U.S. vs. the Rest of the World: Climate change as measured from the 1988-1999 to 1999-2010 eras

Here's the map of consistent weather stations in the United States - with a few scattered in southern Canada - that reported at least one temperature every season from 1988 to 2010. If you go on comment boards around the Internet, there are people who post with confidence that global warming has stopped and the world has not gotten warmer since 1998.

The data shown here does not agree with that statement. I use the method of comparing two eras that start and end in strong La Niña years with a strong El Niño in between. I could switch and use strong El Niño years and the endpoints with a strong La Niña in between, but that would not bring us as close to present day as this method does.

What can be said is that the warming trend slowed down using this measurement system. Here are the numbers from the United States stations compared to the data from the rest of the world.

Total stations: 
U.S.A.: 3094
Rest of world 3363

Warming stations vs. cooling stations
U.S.A.: 71.5% warming, 28.5% cooling
Rest of world: 79.0% warming, 21.0% cooling

Average temperature change:
U.S.A.: 0.19° C
Rest of world: 0.29° C


This is still a warming trend, but not as fast as we saw comparing 1975-1988 to 1988-1999. If this continues, this would mean about a degree rise Celsius in the U.S.and a degree and half everyplace else. This is under the two degree per century threshold which climate scientists consider catastrophic.

Notice that the rest of the world has finally caught up and surpassed the United States in total consistent weather stations. A regularly reporting weather station is a useful thing, but not a vital part of the infrastructure. It's something of a luxury and back in 1955 the United States far outstripped the rest of the planet in being able to afford such luxuries, the aftereffects of World War II ten years earlier still being felt by the countries where the battles were fought.  As so many statistical measurements tell us, we are no longer number one in the world in quality of life.


Another number that jumps out at me is that no matter how many stations report in the United States and how many stations report every place else, the ratio of the temperature change stays relatively constant, the rest of the world warming a little more than 50% faster than the U.S. This could just be coincidence, but it would be interesting to find out why. If there is a cause other than random chance, it might mean the United States is doing something other countries could emulate to bring their warming trends down.

After several weeks work, I am convinced climate change is real. The simplest way to explain it is the planet is getting warmer in general, but certainly not at the same rate everywhere. Just looking at the temperatures does not give any answer to the question of whether mankind's actions have any effect on the increase we are seeing; that takes modeling and modeling such a complex system has to be inexact, even on the incredibly powerful computers we have in the 21st Century. But if there is a man-made cause for temperatures rising slower in the United States than everywhere else, it would be in our best interest financially and environmentally to export that cause to the rest of the world.