After a warm dry summer this is a good time to take a look at the global warming scorecard for our region. Using Olympia Airport as perhaps our best measure of temperature in the Puget Sound region, we find the following:

50.68 F — Mean temperature 1990 – 1994
50.76 F — Mean temperature Sept 2016 – Aug 2017

We see over the past 25 years the temperature rise in our region has been about +0.08 deg F.  The forecast by the U of WA Climate Impacts Group (CIG) in the 1990s was for a temperature rise of +3.1 F by the 2020s.  With only 3% of the anticipated warming in hand so far, and with only two years remaining until the start of the 2020s, the climate has a lot of catching up to do. Either that or the Climate Impacts Group forecast will end up being considerably too warm.