Warming: Higher highs or higher lows?

Factual Questions
1

Let’s not get into a full-blown global warming debate.

I just read that global temperatures have risen 1.4 degrees F. over the last few years. This increase is the mean temperature increase.

Does any one know if this increase represents higher high (day time) or higher low (night time) temperatures?

(And if your answer is something like " You know what? It doesn’t matter because the ice caps are going to melt, the oceans are going to rise and we’re all going to die, etc… blah, blah, blah", then don’t answer). Let’s just try to answer this rather simple question.

2

Summer maximum temperatures go up, but not as much as winter minima.

I realize that this isn’t quite the answer you were looking for, but haven’t seen any discussion of changes in daily min and max temperatures. That’d be asking a lot of the models.

For more see: http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/overviewfindings.htm
and
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/default.htm

3

That increase is a global mean, and it’s calculated by averaging temperatures over periods of entire years, and also averaging the totals from many different sites around the world. As **Squink ** says, it might be very tough sorting out differences in daily maxima and minima. In any case, it’s not an either/or question - both the highs and the lows may be higher. And the details may well be different in different regions as well.