2012, being the year of a surreal March heat wave leading to a severe drought in the corn belt and a massive storm that caused broad devastation in the mid-Atlantic states, turns out to have been the hottest year recorded in the contiguous United States. Something which resulted in having the temperature differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree, but last year's 55.3 degree average demolished the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit.
If that does not sound sufficiently impressive, consider that 34,008 daily high records were set at U.S. weather stations, compared with only 6,664 record lows, according to a count maintained by Weather Channel meteorologist Guy Walton, using federal temperature records.
In fact, it's the ratio, which was roughly in balance as recently as the 1970s, has been out of whack for decades as the country has warmed, but never by as much as it was last year. As a matter of fact "The heat was remarkable," said Jake Crouch, a scientist with the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., which released the official climate compilation on Tuesday. "It was prolonged. That we beat the record by one degree is quite a big deal."
Scientists have to say that the natural variability almost certainly played a role in last year's extreme heat and drought. In fact many of the scientists have spoken about the impact of the backdrop of global warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases while they also have mentioned that the continuing warming makes heat extremes more likely.
As a result, drought engulfed 61 percent of the nation, killed corn and soybean crops and sent prices spiraling. The 2012 record, and its one degree increase over 1998, strikes climatologists as so unusual and that's why they say, "We're taking quite a large step above what the period of record has shown for the contiguous United States." Moreover, being the warmest year, 2012 turned out to be the second-worst on a measure called the Climate Extremes Index, surpassed only by 1998.
To say, no one has control over nature!
(AW: Samrat Biswas)
