Sue Ogrocki / AP

In this Sept. 30, 2011, file photo, sailboats and a floating dock lie on the dry, cracked dirt in a harbor at Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City as drought continues to be a problem across the state. The relentless type of heat that has blistered the U.S. and other parts of the world in recent years is due to man-made global warming, a new study from a top government scientist says.

The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

The research by a man often called the "godfather of global warming" says that the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s was rarer than 1 in 300. Now, the odds are closer to 1 in 10, according to the study by NASA scientist James Hansen. He says that statistically what's happening is not random or normal, but pure and simple climate change.

"This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact," Hansen told The Associated Press in an interview.

Hansen is a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University. He has called for government action to curb greenhouse gases for years. While his study was published online Saturday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, it is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change skeptics.

However, several climate scientists praised the new work.

In a departure from most climate research, Hansen's study — based on statistics, not the more typical climate modeling — blames these three heat waves purely on global warming:

—Last year's devastating Texas-Oklahoma drought.

—The 2010 heat waves in Russia and the Middle East, which led to thousands of deaths.

—The 2003 European heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly in France.

The analysis was written before the current drought and record-breaking temperatures that have seared much of the United States this year. But Hansen believes this too is another prime example of global warming at its worst.

In an opinion column published Saturday in The Washington Post, Hansen said his predictions in the late 1980s of the dire consequences of steadily increasing temperatures have proven to be worse than he thought.

“Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.

These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills."

The new research makes the case for the severity of global warming in a different way than most scientific studies and uses simple math instead of relying on complex climate models or an understanding of atmospheric physics. It also doesn't bother with the usual caveats about individual weather events having numerous causes.

The increase in the chance of extreme heat, drought and heavy downpours in certain regions is so huge that scientists should stop hemming and hawing, Hansen said. "This is happening often enough, over a big enough area that people can see it happening," he said.

Scientists have generally responded that it's impossible to say whether single events are caused by global warming, because of the influence of natural weather variability.

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However, that position has been shifting in recent months, as other studies too have concluded climate change is happening right before our eyes.

Hansen hopes his new study will shift people's thinking about climate change and goad governments into action. He wrote an op-ed piece that appeared online Friday in the Washington Post.

"There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time," he wrote.

The science in Hansen's study is excellent "and reframes the question," said Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who was a member of the Nobel Prize-winning international panel of climate scientists that issued a series of reports on global warming.

"Rather than say, 'Is this because of climate change?' That's the wrong question. What you can say is, 'How likely is this to have occurred with the absence of global warming?' It's so extraordinarily unlikely that it has to be due to global warming," Weaver said.

For years scientists have run complex computer models using combinations of various factors to see how likely a weather event would happen without global warming and with it. About 25 different aspects of climate change have been formally attributed to man-made greenhouse gases in dozens of formal studies. But these are generally broad and non-specific, such as more heat waves in some regions and heavy rainfall in others.

Another upcoming study by Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, links the 2010 Russian heat wave to global warming by looking at the underlying weather that caused the heat wave. He called Hansen's paper an important one that helps communicate the problem.

But there is bound to be continued disagreement. Previous studies had been unable to link the two, and one by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that the Russian drought, which also led to devastating wildfires, was not related to global warming.

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White House science adviser John Holdren praised the paper's findings in a statement. But he also said it is true that scientists can't blame single events on global warming: "This work, which finds that extremely hot summers are over 10 times more common than they used to be, reinforces many other lines of evidence showing that climate change is occurring and that it is harmful."

Skeptical scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville said Hansen shouldn't have compared recent years to the 1950s-1980s time period because he said that was a quiet time for extremes.

But Derek Arndt, director of climate monitoring for the federal government's National Climatic Data Center, said that range is a fair one and often used because it is the "golden era" for good statistics.

Granger Morgan, head of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, called Hansen's study "an important next step in what I expect will be a growing set of statistically-based arguments."

In a landmark 1988 study, Hansen predicted that if greenhouse gas emissions continue, which they have, Washington, D.C., would have about nine days each year of 95 degrees or warmer in the decade of the 2010s. So far this year, with about four more weeks of summer, the city has had 23 days with 95 degrees or hotter temperatures.

Hansen says now he underestimated how bad things would get.

And while he hopes this will spur action including a tax on the burning of fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas, others doubt it.

Science policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado said Hansen clearly doesn't understand social science, thinking a study like his could spur action. Just because people understand a fact that doesn't mean people will act on it, he said.

In an email, he wrote: "Hansen is pursuing a deeply flawed model of policy change, one that will prove ineffectual and with its most lasting consequence a further politicization of climate science (if that is possible!)."

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Trying to get beyond the standard scientific disclaimer that no single weather event can be pinned on global warming, government scientists on Tuesday unveiled a new framework: what are the odds of a specific event being impacted by warming?

They tested it on several extreme events in 2011 -- a strong La Nina year -- and, in the case of the record Texas drought, concluded that such severe dry spells are 20 more times likely during a La Nina year today than a La Nina in the 1960s, before greenhouse gas emissions jumped. 

"Conditions leading to droughts such as the one that occurred in Texas in 2011 are, at least in the case of temperature, distinctly more probable than they were 40-50 years ago," researchers concluded in a new study.

"It's quite striking," Peter Stott told reporters Tuesday at a briefing organized by his employer, Britain's weather service, and the U.S. National Climatic Data Center.

"We can now quantify the changed odds" due to climate change and thus start to assess risk levels, added Stott, who edited the study along with peers from the U.S. data center.

The study focused on La Nina conditions, Stott noted, but future research will look at non-La Nina years as well.

La Nina, which cools Pacific waters, alternates with El Nino, which warms Pacific waters. Both can impact weather worldwide and in La Nina's case it typically warms up the southern U.S. 

As the science behind the framework improves, Stott said, "we'll be able to address more difficult questions" about the relationship between severe weather and climate change. 

The Texas component of the study compared rainfall and temperature data from La Nina years in the 1960s (1964, 1967, 1968) to present day (2011 data was not yet available so the scientists used 2008, another strong La Nina year.)

The amount of computer processing time needed was enormous, so the scientists reached out to an existing network of "citizen scientists" who allow their networked computers to be used at off-hours, Tom Peterson of the U.S. climate data center told msnbc.com.

The study reached conclusions about other extreme events last year as well, but only provided odds for the cold/warm extremes seen in Britain.

U.S.: First half of 2012 warmest on record

December 2010 was extremely cold in Britain, but the odds of that happening have been halved due to climate change, the study concluded. November 2011 was extremely warm, an event that's now 60 times more likely than in the 1960s, the data show.

Several other extreme weather events were studied using different methodologies, which did not calculate the odds that warming had an impact.

Still, a climate role was ruled out in Thailand's worst flooding in 70 years. That flooding was not accompanied by higher than normal rainfall, the experts noted. They instead cited flood-control decisions on the ground as key factors.

Two other events -- East Africa's drought and Western Europe's heat wave -- appear to have been influenced by warming in addition to La Nina, the study stated, but the extent was not quantified.

The study, the first of what is expected to be an annual look back at extremes and climate, was published in the July issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

It was announced in conjunction with the 22nd annual global State of the Climate report released by the U.S. and the American Meteorological Society.

The 43 indicators tracked in 2011 -- ranging from thinning Arctic sea ice to more acidic oceans -- continued to show a warming trend, according to the State of the Climate report.

"Those indicators," said Thomas Karl, head of the National Climatic Data Center, "show what we expect to see in a warmer world."

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David Duprey / AP

A warm March 20 in Buffalo, N.Y., made for a nice time to take a break from driving.

From record-smashing March warmth, including 80s in northern climes, to a startling lack of snow, to, in one location, record snow leading to a spring snowmelt mess, 2012 so far has thrown a number of curve balls for those looking for a bit of "normalcy."

We've picked out six cities for which the weather has been particularly strange through the first four-plus months of 2012, stretching from New England to The Last Frontier. 

Let's kick off the list with an infamously snowy city that lacked snow this season.

Buffalo, N.Y.
In other locations, the phrase, "three feet of snow" may grab your attention, eliciting thoughts of snow days, or open ski slopes.  

However, in Buffalo, N.Y., 3 feet of snow (36.7" to be precise) was the total snowfall for the entire season, just under 5 feet less than an average season. In essence, a meteorological disappointment. This included an unusual "brown Christmas."

Instead, as in several other locations, temperatures soared in March.  

Buffalo had three straight March days with highs in the 80s, including a new March record high of 82 degrees the day after the spring equinox (March 21).  Previously, it had only one other March day in the 80s dating to 1873. As it turned out, March was warmer than April in Buffalo, as in several other cities. That feat is difficult to accomplish.  

(MORE: March Warmer than April)

Just when people may have written off winter, an April "Snowpril" storm, while dumping heavier snow in the hills south of town, managed to bring a slushy inch to the city itself.  

(PHOTOS: Snowpril Snowstorm)

From not enough to record snow, let's head to The Last Frontier for our next "strange-weather" city.

Anchorage, Alaska
What's so strange about snow in Alaska? In Alaska's largest city, it was all about the amount of snow that made the snow season memorable.

More than 11 feet of snow (134.5" as of May 8) fell during the season in Anchorage, a full five feet above the long-term average, or roughly 8 feet more than Buffalo received.

The weight of all this snow led to some building collapses, and caused cracks in some homes. City snow removal crews hauled more than 2.5 million cubic yards of snow to six snow disposal sites, all near capacity, with a total volume of snow estimated to almost fill the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, according to the Associated Press.

(MORE:  Anchorage Record Snow Woes) 

Then, of course, all that snow has to melt, leaving a spring mess of water in basements and crawl spaces.

One area all too familiar with spring flood concerns had none in 2012.

Fargo, N.D.
No "Sandbag Central" with volunteers working to fill three million sandbags this spring.  

After 3 straight springs of major flooding, including a record 2009 crest, the good people of the Red River Valley finally had a spring free of widespread flood worries.  

First, it started with a lack of winter snow. Only 27" fell in Fargo all season, compared to a whopping 88.5" in the 2010-2011 season. It was so dry, in fact, that parts of the Peace Garden State slipped into moderate drought by late November which still persists in spots in spring. When is the last time you heard drought and North Dakota in the same sentence?

The topper was the incredible March warmth.  

Fargo had four straight days with highs at least 76 degrees from March 16-19.  Yes, that was technically still in winter, just days before the spring equinox! If there had been significant snowcover, a warm spell of that magnitude and duration would've triggered a rapid snowmelt that may have overwhelmed any flood fighting effort. But not in spring 2012. Instead, it was time to break out the T-shirts and shorts and celebrate a much less stressful spring.  

Now let's travel east to a city and state that has arguably been the most extreme state the past 2 years.

Hartford, Conn.
I would argue no state in the U.S. has seen more extreme weather since the start of 2011 than Connecticut.  

A record wet year for the state in 2011 featured Hurricane Irene, followed two months later by a destructive "Snowtober" snowstorm. These two events broke state records for power outages. 

How much more strange could 2012 be?

First, "Snowtober" wasn't exactly a precursor to the rest of the season. After an October record 12.3" of snow, only another 14.4" fell the rest of the season! October's snow almost exceeded that of January and February, combined! Contrast that to January 2011, when a whopping 54.3" was measured there.  

The first four months of 2012 were, in fact, the second driest such period on record in the state.

(MORE:  Warmest Start to the Year on Record)

Then, there's the warmth. January through April 2012 was the record warmest such period on record in Connecticut, as well as 25 other states. Hartford had its warmest March day since 1998 on March 22, reaching 83 degrees. They, then, one-upped themselves in April, peaking at 92 degrees for a high on April 16.  

You want truly bizarre warmth? Try heading to the Great Lakes for our next "strange-weather" city of 2012.

Traverse City, Mich.
In a sea of warmth records shattered across the Midwest, Northeast and South in March 2012, perhaps no location stood out more than Traverse City, Mich.  

In a five-day stretch from March 17-21, 2012, the "Cherry Capital of the World" tied, then broke the previous all-time March record high, topping out at an incredible 87 degrees just one day after the spring equinox, March 21. Dating to 1896, the nearest date with a daily record high of 87 degrees was April 16!  

Speaking of April, the thermometer took an abrupt plunge back to reality. Fifteen April mornings had lows in the 20s in Traverse City. Never mind the shorts and suntan lotion...get back out the winter jacket!

The annual Tulip Time Festival in nearby Holland, Mich., the first week of May became a "stemfest" thanks to the early March bloom of flowers. 

Finally, we have a city used to heavy spring snow that was basking in warmth instead. 

Cheyenne, Wyo.
Some locations along the Front Range of the Rockies typically get their heaviest snowfalls in the spring, not winter.  The key word here is "typically."

Wyoming's capital city measured a paltry 0.4" of snow in March and April, 2012, combined, shattering a least snowy March-April record that had stood since 1889 (2.5"). On average, 21.6" of snow falls in Cheyenne in March and April, their two snowiest months of an average year.

Instead, Cheyenne had seven March days in the 70s, including two days with a high of 74 degrees. Only a March day in 1879 was warmer, there. In April, the Frontier City stepped up the warmth, with a high of 80 degrees on April 24, 2012. Keep in mind, Cheyenne is 6,067 feet above sea-level, so this warmth is even more incredible.

Then, just this past Monday, May 7, wet snow fell in the capital city in the morning, as wind chills plunged into the middle 20s. Only a trace of snow officially fell that day, and May averages 2-3" of snow in Cheyenne. However, it seemed a proper flip-flop to what has been a strange spring in Wyoming.

We've seen an amazing, historic run of record warmth in March 2012. It's been the talk of towns from Minnesota and Michigan to Tennessee and Georgia for a couple of weeks now.

First, consider the sheer number of daily record highs either tied or broken over the past two weeks. The counts in the table below are courtesy of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) since Mar. 9. Counts from Mar. 23 are still being tabulated and will be posted later.

If you pull out your calculator and add the numbers up from March 1 through March 22, the total exceeds 6,000! This speaks to the widespread nature and longevity of this warm spell. By the way, there have been only about 250 daily record lows during that same time, a ratio of roughly 24 record highs for every record low.

In a typical March, particularly in the nation's northern tier, you may see, perhaps, one or perhaps two days of record warmth before a sharp cold front brings that spring tease to a screeching halt. Not so in March 2012.

When considering monthly record highs, meaning the warmest temperature on record for the month of March, according to NCDC, there have been 430 such monthly record highs tied or broken!

International Falls, Minn., self-promoted as the "Icebox of the Nation", tied or broke daily record highs 12 of 13 days from Mar. 10-22. This includes a 79-degree reading on March 18, which was the warmest day ever recorded during March in International Falls.

Chicago, Ill., tied or set new daily record highs nine days in a row from March 14-22! In this streak, eight of the days were in the 80s, including an astounding 87-degree high on March 21. The National Weather Service in Chicago recently called the warm spell "historic" and something that is unlikely to be matched in our lifetime.

More top weather stories from weather.com

Wednesday, March 21, both Marquette, Mich., (81 degrees) and Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., (83 degrees) shattered their previous March record highs. In Marquette, it was their earliest-in-season 80+ degree day on record, breaking the old record by 22 days! Despite a shorter period of record in Marquette (records since 1961), that's still an amazing feat.

Thursday, March 22, Detroit, Mich., reached 86 degrees, setting an all-time record high for the month of March. The previous record was set just the day before. Prior to this March 2012 warm spell, the record was 84 degrees set in late March of 1945. If that wasn't enough, their 10-day streak with highs at least in the 70s was their longest such streak so early in the season, topping the previous record by over a month!

Plotted on the interactive map here are the many records set for various cities in this mild March. Zoom in on the map and click on the red locator icons to view the record-breaking information for each location. You will find many cities that have set records for the warmest temperatures so early in the season, monthly records or longest streaks of warm weather so early in the season.

Below is a map of temperature departures from average for the first three weeks of March. Notice the massive swath of much warmer than average air from the Rockies east (brown, red, orange shadings). Many spots are 10 to 15 degrees above average for the month so far!

Chicago, Detroit and Indianapolis are all currently seeing their warmest March on record with only a handful of days to go in the month. Records date back to the 1870s in all of these cities.

NOAA/CPC

This shows temperature departures from average for the first 23 days of March 2012. The brown shadings show where temperatures have been most above average.

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CUSHING, Okla. -- Touting an "all-of-the-above" energy policy, President Barack Obama traveled to this oil town on Thursday to show his support for the southern leg of the controversial Keystone oil pipeline proposed from Canada to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

"I am directing my administration to cut through red tape, break through bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority," he said with dozens of pipes stacked up behind him at a yard used by TransCanada, the company proposing the Keystone pipeline.

But neither the oil industry, which insists Obama could send stronger market signals to lower prices at the pump, nor environmentalists, who cite the climate impact of fossil fuels, were on board.

"A true all-of-the-above energy strategy would include greater access to areas that are currently off limits, a regulatory and permitting process that supported reasonable timelines for development, and immediate approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to bring more Canadian oil to U.S. refineries," Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement. "This would send a positive signal to the market and could help put downward pressure on prices."

Obama in his speech noted that domestic production has risen during his term. "America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years," he said. "Over the last three years, I've directed my administration to open up millions of acres for oil and gas exploration across 23 different states. We're opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We've quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs to a record high."

The southern leg would help drain a glut of crude in Cushing, the storage hub for U.S. crude oil traded on the futures market, easing deliveries to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

As for the overall Keystone project, Obama said the delay in the northern leg came about because Nebraska lawmakers -- both Republicans and Democrats -- raised concerns about the potential impact on the state's water supply if a spill happened. "So to be extra careful that the construction of the pipeline in an area like that wouldn't put the health and safety of the American people at risk, our experts said that we needed a certain amount of time to review the project," he said Thursday.

FirstRead on Obama's support for Keystone's southern leg
Data show increasing US oil supply won't lower prices
Keystone pipeline could raise oil prices for some

Environmentalists, for their part, oppose the pipeline because it promotes the expanded use of fossil fuels, which emit greenhouse gases tied to global warming. The activist group 350.org planned to make that case by protesting Obama's visit to Ohio State University later Thursday.

Some have even made the argument that Keystone's southern leg won't help domestic oil producers much since most of the oil will be coming from Canada.

It "simply is not designed to move significant volumes of domestic crude," Anthony Swift, an international law attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a blog post. "The 900,000 barrel per day (bpd) pipeline only has two comparatively small on-ramps in the United States," he added, citing company documents filed with the U.S. "The first, in Montana, includes an on-ramp for a maximum of 100,000 bpd of crude. The second in Cushing, Oklahoma, allows a maximum of 150,000 bpd ... That means that at most, little more than a quarter of the oil on Keystone XL would be from domestic producers."

Republicans dismissed Obama's move as a publicity stunt that made little difference to the timeline of the southern project or the problem of U.S. energy security. "He's taking credit for going forward on the only portion of the pipeline that he doesn't need to approve," said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., at a press conference. "This is literally straddling both sides of the issue." Hoeven has led the charge in the Senate to pass legislation that would bypass the administration and approve the full pipeline.

Construction of Keystone's 485-mile southern leg is expected to start in a few months, once TransCanada gets a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.

"We have been working with them for weeks and we hope to have the permit in place to allow us to begin construction mid-year," a TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha told NBC News. "As the president highlighted, they are supportive of the project as it helps move domestic oil to the refineries."

The Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday it could not estimate how long approval would take since it had not yet seen an application from the company.

TransCanada plans to submit a new proposal for the 1,200-mile northern leg, after which federal agencies will weigh in.

NBC's Shawna Thomas and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Slideshow: A greener, cleaner office building?

Miller Hull Partnership illustration

Earth Day co-founder Denis Hayes and architect Jason McLellan are behind a project that aims to build the greenest office building ever.

Launch slideshow

SEATTLE – An office building that lasts 250 years with no monthly electricity or water bills? It may sound like an environmentalist’s pipe dream, but it will soon be a reality, say the builders of what they hope will be the biggest office tower in the nation that produces as much water and electricity as it consumes.

Currently rising from a pit in downtown Seattle, the $30 million, six-story “living building” is being spearheaded by Denis Hayes and Jason McLennan, who believe they can save the world one building at a time by reducing the massive energy appetites of modern cities.

"Eighty-two percent of Americans, and more than half of humanity, now live in cities -- none of which have been designed for sustainability," said Hayes, who in 1970 helped create Earth Day, which has developed into the planet’s unofficial holiday.

Hayes, 67, now heads the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental nonprofit that intends to practice what it preaches by moving into the building when it’s completed, currently planned for November. 

The Bullitt Center, as the building will be known, is designed to use just a third of the energy consumed by a typical office building its size. It also aims to minimize its resource footprint by generating electricity from solar power, collecting water from rainfall and treating all sewage and wastewater onsite. It also will have no parking for cars -- just racks for bikes.

It won’t be entirely off the electrical grid, so that it can make it through the periods when there isn’t enough sunlight to meet the tenants’ demands. But it will later repay those withdrawals, said McLennan, 38, who is CEO of the Northwest-based International Living Future Institute.

"In the summer it gives excess energy to the (power) grid and in the winter it gets it back when we can't generate enough," he said. "It nets out at zero on an annual basis."

As for the water system, Seattle law requires the building be hooked up to its water supply but the goal is to take in enough rainwater to make ends meet.

Standard buildings are a "negative gift" to taxpayers, he said, because of the burdens they impose in terms of pollution and wasted energy.  "We clean up our own messes ... that's the big picture," he said. 

Hayes said that in addition to being self-sufficient, the building will make sense financially, explaining that while it may cost a third more to build than a traditional office building, it is designed to last centuries longer.

"We are using the Bullitt Center to explore what is possible on the cutting edge of green, using existing technology and constrained by reasonable economics," said Hayes. "Durability is key. The average building lasts 40 years, we're going for 250 years. ... It's a fundamentally different approach."

Getting the building to last 2 1/2 centuries, McLennan said, comes down to three factors: quality building materials; careful and clever detailing from the architecture firm; and high quality construction from the contractor.   

Ultimately, the partners hope to get the Bullitt Center certified under the “Living Building Challenge,” which is run by the Living Future Institute.

In order to be certified as a living building, developments much meet benchmarks in seven performance areas. The slideshow at the top of the story illustrates those areas, each of which includes several "imperatives," such as "car-free living" and "urban agriculture."

So far, about 140 projects are registered for the Living Building Challenge, including a handful in Seattle. Only four have been certified as meeting the challenge criteria so far, as many are under construction or have not yet met the year of occupancy necessary for certification. Most are small projects; a few are office buildings, but none is as large as the Bullitt Center.

Net-zero homes have been around since the 1970s, but McLennan noted that it's "much harder to achieve this in a larger building, as the larger the building the more difficult it is to generate all your own energy and harvest all your water. Scale makes it challenging."

If the Bullitt Center is certified as a living building, it will be the largest net-zero office building in the U.S., McLennan said. A three-story  Center for Sustainable Landscapes also is under construction in Pittsburgh at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, he noted.

Here are some of the major pieces that Hayes and McLennan say will enable the building to meet the challenge:

• Solar panels on the roof that extend over the sides of the building will provide the electricity. (Panels have gained enough efficiency in recent years to make them operable even in places with as much cloud cover as Seattle.)
• Water will circulate through 26 geothermal wells, each 400 feet deep in earth that's a constant 55 degrees, to help offset heating costs in winter. 
• Rainwater will be collected in a 56,000 gallon basement cistern. Purification steps include a special membrane for the roof, ultrafiltration and ultraviolet light. Because the process has to be tested before Seattle will consider authorizing it for drinking water, sinks and showers, Hayes calls it "the last big hurdle" for the center.
• Sewage will be sent to 10 basement composters and then shipped offsite to become fertilizer.
• All timber frames and other wood will be certified as sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council.

The criteria for certification, McLennan said, are "more high performing" than the standards of the better known LEED, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which were developed by the U.S. Green Building Council and adopted by many developers across the country.

"It's time to move the ball farther," he said, adding that "single projects can change the way the design community thinks."

The U.S. Green Building Council said it welcomes the living building concept and has worked closely with McLennan, who also runs the council's Seattle chapter.

"It's more challenging," acknowledged Scot Horst, the council's vice president for LEED. "Most buildings that attempted but couldn't meet the (living building) criteria were still LEED certified."

John Brecher / msnbc.com

The six-story Bullitt Center will block the downtown views from the apartments at left, as well as partly obscure those from the condos in the center of this photo.

Even a cutting-edge development like the Bullitt Center can have difficulty meeting the living building benchmarks. For example, it is replacing a single-story bar and thereby covering up the views from apartments behind it. 

That would appear to violate the Living Building Challenge's "equity" imperative: "The project may not block access to, nor diminish, the quality of fresh air, sunlight and natural waterways for any member of society or adjacent developments."

But McLennan notes the apartments went up knowing that the Bullitt property would some day be developed. "The windows for the adjacent building were placed along an alley where development was always expected and part of city zoning for that site," he said.

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Hayes said tenants will get a rent reduction in return. "It's not a perfect solution but we're doing what we can," he said.

McLennan added that the upsides -- more diversity and added jobs in the area -- outweigh any downside.

Eco-friendly projects aren't immune to the community frictions that often greet new developments.

In Wallingford, a neighborhood of homes and low-rise commercial buildings in Seattle, a green developer inspired by the Bullitt project says it needs to exceed the city's height limit in order to make its building cost effective.

That has angered neighbors like Katherine Bragdon, herself an environmental activist, and put the project on hold as city government deals with the opposition.

"No developer should be given special privileges to exceed current zoning by 44 percent, impair views that belong to the public, and trump years of work and consideration that have gone into neighborhood planning," Bragdon said. "I’ve worked on a number of conservation campaigns around the country over the past two decades so I want to stress that I respect and value the green building aspect of this project. … But I also believe that we can’t trample over one good cause (well-planned neighborhoods, public process, fair zoning) for another."

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NASA file

Snow cover lingered in the Great Lakes region on Feb. 16, 2008, as shown by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite.

Great Lakes ice coverage declined an average of 71 percent over the past 40 years, according to a report from the American Meteorological Society.

The amount of decline varies year to year and lake to lake, according to the report's lead researcher, Jia Wang, an ice research climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Wang’s report said that based on Coast Guard scanning, satellite photos and other research from 1973 to 2010, ice coverage dropped most on Lake Ontario, 88 percent; the second-largest loss was on Lake Superior, at 79 percent.

The smallest decline, 37 percent, was on Lake St. Clair, a lake between Lakes Erie and Huron that was also included in the study.

The study doesn’t include the current winter, but satellite photos show that only about 5 percent of Great Lakes surface froze over this winter, the Detroit Free Press said. That’s down from years such as 1979, when there was as much as 94 percent ice coverage. On average, about 40 percent of the surfaces freeze over, the newspaper said.

Wang told WBEZ-FM in Chicago that diminished ice coverage speeds wintertime evaporation, reducing the lakes’ water levels, which can spur increased and early algae blooms, damage water quality, and accelerate erosion as more shoreline is exposed to waves.

Wang told the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper that natural climatic variables such as El Nino, La Nina play as much a role in the ice decline as a warming global climate.

"We are seeing the impact of global warming here in the Great Lakes -- but the natural variability is at least as large a factor," Wang said.

Wang said global climate change and regional climate patterns are competing over the Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes, scientists say, contain about 20 percent of the world's fresh water supply and cover 94,000 square miles in two countries.

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Hard as it may be to believe if you live in the Northeast or upper Midwest, last January was not the warmest on record across the lower 48 states, federal recordkeepers announced Tuesday.

It was warm -- but only the fourth warmest since records began in 1895 and nowhere near the record set in 2006, the National Climatic Data Center reported.

The average temperature last month was 36.3 degrees Fahrenheit -- 5.5 degrees above the 1901-2000 average. The record is 39.7 degrees, followed by 37.2 in 1990 and 1953.

As for snow cover, last month was the third smallest for a January in 40 years that those records have been kept.

Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at the center, told msnbc.com that he wasn't surprised last month didn't set a warmth record given that there were "a couple of cold outbreaks" during that time.

But a few data points did jump out at him: Minnesota saw a record warm December-January that was 10.1 degrees above average.

Moreover, no state was cooler than average and only two (Florida and Washington) were near average.

Nine others -- Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming -- saw January temps among their 10 warmest.

"Many locations across the Northern Plains exceeded all-time warm January maximum temperatures," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a statement, including Minot, N.D., which got to 61 degrees on Jan. 5 -- topping its previous record of 59 set on Jan. 28, 1906. The center is part of NOAA.

Readers weigh in on the spring winter

For the Northeast, it was only the 16th warmest January on record, but the 10th consecutive month that the region averaged warmer than normal.

So is the warmth tied to climate change? Scientists can't make that connection on such a short timescale, Crouch said. "We are seeing a long-term trend of warming winters," he added, "but there are a lot of factors in any given month."

And while it was warm across the continental U.S., Alaskans can tell you they've had it bitterly cold.

The federal recordkeepers made note of that, reporting several towns had their coldest average January temperatures on record: Bethel (-17.3 degrees F); Bettles (-35.6 degrees F); McGrath (-28.5 degrees F); and Nome (-16.6 degrees F). 

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Temperatures in the 50s and 60s across much of the Northeast and Great Lakes region on Tuesday added to the drama over whether this month will go down as the warmest January on record in the continental U.S. The warm spell has also generated plenty of chatter and even a spring of sorts -- folks walking around in shorts and flowers blooming early.

Weather.com expected at least a dozen cities on Tuesday would set or approach records for a Jan. 31, with temperatures up to 20 degrees above average. "With the very warm air mass, several more record highs are anticipated on Wednesday as we kick off the month of February," weather.com meteorologist Tim Ballisty wrote.

David Duprey / AP

For Clarence, N.Y., Jan. 9 looked more like spring than winter, when the town is usually under snow and busy with snowmobiles.

Deke Arndt, the head honcho when it comes to monitoring temperatures for the National Weather Service, told msnbc.com that where he lives, in Asheville, N.C., he gets "a lot of people" asking about the emergence of daffodils in recent weeks.

Arndt tells them that while he's not a plant expert, "it's been very warm" and plants "are responding to soil temperatures."

Kevin LaMarque / Reuters

A cyclist on Tuesday enjoys the spring-like day outside Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., where it got to 65 degrees F.

"That's where my expertise ends," adds Arndt, whose formal title is chief of the National Climatic Data Center's monitoring service.

Arndt told msnbc.com on Monday that his office will report on Feb. 7, next Tuesday, as to whether last month set a record. In the meantime, msnbc.com asked its Facebook audience to share what winter's been like in their neck of the woods. The overwhelming response: warm.

Here's a sampling:

• Deborah Scales Gunter: Yes, in southeast Alabama it's been crazy weather. I even saw one of my iris blooming now and even a light color butter cup blooming now; it's too early for them but weather is crazy here -- warm, raining and sunny and warmer and then turns cold again.
• Roxanne Stickler (Claremore, Okla.): Yep! This time last year there was snow on the ground and more coming! Today it was in upper 60s!
• Patty Mauck (southern Indiana): 60 degrees! Lovin it! I don't need cold weather or snow, ever.
• Talicia Harris White (South Carolina): 72 tomorrow, I'm not from here but I know that is not normal. Why are all my neighbors crazy? I'm declaring, climate change is Real!
• Hope Jenkinson: Utah has been feeling like spring not winter. No substantial snow. Gonna be in drought this summer I'm afraid.
• Don Scott: I'm in northwest Montana in a rainstorm, what little snow we had is melting, and my usual 6 foot snowbanks are only about a foot high and shrinking. This has been the most unusually warm winter I've ever experienced in 62 years on this planet.
• Bonita Wood: We have had no winter here in Oklahoma, it's like spring time, daffodils are blooming, etc.
• Melonee Pappas Ryan: Been warm here in Alabama ... and unfortunately, we pay for it with tornadoes!
• Precious Lmnop Singh: Snow storm yesterday, 53 degrees tomorrow. This is not the Michigan January I know.
• Sandra Dampier Mickelson (Astoria, Ore.): I don't like unseasonable weather. I like the seasons to be the way they're supposed to be. I live in what is considered a mild climate. We used to be in a 30 year cycle for huge snowstorms, but it's been over 40 years and none yet. That means havoc for the other seasons of the year. Nothing is quite right anymore.
• Chryssi Mudge: Nebraska was in the 60s today ... We should be in the 30s with snow ... Heck my lawn is still green in spots.
• Julie White Santos: Very warm here in Wilmington, N.C. Have not had any temps below freezing yet. In the 60s and 70s during the day.

VISIT msnbc.com Facebook page for more story discussions

There was, however, an exception to the warm rule -- a deep freeze in Alaska.

Shelley Chaffin of Anchorage, Alaska, posted: "Warm? Has anybody looked at the temperatures in Alaska? This winter has given new meaning to the phrase "the frozen north!"

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How soon we forget. Sure, this last month has been warmer than average across the lower 48 states, but the record for warmest January was set just six years ago in January 2006 and it's too soon to tell if that will fall.

Deke Arndt, chief of the National Climatic Data Center's monitoring service, told msnbc.com that he can't rule out a record. "It's too early for us to call shots" on just where January 2012 will end up, he said, "but it has been quite warm so far and we expect it to finish in the top 15 or 20," based on records dating back to 1895. The official report for January comes out on Feb. 7, he added.

Weather.com meteorologist Stu Ostro noted that Jan. 1-23 in 2006 was warmer than the same period this year. "So at least as of that point this January was running well behind the record pace," he told msnbc.com.

With the exception of Alaska, which is seeing record cold and snow, the warmer temperatures have been widespread. 

Michael J. Crumb / AP

These golfers in Des Moines, Iowa, were out on the course on Jan. 5 as temperatures reached 60 degrees.

Areas that saw above average temperatures cover "a rather large amount of real estate in the U.S. from coast-to-coast," is how weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce put it in his look back. "In fact, the only places that have experienced overall below-average temperatures this month are the far Southeast (southern Florida) and far Northwest corners (western Washington and Oregon) of the country!"

The map below illustrates that, with above average temps seen in orange, red and brown.

Another measure is how many localities have reported record highs or lows for a given day in January. Turns out, nearly 2,800 daily record highs were tied or broken through last week. As for daily record lows, only 160 of those were reported.

Arndt cited two key factors impacting climate this last month. A La Nina cycle is in place, and typically that means colder and snowier winters in the northern U.S. But La Nina's impact was tempered by cold Arctic air being blocked from moving south by a shift in what's known as the Arctic Oscillation.

STORY: 62 below makes for deep freeze in Alaska
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The warm spell has also meant more tornadoes this month than normal. This month looks set to be the third busiest January on record, with 74 so far. That compares to 218 in January 1999 and 88 in January 2008.

noaa.gov

This chart shows how far off an individual year was from the mean for January temperatures in the continental U.S.

Back in 2006, news media reported the lack of winter as well. In Duluth, Minn., folks were flying kites and wearing shorts on Jan. 28, 2006. One widely reported upside back then, as now: lower heating bills.

Stuard McDill / Reuters

Arctic sea ice is a key focus for climate scientists, including this expedition last fall on drift ice some 500 miles from the North Pole.

Remember New York City's 2011 blizzard? Or Florida's 2010 hard freeze? Blame them on the summer.

According to a new study, those are the type of extreme cold events in the northern hemisphere's winter that appear tied to warmer Arctic summers.

It's certainly counterintuitive, the authors acknowledge, and that could be why climate models haven't picked up on the trend identified in the study: The warmer Arctic, along with melting sea ice, create more moisture in the Arctic and that typically leads to more snowfall across northern Eurasia in October -- a key factor in this entire dynamic. That extra snowfall, in turn, alters what's known as the Arctic Oscillation, sending cold blasts down south.

"I don't think you can point to a single event and attribute it to a climate signal," lead author Judah Cohen tells msnbc.com, "but I would say that the warm Arctic probably helped tip the odds" for the 2011 New York City blizzard. "And when you start to consider that five of the largest snowstorms for NYC occurred over the past 10 years ... that becomes harder to explain by chance alone. Instead there must be a reason and the reason we propose is the warm Arctic and the subsequent increase in fall snow cover." 

The study would seem to be upended by this mild winter, which follows a warm Arctic. So what gives?

"The paper does not claim that every winter will be cold," says Cohen, the director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a for-profit weather service.

It turns out Eurasia snow cover in October was low. Why?

The reason "has remained elusive," Cohen says. "All I can say is that the atmospheric pattern was less conducive to the advance of snow cover this October compared to the last two Octobers.

"The snow cover did advance rapidly in November this year," he adds, "however our research has shown that October is the key month; rapid advances in snow cover the other months does not have the same impact."

There is a caveat to the warm summer/cold winter theory.

"If it continues to get much warmer in the fall," Cohen says, "precipitation that currently falls as snow will fall as rain instead, eliminating the winter cooling."

The study was published Friday in the peer-reviewed Environmental Research Letters. Scientists at the University of Massachusetts and University of Alaska contributed as well.

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