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.
off topic….does anyone know how to access UAH raw data? my reason is simple…i keep hearing alarmists say this is on track to be the warmest year on record. of course, we know that this isn’t going to happen with a strong (in all likelihood) la nina coming on, but in the mean time i would love to show my friends that this isn’t even the hottest half year on record. according to RSS and HadCrut, it is not, but i can’t get UAH. you can guess what GISS says!
here is where i used to check the data but it hasn’t updated since February:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
Some more unscientific anecdotal evidence: Been travelling a lot this year, up and down the length of California and into southern Oregon. Everywhere I’ve went, the locals comment on how oddly cool it has been this year through spring and summer.
What nonsense. You know just as well as I do (I hope!) that it is meaningless to look at US data only. Nobody said that US temperatures were record-high. Why not look at global data instead (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=map-blended-mntp&byear=2010&bmonth=1&year=2010&month=6&ext=gif, http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/), oops, they show record warming, better not show those!
Oops, the second link doesn’t work, sorry:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
How can you possibly state that this year would NOT be the warmest year ever recorded on the planet, by stating that 2% of the worlds area (being the USA) is not the warmest ever? There is actually more on this planet than the USA. Look for example in Russia (only twice the size of the USA) and Europe.
Btw., the last El Nino was not the 2nd strongest, merely average.
J says:
August 2, 2010 at 5:08 am
Lack of sun implies lack of stars, implies lack of radiational cooling. Perhaps the daily average wasn’t that far from “normal” with elevated low temps offsetting depressed high temps.
Every place else is getting hotter than everywhere else. The USA is everywhere else, obviously.
markinaustin
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
Regeya,
I don’t know where you are getting the idea that the Red-Blue map shows Illinios as only 0-2 degrees above average. Okay I see where you’re getting that from. Well that’s a map that is averaging the temperatures out over seven months and we did have a average to below average winter this year in the midwest states.
Some additional facts about U.S. temperatures from this site seem to corroborate Steve’s info:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/07/last-12-mths-ending-june-is-coldest-since-1998-us-temps-cooling-at-81f-rate-per-century.html
This site publishes the monthly NCDC graph and it always seems to indicate the same thing that overall continental U.S. is not experiencing the recent “global warming.” I wonder why I’ve never seen this information in the MSM press – go figure.
Lennart
HadCrut, RSS and UAH do not have 2010 as #1 so far, and we have five months of La Nina still to go. I always assume that the audience has some deductive and comprehension skills.
Worth remembering that last July was the coldest on record in Chicago.
No-one has yet explained what is the base-line for Steve’s first anomaly map.
What is Jan-July 2010 being compared with, please? Surely this is important? I’ve been reading Chiefio’s Musings for long enough to know that it is.
I would like to use this anomaly map myself, elsewhere, but I know the first question will be “compared to what?” Last year, last decade, last century?
So, please, someone, explain.
how about a similar red/blue map for South America, Australia and Canada?
Hmmm, I think I see Carefree, AZ on the two color map!
It would be interesting to compare these maps with a map of poorly sited climate stations.
up .o6 degrees. The drama is up about 6 times as high. How soon we need reminding of record Chicago cold last year by S Goddard.
I am pleased to see my observations confirmed. It seems to me that Florida has enjoyed its usual weather this July, but the local news has reported a couple of so-called record highs and continues to talk about the heat wave. I emailed the reporter and put him on to Anthony’s weatherstations site, which does not have a picture of our local weather station at this time.
Pardon my being a broken record, but a lot of confusion is generated by the fact that meteorologists report a daily high, a low, and an average. As you know, I really dislike the “average” because it is a contrived number and not an empirical observation. The confusion comes when the reporter says that we have a record high today of 97 and then compares that to the highs for earlier years but cites the average temperature of 84. Upon discovering these numbers, ordinary readers simply put down the paper.
They’re still peddling the heat wave in Moscow at the BBC, & the number oof dead people as a result, although some reports by the Beeb do add in that it is stupidity causing the deaths, not the heat per se, as these poor wretches drink themselves into a stuper then go swimming to cool off & promptly drown, not a mention of a cool Siberia anywhere, but then again that doesn’t fit quite so well with the warmist propaganda. I am awaiting the hue & cry over Pakistan’s floods being linked to global warming, yet they still keep accidently throwing in the “worst for almost 40 years” or “worst in almost a generation” tag lines, but few will twig it!
Sincere apologies everyone, I spoke too soon!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8646289.stm
Good old Auntie Beeb, never let e good story go to waste!
Lennart says:
August 2, 2010 at 5:35 am
“How can you possibly state that this year would NOT be the warmest year ever recorded on the planet, by stating that 2% of the worlds area (being the USA) is not the warmest ever? There is actually more on this planet than the USA. Look for example in Russia (only twice the size of the USA) and Europe. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/01/kold-in-kazakhstan/#more-22866
Btw., the last El Nino was not the 2nd strongest, merely average.”
Two quick questions; Have you looked in Russia? There’s more to Russia than just Moscow. And, how are you quantifying the strength of El Nino? Merely average seems a stretch to me, but I relate to it in terms of temp readings. Are you quantifying it differently, if so, please justify. Thanks
@stevengoddard
“HadCrut, RSS and UAH do not have 2010 as #1 so far, and we have five months of La Nina still to go”
Oh, indeed, only the second warmest year on record according to those data.
And what about your claim “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”
You claim it is incorrect that 2010 is (upto now) the hottest year ever. But how on earth do you want to prove that with US data only? When you accuse someone of giving incorrect information you should back that up, otherwise it is just slander.
But I guess you know that 2010 is upto now the warmest or second warmest year on record, whether you look at data from nasa, noaa, hadcrut or UAH.
Heh, sorry about that, I posted a link which makes it appear you posted it, sorry for any inadvertent confusion. Mod, wouldja, couldja, move the link I posted down to under my response? I can see where this may devolve the discussion.
The vast majority of this map appears to be in the 0 to -2 or 0 to +2 range. However, it also appears that the +2 to +4 and +4 to +6 and +6 to +8 cover more area than the corresponding below average temperatures. Therefore it seems that simply comparing the area of the above and below anomalies may be over simplifying this data. If the magnitude of the above and below temperatures are factored in, will the same conclusion be reached.
And just think what the temperature graphs would look like if they took out the UHI.
Milanovic, that NOAA artwork is pure nonsense, so as your trolling attitude.
First, the biggest red blobs are placed exactly on areas, where no meteorological stations are located, like inside Africa or Greenland.
Second, for example Slovakia has experienced 1,5 °C above 1951-1980 anomaly during the Jan-June period. But NOAA artwork claims 2-3°C against warmer 1971-2000 “normal”. This is just mistake of 100-200%, or more than twice the warming since 1900.