With all the caterwauling over the record heat in Moscow over a few days due to a blocking high pressure zone, it would seem valuable to revisit a truly exceptional historical heatwave that occurred long before “global warming” became a buzzword.
From The Australian Bureau Of Meteorology, something the Aussies might remember and remind their MP’s of, given the recent downfall of labor to the climate policies they are pushing. It is still a stalemate, but it’s down to a few people.
From Wikipedia: The record for the longest heat wave in the world is generally accepted to have been set in Marble Bar in Australia, where from October 31, 1923 to April 7, 1924 the temperature broke the 37.8 °C (100.0 °F) benchmark, setting the heat wave record at 160 days.
CO2 was 305 ppm at the time. Imagine the press coverage if this happened now. From The Australian Bureau Of Meteorology:
The Marble Bar heatwave, 1923-24
source: http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/temp1.htm
“Day by day maximum temperatures at Marble Bar over the period 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924. At the peak of the heatwave – between late December and late February – many days approached or exceeded 45°C”.
The world record for the longest sequence of days above 100°Fahrenheit (or 37.8° on the Celsius scale) is held by Marble Bar in the inland Pilbara district of Western Australia. The temperature, measured under standard exposure conditions, reached or exceeded the century mark every day from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924, a total of 160 days.
Temperatures above 100°F are common in Marble Bar and indeed throughout a wide area of northwestern Australia. On average, Marble Bar experiences about 154 such days each year. The town is far enough inland that, during the summer months, the only mechanisms likely to prevent the air from reaching such a temperature involve a southward excursion of humid air associated with the monsoon trough, or heavy cloud, and/or rain, in the immediate area. This may sometimes be associated with a tropical cyclone or a monsoon low. In the record year of 1923-24 the monsoon trough stayed well north, and the season was notable for its lack of cyclone activity. (In fact, the entire Australian continent was untouched by tropical cyclones throughout the season, a rare event in the 20th Century). The rainfall recorded at Marble Bar during the record 160 days was just 79 mm, most of it in two heavy, short-lived storms that developed after the heat of the day. Only a further 12 mm of rain fell before the following December. Severe drought prevailed across the Western Australian tropics, and stock losses were heavy. With no rain to speak of, and minimal cloud, there was nothing to relieve day after day of extreme heat.
The highest temperature recorded during the record spell was 47.5°C on 18 January 1924. There have been higher temperatures at Marble Bar, with the highest recorded being 49.2°C, on 11 January 1905 and again on 3 January 1922. But temperatures in other Western Australian towns have been higher: in a remarkable late-season heat-wave in February 1998, Mardie recorded a maximum of 50.5°C (on the 19th) – the highest temperature in Western Australia, and the second highest ever recorded in Australia using standard instrumentation (Oodnadatta, in South Australia, recorded 50.7°C on 2 January 1960). Several other recordings above 49°C were reported in the northwest on the days preceding Mardie’s record, and at Nyang, the average maximum over the entire summer exceeded 43°C. As in 1923-24, very dry conditions accompanied the extreme heat.
h/t to Steven Goddard
Sponsored IT training links:
Get up to date 642-357 questions and 642-072 answers for practice and pass 70-271 certification exam on first try
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/fire4.htm
Don’t forget the Black Friday 1939
Leon Brozyna,
“An inconvenient heatwave. Oh well, GISS can adjust it down”
The Aust BoM have already done this by deleting all pre-1910 temp records [and 1910 conveniently is a cool period] because prior to this people just couldn’t be trusted with thermometers. And especially as these earlier times set a few max records.
Here’s a link to a Nature photo taken near Marble Bar.
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo807441.htm
In our own Death Valley, we have flowers that bloom shortly after a good rain (which doesn’t happen every year). Then they quickly go to seed and die off.
Yes, most of the Marble Bar region is probably Mad Max country, as one would expect, by way of analogy with Death Valley. But judging from the photo, at least one part the area is different. I was surprised that any trees–even eucalyptus–could survive in that extreme heat, in that extreme aridity, and in that laterized soil.
Over the last 160 days, the average temperature in Moscow has been a sizzling 59F (15C)
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/UUEE/2010/3/10/CustomHistory.html?dayend=22&monthend=8&yearend=2010&req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
I see life under the bridge was boring so they came out today and commented about Russia. I suppose if 2010 is called the hottest year ever Russia will be the centerpiece of the claim.
I lived in Phoenix for several years. They average 90 days a year over 100F.
160 days in a row is incredible, and is the longest stretch any place on earth has ever recorded. This happened at 305 ppm.
The cognitive dissonance being displayed is mind boggling.
Are the Russia commenters aware off what’s going on the the Southern Hemisphere, in about 1/2 of the Northern Hemisphere, and in the SST?
Hottest temperature ever recorded in Australia – 50.7°C on 2 January 1960
Hottest temperatures ever recorded at Marble Bar – 49.2°C, on 11 January 1905 and again on 3 January 1922.
Undeniable proof that CO2 is causing the hot temperatures.
Douglas Hoyt mentioned 1540 as a heatwave year in France and if you look across the Channel the ‘Great Drought’ from February to September caused many streams and wells to dry up.
The years previous were all hot and dry, so would I be correct in thinking this came about because of blocking?
When I was still a small boy some 65 years ago [ over 7 decades have passed for this old man now ] that Marble Bar heat wave was a regular topic that featured in the papers and journals of the times.
My parents often spoke of the intense heat of the 1930’s and this was down in the cooler SE parts of Australia so localised long duration heat waves with even higher temperatures than are recorded in the present were nothing unusual in the times past.
Perhaps more unusual is the quite fanatical attempts by some AGW believers as we are seeing in a previous post here, to attempt to censor and remove from the record any previously recorded historically high temperature extremes that might challenge their rigidly held beliefs that the highest temperature extremes ever recorded are only in the “here and now”.
For those who would like to have a look at the quite incredible changes and the huge variations in the very short term weather and climate climate of the UK over the last couple of thousand years, the Metindex site [ Booty Meteorological Information Source ] put together by a British meteorologist is a good place to start.
http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/metindex.htm
The periods of heat, cold, storms, droughts and etc in the UK as listed in this site in historical chronological order is truly eye opening and just makes the claims by the AGW believers that this is an era of unprecedented climate happenings look like the rantings of some small boys who can’t get their own way.
ROM
GISS says that the 1930s heat (which they have repeatedly downgraded) was strictly a US phenomenon.
Do you believe the word of people who lived through it in Australia over Hansen’s calculations?
Interesingly I remember hearing that the Marble Bar Post Master in 1980s had been caughtreducing the reported figures for the nearby Telfer Mine town for which he also kept the record. To ensure Marble Bar always held the record as the hottest town in Aus. The point is , there’s a lot hotter places in Aus. But no one lives out there.
Pamela Gray says:
August 21, 2010 at 3:15 pm
So where is your ranch and what to you raise? Hay, cattle, Horses.
It hailed at my place last night and stuck for quite a while. Branded horses this morning and did some trailer loading training, now it’s raining and temps are several degrees below normal. No heat wave here. Trees are turning, horses are starting winter coats, and birds are starting to migrate. Gotta get out to my wood lot and cut my winter wood supply before it snows.
Wayne
The volcanic activity at this time period was very, very low…
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_eruptions.cfm
1920 32 eruptions
1921 41
1922 43
1923 43
1924 44
The bulk of what was erupting was VEI-0 to 2
Except for:
Azul, Cerro Chile
1916 1932 Apr 21 5+
Just bet ya that nothing was making the stratosphere and Azul was probably loading the SH troposphere with ash particles/aerosols. That’s a brew for it to get hot!
For comparison we’ve been getting mostly about 65 to near 80 eruptions a year since 1995.
I’m beginning to think volcano eruption volume answers almost everything. I’m becoming less a fan of Malankovitch Cycles and fancy climate experts every day.
“in 1923–24, temperatures reached 100 °F or more on 170 consecutive days.”
10 more days than the BOM article claims, from
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/460355/Pilbara
Anthony, I respectfully disagree. The Russian heatwave has been abnormal because temperatures averaged 20 F over normal temps for this (large) region over a month+. However, the average temperature in Marble for the 5 months in question are all over 100F. In other words, if the daily temps in Marble just stayed ‘average’ you would get 150+ straight days of 100f+ temps.
Of course, when the definition of heatwave being used is simply consecutive days of 100f temps you are going to get a place like Marble, or Death Valley or the Gobi dessert having the longest heat waves. In sum, the heat waves in Moscow and Marble are simply not comparable.
And your premise that a similar heatwave in WA today would get huge press coverage is dubious. The reason the Russian heatwave gets coverage is that people are dying, wildfires are burning, flights are canceled, and crops are dying. A heatwave, regardless of how big, in the backcountry of Australia would simply not interest the press that much.
stevengoddard says:
August 21, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Some of the tales that I heard regularly from the old fashioned genuine bushies who lived their entire lives in the Australian outback during those years were that during those long heat waves, birds were seen to just stop flying and fall out of the air quite dead from the heat.
Something I never seen or heard of as happening during my lifetime [ 1938 > ] and I have been a country person, a grain farmer all my life.
For what it is worth, some of the most Skeptical people in Australia are rural people who have lived through and had to try and make a living while trying to handle everything that Nature can throw at them.
They have seen and personally lived through and experienced both physically and economically all the vagaries and extremes of weather, climate, heat, cold, storms, drought, extreme wet and etc that Nature can throw at anyone.
And they have done this through some 5 or 6 decades of their working life outdoors so they have seen a lot of nature and just don’t believe all the bull crap that the sequestered, heated or air conditioned and carefully sheltered from all but the deluge of tax payer dollars, “climate scientists” [ ?? ] try to tell us that we are going to hell in a bread basket because the Earth is going to heat up by a degree or so.
A very cynical laugh follows any such global warming / climate change statements when in these old country guy’s company.
And please don’t bring up Hansen in polite company!
Mark S,
Those are highs, not lows, so I’m sure it went below 100 deg F most every night. I live in Phoenix and at times it will go a month or two with every day over 100 but it will usually cool down to the 80s at night and I’ve never seen a low of 100 or more. BTW we had a record year recently with over 100 straight days over 100. But it’s bearable as long as you have AC and don’t have to work outside during the heat of the day. But that’s why they invented siestas back before there was AC.
There’s a new book by Edward P. Kohn, “Hot Time in the Old Town” about the New York City heat wave of 1896, which killed 1500 people. See eg http://www.nypress.com/article-21505-the-lion-in-summer.html .
It would be interesting to compare that summer to the current warm spell, using whatever good rural stations there are in the area.
For a convenient and comprehensive history of Marble Bar temps including graphs and pics, see http://www.waclimate.net/#marblebar
The BOM 30 year averages for Marble Bar are summarised thus:
1901-1930 (30 years surveyed)
Average mean minimum 19.7
Average mean maximum 35.6
1921-1950 / min 19.6 / max 35.5
1931-1960 / min 19.7 / max 35.4
1941-1970 / min 19.6 / max 35.2
1951-1980 / min 19.9 / max 35.1
1961-1990 / min 20.1 / max 35.0
1971-2000 / min 20.4 / max 35.1
1981-2006 (26 years)
Average mean minimum 20.4
Average mean maximum 35.3
So it would appear that from 1901 up to the close of recording in 2006, the average overnight minimum in Marble Bar increased by an average .7 C and the average daytime maximum fell by .3 C.
However, the most recent BOM data for Marble Bar is …
12 months from August 2009 – July 2010
Mean annual minimum 21.42
Mean annual maximum 36.67
So the minimum over the past year has been 1.72 C above the 1901-1930 average and the average maximum has been 1.07 C warmer.
This is in line with an average .5 C increase in minima and .7 C increase in maxima at all WA and possibly all Australian BOM recording stations since an acknowledged BOM database bug was corrected in November 2009 to increase all averages in the database for August 2009 by about .4 C. The increase in Western Australia temperatures since March 2009, based on 32 locations combined including Marble Bar, is charted at http://www.waclimate.net/imgs/wa-monthly-bug.jpg
Since November 2009, Western Australia has recorded its hottest ever summer, 6th hottest autumn maxima and 4th hottest autumn minima since records began in 1950 (please ignore the previous 100 years) …
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/season/wa/archive/201002.summary.shtml
Is there a website that lists record events like these?
I would like to compare the heat records with the UV reading of the day.
But what about the thousands of years of higher temps during the earlier holocene (from the Greenland ice cores) to the cooler temps of today.
Of course those much higher temps in the NH saw boreal forests grow for thousands of years in northern Russia and Siberia where today there is only ice.
What we can say for sure, it wasn’t caused by humans and their factories, cars , planes and power stations. Gee it must have been natural CC.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
My parents spoke of a heat wave in Michigan during the 1930’s.
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=134
Mark S says:
August 21, 2010 at 8:39 pm
“Anthony, I respectfully disagree. The Russian heatwave has been abnormal because temperatures averaged 20 F over normal temps for this (large) region over a month+. However, the average temperature in Marble for the 5 months in question are all over 100F. In other words, if the daily temps in Marble just stayed ‘average’ you would get 150+ straight days of 100f+ temps.”
You have added nothing that is not included in the article, yet omit some important data, such as the Marble heatwave having *continuous* temps over 100F, many *way* over (“many days approached or exceeded 113F”, “the highest temp 117.5F” ), and severe drought. Average for 5 months is around 105-106F, so indeed they experienced a heatwave that may have averaged 10F or more over “normal”.
“Of course, when the definition of heatwave being used is simply consecutive days of 100f temps you are going to get a place like Marble, or Death Valley or the Gobi dessert having the longest heat waves. In sum, the heat waves in Moscow and Marble are simply not comparable.”
No “definition” was given for heatwave, and there was no “comparison”.
“And your premise that a similar heatwave in WA today would get huge press coverage is dubious. The reason the Russian heatwave gets coverage is that people are dying, wildfires are burning, flights are canceled, and crops are dying. A heatwave, regardless of how big, in the backcountry of Australia would simply not interest the press that much.”
Most any record does and will get press coverage, usually in the format of “see, global warming”. Come out from under the rock.
DR says:
August 21, 2010 at 9:52 pm
“My parents spoke of a heat wave in Michigan during the 1930′s.”
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=134
The death toll of the 1936 North American heat wave was about the same as reported by many sources of the recent Russia heatwave as being around 5000.