Part 1b. Part 1 and part 1a explain.
This animated gif is the 14 of the 48 lower states cooling or essentially flat since 1895. Click on it for the full effect.
Is the USA warming? The NOAA data says”It depends” – Part 1a
Part 1a of 3. See part 1 for the start of this series. This quick post is just to contain graphs from the other cooling states. Part 1b will be an animated gif of the 48 states where the data starts from 1895.
The green line is the trend, the blue line is the default loess fit, the red line is the data, the black line is the average for the whole period, and the faint top and bottom grey lines are max and min.
Is the USA warming? The NOAA data says”It depends” – Part 1
Part 1 of 3. Update: Part 1a has all the graphs.
There is an article on WUWT called “Drats! Down the warmhole the warming went” about a new paper from Harvard. I’ve blogged about the NOAA data that shows some states have been cooling here, here and here.
There is also an article on WUWT called “Climate scientists who have been claiming Texas is warming are totally wrong.” I commented with some of the links of my articles to show that Texas is not the only state that isn’t warming.
So rather than continuing to investigate the states one state at a time on the NOAA Climate At a Glance page I thought it would be best to download the raw data here, and analyze it with R myself.
So I read the state.README file, created a state to statecode mapping file from the info in the stae.README and started analyzing.
First step was to graph Arkansas, one of the states I looked a previously. as you can see both the NOAA and I think Arkansas is cooling at -.03F/decade since 1895.
The green line is the trend, the blue line is the default loess fit, the red line is the data, the black line is the average for the whole period, and the faint top and bottom grey lines are max and min.
I think we can agree that Arkansas warmed until about 1921, stayed warm until round 1955, cooled until around 1980 and them warmed up again but never matched the 20s/30s/40s.
So then I graphed all of the continental states (Alaska and Hawaii aren’t in the file, but regional and national summaries are). And then I wrote some code to count which states were cooling from 1895 to 2011 and which were warming.
6 of the 48 were cooling. 3 had a trend of 0. And 5 had a trend of .01F/decade.
Considering that NOAA/NCDC tend to adjust the heck out of the data to make the present warmer, to find that 30% of the 48 states were cooling to flat from all the way back in 1895 makes me think that the USA is not warming. Parts of it are. Parts of it are not. It is only by putting all of this data in the meat grinder of averaging it all that you can torture out the claim that the USA is warming.
Here are the warming states. 
Oregon – NOAA -1986
Another slight diversion from the Warming Hole Series. Oregon is not in the Warming Hole. And the NOAA says there is a warming trend from 1895 to 2012. That trend is a very small 0.09 degF / Decade. Because I know from other blog posts that the West Coast started cooling in the mid-1980s, I thought I would see which year the climate shifted even with the hopelessly biased NOAA data.
And it was around 1986. -0.25 degF / Decade.
Washington – NOAA -1986
A slight diversion from the Warming Hole Series. Washington State is not in the Warming Hole. And the NOAA says there is a warming trend from 1895 to 2012. That trend is a microscopic 0.05 degF / Decade. Because I know from other blog posts that the West Coast started cooling in the mid-1980s, I thought I would see which year the climate shifted even with the hopelessly biased NOAA data.
And it was around 1986. -0.39 degF / Decade.
The Warming Hole – Illinois – NOAA
This is the 3rd or 4th in a series. There is an article on WUWT called “Drats! Down the warmhole the warming went” about a new paper from Harvard:
“Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a “warming hole” over the eastern United States—that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.”
The argument is essentially that the air pollution over the northeast USA kept temperatures artificially cool until clean air legislation in the 1970s – 1990s time frame.
So I’ve been looking at the NOAA data. Today it is Illinois.
The NOAA says Illinois has been warming since 1895 by a microscopic 0.04F / decade.
Frankly, I don’t see it. See the area I circled above. Wouldn’t you agree that was the warmest period in the last 120 years?
If I change the start year to 1925, Illinois has been cooling at -0.04 degF / Decade.
Changing the criteria to Table and Rank, here are some things that jumped out at me.
1) 1921 was the warmest year.
2) The warmest year from this century was 2006, 106 out of 117th. It didn’t make the top 10.
3) 2011 tied for 92 out of 117 … 2.6F colder than 1921.
4) CO2 is one wimpy GHG in Illinois
Changing criteria to Table and Year
1) 2008 was ranked 19 out of 117. 98 years were warmer!
2) 2009 was ranked 34 out of 117. 83 were warmer.
The Warming Hole – Tennessee – NOAA
This is the 2nd of a series of … until I get bored with it. 🙂
There is an article on WUWT called “Drats! Down the warmhole the warming went” about a new paper from Harvard:
“Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a “warming hole” over the eastern United States—that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.”
The argument is essentially that the air pollution over the northeast USA kept temperatures artificially cool until clean air legislation in the 1970s – 1990s time frame.
So I’ve been looking at the NOAA data. Today it is Tennessee.
And the results are quite interesting.
The NOAA says Tennessee has been cooling since 1895 by -.03F / decade. Which is the same as Arkansas.
Changing the criteria to Table and Rank, here are some things that jumped out at me.
1) Only 1 year from this century made the top 10 – 2007
2) 2011 is at position 88 out of 117
If you sort by year, 2010 was 46 out of 117 and 2009 and 2008 were 36 out of 117. Those are really low scores! It has been a cold century in Tennessee.
Take a look at the bar chart. CO2 is the wimpiest GHG ever! The 20s and 30s and 40s were hot compared to this whole century.
You have to wonder why all that sulphate in the air totally neglected to effect Tennessee until 1960!
The Warming Hole – Arkansas – NOAA
There is an article on WUWT called “Drats! Down the warmhole the warming went” about a new paper from Harvard:
“Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a “warming hole” over the eastern United States—that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.”
The argument is essentially that the air pollution over the northeast USA kept temperatures artificially cool until clean air legislation in the 1970s – 1990s time frame.
So I’ve been looking at the NOAA data. Today it is Arkansas. The settings I use are:
And the results are quite interesting.
The NOAA says Arkansas has been cooling since 1895 by -.03F / decade.
Changing the criteria to Table and Rank, here are some things that jumped out at me.
1) The warmest year from this century was 2006, 99 out of 117th. 18 years were warmer.
2) 1896 was tied with 1934 for 110th out of 117.
3) 1897 was tied with 2011.
4) CO2 is one wimpy GHG in Arkansas
What does NOAA mean by “Near Normal”?
Yes I know that most of the USA was warm in March of 2012. But what does the NOAA mean by “Near Normal” in the North West and West regions?
In the North West, March 2012 was the 72nd warmest March out of 118. 118 is the warmest. It was 7F colder than 1934 which was the warmest March. 7F colder. Wow.
The North West has been cold recently. March 2011 was the 64th warmest, 2010 was the 91st warmest, 2009 was the 26th warmest and 2008 was the 31st warmest.
92 Marches were warmer than 2009. 2009 was 9.6F colder than March of 1934.
In the West region, March 2012 was 76th warmest. It was 7.6F colder than 1934, again the warmest March.
But take a look at 2006. 7th warmest. 111 were warmer. The last 5 years have been quite cold.
1934 sure turns up a lot as the year with the warmest month.
Wait until we took a look at April. I’ll give you a hint. 5th and 6th warmest out of 118 in the last 4 years. 112 and 113 warmer Aprils.
UHI measured to be up to 4.2C in a small town in Australia
“Deniliquin’s maximum and minimum temperatures were recorded at the Post Office from 1873 to 1971, before the station was relocated to the airport in 1984. The records from the Post Office indicate that in Deniliquin the annual average minimum temperature increased by 2.1 deg C until 1971.
However when the monitoring station was moved out of the urban area, the last 20 years of record shows that the nighttime temperature is 0.6 deg C lower than the previous 98 year average. This indicates that the urban area of Deniliquin may be warmer than its surrounding rural regions.
To test this, measurements were taken of the air temperature, wind speed and direction at seven locations along a transect on either side and through the center of the town. During February 1995, measurements in Deniliquin showed that on clear and calm nights, the town centre can be up to 4.2 deg C warmer than beyond the airport.”
sunshine hours 