Archive for the ‘National Science Foundation’ tag
Termperatures: Record Highs Trounce Record Lows
Source: NCAR/National Science Foundation
Despite the scandal at the University of East Anglia (U.K.) Climate Research group, the big international climate meeting in Copenhagen is a go. Are they nuts? According to some, global warming has been thoroughly debunked for ever. Has it?
Folks, let’s be adults about this. Like any other endeavor, the alleged misbehavior (or public misunderstanding based on out-of-context statements) of a few scientists does not discredit the efforts of the whole lot.
The graph above, released last month by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Science Foundation, summarizes the ratio of record daily highs to lows from 1950-2009 at 1,800 U.S. weather stations.
From their press release:
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.
“This intriguing study provides new evidence of climate change,” says Steve Nelson, NSF program director for NCAR. “And it’s change that’s affecting our daily lives.”
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
“One of the messages of this study is, you still get cold days,” Meehl (NCAR Scientist) 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.”
Even though the global climate system is extremely complex, culturally-induced global warming has always made sense to me. Think about it. Take chemical energy that’s been stored under ground (oil, coal, natural gas), bring it to the earth’s surface and burn it, and you increase the heat budget of the atmosphere. Heat released from cooling water used in nuclear and coal power plants warms up coastal waters, lakes and rivers.
Our cars are more efficient as furnaces than they are as transportation devices, losing 80% of their fuel energy as waste heat. Greenhouse gases have been clearly shown to trap heat.
I don’t know anyone who would dispute the reality of the urban Heat Island Effect. That being the case, the argument is not over whether or not we humans can change atmospheric temperatures, but whether or not we can do it on a global scale. The NCAR/NSF study strongly suggests we can and we are.
