Looks like they’ve discovered what great heat sinks asphalt and concrete make:
From the National Resources Defense Council via press release posted at investorideas.com (h/t to Mark)
WORST SUMMER EVER? NEW ANALYSIS OF 2010 SUMMER HEAT TO HIGHLIGHT LITTLE-DISCUSSED “DARK SIDE OF CLIMATE CHANGE”: RECORD NIGHT-TIME TEMPERATURES IN U.S.
New Focus on Sweltering Highs in Night-Time Temperatures to Outline Risks to Human Health, Environment; Record Night-Time Highs Seen in More than Three Dozen States: AL, AZ, AR, CT, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, WV, and WI.
WASHINGTON, D.C./NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL – September 15, 2010 (Investorideas.com renewable energy/green newswire) – While it is common knowledge that the summer of 2010 posted record-high temperatures across the United States, almost no attention has been paid so far to the equally disturbing trend of pervasive record high night-time temperatures where evening cooling did not occur this summer, according to a new analysis to be released at 11 a.m. EDT Thursday (September 16, 2010) by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
More than three dozen states (and a correspondingly significant share of the nation’s population) contain weather stations that recorded record high night-time temperatures, the “dark side of climate change” under which temperatures do not cool off overnight. The NRDC analysis breaks out the number of U.S. counties and their respective population that experienced these record night-time temperatures.
The 37 states with record high night-time temperatures highlighted in the report are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
News event speakers will be:
- Dan Lashof, director, Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council; and
- Kim Knowlton, senior scientist, Health Program, Natural Resources Defense Council.
The NRDC analysis outlines the danger of heat deaths and other impacts that are linked to the growing problem of summer temperatures that do not drop overnight.
TO PARTICIPATE: You can join this live, phone-based news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 11 a.m. EDT on September 16, 2010 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the “worst summer ever?” news event.
CAN’T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at http://www.nrdc.org as of 3 p.m. EDT on September 16, 2010.
CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com.
ABOUT NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national nonprofit organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world’s natural resources, public health, and the environment.
NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Livingston, MT, and Beijing. Visit NRDC on the Web at http://www.nrdc.org.
=========================================================
Here’s an infrared photo of before and after at a USHCN climate station in Fayetteville, NC
Here is what you see in visible light:
Here is what the infrared camera sees:
Note that the concrete surface is around 22-24°C, while the grassy areas are between 12-19°C. This was shortly after a rain, about 2 hours before sunset. The rain did nearly nothing to cool down the concrete.
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“Its darker than we thought!”
I ran the initials NRDC through my text to speech programme. It pronounced it as “nerds”. I think I will stick with that.
Pretty easy to see this. Compare summertime Manhattan to Eastern Long Island or the North Bronx. It even holds true in the winter time, it would be raining in Manhattan, and I’d take a 30 min subway ride to the Bronx and it’d be snowing there. There is a serious amount of heat stored in the city concrete, and everyone who tries to escape New York in the summertime knows this.
I like this study, it shows how much heat is held in by our infrastructure, which is why nightime record highs are probably being set more often since the infrastructure holds the heat in. Because of this effect, it’s likely that the ‘warming’ going on is not CO2 related, or if it is related to CO2, there is much stronger case for it being the concrete/asphalt that has caused a lot of the manmade warming
Think this might have something to do with it? http://www.nightearth.com/ . And let’s not forget the heat from power lines, and all forms of mechanical transportation as well as that from millions of air conditioners, etc. that is hidden in the glare of the city lights. I’d say the entire USA is one giant UHI.
You folks may be hot in USA, but……You might be interested to know that in most of central, east and SE Australia we have been getting lowest winter and spring temps in many areas for at least 10 to 20 years or more. Wettest for 10 or 20 years or more or much longer. The Murray River main river has been flooding. Water restrictions are being mainly lifted. Dams are filling or full. flooding has occurred in many areas. September so far is well below max temps in most areas, rainfall is already past the Sept mean in many areas. The Centre of Australian desert areas resemble the green pastures of England and nare full of wildflowers. Salt Lake Eyre is good for boating, and at present tasmani is suffering heavy snow and 130km/hr winds!
Cheers
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/
Scan all these for details of Australias return to the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s weather this winter and spring!
“…While it is common knowledge that the summer of 2010 posted record-high temperatures across the United States,…”
“Across the United States” makes it sound like the entire U.S., but here in Washington State we have had a very cool summer. In the lower southestern valleys of the state we are 1 month behind in the production of tomatoes because of the cool summer. In the Walla Walla Valley we have had only a couple of days of reaching triple digit highs when we usually will at least have a week or two of consecutive triple digit highs during the summer.
Yep, it’s worse than we thought.
CO2 is more powerful at night.
Gee, I have been intimately familiar with this phenomenon since moving to St. Louis in 1971. The old city environment was one gigantic heat sink. When a modest skyscraper was added to the environment, the heat trapping effect was noticeably increased. The worst part of the phenomenon was that the environment did not cool at night. This effect does not exist in the newer suburbs, 1960’s and later. The newer suburbs usually have some green material between any two concrete structures. This heat sink effect creates UHI. The UHI causes higher temperatures for longer periods at night. If the thermometers are in these areas then there is your global warming, so-called. By the way, the city in which I reside now recorded record highs this summer. I made the trip to the airport and discovered that the thermometer sits right on a runway.
Pardon me for being a broken record, but this startling new information would have been known long ago if meteorologists and climate scientists did not have the absolutely weird habit of recording a contrived temperature for each day and place. What they do is take the average of a daytime and a nighttime reading. Is that weird or what. Folks, we are scientists. Stick with the facts. Record an actual measured temperature for day and another actual measured temperature for night. Do not average them. Do not report an average. The average is worthless to science.
I’m sure glad these folks want to educate me. The only way we can get tomatoes to ripen on the vine here in Calgary, is to create a micro climate that keeps the night time temperature as high as possible. I use the south side of my house and place the plants against the concrete foundation. It is still hit and miss however. Last year lots, this year a few. Now is that a heat island inside a heat island? I wounder if my wife will let me paint the thing black?
I’ll never forget a trip I made to Los Angeles about 15 years ago as a tourist. We were driving around downtown L.A. ( where the tall buildings are ) and it was boiling, around 94 F. We had a brand new Mustang convertible as a rent-a-car. It was so hot we decided to head for Venice Beach, another tourist hot spot. Well……..as we left downtown, the temperature dropped , so much so that we ended up pulling over and putting the roof up, and when we got to the beach, it was about 68 F. We went to the beach like idiots and found a hollow in the sand and laid on the towels and wondered why no one else was there too…….( too cold ) . However it did highlight to me the effects of (1) how the ocean as it cooled the beach and (2) the immense effect of an urban heat island. It was quite a reversal of extremes.
Gee, what remarkable conclusion. Working on air conditioning across the US for 25 years, it didn’t take much to notice the temperature drop moving from th city to the suburbs to rural areas on the same day.
I guess their flop of a movie on “ocean acidification” which was cross-promoted across the country along with NOAA, was not effective enough….so they resort to this.
Also, anyone notice where their offices are?
NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Livingston, MT, and Beijing.
Beijing?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
So if we simply ban night, along with CO2, everything will be OK!
After years of belittling UHI, it’s now embraced to highlight record high low temps.
Now I’m sure that some rural locales experienced record high low temps. In itself that proves nothing. It happens. But citing UHI night time temps as a metric of anything proves nothing, other than letting the local residents know that it’s hot and uncomfortable.
Now how about a story about record low high temps? Where can we hear about those? Oh, that’s right, nobody covers those stories like WUWT.
Rocks on mountains/deserts/anywhere hold heat…. its NOT artificial (ie Mann made, haha), ONLY its “Natural” UHI, is probably mostly natural ROCK or “cement” if you like, so nothing special here guys/gals move on.. Imagine the whole “Andes”, Himalayas etc… heat effect in summer idem same thing chao/
I see NJ on the list.
I didn’t notice any such thing, and I usually take a little stroll around the grounds at night.
I was not tempted to sleep outside ( which is what I usually think of when it is hot at night )
Hate to personalize and anecdotalize this but my observations of 2010 were,
that there was an extended cold period, that was cold for a long time, but not out of range at all and not approaching memorable lows.
And in the summer, there was an extended hot period, that lasted ( With no rain)
for a long time but did not break or reach any records. I did NOT notice any extreme night-heat. ( and I am looking for it)
Just weather. Nothing to see here.
I’d like to see a comparison between urban and rural t data.
Also, what about cloud cover over these areas?
If we have higher dew points, the temps drop less at night time.
The NDRC has done good work in the past decade in trying to make the US government face up to its role in allowing overfishing on the Georges Banks. A series of lawsuits has forced the government (viz the National Marine Fisheries Service) to set targets for rebuilding the fish stocks – larger stocks will mean more fish for future fisheries. Unfortunately, a court challenge has allowed the NMFS to weasel out of targets for rebuilding the cod and a few other important species.
At least they are focussed on something other CO2 as a cause of warming here. Lovely pics both from the study and from Anthony.
In the IR photo, note the heat of the pipe atop which sets the instrument….. looks toasty.
Thanks for posting the link to the NRDC. I have always distrusted them, but never had a reason to visit their websiste before. I visited the site for a laugh, but got a scare instead!
The NRDC is a highly organized, well funded (and dangerous) eco-totalitarian organization using good old fashioned economic blackmail and coercion in government offices and corporate board rooms around the world. I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised that they’re using another recent news event to create a new straw man scare tactic out of “the growing problem of summer temperatures that do not drop overnight” in an attempt push their agenda.
Do some people actually use those form letters?