Story submitted by Forrest Mims III, originally published for the San Antonio Express-News
In the early days of this column, concerned readers sent many questions about the earth’s ozone layer, which I began measuring in 1990. Today, public interest in the ozone layer has been replaced by concern about global warming.
Answering questions about global warming requires considerably more space than this 437-word column. So let’s focus in on the temperature history of Texas for now.
The 2011 Texas drought was exacerbated by the highest temperatures since 1895 during June, July and August. Several prominent climate scientists have blamed these record highs on global warming. These claims are puzzling because, in spite of the 2011 record highs, Texas records going back more than a century show slightly more cooling than warming. So I visited the National Climatic Data Center website to review Texas temperature records. The NCDC provides monthly temperature records for 10 Texas regions going back to 1895.
It also provides the average temperature for the entire state.
I retrieved all 12 months of data for each year since 1895 and plotted the average annual temperatures on a chart along with their trend. As shown in the chart, the average temperature of Texas barely changed between 1895 and 2011.
The total warming during those 116 years was a statistically insignificant 0.046 degree Fahrenheit. If the record highs of 2011 are omitted, Texas cooled 0.055 degree from 1895 to 2010.
The NCDC temperature data do not fully account for the enhanced warming of weather stations that have become surrounded by buildings and pavement. This is the heat island effect. Dr. Daniel Boice of the Southwest Research Foundation studied the temperature at New Braunfels and San Antonio from 1946 to 1990. www.swri.org/3pubs/ttoday/fall97/heat.htm
He found that San Antonio has warmed when compared with its smaller neighbor. San Antonio might be several degrees cooler today than in 1885 if no new buildings and roads had been constructed. Why do some scientists insist that Texas is warming when the data show a negligible increase? I don’t know. But I do know that a National Science Foundation program officer told me that applications for atmospheric science grants that do not include a global warming theme stand little chance of acceptance.
Climate scientists are right to be concerned about droughts, especially since no Texas drought since precipitation records were begun around 1870 matches the megadroughts revealed in the rings of bald cypress trees. Those droughts occurred hundreds of years before SUVs and power plants began pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a process blamed for global warming that has not yet arrived in Texas.
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Forrest Mims III, an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was named one of the 50 Best Brains in Science by Discover Magazine. His science is featured at www.forrestmims.org. Email him at forrest.mims@ieee.org.
I worked outdoors in Texas last summer. How much Gatorade did I make disappear?
A lot.
Funnily enough, during the 18 months I worked outdoors in Austin, the airport had more than two dozen record low temperatures, and I also froze my behind off a fair amount of the time. I would tell people during the course of my day that there had been a record low that morning (or three mornings in a row or what have you) and they looked at me like I was crazy. The AGW brain-washing of Austinites is a sight to behold!
Perhaps this exercise should be carried out for all 50 States. The result will probably be similar. Better rush before the State records are ‘corrected’ though.
When did facts ever matter to a warmist?
C’mon…it’s only climate when it’s hot. If it’s anything else it’s just weather.
🙂
“Texas drought was exacerbated by the highest temperatures since 1895.”
Taken a long while to break the record. The same thing happened in Scotland, a long standing record was broken this year, but not at the same weather station as in the 1800s. Records seem to be broken in a different weather station from the last record.
Go figure. This has always bothered me how so much fuss is made over a FRACTION OF A DEGREE, something that cannot be detected by the bizarre creature doing the detecting. It’s back to the ‘scientific rigor’ implied by decimal places….except that instrumental error, UHI, Hansen-diddling, and outright fantasy erase any meaningful ‘change’ in temperatures, resulting in ‘rigor mortis’. And how does one “average” the temperature? it’s back to the idea of the Olympic-sized swimming pool discussed recently at WUWT. Sure, you can measure a temperature at some point, but does that represent every point? To see ‘prominent climate scientists’ (read ‘look at me’ climate scientists) clamouring to be the first to blame a gnat fart on ‘climate change’ is just plain disgusting. No point in going AdHom over it, although it is sorely tempting.
I suppose in some way it is comforting to know that the Lone Star State is climatically more or less the same as it has been for hundreds of years, but in the absence of a benchmark for ‘normal’ (another of my pet peeves about climate science), this be basically meaningless, Wyatt. It’s been both hotter and colder, wetter and drier, oilier and gassier in Texas, and so it will be.
/rant
“But I do know that a National Science Foundation program officer told me that applications for atmospheric science grants that do not include a global warming theme stand little chance of acceptance.”
That is all I needed to know.
Take a look at Arkansas …
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/the-warming-hole-arkansas-noaa/
1) The warmest year from this century was 2006, 99 out of 117th. 18 years were warmer.
2) 1896 was tied with 1934 for 110th out of 117.
3) 1897 was tied with 2011.
4) CO2 is one wimpy GHG in Arkansas
Run forrest Run! (For office)
The alarm is all in gathered data that has been “carefully” adjusted to take account of various errors. All other sciences see in the small what they see in the big, natural local variation considered. Yet a global situation that doesn’t show up in regional changes distributed globally, is not a global, but a regional situation.
The difference between GISTemp and HadCruT is significant and rooted in how GISTemp handles the poorly measured Arctic region. How many (and which) other regions would need to be removed from the record to show that the world is not warming to any significance at all?
When an area like the Arctic (or other) warms anomalously, there are two possible solutions. The first you would make (Occam’s Razor) is that it is a regional situation, perhaps a change in wind or water currents. The second is that the situation is global, with the effects showing up the specific region. This is the IPCC/Hansen position, with computer modelling to provide the (directed) backup. (The third option, that there is a mix of reasons, fatally weakens the CO2 narrative, and so falls into the region-as-responsible category for the purposes of this debate.) Any region can therefore be dismissed if contrary to the global view, even many such groups.
When you already have the perpetrator in mind, all investigations into him tend to find what they are looking for. Prison records and evening CSI programs demonstrate this. So it is with global warming/CAGW: you get studied that which you expect to prove the Bad Guy, CO2 here, guilty.
You don’t do the defense’s job when you are the prosecutor.
“The 2011 Texas drought was exacerbated by the highest temperatures since 1895 during June, July and August. Several prominent climate scientists have blamed these record highs on global warming.”
It would have been better if Mims had actually identified these “prominent climate scientists” and provided links to their pronouncements. Without these, this article is something of a strawman.
I’m not smart enough to deconstruct the Texas state climatologist’s latest:
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/04/24/the-lack-of-recent-warming-canard-no-cigar-but-thanks-for-playing/#more-10677
Why don’t some of you sharpies tackle it? –AGF
The Texas state climatologist thinks he’s got the goods on us:
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/04/24/the-lack-of-recent-warming-canard-no-cigar-but-thanks-for-playing/#more-10677
Anyone care to deconstruct him? –AGF
[Moderator’s Note: Don’t you think three links to the same site are about enough? -REP]
This brings up a point that really bugs me. Over at the Weather Underground, Dr. Jeff Masters can’t resist a blog about any record high temp showing up somewhere. His latest report mentions all these record highs at various airports with record data going back 100 years.
I do wonder how many of those airports with their concrete and asphalt influenced weather stations existed 100 years ago. I could agree with a statement to the effect of “record temperature at this station with records going back 10 years”, but certainly not the alarmist statements that he is making now.
Here Come the Green Police! DHS Launches ‘Environmental Justice’ Units
HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT VOWS TO FIGHT ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’ AND ‘MELTING ARCTIC ICE’
http://constitutionclub.org/2012/04/18/here-come-the-green-police-dhs-launches-environmental-justice-units/
Hey neighbor! Oklahoma here. I just ran the 1895-December 2011 yearly data on Oklahoma from your link to NOAA climatology page and the annual linear is y = 0.002x + 32.755 °F. That’s +two thousandths of a degree Fahrenheit per year for the last 116 years. You can’t call that perfectly level, but, visually the linear trend line looks perfectly flat.
These “climatologists” are just full of ..it as we all now know, factually, and their hypothesis has been proved false over and over again. As Dr. Feynman expounded… if the data doesn’t agree with the theory, it’s wrong… period. It is ‘they’ who are cherry-picking. Global surface energy cannot just ignore the thousands of sites across this globe showing zero or negative temperature trends. Physics just doesn’t work that way. Check on spontaneous energy transfers across differentials or the principle of least action.
I guess our states are just showing no ‘action’ at all!
I went to Mims’ website to check his stuff out. The controversy behind Mims’ firing from Scientific American was interesting.
By the time August arrived much of the vegetation had already succumbed (e.g. trees de-leafing due to stress); this was ‘helped’ by tight watering restrictions across the area(s) too providing for reduced evaporative cooling.
Much of our low-level winds were from the SW as well rather than the south as it normally is during the summer months; winds from the SW arrive much drier (and warmer!) to start with. I lost a couple Maple trees (I know; they are/were bad choice for this area, but I also lost a native Persimmon tree too) owing to the long, hot, dry summer last year.
.
@Forrest Mims III
Obviously, you’re not a real climate scientist. If you were a real climate scientist then you’d know that temperature data must be adjusted to reveal the truth of AGW. If you’ll simply subtract tree ring aquired “adjustment” values from 1955 back you’d have a proper chart showing temperatures in the early 1900’s of about 63 degrees as we all know they were and steady warming until about 1970 and then a sharp increase in warming as we all know is what actually happened. /sarc
Good work! Texas “fire storm” (Oh my!) due to AGW assertion debunked.
Here is one that found the same;
Texas temps were relatively high during the mid 1950s whereas for the northwestern states the temps were relatively low. Stationary high pressure domes can park themselves over a region for a summer, contributing to long periods of high temps. How would one account for this? I mean if the warmistas can diddle at will with temps, why can’t we?
Brewster,
And how many stories are ever written about cold temperature records being broken? The most insidious form of news bias is in the selection of which events and stories are reported, and which are ignored.
_Jim says:
April 27, 2012 at 10:15 am
I lost a couple Maple trees (I know; they are/were bad choice for this area, but I also lost a native Persimmon tree too) owing to the long, hot, dry summer last year.
===========
Which maple? Up here in Ft. Worth at Metro Maples, they had Shantung maples surviving last summer without any water in sandy soil. Maybe that’s why they were designated as Texas Superstar plants…. http://metromaples.com/perfect_anti_storm.htm
“These “climatologists” are just full of ..it as we all now know, factually, and their hypothesis has been proved false over and over again.”
I sometimes go to PJTV to watch what’s new. Their daily update today has the following:
“Love of theory is the root of all evil.” According to Bill Whittle, this is the greatest sentence ever. From communism to global warming, the love of theory trumps real-world evidence.”
Explains a lot!
I looked at the more advanced statistics for the Texas temperatures. The slope (sometimes mis-named the ‘trend’) is 0.0443 degrees per century, but the standard error of that value is 0.2655 degrees per century. The slope could be as high as 0.575 degrees per century, or as low as -0.487 degrees per century (+/- 2 sigma = 95% confidence limits).
In other words the trend is statistically insignificant.
Too late folks as usual, the Warmist lies have run around the World while the truth was still getting its boots on…
Sorry, moderators, but sometimes nothing happens to let me know my attempt to post actually worked. Usually there is an instant response indicating the post took. When there is none, I have no clue whether it took or not. It seems I have to log in with a different browser to know for sure.
Feel free to delete the superfluous posts–and this one. –AGF
[REPLY: Not sure what you are seeing, but some times it takes a little while to approve all the comments, and some times comments end up in the spam filter and need a little more time to be retrieved. -REP]
Hey! I’d wondered what happened to Forrest Mims.
I owe a large part of my career to learning digital electronics from Forrest’s ‘Cookbooks’.
Thanks hugely, Forrest!
Not surprised to find you working on the factual side of this particular subject, but glad you’re still going strong.
Tennessee anyone?
The NOAA says Tennessee has been cooling since 1895 by -.03F / decade. Which is the same as Arkansas.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/the-warming-hole-tennessee-noaa/
@AGF What would the hockey stick look like if you coloured each individual temperature record and proxy differently, so you could “compare apples to apples”? There’s a lot done already to deconstruct the hockey stick, all that’s needed is to present it graphically in similar fashion.
lancaster did the cookbooks. mims did the notebooks.
one of the most fun guys a kid could grow up reading – i remember the o-scope the size of a matchbox out of 2 chips.
I lived in Dallas around the late 70’s and it was a lot hotter then.
Days of 110 F wre common , as many as 21 of them in a row.
That hasn’t happened since then.
agfosterjr says:
April 27, 2012 at 10:00 am
The Texas state climatologist thinks he’s got the goods on us:
Anyone care to deconstruct him? –AGF
[Moderator’s Note: Don’t you think three links to the same site are about enough? -REP]
=====================================================
Indeed REP…… okay AGF, I’ll bite. It’s a fallacious argument. It is essentially the same as Foster and Rahmsdorf’s. Just do a search here for much discussion on that bit of idiocy proclaiming that ‘it would be getting warmer if not for it not getting warmer’. It’s fascinating to see them blame it on La Nina, but when El Nino rears it’s head, it’s all about CAGW. It’s a duplicitous argument. If not for volcanoes….. blah, blah…. those naturally occurring events haven’t happened in a grand manner for quite some time. But, again, it’s fallacious to consider them separate from the earth’s temps. Further, a sharp observer would notice that Nielsen-Gammon found a creative way to eliminate the El Nino of 2009-2010 from his graphics. Very nice ploy. He gets creativity points. I’m not sure that’s what we’re looking for in our scientists, but look at him go! As the ad says, “But wait! There’s more!!!”
He continues in his laughable creativity by displaying a graph from 1951-2011. Then he states, “To dig deeper, I’ll zoom in on the period since Agung. This isolates the period of nearly steady warming since 1970 and lets us focus a bit more on what has happened since 1998 or so. Here’s the chart:”,
But, again we see that’s nothing of the sort. He presents the same graphic except from 1967 to present. There is no focus on what “happened since 1998 or so.” He continues with his lunacy by stating, “Somehow, it no longer appears that global temperatures have leveled off in the past decade.” But, in the next para….. “Stare hard enough, though, and you see that they have leveled off. The last ten data points have little or no trend.” Odd, he never really shows the trend. Here’s the last ten years showing the same GISS data he’s using….. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2002/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002 (expect corrections as the data moves further away from the present. The temps will retroactively drop.)
You see AGF, to continue this facade, we must get creative. We must come up with skull piercing, mind numbing, abject stupidity to state that ‘if things were different, they’d be different’. I’d go into more detail, but they’re pretending ENSO is a force of it’s own like a volcano, which for some reason only counts when they serve to advance the CAGW argument, but when they don’t, they play a juvenile game of calling “no counts!” There are a couple of very learned people here who can explain ENSO in much greater detail than I, and the mysteries of it’s mechanisms, but considering intellectual vacuums such as what Nielsen-Gammon has presented only serves to makes us dumber. Already I’m preparing to purchase some malt beverages to cleanse my brain cells of the ones infected by exposure to this sophomoric idiocy.
AGF, I want to thank you. I’ve been on the road and while the accommodations were supposedly high-end, I couldn’t get them to understand that some of their access points weren’t functioning properly so I didn’t have a chance to participate much in the climate discussion. So, this was building up a bit. Thanks again!
James
All these significant digits… what kind of thermometers were being used back in 1985-mid-20th C. that went out to three significant digits? If your thermometer is calibrated in degrees, then your observational error is going to be +/- 0.5 deg no matter how many thermometers you use. One would get a more accurate reading by using a bunch more thermometers, but they’ll all still have that +/- 0.5 deg error bar, and no amount of statistics can make that go away.
_Jim says:
April 27, 2012 at 10:15 am
I lost a couple Maple trees (I know; they are/were bad choice for this area, but I also lost a native Persimmon tree too) owing to the long, hot, dry summer last year.
===========
Nerd says:
April 27, 2012 at 10:27 am
Which maple? Up here in Ft. Worth at Metro Maples, they had Shantung maples surviving last summer without any water in sandy soil. Maybe that’s why they were designated as Texas Superstar plants…. http://metromaples.com/perfect_anti_storm.htm
Unknown Maple sub-species. But last spring a frost seemed to have ‘done in’ a couple trees in the front yard (which had leafed out when the freeze, not just a frost, occurred) and by the end of summer the remaining living trees had shed a lot of leaves despite regular (although restricted per city ordinance) ‘lawn waterings’.
During subsequent removal I noticed bores in the Maples and the Persimmon tree. I don’t know the species of these maples; several were planted before I moved in and a couple I raised from seedlings from seedlings that sprang up. I also lost several cherry trees by the time summer was over. I think between the weather and insects the trees succumbed …
The large Maple in the front yard was struck by lightning s few years back too; the upper growth supports that plus I was on the front porch when the bolt struck (no delay between what looked like a nearby lightning strike and thunder ‘report’ plus one can actually hear what I will describe as a high frequency ‘hiss’ that accompanied the strike ostensibly as the air ‘breaks down’ and forms the conducting plasm path to earth and or objects to earth.)
Funnily, the fruitless Bradford Pear tree out by the street has survived all this (freeze and last summer) and looks good this year.
.
Texas has been warming since the 1970’s. I don’t know if it is AGW. But there was some mid centery cooling in NA due mainly to aerosol pollutants.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=12&year=2011&filter=ytd&state=110&div=0
We have a drought in the UK at the moment
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/26/drought-hit-england-floods?newsfeed=true
“However, the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, said the rain would not avert the drought and water companies were right to impose a hosepipe ban”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17867522
“The UK has seen a dramatic change in the weather in the past few days, changing from drought warnings to flood alerts”
Met Office 3-month Outlook
Period: April – June 2012 Issue date: 23.03.12
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/i/A3-layout-precip-AMJ.pdf
“The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drierthanaverage
conditions for AprilMayJune
as a whole, and also slightly favours April being the
driest of the 3 months.”
LMAO! AGF, I really need to thank you again! You caused me to look in a place where I had refused to earlier. So, ENSO accounts for the slight decreasing temp trend of recent years? Okay, let’s graph the ENSO values of 1970-1998, where the most dramatic temp increases occurred…….
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/does-enso-alter-our-global-temps-omglmao/
Uhmm……… ok, I’ll take ENSO caused the global warming for $200, Jack. It’s going to be difficult to state ENSO caused the flattening/cooling and then state that it didn’t cause the warming as well.
_Jim says:
April 27, 2012 at 11:25 am
============
The trees don’t die on the spot, they fail to thrive.
“Jeff Norman says:
April 27, 2012 at 9:54 am
“The 2011 Texas drought was exacerbated by the highest temperatures since 1895 during June, July and August. Several prominent climate scientists have blamed these record highs on global warming.”
It would have been better if Mims had actually identified these “prominent climate scientists” and provided links to their pronouncements. Without these, this article is something of a strawman.”
==========================================================================
Google is your friend in cases like this. It isn’t a strawman if I can find the answer in under 10 seconds with google.
Keyword search was — record texas highs climate change.
second article on the list was this: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/environment/article/Droughts-water-woes-expected-to-intensify-3381513.php Which perusing of reveals 2 named climate scientists. Some person I’m sure no one has ever heard of. James Hansen of NASA and the Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon are both quoted in the article.
Amusingly this quote by Hansen has since been proven wrong in several areas.
“We conclude that extreme heat waves, such as that in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, were ‘caused’ by global warming, because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent rapid global warming,” he wrote in the paper that is still undergoing peer review. “We can say with a high degree of confidence that these extreme anomalies were a consequence of global warming.”
The fourth link returned was this one with climatologist Katharine Hayhoe http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/03/30/climate-change-and-the-drought-an-interview-with-katharine-hayhoe/ Found on NPR.
Do you want me to continue looking up climatologists attributing this to AGW?
Just to get this straight.
The record that nobody trusts says that it hasnt been warming in Texas.
The record that nobody trusts shows a UHI in Tmin of ~.3C per decade in san antonio.
where the record nobody trusts in san antonio was compared to three surrounding temperatures
which nobody trusts. Funny how they didnt compare the Tmax measure that nobody trusts as well
And these results from temperatures that nobody trusts are reported to 1/100ths of a degree F.
And when GCR studies show that increased GCR leads to increased clouds and lower temps,
its a record that you dont trust that provides the evidence. And when Scefetta produces a projection based on solar activity and record you dont trust, that projection is what? GIGO?
And when sea level increases from 1900 to today, that must be due to
1. warming that isnt happening
2. meltwater from landed ice, that isnt actually melting.
And when you say that we are recovering from the LIA, what is really meant is that it is no warmer today than it was when washington crossed the delaware or frost fairs were held in london.
Its not warming in texas. its not warming anywhere. Glaciers are not melting. Sea level is the same as it always was, and frost fairs are scheduled for next year in London.
/sarc off
Mosher: “The record that nobody trusts says that it hasnt been warming in Texas.”
Or Arkansas. Or Tennessee ….
You trust it. And we are mocking you with the data you trust.
Does not compute; assertion would seem to be at odds with (does not match) field observation.
Loss of bark (literally: bark is coming/hanging off the trees), failure to bring forth ‘spring bloom’ of leaves and helicopter seeds: death was pronounced and deconstruction (by chainsaw) has commenced …
.
Is anyone else seeing 120 year period sinusoid in that graph?
James Sexton says:
April 27, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Uhmm……… ok, I’ll take ENSO caused the global warming for $200, Jack. It’s going to be difficult to state ENSO caused the flattening/cooling and then state that it didn’t cause the warming as well.
I looked at their graphs and it didn’t make any sense to me. Everything I’ve seen (particularly from Tisdale) show we’ve had more El Niños. Their graph showed the opposite. How did they come up with that? Typical warmist adjusting? Make it up? Who knows.
Is not the “/” the logical not operator?
Therefore your “/sarc off” may be re-written thusly: //sarc and double-not being simply: “sarc”.
The “/” operator is not an ‘Esc’ (escape) character used to access some alternate character set (like back in the teletype days) n is it to indicate an ‘escaped’ sequence of characters that may mimic control characters suc as in bit-oriented protocols like HDLC where the ‘flag’ sequence when appearing in binary data would be ‘escaped’ with a specific, dedicated, preceding and indicating ‘byte’ …
.
When there is a post saying “Climate scientists who have been claiming Texas is warming are totally wrong”, why can’t we be told who those scientists are, and what they said? After all, they can read the NCDC site too. In fact, the site was compiled by climate scientists and meteorologists. Are they totally wrong as well?
Its not warming in texas. its not warming anywhere. Glaciers are not melting. Sea level is the same as it always was, and frost fairs are scheduled for next year in London.
Your sarcasm seems pointless, since none of this is remotely a problem for sceptics.
There is precious little evidence that modern glacier melting is different from that from 1850-1950.
Sea level measurement fail to reveal any difference in rates either.
There were ice fairs in 1900? No. So it warmed before 1900. That says nothing of now. And invites the reverse historical retorts as always (that Greenland was warmer when settled, Romans grew grapes in Britain etc).
Same with California. No drought we have seen since Westerners have settled here matches the droughts we see in both tree-ring and other geological data such as lake levels. Lake Tahoe, for example, has been below its outlet for CENTURIES at a time during the Holocene and many Serra Nevada lakes were far below their current levels as evidenced by stumps now submerged under tens of meters of water.
The past 500 years have been an unusually wet period during the Holocene for California.
_Jim says:
April 27, 2012 at 1:08 pm
“death was pronounced and deconstruction (by chainsaw) has commenced …”
=======================
Only to clear room for the next generation.
Richard M says:
April 27, 2012 at 1:18 pm
I looked at their graphs and it didn’t make any sense to me. Everything I’ve seen (particularly from Tisdale) show we’ve had more El Niños. Their graph showed the opposite. How did they come up with that? Typical warmist adjusting? Make it up? Who knows.
======================================================
Yeh….. rationalizations, make stuff up, and then go with it!
Climatology is like someone on a roller coaster freaking out because they’re going to be shot into space on the upsweep, and then screaming they’re going to be thrown to the ground on the downswing.
And then you find out they’re being paid to do that, with your money, and when you point out it’s natural for a roller coaster to go up and down they have a fit and call you a liar and say you should be punished for disagreeing with them.
O.o
Presumably by taking even more of your money.
Nick Stokes: “Are they totally wrong as well?”
Which well known climate scientists in the USA exclaimed that Texas and Arkansas and Tennessee and all those states that cooled in the “Warming Hole” had not warmed at all?
Which of them said “Hey, no need to panic. A big chunk of the USA is not warming at all.
Did you? Mosher?
“The total warming during those 116 years was a statistically insignificant 0.046 degree Fahrenheit. If the record highs of 2011 are omitted, Texas cooled 0.055 degree from 1895 to 2010”
You obviously haven’t “adjusted” the data correctly.
I think I’m going for the zero-scape solution this next time …. rocks, cactus; nothing requiring water or mowing …
.
“Nick Stokes says:
April 27, 2012 at 1:28 pm
When there is a post saying “Climate scientists who have been claiming Texas is warming are totally wrong”, why can’t we be told who those scientists are, and what they said? After all, they can read the NCDC site too. In fact, the site was compiled by climate scientists and meteorologists. Are they totally wrong as well?”
======================================================================
Nick look 7 posts above yours and you’ll see the answer to that. The list starts with some person I’m sure you never heard of called James Hansen. And I didn’t make an exhaustive search that was just what I could see real fast.
Nick Stokes says:
April 27, 2012 at 1:28 pm
“When there is a post saying “Climate scientists who have been claiming Texas is warming are totally wrong”, why can’t we be told who those scientists are, and what they said? ”
http://www.google.de/#hl=de&gs_nf=1&cp=24&gs_id=o2&xhr=t&q=Climate+scientists+claim+Texas+is+warming
HTH
I might also mention that the strange ‘pipping-sound’ bird called “Couch’s Kingbird” have returned to my immediate area (noted first about 5 years ago in an area 4 miles to my south). Last year they raised a family in one of my neighbor’s backyard trees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couch's_Kingbird
http://www.audubonbirds.org/species/Birds/Couch's-Kingbird.html
Note: They have been observed for like the 5th year in the north central Texas (north of Dallas) area.
Note 2: This a species that has not been here before about 6 years ago.
.
Could the migration northward of the species Couch’s Kingbird from far south Texas be considered a proxy for a warming Texas?
.
This Texan is praying we don’t have one of those “megadroughts”. I can’t imagine.
LamontT says: April 27, 2012 at 2:30 pm
“Nick look 7 posts above yours and you’ll see the answer to that.”
No. Those posts refer to an argument about whether the Texas heat of 2011 might be partly due to global warming. Well, it was hot in 2011 and there has been global warming. That’s not a proof of causation, but it bears thinking about. But this post talks about a century trend in Texas, and I don’t see what statement by a climate scientist is disproved by that..
Nick Stokes: “global warming”
There you go. Claiming something is global when it is only regional. You can’t help yourself.
For Howard Ambler – Austin’s official weather station moved from Mueller to Bergstrom in 1999. Mueller was in the heat island for sure. A lot of new record lows have been set because of this.
I live in Dallas and our official weather station moved in the 40’s. Apples and oranges! Just because of the UHI, I am 10 degrees warmer than the suburbs at night especially in winter.
_Jim says:
April 27, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Possibly. It could also be a proxy for backyard ornamentals not normally native to areas now Big D or Little D suburbs. ‘Might be interesting to know what species of tree that was in your neighbor’s backyard where the Kingbirds nested.
‘Might also be a proxy for the number of birders paying attention, number of Cooper’s Hawks hanging around backyard feeders & possibly reducing competition. I could go on, but I think the general rule would be that there is an unknown number of factors affecting the range of the various species, but in this case, only the Couch’s Kingbirds know for sure.
Forrest writes a weekly column for the San Antonio Express-News. From his columns I gather he lives outside of San Antonio in the Texas hill country. His interests are broad, and his columns cover biology, chemistry, electronics, astronomy, and occasionally global warming. I don’t recall ever seeing a letter to the editor about his columns, but today there was a letter in the Express-News defending AGW, and claiming that Mims was just cherry picking. With the following:
“No reputable climate scientist says that global warming will present itself in a steady climb of temperatures everywhere on the globe for the entire time period.”
And the assertion that if you look at the NCDC data you find:
“…over the 117 year period , two states have remained constant as to temperature, while six have cooled slightly. All the rest- 40 states……-have warmed”
Well, I haven’t looked at the NCDC data so I don’t know if the letter writer’s claim is true as to how many states have warmed, but I have seen graphs from “the team” showing “ a steady climb of temperatures.” with the implication that it is everywhere.
_Jim says:
April 27, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Could the migration northward of the species Couch’s Kingbird from far south Texas be considered a proxy for a warming Texas?
No, it means that they have found a geographic location where it is easier to raise young. Why??? Dunno, maybe food, temp, water, lack of predators, they may just like the social scene in Dallas. To say that it can be used for a stand alone proxy is foolishness.
The summer of 2011 was brutal. It was almost as bad as the summer of 1980. The drought part of it was almost as bad as the drought of 1986. But not nearly as bad as the drought during the 1950’s, Find a book called “A Time It Didn’t Rain”. Texas has extreme weather. I lived in North Texas for 40 years and saw the 2 coldest winters, 3 hottest summers, two 500 year rain fall events and 2 of the worst droughts recorded.
jaschrumpf says:
April 27, 2012 at 11:06 am
All these significant digits… what kind of thermometers were being used back in 1985-mid-20th C. that went out to three significant digits? If your thermometer is calibrated in degrees, then your observational error is going to be +/- 0.5 deg
Actually, an NIST-traceable immersion thermometer scaled in 0.1 deg C will have an better than 0.1 C accuracy for air temp, as long as it is shielded from IR & light, and aspirated, however mildly.
Once you get to the 0.1 C level of accuracy, the precision is set by how well you can eliminate stray heat.
Even if a digital instrument can meaningfully deliver two or three decimal places measuring temperature, it’s pointless to talk about two decimal places when measuring ambient air temp, since variations from one cubic foot to the next can exceed that.
As WUWT readers all know, averaging air temperatures over more than a few acres is thermodynamically meaningless, especially since it’s surface temperatures that determine the Earth’s IR heat budget, along with cloud-tops. Air temp is an indirect variable for IR, so all-important to the Warmistas.
NetDr says:
April 27, 2012 at 11:03 am
I lived in Dallas around the late 70′s and it was a lot hotter then.
Days of 110 F wre common , as many as 21 of them in a row.
That hasn’t happened since then.
Yea, I was there too. I carried a small kitchen towel in my car because the metal shifter knob was too hot to touch after an afternoon parked.
And Forrest Mims III? Wow, great to see you are still active. I bought one of your Radio Shack electronics notebooks, probably close to 30 years ago. Still have it.
I can’t wait for someone to assign a “Fact Check” rating! We can probably expect something nonsensical like “True, but false. But actually true, with an explanation.”
It’s important to start your graph from about 1970, as the global warming high priests have deemed that to be when manmade warming began, and they’re the experts, right?
Thanks, James and others for the responses. Here’s another question: it’s been noted recently and probably many times that Milankovitch cycles alter insolation in June at 65N by as much as 20% = 100W/m^2. This refers to daily mean insolation TOA. As for the figure of about 1.5W/m^2 due to GHG’s, does this not refer to peak radiation, corresponding to the c.1300W/m^2 TOA, triple the daily average? In which case a 20% variation would correspond to c.250W/m^2 peak TOA insolation, or nearly 200 times that due to CO2, etc.
So correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears that the energy required to end an ice age is a full two orders of magnitude above GHG radiation, which is then rendered negligible for climatological purposes. Thanks, –AGF
I saw my mistake as soon as I posted: “In which case a 20% variation would correspond to c.250W/m^2 peak TOA insolation…” –the variation is already measured as daily insolation rather than peak. But the GHG radiation has not: is this not equivalent to a .5W/m^2 daily average, so that the roughly 200:1 ratio still holds? –AGF
I wonder how long it will be until the temperatures are “adjusted” by NOAA, turning a level temperature trend into an increasing one.
to sunshinehours1:
The highest temperature recorded in Arkansas is 120°, Fahrenheit. This record high was recorded on August 10, 1936 at Ozark. just saying…
agfosterjr says:
April 27, 2012 at 5:08 pm
AGF, let me check your math
um lets see 1360 W/m^2 time 20% = blah blah blah carry a zero blah blah blah come up with… yep, your right. CO2 does not have the power to end an ice age. If you truly want me to check your math it will have to wait until Monday. But it seems improbable that 100 ppm of CO2 (or even 300 or 400) would have the power to end an ice age. If you like math problems with lots of zeros, calculate the amount of energy to melt 10,000 feet of ice covering the norther half of North America and Europe. Start with a temperature of -40 degrees (please give your answer in calories).
“The 2011 Texas drought was exacerbated by the highest temperatures since 1895 during June, July and August.”
As a meteorologist, I would tend to reverse the above statement, and instead say: “The 2011 Texas heat wave was exacerbated by a severe drought.”
In regions that normally contain significant vegetation and soil moisture, the vast majority of the solar energy absorbed at the surface during the growing season is converted to latent heat through evaporation of soil moisture and transpiration by plants. Obviously when a severe drought occurs in such a region, the majority of this energy can then be converted to sensible heat. Thus, it temporarily becomes more desert-like.
This was demonstrated well by the late 1987, 1988, and early 1989 drought that hit an area from the Carolinas through the Midwest and up to Alberta. In June 1988 I recall that Minneapolis set daily record highs on 16 of 30 days in June. Yet in that month there was also frost that killed some crops in central Minnesota. These events were the result of negligible soil moisture. Of course, the summer of 1988 is also when an infamous government bureaucrat began tooting his horn about this being a sign of AGW. Never mind that there have been more severe droughts affecting much larger parts of the country and for longer periods of time well before coal-fired power plants and SUVs.
So what drove the cooling that started in the late sixties and lasted through the seventies…I think it may have been bad music…it really bottoms out when disco ruled…
Lewiston, Idaho is one of the hottest cities in the West at the latitude it sits at. But not in recent years. You can actually buy a coat now in that city.
Brewster said (April 27, 2012 at 10:02 am)
“…This brings up a point that really bugs me. Over at the Weather Underground, Dr. Jeff Masters can’t resist a blog about any record high temp showing up somewhere. His latest report mentions all these record highs at various airports with record data going back 100 years…”
That’s why I’ve taken to using their own data against them.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/ghgases/Fig1A.ext.txt
This shows CO2 levels back to about 1850 – makes a great source to compare today’s CO@ to a level that is at least 100ppm or so LESS than today.
As an example, here’s another comment:
J. Philip Peterson said (April 27, 2012 at 6:48 pm)
“…to sunshinehours1:
The highest temperature recorded in Arkansas is 120°, Fahrenheit. This record high was recorded on August 10, 1936 at Ozark. just saying…”
And that chart shows that the CO2 level in 1936 was pegged at 310.1. Amazing that such a high temperature could have been achieved with the CO2 level about 84ppm lower than today.
Also amazing is another long-time record (still standing): Most consecutive days above 100 °F (37.8 °C): 160 days; Marble Bar, Western Australia from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924. CO2 level, 304.5/304.9ppm. How could that extreme heat ever have happened with levels that low?
Harold Ambler, I’m fortunate to work outside, up on the higher elevations of the South Plains near Lubbock. You guys have humidities that are just awful, I commisserate. A tip for the gatorade, buy one bottle from the store, and the powder at walmart or wherever. Less than half the price, helpful if you go through a lot. Oh, I was young in the summer of ’80, in the DFW area, it was far worse than last summer IMO.
We (in north central Texas) had winds predominantly from the SW last summer, as opposed to from the south (and off the Gulf Of Mexico for those areas east of I-35 which includes me) pretty much establishing what we saw (hot and dry vs warm and somewhat muggy as winds off the Gulf carry moisture; this off-the-Gulf moisture pattern is also reflected in in the rainfall records – higher rainfall east of I-35 in Texas and this also applies to the states more northern like Oklahoma and Kansas.)
Whether a ‘blocking high’ repeatedly developing as a product of El Nino or La Nina setting our predominant wind last year during the summer, I don’t know … but THESE are the things ‘climatologists’ should be considering, of course, before considering any leaps to attribute the ‘heat wave’ to GW …
.
It’s really too bad for the author that a “Texas average temperature” is as useless as a “Global average temperature.”
And yet, there will those that will consider it a valid ‘proxy’; consider yourself immunized. I wrote that thinking it was going to be a slow-rolling ‘hand grenade’ into the room so to speak (but, this is to be taken seriously; I captured stills and videos -for their calls- to document their presence … you may not understand the difficulty I had in identifying these birds; none of the usual ‘Birds of North Texas’ books and resources were any help!)
There is more to this story too, such as, where do these birds migrate after completing the cycle of raising the young up here? They don’t spend all summer in this area, they are gone by … was it July or August? … I will have to observe again this year since I don’t have my mental notes handy at the moment …
.
.
Has this been submitted to peer review? It belongs in a journal reply….
I’m glad you said that; I mentioned the effect briefly up-thread but I don’t think many ppl really understood nor latched onto it …
Between many of the deciduous trees going into stress accompanied by water restrictions to only once or twice a week (many commercial establishments used to water automatically a 7 days a week) greenery and lush lawns both diminished.
Anyone who has seen a camera shot from one of our TV station’s tower-cams can testify to the amount of ‘greenery’/trees in the Dallas et al area.
.
Steve P says:
April 27, 2012 at 3:36 pm
“‘Might be interesting to know what species of tree that was in your neighbor’s backyard where the Kingbirds nested.”
Russ in Houston says:
April 27, 2012 at 4:15 pm
_Jim says:
April 27, 2012 at 8:34 pm
_Jim says:
April 27, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Perhaps you missed my post at 3:36 pm, and my question. Do you know the species of tree in your neighbor’s backyard where the Kingbirds nested?
Russ in Houston says:
April 27, 2012 at 7:25 pm
OK, but can you vouch for the fact that the average daily GHG radiation is .5W, 1/3 of peak 1.5, or is 1.5 the average? That makes a difference of almost half an order of magnitude. –AGF
That temperature graph looks like an oscillatory function with a beat of about 120 – 130 years.
Pamela Gray wrote: “Lewiston, Idaho is one of the hottest cities in the West at the latitude it sits at. But not in recent years. You can actually buy a coat now in that city.”
I grew up in the Lewiston/Clarkston Valley in the 1950s. Before going to school, I always listened to the meteorologist, Bob White, on KRLC who gave the weather forecast every morning around 7:45. The summers were hotter, and the winters were colder during that decade, but we enjoyed the seasons without fret over any catastrophic implications. The summer weekends found us water skiing on the Snake River, and winter weekends found us snow skiing at Field Springs State Park south of Anatone.
Old News…
I reported the 117 year flat temperature trend in Texas on January 11, 2012:
http://sbvor.blogspot.com/2012/01/117-year-flat-temperature-trend-in.html
Harold Ambler?! Cool! I just bought your book “Don’t Sell Your Coat” after I recently saw Greg Gutfeld give it a plug. It’s a great read. Keep up the good work!
For much of the UK, March this year was one of the warmest and driest months ever, while April is proving to be one of the coolest and wettest months on record.
For the global warming crowd, March is statistically important, while April is an irrelevant aberration.
Such is ‘climate science’. Texas is no different, just an irrelevant aberration unless the statistics have been properly adjusted to reflect current global warming beliefs. Expect that soon, but do not expect any announcement.
agfosterjr says:
April 27, 2012 at 5:08 pm
I saw my mistake as soon as I posted: “In which case a 20% variation would correspond to c.250W/m^2 peak TOA insolation…” –the variation is already measured as daily insolation rather than peak. But the GHG radiation has not: is this not equivalent to a .5W/m^2 daily average, so that the roughly 200:1 ratio still holds? –AGF
==========================================
AGF, you’re covering territory that’s been covered before, but to little avail. Here’s the problem…. we know, approximately, on average, what is coming at us, in terms of energy. …… that’s all we know. Please allow me this bit of a diatribe………
We can talk thermodynamics until we’re blue in the face, but that’s simply theory. It doesn’t all piece together in real world.application. We can view energy leaving the TOA, but we don’t know where that’s coming from…. surface or TOA. We mostly consider IR, but UV is a big player largely ignored. Gravity, clouds, water, ice….. biosphere….. convection, conduction, aerosols…… trying to calculate an energy budget from incoming energy is an exercise in futility. But, don’t believe for a second that people have any great knowledge about the nuances and erratic behavior of the sun. They don’t. The more certitude they speak with, the more you can be certain they don’t know. We don’t know what we don’t know.
We can talk about the first law, second law, 3rd and 4th. We can discuss Einstein, Newton, Hubble, and Leibniz. We can do the ideal gas law, Boyle’s law and Charles’s law, Avogadro’s law, Graham’s law, Dalton’s law, Gay-Lussac’s law………there’s likely a couple hundred more “laws” ….. none of them work properly when considering the climate. Sure, generally…. they work generally, but when we’re talking about 1/2 degree Celsius or something…. they don’t work!
We, collectively, shat upon ourselves, mired in pedantic stupidity, worrying about a stray spectrometric frequency or two. The I-something is our banner of progress and achievement. As many laws of thermodynamics and physics this earth breaks, it is inconsequential to the laws of nature we’re breaking! My God! We’re devolving!
Who were these climate scientists who claimed that Texas was warming? Really?
I see that Hansen blamed some of the EXTREMES on AGW, but extremes swing both ways and get wet as well… and may not affect the average temperature at all. The old “feet in the oven and head in the freezer, on average comfortable” discussion… but I know of none who say Texas specifically is getting warmer.
Well it’s interesting that it shows the 1970s dip in temperatures. I understand this is commonly explained as post WW2 production increases leading to more aerosols.
But that same dip also contradicts the urban heat island effect explanation of increasing temps popular around here. Presumably since was a large expansion of cities and energy consumption starting prior to the 1970s. So the temperature rise should have started way back then.
Anyhow I reckon Forrest might have to change his mind if the post 1970s trend continues for another 10 years. After all warm cities don’t cause record droughts.
Four material points arise out of studies like this, namely:
(i) warming is regional, not global,
(ii) CO2 alone cannot account for the regional differences in some regions warming, and other not so warming. It would appear that other factors are at play, or at any rate natural variation is stroneger than the CO2 signal such that natural variation can completely overcome it.
(iii) there can be no confidence in model projections until such time as they are able to properly backcast each and every regional variation throughout each continent. Once they can achieve that, if they cannot forecast the next 10 years correctly, it would appear that the model is still flawed.
(iv) until such time that those supporting the AGW theory can put forward an adequate explanation that is consistent with their theory explainining each and every example where there is either no warming or cooling, there can be no confidence in the correctness of the theory in its current form
@ Forrest Mims,
Excellent post! Could you comment on the inconsistency shown by the NCDC data, specifically, the average warming of the Lower 48 does not match the area-weighted average of the individual states?
I did a post on this here:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/us-long-term-temperature-trend-from.html?m=1
Steve, I’ve seen them nesting in distribution ‘line’ equipment (power-factor-correction bank (VAR compensation) on a 3-phase distribution line to be specific); I don’t know that they are too choosy as to a specific species of tree, but I will attempt an ID of same.
PS I also witnessed a mating pair in a small ‘landscape’ tree on company property back about 5 years ago; this is a noted ‘gregarious’ species of bird and they are quite territorial (as observed and as noted in literature) and will dive on humans, as this pair did when I took a closer look at them and their nest. This event also prompted me to invest in a better camera back at that time, something with a viewfinder capable of being viewed in outdoor light (the previous camera had a small flat-panel LCD display on the camera back that ‘washed out’ in daylight!)
.
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
Note that this story has been submitted by
“Forrest Mims III, an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was named one of the 50 Best Brains in Science by Discover Magazine. His science is featured at http://www.forrestmims.org. Email him at forrest.mims@ieee.org.”
The highest temps are still in the 20s and 30s. I can see why the temp sustainable development folks have been adjusting the old records out and it is clear why they start most of their charts in the 70s. This must be a fair proxy for the world temps charts
James Sexton says:
April 27, 2012 at 11:22 pm
When we talk TOA we mean incoming–ignoring clouds and all. I’m trying to find out the correct ratio of M cycle variation to GHG IR, but I’ve never seen the latter specified as to peak or daily average. That’s what I’d like to know. Lots of clowns claim significant CO2 amplification in the ice cores, but that’s pretty silly when you’re talking about 100 watts variation over 22ky at the edge of the ice, and 1W GHG IR. Or is it .3W? It makes a difference, you know–from absurd to absurdity squared. –AGF
For those who care, Forrest can be found writing a series of “How can I do that?” articles for the http://www.jameco.com electronics online site. I look forward to his stumpers, they make me dig up old archives in my brain.
Excuse me; On those two points: a) that ‘theory’ was arrived at after a lot of experimentation that has stood up to scrutiny and ‘cross checks’ over the decades/unto the centuries now and b) yes it does.
The numerous factors and linkages may not always be obvious to the casual observer, but, they are there. The more ‘gross’ (or aggregate) effects are even measurable, but. the average layman is probably not familiar with or in most cases even acquainted with the measurement techniques and certainly doesn’t posses the tools/instrumentation to make even the most basic of measurements … once again a little bit of ‘lab’ work (even ‘field’ observations) can go a long ways in dispelling rumor, myth, misconception and reducing speculation.
.
Lord, what an exciting week! First the story books about creation can suddenly be updated due to exploding stars illustrated by playful artists, due to Svendmark’s breakthrough hypothesis, and now my childhood electronics circuits book writer family author shows up a day after Anthony transforms in my mind from testy weather guy into a fellow circuit hacker. My early breakthrough circuit was romantically inventive: I turned pill jars into large red LED pilot light boxes I gave to budding girlfriends to put on their bookshelf. There was a symbol of my beating heart when they snuggled into bed at night, hee hee. It blinked for years at 40 beats per minute, nice and calm. Other guys didn’t stand a chance once one of these innocent little trinkets was installed!
Off This Thread – but possibly important if you haven’t seen it, is
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/26/getting-your-mind-right-in-australia-round-2/
our Australian friends trying to untie themselves from many knots.
It’s important – but now : –
PostShow
Dismissive 52%
Alarmed 21%
Concerned 13%
Doubtful 9%
Cautious 4%
Disengaged 1%
about 2025 Z Saturday.
4004 votes counted
I know it’s not Texas but the hottest November day record is still 1968 for Brisbane australia – November is a month before official summer on 1 December.
I remember it well – almost 40 C in a classroom less than a few miles from the sea in the middle of a technical drawing exam – no airconditioned schools in my schooldays – hard to tell the drawing from the sweat.
bj says:
Who were these climate scientists who claimed that Texas was warming? Really?
*************************
Just google Texas and global warming and see for yourself.
Jim
A Metrologist (Metrology is the science of measurement, not to be confused with Meteorology) need not know one thing about Meteorology to understand the potential errors involved using instrumentation (uncalibrated at that) in an unstable environment compared to what is required to certify measurements in a laboratory under controlled conditions, yet it is claimed the SAT record is as reliable. The error bars for surface temperature records are frankly, laughable and if anything is at the very least the result of confirmation bias and statistical gimmicks. I have little doubt others employed in my field would agree.
If climate science had to endure the rigor of an A2LA audit or even basic ISO standards it would not survive the opening meeting. I know of no industry standard the SAT network would qualify for.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
One common misconception about the 2011 Texas summer is that temperature must have been “higher” than ever before.
In fact the hottest days were not as hot as 1934 or 1980, The reason why the average came out hotter was simply that the heatwave lasted longer, right upto the end of August. By comparison, for instance, the heatwave in 1980 finished on the 10th August.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/texas-summer-2011-heat-wave-seen-in-perspective/
Forrest;
On your Sun & Sky site, http://www.sunandsky.org/Sun_and_Sky_Data.html , you make much of the Pinatubo effect. How do you respond to this comment
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/16/volcanic-disruptions/#comment-934675 , and the post it is on?
Add the Dismissive 52% and Doubtful 9%, and you’re over the 3:2 mark. Closing in on 2:1!!
So it’s the past ten years when we want to show global cooling and the past 100 for Texas… Brilliant!!
Here are some of mine…
Luling, TX:
http://naturalclimate.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/luling-tx-temp…deconstruction/
Texas:
http://naturalclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/texas-annual-t…cal-components/
Speaking of things climate scientist never mention:
How about that 6 states (out of the 48 continental states) have been cooling since 1895, 3 have no trend at all and another 5 have a miniscule trend of .01F / decade?
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/is-the-usa-warming-the-noaa-data-saysit-depends-part-1/
@Brian H:
On your Sun & Sky site, http://www.sunandsky.org/Sun_and_Sky_Data.html , you make much of the Pinatubo effect. How do you respond to this comment
I read that post when it first appeared and was surprised. My temperature and optical depth data were not massaged or “adjusted,” but my temperature record was not collected in accordance with WMO standards–it’s the temperature measured on the front porch of my little office under the shade of two large trees. The aerosol optical depth data are much more reliable. I just expanded the El Chichon and Pinatubo sections of the 1895-2011 Texas chart in my article. There is a temperature drop associated with both these volcanoes–but there are also drops when no volcanoes occurred. The drop I observed after Pinatubo is real, but it might look less significant the longer my time series continues (now at 22+ years of data). The AOD calibration is traceable to Langley calibrations conducted at Mauna Loa Observatory. I was at MLO after Pinatubo, and the sky was as bad there as here in Texas.There appears to be a volcano signature (from Tambora) in Thomas Jefferson’s temperature measurements at Monticello from 1810-1816. I’ve plotted this and published it in various places, including a comic book I developed for Radio Shack.