2007 a year of weather records in U.S. (AP)

2007 a year of weather records in U.S.

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Sat Dec 29, 12:15 PM ET

WASHINGTON - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and

the weather just got weirder. January was the warmest first month on

record worldwide -- 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time

since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average

temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.

And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest

year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature

records, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. weather

data. England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping

there, shattering the record set in 1865 by more than 1.1 degrees

Fahrenheit.

It wasn't just the temperature. There were other oddball weather

events. A tornado struck New York City in August, inspiring the

tabloid headline: "This ain't Kansas!"

In the Middle East, an equally rare cyclone spun up in June, hitting

Oman and Iran. Major U.S. lakes shrank; Atlanta had to worry about its

drinking water supply. South Africa got its first significant snowfall

in 25 years. And on Reunion Island, 400 miles east of Africa, nearly

155 inches of rain fell in three days -- a world record for the most

rain in 72 hours.

Individual weather extremes can't be attributed to global warming,

scientists always say. However, "it's the run of them and the

different locations" that have the mark of man-made climate change,

said top European climate expert Phil Jones, director of the climate

research unit at the University of East Anglia in England.

Worst of all -- at least according to climate scientists -- the Arctic,

which serves as the world's refrigerator, dramatically warmed in 2007,

shattering records for the amount of melting ice.

2007 seemed to be the year that climate change shook the thermometers,

and those who warned that it was beginning to happen were suddenly

honored. Former Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient

Truth" won an Oscar and he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group of

thousands of scientists. The climate panel, organized by the United

Nations, released four major reports in 2007 saying man-made global

warming was incontrovertible and an urgent threat to millions of

lives.

Through the first 10 months, it was the hottest year recorded on land

and the third hottest when ocean temperatures are included.

Smashing records was common, especially in August. At U.S. weather

stations, more than 8,000 new heat records were set or tied for

specific August dates.

More remarkably that same month, more than 100 all-time temperature

records were tied or broken -- regardless of the date -- either for the

highest reading or the warmest low temperature at night. By comparison

only 14 all-time low temperatures were set or tied all year long, as

of early December, according to records kept by the National Climatic

Data Center.

For example, on Aug. 10, the town of Portland, Tenn., reached 102

degrees, tying a record for the hottest it ever had been. On Aug. 16,

it hit 103 and Portland had a new all-time record. But that record was

broken again the next day when the mercury reached 105.

Daily triple-digit temperatures took a toll on everybody, public

safety director George West recalled. The state had 15 heat-related

deaths in August.

Portland was far from alone. In Idaho, Chilly Barton Flat wasn't

living up to its name. The weather station in central Idaho tied an

all-time high of 100 on July 26, Aug. 7, 14 and 19. During 2007,

weather stations in 35 states, from Washington to Florida, set or tied

all-time heat records in 2007.

Across Europe this past summer, extreme heat waves killed dozens of

people.

And it wasn't just the heat. It was the rain. There was either too

little or too much.

More than 60 percent of the United States was either abnormally dry or

suffering from drought at one point in August. In November, Atlanta's

main water source, Lake Lanier, shrank to an all-time low.

.. Lake Okeechobee, crucial to south Florida, hit its lowest level in

recorded history in May, exposing muck and debris not seen for

decades. Lake Superior, the biggest and deepest of the Great Lakes,

dropped to its lowest August and September levels in history.

Los Angeles hit its driest year on record. Lakes fed by the Colorado

River and which help supply water for more than 20 million Westerners,

were only half full.

Australia, already a dry continent, suffered its worst drought in a

century, making global warming an election issue. On the other

extreme, record rains fell in China, England and Wales.

Minnesota got the worst of everything: a devastating June and July

drought followed by record August rainfall. In one March day, Southern

California got torrential downpours, hail, snow and fierce winds. Then

in the fall came devastating fires driven by Santa Ana winds.

And yet none of those events worried scientists as much as what was

going on in the Arctic in the summer. Sea ice melted not just to

record levels, but far beyond the previous melt record. The Northwest

Passage was the most navigable it had been in modern times. Russia

planted a flag on the seabed under the North Pole, claiming

sovereignty.

The ice sheets that cover a portion of Greenland retreated to an all-

time low and permafrost in Alaska warmed to record levels.

Meteorologists have chronicled strange weather years for more than a

decade, but nothing like 2007. It was such an extreme weather year

that the World Meteorological Organization put out a news release

chronicling all the records and unusual developments. That was in

August with more than 145 sizzling days to go.

Get used to it, scientists said. As man-made climate change continues,

the world will experience more extreme weather, bursts of heat,

torrential rain and prolonged drought, they said.

"We're having an increasing trend of odd years," said Michael

MacCracken, a former top federal climate scientist, now chief

scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington. "Pretty soon odd

years are going to become the norm."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071229/ap_on_sc/ye_climate_records

___

On the Net:

U.S. National Climatic Data Center's searchable records web site:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/records/

U.S. National Climatic Data Center on August heat wave:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/aug/aug-heat-event.php.

rec ords

World Meteorological Organization on 2007 weather extremes:

http://www.wmo.ch/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_791_e.html

The record for shrinking sea ice: http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20071001_pressrelease.html

=============

DON'T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION:

http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/involved.html

http://www.greenhousenet.org/

http://www.solarcatalyst.com/

http://www.campaignearth.org/buy_green_nativeenergy.asp

Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org

=============

= = = =

STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA

IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?

= = = =

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More news: UseNet's misc.activism.progressive (moderated)

= = = =

Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email

For more information: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace)

And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general)

Email Note: "info" and "map" etc DON'T work. Now:

econdemocracy(at)gmail

What a shocker !!! The weather changes ? Who knew ? Should I

take the umbrella with me when I go out tomorrow?

On Dec 30 2007, 9:43 pm, spammer <sereb...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> What a shocker !!! The weather changes ? Who knew ? Should I

> take the umbrella with me when I go out tomorrow?

It's tempting to respose to such sarcasm with an "in kind" reply like,

"you didn't do

too well on the Reading Comprehension part of English?" but the truth

of the matter is,

folks like Spammer, you Do Protest Too Much....it's clear they know

the science

says it's real and dangerous and man-make, this climate

destabilization, but

this threatens their worldview, and they are certainly not helped to

find options

on "what can I do" by the mainstream media (not beyond trite things

about recycle and put in CFLs..) so they weild the only defensive

shields they have: denial,

over-acted sarcastic comments like "the wheather changes? who

knew?" (as

usual they fail to understand, or pretend they don't understand, the

difference

between "weather" and "climate"...), change-the-subject, apathy, one-

liners, etc...hopefully

they get over their need to "win the war of words", admit the war of

Facts is won

by the science that says it's real, and that neither they nor the

environmentally

concerned citizens "lose", only our children lose, if we ignore this

thing,

and we all win if we act...hence the "don't mourn, act" section at the

bottom

of posts like the one below.

2007 a year of weather records in U.S.

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Sat Dec 29, 12:15 PM ET

WASHINGTON - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and

the weather just got weirder. January was the warmest first month on

record worldwide -- 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time

since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average

temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.

And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest

year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature

records, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. weather

data. England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping

there, shattering the record set in 1865 by more than 1.1 degrees

Fahrenheit.

It wasn't just the temperature. There were other oddball weather

events. A tornado struck New York City in August, inspiring the

tabloid headline: "This ain't Kansas!"

In the Middle East, an equally rare cyclone spun up in June, hitting

Oman and Iran. Major U.S. lakes shrank; Atlanta had to worry about its

drinking water supply. South Africa got its first significant snowfall

in 25 years. And on Reunion Island, 400 miles east of Africa, nearly

155 inches of rain fell in three days -- a world record for the most

rain in 72 hours.

Individual weather extremes can't be attributed to global warming,

scientists always say. However, "it's the run of them and the

different locations" that have the mark of man-made climate change,

said top European climate expert Phil Jones, director of the climate

research unit at the University of East Anglia in England.

Worst of all -- at least according to climate scientists -- the

Arctic,

which serves as the world's refrigerator, dramatically warmed in 2007,

shattering records for the amount of melting ice.

2007 seemed to be the year that climate change shook the thermometers,

and those who warned that it was beginning to happen were suddenly

honored. Former Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient

Truth" won an Oscar and he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group of

thousands of scientists. The climate panel, organized by the United

Nations, released four major reports in 2007 saying man-made global

warming was incontrovertible and an urgent threat to millions of

lives.

Through the first 10 months, it was the hottest year recorded on land

and the third hottest when ocean temperatures are included.

Smashing records was common, especially in August. At U.S. weather

stations, more than 8,000 new heat records were set or tied for

specific August dates.

More remarkably that same month, more than 100 all-time temperature

records were tied or broken -- regardless of the date -- either for

the

highest reading or the warmest low temperature at night. By comparison

only 14 all-time low temperatures were set or tied all year long, as

of early December, according to records kept by the National Climatic

Data Center.

For example, on Aug. 10, the town of Portland, Tenn., reached 102

degrees, tying a record for the hottest it ever had been. On Aug. 16,

it hit 103 and Portland had a new all-time record. But that record was

broken again the next day when the mercury reached 105.

Daily triple-digit temperatures took a toll on everybody, public

safety director George West recalled. The state had 15 heat-related

deaths in August.

Portland was far from alone. In Idaho, Chilly Barton Flat wasn't

living up to its name. The weather station in central Idaho tied an

all-time high of 100 on July 26, Aug. 7, 14 and 19. During 2007,

weather stations in 35 states, from Washington to Florida, set or tied

all-time heat records in 2007.

Across Europe this past summer, extreme heat waves killed dozens of

people.

And it wasn't just the heat. It was the rain. There was either too

little or too much.

More than 60 percent of the United States was either abnormally dry or

suffering from drought at one point in August. In November, Atlanta's

main water source, Lake Lanier, shrank to an all-time low.

.. Lake Okeechobee, crucial to south Florida, hit its lowest level in

recorded history in May, exposing muck and debris not seen for

decades. Lake Superior, the biggest and deepest of the Great Lakes,

dropped to its lowest August and September levels in history.

Los Angeles hit its driest year on record. Lakes fed by the Colorado

River and which help supply water for more than 20 million Westerners,

were only half full.

Australia, already a dry continent, suffered its worst drought in a

century, making global warming an election issue. On the other

extreme, record rains fell in China, England and Wales.

Minnesota got the worst of everything: a devastating June and July

drought followed by record August rainfall. In one March day, Southern

California got torrential downpours, hail, snow and fierce winds. Then

in the fall came devastating fires driven by Santa Ana winds.

And yet none of those events worried scientists as much as what was

going on in the Arctic in the summer. Sea ice melted not just to

record levels, but far beyond the previous melt record. The Northwest

Passage was the most navigable it had been in modern times. Russia

planted a flag on the seabed under the North Pole, claiming

sovereignty.

The ice sheets that cover a portion of Greenland retreated to an all-

time low and permafrost in Alaska warmed to record levels.

Meteorologists have chronicled strange weather years for more than a

decade, but nothing like 2007. It was such an extreme weather year

that the World Meteorological Organization put out a news release

chronicling all the records and unusual developments. That was in

August with more than 145 sizzling days to go.

Get used to it, scientists said. As man-made climate change continues,

the world will experience more extreme weather, bursts of heat,

torrential rain and prolonged drought, they said.

"We're having an increasing trend of odd years," said Michael

MacCracken, a former top federal climate scientist, now chief

scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington. "Pretty soon odd

years are going to become the norm."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071229/ap_on_sc/ye_climate_records

___

On the Net:

U.S. National Climatic Data Center's searchable records web site:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/records/

U.S. National Climatic Data Center on August heat wave:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/aug/aug-heat-event.php.

rec ords

World Meteorological Organization on 2007 weather extremes:

http://www.wmo.ch/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_791_e.html

The record for shrinking sea ice: http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20071001_pressrelease....

=============

DON'T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION:

http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/involved.html

http://www.greenhousenet.org/

http://www.solarcatalyst.com/

http://www.campaignearth.org/buy_green_nativeenergy.asp

Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org

=============

= = = =

STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA

IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?

= = = =

Daily online radio show, news reporting: http://www.DemocracyNow.org

More news: UseNet's misc.activism.progressive (moderated)

= = = =

Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email

For more information: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace)

And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general)

Email Note: "info" and "map" etc DON'T work. Now:

econdemocracy(at)gmail