Describing the issue is not very useful unless there is also a conversation about population control.
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My back yard is routinely 5-10 degrees warmer than my front yard.
Ya'll go on ahead. Trust, and panic over, numbers compiled by a for profit corporation that wants to put the National Weather Service out of business.
Like other data compilers such as Zillow, I doubt Accuweather is bound by law to publish factual information. Accuweather is a media company, as is Zillow, who both package data and sell it for a profit.
From Wikipedia:
"On October 12, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated AccuWeather CEO Barry Lee Myers to head the National Weather Service's parent administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."
On April 14, 2005, U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) introduced the "National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005" in the U.S. Senate. The legislation would have forbidden the National Weather Service from providing any such information directly to the public, and the legislation was generally interpreted as an attempt by AccuWeather to profit off of taxpayer-funded weather research by forcing its delivery through private channels."
interesting --- but some issues
1) What is the average? For Bridgeport, CT the avg is 54.7 and it says it is 2.1 F above normal. By normal I assume the are using the avg for 1980-2010 but does that mean normal is 54.7 or 52.6?
2) How many weather stations were used and where located? I see quite a bit of variation in both the normal and the deviation for towns that are very closely located (such as in Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth & Arlington). Dallas' avg temp is 70.1 and FW is 69.6 -- but FW is 3.8 F above avg and Dallas is 2.8 -- they are only 30 miles apart, same geography, and yet a degree difference. And worse, if the avg given is the avg for this year then that means Dallas and FW have a different 30 year temp avg of 1.5 F? Either way the difference between the 2 is hard to understand.
3) Are the record highs and lows shown for the 30 years (1980-2010) or for all time? If for 30 years, each year should set multiple record hi's and low's.
4) Note that for many US cities the higher temp this year is driven by warmer temps in winter and fall, but most of the summer months are within the normal range. Looking at Dallas, Jan-Mar look warmer, April - Sept normal -- oct - dec more variable, not sure if avg is different though.
5) What is the normal variation from year to year?
6) Why do some cities have the record highs and lows, others not. And where is Denver.
7) How does this sync with NOAA data base? It's shut down now.
You say my city temp was normal but believe me it was not. It was humid and hot all summer long and we had NO FALL at all. It stayed hot right up to winter.
We have had one (yes one) rain storm this season and spring is right around the corner which means instant summer for us. We always skip spring anymore. Basically we have two seasons, summer which lasts nine months and winter.
I spent last April to June in Paris. In mid-June, the temperature went up to the high 90s F. At this time, I developed a medical problem that left me unable to walk for two weeks, meaning I couldn't get out of bed. I was staying on the seventh floor of a building without air conditioning and with a broken elevator.
I can't describe how hellish an experience that was. I survived by having my son (who I was living with) frequently soak bedsheets in the bathtub and drape them over my body. When one sheet dried up, he brought another wet one. Much as I was distressed at leaving Paris at the end of June, I was happy to return to my air conditioned apartment in the suburbs of Boston.
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When I compare larger Canadian urban centres to smaller ones, like Victoria to Toronto, I notice that regardless of seasonal differences in temperatures, the actual differences in average rate of change is much higher in the larger cities. That alone shows that humans & their daily business is a factor in climate change. Smog, temperature inversion, traffic, heavy real estate development - all contribute to the devastating increase in climate change. Until urban centres step up to reduce their impacts & companies decide to do business outside huge urban collectives of humans ( ie make smaller centres more attractive to live, work, diversify), we are stuck with concentrated pollution sites in cities & poor resource allocation in more rural areas.
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@possibilities,
Large urban centers contribute much *less* to climate change than small cities-- you've go it backwards.
Think about all the airplane flights taking off and landing, and all the trucks carrying food and other goods in and out, when you have lots of small cities. And people in NYC, for example, own far fewer cars, and take the subway or walk to get around. There are lots of efficiencies like that available to reduce CO2 emissions if you concentrate the population rather than spread it out.
Of course, large cities could take some actions to help with climate change, like banning gas vehicles. Those are the changes to promote, not having more rural people to drive pickup trucks around.
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I would rather see an analysis of how many days above average .vs. below average we had for the year. It's difficult to believe things are hotter in New York when it's 3 degrees outside. If for every day -20 from average we had a day +20 from average, then we're, well, average, and a 1.4 degree change doesn't really make the point. For other cities, like LA the graph makes the point more clearly.
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This is useless. The capital city I just checked had precipitation 2400% of normal. And it was 2.4 degrees higher than normal. Are you suggesting that global warming caused this?
Find some other data to use with your new graphing widgets.
Increased precipitation is a natural corollary of climate warming... as are droughts in prolonged periods of above average heat, increasing numbers of hurricanes & high winds, floods & fires. If you follow climate change - i.e. the effects of global warming - you will see that global warming temperatures overall are causing Arctic melting, higher seas, harder winds, droughts, floods & fires & are all part of the disasters which are now & will haunt humanity in the near & distant future.
Warmer weather here on the north west coast causes equally heavier precipitation as the jet streams swirl ever more dangerously our way.
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What happened to the listing for Portland Oregon? You listed it for the last 2 years - and now its graph is gone. It is the 26th most populous city in USA.
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Excellent graphic. Keep it up.
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Although, globally, it was the second warmest year on record, in New York it was the 14th warmest - but sill warmer than 135 other years. http://thestarryeye.typepad.com/weather/2018/01/second-warmest-year-glob...
Temperature change does not seem to be a hugely motivating factor for many to change their behavior. Many simply shrug off the temperature change data; especially in January. We should all think more broadly about other scientific trends that indicate that change is necessary for our survival. For example, the sharp decrease in oxygen levels especially in large urban areas.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/carbonemissions.cl...
Quote from article above:
"In the view of Professor Ervin Laszlo, the drop in atmospheric oxygen has potentially serious consequences. A UN advisor who has been a professor of philosophy and systems sciences, Laszlo writes:
Evidence from prehistoric times indicates that the oxygen content of pristine nature was above the 21% of total volume that it is today. It has decreased in recent times due mainly to the burning of coal in the middle of the last century. Currently the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere dips to 19% over impacted areas, and it is down to 12 to 17% over the major cities. At these levels it is difficult for people to get sufficient oxygen to maintain bodily health: it takes a proper intake of oxygen to keep body cells and organs, and the entire immune system, functioning at full efficiency. At the levels we have reached today cancers and other degenerative diseases are likely to develop. And at 6 to 7% life can no longer be sustained."
The bottom of the chart says that "normal" is defined as the average temperature for each day from 1981 to 2010. This seems to me like an appropriate range to use, but given that the results depend so much on what range is chosen for the baseline, I would appreciate a little bit of discussion on why you chose that range. For example, why didn't you include 2011 or 2012? why not the 70s?
"on record" - the two most important words in the article.
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Of course the roughly 130 years of relatively accurate climate data do not reflect the wide range of surface temperatures over the history of the earth. In the 'geologic' past, the earth has been both much warmer and much cooloer. Nonetheless, the warming trend over the last several decades should give us pause for at least three reasons: (1) It is occurring quite rapidly. Evidence suggests that previous comparable periods of warming and cooling occurred over millenia time scales, not centuries, let alone decades, (2) current warming is largely a direct response to our own uncoordinated actions; we are, effectively, performing a vast uncontrolled experiment on the atmosphere upon which we, and all life that we know of, depend, and (3) in previous periods of much warmer or much cooler climate, the human population of the earth was either miniscule or altogether absent. Human culture, in particular agriculture, is adapted to a fairly narrow range of climatic conditions and if we push the climate too far from those it might be incapable of robust adaptation.
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I keep waiting for the Times to have more articles about the link between industrialized meat production and climate change. Instead, I keep seeing meat based recipes in the food section, basically encouraging more meat consumption.
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I'm waiting for ALL the people complaining about climate change to reduce their own carbon footprint. That would appease both the supporters and the deniers.
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You have an entry for St. Louis, Illinois, and none for St. Louis, MO. East St. Louis is in Illinois; St. Louis is in Missouri.
In 2017, Chicago's average should have been 52.6°, but the temps were 2.6° above normal (according to this interactive site/article). Somehow, it sure as heck felt A LOT warmer than a mere 2.6° increase.
Today, January 22, the temps are expected to reach 52. After coming off the heels of three weeks of single digit temps, I'll take this milder weather. It's a nice break in the action.
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It looks as if temperatures here are in Celsius, but it is nowhere stated. If you're going to do this, you should at least indicate the temperature scale, especially for cities where Fahrenheit is usually used. Even better would be automatically presenting the data in the local scale, or allowing the viewer to choose.
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Actually pmbrig, you can choose between °F of °C, just click on whichever tab you prefer. Chicago's temp was listed as 52.6° (°F).
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There is a button to view the scale in either Fahrenheit or Celsius. You've to click it.
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