Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across US

[Dave]

>>I wish I could post the graphic that shows the data.
>>And yes, that graphic shows a slight fall in temperatures from the 50's leve in the 60's and 70's, but the 80's, 90's and 2000's were all higher, significantly higher.
>>

Science Daily
Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across US
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1112121611.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2009) — Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.

"Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States," says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting."

The study, by authors at NCAR, Climate Central, The Weather Channel, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, the Department of Energy, and Climate Central.

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

A record daily high means that temperatures were warmer on a given day than on that same date throughout a weather station's history. The authors used a quality control process to ensure the reliability of data from thousands of weather stations across the country, while looking at data over the past six decades to capture longer-term trends.

This decade's warming was more pronounced in the western United States, where the ratio was more than two to one, than in the eastern United States, where the ratio was about one-and-a-half to one.

The study also found that the two-to-one ratio across the country as a whole could be attributed more to a comparatively small number of record lows than to a large number of record highs. This indicates that much of the nation's warming is occurring at night, when temperatures are dipping less often to record lows. This finding is consistent with years of climate model research showing that higher overnight lows should be expected with climate change.

More records ahead

In addition to surveying actual temperatures in recent decades, Meehl and his co-authors turned to a sophisticated computer model of global climate to determine how record high and low temperatures are likely to change during the course of this century.

The modeling results indicate that if nations continue to increase their emissions of greenhouse gases in a "business as usual" scenario, the U.S. ratio of daily record high to record low temperatures would increase to about 20-to-1 by mid-century and 50-to-1 by 2100. The mid-century ratio could be much higher if emissions rose at an even greater pace, or it could be about 8-to-1 if emissions were reduced significantly, the model showed.

The authors caution that such predictions are, by their nature, inexact. Climate models are not designed to capture record daily highs and lows with precision, and it remains impossible to know future human actions that will determine the level of future greenhouse gas emissions. The model used for the study, the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model, correctly captured the trend toward warmer average temperatures and the greater warming in the West, but overstated the ratio of record highs to record lows in recent years.

However, the model results are important because they show that, in all likely scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions, record daily highs should increasingly outpace record lows over time.

"If the climate weren't changing, you would expect the number of temperature records to diminish significantly over time," says Claudia Tebaldi, a statistician with Climate Central who is one of the paper's co-authors. "As you measure the high and low daily temperatures each year, it normally becomes more difficult to break a record after a number of years. But as the average temperatures continue to rise this century, we will keep setting more record highs."

An expanding ratio

The study team focused on weather stations that have been operating since 1950. They found that the ratio of record daily high to record daily low temperatures slightly exceeded one to one in the 1950s, dipped below that level in the 1960s and 1970s, and has risen since the 1980s. The results reflect changes in U.S. average temperatures, which rose in the 1950s, stabilized in the 1960s, and then began a warming trend in the late 1970s.

Even in the first nine months of this year, when the United States cooled somewhat after a string of unusually warm years, the ratio of record daily high to record daily low temperatures was more than three to two.

Despite the increasing number of record highs, there will still be occasional periods of record cold, Meehl notes.

"One of the messages of this study is that you still get cold days," Meehl says. "Winter still comes. Even in a much warmer climate, we're setting record low minimum temperatures on a few days each year. But the odds are shifting so there's a much better chance of daily record highs instead of lows."

Millions of readings from weather stations across the country

The study team analyzed several million daily high and low temperature readings taken over the span of six decades at about 1,800 weather stations across the country, thereby ensuring ample data for statistically significant results. The readings, collected at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center, undergo a quality control process at the data center that looks for such potential problems as missing data as well as inconsistent readings caused by changes in thermometers, station locations, or other factors.

Meehl and his colleagues then used temperature simulations from the Community Climate System Model to compute daily record highs and lows under current and future atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

[Paolo]

When you have the image on your screen, right click it and hit "copy image location" or something similar. Then post that www information. You will have a link to the picture, not the image in here.

[moi621]

>>I wish I could post the graphic that shows the data.
>>And yes, that graphic shows a slight fall in temperatures from the 50's leve in the 60's and 70's, but the 80's, 90's and 2000's were all higher, significantly higher.
>>

Science Daily
Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across US
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1112121611.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2009) — Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.

"Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States," says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting."

The study, by authors at NCAR, Climate Central, The Weather Channel, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, the Department of Energy, and Climate Central.

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

A record daily high means that temperatures were warmer on a given day than on that same date throughout a weather station's history. The authors used a quality control process to ensure the reliability of data from thousands of weather stations across the country, while looking at data over the past six decades to capture longer-term trends.

This decade's warming was more pronounced in the western United States, where the ratio was more than two to one, than in the eastern United States, where the ratio was about one-and-a-half to one.

The study also found that the two-to-one ratio across the country as a whole could be attributed more to a comparatively small number of record lows than to a large number of record highs. This indicates that much of the nation's warming is occurring at night, when temperatures are dipping less often to record lows. This finding is consistent with years of climate model research showing that higher overnight lows should be expected with climate change.

More records ahead

In addition to surveying actual temperatures in recent decades, Meehl and his co-authors turned to a sophisticated computer model of global climate to determine how record high and low temperatures are likely to change during the course of this century.

The modeling results indicate that if nations continue to increase their emissions of greenhouse gases in a "business as usual" scenario, the U.S. ratio of daily record high to record low temperatures would increase to about 20-to-1 by mid-century and 50-to-1 by 2100. The mid-century ratio could be much higher if emissions rose at an even greater pace, or it could be about 8-to-1 if emissions were reduced significantly, the model showed.

The authors caution that such predictions are, by their nature, inexact. Climate models are not designed to capture record daily highs and lows with precision, and it remains impossible to know future human actions that will determine the level of future greenhouse gas emissions. The model used for the study, the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model, correctly captured the trend toward warmer average temperatures and the greater warming in the West, but overstated the ratio of record highs to record lows in recent years.

However, the model results are important because they show that, in all likely scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions, record daily highs should increasingly outpace record lows over time.

"If the climate weren't changing, you would expect the number of temperature records to diminish significantly over time," says Claudia Tebaldi, a statistician with Climate Central who is one of the paper's co-authors. "As you measure the high and low daily temperatures each year, it normally becomes more difficult to break a record after a number of years. But as the average temperatures continue to rise this century, we will keep setting more record highs."

An expanding ratio

The study team focused on weather stations that have been operating since 1950. They found that the ratio of record daily high to record daily low temperatures slightly exceeded one to one in the 1950s, dipped below that level in the 1960s and 1970s, and has risen since the 1980s. The results reflect changes in U.S. average temperatures, which rose in the 1950s, stabilized in the 1960s, and then began a warming trend in the late 1970s.

Even in the first nine months of this year, when the United States cooled somewhat after a string of unusually warm years, the ratio of record daily high to record daily low temperatures was more than three to two.

Despite the increasing number of record highs, there will still be occasional periods of record cold, Meehl notes.

"One of the messages of this study is that you still get cold days," Meehl says. "Winter still comes. Even in a much warmer climate, we're setting record low minimum temperatures on a few days each year. But the odds are shifting so there's a much better chance of daily record highs instead of lows."

Millions of readings from weather stations across the country

The study team analyzed several million daily high and low temperature readings taken over the span of six decades at about 1,800 weather stations across the country, thereby ensuring ample data for statistically significant results. The readings, collected at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center, undergo a quality control process at the data center that looks for such potential problems as missing data as well as inconsistent readings caused by changes in thermometers, station locations, or other factors.

Meehl and his colleagues then used temperature simulations from the Community Climate System Model to compute daily record highs and lows under current and future atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Quote as you will, the fact is another rain storm opportunity
bypassed Southern Califo-nia.
I want my El Nino as promised.
Those are flash flood winters for Southern California.
Mid November and still waiting.
Can't we just shoot scientist when they get it wrong?
That would leave a pool of scientist who get it right.
Much better for science and perfectly, Darwinian.
Meanwhile, quote the articles that said their was an El Nino conditon and Southern California was going to get drenched. I'm still waiting.
If you have extra rain, please send it, but by all means keep your
extra - scientist.

Moi

The truth is spread out before you like the pieces of a puzzle,
assemble them into whichever truth you like.
Garek, DS9

[Riverwind]

I do not doubt the work done on global warming, the earth is getting warmer, its the cause that bothers me. I am sure man has helped this along, that's just what man does. The thing that I just don't buy is that the earth is on a much different time clock then we are and this is not the first or second time this has happened, and man was not even around the last time. When you look at geological time the earth has gone through times of warming and then ice age over and over, so all the facts aside, my questions are still the same, and these scientist have not answered these questions. Is this normal for the earth? What can cause this? When is the last time its happened? What was the cause then? and the big one, IS IT TIME TO HAPPEN AGAIN?

Now before you get your blood perssure up, keep in mind that in geological time Yellow Stone has exploded on average every 640,000 years, its been over that sense the last time. Its not an exact science.

Should we as a race be more careful? yes, should we try to reduce our carbon foot print? yes, but I have still not seen anything that has convinced me that MAN is the only reason for global warming.

River

[moi621]

I do not doubt the work done on global warming, the earth is getting warmer, its the cause that bothers me. I am sure man has helped this along, that's just what man does. The thing that I just don't buy is that the earth is on a much different time clock then we are and this is not the first or second time this has happened, and man was not even around the last time. When you look at geological time the earth has gone through times of warming and then ice age over and over, so all the facts aside, my questions are still the same, and these scientist have not answered these questions. Is this normal for the earth? What can cause this? When is the last time its happened? What was the cause then? and the big one, IS IT TIME TO HAPPEN AGAIN?

Now before you get your blood perssure up, keep in mind that in geological time Yellow Stone has exploded on average every 640,000 years, its been over that sense the last time. Its not an exact science.

Should we as a race be more careful? yes, should we try to reduce our carbon foot print? yes, but I have still not seen anything that has convinced me that MAN is the only reason for global warming.

River

River,
Who or what do you suppose influenced the climate change as to drive early American Indians to move at the same time the Vikings grazed sheep and cattle in Greenland, etc. spare me & you the repeat.
Are we there yet? That is not so long ago. 1,000 years ago.

If I were to imagine mankind affecting global weather I would imagine it as occurring with the deforestation as it occurred in the bronze age. Northern Africa, Middle East and the Fertile Crescent, made into deserts.

True: I saw it on History Channel
At this time the magnetosphere is apparently failing in some regions of the globe. That translates to more cosmic rays from the sun, making it through one defense - the failing magnetosphere, and on the last line of defense, the Ozone. Each Ozone molecule, like a soldier taking a hit will disappear from the last defense until there is insufficient barriers between the sun and Earth's surface for a compatible environment to our life kind.

Now I ask,
Why is the magnetosphere failing?
The inner core is slowing relative to the mantle. Right?
Why?
Too much wasted energy on continental drift.
If we do not deal with the problem of continental drift now,
the inner core rotation relative to the mantle will slow as to
create a failure of the magnetosphere that allows more cosmic rays
to destroy blocking ozone molecules until spent,
the surface of the Earth becomes hostile to complex organic molecules.
Your global warming is only a symptom of it all.
Moi

[sag111]

I love the heat bring it on and to help it along I will burn some tires in my back yard tonight

[Riverwind]

Moi, I think you missed what I said,

Its a bad thing to cause pollution like burning tires in your back yard, that's a bad thing.

Man need to stop doing bad things to the environment, our survival depends on it, the earth will still be here we wont.

My question and it still is this,

Is man the only cause for this global warming?

That has yet to be answered.

And no God did not do it, the devil did not do it, its not about religion, its about common sense based on good science.

So far I have not seen any good science, god is a concept yet to be proved, the devil is a fantasy another man made invention, and the earths core is still a big ball if fire. The moon still revolves around the earth and the earth still revolves around the sun.

Don't show me a model of what you think, show me some facts.

River

[Arab Nights]

One can find graphs of temperatures going back hundreds of million of years. The one constant is change. It is a very partial picture to say that since ____ something has happened and then to blame it on pollution.

Pollution is another issue completely. I live in the SW because I love sunny days and the sky is not all that often clear blue as I kind of remember. Almost always it is milky blue and not THAT clear. I have had the fortune to work on the NE corner of South America where the prevailing air movement is from across that Atlantic. Go there to see blue sky. Not here.

I would support some acceptable economic tradeoff to minimize some pollution. One problem with global warming to me is it opens all kinds of side arguments that never get resolved.

[sag111]

Send me your old tires we need to warm this place up

[Dave]

One thing I do not understand, when confronted with the absolute evidence that the earth is warming, why do deniers then refuse to do anything?

It's like they deny that a choo choo train is on the tracks bearing down on them at a crossing. When confronted with the engine bearing down on them, they say that they are still correct in doing nothing. What kind of logic is that other than obstructionism.

There are consequences to rising temperatures and rising sea levels -- property destruction, finacial ruin, crop failures, droughts, floods and all sorts of bad things.

Do you guys really want to play ostrich and hide your head in the sands while your asses stick up in the air?

[sag111]

Hay Dave dont say I dont do anything because I am you just dont agree thats your problem.You see as you are waving your arms around telling everyone the sky is falling and we are all going to die I in turn burn tires to keep things warmed up the way I like it,So send me your tires and we will make some smoke.

[Dave]

Hay Dave dont say I dont do anything because I am you just dont agree thats your problem.You see as you are waving your arms around telling everyone the sky is falling and we are all going to die I in turn burn tires to keep things warmed up the way I like it,So send me your tires and we will make some smoke.

Why would I burn a tire to make things worse?
That's not only illogical (to quote mister Spock) It's stupid.

[Riverwind]

Dave, I never disagreed with you that we are in a global warming condition. never.

What we disagree on is that it is TOTALLY CAUSED BY MAN.

River

[moi621]

River
What is happening now happened a thousand years ago too.
Why not assume it is not man made currently and prove that it is?

The magnetosphere essay above is not totally without merit.
Bigger things then, humankind, is influencing our climate.

For the record.
I hate pollution.
I am asthmatic and my need for a rescue inhaler corresponds to air quality.
On the Southern Califo-nia coast use to be the best air.
Now a few miles inland is better as there is no "acid fog".
Pollution needs to be addressed economically and via fair trade.
End - for the record.

[Dave]

Dave, I never disagreed with you that we are in a global warming condition. never.

What we disagree on is that it is TOTALLY CAUSED BY MAN.

River

But man can mitigate and adapt to global warming and thus minimize the death and destruction that it will cause. That's why I wonder why the deniers argue that nothing should be done. It is not sensible to see disaster approaching and not prepare for it.

Yes it might have happened on a different scale 1000 years ago but look what happened to that time -- it's called the dark ages and it spawned the black death and plagues for a century or two. That's not an exaggeration.