More from the “weather is not climate department”. Emphasis below mine. And it is having an effect not only on crops but tourism in the Northeast US. – Anthony
Statement as of 4:00 PM EDT on July 9, 2009
record event report … corrected
National Weather Service Gray ME
400 PM EDT Thursday Jul 09 2009
… More record cold weather for Portland Maine…
The temperature at the Portland jetport only reached 58 degrees
yesterday. This set a record for the coldest high temperature on
July 7th. The old record was 59 degrees set in 1961. To put this in
another perspective… the normal low temperature for July 7th is 58
degrees.
The low temperature on Wednesday was 55 degrees. This produced a
range of only 3 degrees between the high and low temperatures which
is a record for the smallest daily range in temperatures on July
7th. The old record was a 4 degree spread set in 1963 and 1995.
The 3 degree daily temperature range yesterday also tied the record
for the smallest daily temperature range for any day in July. The
record was established on July 16th, 1961 and occurred five more
times before this year.
The average temperature yesterday was 57 degrees… which tied 1961
as the coldest average temperature for July 7th.
The high of 58 yesterday tied July 6th of 1956 as the second coldest
high ever recorded at the Portland jetport in July. The coldest high
ever in July was 57 degrees on the 4th of July in 1992.
On the 1st and 2nd of this month Portland only reached 59 degrees
both days… setting records for the coldest high temperature each
day and also tying several other days for the fourth coldest high
ever recorded in July.
Portland has set a record cold high temperature four out of the
first eight days this month. Here is a list of the record cold high
temperatures so far this month…
Date high temp. 2009 old record high and year
July 1st 59 degrees 62 degrees in 1976
July 2nd 59 degrees 63 degrees in 1986
July 7th 60 degrees 64 degrees in 1956
July 8th 58 degrees 59 degrees in 1961
Here is a list of the coldest high temperatures ever recorded in the
month of July at the Portland jetport. Four of the ten coldest
highs occurred in the first eight days of this month…
Rank temperature date
1 57 degrees July 4, 1992
2 58 degrees July 6, 1956
58 degrees July 8, 2009 <===
4 59 degrees July 8, 1961
59 degrees July 16, 1961
59 degrees July 30, 1976
59 degrees July 3, 1987
59 degrees July 1, 2009 <===
59 degrees July 2, 2009 <===
10 60 degrees July 7, 2009 <===
11 61 degrees several dates
The normal high temperature for the month of July is 78.8 degrees.
Along with the cold weather portlanders have also had to deal with
soaking rain this month. There have been three days so far with
around an inch and a half of rain. Rainfall of 1.41 inches fell on
the 2nd, 1.57 inches fell on the 7th and 1.50 inches fell on the 8th.
The 1.41 inches on the 2nd set a record for daily precipitation for
the date… topping the old record of 1.32 inches set in 1983. The
1.57 inches on the 7th was also a record… breaking the old mark for
the date of 1.34 inches set in 1935. The 1.50 inches on the 8th was
far short of the record 3.66 inches that fell on July 8th, 1915.
Temperature records at the Portland jetport began on November 25,
1940 and precipitation records go back to 1871.
&&
Note… corrected date in second table and added normal high for July.
Isn’t it strange that while the US is having a globally average temperature, all we can read here is about record colds? I mean, there must be record highs also in order ot have a globally zero anomaly for the US, so where are they? Florida, California? Why not mention them?
Slightly OT, but anyway interesting. While the US is still debating over the feasibility of renewable energies, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East are starting a newtork of concentrating solar plants. This industrial project is projected to give Europe a 15% of imported solar energy by 2050, which is exactly the objective (65% European renewable, 15% imported solar, 20% fossil fuels)
http://www.desertec.org/en/
Time to wake up!
REPLY: “Flanagan” – I’m sick and tired of your European whining about what we report or don’t here in America. MSM doesn’t report ANY of this stuff, but will jump all over heat waves and link it to global warming with no justification whatsoever. I report these these because they unusual. The record low in Portland in July is very unusual. Heat wave in Texas, not unusual. Happens every summer.
If you don’t like what I report, visit other blogs, or get your own blog and report whatever you see fit. But please do shut the hell up on this issue. I just have no interest in your critiques nor opinion on the matter, especially from that of an anonymous coward.
Anthony Watts
This could hurt the potatoe crop.
Already see signs of the problem in NY and RI.
I was amazed today to read on BBC news: “Almost 250 children under the age of five have died in a wave of intensely cold weather in Peru.”
and in the same article:
“Experts blame climate change for the early arrival of intense cold which began in March. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8146995.stm
It would be amusing if it weren’t for the end result of all the stupidity.
It is like me flipping the light switch, telling you the light is on, then in the next breath I flip the same switch and again tell you the light is on, although you can see clearly for yourself that the light is off.
These people must believe that everybody is as gullible as they are.
June was cold in Michigan. We had four or five days using A/C, which pushed up the average at the end of the month, but quickly dropped. Count the growing heat days and June was way behind. So far July is cooler than June!
Through July 13:
Normal hi: 82
Recorded Mean hi: 73 June: 74
Recorded Hi: 80 June: 91
Normal lo: 59
Actual lo mean: 51.7 June: 52.2
Average calculated daily temp thru Jul 13: 70.5
Actual measured: 62.2 June: 63.1
5 day forecast
Avg. daily mean: 64
Avg. hi: 75
Avg. lo: 53
If this doesn’t turn around next week, this will be among the coldest July recorded in our area. The berries, strawberries, peppers etc. are a bust. Corn is 2-3 weeks behind.
Anyone with pools in Michigan can testify. We missed tying the record low for this day by 1 degree. For July 4 weekend we went North to Tawas and it reached a whopping 69 deg high. Nary a jet ski was seen.
I wonder if Sen. (ma’am) Boxer will add this to her list of dire consequences of unregulated climate change: droughts, floods, fires, loss of species, damage to agriculture, worsening air pollution and more? And more? Ah yes, the catch-all phrase, able to include a year without a summer.
I have another “weather is not climate department” from here, in the Fraser Valley.
It’s been about 10 years that I live in the Fraser Valley and at most we only have about 1 lightning and 1 thunder a year. Last night was different. We had a real lightning and thouder storm. It started around 12h30 am and ended at about 4h30 am. It was really unusual to have such activity here.
Algore is preeching endtimes droughts, fires and calamities in Australia as we speak. My local area has a station that has a 3 degree guarantee. They give money to a charity each time they are off. They over state the daily highs these days, often by 10 to 15 degrees. Cold dry air is heavier than water saturated air. Some of the warmist claims defy physics.
I can vouch for it being cooler than normal here in the NE. In New Hampshire, it has been mostly rainy and cool, with most daytime highs being in the 60 – 70s (usually we have week or two of 80 – 90 deg temps by now — not so this year).
The high in Ottawa Canada today is 17C (62.6F) and we almost always are warmer than the northeast coasters which we would include Maine in. theweathernetwork.com – a Canadian TV weather station gives two week forecast each day and for the last two years, they have almost consistently sloped the curve up to higher temperatures near the end of the forecast period, in the belief or hope that things will return to normal from the below normal coolness. I have emailed them from time to time my own two week forecast staying below normal and have been right more often than they have. Why do these people have “contact us” buttons if they don’t reply. I have a similar query in regarding the World Glacier Monitoring Services latest report being 2005 with 2006-2007 preliminary in. Where is the 2008 report? They must have the data or its gone! Are they waiting for the Copenhagen warm-in to be over before releasing it. I note that the number of advancing glaciers have increased between 2005 and the 2006-2007 preliminary and I suspect that the 2008 is going to show a lot more advances with all the snow that has fallen in the Alps, Andes, NZ ,Australia and elswhere in the last couple of years
Quick! Rip those particulate filters off the coal stacks before it is too late!
Sorry, just practicing.
Weather is not climate weather is not climate weather is not climate
HOWEVER it was 41 degrees before sunrise today at my house in central New York State. Forty-One Degrees. It is July 13, fer crissakes. The forecast for tonight is for lows in the 40s again. We haven’t had temps above 80 degrees (or often even in the 70s) for weeks and the 10-day forecast shows more and more of the same.
I repeat: Weather is not climate weather is not climate weather is not climate . . .
BBC news: “Almost 250 children under the age of five have died in a wave of intensely cold weather in Peru.” and in the same article: “Experts blame climate change for the early arrival of intense cold which began in March. ”
Doublethink at its finest. Welcome to 1984.
Am spending a month in Rhode Island. Does anyone else at similar latitude or farther north perceive mild solar dimming as though from volcanic dust?
I found this to be very interesting.
Atlantic Mutlidecadal Oscillation – The Key Global Climate Indicator = long duration changes Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature which are now going negative. Good correlation with temperature this past century.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/amo_the_key_global_climate_indicator/
I’m tired of this weather we’ve had in SE Texas. I KNOW the rest of the world is getting a chill, but apparently it’s been at the expense of SE Texas which has been hot and dry and all drought-y.
I realize this is speculation based on weather, but is it possible for regional cooling trends to lock in weather patterns more so than warming trends, specifically rain patterns?
Well, another weather is not climate comment. This year in Nashville, TN, I am having a hell of a time keeping my pool warm enough to swim, on those rare days without thunderstorms. And I think it is safe to assume now, that we are done with our droughts here for now. Getting tired of having to pick out the mushrooms from my yard, and if it gets any wetter, I am going to need a canoe to get to work.
July has been cooler here in Ky. so far, they keep saying 90 everyday and it never makes it there. It’s been cloudy several days after lunch. Got the windows open today, it’s very nice here. It should be burning hot this time of the year.
Portland, Oregon hasn’t had a really cold spell or anything except just in the last day or so we had a marine push of what I call “beach mist” that lasted till late afternoon and then gradually increased to a consistent, but light rain (small misty type droplets), usually “beach mist” type mornings dry out, or regular rain follows (bigger droplets).
To me this indicated a low turbulance, low cloud regime off the Oregon coast (a type of fog like cloudiness), and this suggests in my mind’s eye a low energy type of weather pattern.
Weather is not climate, but enough weather starts looking like a trend…
We’ve seen a string of cool weather here in Knoxville, TN as well. As of now, we have yet to even reach the average temperature on any single day in July, which, IIRC by way of a local meteorologist, is a record string of days of below average temperature. We’re supposed to average 87, right now we’re around 84 for the first 2 weeks in July. We also haven’t had a 90 degree day in July yet, which is also very unusual. We have a chance tomorrow and wednesday, but their forecasts have tended to be on the high side lately. But, then, they have forecast several days of low to mid 80s again. This is definitely shaping up to me one of the coolest and wettest summers I can recall. But the flies and mosquitos seem to love it. :/
Barry (09:06:35) :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8146995.stm
“Experts blame climate change for the early arrival of intense cold which began in March.”
What’s next….Experts blame night on lack of light?
This would be funny if weren’t so pathetic!
Guys, how come this website has not had a full article devoted to the ICESat results that were announced last week concerning record thinning of Arctic ice? Here are some sample websites:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512836,00.html
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/thin-ice-the-norm-in-warming-arctic/
My recollection is that a summary of this website’s articles on polar ice is:
a) Artic ice areal extent DID go way below normal a few years ago, but it has recovered to about normal this year; altho this article contradicts that:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/12/751043/-Report-on-Arctic-Sea-Ice:-June-2009
b) Antartic ice areal extent has been growing, and at least if not more than cancels out the shrinking Artic ice (furthermore, because of the position of the sun in the sky when the ice is greatest in extent, Antartic ice has more of an albedo effect, so its greater area leads to more reflection and thus more cooling than Artic ice)
The ICESat results, however, are very interesting because they describe ice thickness, not areal extent, and show a dramatic plunge. Whats up with that? Inquiring minds want to know!
Sorry that this comment is totally off topic, but I am not sure where to suggest it. (I assume that Anthony’s email inbox is crammed full…).
The BBC will just say it’s because of CO2 induced climate change, apparently CO2 can cause anything to happen according to them.
Apparently these ground observations completely contradict the run-up in UAH temps. on channel 5? Is the NOAA satallite data wrong or something? It seems like we shouldn’t be seeing so many cold records if the early 20th century was significantly colder than 2009?
Meanwhile here in Kansas the last heatwave day is tomorrow as the heat gets pushed to the west, we’re not supposed to get to 100 today according to Intellicast, but after a high of 102 tomorrow it’ll drop down into the 80’s and low 90’s the rest of the week, it also looks like Texas will be getting relief too. Also yesterday we got to 103 degrees or so according to the official Airport reading that has recently been showing temps. up to 4 degrees higher than Jabara Airport and McConnel Air Force Base, and it didn’t seem like it quite got up to 100 when I mentally do the bias correction for our little home thermometer during the hottest part of the day.
Gary, I blast the weather network too when I get frustrated with their stuck-in-a-groove ‘climate change’ and ‘warming’ pronouncements. The latest was their thirty year data set for locations in Canada, that is ‘revised every ten years’ showing from 1961 to 1990. Some revision! What are they afraid of showing us?
Cool Green tomato summer here in NE Oregon-we get highs occasionally in the 90’s but we still get rain and lows near the high 30’slow 40’s Actually looking forward to the Four Corners high that may park itself over the west for the week.
eventually we will have some monsoonal moisture but,i cannot wait to have moring coffee on my patio without a sweater on…
New Hampshire corn crop delayed http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=NH+crops+have+some+catching+up+to+do&articleId=62cd6161-26b0-4603-911b-bbefb93cd138
Cold is much worse than warm, any farmer knows that.
I’m very impressed by your politeness, Anthony. If you don’t like dissenting ideas, state it from the start. Maybe “Wattsup with my own opinions” would be better.
REPLY: “Flanagan” There are plenty of dissenting ideas presented here, including yours, so your critcism as usual is myopic to your own world view.
I grow tired of your constant whining over the reporting of things that I see as relevant and interesting to the readers of this blog. Nearly every time I report on a record low or cold story you start this whining drivel. I’m tired of it.
I’m also not impressed with the need for an academic such as yourself, at a university in Belgium to have to hide behind anonymity. If you ideas and opinions are worth something, put your name to it. Intellectual cowards such as yourself do not impress me at all. – Anthony Watts
Folks up there are talking about “the year without summer”
Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death
The Year There Was No Summer
Of the cold summers in the period 1811 to 1817, the year 1816 has gone down in the annals of New England history as “The Year There Was No Summer,” the “Poverty Year” and “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.” …..
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/1816.htm
1816 – The Year Without Summer , By: Lee Foster, Meteorologist
As we all know living in New England means enduring long winters and savoring the short summers. However, in 1816, the summer season was shorter than normal and is commonly referred to as “The Year Without Summer”…..
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/car/Newsletter/htm_format_articles/climate_corner/yearwithoutsummer_lf.htm
Lucia’s Blackboard has an interesting article up on the HadSST Numbers. They are “through the roof.”
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/hadsst-highest-values-since-1998/
Looks like we could be in for a heck of an El Nino. And, a Very Hot Year.
Operate a ‘climate’ station south of Calgary Alberta. to-date, we are running .5 C below normal for the year. June started out cold, latest frost recorded was June 10th and we had snow in the early part of June also! HOWEVER, the last half of the month flip-flopped and was very hot and dry (crops are in trouble) June ended up being bang on normal for Temps. July is running below normal now too.
However, weather is not climate (unless its a hot spell!!) It will be interesting to see how this year plays out and if our sun continues to sleep.
GroupCaptainMandrake (10:24:15) :
“Guys, how come this website has not had a full article devoted to the ICESat results that were announced last week concerning record thinning of Arctic ice?”
[Sigh] Here you, go – have fun, and read the other articles there too.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6547
“The global sea ice anomaly in June 2009 remained positive. Over the 1979-2009 period, there is zero trend in global sea ice anomaly, with a SH increasing trend offsetting a NH decreasing trend. June 2009 NH anomaly was not remarkable.”
PS
The Catlin Survey Team would have appreciated some of that thinning ice while they were up there…
Oh, how I wish those cooler temps could be spread around. We are having a record breaking heat wave here in central Texas with 23 days of 100+ temperatures already this summer.
Anthony: “Heat wave in Texas, not unusual. Happens every summer.
San Antonio 7/13/09 Forecast:
Today 103°F
Tues 103
Wed 104
Thur 101
Fri 102
These temperatures are not unprecedented, but are unusual and do not happen every summer. Even though last year was also a drought year, I don’t believe we had one day that hit triple digits.
While now confined to the indoors, I’m going to dig into the temperature dataset for some specifics.
“Experts blame climate change for the early arrival of intense cold which began in March.”
Of course. It was proved in “Day After Tomorrow” that Global warming does indeed cause intense cold, leading to an ice age. Didnt’ you know this movie is peer reviewed?
At least, that’s how it seems to me.
For those of you who get confused about weather versus climate, temp ranges and record lows/highs ARE related to climate. Climate zones very much depend on temperature ranges. Agriculture depends on knowledge of temp ranges. Climate zones are decided on based on day and night temp range. The average does very little to elucidate plant health. A case in point, the average of one climate zone may be exactly the average of another climate zone, yet the climate zones will have two different identification numbers. What makes the difference is the range of lows and the range of highs. Plants are very tolerant of averages. They are not so tolerant of extremes. For example, here in NE Oregon, the average daily temp is perfect for daytime growth. But the night time temps are preventing blossom development and seed set. Tomato plants will not blossom and set seed till night time temps rise above at least 50 degrees on a regular basis. So the day’s average does not have to change one bit, but the night time lows need to come up. If record nighttime low’s continue over several years, it will change the parameters of the climate zone and could even be given a different designation.
“Flanagan”
But what have you done? I think AGW is a fraud but I have done all sorts of things to lower my energy usage to save money more than anything.
Changed lights
95% eff furnace
28 mph highway van
New windows, double glass with argon
New washer and dryer energy star rated
and additional things
People like you want us to spend 500% more on energy as well as live in sod houses. The next war that you get yourself in, maybe we will just stay home this time.
More cold weather news from Saskatchewan: brrrr.
http://globalfreeze.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/regina-beats-92-year-old-record-low/
yes, I know! it’s weather not climate.
I am also watching the nsidc daily ice melt report with great interest:
I am not a climate scientist, I am an engineer – but I believe this makes me well qualified to interpret a graph – and it looks to me as though the ice melt is slowing since the 2007 record low. Certainly not ‘accelerating’.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Kum Dollison (11:18:22) :
Lucia’s Blackboard has an interesting article up on the HadSST Numbers. They are “through the roof.”
The AGW consensus has begun to hedge bets, talking about perhaps a delay of 10 or 20 years in the warming with an intervening cool spell. Recent freezing of 250 children in Peru the other day (BBC news- reports this a “Climate Change” event – were not letting you guys get away with this “change” malarkey – you said unequivocally that higher CO2 was higher temperature. The Hadcentre has been through the roof for 20 years, but they will be heading for the basement like a lot of others like todays Real Climate:
“We hypothesize that the established pre-1998 trend is the true forced warming signal, and that the climate system effectively overshot this signal in response to the 1997/98 El Niño. This overshoot is in the process of radiatively dissipating, and the climate will return to its earlier defined, greenhouse gas-forced warming signal. If this hypothesis is correct, the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020.”
So Mr Dollison, don’t find yourself left all alone one day soon. I’m sure you don’t live in Canada or the northern half of the US or in Peru.
“”” Flanagan (08:42:37) :
Isn’t it strange that while the US is having a globally average temperature, all we can read here is about record colds? I mean, there must be record highs also in order ot have a globally zero anomaly for the US, so where are they? Florida, California? Why not mention them? “””
Well there you go Flanagan jumping to conclusions. You equate a “globally zero anomaly” with a globally normal TEMPERATURE RANGE.
First of all, just on the basis of properly sampled data; it is possible to have a zero average deviation (from some number) and have record lows, but no record highs; or you could have reocrd highs; without any record lows, and still have a zero average deviation.
Even on the basis of global anomalies (which aren’t global temperatures); one might expect that the 1998 big El Nino could exist without displacing the average; and yet have no record lows accompanying it.
But anyway; you are just pointing out the whole fallacy of these anomalies; The sampling regiman violates the Nyquist sampling theorem; so you can’t believe anything about those anomaly reports other than the specific data that they report; which isn’t anything to do with global temperatures.
Ray (09:18:19) :
Fraser, Colorado?
Just a note on Portland Maine.
My daughter and family live in Freeport, just north of Portland.
A lot of complaints about lack of sunshine and all the rain. Vegetable garden not doing well.
New York City, cold wet June, saved from being a record for both by a warm dry final week. Beautiful July with cool nights and warm days when it is usually oppressively hot. We had one 90 degree day (in April!) and have only gotten close a couple times since. Haven’t used the air conditioners yet.
I know data is not the plural of anecdote, but an anecdote is a datapoint. Enough weathers and you got yourself climate (with the alarmists conveniently vague on where the switchover is).
Flanagan (08:42:37) : Isn’t it strange that while the US is having a globally average temperature, all we can read here is about record colds? I mean, there must be record highs also in order ot have a globally zero anomaly for the US, so where are they? Florida, California? Why not mention them?
Well, no, there does not need to be such a compensating record high. The basic problem is that you are using a broken “rubber ruler” to measure the “average”. GIStemp so throughly cooks the record (as I posted under a prior thread) that you can’t at all say the ‘average warmth’ is anything other than a computer generated fantasy.
Basically, the news reports and “weather is not climate” posting here serve as a ‘sanity check’ on the insane computer dreams cooked up by folks like Hansen et. al. When your “computer toy” says it is burning up, and all around the planet folks are reporting cold, snow, freezing, death from cold, crop failures from cold, cold cold cold… it’s not the people who are wrong, it’s the computer toy.
And, BTW, YOU do NOT want to mention California. I’m suffering the coldest summer I can remember in the last 30 ish years of living here as we are under The Big Blue Blob of cold anomaly. Last night it was 50F on my patio when I went to bed. That is a common WINTER HIGH for this area. Common summer lows are more like 75 F and sometimes 85F.
There is also an unlikely but possible case where the typical warm area is slightly warmer, but there are more of them, while the record cold areas are smaller, but colder by a large margin. That would make an average higher with record cold spots. I do not think that is what is going on. The distribution of the cold reports around the planet are fairly uniform (though with some poleward excess and some equatorial deficit).
Occam’s Razor says it’s the crappy computer code with known demonstrable bugs and brokenness in it; no need to fabricate some conspiracy theory of folks all over the planet making up cold weather reports, nor any need to hunt for the hidden hot spots being kept from public view by the same conspirators.
Basically, the cold reports are the sound of truth pushing the broken computer fantasy aside. The people saying “The Computer Has No Clothes!”.
Gary Pearse,
I have not a clue what you are talking about. But, evidently, I’m not alone. You attributed this:
you said unequivocally that higher CO2 was higher temperature.
To me. I’ve never said any such thing. I’ve, from day one, thought Anthropogenic, CO2-induced, Catastrophic warming was the silliest sort of nonsense.
But, that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that the Oceans are heating up quite rapidly. Son, weather is weather. If it’s hot, it’s hot. If it’s cold, it’s cold. I don’t care if the sun hung out a “Gone Fishing” sign; if the oceans are heating up, the oceans are heating up.
Sometimes you gotta call “time out” in the debate, and go look out the window (and, that’s all you want to do in N. Mississippi cause it’s been hotter’n hades here this year.
Can’t stand when the Google ad for “Help Stop Global Warming” comes up right after the article intro…
Every time I see it I write a note to the “We Can Solve the Non-Problem People” and tell them to do something productive with their life !
Unisys seems to be showing SST’s going down again now, while fairly warm for one month, the downtrend it seems to show this July may suggest that the recent high anomaly may only be that high for just the month of June. While the ENSO region isn’t budging much temp. wise the other ocean temps. seem to be dropping.
Unisys primarily uses bouys to chart the SST’s, so you have no possible bias from NOAA satallites and not much in the way of urban heat islands.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
I noticed there was a noticable drop in SST’s since looking at this late last month, if it continues the recent peak will be a one month wonder and not like 1998.
While it has been cooler than normal for the most of the eastern half of the US, it has been baking in TX, and OK, especially TX. Nature trying to balance itself.
But we(our ancestors) have seen something similar before. This was just a quick read from history. I remembered seeing this, and it reminded me of the pattern we see now. Fitting for this post. Probably more instances, as well.
July 11
1888 – Heavy snow reached almost to the base of Mt. Washington, NH, and the peaks of the Green Mountains were whitened.
1888 – Colorado records its hottest temperature ever (118F) at Bennett CO.
Let me explain. The cause is a mystery mechanism. There, that was easy, wasn’t it?
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ab03c6d3b3a7ecad80ca03e378097a4b.1a1&show_article=1
Ref. to Texas heat, check out the summer of 1980, 60+ days over 100 degrees in the DFW area, so it is possible to have hot dry weather. On the flip side during Dec. 1983 over 240 straight hours of subfreezing temps that caused major water main breaks. Old saying if you don’t like the weather wait it will change.
Nova Scotia here. WORST. SUMMER. EVER. The sun disappeared for 24 straight days, foggy, cold, miserable. It has been over 80 F exactly one freakish day in May, otherwise an absolute disaster. It simply cannot get over 20 C, had to use the heat several days in June and early July which is unheard of.
If you walked dow the street in Halifax with a “Stop Global Warming” T-shirt on, you would be assaulted.
This is sort of off-thread
I was at a gathering today at which a presentation was given by a number of people from DEFRA- that’s the UK Dept for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs otherwise part of the UK government AGW propaganda machine.
First have a look at this website and go the Climate Projections section for an example of hubris that cannot be matched. By the way, these projections are good becuase they are based upon “30 year trends as they are statistically solid”.
http://www.ukcip.org.uk/index.php
I also heard major league dissembling on the issue of certainties. They admit to there being uncertainty but solve this by using probabalistic based projections. The speaker either did not know or did not want to discuss the impact of the IPCC’s 75% minimum uncertainty about climate processes. He did say that our knowledge of climate processes had improved considerably in the past 7 years. Also the fact the the MSM media always present their output as fact – “we can’t control what appears in the media”.
Then we had the classic argument that we had to use modelling as we only had about 150 years of measurements – in fact I lost the plot here as I am sure he said that one of the problems with observations was non-stationarity.
Lastly a guy from the audience (from Reading University) said temps in the US were now at the upper end of projections- sheesh.
I am sorry this is incoherent. I should have taken better notes. I am still dumbfounded by the sheer arrogance and incompetence.
Cheers
Paul
Harold Ambler (09:45:36) :
Am spending a month in Rhode Island. Does anyone else at similar latitude or farther north perceive mild solar dimming as though from volcanic dust?
I have the translucent (with freckles!) skin of the redhead gene. I am fairly finely calibrated from decades of sunburns to know exactly when the activity in my skin is in the “danger zone”. I also have a half century of familiarity with exactly when that happens over the calendar year by time of day at this latitude.
Not only do things look a bit “dimmer” to the eye, but my skin does not complain until well after the “normal” hour… At this time of year, even a couple of minutes at high noon in the garden sans shirt ought to cause me That Tingling Sinking Feeling RUN GET A SHIRT!. Instead I just get “warm sun, worry in a few minutes”. I know, very unscientific. But the “Bite” has gone down in the sunshine. (I really do have it down to minutes. I’m normally good for 15 to 20 minutes MAX at high noon in summer to get a sunburn. I’m constantly aware of the sun angle, skin feel, and clock whenever I’m in the sun. If I don’t, it’s pain city… and my clock is running out long before the skin is reacting these days. Heck, I’ve even done some garden work lately without my mandatory wide brimmed hat on.
Can’t say what the cause is. We have had some increase in cumulus clouds, and there have been more overcast days, but it’s the clear sunny times, like now, that are a puzzlement. It looks like their is a faint milky haze “somewhere” up their (the expected stark dark blue sky is more of a periwinkle not quite milky faded blue jeans color). Don’t know how to turn that observation into a measurable quantity nor into a physical cause.
Time for some supersize me ‘freedom fries’
Gary Pearse reports: ““We hypothesize that the established pre-1998 trend is the true forced warming signal, and that the climate system effectively overshot this signal in response to the 1997/98 El Niño. This overshoot is in the process of radiatively dissipating, and the climate will return to its earlier defined, greenhouse gas-forced warming signal. If this hypothesis is correct, the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020.”
The cherry picking gets narrower in time: from the 150 years since industrial revolution to the last 50 years, to the last decade and only the one that works, the range where the possible “pure” AGW scenario may -they always write may- apply is shrinking like in a certain Seinfeld episode…
Kum Dollison, before you read too much in this SST business you may want to know more about atmospheric circulation…
Here in Port Angeles, June averaged 2 degrees colder than normal and July has started out with an average of 9 degrees colder than normal. . . . but it is weather not climate. . .weather not climate . . .
GroupCaptainMandrake (10:24:15) : Look again at the row of URLs at the top of the page and see if you can find where OT notes belong. I’m available for reading tutoring if you can afford my fee and travel expenses. Private trains are expensive, but the city experts say rail is the most efficient way to travel.
Running very wet for a third year in the row here in England. http://www.climate-uk.com for stats. So much for a BBQ summer that the Met Office forecast (and hence cancelled), with the jet stream displaced several hundred miles to the south.
FWIW, I just did an ersatz solar brightness test.
It’s “high noon” adjusting for daily light “savings” time. Sun is directly overhead. The Nikon was set to “200 ASA” and aperture was set to F/16.
That ought to yield a shutter speed of 1/200 th second. A variety of street scenes of full sun gave speeds from 1/125 to 1/160 th second with some outliers. There IS less brightness than “expected”.
Generations of photographers have used the “1 / film speed at f16 in full sun” rule. I used to be printed on the package inserts of Kodak film. I’ve tested my meter readings on this same set of street scenes (my front yard, driveway, and street / homes) for the last 20 years+. It’s been a very good and fairly reliable tool.
What it’s telling me right now is that there is something reducing the sunshine at ground level by just a bit. (Normally, I’d have expected a few 1/160, a couple of 1/250 and a few 1/200 for the scenes on the street. I got some 1/80, mostly 1/125 and 1/160, and just one 1/200 on a brighter than 18% grey scale scene).
I need to find where my 18% grey scale card is and make this a more robust measurement… or maybe dig out my ancient “direct light meter” and get actual foot-candle measurements…
For right now, though, the “quick and dirty” sanity check measure says that yes, there IS something reducing the light level at ground level and it does not show up as large fluffy clouds, only as an indistinct change of sky color to a more ‘milky’ tinge.
Anyone with a decent camera can repeat this test. To make it more accurate you need an 18% grey scale card from your local photo shop. To make it very accurate, you need to calibrate your camera meter to a brightness standard (though quality gear ought to be pretty well ‘spot on’ already.)
Jack Simmons (11:55:04) :
No, the lower Fraser Valley in British-Columbia, Canada.
“Experts blame climate change for the early arrival of intense cold which began in March.”
This is a meaningless statement.It is like saying when it is wet outside , the experts blame it on the rain. Of course there is a climate change if an intense cold has arrived several months early. It must come from somewhere? It says nothing about why this happened, like colder SST, higher level cold , etc . No expert has been named and the true cause is not given , I suspect this statement was added by the author without any expert ever having been consulted.
Anthony, I owe you an apology. You were (mostly) correct, in that the current heat wave in South Texas is not unusual.
I checked the maximum daily temperatures (raw? data) for the 20 year period from 1986 – 2005, tabulating the number of triple degree days:
Average = 12 / year
Maximum = 36 in 1998
Also 29 in 1994, 28 in 1989, 25 in 1996 (including 1 in Feb – WUWT?), and 22 in 2000.
Ignoring these 5 obvious outliers, 🙂 the average is ≈ 6 triple digit days / year.
There were 3 years with only 1 triple digit day, and no year with 0.
So bottom line, a lot of variability.
It’s hot, but not unusual.
But I will bet that 2009 beats out 1998, since previously we got some triple digit days in Sept. and this is barely mid July.
E.M.Smith, very interesting observations, who knew there was someone who remembered how bright the sun felt to them decades ago compared to now.
Maybe proof the sun is dimming, but if the sun is having less ‘bite’ than decades ago, then it must be affecting high temps. in various areas of the globe as well, there’s also the possibility it slightly affects the Sun’s ability to burn away clouds and perform daytime heating at points.
Antonio San,
I’m willing to Read whatever link you put up, but when the guy with the thermometer tells me the Sea Surface is the hottest it’s been since 98′ (and, really close to That mark,) you’re going to have a hard time convincing me that we’re not getting ready to “warm up” a bit (OR, have some pretty big Typhoons.)
I’ll say it again: I think anyone would be “Crazy” to bet “Anything” on short-term (next year’s) weather.
Until someone can tell me what causes the Ice Ages, or, at least, from whence comest the ENSO, I’m taking it ALL with a grain of salt.
Here in central Florida, yesterday morning I saw 67 degrees on my indoor-outdoor thermometer. I have never seen it drop below 70 in July in Florida in all the time I’ve lived here. But it’s just weather, not climate, bla, bla…
E.M.Smith (13:06:32) :
Are you aware that “solar noon” varies with longitude, latitude and date?
I used to know the formula, but now I’d have to dig out my old text book.
E.M. Smith wrote, “It looks like their is a faint milky haze “somewhere” up their (the expected stark dark blue sky is more of a periwinkle not quite milky faded blue jeans color). Don’t know how to turn that observation into a measurable quantity nor into a physical cause.” I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed this. The sky does not seem to be quite its normal shade of blue; it’s more silvery than what I think I remember as normal, even on a purportedly clear day. (Not that we’ve had many of those for checking purposes!)
I was thinking that there was no way of measuring this objectively, but your tests with your camera shutter speed are fascinating. Any optics engineers out there? Any cloud scientists? Anybody who might have some idea what, if anything, this means?
Paul Maynard (12:45:50) :…………………………… I am still dumbfounded by the sheer arrogance and incompetence.
Indeed. There seems to be an epidemic – or should I say “Pandemic” – of those 2 maladies making the rounds in various Governmental circles these days. I wonder if anyone is working on a vaccine? 🙂 😉
Harold Ambler (09:45:36) :
Am spending a month in Rhode Island. Does anyone else at similar latitude or farther north perceive mild solar dimming as though from volcanic dust?
The one other thing I wory about is how much the sulfer in the dust interacting greatly with cosmic rays (see Svensmark Cosmoclimatology) causing a great increase in clouds. I know for the last several weeks here in Omaha,it has been about 6 degrees under the predicted high and it has mostly been from more clouds. They would be thick most of the morning and even if they would thin some in the afternoon it would not let in enough light to counter it. The one thing for heat we have had to deal with here has been some brutal days of high humidity. Even with the temps in the low 80’s you couldn’t work outside for long due to the high heat index. (and that is with the clouds overhead)
With regards to the BBC article, specifically the picture and caption – I don’t see no malnourished children! Maybe they should have captioned the picture (of an ice-covered mountain) something like “Peru: It’s cold!”
Kum Dollison start with:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VF0-48DYTM7-W&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=766756d3d7f4ca161b38dbeda14162d9
Kum Dollison,
“But, that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that the Oceans are heating up quite rapidly.”
The SST’s may have no relationship at all to the heat content of the oceans. The thin surface layer of the oceans that SST’s represent are much more variable than subsurface. Please quote data similar to the Argo float system that actually measures below surface data before you start ranting about high ocean temps.
“I’m willing to Read whatever link you put up, but when the guy with the thermometer…”
First you need to ask that guy with the thermometer how accurate it and the recording of temps are. Second you need to find out exactly where he stuck that thermometer!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Get over it Kum, you are starting to sound like a RealClimate LOON.
Pamela Gray (11:43:20) “Plants are very tolerant of averages. They are not so tolerant of extremes.”
Bravo — plants are a much better indicator of climate than computer fantasies. (Plants don’t lie; they die.)
–
Anthony, thanks for re-motivating a shelved research focus: NorthEast Coast. (Anecdote: The last time I was in Portland, Maine at this time of year, it was sweltering (humid) heat.)
Bos,
“Time for some supersize me ‘freedom fries’”
Hmmm, could the animal in us here in the US be preparing us for the cooler weather?? I keep reading a lot of articles about the increase in obesity here!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Here’s what I don’t get about the entire “AGW is gonna kill us off” position.
Humanity, as a species, ( and even most individuals ) is pretty damn tough, or we wouldn’t still be here. Despite everything that this rock has thrown at us over the past few hundred thousand years, we’ve steadily increased our numbers, our standard of living, and our knowledge. We didn’t get to the top of the food chain on our good looks, that’s for sure. We are some tough hombres. Ask any of our ancestors that speared mammoths for a living.
The AGW types would have us believe that we are such a delicate flower that the least little departure from their vision of “comfy” will bring down the wrath of god, and wipe us from the face of the earth. I don’t know about anyone else, but that sounds more than a little ridiculous to me.
Flanagan,
As a UK late comer to this post I must remark that your first posted comment about Europe and CSP is a load of ********.
It’s a supreme example of ‘belief’ in the technology over the reality of the actual possibility of achievement.
For example, no one, as far as I am aware has even attempted to quantify the security implications and costs involved. IMOHP these will be sufficient to scupper the project, unless of course Europe decides to undertake a new ‘colonisation’ of North Africa.
I camped out near Cambridge in the UK this weekend. Had a very bad night. Wasn’t the pouring rain but the cold that kept me awake. Got down to 10°C I reckon but I only had a light summer blanket. Brrr…
Flanagan, You are not here for dialog, thats our problem.
I have seen your exact same remark “Weather is not cliamte .. BLAH BLAH” 20-40 times? And mostly you get the same answers over again and again with politeness.
So how many times do you need the same answers? And why is it so important for you to get the same answers so many times?
This thing of yours looks like you just want to be unplessant or just want to disturb other people.
You have got your answers to your question SO many times, also from me that if Anthony started snipping your bad behaviour out, it would be understandable, your are using Anthonys politeness.
One of the answers is – and you know it:
“In the medias we hear extremely much about any warming event, and in the media even cold events, storms, floods, drought is “sign of warming”.
so FLANAGAN: If you want BALANCE in these thing why dont you go out in other medias and critique that they dont bring more cold stories?? Why is your attempt to get balance in things to attack again and again the few placed where some cold stories are allowed to be told?
You want balance, go out and promote Cooling stories in the rest of the world!”
And Flanagan, I am very happy that there is a media where cold stories can be told, thankyou very much Anthony. If you dont like it FLanagan , for the XXXX time, go to some warmist forum. You are just attacking Anthonys media blindly, and you wonder why you are not popular??
E.M.Smith (13:06:32) :
For right now, though, the “quick and dirty” sanity check measure says that yes, there IS something reducing the light level at ground level and it does not show up as large fluffy clouds, only as an indistinct change of sky color to a more ‘milky’ tinge.
I’m glad someone else has noticed something funny going on. I flew Paris CDG to Dulles in Washington (and back) two weeks ago. I do a lot of flying but I have never noticed it so hazy between 40,000ft and the earth before. This was on both the inbound and outbound trips a week apart.
Just to note, here in the UK after a week of extreme heat at the beginning of the month, we are back to below normal temperatures here with little change forecast for the next few weeks (unless you use the BBC that is.)
Peter (12:43:45)
“Nova Scotia here. WORST. SUMMER. EVER. The sun disappeared for 24 straight days, foggy, cold, miserable. It has been over 80 F exactly one freakish day in May, otherwise an absolute disaster. It simply cannot get over 20 C, had to use the heat several days in June and early July which is unheard of.
If you walked dow the street in Halifax with a “Stop Global Warming” T-shirt on, you would be assaulted.”
Thanks for sharing this note Peter. I spent a number of summers halfway between Halifax & Portland (near the Fundy Coast) and I remember nothing like what you describe — but I do vividly remember common multi-week streaks of 30 to 35C and sweating uncomfortably with all windows wide-open while trying to sleep.
Looks like it ain’t going to get any warmer in Cambridge either.
http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/HOBBIES/aviation_forecast.asp?locationID=169
My rough and ready feeling is that aviation forecasts always tend to lag the mainstream stuff. I guess minds are really concentrated if people’s lives depend on it.
E.M.Smith (12:14:12) “Basically, the cold reports are the sound of truth pushing the broken computer fantasy aside.
Bravo – clear perception.
Meteorologist worried about cold: from http://www.climatedepot.com
http://www.examiner.com/x-3854-Cincinnati-Weather-Examiner~y2009m7d13-Deadly-and-destructive-cold
Kuhnkat, this statement:
“The SST’s may have no relationship at all to the heat content of the oceans.”
just doesn’t make any sense at all.
The lower troposphere is heated by the Sea “Surface,” not the “Sub” Surface.
“”” Kum Dollison (15:09:44) :
Kuhnkat, this statement:
“The SST’s may have no relationship at all to the heat content of the oceans.”
just doesn’t make any sense at all.
The lower troposphere is heated by the Sea “Surface,” not the “Sub” Surface. “””
Pretty hard to argue with that; so what does that have to do with the heat content of the oceans ?
“”” MattB (14:21:12) :
Harold Ambler (09:45:36) :
Am spending a month in Rhode Island. Does anyone else at similar latitude or farther north perceive mild solar dimming as though from volcanic dust?
The one other thing I wory about is how much the sulfer in the dust interacting greatly with cosmic rays (see Svensmark Cosmoclimatology) causing a great increase in clouds. I know for the last several weeks here in Omaha,it has been about 6 degrees under the predicted high and it has mostly been from more clouds. They would be thick most of the morning and even if they would thin some in the afternoon it would not let in enough light to counter it. The one thing for heat we have had to deal with here has been some brutal days of high humidity. Even with the temps in the low 80’s you couldn’t work outside for long due to the high heat index. (and that is with the clouds overhead) “””
So with those days of high humidity, and high heat index; just why the hell are there clouds overhead. If the humidity and heat index were higher; those clouds would no doubt be lower; and vice versa.
When you cut all four legs off a frog; they become stone deaf, and won’t jump no matter how loud you yell at them.
George
“Pretty hard to argue with that; so what does that have to do with the heat content of the oceans ?”
Okay, that does it. I’m thoroughly confused.
If the Sea “Surface” is heating up that will warm the lower levels, right?
And, it will disperse heat upwards, right?
I think what we’re tippy-toeing around, here, is that solar minimum, or not, clouds don’t seem to be forming rapidly enough to prevent the Oceans from heating up.
I think we’re making the same mistakes the AGW crowd is making. We’re trying to “explain away” data, and make it fit our “theory d’jour,” rather than observe the data, and compose an appropriate theory.
It’s raining cats and dogs here right now. It’s chucked down more than three inches of rain in the last few hours and roads in low lying areas have been turned into fords. This is the same type of weather that the Met Office failed to forecaste for the last few years. But then, if they keep forecasting a “barbecue” summer year on year they’ll get it right sooner or later.
Good news from the UK front. The Daily Express, a mianstream national daily newspaper, has finally cottoned on to the fact that AGW is going to cost us all dear and put it on the front page.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/113555/Energy-bills-to-rise-by-230-
Even Monbiot seems to be attempting a U turn – of sorts. I can’t be sure because I found most of his frothing at the mouth rambling unreadable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/13/climate-change-emissions-uk
OR, maybe it has Nothing to do with clouds, and it’s, entirely, a case of the Trade Winds going “Quiet,” or the “Wrong” Direction, or “One, and then the Other.”
Whatever it is, we’re not going to figure it out if we waste all of our time arguing with the thermometer.
I’m a little grumpy today and it pleases the {self-snip} out of me that you invited Flanagan to ‘shut the hell up.’
We’ve been on Cape Cod a month (been coming since ’77). This is the first time in decades we’ve not even taken the window air-conditioner out of the van.
Unfortunately, what a camera sees, and what a human eye sees, may be two quite different things; and unfortunately, what a film camera sees, and what a digital camera sees, are also two different things.
What planet earth reacts to in all its aspects we describe as “Radiometric” quantities; measured simply as “Watts per whatever geometry factor”.
What the human eye responds to we refer to as “Photometric” quanitities; and this is the most screwed up area in the entire Physics curriculum; with an army of obscure Units. Nevertheless, there are some standard terms such as Lumens (which loosely relates to Watts), and Candela (aka old “candlepower”), which is Lumens per steradian;a nd so on.
The trouble is that there are atleast two recognised human eye standards; those so called “Photopic” or normal eye vision;a nd the “scotopic” or very low light eye vision, and the two are quite spectrally different.
Then historically the market for photometric measuring equipment; was the movie industry; and to them all that mattered was that the total integrated area under the light measuring curve matched the standar definitions; they didn’t care too much about point to point wavelength accuracy.
Then along came LED light sources, that have relatively narrow color spectra; and solid state lasers, that are even narrower. Now the market, and the manufacturers cared about the point to point spectral accuracy of their readings to match the standard; and photometric sensor makers were obliged to filter their sensors to more accurately reflect the change in eye sensitivity with color (wavelength).
They got that down pretty damn good, and then there came a disaster; Blue LEDs happened; and absolutel none of the filtered sensors that did well on read. orange or even yellow LEDs was worth a damn at measuring blue LEDs.
Now digital cameras come up with a new problem that film cameras didn’t have. The digital sensor maker puts an individual color filter on each and every single pixel in their sensor; often red/green/blue in what is known as the “Bayer” pattern of two diagonal greens, plus a red and a blue; nothing to do with Aspirin. Sometimes the color complement yellow/cyan/magenta is used instead; and there are technical reasons for that.
But silicon sensors whether CCD, or CMOS, are also very IR sensitive (near IR 700-1000 nm), and some digital cameras ignore that and don’t put IR blocking filters in their lenses; which are a pain in the A*** for the camera lens designer.
So trying to guess what planet earth sees, or what the human eye sees, versus whatever your camera sees is a hazardous occupation.
And then just when you think you have it right; the “per whatever geometry factor” gets in and spoils everything. Like the south polar climatologist who told me he was measuring solar flux at the south pole; so he tipped his sensor upside down, thinking it naturally would read the emission from the snow/ice surface; emission comprising IR and or reflected light.
Sorry; the Optics geometry is not the same for those two situations; so his attempts at reflectance measurments were all bust. That comes from being a climatologist, and not a physicist skilled in the optics art, or at least the art of radiometry.
George
BBC news: “Almost 250 children under the age of five have died in a wave of intensely cold weather in Peru.” and in the same article: “Experts blame climate change for the early arrival of intense cold which began in March. ”
Doublethink at its finest. Welcome to 1984.
Well they couldn’t use “Global Warming” – that would be obviously illogical. By using “Climate Change” they can hide the sub-textual message which is…
Man Made Emmisions of CO2 Cause…
[1] Catastrophic Global Warming…
[2] Catastrophic Climate Change…
[3] Climate Chaos…
(and if temps keep going down, I expect to start hearing)
[4] Catastrophic Global Cooling.
In all statements, man and his emissions are the driving force behind the “predicted catastrophy”.
While the sub-text is maintained in all statements, then the rational for the taxation and/or restriction of energy use, and the growth of government and ponzi markets remain.
Very cold on the other side of the world too (yes I know its their winter!)
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/tasmania-as-cold-as-ice/12251
and
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/chill-gripping-the-west/12282
as well as North Carolina
http://www.mtn18.com/latest_news/2009/07/unusual-cold-weather-at-grand-mtn.html
Flanagan inspired me to find some balance! Sorry! 🙂
OT: talking about some peer reviewed paper of realclimatology, here is the latest hilarious justification for a “pause” in the warming: Swanson, K.L. and A.A. Tsonis, 2009: Has the climate recently shifted? Geophysical Research Letters, 36, doi:10.1029/2008GL037022.
One needs to appreciate the complete absence of meteorological FACTS in this mathematical construction to understand how separated from reality our realclimatologist are.
Kum Dollison, you surely need to brush up on atmospheric circulation… if you care of course.
It does look downright chilly today: http://maps.wunderground.com/data/ndfdimages/T200907140000_us.png
REPLY: Ah Zeke….I see you fell for it. Of course it does when a color scheme that uses “warm” colors like yellow at 50F and higher is used. This is a central problem to certain map presentations I’ve covered before here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/26/color-and-temperature-perception-is-everything/
and here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/28/coloring-the-models-climate-change-through-color-change/
Here is a temperature map that doesn’t look so “alarming”
http://www.intelliweather.net/imagery/intelliweather/tempcity_nat_640x480.jpg
Chill out. – Anthony
I live on the west side of Puget Sound, a little north of Seattle. Every day for years I have gone out around 12:45 pm. with an old incident light meter and measured the brightness. On clear summer days I usually get a reading of 5625 ft. candles. On rainy days like yesterday I may get a reading of 150 f.c. When it is clear this summer, I usually get 5625 f.c. Therefore, I don’t think there is some global solar dimming going on.
Second topic: Watermelons are mostly city sissies and project a lot. They would indeed be in serious trouble if anything disrupted the complex supply system that makes city life possible. Since they are sissies that scares them badly. Since they are phonies, they can’t tell the truth to themselves about themselves. Hence, projection.
Ever so slightly off-topic, but you really have to see the last paragraph of the following article on the tragic situation in the Peruvian antiplano to believe it:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/13/2624141.htm?section=world
While I’m off-topic, here’s another interesting story regarding the global cold outbreak:
http://www.planetski.eu/news/611
Eastern Ontario agricultural reality check. Another two weeks of these cold nights (10C) and the corn and soyabeans will be non-productive. If this persists, ther just maybe some food shortages!!
It’s amazing how much alarmism goes into coloring these maps. I think most folks would figure that green should be a pleasant temperature, maybe around 70 – 75°F [≈21 – 24°C]. Instead, look at what they do:
NOAA’s map: click. [Note this is an anomaly map.]
Zeke’s propaganda map: click
USHCN map animation; the original draft map morphs into the final, adjusted version [while temps stay the same] : click
Here’s one from our friend Michael O’Ronayne: click. Notice temps stay the same between the Draft and Final version. [source]
No wonder the warmists don’t want to debate.
If you keep visiting this site – you can’t help but be exposed to the science and the empirical evidence that shows that the notion that Man Made Emissions of CO2 will Cause Catastrophic Global Warming is a Myth.
I speculate that our friend “Flanagan” is…
[1] (Most Likely – I.e. I think that he is being honest) A True Believer, and the constant collision with the facts of “no warming” is creating considerable emotional tension for him which is starting to intrude into his posts.
OR
[2] (Least Likely (but possible)) An agenda driven individual who sees the facts of “no warming” as a growing threat to the realisation of his agenda, and hence creating considerable emotional tension for him which is starting to intrude into his posts.
I could of course be wrong.
The “desertec” project (solar power from north africa) is nothing else but a big game of Eon and RWE to gain money from the government for a lot of studies, fees and subsidies. Nobody here really believes it will happen, because the electric energy from africa will be delivered for prices nobody will pay if to stay competive on the world market.
With all the cold stories being posted on here one has to wonder about the validity of the AMSU temp readings ticking and accelerating upward like a runaway train with no conductor.
If this is so and they rise up like this every day for 3 more months to match SST’s we could every tree and plant in the southern hemisphere combust by early next year, and if they started doing than we can say it’s officially the end of life on Earth O.o
Seriously that will probably not happen, but a scenario that may be said out loud by alarmists.
Frank Lanser, great response towards Flanni AKA, Flannigan. He’s a Chemical Engineer thinking being an expert in AGW will bring him acceptance. He’s been hanging around another site, http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php lately and gives info with no backing. Haven’t seen him post since last week. It’s been a breath of Fresh Air. A commented Alarmist! Anthony, its great to see you set him straight.
I have poked around looking for a way to access temperature data records for my city (which is in the US) for the past 100 years (or however long it has been recorded.) I’m assuming that there’s a place where I can download the data – maybe it’s an excel datasheet. I’m embarassed to say I can’t locate the source. Any ideas on how to go about this?
I’m wanting to know how long it’s been since my location has had to wait for so long to see the first 100 degree day in the summer. Maybe we’ll miss having the tripple digits this year.
Perhaps an explanation of heat transfer is in order for you folks who seem a bit confused.
Zeke,
That map is hilarious. It would have to get down to 40 at 8PM to show any green. Since that didn’t happen in mid July, the map varies from yellow to red to white hot. APparently, 40 is a normal daytime temp in the US in July, otherwise, why would it be green, and global warming has heated the whole country up into unheard of temps like the 60s (Yellow) and 70s(Orange) and 80s (red) and so on.
That is what is called a “rhetorical” map.
Anthony: fair enough, though it is pretty darn hot at the moment in the Southwest. Weather and all.
Know of any good resource for a daily anomaly map? It seems like any weather map that keeps the same color scheme year round is going to be rather blue in the winter and rather red in the summer, though as you point out some schemes can show ranges better than others.
One benefit of colder weather: we won’t have tens of thousands of French people dying in heatwaves.
Robin, I have no doubt that some individual farmers could get hurt up there, but there won’t be any “food shortages.”
We have about 78 Billion pounds of corn sitting in elevators with no place to go, and a “bumper crop” in the making.
Does $0.06/lb sound Okay?
Actually, that’s not correct. That was the “Carryover.” I guess we’re down to about 20 Billion Pounds, now. But, that should be enough, eh?
RE: “’m tired of this weather we’ve had in SE Texas. I KNOW the rest of the world is getting a chill, but apparently it’s been at the expense of SE Texas which has been hot and dry and all drought-y.”
Your “monsoon” has failed. As have a number of semi tropical and tropical convective seasonal rain makers. The ITCZ has not moved very far pole ward. This is the double whammy of KILLER GLOBAL COOLING.
There is no more good news. Only approaching darkness.
Climate Audit has a post about flaws in the satallite data.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6586
The breakpoint stuff is interesting to start out with, there’s also an article about HADSst.
I’ve seen it mentioned here, but I think it may be worth a blog entry on the AMO going negative and what that means for the eastern US (hint: COLD!!!)
In addition, what is the implication of a negative PDO and AMO at the same time?
Hey “Flanagan”
Down here in El Paso, Texas we have been hitting around 100 and
some days a degree or two warmer. That’s actually not really hot for
El Paso at this time of year. About 14 years ago I was installing my new roof
and we were at about 114 degrees. This time of the year only 100 is kind
of cold! No record highs here, Sorry DUDE!
Why is SOI still rising?
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
To be getting close to +10 when an El Nino is supposed to arrive doesn’t make any sense, that is if you believe in the predictions made by NOAA and their prediction for it to drop again.
Graeme Rodaughan (16:02:34) “[…] (and if temps keep going down, I expect to start hearing)
[4] Catastrophic Global Cooling.
In all statements, man and his emissions are the driving force behind the “predicted catastrophy”.”
It will be interesting to see what “breakthrough in understanding” might be trotted out to explain such an apparent contradiction, should it arise. The alternative (admitting error) is not likely to be a popular option, so lesser evils will be given serious consideration, should the scenario you describe unfold. Interesting post.
Outside Washington D.C (Annapolis MD) we haven’t run the air conditioning yet this season (which is unheard of for anyone familiar with the hot/sticky/humid DC/Maryland summers).
We use a whole house fan to pull air through the house and only run the A/C on the hottest/stickyest days, haven’t had to yet! Nightime temperatures drop into the mid/low 60’s this year which is quite comfortable sleeping temperatures.
Our electrical consumption is much lower this year (which of course will be offset by the local power company Kwh increases due to Cap and Trade legislation).
MattN wrote: “I’ve seen it mentioned here, but I think it may be worth a blog entry on the AMO going negative and what that means for the eastern US (hint: COLD!!!)In addition, what is the implication of a negative PDO and AMO at the same time?”
Here’s a good link…if you have not already seen. Agreed on your assessment of the implications…
http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/category/atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-amo/
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“where I can download the data”
Check out:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/usa.html
I could well be wrong in this, probably am, but my conjecture is that Flanagan is actually an AI attempting to pass the Turing test [but failing if catch on to it]
If this is so, would my post be called an ad hominem? or something else …like ad nauseum?
Sorry!
Cool weather in New York also :
“… it’s the first time since World War I that the mercury has failed to hit 85.”
Video report from ABC News :
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=14448230&ch=4226722&src=news
Yeah weather is not climate. So from the climate is climate:
Current trend on Wood for Trees index (from 1979 to May 2009): 0.14 degrees a decade or 1.4 deg per century.
May temperature is around 0.1 degrees below this trend. Values about 0.1 degrees below trend happen regularly, with most gaps between such occurences less than 2 or 3 years.
Currently we are around 2 years continuous below this trend line. The only rough equivelant to this length of below trend temps is during early 1990s, heavily influenced by a volcano (if memory is serving me right).
Every el nino has pushed the temps above the trend line, so if we get an el nino, and another 12 months of below trend temperatures I would be seriously considering the likelihood that the last 30 year trend of temperatures is no longer an accurate reflection of what is currently happening with climate.
We had a frost cold snap warning here in NH once already in July, the first time since, get this, 1913…..
weather one day in one place is not climate.
I am tired of the weather where I live in Ontario. It has been 5 to 10 degrees C lower than average for the past 2 and a half years. Last year I got the heat off at the end of June, only to turn it on for a few weeks in July and then for a few weeks in August. This year I turned it off for a week in June. That is it. When it is going down to 10 C at night it has to be on in the morning so we can move and shower. Our government is working on their cap and trade plan. When that happens, if not before, I am gone. This country is too cold to be a banana republic.
“UK Sceptic (15:36:37) :
It’s raining cats and dogs here right now. It’s chucked down more than three inches of rain in the last few hours and roads in low lying areas have been turned into fords. This is the same type of weather that the Met Office failed to forecaste for the last few years. But then, if they keep forecasting a “barbecue” summer year on year they’ll get it right sooner or later.
Good news from the UK front. The Daily Express, a mianstream national daily newspaper, has finally cottoned on to the fact that AGW is going to cost us all dear and put it on the front page.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/113555/Energy-bills-to-rise-by-230-
Even Monbiot seems to be attempting a U turn – of sorts. I can’t be sure because I found most of his frothing at the mouth rambling unreadable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/13/climate-change-emissions-uk”
Here in Australia, the Rudd Labor Govn’t (On the back of the last Howard govn’t) just gave us taxpayers a tax break, worth about AU$9 per week to me. Two days later I got a letter from my power utility telling me my power bill was going up by just over AU$6 per week, plus 10% GST. This is on top of higher gas costs, higher health insurance costs and higher food costs. Lovely!
“Flanagan (11:12:12) :
I’m very impressed by your politeness, Anthony. If you don’t like dissenting ideas, state it from the start. Maybe “Wattsup with my own opinions” would be better.
REPLY: “Flanagan” There are plenty of dissenting ideas presented here, including yours, so your critcism as usual is myopic to your own world view.
I grow tired of your constant whining over the reporting of things that I see as relevant and interesting to the readers of this blog. Nearly every time I report on a record low or cold story you start this whining drivel. I’m tired of it.
I’m also not impressed with the need for an academic such as yourself, at a university in Belgium to have to hide behind anonymity. If you ideas and opinions are worth something, put your name to it. Intellectual cowards such as yourself do not impress me at all. – Anthony Watts”
Well there’s his problem. In Belgium, with the “Flemmies” and “Walloons” trying to erase each other’s language, it’s not easy keeping track of reality.
Are these temperatures BH or AH. I’m sure that the After Hansen figures will make everyone realize just how hot it really was. Sheesh, can’t you people wait for the ‘official’ results as determined by the accounting firm of “Dewey, Cheatim and Howe”. I do believe they are about to allow JH to join as a full fledged partner.
George E. Smith (11:52:07) :
The sampling regiman violates the Nyquist sampling theorem
George,
Nyquist is only meaningful if you are trying to reconstruct the original signal. This is not the purpose of the sampling. Also, the sampling of temperature is not periodic since the min/max temperatures occur at different times on different days, so speaking about Nyquist doesn’t even make sense because it requires evenly spaced samples.
Please don’t take this as a defense of the manner in which the sampling is done, I do not intend it as such. Trying to compute the average by averaging the extremes is preposterous.
Lyman Horne
p.s. for those who don’t know what the Nyquist sampling theorem is, here is a fair treament on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem
coaldust (23:19:59) “the sampling of temperature is not periodic since the min/max temperatures occur at different times on different days” / “Trying to compute the average by averaging the extremes is preposterous.”
You might want to check on some of the “conventions” used.
“It seems like any weather map that keeps the same color scheme year round is going to be rather blue in the winter and rather red in the summer, ”
So humor me Zeke, what was your point?
NOAA has a response specifically for Watts:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/response-v2.pdf
Was this already addressed? If not I think a post dedicated to their response would be appropriate.
There have been at least 3 cold periods when both AMO and PDO were both negative or cool for a more sustained period
1856-1864
1916 -1922 [and 1909-1911]
1964-1976
Global cold records were set during these very cold periods . We did have sample of this during the first 5 months of this year. AMO has gone back to positive in June .We have had 15 years of warm AMO so a decline of AMO to negative or cool is likely to return together with the cooling of the global climate to follow. The weather of the 1960-1970’s is likely the pattern of the next 2-3 decades
“If you don’t like dissenting ideas, state it from the start. ”
Nobody likes dissenting ideas. The question is whether those ideas are tolerated or not. In my humble opinion, Anthony is much better about letting dissenters be heard than prominent warmists, the most obvious example being Realclimate.
Has Anthony ever flat out deleted one of your posts?
Hi all,
As a meteorologist, I’m not at all surprised by the reports of ongoing hot weather in Texas and Mississippi while ongoing cold is in New England. Just sounds like a blocking pattern has set up. These can persist for quite a while. It will keep the warm ridge over the central US and the cool, wet trough over the eastern US.
However, at the moment, it does seem that the cool weather has been gaining an edge the past couple of years. Will make the next several very interesting.
Best Regards to all,
Paul