Heat waves are just weather... right?

Joe Romm at Climate Progress is putting this June heat wave in perspective:

Having a heat wave

The thing is, as anyone intelligent will tell you, this heat wave is just weather. Global warming, aka climate change, is weather on top of longer-term change, i.e., a TREND. So no heat wave "proves" the climate is warming -- despite what the global warming-friendly press might trumpet -- just as the cold snaps and blizzards beloved by the skeptical frontliners don't prove anything about warming global temperatures either.

What's happening now is that the hot breath of El Nino has warmed the atmosphere, and the effects are being felt on land. But meanwhile, the Pacific is actually cooling, and to set a record global temperature, land and ocean have to be warm together. That might not happen for the calendar year, even though it has already happened in spades for the 12-month running mean. At the same time (last I checked), Arctic sea ice is below the 2007 record retraction.

This will be an interesting next few months for the battle for the American mind on global warming.