12 ms·

NOAA: U.S. Records Warmest March; More than 15,000 Warm Temp Records Broken

91 points by molecule 15y ago

zitterbewegung 15y ago
Its going to be a hot summer. Probably a bunch of wave of heatwaves across the midwest.
- msluyter 15y ago
  And Texas. I'm hoping for a few (very weak) hurricanes.
- thesis 15y ago
  La Niña is at fault for some of the warmer winter weather. Just because we had a warm winter does not mean we're going to have a boiling summer.
- tokenadult 15y ago
  Its going to be a hot summer. To the contrary, it was just forecast in a story I read earlier today, "Temperatures this summer are forecast to be about normal, and much cooler than the last two summers, says David Streit, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group expects. "Sultry winters, he said, do not usually develop into sultry summers." http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9U0NTI03.htm http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9U0NTI03.htm
joejohnson 15y ago
From a month ago: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/new-yorks-second-warmest-winter-history-february-2012_n_1317141.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/new-yorks-second-wa... Numerous cities around the world had record-breaking or near record-breaking winters (warmest winters on record).
- lostlogin 15y ago
  Presumably numerous cities around half the world had warm winters. We had a wet, cold summer down here.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- possibilistic 15y ago
  I can't imagine it does. To top it off, the numbers seem to be bounded to a very small integer interval. Even if the question was posed as a captcha, a computer could simply keep guessing. This is super-easy to brute force... At least they enforce a moderation queue. (I asked about the standard deviation not being included as was mentioned by abtinf.) edit: deleted parent post was discussing the plaintext captcha.
  - archgoon 15y ago
    My pardon for the deletion, I reconsidered the observation as off topic. The original question was: "I have a question about the Captcha at the bottom, how does a text-based math question help prevent automated submissions?"
    - tedunangst 15y ago
      You at least have to customize your robot for the site. An off the shelf perl script with www::mechanize and a few regexes probably won't work.
abtinf 15y ago
You know what is interesting about that article? The total lack of statistical insight. "The average temperature of 51.1 degrees F was 8.6 degrees above the 20th century average for March and 0.5 degrees F warmer than the previous warmest March in 1910." Without standard deviations, who cares? And clicking through to the main article, I'm surprised by how many words can be written without saying anything of consequence. Even the graph showing Green Bay temperature looks like nothing more than a plot of noise. Edit: Now that I think about it, the lack of basic statistical disclosures is pretty damning evidence that nothing significant has happened.
- teraflop 15y ago
  > Now that I think about it, the lack of basic statistical disclosures is pretty damning evidence that nothing significant has happened. I agree with the rest of your post, but come on, this is just silly. Absence of evidence (on one particular website) is certainly not evidence of absence.
- cryptoz 15y ago
  Did you just read the 6 sentence summary without clicking through and looking for the data? Here's a paper used in the analysis which you just read that talks about the uncertainty and standard deviations: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/algorithm-uncertainty/ > Edit: Now that I think about it, the lack of basic statistical disclosures is pretty damning evidence that nothing significant has happened. No.
- archgoon 15y ago
  Standard deviations are one measure of a probability distribution. Order statistics (max and min) are another, and those are given in these graphs in the supplemental information and data page, linked to in the overview section. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/special-reports/march-2012-heat-wave/ http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/special-reports/march-2012-heat-wav...
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    I don't think we're looking at the same graphs. The ones I see just plot YTD average temps for the five warmest years. Even the "min" charts are still for the same five years. Except it's different years for every city. There's no way I could get a good sense of the distribution from these charts.
recoiledsnake 15y ago
Wonder what has Fox News to say now? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PRXIOPnQ8Vw# http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN7-k-RXvSQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN7-k-RXvSQ Note: I am in no way implying that a hot summer is evidence of global warming.
- beedogs 15y ago
  However, as evidenced every winter on Fox and the Drudge Report, the existence of snow is always indicative of global warming being a myth.
patrickgzill 15y ago
In the long run it means little (this single data point, I mean) - after all, it was almost as warm in 1910...
- rsanchez1 15y ago
  I wonder if people back then also ran around saying the sky is falling. It's not like the people in 1910 did anything to stop global warming. They continued industrialization worldwide and ended up on the other temperature maximum of the past 100 years. It's characteristic of any cyclic process.
  - redwood 15y ago
    Some would have you believe that we should have stopped burning fossil fuels in 1910 to avoid all the emissions over the next century. Did the gains of 100 years of machines outweigh the effect on climate? that's the question.
    - samiru 15y ago
      Yes.
- basman 15y ago
  What about the fact that 13 of the warmest years on record happened in the last 15 years?
th0ma5 15y ago
I think the data is significant as a record of what happened, but the greater conversation about climate change should continue even if the data showed record cold temperatures. Also of note is the Arctic oscillation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_oscillation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_oscillation and as others mentioned La Niña. Washington state is interesting too as the normal trend of Pacific Northwest's somewhat temperate patterns were disrupted a little.
MaysonL 15y ago
The significant fact was the 33-1 ratio between new high temperatures and new low temperatures. Unprecedented.
wthseriously 15y ago
I'm just wondering how this article got pushed to the HN front page? If this were an article with substantial evidence against global warming such as the many articles and arguments provided in Crichton's State of Fear, would it be posted here? No. And that's my problem with this. The fact is that if we were actually capable of understanding what was causing global climate change, we would be able to predict the weather, and... we can't. We should instead be focusing on how we utilize our resources. That is something we can actually do something about. But don't try to provide statistical evidence of global warming just to "raise awareness" and prove that you are right. You'll never be able to do it. Focus on something that has a purpose. Tell people to go watch Medicine Man again, and maybe Sean Connery can convince them to stop cutting down rainforests. Do something freaking useful for once.
- anotherthrow 15y ago
  >if we were actually capable of understanding what was causing global climate change, we would be able to predict the weather This conditional is (obviously) false. Given your argument seems to rely on it, your argument is not sound.
  - wthseriously 15y ago
    Good catch. "Predict the weather more than 10 days in advance", I should have said. Prove to me what is causing global climate change. My point is that we cannot even predict the weather more than 10 days in advance, and even that is not totally reliable. Once we get to the point where we can reliably predict weather for years and years (say- more than a few thousand), then we can determine if we actually have substantial climate change, and maybe by then we'll know what really causes it. At this point, we are still guessing. We're using educated guesses, but they are based on possible coincidence.
    - anotherthrow 15y ago
      >"Predict the weather more than 10 days in advance", I should have said. That's false too. Predicting climate doesn't require predicting the weather. Compare: suppose you have a slightly biased coin - maybe 0.75 chance heads, 0.25 tails. I certainly can't predict the next throw, or the throw ten out - and without a hell of a lot more knowledge I'll never be able to. But I can be extremely good predicting the heads/tails ratio for sequences of throws in the future. >Prove to me what is causing global climate change. No, I can't do that, as I'm not an expert and this is a very complicated area. I suspect that nor are you. In such a situation, it's rational for us to defer to the body of expert opinion (although there are extremely interesting issues in decision theory and philosophy about how one should do so). Expert opinion is pretty unanimous about what is likely causing climate change, and there are no serious reasons to suppose bias. So let's defer to them.
joshuahedlund 15y ago
Meanwhile the global temperature anomaly for March 2012 came in at a searing 0.11 degrees C above normal.[1] But of course more comprehensive data like that isn't quite as attractive. (I still think the record US March counts more as evidence for global warming than against it. But it's not nearly as strong of evidence as some people wish it to be.) [1]http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/04/global-temperature-trend-update-march-20 http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/04/global-temperature-trend-u...
ctdonath 15y ago
Funny how nobody wants to consider that we are, in fact, nearing the end of a periodic high in long term global temperatures. http://donath.org/Photos/TempChange.PNG http://donath.org/Photos/TempChange.PNG

91 points by molecule 15y ago

zitterbewegung 15y ago

Its going to be a hot summer. Probably a bunch of wave of heatwaves across the midwest.

msluyter 15y ago
And Texas. I'm hoping for a few (very weak) hurricanes.
thesis 15y ago
La Niña is at fault for some of the warmer winter weather. Just because we had a warm winter does not mean we're going to have a boiling summer.
tokenadult 15y ago
Its going to be a hot summer. To the contrary, it was just forecast in a story I read earlier today, "Temperatures this summer are forecast to be about normal, and much cooler than the last two summers, says David Streit, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group expects. "Sultry winters, he said, do not usually develop into sultry summers." http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9U0NTI03.htm http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9U0NTI03.htm

joejohnson 15y ago

From a month ago: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/new-yorks-second-warmest-winter-history-february-2012_n_1317141.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/new-yorks-second-wa... Numerous cities around the world had record-breaking or near record-breaking winters (warmest winters on record).

lostlogin 15y ago
Presumably numerous cities around half the world had warm winters. We had a wet, cold summer down here.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

possibilistic 15y ago
I can't imagine it does. To top it off, the numbers seem to be bounded to a very small integer interval. Even if the question was posed as a captcha, a computer could simply keep guessing. This is super-easy to brute force... At least they enforce a moderation queue. (I asked about the standard deviation not being included as was mentioned by abtinf.) edit: deleted parent post was discussing the plaintext captcha.
- archgoon 15y ago
  My pardon for the deletion, I reconsidered the observation as off topic. The original question was: "I have a question about the Captcha at the bottom, how does a text-based math question help prevent automated submissions?"
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    You at least have to customize your robot for the site. An off the shelf perl script with www::mechanize and a few regexes probably won't work.

abtinf 15y ago

You know what is interesting about that article? The total lack of statistical insight. "The average temperature of 51.1 degrees F was 8.6 degrees above the 20th century average for March and 0.5 degrees F warmer than the previous warmest March in 1910." Without standard deviations, who cares? And clicking through to the main article, I'm surprised by how many words can be written without saying anything of consequence. Even the graph showing Green Bay temperature looks like nothing more than a plot of noise. Edit: Now that I think about it, the lack of basic statistical disclosures is pretty damning evidence that nothing significant has happened.

teraflop 15y ago
> Now that I think about it, the lack of basic statistical disclosures is pretty damning evidence that nothing significant has happened. I agree with the rest of your post, but come on, this is just silly. Absence of evidence (on one particular website) is certainly not evidence of absence.
cryptoz 15y ago
Did you just read the 6 sentence summary without clicking through and looking for the data? Here's a paper used in the analysis which you just read that talks about the uncertainty and standard deviations: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/algorithm-uncertainty/ > Edit: Now that I think about it, the lack of basic statistical disclosures is pretty damning evidence that nothing significant has happened. No.
archgoon 15y ago
Standard deviations are one measure of a probability distribution. Order statistics (max and min) are another, and those are given in these graphs in the supplemental information and data page, linked to in the overview section. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/special-reports/march-2012-heat-wave/ http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/special-reports/march-2012-heat-wav...
- tedunangst 15y ago
  I don't think we're looking at the same graphs. The ones I see just plot YTD average temps for the five warmest years. Even the "min" charts are still for the same five years. Except it's different years for every city. There's no way I could get a good sense of the distribution from these charts.

recoiledsnake 15y ago

Wonder what has Fox News to say now? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PRXIOPnQ8Vw# http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN7-k-RXvSQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN7-k-RXvSQ Note: I am in no way implying that a hot summer is evidence of global warming.

beedogs 15y ago
However, as evidenced every winter on Fox and the Drudge Report, the existence of snow is always indicative of global warming being a myth.

patrickgzill 15y ago

In the long run it means little (this single data point, I mean) - after all, it was almost as warm in 1910...

rsanchez1 15y ago
I wonder if people back then also ran around saying the sky is falling. It's not like the people in 1910 did anything to stop global warming. They continued industrialization worldwide and ended up on the other temperature maximum of the past 100 years. It's characteristic of any cyclic process.
- redwood 15y ago
  Some would have you believe that we should have stopped burning fossil fuels in 1910 to avoid all the emissions over the next century. Did the gains of 100 years of machines outweigh the effect on climate? that's the question.
  - samiru 15y ago
    Yes.
basman 15y ago
What about the fact that 13 of the warmest years on record happened in the last 15 years?

th0ma5 15y ago

I think the data is significant as a record of what happened, but the greater conversation about climate change should continue even if the data showed record cold temperatures. Also of note is the Arctic oscillation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_oscillation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_oscillation and as others mentioned La Niña. Washington state is interesting too as the normal trend of Pacific Northwest's somewhat temperate patterns were disrupted a little.

MaysonL 15y ago

The significant fact was the 33-1 ratio between new high temperatures and new low temperatures. Unprecedented.

wthseriously 15y ago

I'm just wondering how this article got pushed to the HN front page? If this were an article with substantial evidence against global warming such as the many articles and arguments provided in Crichton's State of Fear, would it be posted here? No. And that's my problem with this. The fact is that if we were actually capable of understanding what was causing global climate change, we would be able to predict the weather, and... we can't. We should instead be focusing on how we utilize our resources. That is something we can actually do something about. But don't try to provide statistical evidence of global warming just to "raise awareness" and prove that you are right. You'll never be able to do it. Focus on something that has a purpose. Tell people to go watch Medicine Man again, and maybe Sean Connery can convince them to stop cutting down rainforests. Do something freaking useful for once.

anotherthrow 15y ago
>if we were actually capable of understanding what was causing global climate change, we would be able to predict the weather This conditional is (obviously) false. Given your argument seems to rely on it, your argument is not sound.
- wthseriously 15y ago
  Good catch. "Predict the weather more than 10 days in advance", I should have said. Prove to me what is causing global climate change. My point is that we cannot even predict the weather more than 10 days in advance, and even that is not totally reliable. Once we get to the point where we can reliably predict weather for years and years (say- more than a few thousand), then we can determine if we actually have substantial climate change, and maybe by then we'll know what really causes it. At this point, we are still guessing. We're using educated guesses, but they are based on possible coincidence.
  - anotherthrow 15y ago
    >"Predict the weather more than 10 days in advance", I should have said. That's false too. Predicting climate doesn't require predicting the weather. Compare: suppose you have a slightly biased coin - maybe 0.75 chance heads, 0.25 tails. I certainly can't predict the next throw, or the throw ten out - and without a hell of a lot more knowledge I'll never be able to. But I can be extremely good predicting the heads/tails ratio for sequences of throws in the future. >Prove to me what is causing global climate change. No, I can't do that, as I'm not an expert and this is a very complicated area. I suspect that nor are you. In such a situation, it's rational for us to defer to the body of expert opinion (although there are extremely interesting issues in decision theory and philosophy about how one should do so). Expert opinion is pretty unanimous about what is likely causing climate change, and there are no serious reasons to suppose bias. So let's defer to them.

joshuahedlund 15y ago

Meanwhile the global temperature anomaly for March 2012 came in at a searing 0.11 degrees C above normal.[1] But of course more comprehensive data like that isn't quite as attractive. (I still think the record US March counts more as evidence for global warming than against it. But it's not nearly as strong of evidence as some people wish it to be.) [1]http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/04/global-temperature-trend-update-march-20 http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/04/global-temperature-trend-u...

ctdonath 15y ago

Funny how nobody wants to consider that we are, in fact, nearing the end of a periodic high in long term global temperatures. http://donath.org/Photos/TempChange.PNG http://donath.org/Photos/TempChange.PNG