2007 a year of climate surprises - From heat records, to drought and melting Arctic sea ice

[BridgeTheGap]

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and the weather just got weirder.

January was the warmest first month on record worldwide — 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.

And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature records, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. weather data. England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping there, shattering the record set in 1865 by more than 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

It wasn't just the temperature. There were other oddball weather events. A tornado struck New York City in August, inspiring the tabloid headline: "This ain't Kansas!"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22440950/wid/18298287/?GT1=10832

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. The only surprise is that so many are surprised.

Some of us have been warning of this for years.

And there are more surprises in store. Some prognosticators have said that Greenland could be ice-free by the end of the century.

I think that is a wildly optimistic scenario. I think it could lose all its glaciers by mid-century - possibly within my lifetime, and I ain't young. As the arctic loses its summer ice, within the decade, it becomes a huge heat sink, pulling in and holding heat that it once reflected out.

Now's the time to invest in beachfront property - in Utah.

[groovedaddy]

2. 60 minutes ran a piece on the western wildfires - global warming implicated

They interviewed the head of the Federal firefighters and asked him if the spike in size and number of fires was related to global warming and he answered: absolutely.
He said that the number of fires burning over 100,000 acres was a rarity until the late 90. Same with "high altitude" fires. Now these large fires are occuring multiple times every year. Because of rising temperatures, forests in the west are far drier than they have been.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/18/60minutes/main3380176.shtml