Guest Post By Bob Tisdale
This is the last in a series of ten posts that present graphs of NOAA precipitation, drought (Palmer Drought Severity Index, PDSI), and temperature (TMIN, TAVG, and TMAX) data for the contiguous United States (and the 9 NOAA Climate Regions thereof) for the most-recent 100 years (1919 to 2018) of data that were available at the time that I prepared my paperback book Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate, which is the source of the graphs. That book was first published in May 2019. The subtitle of the book is Graphs of 100 Years of NOAA Contiguous U.S. Climate Data (2018 Edition) – A Book That NOAA Should Have Published. Links to the nine earlier posts in this series can be found toward the end of this one.
With the 2020 U.S. elections rapidly approaching, I’ve prepared this series of 10 blog posts that present graphs of NOAA data for the Contiguous United States in an effort to combat the constant misinformation and disinformation being spewed by politicians. This series of posts is not intended to try to change the beliefs of the brainwashed devotees of human-induced global warming/climate change; it is intended to support and strengthen the understandings of those who are not among the indoctrinated masses.
IMPORTANT NOTE
For an overview and discussion of the graphs that follow, see the post New Book: Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate. Subtitle: Graphs of 100 Years of NOAA Contiguous U.S. Climate Data (2018 Edition) – A Book That NOAA Should Have Published. (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.) It also includes parts of the Introduction of the book. That post should answer any questions you might have.
[End Note.]
The source of the primary data is the NOAA National Data Center Climate Data Online (NNDC CDO) website. The source of the older (pre-adjustments) near-surface average air temperature (TAVG) data is the 1984 Karl and Koss paper Regional and National Monthly, Seasonal, and Annual Temperature Weighted by Area. The Karl and Koss 1984 paper is available from NOAA here.
The numbering of the illustrations is from the book Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate, and that numbering coincides with those used by NOAA at their NNDC CDO website. I also added lettering to the graphs to maintain a standard sequence throughout the book.
Comparison of Annual TAVG Data Before and After NOAA Adjustments
The following is the introductory text from the book Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate that explains the before and after graph that begins the data (in graph form) presentation of this post.
NOAA is very open about the adjustments they’ve made to the U.S. temperature records. In fact, the adjustments to the temperature records for the United States are discussed as part of the Q&A on the NOAA webpage titled Monitoring Global and U.S. Temperatures at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information: (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/temperature-monitoring.php)
There they begin:
There are several factors that are important in monitoring global or U.S. temperature: quality of raw observations, length of record of observations, and the analysis methods used to transform raw data into reliable climate data records by removing existing biases from the data. An additional process takes the multiple climate data records and creates U.S. or global average temperatures.
On that NOAA webpage, there are links to more-detailed descriptions of the adjustments and their reasoning behind them, including scientific studies.
While preparing this series of books, I came across a paper NOAA published in 1984 that lists the monthly and average temperatures for the contiguous United States and its nine climate regions. The authors of the 1984 NOAA paper are Thomas R. Karl and Walter James Koss, and the paper’s title is (their caps) REGIONAL AND NATIONAL MONTHLY, SEASONAL, AND ANNUAL TEMPERATURE WEIGHTED BY AREA. The paper can be found here: (https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/10238).
I then compared the curves and linear trends of the 1984 and current editions of those temperature data for the period of 1919 to 1983 (the start year of the graphs in this book and the last year of the “old” data).
United States (Contiguous) Old vs Current TAVG Temperature Data
Figure Old v Current TAVG Data-10
Note: Sadly, the Karl and Koss 1984 paper only included the TAVG data. It would have been interesting to see which metric, TMIN or TMAX, NOAA has adjusted more.
# # #
NOAA CLIMATE DATA FOR CONTIGUOUS U.S.
The following are the six graphs of the precipitation, PDSI, and temperature data for the Contiguous U.S. from the book Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate. They were published without comment from me in the book. Again, refer to the post here for more information about the graphs. Also, once more, the data presented in the next six graphs were extracted from the data available at the NOAA National Data Center Climate Data Online (NNDC CDO) website.
United States (Contiguous) Precipitation Data
Figure 110a
# # #
United States (Contiguous) Palmer Drought Severity Index Data
Figure 110b
# # #
United States (Contiguous) Temperature Indices Data
Figure 110c
# # #
United States (Contiguous) 30-Year Monthly Temperature (TAVG) Averages Comparison
Figure 110d
# # #
United States (Contiguous) 30-Year Monthly Temperature (TMIN) Averages Comparison
Figure 110e
# # #
United States (Contiguous) 30-Year Monthly Temperature (TMAX) Averages Comparison
Figure 110f
# # #
ARCHIVED DATA PAGE
As noted earlier, the source of the data presented above in this post was the NOAA National Data Center Climate Data Online (NNDC CDO) website. I archived the NOAA data pages as I downloaded the data. The archived NOAA NNDC CDO data page for the Contiguous United States (from 1900-January 2019) is here.
THE REST OF THIS SERIES OF POSTS
Note: Much of the text in each post is boilerplate. Of course, the graphs are different for each region, and hyperlinks to the archived NOAA data pages are different for each post. [End note.]
ALREADY POSTED
- 101 Northeast Region (includes the statesof Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont).
- 102 East North Southeast Region (includes the states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin).
- 103 Central Region (includes the states of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia.)
- 104 Southeast Region (includes the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.)
- 105 West North Central Region (includes the states of Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.)
- (includes the states of Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas.)
- 107 Southwest Climate Region (includes the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.)
- 108 Northwest Climate Region (includes the states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.)
- 109 West Climate Region (includes the states of California and Nevada.)
# # #
A REMINDER
Again, please see the post New Book: Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate. Subtitle: Graphs of 100 Years of NOAA Contiguous U.S. Climate Data (2018 Edition) – A Book That NOAA Should Have Published. (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.) It should answer any questions you have about the graphs.
# # #
A FEW MORE METRICS
To close this post, I’m reproducing the CLOSING from Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate. I’ve added a couple of hyperlinks that could not appear in the text of that paperback.
I suspect some of you are also interested in the number of hurricanes that make landfall here in the continental United States, in the number of tornados that touchdown in the Contiguous U.S., in flood data for the states, and in wildfire data, too. I made those data presentations in my Kindle ebook short story titled Dad, Is Climate Getting Worse in the United States?. The subtitle of that short story is Book 2 in the DAD, WHY ARE YOU A GLOBAL WARMING DENIER? Series. Figures Closing-1 through -3 are examples of the graphs included in Dad, Is Climate Getting Worse in the United States?. Data sources for these graphs are linked in that ebook, in addition to being listed below the graphs.
Figure Closing-1
# # #
Figure Closing-2
# # #
Figure Closing-3
# # #
Again, please see the post New Book: Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate. Subtitle: Graphs of 100 Years of NOAA Contiguous U.S. Climate Data (2018 Edition) – A Book That NOAA Should Have Published. (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.) It should answer any questions you have about the graphs.
I have no plans to prepare blog posts for the data for the individual states. For those, you’ll either have to download the data from NOAA and prepare your own spreadsheet-based graphs, or you can buy my paperback book Extremes and Averages in Contiguous U.S. Climate, – Graphs of 100 Years of NOAA Contiguous U.S. Climate Data (2018 Edition) – A Book That NOAA Should Have Published.
Regards,
PS: Just in case you didn’t notice or you have trouble reading graphs, as NOAA data confirms, climate for the Contiguous U.S. as a whole has improved over the past 100 years.
I guess that since this is a study of climate in the usa, the appropriate tropical cyclone basin is the north atlantic where tropical cyclones are called hurricanes but that kind of analysis may not have an AGW interpretation. Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/11/14/hurricane-obsession/
I believe in climate change. I was raised on stories of the dirty thirties. It’s way better now.
My Mom was raised in NW Kansas in the 20’s and 30’s -She remembered the Dust Bowl days.
i wasn’t quite as bad as Oklahoma but it wasn’t fun.
The Opening scene to “The Wizard OF Oz.” made Mom homesick…
I just saw a documentary about desertification caused by bad farming practice. The dust bowles may not be related to climate…?
The dust bowl covered a small area of the US and yet drought was wide spread throughout the US, and other parts of the world were experiencing drought as well.
Just look at the Palmer Drought Indices over the dust bowl years and then tell me climate had nothing to do with it…
Born, late 30s on the Canadian Prairies. I grew up listening to the dust bowl stories and worries about the next one. Most temperature high records across Canada are late 1930s. A couple of spots in Saskatchewan reached 47C (116.6F) in July 1937. There is no question it’s cooler now by a good margin.
Intrestingly, the unfiddled temperature record for a fair number of places around the world have virtually identical temperature patterns to the US and Canada: Greenland, Scandinavia, Siberia South Africa, Australia, Paraguay, Bolivia, etc – it was worldwide and these must be corroboratory logically. Their fiddled adjustments, however, are even more egregious than they could get away with in the United States. Visit Paul Homewoods “Notalotofpeople know” site for his work on it
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com
Here’s a graphic from a wuwt article re South Africa. Note how faithfully it reproduces the US raw data pattern
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/clip_image0022.gif
Here’s another link re “the hunt for global warming in southern Africa”. 26 GHCN stations’ raw data from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania near the equator to Capetown, South Africa are superposed and averaged. Remarkably, both the 1930s high and the the “Ice Age Cometh” deep cooling to 1979 are evident. The record pattern would be even more pronounced had they left out the equatorial region which would show the least change. Scroll down to the chart.
http://euanmearns.com/the-hunt-for-global-warming-southern-africa/
Speaking of the “dirty thirties” look at the Exhibit 02 graph of U.S. landfalling hurricanes and we see that in the hot 1930’s there was a spike in hurricanes presumably because it was hotter then than preceding or subsequent years, then the hurricane frequency declined, along with the temperatures, all the way down to the 1980’s, and then, as we all know, temperatures started climbing in the 1980’s and so did the hurricane fequency. The part of the chart that doesn’t fit this pattern is the period from right after 1998 (El Nino) to today where hurricane frequency drops but the temperatures are almost as warm as the 1930’s.
The hurricane frequency chart looks a lot like the U.S. surface temperature profile in Hansen 1999:
Those “dirty thirties” show up everywhere in the climate record. Everywhere but in the bogus, bastardized, fraudulent Modern-era Hockey Stick Global Temperature chart.
“part of the chart that doesn’t fit this pattern is the period from right after 1998 (El Nino) to today where hurricane frequency drops but the temperatures are almost as warm as the 1930’s.”
A good bet is that this is due to the temperature record tampering that erased the “Pause” and actually cooled the past, most especially pushing down the 30s40 high that was so embarrassing to the alarm folk.
How about a simplified version of this that we could send to our Congressmen, Senators, etc.
Heh.
Then again, they just get up and walk out when you present them with information they don’t want to hear. I am so old I can remember Judith Curry and Mark Steyn (credibly simplifying what was going on) appearing at a Senate hearing.
…climate for the Contiguous U.S. as a whole has improved over the past 100 years.
The USA-48 is but a small portion of the planet, and everywhere else the climate has gotten worse!
So CO2 is a regional factor of concern?
Or is it lack of temperature readings on other places that is a temptation for alarmists?
The temperature trend in USA-48 is similar to that globally since Dec 1978 according to the UAH_TLT satellite data (slightly higher in fact, global is +0.13 and USA48 is +0.17 C/dec): https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt
TheFinalNail … 7:42 am
The temperature trend in USA-48 is similar to that globally since Dec 1978
Christy and Spencer are well known deniers.
Guess that makes you an unknown troll.
Gary February … 8:18 am Guess that makes you an unknown troll.
I want to get ahead of the curve, so I’m planning to apply for entry into the thought police academy, and I will need to demonstrate that I have the correct credentials.
Loydo? Is that you?
Steve. What is opposite of “denier”? A “believer”. What does belief have to do with science? Nothing. Neither does consensus (97% etc). It all comes down to predictions, predictions and more predictions.
So Steve, what predictions have been correct for you to hold your position?
Case
Not only do you spew ad hominems, but you toss in illogical descriptors that you provide no citations for.
The important question is, “Can you provide evidence that their claims are incorrect?” If not, then your use of ad hominems is explained.
TRM … 9:37 am
Clyde Spencer … 9:54 am
Thanks for the comments, I will treasure them (-:
“Christy and Spencer are well known deniers”
Christy and Spencer are the only honest brokers out there, when it comes to global temperatures.
Define “worse”.
JohnWho … 7:02 am. Define “worse”.
How ’bout using it in a sentence:
“Worse than previously thought!”
Now do you get it?
What, no /sarc?
But seriously folks, who’d’a thunk CAGW/climate change was so politico/geographical correlated?!?
The_Real Bob W. … 8:02 am – What, no /sarc?
Sarc? I don’ got to show you no stinkin sarc!
Indeed, only the USA is better climate-wise and “everywhere else the climate has gotten worse!” makes complete sense, NOT!
Talk about laughable! I guess it’s that type of arrogance in spite of their ignorance, as to why the AGW Elitist Alarmists think they can control the climate.
I struggle to believe that what is probably the best data we have for a pretty large area of land over a pretty decent time interval fails to show warming if warming is happening in any “global” way.
Could you define “worse”? climate-related deaths are much lower, extreme poverty is lower, rates of bush and forest fires are not changed or perhaps slightly better, the world food production is up. Evidence that anything is worse due to climate change is nowhere to be seen, as far as we can tell.
Do you leave a night light on to keep the monsters from “Monsters, Inc” from stealing your unreasonable fear.
So in the place on the globe with the most comprehensive data this get better, but in the places with little or no or bad data they get worse?
And that is your evidence for CACC?
What’s your background? Astrology? Or homeopathy? Or fishgut reading perhaps?
Re the first chart: the Karl et al paper was published in 1984. The systematic removal of inhomogeneities introduced by non-climatic factors, such as ‘time of observation bias’ or station moves, only occured with the introduction of the first USHCN dataset in 1987. So it’s not surprising that there would be differences between the two.
We are living in the Modern Climate Optimum.
Mildest Climate with fewest extremes in history. Milder temperatures and a windfall of increased global vegetative and “foodstock” growth.
This is the opposite of a Climate Crisis.
We are also living during the Modern Globaluat Socialist Mainstream Press Lying Propaganda Optimum.
That is a Crisis.
The only climate proxy that I’ve noticed getting “worse” is pollen counts.
Are there 30y windows that can be selected to show the alarmists point of view?
Bob a fan of your efforts over the years. Have bought several copies of the kid’s books for my great grandchildren. I also bought the Extremes & Averages for my library.
I need clarification of the copyright policy as I want to share the Pennsylvania information with our legislators, in an effort to put a stop to this Regional Climate initiative by Gov. Wolf and his Environmental Extremists.
It would be submitted to the PA DEP as part of an overall submission.
I learned Saturday of our omniscient Gov Wolf deciding, through his “executive order” magic wand, to have Pennsylvania join the NE Regional Climate Initiative. This action is against the wishes of many in PA, including our state legislators. I decided to offer some real climate facts to our local legislators. This data would be a great start.
From Figures 110d and 110e, it seems like winters are getting slightly warmer (less cold), but summers are about the same as the 1919-1948 period. Could this be due to an urban heat-island effect, with more buildings leaking heat in cities now than back then?
Warmer winters (or less cold extremes) in some areas could lengthen growing seasons, if the first autumn frost comes later or the last spring frost comes earlier. But if the summer extremes haven’t changed, we shouldn’t have to worry about heat waves any more than our great-grandparents did.
The graph about tornado frequency is interesting–the worst year since 1954 was 1974 (46 years ago), and developments in radar technology should make tornados easier to spot in recent years than in earlier years, when most tornado reports were from visual sightings and/or reports of damage to buildings. All that CO2 buildup since 1974, and we still haven’t seen a worse tornado year since then.
Tornados usually form along strong cold fronts, mostly in spring. If the high latitudes are warming slightly, but the low latitude temperatures have not been changing much, the temperature gradient between north and south would be slightly weaker in recent years, which could explain fewer tornados.
“Tornados usually form along strong cold fronts, mostly in spring. If the high latitudes are warming slightly, but the low latitude temperatures have not been changing much, the temperature gradient between north and south would be slightly weaker in recent years, which could explain fewer tornados.”
That would seem to me to be a pretty good description of what we are seeing.
I like that we are having fewer and weaker tornados. I live in Tornado Alley and they are a yearly thing around the western two-thirds of the United States, starting off forming up through the central U.S. is the spring and the focus moves eastward as spring goes into summer, and then there will be less of them as the real heat of summer sets in and moisture drops.
We have sort of an unusual situation here in Oklahoma. Last year we set a record for the number of tornados. The reason for this is the principal storm track across the nation went right over Oklahoma and stayed over Oklahoma so we got one storm front after another and ended up with record rainfall last year, too. What’s a little unusual around here is almost all the tornados were low-power F0 or F1. So even though we had record numbers of tornados, the damage done was minimal.
The storm track hasn’t changed much which means we will continue with this same weather pattern for a while longer. We should get plenty of rain this year. Let’s hope it’s not too much.
And it’s a good thing to get rain in Oklahoma in the summer. This is drought-prone territory so we appreciate the rain, although we haven’t had a serious drought since about 2010, and that was a doozy! But no problems since.
Very good posting and book, Bob. The direct presentation reminds me of the old Dragnet television program, wherein some lady would start pontificating hyperventilating and Sgt. Joe Friday would say “just the facts, please”.
Thanks Bob -the Jedi Master of the Graph and chart..
this series in in my archives..
“climate for the Contiguous U.S. as a whole has improved over the past 100 years.”
..
Excellent, but there is a problem with all of your work. The CONUS is 8 million square kilometers. The surface of the Earth is 510 million square kilometers. As such, you have forgotten about 99.92% of the planet.
The doctor takes the temp in your ass. That is 0,01% of your body, still the good doctor thinks it’s valid…
The doctor thinks it is valid because almost everywhere else he can stick the thermometer in you, it’ll get the same reading. Now, take that thermometer and stick it in Buffalo New York, then stick it at the South Pole in Antarctic. Not the same.
Huh? I thought global warming was just that, global. Another words if its happening somewhere, it should be happening every where. I didn’t think it could be selective.
But if it doesn’t suit the narrative it must be right.
” if its happening somewhere, it should be happening every where.” NOPE if it is happening in 9 out of 10 places, the one place it isn’t happening is drowned out by the other nine.
…
By the way, the oceans rule the climate, not the land mass of the USA. In fact the oceans are 70% of the planet, with land being the other 30%. So you see why the post by Tisdale is worthless from a global perspective.
Henry,
aussiecol has a good point. CO2 is supposed to be a well-mixed greenhouse gas, so its effects should be felt everywhere — especially in a region with as high a per capita output of CO2 as is the US. In science, evidence that doesn’t fit the hypothesis can’t just be handwaved away. The hypothesis has to account for all the evidence, or at least a major part of it.
You completely missed the point with your comment “the oceans rule the climate, not the land mass of the USA.” No one has claimed that the US “rules the climate”, so you are mounting a strawman attack. The point being made by aussiecol is that the US is apparently NOT being affected by the change in CO2 — and the hypothesis should be able to say why.
James Schrumpf
The hypothesis is that increasing CO2 concentrations over the long term should, all other things being equal, cause surface and lower tropospheric warming over a region as large as USA-48.
Bob Tisdale’s chart 110c above shows that average temperatures have indeed been observed to warm over the long term in USA-48 (about +0.15 F per decade between 1919 and 2018).
So the suggestion that the US is “apparently NOT being affected” in a way that the hypothesis predicts from rising CO2 levels isn’t valid. Whether the observed warming actually is caused by the increase in CO2 is another question. However, temperatures in USA-48 certainly have risen over the long term, as CO2 levels have increased.
Henry,
Yes, the average temperature of the contiguous US states has increased, but look at the average highest highs and lowest lows charts. The highest high trend is – 0.033F/decade, while the lowest low trend is 0.309F/decade, for the average of 0.15F/decade.
Here’s the thing, though: if the high temp doesn’t change, and the low temp increases, the average temp goes up. But the day/year/decade hasn’t become any warmer. If I keep my house at 72F in the day and set it to 65F at night, the mean temperature in the house is 68.5F. If I change the night temp to 67F, the mean temperature in the house is now 69.5F, but my house was never warmer than 72F.
The average global anomaly of TAVG is misleading for showing a true warming. The anomaly of TMAX would be more useful, even though the example of the US shows why the whole “global average” concept is useless.
TheFinalNail and Henry,
Apologies for mixing up my attributions. That reply was meant for TheFinalNail.
James Schrumpf
Well, yes it has; unless the terms ‘less cold’ and ‘warmer’ are no longer interchangeable. If you look at decadal temperatures in USA-48 there has been a conspicuous increase since the 1970s (NOAA):
//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js
Yes, this is mostly driven by less cold (warmer) nights; but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
Well, no, Henry. The rectal temperature is a proxy and differs from the oral or axillary temperatures.
http://www.differencebetween.net/science/health/difference-between-axillary-and-oral-temperature/
LOL Richie, consider the difference in temp between the South Pole and Honolulu. Not talking about a few tenths of a degree F differences.
.
The US is apparently the only place that isn’t warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.
Henry: You are correct that a rectal temp is a poor analogy for measuring global temperatures.
Using your numbers the CONUS is ~5% of the land mass of the Earth, but still too small to be representative. Yet the term Average Global Temperature is somewhat meaningless as you point out in the equator/pole gradient. The adage that ‘all politics is local’ can have a climate connection in that people are more concerned about their own region.
Tisdale’s graphs do a nice job showing that the USA is not experiencing extreme weather which is the opposite of what the MSM endlessly portrays. Debunking the “climate crisis” one region at a time.
It reminded me of this interesting article:
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/04/29/latest-news-about-a-climate-disaster/
Bob,
I bought your book a while ago and have found it very useful and interesting. It resides on my desk at my right hand side. I also regularly access the NOAA Climate at a Glance website which allows easy and flexible plotting of the data. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/time-series
I have actually been able to make a bit of progress explaining the situation to my grandson using your book and the NOAA resource. He saw the book on my desk and said “what is this all about pops?”.
Could you please clarify something for me? It is my understanding that for each underlying weather station in the NOAA data base, NOAA records Tmax and Tmin each day and Tavg for that day is (Tmax+Tmin)/2. Is my understanding correct? Is there a clear statement of this anywhere on the NOAA website? Is it in your book? I have looked several times and haven’t found it. It’s a useful point to make when trying to explain to people why looking at Tmax and Tmin data is useful. More useful in my view than focusing on Tavg.
Mark, sorry for the delay in replying.
Thank you for buying the book. I also want to thank you for using it during conversations with your grandson about the real world. I was hoping it would be useful like that.
Regarding the calculation of TAVG, that’s my understanding as well.
Regards,
Bob
Thanks Bob.
This is a very powerful analysis. Kudos for the exhaustive work Mr. Tisdale.
As it is sinking into my brain, after two moderately slow reads, I also like to contrast with the simplest insight of all: the verbatim graph of NOAA’s USHCN 120-year record showing temp as a sine curve with no abnormal warming and 2019 as the second lowest year on record for TMAX. This is my graph of it:
http://theearthintime.com
I welcome and appreciate any challenge or affirmation of that graph from anyone here.
Mark,
I’ve looked over the documentation for the monthly and daily summaries, and I can’t find a clear, unambiguous statement of how TAVG is generated. TMAX and TMIN are provided along with TAVG in the daily summaries, so I suppose that’s all the statement that needs to be made.
TMAX and TMIN also demonstrate how TAVG can increase without the TMAX changing, if TMIN increases. A favorite question of mine is to ask, “If on one day the high temp is 35 degrees C, and the low temp is 25, the mean temp was 30C. If on the next day the high is 35, but the low is 30, the mean temp for the day is 32.5. but was the day really any warmer?”
James,
You make a similar point to the one I try to make to my grandson.
My Grandkids live in Texas and Georgia. The point I try to make with them is that if one is worried about warming then let’s look at summer high temperatures in parts of the country that are the warmest and arguably the most unpleasant during summer. Texas is in the South region and Georgia is in the Southeast region in the NOAA data base.
Bob’s graphs on pages 106-108 and 364-366 show clearly that summer high temperatures in Georgia and the Southeast are essentially unchanged from the period 1919-1948. The small change in average temperature is entirely due to the increase in night time minimum temperature.
The graphs on pages 298-300 and 376-378 show that summer high temperatures in the past 30 years are actually lower than during the 30 year period 1919-1948 in Texas and the South region and that any increase in average temperature is entirely due to small increases in night time minimum temperatures.
Now to be clear, I am not a fan of these large surface temperature data bases given their well documented shortcomings and clearly demonstrated molestations (kudos to Mark Steyn and Tony Heller along with others). However if they are to be maintained and used to communicate trends, then it’s worth looking at more than just global or contiguous US averages.
Regarding the calc of AVE … here is the 2019 record from Dubois, WY showing TMAX, TMIN, TAVE. Does the aid in eyeballing the method they use to get TAVE?
http://theearthintime.com/dubois.jpg
I just picked that station randomly.
James (and TheFinalNail), if it’s not impolite for me to interject …
James: >>>The average global anomaly of TAVG is misleading for showing a true warming. The anomaly of TMAX would be more useful, even though the example of the US shows why the whole “global average” concept is useless.<<<
"Average" invokes a linear construct, and depends on where you start and stop, therefore arbitrary. The actual construct is a sine curve. And it is trending down for as far as the eye can see (with actual measurement, 120 years.) 2019 was the second lowest TMAX on record.
And the US measurement record is proxy for the world.
Figure 110f
When I look at the chart overall, It fits with my nonscientific gut that the global warming is about high in summer being a little lower but lows in winter are “more” higher. If land areas are going greener, the greener would heat up less in summer and the taller the greening stuff would clear snow cover off sooner so a lengthening of days where biology in the increased biomass would also generate more heat. That heating may be minor but it is the equivalent of radiative forcing in watts per meter like Willis spoke of in the energy used in populated areas.
My gut is that CO2 radiative forcing is a fraction as CO2 absorbed radiation is simply transfer to the H20
radiation, as I think, was proposed by Dr. David Evans. Also, I believe it has been suggested by models and measured that increased CO2 causes a cooling of the stratosphere. If more absorbed CO2 energy occurs in the lower atmosphere and is transferred to the H20 emission then less would reach CO2 in the stratosphere and there CO2 and H20 exist in more equal PPM. Just some thoughts.