1998 was not the hottest year in US history. It was 1934.

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The most significant climatic trend in my area since European settlement had its origins in the 1910s, worsened in the 1920s, and peaked in the 1930s.  From the beginning of weather records in the 1890s until 1909, the area was very wet, even by today's standards. 

Unprecedented logging of hte forests reduced humidity and by 1910, a major drought year, fires began to burn.  Devastating fires in 1910 and 1917 led to a practice of burning slash and other debris from logging soon after harvesting the wood to prevent catastrophic fires.  With all mature pine trees harvested, the slash fires killed hte seedlings and new saplings, and the pine forests never regenerated, instead becoming forests of much lower quality tree species like quaking aspen and balsam fir.

The amount of rain that fell each decade fell from 226" in 1900-1909 to 191" in 1910-1919 to 180" in 1920-1929 down to a record low of 161" in 1930-1939.

1936 was by far the most extreme and driest year on record for the area with temperatures plummeting to -50*F or colder on several occasions and temps not reaching above 0*F from mid-January until the end of February 1936.  By May, temps were soaring into the 90s and for 2 weeks in July, temps soared above 100*F, reaching 107*F 3 days in a row on July 11th, 12th, and 13th.  To put this in perspective, the temperature has not reached 100*F in my city since 1977.

During the 1936 growing season (April-October), only 9" of rain fell, well below the average of 21".

Luckily, by the dirty '30s, the timber in our vast forests had been exhausted and reforestation began, making the climate gradually more humid again as more sustainable logging practices took hold.  Each decade got wetter from '50s on, and 1999 was the 2nd wettest year on record.

Very high water levels and major storms that flattened thousands of acres of forests caused major forest die back in northern Minnesota, and the driest summer in 25 years and hte hottest temps since 1936 in summer 2006 led to the 30,000 acre Cavity Lake fire on the Gunflint Trail in northeastern Minnesota after lightning ignited a fire.

Our winters have become significantly warmer since 1980 and winter severity indexes which take into account snowpack, extreme cold events, and length of frost free-periods have seen a major reduction in winter severity, particularly after 1980.

Outside of a major volcanic eruption in 1991 that significantly reduced summer temperatures in 1992, 1993, and 1994 across the upper midwest, the 1980s and 1990s were by far the warmest and nearly the wettest period on record in the region.

While some winters in the 1870s and early 1880s were extremely warm, climatologists have tied these to very strong ENSO events in the Pacific ocean and they came off an extremely volatile period of extremely nasty winters in the 1850s, 1860s, and early 1870s.

Natural climate variability is strong in the midwestern U.S., but one cannot ignore the increasing trend towards warmer temperatures, especially during winter.  Winter severity since 1997 has been particularly low and winter-dependent industries have suffered majorly.

While some people argue that doing anything about global warming will cost our economy too much money, they do not take into account that the changing climate is already drastically affecting the economy in negative ways across the world as the winter tourism industry suffers from low snowfall and warm temperatures, turning winter from a period of recreational opportunities, to a period with warmer temperatures with fewer opportunities.

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Growing season precipitation in Minnesota, 1895-2006:

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Well, this is the current data for the U.S for annual average temperature from 1895-2006.  It puts 1998 at 1st, 2006 at 2nd, and 1934 at 3rd warmest.  Even if 1934 was indeed warmer than 1998, the trend still points in a dangerous direction.



Go ahead, dispute the weather data.  But then you don't have much of an argument. 

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And for those of you in Mississippi that bitch about the heat:  Your grandparents had it worse.



Though I must say our high of 66*F today with a stiff wind out of the east was much preferable to the sticky hell the south has been living through this summer.

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Hmm.. really?

I was always under the impression that fossil fuels had a lot to do with it, but that despite our addiction to fossil fuels, the way we burn them has changed.

THrough the late 19th century, carbon dioxide emissions exploded along side sulfur dioxide emissions.  In the early 20th century, oil started gaining ground on coal and SO2 emissions began to drop while lower sulfur coal was being burned leading to further drops, especially in the 20s and 30s.

As SO2 emissions dropped, temperatures spiked upwards through the 1930s.  During and after WWII, SO2 emissions skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, and temperatures on a global level stagnated and began to fall very slowly.  During this period, solar intensity increased, and yet the planet continued to cool.

During the 1960s and into the '70s, acid rain started to fall, killing forests and a public outcry ensued and industrialized nations made efforts to reduce pollution, of which SO2 was a main one.  At this time carbon dioxide was not considered a pollutant, so its emissions were not regulated.

During the 70s, 80s, and especially the '90s, SO2 emissions plummeted.

Coincidentally (or not), the global temperature started heating up at very fast rates, pushing into record territory by 1981.

SO2, by its nature, is much larger than CO2 and it is heavier, and thus falls out of the atmosphere faster.  The climatic effects of SO2 are well documented because one of hte main emissions of volcanic eruptions are large amounts of SO2 which have had dramatic and obvious effects (though relatively short term) on our planet.  Mt. Pinatubo blew in 1991, and not surprisingly, the summer of 1992 was the coldest summer on record for us in northern Minnesota.  The So2 cloud surrounded the globe and mixed well into the atmosphere at northern climes, reducing sun intensity on the planet.

Unfortunately for us, Co2 can stay in the atmosphere for centuries.. so something we emitted in 1990 will likely still be there in 2090 whereas the So2 emitted in 1990 was likely back into the ground by 1997 or so.  The sulfur cycle is much shorter than the carbon cycle.  Especially since we're not only emitting more carbon into the atmosphere but we're reducing the planet's ability to absorb it back and store it by deforesting massive sections of hte planet.

Why is it that conservatives try to disprove climate science and theory by pretending its a lot more complicated than it really is?

Trust me, David, I'm no idiot when it comes to this and while I don't jump on the Al Gore bandwagon, I am convinced that our massive carbon emissions are leading to a warmer planet.  If you take a greenhouse and completely shut it off to the world and plant tons of plants in there, they'll keep growing until the Co2 is depleted.  The temperature will cool down and the O2 levels will go up.  The plants will become starved of Co2 and die.  Then some of hte plants will rot and some survivors will begin to grow again as carbon is released back into the air.

Throw us into the equation.  Drop a match on the dead brush.  All of it will burn and all that stored carbon will go into the air.  The greenhouse will get hotter given the same amount of sunlight.  It's pretty simple.  Give it a try.

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Gabu go to the map at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/> then click anywhere in Antarctica. You will get a list of the closest weather stations. The list shows the years those stations were in operation. See how many were operating in the 30's.
Maybe I'm wrong but I count zero. There is a similar situation in the Arctic. Although there I find some sites that were operating in the 30's most are not operating now. So where does the data come from? Also how about the oceans which cover 70% of the earths surface?
According to this site http://www.uscg.mil/History/webcutters/rpdinsmore_oceanstations.html
there were ocean weather ships operating in the Atlantic and Pacific from 1940 to 1980. Ten were in the Atlantic and three in the Pacific. That's pretty sparce coverage for the Oceans. But even those ships weren't there in the 30's. BTW about half of the weather ships were operated by the US.

The point of all that is that outside the US and parts of europe there aren't many places where continuous data exists from the 30's to today. So how can you judge if the US data is an anomoly if you don't have comparable data from large portions of the rest of the world.

Antarctica has a lot of something called ice.  This ice, the frozen form of water, is very cold, and it is no pleasant task to fix thermometers into a place that has dangerously cold and windy conditions when you don't really have the technology to do so safely.

Luckily for us, ice does more than just be frozen water.  It stores things in it like bubbles.  In these bubbles are things like oxygen and carbon dioxide.  Scientists can figure out temperatures by checking these bubbles and seeing how many there are, since different temperatures create more or less bubbles.

Even more lucky for us, this ice forms into distinct layers each year as the snow falls and compacts downward.  Scientists can actually drill cores out of hte ice and study the layers, some of which go back several hundred thousand years...  so we not only have good data from Antarctica from the 1930s, but also the 19,930s B.C.

I don't understnad what you're tryiing to say David:

Do you actually think that scientists don't take into consideration the fact that there weren't as many weather stations in the 1930s?

The graphs I posted take into account things like the urban heat island effect and other effects in order to show more accurate climatic conditions.  If they did not alter the data, the trend would be warming much faster as our cities have been paved over and they retain heat longer.

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So at what point will the global warming slow down the Gulf stream enough so that global cooling will begin?

Huh? The Gulf Stream slowing down would just keep the Gulf of Mexico warmer. Of course the situation is more complicated, but generally moving temperature around won't affect the global mean temperature.

In any case, with global warming, and the Gulf stream slowing down, you can expect a lot of hurricanes where you live.

No.  Everybody knows it's God who's mad at the libruls and the Yankee Democrats that keep sending hurricanes to the south.  Luckily they've learned and elected George Dubyah Bush to save them.

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I never said there weren't warmer periods with lower Co2.  There are more variables in our climate than just Co2.  But what I will say is that increased Co2 is a variable that does lead to warmer temperatures.

For example, Co2 was higher in the 1960s and '70s, but the planet was slightly warmer in the 1930s and '40s.  There as a different variable causing the climate to cool.  That variable has now been all but removed and the planet is warming again.

I look at it like a saucepan on the stove.  Adding CO2 to the atmosphere is like putting the cover on the pot, keeping heat trapped in.  The temp rises even though the amount of heat coming from the burner hasn't increased.  Adding So2 to the atmosphere would be like putting an ice cube on the burner underneath the pot.  The same amount of heat is still coming out of the burner, but some of it is getting deflected before it can reach the pot, thus the rate of warming in the pot slows down.

We have removed the "ice cube" and now it's getting hotter.  Sometimes my metaphors are more complicated than the actual explanation.  I'm sorry.

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My pleasure.