From NCDC’s spring report here
More record warmth as scientists warn of global tipping point – CNN.com
— It’s hot out there. But this time, it’s more than idle watercooler talk, according to weather scientists.
At the same time the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center has released a report noting that this spring in the United States has been the warmest since record-keeping began in 1895, a group of scientists has published a paper in the journal Nature warning that the planet is approaching a critical tipping point because of climate and other factors.
Rampant population growth and changes to the environment caused by humans, including the burning of fossil fuels and the conversion of nearly 43% of the planet’s land to farms or cities, threaten to cause an abrupt and unpredictable shift in the global ecosystem, 22 scientists from five countries said in their paper.
In its report issued Thursday, the climate data center said the average U.S. temperature between March and May was 57.1 degrees, 5.2 degrees above the long-term average from 1901 to 2000.
While May was only the second-warmest on record, it was still in the top third for monthly average temperatures, marking 12 consecutive months with temperatures in that range, said Jake Crouch, a NOAA climate scientist.
“For that to happen 12 times in a row in a random circumstance is one in 540,000,” he said.
Globally, NOAA reported in May that the average temperature in April was 1.17 degrees warmer than the average from the past century, making it the fifth-warmest April since at least 1880.
It was the 326th consecutive month that global temperatures exceeded the 20th-century average, NOAA said.
The warm spring weather in the United States was partially the result of the waning La Niña, a pattern of below-average sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific that tends to help direct the high-level jet stream and influence weather patterns nationwide.
But it was also partially the result of long-term climate change, Crouch said.
“The pattern we’ve been in for the last 12 months is exactly what we would expect in climate change,” he said.
…
A shift in the biosphere is possible by 2100 if nothing is done to better predict changes and act upon them, said Anthony D. Barnosky, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley and lead author on the Nature article.
“If we do nothing, I personally think we hit this tipping point,” Barnosky said Friday. “It means the world will be very different, losing biodiversity and (affecting where) species live in particular places.”
Full story here
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It is also interesting and a bit humorous to note this table at NCDC, where the word “coolest” is verboten.
For example:
| Nome, AK | 9.3 °F | 16.1 °F | -6.8 °F | -1.5σ | 99th warmest of 104 yrs |
5th coolest would be the way I would describe that.
Yes it was a warm spring. But not warm everywhere. But was it really driven by AGW, and was it “The pattern we’ve been in for the last 12 months is exactly what we would expect in climate change,” ?
This is the same sort of logic that is employed as we saw during the Russian Heat Wave of 2010.
One spot on the globe becomes the focal point and “proof” that AGW is happening. This gets touted in the media. Then later, a study comes out saying AGW wasn’t the main driver.
NOAA on the Russian heat wave: blocking high, not global warming
But that doesn’t get much attention because it doesn’t have a gloom and doom quality for MSM News.
But this was found to be based on a synoptic pattern, basically weather noise. This spring in the USA is no different. Even the father of global warming, Jim Hansen says the same thing: (hat tip to Chris Horner and the CEI FOIA efforts for us being able to see this email)
And here in the article excepted above, Jake Crouch, CNN, and other MSM outlets aren’t even talking about a full year, just three months.
“If it bleeds it leads”, was never more true.
Some graphs: (thanks to Joe D’Aleo, all data NCDC data)
The state monthly records through the end of the 2009.. This depicts the 12 monthly records for the 50 states (600 data points). There were likely March heat records set in some states and perhaps some other months so the 2010s will show and take away from some prior years.
The 1930s stands out as the hottest decade, the 1910s and 1950s were second, 1990s third and 1980s fourth. This decade doesn’t rank although it is early.
All time cold records look like this.
It seems the climate was much more variable, with more extremes in the 1930’s.
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My reply to Hansen: So what ?
It snowed today in Montana (9 June, 2012). Not especially unusual, but this has not been a warm spring.
In case you had not noticed, you sorry excuse for a scientist, weather is not climate and even 40 years of weather is not climate either, imo. Get back to me after you stop ‘adjusting’ the numbers and collect more than N=1 samples per site-sample.
atheok says:
June 9, 2012 at 11:36 am
I almost posted this on the UAH temp thread.
I finally moved my orchid plants outside two weeks ago here in the mid-atlantic. …
…. April may have been warm, but where I live, May was downright chilly.
I don’t doubt that May was warm for some folks, makes me wonder just which stations got rolled into the May temp.
_______________________________
I am in North Carolina and it has been down right chilly (54F last night) In May we only had one day at 91F vs the 17 days over 90F with 2 at 98F in 2004. Warm?? not yet.
You can see we have not been exactly warm for the last few years: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425746930020&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
We are about at the same temperatures as we were 100 years ago.
Steven Kopits says:
June 9, 2012 at 10:41 am
For those interested in the topic: An article on the economics of self-driving electric vehicles I wrote for Foreign Policy:
“How the Electric, Self-Driving Miracle Car Will Change Your Life”
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/08/self_driving_car?page=0,0
*****************************************************************************
I read your article. It won’t work for a very simple reason. It requires people to schedule all their transportation. Life and schedules are not a good fit for the vast majority of people. Schedules are a unwanted restriction on our time and freedom. The advantage of personal gas vehicles is that they do not require scheduling.
An Ag newsletter item related to the recent freeze warnings and record lows we’ve been having.
The situation in 2012 looks even more grim than 2002. Very early warmth has resulted in bud phenology stages commonly analogous to early May, but occurring in late March. The best experience suggests that there will be shoot mortality on vines, but let us respond to that condition with careful assessment, and not fall prey to collective hysteria. The worst case may be true! But let’s have valid answers supporting that situation before we decide to make decisions regarding the coming season’s culture.
I want to know what happened the LAST time reached a global tipping point for atmospheric carbon concentrations?
Was that the period in time that was SO conducive to life that butterflies had 2′ wingspans, and some cats were as big as small horses? Or did the gradual warming cause a gradual cooling?
And for the love of chocolate, will SOMEBODY please tell me how during the ice age, the water vaporized from the oceans onto the continents? (And please note that vaporization is a process associated with heat.)
Forgot to add the source address
http://www.extension.org/pages/63387/estimating-grapevine-potential-productivity-after-spring-frost-or-winter-bud-damage
Its raining in Perth, in spite of the likelihood of this being a very dry season. Maybe its not rain, maybe its bits of the sky, chicken little.
When are these people gonna give up!
Part of the CONUS has been above average over the past six months. The rest of the world? meh…not so much. I love how warmists will challenge the claim of temps plateauing over a decade meaning nothing as the time period is too short to show any trend, yet barely 12 months of above average weather in 2% of the globe and we are all going to be heat casualties as soon as we step out of the house. That is of course if the massive forest fires, F5 tornados, or floods don’t get you first.
Rosco says:
June 9, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Am I wrong or didn’t a whole swag of some of the coldest weather reporting stations just disappear following the collapse of the Soviet Union ?
______________________________________________
Oh we definately had a reporting station disappearing act.
Here is a chart of the station dropout vs the temperature increase: http://diggingintheclay.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/canadadt.png
more here: Crooked climatologists drop 806 (cold?) weather stations in a single year
And Cheifio (EM Smith) did an analysis here: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/thermometer-years-by-latitude-warm-globe/
Bernie McCune says:
June 9, 2012 at 4:03 pm
@DiskoTroop
The 43% figure for “disrupted” land surface comes from the following paper …
____________________________________________
A point that is often over looked is the major change in vegetation in the USA and Europe over time. Because of the demand for fire wood for heating much of the USA and Europe and elsewhere was clear cut during the Little Ice Age. You can walk through the woods in New England and see the old stone walls from the time when much of New England was farm not forest. The introduction of coal for heating, meant forest were no longer cut for firewood. Wood burning was the predominant global energy source until about 1880 when the use of coal was necessitated by wood depletion engendered by rising population pressures coupled with an increased demand for high energy density sources for nascent manufacturing enterprises. The time period prior to this was known as the “little ice age” (1300-1850) ~ 500 years of “cooling”. I wonder what the sea surface temperatures were then?
Another point people do not take into account is the effect on US agriculture of the “New Deal” policies restricting the amount of land that could be planted and the Soil Conservation Act passed in response to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
I believe the freeze here to be rotten and quite thin.
“The pattern we’ve been in for the last 12 months is exactly what we would expect in climate change,”
If one averages the GISS anomalies for the 12 month period from May 2011 to April 2012, the average is 0.491. And an anomaly of 0.491 in the GISS record makes it the 10th warmest.
Here in the mountains of South Colorado, I cannot even say if it’s warm or cold. The problem is, lately temperatures here vary from about 4°C to 28°C every day, so every time I have to work all night (which happens often) I start freezing in the wee hours of the morning, though right now, at 19:00, it feels like cold beer is in order. Spring was certainly mostly colder than usual. Swedes and Russians are complaining about a very late summer this year. Maybe James Hansen should move to Stockholm for a year or two, to cool down a bit and gather his thoughts.
43% of the planet’s land is cities or farmland? Geez. Just look at a map!
There seems to be a subtle change in focus with the indoctrination campaign: the ‘warming’ message is still the same, but someone has perhaps developed a bit of concience regarding the ‘science’ behind the logic of of their causation. Perhaps the CO2 driver is running out of steam?:
RAMPANT POPULATION GROWTH AND CHANGES TO THE ENVIRONMENT CAUSED BY HUMANS, including the burning of fossil fuels AND THE CONVERSION OF NEARLY 43% OF THE PLANET’S LAND TO FARMS OR CITIES, threaten to cause an abrupt and unpredictable shift in the global ecosystem, 22 scientists from five countries said in their paper.
“Am I wrong or didn’t a whole swag of some of the coldest weather reporting stations just disappear following the collapse of the Soviet Union ?”
And the elevation dropped 46m since the 40s.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/climate-data-and-elevation/
cui bono says:
June 9, 2012 at 11:28 am
Can anyone explain the mechanism whereby AGW creates more blocking highs? /sarc
———————
So you assume there isn’t one. Bad idea to make assumptions based on ignorance. And then you make a smart-arsed comment based on that ignorance. Even less wise because someone who is not ignorant may actually know that there is a reason why global warming causes blocking highs.
I don’t know if the frequency of blocking highs is affected by global warming or not. I do know there is some evidence and argument that less arctic ice is allowing more cold weather systems to penetrate south at greater frequency.
I do know that confusing secondary and primary causes leads to logical fallacies.
Rosco says:
June 9, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Am I wrong or didn’t a whole swag of some of the coldest weather reporting stations just disappear following the collapse of the Soviet Union ?
That in itself would cause a warm bias in modern records if the old Soviet Bloc (presumably some of the coldest) records are still in the historical dataset.
————–
Your wrong. It’s the temperature trend at each station that is important. It’s actual local average temperature is irrelevant.
@ur momisugly markx says:
June 9, 2012 at 6:09 pm
There seems to be a subtle change in focus with the indoctrination campaign: the ‘warming’ message is still the same, but someone has perhaps developed a bit of concience regarding the ‘science’ behind the logic of of their causation. Perhaps the CO2 driver is running out of steam?:
RAMPANT POPULATION GROWTH AND CHANGES TO THE ENVIRONMENT CAUSED BY HUMANS, including the burning of fossil fuels AND THE CONVERSION OF NEARLY 43% OF THE PLANET’S LAND TO FARMS OR CITIES, threaten to cause an abrupt and unpredictable shift in the global ecosystem, 22 scientists from five countries said in their paper.
*********************************************************************
Be careful what you say on the monitored public internet about such things. You might get a visit from armed EPA agents, as this fellow did:
“The North Carolina man visited by armed EPA agents after sending an email to a controversial agency official says he not satisfied with the explanations about what he considers an excessive response and that he wants changes to agency policies and procedures.
“This isn’t over,” Keller said.
He told Fox News.com that Environmental Protection Agency officials have said the agency followed procedures and that the agents acted appropriately during their visit last month. However, Keller is still invited to come to EPA headquarters to discuss the situation.
Keller said he’s not willing to come to Washington without knowing what will be discussed.
The incident unfolded after Keller sent an email April 27 to the EPA to try to reach Al Armendariz — a regional administrator who was under fire for a YouTube video post days earlier in which he said his enforcement strategy was to “crucify” executives from big oil and gas companies.
The letter to an EPA external affairs director read “Do you have Mr. Armendariz’s contact information so we can say hello? – Regards- Larry Keller.”
Keller said he was just asking as a taxpayer and denies being part of the Tea Party, though he acknowledges supporting the movement’s calls to defund the agency in part because it has outreached its intended mission.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/09/man-visited-by-armed-epa-agents-not-satisfied-with-answers-wants-agency-changes/#ixzz1xLksodyt
Buried in the report they link to (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/5), they have charts all over the place.
Just one can be used to put some things in perspective, found on this page:
(http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/uspa/?ar ea=warm-cold&year=2012&month=5)
It has this caption:
“…The percentage areas of the contiguous United States are computed based on the climate division data set. Those climate divisions having the monthly average temperature in the top ten percent (> 90th percentile) of their historical distribution are very warm and those in the bottom ten percent (< 10th percentile) are very cold…"
The chart at the bottom of the plot tells something interesting – so far, in 2012, they're showing 47.88% very warm, and 0% very cold.
But before people can jump for joy at the "0% very cold", an obvious sign of CAGW, look at the other years that had no "very cold" for the entire year:
1902, 0%
1922, 0%
1934, 0%
1939, 0%
1949, 0%
1951, 0%
1985, 0%
1986, 0%
2000, 0%
2001, 0%
So if we only see ONE area fall into the "very cold" column this year, we won't tie with the previous 10 unprecedented times it's happened.
So what about the other end? The very warm?
Well, the current value of 47.88% for the first part of 2012 is exceeded by a value of 56.10% the entire year of 1896. We might break that this year.
But, since we're looking at extremes we see that the following years had zero in the VERY WARM column:
1909, 1917, 1923, 1929, 1945, 1961, 1967, 1968, 1971.
Really shows the variability of climate. Especially since the values of the "very warm" have had relatively decreasing values for the last few years (since the "warmest ever" year of 1998):
1998 40.34%
1999 4.10%
2000 33.98%
2001 25.34%
2002 8.02%
2003 15.86%
2004 27.89%
2005 2.94%
2006 23.68%
2007 13.59%
2008 3.99%
2009 21.13%
2010 15.50%
2011 2.46%
So as of now, we're showing up as the warmest since 1998. But still have some way to go before we hit the warmest since records began.
The second thing they like to hang on to is their "It was the (fill in the blank) consecutive month that global temperatures exceeded the 20th-century average, NOAA said."
Let's see. The 20th century is defined as the time period running from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000 (which doesn't include the last 12 years). NOAA's "20th century average" works out to be 51.9 degrees F (deduced from this statement "…The national temperature of 57.1 degrees F during spring was 5.2 degrees F above the long-term average…").
Also, their 326th month means it was 27.16 years ago, or in 1985.
How does the other premier data-set, GISS, fall in with this "record"?
First, their data states "…Best estimate for absolute global mean for 1951-1980 is 57.2 deg-F…"
So when the climate data center said the average U.S. temperature between March and May was 57.1 degrees, that's .1 degree COLDER than a 30 year GLOBAL mean in the middle of the 20th century.
GISS's "30 year global mean" of 57.2 deg F compared to NDCC's "20th century average" of 51.9 deg F.
People using different averaging periods sure makes "record" keeping complicated, doesn't it?
Steve O says
And for the love of chocolate, will SOMEBODY please tell me how during the ice age, the water vaporized from the oceans onto the continents? (And please note that vaporization is a process associated with heat.)
—————–
Because the earth still receives very nearly the same amount of radiation from the sun. Over the UN-frozen oceans that radiation is still absorbed and converted to heat so water still evaporates. Over the frozen continents it’s a different matter as the ice reflects the incoming radiation and so the ice stays cold.
Please send chocolate.
Mark Wagner says:
June 9, 2012 at 6:00 pm
43% of the planet’s land is cities or farmland? Geez. Just look at a map!
———–
Geeez just read the article. It’s not 43% of the total land area.
What is is about the number 43? Seems every cataclysmic prediction is somehow related to 43: “You will be 43 times more likely to shoot yourself if you have a gun in the house…43% of the earth, blah, blah,. I though 42 was the answer to life, the universe and everything!
While May was only the second-warmest on record, it was still in the top third for monthly average temperatures, marking 12 consecutive months with temperatures in that range, said Jake Crouch, a NOAA climate scientist.>>>>
Well Jake, lemme splain somethin’ to ya.
Suppose I climb a hill, and when I get to the top, I turns me around and starts back down. Every step, I measure the altitude. After 12 steps on the way down, I point out to me buds that of the last 24 steps in a row, all 24 were in the highest 1/3 of all the steps we took. Based on that, looks like the trend is for us to wind up even higher than the top of the hill, walking on air.
Fact of the matter is that the earth has been warming up since the Little Ice Age. So, having the last few years/months/days or seconds all in the top third of temperatures means….nothing. The earth goes through warming and cooling cycles, it has been through them before, it has been both warmer and cooler than it is now, and which ever way the pendulum swings, it must always swing back. It isn’t possible for us to climb a hill and just keep climbing when we get to the top. Earth’s temperature is the same. It isn’t some linear line that can just be followed into orbit. Unless the amount of energy from the sun being absorbed changes substantively, the average temperature of the earth CANNOT change substantively. Either that, or everything we thing we know about physics is wrong.
It takes just 2.9 wattts/m2 to raise the temperature from -40C to -39C.
It takes 7.0 watts/m2 to raise the temperature from +40 to 41C.
Thars the problem the alarmists don’t want to talk about. The earth’s temperature is like a hill. The higher you go, the harder it is to go still higher. At some point you reach a maximum. To exceed the maximum, you have to add more energy to the system, or pile more dirt up on the top of the hill. Both require extraordinary measures to go beyond naturally imposed limits, and pretending that there is some sort of linear trend signified by 12 of the last years/months.days/weeks/seconds being in the “top third” is just to totaly meaningless that Jake Crouch should be embarrased.
After some effort to collect and verify the data, the following is a relatively concise and fairly accurate accounting of the 29.2% of the planet’s “land” surface:
Arable Land 10.6% with 4.71% actually in annual crops – this latter part = a human state shift
Permanent Pastures 26% most natural with some small part having a human state shift
Forest and Woodlands 32% with some small fraction having some positive and some negative human state shift
Urban Areas = 2.4% likely but a liberal interpretation = 3% (much of these urban areas have green belts, parks, vacant lots, rivers etc – they are not all concrete and steel)
Other (deserts, tundra, permanent ice, mountains-above timberline etc.) 29% with some minor human state shift
Direct human impact = 4.71+3= 7.71%
Some human state shift (not sure how to define or quantify this value in the other biomes) but if we discuss some noticeable human impact to uncultivated arable land, pastures, forests, woodlands and other, we might be talking about a few % each with a total of perhaps 10%
The CIA Factbook used the above categories of land which turns out to be widely accepted. We know that pastures, some forests and woodlands, urban areas, and even deserts could be developed into arable land but simply by definition those land areas are not considered as arable here.
Most of the countries in the northern hemisphere have been improving these pastures, forests, woodlands, deserts etc. and protecting even the most remote of other types of biomes. China is doing a lot to improve these biomes. Africa, India, and some countries in SE Asia and S. America are struggling with this problem of “state shift”. These struggling countries all have some things in common. Primarily serious poverty and/or large populations.
Major to medium impact is 7.71% – this is fairly well documented
Noticeable to minor impact is 10% – this needs some serious work
17.71% of human impact to the planet’s land surface that goes from major to very minor impact.
It should not take a $1 Million study to start to seriously quantify the true extent of human impact to uncultivated arable land, pastures, forests, woodlands, and other (is it greater than 10% of the land surface and can we determine some sort of level of seriousness of the impact?). Did these 22 scientists do this? Not with a shotgun value of 43% and not by defining the impact with such a fuzzy term as state shift.
Recently about half of the world’s 7 billion population lived in urban areas and half in areas of very low population density. The increasing shift from rural areas to urban areas is expected to accelerate over the next forty years when population is expected to be about 9 billion. Size of urban areas will slowly increase but density is expected to increase more dramatically. World rate of population growth has continued to decrease from about 2% in 1960 to about 1% at the present time (even as the total population has dramatically gone up).
Bernie