100 years ago today, "climate disruption" traveled back in time to kill 652 people

The New York Times - July 8th 1911 - click for article

There’s always a lot of squawking about “climate disruption” from politically funded disinformers like Joe Romm, Bill McKibben,  and their ilk anytime there is a heat wave anywhere these days. But, it doesn’t hold up. One only has to look at all the faux noise made last year over the Russian heat wave, which NOAA later analysed and said was not connected in any way to “climate change”.

The heat wave of 2003 in Europe has often been cited as proof that AGW is making heat waves worse. But, at a time when we had far less people, and far less CO2 in the atmosphere, a very deadly heat wave occurred.

History: 100 years ago today, In the US 652 deaths in a week reported during heatwave 9th July 1911 despite a lower composition of CO2 in the atmosphere. The only possible explanation? “Climate Disruption” has the power of time travel /sarc

Source: The book “Chronicle of the 20th century” p154.

This Day in History has this to say about it. The heat wave began in early July and lasted almost two weeks – the classic signature of a blocking high.

On this day in 1911 record temperatures are set in the northeastern United States as a deadly heat wave hits the area that would go on to kill 380 people. In Nashua, New Hampshire, the mercury peaked at 106 degrees Fahrenheit. Other high-temperature records were set all over New England during an 11-day period.

The area from Pennsylvania northeast to Maine was most affected by the stifling heat. New York City was particularly hard hit. In fact, the New York City Health Department put out one of its very first heat advisories during July 1911. Mayor William Gaynor tried to make sure that the city’s ice dealers could keep up their deliveries; in the time before refrigeration, ice was critical in keeping the food supply from spoiling.

By July 13, New York had reported 211 people dead from the excessive heat. One man, apparently disoriented from heat exhaustion, overdosed on strychnine. In Philadelphia, 159 people died from the heat. The types of deaths ascribed to the heat could vary quite a bit in 1911, with some authorities including those who drowned while attempting to cool off by swimming in the count.

================================================================

The event is well documented by the Library of Congress. h/t Wikipedia

1911 Eastern North America heat wave from the Library of Congress at Flickr Commons

Apparently, it wasn’t limited to the USA, “Climate Disruption” jumped the pond:

1911 United Kingdom heat wave

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The United Kingdom heatwave of 1911 was a particularly severe heat wave and associated drought. Records were set around the country for temperature in England, including the highest July temperature of 36C (97F) in Epsom, Surrey,[1] only broken 79 years later in the 1990 heatwave.[2]

h/t to WUWT reader “The Tempest Spark”

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ferd berple
July 10, 2011 12:15 am

“Records were set around the country for temperature in England, including the highest July temperature of 36C (97F) in Epsom, Surrey,[1] only broken 79 years later in the 1990 heatwave.[2]”
How is that possible? The IPCC tells us that the warming is unprecedented. How can something that has occurred before be unprecedented outside of Voodoo Science?
un·prec·e·dent·ed 
–adjective
without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled: an unprecedented event.

Jack
July 10, 2011 12:24 am

Julia Gillard announced that Australia will have a carbon pollution tax today, as if she knows what that actually means.
So the relations of those lost 652 can expect to see them rise from the grave. A carbon tax from Canberra Australia is going to save the world among other miracles.
She believes that in 2 or 3 years Australian businesses will be able to buy emissions permits from overseas to cover their activities here. Regardless of the price overseas or even if they still exist, Australian industry will have to pay a minimum of $15AUD per tonne. The actual price in Australia by then will be over $40 per tonne. So there is a big margin there. BHP and Rio Tinto etc will be better off to stop mining and trade permits. The mine employees can go back to fishing on the beach to feed their families except the greens are trying to ban that.
Australia is a big country in distances, yet she is going to stop semi trailers from operating by the price increases on diesel.
Besides all this juvenile economics, she is going to pay compensation of $4billion AUD more than she collects for the first 3 years. The tax is slated to increase by 4% per year regardless of emissions or
world economic conditions. The carbon price has to rise by 2.5% per year.
As one economist put it, we will have to pay tribute to someone overseas just to put a light on.

July 10, 2011 12:38 am

Here’s an article from the New York Times of 4th July 1911, with a grim litany of people dropping fom heat exhaustion.
http://tinyurl.com/5s96sy4
The summer of 1911 appears to have been exceptionally hot in the US Northeast and in the UK, also later in continental Europe, as per this newspaper article about excessive heat in Germany, 9th August :
http://tinyurl.com/5vgcyp
“Upward of 100 deaths of sunstroke have occurred in different parts of Germany as a result of the terrific heatwave that has prevailed during the past ten days. In many cases people who went bathing to otain relief from the intense heat died of heart failure.”
The New York Times again:
http://tinyurl.com/68um753
“For decades Berlin had not been blighted by heat of such intensity. On several occasions the thermometer registered as high as 102 degrees in the shade, which is utterly abnormal for Northern Germany.
The suffering has been intense, and there have been numerous prostrations and many fatalities reported from all sections of the country. Forest fires and other conflagrations directly due to the heat have done enormous damage. Many deaths of men and animals have been caused by lightning and cloudbursts, the accounts of which have filled the papers and have read exactly like the reports which reached Europe from the United States at the outset of the American heat wave, a month ago.”
So, no shortage of climate emergencies and “global weirding” – in 1911!

Mike Bromley the Kurd
July 10, 2011 12:38 am

The definition of “unprecedented” has been changed by the Druids, don’tcha know. Why quibble over historical facts? /sarc

RoHa
July 10, 2011 1:07 am

We were doomed in the past as well?

Mac the Knife
July 10, 2011 1:16 am

This heat wave was just weather. The atmospheric CO2 content had not increased by ‘40%’ yet, so it couldn’t be AGW. /sarc

Mark.R
July 10, 2011 1:42 am

Julia Gillard is going to stop the heat.
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia Sunday announced plans to tax carbon pollution at Aus$23 (US$24.74) per tonne to help battle climate change, as it moves towards an emissions trading scheme similar to that of Europe.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said there would be a fixed price on carbon pollution, blamed for global warming, from next year before a full emissions trading scheme was introduced in 2015.
But Gillard said there had been an “avalanche” of science on global warming, and the tax would reduce Australia’s carbon emissions by about 160 million tonnes by 2020 — the equivalent of taking 45 million cars off the road.
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/9815839/australia-sets-carbon-cost-to-fight-climate-change/

Some European
July 10, 2011 1:58 am

This is excellent proof that the whole CAGW scam is … well, a scam! 100 years ago many people died of a heat wave, therefore heat waves at present are just as frequent, hot and deadly as they always have been. My suggestion is: write a paper and send it to the reputable journals for publication. I’m sure they’ll be impressed by the simplicity of the deductive reasoning!

July 10, 2011 2:14 am

OT. 155 years ago (July 10, 1856) was born Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest minds of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries; more here: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Nikola%20Tesla.htm

July 10, 2011 2:14 am

Of course, even though the world is getting warmer, there is one world temperature record that hasn’t been tied or exceeded:
‘…Marble Bar (Australia) has an arid climate with very hot summers and mild to warm winters. The town set a world record of most consecutive days of maximum temperatures of 37.8 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) or more, during a period of 160 such days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924…’
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/events/r3204-9.gif
And this, also:
“…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…”
Any idea what the CO2 level was in the 1920’s?
And the US set it’s own “longest stretch”, too:
“…The 1936 North American heat wave during the Dust Bowl, followed the one of the coldest winters on record—the 1936 North American cold wave. Massive heat waves across North America were persistent in the 1930s, many mid-Atlantic/Ohio valley states recorded their highest temperatures during July 1934. The longest continuous string of 100 °F (38 °C) or higher temperatures was reached for 101 days in Yuma, Arizona during 1937 and the highest temperatures ever reached in Canada were recorded in two locations in Saskatchewan in July 1937…”
AFAIK, these US, Canadian and world records still stand.
I mean, even in FLORIDA, the high temp record is 109 °F (43 °C) at Monticello…
…set in 1931.

John Marshall
July 10, 2011 2:23 am

If it happened before it will happen again. Weather is no different.

Leon Brozyna
July 10, 2011 2:47 am

So, not only is climae disruption capable of being the cause of everything, it can also defy the constraints of space and time … all those major climate events of the past were actually manifestations of climate disruption. What a powerful theory Mr. Gore has invented.
This isn’t sarc … it’s more like contempt.

Andrew Harding
Editor
July 10, 2011 3:08 am

Of course AGW has power of time travel. It also makes snowfall in the UK a thing of the past, until we get 2 feet of the stuff when, surprise, surprise that is caused by AGW too. The recent bout of tonadoes in USA were caused by AGW as is the demise of the polar bear. If we get a hot summer that is global warming at work as is a cool wet summer. In fact if anything bad at all happens it is all down to global warming. I will stick my neck out and say that of course this website is caused by AGW!

rbateman
July 10, 2011 4:00 am

It was also quite dry out in NW Calif. at the time. 2nd year in a 4 year 20% below normal precip. run (1910 to 1913).

MangoChutney
July 10, 2011 4:58 am
Dan
July 10, 2011 5:24 am

Some things you seem to have overlooked
1) The style of cloths worn then did not lend themselves to higher temps especially in women.
2) Lack of infomation on what to do, today we take for granted info on drinking lot of water during such periods
3) Mention is made of a few ‘new’ electric fans this was state of the art aircon in 1911
4) Horse’s in this period are hardly a guide as they were worked very hard and were still more common than cars for transport and haulage in 1911.
5) The temps mentioned for this heatwave, high to mid 80s with relief when temps dropped to the 70s overnight, would hardly rate today most of this weeks forecasts for New York top those temps
http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/101
Keep clutching at those straws

July 10, 2011 5:35 am

“The only possible explanation? “Climate Disruption” has the power of time travel…” – Watts
May we assume you looked at all the other natural possibilities and determined it wasn’t any of them so it must be time travel?
If so, you might have a chance to have your evaluation accepted in the next IPCC report. It would be a certainty if you could demonstrate that the models agree with you.
(Is the above “sarc” or not?)
REPLY: Note the /sarc tag which you eliminated in your reproduction – Anthony

Frank K.
July 10, 2011 5:35 am

Jack says:
July 10, 2011 at 12:24 am
“Julia Gillard announced that Australia will have a carbon pollution tax today…”
I believe that Jack has correctly identified why we are seeing the CAGW alarmists in full melt-down mode over natural weather events. Climate change/disruption/warming/whatever is a political and ideological struggle first and foremost. The main participants in the alarmist camp could are less about the “science” as long as they are able to advance their agendas and exercise control through burdensome carbon taxes and government regulations (e.g. EPA’s Carbon Pollution regulations).
And this is just the beginning. Do you think they’ll stop at carbon taxes and banning incandescent lights? Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come, I’m afraid…

Matthew W.
July 10, 2011 5:42 am

““Climate Disruption” has the power of time travel ”
I like that !!!!

July 10, 2011 5:59 am

CETs 100 years ago
YEAR MAY JUN JULY YEAR MAY JUN JULY
1905 10.8 14.7 17.2 2005 11.4 15.5 16.9
1906 10.5 14.3 15.8 2006 12.3 15.9 19.7
1907 10.5 12.4 14.1 2007 11.9 15.1 15.2
1908 12.4 14.3 15.8 2008 13.4 13.9 16.2
1909 11 11.8 14.6 2009 12.1 14.8 16.1
1910 11.2 14.7 14.2 2010 10.7 15.2 17.1
1911 12.9 14.5 18.2 2011 12.2 13.8
1912 12.1 13.9 16.1

Steve Keohane
July 10, 2011 6:06 am

“Climate Disruption” has the power of time travel /sarc
Of course, teleconnection works in at least four dimensions. /sarc

July 10, 2011 6:07 am

I suppose the solar wind reaching over 2 million mph in July and August 2003 had nothing to do with that heatwave then.. http://www.solen.info/solar/coronal_holes.html /sarc

Tim Folkerts
July 10, 2011 6:37 am

Fred Burple says (and others echo) the thought “How can something that has occurred before be unprecedented outside of Voodoo Science?”

The 1990 heat wave in the United Kingdom was a particularly severe heat event with temperatures hitting record highs of 37.1°C on 3 August. The temperature was recorded at Nailstone, Leicestershire, and was a full degree Celsius above the previous record, set in 1911. However, this record was subsequently broken in the 2003 heatwave.[1]
From Wikipedia

SO …
The high of 36 C was unprecedented in 1911, since it had never occurred before *
The high of 37.1 was unprecidented in 1990, since it had never occurred before *
The high of 38.5 was unprecidented in 2003, since it had never occurred before *
Is that really difficult to understand???
* “never” = “since records were first kept in England”

Coach Springer
July 10, 2011 6:39 am

It will be impossible to combat this menace since it has the power to trave through time and space.
Question: If this conjecture is accompanied by “/sarc,” why shouldn’t the IPCC reports have some sort of disclaimer for their similarly substantiated (form an hysterical hypothesis and look for anecdotal examples) conjectures? Answer: Because by tomorrow, at least one true believer will say that 1911 is an example of AGW wrought by the industrial revolution. In fact, I bet we get a troll to say it here today.

Bruce Cobb
July 10, 2011 6:57 am

@ Tim Folkerts, so, then, according to you, any time a record high temperature is broken, it is “unprecedented”. Interesting. Would that also include record lows?
The Alarmist hype and drool of late has certainly been unprecedented.

July 10, 2011 6:57 am

JohnWho says:
July 10, 2011 at 5:35 am

REPLY: Note the /sarc tag which you eliminated in your reproduction – Anthony

As I also left the “/sarc” tag off of my remark.
Just pointing out that if you were using the CAGW methodology, perhaps the “/sarc” tag would give way to the “/CAGW Meth” tag?
Apologies if it was misunderstood.

July 10, 2011 7:13 am

The summer heatwave in England in 1911 arrived just after a period described by the Royal Meteorological Society as having “the most sustained drought conditions captured in the instrumented record.” Here’s an article from the UK Groundwater Forum, which describes conditions up to that time:
http://www.groundwateruk.org/Groundwater-drought-in-the-UK.aspx
“In the 150 years before the First World War however, winters were generally drier and clusters of dry winters were appreciably more common. Correspondingly, groundwater levels remained seasonally depressed for very extended periods… posing a continuing threat to local water supplies. The most outstanding of these sustained droughts was the ‘Long Drought’ that lasted from 1890-1910. This was, however, punctuated by several notably wet interludes; 1903 is the wettest year on record at Kew (in a series from 1697) but the record summer rainfall, and associated flooding, was accompanied by acute water supply problems due to the failure of wells and springs. The ‘Long Drought’ has no modern parallel and any repetition of the extended sequence of dry winters would represent a considerable water resources challenge given modern water demand patterns.”
Following on the heels of this long and persistent drought, the hot dry summer of 1911 had some very serious consequences for those of us who like our beer, as an article in the Toronto World, 30th November 1911 explains (H/T http://www.globalhotair.org):
http://tinyurl.com/6fjs4ds
“The unprecedented drought in England and Northern Europe last summer had a disastrous effect on all farm produce, and was particularly severe with respect to hops and barley.”

Don
July 10, 2011 7:53 am

1911 was the begining of a deep sunspot minimum as well.

Tom T
July 10, 2011 8:00 am

Somewhat OT but I found this just sitting there on Google. Polar Bear makes hockey stick, creates global warming, destroys the world and melts the ice with the hockey stick. Sounds like Micheal Mann.

Holden Magroin
July 10, 2011 8:10 am

Tim Folkerts says:
July 10, 2011 at 6:37 am
Fred Burple says (and others echo) the thought “How can something that has occurred before be unprecedented outside of Voodoo Science?”
The 1990 heat wave in the United Kingdom was a particularly severe heat event with temperatures hitting record highs of 37.1°C on 3 August. The temperature was recorded at Nailstone, Leicestershire, and was a full degree Celsius above the previous record, set in 1911. However, this record was subsequently broken in the 2003 heatwave.[1]
From Wikipedia
SO …
The high of 36 C was unprecedented in 1911, since it had never occurred before *
The high of 37.1 was unprecidented in 1990, since it had never occurred before *
The high of 38.5 was unprecidented in 2003, since it had never occurred before *
Is that really difficult to understand???
* “never” = “since records were first kept in England”

The point is there have been the sort of heatwaves in the past that are now being blamed on ‘climate disruption’ solely caused by AGW. Is a heatwave that we measure today an ENTIRE degree hotter than a previous heatwave has been measured using the instruments available at that time really statistically significant?

Douglas DC
July 10, 2011 8:11 am

Tim Folkerts- got an inordinate question being an uppity Scots Irish/Native American,
I noted that the records set in the early 1900’s/10’s were BP-Before Pavement.
Being a fan of Anthony’s “Surface Stations” project- will allow a certain bias being
put into the record. Airport Pavement, Highways, Air Conditioners, Barbecues, and
other modern factors-including placement of Stevenson Screens on rooftops (Santa
Rosa Ca Weather service comes to mind (I have seen that one personally) is a
factor here. Why then are the world temps flat?
BTW I am a former NOAA certified weather observer, professional pilot, and scientifically trained.
Unlike Al Gore….

Jared
July 10, 2011 8:15 am

“Records were set around the country for temperature in England, including the highest July temperature of 36C (97F) in Epsom, Surrey,[1] only broken 79 years later in the 1990 heatwave.[2]”
It would be 98 degrees now. That should scare you. [/sarc]

matt v.
July 10, 2011 8:44 am

Since the 1990’s the AGW scientists and IPCC have been telling us that the recent warming from post 1970’s era was unprecedented, caused primarily by man and that the world is at great risk unless we drastically cut our co2 emissions . They are projecting temperature rises of 3-6 C by 2100[or 0.03 to 0.06 C rise per year], depending on which IPCC option you pick] or 4 deg C rise by 2060 [ or 0.08 C rise per year] as per the Met Office. However past history shows that naturally occurring warming periods like we just had and will have again in the future are a regular event on this planet and not at all unprecedented and they were not caused by man at all . There have been at least four previous warming periods of even greater warming magnitude in the last 316 years alone. Prior to that the most notable was the Medieval Warm Period . These are Central England temperature records which are not global data but it is one of the best indicative records that we have of what happened in Europe.
RECENT HISTORIC WARMING PERIODS NOT CAUSED BY MAN
All data per CENTRAL ENGLAND [CET] Monthly mean temperature data per Met Office http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
Previous
1695-1735 0.07 deg C per year [or 2.79 C rise in 40 years]
1812-1834 0.103 deg C per year [or 2.27 C rise in 22 years [
1838-1868 0.077 deg C per year [or 2.33 C risen 30 years]
1915-1945 0.048 deg C per year [or 1.44 C rise in 30 years]
Latest
1970-1998 0.028 deg C per year [or 0.77 C rise in 28 years]

July 10, 2011 9:00 am

It always drives me nuts when a news or weather commentator talks about an “unprecedented” flood or heatwave, and then a few sentences later says that the last time we saw something like this was in nineteen hundred and blah-dee-blah. Over and over again I hear that and think, are they really stupid, or are they hoping that the audience will remember the “unprecedented” while forgetting the much less dramatic qualification. Sometimes I actually yell at the TV, which is not only pointless, but extremely annoying to those around me. Still, if anyone complains I protest that my outburst is “unprecedented” and hasn’t happened since last week.

JimBrock
July 10, 2011 9:18 am

And in Texas we have had these heat waves on and off for most of my 80 years on the planet. I would like the warmists to use a little judgment…and put their money on the line by making predictions that actually pan out.

rbateman
July 10, 2011 10:27 am

The records of 1911 were set in a time when there was little, if any, urban heat island effect. Your streets were basically dirt. For all that, the departures from the rural/town normals was far worse than mere instrument readings of today would imply. For people and animals, the most important factor was acclimation. If you had a very cool season right up until the heat wave hit, the effects are much greater than if you had a normal season followed by the heat wave.
What happened in 1911 could happen again. It could get very deadly in the modern urban environment: just take away the electricity. It’s what the Warmists will accomplish given the chance.

Greg, Spokane WA
July 10, 2011 10:40 am

I think a great add to this page would be more links to articles describing other “climate disruptions” from way back when.

Colin in Mission BC
July 10, 2011 10:52 am

Does anybody else marvel at the double-standard? When warmists cite a localized weather event, for example last year’s Russian heat wave, it’s solid proof of global warming climate change climate disruption. When skeptics cite localized weather events, such as the last two northern hemisphere winters, we’re scoffed at and told, “It’s only weather.”
Funny, that.

July 10, 2011 10:59 am

M.A.Vukcevic says July 10, 2011 at 2:14 am
OT. 155 years ago (July 10, 1856) was born Nikola Tesla, one of the …

RF guy here says he takes a 2nd seat to Faraday – Maxwell – Hertz, particularly James Clerk Maxwell.
From “Where it all began: Faraday, Maxwell and Hertz
The electromagnetic wave and field concept (Excerpted and adopted from: http://www.uv.es/EBRIT/macro/macro_5002_7_23.html)
Faraday introduced the concept of field and of field lines of force that exist outside material bodies … the region around and outside a magnet or an electric charge contains a field that describes at any location the force experienced by another small magnet or charge placed there. … The concept of field, specifying as it does a certain possible action or force at any location in space, was the key to understanding electromagnetic phenomena. It should be mentioned parenthetically that the field concept also plays (in varied forms) a pivotal role in modern theories of particles and forces.
Besides introducing this important concept of electric and magnetic field lines of force, Faraday had the extraordinary insight that electrical and magnetic actions are not transmitted instantaneously but after a certain lag in time, which increases with distance from the source. Moreover, he realized the connection between magnetism and light after observing that a substance such as glass can rotate the plane of polarization of light in the presence of a magnetic field. This remarkable phenomenon is known as the Faraday Effect.
As noted above, Maxwell formulated a quantitative theory that linked the fundamental phenomena of electricity and magnetism and that predicted electromagnetic waves propagating with a speed, which, as well as one could determine at that time, was identical with the speed of light. He concluded his paper “On the Physical Lines of Force” (1861-62) by saying that electricity may be disseminated through space with properties identical with those of light.
In 1864 Maxwell wrote that the numerical factor linking the electrostatic and the magnetic units was very close to the speed of light and that these results “show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to [his] electromagnetic laws.”
In 1884 Hertz derived Maxwell’s theory by a new method and put its fundamental equations into their present-day form. In so doing, he clarified the equations, making the symmetry of electric and magnetic fields apparent. The German physicist Arnold Sommerfeld spoke for most of his learned colleagues when, after reading Hertz’s paper, he remarked, “the shades fell from my eyes,” and admitted that he understood electromagnetic theory for the first time.
[In 1888] Hertz made a second major contribution: he succeeded in generating electromagnetic radiation of radio and microwave frequencies, measuring their speed by a standing-wave method and proving that these waves have the properties of reflection, diffraction, refraction, and interference common to light. He showed that such electromagnetic waves can be polarized, that the electric and magnetic fields oscillate in directions that are mutually perpendicular and transverse to the direction of motion, and that their velocity is the same as the speed of light, as predicted by Maxwell’s theory.
Hertz’s ingenious experiments not only settled the theoretical misconceptions in favor of Maxwell’s electromagnetic field theory but also opened the way for building transmitters, antennas, coaxial cables, and detectors for radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation. In 1896 Marconi received the first patent for wireless telegraphy, and in 1901 he achieved transatlantic radio communication.
.

F. Ross
July 10, 2011 1:16 pm

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=564672


Here’s a description of the event:
“THE SUN COMES UP bright that day. It is a Friday-June 17, 1859. There
is a little breeze from the northeast, a clear sky, and the promise of
a warm day. The morning temperatures are normal, 75-to-80 degrees,
with an offshore breeze that prevents the ocean from having a cooling
effect.
By noon, people begin to notice something unusual is happening. The
temperature has quickly risen to almost 100 degrees and the mountain
breeze is becoming stronger and stronger. About 1 pm a heavy blast of
hot air sweeps through the Goleta Valley from the direction of Santa
Ynez Peak, driving even the hardiest into the shelter of their homes
and filling them with terror; they think the end of the world has
come.
The superheated air continues to pour down on the coast for the next
hour. By 2 pm the temperature is an incredible 133 degrees! Many of
the people take refuge behind the thick walls of Daniel Hill’s adobe,
who is owner of Rancho La Goleta, where they pray fervently for the
oppressive heat to be lifted.
For the next three hours the temperature hovers at 130 degrees; by 5
pm it has cooled off only slightly, to 122 degrees. The inhabitants
wonder if this will ever come to an end. Then suddenly, as fast as it
has come, the hot breeze dies and a cool marine breeze washes over the
land. By 7 pm the temperature is a comfortable 77 degrees and the
half-baked citizens emerge from their houses to see what damage has
occurred.
‘Birds had plummeted dead from the sky; others had flown into wells
seeking cooler air and drowned,’ says Walker Tompkins, describing the
event in his book, Goleta the Good Land. ‘A fisherman in a rowboat
made it in to the Goleta sandspit with his face and arms blistered as
if he had been exposed to a blast furnace.’
‘Calves, rabbits and cattle died on their feet,’ adds a government report.”

Above is an interesting post [emphasis added.] about “global warming” [/sarc off] in 1859.
The closest thing to an SUV in that era would likely have been a two horse shay or some such.
Years ago, as an employee of the Santa Barbara News Press, I had access to the paper’s morgue and seem to remember reading an old paper of a similar high temperature event in the late 1890’s (?) in Summerland, CA. but so far I have not been able to find any proof of that.
Anyone else ever heard of such regarding that area?

Tim Folkerts
July 10, 2011 2:06 pm

Bruce Cobb says: July 10, 2011 at 6:57 am
@ Tim Folkerts, so, then, according to you, any time a record high temperature is broken, it is “unprecedented”. Interesting. Would that also include record lows?
The Alarmist hype and drool of late has certainly been unprecedented.

Well, by the definition Fred gave, yes, any record high or record low would be “unprecedented”.
Holden Magroin follows up: July 10, 2011 at 8:10 am
Is a heatwave that we measure today an ENTIRE degree hotter than a previous heatwave has been measured using the instruments available at that time really statistically significant?
I never claimed anything about statistical significance, which is a much more involved question. There are indeed many other issues to contend with — like changes in instrumentation and environment.

Valdoie p Phillips
July 10, 2011 2:10 pm

The July 1936 Heat wave has never been Equaled!

July 10, 2011 2:56 pm

“100 years ago today, “climate disruption” traveled back in time …”
HATE it when that happens.

Tim Folkerts
July 10, 2011 3:20 pm

RECENT HISTORIC WARMING PERIODS NOT CAUSED BY MAN
All data per CENTRAL ENGLAND [CET] Monthly mean temperature data per Met Office http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
Previous
1695-1735 0.07 deg C per year [or 2.79 C rise in 40 years]
1812-1834 0.103 deg C per year [or 2.27 C rise in 22 years [
1838-1868 0.077 deg C per year [or 2.33 C risen 30 years]
1915-1945 0.048 deg C per year [or 1.44 C rise in 30 years]

Now there’s a claim that doesn’t pass the “sniff test”. The first and biggest clue is that the periods of time vary, suggesting “cherry picking”. It becomes clear looking at the data that the slopes quoted are based on endpoints, not on a regression fit. In this case, the claimed slopes are based on just 2 years (beginning and end), not on the entire period, making cherry picking even easier.
So let’s see what the data say.
1695-1735 0.07 deg C per year [or 2.79 C rise in 40 years]
The actual 40 year regression slope was 0.036 C/yr, or very nearly 1/2 of the claimed rate.
The value of 0.07 C/yr could only be correct if the 40 years were 1693-1735. But that assumes a calculation based on the end points (which happen to be rather extreme). Using the actual regression slope gives 0.040 C/yr, still close to 1/2 the claimed value.
(Interestingly, this is indeed the largest 40 year regression slope in the data set. THAT would be a claim worth making, since it exceeds even the recent periods when AGW is claimed to have the largest effect.)
1812-1834 0.103 deg C per year [or 2.27 C rise in 22 years]
Now we have to cherry pick the hottest year in a few decades for the end and the coldest year in decades for the two points to get the claimed results of 0.103 C/yr . Humorously, if we start just one year earlier, this method gives a DROP of -0.01 C/yr.
Using the more robust method of regression slopes, 1812-1834 has a rise of 0.064 C/yr — large but similar to values seen ~ 2005.
The 40 year regression slope drops to an unremarkable 0.014 C/yr — 1/7th the claimed rate. This value is below the 40 year regression slope for all years in the most recent decade.
The rest is probably not worth checking — it is almost certainly cherry-picked results invented to pursue an agenda, not to understand the data.

Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001)
July 10, 2011 3:44 pm

ferd berple says: July 10, 2011 at 12:15 am

[…]
How is that possible? The IPCC tells us that the warming is unprecedented.

I’ve been wondering about this, myself. And the thought occurs to me that perhaps the IPCC have … uh … redefined “unprecedented” – just as their recent output of verbiage (e.g. that which they call “policy” on Conflict of Interest and “protocol” for addressing potential errors) suggests that they might also have redefined “transparency”.

matt v.
July 10, 2011 5:41 pm

TIM FOLKERTS
You are right . I cherry picked past periods that were approximately the same length and which showed significant warming during the period . IPPC did the same thing by only focusing on the period 1970-2007 and ignored all the past warming . The point of my post is that periods of extra warming existed in the past and they were not caused by man and our recent warming is not that alarming in comparison. I will let the readers judge the graph themselves. [ see below] Your math does not void the fact that major climate waming happened during these past periods .
http://www.climate4you.com/CentralEnglandTemperatureSince1659.htm

Jimbo
July 10, 2011 6:19 pm

It’s worse than thought! Co2 is a heatwave , Satanic gas of the past present.
Over 700 Dead in U.S. Heat Wave – 13 July, 1936
Total Deaths Due To East’s Heat Wave Now Near The 800 Mark – 1 July 1931

Steven Kopits
July 11, 2011 8:27 am

“Fewer” people, not “less” people. “Fewer” is used for things you can count: cars, people, stars. “Less” is used for things you can’t could: water, sand, air, guilt.
So, you might use “less people” if you said: “They use less people in soylent green burger patties than they did before the war!”

Steve
July 11, 2011 10:52 am

I believe the total is 380 deaths. It looks like the New York and Philly numbers are subsets of that total.

July 13, 2011 7:38 am

Monique says:
July 10, 2011 at 2:56 pm
“100 years ago today, “climate disruption” traveled back in time …”
HATE it when that happensed.

There, fixed it for you.
😀