Warmest January-April on record; new record Arctic sea ice minimum
April 2007 was the third warmest April for the globe on record, and the first four months of 2007 were the warmest ever, according to statistics released this week by the National Climatic Data Center. The global average temperature for April was 1.19�F/0.66�C above the 20th century mean. Over land, April global temperatures were the warmest ever measured. Ocean temperatures were a bit cooler (seventh warmest on record), thanks to the cooling associated with the disappearance of the winter El Ni�o event.
April temperatures were particularly warm across portions of Europe and Siberia, where readings of 5�C (9�F) above average were common (Figure 1). The UK recorded its warmest and driest April on record. In the U.S., April ranked near normal in temperature, but a record cold snap hit the eastern half of the country April 4-10, setting 900 daily low temperature records. The long duration of the cold outbreak, combined with the large number of hours that remained below freezing, and strong winds that occurred in many areas, contributed to crop losses that could reach into the billions of dollars. The damaging effects of the record cold were made worse by near-record warmth in March that helped induce an earlier spring blossom--in some cases two weeks prior to crop development in 2006. More than 2,500 daily record-high temperatures were set in the contiguous U.S. in March, and it was our second warmest March on record.
April's cold snap in the U.S. shows that although the globe as a whole may be warming, there is still plenty of natural variability capable of bringing very cold weather to local regions.
Figure 1. Temperature departure from average for April 2007. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center.
Arctio sea ice extent
After three months of not recording a record monthly minimum, sea ice extent in the Arctic recorded a new record low extent in April. The record warmth of the first four months of 2007, combined with the 8th lowest snow cover on record observed in winter 2006/2007, combined to produce the record low ice extent (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Arctic sea ice extent for April, for the years 1979-2007. April 2007 set a new record for the lowest Arctic sea ice extent measured. April sea ice coverage has declined about 9% since 1979. Image credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Atlantic storms
The computer models have been forecasting development of several low pressure systems along the East Coast over the next few days. All of these lows will be non-tropical in nature, due to the high levels of wind shear. The models are beginning to hint that wind shear could relax over the ocean waters north of Panama next week, and we may have to watch that area for tropical development if the shear does indeed relax as forecast.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 — Blog Index
I don't understand your view. Assuming Global Warming is a fallacy, does it hurt America to use the belief in that fallacy to promote freedom from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, etc.?
To me it seems that your personal hatred of anything that has been determined by someone (who?) to be a liberal/left issue is destroying America. I cannot believe it is a right wing value to put personal needs ahead of patriotism.
Cheers,
John
"GLOBAL warming might yet be revealed as the biggest and most expensive myth since the dreaded Y2K bug.
Remember the horror stories at the end of 1999 - planes would fall out of the sky and Eskom would seize all because computers would be confused by the date 2000 in their internal clocks. Factories would stop working. Shop shelves would be emptied. Paranoid people actually stocked up on baked beans and candles in case.
Even the respectable media was saturated with a looming catastrophe that turned out to be a big hoax. That time the world's hardware and software makers and their consultants made billions of dollars.
Now once again the media is full of crisis. The ice caps and the glaciers are melting. The polar bears are dying. The weather has turned hot and cold and violent. It's all because we burn too much carbon.
The current hysteria has changed behaviour radically. It has cost billions, if not trillions and the spending has just started. Tens of thousands of expensive and not very efficient wind turbines have been erected in dozens of countries. Soon you won't see the desert sand for a sea of solar panels.
Crops are being diverted into ethanol production. The world's biggest companies have been forced into trading carbon credits and if they are not green enough - horror - they are excluded from socially responsible investment portfolios.
Once again there are many vested interests - NGOs, advisers, consultants, alternative energy purveyors, politicians and control freaks - who do well on all the excitement.
Every oil company, every power utility and every car manufacturer has its hand on its heart promising to clean up its act. Their annual reports have more about their do-gooding than about their businesses.
Even President George Bush, who refused to commit the US to the Kyoto Protocol, has been chastened into agreeing with his G8 fellow heads of state that global warming is priority number one for the world.
Al Gore is not the only one warning about cataclysm to come. The alarmists have been given support by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was established by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environmental Programme. The UK government's Stern report lent further credence to the sky is falling down school of thought.
Amidst all this, there are dissenting voices, which are seldom heard.
The Fraser Institute, a Californian think tank comprising 60 eminent scientists, found in a 60 page response to the IPCC report, that there is no globally consistent pattern in snow and rainfall patterns, in snow cover or snow depth. North of 55 degrees snowfall has increased in the past 50 years.
"Perceptions of increased extreme weather events are potentially due to increased reporting." The Fraser Institute questioned the independence of the IPCC.
It concluded politely: "There will remain an unavoidable element of uncertainty as to the extent that humans are contributing to future climate change and indeed whether or not such change is a good or bad thing."
"The climate in most places has undergone minor changes over the past 200 years and the land-based surface temperatures record of the past 100 years exhibits warming trends in many places. Measurement problems....make interpretation of these trends difficult. The actual climate change in many locations has been relatively small. There is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changes are under way."
Economics is about alternatives. Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish economist, who first questioned environmental hysteria in "The Skeptical Environmentalist", asks: if you had $50bn to spend, would you spend it on combating global warming, or on fighting HIV/Aids, hunger and malaria and freeing world trade? He would prefer that latter four priorities.
Richard Linzen, professor of meteorology as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says there is little hard evidence backing up the sweeping claims of the Stern Report.
"He [Stern] is guilty of misreading the data, of distorting the evidence to suit his political masters' dogma, of throwing numbers about with reckless abandon, or promoting alarmism in place of rational discussion, and of reinventing climate history...
Linzen wrote in London Daily Mail: "Stern states quite boldly that the scale of global warming has been unprecedented for at least the past 1 000 years but he cannot possibly be sure on this point because the data from previous centuries is unreliable...At most we have a 50-year span of accurate measurements. The only genuine global records of temperature come from weather balloons, since 1958, and from microwave sounding units, since 1978. What they indicate is a very gently warming trend, nothing approaching the apocalyptic vision of Sir Nicholas."
Linzen says that according to a host of historical accounts, Europe was far warmer in the Middle Ages than it is today, or that the 17th century was much colder. He adds that polar bears are doing quite well. There are now 22 000, compared to 5 000 in 1940.
Nor can we be sure that any change is due to mankind. There are many other possibilities, including the sun's radiation. He accuses Stern of wanting to blame western capitalism for every drought or famine.
"What is so tragic is the way this dubious ideology has achieved such dominance in our public life. Politicians love the green agenda, of course, because it means more control, more regulation, more taxes, more summits and more opportunities for displays of self-important zeal. The tragedy is that the likes of Sir Nicholas Stern are using bogus science to push forward this agenda."
The leading antagonist of global warming in SA is probably Andrew Kenny, who has written stridently against the hot earth hysteria in his column in the Citizen and provided me with some literature.
Kenny recalls that in the 1970s the great fear was another ice age - also attributed to man's environmental irresponsibility.
Who am I to take sides in the great debate? My intention is purely to point out that respectable scientists are far from unanimous on global warming.
It might therefore be an idea to give an ear to the dissenters and to proceed with caution before we spend our way to poverty trying to fix a problem that might have been invented by Chicken Licken."
And Please post comments.
Does anybody remember how Natural Gas was being pushed in the 1990s for being much cleaner than coal & really, really cheap? It went from $2 per million BTUs to aroud $8 per million BTUs now. I believe the NG futures spiked up to over $15/millon BTUs after hurricanes Katrina & Rita tore things up the Gulf of Mexico.
Now what is the cheap fuel? It is coal. You can say these three things about coal right now:
1. It is plentiful
2. It is really cheap compared to alternatives.
3. Has a reputation for being "dirty".
Unless we get on board with nuclear power than you can expect coal to be increasingly more expensive. It won't be long until the word "Coal Cartel" replaces "Global Warming" as the most worn out overused word. If we put all of our energy eggs in the coal basket we are really asking for another energy crises like what we are now seeing with Crude/Gasoline.
Whether you believe in GW or think it is a hoax, using alternative energy sources like nuclear & solar make the most economic sense.
steering currents
Dept. of Aerospace Engineering Sciences University of Colorado, Boulder
Welcome to the CCAR Gulf of Mexico Near Real-Time Altimeter Data Viewer, sponsored by the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This page allows you to view maps of the sea surface velocity with superimposed velocity vectors for the Gulf of Mexico (262°E to 280°E longitude and 18°N to 31°N latitude). The maps are produced from Jason, TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P), Geosat Follow-On (GFO), ERS-2 and ENVISAT altimeter data processed in near real-time, usually within 12 to 36 hours of overflight. This quick-look processing is designed to retain the mesoscale sea surface height anomalies associated with fronts and eddies...Link
MisterPerfect and PIRSRON,
I don't understand your view. Assuming Global Warming is a fallacy, does it hurt America to use the belief in that fallacy to promote freedom from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, etc.?
To me it seems that your personal hatred of anything that has been determined by someone (who?) to be a liberal/left issue is destroying America. I cannot believe it is a right wing value to put personal needs ahead of patriotism.
Sorry if you misunderstood MY comment. It just seems to me that science shouldn't jump to conclusions and assume things virtually unproven. It is a fact the Earth is warming. It is a fact it has in the past. It is NOT a fact that human beings and their energy concerns are the reason for this episode of planetary climate change. Why should something as passionate and truthful as science be used as a political tool to choose an economical path? More research is needed, not a conclusion, perhaps reached by politicians, that lines the pockets of scientists abroad. Climate change, and its natural behaviors, should not be used as a bargaining chip for investors fed up with current energy problems and/or their minimum gain in the oil game. If a scientist does choose this technique, they are not a true scientist but a lobbyist or activist. THAT IS MY VIEW.
This is gonna be a stupid question & I apologize in advance! Is there any way to auto refresh this blog?
If you have Firefox browser, and if you don't you should ;-), get the "ReloadEvery" extension, it will let you reload at your specified interval. 1hr works for me here.
I agree with your view, Mr. Perfect. As was mentioned before the big hype 30 years ago was the coming Ice Age. Politicians will hype anything that profits them.
Be careful with the dead horse, it may give off alot of CO2.LOL
Posted By: JeffMasters at 12:24 AM GMT on January 15, 2007
Updated: 1:05 AM GMT on January 15, 2007
Global temperatures in 2006 were the third coldest on record in the lower stratosphere, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Only 1997 and 2000 had colder temperatures since record keeping began in 1979
Maybe we should have taken down some cooling records prior to 1979 to perhaps explain Global Warming.. hmmm?
I think we are in for our warmest year yet.
This guy here has beeen amazingly accurate predicting the upcoming seasonal surface temps by looking at the refractions of the sun. You can read back through the years or take my word. What he's forecasted for this year is the hottest yet.
We've been lucky so far in FL this year as we haven't been feeling the brunt of the warming at least not the actual temperatures (the drought & fires well..).
#1 You are not an economist.
#2 The world increased solar PV by 1280% from 1979 to 2000, while the price decreased by 19% every three years. Currently the rate has been 40% compounded annual increase of PV for several years. Each doubling of installed capacity of increase drops the costs 19%, every three years. Just the normal economics of these trends means that all homes in America will have blue PV rooftops in 41 years or less -- no pollution, abundant power, and all cars will operate on non-carbon fuels (electricity or hydrogen probably).
http://hydrogentruth.info/page_04a.html
http://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/
#3 Electric cars are super powerful and super sexy. 0 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. 200 miles range is done and 300 miles between recharge is proved. New technologies are rolling our fast and furious. 5 minute recharge is technically solved. Gasoline stinks and it burns up Florida and Georgia with it's Global Warming droughts.
http://www.acpropulsion.com/vehicles/others.htm
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/how_to/3374271.html?page=1
#4 Materials with 2,000,000 psi tensile strengths exist in the human materials inventory, and 17,500 psi is all you need for 10-kilogram Hydrogen fuel tanks that can get you 400 miles between fill-ups. Scuba divers regularly strap 3,000 psi pressurized aluminum tanks on their backs, but sissies (who are never going to be allowed to go into space) are afraid of handling rocket fuel in far stronger bottles. Even lots of girls nowadays strap a space shuttle to their backs and fly where the cowards will never go.
#5 2,700,000 electric meter customers lost power for one or more days since January 1, 2007, 1.7 million because of the Taxday Nor'easter that you watched with your own eyes. Every one of these was during the worst weather of the year when you least want to lose power. Your system is already failing you and is obsolete, crumbling and melts down in Global Warming Ice Storms.
#6 Baseball-sized hail punches right through ordinary roofs. Softball-sized hail is getting more common. A hailstorm left drifts a meter-tall (belly-button high) just two months ago in Canberra, Australia, stripped every leaf off trees in the city, smashed through roofs and greenhouse, bashed cars in and destroyed windshields. You only need one of these to destroy each parcel of cropland each year, and your delays are asking for plenty of them often. This is the same city that will be drinking their refiltered sewer water before long, and the same city where a Global Warming wildfire with a 140 kilometer-wide front invaded the city and burned down 240 city blocks full of houses in 2003 worse destruction than that puny tornado in Greensville KS.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/070505_rpts.html 83 Tornadoes today, so far. Softball-Sized Hail (4.25 inch) in NE.
http://groups.google.com/ 518190aaef5a835c Baseball, Softball-Sized Hail Season Returns in Alabama, Georgia.
http://groups.google.com/ 9e1b49ef59a413ba Golfball-Sized, Baseball-Sized, Softball-Sized Hail :: NC, TX, VA, NE, CO, OK, NM, KS
http://groups.google.com/ 1692a41945285a61 Addendum: Golfball-Sized, Baseball-Sized, Softball-Sized Hail :: NC, TX, VA, NE, CO, OK, NM, KS
http://groups.google.com/ /cda7a5a601efc554 Climate Change Pretty Brutal -- Golfball sized hail a meter deep on Australia's Capital City Strips leaves off trees
http://groups.google.com/ 21777e5e3fe88c5d More BRUTAL Climate Change Smackdown -- SYDNEY joins Canberra in power outages from monster hail storms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Canberra_bushfires
http://www.cnn.com/ austrailia.bush.fire/index.html CANBERRA, Australia -- Residents of the bush land around Canberra began sifting through the ashen rubble of their homes after a weekend of ferocious fires that killed four people and destroyed around 400 homes.
#7 Toxic algae and Red tides increase drastically with higher water temperatures. The number of "dead zones" (anoxic) in the seas has grown from ZERO to over 200 of them since 1970. This week the reports of toxic algae blooms are from Washington state to the great lakes to Massachusetts to Florida to Los Angeles with spots in between. It's not even the heat of summer yet, still pretty cold in lots of places. THIS WEEK'S NEWS
Algae bloom toxin kills sea birds -- produced record levels of a toxic acid
Cleanup of toxic lake algae takes precaution
River toxin may be link to dogs' deaths -- A toxin never before found in New Zealand
Toxic algae warnings at two Nebraska lakes
Maumee Bay beaches covered with algae
Red tide may kill marine life even after it dissipates
Toxic Algae Bloom Kills Wildlife Along Calif. Coast
Algae worse than red tide -- There's a nastier organism lurking in Florida waters
Toxic Algae Outbreak Off LA Harbor Is Most Virulent Ever
Toxic algae sickening marine life along SoCal coast
Red tide poisons food of sea cows
Scientists find record level of algae toxin off California coast
#8 Any time the Chinese decide to dump American debt they are holding onto the world market your dollar can be bought with a Mexican peso on a 1 for 1 basis. You don't have any economy -- you are broke and your grandchildren will be born in debt. You have to really like OPEC to be giving them your money right now.
#9 Your housing is obsolete. You saw it dissolve in the F5 tornado in Greensville, KS. Instead of living in housing that doesn't break in an EF5 tornado or cat 5 hurricane, or force 8 earthquake, the crap fails the first most important job housing is supposed to do: protect you from the elements. If there's an F5 outside you shouldn't have to get out of bed because of it -- we are not using the knowledge we have learned and we are still building obsolete mid-20th century housing in the 3rd millenium. Your economy is geared to make housing that profits the bankers who you still owe when the house blows away -- so much for crying crocodile tears for an economy that leaves you homeless. Since the flimsy garbage needs replacing three times per century, your economy is creating landfills full of national forest trees that enriched timber barons while you cry with blue tarps instead of blue PV rooftops.
http://ecocity.us
#10 Your economy is insane. John Jacob Aster took $100,000,000 cash on board the Titanic and nether ever got off the boat. When the choice is your life you will spend every penny you have, as cancer patients learn. You can't take it with you, and money is no good in hell. The costs only get higher and you only get weaker every single day that you delay doing the right thing. Karl Rove and Exxon are not in Georgia fighting the fires, and they won't be there for you when Armageddon comes to each and every one of you, one by one by one.
# The richest person on board the Titanic was Colonel John Jacob Aster. He took on board $100,000,000
#11 Criminal science is a SCIENCE also. We tracked the liars down, and we are drawing the nets. Don't get caught in them. Do NOT interfere with the Designated Emergency Response Teams -- the punishment is higher than you can ever afford. Your "freedom of speech" ends at fraud, ends where it causes loss of lives. Capiche?
Did ExxonMobil really pay scientists and economists to write articles trying to de-bunk global warming?
Sources: The Guardian, www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2004399,00.html;
UCS Report, www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html;
ExxonMobil, www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/Citizenship/Corp_citizenship_enviro_policy.asp.
Sorry if you missed my point.
I'm tired of America being ripped apart based on politics. The GW issue is separate to the fact that America pays billions, if not trillions, to keep sucking oil.
From what I have read of your posts, your opinion is emotionally biased. The arguments (I don't mean just yours) that I have seen against GW usually are rehashed tripe. Further, they usually end in snide comments about 'liberals', etc..
It seems to me that there is a choice, get America off oil, or keep going down this road of ruin. I think you and all the other people who are against GW need to take a deep look inside themselves and decide if the emotional satisfaction of bashing liberals, GW, etc. regardless of the scientific correctness of your position is worth the price that America will have to pay.
To everyone else,
Sorry for that, I am lurker, not a contributor and accordingly apologize and will not pollute your blog again.
" Weak low " analysed near 18N 83W
Guess you were on to something yesterday notwithstanding my best efforts to discount it LOL
Kudos to you
I respect your opinion. I agree with you in the regard that America is losing its grip on unity through energy crisis.
"I'm tired of America being ripped apart based on politics. The GW issue is separate to the fact that America pays billions, if not trillions, to keep sucking oil."
But that quote from you is emotionally biased from every surface.
As for America itself, which is the biggest consumer and buyer of oil(soon to be replaced by China) and in the Top 10 producers of oil, will not neccessarily go down the road of ruin. The precious crude you are annoyed of is needed now to dominate the future for advances in alternative energy sources. Your, and I don't mean to sound rude, fairytale idea of getting America off the oil snide quickly will put this country in economic ruin, and in doing so, vastly threatens the security of the free world, let alone our front doors. I agree, one glorious generation or two from now, a poor Saudi Prince will be sitting on a thousand acres of worthless thick liquid, but not right now. And just to clear the record, I'm a registered independent voter and I cast my vote according to my emotional bias toward policy, as it is right to do so. You wouldn't be using your brain correctly if emotion weren't driving it. I respect your opinions and even your political biased. I kind of have to, I'm American.
I read through it, and appreciated it GREATLY. So thank you again - for taking the time to post it. Think you can send a copy (links intact) to my email?
Viewing: 51 - 101
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 — Blog Index