NOAA’s ‘New Normals’ Climate Data Raises Questions About What’s Normal
Does using 30-year weather averages mask rapid global warming?
By Bob Berwyn and Matt deGrood
May 15, 2021
A bicyclist rides along a flooded street as a powerful storm moves across Southern California on Feb. 17, 2017 in Sun Valley, California. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images
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When climatologists started standardizing global weather data about 100 years ago, they didn’t know that heat-trapping greenhouse gases were already pushing the planet’s climate inexorably in one direction, off the charts of human experience.
But people like to measure things in understandable segments, so, based on the data it had at the time, the World Meteorological Organization created three-decade climate reference periods they called “climate normals” against which they could measure daily temperatures, unusual heat waves, cold snaps or big rainstorms.
Annual U.S. temperature compared to the 20th-century average for each U.S. Climate Normals period from 1901-1930 (upper left) to 1991-2020 (lower right). Places where the normal annual temperature was 1.25 degrees or more colder than the 20th-century average are darkest blue; places where normal annual temperature was 1.25 degrees or more warmer than the 20th-century average are darkest red, according to NOAA. Maps by NOAA Climate.gov, based on analysis by Jared Rennie, North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies/NCEI.
Federal researchers have compiled temperature data from the last 30 years that shows Florida, along with the rest of the country, is getting hotter. The state is also experiencing more rain, as well.
American s new climate normal is hotter, wetter, and more extreme AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
New climate data released Tuesday shows temperatures across most of the US are trending up.
The yearly normal temperature for the country reached a record-high of 53.3 degrees over the last 30 years.
Climate scientist Mike Palecki said the higher normals were one sign of ongoing climate change.
National data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration supports what scientists have been shouting for years: The ongoing climate crisis has created a wet, hot, American climate.
The country s new normal temperature is one full degree hotter than it was only two decades ago, according to an updated set of thirty-year climate averages for the contiguous US known as climate normals.
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Climatologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s office of National Centers for Environmental Information are recalculating the nation’s Climate Normals covering the span of 1991-2020. This process occurs every 30 years.
It started in 1935 when the International Meteorological Organization, now called World Meteorological Organization, asked its nation members to calculate “climate normals” using a 30-year period, starting with 1901-1930.
For the first time, the update will also include 15-year Normals. This should meet the needs of those who want a period closer to current time. Along with the 15-year Normals, NOAA will release high resolution monthly Normals data for the contiguous United States. There will be new tools and methods to access these data sets.