Record cold in Portland Maine in July

13 07 2009

Average Temperature for Portland, Maine

More from the “weather is not climate department”. Emphasis below mine. And it is having an effect not only on crops but tourism in the Northeast US.  – Anthony

Statement as of 4:00 PM EDT on July 9, 2009
record event report … corrected
National Weather Service Gray ME
400 PM EDT Thursday Jul 09 2009

… More record cold weather for Portland Maine…

The temperature at the Portland jetport only reached 58 degrees
yesterday. This set a record for the coldest high temperature on
July 7th. The old record was 59 degrees set in 1961. To put this in
another perspective… the normal low temperature for July 7th is 58
degrees.

The low temperature on Wednesday was 55 degrees. This produced a
range of only 3 degrees between the high and low temperatures which
is a record for the smallest daily range in temperatures on July
7th. The old record was a 4 degree spread set in 1963 and 1995.

The 3 degree daily temperature range yesterday also tied the record
for the smallest daily temperature range for any day in July. The
record was established on July 16th, 1961 and occurred five more
times before this year.
Read the rest of this entry »



Comments : 131 Comments »

Categories : weather

NOAA: June near average in the USA

13 07 2009

Meanwhile the world temperature anomaly as measured by satellite is near zero – Anthony

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2009/jun/Last1mTDeptUS.png

NOAA: U.S. Temperature and Precipitation Near-Average for June

July 10, 2009

The June 2009 temperature and precipitation for the contiguous United States were near the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

The average June 2009 temperature of 69.5 degrees F was 0.2 degree F above the 20th Century average.  Precipitation across the contiguous United States in June 2009 averaged 2.90 inches, which is 0.01 inch above the long-term value.

U.S. Temperature Highlights Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 59 Comments »

Categories : climate data

Bill Gates to Control Hurricanes: DOH!

12 07 2009

From the “would you, could you, with a boat department”. Bill goes macro. The Simpsons are cited by patent watcher.

Patent watcher “theodp,” who tipped us off to the filings, says he was reminded of “The Simpsons” as he read through them. “The richest man in the world hatches a plan to alter weather and ecology in return for insurance premiums and fees from governments and individuals,” he writes. “It’s got kind of a Mr. Burns feel to it, no?”

I guess Bill has been talking to the G-8 people and their temperature control ideas. Note to Bill: nature will squish you and your ideas like a bug. In the meantime with ACE values being low according to COAPS Ryan Maue and Steve McIntyre showing cooler temperatures on the SST map for Gulf Coast hurricane development areas, it looks like they may have to wait a year or two to try out their ideas. The idea? Basically, ship mounted pumps to circulate cooler water from below the thermocline to the surface by forcing surface water downward first. Good luck with that. – Anthony

Spoof photo from the New York Post

One force of nature vs. another: Bill Gates tries to stop hurricanes

By Todd Bishop on Techflash

A diagram from one of the newly disclosed Gates and Myhrvold patent filings, depicting a deployment of hurricane-supression vessels in the Gulf of Mexico.

Recent patent filings have shown Bill Gates and his friends exploring subjects as diverse as electromagnetic engines and beer kegs. Now they’re thinking even bigger — trying to stop hurricanes.

Microsoft’s chairman is among the inventors listed on a new batch of patent applications that propose using large fleets of vessels to suppress hurricanes through various methods of mixing warm water from the surface of the ocean with colder water at greater depths. The idea is to decrease the surface temperature, reducing or eliminating the heat-driven condensation that fuels the giant storms. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 217 Comments »

Categories : hurricanes, ridiculae

Ken Tapping: Still no sign of the next cycle

12 07 2009

10.7 flux monitoring station operated by the National Research Council Canada and the Canadian Space Agency

10.7 solar flux monitoring station operated by the National Research Council Canada and the Canadian Space Agency

More on the NRC 10.7 observatory here

JohnA writes in:

Just in case you wondered whether the recent large sunspot indicated an upswing in radio flux from the Sun: I went and asked Ken Tapping.

The answer: http://solarscience.auditblogs.com/2009/07/10/ken-tapping-still-no-sign-of-the-next-cycle/

This could be the first “radio quiet” solar cycle

Previously on this blog, I’d mentioned my skepticism that one decent sunspot marked the end of the hiatus in the solar cycle we’ve seen for nearly two years. It might be my nature, but everybody has been wrong before.

As part of my public duty to actually ask real scientists monitoring the Sun, I wrote to Dr Ken Tapping of Canada’s National Research Council at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in British Columbia: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 132 Comments »

Categories : Science, solar

Quote of the week #14

12 07 2009

qotw_cropped

“Sometimes, we hear that global warming causes cooling. In this case, global warming causes global averageness. In all three cases, it is bad news.”

- Luboš Motl in

UAH global temperature anomaly – hitting the slopes


Comments : 41 Comments »

Categories : Quote of the Week

Key West, FL sets new subzero “record low” temperature – Update: now snowing!

11 07 2009

KeyWestCurrents_071109

That windchill is vicious, be sure to dress warmly going outside at Key West. Cold kills. Actually the new record low was colder than that shown above. It hit -27F earlier. See the complete NOAA report here (PDF)

OK fun aside, this is obviously another ASOS thermohygrometer malfunction, but one in the opposite direction that we usually see. But, there’s an interesting twist here that will provide a useful test of the integrity of data handling policy within NOAA/NWS. Please read on. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 109 Comments »

Categories : climate data, weather_stations

How not to measure temperature, part 90

11 07 2009

People send me stuff. My Inbox bursts daily with ideas, suggestions, papers, and photos.

Here is a climate monitoring station in Tremonton Utah. Notice anything peculiar about the placement of the temperature sensor? It is the white “bee hive” on the pole on the asphalt.

Tremonton UT COOP-A Climate station looking-south

Tremonton UT COOP-A Climate station looking south - click for larger image

Note the conduit for the cable to the MMTS. This underscores something I’ve been saying about the MMTS installation for some time. The COOP managers that install these aren’t given the tools or time to get past obstructions like asphalt and concrete, thus the MMTS ends up closer to buildings than the “wireless” Stevenson Screen.

Randy Julander writes in:

Randy Julander here, snow survey supervisor, NRCS, USDA. Here are a few pics from the Tremonton Utah MMTS site which is right outside our NRCS field office in Tremonton. Normally there is a large truck parked right next to the sensor. As you can see, next to the building, next to the air conditioner, asphalt everywhere. Nice placement.

I’ll say, right on the pavement, 10 feet from the building. Randy mentions a truck being parked by the sensor. It shows up nicely on the Google aerial view: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 61 Comments »

Categories : climate data, weather_stations

Cooler weather bringing the “luck of the Irish” to the USA

11 07 2009

While we don’t have to worry about starvation like the Irish due to lack of crop diversity, it is interesting that we are seeing the same mold that caused the Irish Potato Famine widespread in the USA now. – Anthony

Potato famine disease striking home gardens in U.S.

Reuters

These dark brown lesions on stems
Reuters – Dark brown lesions on stems, with white fungal growth developing under moist conditions, are characteristic …

By Julie Steenhuysen Julie Steenhuysen – Fri Jul 10, 5:22 pm ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms, U.S. plant scientists said on Friday.

“Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States,” said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University’s extension center in Riverhead, New York.

She said the fungal disease, spread by spores carried in the air, has made its way into the garden centers of large retail chains in the Northeastern United States. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 125 Comments »

Categories : Agriculture, weather

RSS Global Temperature for June 09, also down

10 07 2009

Both Lucia and Steve McIntyre beat me on this story, so I’ll defer to them. That’s what I get for going to dinner with relatives last night and sleeping in.

Below is a plot from McIntyre showing the RSS data compared to UAH MSU. Both are down significantly in June 2009 with UAH MSU at .001°C

RSS is down from 0.090C in May 2009 to 0.075C in June 2009

Steve McIntyre writes a little parody of the issue: RSS June – “Worse Than We Thought”

Lucia actually expected RSS to climb and has an analysis here

Even NCDC’s director Tom Karl has something to say about satellite data, read on. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 159 Comments »

Categories : climate data

Study: Media and environmental doomsday – like peas and carrots

10 07 2009

LV-doom-snow

In TV there’s been this saying forever: “if it bleeds it leads” referring to what story would be the lead story in the TV newscast. It stands to reason then that “environmental catastrophe” would get more airplay and print. This study confirms what I’ve known for a very long time – chaos sells newspapers and makes ratings. Except…now people are getting saturated. AGW has become the O.J. Simpson story of our time, it has worn out its welcome. – Anthony

Media Tend To Doomsay When Addressing Environmental Issues

A reporter takes notes during a demonstration for the enforcement of the Kioto protocol in in Calgary (Canada). (Credit: ItzaFineDay (Creative Commons))

ScienceDaily (July 9, 2009) — This study, undertaken by researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UBC), analyses the role played by the media in creating and spreading a stance regarding the protection of the environment, sustainable development and natural heritage.

This research, published in the latest issue of the Revista Latina de Comunicación Social (Latin Journal of Social Communication in English) proposes and performs an analysis of the dialectic strategies used by the daily press to treat environmental information. Jose Ignacio Lorente, a lecturer at the UBC and one of the researchers who participated in the project told SINC that the study was concerned with “the way in which social communication media, particularly news media, contribute to creating and spreading social visions of sustainable development and the conservation and protection of the environment in general and natural heritage in particular”.

The research team studied the information published in connection with the environmental summit held in Bali in 2007. Apart from this analysis, the researchers complemented this information with a survey carried out in Urdaibai the Basque Country. The questions referred to the perceptions, attitudes and willingness to participate in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change, aspects in relation to the social representations identified in the analysis of the contents of the study. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 86 Comments »

Categories : media

Chicago – coolest July 8th in 118 years

9 07 2009

Another entry from the weather is not climate department, this time courtesy of Tom Skilling, WGN-TV meteorologist.

http://www.cs.nyu.edu/overton/genearoundtheworld/chicago.jpg

Chicago has its coolest July 8 in 118 years

By Tom Skilling
July 9, 2009

For the 12th time this meteorological summer (since June 1), daytime highs failed to reach 70 degrees Wednesday. Only one other year in the past half century has hosted so many sub-70-degree days up to this point in a summer season — 1969, when 14 such days occurred. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 116 Comments »

Categories : weather

Hansen unhinged on G-8 failure – “Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity”

9 07 2009

From the Huffington Post, Dr. Hansen is more than a little upset over the failure of G-8 to produce any meaningful CO2 cuts. Once again he tries to take the “representing himself as a private citizen” tact while at the same time citing his NASA credentials.

I call BS on that. His opinion would not be sought if he were not a NASA climate scientist. He cannot separate himself from NASA and climate science and the policy springing from it any more that President Obama could write an essay now as a private citizen.  Further, Jim, you started it in 1988 with your address before congress. Don’t insult our intelligence by saying you have been acting as a private citizen either then or now.

That being said, we do agree on one thing: “the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity” – Anthony Watts

Dr. James Hansen

Dr. James Hansen

Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Posted: July 9, 2009 10:33 AM

G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change

Jim Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but he writes on this policy-related topic as a private citizen.

It didn’t take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama’s agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked:

The world’s major industrial nations and emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on significant cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, unraveling an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks.

Of course, emission targets in 2050 have limited practical meaning — present leaders will be dead or doddering by then — so these differences may be patched up. The important point is that other nations are unlikely to make real concessions on emissions if the United States is not addressing the climate matter seriously. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 142 Comments »

Categories : climate_change, politics

NOAA announces the arrival of El Niño

9 07 2009

clickable global map of SST anomalies
Contact: Christopher Vaccaro               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

202-536-8911 (cellular)                                   July 9, 2009

El Niño Arrives; Expected to Persist through Winter 2009-10

NOAA scientists today announced the arrival of El Niño, a climate phenomenon with a significant influence on global weather, ocean conditions and marine fisheries. El Niño, the periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters, occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months.

NOAA expects this El Niño to continue developing during the next several months, with further strengthening possible. The event is expected to last through winter 2009-10. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 165 Comments »

Categories : ENSO, oceans

NSF “blurring the lines between journalism and PR”

9 07 2009

NSF

The Observatory — July 01, 2009 10:23 AM

NSF “Underwriting” Coverage…

And other controversies from the World Conference of Science Journalists

By Curtis Brainard

LONDON — The sixth World Conference of Science Journalists got off to an enjoyably controversial start here on Tuesday afternoon.

The event takes place against the backdrop of concurrent editorials in the world’s leading scientific journals, Science and Nature (the former by CJR contributing editor Cristine Russell), exploring the ongoing “crisis” and potential “swan song” of science journalism. To be sure, these dire perspectives are no mere exaggerations. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 37 Comments »

Categories : Science, media

“…frost has never been reported before in July”

8 07 2009
location-map-of-prince-edward-island

Prince Edward Island - yellow in the inset

Frost in July hits P.E.I. from CBC News

Temperatures dropped to a record low in Prince Edward Island overnight Tuesday, with reports of frost throughout the province.

An official record low of 3.8 C was set early Wednesday morning at Charlottetown airport.

The previous record for that date was 5.1 C, set in 2005.

Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said that to his knowledge, frost has never been reported before in July in P.E.I. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 207 Comments »

Categories : weather

G-8 Summit drops CO2 targets, keeps 2 degree temperature goal

8 07 2009

Legislating temperature limits to 2°C will surely be more effective than legislating alcohol. Right?

Prohibition Repeal Poster

Developing Nations Rebuff G-8 on Curbing Pollutants

By PETER BAKER New York Times

L’AQUILA, Italy — The world’s major industrial nations and newly emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on specific cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks.

As President Obama arrived for three days of meetings, negotiators for the world’s 17 leading polluters dropped a proposal to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by mid-century, and emissions from the most advanced economies by 80 percent. But both the G-8 and the developing countries agreed to set a goal of stopping world temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 165 Comments »

Categories : Carbon dioxide, climate_change, politics

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