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Warmest 12-Month Period Recorded In US
First time accepted submitter seanzig writes "Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground provides a good overview of the State of the Climate Report from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). May 2011 through Apr. 2012 broke the previous record (Nov. 1999 — Oct. 2000). A number of other interesting records (e.g., warmest March on record) and stats emerged. It just presents the data and does not surmise anything about the causes or what should be done about it."
I think the reason for this is quite clear. It's quite clearly anthropomorphic as well (if you make the assumption that politicians are human).
The hot air from Washington, DC, the various European capitals, Moscow, Bejing and countless other warrens is overwhelming the planet's defenses.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
...is trending cooler.
Enough cooler, apparently, to more than balance out the relatively local heat we've seen in the US, which is caused by a regional weather situation that's also apparently starting to change.
This report ignores Alaska, the actual statement is "Ten warmest 12-month periods for the contiguous U.S.". So it was the warmest as long as you ignore about 40% of the country, which they also claim Alaska had more snow than any other year since 1955.
If this is what passes for proof of AWG I think I'll choose to ignore it from now on.
Your garden depends on winter to periodically kill diseases and pests.
Yeah, it's a pisser down there in Florida where nothing at all grows any more due to all the pests and disease.
Sure, and it is a valid point when one has a few weeks of cold or even a few months of cold. And by the same token, a year like this one by itself isn't that useful data. It is when data like this year is part of a larger pattern that it becomes a problem. In this context one has a very hot year by a variety of different metrics and that's on top of a gradual increase in average temperature over the last twenty years. Weather and climate are different, but lots of weather change over the long-term is eventually a sign of climate change.
The time between peak temperatures can be used to measure climate change. Global warming is expected to decrease those times. Since it was 12 years since the hottest year on record, the next value might be 7 years, then 5 years, and so on. Without climate change those times would be a function of the length of recorded temperatures and would usually increase in duration as more data was recorded (40 yrs to 50 years to 80 years, etc.).
Either cite your sources or take your disinformation elsewhere Jane. The IPCC and NAS both claim greater than 50% of the variation is human caused, the natural part has a very slight downward trend over the last century, the upward AGW signal dominates the historical trend, it even obscures the significant cooling signal coming from sulphurous smog.
Pretentions of honesty: Looking at the rest of the innane comments in this story, it's clear to me that slashdot has upset the Heartland Institue with yesterday's story and their army of astroturfers and useful idiots will now fill this thread with noise. Keep up the good work slashdot!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Climate is a different story and can be quantifiable to the extent that effects such as El Nino were identified over a century ago.
What is your motivatation to mislead with irrelevant rubbish such as you posted above? Just because there is noise in a system does not mean the system does not exist.
"Tell me the downside of being able to grow two crops a year of many vegetables."
Dengue Fever
Malaria
Rift Valley Fever
Yellow Fever Eastern equine encephalitis
Japanese encephalitis
La Crosse encephalitis
St. Louis encephalitis
West Nile virus
Western equine encephalitis
and that's only some insects, there's more fun coming for you.