Image: Flickr/gazeronly
Extreme heat in the second half of June helped make the first six months of this year the hottest January to June ever recorded in the lower 48 United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday.
Eighty-six locations set temperature records in June, with another 87 tying existing marks. That helped push the average temperature in the contiguous United States to 71.2 degrees Fahrenheit, 2 degrees above the 20th-century average.
The sizzling heat capped the warmest 12 months since record-keeping began in 1895, NOAA said, inching out the previous record-holder -- June 2011 to May 2012 -- by just 0.05 degree Fahrenheit.
The scorching temperatures, combined with dry conditions in parts of the West, created ideal conditions for the wildfires that have ravaged Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, according to the analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.
Wildfires scorched more than 1.3 million acres nationwide last month, the second-highest area recorded in June.
In Colorado, where fires have destroyed more than 600 homes and burned nearly a quarter-million acres this year, the average statewide temperature was 6.4 degrees above average last month -- the warmest June on record.
And more than 77 percent of the state was experiencing some level of drought as of July 3, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Most widespread droughtDrought conditions now cover 56 percent of the contiguous United States, the highest percentage since the government-supported Drought Monitor began 12 years ago, NOAA said, helped by below-average precipitation in the West, Plains, Ohio Valley and mid-Atlantic states.
Wyoming recorded its driest June ever last month. Colorado and Utah recorded their second-driest Junes, with eight other states experiencing conditions that rank among the 10th driest for the month.
But some states bucked the warm, dry national trend.
Tropical Storm Debby dumped 10 to 30 inches of rain over the Florida Panhandle last month, helping drive Florida to its wettest June ever recorded, with 13.16 inches of rain -- 6.17 inches above average.
Oregon and Washington, along with many coastal states in the Northeast, also recorded above-average precipitation. The Pacific Northwest was cooler than average in June, as was the Southeast.
The news of June's weather extremes comes as NOAA prepares to issue its annual "State of the Climate" report today, examining global conditions in 2011.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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17 Comments
Add CommentHere's the deal. As 'climate change' continues and even begins to accelerate; large masses of humanity will begin to shift geographically in increasingly severe fashion. The search for water and food is now on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGolf! That's the first thing that should go.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The search for water and food is now on.'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow? We've been searching for them long before we became upright. It's what a good chunk of animal life does as it's main activity.
Sorry to disappoint the doomsayers but the world is getting FATTER.
The larger issue, the elephant in the room, the 800 lb. gorilla is that..... are you ready???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe temperatures are statistical nothings. Not even out of the realm of the white noise of normal background variation.
Certain climate alarmist researchers are using fundamentally flawed statistical methods to claim that there is only a 1 in a million chance that this heat wave is natural. Utter claptrap. see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/10/hell-and-high-histogramming-an-interesting-heat-wave-puzzle/
Sorry everyone; no story here, just a shining example of a SCIAM's politically motivated confirmation bias.
From a scientific perspective, I find it far more interesting to investigate the statistical probability that SCIAM is a biased organization by graphing the frequency and intensity of their publication of CAGW articles.
I'm quite certain that the magnitude of SCIAM's bias exceeds any man made global warming contribution by many, many, many orders of magnitude.
I just couldn't be bothered to do the calculation though, as SCIAM's behavior already passes the statistical intra-ocular impact exam; if it hits you between the eyes, there's no point doing any stats.
For the sake of discussion, I would like to respectfully ask Shoshin if you could use stats to make the climate change evidence offered from the 6-700 thousand years of paleo climatological data extracted from ice cores seem less compelling?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf not, how can you ignore such things and say recent trends are inside normal background variation?
I assume that the ice cores that you refer to are from the one core sample that is consistent with CAGW. Others are inconsistent with it. I don't have the reference at my fingertips, but if you google it yourself, I'm sure that you can find it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a reason why no one in the CAGW movement talks about ice core data anymore. It has been discredited and doesn't support the CAGW cause, so the Alarmists ignore it now.
Sorry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0-gX7aUKk&feature=player_embedded
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khikoh3sJg8&feature=related
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for the reply Soshin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOver the last several years I have read almost everything I have come across about ice cores and paleo climatology in general. It seems like a very sound science to me and I have to be skeptical about your claim of it being dis-credited. Can you provide any backup on that? My Google searches show many references that support the science, and the ones that don't seem to not be backed up with anything more than opinion (or worse.) I'll gladly review and if it's credible I'll understand your point of view much better.
Anybody who uses WUWT as a reference for science already shot them self in the foot, or was it a head shot?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The news of June's weather extremes comes as NOAA prepares to issue its annual "State of the Climate" report today, examining global conditions in 2011."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is one report we won't have to wait for to learn the truth about global warming. We all already know what it will say in essence. Whether we all agree or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is legislation that will be proposed as a result and one thing you can all bet on is that any legislation that passes both the house and the senate won't help anyone but the people causing the problem.
It is the same dilemma that the new health insurance laws will result in; the benefactors are the private insurance companies that are the whole reason health care is so unaffordable in America in the first place.
good thing the climate isn't changing. just think how hot it would be if it were!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo why do you bother to come to SCIAM if they are BIASED? Prehaps X files is more to your liking. Guess they must be biased since 99.9% of real scientists KNOW global warming is happening, not many articles to print on the other non-existant side!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMe I just like the science, when science tells me warming isn't happening I shall read that.
Where I live it has been unusually cold and wet. What does that signify? Nothing. Just as it signifies nothing that it has been unusually hot and dry in areas that the western media pay attention to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course if it had been unusually hot and dry here too then the mainstream media would have paid attention. But it hasn't been so they haven't been.
People like Soshin refuse to use reason or any facts other than what they read on blogs devoted to their world view. All scientists are "politically motivated," while the oil industry is nothing but virtuous. The fact that such notable conservatives such as James Baker and George Schultz have come out in favor of a carbon tax somehow escapes Shosin's political eye. One thing these two men have in common is that they are old enough to know by personal experience that the climate is changing. They don't need a lesson in radiation physics, thermodynamics or climate science; They know that the last 30 years are much warmer than the 50 years before that because they have lived it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSoshin quotes a website named wattsupwiththat.com which makes some kind of foolish argument that while looking for summer heat waves one should include winter months. Anything to attempt to blur the reality that the current summer (and all of June 2011 - June 2012) was the hottest since records have been kept. Whether one reads the science from Australia, the USA or the U.K., the scientific opinion is unanimous, but global warming deniers will call the science "politically motivated," although how "politics" crosses national boundaries and political parties yet stays so politically uniform escapes me. Perhaps it's the laws of physics which have remained so uniform.
It is time to start ignoring these deniers of fact and reason. They are not interested in knowledge, nor are they skeptics who just need to be convinced. They are members of the 21st century equivalent of the flat earth society, and just like flat-earthers who are presented with unequivocal evidence, such as pictures from space, they will pronounce them as the result of photoshop. Any people who are still unconvinced never will be convinced. To those who continue to ignore facts and logic the proper response is silence.
#15. DrJehr1 said
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...
Anything to attempt to blur the reality that the current summer (and all of June 2011 - June 2012) was the hottest since records have been kept. ....
Where I live it has been very, very close to record cool this spring and summer. But then I guess that doesn't count since, as you say later in your post, it's time to start ignoring people who disagree with you.
northernguy: You are confusing your local weather with the climate WORLDWIDE. Sure, there are areas of the US (and other parts of the world) which have been cooler this year, but the world as a whole has had the hottest 6 months ever, since records have been kept. To repeat, the average worldwide temperature is higher than it's ever been in recorded history. Remember, this was predicted way back in 1980 when scientists first went before congress to tell our leaders that our planet was going to get hotter. No, they didn't say that the midwest was going to be warmer in 2012. They said that mean temperatures worldwide would continue to rise. This is the difference between weather and climate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI propose to stop trying to convince the un-convincible, people who, no matter what they hear will remain unconvinced because they do not want to learn. Science is not for them. Religion is. They base their views on faith, and there are no data which will change their minds. Perhaps you are teachable. If so, then what is it that you need to learn to be convinced? Please let me, or others who post here, know exactly what you do not understand or would need to see happen before you are convinced. Radiation physics is well understood. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and CO2 levels have increased 25% in my lifetime, and this is due to the burning of fossil fuels. The world is in positive heat balance and will continue to warm, while the oceans will act as a heat and CO2 sink to help lessen the impact of the warming. These facts are not in dispute. The only "dispute" is how much the effect of each component will be and how bad will the damage be. 30 years more of data will come too late to prevent severe climate changes.
So what do you need to learn that will help you understand the situation? If nothing will change your mind, then you are a climate denier and there is nothing that I or anyone else can say to influence you; I will not try any longer. Simply blowing smoke doesn't add to the discussion. A few cool days somewhere are meaningless and pointing them out does not add to anyone's understanding. That is my point.