According to Channel 10 News a study from ClimateCentral.org indicates that Rhode Island’s climate is warming at a faster rate than any other state. (Coming in at number two is Massachusetts.) They looked at average daily temperatures for the continental 48 states from 1912 to the present, and also from 1970 to the present and found:
Since 1970, warming began accelerating everywhere. The speed of warming across the lower 48 more than tripled, from 0.127°F per decade over the 100-year period, to 0.435°F per decade since 1970, while the gap between the fast and slowly warming states narrowed significantly; the 10 fastest warming states heated up just twice as fast, not 60 times as fast as the 10 slowest warming states (0.60°F vs. 0.30°F per decade).
I am not familiar with this organization but their methodology seems comprehensive, and we can leave it to other scientists to review their findings. What I would like to address is the banter between anchorman Gene Valicenti and weatherman Mark Searles that followed the taped segment during which Valicenti rambled on about how the debate continues . . . some say there is global warming and some say there isn’t. No, Mr. Valicenti, the debate is over. There is no longer any serious question among legitimate scientists about the reality of climate change. Go to NOAA and read all about how New York City is preparing for the inevitable; or read the article in the New York Times about the U.S. Navy grappling with the changing configuration of the Arctic. And even that last holdout Richard Muller at UC Berkeley — the skeptic who always got trotted out for the cameras by the opposition — finally had to change his mind and agree that “Global warming is real.” (Washington Post 10.24.11)
Perpetuating this “debate” fallacy isn’t neutral journalism, it’s bad journalism.
Gene likes to throw in his conservative two cents every chance he gets.