14 DAY TRIAL // With the help of data provided by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, meteorologist Jeff Masters has reached a rather troubling conclusion: the year 2012 has basically been the hottest year on record for the US.
Apparently, the country has a warm November and a stunningly early December to thank for this uncalled for record.
As explained on Think Progress, this year's January-November witnessed 18 American states' scoring record warm, whereas 24 others settled for only making it into the top ten warmest states in the US.
“The January-November period was the warmest first 11 months of any year on record for the contiguous United States, and for the entire year, 2012 will most likely surpass the current record (1998, 54.3°F) as the warmest year for the nation,” NOAA explained when releasing one of their latest State of the Climate report.
Needless to say, these new meteorological records established in the US impacted both on water availability and on agricultural practices, meaning they led to long and severe droughts.
More precisely, the nationally averaged precipitation was found to be below average both throughout autumn, and during November, by 0.93 inches and 1 inch, respectively.
“December 2012 would have to be 1°F colder than our coldest December on record (set in 1983) to prevent the year 2012 from being the warmest in US history,” meteorologist Jeff Masters explains.
However, “This is meteorologically impossible, given the recent December heat in the US. As wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt reported, an early-December heat wave this week set records for warmest December temperature on record in seven states,” he went on to add.
As was to be expected, climate change believers are using this piece of news to draw attention to the fact that, except for our doing something about global warming and its underlying causes, it will not be long until the year 2012 is no longer the hottest in the history of the US.