PRESENTATION OUTLINE
HOTTEST YEARS ON RECORDING.
I will try to learn from Meehl's (not Meehle) expertise but I'm a bit reluctant to simply accept the conclusions of a study that left out 50 years worth of record high monthly temperatures in 30 states... that's almost two-thirds of the contiguous US. Also, 80% of the record lows occurred before 1950... most in 1917. I've written to Dr. Meehl about why he chose to start his study in 1950.
As to Meehl's selection of the date range, the article is still in press so you're not likely to get a response of any kind until his paper has been published
It ranks 1934 as 3rd highest temperature after 1998 and 2006. As you know this data set has been analysed by researchers (and critics) over many years, and contains a number of corrections and updates, most significantly (from the point of view of older data), “time of observation” adjustments. The corrections are described quite well for version 1 and most recently for version 2 which is used for the chart. The data, fully corrected, time of observation only corrected, and raw, can be downloaded from here
Well, one point is, as I mentioned earlier, these changes alter the record years (1921 no longer the warmest). Then, the systematic lowering of the early years tends to increase the slope of the overall trend.
Global warming is directly linked to only a few weather events and climate trends. One of them, however, is warming itself, which could make 2012 a watershed climate change year in the U.S. More than superstorms, wildfires, and devastating drought, this year’s record-smashing spring and summer heat waves, with their melted airport runways and warped steel rail lines, are more evidence that climate change is real.
