While there’s been a lot of attention given to the recent NOAA and NASA press releases stating that 2010 was tied for the warmest year globally, it didn’t meet that criteria in the USA by a significant margin according the the data directly available to the public from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center. (NCDC)
Here’s the graph of USA mean annual temperature from 1895-2010 produced by NCDC’s interactive climate database and graph generator, which you can operate yourself here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
Note the rank highlighted in yellow. The pulldown menu gives you an idea of what was the warmest year in the USA from this data, arrows added:
Here’s the partial table output (you can use their online selector to output your own table) sorted by rank from NCDC web page. 1998 leads, followed by 2006, and then 1934. 2010 is quite a ways down, ranking 94th out of 116.
Climate At A Glance
Year to Date (Jan – Dec) Temperature
Contiguous United States
Year |
Temperature(deg F) |
RankBased on the Time Period Selected (1895-2010)* |
RankBased on the Period of Record (1895-2010)* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 55.08 | 116 | 116 |
| 2006 | 55.04 | 115 | 115 |
| 1934 | 54.83 | 114 | 114 |
| 1999 | 54.67 | 113 | 113 |
| 1921 | 54.53 | 112 | 112 |
| 2001 | 54.41 | 111 | 111 |
| 2007 | 54.38 | 110 | 110 |
| 2005 | 54.36 | 109 | 109 |
| 1990 | 54.29 | 108 | 108 |
| 1931 | 54.29 | 108 | 108 |
| 1953 | 54.16 | 106 | 106 |
| 1987 | 54.11 | 105 | 105 |
| 1954 | 54.11 | 105 | 105 |
| 1986 | 54.09 | 103 | 103 |
| 2003 | 54.02 | 102 | 102 |
| 1939 | 54.01 | 101 | 101 |
| 2000 | 54.00 | 100 | 100 |
| 2002 | 53.94 | 99 | 99 |
| 1938 | 53.94 | 99 | 99 |
| 1991 | 53.90 | 97 | 97 |
| 1981 | 53.90 | 97 | 97 |
| 2004 | 53.84 | 95 | 95 |
| 2010 | 53.76 | 94 | 94 |
| 1933 | 53.74 | 93 | 93 |
| 1946 | 53.72 | 92 | 92 |
| 1994 | 53.64 | 91 | 91 |
| 1900 | 53.53 | 90 | 90 |
*Highest temperature rank denotes the hottest year for the period.
Lowest temperature rank denotes the coldest year for the period.
Data used to calculate Contiguous United States mean temperatures are from the USHCN version 2 data set.
Of course there is no mention of the USA temperature ranking in the recent press release from NOAA. The only mention of the USA in that PR that comes close is this:
In the contiguous United States, 2010 was the 14th consecutive year with an annual temperature above the long-term average. Since 1895, the temperature across the nation has increased at an average rate of approximately 0.12 F per decade.
There’s no mention of the 2010 ranking for the USA temperature at all, nor any mention of the fact that 2010 was not nearly as warm as 1998, or 1934. I find that more than a little odd for an agency whose mission is to serve the American people with accurate and representative climate data.
They couldn’t find room for a sentence or two to mention the USA historical temperature rank for 2010? Apparently not.
US, Asia, Australia, land, pacific, arctic, antarctic, they all have varying weather conditions we can only study and puzzle how it all works. Some years colder some warmer, wetter or dryer and no one still has a clue how it all works. Average temperatures have risen since 1800, so what? As long as you have no solid evidence that there is a real threat for large groups of people stop spreading fear.
Isn’t the global temperature more interresting than the US segment?
There is data from actual measurements and the virtual world of the model which NASA seems to enjoy more than reality.
Anthony, your 2 rightmost columns in the table are identical.
REPLY: That’s the NCDC output as it was generated. – Anthony
And USA warming has what to do with global warming? Looks like clutching at straws to me.
This is nothing less than an attempt to re-write history.
It has long been a thorn in the AGW propagandists’ side to be asked the question why was the warmest year of the 20th century 1934 and not (say) 1995? It seems they have now figured out their answer, or rather two possible answers to this inconvenient quesiton:
1.) Ignore and/or remove any and all references to the 1934 data.
or
2.) Use their massive computing power to “massage” the 1934 temperature downwards while “massaging” the 1998 (or some other year) upwards.
– And Voilà! Now the data fits the theory!
The use of the word “consecutive” in the NOAA press release is a blatant lie.
con·sec·u·tive (k n-s k y -t v). adj. 1. Following one after another without interruption; successive
From the data it is obvious that this is not so unless you twist the meaning to be consecutive in terms of temperature instead of in year order.
HELP EU GETS CRAZY
Cancún –and Beyond: Connie Hedegaard’s 2011 Jean Jacques Rousseau lecture
Connie Hedegaard 2010 warmest year
The Lisbon Council’s 2011 Eco-Innovation Summit convened on Thursday 13 January 2011 in Brussels under the timely theme of Cancún –and Beyond: Europe’s Next Steps on the Road to a Low-Carbon Economy and Sustainable Future.
At the occasion of her first major speech after the COP16, Connie Hedegaard, European commissioner for climate action, delivered The 2011 Jean Jacques Rousseau Lecture and made a compelling call to redouble Europe’s efforts to lead the world towards a low-carbon future.
ValoSnah says:
January 14, 2011 at 3:30 am
Isn’t the global temperature more interresting than the US segment?
Yes but knowing what the regional figures are too is interesting, no warming in New Zealand, Australia, cooling in UK and numerous populated areas, warming in Siberia and Artic and other umpopulated areas.
Its like a rubber band, it can only go on so long before it snaps, few more cold winters and non-barbecue summers is all it needs before the truth is out.
….and exactly what percentage of the Earths surface is made up of the USA?
This is, of course, all based on the
alteredadjusted USHCN Version 2 dataset, in which heroic efforts were make to make 1998 warmer than 1994, but not so much warmer that GISS couldn’t adjust the subsequent years to beat it. You can’t have global warming if you aren’t setting records.Those adjustments are scheduled for 2011. Look again next year, 2010 will be much higher on the liest. (pun intended).
Reminds me of the man who drowned in a lake , the average depth of which was 6 inches
Just as a matter of interest, since 1934 has been mentioned – that year is one of the warmest in the continental USA, but where is it in a list of global temperatures over the last century-and-a-bit?
Also, since 2010 was one of the warmest globally (in the top 3 if not the warmest), even though it was cold in the USA, that means there must have been parts of the world where 2010 was unambiguously the warmest – anyone know which bits?
“They couldn’t find room for a sentence or two to mention the USA historical temperature rank for 2010?”
That’s not so hard to fathom what with GISS/NASA, now officially due to James Hansen, apparently represents the idea that the one party communist “democracy” state of China is better suited to lead the way to battle geezer Hansen’s own imaginary modeled reality.
According to the 2011 World Almanac:
22 State record high temperatures set during the decade of the 1930’s and 9 record lows during that decade.
1 State record high temperatures set during the decade of the 2000’s and 1 record low during that decade.
6 State record high temperatures set during the decade of the 1990’s and 6 record lows during that decade.
So Climate disruption was 9 to 22 times more prevelant in the 30’s than the past decade. Consider the outcry if all those records were set this past decade.
I find it funny is most of the hype of global warming come from either:
a) an ability to measure temperature in finer and finer increment from what we could from the initial day of record. (tenths of a degree to now thousandths)
b) an increase of sampling station globally it the past two decades due to improvements in technology making it possible to gather information from once isolated regions. (Africa, parts of South America and Siberia)
c) A lack of sampling station in regions still too isolated for man to get there causing a need to “average” the reading between two stations way too far apart for even the “average” to be accurate. (Antarctica, parts of South America and Siberia)
d) a reduction of samples use from available sampling locations to create higher course averages over lower fine actual. (USA and Europe)
Is my memory playing tricks or is it true that we were told that 2010 was going to be the warmest ever last at the end of 2009, before it had even started, and they have been straining every sinew since to make their prediction come true.
Is it also true that the places which have miraculously warmed in 2010 are where there are no weather stations and so their figures have been estimated based on the nearest airport?
jimmi says:
that means there must have been parts of the world where 2010 was unambiguously the warmest – anyone know which bits?
—————————
The Arctic region was warm.
@jimmi
2010 won’t be 3rd for long. See @Michael D Smith
Yeah, the bits where there are no thermometers or where people were too busy trying not to get purged to read thermometers in 1934.
ooops. wrong paste from the clipboard!
Comment was meant for jimmi’s “bit” question.
Jimmi
The bits where there are no thermometers. Or rather where they use models to extrapolate rather than use the available thermometers.
It would be interesting to see a global map indicating for every country what its ranking was for 2010. So: for the USA, 94th/116; UK xth/y; and so on. Is there anything like that and would it be meaningful?
You mean press release no relation to facts?
Remember the reporter floating in the canoe during the media’s Katrina float off, then a guy walks by ankle deep …
Whose side do you thunk the media is on?