From NOAA/NCDC
The July 2009 temperature for the contiguous United States was below the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
The average July temperature of 73.5 degrees F was 0.8 degrees F below the 20th century average. Precipitation across the contiguous United States in July averaged 2.90 inches, which is 0.14 inches above the 1901-2000 average.
U.S. Temperature Highlights
Click for high resolution map (Credit: NOAA)
- An abnormally strong, persistent upper-level pattern produced more than 400 record low minimum temperatures and 1,300 record low maximum temperatures (lowest high temperature) across the nine-state area that make up the Central region.
- Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania experienced their coolest July on record. Kentucky, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michigan each had their second coolest July on record, while Minnesota and Tennessee had their third coolest July on record.
- Death Valley, Calif., set a new monthly average maximum temperature at 121.3 degrees F. Temperatures in Death Valley reached 120 degrees F or higher for 22 days, beating the old record of 19 days.
- Several western locations recorded their all-time warmest July. Seattle-Tacoma Airport had an average July temperature of 69.5 degrees F, which was 4.2 degrees F above average. Seattle’s high temperature of 103 degrees F on July 29 is an all-time record. Alaska posted its second warmest July, Arizona had its third warmest, while New Mexico and Washington had their ninth warmest.
- Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 13.3 percent below average in July. Much of this can be attributed to cooler-than-average conditions in the heavily-populated Northeast.
In a related note, UAH has produced this map which not only shows a cooler than normal eastern USA,but many other cool spots around the globe. Oddly, Antarctica appears to be the major contributor to above normal temperatures and the 0.41C global temperature anomaly jump in July 2009.
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Goodness me! How odd that Antarctica shows up so much warmer.[/sarc]
Richard111 (22:24:49) :
Goodness me! How odd that Antarctica shows up so much warmer.[/sarc]
That’s because Steig, Mann and company fudged the results. Of course you already knew that!
Wait, its winter in Antarctica, that means, its a proverbial heat wave down there… I would expect that we should be monitoring for a significant drop or at least a slow down, in the Ice growth with heat records like that.
O/T but temperatures at the North Pole seem to be dropping.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/
“. . . 0.8 degrees F below the 20th century average.”
So, this means Hansen et. al. 1998 was remarkably accurate since his benchmark was 1951-1980, not the entire century, right? [. . . sarc off.]
Richard: noticed as well.. also the ice extent curve is taking a sharp turn to the right
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi_ice_area.png
could it be that the ice melt has stopped? (doubtful.. but if so the warmistas will lose another icon)…
So it’s been a cold July – even with biased (to the high side) temperature readings.
Antarctica just looks wrong.
Richard111 (22:54:02) : “O/T but temperatures at the North Pole seem to be dropping.”
The Danes think so too.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
The daily mean temp for the high Arctic has dropped below freezing several weeks early this year compared to the 1958 – 2002 average.
The Statewide Ranks – whatever the numbers mean – show the State of Washington at ‘105’ as “much above normal” and in league with Antarctica to off-set run-away global cooling. We have now cooled off. Not that any of this is extremely important.
That “. . . the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 13.3 percent below average in July”, however, would seem to be good news. This ought to provide an almost immediate $$ stimulus for everyone in the blue part of the map. Back-to-school sales in August may be better than anticipated and, most importantly, our fickle congress-folk may better understand the difference for their constituents between lower energy costs and higher energy – tax and trade – costs. I think this is called a teachable moment.
We have had a long period of low Southern Hemisphere temperatures and warm Northern Hemisphere temperatures. That seems to be changing. Antarctic sea ice is off the record levels it had been the past two years whole Arctic ice seems to be making a nice recovery from 2007 when much of the Arctic ice cover was blown into the Atlantic by unusual wind patterns.
It doesn’t look as if the Northwest Passage is going to open this year either. And while the Arctic ice cap continues to recover, we continue to read how dire things are.
As Henrik Svensmark pointed out, Antarctic temperatures tend to go the opposite way to the rest of the world. His explanation is that clouds are less reflective than the Antarctic snow and ice, hence when albedo decreases globally and thus heats the planet, Antarctica becomes more reflective so cools down. And vice versa. Since global cloud cover has started increasing and we are now in a global cooling phase, we can expect Antarctica to become warmer.
The sad thing about this is that warming alarmists will still have something to grab onto.
When will all of this temperature chasing end? I realize the need to counter the Lefts barrage of global warming rhetoric but sooner or later common sense has to kick in. Doesn’t it?
I think that we need to start prefacing all of our arguments against the Anthropogenic warmists with the words of President Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell speech. As the left in the past has used his words in their goal of pacifism regarding the “industrial-military complex”, I think that it is time to start using his words from the same speech concerning science and the possibility of that federally funded community overcoming the sensibilities of our nation.
Here is the quote from his speech:
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
I’ve been playing around with GIStemp and with “Global Average Temperature” calculation issues for a while now. This posting is full of references to the average temperature. The good news is that the US temperature series is fairly complete, so this is probably a decent conclusion.
The sidebar is that the world temperature series is very spotty. We start with ONE thermometer in 1701, ramp up to 9000+, then drop to a few thousand today. IMHO, the side effect of this on the temperature record is what we call “AGW”. I think I’ve pretty much showed that there is no AGW if you hold the number of thermometers relatively constant (with using the 3000 longest lived thermometers with the most records):
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/co2-takes-summers-off/
and the short lived thermometers seem to be largely in warm places and that seems to be the reason we have “global warming”: adding thermometers in places like Brazil and Australia:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/well-theres-your-global-warming-problem/
But I’m still left with a ‘sour taste’ in the mouth over the whole issue of a “global average temperature”. I call the GAT a “global average of thermometers” since I think that is more accurate… but I’m still not very sure just exactly what does it mean to average a bunch of thermometers together over time and over land…
I *think* that the average of thermometers ought to be lower in cold times and higher in warm times, but I’m just not comfortable calling it a temperature.
The thing I’ve found is that the “global average temperature” is more a function of where you’ve stuck the thermometers than it is a function of changes in the earth systems (or of GIStemp processing – but more on that in future postings…) so I’m left wondering about this article:
Where in the USA has NOAA stuck Carmen Sandiego’s thermometers?
It really is, at it’s core, a question of the number, quality, and placement of all the thermometers. Put more in, oh, Saudi Arabia, and the global average temperature goes up. Put more on frozen mountain tops and it goes down.
It really is that simple.
I just got back from Antarctica.
There are palm trees growing on the beach –
And lovely condos going up everywhere.
It’s the next Cozumel.
I just finally looked at the UAH map. They say that the west coast of the USA was warm (if I can interpret beige as warm). I’m sorry, but this has been the coldest da..rned summer in the SF Bay Area in 30+ years of my living here.
If they are calling this warm, or even just normal, I’m calling Bull Shi…eist on their whole map. I’ve finally got some tomatoes, but the green beans are still sulking and the cool season plants are thrilled. This is NOT a warm summer in the South Bay…
From a blog on 8 August by a pair of Royal Marines attempting the Northwest Passage:
Today’s entry shows they are still there waiting for the ice to clear. A Southeast wind would blow the ice out into open water. Today’s entry says they are expecting a NW wind over the next few days which might pack more ice into the passage (they are going from West to East).
The Northwest Passage might not clear at all this year.
gtrip (23:16:13) : (quoting Ike)
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields.
gtrip, you’ve put me close to tears…
But this is one ‘solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop’ that hopes to show that there is still room in the America of today for a little bit of come uppance for the “task force” of government lackies.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/agw-is-a-thermometer-count-artifact/
Pieter F (23:10:31) :
The daily mean temp for the high Arctic has dropped below freezing several weeks early this year compared to the 1958 – 2002 average.
Comparing this years temps to a mean average is stoopid…and that’s all I got to say about that.
“When will all of this temperature chasing end? ”
When there is no longer a bill under consideration in the US Congress.
While in Europe, the Met Office staff get a large bonus for their ever-so accurate forecasting?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205440/Its-raining-bonuses-Met-Office-despite-spate-inaccurate-predictions.html
Or is that a bonus for towing the government’s AGW line?
.
Bearing in mind the disproprtionate number of thermometers in the States relative to its actual size what percentage of the global temperature change does it represent? A US .8 decrease somehow translates into a worldwide plus .4 worldwide which sems unlikely.
Tonyb
>>>Goodness me! How odd that Antarctica shows up
>>>so much warmer.
Again, the warmer spots are always in the areas where nobody can refute the data.
.
>>>Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect
>>>, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and
>>>opposite danger that public policy could itself become
>>>the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
Hasn’t the opposite of this occurred? The scientific elite have been captured by the government and their all-important purse strings?
.
>>>The daily mean temp for the high Arctic has dropped
>>>below freezing several weeks early this year compared
>>>to the 1958 – 2002 average.
And ice-extent stabilising?
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
.
Meanwhile the UK government and the BBC continue their warmist crusade while gleefully ignoring the facts.
We are being advised of the coming necessity to turn our gardens into allotments to grow vegetables in order ensure food security. I would advise the government to return all the arable acreage they hijacked for biofuel production back to food production.
We will also face a chronic water shortage in the future. Anyone living with the British climate will understand that the only chronic shortage we are facing is political reality…