The NOAA/NCDC 2008 temperature map shows near normal USA in 2008

This seems odd, the part of Arizona that was red (above normal) in the previous map, is blue (below normal) here.

The key to understanding AGW is to understand that everything supports the theory. Everything is consistent with the models and if the data doesn’t match, just adjust the data accordingly.

Oh, never mind. The bottom is Dec, top Jan-Dec. (I need to read better).

PS sorry for all the spelling mistakes…pressed the wrong button…but you know what I meant.

The National Continuous Temperature graph shows that 1998 and 2004 or 05 were warmer than 1934. As I recall Steve McIntyre forced GISS to correct their data to reflect that 1934 was the hottest year in the history of the US. Your comment please.

Obviously anecdotal, but a friend in Annapolis (east of DC) tells me it is colder than {snip} (saving the moderator the trouble). Of course, that’s just weather. Little chance of snow on Tuesday, but we can dream.
Not sure I agree with ‘near normal’ as the map shows a lot more blue than red.

Rich: “Some bloggers here claim that capitalism has destroyed our country. I respectfully disagree. We are becoming a socialist nation…”
“You are right: GISS and all the other are bureaucratic entities owned by the goverment. We have already lived that in south america.
A good example of the contrary were the “X” prize winners that managed to send a ship to the space with just 20 million dollars.

Some bloggers here claim that capitalism has destroyed our country. I respectfully disagree. We are becoming a socialist nation…
————–
To some people, anything short of pure communism is some form of capitalism.
While the US is not as regulated as Europe, we haven’t had capitalism here for well over a century.

Robert Bateman (09:53:48) :
“Pass a climate change bill to do what? Blow off a couple dozen Pinatubos and El Chicon’s with nukes to cool the Earth? Use a thousand airtankers to seed the skies with sunlight reflecting something?”
U.S. Senators Warner and Lieberman tried to get a climate change bill passed last session, it failed. Senator Boxer now is working with them to draft a bill that Obama would sign.
Obama is on record (made a video statement) that he wants a federal climate change law virtually identical to what California passed in 2006. The requirement is to reduce GHG by 2020 to the level emitted in 1990 — that is approximately 30 percent below business-as-usual. Further, reduce GHG by 2050 to 80 percent below the level emitted in 1990. That is approximately 87 percent below the business-as-usual case.
These are draconian measures. For some perspective, the Kyoto signers were required to reduce GHG to just a few percent below 1990 levels (depends on the country, not consistent for all) by the period 2008 – 2012. It has not happened. Costs were too high to comply.
These GHG, save-the-planet laws require such things as renewable fuels, renewable energy production (no GHG allowed), massive energy conservation projects such as replacing electric motors with very high-efficiency motors, cap-and-trade on carbon emissions, high-density housing, and a bunch of others. Basically, changing the way everyone lives.
For more information on the California law, see
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/cc.htm
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California

Tarnsman, the simplistic beauty of ‘Climate Change’ is that no matter what happens you can blame America for having Air Conditioning, Cell Phones, SUV’s, whatever else you want to blame. Logic need not be a factor.

For what it is worth, NOAA publishes weekly and monthly data on heating-degree days and cooling-degree days for U.S. cities, at
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/cdus/degree_days/
I have been downloading the weekly data for Heating Degree Days Cities Listing for a few months now, into a spreadsheet and doing some calculations and graphs.
What is interesting to me is that in the U.S. 2008 was definitely colder than 2007, by about 9 percent; that is, there were 9 percent more HD days in 2008 than 2007. Also, 2008 was only 1.2 percent warmer than the “average”, whatever that is. There were 1.2 percent fewer HD days in 2008 compared to the “average.”
I have not yet downloaded the cooling degree data, but will soon.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California

Sorry James but I should have added, according to my wife, that Emma, like all thespians, is a great scientist first and actor second, hence the mess we are in. They know it all.

REPLY: “wind turbines taking up less than 3 square kilometres”? Doubtful…we have that much area of wind turbines in California alone already.- Anthony
Altamont fulfills the space requirement.plus. The professor did say, “in theory. I would be interested in the details of how the 3 square kilometers would accommodate the required number of wind turbines.
The world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai, is 680 meters (2270.4 feet) in height and growing. The professor, who apparently lives in the seclusion of academic life, perhaps envisions a similar 2200-foot tower with 3 megawatt turbines located at 200-foot intervals. At 33 megawatts per tower, how many towers would be required to fulfill the energy requirement and would they fit within 3 square kilometers?
Maintenance would pose a problem, but one of those prevalent mid-western tornadoes would bring the turbines down to ground level for ease of access.

This is why the battle is being lost. This is why Henry Waxman will have carte blanche with global warming legislation.

John Galt (10:35:34) :
“The key to understanding AGW is to understand that everything supports the theory. Everything is consistent with the models and if the data doesn’t match, just adjust the data accordingly.”
John, are you applying for a position on the IPCC computer modeling team?

This reminds me of Byrons’ dedication to his Don Juan:
You, Bob, are rather insolent, you know,
At being disappointed in your wish
To supersede all warblers here below,
And then you overstrain yourself,or so,
And tumble downwards like the flying fish
Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,
And fall for lack of moisture quite a dry Bob.
N.B. ‘Bob’ was Robert Southey, the ‘poet laureate of the time and, representative of that consensus, and ‘a dry bob’ is slang for you know what..
And if people were still capable of such savage satire..

“” Basil (11:06:43) :
Leon Brozyna (10:00:07) :
I assume that the divergence from normal as shown on the maps is based on a 30-year average, while the graph shows each year’s temperature in relation to the 20th century mean. “”
So Basil, who needs base periods; and for what purpose.
Imagine if you will if someone threw a party; anf they invited every Climatologist and every member of the AGS to the party; and everybody brought their thermometers to the party so they could compare them all.
Then somebody who was still sober could stand up and say; “Why don’t we arbitrarily define the triple Point of Water as being at 273.16 Kelvins, and also define zero degrees Celsius as being 273.15 Kelvins.
Then everybody could reset their thermometers, go back home, and nobody ever again would ever have to mention a “base period”, or even an “anomaly”.
Everybody could simply label their graphs in Deg C or in Kelvins for the snooty types.
How would that work if the field of climatology decided to rejoin the rest of the science community, and make use of the already agreed upon international set of measurement units.
George

The fact that a nearly normal US temperature is seen as big news depicts clearly enough the warming trend we had.
A big fat la nina, a solar minimum, a negative PDO and some volcano dust in the air, and all we have is a normal temperature? I wish there won’t be an el nino during the next solar maximum…

I think the real reason there’s such a foaming-at-the-mouth push to enact legistion now is that the writing is on the wall for an extended cold period over the next few decades. Little by little, the facts about the AGW scam are leaking out and the mainstream media can’t keep the truth bottle up forever. This is the left’s last chance to curtail personal freedom before the public wises up (as is starting to happen in Europe).
What a gift it was to the socialists- That CO2 (the byproduct of capitalism and economic progress) could be potentially harming the earth. Now that the truth about it is coming out, they’re scared to death of potentially squandering that gift, so it’s now a race to use it before its too late.

I have not read all the comments but I love that they mentionned that “South Carolina and Georgia had their sixth and eighth, respectively, warmest December on record.”, without mentionning that one state had their 7th coldest December, another one their 8th Coldest then it is 11th (2 states), 12th, 13th (2 states) coldest December, so 7 states had their 13th or worst coldest December over the last 115 years!
On the warm side, the 3rd is the 13th warmest then there is one 14th warmest in 4th and in 5th a 19th warmest.
So technically there are not wrong although when you look at the 5 states who had their warmest December and the 5 who had their coldest December, clearly the situation is on the coldest being worst.
It is with this sort of presentation that without lying they give you a wrong picture. everybody will be saying “can you believe South Carolina and Georgia had their sixth and eighth, respectively, warmest December on record” My god, the end is near!!!!!

O/T
In case no one’s checked it out yet, it is now official – WUWT is the 2008 Best Science Blog.
I know, it’s a bit anticlimactic.

Antedoctal, but here in South Carolina, we are expected to have cold we have not seen since the early 1970’s. Scrambling to make sure we don’t freeze important utilities. Predicted to be about 9F, most systems are put in with the assumption of greater than 20F sustained temperatures for x hours, and y windspeed. Windchill factor, time weighted can be quite local phenomena. Hope we don’t lose essential services. Category 6 natural gas users are being curtailed in SC.

“some volcano dust in the air, and all we have is a normal temperature? I wish there won’t be an el nino during the next solar maximum…”
Hold the volcano dust for now, nothing noteworthy happening yet within 70 degrees of the equator.
What sort of Rmax do you need for crisping your wallabies?

On another website, catholicfundamentalism.com it was suggested that since so many surface stations were poorly sited, that there may be volunteers who’d picture their own thermometers, and set up a central data base that would record actual temperatures.
That way, we would have a good, solid check on what the gov’t weather stations were telling us.
I couldn’t tell if this was a good idea, but it seemed to be.

Perhaps I am misinterpreting the graph where Anthony states:
Here is what the CONUS temperature time series looks like with 2008 added, as included in the press release:
I interpret the slope of the line labeled Long-Term Mean to indicate the mean temperature in the lower-48 has increased about 0.2 deg F since 1895.
What am I missing?

OT, but “fish poop” is now known to offset global warming…
“The ocean’s delicate acid balance may be getting help from an unexpected source, fish poop. The increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not only drives global warming, but also raises the amount of CO2 dissolved in ocean water, tending to make it more acid, potentially a threat to sea life.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090115/ap_on_sc/sci_fish_poop
Can we now expect to see a market for poop-credits?
JimB

This fascination with the weather average across the US is interesting (given the fact that there are several climate zones in this great country of ours that have been and still are stable since way before 1895). It is almost beginning to sound like the cackles of a woman trying to diet. I weighed myself today on one of those counterbalanced tall scales at school. 123.75 lbs. I went straight home afterwards (IE got home 10 minutes later) and stepped on my bathroom scales. 123.2 lbs. Lost 0.55 lbs! Now that is something to celebrate! I am winning! The scales are going down!
Silly isn’t it. Up or down, we are talking just a bit heavier here, and a bit lighter there. Close enough. Looks average to me. No change. And not much information that helps me make decisions about whether or not my diet has been successful.
Using a US average, or an Australian average, or a Siberian average graph isn’t very useful either. I sure as hell am not going to worry about .2 degrees change in US temperature since 1895, up OR down. That could well be within the margin of error. Just like my scales and the one at the school. Plus my spring wheat could not give a rats ass over an average temperature change so small.
What does matter is how weather may change (and drastically) within for example, a temperate climate zone from warmer to colder (mind you, it will still be a temperate climate, just colder weather wise), thus potentially destroy crops not meant for a change from lows of below freezing to lows of below 0.
The data that is useful, and vital, to people, animals, and agriculture, is the messy data. The actual high’s and low’s on a daily basis. You know. The noisy graph all the “climate” folks want to get rid of so the line will move the way they want it to move. If you grow wine grapes, the daily noisy data is the only data that provides the numbers you need to calculate Sun days. If you grow spring wheat, the number of days and dates below zero are vital. Without this daily actual temperature information, you all don’t eat, drink, and be merry.
I wish NOAA would get back to being what it once was. A source for agriculture to manage growing seasons and maybe make payments on the bank loan. This overindulging global climate change fanatics is as useful to me as a stuffed shirt dandy knocking on my door wanting a date.
Okay. Rant off.

In that case, I delare the optimum temperature to be 21degC by night and 35degC by day. With a mild shower once a week and heavy rainfall once a month. Now can we all go back to sleep.
PS: thanks Anthony for a great web site.

James: (10:00:59)
Tamino may be more acerbic than needed at times (OK, maybe more than a little), but in this instance, he’s right on. The 2008 globally-averaged temperature is still within the amplitude envelope of higher frequency climate change (e.g., ENSO variations) that is superimposed on the observed warming exactly predicted by Hansen and others starting in 1988 (e.g., see Rahmstorf et al., 2007, Science, v. 316, p. 709). It’s unfortunate that Anthony deleted the Tamino link, because the first plot of that link demonstrated perfectly the nature of the data scatter vs the AGW trend and the fact that the 2008 temp is within the scatter envelope. To trumpet the 2008 temp as meaning anything otherwise is misleading. Find the link yourself (it’s not too hard: It’s dated Dec. 31), ignore the over-the-top rhetoric and look at the first draft. It’s pretty revealing.

I think the optimal temperature should be set according to Weather Service Forecast Office forecast zones. Or better yet house by house… Wait a minute, we already do that….

Strange to see some factual things, aside from all the data manipulation or massaging…if the globe is warming.
Has anyone looked lately at the Arctic ice extent — Anthony has a link at the top right. Then, notice how the slope of the 2009 line is higher than virtually any other line on the graph (the first derivative)? Does that indicate getting colder, not warmer?
Has anyone noticed the sea level rise has stopped, according to the Boulder SSH data? And, that in many areas of the world, it is actually dropping? One such are of SSH decrease is off the U.S. west coast, where California enacted the draconian AB 32 to prevent sea level rise? Is the ocean evaporating, and dropping the water as snow somewhere?
Has anyone noticed that heating degree days for 2008 were much greater than for 2007 in the U.S., approximately 9 percent more? And, cooling-degree days were approximately 11 percent fewer in 2008 compared to 2007?
I suspect everyone has noticed that the CO2 is still rising from the Mauna Loa data.
Does all this not make a persuasive case that the CO2 – link, or causation, is false? Perhaps even that GW is not happening, and AGW is therefore nonsensical?
Admittedly, I am a bit new at all this, so if this is off-base, can someone guide me?
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California

“The 2008 globally-averaged temperature is still within the amplitude envelope of higher frequency climate change (e.g., ENSO variations) that is superimposed on the observed warming exactly predicted by Hansen and others starting in 1988 (e.g., see Rahmstorf et al., 2007, Science, v. 316, p. 709)”
I believe this is in the encyclopedia under, “Grasping at straws.”

I just find it funny that Northeast Nebraska had record cold.
Then again, nothing ever happens in NE Nebraska…so no worries.
Al Gore, NE Nebraska and the Oregon Coast have a message for you: SHUT UP!

Man, that 0.2C in ten years is really going to feel good, Rob…
Mike Bryant

Greg (19:31:15) wrote: “In that case, I delare the optimum temperature to be 21degC by night and 35degC by day.”
An excellent example of why men go to war, Greg. Your optimums would kill me (we are having a taste of them in Melbourne). It may be my time of life, but 8-10C at night and 23C day is my dream; and Pamela Gray’s climate is feared…

What I find most interesting about this word “normal” is this: How do we actually know what the “normal” climate is supposed to be? In other words, where is it written that the climate is supposed to be exactly the same every year to be considered “normal”?
We are consistently told that the Arctic region is melting, and yet somehow it is -78 F in Alaska. Somehow an Arctic cold front all the way down in Illinois made yesterday’s high temperature -5 F.
Does 1+1=3? If it is so warm up there, where is all the cold air coming from? I’m no scientist, but I am smart enough to question the obvious and see lies when I see them. Unfortunately, the masses who are edumacated solely by TV don’t understand (or even care).

RE: the Graph
I thought it was “general consensus” that 1934 was the hottest year on record for the 48 states. Looks like NOAA has adjusted this downward to make 1998 and 2006 warmer.

E.M. Smith,
I fear that you are correct, although I am reluctant in admitting what we ‘have become’.
We are witnessing the crash and burn of the modern Roman Empire, with flames stoked by greed and corruption. Global socialism is right around the corner, with help from a uniting cause (environmentalism) linking us all.
I had to get up at 2:00am to fire up and connect our generator because we lost power up here in New Hampshire. I have expensive equipment which contains water and would freeze, expand and cause extensive damage.
Pulling a generator through over a foot of snow, with -10 degree temperatures, in pajamas… sucks. And I live closer to the equator than the north pole.
Is it time to move south or should I hold out for “hope” that we just might get a little global warming?

We set another all time record, -33, eclipsing -31 in 1977 for last night. Maine seems to have set lowest temp ever in BearCreek? -50 is the claim.
I know, it’s just weather.

Sorry about the error in spelling ‘temperatures’ above.

And now another branch of the U.S. Government, the USGS, announces they led a synthesis of trash studies. The latest consensus is that the Arctic is melting. Apparently someone thinks this is a popularity contest rather than a study of reality.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2109
http://climatescience.gov/

I recall being stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, in an area comprised of a meadow, where the temperature reache ninety odd degrees in the summer. Our unit was sent to Camp Irwin, Cal., which we were told was six miles from Death Valley, where the temperatures were frequently over 110 degrees. We suffered from the heat at Riley but not at Irwin. No humidity there.

I was at Ft. Riley in the early 80s (1983/84) and we went to Ft Irwin (I assume you mean Fort and not Camp) in August 1983 for 30 days. It was hot, but, as the saying goes, it was a dry heat. Actually it wasn’t that dry. It rained more while we were there than it had for the previous 10 years combined. Lots of flash floods, and the mudskippers were happy.

The other thing about Ft Irwin and nearby areas (Barstow and Victorville, CA) is that the low humidity means that it can cool more quickly in the evenings. A triple-digit temperature (F) day may be followed by an evening in the 70s or 80s F. And when I say evening, I mean a few minutes after sundown.

Very true. While it was 110 in the daytime, at night it got close to freezing. Had to sleep in my mountain bag on the top of the APC.

Thanks for the input. As I understand the humidity is not a factor in measuring by a thermometer.
By the way, it was Camp Irwin back in 1954.

REPLY: Humidity does not affect the thermometer itself, but humidity does affect the local atmosphere, and thus the temperature highs and lows measured by the thermometer. Witness the desert for example, where low humidity encourages deeper overnight low temperatures. – Anthony

I have tracked the local (mid North Carolina) temperature since October 1st. October, November and January were all colder than “normal” by 1 to 4 degrees F. December was warmer only because of a week long warm spell. So far the entire winter still averages about 1 degree F colder than normal.
I think the choice of the month of December instead of the yearly or quarterly data was another example of “picking the data to fit the wishes of the powers that be” Forty years as an industrial chemist has taught me the fastest way to get fired is to publish data that contradicts the wishes of the powers that be especially when it is the truth. Honesty got me fired five times over the years so I do not see any reason this fact of life has changed, especially when powerful men are going to use the data for political reasons.