January – November 2007 statewide temperature rankings. Credit: NOAA
The year 2007 is on pace to become one of the 10 warmest years for the contiguous U.S. … The year was marked by exceptional drought in the U.S. Southeast and the West, which helped fuel another extremely active wildfire season. The year also brought outbreaks of cold air, and killer heat waves and floods. Meanwhile, the global surface temperature for 2007 is expected to be fifth warmest.
– NOAA: 2007 a Top Ten Warm Year for U.S. and Globe
Preliminary data will be updated in early January to reflect the final three weeks of December and is not considered final until a full analysis is complete next spring.
Globally:
Including 2007, seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1997. The global average surface temperature has risen between 0.6°C and 0.7°C since the start of the twentieth century, and the rate of increase since 1976 has been approximately three times faster than the century-scale trend.
I appreciate you bringing this up, as I have a (wishful) suspicion that recent odd weather isn’t such a big trend as some would have us believe. I’m not surprised to see Wisconsin listed as “much above normal”, it sure seems that way to me. In fact, I’ve been accused of bringing the warmer temps with me when I moved from Indiana in 1997…um…looks like I did. Sorry.
lisa: We are already well into the era of warming. We’ve just begun to see and feel the impacts. While it’s not valid to infer trends from a single year of weather, these year-after-year shifts signal a change in climate, not just the weather.