I ran across an interesting blog post at Capital Climate that said:

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) preliminary analysis for June 2010, posted this morning, shows that average temperatures in the U.S. were the 8th warmest in 116 years of records.

Here’s a neat map at Capital Climate, April –June 2010 Statewide Ranks

“Using a large suite of climate model experiments, we see a clear emergence of much more intense, hot conditions in the U.S. within the next three decades,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford and the lead author of the study.

Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Diffenbaugh concluded that hot temperature extremes could become frequent events in the U.S. by 2039, posing serious risks to agriculture and human health.

“In the next 30 years, we could see an increase in heat waves like the one now occurring in the eastern United States or the kind that swept across Europe in 2003 that caused tens of thousands of fatalities,” said Diffenbaugh, a center fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “Those kinds of severe heat events also put enormous stress on major crops like corn, soybean, cotton and wine grapes, causing a significant reduction in yields.”

The GRL study took two years to complete and is co-authored by Moetasim Ashfaq, a former Stanford postdoctoral fellow now at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The study comes on the heels of a recent NASA report, which concluded that the previous decade, January 2000 to December 2009, was the warmest on record.

Keep reading:

Source: Stanford University (2010, July 9). Heat waves could be commonplace in the US by 2039. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 9, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/07/100708122617.htm

"Despite 1998 being the warmest individual year, the last 10 years have clearly been the warmest period in the 160-year record of global surface temperature maintained jointly by the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia," said a news release issued by the United Kingdom’s National Weather Service, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

"These figures highlight that the world continues to see global temperature rise — most of which is due to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and clearly shows that the argument that global warming has stopped is flawed," the Met Office said.

In related news, the World Meteorological Organization said the latest figures indicate that 2009 will go down in the books as the fifth warmest year — 0.44 degrees Celsius warmer than the long-term average of 14 degrees C (57 degrees Fahrenheit), Dow Jones reported.

HealthDay

Below is a map that was on an evening newscast discussing the colder than average temperatures and what to expect this summer. Of course I’m in an area of VERY COOL, duh, like I’ve haven’t known that for the last few months this summer was going to suck. How depressing.

For all of you in a warm place this summer, want some company? I promise to be a good guest, quiet, neat, will even help with cooking :-}

Well I was going to complain about the dreary, cloudy and overcast day but that would be querulous.

The Caves Negril, Jamaica

Villa Greanleaf Christiansted, St. Croix

Antigua’s Yepton Estate Cottages,    St. John’s, Antigua

Jungle Bay Resort & Spa,    Dominica

Little Arches Hotel,     Christ Church, Barbados

Ti Kaye Village Resort,   Castries, St. Lucia

Sugar Mill Hotel,   Tortola, BVI

Royal Plantation,   Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Sunset at the Palms,     Negril, Jamaica

Rendezvous Resort,    Castries, St. Lucia

Women sit on the bed of an ice hotel during a photo opportunity in the Alpha Resort-Tomamu’s ice village in Shimukappu town, Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido February 3, 2009. The hotel where dining room, bed room and bath room are made out of ice, charges 80,000 yen (US $696) for two per night and provides dinner served on an ice plate. It opens until Feb 15, 2009.

Snow Resort: Alpha Resort-Tomamu’s ice village in Japan

Local media said the plane was an Airbus with 146 passengers and five crew which had just taken off from La Guardia Airport and was trying to return after apparently striking a flock of birds.

More than a dozen people wearing yellow life vests were seen on the wings of the downed plane as it floated in the river, and they were plucked to safety by ferries that surrounded the jet.

U.S. Airways passenger plane down in NY river | U.S. | Reuters

Photo by Janis Krums (now seen around the world)

http://www.janiskrums.com/

For a brief  slideshow   here: