Thursday, March 22, 2012

February Climate


Given the exceptionally warm and early spring we are having here in the eastern US, following a very mild winter, I was curious to know whether it was globally very warm. I checked the NOAA State of the Climate report for February and the map above tells the story: it's remarkably warm across much of the US and the North Atlantic into the UK, and also in northern Siberia, but it's exceptionally cold in much of continental Europe and Asia.  Overall, it's not a particularly warm February by the standards of the last couple of decades:


So this spring is more an unusual distribution of warmth and cold, rather than a global warmth anomaly.  (Although worth noting that it would be a record-breaking warm February globally had it occurred any time between 1880-1970).
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5 comments:

  1. Stephen SmithMarch 23, 2012 at 6:30 AM

    When you look at your last temperature chart, how anyone could claim there isn't global warming is beyond me. You really need to be able to toss logic out the window.

    By the same token, the people who think they can fix this are being equally illogical. We have gone from 1.5 billion people to 7 billion people. There is no way we can cap and trade our way out of this and we don't have enough energy reserves to actively remove carbon from the air.

    We may as well start breeding plants that can tolerate high temperatures and fish that can survive in a more acidic environment.

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  2. UnknownMarch 23, 2012 at 7:11 AM

    Hi Stuart. The satellite temperature record shows a value around -0.1 C for the February anomaly. The trend for the last decade remains completely flat.

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  3. Alexander AcMarch 23, 2012 at 7:31 AM

    March is hot as hell in the US (and parts of Canada) right now, while here in Slovakia we are on the verge of the driest march on record! I.e. driest in at least 142 years...

    reasons for absent spring is abnormal jet-stream, and this abnormal conditions are fueled by less arctic snow and little snow in northern US (thus better condition for rapid warming of the air)

    Check out Jeff Maters blog, e.g. here:

    Alex

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  4. Alexander AcMarch 23, 2012 at 7:40 AM

    Luís,

    how about temperature trend since 1980?

    Still flat?

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  5. AaronMarch 26, 2012 at 5:21 PM

    Here in Australia, the talk back radio hosts simply point to the fact that Europe had a cold winter and totally ignore North America.

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