December 2009: 4th or 8th warmest December on record
The globe recorded its eighth warmest December since record keeping began in 1880, and 2009 tied with 2006 as the fifth warmest year on record, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies rated December 2009 as the 4th warmest December on record, and the year 2009 tied with 2007 as the second warmest year on record. NOAA rated December 2009 ocean temperatures as the 2nd warmest on record, next to 1997, and land temperatures as the 31st warmest on record. The anomalously cool conditions over much of northern Asian and North American land areas may be associated with the near record December snow cover extent over Northern Hemisphere land areas--2nd most on record, behind 1985. Snow cover records go back to 1967. The December global satellite-measured temperatures for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the 7th warmest on record, according to the University of Alabama Huntsville and RSS data sets.
Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for December, 2009. Image credit: National Climatic Data Center.
One interesting note: the NASA global average temperature for 2009 was .57°C above average. NOAA's was .56°C above average. These temperatures were just .06°C below the all-time hottest year on record, 2005. The 11-year global sunspot cycle causes a variation of 0.1°C between the maximum and minimum of the solar cycle. We are currently at a deep minimum of the solar cycle, so we would have set a new global temperature record had we been at the maximum of the solar cycle. The other global temperature data set, the UK HadCRUT3 data, is not yet available for 2009. This data set is the one most often quoted by global warming skeptics, since it says that 1998 was the warmest year on record. However, HadCRUT3 fills in a huge area of missing data in the Arctic with the average temperature from the rest of the globe. This is bound to cause an underestimate of the global temperature, since the Arctic has warmed much more than the rest of the globe. The NASA and NOAA data sets fill in the missing data in the Arctic with data interpolated from the nearest stations in the Arctic, a procedure which is less likely to underestimate the global temperature.
December 2009: 14th coolest December on record for the U.S.
For the contiguous U.S., the average December temperature was 3.2°F below average, making it the 14th coolest December in the 115-year record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The U.S. has been on quite a roller coaster of temperatures over the past three months--the nation recorded its third coldest October on record, followed by its third warmest November, followed by its 14th coolest December. The coolest December weather was in the Central U.S., where Nebraska had its eighth coolest December; Texas, Nevada, and Wyoming their ninth; and Montana and Utah their tenth coolest.
December 2009 was the 11th wettest December in U.S. history. It was a record wet month for Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland; 2nd wettest month on record for New Jersey; and the third wettest month on record for South Dakota, North Carolina, and Alabama. The Northwest U.S. was dry, with Washington experiencing its 11th driest December on record.
The year 2009: 35th warmest for the U.S.
For the entire year of 2009, it was the 35th warmest year in the contiguous U.S during the 115-year record. The coolest state was Nebraska, which had its 19th coolest year on record, and the warmest state was California, with its 16th warmest year on record. The driest state was Arizona, where 2009 ranked as the 4th driest year on record, while the wettest states were Illinois, Alabama, and Arkansas, who all had their 2nd wettest year on record.
U.S. tornado deaths: 2nd lowest on record
The year 2009 was below average for number of tornadoes, with a final tally around 1120 expected, compared to the 3-year average of 1297, according to the Storm Prediction Center. The 21 tornado deaths in 2009 was the 2nd lowest death toll in the 60-year record. Only 1986, with its 15 tornado deaths, saw fewer fatalities. The 60-year average annual death toll is 84.
U.S. drought
At the end of December, 6% of the contiguous United States was in severe-to-exceptional drought, which is well below average. The U.S. Drought Monitor shows no areas in the highest classification of drought--exceptional drought, and U.S. drought extent is close to its lowest value for the past ten years. The second highest category of drought, extreme drought, covers only a small region of northeast Arizona, and this will shrink over the remainder of January as much-needed rain falls across Arizona. About 43 percent of the contiguous United States had moderately-to-extremely wet conditions at the end of December, according to the Palmer Index (a well-known index that measures both drought intensity and wet spell intensity). This footprint is significantly larger than the long-term average.
Average U.S. fire activity in 2009
Significant fire activity occurred early in 2009, but wetter conditions across many parts of the nation as the year progressed, coupled with effective fire management, helped to restrain fire activity by mid-year. Despite the largest fire in Los Angeles County's (California) recorded history (Station fire), by the end of August the nationwide acreage burned by wildfire was very near the 2000 - 2009 average, and thereafter declined below average. Based upon data provided by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), fire activity in 2009 ranked fifth highest (sixth lowest) out of the past decade in terms of number of fires, about 1 percent below the 2000 - 2008 average. Acres burned in 2009 were 14.5 percent below the 2000 - 2008 average, ranking seventh highest (fourth lowest) since 2000. Average fire size also ranked seventh highest out of the 2000 - 2009 period, at about 14 percent below average.
Strong El Niño conditions continue
Strong El Niño conditions continue over the tropical Eastern Pacific. Ocean temperatures in the area 5°N - 5°S, 120°W - 170°W, also called the "Niña 3.4 region", were at 1.6°C above average on January 10, just above the 1.5°C threshold for a strong El Niño, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The strength of El Niño has been roughly constant for the 9 weeks ending January 10. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center is maintaining an El Niño Advisory. Most of the El Niño models forecast that El Niño has peaked and will gradually weaken. Most of the models predict that El Niño conditions will last into early summer, but cross the threshold into neutral territory by the height of hurricane season.
December sea ice extent in the Arctic 4th lowest on record
December 2009 Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent was the 4th lowest since satellite measurements began in 1979 and slightly below December 2008 levels, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Only 2005, 2006, and 2007 saw lower December arctic sea ice extent. The weather pattern over the Arctic in December 2009 featured a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation (AO). This pattern tends to slow the winds that typically flush large amounts of sea ice out of the Arctic between Greenland and Iceland. In this way, a negative AO could help retain some the second- and third-year ice through the winter, and potentially rebuild some of the older, multi-year ice that has been lost over the past few years. However, the AO has increased significantly in January, and it is unclear what the net effect of the AO on sea ice transported out of the Arctic this winter will be.
Next post
I'm at the 90th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Atlanta, Georgia, and will be making my next post from Atlanta on Tuesday.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Hi.
Skypeony, please say that the AO forecast isn't right! looks like in early 2-10, parts of the US are back into the Deep Freeze!!
i AM DOING GOOD THANK YOU
That has a lot to do with winds. For example, the change in westerlies from El Nino, alone, is worth meters of sea level changes in the tropical Pacific.
Good deal! Did you enjoy your taste of winter last week?
And/or the cost of energy, even with the reliable, relatively inexpensive sources we enjoy.
You guys sure are one-dimensional when it comes to what causes bad-scary alarming events and effects.
Here, I'll throw in a nice bone. Anyone care to correlate electricity consumption (electric lighting) in the home to literacy? Or life expectancy and health? Does one cause the other?
???
where you see that?
Not seeing that here: http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/
TUESDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT...PRIMARY FORECAST CONCERN DURING
THE PERIOD IS TSTM CHANCES TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY. THE
GFS/ECMWF AND NAM ALL AGREE THAT A FAIRLY STRONG SHORTWAVE TROUGH
WILL PROVIDE GOOD LARGE SCALE FORCING FOR ASCENT OVER NORTH TX
DURING THE DAY ON WEDNESDAY. THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MODELS
APPEARS TO BE IN HOW THEY HANDLE THE SHORTWAVE TROUGH THAT MOVES
INTO THE PLAINS TUESDAY NIGHT. THE ECMWF HAS THIS FEATURE RESOLVED
AS A FAIRLY STRONG WAVE THAT BRINGS -10 DM OR STRONGER H500 HEIGHT
FALLS OVER NORTHERN OK/SOUTHERN KS NEAR MIDNIGHT TUESDAY NIGHT.
THE GFS ON THE OTHER HAND HARDLY SEEMS TO RESOLVE THIS LEAD
IMPULSE CHOOSING TO SPREAD VERY BROAD H500 HEIGHT HEIGHT FALLS
OVER NEARLY ALL OF THE HIGH PLAINS TUESDAY NIGHT AS THE STRONGER
SHORTWAVE APPROACHES ON WEDNESDAY. NEITHER SOLUTION DIRECTLY
PRODUCES FORCING OVER NORTH TX...BUT IF THE ECMWF VERIFIES THIS
WAVE WOULD LIKELY SEND A PACIFIC TYPE COLD FRONT EAST INTO THE CWA
BY WEDNESDAY MORNING...SHUNTING LOW LEVEL MOISTURE OFF INTO FAR
EASTERN AND SOUTHEASTERN TX. THE GFS WITHOUT THE PACIFIC FRONT
MOVING INTO THE AREA KEEPS DEEP LOW LEVEL MOISTURE MUCH FURTHER
WEST INTO THE CWA AS THE NEXT SHORTWAVE TROUGH APPROACHES FOR
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.
I'm talking about the DIRECT effects, as in the averages taking a toll on livelihoods. But it's the extremes that have the biggest impact, even though those impacts are often indirect, and the extremes appear to be becoming more extreme at a rate faster than the averages are rising.
And all bad stuff is caused by one thing...fear the unknown as we have done for centuries and assign the causation of all bad things that happen to that one unknown being based on a bit of overactive faith in exceedingly limited data correlations.
Not that I like to invoke it as I think it a little silly, but you do realize why some call AGW a religion, right?
That was a pathetic display by the Cowboys. Tony Romo did a choke job. Wade Phillips should be fired for not going for it on 4th and one in the first quarter...instead letting his soon-to-be released FG kicker kick one wide right. Dallas was moving the ball effectively in the opening quarter, but going for a FG? I would have gone for it. Three points wasn't going to win the game anyway.
what does the A mean in AGW?
Fear can be quite powerful, in the end humans may be contributing to it but we do not know how much of it we are contributing, and if there are mini ice ages why not have mini warming periods. Most consider the debate to be close not because they believe they are 100% right but because they want pollution to be cut down they don't want to wait any longer not just because of warming, but environmental degradation and other things.
GFS 18Z 700mb (a guess at potential precip) East Pacific Loop:
Link
I also believe they have a right to be concerned about what could be viewed as an "American takeover", given the history of the region. Both Cuba and Puerto Rico fought against the tyranny of Spanish rule and with the help of the Americans got rid of the Spanish. 100 years later, the US still controls Puerto Rico, treating it like a US possession without granting its people statehood. Puerto Ricans wanted to be their own nation, not an American protectorate, and even today, 100 years later, some of them still want this.
Haiti's problem is, and IMO always has been, that unlike the United States it never received the support and recognition it deserved from the international community. There were reasons for this, the primary one being that as a nation of freed slaves, freed by the slaves themselves, Haiti posed a serious threat to every slave-based economy in the European realm of influence. Consider that, following Haiti's influence and example, most of Spain's empire was decimated due to revolutions within 50 years of Haiti's independence. The United States, which should have viewed Haiti as an ally in the fight for freedom and independence for colonized lands, had its own slave economies to protect. Therefore it too viewed Haiti as more of a threat than a potential asset.
Haiti was never able to take its rightful place in the theatre of nations, which made it much easier for the second of its problems to fester over the next two hundred years. This problem was the system of dictatorship and revolution, through which the greed and self-agrandizement of Haiti's leaders kept the masses weak, poor and uneducated. Whenever a potentially beneficial leader came to power in Haiti, the selfish and greedy worked to overthrough him and install themselves in his stead. These dictators abused their powers - and the Haitian people - until a new cycle of revolution overthrew them, bringing a new potential dictator to the fore. Of course this is a very simplified expression of the situation in Haiti, but the reality of Haitian history has been that any longstanding government worked openly to oppress the people, to repress the development of the country so that they could maximize the power in their hands.
Along with this, Haiti has continuously been "abused" by the international economic community. There have been, unfortunately, companies whose main reason for doing business with Haiti is to ensure that they get a good product for an extremely cheap price. They closed their eyes to the lack of civil liberties, the obvious descrepencies between the haves and the have nots, and would see no problem with people making $2.00 a day - so long as their profit margin was acceptable. A system of kickbacks and blind eyes turned made Haiti the quintessential "banana republic", where the foreign investor was only one step away from a god.
Pat Robertson talked about a "deal with the Devil" that led to a perpetual curse on Haiti. The real "curse" on Haiti was for its enslaved peoples of African descent to be "before their time" in overthrowing Europeans and making their former masters look bad.
You better belive it! Every little bit helps!
How are you, RMM?
Ditto, Grothar.
There are sheep on both sides of the argument
heheheheheh
Way too much o' that in the world...
I hope something good can rise, pheonix-like, from the rubble of Haiti's latest catastrophe.
Anyway,isn't pretty and stupid at least better than dumb and ugly?
;o)
And revisit is an issue. Continuous data from Geostationary vs new data hopefully once a day depending on orbit, valid swath width, and interferences.
Artibonite in Action or LAAA [Youri LATORTUE]; Assembly of Progressive National Democrats or RDNP [Leslie MANIGAT]; Convention for Democratic Unity or KID [Evans PAUL]; Cooperative Action to Build Haiti or KONBA [Evans LESCOUFALIR]; Democratic Alliance or ALYANS [Evans PAUL] (coalition composed of KID and PPRH); Effort and Solidarity to Create an Alternative for the People or ESKAMP [Joseph JASME]; For Us All or PONT [Jean-Marie CHERESTAL]; Front for Hope or L'ESPWA [Rene PREVAL] (alliance of ESKAMP, PLB, and grass-roots organizations Grand-Anse Resistance Committee, the Central Plateau Peasants' Group, and Kombit Sudest); Haitian Christian Democratic Party or PDCH [Osner FEVRY and Marie-Denise CLAUDE]; Haitian Democratic and Reform Movement or MODEREH [Dany TOUSSAINT and Pierre Soncon PRINCE]; Heads Together or Tet-Ansanm [Dr. Gerard BLOT]; Independent Movement for National Reconciliation or MIRN [Luc FLEURINORD]; Justice for Peace and National Development or JPDN [Rigaud DUPLAN]; Fanmi Lavalas or FL [Rudy HERIVEAUX]; Liberal Party of Haiti or PLH [Gehy MICHEL]; Merging of Haitian Social Democratic Parties or FUSION or FPSDH [Serge GILLES] (coalition of Ayiti Capable, Haitian National Revolutionary Party, and National Congress of Democratic Movements); Mobilization for Haiti's Development or MPH [Samir MOURRA]; Mobilization for National Development or MDN [Hubert de RONCERAY]; Movement for National Reconstruction or MRN [Jean Henold BUTEAU]; Movement for the Installation of Democracy in Haiti or MIDH [Marc BAZIN]; National Christian Union for the Reconstruction of Haiti or UNCRH [Marie Claude GERMAIN]; National Front for the Reconstruction of Haiti or FRN [Guy PHILIPPE]; New Christian Movement for a New Haiti or MOCHRENA [Luc MESADIEU]; Open the Gate Party or PLB [Anes LUBIN]; Popular Party for the Renewal of Haiti or PPRH [Claude ROMAIN]; Struggling People's Organization or OPL [Edgard LEBLANC]; Union of Nationalist and Progressive Haitians or UNITE [Edouard FRANCISQUE]
CIA World Factbook
Have you looked at his picture?!?!?! ; )
I believe that one of the biggest issues that Haiti has faced is the level of corruption - I know for a fact that governmental officials take a cut of the food supplies that come in, not just the food, but money from those bringing it in.
Haiti is also a land of haves and have nots. Most of the people have very little, and the people who are educated, and who do have money, live a completely different life. How you combat that, I have no idea.
It is even possible to pose as a Responsible Gentleman here, and have peculiar habits with ones attire at the same time.
Kids are amazing.
Thanks for your concern
Fortunately, my family is fine and has no serious no injuries. The lives of some of the distant relatives of mines are probably lost. About half of my friends here that are Haitian have some members of their family who have died--a crisis indeed this is.
I am doing good this evening. And very excited about all the latest Portlight developments in Haiti. It will be so great to have scene coordinator Richard Lamarque in Haiti with a truck!! You guys are making SO MUCH progress!
Chinese Communist Party or CCP [HU Jintao]; eight registered small parties controlled by CCP
Umm, I posted what? Maybe 8 stations from around the top of the northern hemisphere?
And the Inuit perception is a problem when the land is rising out of the sea faster than any place is subsiding.
Hmmm, skye, disappointed that you deride about posting one station (which I did not) and in the next few words bring up a single population of people in a limited area with serious dynamical changes in the area over the course of a single generation.
No, thank you very much!
Anthropogenic.
Not a fan of Pat Robertson. I think he is a 'false prophet' in the Christian faith but, y'know, he wasn't 'far' off saying this. We ran into many folks in Haiti who really believed there was deal made by Boukman giving the land for 200 years to the devil. There are also many who believe Aristide renewed this 'pact'. We were constantly coming up against this belief. Robertson simply repeated the historical lore on the island.
Gotta say, I ran up against voodoo while there and had some very, very creepy encounters with a voodoo priest. I stay far, far away from those beliefs now.
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