By Steve Goddard
This map below is from the NOAA High Plains Regional Climate Center and shows the continental USA as “departure from normal for Jan1st, 2010 to July 31, 2010:
Source: http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/YearTDeptUS.png
We keep hearing from NOAA and in the press about 2010 being the hottest year ever. Apparently, objective and unbiased scientists are rushing this incorrect information to press before La Niña spoils their party, and before the ruling party gets tossed out of Congress. An analysis of the above and below normal portions of the map yields some surprising data that contrasts with recent “official” announcements.
El Niño is now fading, La Niña is coming on strong:
So how are things looking in the US? Despite the second strongest El Niño on record, 62% of the US has had below normal temperatures for the year so far. To make things clearer, I split the lower 48 up into above and below normal regions by combining pixels to a two color map.
Using a pixel counting graphics program, I counted the pixels that were above normal and below normal. To be precise, there are 86,725 pixels below normal, and 53,336 pixels above normal. Total red and blue pixels is 140,061. With 86,725 pixels below normal this yields 61.9%.
As La Niña takes hold, we should see the percentage below normal increase.
Philadelphia finished July with an average temperature of 80F. That is one degree cooler than the years 1793 and 1838, and tied July 1791, 1798, 1822, 1825, 1828, and 1830. July was almost as hot as it was 217 years ago, when CO2 was at 290 ppm.
We live in interesting times.
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I wonder what the pixel-counting program would come up with from the initial map, scoring the 0-2 degree anomaly as +1, 2-4 degree anomaly as +3 etc etc?
I like the simplified map.
Blue is the new red. 🙂
Siberia coldest since whenever, Peru people freezing to death. All this proves that global average temps, or trends, or anomalies mean completely nothing outside of models. As in: real life. To my mind the more science gets lost in detail the less relevant their results get. Compare it to toxin levels in nature. Fine you can measure to the picogram, but if the trend is that it rises from 0.01 pg to 0.02 pg it doesn’t really mean anything but that your measurement is way to precise for practical use.
Now these are temperature variances I can believe in. Where I live in Idaho, the temperature this summer has only hit 90 or above twice this past July (one high was 90; the other was 92), and the month before it, June, saw similar high temperatures–NOTHING like I’ve seen in the past, where we’d have several weeks of continuous highs in the 90’s. And there’s no 90-or-above high temperatures predicted for the next 10 days, either. Yes, I’ve been wondering about their “hottest year evah!” pronouncements, that we’re now finding are just a bunch of lies. Pretty obvious they’re consistent with the rest of this administration. Lies, all lies! Time for a House and Senate cleaning!
Relatively speaking, Western Washington has been COOLER and NOT warmer as the map seems to illustrate.
In fact, the whole month of June was making local farmers worry about whether they’d have sufficient Sunlight and heat to bring about a successful harvest.
Most June weather here is usually in high 70’s and mid 80’s. This year, it was mostly in the mid 60’s or lower.
But this is expected under the dangerous global warming the Earth is experiencing. And this is weather, not climate. And the US is a tiny part of the globe. And there are always going to be short term fluctuations. And how can you, a non-climatologist, disagree with professional, credentialed climatologists who are scientists? When you get this peer reviewed then you can talk.
Have I gotten all of the AGW defenses out of the way yet?
Nothing to shout about in the UK – CET is normal
• Average so far this year
• Average CET to July: 8.87
• Normal CET to July: 8.93
• Anomaly to July: -0.06
• Provisional CET anomaly (up to 1st August): -0.06
Comparison with Extreme Annual CETs:
The highest annual mean CET ever recorded was 10.82 which is 1.35 higher than normal. To beat this record the anomaly must be higher than 3.32 for the remainder of the year
The lowest annual mean CET ever recorded was 6.84 which is -2.63 lower than normal. To beat this record the anomaly must be lower than -6.24 for the remainder of the year
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
What is the period being used to define “normal”?
Still, the contigous US comprise just over 98% of the Whole World. Actually it’s only a bit warm in Moscow!
[irony alert here – Moscow is even smaller that the USA ~mod]
The interesting times will have global warming conferences in snow storms.
Can you please explain what the base-line period is for this departure from the “norm”, Steve. It may be in your post but I’m afraid I don’t see it. Thanks.
This is all good news. I knew that the cold weather in the Northern hemisphere this winter was below average. I can see that the winter weather in this years Southern hemisphere in very cold aswell. I am totally mystified how the CRU and the Met office can confidently state that 2010 is on course for the hottest year on record. WHERE???
The main problem for us all, in the realist camp, is how do we get this sort of information into the Main Stream Media?
They seem oblivious to any of this information especially the BBC. Last night on a Nature programme they spent the majority of the time talking about water shortages and that the climate is changing so that there will be far less water with dryer summers. This was filmed at different location in the UK and every shot shown was in torrential rain. How they did not see the irony is beyond me!!!
We need to recruit a figure head/famous person / important person/Statesman/ top scientist to be publically voicing all this information in Newspapers and Television. With out a major leader we cannot get this information past the editors of the media.
ANY IDEAS????
James
Actually here in Germany we experienced a period of six weeks of above average temperatures through June and July, but that was followed by a spell of violent “Unwetter” and a sharp drop, we are currently experiencing wet and cool conditions, overnight in the low teens and days of not much above 20*C – but this IS “weather” and not “Climate” and it is the result of the North Atlantic Ocillation heading west and colliding with the La Nina conditions over the US.
But already the AGW/THe Sky Is Falling mob are claiming that this “proves” man-made Global Warming has entered a “Run Away” Phase…
[snip]
[reply] I understand your feelings, but no threats or bad language please.
Has anyone else noticed that the AGW Story is very similar to the classic book and movie “Catch 22”? ‘When the majors is, he’s out; when the major’s out, he’s in‘. Then there’s Milo’s money making ‘chocolate covered cotton balls’. And, ‘the only way you can be sent home is if you’re crazy, and the only way you can be certified crazy is if you refer yourself to the shrink, but if you do that you can’t really be crazy so you’re not crazy and can’t go home.’ There’s just thousands of similarities. Y’hep! The Milo Minderbinders are finally sitting in the Cat Bird Seat and managing the World’s Everything for us. When you stop to think of it, really, I guess we deserve it. I know that’s very hard to swallow, kinda’ like chocolate cover cotton balls, but think about it, doesn’t it explain everything that’s happening? Really?
Clearly, something as misleading as this will not be reported in “don’t confuse me with the facts” Real Climate.
Joe Lalonde says:
August 2, 2010 at 4:35 am
The interesting times will have global warming conferences in snow storms.
—————————————–
It’s already happened. In Copenhagen there were hoards of people moaning about Global Warming shivering in the cold. Now, there’s normally nothing funny about folks shivering in the cold, but in that case the irony was inescapable.
hunter
Our friends believe that the planet is very uniform, which allows them to extrapolate across vast distances.
They also believe that the US data is meaningless, because the US hasn’t warmed properly.
They believe whatever is necessary at the time in order to prove the need to keep them funded.
These are NOAA maps :
For questions, comments, or suggestions, please contact:
Natalie Umphlett – Regional Climatologist – High Plains Regional Climate Center
[It doesn’t matter if this information is available on public sites, we do not publish emails and phone numbers ~ ctm]
Re: Rick Bradford
You have the map and there are plenty of programs out there so why not count them and see?
For July, that’s probably about right for what I’ve seen traveling around, except Memphis is probably red right now.
Well, be careful what you wish for! You just might get it and then some during this cycle.
From Climate4you.com it looks like climatologists are using 1960 to 1990 as the “Normal” time period.
[REPLY – NASA/GISS uses 1950 – 1980 as its baseline. ~ Evan]
ditto on 899’s comment above
If NOAA’s data shows western Washington as above normal for this year, their data is poo. Gov. Gregoire declared a disaster because of our lack of sun and warmth earlier this summer. Even now, after a few warm days, we’re in a pattern that feels like early June or September.
The real bummer for our area is that we HAVE been above average (no way in hell are we only 0-2 degrees above average in my part of Illinois, I wasn’t born yesterday…we usually only have a handful of days in the high 90s, nearly every day since the beginning of June until yesterday has been hotter than blue blazes) and nighttime temperatures have been staying warm enough that veggies aren’t producing. Did I mention that Illinois is heavily reliant on agriculture?
Having said what I did in my last comment (hopefully it doesn’t get censored…please?) keep at it, guys. I like to read sites like TreeHugger, then move on to WUWT for the much-needed dissent.
Anthony –
From your compilaition of surface station data can you offer a different map?