The Homa Files

A reader offered up a simple explanation … and, prompted me to do some additional analysis.

My conclusion may surprise you.
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Previously, I challenged readers to square this circle:

• If the data shows that my average   local temperatures in Baltimore have dropped about 3 degrees from 2 years ago (and one year ago) — why should I believe (with “settled science certainty”) that the earth will be a degree or two hotter 50 or 100 years from now if I keep driving my SUV?

A reader offered up a simple explanation: 2020 and 2021 were historically hot years … and, if I looked deeper back in history I’d see that 2022 temperatures are consistent with a warming trend.

So, I pulled some more historical data from the NWS web site going back 20 years (for the Baltimore area).

Here’s what I found for the January to November periods in each year:

> Temperatures bounce around a lot from year to year …  within about a 5 degree range from 55.3 (in 2014) to 60.5 (in 2020)

> There have been a couple of notable temperature troughs …     55.4 in 2003 and 55.3 in 2014

> The peaks do seem to be getting higher …  from 58.7 in 2006 … to 60.1 in 2012 …. to 60.5 in 2020 … but they are well spaced (rather than coming in runs)

> 2020 was, in fact, the hottest of the 20 years (60.5 degrees) …  but only slightly hotter than the 60.1 degrees registered 10 years ago in 2012 … hmm

> 2021 was also hot (59.9 degrees) but that temp is down from 2020 … and colder than 2012.

> The past 7 years (including 2022) have been hotter than the 20 year average (58.1 degrees) … and the last 10 of the 20 years have been about 1/2 degree hotter than the first 10 years.

> Based on a simple linear regression, it would appear that Baltimore area temperature averages have been increasing about 1 degree every 10 years … but, again, with high year-to-year variability.

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Bottom line: The data suggests that it is getting hotter in Baltimore …. but I’m waiting for some more data to come in.

Maybe we’re in a cyclical cooling phase from the 2020 hot temperatures … or maybe this part of the earth really is warming.

Stay tuned…

This entry was posted on December 8, 2022 at 7:28 am and is filed under Global Warming - Climate Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.