Weather records broken in 2012
Image: Courtesy of Natural Resources Defense Council
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News reports in the past two weeks have noted that 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded in the U.S. Today we learn that 3,527 monthly weather records were broken in 2012, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The tally exceeds the 3,251 records set in 2011, the previous high. NRDC has just released an interactive map equipped with a slider that can be moved from January to December to reveal where record temperatures, rainfall, snowfall, floods, droughts and wildfires were occurring on any given day.
Tables on the map’s Web site also list specific dates, locations and weather records. Kim Knowlton, senior scientist at NRDC, noted in a prepared statement that the rising incidence of extreme weather “has awoken communities across the country to the need for preparedness and protection.”
Tennessee and Wisconsin lead the list of states that had the highest percentage of reporting stations that logged new heat records, at 36 and 31 percent, respectively. March 2012 was the hottest March on record across the contiguous U.S., and July was the hottest single month ever recorded. Last summer also produced the worst drought in 50 years across the nation’s midsection; 1,300 counties in 29 states declared drought disaster areas. And wildfires burned more than 3.7 million hectares nationwide; the average fire size was 65 hectares, far exceeding the 2001-2010 average of 35 hectares.
The NRDC said the rise in extreme weather records should spur state and national efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions (the driver of climate change) and improve energy efficiency, and should motivate state and local governments to develop thorough emergency management plans.
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35 Comments
Add CommentReaders of this article should not make the political judgement that anthropogenic climate change is causal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRather, take this and the questions of extreme weather around the globe and demand real scientific inquiry, such as the effects of space weather on the planet.
*Russia, among other nations, is having the coldest winter in 50 years!
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/russia-suffers-its-coldest-winter-ever-1289248.html)
*2012 was the second wettest year on record in the UK, and the wettest EVER for England!(http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2013/2012-weather-statistics)
Why even state the 3500? The number does not matter when breaking down by locality or temporally. You could claim innumerable records within a square foot by specifying real values for various latitude and longitude.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet a life. Loser.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, and picking a cherry off the top of a sundae does not mean the rest of the sundae is made of cherries as well!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou DO know that warmer water evaporates faster and warmer air can hold more water vapor, right? You DO know that climate scientists have been predicting more EXTREME weather for decades now, am I not mistaken? You DO know that disintegrating actic ice pack disrupts the jet stream flow, am I correct? If not, you need to do a lot of research before you can contribute in any way to this discussion.
This would be interesting, if it were better compared to a historical baseline. What's the average? the sigma? Is there a trend in either? As stated, it's not evaluatable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs the effect of manmade structures (roads, cars, buildings, air conditioning devices...) next to the measuring sations at the origin of how many of these temperature readings?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding the subliminal AGW message: is the supposed warming due to humans or due to the sun activity?
Is this article tending to alarmistic claims, always in the sense of exaggerating a supposed global climate warming effect?
Even more: have the records been manipulated in the ascending sense, just as happened in the East Anglia university, where the Climategate scandal revealed a plot inside the institution in charge of gathering worldwide meteorological data?
Too many questions around a subject that is less and less credible (AGW)...
The 2012 Doha meeting has proved that USA is no longer the only nation that doesn´t believe in AGW at the end of the day.
It should not say Learn that. It should say Told that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Even more: have the records been manipulated in the ascending sense, just as happened in the East Anglia university, where the Climategate scandal revealed a plot inside the institution in charge of gathering worldwide meteorological data?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep, believe evidence of a conspiracy acquired by a criminal act but ignore multiple investigations that show nothing of the kind was going on outside the manipulated presentations and fevered imaginations of those who keep asking the same old 'questions' in forums like this.
There are now groups dedicated to promoting the belief that the recent school and cinema mass shootings were hoaxes too, and that the families and children were actors. Different subject, same pattern of twisted thinking.
Wow. Is Sciam a high priority shouting post for the teabag nutters or is the US population really this self deluded? I would like to sit and type out a summary of physics 101 with a pinch basic climate studies to explain in broad strokes why we see these trends but what's the point?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe issue of weather stations being near tarmac etc can certainly affect the reading of a particular station BUT this is analysed and corrected for otherwise the data is useless for weather monitoring and prediction....and these days the weather forecasts are remarkably good. In the vast majority of cases where weather forecasts seem off at a given location, it is due to the coarseness of the grids used in the forecast models.
Not living in the states (currently Finland) I am curious if these misguided souls who spout the ignorant garbage about blaming increased solar flux blah blah do the same to their local news site whenever a hot day is predicted?
Do you? Seriously, you should. Same weather stations and data as discussed in this article. Same physics.
Seriously flawed logic and irrelevant statistics do not "real scientific inquiry" make. Be honest and call it 'something masquerading as science that supports my predetermined viewpoint' instead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wholeheartedly agree. IMO this graphic 'tool' is less science and more politics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO, significant increases in co2 brought about by the seven-fold increase in the human population and increasing per-capita resource consumption since the industrial revolution is producing catastrophic climate change.
Nevertheless, that's no excuse for producing politically biased misrepresentations of information in a scientific publication.
"Nevertheless, that's no excuse for producing politically biased misrepresentations of information in a scientific publication."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn what way did Scientific American misrepresent the Natural Resources Defense Council data?
I am glad that the "BIG ONE" did not happen last december. I still expect it to happen . A so called CIA insider also claims that we should expect a rock storm ....just as Nostradamus predicts
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally? You are not qualified to contribute to the discussion? What are your qualifications to contribute? What are your qualifications to say someone is unqualified? Keep it scientific, the original poster even linked to articles supporting their view, discuss how they are wrong or right instead of saying they have no right to speak.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven the Washington Post has trouble with this new propaganda push:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"For example, the July 2012 SOTC report, issued in early August, announced that a new record had been set with the average July temperature for the contiguous United States at 77.6 degrees, one-fifth of a degree higher than in July 1936. However, the NCDC now says the July 2012 average was actually about 76.9 degrees, nearly 0.7 degrees less. This is almost 0.5 degrees cooler than the 77.4 degrees claimed as the previous monthly record in 1936. What is going on?"
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/11/2012-probably-not-the-hottest-on-record-after-all/#ixzz2I3ikdTIB
http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/national-climatic-data-center/
More He said - She said... I guess. GK
Here you go:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Here we show that human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas. These results are based on a comparison of observed and multi-model simulated changes in extreme precipitation over the latter half of the twentieth century analysed with an optimal fingerprinting technique. Changes in extreme precipitation projected by models, and thus the impacts of future changes in extreme precipitation, may be underestimated because models seem to underestimate the observed increase in heavy precipitation with warming"
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7334/full/nature09763.html
What a bunch of debunked denier lies. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, too bad these things can go around the Earth before the TRUTH can get its pants on. Well, I'm still going to zip up!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere are the results from former climate skeptic Richard Muller's Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study:
"The urban heat island effect and poor station quality did not bias the results obtained from earlier studies carried out by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Hadley Centre and NASA's GISS Surface Temperature Analysis. The team found that the urban heat island effect is locally large and real, but does not contribute significantly to the average land temperature rise, as the planet's urban regions amount to less than 1% of the land area. The study also found that while stations considered "poor" might be less accurate, they recorded the same average warming trend."
Here's Dr. Muller, former climate skeptic, in his own words:
"Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."
And clinging to the propagandized "Climategate" boogeyman is a huge red flag telling me you're not even trying to look into this issue seriously. 8 independent investigations by the British Parliment, one even chaired by a former Shell Oil Company executive, found ZERO WRONGDOING by the climate scientists.
Believe what you want to believe, but don't think you can spread this garbage on these boards and get away with it.
Cherry-picking NEWSPAPER ARTICLES and trying to extrapolate them into sweeping conclusions about climate change is unscientific. I see these tactics too often to be fooled into thinking otherwise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWashington Post IS NOT the Washington Times! How dumb do you think we are? The Washington Post is a mostly-respectable news organization that has had some troubles with its climate reporting in the past, but has recently turned things around with insightful articles like this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"THE NATIONAL Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced last week that 2012 was the warmest year on record in the contiguous United States. By far — a whole degree Fahrenheit.
Predicting the consequences of a given temperature rise is also difficult. That’s an argument not for doing nothing but for managing the risks, spending now to avoid the likelihood of much greater costs later, as any good business would do in the face of certain threats of uncertain magnitude.
The smartest hedge would be a national carbon tax. It would marshal the market’s power to wring carbon out of the economy, putting decisions about the direction of energy and manufacturing in the hands of consumers and businesses that meet their demands, not Congress and interest groups that lobby lawmakers. When people must pay something for their pollution, they pollute less and invest in cleaner alternatives. A carbon tax would provide more certainty to industry and investors who currently can only guess at what climate policy will look like year to year."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-sweltering-planets-agenda/2013/01/12/2b8c5ef6-5aaf-11e2-beee-6e38f5215402_story.html
The Washington TIMES is a political, hack-job rag that's obviously biased:
"In 2002, at an event held to celebrate the Times' 20th anniversary, Moon said: "The Washington Times is responsible to let the American people know about God" and "The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."
"Conservative-turned-liberal writer David Brock, who worked for the Times' sister publication Insight on the News, said in his 2002 book Blinded by the Right that the news writers at the Times were encouraged and rewarded for giving news stories a conservative slant. In his 2004 book The Republican Noise Machine, Brock wrote "the Washington Times was governed by a calculatedly unfair political bias" and that its journalistic ethics were "close to nil."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_times
Yeah, don't try to fool us. It's insulting that you think we can't even read the hyperlinks you provide!
What a pathetic headline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'smashed'? This is a scientific term?
Ridiculous....tens of thousands ...millions of villages in the world did not have higher than average temperatures. China, larger in area than the USA, was COOLER than average.
One thing that needs to be clarified is how many stations are reporting today vs all other years. As an extreme example if only 20 stations reported 20 years ago then you could only use 20 reports today to have a valid comparison.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's see some proper evidence backing your statements, since you want to be "scientific". I understand it will be difficult to cherry pick data for "millions of villages" but I have no doubt you'll spit something up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBtw, no one responsible would be implying that it is hotter at the same time everywhere, and that is certainly difficult to find in the literature. The difference between global/regional means and local weather is pretty big.
Cherry-picking is the favored method of science deniers because they have no real, valid data to prove their points.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is one of the more just plain silly studies I have read - First a single year Vs what geologic time?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond - record are created by the author one could find that many new records on the cold side using that method. Third - the author states the following:
And wildfires burned more than 3.7 million hectares nationwide; the average fire size was 65 hectares, far exceeding the 2001-2010 average of 35 hectares.
This is America and we still use the acre as defining our land area. Forth - there is no purpose of even attempting to argue the issue as the basis premise stated is false.
You can not argue a false claim to a conclusion as the conclusion would be false also. Silly Humans.
I was thinking the same thing. It's pretty arbitrary. Why not count every single city in the US, and then count records by the hour rather than daily, or better yet by the minute! Then the number would be enormous and reactionists would be running around like a chicken with it's head cut off! It's just a way to make a good attention grabbing headline...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd, all along, climate change being caused more by the spraying of denaturing, weather manipulation chemicals from high flying jets, what has come to be called "chemtrails", is routinely ignored, dismissed without explanation, condemned, mocked. Chemtrails seem to have been spread since the early 1950's. They were mentioned first in 1997 not because that's when they began, but because that's when they began beecoiming noticeable. The air seems to have become so saturated by chemical by that time that any new addition simply precipitated out. But no one acts to disprove it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuch as the evidence from tornadoes, which seem to be shaping up as a sensitive indicator of climate change. Records from the Oklahoma Climatological Survey indicate that, until about 1950, when jets began becoming commonplace, tornado statistics were about a constant 180 per year. After 1950, they started climbing precipitously until they are about ten times that now. Shills for "the official story" insist things such as that there are more people in the country now or equipment to detect tornadoes is better. Among other things, between 1950 and now, the population has only tripled, while the number of recorded tornadoes has increased about 1000%! Too, the area where tornadoes are most prevalent was always well populated. And tornadoes are not invisible things. Even if you live far from where one occurred, you can see it on the horizon or perceive the damage one left behind. And the number of tornadoes has almost doubled since the early 1990's, but technoilogy has not increased so much since then that it can spot them better. None of this is addressed by those insisting that, for more than a century, more than 1800 tornadoes were occurring every year but no one saw them!
Likewise, no one tries to explain why, when tornadoes are discussed, only charts of numebrs after 1950 are provided. Keeping the public from seeing they were constant before then. Or that, often only tornado numbers for the past decade or so are given, suggesting they are always constant at about 1800. Or only number of category 3 or higher tornadoes are indicated, ignoring categories 1 and 2 which showed the major growth.
Answer to kimchi. Yes, the US population is that self-deluded.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did not say that SA misrepresented the NRDC. To clarify, I should have more clearly stated that the NRDC graphic tool being presented (and promoted) by SA poorly represents climate information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you don't like the NRDC data, then maybe you should check the NASA's. But then again, they come to the same conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"One more year of numbers isn't in itself significant," GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said. "What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it's warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."
NASA Finds 2012 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-temps.html
What?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think he does.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf your still at the alarmist stage your already too late.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut stand by cause your going to find out. Mother Nature is about to teach us. Something to look forward to.
Nope, incorrect. You could incorporate the data set for the time each station was in operation. You're looking at thousands and thousands of local trends all averaged together over the globe. Look up the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. People with PhDs and decades of experience with this sort of thing have already figured this out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTranslation:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"This here's 'Merica, and we don't use no commie Metric System in these parts, (even though SCIENCE and basically the rest of the world has moved on from British Units...even the British!) Try to wrap yer head 'round my circular logic while I don't even provide ANY evidence or EVEN AN ARGUMENT to prove my pre-determined conclusions!
What is happening faster than climate change? ANSWER = The speed that science hating/deniers are at puting dribble on these forums.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet over it, if you have evidence that the real scientists don't have then present it to them....not here. I am sure a real climate scientist will be able to analyse and respond in an appropriate manner. Although I suspect they will be doing a lot of giggling under their breath!
I mean people using the cold snap in the northern hemisphere as evidence that GW isn't happening...This is PRECISELY what has been PREDICTED to happen drrrr. More heat energy in the artic means that the freezing northern winds will extend further south.