NOAA: Above Average Temperatures in U.S. for August, Summer;
Midwest Much Drier than Average in August, South Much Wetter
This June-August 2008 summer season was the 22nd warmest on record for the contiguous United States, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Also, last month ended as the 39th warmest August for the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895.
[Update by John Goetz: The title has been corrected to indicate that August was the 39th warmest and not the 22nd warmest on record. Thanks to several commenters for pointing this out.]
The average summer temperature of 72.7 degrees F is 0.8 degree F above the 20th century average, based on preliminary data. The average August temperature was 73.2 degrees F, which is 0.4 degree above average.
U.S. Temperature Highlights
- California had its ninth warmest summer, while New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island had their eighth warmest summers.
- The western United States experienced its fourth warmest August on record, with an average temperature of 75.3 degrees F, 2.9 degrees above the 20th century mean.
- While temperatures in most western states were above normal in August, temperatures across much of the eastern half of the U.S. were below normal.
- Cooler temperatures in the east and warmer temperatures in the western U.S. contributed to a near average national residential energy consumption for August and the summer season. Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, temperature-related energy demand was just 3.5 percent below average in August, and 4.2 percent above average for the summer.
U.S. Precipitation Highlights
- For June through August, precipitation across the contiguous United States averaged 9.05 inches, 0.8 inch above the 1901-2000 average and ranks as the 15th wettest summer since 1895.
- An average of 3.11 inches fell across the contiguous U.S. in August, 0.51 inch above average. This was the ninth wettest August on record for the nation.
- Eight states (Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida) were much wetter than average for August. Mississippi had its all-time wettest August, and Florida and Alabama their second wettest August on record.
- Seven states (Delaware, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin) were much drier than average. Delaware had its driest August on record, Kentucky had its third driest August and Wisconsin ranked sixth driest.
- Drought conditions in the southeast United States improved slightly in August, thanks to heavy rains from Tropical Storm Fay. However, the western Carolinas remained in exceptional drought and severe-to-extreme drought affected eastern Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, western North Dakota, Texas, and several of the Hawaiian Islands, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Moderate-to- severe drought also covered nearly all of California and much of Nevada. At the end of August, 24 percent of the contiguous U.S. was in moderate to extreme drought, a decrease of four percent from July.
- Fay also brought extensive flooding to Florida, where Jacksonville and Tallahassee each recorded 16.5 inches of rain, making this the wettest August on record for these cities. Thomasville, Ga., totaled 27.5 inches in August, and Fort Pierce, Fla., and Orlando broke their all-time 24-hour precipitation records with 8.84 and 8.23 inches, respectively. August 20-22 saw 18.48 inches of rain fall in Melbourne, Fla., a three-day record.
Other Highlights
- Four named Atlantic tropical cyclones – Tropical Storm Edouard, Tropical Storm Fay Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Hanna – developed in August. Edouard made landfall in Port Arthur, Texas on Aug. 5. Fay made an initial landfall in Key West, Fla., on Aug. 18. Gustav struck Grand Isle, La., on Sept. 1. August usually sees an average of three Atlantic/Caribbean tropical cyclones and on average one makes landfall in the U.S. every 2.3 years.
- Severe weather in the Chicago area on August 4 left nearly a half million residents without power, spawned at least three tornadoes and prompted travelers at O’Hare International Airport to be evacuated to lower levels, and a sell-out crowd at Wrigley Field to seek shelter in interior concourses. Nearly 350 flights were cancelled at O’Hare.
- Wildfires scorched parts of 12 states in August, primarily in the northwestern United States. From January 1 – August 29, 64,034 wildfires have burned more than 4.5 million acres of the United States, according to statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center. While the number of fires was above the 1999-2008 average, the acreage burnt was approximately one million acres less than average for the year-to-date.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
. . . and if the surfacestations.org corrections were applied would the results be near average as the UAH data near the zero anomaly suggests?
And Sydney, Australia has suffered through its coldest August in 64 years.
I don’t know what others feel but once it gets beyond one of the 10 most warmest, or 10 most of anything, does it really need to be ranked/tagged as the ‘warmest’ or is it more accurate to reflect that there were 21 summers and 38 ‘Augusts’ which were hotter than this one?
This certainly seems like a good way to get a ‘hot’ message out when in fact it may have been a fairly typical year. I’d like to see how many other years fell in the distribution of +-0.4C
Above average and still dropping. I’m not sure the Gaia believes in AGW.
For those who haven’t studied the statistics behind the hockey stick graphs used in paleocliamtology. I have learned quite a few interesting details recently which make me cringe.
I put them in what I hope is an easy to read format:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/ten-things-everyone-should-know-about-the-global-warming-hockey-stick/
Jeff Id,
Too bad you didn’t add the past 7+ years, so the fact that the hockey stick is broken would be obvious.
What a statement!
‘NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.’ Bloody smart group indeed. Maybe they do all that while trying to figure out how to get their surface stations in order.
Seems to me the title should read NOAA:
AugustSummer 2008 is 22nd warmest on record.Can they really say “22nd warmest August” and not laugh? That’s got to put it easily inside 1 s.d of the mean Aug temp.
If next year is the coldest August recorded, will they write “The 135th warmest August!!”?
Watch it folks, it’s getting hotter, just as we predicted. Next year, it will be the 23rd warmest.
I think this is called “spinning for funding”.
“New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island had their eighth warmest summers”
I’m a little surprised because I thought August seemed rather mild this year in NJ, and my considerably lower electric bill seemed to confirm that notion.
Ed Reid,
Good point!, Maybe I’ll do that tonight.
22nd of 103. Grade C+, class rank not good enough to get into a reputable mathematics program. Counselor suggests pupil attend remedial summer program, emphasis on statistics in an air conditioned building.
My question is why do they stop with records back to 1895 ? Why not go back 500 years 1000, years or 1500 years.?I know you may say that in noaa ‘s defense they may not have data that goes back that far but if you remember Anthony’s post on this site a month or two ago,and it was very eye opening, with so much missing data how do we know it accuatly was that .08 warmer??? Anthony if you could post again about where you can visit where you live and see all of the 999 ‘s, missing data or if you can tell me which date you had that on I would greatly appricate it.
“last month ended as the 39th warmest August for the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895”
Wow! It was also the 74th coolest August on record. See? It’s all in the wording.
Out of a 113 year record that’s (113-39)/113= 65.4 percent of the Augusts were cooler. As far as temperature goes, that looks pretty average to me.
Ken G,
I agree, my air conditioner use was way down this summer.
Average Daily Temp. per Jersey Central Power & Light
08/05/2004 to 09/05/2004 70
08/05/2005 to 09/05/2005 72
08/05/2006 to 09/05/2006 70
08/05/2007 to 09/05/2007 72
08/05/2008 to 09/05/2008 69
I much doubt it was in fact the 23rd warmest of 103 as it was beyond doubt the coldest I remember, and I am a lot older than 23! I travelled quite a bit in North America and everywhere I went was cold.
What data are they using? Has it been “corrected”?
In central MN we made up ground being a little wetter than “normal” (WAG). Having family and friends in WI, they were very relieved to by “dry” during August; their year has been diluvian.
More lies by NOAA? Obviously, they haven’t found Anthony’s surfacestation blog. Shameful that they have out of spec surface stations whose data have been massaged by Hansen and company to arrive at those wrong climate results.
Errr, ahh, ummm — our 1/3 lower AC bill says otherwise.
So I guess this applies, pay more in taxes so government can pretend to control the weather, even if you have to fake it …
This seems crazy to me, just having noticed all the anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Easily the coolest I can ever remember, at home and in many parts of the world.
What confidence does this give laymen such as myself in science, or the data reported? If scientists cannot agree on what any given data series means, then why should the rest of us even bother to pay attention?
“My question is why do they stop with records back to 1895 ? Why not go back 500 years 1000, years or 1500 years.?I”
Because the thermometer as we know it wasn’t invented until 1714 and Fahrenheit didn’t invent is scale until 1724. There weren’t enough accurate thermometers in enough locations to make reliable and meaningful data collection possible over wide regions until much later.
But the modern thermometer was invented in the middle of the Little Ice Age and for it’s first 100+ years of existence recorded the end of and recovery from the Little Ice Age. So it is no wonder that temperature records going back to the late 1800’s show warming. We were recovering from the LIA. There are no records from before the start of the LIA because other than Galileo’s water thermometer, there really wasn’t anything available and no standard scale to compare with today’s scales of temperature.
Anthony: as Ric pointed put, the title is inaccurate. It should say 22nd warmest summer, or 39th warmest August.
Is this NOAA’s error, or was it transcribed incorrectly?
So far for Enterprise, 69% of September daily averages have been colder than last year. And the colder days have been much colder than the warmer days have been warmer. I am hauling in wood today. Did the same thing yesterday. I will likely be storing up wood till I get snowed out. I am buying extra blankets and warmer sheets for the beds, as well as adding electrical heaters in the house to keep my heating bills from getting out of hand with the price of heating oil going up. Trust me, the heating oil company believes it will be getting colder this winter than last and is already increasing the price of heating oil, even before we need it.
and there is my answer,
thanks,
Ken G.
Average Daily Temp. per Jersey Central Power & Light
08/05/2004 to 09/05/2004 70
08/05/2005 to 09/05/2005 72
08/05/2006 to 09/05/2006 70
08/05/2007 to 09/05/2007 72
08/05/2008 to 09/05/2008 69
Okay, Jersey Central Power & Light is not a scientific body. They are also massive emitters of the poisonous CO2 gas. They are not GISS, your trustworthy recordkeepers. They are probably fudging the data so that you pay less in electric bills, and become doubters of Dr. Hansen and the UN.
Who are you going to believe? The scientists and the UN, or some lying, polluting, good-for-nothing, for-profit electric company?
You cannot trust your own feelings people. Just because you thought it felt cooler, does not mean it is so. You do NOT have a calibrated thermometer in your skin.
Now just shuffle back into line, believe your kind government handlers (I mean servants), keep your mouths shut and pay any CO2 taxes that they demand.
Thanks for letting me straighten you out,
Mike Bryant
Sir Anthony: ( The Rev)
If I am not wrong, the number of hurricane using the methodology SIDC, HN (hurricane number) in August 2008 is 0.63.
If that’s the case, look at the United States Climate Summary for August. Put the paramiters year to date 2000 through 2008 let them explain it. See for yourselves.
Looking at the official NCAR records from Boulder, I see maybe six out of the last thirty days made it up to the normal high temperature in the low-mid 80s.
http://www.eol.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/weather.cgi?fields=tdry&fields=rh&fields=cpres0&fields=wspd&fields=wdir&fields=raina&site=fl&units=english&period=monthly
Same for Fort Collins
http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/~autowx/fclwx_plotsearch.php?graph=1&span=30&station=FCLWX&year=2008&month=09&day=11&dimensions=2
Most days have been much below normal, which is obvious to anyone who has lived here for a while. NOAA can make all the press releases they want about the warm west, but that doesn’t help when it is cold outside.
I spent August in NJ this year, and it was exceptionally cool. Rural inland area in central Jersey.
Temps actually have come back to the cool time in the 60s/70s this year, and maybe a bit lower. Seriously, 19 days in August (remember, this is rural) night time lows were in the 50s, 3 days below 55! and of the remaining nights, there was only 2 that did not drop into the very low 60s. Well more than half the days had highs in the 70s, although I didn’t record them so I can’t be specific. No nineties. Highest high was 87.
The grass stopped growing in the second week. I only mowed once in August. I’m doing the last mow for the year now. Produce was very late this year, so it is not just that my grass is possessed with the will to be a climate denier.
The Alaskan Arctic was far below normal in August, just like Hansen’s models didn’t predict.
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Statewide/Aug_temp.jpg
It states the average. What is the standard deviation?
Without that information average is nearly useless, right?
These NOAA reports are worthless. I could get some high school kids and throw some worthless made up numbers togather. What a joke
39th hottest August….indeed LOL
Mike Bryant (16:03:54) :
There’s a good chance this data comes from a site worse than the typical USHCN site. As long as the site hasn’t changed much, the data is usable.
I don’t have time time, but it would be worthwhile to hunt down a few good monthly summaries. Newarks’s Aug 2008 is at http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=okx and says in part:
...THE NEWARK NJ CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST 2008...
CLIMATE NORMAL PERIOD 1971 TO 2000
CLIMATE RECORD PERIOD 1929 TO 2008
WEATHER OBSERVED NORMAL DEPART LAST YEAR`S
VALUE DATE(S) VALUE FROM VALUE DATE(S)
NORMAL
................................................................
TEMPERATURE (F)
RECORD
HIGH 105 08/09/2001
LOW 45 08/29/1982
HIGHEST 91 08/01 MM MM 95 08/08
LOWEST 56 08/20 MM MM 57 08/21
AVG. MAXIMUM 83.4 83.2 0.2 83.4
AVG. MINIMUM 64.8 67.7 -2.9 67.2
MEAN 74.1 75.5 -1.4 75.3
DAYS MAX >= 90 2 6.9 -4.9 7
(I’m trying the <code> command for the first time here. It may fail badly.)
I expected to find a small range in the low and high temps, but it’s the opposite and Newark wound up 1.4F below average!
Trenton and Atlantic City are also below average! See
http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=phi
Something’s fishy. Maybe SIDC is taking over counting degrees. If they count ’em like sunspots…. (Sorry, cheap shot.)
Steven Hill (17:03:48) :
These NOAA reports are worthless. I could get some high school kids and throw some worthless made up numbers togather. What a joke
39th hottest August….indeed LOL
I agree! Surface temperatures are worthless for comparison and I think the same thing for CO2 data.
Grr. Playing with <code> . Anthony, I’d be glad to trade a certain NASA activist for a preview function.
WEATHER OBSERVED NORMAL DEPART LAST YEAR`S
VALUE DATE(S) VALUE FROM VALUE DATE(S)
NORMAL
................................................................
AVG. MAXIMUM 83.4 83.2 0.2 83.4
AVG. MINIMUM 64.8 67.7 -2.9 67.2
MEAN 74.1 75.5 -1.4 75.3
DAYS MAX >= 90 2 6.9 -4.9 7
No blank lines above.
Grr. Playing with <code>.
Sigh. It compresses multiple spaces into one. Piece of something Jeez might snip.
If this was the 22nd warmest summer, it must give you new respect for your grandparents and great grandparents who never really had a summer, never got a crop into the bin and never got the garden produce into the storage room before the first frost.
Actually, it was like that in the early 1800s and 1880-1915. Why would we want to go back to that? Global warming is good.
My electric bill for August in central Illinois was the lowest for many years despite large increases in the cost of a KWH.
The following is an interesting article on global temperature measurement:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315101129.htm
It was another cool summer here in the Texas Panhandle too. Second one in a row, I wonder why NOAA felt compelled to mention all of the places that were a little warmer than average and not places that are usually hotter than Hades, like Texas and Oklahoma, which have been unusally cool for the second year in a row?
Johnnyb, the cooler places do not fit the script.
“The average summer temperature of 72.7 degrees F is 0.8 degree F above the 20th century average, based on preliminary data. The average August temperature was 73.2 degrees F, which is 0.4 degree above average.”
This is the tranzi way, ladies and gentlemen. In order to hide individual results that do not conform to the agenda, they are dropped in and diluted by the rest of the results to come up with something more palatable. That is why things are always worded “warmest” when the focus on that is desired because of AGW, and it also why even in the winter months they will mention it was “X warmest” out of all winter months on record dating back to 1895. They will never say just cool. They will always make sure to mention warm. That is also how we can get increasing summer temperatures in this century despite the fact that the last century had the two warmest years (and warmest summers doubtless too) in the entire record. Those have to be diluted with much cooler years in different parts of the 20th century, no doubt properly “adjusted” to fit the trend, in order to appear warmer.
It would be more fitting to compare 2008 to the PDO Warm Period, 1977-2007, to get at truer feel for how 2008 truly ranks for trending purposes. But, then again, I would recommend using RSS and UAH at least WITH GISS. It would be interesting to see them for comparison’s sake.
But for me this reallys says it all:
“While temperatures in most western states were above normal in August, temperatures across much of the eastern half of the U.S. were below normal. Cooler temperatures in the east and warmer temperatures in the western U.S. contributed to a near average national residential energy consumption for August and the summer season.”
“Average.”
That about says it.
That would correspond to calculating the average phone number in the phone book. That is meaningless.
555-5555 . . . meaningless?
Este Frío Triste Agosto
Est[e] agosto
No me gusto,
Amiga mia
Hace tan fría!
Y menos húmedio
Qu[e] el promedio.
Yo lamento
Sin caliento . . .
¿Dónde la puedo
Conseguir ajustedo?
Wow, spanish poetry…
“last month ended as the 39th warmest August for the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895″
Big deal! Everybody gets a damn trophy. Why, in my day, 39th place wouldn’t even have bought you an Honorable Mention!
Evan, Being from south Texas, I understood the poem perfectly. However, look what Babelfish did to it:
This Augusto I do not like, Amiga mine It does fries! I am sorry Without I warm up
I put my translation of the verse into babelfish and it spit this out:
No tengo gusto
De este agosto,
Mi novia es fría,
Lo siento
Que no hay calor…
Coming off the cooling of the beginning of the 20th century, and the ice age scare of the early 70s, and in the throes of high CO2 and global warming… 39th place just sounds a little funny…
Sea ice extent in the Arctic is up for the second day in a row…
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3463#comment-296387
comment #526
See above for the nuevo y mejorado (“adjusted”) version.
0.8F = 0.44C. This is a very low result and could almost be -ve if you factor UHI effects.
Since 2000 I’ve seen records in this region (Sydney) for both max and min temps in many months of those years. During the middle of last winter we had one of the biggest frosts I’ve seen in 30 years as temps went way -ve and Jan 1 2005 saw temps go to 113F (45C) across most of Sydney.
This winter was cooler than average and record low temps were recorded in many parts of the state. Coincidently, Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals and Usane Bolt ran 100m in 9.69s at the Beijing Olympics. This all means nothing except that father time is the best creator of records and always will be. The current obsession with global events and records is ridiculous but is expected given the hype and emotion that surrounds AGW and the fact that we’re all looking for immediate answers to questions that simply cannot be answered for perhaps another 20 – 40 years.
gringos: what are you doing with our language??? where have yor learn spanish??????? in florida with jeb bush??? arrrghhh!!!!!!
please!!! and it is no spanish it is “castellano” (castilian) because in spain there is also the basque language, the catalâ, the galeigo,
and sorry in castellano, yours “verses” don’t make sense…
But they understand me perfectly in South (con Dios) Texas . . . #B^1
It is a fine example of the Mexifornia-Texican dialect.
That is not true for Northern California. I am beginning to suspect that NOAA is nothing more than a Political Science arm for the currently popular Washington opinion which is the only one that counts (yes, there’s an intended double entendre there).
This game can be played both ways. For Portland OR August was the 28th warmest in 135 years, on the other hand April was the 9th coldest in 135 years. Meanwhile compared with the first eight months of the previous 134 years January to August of this year was the 65th warmest (or 69th coldest depending on your point of view) putting this year right smack in the middle of the average temperatures for the last 135 years; nothing to put out a press release over.
Nosotros gringos stupidos
Del Estados Unidos,
Usted nos debe perdonar
Nosotros no lo podemos ayudar . . .
Nosotros gringos estúpidos
de los Estados Unidos,
usted nos debe perdonar
nosotros no lo podemos evitar…
perdonados
¡¡¡pero que no se repita!!!!
[Har! Har! ~ E]
Just wait until Sept. 19.
The Smokester informs me that is “International Talk Like a Pirate Day”.
http://www.talklikeapirate.com
To speak another language is to possess another soul — Charles V
Arrrr . . .
You fine Americans, could some of you tell:
Ive heard many complaints about failing crops due to cold.
A 39´th warmest august should not be a year of exceptionale crop failure due to cold, should it?
So, does anyone know, How widespread is this cropfailure, is it just local or does it have a bigger magnitude? What is the picture?
Plants cannot lie..
But they can shade the truth . . .
Actually, “39th warmest” is a polite way of saying, “WTF? It’s freakin’ colder than last year!”
Considering that there was widespread crop failure last winter and the temperature anomaly since then has taken a dead-cat bounce, it’s not particularly surprising that there is a fair bit of crop failure going around. (I’ve heard US winter wheat could be headed for trouble.)
Ive used Nasa-link to ask something else of Nasa.
I want glasnost for giss data.
Its probably naive, but if some day Nasa felt a pressure to open all secrets?
***************
Dear Nasa.
I am a lecturer of astronomy and the origin of life. I have thus used your magnificent material to thrill and enlighten many people of all ages.
I ough you a big thanks for your sharing so much data with the whole world. This is in the good spirit of what science is al about.
For many reasons there are a fuss about the unusual secrecy which now rules when it comes to the global temperature datasets of GISS.
My “beloved” NASA is loosing its good name because of a worldwide rise of doubt about the GISS data set.
We have now seen J.Hansen approve of people in UK should cross the line of law, if its in the support of his ideas about global warming.
This obviously makes GISS data even more subject to discussion and speculation.
Heres my wish for you:
“Open all GISS data sources for the whole world.
Be focussed on doing so fast, only then will any problems in data be mostly connected with Hansen himself rather than Nasa.
Special interest there is in the reason and calculations of adjustments to GISS data.
Open all for the puplic, better late than never.”
– When Glasnost was introduced in the east block long ago, why should we then loose it in the west?
B.R. Frank Lansner
***************
Yes im naive, i know… 🙂
I wonder if there is any legal recourse if farmeres are using seeds sold by suppliers which base their decision on GHG models (global warming theory)?
Yes im naive, i know
Yeah, right. Around these here parts we call that “stickin’ it to ’em”. (Good show.)
Patrick Henry,
For our left-wing climate activists, there’s indeed a very cold wind blowing out of Alaska these days.
********************
The 39th warmest?
That’s a long way from where we’ve been earlier. I feel more and more that a cooling trend has taken hold. There are lots of data (and anecdotes) that would indicate this:
1. El Nino just doesn’t want to take hold.
2. Temperatures globally seem to be retreating.
3. Powerful ocean oscillations are shifting.
4. The sun is sleeping, i.e. I see a cyc. 23 speck today.
5. More and more scientists are open to cooling.
6. Light frosts are in the forecast here in Germany this weekend.
Yes, no. 6 is just an anecdote. But normally the first frost doesn’t come until mid October. This year we’ll firing up the furnace much earlier.
evan jones
“Actually, “39th warmest” is a polite way of saying, “WTF? It’s freakin’ colder than last year!”
You described it perfectly!
Don’t expect them to give up until they are forced to say something like “It was the 106th warmest month. My guess though is that they’ll stop this spin when we reach the 50th or 60th something warmest month.
August would be 4th warmest, but Hansen has been spending too much time out of the office.
While the cat of adjustment is away the mice of true science will play.
Every time he flies off to testify in England for Eco-terrorists, his desk is moved eighteen inches. Being an absent-minded scientist, he will not notice, even as his desk moves slowly down the hall back into the back room for janitorial supplies.
There are a lot of good people at NOAA and NASA who hate what they have had to live through.
Bern Bray:
Mr. Bray makes an excellent point. Why do they only list August among the warmest months? What if they said August was the 99th warmest months out of the past 100? That, of course, would actually indicate that August was a very cold month. But by ranking it only among warm months, propaganda spin is applied.
Any honest comparison would also list its place among the coolest months. If the NOAA did that, then everyone would see that August was pretty much average.
And Evan Jones gave everyone a heads-up/link on International Talk Like A Pirate Day [9/19]. For our Brit friends, there’s also a UK site: click. [O/T? R!]
Smokey (04:32:48) :
If they compared things to all months, the clueless would point out it’s always colder in January, and the semi-clueful would suggest that different times of the year have different weather patterns and one would expect different temperature ranges through the year.
The propagandic would note that the 22nd warmest August might be the 264th (12×22) warmest month on record. That isn’t scary enough.
Me, I’m hoping that one of our NJ readers look into how August can be their 8th warmest August despite the NWS reporting below average temps at Newark, Atlantic City, and Trenton.
“this year (is) right smack in the middle of the average temperatures for the last 135 years; nothing to put out a press release over.”
Maybe an average year IS newsworthy in a time of hyped warming.
Maybe all of NASA’s historic records need to be adjusted… Did you know we landed on the moon in 1957?
Mike Bryant (05:46:16) :
Maybe all of NASA’s historic records need to be adjusted… Did you know we landed on the moon in 1957?
1957 has been adjusted. It’s next year.
I’ve been doing some thinking – always dangerous with a mind turning toward elderly…
It strikes me that two events in NASA’s history compare markedly with the latest events including temperature adjusting and grandstanding by
major NASA figures.
The two events were the loss of the Challenger and Discovery shuttles.
According to my information, in each loss, people not fully in the loop were given authority to overrule those who knew what was going on. The pressures of meeting schedules and media attention were deemed more important than “minor” engineering ussues.
In both cases, NASA admitted culpibility in the loss, and vowed to correct the management and engineering issues. I believe the words used were “Change the management culture to allow opposing points of view to surface”.
Seems to me the effort has faded again, and the old autocracy is once again in full bloom. It is obvious that NASA is once again responding to media pressure and data juggling to present a “better than thou” face to the nation and the world.
I sincerely hope this is just in the climate section and hasn’t filtered over to the space organization again. We don’t need to lose more space pioneers to human foolishness.
But even if just the climate area is involved, human loss will result from the present direction. If the data points as many believe (and at this point we have to say the jury is still out) toward a cooling earth. The only difference is the human loss will not be announced with fireworks in the sky and thunderous explosions, but caskets in the morgue and sad silence.
NASA’s research does impact peoples’ lives, and a wrong direction due to data manipulation and stubbornness cannot be allowed.
My view is – if there is no clear direction, leave it be!
Mike
I’m not sure that I realy believe this. Where I am from (Alberta Canada just accross the boarder from you), it was a cool summer. There was lots of plesent weather, but only about a week of real warm weather.
I aggree with one of the previouse posters, that one you get past the 10 anything, way rank it. Recently someone stated that something was about the size of the Yukon, Canada’s 9th largest provence or terretory. Supprise… that is also the 5th smallest (the smallest non-tiny Atlantic provence) .
Anyway, by my calculations, August 2008 was the 74th coldest on the recorded history of the Earth. ((2008-1895)-39=74)
Let me say, up here in Ottawa, it’s been a cool, rainy summer. We normally have a couple of weeks over 30C, and I think we’ve had 3-4 days total ALL SUMMER above 30C. It’s been great for electricity usage, but not so good for the pool…:^)). About the only decent weather we had was in late August, which I guess is why they would cherry-pick that month….
Jim
If this was the 39th warmest, what was the 38th & the 40th warmest ?
Mike Bentley,
A very interesting perspective, sir.
dear mr evanjones:
my previous posts tried to be “chistosos” (jokes) please don’t offended by them. my english is as bad as your spanish!!!
Charles V, the head of a multispeaking peoples also said that he used the italian to sing, the french to make love, the german to command… and the castellado to speak with god…
[REPLY – My dear fellow! Not at all! I was highly amused, as intended. (However, just to keep the record straight, it is obvious that your English is far superior to my Spanish.)]
I live in CT and my impression of August is that it has been quite cool. In fact, the leaves on the trees have started to change in many areas –which is unusual for this time of year.
Not totally related, but am I detecting a flattening at the bottom of the ice melt?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Still pretty low, and probably rivaled the 2007 levels more than I anticipated earlier in the summer, but despite the best wishes for a record ice melt, it appears unlikely to happen, though I suppose anything’s still possible.
If anyone is interested, I ran a few numbers on the changing slope patters by global region, using the RSS data. The Arctic warming over the last 30 years has been very real, and explains why there would be a high ice melt. But different regions of the planet vary greatly in the warming patterns, so warming, particularly at the same rate, has been far from global (in fact, the 30 year Antarctic trend is negative).
One thing is consistent across all regions, though… recent trends are negative. Some only for 3 years, and some for many years now. And the downturn is fairly dramatic across all regions. The Arctic is no different. Ice still melts because it reached such a high temperature anomaly that when it started to cool, the anomalies are still high enough to continue the melting cycle. But it would appear that will end if current trends continue. There has been a cooling from peak temperature in the Arctic since 2002. Only now are temps reaching a point to look like they will be able to support increasing ice formation.
The link is here if interested. It’s not complicated, but i thought it was an interesting comparison:
http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/september-2008-update-on-global-temperature-rss-part-2/
something is very wrong
New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island had their eighth warmest summers
I live in those states. For the first in 20 years I did not turn on the air conditioner once. Something is very very wrong with the records
Anthony, the Science dude next door to you isn’t buying the surface stations could be in error. He thinks Dot Earth is just great.
http://sciencedude.freedomblogging.com/2008/09/12/has-santa-ana-been-reporting-wrong-temperatures-for-years/#comment-4710
peerreviewer: You must be rich to live in three states …
Anyway, further to my previous post, I was in Floriday in August, and was fallowing the weather before I went. It was cloudy and warm all month, rather than the usual Hot.
I think that this 74th coolest August must be based on the faulty surfase stations.
“The average August temperature was 73.2 degrees F, which is 0.4 degree above average.”
That, with the sulfate aerosols and ash above, evidences that we are all going to boil in a few months.
Forgot the reference:
http://www.doas-bremen.de/
Bull **** this was not all that warm.Only on land observations contaminated by heat-island warming at most airports as well as sprawling exburbs whose heat islands have grown big time all over the country in the last decade or two. Satelite observations tell a different story with near to slightly below for the whole summer as well as August.STOP posting such junk data by tainted land data on this site! This is not NCDC”S
website
I am in Houston. My okra crop was pathetic. It was the same seed, same soil, plenty of water and nutrients. Okra loves hot weather and production slows if it is not hot. This year I got maybe 10% of last years yield.
George Mink III,
Take a deep breath, everyone here knows what is going on. This website is concerned with “Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”. I am sure you agree that NCDCs announcement is puzzling. If he doesn’t post it, how can we comment on it?
Mike Bryant:
Lord Voldemort….. Attacks Again
….The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has grown in recent Septembers in what could be an unusual side-effect of global warming, experts say…..
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14724-antarctic-sea-ice-increases-despite-warming.html
Fernando,
Did you see the movie “The Day After Tomorrow”? When everything flash freezes, global warming will be the culprit. I heard there will be a sequel, “The Day After The Day After Tomorrow”.
It does not matter what happens, global warming is causing everything. Especially if it is hurting cute animals. Of course it helps mean and evil animals like snakes, spiders, crabs and sharks.
Cold Goeth Before the Fall [This Cold, Sad August]
The climate this Fall [This August]
I don’t like at all, [I do not like]
My main squeeze [My girlfriend]
Is in a deep freeze. [Is so cold]
At the risk of being rude [And the humidity]
She just ain’t in the mood. [Is below average]
I complain a lot [I lament]
When she ain’t hot . . . [Without heat]
So I can get lusted [Where can I]
Where can I get her adjusted? [Get her adjusted]
“New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island had their eighth warmest summers”
Didn’t make it to New Jersey this year but when I passed through Rhode Island on my way from Boston to Mystic, CT, it was definitely the hottest, coldest and most average August day I have experienced in RI since 2004. Connecticut was very pleasant except when that rather rude Hanna lady came to call one Saturday evening and extinguished the ciggy I was enjoying on my friend’s patio.
I sincerely hope this is just in the climate section and hasn’t filtered over to the space organization again. We don’t need to lose more space pioneers to human foolishness.
I literally wouldn’t trust NASA to change my oil, or even to check my tire pressures – and, fwiw, I just don’t need their diapers. What a bunch of abject losers NASA is, imo. Give me my money back. If I had practiced ER medicine like NASA/Hansen now thinks, many would have died and/or I wouldn’t have been in business for more than a few months. NASA, what a bunch of very especially despicable losers it has become: now Hansen and NASA, and NOAA, even want to kill off billions of people, in order to “save” them – naturally.
Imo, they should start with themselves.
NASA has lost its climate credibility. The fact that they (mostly) don’t rely on satellite data always struck me as a little funny. Those unfamiliar with NASA/GISS seem unaware that they are just using heated-up NOAA surface data, which in turn, as we well know, has been called into serious question.
Lehman Brothers .. died because of AGW .. who knew ?
Are government employees allowed to sit on private sector boards ?