June is almost over and like me, I’m sure you are waiting for summer. Winter doesn’t seem that long ago and with the passing of the northern solstice and the celebrations at Stonehenge, summer has begun but not with a blaze of sunshine more an overcast whimper. So what has happened to Global Warming, this massive problem that we were warned against (or rather promised) by climate scientists and widely reported in the media? Why aren’t we all out in our shorts enjoying the sunshine? Unfortunately this scepticism has also reached senior government. On June 7th during the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Any Questions’[1], the UK Secretary of State for the Environment, the Right Honourable Owen Paterson said “ the climate has not changed – the temperature has not changed in the last seventeen years”. Well, it certainly hasn’t changed in the UK I hear you say! This may be true if you look at temperature, but is climate change only about rising temperatures? This is the problem with the phrase ‘Global Warming’, the expectation that it’s going to get hotter.
What we know is that human activities: the combustion of fossil fuels, land use change and deforestation are releasing carbon dioxide and other gases that are changing the composition of the atmosphere. These gases have no effect on the sunlight as it enters the atmosphere, but they are good at capturing the heat energy of the reflected sunlight, therefore the atmosphere is heated as less energy is lost to space. So although the amount of energy entering the atmosphere remains fairly constant (see sunspot activity below), more energy is being retained in the atmosphere as the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases increase. This increasing atmospheric energy is affecting everything. What we noticed first was the increase in temperature with a number of record hot years widely reported by the media in the 1990’s, apparently reaching a peak in the late nineties as recalled by the minister above. However, the hottest global year on record is the 12 month period from June 2009 to May 2010. So globally temperatures have continued to rise despite the fact that here in the UK, this may not seem to be the case.
GW/Climate Change will warm some areas of the world and coll others. The prediction has been to increase the severity of storms and in some cases increase the volume of storms in some areas. Not sure where you are but in the USA June saw 2.0 degrees F above the 20th century average and July was .8 degrees F above the 20th century average.
Globally, June saw 1.15 degrees F above average and Jul stats will be available soon.
Early summer was very hot for SW Michigan and much of the US. I believe in my 3 years this is the coolest July I remember for SW Michigan, but a single areas weather doesn't represent the whole nation considering US was .8 deg warmer than the average
If you want monthly data go to http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201...
Well we feel the global warming here in finland where people died to hot weather this summer, and finland was the hottest place in europe for quite some time. We are used to quite chilly summers and now we got this.
The main definition of global warming is climate change.In summer due to global warming increase the temperature of earths atmosphere and oceans it also increase the concentrations of green house gases produced by human being such as burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
I find it strange that you would pick regional weather events, over the course of one season, and try to make any claims towards global climate with this information. Do you not know the differences involved in this? Regional is not global. The oceans cover 71% of our planet's surface and the U.S. is the fourth largest nation, in square miles of area, in the world.
"The US takes up approximately 0.01927% of Earth's total surface area and 0.06598% of Earth's land area." - Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentag...
You need 30 years of global data to see any trends in the global climate. You did not know this?
this summer March to May 2013 tortured me like he'll, thanks for the Venus transition, power cuts and depletion of ozone layer.
We've had more record lows (8,453) through August 11th than record highs (7,069) through the same period. I thought global warming increased the global temperature, not decreased it.
