Dear Editor:

Little has changed after another year of global warming headlines. Maine’s record high temperature of 105°F, set on July 10, 1911, is now one hundred and twelve years old. Twelve towns and cities have high temperature records of 100 degrees and above. Six of the records were set in 1975, the remaining six were set in 1897, 1911, 1911, 1935, 1955, and 1988. The Maine.gov website states the “record hottest year in Maine” was 1913 and the “record coldest year in Maine” was 1904. Both the hottest year and coldest year records are over 100 years old.

The U.S. data is similar to Maine’s. Three states set an all-time record high in the 1800s. In the following three decades ending in 1929, another ten states set their record. In the 1930s, by far the hottest decade, twenty-three states were added. In the following three decades ending in 1969 three more states were added. In the three decades ending in 1999, another eight states were added. Only three states have set high records in this century. To put it into perspective 39 states (78%) have records well over 50 years old.

The temperature record of Planet Earth also does not show a dramatic trend. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), divides the world into 11 regions for recording “highest temperature.”  The following is a list of the dates of those records; 1931, 2017, 1905, 1913, 1960, 1942, 1977,  1982,  2020, 1989, and 2020. Five of these records are older than 50 years.

It is important to note that there is a certification process for recognized temperature records. Headline stories, for the most part, do not receive any type of rigorous review and are unreliable from a scientific standpoint. To those who say, “follow the science”, I would caution them not to confuse headlines and sound bites with science but rather, to “follow the data” and do your own due diligence.  Taken by itself, the data looks unremarkable.

Joe Grant

Wiscasset