From the Alaska Dispatch and the weather is not climate unless it’s 100 degrees outside department comes this report:
Could this be the coldest July in history for Anchorage?
According to the National Weather Service, Anchorage, Alaska is experiencing record cold temperatures this month. Usually July is Anchorage’s hottest month, but it’s been warmer the last few days in Barrow, 800 miles to the north on Alaska’s Arctic coast, than it has been in the state’s largest city.
The Weather Service posted this graphic today on Facebook, along with narrative:
From the NWS Facebook page:
Who’s colder today: Anchorage or Barrow, Alaska?
By Alaska’s summer standards, it’s been cool in South-Central Alaska this month and especially this week. (By lower 48 standards, it’s flat out cold). It’s been so cool in Anchorage that for the past two days (July 11 and 12) high temperatures have been colder than Barrow, the 9th northermost city in the world, which is more than 700 miles to the north of Alaska’s largest city.
On July 11, Anchorage had a high temperature of 56º. July 12 topped out at 54º. Both days set records for the lowest maximum temperature. And for all of July thus far, no day at the Anchorage Forecast office has seen a daily high at or above the average (65-66º). [Climate log: http://bit.ly/N6aIAZ]
Moreover, July is normally the warmest month of the year on average in Anchorage. This July is the coldest on record (so far) by more than 1.5º with an average monthly temperature of 52.7º. The coolest July on record occurred in 1920 with an average monthly temperature of 54.4º.
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h/t to Poptech
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phlogiston says:
July 14, 2012 at 8:37 am
Current Arctic ice is a little paradoxical. Its thicker on the side near Greenland and east Canada where temperatures are record high, and apparently very thin on the North pacific side where temperatures are very low.
Not paradoxical at all, the gyre pushes ice to the Greenland and Northern Canada where piles up, that’s normal although it’s been greatly diminishing over the last several years.
News from the real world shows unusually heavy sea ice in the north Pacific:
Although you linked to a report concerning Baffin Island, probably a couple of thousand miles away.
mwhite says:
July 14, 2012 at 4:32 am
“Steven Mosher says:
July 13, 2012 at 10:57 pm
No doubt the ice will be fine then.
sarc off”
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/brutal-bering-sea-ice-blocking-arctic-supply-ships
“Brutal Bering Sea ice blocking Arctic supply ships”
So bad it’s blocking supply ships 2,000 miles away!
(sarc off)
Anthea Collins says:
July 14, 2012 at 7:10 am
We are told, here in the UK, that our current unsummer weather is due to the southerly position of the jet stream. Would this be the case for other areas such as Alaska? And if so when the jet stream moves north will we be back to “global warming”?
Anthea
—————————————————————————————————-
The jet stream “going south” is something you would expect from a cooling world, Anthea. It’s the effect, rather than the cause of the actual cold and wet weather in the Northern Hemsphere. So, if I were you, i wouldn’t sell all my warm clothes on eBay only because the Met Office says so…
Sou says:
July 13, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Just proves what lots of your guest bloggers and commenters have been telling us. We’re heading for another ice age. None of this global warming nonsense in that part of Alaska this month.
To be confirmed when the ratio of record highs to record lows around the world drops below one. I think it’s been on average one record low to two record highs for the past few years, but it’s bound to flip the other way any day now. Not helped by continental USA this year (we can ignore that, it’s just weather), but the UK has been a bit cool and wet the past month or so (that’s more proof that global warming is about to reverse).
Such deep sarc normally gets missed on blogs. BTW what global warming do you mean? Global temps have slightly cooled since 1998. But I guess they will shoot back up any day now. Its just a matter of waiting for el Ninot.
Phil. says:
July 14, 2012 at 12:45 pm
mwhite says:
July 14, 2012 at 4:32 am
“Steven Mosher says:
July 13, 2012 at 10:57 pm
No doubt the ice will be fine then.
sarc off”
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/brutal-bering-sea-ice-blocking-arctic-supply-ships
“Brutal Bering Sea ice blocking Arctic supply ships”
So bad it’s blocking supply ships 2,000 miles away!
(sarc off)
This one’s a bit closer:
http://iceagenow.info/2012/07/sea-ice-delays-shell-alaska-drilling/
mosomoso says:
July 13, 2012 at 11:47 pm
…
In 2007, there was an unmistakable change, and oceanic winds began to dominate again. The El Nino of ’09 had a completely different complexion to those of previous decades, we now get thunder every winter – even in droughty August – and the weather resembles more and more that of my childhood in the fifties.
Yet this enormity is only lightly discussed.
It is well known by those who understand oceanography and climate (i.e. Bob Tisdale) that a major climate shift took place in 1976-1977, stemming from a shift in ENSO-related ocean behaviour in the Pacific. It may be that another such change occurred in 2007.
Sea ice anomalies show a clear change in winter to summer oscillation – a sharp increase in magnitude of oscillation, at 2007:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
This hints at a change in regime of some sort. In the last year or two of the UAH global temperature record, oscillation has also sharply increased:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_June_2012.png
It is well known that over much longer time glacial-interglacial timescales, climate instability and oscillation is greater during periods of declining global temperatures, than during warming periods. It is interesting to speculate that – if the climate system shows fractal characteristics (linked to nonlinear quasi-chaotic dynamics) then such a pattern – greater oscillation and instability while temperatures fall – could also be seen on much shorter timescales also. (A fractal system is one in which patterns repeat at many scales.)
When I lived in New Hampshire, the TV meteorologist frequently pointed out that when it is unusually cool in Alaska, it is almost always unusually warm in New Hampshire, and vice versa. The heat wave in the east and the cold weather in Alaska fit in with this observation.
Cold now, warm tomorrow, and vice versa. Everything’s global warming/climate change, though. Washington DC heat, Anchorage cold, UK lousy summer, Balkan record heat… I’m happy to leave this one post and say that I won’t be reading any more weather stuff on here, nor any of the politics, just the science.
Re: Mary @ur momisugly July 14, 2012 at 3:58 pm
One of the things we see up here is the notion that there is only so much cold air to go around, though it usually only happens in winter. When it is brutally cold up here, it is nice down south. When the cold drops south, it warms up nicely up here (Anchorage).
Of course the problem comes when the Ice Age hits and it is cold everywhere and there is more than enough cold air to go around. Meanwhile, gardening is taking a moderate hit up here as the warm weather plants are confined to greenhouses (which we have a lot of) or simply do not do well. The rest of the plants are either doing well or are late. The other thing that colder weather does to gardening is to encourage us to target colder weather tolerant plants – gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, trollius, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, blue poppies, etc. Live and learn and roll with the punches. As long as we aren’t under half a mile of ice like we were 6,000 years ago, I suppose I am a happy camper. Cheers –
Regarding the science, I’m reading lately about record hot days compared to cold over large data samples (all USA, globe), and over time. Obviously in a warming climate, there are going to be, statistically, more extreme hot events than cold, and this is what we are seeing in spades. I am definitely NOT reading that there was record heat in (x) city, therefore AGW – not from serious, scientific sources. Of course, weather extremes at a single location for a single (half) month tell you nothing about overall climate change. I suppose that kind of specious argument may appear in tabloids or similar. Then, what is the point of the top post? It’s nothing to do with climate or trends or scientific analysis. In the context of this blog, and judging by the majority of following comments, the implication is that a record cold day is a thumb in the eye to AGW. But it certainly isn’t, and there is an opportunity here for the hosts to disabuse followers of that notion.
barry says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/13/coldest-july-in-history-for-anchorage/#comment-1032908
henry says
barry, the happenings in Alaska are not a single event of one month or so. According to my table for means in the link quoted below – added up together, it already got 1.5 K colder there in Anchorage, in total, on average, since 2000. And I have two weather stations there spying for me and both weather stations are telling me the same story… !! See here:
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
If you stare yourselves all blind looking at average temps on earth, you would not (easily) pick up on a significant trend. There is just too much ‘weather noise”
Look at the development of maxima:
+ 0.36 K/decade since 1974
+0.29 K/ decade since 1980
+0.14 K /decade since 1990
– 0.16 K/decade since 2000
Now put that in a bi-nominal plot (parabolic)
and what you get is correlation coefficient =rsquare=0.998
Is that perhaps significant for you?
Do the maths excercise and see for yourself that we entered in a cooling phase since 1995.
Obviously all the dr’s and and prof’s here making their livelyhoods out of AGW or ACC refuse to look at the maxima….there must be a reason?
But how long do they think they can hide the truth and what will the final cost be to humanity, in terms of wasted crops in the areas that are cooling down faster than elsewhere?
agimarc says:
July 14, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Meanwhile, gardening is taking a moderate hit up here as the warm weather plants are confined to greenhouses (which we have a lot of) or simply do not do well. The rest of the plants are either doing well or are late. The other thing that colder weather does to gardening is to encourage us to target colder weather tolerant plants
Have you tried enhancing the CO2 level in your greenhouse. You can get kits on line.
Kelvin Vaughan says
Have you tried enhancing the CO2 level in your greenhouse. You can get kits on line.
Henry says
That’s funny. You are funny. As long as you remember that the CO2 is added to greenhouses to stimulate growth, not to trap heat.
Although, somehow I think the cooling that I observe happening there is probably not a laughing matter.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/13/coldest-july-in-history-for-anchorage/#comment-1032955
July 15, 2012, central Kenai Peninsula, 11;30AM local time, temp is 44F with a brisk wind.
RE: Richard111 says:
July 13, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Something strange going on. Last night the BBC reported birds that normally migrate in the autumn are arriving in the UK now. In mid July! The report said the birds were mainly from Iceland.
Barrow webcam still showing a lot of sea ice with local air temp at 41F.
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Back during the warm 90s the birches near our place would start to turn in September and become bright with color in November. The following decade this shifted a month earlier. Thus far this decade, a month earlier yet.
Henry@Steve
I wish I coulld give good news but my results from Alaska are frightening.
If it gets too cold you have to pack up and leave.
Well, another blown forecast. The average Anchorage July temperature climbed above the record low. Since the Anchorage temperatures generally increase over the month of July, and the remaining ten day forecast is for higher temperatures, the July average temperature will likely end the month in the range of 55.5 to 56.0 deg F, over one degree higher than the record low. Somebody was way too early with this mistaken forecast…
Paul K2 says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/13/coldest-july-in-history-for-anchorage/#comment-1039023
Henry@Paul
According to the records of two weather stations from that area it already cooled by as much as 1.5 K (=1.5 degree Celsius) in Anchorage since 2000
If I were you (and living in Alaska) I would pack up and go, because it is going to get a lot colder yet…
(there is about 33 years of cooling yet to come)http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here