During 2012, the U.S. experienced a hot and dry summer with climate doomsday scientists and pundits claiming it was the most severe ever, and a sure sign of hhuman caused extreme climate change - ooops, wrong again, per NOAA
(click on image to enlarge, source)
A select group of climate scientists and weather experts are forever trying to explain each severe weather event as a result of global warming from human CO2 emissions. They, and the usual parade of fame-seeking climate doomsday activists, then state "this is what extreme climate change looks like."
Although 2012 has been a warm year in the U.S. (probably not the warmest based on accurate temperature measurements,though), the claim of the U.S. being in the most severe drought condition ever is blatantly wrong and purposefully deceiving.
The adjacent NOAA/NCDC images (as of August) are of current drought conditions versus the severe droughts of 1988 and 1934. Clearly, the 2012 drought is less severe and less widespread than the previous droughts.
Droughts in the U.S. are not unusual - in fact, almost every year there are bad drought conditions in some region of the U.S. The 2012 drought is no exception and remains well within the normal weather variation experienced before.
Indeed, both the U.S. and the rest of the world have well documented periods of very severe weather in the past that makes the bad weather of 2012 pale in comparison, and such is the case for the summer of 2012.
Conclusions: Any climate "scientist" or weather "expert" who claims that typical severe weather events are examples of human-caused extreme climate change is, simply stated, a liar. The most recent U.S. severe drought is likely not a result of extreme climate change, but instead typical weather variation that the U.S. experiences, which NOAA and the mainstream press have long documented.
Previous severe-weather and drought-flood-forest-fire postings. Severe weather and modern temperature charts.