Climate change: 2015 will be the hottest year on record 'by a mile', experts say

[Old Rocks]

The Geological Society of America - Position Statement on Climate Change

Climate Change
Adopted in October 2006; revised April 2010; March 2013; April 2015

Position Statement
Decades of scientific research have shown that climate can change from both natural and anthropogenic causes. The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2011), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (Melillo et al., 2014) that global climate has warmed in response to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. The concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are now higher than they have been for many thousands of years. Human activities (mainly greenhouse-gas emissions) are the dominant cause of the rapid warming since the middle 1900s (IPCC, 2013). If the upward trend in greenhouse-gas concentrations continues, the projected global climate change by the end of the twenty-first century will result in significant impacts on humans and other species. The tangible effects of climate change are already occurring. Addressing the challenges posed by climate change will require a combination of adaptation to the changes that are likely to occur and global reductions of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources.

Purpose
This position statement (1) summarizes the scientific basis for the conclusion that human activities are the primary cause of recent global warming; (2) describes the significant effects on humans and ecosystems as greenhouse-gas concentrations and global climate reach projected levels; and (3) provides information for policy decisions guiding mitigation and adaptation strategies designed to address the current and future impacts of anthropogenic warming.

My, my, only two and one half years since the Geological Society of America revised it's statements. You might note that both the AGU and the GSA came out with stronger statements on AGW than their prior ones.

 

[Billy_Bob]

Climate change: 2015 will be the hottest year on record 'by a mile', experts say
Even though there are still several months left in the year to gather temperature readings from around the world, climate researchers believe nothing short of a Krakatoa-sized volcanic eruption that cuts out sunlight for months on end can now stop last year’s record being beaten.
http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...on-record-by-a-mile-experts-say-10477138.html


Utterly amazing! Nino enhanced warmth!!!!

This year will probably end up well into the .8c's on both surface datasets.

And after they have falsified the data I am sure it will be. And we will have yet another summer without ever breaking 100 degrees no doubt.

We should have broken 100 degrees at least 10 times this year but we have only reached 94 deg F this summer.. and the trend is now cooling fast so it wont happen this year.. the facts do not support their "hottest ev'a" crap.

 

[Billy_Bob]

GOD BLESS THE NOAA AND NASA!!!! They make me proud.

SO your proud to be in bed with liars and fraudsters... Noted..

 

[flacaltenn]

Looks to me like the point estimates and error bars are solidly in the range of the AR4 projections, and as we know now, the last two years have been record anomalies, thus putting them well into the 'orange'. In fact, most of those datapoints fall into the ranges of ALL the IPCC projections, if you look at the far right.

I love how you think there was some conspiracy to make the graph look better, when its pretty clear its in line with the latest IPCC projections. That's an interesting spin. Had to come from some nutjob like Watts, not an actual scientist.

There WAS severe monkey biz pissed on that chart. Anyone that can drive MS Office can tell how to scale graphs and pad them to accentuate or attenuate features of the data. Putting an irrelevent 100 years of past temperature on the left side in the final version made the errors look smaller by a factor of five. No conspiracy.. 30+ years of science and engineering tells me that.. And THEN -- cutting off the projections to go ONLY to 2015 instead of continuing them out as ORIGINALLY PRESENTED -- was done for spite and to avoid major embarrassment. If ya WANT --- I'll show you the originals and put those actual temps on top of it.. But if you're really in science -- you would already KNOW how to lie with graphs and statistics.. Or defend yourself against those that play to lie with graphs and statistics..

If you think that the very tops of those errors hitting SOME of the projected region is a true wonder and success -- you need to realize that the temp. data ends in 2010 (?) when the report came out. And since then --- the temps have walked off of ALL of those estimates..

 

[Old Rocks]

Climate Change
An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society
(Adopted by AMS Council 20 August 2012)

pdf version

The following is an AMS Information Statement intended to provide a trustworthy, objective, and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large.

Background

This statement provides a brief overview of how and why global climate has changed over the past century and will continue to change in the future. It is based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature and is consistent with the vast weight of current scientific understanding as expressed in assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Although the statement has been drafted in the context of concerns in the United States, the underlying issues are inherently global in nature.

How is climate changing?

Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal, according to many different kinds of evidence. Observations show increases in globally averaged air and ocean temperatures, as well as widespread melting of snow and ice and rising globally averaged sea level. Surface temperature data for Earth as a whole, including readings over both land and ocean, show an increase of about 0.8°C (1.4°F) over the period 1901─2010 and about 0.5°C (0.9°F) over the period 1979–2010 (the era for which satellite-based temperature data are routinely available). Due to natural variability, not every year is warmer than the preceding year globally. Nevertheless, all of the 10 warmest years in the global temperature records up to 2011 have occurred since 1997, with 2005 and 2010 being the warmest two years in more than a century of global records. The warming trend is greatest in northern high latitudes and over land. In the U.S., most of the observed warming has occurred in the West and in Alaska; for the nation as a whole, there have been twice as many record daily high temperatures as record daily low temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century.

The effects of this warming are especially evident in the planet’s polar regions. Arctic sea ice extent and volume have been decreasing for the past several decades. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have lost significant amounts of ice. Most of the world’s glaciers are in retreat.

Other changes, globally and in the U.S., are also occurring at the same time. The amount of rain falling in very heavy precipitation events (the heaviest 1% of all precipitation events) has increased over the last 50 years throughout the U.S. Freezing levels are rising in elevation, with rain occurring more frequently instead of snow at mid-elevations of western mountains. Spring maximum snowpack is decreasing, snowmelt occurs earlier, and the spring runoff that supplies over two-thirds of western U.S. streamflow is reduced. Evidence for warming is also observed in seasonal changes across many areas, including earlier springs, longer frost-free periods, longer growing seasons, and shifts in natural habitats and in migratory patterns of birds and insects.

My goodness, this statement is three years old. How terribly out of date, right?

 

[Old Rocks]

Global Climate Change
ACS Position Statement
PDF Version

“Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s climate system is changing in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and absorbing aerosol particles.” (IPCC, 2007) “Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for—and in many cases is already affecting—a broad range of human and natural systems.” (NRC, 2010a) “The potential threats are serious and actions are required to mitigate climate change risks and to adapt to deleterious climate change impacts that probably cannot be avoided.” (NRC, 2010b, c)

This statement reviews key probable climate change impacts and recommends actions required to mitigate or adapt to current and anticipated consequences.

Climate Change Impacts
The Earth’s climate is the product of complex, highly dynamic, and often nonlinear, interactions among physical, chemical, and biological processes occurring at many scales in the atmosphere; at terrestrial, fresh water and marine surfaces; and in the depths of the oceans and landforms. While recent research advances in Earth systems science have greatly strengthened our understanding of prior and current climate properties and processes, our ability to quantitatively predict how the future climate will respond to continued and increasing greenhouse-gas and fine-particle emissions is still limited. Even more limited is our ability to precisely predict how the Earth’s ecological and human systems will respond to climate changes.

However, comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem. This sober conclusion has been recently reconfirmed by an in-depth set of studies focused on “America’s Climate Choices” (ACC) conducted by the U.S. National Academies (NRC, 2010a, b, c, d). The ACC studies, performed by independent and highly respected teams of scientists, engineers, and other skilled professionals, reached the same general conclusions that were published in the latest comprehensive assessment conducted by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007). Recently, some errors in the IPCC (2007) reports have been acknowledged and questions about the transparency of the IPCC process have been raised. An independent review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC), a collaboration of the world’s leading national science academies, found “that the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has served society well,” and that “through its unique partnership between scientists and governments, the IPCC has heightened public awareness of climate change, raised the level of scientific debate, and influenced the science agendas of many nations.” (IAC, 2010) The IAC also recommended managerial and procedural improvements that would strengthen future assessments.

Goodness, looks like this one might be 5 years old, at the most.

 

[Old Rocks]

UK science communiqué on climate change | Royal Society

UK science communiqué on climate change
Downloads

• Statement
  
  PDF, 413.0kb
  

21 July 2015


The Royal Society is one of 24 of the UK’s Professional and Learned Societies that have endorsed this communiqué on climate change. Together the organisations involved represent a diverse range of expertise from across the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, medicine and engineering.

The communiqué states that if we are to have a reasonable chance of limiting global warming in this century to 2°C relative to the pre-industrial period, we must transition to a zero-carbon world by early in the second half of the century. It highlights the risks associated with climate change, as well as the potential responses and opportunities of low-carbon and climate-resilient growth.

The Brits not pulling any punches here. And that is 24 Scientific Societies speaking as one. So let us see what they have to say.

 

[Old Rocks]

https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/Publications/2015/21-07-15-climate-communique.PDF

Risks. Climate change poses risks to people and ecosystems by exacerbating
existing economic, environmental, geopolitical, health and societal threats, and
generating new ones. These risks increase disproportionately as the temperature
increases. Many systems are already at risk from climate change. A rise of 2°C
above pre-industrial levels would lead to further increased risk from extreme
weather and would place more ecosystems and cultures in significant danger. At
or above 4°C, the risks include substantial species extinction, global and regional
food insecurity, and fundamental changes to human activities that today are taken
for granted.
Responses. Responding to the challenge will require deploying the full breadth of
human talent and invention. Creative policy interventions and novel technological
solutions need to be fostered and applied. This will require a sustained
commitment to research, development, entrepreneurship, education, public
engagement, training and skills.
Opportunities. While the threats posed by climate change are far-reaching,
the ways in which we tackle them can be a source of great opportunity. There
exists vast potential for innovation, for example in low-carbon technologies.
Capturing this potential quickly and effectively will drive economic progress.
There are also significant additional benefits available from climate mitigation and
adaptation actions, including food, energy and water security, air quality, health
improvements, and safeguarding the services that ecosystems provide.

Looks like they have made up their mind. And they speak for a lot of scientists.

 

[flacaltenn]

Name those natural cycles. And how they are in effect right now. One I will name, is the El Nino. Yet, even though we knew that we would eventually have a strong El Nino again, our resident 'Phd' was stating five years ago that by today we would be seeing a major cooling. And here we are, with the three very warm years we have had 2005 to today, giving lie to all the people claiming that Hansen and the rest were wrong, and we are cooling.

AMO PDO ENSO Arctic Oscillations, MJ Waves, Hale Cycle --- how many ya want/?

You got several resident PhDs here. And I can't control them..

Hansen WAS completely wrong in the 0.5degC/decade lie that started this whole thing in 1988.. Has it warmed 1.5 degC since 1988 Rocks? Is the North Hemi gonna blaze up 20 degF by 2075?

Hansen was also wrong to write a silly paper trying to equate violent weather with ONLY temperature. And just manipulating those events as Gaussian distributions.. But he's your man.. The ultimate activist scientist with no concern for the integrity of the process. Those "death trains of coal" and "boiling oceans" were easy marks for him.


And there's hardly a meterologist that doesn't rely on GW funding that would agree with him..

 

[flacaltenn]

Rocks -- those are press releases .. Where's the beef?
WHAT are they endorsing for a 2050 temperature, sea level, scare level?

 

[flacaltenn]

UK science communiqué on climate change | Royal Society

UK science communiqué on climate change
Downloads

• Statement
  
  PDF, 413.0kb

21 July 2015


The Royal Society is one of 24 of the UK’s Professional and Learned Societies that have endorsed this communiqué on climate change. Together the organisations involved represent a diverse range of expertise from across the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, medicine and engineering.

The communiqué states that if we are to have a reasonable chance of limiting global warming in this century to 2°C relative to the pre-industrial period, we must transition to a zero-carbon world by early in the second half of the century. It highlights the risks associated with climate change, as well as the potential responses and opportunities of low-carbon and climate-resilient growth.

The Brits not pulling any punches here. And that is 24 Scientific Societies speaking as one. So let us see what they have to say.

Yeah -- they're speaking as one.. Because probably one guy drafted the statement. Show me the process where the MEMBERSHIP APPROVED or ENDORSED IT.. Or at least show me the conference where the 24 organizations sat down and DEBATED the wording. You got ANY record of the process of how 24 organizations hashed out a "consensus statement" ???

This is all response to political activism and the desire to keep those orgs in good sted with the govt..

 

[Old Rocks]

You stated that their statements were out of date, and did not reflect current knowledge. Is the statement from the Royal Society up to date enough for you? 21July15.

Then you want to call these statements just press releases. Well of course, that is what you create a statement for, to release to the general public through the press what the consensus of opinion is on a subject within that Scientific Society.

 

[westwall]

Climate Change
An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society
(Adopted by AMS Council 20 August 2012)

pdf version

The following is an AMS Information Statement intended to provide a trustworthy, objective, and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large.

Background

This statement provides a brief overview of how and why global climate has changed over the past century and will continue to change in the future. It is based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature and is consistent with the vast weight of current scientific understanding as expressed in assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Although the statement has been drafted in the context of concerns in the United States, the underlying issues are inherently global in nature.

How is climate changing?

Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal, according to many different kinds of evidence. Observations show increases in globally averaged air and ocean temperatures, as well as widespread melting of snow and ice and rising globally averaged sea level. Surface temperature data for Earth as a whole, including readings over both land and ocean, show an increase of about 0.8°C (1.4°F) over the period 1901─2010 and about 0.5°C (0.9°F) over the period 1979–2010 (the era for which satellite-based temperature data are routinely available). Due to natural variability, not every year is warmer than the preceding year globally. Nevertheless, all of the 10 warmest years in the global temperature records up to 2011 have occurred since 1997, with 2005 and 2010 being the warmest two years in more than a century of global records. The warming trend is greatest in northern high latitudes and over land. In the U.S., most of the observed warming has occurred in the West and in Alaska; for the nation as a whole, there have been twice as many record daily high temperatures as record daily low temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century.

The effects of this warming are especially evident in the planet’s polar regions. Arctic sea ice extent and volume have been decreasing for the past several decades. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have lost significant amounts of ice. Most of the world’s glaciers are in retreat.

Other changes, globally and in the U.S., are also occurring at the same time. The amount of rain falling in very heavy precipitation events (the heaviest 1% of all precipitation events) has increased over the last 50 years throughout the U.S. Freezing levels are rising in elevation, with rain occurring more frequently instead of snow at mid-elevations of western mountains. Spring maximum snowpack is decreasing, snowmelt occurs earlier, and the spring runoff that supplies over two-thirds of western U.S. streamflow is reduced. Evidence for warming is also observed in seasonal changes across many areas, including earlier springs, longer frost-free periods, longer growing seasons, and shifts in natural habitats and in migratory patterns of birds and insects.

My goodness, this statement is three years old. How terribly out of date, right?

And every year we have fewer and fewer days where we break 100 degrees. In fact last year was the first time in 25 years where we never once broke 100 degrees.

 

[Billy_Bob]

Name those natural cycles. And how they are in effect right now. One I will name, is the El Nino. Yet, even though we knew that we would eventually have a strong El Nino again, our resident 'Phd' was stating five years ago that by today we would be seeing a major cooling. And here we are, with the three very warm years we have had 2005 to today, giving lie to all the people claiming that Hansen and the rest were wrong, and we are cooling.

AMO PDO ENSO Arctic Oscillations, MJ Waves, Hale Cycle --- how many ya want/?

You got several resident PhDs here. And I can't control them..

Hansen WAS completely wrong in the 0.5degC/decade lie that started this whole thing in 1988.. Has it warmed 1.5 degC since 1988 Rocks? Is the North Hemi gonna blaze up 20 degF by 2075?

Hansen was also wrong to write a silly paper trying to equate violent weather with ONLY temperature. And just manipulating those events as Gaussian distributions.. But he's your man.. The ultimate activist scientist with no concern for the integrity of the process. Those "death trains of coal" and "boiling oceans" were easy marks for him.


And there's hardly a meterologist that doesn't rely on GW funding that would agree with him..

and that is the truth!

 

[Old Rocks]

Ah, so all these scientfic societies are in on a huge conspiracy or committing scientific fraud. Somehow, this just doesn't make sense.

 

[Old Rocks]

Climate Change
An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society
(Adopted by AMS Council 20 August 2012)

pdf version

The following is an AMS Information Statement intended to provide a trustworthy, objective, and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large.

Background

This statement provides a brief overview of how and why global climate has changed over the past century and will continue to change in the future. It is based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature and is consistent with the vast weight of current scientific understanding as expressed in assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Although the statement has been drafted in the context of concerns in the United States, the underlying issues are inherently global in nature.

How is climate changing?

Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal, according to many different kinds of evidence. Observations show increases in globally averaged air and ocean temperatures, as well as widespread melting of snow and ice and rising globally averaged sea level. Surface temperature data for Earth as a whole, including readings over both land and ocean, show an increase of about 0.8°C (1.4°F) over the period 1901─2010 and about 0.5°C (0.9°F) over the period 1979–2010 (the era for which satellite-based temperature data are routinely available). Due to natural variability, not every year is warmer than the preceding year globally. Nevertheless, all of the 10 warmest years in the global temperature records up to 2011 have occurred since 1997, with 2005 and 2010 being the warmest two years in more than a century of global records. The warming trend is greatest in northern high latitudes and over land. In the U.S., most of the observed warming has occurred in the West and in Alaska; for the nation as a whole, there have been twice as many record daily high temperatures as record daily low temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century.

The effects of this warming are especially evident in the planet’s polar regions. Arctic sea ice extent and volume have been decreasing for the past several decades. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have lost significant amounts of ice. Most of the world’s glaciers are in retreat.

Other changes, globally and in the U.S., are also occurring at the same time. The amount of rain falling in very heavy precipitation events (the heaviest 1% of all precipitation events) has increased over the last 50 years throughout the U.S. Freezing levels are rising in elevation, with rain occurring more frequently instead of snow at mid-elevations of western mountains. Spring maximum snowpack is decreasing, snowmelt occurs earlier, and the spring runoff that supplies over two-thirds of western U.S. streamflow is reduced. Evidence for warming is also observed in seasonal changes across many areas, including earlier springs, longer frost-free periods, longer growing seasons, and shifts in natural habitats and in migratory patterns of birds and insects.

My goodness, this statement is three years old. How terribly out of date, right?

And every year we have fewer and fewer days where we break 100 degrees. In fact last year was the first time in 25 years where we never once broke 100 degrees.

Link?

 

[Billy_Bob]

UK science communiqué on climate change | Royal Society

UK science communiqué on climate change
Downloads

• Statement
  
  PDF, 413.0kb

21 July 2015


The Royal Society is one of 24 of the UK’s Professional and Learned Societies that have endorsed this communiqué on climate change. Together the organisations involved represent a diverse range of expertise from across the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, medicine and engineering.

The communiqué states that if we are to have a reasonable chance of limiting global warming in this century to 2°C relative to the pre-industrial period, we must transition to a zero-carbon world by early in the second half of the century. It highlights the risks associated with climate change, as well as the potential responses and opportunities of low-carbon and climate-resilient growth.

The Brits not pulling any punches here. And that is 24 Scientific Societies speaking as one. So let us see what they have to say.

Yeah -- they're speaking as one.. Because probably one guy drafted the statement. Show me the process where the MEMBERSHIP APPROVED or ENDORSED IT.. Or at least show me the conference where the 24 organizations sat down and DEBATED the wording. You got ANY record of the process of how 24 organizations hashed out a "consensus statement" ???

This is all response to political activism and the desire to keep those orgs in good sted with the govt..

Its more than that. Its activist seeing their gravy train being derailed and they are pulling out all the stops to keep it going. Had these "groups" actually done their home work, they would know that they do not have any consensuses or that is the reason they are in a closed loop circle to keep it from being exposed.

 

[Wyatt earp]

GOD BLESS THE NOAA AND NASA!!!! They make me proud.

Propaganda

Back in the dino age C02 on earth was 5 times higher and the earths temperature was oo

Global Climate Change
ACS Position Statement
PDF Version

“Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s climate system is changing in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and absorbing aerosol particles.” (IPCC, 2007) “Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for—and in many cases is already affecting—a broad range of human and natural systems.” (NRC, 2010a) “The potential threats are serious and actions are required to mitigate climate change risks and to adapt to deleterious climate change impacts that probably cannot be avoided.” (NRC, 2010b, c)

This statement reviews key probable climate change impacts and recommends actions required to mitigate or adapt to current and anticipated consequences.

Climate Change Impacts
The Earth’s climate is the product of complex, highly dynamic, and often nonlinear, interactions among physical, chemical, and biological processes occurring at many scales in the atmosphere; at terrestrial, fresh water and marine surfaces; and in the depths of the oceans and landforms. While recent research advances in Earth systems science have greatly strengthened our understanding of prior and current climate properties and processes, our ability to quantitatively predict how the future climate will respond to continued and increasing greenhouse-gas and fine-particle emissions is still limited. Even more limited is our ability to precisely predict how the Earth’s ecological and human systems will respond to climate changes.

However, comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem. This sober conclusion has been recently reconfirmed by an in-depth set of studies focused on “America’s Climate Choices” (ACC) conducted by the U.S. National Academies (NRC, 2010a, b, c, d). The ACC studies, performed by independent and highly respected teams of scientists, engineers, and other skilled professionals, reached the same general conclusions that were published in the latest comprehensive assessment conducted by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007). Recently, some errors in the IPCC (2007) reports have been acknowledged and questions about the transparency of the IPCC process have been raised. An independent review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC), a collaboration of the world’s leading national science academies, found “that the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has served society well,” and that “through its unique partnership between scientists and governments, the IPCC has heightened public awareness of climate change, raised the level of scientific debate, and influenced the science agendas of many nations.” (IAC, 2010) The IAC also recommended managerial and procedural improvements that would strengthen future assessments.

Goodness, looks like this one might be 5 years old, at the most.

God Damn you are paranoid as hell

How much weed you smoke a day?

 

[Old Rocks]

With average high of 80, it's officially Seattle's hottest summer on record

This might be the ultimate statistic to show just how hot a summer it's been in Seattle this year:

In typical summers, Seattle gets a handful of 80 degree days a year (25 to be exact -- OK, so they're big hands).

This summer? It was the average high temperature.

In about as big a surprise as Kanye West doing something zany at the MTV Video Music Awards, Seattle has officially notched its hottest summer on record. (Yes, technically there are still three weeks in summer by our calendar, what with that whole autumnal equinox and all, but "meteorological summer" runs June 1-Aug. 31. Meteorological fall is Sept. 1-Nov. 30; winter is Dec. 1-Feb. 28, spring is March 1-May 31).

And by all measures, it wasn't even close.

It is indeed the first summer ever here that averaged a high temperature over 80 degrees, checking in at 80.2. (The fact that 47 of the 92 days this summer were above 80 might have had something to do with it*.) Second place on the hottest average high temperature? WAY down the chart at 77.6 degrees, set both in 1961 and 1958.

Our average summer high is 73.4.

Pretty warm in Seattle.

 

[westwall]

Climate Change
An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society
(Adopted by AMS Council 20 August 2012)

pdf version

The following is an AMS Information Statement intended to provide a trustworthy, objective, and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large.

Background

This statement provides a brief overview of how and why global climate has changed over the past century and will continue to change in the future. It is based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature and is consistent with the vast weight of current scientific understanding as expressed in assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Although the statement has been drafted in the context of concerns in the United States, the underlying issues are inherently global in nature.

How is climate changing?

Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal, according to many different kinds of evidence. Observations show increases in globally averaged air and ocean temperatures, as well as widespread melting of snow and ice and rising globally averaged sea level. Surface temperature data for Earth as a whole, including readings over both land and ocean, show an increase of about 0.8°C (1.4°F) over the period 1901─2010 and about 0.5°C (0.9°F) over the period 1979–2010 (the era for which satellite-based temperature data are routinely available). Due to natural variability, not every year is warmer than the preceding year globally. Nevertheless, all of the 10 warmest years in the global temperature records up to 2011 have occurred since 1997, with 2005 and 2010 being the warmest two years in more than a century of global records. The warming trend is greatest in northern high latitudes and over land. In the U.S., most of the observed warming has occurred in the West and in Alaska; for the nation as a whole, there have been twice as many record daily high temperatures as record daily low temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century.

The effects of this warming are especially evident in the planet’s polar regions. Arctic sea ice extent and volume have been decreasing for the past several decades. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have lost significant amounts of ice. Most of the world’s glaciers are in retreat.

Other changes, globally and in the U.S., are also occurring at the same time. The amount of rain falling in very heavy precipitation events (the heaviest 1% of all precipitation events) has increased over the last 50 years throughout the U.S. Freezing levels are rising in elevation, with rain occurring more frequently instead of snow at mid-elevations of western mountains. Spring maximum snowpack is decreasing, snowmelt occurs earlier, and the spring runoff that supplies over two-thirds of western U.S. streamflow is reduced. Evidence for warming is also observed in seasonal changes across many areas, including earlier springs, longer frost-free periods, longer growing seasons, and shifts in natural habitats and in migratory patterns of birds and insects.

My goodness, this statement is three years old. How terribly out of date, right?

And every year we have fewer and fewer days where we break 100 degrees. In fact last year was the first time in 25 years where we never once broke 100 degrees.

Link?

National Weather Service