Abstract
The North America Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) reports Daily Maximum Atmospheric Surface Air Temperatures (2 meters above ground level) for the entire contiguous United States for years 1979 to 2010. This contiguous area is completely divided into 52,314 cells of 14 km × 14 km and the daily maximum temperature at the centroid of each cell is computed by algorithm from the surface measurements of maximal air temperatures. The annual average of these more than 19 million daily maxima represents the average maximum temperature value for the entire contiguous U.S. in that year. A plot of these 32 annual average maximum temperatures shows that this measure of temperature is increasing with time according to the relation that average Tmaximum °F = (0.0555°F/year) Year °48.26°F. Thus in the 32 years of record, 1979–2010, the U.S. average maximum daily temperature has increased by approximately 1.8°F or 1°C.
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