Record-breaking weather

Within the last couple of decades, our global climate has been rapidly changing. The Earth’s temperature has risen about one degree Celsius, or 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Many scientists believe that our planet’s warming is contributing to the wild weather extremes that we’re seeing, especially since the late 1990s into early this century.

In 2007 we’ve seen disastrous crop-destroying freezes in California’s agriculturally-rich Central Valley. All-time record heat has been felt across much of the West, Great Plains and southeastern United States. On July 5, Missoula reported its highest temperature ever recorded of 107 degrees. Many stations in Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and South Dakota reported average July temperatures to be the warmest in history. Searing early August heat is currently killing crops in the nation’s Midwestern breadbasket.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, January 2007 and April 2007 will rank as the warmest such months ever for global land surface temperatures. These scientists believe this warming is to blame for the weather extremes not only in the U.S., but in other parts of the world as well.

For example, this year was South Asia’s worst monsoon flooding in at least 60 years in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Severe flooding was seen recently across southern China, England and Wales, which saw the wettest May and June ever also leading to extensive flooding in these regions. Germany experienced the driest April and the wettest May in recorded history. Extreme heat plagued southeastern Europe in May, June and July.

Very detailed weather records are kept for most major U.S. towns and cities by the National Weather Service. Records of highs, high minimum temperatures, lows, low maximum temperatures, precipitation and snowfall are kept for each day. Some reporting stations possess daily weather records dating back to the 1980s, while most major cities have data going back to the late 1800s, including Spokane and Coeur d’Alene.

When a weather record is tied or broken, the U.S. National Weather Service issues a public information statement detailing this information.

In order to figure out just how many records have been broken in 2007, the data from the National Weather Service was put into a database and categorized as the type of record tied or broken. Since Jan. 1, nearly 6,600 weather records have fallen across the U.S., an average of more than 29 per day. From that figure, more than 57 percent are warm records (high and high minimum temperatures). Only 23.8 percent are cold records (low and low maximum temperatures), and less than 20 percent are precipitation records (rain and snow). Nearly 300 records fell last week.

Warm weather records have dominated 2-to-1 versus cold records in 2007. This is another piece of information that supports global warming. In addition to the burning of fossil fuels, more concrete and asphalt in our cities and surrounding regions also increases local temperatures as these hard substances absorb more heat than grasslands and other vegetated surfaces. The warming of the cities is called the urban heat island effect and this phenomenon is certainly becoming more widespread. How much our planet is warming due to human activities versus long-term climatological cycles is up for debate. But one thing’s for sure; mankind is certainly making things worse, not better.

Things remain tinder-dry across the region with extreme fire danger levels. Most of the rest of August and at least the first couple of weeks of September should be warmer and drier than usual for the last part of summer.

I still expect the upcoming fall season to be cooler and wetter than normal, especially if the La Niña sea-surface temperature event in the south-central Pacific Ocean holds on to life.