Winter warmth
Feb 16th, 2007 at 10:02 am by Dr. S
It may not seem like it this week, but the planet is still getting warmer.
It may be cold comfort during a frigid February, but last month was by far the hottest January ever.
The broken record was fueled by a waning El Nino and a gradually warming world, according to U.S. scientists who reported the data Thursday. Records on the planet’s temperature have been kept since 1880.
Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world’s land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That didn’t just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees, which meteorologists said is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time.
“That’s pretty unusual for a record to be broken by that much,” said the data center’s scientific services chief, David Easterling. “I was very surprised.”
The scientists went beyond their normal doublechecking and took the unusual step of running computer climate models “just to make sure that what we’re seeing was real,” Easterling said.
It was.
For A real look at how Global Warming is progressing, one should track the summer weather patterns (it’s summer there), and weather-related phenomenon in Australia, Tanzania, New Zealand, Patagonia, and South Africa.
Australia has suffered extreme drought through most of this summer, destroying tons of crops. Bushfires have been a major problem, destroying thousands of acres of produce and property. The Indian Ocean has spawned a major tropical storm nearly every week. Droughts and heat-related diseases in Southeast and South Africa have been a major problem… on an on.
Don’t take my word for it…
See it in real-time: http://visz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert.php?lang=eng
also…
From Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia
“As at November 2006, the late-winter to mid-spring rainfalls had failed. The average rainfall in the state of South Australia was the lowest since 1900. Across Victoria and the Murray-Darling Basin the season was the second driest since 1900. New South Wales rainfall was boosted by above normal falls along the north coast of the state, however the state average rainfall for the season is the third driest since 1900. The situation has been exacerbated by temperatures being the highest on record since the 1950s.”
It would seem to me, that Al Gore’s “Rising Zig-Zag Line” of Global Warming is right on the money.
The Wingnuts only look outside of America’s borders when there is a war to be had. They are only concerned with what DIRECTLY effects our country palpably. I’ve a feeling that this is going to be another “Wake Up” year. El Nino is only just getting underway.
–mf
Australia has suffered . . . Bushfires have been a major problem, destroying
thousands of acres of produce and property.
Why is Dubya burning their crops and property?
I thought they were our allies.