2007 a Year of Weather Records in U.S.
Pastor Dale Morgan
Dec 30, 12:15 PM EST
*
2007 a Year of Weather Records in U.S.*
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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."
---
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