Hall of Record: Where Is The Global Warming... Extreme Temperature Records Update January 2009

So that you understand what this is about, a few years ago I was looking for evidence of global warming based on the assertion that such warming would be manifested by more extreme high temperatures. An analysis of our local temperatures revealed that most of the records occurred in the 1950s and 1980s, not in the last 20 years. That lead me to search for a more widespread sample... the U.S.

The U.S. analysis showed that the late 1990s were indeed hot and had a greater than normal expected level of statewide monthly records. What it also showed, however, was that the 1930s had a much higher frequency of those records. Finally, it showed a sharp tailing off of such extremes beginning with the new century.

The Reference Frame: Weather and climate: noise and timescales

And the absence of a warming trend in the last 10 years indicates that it is somewhat likely that there won't be any warming trend in the following 10 years, either. In other words, even if "man-made climate change" exists, it is almost certainly not going to be an urgent problem at the time scale of a decade or shorter. Every sensible person should agree that short-term observations of either sign cannot be extrapolated to an arbitrarily far future.

Cold too much for some in Le Jardin group

WASHINGTON — One third of the group of Le Jardin students and chaperones gave up on watching Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony today because of the cold, and instead, will see it on television at the Natural History Museum.

Biggest, coldest TV-watching party ever | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

It feels like the biggest and coldest TV-watching party ever.

'This is the dream ...'

WASHINGTON -- At the Washington Monument today were Lindsey and Emma Willis of Jacksonville, Fla., with their 12-year-old grandson, Samuel Johnson.
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His wife, shivering, added: "I'm not a person of cold weather, so this had to be special for me."

Samuel said, "I can't feel my toes.''