Monday, February 27, 2012 10:52:08 PM
kozuh .. "Why Heartland? And how did the “leaker” get his hands on authentic Heartland board materials that are obviously the source for the faked strategy memo? The Heartland Institute sponsors the most significant annual gathering of climate skeptics, usually in New York, Chicago, or Washington, D.C.—a conference that attracts hundreds of scientists and activists from around the globe, including most of the top skeptical scientists, such as MIT’s Richard Lindzen, Yale’s Robert Mendelsohn, and career EPA official Alan Carlin.
On Richard Lindzen .. and others .. one ..
hogsgeteaten -- just to note -- your first 4 graphs (rather awkwardly) taken from: [.. excerpt ..]
Background
His academic research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity.[8] He has published numerous papers regarding meteorologic and atmospheric topics.[9]
Fossil Fuel Interests Funding
In a biographical note at the foot of a column published in Newsweek in 2007, Lindzen wrote that "his research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies." (Emphasis added).[10]
Ross Gelbspan, journalist and author, wrote a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine which was critical of Lindzen and other global warming skeptics. In the article, Gelbspan reports Lindzen charged "oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; [and] his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC."[11]
A decade later Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam reported, based on an interview with Lindzen, that "he accepted $10,000 in expenses and expert witness fees from fossil- fuel types in the 1990s, and has taken none of their money since."[12]
Lindzen's Discarded Global Warming Arguments
much more .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45936965
========
James Annan is a scientist involved in climate prediction. He is a member of the Global Warming Research Program at Frontier Research Centre for Global Change which is associated with the Earth Simulator in Japan. He also has views on disc brakes for bicycles.
Climatology
He is most known for considering bets against climate sceptics. Many sceptics, including Richard Lindzen, have indicated they believe the scientific consensus on climate change to be incorrect. The November 10, 2004 online version of Reason magazine reported that Lindzen is "willing to take bets that global average temperatures in 20 years will in fact be lower than they are now."[1] Annan contacted Lindzen to arrange a bet and they exchanged proposals for bets, but were unable to agree on terms. The final proposal was a bet that if the temperature change were less than 0.2 °C (0.36 °F), Lindzen would win. If the temperature change were between 0.2 °C and 0.4 °C the bet would be off, and if the temperature change were 0.4 °C or greater, Annan would win. Lindzen would take 2 to 1 odds.
POINT IS LINDEN BACKED OFF HIS ORIGINAL "WOULD BE LOWER" CHALLENGE
In 2005, another bet for $10,000 dollars was arranged with a pair of Russian solar
physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev. The bet will conclude in 2017.
A third bet in 2007 between Annan and David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation was arranged by the BBC Radio program, More or Less in 2007. Annan and Whitehouse bet £100 on whether the Met Office temperature would set a new annual record by the end of 2011. Annan was declared to have lost in the program on 2012-01-13. .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Annan
and
Out of interest .. UK MET OFFICE Winter 2011/12
The following represents a provisional assessment of the weather experienced across the UK during the first two months of Winter 2011/12 (December and January) and how it compares with the 1971 to 2000 averages.
Mean temperatures over the UK were 0.6 °C above average during December and 1.3 °C above average during January. Temperatures were highest relative to normal over southern England and Wales, whereas in Scotland December was barely warmer than average. The Christmas and New Year period was particularly mild, with some locations reporting temperatures above 14 °C on several days. With the exception of December in Scotland, the number of days of air frost was well below average.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/2012/winter.html
one other from the UK Met Office
4. How can you be sure that the global temperature record is accurate?
The methods used have been peer-reviewed. There are three independent sets of global temperature that all clearly show the rise in global temperatures over the last 150 years. Furthermore, the strong scientific evidence that climate is changing as a result of human influence is also based on the growing evidence that other aspects of the climate system are changing. These include the atmosphere becoming more moist; global rainfall patterns changing; reductions in snow cover; glacier volume and Arctic sea-ice decreases; increases in sea-level. and changes in global scale circulation patterns. There are also numerous changes in phenological records which point towards a general warming and support the veracity of the instrumental record.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/climate-monitoring/land-and-atmosphere/surface-station-records/faq
see also:
Behind the Controversy, an Effort to Rewrite Curriculum on Climate Change
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
February 23, 2012, 5:04 pm
Focus on the contents of the internal documents leaked last week from the Heartland Institute [ http://heartland.org/ ], a Chicago-based nonprofit known for attacking climate science, has been largely lost in the wake of the revelation of the leaker’s identity: Peter Gleick, a scientist.
But beyond the controversy and the confession [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/science/earth/activist-says-heartland-climate-papers-obtained-by-deceit.html ] is the fact that Heartland does not deny what the two authentic documents obtained by Dr. Gleick reveal: that the institute is working to influence climate education in the schools.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72480589
The Inside Story of a Climate Scientist Under Siege
Reuters
Michael Mann reveals his account of attacks by entrenched interests seeking to undermine his 'hockey stick' graph.
[...]
He has been regularly vilified on Fox news and contrarian blogs, by Republican members of Congress, and by the attorney general of Virginia, who has been fighting in the courts to get access to Mann's email from his earlier work at the University of Virginia. And then there is the high volume of hate mail, the threats to him and his family.
"A day doesnt go by when I dont have to fend off some attack, some specious criticism or personal attack," he said. "Literally a day doesn't go by where i dont have to deal with some of the nastiness that comes out of a campaign that tries to discredit me, and thereby in the view of our detractors to discredit the entire science of climate change."
[...]
['It's not that complicated .. recent warming is anomalous in a very long term context .. the temperatures are warming ..
more .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72380337
and
Attacks paid for by big business are 'driving science into a dark era'
Researchers attending one of the world's major academic conferences 'are scared to death of the anti-science lobby'
Robin McKie, science editor Saturday 18 February 2012
The vast majority of scientists on both sides of the Atlantic say rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
threaten to increase temperatures to dangerous levels. Photograph: Paul Souders/Corbis
more .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72304560
AND
State of the Climate .. with links .. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/ .. [emphasis added]
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Climatic Data Center
[...]
Summary Information
Note: Due to a processing error, the January 2012 Global report originally reported incorrect temperature anomalies for the land-surface components for the globe and each hemisphere. These caused the combined land and ocean surface temperatures to be incorrect as well. This error did not affect the historical rank for the January combined land and ocean temperature, which remains 19th warmest. However, it did affect the rank of the land-only component. With the corrected data, the land only component is now the 28th warmest on record (rather than 26th warmest, as originally reported). The corrected data are reflected in this report as of 17 February 2012. We regret the error and any issues it may have raised for users.
Global temperatures 19th warmest on record for January
The globe experienced its 19th warmest January since record keeping began in 1880. Arctic sea ice extent was the fourth smallest extent on record for January at 7.5 percent below average. Additionally, La Niña conditions continued during January 2012. According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, La Niña is expected to dissipate during the Northern Hemisphere spring.
January 2012 marks the coolest month since February 2008. However, January 2012 also marks the 26th January and 323rd consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last month with below average temperatures was February 1985.
Global temperature highlights: January
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2012 was the 19th warmest on record at 54.23°F (12.35°C), which is 0.63°F (0.35°C) above the 20th century average of 53.6°F (12.0°C). The margin of error associated with this temperature is +/- 0.14°F (0.08°C).
January Blended Land and Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius
Surface temperature anomalies for January 2012
Separately, the global land surface temperature was 0.88°F (0.49°C) above the 20th century average of 37.0°F (2.8°C), making this the 28th warmest January on record. The margin of error is +/- 0.31°F (0.17°C). Warmer-than-average conditions occurred across most of North America, the northern latitudes of Europe and Asia, southern South America, and most of Australia. Cooler-than-average regions included China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, south central Russia, much of the Middle East, northern India, north Africa, and southwestern Greenland.
The Arctic Oscillation climate pattern played a role in temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere during January. The positive phase during the first half of the month contributed to well-below average monthly temperatures across Alaska and above-average temperatures across the contiguous United States. The negative phase during the second half of the month contributed to warmth in Canada and also to a cold snap that began during the last week in January across Central and Eastern Europe and north Africa.
The January global ocean surface temperature was 0.54°F (0.30°C) above the 20th century average of 60.5°F (15.8°C), making it the 17th warmest January on record and coolest monthly ocean temperature since January 2008. The margin of error is +/- 0.07°F (0.04°C). The warmth was most pronounced across the north central and southwestern Atlantic Ocean, the central and western Pacific, and the southeastern Indian Ocean.
Polar Sea Ice and Precipitation Highlights
The growth rate for Arctic sea ice in January was the slowest in the satellite record. The average sea ice extent for the month was 7.5 percent below average, ranking as the fourth smallest January extent since satellite records began in 1979. The extent was 425,000 square miles (1.1 million square kilometers) below average. This marks the 19th consecutive January and 128th consecutive month with below-average Arctic sea ice extent.
Selected Climate Anomalies and Events Map
Selected Climate Events for January 2012
On the opposite pole, Antarctic sea ice during January was 13.8 percent above average, and the
seventh largest sea ice extent on record for the Southern Hemisphere since records began in 1979.
Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during January was slightly above average, with large differences between the North American and Eurasian land areas. Eurasia had its ninth largest snow cover extent in the 46-year period of record, where cold and snowy conditions dominated across central and Eastern Europe, as well as much of China. North America had its third smallest January snow cover extent, where much of the United States and southern Canada were warmer and drier than average, limiting snow cover.
Monsoonal rains brought heavier-than-average rainfall to southwestern and southeastern Australia. Precipitation was also much above average in south Asia, part of eastern Russia, and southwestern Greenland. Much drier-than-average conditions were observed across northern Canada, the north central United States, eastern Brazil, and northern Sweden.
Overview
The State of the Climate Report is a collection of monthly summaries recapping climate-related occurrences on both a global and national scale. The report is comprised of the following sections:
Global
Global Analysis — a summary of global temperatures and precipitation, placing the data into a historical perspective
Upper Air — tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures, with data placed into historical perspective
Global Snow & Ice — a global view of snow and ice, placing the data into a historical perspective
Global Hazards — weather-related hazards and disasters around the world
El Niño/Southern Oscillation Analysis — atmospheric and oceanic conditions related to ENSO
National
National Overview — a summary of national and regional temperatures and precipitation, placing the data into a historical perspective
Drought — drought in the U.S.
Wildfires — a summary of wildland fires in the U.S. and related weather and climate conditions
Hurricanes & Tropical Storms — hurricanes and tropical storms that affect the U.S. and its territories
National Snow & Ice — snow and ice in the U.S.
Tornadoes — a summary of tornadic activity in the U.S.
Synoptic Discussion — a summary of synoptic activity in the U.S.
Questions?
For all climate questions, please contact the National Climatic Data Center's Climate Services and Monitoring Division:
Climate Services and Monitoring Division
NOAA/National Climatic Data center
151 Patton Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801-5001
fax: +1-828-271-4876
phone: +1-828-271-4800
email: ncdc.info@ncdc.noaa.gov
To request climate data, please E-mail:ncdc.orders@ncdc.noaa.gov
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/
and
Why Anti-Science Ideology is Bad for America
8/31/2011 @ 5:33PM |2,395 views .. 34 comments, 6 called-out
Anti-science ideology isn’t completely new in the U.S. — there is a dismaying history of irrational, pseudoscientific, or downright anti-scientific thinking and political culture here. But it seems to be gaining momentum — even as it runs counter to America’s scientific and technological strengths. Such strengths, in fact, underpin our economic and political strengths.
I’m not talking about honest scientific skepticism and questioning – indeed, that is the very basis of good science. I’m talking about a disturbing combination of two factors: political cowardice hiding behind scientific skepticism; and political pandering to special interests by rejecting science, knowledge, and reason in favor of ideology, religion, or narrow economic self-interest.
Sadly and with few brave exceptions, some politicians are active and aggressive at using false, misleading, or discredited science, or explicitly ignoring good science, in setting public policy to support ideology. History tells us this never leads to a good outcome. The Soviets let Lysenkoist ideology pollute their biological and genetic sciences in the 1930s, and they’ve never recovered. We saw it with the long, successful effort of the tobacco industry and their allies to confuse the public and delay regulations to protect public health, leading to millions of unnecessary cancer deaths. We saw it with the veto by Richard Nixon of the Clean Water Act (overridden with the help of some brave and influential Republican senators). And we see it now, in full flower, on the issue of climate change.
Here is what the science conclusively tells us: climate change is real, it is already underway, and it is largely due to human activities. These findings are acknowledged by every single major scientific organization in the areas of climate, meteorology, geology, physics, chemistry, atmospheric science, and hydrology, as well as every single National Academy of Sciences, including our own, created by Abraham Lincoln as an independent non-governmental organization to provide the best scientific advice to the government.
To quote from an open letter from 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences published in the leading journal Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/689.short
Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial — scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of “well-established theories” and are often spoken of as “facts.”
For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today’s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: there is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.
By pretending that the science is bad, some politicians are trying to avoid the truly difficult policy debates that are their responsibility. And they are simultaneously using claims of budget problems to destroy the nation’s climate research capabilities and stop efforts to improve the science. For example, cuts in NOAA’s budget aimed at eliminating anything “climate” related are likely to lead to a gap in satellite coverage of extreme weather events — precisely the satellites that provided the data our meteorologists used to generate advances warnings for the extreme tornadoes and recent Hurricane Irene. For every $1 saved by delaying replacement satellites, society will face an estimated $3 to $5 in higher costs in the form of damages, injuries, deaths, and efforts to obtain data using other approaches — this is a false savings solely due to anti-climate ideology. And because of inaction on climate policy, uncontrolled climate changes are already beginning to impose serious costs on our economies: reductions in crop yields, extra impacts from extreme storm events, drought costs, and more.
Things have gotten so bad that the highly respected scientific journal Nature .. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7338/full/471265b.html .. called these actions “fundamentally anti-science” and an example of “willful ignorance,” and said:
“It is hard to escape the conclusion that the US Congress has entered the intellectual wilderness, a sad state of affairs in a country that has led the world in many scientific arenas for so long.”
The problem is, in part, that acting to reduce the risks of human-caused climate change could lead to policies that are inconvenient for powerful vested economic interests. We thus see a very well-endowed carbon-fuel industry willing to spend vast sums of money to confuse the public, support politicians and organizations whose influence they can buy, malign scientists who speak out, and create alternative “science” that is rejected over and over by independent review and analysis. Rather than have an honest, albeit difficult policy debate about what should be done about climate change, they postpone that debate by trying to discredit the science.
There are some modest signs of a return to rationality and scientific integrity. In recent days, one candidate for President, John Huntsman of Utah, has spoken out on the need for integrity of science. He told ABC’s “This Week”:
“When we take a position that isn’t willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position.”
He went on to call on the Republican Party to stop being antithetical to science: “I’m not sure that’s good for our future and it’s not a winning formula.” Ironically, this shouldn’t be news: Huntsman’s comments are only newsworthy in the context of the extreme anti-science positions taken by his colleagues.
It is time to reassert scientific integrity, logic, reason, and the scientific method in public policy. The public may have disagreements about matters of policy, but our elected representatives must not misuse, hide, or misrepresent science in service of political wars and ideological positions.
Dr. Peter Gleick
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2011/08/31/why-anti-science-ideology-is-bad-for-america/
On Richard Lindzen .. and others .. one ..
hogsgeteaten -- just to note -- your first 4 graphs (rather awkwardly) taken from: [.. excerpt ..]
Background
His academic research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity.[8] He has published numerous papers regarding meteorologic and atmospheric topics.[9]
Fossil Fuel Interests Funding
In a biographical note at the foot of a column published in Newsweek in 2007, Lindzen wrote that "his research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies." (Emphasis added).[10]
Ross Gelbspan, journalist and author, wrote a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine which was critical of Lindzen and other global warming skeptics. In the article, Gelbspan reports Lindzen charged "oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; [and] his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC."[11]
A decade later Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam reported, based on an interview with Lindzen, that "he accepted $10,000 in expenses and expert witness fees from fossil- fuel types in the 1990s, and has taken none of their money since."[12]
Lindzen's Discarded Global Warming Arguments
much more .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45936965
========
James Annan is a scientist involved in climate prediction. He is a member of the Global Warming Research Program at Frontier Research Centre for Global Change which is associated with the Earth Simulator in Japan. He also has views on disc brakes for bicycles.
Climatology
He is most known for considering bets against climate sceptics. Many sceptics, including Richard Lindzen, have indicated they believe the scientific consensus on climate change to be incorrect. The November 10, 2004 online version of Reason magazine reported that Lindzen is "willing to take bets that global average temperatures in 20 years will in fact be lower than they are now."[1] Annan contacted Lindzen to arrange a bet and they exchanged proposals for bets, but were unable to agree on terms. The final proposal was a bet that if the temperature change were less than 0.2 °C (0.36 °F), Lindzen would win. If the temperature change were between 0.2 °C and 0.4 °C the bet would be off, and if the temperature change were 0.4 °C or greater, Annan would win. Lindzen would take 2 to 1 odds.
POINT IS LINDEN BACKED OFF HIS ORIGINAL "WOULD BE LOWER" CHALLENGE
In 2005, another bet for $10,000 dollars was arranged with a pair of Russian solar
physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev. The bet will conclude in 2017.
A third bet in 2007 between Annan and David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation was arranged by the BBC Radio program, More or Less in 2007. Annan and Whitehouse bet £100 on whether the Met Office temperature would set a new annual record by the end of 2011. Annan was declared to have lost in the program on 2012-01-13. .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Annan
and
Out of interest .. UK MET OFFICE Winter 2011/12
The following represents a provisional assessment of the weather experienced across the UK during the first two months of Winter 2011/12 (December and January) and how it compares with the 1971 to 2000 averages.
Mean temperatures over the UK were 0.6 °C above average during December and 1.3 °C above average during January. Temperatures were highest relative to normal over southern England and Wales, whereas in Scotland December was barely warmer than average. The Christmas and New Year period was particularly mild, with some locations reporting temperatures above 14 °C on several days. With the exception of December in Scotland, the number of days of air frost was well below average.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/2012/winter.html
one other from the UK Met Office
4. How can you be sure that the global temperature record is accurate?
The methods used have been peer-reviewed. There are three independent sets of global temperature that all clearly show the rise in global temperatures over the last 150 years. Furthermore, the strong scientific evidence that climate is changing as a result of human influence is also based on the growing evidence that other aspects of the climate system are changing. These include the atmosphere becoming more moist; global rainfall patterns changing; reductions in snow cover; glacier volume and Arctic sea-ice decreases; increases in sea-level. and changes in global scale circulation patterns. There are also numerous changes in phenological records which point towards a general warming and support the veracity of the instrumental record.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/climate-monitoring/land-and-atmosphere/surface-station-records/faq
see also:
Behind the Controversy, an Effort to Rewrite Curriculum on Climate Change
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
February 23, 2012, 5:04 pm
Focus on the contents of the internal documents leaked last week from the Heartland Institute [ http://heartland.org/ ], a Chicago-based nonprofit known for attacking climate science, has been largely lost in the wake of the revelation of the leaker’s identity: Peter Gleick, a scientist.
But beyond the controversy and the confession [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/science/earth/activist-says-heartland-climate-papers-obtained-by-deceit.html ] is the fact that Heartland does not deny what the two authentic documents obtained by Dr. Gleick reveal: that the institute is working to influence climate education in the schools.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72480589
The Inside Story of a Climate Scientist Under Siege
Reuters
Michael Mann reveals his account of attacks by entrenched interests seeking to undermine his 'hockey stick' graph.
[...]
He has been regularly vilified on Fox news and contrarian blogs, by Republican members of Congress, and by the attorney general of Virginia, who has been fighting in the courts to get access to Mann's email from his earlier work at the University of Virginia. And then there is the high volume of hate mail, the threats to him and his family.
"A day doesnt go by when I dont have to fend off some attack, some specious criticism or personal attack," he said. "Literally a day doesn't go by where i dont have to deal with some of the nastiness that comes out of a campaign that tries to discredit me, and thereby in the view of our detractors to discredit the entire science of climate change."
[...]
['It's not that complicated .. recent warming is anomalous in a very long term context .. the temperatures are warming ..
more .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72380337
and
Attacks paid for by big business are 'driving science into a dark era'
Researchers attending one of the world's major academic conferences 'are scared to death of the anti-science lobby'
Robin McKie, science editor Saturday 18 February 2012
The vast majority of scientists on both sides of the Atlantic say rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
threaten to increase temperatures to dangerous levels. Photograph: Paul Souders/Corbis
more .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72304560
AND
State of the Climate .. with links .. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/ .. [emphasis added]
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Climatic Data Center
[...]
Summary Information
Note: Due to a processing error, the January 2012 Global report originally reported incorrect temperature anomalies for the land-surface components for the globe and each hemisphere. These caused the combined land and ocean surface temperatures to be incorrect as well. This error did not affect the historical rank for the January combined land and ocean temperature, which remains 19th warmest. However, it did affect the rank of the land-only component. With the corrected data, the land only component is now the 28th warmest on record (rather than 26th warmest, as originally reported). The corrected data are reflected in this report as of 17 February 2012. We regret the error and any issues it may have raised for users.
Global temperatures 19th warmest on record for January
The globe experienced its 19th warmest January since record keeping began in 1880. Arctic sea ice extent was the fourth smallest extent on record for January at 7.5 percent below average. Additionally, La Niña conditions continued during January 2012. According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, La Niña is expected to dissipate during the Northern Hemisphere spring.
January 2012 marks the coolest month since February 2008. However, January 2012 also marks the 26th January and 323rd consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last month with below average temperatures was February 1985.
Global temperature highlights: January
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2012 was the 19th warmest on record at 54.23°F (12.35°C), which is 0.63°F (0.35°C) above the 20th century average of 53.6°F (12.0°C). The margin of error associated with this temperature is +/- 0.14°F (0.08°C).
January Blended Land and Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius
Surface temperature anomalies for January 2012
Separately, the global land surface temperature was 0.88°F (0.49°C) above the 20th century average of 37.0°F (2.8°C), making this the 28th warmest January on record. The margin of error is +/- 0.31°F (0.17°C). Warmer-than-average conditions occurred across most of North America, the northern latitudes of Europe and Asia, southern South America, and most of Australia. Cooler-than-average regions included China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, south central Russia, much of the Middle East, northern India, north Africa, and southwestern Greenland.
The Arctic Oscillation climate pattern played a role in temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere during January. The positive phase during the first half of the month contributed to well-below average monthly temperatures across Alaska and above-average temperatures across the contiguous United States. The negative phase during the second half of the month contributed to warmth in Canada and also to a cold snap that began during the last week in January across Central and Eastern Europe and north Africa.
The January global ocean surface temperature was 0.54°F (0.30°C) above the 20th century average of 60.5°F (15.8°C), making it the 17th warmest January on record and coolest monthly ocean temperature since January 2008. The margin of error is +/- 0.07°F (0.04°C). The warmth was most pronounced across the north central and southwestern Atlantic Ocean, the central and western Pacific, and the southeastern Indian Ocean.
Polar Sea Ice and Precipitation Highlights
The growth rate for Arctic sea ice in January was the slowest in the satellite record. The average sea ice extent for the month was 7.5 percent below average, ranking as the fourth smallest January extent since satellite records began in 1979. The extent was 425,000 square miles (1.1 million square kilometers) below average. This marks the 19th consecutive January and 128th consecutive month with below-average Arctic sea ice extent.
Selected Climate Anomalies and Events Map
Selected Climate Events for January 2012
On the opposite pole, Antarctic sea ice during January was 13.8 percent above average, and the
seventh largest sea ice extent on record for the Southern Hemisphere since records began in 1979.
Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during January was slightly above average, with large differences between the North American and Eurasian land areas. Eurasia had its ninth largest snow cover extent in the 46-year period of record, where cold and snowy conditions dominated across central and Eastern Europe, as well as much of China. North America had its third smallest January snow cover extent, where much of the United States and southern Canada were warmer and drier than average, limiting snow cover.
Monsoonal rains brought heavier-than-average rainfall to southwestern and southeastern Australia. Precipitation was also much above average in south Asia, part of eastern Russia, and southwestern Greenland. Much drier-than-average conditions were observed across northern Canada, the north central United States, eastern Brazil, and northern Sweden.
Overview
The State of the Climate Report is a collection of monthly summaries recapping climate-related occurrences on both a global and national scale. The report is comprised of the following sections:
Global
Global Analysis — a summary of global temperatures and precipitation, placing the data into a historical perspective
Upper Air — tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures, with data placed into historical perspective
Global Snow & Ice — a global view of snow and ice, placing the data into a historical perspective
Global Hazards — weather-related hazards and disasters around the world
El Niño/Southern Oscillation Analysis — atmospheric and oceanic conditions related to ENSO
National
National Overview — a summary of national and regional temperatures and precipitation, placing the data into a historical perspective
Drought — drought in the U.S.
Wildfires — a summary of wildland fires in the U.S. and related weather and climate conditions
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and
Why Anti-Science Ideology is Bad for America
8/31/2011 @ 5:33PM |2,395 views .. 34 comments, 6 called-out
Anti-science ideology isn’t completely new in the U.S. — there is a dismaying history of irrational, pseudoscientific, or downright anti-scientific thinking and political culture here. But it seems to be gaining momentum — even as it runs counter to America’s scientific and technological strengths. Such strengths, in fact, underpin our economic and political strengths.
I’m not talking about honest scientific skepticism and questioning – indeed, that is the very basis of good science. I’m talking about a disturbing combination of two factors: political cowardice hiding behind scientific skepticism; and political pandering to special interests by rejecting science, knowledge, and reason in favor of ideology, religion, or narrow economic self-interest.
Sadly and with few brave exceptions, some politicians are active and aggressive at using false, misleading, or discredited science, or explicitly ignoring good science, in setting public policy to support ideology. History tells us this never leads to a good outcome. The Soviets let Lysenkoist ideology pollute their biological and genetic sciences in the 1930s, and they’ve never recovered. We saw it with the long, successful effort of the tobacco industry and their allies to confuse the public and delay regulations to protect public health, leading to millions of unnecessary cancer deaths. We saw it with the veto by Richard Nixon of the Clean Water Act (overridden with the help of some brave and influential Republican senators). And we see it now, in full flower, on the issue of climate change.
Here is what the science conclusively tells us: climate change is real, it is already underway, and it is largely due to human activities. These findings are acknowledged by every single major scientific organization in the areas of climate, meteorology, geology, physics, chemistry, atmospheric science, and hydrology, as well as every single National Academy of Sciences, including our own, created by Abraham Lincoln as an independent non-governmental organization to provide the best scientific advice to the government.
To quote from an open letter from 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences published in the leading journal Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/689.short
Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial — scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of “well-established theories” and are often spoken of as “facts.”
For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today’s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: there is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.
By pretending that the science is bad, some politicians are trying to avoid the truly difficult policy debates that are their responsibility. And they are simultaneously using claims of budget problems to destroy the nation’s climate research capabilities and stop efforts to improve the science. For example, cuts in NOAA’s budget aimed at eliminating anything “climate” related are likely to lead to a gap in satellite coverage of extreme weather events — precisely the satellites that provided the data our meteorologists used to generate advances warnings for the extreme tornadoes and recent Hurricane Irene. For every $1 saved by delaying replacement satellites, society will face an estimated $3 to $5 in higher costs in the form of damages, injuries, deaths, and efforts to obtain data using other approaches — this is a false savings solely due to anti-climate ideology. And because of inaction on climate policy, uncontrolled climate changes are already beginning to impose serious costs on our economies: reductions in crop yields, extra impacts from extreme storm events, drought costs, and more.
Things have gotten so bad that the highly respected scientific journal Nature .. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7338/full/471265b.html .. called these actions “fundamentally anti-science” and an example of “willful ignorance,” and said:
“It is hard to escape the conclusion that the US Congress has entered the intellectual wilderness, a sad state of affairs in a country that has led the world in many scientific arenas for so long.”
The problem is, in part, that acting to reduce the risks of human-caused climate change could lead to policies that are inconvenient for powerful vested economic interests. We thus see a very well-endowed carbon-fuel industry willing to spend vast sums of money to confuse the public, support politicians and organizations whose influence they can buy, malign scientists who speak out, and create alternative “science” that is rejected over and over by independent review and analysis. Rather than have an honest, albeit difficult policy debate about what should be done about climate change, they postpone that debate by trying to discredit the science.
There are some modest signs of a return to rationality and scientific integrity. In recent days, one candidate for President, John Huntsman of Utah, has spoken out on the need for integrity of science. He told ABC’s “This Week”:
“When we take a position that isn’t willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position.”
He went on to call on the Republican Party to stop being antithetical to science: “I’m not sure that’s good for our future and it’s not a winning formula.” Ironically, this shouldn’t be news: Huntsman’s comments are only newsworthy in the context of the extreme anti-science positions taken by his colleagues.
It is time to reassert scientific integrity, logic, reason, and the scientific method in public policy. The public may have disagreements about matters of policy, but our elected representatives must not misuse, hide, or misrepresent science in service of political wars and ideological positions.
Dr. Peter Gleick
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2011/08/31/why-anti-science-ideology-is-bad-for-america/
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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