put away those robes of elemental fire summoning
This catastrophe functions as though cast at 10th level.
AP:
A top federal research meteorologist said he "almost fell out of my chair" when he looked over U.S. night minimum temperature records over the past 96 years and saw the skyrocketing trend of hot summer nights.
From 2001 to 2005, on average nearly 30 percent of the nation had "much above normal" average summertime minimum temperatures, according to the National Climatic Data in Asheville, N.C.
By definition, "much above normal" means low temperatures that are in the highest 10 percent on record. On any given year about 10 percent of the country should have "much above normal" summer-night lows.
Yet in both 2005 and 2003, 36 percent of the nation had much above normal summer minimums. In 2002 it was 37 percent. While the highest-ever figure was in the middle of America's brutal Dust Bowl, when 41 percent of the nation had much above normal summer-night temperatures, the rolling five-year average of 2001-05 is a record - by far.
Figures from this year's sweltering summer have not been tabulated yet, but they are expected to be just as high as recent years.
And it is not just the last five years. Each of the past eight years has been far above the normal 10 percent. During the past decade, 23 percent of the nation has had hot summer nights. During the past 15 years, that average has been 20 percent. By comparison, from 1964 to 1968 only 2 percent of the country on average had abnormally hot nights.
"This is unbelievable," said National Climatic Data Center research meteorologist Richard Heim. "Something strange has happened in the last 10 to 15 years on the minimums."
That overnight temps over the last 20 or so years have failed to "level" with the increase in daily temperatures has been one of the dirty little secrets of climate change, rarely mentioned and hard to kill with blather.
Interesting to note - you see it mentioned again and again and again from science writers and journos who're hep: scientists don't talk science like we talk sports or nights out at the bar or shitty movies. They aren't usually prone to say that things are "unbelievable" or that they fall out of their chairs unless they're truly gobsmacked by data.
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