[Vision2020] US Only 2% of Global Surface? & Japan Meteorological Agency: "Record-tying High Global Surface Temperature, Sept. 2009"

[Ted Moffett]

While often NASA's GISS, NOAA's NCDC, and the University of East Anglia's UK
Climatic Research Unit (recently computer hacked with data stolen) are
sourced as the most comprehensive and scientifically credible data sets on
historical and present global temperature, to examine climate change, the
Japan Meteorological Agency is another source that has earned respect in the
scientific community.

As the US is experiencing some very cold and severe winter weather at the
moment, it seems hard to fathom the following report from the JMA claiming
that Sept. 2009 was globally ("near-surface air temperature" over land
and ocean combined) a very warm month.  Of course, it's easy to forget that
70% of the Earth's surface is ocean, and thus over two thirds of Earth's
weather is over ocean, where there is little human presence.  And that the
US's land surface share of global weather is a tiny fraction of the whole...

Report from the Japan Meteorological Agency on Sept. 2009 global average
temperature:

http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/news/press_20091009.pdf

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An attempt to calculate the percent of total global surface area of the US:

http://www.net-comber.com/worldarea.html

GLOBAL  SURFACE  AREAS
--------------------------------------------------
                  Area in     Area in Sq   Percent
             Square Miles     Kilometers  of World
--------------------------------------------------
Entire World  196,940,000    510,072,200   100.00%
Total Land     57,506,000    148,939,800    29.20%
Total Water   139,434,000    361,132,400    70.80%
-------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_the_United_States

Area of US:

3, 717, 813 sq. mi.

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If I did the math correctly, the US's area is .019 (rounding up .018877...)
of the Earth's total surface area, or 2% rounded up... Thus the US has a
mere 2% of the Earth's weather... The US seems so small, when viewed this
way...
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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