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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.
More snow does not mean cooler temps. More snow means more moisture in the air.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
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.
Two, over 80% of Alaskans believe climate change is happening, and over 55% believe it's human caused. I'm pretty sure those are both the highest for any "red" state. Why? We've warmed 3.0 degrees (C) in the last 50 years, which is more than a little insane. We (not me personally, I've only been here a few years) have watched it happen. Yes, this year, was a little bit below normal, mostly driven by interior regions (Fairbanks), while the coast, especially the north coast, was still above normal.
But don't worry, I'm sure they'll be able to remove the "contiguous" qualifier soon enough. For instance, every day in April, save one, was above-normal. But I'm sure that won't change what you believe either.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
So I am wrong, care to educate me, o' weather scientist. Are you saying moisture density in the air is not increased by heat? And why would it have to be colder for more snow. I find that snow is more likely to fall closer to the freezing point, in fact the temperature generally rises when it snows.
Basically what I am saying is it can get too cold to snow (well not really but the probability the conditions for snow are vastly reduced), below 0F you really don't get much precipitation. Snow requires a few things to occur before you see those white flakes. 1 Moisture saturation, the more moisture in the air means the higher probability of snow, 2. Temperature, must allow the ice crystals to stay frozen on their way down, 3 a temperature difference between the lower atmosphere and the area where snow develops. On really cold days there is not enough heat to drive the saturated air to the very cold layers of the atmosphere where snow forms
Oh wait you said I was wrong? Hmm guess not.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
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.).
Except snow doesn't form down here, it forms high up in the atmosphere, to get that water up there you have to have heat to drive the saturated air up. Notice it snows far heavier on the warmer winter days. Once the temp drops well below freezing the chances of snow are greatly reduced.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
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.