Coldest Summer in the US since 1911?

Question

This was the coldest summmer since 1911 in the US. All politics/causes aside, could this be due to global warming? Can you have seasons like this and still have a global rise in temps?

Answer 1

The concern with globally rising temps is that the climate will change. So yes, you can have an abnormally cold season even when global temps are rising. When we look at global warming, we are looking at small increases in the average temperature of the entire world. It is an anomaly.

Usually year to year variations like this are due to different cyclic events, such as el nino, la nina, north atlantic oscillation, etc. I would never say it is not connected to global warming, but there could be a variety of atmospheric and climatic conditions impacting it.

I'm surprised to hear it's been a cold one...it's been very hot here in CO. But then again, I just got out here.

Answer 2

if the winter was a lot warner than usual, then yes. One of the theories if that weather extremes will be worse, causing very strange swings in weather conditions (but not like the day after tomorrow, that was a bunch of crock...). The biggest problem with all of this is that our record keeping is very short term and we are trying to explain something that could be naturally occurring over a thousand year period. Then, how much of this is attributable to human activity. We would probably have been on nuclear power 20 years ago (like France is) if environmentalists had not killed it years ago. Humans will have an impact. We just have to decide which one.

Answer 3

Where did you get this information? I don't believe it is correct. I just checked the National Climate Data Center website and it said

"For the contiguous United States, July 2007 was the 15th warmest July since records began in 1895. The monthly mean temperature was 1.4°F (0.8°C) above the 20th century average of 74.3°F (23.5°C)."

To answer your question, you can have an unusually cold season in a warming climate, but it becomes less likely. However, since the August numbers aren't out yet and July was warm, I don't believe your premise is correct.