Warm Front

James Hansen reports that 2009 was the second hottest year on record, second only to 2005 in If It’s That Warm, How Come It’s So Damned Cold? The title is an acknowlegment of the popular notion that this has been a very cold winter. Well, it has been a cold winter in many of the most populous areas of the Northern Hemisphere, but global temperatures are umm, global, and Europe, Asia, and the Eastern US together are still a small part of the total globe. The clueless, of course, will never grasp the notion that ice in their driveway is not evidence for or against global warming.

Hansen also mentions the reason the recent months have looked cold to many of us - the strong arctic oscillation this year. Cold polar air has moved far to the South, chilling places used to more warmth, but the other side of the oscillation is that some normally very cold places in the far North have been unusually warm.

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