NOAA- State of the Climate

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/6

Climate Highlights — Year-to-Date (January-June)

The January-June period was the warmest first half of any year on record for the contiguous United States. The national temperature of 52.9°F was 4.5°F above average. Most of the contiguous U.S. was record and near-record warm for the six-month period, except the Pacific Northwest. Twenty-eight states east of the Rockies were record warm and an additional 15 states were top ten warm.

The first six months of 2012 were also drier than average for much of the contiguous U.S., with a nationally-averaged precipitation total 1.62 inches below average. Drier-than-average conditions stretched from the West, through the Central Plains, into the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic. Fourteen states in total had precipitation totals for the six-month period among their ten driest.

Wetter-than-average conditions were present for the Northwest and Upper Midwest, where Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington had six-month precipitation totals among their ten wettest.

The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (USCEI), an index that tracks the highest and lowest 10 percent of extremes in temperature, precipitation, drought and tropical cyclones across the contiguous U.S., was a record-large 44 percent during the January-June period, over twice the average value. Extremes in warm daytime temperatures (83 percent) and warm nighttime temperatures (70 percent) covered large areas of the nation, contributing to the record high value.

Climate Highlights — 12-month period (July 2011-June 2012)

The July 2011-June 2012 period was the warmest 12-month period of any 12-months on record for the contiguous U.S., narrowly surpassing the record broken last month for the June 2011-May 2012 period by 0.05°F. The nationally-averaged temperature of 56.0°F was 3.2°F above the long term average. Every state across the contiguous U.S. had warmer than average temperatures for the period, except Washington, which was near normal.

I'd say that the climate is changing pretty drastically.

It's Obama's fault.

I could put a joke here but I shouldn't.

I don't know that this is so different than any other time in history before we started making records about it.

With all of the things going on in the world, this one is on the fourth burner for me.

With all of the things going on in the world, this one is on the fourth burner for me.

Not having to be concerned with global climate change is a first world luxury.

I had a feeling this was going to come up and that I would have to say something.

While it isn't clear to me that these aren't a result of the long term consequences of global warming (as I've shown here before, we've continually had above average year in after above average year in terms of temps and certainly in the last 1,000 years or so that is abonormal), it is hard to argue that what we are seeing in the US currently is the result of global warming this YEAR because this year globally isn't really that warm.

Certainly, not warmer than 2010 and maybe not warmer than last year (it is close). Maybe what we are seeing locally is the compounding result of years of being "warm", but it isn't because this particular year is particularly warm globally as compared to other recent (really the last 20 years or so now) years (so far).

Figured that would be your position.

IMO, observations over a six month period, in just one country, don't really say much about the global climate.

Glad to see that somebody who actually knows something about the subject agrees with my gut.

Not having to be concerned with global climate change is a first world luxury.

Interesting edit...but sure. It is.

I suppose I have that luxury , but not saying that I don't care about the world and it's human inhabitants, just not about a 4.5 degree temp difference when there are starving people all over the world and other countries have no food. Not that those other countries take priority over this one either.

With all of the things going on in the world, this one is on the fourth burner for me.

It's pretty high for me. Probably right behind our wars. Although, I think fixing the way we treat the planet and the air around it is something War would fall under.

---------- Post added July-10th-2012 at 11:58 AM ----------

Interesting edit...but sure. It is.

I suppose I have that luxury , but not saying that I don't care about the world and it's human inhabitants, just not about a 4.5 degree temp difference when there are starving people all over the world and other countries have no food. Not that those other countries take priority over this one either.

Global grain production is being reduced quickly, because of the temps. This directly effects everybody, including the poorest and hungriest primarily.

we need to burn more coal to block the solar radiation

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2170985/The-suns-solar-flares-getting-stronger--latest-hot-spot-size-15-Earths-strung-together.html

I am posting something a middle-of-the-road Republican friend from Colorado posted on facebook and would like to hear some opinions on it...

"I'm not convinced that we're experiencing global warming b/c technically we haven't finished thawing out from the last ice age."

I can honestly say iI've never heard this... is this the latest rhetoric making it's way through the politically slanted corners of the internet?

I am posting something a middle-of-the-road Republican friend from Colorado posted on facebook and would like to hear some opinions on it...

"I'm not convinced that we're experiencing global warming b/c technically we haven't finished thawing out from the last ice age."

I can honestly say iI've never heard this... is this the latest rhetoric making it's way through the politically slanted corners of the internet?

He's right. We will continue to warm, right up until the very second the next ice age begins.

I am posting something a middle-of-the-road Republican friend from Colorado posted on facebook and would like to hear some opinions on it...

"I'm not convinced that we're experiencing global warming b/c technically we haven't finished thawing out from the last ice age."

I can honestly say iI've never heard this... is this the latest rhetoric making it's way through the politically slanted corners of the internet?

"We haven't finished warming up from the last ice age".

How is that supposed to be comforting?

It's pretty high for me. Probably right behind our wars. Although, I think fixing the way we treat the planet and the air around it is something War would fall under.

---------- Post added July-10th-2012 at 11:58 AM ----------

Global grain production is being reduced quickly, because of the temps. This directly effects everybody, including the poorest and hungriest primarily.

Doesn't warmer weather mean longer growing seasons for farmers?

Doesn't warmer weather mean longer growing seasons for farmers?

Even plants have limits in terms of their ability to grow in heat.

Doesn't warmer weather mean longer growing seasons for farmers?

Pests from warmer climates expand their territory.

"We haven't finished warming up from the last ice age".

How is that supposed to be comforting?

It beats the ice age began 10 yrs ago

Not having to be concerned with global climate change is a first world luxury.

IMO, observations over a six month period, in just one country, don't really say much about the global climate.

That's all fine and dandy, but the problem is that the majority of people continue to say this every year.

"Well, it was really hot this year.. but eh, it doesn't really mean anything."

"Well, dang.. hot again.. broke last year's records... still doesn't mean anything."

"Hottest six months on record? Hmm.. still not a problem. Doesn't mean a thing."

So when does it stop? Do we finally stop saying this when lower Manhattan is six feet under water?

Anyone see the related thread at the bottom of the page saying August 2004 was the 7th coldest August on record for the lower 48? Seriously, climate change is one of those things that very well may be out of our control, but we're definitely more sensitive to given there's so many of us. We can't "fix" the climate, we must learn how to adapt...

I am posting something a middle-of-the-road Republican friend from Colorado posted on facebook and would like to hear some opinions on it...

"I'm not convinced that we're experiencing global warming b/c technically we haven't finished thawing out from the last ice age."

I can honestly say iI've never heard this... is this the latest rhetoric making it's way through the politically slanted corners of the internet?

Your friend is not a middle of the road republican. He is a right wing nut, if he's still not convinced that climate change is real and man has influenced it.

Also, that line has been around for about 10 years.

Even Exxon's CEO admits to global warming. But don't worry, he says it's "manageable".

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/235079-exxon-ceo-global-warming-manageable

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-27/exxon-s-rex-tillerson-says-global-warming-manageable-.html

People will adapt to rising sea levels and changing weather patterns resulting from climate change, he said.

“Increasing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere will have a warming impact,” Tillerson said. “It’s an engineering problem and it has an engineering solution.”

Farmers may shift crops to new regions as temperatures rise. “As a species, that’s why we’re all still here,” he said. “We adapt.”

Exxon Mobil, under prior CEO Lee Raymond, funded groups that questioned the impact of global warming. Since Tillerson took over the company in 2006, he has spoken more openly about climate change.

The article is surprisingly political for PopSci, but I guess so is the topic at hand.

http://www.popsci.com/node/62795/

...“Weird” is perhaps the mildest way to describe the growing number of threats and acts of intimidation that climate scientists face. A climate modeler at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory answered a late-night knock to find a dead rat on his doorstep and a yellow Hummer speeding away. An MIT hurricane researcher found his inbox flooded daily for two weeks last January with hate mail and threats directed at him and his wife. And in Australia last year, officials relocated several climatologists to a secure facility after climate-change skeptics unleashed a barrage of vandalism, noose brandishing and threats of sexual attacks on the scientists’ children.

...

Those crude acts of harassment often come alongside more-sophisticated legal and political attacks. Organizations routinely file nuisance lawsuits and onerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to disrupt the work of climate scientists. In 2005, before dragging Mann and other climate researchers into congressional hearings, Texas congressman Joe Barton ordered the scientists to submit voluminous details of working procedures, computer programs and past funding—essentially demanding that they reproduce and defend their entire life’s work. In a move that hearkened back to darker times, Oklahoma senator James Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, released a report in 2010 that named 17 prominent climate scientists, including Mann, who, he argued, may have engaged in “potentially criminal behavior.” Inhofe outlined three laws and four regulations that he said the scientists may have violated, including the Federal False Statements Act—which, the report noted, could be punishable with imprisonment of up to five years.

...

At the time of our meeting, Mann was juggling several FOIA requests and two lawsuits—one of which would be resolved the following week, when the Virginia Supreme Court rejected the state attorney general’s demand that the University of Virginia (Mann’s former employer) turn over the researcher’s e-mails and other documents. The university spent nearly $600,000 to argue that releasing personal correspondence would chill academic research. “Yes, there’s been a toll on me and my family,” Mann says. “But it’s bigger than that. Look what it’s doing to science, when others see this and see what happens if they speak up about their research. These efforts to discredit science are well-organized. It’s not just a bunch of crazy people.”

...

The evidence to support the theory of anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change has been mounting since the mid-1950s, when atmospheric models predicted that growing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere would add to the natural “greenhouse effect” and lead to warming. The data was crude at first, and opinions vacillated (skeptics like to recall a 1974 Time cover story that predicted an impending ice age). But by the mid-1990s, thousands of lines of independent inquiry supported the conclusion summarized in the 1995 IPCC report: “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

Since then, the case for anthropogenic climate change has only strengthened; 98 percent of actively publishing climate scientists now say that it is undeniable. But several finer points remain unsettled. For instance, researchers still don’t completely understand the role of aerosols in the atmosphere, the variable effects of clouds at different heights, and the influence of feedback mechanisms such as the changing reflectivity of the Earth’s surface and the release of gases from permafrost or deep seabeds. Climate-change skeptics have been keen to capitalize on those gaps in knowledge. “They play up smaller debates,” says Francesca Grifo at the Union of Concerned Scientists, “and divert the dialogue by attacking particular aspects. They represent climate science as a house of cards, where you pull out one and it all falls apart.”

...

“Now government agencies and researchers are doing anything to keep the word ‘climate’ out of their budgets and proposals,” says Rick Piltz, a former senior associate in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Office (in 2009, it was renamed the U.S. Global Change Research Program). “And this at a time when all agencies need to be thinking about how the nation will be affected by climate change and factor it into their planning.”

...

In the U.S., local climate skeptics have been advancing their agendas. In Virginia, Tea Party–inspired residents recently derailed municipal preparations for sea-level rise around Hampton Roads, the body of water that borders Norfolk-Virginia Beach. They disrupted planning meetings and disputed as a plot NOAA’s findings that the area faces the second-highest risk from sea-level rise of any region of its size in the U.S. In April, Tennessee lawmakers passed a measure that allows teachers to question accepted theories on evolution and climate change in the classroom. Science advocates were also stunned by a recently disclosed initiative to design a school curriculum that questions climate science. Science educators say they’re increasingly worried that climate could become the same kind of flash point as evolution. The question science advocates ask now is, how do they turn the conversation back to the science?

...

I can't help but have an ominous feeling as to what things will be like (climate-wise) when I'm 60. That is of course moot if the earth collides with a massive asteroid,we get swallowed by a black hole, a major famine occurs, etc etc before then.

Wait, you mean climate isn't static? Whodathunkit?