debor046

There are three organizations that regularly analyze the global temperature record on an annual basis.  The three international global temperature data sets are from the Met Office and University of East Anglia (HadCRUT3), NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NOAA NCDC) and NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (NASA GISS).  Final figures from HadCRUT3 will not be available until March, 2012.  While the other two are also preliminary, the additional data yet to come will not likely change the findings. This is what the three data sets looked like together as of October, 2011: Image credit: UK Met Office. NASA GISS recently released its figure for all of 2011.  The year was the ninth warmest on record according to its analysis.  Meanwhile, HadCRUT3 and NOAA NCDC listed this past year as the eleventh warmest on record. Global temperature anomalies 1880-2011.  Image credit: NASA GISS Why the difference?  Each dataset is slightly different in the numb...

This is a repost of a press release from the UK Met Office issued on January 23, 2012. Image Credit: NASA/SDO. New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.   Carried out by the Met Office and the University of Reading, the study establishes the most likely changes in the Sun's activity and looks at how this could affect near-surface temperatures on Earth. It found that the most likely outcome was that the Sun's output would decrease up to 2100, but this would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC's B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions). Gareth Jones, a climate change detection scientist with the Met Office, said: "Thi...

The year 2011 was already a record for the most billion-dollar + disasters.  Now two more disasters have been added to the list.  They include Tropical Storm Lee which made landfall in Louisiana on September 2nd and a Rockies and Midwest severe weather outbreak which occurred July 10-14. Tropical Storm Lee caused wind and flood damage across the Southeast, but considerably more damage to housing, businesses, and infrastructure from the record flooding across the Northeast states, especially Pennsylvania and New York. The storm occurred in an area that had experienced heavy rainfall from Hurricane Irene barely a week earlier.  Meanwhile, in the Midwest much of the damage was from wind, hail, and flooding impacts to homes, business, and agriculture. Therefore the total number of billion-dollar disasters is now at 14 and there are a few more that are being analyzed that could increase the number.  This brings the cumulative damage estimate to more than 50 billi...

The sun erupted late Sunday night with an M8.7 class flare, an earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), and a burst of fast moving, highly energetic protons known as a "solar energetic particle" event.  This is producing the strongest radiation storm since September 2005 according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. That news was flashed around the globe yesterday in preparation for the arrival of the CME.  It arrived at earth about 15z (11 a.m. ET) this morning.  It does not pose a threat to anyone on the surface, but some planes flying over the poles have been rerouted. The event was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.  The video shows the eruption toward the end . From NASA: What is a solar flare?   A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events. They are seen as bright areas on the sun and they can last from ...

It has been an unusually warm, dry winter for the midlands of South Carolina.  In 125 years of records in Columbia this winter is currently the 19th warmest on record for the period of December 1 through January 20.  The rainfall picture has be dismal.  There is a deficit of 2.92 inches since December 1st which means that we have had less than half the normal rainfall.  This includes the heavy rain that occurred today which was also the election primary for the Republican Party (0.75 in., Saturday, January 21). The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) has released its outlook for February.  It calls for a continuation of the weather pattern with warmer and drier than normal conditions for the Midlands.  Thus, a warm, dry weather is most likely for the Midlands as well as South Carolina. The Temperature Outlook for February, 2012.  Note that much of the country will be above normal. The Precipitation Outlook for February, 2012.  Note the drier than norm...

NASA released today that La Nina appears to be peaking which increases "the odds that the Pacific Northwest will have more stormy weather this winter and spring, while the southwestern and southern United States will be dry."  NASA's satellites Jason-1 and -2 have been monitoring the progress of La Nina.  They recent detected an increase in La Nina conditions in the Pacific, but it is not expected to get any stronger. The latest image of sea surface heights in the Pacific Ocean from NASA’s Jason-2 satellite shows that the current La Niña is peaking in intensity. Yellows and reds indicate areas where sea surface height is higher than normal (due to warm water), while blues and purples depict areas where sea surface height is lower than normal (due to cool water). Green indicates near-normal conditions. Image credit: NASA/JPL Ocean Surface Topography Team. "Conditions are ripe for a stormy, wet winter in the Pacific Northwest and a dry, relatively rainless win...

This winter has been anything but cold.  Yes, there have been some cold snaps, but the coldest temperature in Columbia this winter has been 19 degrees F on January 4th.  The coldest reading in December was a mere 27 degrees F. Today marks the mid-point of meteorological winter (December 1 - February 29).  The average temperature for the period December 1 - January 15 this winter has been 50.5 degrees F making it the 16th warmest in 124 years of records.  Contrast this to last year when it was the 3rd coldest on record for the same time period.  Furthermore, the previous winter (2009-2010) saw the 7th coldest on record for this time period.  What a turn-around! We have not been alone.  Much of the U.S. has been experiencing much above normal temperatures.  Below is a look at the mean temperatures for December and the first two weeks of January: Mean Temperature for the 30 days ending on Dec. 31, 2011.  Image Credit: NOAA/CPC . Mean Temperatu...

This past year was one for the record books.  Nationally, there were record snows, tornadoes, heat waves, droughts, floods, and hurricanes.  Locally it was the hottest summer on record and the second hottest year.  The Midlands saw drought and floods during the year. Preliminary information from the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, shows the distribution of temperature and precipitation state-by-state. This is the rank of the mean temperatures by states based on 117 years of data.  The rank of 103 for South Carolina means that the mean temperature was the 14th warmest on record.  Image Credit: NOAA/NCDC . This is the rank of the total precipitation by states based on 117 years of data.  The rank of 8 for South Carolina means that the precipitation was the 8th driest on record.  Image Credit: NOAA/NCDC . It was a hot year for most of the East and South.  Texas had the driest year on record while much of the Ohio River V...

Most people have heard about global warming and climate change as well as the concern about both.  What will the impacts be and how will it affect me?  It is much easier to talk about a global warming, but the computer models have a much harder time with regional climate. An example of regional climate is the extraordinary dust bowl years of the 1930s.  Much of the central U.S. experienced record high temperatures and exceptional droughts.  In fact many of the all-time temperature records for individual states occurred during this time.  This was at a time when the global climate was cooler.  A regional warming of that magnitude today would be unbearable. The record for South Carolina is 111 degrees on three different dates, twice in 1925 and once in 1954.  However, it was also quite hot and dry for South Carolina during the 1930s. These are examples of extremes in weather and can be set at any time, but what about the climate.  How has the local ...

The first cold outbreak of the season hit the midlands of South Carolina as New Years Day came to a close.  A high temperature in Columbia on that Sunday was 73 degrees F followed by a high of 40 degrees F just two days later.  It was the coldest weather so far for this winter. Now a warming trend has returned temperatures to the unseasonably warm levels.  This Saturday will see high temperatures in the upper 60s to low 70s for the Midlands whereas normal high temperatures for this time of year are in the mid 50s.  It appears that the unseasonably warm weather will last into at least the middle of next week. This seesaw pattern will last for much of January.  The bitter cold air remains lock up in the polar regions with only brief cold outbreaks for this part of the country.  Much of the country will experience above normal temperatures. As mentioned in previous blog posts this winter's warm weather is fueled primarily by the Arctic Oscillation (AO). ...

This is a repost of a blog I published on June 14, 2011.  In light of the Iowa Caucus this came to mind.  Also, Chris Mooney has an excellent post at DeSmogBlog on Rick Santorum. Recently a republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, claimed that there was no such thing as global warming.  Speaking on a radio talk show he called global warming "junk science."  He went on to say that climate change science was simply a "beautifully concocted scheme" to allow the "government to come in and regulate your life some more."  Santorum has made similar comments before. In a recent book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, called Merchants of Doubt , the authors state that the term junk science was used by the tobacco industry "to discredit science it didn't like."  As they explained beautifully in their book the term was extended to include climate change science. Deniers have used a tactic of making claims, but never ...

I have been mystified for some time as to why conservatives and particularly Republicans reject climate science.  I know of several climate scientists who are conservative Republicans who believe the evidence that the earth is warming and that humans are the primary driver of that warming.  Chris Mooney has written extensively about the " Republican War on Science " and he makes a compelling case. The idea of the enhanced greenhouse effect is not a conservative or liberal view.  It is soundly based on the physics of infrared radiation and the data.  I believe the science and the data.  The evidence for anthropogenic global warming is overwhelming.  No one has ever substantiated the claim that the data is doctored. There are a few conservative Republicans in South Carolina who do believe the science, but they are few and far between.  Much of what we hear from conservatives is not substantiated by the facts.  So I was surprised by a conservative vi...

The fact that the earth is warming has been known for some time.  Analysis from HadCRU, NOAA, and NASA GISS have all shown similar trends.  Toward the end of 2011 another study was added to the mix.  This was known as the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study.  Their analysis was another confirmation of the other analyses.  Keep in mind there have been at least a half dozen independent studies of NASA's analysis all of which confirmed the analysis. Here is a comparison of the analyses: The chart shows the annual land-surface average temperature using a 12 month moving average of surface temperatures over land. Anomalies are relative to the Jan 1950 - December 1979 mean. The grey band indicates 95% statistical and spatial uncertainty interval.  Image Credit: Berkeley Earth ( http://www.berkeleyearth.org ). ...

The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) issued the outlook for the winter 2011-2012 back in October and issued an update at the beginning of December.  The winter months are considered to be December, January, and February, because these are the three coldest months of the year.  Climate oscillations like the El Nino/La Nina oscillation tend to make the forecasting of the winter season a little easier.  The wild card is usually the Arctic Oscillation. This year the forecast looked like this: Map shows U.S. areas predicted to have well above (red) or well below (blue) normal winter temperatures in 2011-2012.  Image credit NOAA/CPC. Map shows U.S. areas predicted to have well above (green) or well below (tan) normal winter precipitation in 2011-2012.  Image credit: NOAA/CPC. The outlook for South Carolina was for the winter to be warmer than normal and drier than normal.  So far the forecast has been on track.  The preliminary data indicates that December ...