NOAA: 2012 broke U.S. heat records
Source: CNN
The past year saw a mild winter give way to a balmier-than-normal spring, followed by a sweltering summer and high temperatures that lingered into the fall, all punctuated by extreme drought and intense storms.
Now 2012 is officially in the books as the hottest year on record for the continental United States and the second-worst for "extreme" weather such as hurricanes, droughts or floods, the U.S. government announced Tuesday.
The year's average temperature of 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit across the Lower 48 was more than 3.2 degrees warmer than the average for the 20th century, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported. That topped the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree.
Every state in the contiguous United States saw above-average temperatures in 2012, with 19 of them setting annual records of their own, NOAA said. Meanwhile, the country faced 11 weather disasters that topped $1 billion in losses each, including a lingering drought that covered 61% of the country at one point.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/08/us/extreme-weather/index.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
....at least, if UAH temperature measurements are accurate:
(BTW, just so you know, I don't agree with Dr. Spencer's interpretation of the data; he says .2*C as of December. I, however, would peg us at an average temperature rise of about .5*C above 1979 levels, with last month being at around .4*C using that assumption.)
And yet, we didn't get any major heatwaves in '98, but we did in 2011 and last year, too. Truly strange, isn't it? I guess that's why some call it "global weirding".....and, TBH, I think it fits quite well. 
Last edited Wed Jan 9, 2013, 03:49 PM - Edit history (1)
Of course, as I've said so many times before, some of the wacky out-of-left-field stuff coming from the absolute fringes of our side hasn't helped much(if you've been over to E & E more than occasionally in the most recent 7-8 months, btw, you may remember a particularly way out of wack claim made by one Malcolm Light, in which all life on Earth, even us, would be dead by the middle of this century.....), mainly due how it's been used against us by those who keep the disinfo going(Monckton, Christy, et al.), not to mention that it makes our jobs harder, in many ways.
But, IMO, if we want to get to the core of the problem, we need to keep exposing the facts about who's funding AGW denial(and yes, actual denial, folks), why they're doing it, etc. That, more than anything else, will help to stifle, and perhaps one day, eradicate, the pedaling of the outright bullshit, like "The Earth is cooling", "We are too insignificant to affect Earth's climate", etc.....
Yeah, it's gonna be tough. But there's guys like the Skeptical Science folks, and yes, even our very own GreenMan, dedicating their time to helping get the word out. And frankly, we need more of them.