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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
George E Smith
You forgot to add in that ALL the thermometers need to be of the eaxct same make and calibrated to an agreed standard measurement. It all sounds simple. I suggest we make this a joint project. Will you apply for the research funds or shall I?
Tonyb
Andrew P (09:51:11) :
Thanks for the link to the Aberfeldy weather. I’d noticed in your posts that you are from highland Perthshire too? It’s a small blogworld!
>>>The UK government made these dire predictions (water
>>>and food shortage etc) based on met office data.
The only reason London will be faces with water shortages is that they have stuffed the place with another 5 million immigrants. Shock horror, if you increase the population, they use more water….
.
And you might want to revisit the post I was responding to.
Just a quick look at the sunspot numbers shows that this statement is totally false http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/teacher_resources/suncycle_sheet.html
Notice how in the 1840’s the number of sunspots never goes into single figures. In graph form you will get this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
Notice how the mid 18th century (from approx 1835 to 1874) was a period of solar maxima.
The potato blight had absolutely nothing to do with ‘low sunspot numbers’ and everything to do with the introduction of the blight fungi the previous year. If you still believe low sunspot numbers were the cause of the potato blight then you would also be interested to know that 1845 was the year that Friedrich Wöhler managed to manufacture enough Aluminium (or Aluminum as you Americans quaintly call it) to make hats. I’m sure you know of a number of people who swear by them.
P.S. Do the Americans call Plutonium Plutonum, or Uranium Uranum etc. if not, why not?
The question one has to ask is why in July to they compare the average temperature to 20th century average. If I am not mistaken in remarking about June’s record warmth, they used a 40 year average (1960-99). it would be nice to compare apples to apple. I would like to know what the anomaly is compare to the 40 year average.
eric (19:26:23) :
George E. Smith (17:48:30) :
You are missing the point regarding temperature measurements aimed at detecting climate change. The purpose of the measurments is not to measure the average temperature, but rather to measure the temperature anomaly, i.e. the change in average temperature over time. Measurement of the change in temperature will require fewer data points than measurement of the actual average global temperature.
Great! Now just tell me where I get an anomaly meter!
Oh, wait, we don’t have anomaly meters? Oh. What? We use a thermometer to measure temperature then compute an anomaly? We don’t have any way to measure an anomaly, so to get one we are still limited by the needs of thermometers? Oh Dear…
Please be a bit more careful about what can be measured and what is computed from some other real measurement.
That bugs me almost as much as talk of “forcing”. There is no “forcing” in my physics books. There are heat flows, gravity, electrostatics, and a whole host of other interesting things. But try as I might I cannot find the SI units for “forcing” listed anywhere…
It’s been a cold July for the continental US. Amazingly, this only covers a small percentage of the planet. Other parts of the world had heatwaves in July.
The anomaly map is from the UAH satellite data. Is nothing sacred?
In fact, satellite measurements of the poles have issues because of the ice. Doesn’t mean its wrong, but it also means that satellite records including the poles aren’t necessarily *right*.
Can this be resolved with this alarmist article?
http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2009/08/second_warmest_july_on_record.html
It appears that Antartica should be muddy in the middle of the southern hemisphere winter.
Did I missed the link to the UAH map source? If not could it be posted?
*******
E.M.Smith (23:30:32) :
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…
******
E.M.Smith, I think there’s a problem comparing sat & surface temps. Since the sats average the temp over a relatively thick atmospheric slice, they don’t pick up the shallow temp inversions of colder surface air that occur in various places & times that surface thermometers will.
For serious study, ocean heat content is the way to bypass all this atmospheric temp stuff.
Well Mary Hinge, you stated in your reply to Grace:
“Yet another example of coolist alarmism. The potato famine started in 1845, the same year as the peak of the solar maxima. ”
At no time during 1845 was there a “peak of the solar maxima” whatever that is.
As a matter of interest for Grace:
In 1840 late blight destroyed the potato crops in New England.
North of 43 south of 44 (08:46:21) :
So you agree that the potato famine wasn’t caused by a deep solar minimum then?
I have no concrete data to prove or disprove what helped cause the potato famine in regards to solar influences.
I did however have the required data to throw out your good buddies remark.
Of course there is ‘concrete’ data to show there was NO “Deep solar minimum” when the the potato blight tragedy occured.!
Be careful now since it would be plauseable that the only thing that would be required is to link the solar influence to a relatively minor fluctuation in moisture levels for a fairly short period of time. Look up and see the pretty clouds.
So a really “deep” solar minimum (whatever that really means) may not be needed.
I already gave you a second data point (hint 1840). Which ims (CRS sets in after 19 or so, just ask any teenager) was at about the same level of sunspot activity as 1845, yes that is correct on the downside of cycle 8.
Now what constitues a “deep” solar minimum?
I had a look at Mary’s links and it shows it very well. presumably Grace was referring to the Dalton Minimum and getting her dates a bit mixed up. After the Dalton Miminum there was a period of high solar activity, the mid 19th century maximum. The term solar minimum and maximum is not applied to individual solar cycles but to the longer term trends. To simplify, the peaks and troughs of sunspot numbers during the mid 19th century were much higher than earlier in the 19th century and comparable with the late 20th century.
To repeat the solar minimum (this was what Grace was referring to) was not responsible for the Irish Famine. You also did not havethe ‘data’ to throw out Mary’s remark, she would seem to be correct in that discussion and you are plainly very wrong (though understandable due to your ignorance of what constitutes a solar minimum).
There is a theory that during low sunspot periods (now for example) more cosmic radiation reachess earth, and that this causes more clouds to form. Clouds reflect radiant heat whether its coming up from the earth or down from the sun. If this theory is true one would expect that those parts of the world receiving the suns heat would receive less of it and cool, those receiving none (Antarctica at present) would loose less heat. This would explain the antarctic anomaly and the general cooling. Does anyone know of data for cloudiness?
International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP)
http://www.gewex.org/isccpdata.htm
NASA CERES
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/ceres_aqua.html
Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) Earthshine Project
http://www.bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/
On October 1, 2007, the National Snow and Ice Data Center issued a news release headlined “Arctic Sea Ice Shatters All Previous Record Lows.” As that event took place just before our sun went into a record period of inactivity, we might expect to see a pause or a reverse trend develop if our climate is primarily being driven by solar dynamics. As we are still seeing the sun go day after day without a single sunspot, we should see a cooling trend develop if sunspots correlate to Global Warming.
On the other hand, if we see continued all-time record melts of arctic sea ice in the face of this reduced solar activity, we would have un-deniable proof that the increasing industrial pollution of the atmosphere is driving our climate.
In the context of global warming, looking just at US data constitutes an incomplete analysis.
GLOBAL land/sea temperatures in July were the 5th hottest ever, and the ocean surface temperature set a new record high;
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090814_julyglobalstats.html