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Published on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 by CommonDreams.org
NOAA: US Experienced Warmest 12-Month Period Since Records Began — 117 Years
Common Dreams staff
Published on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 by CommonDreams.org
NOAA: US Experienced Warmest 12-Month Period Since Records Began — 117 Years
Common Dreams staff
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Newest monthly climate report shows 12-month period and year-to-date periods warmest since recordkeeping began
The U.S. has experienced the warmest 12-month period since recordkeeping began in 1895, according to the newest monthly 'State of the Climate' report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The NOAA reports that in the period from May 2011 to April 2012 the nationally-averaged temperature 2.8°F above the 1901-2000 long-term average.
The first four months of the year were 5.4°F above the long-term average, also the warmest such period since recordkeeping began.
www.commondreams.org Independent, non-profit newscenter since 1997 |
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June 2010 304th consecutive month with combined land and surface temperature above 20th century average |
UVC in the 10 to 290 nanometer band UVB, 290 to 320 nanometers UVA, 320 to 400 nanometers |
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Saturday, July 17, 2010
2010 on track to be hottest year
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The world is experiencing the hottest year on record, the US based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has reported, with large parts of Canada, Africa, Europe and the Middle East facing abnormally warm temperatures.
The figures released by the NOAA suggest that 2010 is on course to be the warmest year since records began in 1880.
The first six months of 2010 have been hotter than the first half of 1998, the previous record holder.
June 2010 was the 304th consecutive month with a combined land and surface temperature above the 20th century average, the NOAA reported.
"We had an El Nino episode in the early part of the year that's now faded, but that has contributed to the warmth not only in equatorial Pacific but also contributed to anomalously warm global temperatures as well," Jay Lawrimore, the chief of climate analysis at NOAA, said.
25 million acres of crops destroyed
There are fears that a prolonged global heatwave will cause severe droughts and harm crop yields.
In Russia, a state of emergency has been declared in 19 regions as temperatures in the capital, Moscow reached a record 37 degrees.
Russia's grain lobby said the country is facing the worst drought in 130 years.
Almost 25 million acres of crops in central and European areas of Russia have already been destroyed by drought, according to authorities.
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The heatwave in Russia is part of a larger system across much of Europe that is causing crops to wither, forest fires to ignite and road surfaces to melt.
From Russia's Urals mountains to western Germany, a week of temperatures in the mid-30s has baked northern parts of Europe, which are usually spared the heat of warmer Mediterranean regions — and forecasters are warning of more to come over the next week.
This year has been the driest in Britain since 1929 and the use of hosepipes has been banned in the northwest of England.
Authorities in Berlin have reportedly issued a ban on long swimming trunks, claiming they soak up too much water, as throngs of Germans headed to outdoor swimming pools to escape 38 degree temperatures.
Elsewhere, northern Thailand is struggling with the worst drought in 20 years, while Israel is in the midst of its longest and most severe drought since the 1920s.
Transition into La Nina may provide cooling second half of year
In the US, farmers in the Midwest agricultural belt worry that hot temperatures and dry weather could hurt corn and soybean crops.
"It's going to be pretty warm across eastern Nebraska, Iowa, western portions of Missouri, mid to upper 90s [Farenheit]," Donald Keeney, the senior agriculture meteorologist with Cropcast Ag Services, said.
In June, sea ice in the Arctic melted to its thinnest-ever state. The Jakobshaven Isbrae glacier, one of the largest in Greenland, recently lost a three sq km chunk in one of the largest single losses of glacier ice ever recorded.
But Lawrimore said that it remained to be seen if 2010 would overtake 2005 as the warmest complete year on record:
"This year the fact that the El Nino episode has ended and is likely to transition into La Nina, which has a cooling influence on the global average temperature, it's possible that we will not end up with the warmest year as a whole."
Al Jazeera.net/english 2003-2010 ©
Images and subtitles by TheWE.cc
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Thursday, 15 December 2005
2005 warmest ever year in north
By Richard Black
Environment Correspondent, BBC News website
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This year has been the warmest on record in the northern hemisphere, say scientists in Britain.
It is the second warmest globally since the 1860s, when reliable records began, they say.
Ocean temperatures recorded in the northern hemisphere Atlantic Ocean have also been the hottest on record.
The researchers, from the UK Met Office and the University of East Anglia, say this is more evidence for the reality of human-induced global warming.
Their data show that the average temperature during 2005 in the northern hemisphere is 0.65 Celsius above the average for 1961-1990, a conventional baseline against which scientists compare temperatures.
The global increase is 0.48 Celsius, making 2005 the second warmest year on record behind 1998, though the 1998 figure was inflated by strong El Nino conditions.
The northern hemisphere is warming faster than the south, scientists believe, because a greater proportion of it is land, which responds faster to atmospheric conditions than ocean.
Northern hemisphere temperatures are now about 0.4 Celsius higher than a decade ago.
"The data also show that the sea surface temperature in the northern hemisphere Atlantic is the highest since 1880," said Dr David Viner from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Error bar
No measurements of average temperature can be completely accurate, and David Viner believes the team's calculations are subject to an error of about plus or minus 0.1 Celsius.
However, he says, the long-term trend is clearly upwards — rapidly over the last decade — indicating the reality of human-induced global warming.
"We're right, the sceptics are wrong," he told the BBC News website.
"It's simple physics; more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, emissions growing on a global basis, and consequently increasing temperatures."
However, Fred Singer from the Science & Environmental Policy Project in Washington DC, a centre of the "climate sceptics" community, disputed this interpretation.
"If indeed 2005 is the warmest northern hemisphere year since 1860, all this proves is that 2005 is the warmest northern hemisphere year since 1860," he told the BBC News website.
"It doesn't prove anything else, and certainly cannot be used by itself to prove that the cause of warming is the emission of greenhouse gases.
"It requires a more subtle examination to know how much of warming is due to man-made causes — there must be some — and how much is down to natural causes."
Eight of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred within the last decade.
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(Left) Global annual surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 mean based on surface air measurements at meteorological stations and ship and satellite measurements for sea surface temperature. Error bars are estimated 2? (95% confidence) uncertainty.
(Right) Temperature anomaly for 2005 calendar year.
Image: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html |
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(Left) Global annual surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 mean based on surface air measurements at meteorological stations and ship and satellite measurements for sea surface temperature. Error bars are estimated 2? (95% confidence) uncertainty.
(Right) Temperature anomaly for 2005 calendar year.
Image: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/ |
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UVC in the 10 to 290 nanometer band UVB, 290 to 320 nanometers UVA, 320 to 400 nanometers |
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For archive purposes, this article is being stored on TheWE.cc website.The purpose is to advance understandings of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. |
