The pain in Maine

Ric Werme (20:53:40) :
“Record highs come with convective mixing, so a large area should have similar temperatures and stations can “vote” the outliers off the island. Low records tend to be associated with peak radiational cooling and micro-climate effects come in to play. So nearby stations away from valleys or other low areas may see much warmer temps instead of providing confirmation.”
This makes sense, but couldn’t the NWS announcement make a brief explananation along these lines?

Alan S. Blue (22:08:15) :
AMSR-E Satellite Arctic sea ice extent back to second highest ever. (Ok, AMSR-E is new, but still.)
You make a key point! Also, the current ice growth rateis the highest of all the years on that graph. If this trend continues, it will be interesting to see the spin placed upon it. As I understand physics, ice only forms in a cold environment. Ice forms rapidly in a very cold environment. This ice is forming more rapidly than at any time in the past 7 years by that graph.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California

Basil (05:11:51) :
MattN (04:40:23) :
What I’m read is that it is flat out COLD. The US is cold. Europe is coldest in some time. Siberia is -65F, or colder. La Nina is beginning to form again. But when I go check out the daily AMSU temp graph here: http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/ I see that so far this January seems to be a good bit warmer than last January.
Where is the heat?
It is not heat, it is just less cold. Globally, last January was very cold, according to the global temperature metrics, and the current La Nina is not where we were (yet) a year ago, so we should expect January to track higher on the AMSU graph.
AMSU was actually below the one-year-ago line until several days ago when it shot upward at several levels of the atmosphere. So, the question “Where is the heat?” seems like a good one. Anyone know?

Oregon is setting record high temperatures in several locations. But not because it is quote “warm” in Oregon. We have a major inversion in place. Freezing temperatures are close to the ground while the warm summer sunshine is just beyond our reach. The Pendleton area has been freezing during the day while the mountain passes are recording record highs and Wallowa County’s high valley floor has been having bluebird warm days. It is warm in some places, and below freezing in others, depending on altitude and proximity to mountains. The place you stand could be only 3 miles or less driving distance from drastic temperature change. My boyfriend and his son who work wherever there is a busted piece of logging equipment tell us that depending on the GPS, they either are working in short sleeves, or full coated and gloved conditions with icicles dripping from their nose, whenever they move to a different altitude. All in one day.
Temperatures like this remind me that what the gauge is saying may not reflect an accurate picture of true conditions. If this inversion lasts, we could see an artifactual increase in average temperature recordings for January that would not reflect true conditions of regional warmth versus cold.

We New Englandehs (‘specially the nothen paht) can take it:
Warm spots in a frigid landscape

I lived in Limestone ME from 1958 to 1961 just a stone’s throw away from the Caribou town line. It got to -30F on a couple of days those years. One of them is memorable to me because we played a hockey game outdoors in a pond at the bottom of gravel pit that actually was in Caribou. It was sheltered from the wind. On the way back we crossed higher ground where it was very windy and for a few minutes hid in a cement culvert to warm up. What was really memorable was that as we walked back home there was no traffic on the roads. It was about a one mile walk each way that morning.
Also the Christmas of 1958 (maybe 1959) was memorable because there was no snow on the ground and it was fairly warm. At first it seemed like no one could remember a snow free Christmas. Then some of older potato farmers said it had happened before back in the 1930s.
It never got to -37F when I was living there.

Oops. I posted too soon. Our warm days are over here in the Wallowa Valley. Just like that. Freezing fog and drizzle has quickly surrounded me and is turning the landscape into a ghostly, creeping, draping white. The cold moist air is creeping into the cracks and crevices of my century plus old farm house and surrounding my chilled feet, like a black and white scene out of the old testament “Moses” film. If I want warm, I have to go up in the mountains surrounding the valley. Not even the fireplace stays lit because the chimney has no draw.

Dan Lee — What I’ve never gotten is the attitude of the media in all this. Journalists make names for themselves by exposing such shenanigans to the light, but only a few have dared to challenge this one.
It’s because alarmists learned something from scientists who mostly refused to debate creationists in front of the (e.g. KS) school boards trying to squelch the teaching of evolution: the scientists would say that debate does little more than elevate the creationist argument to that of being equal and the board has to decide which equal to go with.
Hence, we get “the science is settled” and “there is no debate.” Heard either of these before? This is right out of the anti-creationist playbook. Alarmist sites are rife with equating skepticsm with evolution doubters; they’re often painted as being one and the same. e.g. Joe Romm’s site routinely dismisses THIS site as a haven of right wing anti-science nutjobs. (The truth is that this place is politically diverse and a great number of readers, perhaps most, are well educated.)
Meanwhile, reporters as a rule are *not* right wing; many are the types who don’t personally know anyone who voted for Bush, and so on. The picture they receive is one of science vs wingnut, just like the KS school board. In short the alarmists have successfully used political tendencies to their advantage.
And yes, it’s as simple as that.

Bill Marsh (08:31:09) : wrote
philincalifornia,
The only thing Obama can do, at least if you read the implications of this article, is somehow REDUCE the amount of carbon in the air, and by a fairly large amount, to levels that will not result iin runaway global warming. I suggest we shut down all Cars, planes, trains, ships, coal and gas fired power plants in the US, on Jan 21st. Oh, and cement factories too, steel as well, shut it all down. That might, might, reduce the amount of ‘carbon’ in the air (probably not since the Chinese and Indians are merrily increasing the amount far faster than we are).
—————————————————–
Exactly, but my point is that not only has the term “global warming” been morphed into “climate change”, but people like Hansen and the Guardian writers have lost the word “anthropogenic”, conveniently.
The inconvenient truth is that if you put the word “anthropogenic” in front of “climate change”, you create something that doesn’t exist in reality or even theory …. even the alarmist’s theories. So, I ask again, what is it that Obama is going to halt ?? Is it anthropogenic global warming (which clearly exists more in theory than reality), or natural climate change (which has existed for billions of years) ??
Just doing my bit to try to save the odd 10 or 20 trillion dollars !!

Pamela Gray said
“The cold moist air is creeping into the cracks and crevices of my century plus old farm house and surrounding my chilled feet”
I bet you went and bought those racy slingbacks instead of investing in a warm pair of stout boots, so don’t come complaining to us…
TonyB

Taylor is Calgary
I also am in Calgary. Hi. Anyway, this artical is about an all time state wide recored. The record in Calgary that you are talking of is a rocord for this day. Lets face it, we regularly get above +30C here in the summer, so this is realy no record at all, just something for the miedia tipes to talk about.
Jeff Taylor

1) I am under the impression that decreasing the carbon in our atmosphere will make it harder for plant life to prosper. Ergo, this move will cause more loss of food and loss of life. I believe that is what the Eugenics folks want to happen. Anything to have something akin to a pond die-off amongst the commoners.
2) I’ve been in Barrow Alaska at -68 with wind chill to -125. There is no way to describe it. Feels like cold steel on exposed skin. Eyelids freeze shut.
3) I’ve camped in Alaska at -50 and learnt the hard way what is is like to be miserable inside 2 -40 rated sleeping bags, the latter freezing to walls by their own condensation.
4) It was officially -78 in Tok Alaska last week (same weather now assaulting the east). Diesel fuel does not flow. Even if you leave you engine running if you have 90 weight oil in the transmission, when you engage the clutch in neutral, it will stall the engine. Even if you have light oil in the tranny, the differential will not turn over. Even if you drag the vehicle until the rear end loosens (which I have at -45), you have to be careful your tires don’t crack. You accelerate very slowly as the tires are banging each revolution as the flat side comes around…then, finally the rubber softens a little. If you push it, your tire cracks and often disintegrates. Truckers paint lines in their tires to be able to see those frozen in place from their rear view mirrors as they drive. Also..at -78, propane doesn’t vaporize, furnace oil long since solidified…and gasoline has become, by way of it’s compounding, very temperamental. Aviation kerosene is also like honey. Carburetors also freeze inside as the air expands into the manifolds…there is no room for error or stupidity in temperatures like -50 or lower.
5) I’m speaking as a former Alaska Wilderness Guide.