Laden is LAY-den as in Laden with happiness. Or, as my friend Ron used to say back when we were teenagers, “Laden, as in I got laid in Paris.” Though I don’t think he’d ever been to Paris.

NOT LAHden, as in Osama bin!

Why do you suggest that we don’t look at surface temperatures? That would be unproductive.

That being said, this regimen of extreme climate, drought followed by flood could get really old, really fast. However, it seems to be the new normal.

Greg, another well-written post. I learned something today, and that means it’s a good day!

One more, thing. I’d like to give you a “shout out” next week on my podcast. How do you pronounce your last name, “LAH-den” or “LAY-den”?

On the other hand, there is climate science and then there is the ducking and diving version of it found on the blogosphere. I prefer to look only at the data and hum a tune when someone claims to understand it.

And, if the El Niño results in an undeniably hottest year ever, pretty soon they’ll be proclaiming, “No warming since…”

Because of their record-breaking potential we tend to focus on El Niños, but, as the graph shown in the link below indicates, the trend in La Niñas is equally interesting. The difference between El Niño and La Niña years appears to be decreasing, as is the difference between La Niña years and the mean. It may be too much to conclude that this is further evidence of the dominance of the anthropogenic contribution, but – well, but what?
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20140121/gistemp_nino_100.jpg

April in little Denmark was the fourth warmest on record.

Via Weather Underground, I hear that the southern plains states (KS, OK, and north/west TX) have been having a record heat wave, with temperatures exceeding 100F in many locations (unusual, and in some locations unprecedented, for early May). Contrast with the recent winter in eastern North America, which would have been unremarkable 20 years ago (despite the duration of the cold, not that many daily temperature records were broken, and few if any monthly records). Have you been seeing unusually warm weather in Minnesota in the past week? The heat hasn’t reached New England yet (which suits me fine, because I have been doing my heavy duty spring gardening chores). I’m not looking forward to summer heat.

Greg, is this a typo?