States' Warming Analyzed In Climate Central Report

From Climate Central:

Global warming isn't uniform. The continental U.S. has warmed by about 1.3°F over the past 100 years, but the temperature increase hasn’t been the same everywhere: some places have warmed more than others, some less, and some not much at all. Natural variability explains some of the differences, and air pollution with fine aerosols screening incoming solar radiation could also be a factor.

Our state-by-state analysis of warming over the past 100 years shows where it warmed the most and where it warmed the least. We found that no matter how much or how little a given state warmed over that 100-year period, the pace of warming in all regions accelerated dramatically starting in the 1970s, coinciding with the time when the effect of greenhouse gases began to overwhelm the other natural and human influences on climate at the global and continental scales. [Text continues after map.]

We looked at average daily temperatures for the continental 48 states from 1912 to the present, and also from 1970 to the present and found:

• Over the past 100 years, the top 10 states warmed 60 times faster than the bottom 10 (0.26°F per decade vs. 0.004°F per decade), when looking at average mean temperatures. During this timeframe, 45 states showed warming trends, although 21 were not statistically significant. Three states experienced a slight cooling trend.

• Since 1970, warming began accelerating everywhere. The speed of warming across the lower 48 more than tripled, from 0.127°F per decade over the 100-year period, to 0.435°F per decade since 1970, while the gap between the fast and slowly warming states narrowed significantly; the 10 fastest warming states heated up just twice as fast, not 60 times as fast as the 10 slowest warming states (0.60°F vs. 0.30°F per decade). Over the past 42 years 17 states warmed more than half a degree F per decade.

• The states that have warmed the most — whether you look at the past 100 years or just the past 40 — include northern-tier states from Minnesota to Maine and the Southwest, particularly Arizona and New Mexico. Places that have warmed the least include Southeast states, like Florida, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, along with parts of the central Midwest, like Iowa and Nebraska.

List and statistics courtesy of Climate Central.

Loading Slideshow

• 10. Massachusetts

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.568 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 9. Texas

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.575 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 8. Maine

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.587 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 7. Utah

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.588 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 6. New Mexico

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.603 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 5. Vermont

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.607 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 4. Wisconsin

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.616 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 3. Minnesota

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.620 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 2. Michigan

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.622 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

• 1. Arizona

  Temperature Change (ºF per decade, since 1970): 0.639 <br><br> <em><a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/" target="_hplink">Click here for more info.</a></em>

Also on HuffPost:

Comments

[REMEMBER2050]

04:58 PM on 07/01/2012

Ladies and germs, the U.S. is NOT having a heat wave because it's on fire.

It's not a chicken-and-egg thing either. This is totally cut and dried: temporatures have been unusually high, precipitation in the dry areas of the country has been abominable, and that's why so much of the southwest is on fire. In other words, the country is behaving just like the models say: drier areas will become drier, and wetter areas will become wetter.

If anyone is wondering why I am making a statement that unbelievably obvious, well, you're going to have fun reading some of the rest of these posts.

[sophie M]

04:30 PM on 07/01/2012

all i know is that it has been record HOT in Nashville ....
if many people did not have A/C they would be dead.
Global warming is alive and well in TN

[mioffe]

01:39 PM on 07/01/2012

It is very stupid idea to show states in climate report, but even here, we could see, that states, which have more rivers, lakes, ocean around them are cooler: South Dacota, Iowa, Missouri, Florida. Washington, Oregon, California.
It is showing good enough, that only properties of water could cool the atmosphere.

Scientists of climate change, which blame GHGs for global warming are deadly wrong.
WE MUST REEVALUATE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
This science make from mistake of Arrhenius almost religion DOGMA, that GHGs are responsible for that.
GHGSs are only indicator of human activities in wrong direction.
We reduce water evaporation, reduce reflection back to space of direct sun radiation - real reason for climate change, and blame GHGs.

[REMEMBER2050]

04:23 PM on 07/01/2012

Oh, for god's sake. All the models show drier areas getting drier and wetter areas getting wetter. All the scientists (except less than 3%) and the country's most prestigious organizations and scientific journals say MAN is responsible for global warming and CO2 production and this is not some cockamany balancing problem where we have too much evaporation or whatever in the world it is you're contending.

You want to bring me some more water in the Rockies with your amazing insight? Feel free.

You know, science is not a do-it-yourself field. It's an actual area of academia.

[StephenBP]

12:27 PM on 07/01/2012

Washington, D.C. shatters all-time June record high, sizzles to 104.

Anyone else noticing that the hot spells are more frequent and the cold spell less so?
Anyone else notice that far more high temp records are being broken than low temp?
Someone . Quick. Call Jimmy Inhofe! He can reassure us that this extremist weather is just a hoax concocted by people who do not work for the fossil fuel industry.
Call Marc Morano. He can gin up some dirt to muddy the water and foul the air.
Someone has to counter all those atmospheric scientists at NASA, NOAA, AGU, and so-forth. They are revealing information that runs counter to the given knowledge of the petrochemical business brotherhood.
Marc Morano is one of the most important people in the right wing “infamation” hierarchy when it come to keeping the public headed in the appropriate business oriented direction.

When push comes to shove and the real truth about global warming comes out, remember , Marc Morano will stand tall at the head of the list of people who led the charge against science and reason.

Remember.

[chrisd3]

02:20 PM on 07/01/2012

Record highs are outpacing record lows by an astonishing 9:1 in the US so far this year.

Record highs: 21,949
Record lows: 2,443

[adams011]

06:33 PM on 06/30/2012

Why the climate deniers still bother posting their stuff is beyond me. Why bother? Even some in the oil industry have given up the pretense of denial. “Rex Tillerson CEO Exxon, has acknowledged that global temperatures are rising. "Clearly there is going to be an impact," he said last Wednesday.

He said that people would be able to adapt to rising sea levels and changing climates that may force agricultural production to shift.

Maybe the deniers can turn their considerable energies to think about how we are going to adapt to it.

[SouthernPhilosopher]

03:05 PM on 06/30/2012

To those who think global warming is a hoax, may I casually draw your attention to the temperature outdoors? Let us look at plant species finding homes in zones which in the past were inhospitable to them. Let us observe litters being born to wild animals weeks before they have historically been observed. We have to collective acknowledge that our current policy on carbon emissions is as detrimental to the environment as US Attorney General Eric "Gunrunner" Holder is to the concept of a government by law.

[Ian Gord]

04:06 PM on 06/24/2012

I'll stick with James Lovelock:

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel

[gallon]

02:34 PM on 06/30/2012

You are about the 50th soul who read that over on the denier site wuwt and has tried to bring it over to HuffPost. You have been had.

Newsflash for Ian Gord and others. Lovelock was never a climate scientist. He does not represent climate science. The desperate fossil fuel propaganda industry latched on to Lovelock's statements for publicity purposes.

It continues to warm out there. Check the headlines, daily these days, about the record heat. And it is only getting started.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/23/469749/james-lovelock-finally-walks-back-his-absurd-doomism-but-he-still-doesnt-follow-climate-science/?mobile=nc

[MikeWebster]

01:04 PM on 07/01/2012

And as I pointed out, Lovelock is one of the most radical people there is on climate change. He absolutely believes that the human race will be anhilated by climate change, to the extent that our last remnants will be a small group of breeding adults, set up in some technologically advanced climate refuge in the Antarctic. I'm pretty sure that he believes those people will be the last of the humans in a couple of hundred years.

So, using Lovelock, and his skepticism about computer models as an argument against climate change is ridiculous. Lovelock is the most radical of all AGW believers.

[hogtown]

03:21 PM on 06/30/2012

And fyi, the Toronto Sun is a joke—a tabloid rag known for its one daily feature, the 'sunshine girl'. You have to be from Toronto to fully appreciate the humour in citing the Sun as a source for anything and expect to be taken seriously.

[Publicola]

08:09 PM on 06/19/2012

Again you seem confused.

Again your assertion that Dr. Phil Jones said there is no warming is a science denier falsehood, not science.

Hope this helps.

[Publicola]

11:07 AM on 06/18/2012

U.S. National Academy of Sciences
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Human activities are influencing climate. As discussed in the following chapters, scientific evidence that the Earth is warming is now overwhelming. There is also a multitude of evidence that this warming results primarily from human activities, especially burning fossil fuels and other activities that release heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. Projections of future climate change indicate that Earth will continue to warm unless significant and sustained actions are taken to limit emissions of GHGs. 

Increasing temperatures and GHG concentrations are driving a multitude of related and interacting changes in the Earth system, including decreases in the amounts of ice stored in mountain glaciers and polar regions, increases in sea level, changes in ocean chemistry, and changes in the frequency and intensity of heat waves, precipitation events, and droughts. These changes in turn pose significant risks to both human and ecological systems. Although the details of how the future impacts of climate change will unfold are not as well understood as the basic causes and mechanisms of climate change, we can reasonably expect that the consequences of climate change will be more severe if actions are not taken to limit its magnitude and adapt to its impacts.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12782

[REMEMBER2050]

04:28 PM on 07/01/2012

There you are, as per usual, reciting all sorts of sensible facts that no AGW-denier would ever believe. Thanks, however! You know, I think you're probably going to have to continue doing that for less than a decade. Maybe if the whole southwest burns to the ground and the whole middle of the country is devastated by tornadoes and the entire eastern seaboard is washed away by hurricanes, we'll all have us a real come-to-Jesus moment and jump on that climate change bandwagon.

Americans are seriously stupid and actually think a "belief" in science should be upon party lines, but I'm pretty sure that could be corrected under extreme duress

[Publicola]

11:05 AM on 06/18/2012

Delingpole...

You mean this Delingpole?

"It is not my job to sit down and read peer-reviewed papers because I simply haven’t got the time; I haven't got the scientific expertise... I am an interpreter of interpretations." 
-- James Delingpole

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wmuhKzYp4s

Why yes, you do.

[Publicola]

02:08 PM on 06/18/2012

DavidCHUK: "It does not take a scientist..."

Not only is tabloid OpEd writer James Delingpole not a scientist, but by his own admission he does not understand the science.

"It is not my job to sit down and read peer-reviewed papers... I haven't got the scientific expertise."

-- James Delingpole

DavidCHUK: "...to know that there is very little information supporting your conjecture."

You seem confused again - let me help you with that:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. National Academy of Sciences

There is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities. While much remains to be learned, the core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious scientific debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations...

Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12782 

[jimboy71]

06:14 PM on 06/19/2012

James Delingpole is what is known as a hack.

He doesn't even bother to do research on the topics he is EDITORIALISING.

Why is it that all you can link to is OPINION?

[fatport]

02:56 AM on 06/16/2012

Whew. I'm glad to see Hawaii and Alaska aren't having any warming problems.

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

07:21 AM on 07/01/2012

Hard to take temps in Alaska, there are not a lot of weather stations and they have not been there as long as in the rest of the states, so there is not a lot of data for accurate records. Not only that, the state isn't actually heating, it's melting. Most of the state is underlain by permafrost. As the ice melts under them lakes are disappearing, roads are buckling, and entire villages are falling into the sea.

In Hawaii the temperature is pretty much the same all the time because we are surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. The ocean is heating up but not enough to make any big difference here. (Which is one reason I am here.)

[AndreaGibsonFan92]

01:17 AM on 06/16/2012

I live in Ohio, and this last winter was remarkable-- less snow than my parents have seen in years!

[MikeWebster]

01:17 PM on 07/01/2012

The annoying thing is that it changes year on year. What is absolutely common to the weather these days, is the number of weather records that are being broken. Whether it is in Ohio where people are noticing an unprecedented lack of snow, to temperature records being broken every couple of years all over the world, to extreme cold snaps.

It is simply silly to disregard the anecdotal evidence that is coming from everywhere around the world that the patterns of the seasons and the weather are different now than they were 20-30 years ago, and even more different to the conditions that existed when older people were growing up.

Some of the most convincing evidence is from farmers all around the world. But when you hear it from subsistence farmers in Africa, where their whole existence has relied on their ability to keep a decent heard of cattle going, the reality is far more stark. That is because these guys are reaching the end of a way of life that has been going on for 100's if not thousands of years.

[eaarth2]

06:29 AM on 06/15/2012

I live in Connecticut- have been here since I moved here at the age of 6 in 1958. The state was rated as 12th- in greatest amount of warming since 1970. Differences here are subtle- but definite.

Winters are less cold. Overnight absolute lows are 5 degrees F higher. This means I can grow in my garden- like Windmill Palms, Sabal minor, Great Sequoia, Crepe Myrtle and other species more grown in warmer climes. Summers are warmer as well. Springs begin earlier and autumn is prolonged. Of course we have more warming in the pipeline -probably as much as 0.6 degrees C over the next 20-25 years- due to green house gases.

[jbrice1982]

10:57 PM on 06/14/2012

If you guys wanna know something very interesting go to http://www.stateoftheair.org to see how your state or local area did on air quality. Air pollution is one of several things that contribute to increased global temperatures and health problems every year and it seems these problems only get worse.

[Climate Lurker]

12:53 PM on 06/14/2012

For those of you who claim climate change is all about the money incentives to find it true, please explain this:

Climate scientists median salary (PhD required) : $88,000
Drilling Engineer mid career salary (Bachelor's degree only) : $104,000

So, a bachelor's degree (meaning at LEAST 5 fewer years of schooling required) makes almost $20,000 more per year than a climate scientist does. Who's the sugar daddy again?

[jimboy71]

03:02 PM on 06/14/2012

It's obvious isn't it? PhD scientists in climate are so stu/pid they didn't know they should be drilling engineers. That is the only logical interpretation...oh, and it is a liberal lie.

Did I get that about right?

;)