Hot Plate Special

The record warm spring we had was hot enough to give us a new 12 month temperature record for the United States according to new NOAA data:

The past twelve months were the warmest twelve months in U.S. history, said NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) on Tuesday, in their monthly “State of the Climate” report. Temperatures in the contiguous U.S. during May 2011 – April 2012 broke the previous record for warmest 12-month period, set November 1999 – October 2000, by 0.1°F. The past twelve months have featured America’s 2nd warmest summer, 4th warmest winter, and warmest March on record. Twenty-two states were record warm for the 12-month period, and an additional nineteen states were top ten warm. NOAA said that the January – April 2012 period was also the warmest January – April period since record keeping began in 1895. The average temperature of 45.4°F during January – April 2012 was 5.4°F above the 20th century average for the period, and smashed the previous record set in 2006 by an unusually large margin–1.6°F.

But yelling SUNSPOTS and GLOBAL COOLING and THE SCIENCE ISN'T SETTLED will solve all our problems.  The country was nearly 2 degrees warmer for the first 4 months of the year than 2006's record heat,  but we should probably wait another 100 years or so until we have a clearer picture of climate in the long run because really all this is just about weather data points, and REAL SCIENTISTS know that weather changes!

I'm sure our great-grandkids will be thrilled with us by then.