Global Warming Or Warning

Take your pick. According to NOAA scientists, the global averaged temperature for this January tied with 1995 as the 9th warmest January since record keeping began back in 1980. It also marked the 37th consecutive January & 335th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below average January temperature was January 1976 & the last below-average temperature for any month was February 1985. Many areas across the world experienced higher-than-average temperatures including Alaska, the eastern United States, Southern Greenland, Uzbekistan, & Australia. Meanwhile, far northwestern & central Canada, the western United States, & a large swath of northern Eurasia were notably below average. This particular NOAA news release got my attention this morning since generally the world climate science community seems to agree that they year 1985 was the starting year by which anthropogenic-influenced climate change began to emerge from the record book ranges of natural climate variability. Also of interest to ourGolden Triangle weather watchers is that 1976 marked the last year of the Pacific Decadal oscillation's 1947-1976 cool 30-year half-phase of the PDO's approximate 60-year full cycle. In 1977, the PDO flipped into its warm phase which ended with the blistering summer of 2007 with an El Nino (2006-2007), a big fire season, & close to 15 days for many of our Montana cities where the daily high reached over 100 with daily lows about 60 between the 3rd week of June & mid-July approximately. I don't know about you, but I'm going to look up some of these crazy words & get together with Anne James & Gary Gollohon & try & figure out what in the blazes this stuff means in layman's terms. No wonder Polasky had to retire! I'll get back to you on a later Puffman Blog....