A Warm October In America
Posted by Dan Satterfield, Wild Wild Science Blog, AGU blogs, November 8, 2010
The incredible warmth globally this year has continued into October across America. Almost the entire 48 states were above normal in October. The Mountain West and the North were the warmest.
From Gerald Meehl Nat. Centers For Atmospheric Research.
This warmth also shows up in the temperature extremes. Nationwide, there were 1544 new record highs in October. Only 321 record lows were set.
This trend has actually been increasing for decades now! Another sign of our warming global climate? I wrote a post on this awhile back.
It now seems that 2010 will be no different. The trend continues. Over 2 record highs for every record low.
What makes this even more incredible is the strong La Nina in the Pacific right now. La Nina’s are (in many, but not all) ways the opposite of El Nino. Look at the ocean temperatures on the image from the Earth System Research Laboratory.
A large area of colder than normal water is cooling the air over the Pacific Ocean. This actually cools the planet down some (about 0.1° C). El Nino’s warm us up about the same amount.
Image from NOAA-ESRL. Blue is colder than normal water. The La Nina shows up well in the Equatorial Pacific.
In spite of this, 2010 may end up being the warmest year globally on record. With the La Nina in full bore, we still set 8 record highs for every record low in October.
We are almost certainly witnessing something that has not been seen in all of history. Human interference with the planet’s climate.
While there are month to month and even decade to decade fluctuations in the global temperature, there is nothing left to explain the long term rise. Everything except rising greenhouse gases from fossil fuels have been ruled out…
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