<div>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.</div>
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<div>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...</div>
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<div>Report from the Japan Meteorological Agency on Sept. 2009 global average temperature:</div>
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<div><a href="http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/news/press_20091009.pdf">http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/news/press_20091009.pdf</a></div>
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<div>An attempt to calculate the percent of total global surface area of the US:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.net-comber.com/worldarea.html">http://www.net-comber.com/worldarea.html</a></div>
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<div>GLOBAL SURFACE AREAS<br>--------------------------------------------------<br> Area in Area in Sq Percent<br> Square Miles Kilometers of World<br>--------------------------------------------------<br>
Entire World 196,940,000 510,072,200 100.00%<br>Total Land 57,506,000 148,939,800 29.20%<br>Total Water 139,434,000 361,132,400 70.80%<br>-------------</div>
<div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_the_United_States">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_the_United_States</a></div>
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<div>Area of US:</div>
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<div>3, 717, 813 sq. mi.</div>
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<div>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...</div>
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<div>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</div>