Satellite temperature measurements began 34 years ago. The satellites are the most comprehensive measurements of global temperatures and largely can avoid the errors so pervasive in the land-based measuring devices.
Accordingly, they are the gold standard of atmospheric global temperature recorders.
For 34 years these satellites have been managed by the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Principals in this effort have been Dr.s Roy Spencer and John Christy. They report that the year 2012 was the 9th warmest globally in the 34 years of satellite measurement. The temperature anomaly for 2012 was +0.161. The warmest year in the 34 years was 1998 followed, in order, by 2002,2003, 2005, 2006, 2007,2009,and 2010. From that list, one can see that the trend for the global temperatures is downward.
The warmers have been saying that the US in 2012 was hot therefore the globe must be hot. In the past the warmers have said you can’t use the weather to define the climate. That was their mantra in several recent years when snow was abundant and the weather was on the cold side. But their theory of CO2 induced man-made global warming is difficult to justify when the globe’s temperature is on a 16 year run of no discernible increase. So, they have reverted to claiming weather is climate.
Yes, the US was warm in 2012. With respect to the 34 years, the UAH measurements confirm that. Here is what the satellites told us per the blog Dr Roy Spencer Global Warming:
‘………it was the warmest year on record for both the contiguous 48 U.S. states and for the continental U.S., including Alaska. For the U.S., 2012 started with one of the three warmest Januaries in the 34-year record, saw a record-setting March heat wave, and stayed warm enough for the rest of the year to set a record.
Compared to seasonal norms, March 2012 was the warmest month on record in the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Temperatures over the U.S. averaged 2.82 C (almost 5.1° Fahrenheit) warmer than normal in March; the warmest spot on the globe that month was in northern Iowa. The annual average temperature over the conterminous 48 states in 2012 was 0.555 C (about 0.99 degrees F) warmer than seasonal norms.
Compared to seasonal norms, the coolest area on the globe throughout 2012 was central Mongolia, where temperatures averaged about 1.39 C (about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms. The warmest area was north of central Russia in the Kara Sea, where temperatures averaged 2.53 C (about 4.55 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms for 2012.
Compared to seasonal norms, over the past month the coldest area on the globe was eastern Mongolia, where temperatures were as much as 4.55 C (about 8.19 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than seasonal norms. The “warmest” area was off the coast of the Antarctic near South America, where temperatures averaged 3.79 C (about 6.82 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than seasonal norms for December”.
So there you have it, 2012 was a warm year. But that’s weather.
cbdakota
Climate Change Sanity 