Brad, I know it's fun to utilize a record temp like this in order to poke fun of the idiocy of climate science denial, but I think it critical that, in such pieces, we inform the public of the fundamental distinction between local weather fluctuations and global climate change.

One should be just as careful not to point to the 113 degree LA reading as evidence of global warming as one is in avoiding the assumption that a record winter low supports the denial of global warming.

For example, even while we in So. Cal experienced one of the mildest summers in recent memory, places as diverse as the East Coast and Moscow were experiencing record highs.

Dr. James Hansen's work, especially in the field of paleoclimate studies, also reveals that it isn't just atmospheric temperatures but both the temperature and size of the oceans.

A key concern is the climate forcing arising in particular from the reduction of ice surface by more acute climate change in the polar regions and increase in water surface.

The reflective quality of ice sends heat and energy back into space; where oceans absorb them.

Thanks, Ernie. And you're absolutely right, of course. Had I not been so hot yesterday when writing the above (and while recording the Green News Report earlier in the day), I'd have probably noted as much, as we usually do when discussing such things.

Given Doocy's comment from last January, however, (as heard in the GNR), when he, a weatherman said a record COLD temperature somewhere up in Montana or something was evidence that Global Warming doesn't exist, I thought I'd point out that, if that's the case, then I guess a record HOT temperature indicates that it does.

It's a satirical point, of course, and your fact-based, science-based response to it above is much appreciated.

http://latimesblogs.lati...-coldest-in-decades.html

Farewell summer, we hardly knew ye!

The last day of summer is Wednesday, but meteorologists say the season barely bothered to show up in the region this year. So cooler fall will make an almost noiseless entrance Thursday, hardly indistinguishable from the summer Southern Californians just experienced.

“Summer played hooky on us. It never really showed up,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. “We leaped from spring to fall.”

Patzert said a low-pressure trough that stalled along the West Coast from Alaska to southern Baja California kept the summer cooler than usual, with many overcast days. Monthly temperatures in downtown Los Angeles from April to now have averaged between one to three degrees cooler than normal.

Patzert said it’s one of the coolest summers in decades.

Jamie Meier, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Oxnard, said that LAX tied the coldest average temperature for August on record, going back to 1944.

The Santa Barbara airport also broke a record for coolest August, she said. The weather service is predicting a La Nina cycle that could mean drier-than-normal conditions. That isn’t always the case during La Nina, said Meier. But more often than not it is, she said.

Thoughout the summer, communities across Southern California set record low temperatures, notably Los Angeles International Airport and other coastal areas.

-- Hector Becerra

It could be the geo engineering op's shut down too!
It sure felt like they were controlling the energy being released in the gulf with the last few storms.