Record-setting warm temperatures in the United States during early 2012 were mostly the result of natural weather events and had little connection with global warming, a team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado report in a new peer-reviewed study.
“This long-term regional warming is an order-of-magnitude smaller than temperature anomalies observed during the event, indicating the most of the extreme warmth must be explained by other factors. Several lines of evidence strongly implicate natural variations as the primary cause for the extreme event,” the scientists explained.
“We conclude that the extreme warmth over the central and eastern U.S. in March 2012 resulted primarily from natural climate and weather variability, a substantial fraction of which was predictable,” the scientists reported.
