat waves do occur, the heat will be more extreme. People need to begin to prepare for that future."
A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced Tuesday. That's a full degree warmer than the old record set in 1998.
Breaking temperature records by an entire degree is unprecedented, scientists say. Normally, records are broken by a tenth of a degree or so.
The National Climatic Data Center's figures for the entire world won't come out until next week, but through the first 11 months of 2012, the world was on pace to have its eighth warmest year on record.
Scientists say the U.S. heat is part global warming in action and natural weather variations. The drought that struck almost two-thirds of the nation and a La Nina weather event helped push temperatures higher, along with climate change from man-made greenhouse gas emissions, said Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. She said temperature increases are happening faster than scientists predicted.
"These records do not occur like this in an unchanging climate," said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "And they are costing many billions of dollars."
Last year was 3.2 degrees warmer than the average for the entire 20th century. Last July was the also the hottest month on record.
Nineteen states set yearly heat records in 2012. Alaska, however, was cooler than average.
U.S. temperature records go back to 1895 and the yearly average is based on reports from more than 1,200 weather stations across the Lower 48 states.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. last year also had the second most weather extremes on record, behind 1998. There were 11 different disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damage, including Superstorm Sandy and the drought, NOAA said.
The drought was the worst since the 1950s and slightly behind the dust bowl of the 1930s, meteorologists said. During a drought, the ground is so dry that there's not enough moisture in the soil to evaporate into the atmosphere to cause rainfall. And that means hotter, drier air.
The last time the country had a record cold month was December 1983.
"A picture is emerging of a world with more extreme heat," said Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M University climate scientist. "Not every year will be hot, but when heat waves do occur, the heat will be more extreme. People need to begin to prepare for that future."
At 1-PM today, everyone run outside and start your SUV. Â We need to warm it up - BRr-r-r-r.
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Oh yeah, that's right. Â The believers changed it from Al Gore Global Warming to Al Gore Climate Change. Â Al Gore. Â Al Jazeera. Â Yeah - that guy.
Living in Port Angeles, I usually check KOMO or Weather.com for my weather and then walk outside and look west as our weather comes from that direction usually. The weather stations here are up on a hill (always colder than my front porch) and in a fellows back yard on Cherry Hill. I live on the bluff and get the wind sheer from the bluff , which keeps me colder. I am 20 minutes from Sequim, which has the same rainfall as L.A. I am 45 minutes from Forks where they average 220 inchs of rain a year. All in all I don't think that the weather rates as much air time as it gets.
Does NOAAâs National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) keep two separate sets of climate books for the USA?
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http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/06/does-noaas-national-climatic-data-center-ncdc-keep-two-separate-sets-of-climate-books-for-the-usa/
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They do.  Â
Congress fiddles while the world burns.
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 @the unvarnished truth Red China, now have not heard that one since Barry McGuire's mid 1960s hit "Eve of Destruction."  Well, that's a sort of a "Varnished Truth" for I do remember the term used up and until and maybe a little past the time President Nixon visited China in 1972.  Anyway, if this story is so "Varnished" then explain the "Varnished Truth" of how the Arctic Polar sea ice was at half the size during 2012 as it was during the 1980s. That's quite a loss of them there square ice miles in the last thirty years or so ago. Ah, perhaps the ice was covered with a mix of varnish and coal dust so the climatologists could prove their point?
 @the unvarnished truth Are you suggesting that because you've looked at Wunderground.com and noted where their stations are, that this particular data comes from that?!?!
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Also, if you actually understood climate science, record cold in places correlates with a serious problem...related to the record high temps.
 @the unvarnished truth the denial is honestly getting to the point of pure unadulterated stupidity.... Deep down even you know it's stupid
 @TruthinAdverts  @the unvarnished truth "Deep down even you know it's stupid"
Hmmm...I've never considered unvarnshed to be all that deep...
 @the unvarnished truth "Considering most of the weather readings in America are taken in compromised locations like at airports, next to air conditioners, asphalt and jet exhaust, this doesn't mean much."
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First, "weather readings" are different from "temperature readings."Â I'm surprised that a revered scientist like yourself would make such a basic error.
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Second, some - not "most" - temperature gauges are located in cities, putting them closer to local heat sources. Data from these gauges is averaged into the total.
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Third, it's the measurement of change over time that we are interested in here, not a single measurement from a particular location. If a temperature gauge, even one at an airport, shows a steady increase over time unaccounted for by other local factors, you have to be particularly bone-headed to deny that warming is occurring.
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Fourth, you are confusing climate with "seasons" and "weather." Again, a surprising mistake for a scientist of your caliber.
 @the unvarnished truth
 Meanwhile Australia is setting such high record temperatures their national weather bureau had to add colors to their temperature map. In some parts of the country their seeing temperatures in the 50+°C range. That's over 122°F for the metrically-challenged, which is rare even in places like the Sahara or Death Valley.
 @the unvarnished truth Says you.