Temperature Watch

The Day After (Inauguration)

2008-12-17T14:15:00.000-05:00

"The temperature at Denver International Airport dropped to 18 below zero on Sunday, breaking the previous record of 14 below set in 1901. White Sulphur Springs, Mont., reported 29 below to the National Weather Service, breaking the record of 17 below set in 1922. Meanwhile, ice storms ravage the Northeast and the upper Midwest.

"This is not a local phenomenon. Hong Kong had the second-longest cold spell since 1885. Cold in northern Vietnam destroyed 40% of the rice crop and killed 33,000 head of livestock. The British Parliament debated climate change as London experienced the first October snow since 1934."

Full story here.

Bitterly cold air hits much of nation

2008-12-15T21:57:00.001-05:00

Temperatures crashed to record lows well below zero Monday as a huge mass of arctic air blustered southward across the Midwest and West, keeping people indoors and leading some cities to open shelters.

Full story here.

Record low temperature set this morning

2008-12-15T21:53:00.000-05:00

Think it was cold this morning?

Sometime before 4 a.m., the mercury at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport dipped to 19 degrees, besting the record low of 20 degrees set for this day 44 years ago.

And the cold isn't over yet.

Full story here.

New record low temperatures for Denver

2008-12-15T21:37:00.004-05:00

From the National Weather Service.

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
642 AM MST MON DEC 15 2008

...NEW RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES IN DENVER FOR DECEMBER 14TH
AND 15TH...

THE LOW TEMPERATURE AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ON
DECEMBER 14TH DROPPED TO -18 AT 635 PM AND NEVER DROPPED
BELOW -18 PRIOR TO MIDNIGHT.  SO THAT ESTABLISHES A NEW
RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 14TH  BREAKING THE
OLD RECORD OF -14 DEGREES SET IN 1901.

THEN ON DECEMBER 15TH...THE TEMPERATURE BOTTOMED OUT AT
-19 DEGREE AT 231 AM.  THIS IS A NEW RECORD LOW
TEMPERATURE FOR DECEMBER 15TH BREAKING THE OLD RECORD
OF -6 SET IN 1951.

BENTON

Cold weather sets records in several cities

2008-12-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

"Several places in the state [Montana] have already shattered daily record lows, and more are expected to be broken as the sub-zero temperatures continue through Sunday night."

Full story here.

Earliest snowfall in Houston in 64 years

2008-12-15T21:31:00.001-05:00

"Falling snowflakes glimmered in streetlights, so wide that they billowed to the ground like parachutes, and so tantalizing that even awestruck adults reached out their hands or stuck out their tongues to catch one."

Full story here.

Rare snow falls in south Louisiana, Miss., Alabama

2008-12-15T21:29:00.001-05:00

Snow in Louisiana and Mississippi? Yep!

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A rare snowfall blanketed south Louisiana and parts of Mississippi on Thursday, closing schools, government offices and bridges, triggering crashes and leaving thousands without power.
Up to 8 inches of snow was reported in parts of Louisiana. Snow also covered a broad swath of Mississippi, including the Jackson area, and closed schools in more than a dozen districts.
A heavy band of snow coated windshields and grassy areas in New Orleans, where about an inch accumulated. A peak of 8 inches was reported in Amite, about 75 miles northwest of New Orleans, said meteorologist Danielle Manning of the National Weather Service in Slidell.

Full story here.

Asheville has coldest November in 11 years

2008-12-15T21:25:00.001-05:00

You're right if you thought November had more than the usual nip in the air.

A sharp drop in temperatures after a mild start made November 2008 the coldest on average since 1997, according to the National Weather Service.

“It looks like it's the coldest November we've had for Asheville in the last 11 years,” said Harry Gerapetritis, meteorologist for the weather service office in Greer, S.C. The average temperature was 43 degrees at the Asheville Regional Airport.

“The next coldest we had was in 1997, when the temperature was 42.3 degrees,” Gerapetritis said.

Full story here.

Extreme Winter Pattern Setting Up

2008-12-15T21:21:00.002-05:00

According to Accuweather meteorologist Brett Anderson Canada and the norther United States are in for some wild weather. He states,

The overall pattern setting up before our eyes throughout 2/3rds of Canada and the northern United States has mid-winter written all over it. Over the course of the next 7-10 days we are going to be dealing with several storms running up through the eastern U.S. and into Atlantic Canada, more widespread, heavy lake-effect snow, Alberta clippers, upslope snow in the eastern Canadian Rockies and to top it off.........some of the coldest air we have seen for December in many years, and not just one shot, but more likely two and three shots, with the core of the cold from the Canadian Prairies and down into the northern U.S. Plains, Midwest and Ontario, especially northwestern and central.

Full story here.

With arctic spigot open, it feels like February

2008-12-15T21:18:00.002-05:00

Chicago residents are experiencing a very cold November. According to this story,

The chilly weather extends the colder-than-normal pattern that has dominated for nearly a month. Temperatures since Nov. 8 have averaged 4.5 degrees below the long-term average—the chilliest such period in eight years (since 2000). It ranks 21st coldest of the past 139 years placing it among the chilliest 15 percent on record.

WHITEOUT: ARCTIC CONDITIONS WILL GET WORSE

2008-12-15T21:16:00.001-05:00

ARCTIC conditions caused havoc across Britain yesterday as experts predicted the country will be plunged into the coldest winter for 25 years.

Full story here.

November one of the coldest and wettest in Augusta history

2008-12-15T21:14:00.000-05:00

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Heavy weekend rainfall across Georgia-Carolina has many thinking, 'what drought?'

This weekend's heavy rain combined with heavy rain about two weeks ago has made this November one of the wettest months of November ever recorded in Augusta.

But it wasn't just rain that made history this month. November 2008 will also go down in the record books as one of the coldest ever in Augusta.

See full story here.

October was colder than normal in U.S.

2008-12-15T20:52:00.002-05:00

The nation was colder than normal in October, while much of the rest of the world was much warmer than normal, according to figures released by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

See full story here.

It turns out, however, that the rest of the world was not warmer than usual as claimed by the National Climate Data Center. The temperature guru's at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies accidentally replicated the September temperatures for October for most of the stations in Russia, causing an enormous, but false jump in October temperatures. See the story here.

Record cold temperatures throughout the South

2008-11-21T20:46:00.011-05:00

More Record Cold on the Way

AUGUSTA, Ga. - More record cold air is forecast this weekend. We expect a low temperature near 21 degrees Saturday morning and near 19 degrees Sunday morning. Records are as follows:

November 22, 20 degrees (2000) - Our forecast: 21
November 23, 21 degrees (1956) - Our forecast: 19

This cold air follows in the wake of record cold recorded Wednesday morning. Augusta Bush Field, the area's official weather observation location, dipped to 22 degrees Wednesday morning. This easily shattered the previous record low for the date of 25 degrees set back in 1959.

Record Low Set on Grandfather Mountain Wednesday

Unseasonably cold weather broke the record for the daily low temperature on Wednesday atop Grandfather Mountain.

The temperature dipped to eight degrees early in the morning breaking the previous daily low record for November 19th was 10 degrees set, and was set back in 1968.

Cold Wave Brings Record Low to Athens

The waves of cold, Canadian air washing over the eastern United States brought a record low to Athens this morning, breaking a low-temperature mark that stood for 117 years.

Another Record Low for Gainesville

Gainesville set another record for low temperatures early Thursday when the official thermometer at the airport hit 29 degrees. The previous low temperature record for this date was 30 degrees and was set in 1968.

Alarmists Still Heated Even As World Cools

2008-11-17T20:34:00.001-05:00

"It's been a bad year for global warming alarmists. Record cold periods and snowfalls are occurring around the globe. The hell that the radicals have promised is freezing over.

"As the British House of Commons debated a climate-change bill that pledged the United Kingdom to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050, London was hit by its first October snow since 1922...."

Full story here.

2008-11-17T20:31:00.000-05:00

"LAKE WALES | A reading of 38 at Lakeland Linder Airport on Wednesday morning was the coldest ever recorded in Polk County in October and marked the first time that the mercury has dropped into the 30s during October.

"The previous record for the month was 42 degrees on Oct. 21, 1989....."

Full story here.

Cold, Hard Facts

2008-11-17T20:26:00.001-05:00

"Despite record snows and low temperatures around the world last month, a major Al Gore supporter says October was the hottest on record. The only thing being cooked here is not the Earth, but the books...."

Full story here.

Global warming numbers get a little help from their friends

2008-11-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

"Last week, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies – one of four agencies responsible for monitoring the global temperatures used by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – released its statistics for October. According to the GISS figures, last month was the warmest October on record around the world.

"This struck some observers as odd. There had been no reports of autumn heat waves in the international press and there is almost always blanket coverage of any unusually warm weather since it fits into the widespread media bias that climate catastrophe lies just ahead. In fact, quite the opposite had occurred; there had been plenty of stories about unseasonably cool weather...."

Full story here.

The world has never seen such freezing heat

2008-11-17T20:18:00.000-05:00

"A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record....

See full story here.

Boise gets earliest snow on record

2008-10-14T19:42:00.002-04:00

This is the earliest measurable snowfall in Boise since recordkeeping began in 1898, according to the National Weather Service. At 10 p.m., the Weather Service said 1.7 inches of snow had fallen. The previous earliest recorded snowfall was Oct. 12, 1969, when a little more than an inch fell.

Full story here.

Research predicts three decades of cooling

2008-10-09T19:22:00.002-04:00

The guys over at ICECAP discuss a new paper by Dr. Easterbrook.

IMPLICATIONS OF PDO, NAO, GLACIAL FLUCTUATIONS, AND SUN SPOT CYCLES FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE IN THE COMING DECADES

In a Geological Society of America abstract, Dr. Don Easterbrook, Professor of Geology at Western Washington University, presents data showing that the global warming cycle from 1977 to 1998 is now over and we have entered into a new global cooling period that should last for the next three decades. He also suggests that since the IPCC climate models are now so far off from what is actually happening that their projections for both this decade and century must be considered highly unreliable.

Full story here.

GISS and UAH release September temperature data

2008-10-09T19:11:00.003-04:00

The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and University of Alabama, Huntsville Microwave Sounder Unit have released their September temperature data. Anthony Watts over at Watts Up With That? has a post on each here and here.

Anthony notes an interesting thing about the GISS data. As he states, "when GISS closed the books on August, the summer average (JJA) was 0.39 C. Upon closing the books on September, the summer average increased to 0.44 C." How does that happen? There's an explanation by John Goetz posted on Climate Audit.

Forecasting a Cold Winter

2008-10-09T19:00:00.000-04:00

Another round of wintry weather moving through the West this weekend will be a harbinger of what the AccuWeather.com Winter Forecast calls one of the coldest winters in several years in the East.

Full story here.

Surprise spring snowfalls blanket KZN

2008-10-06T19:13:00.000-04:00

Parts of KwaZulu-Natal were transformed into a "winter wonderland" after snowfalls blanketed several areas of the province.

Temperatures plummeted into the low teens, with residents of Kokstad and Giants Castle waking up to 0C.

Durban experienced its coldest September night in recorded history on Friday night.

Full story here.

Coldest September for 14 years

2008-10-06T19:08:00.000-04:00

Most of the country [Australia] suffered the coldest September in 14 years, forecasters revealed. In its monthly summary Met Eireann said the temperature never rose above 20 Celsius anywhere - the first such occurrence in more than 30 years.

Full story here.

We never had a real summer; let's hope for a real winter

2008-10-06T19:05:00.001-04:00

The snow finally melted off the north side of McHugh Peak a few days ago.

It has been that sort of summer.

Normally the snow is gone by the start of August, always by the Aug. 10 opening of the sheep season. Not this year. Not during the third-coldest summer on record for Anchorage.

Full story here.

Worst July in Coventry for 20 years

2008-10-02T11:10:00.001-04:00

LAST month was one of the coldest and wettest Julys in Coventry for more than 20 years.

With even more rain hitting the city through the beginning of August the latest monthly report from Bablake Weather Station confirms what many people have been thinking - this summer has been a bit of a washout.

Full story here.

Record chills hit August

2008-10-02T11:08:00.001-04:00

IT HAS been the coldest start to August in 13 years, bringing heavy snowfalls in the ski fields and record low temperatures elsewhere.

After an unseasonably warm start to winter, temperatures in July and August have been colder than average, setting records across NSW.

"Between August 7 and 12, places like Glen Innes have broken temperature records that had stood for more than 40 years," a spokeswoman from the Bureau of Meteorology said.

Full story here.

NOAA: Fifth Warmest July on Record for Globe

2008-10-02T11:06:00.000-04:00

The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2008 tied with 2001 and 2003 as the fifth warmest July since worldwide records began in 1880, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Also, the seven months from January to July 2008 ranked as the ninth warmest seven-month period for combined average global land and ocean surface temperature.

Full story here.

Big chill here to stay

2008-10-02T11:04:00.000-04:00

YOU'RE right -- it has been cold. The Gold Coast is now heading for its coldest winter in more than two decades.

Nearly every day this month, both the maximum and minimum temperatures, have been well below average.

See full story here.

The Strong La Nina Domino Effect

2008-10-02T11:02:00.000-04:00

It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were revising the winter stats and looking towards the warm season. Now, we’re into August and we’re now on the precipice of a large scale cool down, starting at the pole and a progression southward as we enter fall and daylight shortens, a downward trend towards our Northern Hemisphere winter is beginning, yes even in August and, yes even as places are still sweltering far to the south of the tundra and permafrost territories.

See full story here.

Ocean cycle may explain cool Alaskan summer

2008-10-02T10:58:00.000-04:00

June and July in Anchorage both averaged 2.5 to 3 degrees below the long-term temperature averages. Fairbanks had a pretty normal June, but after a sizzling July 4th of 85 degrees (same as Baltimore on the same day), the temperatures fell off a cliff.

See full story here.

Two Sides to the Climate Story

2008-10-02T10:52:00.002-04:00

Record high temperatures on Baffin Island last month — it hit 27C on July 21 — have made the news around the world, as has the evacuation of 21 visitors from the island’s Auyuittuq National Park. Fear that melt water from the park’s glaciers might lead to flash flooding and landslides has been reported by everyone from AFP to the BBC as proof of the adverse side-effects of man-made climate change.

Meanwhile, it is barely reported outside Alaska that America’s northernmost state is having a record cool summer. If it reaches 19C in Anchorage today, it will be just the eighth time that’s happened this summer. Indeed, this could be the first summer ever that Anchorage never hits 24C.

Read the whole story here.

"Warming Island" myth

2008-04-07T20:49:00.003-04:00

It seems that global warming alarmists love to use anecdotes to persuade people that their hysteria is justified. Al Gore, John McCain, the New York Times, and other alarmists continually talk about Mt. Kilimanjaro, make silly claims about Eskimo language, or the specter of cannibalism. Of course, these anecdotes are often false or have nothing to do with global climate change.

The latest myth has been exposed at the World Climate Report. This myth concerns a story in the New York Times, which claims that a spit of land that was thought to be a peninsula was revealed to be an island when a glacier connecting to Greenland retreated. The article notes:

Despite its remote location, the island would almost certainly have been discovered, named and mapped almost a century ago when explorers like Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Philippe, Duke of Orléans, charted these coastlines. Would have been discovered had it not been bound to the coast by glacial ice.
Maps of the region show a mountainous peninsula covered with glaciers. The island’s distinct shape — like a hand with three bony fingers pointing north — looks like the end of the peninsula.
Now, where the maps showed only ice, a band of fast-flowing seawater ran between a newly exposed shoreline and the aquamarine-blue walls of a retreating ice shelf. The water was littered with dozens of icebergs, some as large as half an acre; every hour or so, several more tons of ice fractured off the shelf with a thunderous crack and an earth-shaking rumble.

The folks over at World Climate Report decided to do a little sleuthing and found that "Warming Island" was known to be an island 50 years ago. Read the whole story here.

Global temperatures 'to decrease'

2008-04-06T15:49:00.001-04:00

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

Full story here.

Correction to Hadley Center temperature record

2008-04-06T15:17:00.004-04:00

The Hadley Center in the UK, which maintains a global temperature record, has announced that it has discovered an error in the way its temperature data is displayed. The data represented in this graphic (also see here) is smoothed to eliminate the sharp fluctuations.

However, when performing the smoothing procedure, they used the months of January and February of 2008 to represent the whole of 2008. The gives those two months the same weight as twelve months. When the data is smoothed, this propagates the over-weighted influence of those two months into previous months. Because January and February 2008 have been "unusually cool," they pull previous years downward as well, making it look like recent years seem cooler. As noted in the Hadley Center announcement:

We have recently corrected an error in the way that the smoothed time series of data were calculated. Data for 2008 were being used in the smoothing process as if they represented an accurate estimate of the year as a whole. This is not the case and owing to the unusually cool global average temperature in January 2008, the error made it look as though smoothed global average temperatures had dropped markedly in recent years, which is misleading.

As has been noted at Climate Audit and Watts Up With That, the same problem existed last year (2007) when a very warm January made recent years look unusually warm. However, the Hadley Center didn't catch the error at that time. It seems that they only notice errors when they erroneously cause temperatures to go down, but not when they erroneously cause temperatures to go up.

Anthony Watts attributes this to "expectation bias," where errors that confirm the expectations of the Hadley Center researchers are missed, while errors that do not confirm their expectations are missed.

2008 International Conference on Climate Change

2008-03-29T14:18:00.002-04:00

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change held in New York last month was a big success. Audio of the presentations are now available here.

I previously posted Anthony Watts power point presentation. Now you can hear his speech.

Earth's Oceans Aren't Warming

2008-03-21T18:03:00.005-04:00

An article on NPR discusses research showing that there has been no warming in the world's oceans over the last four years. The article states in part:

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.
In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

I suppose it's possible that scientists are misinterpreting the data, a possibility that the article raises. But there are other possibilities as well for what NPR has dubbed a "mystery." The first, of course, being that the oceans aren't warming. It is also quite possible that they haven't been warming for some time and we are just learning of it. It is also possible that the warming suddenly abated in 2003.

As bad as the land-based surface temperature record is, the ocean temperature record is worse. Coverage is spotty at best, with a good portion of the record restricted to shipping lanes, leaving vast areas of the ocean wholly unsampled. Moreover, numerous methods have been employed over the years to measure the ocean's temperature, including dipping uninsulated wooden buckets into the ocean, bringing them on deck and inserting a thermometer (prior to WWII). Using the same method but with insulated buckets (after WWII) and measuring the temperature at the engine intake (also after WWII).

Temperature readings from uninsulated buckets have a cold bias due to evaporation. Engine intake temperatures contained a warm bias due to the engine room. Taken together, a warming trend is introduced over and above whatever is actually occurring in the oceans.

There have also been buoy measurements and infrared sea surface data taken by satellites. The buoy data is good, but again somewhat spotty. The satellite data give much better coverage but is affected by cloud cover and volcanic aerosol contamination, introducing a cooling bias. So all of the methods used to measure ocean temperature have had problems and biases that make it difficult to know exactly what has been going on with ocean temperatures over the last 100 years.

The ARGO array has only been deployed since 2003 and offers far better coverage and accuracy than previous measurements. It will be interesting to watch the data coming out of the ARGO array over the next couple of decades. Here's a flash demonstration of the ARGO system.

The article also states:

In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it's also possible that something more mysterious is going on.

However, the air hasn't warmed either. Indeed, according to Richard Lindzen at MIT, there has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995.

This graphic from a post by Basil Copeland at Watts Up With That? further emphasizes the lack of warming over the last few years.

Here are some comments on the NPR story from Roger Pielke, Sr. at Climate Science.

NOAA: Coolest Winter Since 2001 for U.S., Globe

2008-03-15T16:49:00.002-04:00

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced that, "The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during climatological winter (December 2007-February 2008) was the coolest since 2001."

Some of the temperature highlights presented by NOAA are:

In the contiguous United States, the average winter temperature was 33.2°F (0.6°C), which was 0.2°F (0.1°C) above the 20th century average – yet still ranks as the coolest since 2001. It was the 54th coolest winter since national records began in 1895.

Winter temperatures were warmer than average from Texas to the Southeast and along the Eastern Seaboard, while cooler-than-average temperatures stretched from much of the upper Midwest to the West Coast.

With higher-than-average temperatures in the Northeast and South, the contiguous U.S. winter temperature-related energy demand was approximately 1.7 percent lower than average, based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index.

The full press release is available here.

Antarctica still not warming

2008-03-15T16:32:00.003-04:00

Do you believe that the South Pole is warming and that the Antarctic ice cap is melting? Just about everybody does. But as is often the case with global warming, the truth is quite different than what is reported. Numerous peer-reviewed papers have shown that the Antarctic is cooling and gaining ice mass. The most recent study to look at Antarctic temperature trends is published in the Journal of Geophysical Research (abstract can be read here).

The researchers found a statistically insignificant positive trend in Antarctic temperatures during the period 1960-2005. They found a weak negative trend from 1970 to 2005. Finally, they found a widespread, but again, statistically insignificant warming trend from 1992 to 2005. In other words, there's a whole lot of nothin' going on at the South Pole.

Source:
Monaghan, A. J., D. H. Bromwich, W. Chapman, and J. C. Comiso (2008), Recent variability and trends of Antarctic near-surface temperature, Journal of Geophysical Research, 113, D04105, doi:10.1029/2007JD009094.

Anthony Watts' presentation of work on U.S. temperature network

2008-03-14T19:16:00.003-04:00

Anthony Watts has posted an excellent overview of the important effort he is leading to survey the U.S.-based temperature stations used to calculate global temperature. The overview is in the form of a powerpoint presentation he delivered at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City.

The presentation is available here. If you do nothing else, be sure to look at all the pictures of the temperature stations in the presentation. It is quite evident that the U.S. temperature network, probably the best maintained in the world, is a complete mess. It's not at all clear to me that we know what the global temperature is or whether it is going up, down, or staying the same.

Take a look at this site from Staunton, VA (I choose this one, because I've actually been to the site myself).

It is surrounded by concrete and asphalt. This clearly introduces a warming bias into the record. None of this really matters for the original purpose for which these temperature stations exist, i.e., to provide the locals with weather data. It's really of no consequence if your local weatherman reports a high temperature of 95 degrees, when in fact it was only 93 degrees. Nobody is likely to notice the difference.

It's an altogether different thing, however, when the global average temperature, calculated from this highly flawed network, is used to justify a wholesale (not to mention costly) alteration of our current energy system. And remember, we're talking a change in global temperature of a mere 0.7 degrees C over the last 100 years. Given the problems with the temperature stations uncovered by Watts, it might be that the entire 0.7 degrees is due to bad siting.

Crazy weather

2008-03-08T16:36:00.002-05:00

In Huddersfield, England, an otherwise normal February recorded the warmest day ever recorded for the month of February and the coldest day ever recorded.

Full story here.

Unintentional climate humor

2008-03-08T14:46:00.002-05:00

The headline of this Christian Science Monitor story made me laugh out loud.

"Global Warming Not Always to Blame for Extreme Winters"

The story itself is a fairly reasonable, but that headline is just silly. Anyway, the full story is here.

Snow disaster leaves 1.6 mln people frostbitten in NW China province

2008-03-03T21:10:00.001-05:00

XI'NING, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Severe snow disasters have left 1.65 million people snowblind and frostbitten, 500,000 livestock and wildlife dead and 3.1 million others on verge of starvation in Tibetan prefectures of northwestern Qinghai Province.

Full story here.

Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell

2008-03-03T21:03:00.001-05:00

Andy Revkin of the New York Times writes about the recent global cold snap.

Full story here.

"We have barely had a summer this year"

2008-03-03T20:56:00.002-05:00

An article on New.com.au, reports on snowfall on the last day of summer at the Perisher Blue and Threbdo ski resorts in Australia. The quote in my headline was uttered by Perisher Blue's manager.

The whole story is here.

Dodgy Peruvian Temperature Adjustments

2008-03-01T13:18:00.012-05:00

There are a lot of funny things going on with the surface data compiled by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Many people probably believe that the raw data taken from temperature stations used to compile global temperature records are simply combined and averaged. In reality, there are a series of adjustments made to the data before it is presented to the public.

Up until recently, the raw data -- and the types of adjustments made to it -- wasn't even publicly available. Fortunately, public pressure has induced GISS and other agencies that compile temperature data to release their raw data and adjustments to the public. The result has been the discovery of some eye-opening adjustments made to the data. Not all adjustments are invalid. It is well known that as cities grow they become warmer. This is known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. It is entirely valid to attempt to remove this warming bias to get a true reading. However, many of the adjustments to the record appear to have no valid justification. The main effect of these adjustments appears to be to make recent global temperatures look warmer relative to the past. Voila, you have global warming.

One of the people taking a look at this data has been Steve McIntyre of "hockey stick" fame. His excellent website ClimateAudit.org has a wealth of information on the statistical machinations of the global temperature cabal. He has also uncovered numerous seemingly wholly unjustified temperature adjustments that give the appearance of greater warming than may have actually occurred.

A recent post that caught my eye was on adjustments made to various temperature records from Peru. McIntyre presents graphics from four Peruvian temperature stations. I'm posting the Puerto Maldonado station graphic here that McIntyre created.

The black line is the plotted raw data. The red is the adjusted data. As can be clearly seen, the earlier data has been substantially adjusted downward. As much as 3 degrees. The more recent data hasn't been adjusted. The practical effect has been to change a falling trend into rising trend. Was this adjustment valid?

There are several things to take into consideration. Puerto Maldonado, the city where the temperature station is located, is the capitol city of the Department of Madre de Dios. A 2005 census put the population of the city at 51,349. It is now estimated to contain 56,917 people. The official census from 1981 put the population of the city at 12,693. An article in Conservation Biology on the effect of slash-and-burn agriculture in that region of Peru stated:

"Tambopata Province is in the Department of Madre de Dios, a remote and biodiverse region of Peru. This lowland, forested region was isolated from international markets until the rubber boom of the late 1800s, which gave rise to ribereño society (Amazonian residents of mixed ancestry), and decimated indigenous populations. The rubber industry collapsed in the early 1900s, and the local population remained relatively stable until the mid 1960s, when a road was constructed into Madre de Dios. Andean peasants were drawn to the region by gold, available land, and economic incentives for ranching and farming. Tambopata's population grew five-fold in 25 years, reaching 76,610 in 1997, with roughly half the population residing in the capitol city of Puerto Maldonado."*

So the population of Puerto Maldonado has grown since the 1960s, and has grown exponentially since 1981. This rapid urbanization certainly warrants an adjustment to the temperature record, but most of the adjustment should take place after 1981. Most of the adjusting done by GISS takes place prior to 1981. It is also interesting that the raw data show a cooling trend even in the face of rapid urbanization.

Here is a current satellite photograph of Puerto Maldonado from Google Earth.

As you can see, Puerto Maldonado is a good sized city. Pictures of the city can be see here, here, here, here, here, and here. According to the Weather Underground website, the temperature station in Puerto Maldonado is located at the airport. The airport is located at the bottom left corner of the above picture where there is a cluster of blue dots and one orange dot by the compass. Here's a closer look at the airport (Aeropuerto Internacionale Padre Aldamiz).

Pictures of the airport are here, here, and here. The airport is on the outskirts of the city, but has a lot of black top and concrete and is large enough to accommodate Boeing 707s.

The point of all this is that that the raw data shows a cooling trend despite rapid population growth. Adjusting the data properly should maintain or even enhance the cooling trend. Instead, the GISS adjustments created a warming trend. The warming in the record is indeed man-made, but has nothing to do with greenhouse gases.

*See: Lisa Naughton-Treves, Jose Luis Mena, Adrian Treves, Nora Alvarez, Volker Christian Radeloff (2003) Wildlife Survival Beyond Park Boundaries: the Impact of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture and Hunting on Mammals in Tambopata, Peru Conservation Biology 17 (4).

Global Cooling: Amazing pictures of countries joining Britain in the big freeze

2008-03-01T12:07:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's picture in the Mail of a cascade of icicles in the Yorkshire Dales was a reminder of how cold Britain can be - something many of us have forgotten in this unusually mild winter.

But it really is remarkable how little attention has been paid to the extraordinary weather events which in recent weeks have been affecting other parts of the world.

Full story here.

Global Warming Sceptics Buoyed by Record Cold

2008-03-01T10:55:00.002-05:00

Global warming sceptics are pointing to recent record cold temperatures in parts of North America and Asia and the return of Arctic Sea ice to suggest fears about climate change may be overblown.

Full story here.

Last 12 months have seen a major drop in global temperature

2008-02-20T20:39:00.002-05:00

Anthony Watts at Watt's Up With That? has posted data from four well-known temperature records confirming that the past 12 months have seen a major drop in global temperatures. It is also worth noting that this drop has occurred after several years of relatively flat global temperatures (since 1998). The full post can be seen here.

Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice is Back

2008-02-20T20:36:00.001-05:00

Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?

Full story here.

Recent cold snap helping Arctic sea ice, scientists find

2008-02-18T21:15:00.001-05:00

There's an upside to the extreme cold temperatures northern Canadians have endured in the last few weeks: scientists say it's been helping winter sea ice grow across the Arctic, where the ice shrank to record-low levels last year.

Full story here.

Global Warming? It's the Coldest Winter in Decades

2008-02-18T21:07:00.001-05:00

NEW evidence has cast doubt on claims that the world’s ice-caps are melting, it emerged last night.

Full story here.

Coldest January in 15 years falls short of being Israel's harshest winter

2008-02-18T20:50:00.000-05:00

Despite the current storm, this is not the harshest winter Israel has experienced in recent years, weather forecasters and climatologists agree.

Full story here.

2008 Will Be Among the Ten Hottest Years on Record

2008-02-18T20:31:00.000-05:00

(NaturalNews) Despite being slightly cooler than previous years, 2008 will be one of the top 10 hottest years since record keeping of average global temperatures began in 1850. British forecasters at the Met Office, the UK's top climate change research facility (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/) , along with the University of East Anglia (UEA) at (http://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/Home) , predict the average global temperature for 2008 will be 0.37°C (32.7°F) higher than the 1961-1990 average of 14.0°C (57.2°F) . The last seven years (2001-2007) have been on average 0.44°C (32.8°F) higher than that period and 0.21°C (32.4°F) higher than 1991-2000. This shows a trend of warming during the last few decades.

Full story here.

Australia: NSW in for coolest February in 50 years

2008-02-18T20:24:00.000-05:00

THE majority of NSW is in for the coolest February in 50 years.

Following the hottest Australian January on record, temperatures in the state's NSW Central West have been up to six degrees cooler than average with the region's main centre Dubbo yet to reach it's average 32 degrees this month.

Full story here.

The month that's blowing hot and cold

2008-02-18T20:09:00.000-05:00

There can have been few Februaries like it. Britons could have been forgiven for thinking they lived in two different countries in the past week, with unseasonable warmth followed by extreme sub-zero temperatures within a few days.

Full story here.

China experiences coldest winter in 2 decades

2008-02-18T20:00:00.000-05:00

BEIJING, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- This winter has been the nation's coldest since 1986-87, as measured by the lowest average temperature, the China Meteorological Administration said on Monday.

Full story here.

Hong Kong goes out of record-breaking cold spell

2008-02-18T19:51:00.000-05:00

HONG KONG, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Observatory on Monday suspended a cold weather warning that has been in force for a record-breaking 25 consecutive days.

See full story here.