Warming trend intensifies global warming debate

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — According to the Eyewitness News team of meteorologists, this winter will end up one of the warmest on record.

This is coming off of last winter which was among the top five for warmth.

The warming trend is intensifying the global warming debate.

Meteorologist John Aherns went straight to the people who collect the data and found there may be some holes in the numbers.

This winter has been hard all over the place.

"It's been warmer, definitely warmer," said Landon Powell.

"Some days are really cold," said Kristen Love.

"It is kind of freaking me out because it is hailing and then it just snowed out of nowhere here," said Aprhyl Hood.

And the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville has to make sense out of all of it.

"We are talking day to day, the swings we see are so big," said Deke Ardnt.

But Eyewitness News discovered how they compare today to the big picture can be a little cloudy.

Record keeping in Charlotte started uptown in the 1800s, but in the late 1930s, that same thermometer was moved to the airport.

The weather is both spots can be vastly different.

"Those are actually spliced together," said Ardnt.

Some experts said moving the thermometer taints the records.

There are also different ways to compile these numbers and that concerns experts when it comes to accurately tracking climate.

There is just so much you have to consider, the amount of sunlight, the amount of wind – experts admit actually capturing the climate is very challenging.

"Those things have been basically more or less than defined and more rigorously followed today. In the early days, not so much," said Arndt.

Still, the chief of climate monitoring insists that they have an accurate record.

"In 10 years, we will be even better than today, which is a lot better than where we were 10 years ago," said Arndt.

Climate office experts said now there is more temperature data coming in and computers are better at crunching the numbers, and they said that will help them better understand climate change.

WSOC