A report released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) confirms what many of us thought we knew
anecdotally: It's hotter than ever out there. The NOAA's
National Climactic Data Center's "State of the Climate: National
Overview June 2012" report concludes that the period from July
2011 to June 2012 saw average temperatures in the Lower 48
states that were more than 3 degrees above the long-term average
since record-keeping began in 1895. And if you're into sweating
the details, climate scientists say it's going to get worse.
According to the Huffington Post, NOAA's head of climate
monitoring, Derek Arndt, was quoted in a recent Associated Press
story as saying, "In the future you would expect larger, longer
more intense heat waves and we've seen that in the last few
summers." According to other Huffington Post stories, a report
by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey found that sea
level is rising at three to four times the global average in a
"hotspot" along the Atlantic