Dear Tom,
My thermometer has been registering temperatures in the 60s this July. If global warming is the real truth, why don't we have readings in the 100-degree range by now?
Bruce Ameismeier, Chicago
Dear Bruce,
Given this summer's unusually cool weather (third coolest in 82 years at Midway Airport), your point is understandable. However, Chicago is not the world and it is risky to suppose our cool summer is representative of the global situation, because it is not.
NOAA's Climate Diagnostics Center provides a daily global picture (derived from infrared satellite imagery) of areas of above-normal and below-normal temperatures. The global picture is not what you might expect: Areas currently experiencing above-normal temperatures (such as the Western U.S.) greatly exceed areas running below normal.
My thermometer has been registering temperatures in the 60s this July. If global warming is the real truth, why don't we have readings in the 100-degree range by now?
Bruce Ameismeier, Chicago
Dear Bruce,
Given this summer's unusually cool weather (third coolest in 82 years at Midway Airport), your point is understandable. However, Chicago is not the world and it is risky to suppose our cool summer is representative of the global situation, because it is not.
NOAA's Climate Diagnostics Center provides a daily global picture (derived from infrared satellite imagery) of areas of above-normal and below-normal temperatures. The global picture is not what you might expect: Areas currently experiencing above-normal temperatures (such as the Western U.S.) greatly exceed areas running below normal.
One of the four major indictors of global temperatures, UAH MSU has just officially released their global June 2009 data. The anomaly was +0.001 °C, meaning that the global temperature was essentially equal to the average June temperature since 1979. June 2009 actually belonged to the cooler half of the Junes since 1979. How about global temperatures for 2008? 2008 was an exceptional year for our planet with a significant global cooling. All four major indicators (hadCRUT, GISS, UAH, RSS) had an average drop of -0.6405˚C during 2008. A decrease of 0.6405˚C degrees globally is the largest January-to-January drop since 1875, and the biggest drop for any 12-month interval since - 0.681 ˚C in February 1974. Valid data trends show an overall global cooling since 2002!
I am not sure where Gary gets his information - below is from the NOAA website:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/index.php?report=global&year=2009&month=jun
Based on preliminary data, the globally averaged combined land and sea surface temperature was the second warmest on record for June and the January-June year-to-date tied with 2004 as the fifth warmest on record.
Large portions of each inhabited continent were substantially warmer than average during June 2009. The warmest anomalies were most notable in parts of Africa and most of Eurasia. The most notable cooler-than-average temperatures were present from the southwestern U.S. to the Northern Plains, the Canadian Prairie Provinces, central Asia, and across the boundary of northeastern China and southeastern Russia.
What is 'preliminary' data?
But wait, there is more...these numbers don't include El Nino or La Nina phenomena, with that factored in, our warming is actually 0.000 and some areas of the earth are experiencing very cold and from what I have seen so far 2010 is not going to help the kool-aid drinkers
Jack