Looks like they’ve discovered what great heat sinks asphalt and concrete make:
From the National Resources Defense Council via press release posted at investorideas.com (h/t to Mark)
WORST SUMMER EVER? NEW ANALYSIS OF 2010 SUMMER HEAT TO HIGHLIGHT LITTLE-DISCUSSED “DARK SIDE OF CLIMATE CHANGE”: RECORD NIGHT-TIME TEMPERATURES IN U.S.
New Focus on Sweltering Highs in Night-Time Temperatures to Outline Risks to Human Health, Environment; Record Night-Time Highs Seen in More than Three Dozen States: AL, AZ, AR, CT, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, WV, and WI.
WASHINGTON, D.C./NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL – September 15, 2010 (Investorideas.com renewable energy/green newswire) – While it is common knowledge that the summer of 2010 posted record-high temperatures across the United States, almost no attention has been paid so far to the equally disturbing trend of pervasive record high night-time temperatures where evening cooling did not occur this summer, according to a new analysis to be released at 11 a.m. EDT Thursday (September 16, 2010) by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
More than three dozen states (and a correspondingly significant share of the nation’s population) contain weather stations that recorded record high night-time temperatures, the “dark side of climate change” under which temperatures do not cool off overnight. The NRDC analysis breaks out the number of U.S. counties and their respective population that experienced these record night-time temperatures.
The 37 states with record high night-time temperatures highlighted in the report are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
News event speakers will be:
- Dan Lashof, director, Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council; and
- Kim Knowlton, senior scientist, Health Program, Natural Resources Defense Council.
The NRDC analysis outlines the danger of heat deaths and other impacts that are linked to the growing problem of summer temperatures that do not drop overnight.
TO PARTICIPATE: You can join this live, phone-based news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 11 a.m. EDT on September 16, 2010 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the “worst summer ever?” news event.
CAN’T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at http://www.nrdc.org as of 3 p.m. EDT on September 16, 2010.
CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com.
ABOUT NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national nonprofit organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world’s natural resources, public health, and the environment.
NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Livingston, MT, and Beijing. Visit NRDC on the Web at http://www.nrdc.org.
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Here’s an infrared photo of before and after at a USHCN climate station in Fayetteville, NC
Here is what you see in visible light:
Here is what the infrared camera sees:
Note that the concrete surface is around 22-24°C, while the grassy areas are between 12-19°C. This was shortly after a rain, about 2 hours before sunset. The rain did nearly nothing to cool down the concrete.
The more junk food we eat the more heat we generate.
Skeptics have been pointing out this obvious effect (even to grade-school kids) for decades. Finally, the effect becomes so obvious that the climate gatekeeping elites can’t hold it back without appearing totally clueless.
But they have their butts covered; it’s all taken care of in the temp “adjustments”.
I noticed that the futher east in the US, the Jet stream seemed to be up in Canada most hot days during the summer. All of that warm tropical air pumping up the east coast. “Typical” summers the jet stream seems to swoop down the country and then turn north, just my observation. I have not seen or heard this in the MSM. I usually look at the Accuweather website to review the jet stream. In NC we matched record highs yesterday, I say not due to global warming, but the Jet Stream is north of the Great Lakes.
The UHI effect certainly affected the skillfully-stagecrafted 1988 June hearing starring Al Gore, his senatorial colleague Tim Wirth, and Jim Hansen:
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/17534/stagecraft/chris-horner
“TIMOTHY WIRTH: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.
DEBORAH AMOS: [on camera] Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day?
TIMOTHY WIRTH: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.[Shot of witnesses at hearing]
WIRTH: Dr. Hansen, if you’d start us off, we’d appreciate it. The wonderful Jim Hansen was wiping his brow at the table at the hearing, at the witness table, and giving this remarkable testimony.[nice shot of a sweaty Hansen]”
The sad part is, if the climate bedwetters get their way, poor folks, especially more elderly ones in cities will have increased difficulty affording AC, and will be dying as a result. That is, of course, assuming they survive the winters and the increased cost of heating.
The image shows long-wave radiation from a septic tank. The source of heat is from organisms in the effluent from toilets–not reradiation from the sun.
Nevertheless, the point is well taken, that the urban heat-island effect distorts night-time temperatate measurements, leading to bogus conclusions.
Why haven’t we heard a heck of a lot more about UHI from Mann, Jones, et al? Hummmmmm… maybe it’s the money. Think it just might be the money? Does CO2 and all the other man-made gas in the world cause a little warming? You bet! Is it the problem of problems? No! In the atmosphere, H2O is the Big Kahuna. Why not recognize the science of what the problems really are? It’s an integrity thing. If you have no integrity, you just care about the money. Kind’a like the US Congress and the President talking about our money, like they are giving us something by not raising our taxes to pay for their special projects for their special friends. My Oh My! Aren’t we the lucky ones!
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Leon Brozyna says:
September 15, 2010 at 6:35 pm
After years of belittling UHI, it’s now embraced to highlight record high low temps.
Now I’m sure that some rural locales experienced record high low temps.
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Not in this rural western MD location — not even close. In fact, in ALL the days of highest temps here (upper 90s) this summer, the air was less humid than a typical summer, and as a result lows were always 60-66F, which are no more than avg overnite lows. Urban overnite lows at the same time were 6-12F warmer than me.
We certainly did not get our fair share of any significant global warming in Nevada this spring/summer. The tomatoes haven’t ripened yet and the grapes are struggling to raise their sugar levels. Its just not fair. May be Al Gore has been hanging around near by.
The heat stored within large metropolitan areas is enormous.
I have taken several snapshots of the local weather report at 10:00 p.m. which look similar to this. In fact, I could probably take one showing this effect almost every night. Guess where the official temperature for this area would be measured.
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/8029/photova.jpg
As far as I know San Diego is still in the United States. They have experienced the coldest summer in at least 60 years. Here is the time series for July 1950-2010. July 2010 was so cold it literally fell off the bottom of the chart. August 2010 tied with August 1999 for the coldest in the past 60 years.
The most remarkable heat island I’m aware of is found at Reno NV, where the mean July minimum temperature has risen from 44 F to 60 F over the past 50 years since 1960. This heat island has also been documented by earlier posts at WUWT.
Over the past 50 years from 1960-2009 we have seen these trends in the annual-average of daily max/min temperature at 1st order sites in Nevada:
Trend in Degrees F Site MaxT MinT Diurnal Range ----------------------------------------- Reno +1.3 +11.2 -9.9 Las Vegas +1.5 +7.6 -6.1 Tonopah +2.2 +2.7 -0.5 Ely +1.7 +0.9 +0.8 Elko +0.7 +0.1 +0.6 Winnemucca +0.5 +1.3 -0.8Looking at only the summer and early fall period of June-October, the trend in Reno min temperature is even larger. Reno has seen an increase of 14.6 deg F from 38.0 F to 52.6 F in June-October mean minimum temperature. At the 4 mostly rural sites we see no significant change in the magnitude of the diurnal cycle over the past 50 years.
MarkA:
San Diego temperature follows the PDO. See: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/SanDiego.htm
(BTW, I am located in Seattle like you)
savethesharks says:
September 15, 2010 at 6:18 pm
I guess their flop of a movie on “ocean acidification” which was cross-promoted across the country along with NOAA, was not effective enough….so they resort to this.
Also, anyone notice where their offices are?
NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Livingston, MT, and Beijing.
Beijing?
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Of course Beijing, that is where Maurice Strong is currently residing and they would want to keep in touch with him.
“Record summer highs across the US?” Tell that to the farmers here in the Pacific Northwest, if you want to make them laugh bitterly. Average summers give us we 84 days with temps above 70. This year it’s 54 days, with predictions of a cool, wet Fall. Thermal units (which is how farmers measure the weather) are down for the 3rd year running, and a range of crops have suffered accordingly.
Please note the red rectangles in many buildings. Those are windows allowing IR to pass thru. Kinda makes you wonder about those statements that glass is opaque to IR.
Pofarmer says:
September 15, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Thing s the higher nighttime teems are showing up in rural data, too. I downloaded 10 years of university of mo data last winter, and I found that for most locations high temperatures were Actually falling, whilenlow temperatures were higher, driving the averages slightly up. I really think that more cloud cover and higher humidities go a long way to explain this, but, that doesn’t make for scary enough headlines.
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Be careful that you actually have the RAW DATA. I notices that my local temperatures (rural) were “adjusted” up any where from one to five degrees (F) by the next day. Especially the lows. This seems to be because temperatures are compared to other sites and the data mangled according to some esoteric data crunching program.
The data I am looking is at Wundergound.
One thing that is interesting is Fayetteville NC does not show any CAGW, it shows a sine wave instead.
Fayetteville NC GISS temp graph
As far as the weather here in central North Carolina.
It was cold and snowy at the beginning of the year, five snow storms when normally we get one storm every five years. The spring was down right cold. June and July were normal not really abnormally hot and August was a bit on the cool side.
As our friend in Florida said the thunderstorms cooled things off. It was a rather dry late spring and a wet summer. I have more grass than my animals can eat right now, a welcome change. The reservoir I live near is finally back to normal.
Giving away my age, I think in the oil crisis’ of the ’70’s the term “thermal mass” was taken to be a good thing. Ideas were thought of to the take advange of this to recylce the heat. Brick homes were good as they could keep you cool during the day as the brick heated and warm at night as the brick cooled. Thermal mass is an old phenomenom.
Note that the concrete surface is around 22-24°C, while the grassy areas are between 12-19°C. This was shortly after a rain, about 2 hours before sunset. The rain did nearly nothing to cool down the concrete.
That doesn’t seem to add up …
First of all, to coolest spot I see on the grass is more like 15 or 16C, and I am thinking some spots are over 20C (although it is hard to tell without better image analysis tools.) The
Then, looking at the shadows, it sure looks like the sun is more than 45 degrees up. For example, the shadow from the little white cylinder on the sidewalk and the station itself both seem to be shorter than the object’s height.
This would mean the sun was above 45 degrees in in the sky. The sun moves 15 degrees/hr, which would make this 3+ hr before sunset. And since the sun moves at an angle, that makes it even longer before sunset.
How much of this effect is from aerosols coming from planes? Where I live there is almost a constant layer of brown cloud sprayed from jets. The nighttime lows are much higher when this occurs. Does it reduce nighttime radiation?
Yaasss — current home of Maurice Strong. World’s premier promoter of Western de-industrialization/depopulation.
I’m also a bit confused in general.
Yes, urban areas are kept warm by all the concrete, etc, as the scientists who did this report are surely aware. So this blog entry seems to be starting out with a strawman argument.
Further, the report is not specifically about cities getting warmer. The original report states “Even more telling is that nighttime lows were the hottest ever recorded at nearly one in four weather stations in NOAA’s Historic Climatology Network. This means that at 278 stations the average nighttime low temperatures for June, July and August 2010 were hotter than at any time since 1895. More than half the stations recorded average nighttime low temperatures among their five hottest on record. ” (Emphasis added)
This seems to be a wide-spread effect not limited to urban areas. In Arkansas, for example, 11 counties with a total population of 323,000 set records. It would be tough to characterize counties with an average population of 30,000 as “urban”. Sure, some of the records were set in counties with large populations, but many records were set in largely rural counties as well.
(It would be interesting to know how long thru the night the “heat island” effect lasts. After 8 hours of cool air and no sun, the concrete would certainly be getting closer and closer to the ambient temperature. In other words, New York City is certainly much warmer at 6 PM than the surrounding natural areas. Is it still significantly warmer at 6 AM?)
REPLY: see the Christy report on irrigation and nighttime lows here at WUWT, use the search box. – Anthony
REPLY: see the Christy report on irrigation and nighttime lows here at WUWT, use the search box. – Anthony
Thanks for the link. This report certainly seem to make sense. The large scale “terraforming” of the Central Valley for farming would certainly seem capable of changing the local climate. And the mechanism put forth (humidity, soil moisture, and darker soil) fits the data.
But I don’t see how that really addresses this report. Many rural counties in the eastern US set records. These counties have neither urban heat islands, nor irrigation/soil change. The first two hypotheses put forth do not seem to work for these areas. Looks like a different hypothesis is needed….
Ken Hall writes:
“Have you flown over the USA and looked down whilst doing so? Most of it is empty. It is a shame that most of the thermometers are located in the small hot areas where humans live.”
Spot on, Ken! Driving reveals the same truth. Try driving from Atlanta to St. Louis. You will encounter Chattanooga, which fills one big gully, and Nashville, which covers one big hill. If your vehicle were to break down, you could walk for hours without encountering an exit and many exits have no services. The USA has huge spaces that are underutilized or not utilized at all, and I am not counting the huge number of huge state and national parks.
The claim that this year has been especially warm cannot be based on actual temperature measurements. It must be based on some set of contrivances, some averages between day and night. Temperatures in my area have been lower than normal, a couple of degrees, and temperatures in the St. Louis region, my old stomping grounds, have been seriously cooler than normal. In fact, the weather in the midwest broke two weeks ago. They have been enjoying Fall temperatures since late August, and that is unusual as St. Louis usually pushes the 90’s right into mid-September.