Comments on: Chicago – coolest July 8th in 118 years

By: Gary from Chicagoland

Gary from Chicagoland — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:12:45 +0000

July 2009 closes as Chicago, IL coolest in 118 years. The month closes at midnight Friday night and appears likely to finish as Chicago’s coolest July in 118 years.The average temperature of 69.4-degrees over the first 30 days is more than 4-degrees below the long term average. It becomes the first July in 139 years of records here which has failed to produce a temperature greater than 86 degrees. An 86 degree high occurred earlier this month on July 6–a reading never exceeded. US Senate, are you noticing this before voting on the CO2 Clean Air Tax, oops I mean Act?

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:56:25 +0000

A good portion of the earth is quite cool, much more than normal, from the North pole to the south pole. Should reach record ice levels in the South pole this winter, so no danger of the South pole melting and raising sea levels by upto 200 feet as I have seen mentioned. At least not this year

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:54:25 +0000

The lack of solar (sun spots) theory seems to fit things well, the theory is that the lack of sunspots allows more than normal cosmic rays into the solar system which forms more cloud cover on earth, which allows less heat on earth. Makes sense, and this theory was out there 8 months ago. Current solar activity lowest in decades(maybe centuries)

By: Bruce Cobb

Bruce Cobb — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:52:07 +0000

Speaking of weather and climate, I’ve been noticing the phrase “inclimate weather” cropping up, instead of “inclement weather”. It’s funny, and shows the degree that climate has entered the consciousness of the masses.

By: H.R.

H.R. — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:52:52 +0000

John F. Hultquist (18:09:10) :
“This seems like a good place to point out that a place’s climate is the long term pattern of the weather. Do you usually have hot/wet summers and cold/snowy winters, or perhaps mild/dry summers and cool/wet winters? World maps, and more precise regional maps, of these patterns have been available for years (see Köppen). When conceptualized in this way, is anyone claiming that the climate where they live has changed in the last fifty years?

Pamela Gray (15:45:30) :
“Cold temps do become climate records. Where do you think the temperature data came from that IPCC used? Faeries? Weather is a part of climate. Climate is what you get due to your address on Earth (think climate zone-which you can learn about in any grade school Science text). Weather variations are what you get within your climate zone. Weather changes. Most of the time weather variation has patterns to it, sometimes it is chaotic and freaky. Our best fight against AGW theory is to understand where weather variation comes from.”

Global climate is only relevant on geological time scales. Otherwise, all climate is local.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it.

By: Bruce Cobb

Bruce Cobb — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:25:10 +0000

Smokey (21:14:41) :

rbateman,

Since climate and weather are inseparable, how about: weather is a function of climate.

That is excellent. Another one for the climate doomsters is: climate models are not climate.

By: msadesign

msadesign — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:19:17 +0000

Tom Skilling! Perhaps–no, certainly!– the best TV weatherman on the planet. The Universe, even. His delivery is so unique and spell-binding and just dense; I hear his careful cadence even in his prose!

By: PaddikJ

PaddikJ — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:30:18 +0000

Patrick Davis (05:54:50)
.

“Jack, are you in New Zealand? I’d give NIWA as much respect in it’s ability to do any real science as I would if I stepped in dog/cow/sheep excrement.”
.

Speaking of respect, maybe you should try to write a grammatical, coherent sentence before you bandy the word about.

By: Highlander

Highlander — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:59:20 +0000

From the American Heritage English Dictionary:
——————–
==Excerpted==:
.
weath·er
n.
1. The state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, with respect to variables such as temperature, moisture, wind velocity, and barometric pressure.
—–
==Excerpted==:
cli·mate
n.
1. The meteorological conditions, including temperature, precipitation, and wind, that characteristically prevail in a particular region.
2. A region of the earth having particular meteorological conditions: lives in a cold climate.
——————–
.
ERGO: Weather is NOT climate, and climate is NOT weather.
.
CLIMATE —by the definition— is the ~prevailing~ condition, predicated upon the historical and NOT the immediate, nor any portion thereof.
.
WEATHER —by the definition— is the incidental state of the atmosphere at any given moment.
.

By: DocRock

DocRock — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:40:11 +0000

Another point of interest for you non Chicago natives and I’m sure this has happened in many other places. The “official” Chicago temp location has moved multiple times in it’s recorded history. The first move I believe was due to the Chicago fire ( all earlier records were lost during the fire). Temperatures taken prior to 1940 were all taken at locations in the “downtown” area within 1/2 mile of Lake Michigan , some within a couple hundred yards or at U of Chicago which is also very close to the lake. That all changed in 1940 when the “official” temps were switched to Midway Airport which is approx 6 miles from the lakeshore and completely surrounded by houses. Then the big switch came in 1980 when it was moved to O’Hare Airport which is about 12 miles from the lakeshore.

Now that doesn’t sound like a great distance but we are told everyday by Tom Skilling and the other Chicago weathermen what the expected high is for the next day and then we get “but cooler by the lake”.

In January we had a few warm days that approached record highs ( 100 year old highs ) in the 60 degree area at Ohare. The downtown temperature high was only 42 degrees ( remember that’s only about 12 miles away ) and that is where the old historical high was taken a hundred years ago. But nobody seemed to think about that fact when they were all a twitter about breaking a record high in January

By: Smokey

Smokey — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:14:41 +0000

rbateman,

Since climate and weather are inseparable, how about: weather is a function of climate.

By: rbateman

rbateman — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:41:40 +0000

“Weather isn’t climate” is meant to dissuade any discussion.
Weather as part of climate is much better.
Now, how about weather as an instance of Climate, as in the Climate being a class. Each yearly instance comes with it’s own random-generated value.
If the Climate is turning to another one, the instances of that Climate will being to also turn. So, if your weather is turning year upon year into something different than what is expected the last 50 years, it might just be your first indication of the climate changing.
The changes I hear most often from worldwide is ‘getting colder’.

By: Paul R

Paul R — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:05:12 +0000

I believe that it my be useful to use an acronym for the sacred mantra of weather is not climate. When scraping ice off of a windscreen, or when your teeth are chattering it might be useful to just use as many WINC’s as possible to conserve energy and get into the spirit of the hoax.

By: RoyFOMR

RoyFOMR — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:53:42 +0000

Another entry from the weather is not climate department, this time courtesy of Tom Skilling, WGN-TV meteorologist

This climatochronology is tricky stuff. Over at RuleClimate the rule of thumb seems to be that after 30 years, weather turns into climate. By, my back of the envelope calculations, the 118 year Windy City low does appear to meet Gavins’ longevity criteria. Please note, however, that as I’m a non-published, non-climatologist that I’m unable to tap into the rich resource offered by the Goddard Institute of Statistical Sophistry and I can only offer up raw and unprocessed data.

I had a wee look at Tom Skillings’ Facebook offering.
http://ko-kr.facebook.com/TomSkilling?v=info

This caught my attention.

Tom Skilling, WGN-TV chief meteorologist, appears weekdays on WGN Midday News, WGN Evening News and WGN News at Nine. He celebrated his 30th anniversary with WGN-TV in August 2008
Guess that makes him a climatologist. A bit like yourself Mr W?

By: Pamela Gray

Pamela Gray — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:45:30 +0000

Cold temps do become climate records. Where do you think the temperature data came from that IPCC used? Faeries? Weather is a part of climate. Climate is what you get due to your address on Earth (think climate zone-which you can learn about in any grade school Science text). Weather variations are what you get within your climate zone. Weather changes. Most of the time weather variation has patterns to it, sometimes it is chaotic and freaky. Our best fight against AGW theory is to understand where weather variation comes from.