Inauguration day 2005: 35 °F Mostly cloudy with some sunny breaks. Northwest wind 14 mph. Around 1″ of snow lay on the ground. More inauguration day weather history is available here
By Anthony Watts and Steven Goddard
There is much speculation about the weather on Tuesday, January 20th, which is the inauguration day of president Obama. Particularly it is being conjectured widely on the blogosphere that a colder than normal day might have some chilling effect on climate change thinking in Washington. After all, it is not unlike politicians to grasp onto ancillary topics and use them as the focal point for forming opinions.
For example, as reported here, The last time Dr. Roy Spencer testified before Congress, committee chair Barbara Boxer appeared more interested in discussing Rush Limbaugh than she did in discussing science. That is not necessarily a sensible way to weigh trillion dollar policy decisions.
Here is another example. When Dr. James Hansen testified before Congress in June, 1988, on the topic of global warming, Senator Timothy Wirth took several deliberate steps to make sure that the room was oppressively hot. This excerpt below is from a PBS Frontline interview:
TIMOTHY WIRTH: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.DEBORAH AMOS: [on camera] Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day? TIMOTHY WIRTH: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.
That is going to be a lot tougher now, after two more decades of unprecedented global warming.
As of Saturday morning, NCEP is forecasting severe cold along the East Coast for the end of the month, and well below normal temperatures for the inauguration of president Obama. Perhaps the chill will freeze out some the early political rhetoric in Washington? Some prominent members of Congress now claim that they can legislate the climate, which requires that they also are able to control volcanoes, ocean circulation patterns, and solar activity.
Here is the NCEP CONUS temperature forecast for now to election day:
Click for a larger image
One wonders though, it the weather patterns were shifted west to east in the anomaly graph below, and we had a warmer than normal inauguration day in Washington, would it provide lawmakers with a personal confirmation bias much like that day in June, 1988?
Anna,
Undoubtedly albedo plays a key role.
It would be impossible to build a model based on chaos and expect any degree of accuracy. Isn’t this what current climate models are based on, chaos?
Thanks for the link.
“The science against carbon, is science achieved through carbon.”
-Rich Gele’
Of course the evil part about the AGW folks is that as temps continue to fall, they will simply exclaim “See! Replacing all of your incandescent bulbs with CFLs *is* paying off!” No matter what happens, hot or cold, they will spin it to their advantage. If Obama installs a switch in the White House, and flips it at his leisure, he can — and no doubt will — claim credit for whatever climate patterns he chooses to praise. No doubt his 2012 campaign slogan will be “better weather through more and better legislation.”
Costa Rica sounds better with each passing day.
Richard deSousa (10:59:54),
the prayers were heard from the other side too so Obama will be in a bullet proof glass house, heated and all. Weather forecast for Washington is about freezing point. It’s winter, so seems not to be exceptional.
Willem de Rode (03:48:50) :
“Maybe the reduction of CO2 emissions is not so bad. Maybe it wan’t help anything for bringing the climate back to little ice age conditions. But C02 emissions are always accompagnied with some other, really dangerous co-emissions (e.g. benzene, soot, fine dust,…..)
If a CO2 emission reduction also reduces these dangerous substances in the air we need to breath, then we are taking large steps forwards !”
Willem de Rode,
Today the KNMI has presented a report stating that the number of days with fog in Europe has reduced significantly since 1980.
The cause for this is the clean air.
The number of days with fog will stay constant now because we do not have (much) more possibilities to make the air cleaner as it already is.
There is one set back. Because of the clean air the temperature rises and the scientists stated that this effect was responsible for 5-10% of the rise in temperatures over the past years.
If you look at engine development it is nice to look at the Rolls Royce V8 engine that was introduced in 1959.
“The process of evolving the engine has been gradual and continuous; by 2006 the final 1959-specification engine components had been replaced; the twin-turbo 6.75 L engine produced over 150% more power and torque than at the beginning of its life, it had a 40% better fuel economy, and produced 99.5% less exhaust emission”.
We have seen similar developments with coal fired power plants, jet-engines steel factories, cement mills etc. etc. and now enjoy “clean air, even in the cities.
The fine dust that is measured however is not caused by emissions.
It is caused by the wear and tear of break pads and tires of cars and trucks, a totally different problem which will be solved with the introduction of new materials (ceramic brakes and new wear proof tire materials).
Therefore using the argument of reducing CO2 in order to reduce other sorts of pollution is a joke.
It is like giving your car a car wash when your house is on fire!
It also undermines the factual discussion weather CO2 is causing AGW yes or no, and if it is necessary to eliminate the basic energy system of our industrialized economies by reducing CO2 emissions.
I don’t think so.
To think that CO2 emissions have the potential to stop or delay an ice age is as absurd as your arguments to reduce CO2.
Ron de Haan,
Read that KNMI news elsewhere. The same news carried in the UK Telegraph. Of course this paper slipped on the numbers and boosted the effect to 10-20% instead.
Follow up question then is: What about clean pre-industrial air? Any traces of temps then? Also the Atmospheric Brown Clouds, mitigating currently, if taken out, and the Chinese coal plant stacks cleaned up could contribute considerably.
Jack Simmons (20:32:11) :
If global warming is caused by unsustainable oil consumption, we have no problem. Anything unsustainable will soon end, by definition. As oil consumption ends, so will the purported results, global warming.
Jack, My thoughts exactly – someone needs to acquaint the speech writer with basic logic.
Somewhat OT,
A general thought wrt the argument from authority.
Subject expertise does matter when arguing science, however the following (IMHO) applies to the notion that Man Made Emissions of CO2 will cause Catastrophic Global Warming.
When arguing matters of science, a strong understanding of the data, experimental techniques, theories, etc of a given field would be necessary to participate.
When uncovering a lie, hoax, fraud, etc, the key necessary characteristics are logic, honesty and persistance.
While not everyone has a PhD in Climate Science, nearly everyone has a capacity for logic, honesty and persistance.
Tomorrow for DC: High of 31, chance of snow, NW winds 10-15 mph with 25mph gusts.
I will DIE laughing if he mentions global warming. Just DIE laughing….
Ron de Haan (16:21:00) :
It [dust] is caused by the wear and tear of break pads and tires of cars and trucks…
It appears that hybrid-electric and fully electric vehicles will reduce the dust created by brake pads on vehicles. Under normal braking, such vehicles use friction brakes only at the last bit of stopping, and use the vehicle’s momentum to generate power which slows the vehicle until the friction brakes take over. Also, an emergency stop will activate the friction brakes.
The delivery truck hybrid system by Eaton uses hydraulics rather than electric motors, but the effect on reducing friction brake usage is similar.
Another plus for hybrids and EVs.
RICH (12:18:23) :
It would be impossible to build a model based on chaos and expect any degree of accuracy.
:). Have you noticed that nature is built on this chaos and manages to solve all the equations and propagate into the future everything, most of the time not catastrophically? The implementation of chaos and complexity theory in climate is in my opinion the only way to go, to get a handle on what is happening in climate. Chaos and complexity theory are a vigorous field of study over many disciplines, from biology to climate and I am sure that eventually human collective intelligence will be able to get good results for climate.
See . Tsonis et al have tried to model the climate with a neural network, the paper can be found here http://www.nosams.whoi.edu/PDFs/papers/tsonis-grl_newtheoryforclimateshifts.pdf
From their abstract: “This is the first time that this
mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of
synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of
the size and complexity of the climate system.”
Isn’t this what current climate models are based on, chaos?
No. Climate models are models where the earth atmosphere is gridded into cubes and approximations of deterministic thermodynamic equations are used for time step propagations and boundary conditions. The problem with their approach, IMHO, is that they are mainly basing their equations on first order approximations and averages, whereas the true solutions are highly non linear and diverge from the approximations after a number of time steps.
This thread made me re-posting my sheit posted on-line and working on thru 2008, sorry (Hope this is not looked on as spam) it’s nothing to do with MR Obama( I hope for the best), just his policies and AGW.
“The weather/climate science world have abandoned the second rule of thermodynamics and hands on science for computer modeling . Modern scientists with a lack of science knowledge.
AGW(manmade greenhouse gas) can only be observed in a “isolated system (closed)” and earth “IS” an “OPEN SYSTEM”.
CO2 holds heat in a Closed system, once you “OPEN” the lid, the law doesn’t work. When you open up the lid, heat and gas escape, and it’s gone into the atmosphere. Hot goes to cold case closed, the second law.
The AGW CO2 was calibrated/concluded using a “CLOSED” modeling system, so what came first, the Chicken Little or the co2 egg?
I’m hearing and reading from some in the so called weather sciences saying the sun heats the atmosphere, and the atmosphere heats the earth. And this is how their theory on how greenhouse gas was formed, by keeping the heat trapped in.
WRONG!
If this were true, there would be a heating of major per potions in the atmosphere and there isn’t much, only about .01c. Only heating seen in the atmosphere is on their computer model and they can’t explain this phenomena, thus came the idea of using CO2. The real world doesn’t work like their model, they have to thrown out the laws of physic and become rapped up(or lazy) with using computer modeling.
Have they forgotten or become void of why these models don’t really work? I honestly think they thought they were right and have had one of the biggest scientific brain farts EVER. . Also using erroneous and left out data like Medieval Warm Period (about 800–1300) and the Little Ice Age (about 1400–1850) , CO2 levels being several times higher through ice core samples and a mountain of growing evidence of bad science is troublesome and suspect to say the least.
Sun heats the ground and the other 75% of our planets surface, “WATER”.
This heated water evaporates into a gas, rises and is seen mainly as water vapor. Some forming into clouds and come back to earth as rain, the rest goes up into the atmosphere including the HEAT and it’s gone. No trapped gas except for the heat from the planet that my get trapped by cloud cover. And then lost into the atmosphere at night, too begin the whole process again when the sun comes up the next morning. And agian, the sun heats the surface, cycles around with weather patterns, heat and gases go back up into the atmosphere and out into space. There’s also a million other things that effect circulation and distribution of heat and gas we don’t even know about.
An open system brought to you by real nature weather science.
Relax, it’s just the Sun!
A real measurable thing in the sky, something you can observe and keep records of and correlate with weather patterns. The only thing, to predict future weather they may need to create a model!
Unlike the AGW modeling what breaks a law of physics, and has you believing something they can’t prove.
At least with the sun modeling, I can feel it, see it and it comes on regular intervals, like everyday! Hehe!
There’s no man made global warming, there’s galactic warming from the sun.
Happy Obama day, I have more to post
Lavish, wasteful parties like the Inauguration seem inappropriate and undignified – can we call this one an Obamination?
Here are some constructive suggestions for consideration after the party is over and the real work begins.
I doubt this treatise will be seriously considered by the new administration, but my Energy Strategy for America, while oversimplified, has the benefit of valid climate science and energy expertise. Also, I have a solid track record of being correct on such matters.
Published November 15, 2008 at
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ANENERGYSTRATEGYFORAMERICA.pdf
Good luck America, and God Bless!
Regards, Allan
————————————————————-
AN ENERGY STRATEGY FOR AMERICA
by Allan M.R. MacRae
The USA has two daunting problems – the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression; and President-Elect Obama’s energy policies, which will severely deepen the economic crisis.
Obama stated in a San Francisco Chronicle television interview that he wants to implement an aggressive CO2 cap-and-trade system that could bankrupt coal companies. He further stated that energy prices will necessarily skyrocket. Obama believes that global warming is a critical issue, and he supports the use of solar energy, wind power and biodiesel. To his credit, Obama also supports a market approach and technological development.
In 2007, US primary energy consumption consisted of oil (40%), natural gas (25%), coal (24%), nuclear (8%) and hydroelectricity (2%). As a percentage of total proved reserves of fossil fuels, the US holds just over 2% of the world’s oil, 3% of natural gas, but almost 29% of global coal. http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentId=7044622
Energy projects have been constrained due to fears of catastrophic global warming, allegedly caused by increased atmospheric CO2 from burning fossil fuels. However, global warming is just not happening anymore. For the last decade, average global temperatures have not increased. Since January 2007 all global warming has disappeared, as average temperatures plummeted to 1979 levels – when accurate satellite measurements began.
http://www.atmos.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
Global cooling is now occurring and is expected to continue for the next twenty to thirty years, due to the recent shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from its warm to cool phase.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/is_this_the_beginning_of_global_cooling/
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/implications_of_pdo_and_nao_shifts_and_global_climate_in_upcoming_decades1/
Despite shrill claims of ice cap melting, Arctic sea-ice extent is now at its highest seasonal level since modern satellite measurements began in 2002 – more evidence of global cooling.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
For decades, the US has experienced a huge balance of trade deficit, due primarily to high oil imports. Energy self-sufficiency has been the goal of recent US Presidents, without success.
There is now an opportunity to address both these serious challenges, by rejecting global warming myths and creating an energy strategy based on true, verifiable facts.
Here is the outline of a responsible and economic Energy Strategy for America:
1. Reject CO2 taxes and cap-and-trade measures used to “fight global warming”. Examine the satellite data, the only accurate global temperature measurements in existence. Climate Dyslexics please note: The Earth is cooling, not warming. Global cooling should last for twenty to thirty years and could be severe.
2. Generate much more electrical energy from abundant US coal reserves. Use existing technologies to control real atmospheric pollution from SOx, NOx and particulates, but do not control CO2. In the future, if CO2 sequestration becomes economically attractive (for enhanced oil recovery) or is proved necessary (in the unlikely event that global warming becomes a real problem), retrofit the coal plants with expensive CO2 recovery equipment at that time.
3. As rechargeable battery technology continues to improve, electric and gasoline-electric light vehicles will become commonplace. The power infrastructure already exists to fuel this fleet, and refueling can be done during off-peak periods, when power plants are underutilized. This major change in the light vehicle fleet will shift energy consumption from foreign oil to domestic coal.
4. Re-examine corn ethanol and wind power, which do not work economically or effectively. Corn ethanol for motor fuel requires huge ongoing subsidies and severely distorts food prices. Wind power also requires big subsidies, and almost 100% backup with conventional power generation. Wind power can also cause critical instabilities in the electric power grid. Conduct a full-life-cycle energy balance on corn ethanol, wind power, biodiesel and solar energy, and also examine the environmental demands and pollution associated with these so-called “green” technologies.
5. Re-examine hydrogen. It is an energy medium, like electricity, but if implemented would require a huge new hydrogen infrastructure to be built at great cost, for no environmental or energy gain.
6. Avoid energy subsidies, especially ongoing operating subsidies, which distort economic decisions and create expensive industrial and environmental boondoggles. Wind power and corn ethanol may prove to be two such costly mistakes.
Instead of skyrocketing energy prices, this Energy Strategy for America will result in lower costs, improved balance of trade, and in time could even provide energy self-sufficiency for the USA.
_______________________________
Allan M.R. MacRae is a Professional Engineer and writer on energy and the environment. In 2002 he predicted in a newspaper article that global cooling would recur. He does not work in the coal industry, accepts no compensation for his writing and holds no coal investments.
Roger, I read a piece in Car And Driver about that system on UPS trucks. It works amazingly well. Unfortunately, the equiptment adds at least 2000lbs to the weight of the truck, so it may not be all that practical for a passenger car. And it’s LOUD, apparently
But it is neat, works well, and really increases mileage on those delivery trucks.
Crap, the second para was mine.
He won’t, he’ll mention “climate change”. Besides, 31 is not cold for DC in January. 10f would be cold.
Jeff Alberts (08:56:24) :
MattN (18:55:21) :
I will DIE laughing if he mentions global warming. Just DIE laughing….
He won’t, he’ll mention “climate change”. Besides, 31 is not cold for DC in January. 10f would be cold.
Well, he didn’t use either of those two phrases, but he mentioned that one of the challenges facing America is:
“The specter of a warming planet.”
The Merriam Webster dictionary has these definitions
1 : a visible disembodied spirit : ghost
2 : something that haunts or perturbs the mind : phantasm e.g. the specter of hunger
Discounting (1) let’s look at (2) and the definition of the given synonym ‘Phantasm’.
1: a product of fantasy: as a: delusive appearance : illusion b: ghost , specter c: a figment of the imagination
2: a mental representation of a real object
So, a carefully chosen word which gives something to both sides in the debate? Or is Obama hedging his bets here and fence sitting here ?
I’m happy that Obama has stepped back from talking about ‘a warming planet’ as a matter of fact, and has referred instead to ‘the specter of a warming planet’, an altogether less definite object. He’s a shrewd player, that’s for sure.
tallbloke (10:13:25) :
Yes, I immediately searched his speech for “warm” and “green” and “envir” and only warm came up in the phrase you quoted:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090120/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inauguration_obama_text
With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense,
The context is also important “roll back” is less arrogant than “stop”. The beginning of the next sentence is also a hedge.
“With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet.”
Perhaps WUWT’s recent award was in partial recognition for its important contribution to the goal of rolling back the terror and dread currently associated with global warming.
Anna,
“Have you noticed that nature is built on this chaos and manages to solve all the equations and propagate into the future everything, most of the time not catastrophically?”
Absolutely! God works in amazing ways. But “most of the time” is subjective only to those who recognize it to begin with. There is no begining and there is no end, for time is irrelevent in the highest of power.
“Chaos and complexity theory are a vigorous field of study over many disciplines”
Again, isn’t this what models are based on? Chaos? Complexity?
Who is to say that an asteroid will not strike the earth? Or what what about the onset of war, plague, or famine? We are using computers to foretell the outcome of our life, our climate, and our planet. However it is humanly impossibly, despite great achievements in science, to account for all of the known and unknown variables. And even by focusing strictly on CO2, there is clearly no conscensus as to what the outcome will have on humanity.
Super computer models predicitng our future, is man made prophecy. And most likely… false.
Have a good one.
So he’s confirmed it. AGW is a phantom menace.
Wow, that was scientific.
NOT!
anna (10:53:32) :
tallbloke (10:13:25) :
Yes, I immediately searched his speech for “warm” and “green” and “envir” and only warm came up in the phrase you quoted:
Well, not quite. he also said:
“Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.”
The “subject to data and statistics” is a caveat it seems to me, another indicator ,in my opion, that he is aware that AGW theory isn’t written in stone. Otherwise, he would have said “confirmed by data and statistics”.
Interesting insight into Obama’s thinking, or the usual politician’s weasel words?
“Or is Obama hedging his bets here and fence sitting here?”
I “hope” he is fence sitting. But with tipping points, Gore, and Hansen blowing in the wind, he is bound to fall off that fence and into the environmentalists backyard.
600 private jets touched down and $150 million was spent for this party. That’s quite a footprint… especially for hypocrites.
Jeff Alberts,
“Wow, that was scientific… NOT!”
😮 [yawn]
Alberts, will time exist when man is gone? And perhaps you could use your expertise in science and explain the beginning and end, you contemptuous know it all. And you want to criticise me, buddy boy?
“So he’s confirmed it. AGW is a phantom menace.”
Really, he confirmed it? How, pray tell, did he ‘confirm’ anything?
“Besides, 31 is not cold for DC in January. 10f would be cold.”
Not exactly. 31F is cold for DC and below average.
Anything else Jeff?