2013 was a cool year in many ways. Most interestingly, the last year this split between highs and lows happened in the USA, in 1993, we had the eruption from Mt. Pinatubo the prior year which ejected so much aerosol into the atmosphere that it blocked sunlight and cooled the planet.
Source: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1978
This year, 2013, we have no similar large volcanic influence, and so the cause can’t be pinned on an specific aerosol event. It seems that natural variation played a bigger role this time. It also says much about Hansen’s “loaded climate dice”
This table from NCDC pretty well sums up the headline.
Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records/
Note also the “Last Year to Date” line on the bottom. in 2013, we have less than one-third of the number of record highs as in 2012.
h/t to Doyle Rice at USAToday.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/12/31/record-cold-temperatures/4264237/
Here, from the Wayback Machine, is last year’s table from NCDC:
if anyone has any similar weather record comparisons for the rest of the world, don’t hesitate to list them in comments.
wpDiscuz