FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOAA: April Temperatures Slightly Cooler Than Average for U.S.
May 8, 2009
The April 2009 temperature for the contiguous United States was below the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC.
The average April temperature of 51.2 degrees F was 0.8 degree F below the 20th Century average. Precipitation across the contiguous United States in April averaged 2.62 inches, which is 0.19 inch above the 1901-2000 average.
U.S. Temperature Highlights
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
- April temperatures were near normal across much of the United States. On a regional scale, only the Northeast (above-normal) and the West North Central (below-normal) deviated significantly from normal.
- New Hampshire observed its eighth warmest April, based on data going back to 1895. Unlike much of the Northeast, the Midwest experienced a cooler-than-normal month. From North Dakota southward to Oklahoma, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia, temperature averages were below normal.
- For the year-to-date period, only North Dakota and Washington have experienced notably cooler-than-normal average temperatures. In contrast, much of the South and Southwest regions were above normal. New Mexico had its ninth warmest such period on record.
- Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 2.3 percent below average in April.
U.S. Precipitation Highlights
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
- Above-normal precipitation fell across parts of the Central and South regions, while the West and Northwest regions experienced below-normal precipitation.
- Precipitation was above normal for the contiguous United States. Georgia had its fifth wettest April on record, Kansas and Michigan had their ninth wettest, and Illinois, its tenth. Only seven states were notably drier than normal for April.
- Year to date, the Northeast experienced its fourth driest January-through-April period on record and it was the twelfth driest period for the contiguous U.S.
- By the end of April, moderate-to-exceptional drought covered 18 percent of the contiguous United States, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Severe, or extreme, drought conditions continued in parts of California, Florida, Hawai’i, Nevada, Wisconsin, the southern Appalachians, and the southern Plains, with exceptional drought in southern Texas.
About 21 percent of the contiguous United States had moderately-to-extremely wet conditions at the end of April, according to the Palmer Index (a well-known index that measures both drought intensity and wet spell intensity).
Other Highlights
- International Falls, Minn., recorded 125 inches of snow so far this winter season, breaking the previous record of 116 inches set in the 1995-1996 winter season. Another seasonal snowfall record was broken in Spokane, Wash., where 97.7 inches of snowfall broke the old record of 93.5 inches set in 1915-1916.
- About eight percent of the contiguous U.S. was covered by snow at end of April, according to an analysis by the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center. Snow coverage during the month peaked at 30.2 percent on April 6, after a late-season winter storm hit the Midwest and Plains.
- The 263 preliminary tornadoes reported in April was above the three-year average of 200 confirmed tornadoes.
NCDC’s preliminary reports, which assess the current state of the climate, are released soon after the end of each month. These analyses are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when late reports are received several weeks after the end of the month and as increased scientific methods improve NCDC’s processing algorithms.
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.
You HAVE to be kidding. Do you actually think the group of people posting here all just decided to ignore everything and not even look at what has been presented? Seriously? You can’t be serious.
Do you actually think that YOU, Rick, are the first person to stumble across a “skeptic” site, and that YOU, Rick, are going to educate everyone? Do you think that you are going to present any data that the majority of regular posters here have not seen a hundred times? YOU?
Rick, you’ve definitely missed your calling. Although, I think the role of “Jesus” is already taken.
What you’re missing is:
1) There is no reason to believe that the increase in CO2 recorded at Mauna Loa is either accurate or anthropogenic. Oh yeah, you’re going to scoff and say it has to be, or pull out some “peer reviewed science”. But you’d be wrong. Rising ocean temperatures preceed rising CO2. CO2 concentrations always lag temperature, and are not a driver.
2) It IS up to the AGW believers to provide evidence and documentation, which they have NOT. Oh yeah, I see the papers and I see the simulations and I hear the hand waving panic inducing rants, and am forced to watch the absolutely ridiculous TV ads telling us that buying this or that product or sending money here is going to “save the planet”. But if you were to actually look around and read for yourself, there is NO credible demonstration that CO2 is affecting climate, IN ANY WAY. Only theory. Oh, and the stupidly naive “precautionary principle”.
3) Nothing falsifiable is even on the table. That is not science. Everything is our fault, warming, cooling, drought, flood, bird migrations, etc. etc. NOT ONE THING warned of has come to pass. NOT ONE. Where’s the troposphere heat? Where’s any extra heat? Why have we been cooling since the giant 98 El Nino?
Public health perspective? Now I’ve lost all doubt. You ARE a troll.
Understand this, Rick: most, if not all, regular posters here USED TO BELIEVE. Now why do you think we’ve switched to the “dark side”?
Rick, the NCLB law has spawned a clearing house website that reviews “peer reviewed” research articles on interventions the authors say “work” to improve academic performance. Only a very small percent of reviewed research articles make it through the clearinghouse process and are said to demonstrate what the authors say about the intervention. If what you say is true, that peer review is all you need to show that something is true, why the need for a clearinghouse? Many of us here read these climate research articles with a discerning eye. That is the only proper way to read such articles. You seem quite gullible, too gullible to be entering into politics. Gullible politicians tend to get tarred and feathered rather frequently as of late.
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/
I have to laugh.
The map shows New Jersey’s April as above normal temperature.
So why is my recollection that it was cold and miserable?
Why are my local farms just now, today selling asparagus, with still no strawberries in sight?
Normally, the strawberries are coming on strong by now.
The Strawberry Festival here is scheduled for June 6th, and that, according to the farmers I talked to, will be too early for enough local strawberries for the festival.
They will either run out, or import them from Delaware, to the South.
Warmer than normal, my ass…
Oh dear, personal abuse now 🙁
I’m not entering politics, I’m certainly not gullible and I’m not a troll (although by your definition anyone new here with a different viewpoint is a troll- you should get on some other blogs to see what a troll is). And yes- this week has has been my first introduction to skeptic sites- so what? Can’t I put my view forward?
By ‘public health perspective’ I was merely extending the analogy with medicine that I outlined earlier- whats the problem? You still have to prove that doubling or tripling CO2 over a 200 year timeframe will *not* affect the atmosphere, if that is what you plan on doing with atmospheric chemistry. Otherwise its an uncontrolled experiment that you are happy to take a chance on (well with future generations, not your own- funny that). This is a responsible policy perspective.
And in answer to Code Tech on the literature. That is exactly what I am saying, that no one here is familiar with the literature. I think you probably know that you are not truly familiar with the literature (except what you got second hand of the web), or else you don’t have a clear idea of what this means in science. And no one here has spent any time at a research institution with working climate scientists- I reckon I could pretty confidently call that.
To claim that you have been through the attribution papers, absorbed them, understood them and rejected them on scientific grounds based on your own understanding of physics and statistics is a joke. You seem to have assembled a list of ideas from the blogosphere- 98% of them completely unpublished anywhere peer reviewed- and thats about as much actual *work* as any of you have done on this subject. I find this amazing.
If anyone *had* done any fruitful work worthy of publication, it would be published. If you were rejected by one journal, you would try another, and another- thats how science works. The publication records speak for themselves. And I reiterate.., that the requisite papers proving your case do not exist- its what started me looking in the blogs in the first place for a list of such papers. They don’t exist anywhere apparently. Where are Smokey’s additional papers?
The novel idea I have been introduced to here- that publishing on blogs will replace peer review one day, well… that is just plain ignorance from people who have obviously never submitted a paper to a journal- period. Next time you need a novel surgical technique performed on you- why don’t you suggest the alternate one you read on a blog somewhere, that no one had published, and that the other bloggers advised was just super. I doubt you will be doing that- but again, I’m the gullible one apparently.
If someone here *has* published something in climate science in the last 40 years, please disabuse me of this argument, and bring forth your publication. Otherwise, I’ll just go with the weight of expert literature thanks. Apparently thats stupid.
I was reading one of the links above to Ian Plimer. Google Scholar reveals that the man has a long list of peer reviewed publications in geology. But nothing- zip- in climate science. So I guess he either lost faith in the whole peer review process overnight (the one he used to build his reputation as a scientist), or else he knows he has done no work in climate change other than glorified op-ed pieces. Very suspicious behaviour (and again, apparently I am the gullible one). There is a massive credibility gap going on here- all I can find is unpublished opinion- no published science.
So essentially all you have, at the end of the day, is a conspiracy theory that peer reviewed research in climate science is rigged and that climate scientists (and scientists from various other disciplines)- all around the world- are willing co-conspirators in this sham. That is the *only* line any of you can come up with to explain the massive amount of published papers by climate scientists. And the small handful of published papers by skeptical scientists- none of them fundamental. No reconstructions, no modeling, no lab work- just reviews from people with no publication record themselves.
Rick (21:51:03) shouts: “…The novel idea I have been introduced to here- that publishing on blogs will replace peer review one day, well…”
That is a very subtle twist of what I wrote, Rick; and manages very well to inject uncertainty to suit your purpose.
Do that; but please stop insulting the scientists who post here.
“Callow youth” are the words which spring to mind when I search to define you… but then, wisdom is not even a given with age, and humility is a very common lack.
There’s so much wrong with every single paragraph in your last post, Rick, but one point stands out that you clearly do not understand.
No, Rick, the onus is not on anyone to prove CO2 is safe since that is the null hypothesis. The hypothesis that CO2 is not safe (as put forth by the climate community) must make it through the process of falsification before being accepted, and to date, it has not done so. That’s how science works. In between all your criticisms of everyone’s experience and/or background, perhaps you should look at your own and ask yourself if maybe you have it backwards.
Oh, and for the record, the phrase “climate science” is ambiguous. There are actually very few people in the world that are degreed as “climate scientists.” The field actually involves many other fields that are equally important. Geology is certainly one of those fields. Statistics another. Signal processing, software engineering, control theory, physics (Hansen is a physicist) and many, many more as well. There is no way for a “climate scientist” to be an “expert” simultaneously in every related field, so hence your stated opinions on the matter are nothing other than a mixture of argumentum ad verecundiam and, of course, argumentum ad hominem. Many in here DO have relevant experience in these fields, and quite obviously can be called experts, so your appeal to authority may even be a choice of lesser authorities.
Mark
Rick:
I’ll give you this: you’re persistent. But you’re also a VERY bad reader. I recommend comprehension classes, they might help. And believe me when I say, the credibility gap is in your mirror.
Nothing more to say. You’ve now demonstrated exactly what you are.
I’m not a scientist, but I play one in a movie, and I’m telling you that the earth has a fever. -Al Gore
I still don’t know what I am supposed to be?
You have missed my point on the null hypothesis.
Why is the null hypothesis that CO2 has no affect at all on the atmosphere? Because no one thought of that when they originally started producing it? Because its too much trouble to change now?
Thats not objective science at all.
No- the null hypothesis for intervention (and changing atmospheric chemistry is intervening)- is that it is unsafe until proven so. This didn’t happen originally because it wasn’t thought of, and what we have now is a legacy practice.
As explained earlier- if I wish to regularly put a substance into a river, the null hypothesis is that it is unsafe. Ask the EPA. Even if the substance is water, if it comes from my (eg) factory- I need to show it is safe *first*. I don’t start pumping and then tell the EPA to come up with an argument that it is unsafe, and then ask the EPA to falsify that argument. I think it is you that does not understand this concept.
Now, given that there is a wealth of scientific material showing that doubling and tripling CO2 will affect climate. That needs to be answered in the literature, and it is clearly not.
Falsification?- this is what I exactly am talking about. *You* could do this by doing your own modeling studies, reconstructions and lab work. And no one has.
What is stopping you? If you think its all a house of cards- what is stopping you publishing work that proves this. Some conspiracy? Occam’s razor suggests otherwise.
Your efforts to explain your lack of work (well, we don’t have to) are seriously thin if you truly take this seriously.
My appeal is to the authority of the literature. If you have experts here, then produce your work on this subject that you have submitted for publication as every scientists does in the course of their work.
I note that no-one has responded to any of my points regarding the abject *lack* of literature supporting your arguments, and that you continue to gloss over this fact.
Rick (23:25:08) :
You have missed my point on the null hypothesis.
No, you do not understand what the null hypothesis is, or why it should be as I stated.
Why is the null hypothesis that CO2 has no affect at all on the atmosphere? Because no one thought of that when they originally started producing it? Because its too much trouble to change now?
Because the hypothesis put forth by the “consensus” is that CO2 is bad. By default, the opposite (or simpler), i.e., CO2 is good, is the null that must either be disproven, or the proposed CO2 is bad hypothesis must be proven. That’s how it works. Additionally, we KNOW that CO2 is plant food and required for all life, which actually works as proof of the null. Sorry if you do not understand all of this, but it is how science works.
Thats not objective science at all.
Yes, actually, it is.
Falsification?- this is what I exactly am talking about. *You* could do this by doing your own modeling studies, reconstructions and lab work. And no one has.
Again, you display your ignorance of the scientific method. It is enough to show that existing models, reconstructions, etc., are insufficient. That’s how falsification works. Lab work has been done in spite of your pleas to the contrary, reconstructions have been shown to be statistically flawed (basically untenable) and models have been shown to fail in nearly every respect (they are unphysical, so this is not a surprise). If you understood the scientific method, you would understand this.
Your efforts to explain your lack of work (well, we don’t have to) are seriously thin if you truly take this seriously.
Maybe your head is in the clouds, but plenty of work has been done, and published. Just because you haven’t read it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It takes very little to disprove, just one counter example.
My appeal is to the authority of the literature.
And your point is?
What is stopping you? If you think its all a house of cards- what is stopping you publishing work that proves this. Some conspiracy? Occam’s razor suggests otherwise.
Work does get published. You just don’t read it. Furthermore, drop the conspiracy angle. It makes you look… well, silly. It does not take a conspiracy to keep valid work out of journals that are considered “main stream” (Nature, Science).
I note that no-one has responded to any of my points regarding the abject *lack* of literature supporting your arguments, and that you continue to gloss over this fact
Um, now you’re dreaming. First, there is no “lack” of literature discounting consensus science. There’s plenty, you just don’t read it. Second, Most of what gets published, actually, does not say “CO2 is bad” or “warming is bad” or even “this is caused by man.” Most of what gets published simply says “the earth has warmed.” Read more than just the press releases and you’ll see this. The literature that does continually harp on this is, not surprisingly, coming from only a handful of authors.
Mark
To Rick
I agree with the fact that CO2 does have an effect on the atmospheric temperature and that the activitys of man increases the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The argument for these changes being unsafe are based upon climate models providing unfalsifiable long term predictions which so far have been diveregent from observation. Therefore the argument revolves around quantifying risk not just safe or unsafe. At this moment in time my belief derived from the accuracy of models would be that the risk is low and actual detrimental effects uncertain.
Seeing as you like peer review here is a paper backing up the inacuracies of models.
http://ephysics.fileave.com/Climate/Douglass-IntJClimatol.pdf
This is my favourite site for a realistic view of climate change http://climatesci.org/