Last Year Wasn’t Just Hot

[questionmark]

To say that 2012 was hot is an understatement. The average temperature in the contiguous U.S. last year was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.2 degrees hotter than the 20th century average and 1 degree hotter than the previous record.

One degree may not sound sound like much, but the chart above, by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, shows just what a big deal it really is. Each line displays year-to-date temperature anomalies, going back to 1895. Significant deviations from the average temperature are rare; a small fraction of a degree separates each year. Just 0.2 degree separates the previous record average temperature holder -- 54.3 degrees in 1998 -- from the one before that, 1934.

Last year’s departure from the normal temperature exceeded the previous record's by 29 percent. It’s as if a baseball player smashed Barry Bonds’s juiced-up 73 home-run record with 102 homers in a single season. It’s as if Exxon Mobil’s $45.2 billion profit in 2008 were surpassed by a company raking in $63.3 billion. If last year’s weather were edible, it would make habanero peppers taste mild.

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[+and-then]

I suffer in the summer where I live. Temps typically in the upper 30's C and very high humidity. Last year was rare here though. It actually was hot without being miserable. 2011 was the killer summer on the US Gulf Coast. I hope this summer is as seasonal as last...keeping fingers crossed.

[Space Commander Travis]

Wasn't just Hot? It certainly wasn't Hot round this way. :-/

[A rather obscure Bassoon]

It was one long very hot summer here in Northern Ontario,the winters are getting shorter and Milder.It should be around minus 20 but today it is plus 6.

http://thecelestialconvergence.blogspot.ca/2013/01/monumental-earth-changes-great-lakes.html

[Simbi Laveau]

It was ridiculous on the east coast . It still is .

[Ashotep]

Last summer here was really hot and miserable but it wasn't humid like it should of been and we had fires because of it. Not like Colorado did though. Last winter was warm too but the year before I was wearing long sleeves until June which isn't normal either plus every time we had a storm it would hail and there were more tornadoes than usual. Plus it rained so much it was flooding all the time. I think other parts of the country were having about average temps just not us.

What are we going to do if the ice keeps melting dumping fresh water into the ocean and the gulf stream stops or slow down a lot? It could get worse.

[Raptor Witness]

Arguably, not a bad forecast ...

07 December 2011 - Post 18

To the Lord of the Earth, who stands before all living things:

Now, send your flaming sword to the West, where it was seen in the sky before my birth, and lay it upon the ground. As it melts the land, make Manifest Destiny a memory, to be replaced with a new hope, where the word "security" is meaningless.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Raptor Witness

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

In Oz (aka Satan's Oven) last year was fairly mild, temperature wise. This year's hot though, hotter then it's gotten for a while (and hotter for longer, normally we have a really hot day and then some relief, it's been a scorcher for a week now).

[Doug1029]

2012 was actually in ninth place in the list of all-time hottest years. That's from the NCDC website. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

Doug

[Coffey]

Here it seems colder this winter than last yer.

[keithisco]

2012 was actually in ninth place in the list of all-time hottest years. That's from the NCDC website. http://data.giss.nas...GLB.Ts dSST.txt

Doug

But all of the top 10 are in this century.

[Doug1029]

But all of the top 10 are in this century.

1998 is in fourth place.

Doug

[Professor Buzzkill]

Last year we didn't even get a summer here. This year we have got 30oC+ for a few weeks. Its back down to the low 20's which is good. But obviously weather is not climate.