Monday What's on the Web: NOAA's Annual Climate Assessment Report

Every Monday I highlight other bloggers or web resources that are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the main US governmental body that monitors our environment--particularly oceans and atmosphere as indicated in its title.  The National Climatic Data Center issues an annual climate assessment report (link).  It's latest report was issued a few weeks ago at the end of July.  It is a relatively technical report, but it is very comprehensive.  It does not mince words about the evidence for global warming.

"Numerous studies attest to the robustness of the global LSAT records and their nonreliance on individual stations (e.g., Jones et al. 1997; Peterson et al. 1999; Parker 2006; Parker et al. 2009; Menne et al. 2010). Evidence from recent reanalyses lends further support (Simmons et al. 2010).
The IPCC conclusion (Alley et al. 2007) that 'warming of the climate system is unequivocal' does not rest solely upon LSAT records. These constitute only one line of evidence among many, for example: uptake of heat by the oceans, melting of land ice such as glaciers, the associated rise in sea level, and increased atmospheric surface humidity (fig. 2.5). 

If the land surface records were systematically flawed and the globe had not really warmed, then it would be almost impossible to explain the concurrent changes in this wide range of indicators produced by many independent groups. The observed changes in a broad range of indicators provide a self-consistent story of a warming world. "

There are still some skeptics out there who dispute human-caused warming.  I doubt they have read this report and truly understand it's wide ranging evidence.  Perhaps they believe it is falsified information.  I've addressed that potentiality on two previous posts.

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