2006 was warmest on record for U.S.
2006 was warmest on record for U.S.
Story Highlights
• NEW: 2006 was the warmest on record for the U.S.
• National Climatic Data Center: Average temp was 55 degrees
• 2006 was sixth warmest year on record worldwide
• Experts unsure what is causing the unusual weather
Image above: The image shows what happens when a very strong El Nino strikes surface waters in the Central equatorial Pacific Ocean. The sequence shows warm water anomalies (red) develop in the Central Pacific Ocean. Winds that normally blow in a westerly direction weaken allowing the easterly winds to push the warm water up against the South American Coast. Click on image to enlarge. Click here for high resolution TIF image (17.4 MB) . Credit: NASA
Image above: This image shows colder than normal water (blue) anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific associated with La Nina. Stronger than normal trade winds bring cold water up to the surface of the ocean. Click on image to enlarge. Credit: NASA
Image above: This image shows the current El Nino's split personality. Warm waters develop in the central Pacific Ocean. In this case, the warm water anomalies tend to stay in place in the central Pacific. Click on image to enlarge. Click here for high resolution TIF image (17.4 MB).
What’s global warming got to do with it?
The Earth’s warming pattern can magnify existing weather patterns
NEW YORK -
We're taking a look at the strange weather around the country lately and re-visiting a topic we covered Friday night that lit up interest and protest among some of our viewers.
Here in New York on Saturday it was 72 degrees in Central Park. While its a little colder here today, it's not by much.
Boston's high Monday was 52: its normally 37. That's a full 15-degrees above normal. And it was 57 today in Philadelphia, 21-degrees above normal.
On Friday we looked into it. We invited Dennis Feltgen, a 30-year veteran weather forecaster on the broadcast and asked him about it. He said "it's not global warming at all...it is El Nino, El Nino, El Nino."
Since then, NBC News Chief Science Correspondent Robert Bazell talked to experts who say there is a relationship between this strange El Nino winter and global warming — and there'll be more where that came from.
Climate scientists say there is no question that the immediate cause of the unusually warm weather in the Northeast this winter is El Niño, a natural warming of the ocean halfway around world.
"El Niño is a cyclical change in the ocean temperatures of the Pacific and it does shift the location and intensity of the jet streams, and that acts to influence the patterns of temperature and precipitation across the U.S.," says Dr. Brian Soden with The University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
In most years, the upper jet stream brings arctic air to the Northeast in the winter. In an El Niño year like this one, it does not.
But what about global warming, which most scientists believe is caused by carbon dioxide and other gases produced by humans? Many experts say it too plays a part.
"Whatever the natural causes are, they are riding on top of the warming trend that has been induced by humans using the atmosphere as a free place to dump our tailpipe waste," says Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford University.
From now on, scientists say, many extreme weather events will result from natural causes enhanced by global warming. That includes heat waves, droughts and hurricanes.
"We all know that humans don't make hurricanes," Schneider says. "Katrina was not produced by global warming, yet Katrina was a little stronger because it went over an ocean that was half a degree warmer than it would have been."
So, the unusual warmth in the Northeast could be partly the result of global warming. Indeed, even the heavy snow in the Rockies this year might be partly caused by global warming. El Niño brings the storms, but because the air is warmer than usual, it holds far more moisture, producing much more snow.
© 2006 MSNBC Interactive
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