RECORD HIGH/LOW TEMPERATURES USA

There are several problems with methodology in making any statement about record high or low temperatures. (1) A measurement must be taken of 'world' temperatures, not just one locale or even one continent; (2) The National Weather Service in the US has only taken and recorded temperature readings since the 1880s. This is a very small time period to make any judgment as to trends. The Earth has obviously been warming since the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago, so how can we use temperature patterns or trends for 114 years (up to the year of Our Lord 1999) to make any conclusion? (3) Errors may be made in data collection. Instruments can become poorly calibrated, the personnel doing the reading can be having a bad day, or, as in one instance in Russia, simply be lazy or below budget or hung over and repeat the readings taken in September and use them again for October's numbers. However, the 'Greens' use the last 114 years as 'proof' so let's concentrate on that time period. Also, a major high pressure system which might produce record temperatures does not simply dissolve and end. It moves across and around the hemi-sphere. A storm system, for example, can produce violent weather in North America and then be traced once it moves on to the same effects in Europe, then on to Asia. For the sake of argument let's assume that record high or low temperatures were caused in the US by systems which moved on and produced similar effects elsewhere in the hemi-sphere. The numbers below are taken from the National Climatic Data Center for the US. It tracks how many new record all time high or all time low temperatures were set within the fifty states for each decade. For example, in the 1920s two states had all time record high temperatures. In the 1960s there were three states which recorded record all time low temperatures during that decade. In other words, in the sixties three states had temperatures which were the coldest ever recorded in those three states. These temperatures were not necessarily recorded in the same year, just within the same decade. I chose that unit of measurement to simplify and summarize the results.
...................# OF RECORDS ...............# OF RECORDS
....................SET FOR HIGH ................SET FOR LOW
DECADE ......TEMPERATURES.............TEMPERATURES
1880s ..........................1...................................0....
1890s ..........................2...................................5....
1900s ..........................1...................................5....
1910s ..........................5...................................3....
1920s ..........................2...................................1....
1930s ........................25..................................10....
1940s ..........................0...................................4....
1950s ..........................4...................................2....
1960s ..........................1...................................3....
1970s ..........................2...................................4....
1980s ..........................2...................................6....
1990s ..........................5...................................7....

From the numbers presented it appears obvious that the 1930s was the 'hottest' decade on record with half of the states recording record all time high temperatures. However, a significant number of record low temperatures were also recorded. Another point of interest is that from 1940 through 1999 there were 26 record all time low temperatures recorded while only 14 record all time high temperatures were recorded. Can we say that Global Cooling was occuring during these decades? No. We cannot say that. Only by analyzing temperatures all over the world, in both hemi-spheres on an hour by hour basis and deriving an hourly average temperature can we make that assumption. However, it is likely that a large portion of US temperatures followed closely in trends to these record highs and record lows. Many 'Greens' ignore these historical temperatures and have instead hysterically stated that it was growing warmer during the 1940s through 1999. Not so. In a stable atmosphere it might be safe to say that record highs and record lows would have a fairly even distribution over the 130 years of data. Except for the 1930s that seems to be the case. Of course in the 1930s we had a high number of record highs and a high number of record lows. Something was going on in the atmosphere during that decade but we cannot say what. We would have to research the upper air long wave patterns to learn more about this and then to determine what caused the long wave patterns to be distorted. It is normal that there would be record 'highs' and record 'lows' since there were no measurements before.