People send me stuff. Today it is this web page from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), another official sounding NGO modeled in the WWF funding style of wail n’ beg.
The first thought that went through my head when I saw this web page was the scene from the classic movie Mr. Roberts where the captain, portrayed by James Cagney, finds his palm tree missing and runs through the ship shouting “sound the general alarm!, sound the general alarm!, sound the general alarm!“.
Here’s the introduction:
Climate change increases the risk of record-breaking extreme weather events that threaten communities across the country. In 2011, there were at least 2,941 monthly weather records broken by extreme events that struck communities in the US. Check out the interactive map below to find out what events hit your area from January to October 2011.
And here’s the map:
Gosh, how terrible that there were so many records, right? Hardly any room left to plot any more. That probably explains then why NRDC simply ignored hundreds to thousands of records that didn’t fit the weather is now climate narrative.
The first clue that this really isn’t an accurate portrayal of US weather records comes from the (i) mouseover on the map key (visible on the web page but not in the still graphic).
They completely ignore low temperature records, but pay attention to record snowfall, as if somehow snow and cold are not connected. The lack of lows is confirmed in the methods page:
Methods for Developing NRDC’s “Extreme Weather Map 2011”
A. Criteria for Events’ Inclusion in the Map: Record-Breaking
“Record-breaking” was defined as exceeding the monthly maximum for each event type over the past 30 years. We included two different types of weather event information to build the “Extreme Weather Map 2011”: (1) specific record-breaking weather events linked to a meteorological station location (i.e., point events with latitude and longitude); and (2) record-breaking events that covered larger, multi-state areas and that were notable for their large geographic extent, unusual intensity, or that generated significant damage costs that have already been estimated at over $1 billion.
B. Link to Climate Change
Furthermore, we were interested in mapping some of the types of extreme weather events that have occurred in 2011 and whose occurrence is linked to the influence of climate change. With the November 18, 2011 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s SREX report — “SREX” being the acronym for The Summary for Policymakers of the Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation — some of the linkages between climate change and extreme events have been drawn even more sharply than ever before. For example, the SREX summary finds at least a 66 percent chance that extreme temperatures and coastal extreme high water (which contributes to flooding) have worsened as a result of human activities. And looking to the future, SREX projects that if carbon emissions continue unabated, it is likely that the frequency of hot days will increase by a factor of ten in most regions of the world; that heavy precipitation will occur more often; and that the wind speeds of storms will increase (see the IPCC SREX Press Release). It’s likely, too, that climate change will intensify drought in the future and that, coupled with extreme heat, wildfire risks will increase.
On the other hand, there are other types of extreme events for which the net influence of climate change is not yet understood fully. These include extreme events like tornadoes, which occurred in 2011 and inflicted significant damages and tragic effects in US communities. Because additional studies are needed to determine the potential influence of climate change in affecting tornadoes’ occurrence and severity, we chose to not include these types of events.
…
- Record Temperatures: Monthly Highest Maximum Temperature records and Monthly Highest Minimum Temperature records (i.e., daily records that were higher than recorded temperatures previously set for that month in the period of record for that temperature station) were compiled for 2011. Records, by state from January through November, were downloaded by month and compiled as of November 15, 2011 from NOAA-NCDC. The NOAA-NCDC dataset is based on the historical daily observations archived in NCDC’s Cooperative Summary of the Day dataset, and on preliminary reports from Cooperative Observers and First Order National Weather Service stations, and as such is subject to change. (Data was downloaded from these sites: http://ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records/monthly/maxt/2011/08/00?sts[]=US and http://ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records/monthly/himn/2011/07/00?sts[]=US.)Values that only tied with prior monthly temperature records were not counted as broken, for mapping purposes, and were removed from the dataset. The Period of Record (POR) represents the number of years with a minimum of 50 percent data completeness. All data was from stations with a POR of at least 30 years. Because the calendar year 2011 is not yet completed, and because there is a lag in full reporting of record-breaking temperatures to the online NOAA-NCDC dataset, the records that ended up in our map have dates ranging from January 1, 2011 to October 31, 2011.The Record Temperature icon means that the monthly highest maximum temperature, the monthly highest minimum temperature, or both exceeded the previous records set at meteorological stations located within the designated county.
No mention of lows or minimums, as if somehow “extreme” is only a one way number.
I’ll give them credit for not shouting that tornadoes are linked to climate change, but that probably has to do with the fact that this myth has been repeatedly shot down and they didn’t think they could sell it with wail n’ beg since people could easily find articles like this one. Too bad they missed this non-linakge to floods. Ditto for wildfires which has an inconclusive link and may have more to do with land management policy than anything else.
They miss all sorts of record low events.
For example, the January 21st 2011, record cold event, while notable by NWS/NOAA standards, merits nary a peep by the NRDC in their map.
Nor does this multi-state record cold event on Feb 10th, 2011 fit the sales effort narrative, even though it fits their criteria of “record-breaking events that covered larger, multi-state areas and that were notable for their large geographic extent“.
And of course, Alaska’s record breaking events like the November 17th -40F record cold don’t even make the NRDC map.
Going to the source of records, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) shows just how many daily and monthly records NRDC is ignoring.
9647 daily record lows and 370 monthly record lows isn’t chump change, unless of course you are the NRDC.
Clearly though, record highs, given the blocking high heatwave in Texas aren’t unexpected. That synoptic weather event has already been shown though to have no climate connection, much like the Russian heat wave of 2010. And of course, given the sad state of bias of the USHCN, GHCN, and COOP network operated by NCDC, with USHCN having over 90% of the weather stations compromised by heat sources, record highs are not unexpected.
What I found most interesting in the NCDC tables though, were the number of records that reflected a cooler than normal daytime high temperature with 29,336 of those compared to the 26,244 record highs. Of course, they don’t dare mention those nor the 1,859 monthly “Hi Min” temperatures compared to the 1,160 “Hi Max” records
So clearly, there’s an agenda, and record lows and cooler than normal daytime highs don’t fit the narrative. It wouldn’t be good business and dilutes the wail n’ beg effectiveness of asking for money to “Take Action“.
Oh and then there’s the $64,000 question – did extreme weather occur before 30 years ago when CO2 was lower? Sure did. Without comparing to earlier periods, this one year is meaningless. This would be a good time to remind everyone why severe weather seems to be getting worse, but is mostly an artifact of our modern age of information awareness.
h/t to WUWT reader Steve for the tip.
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“Record-breaking” was defined as exceeding the monthly maximum for each event type over the past 30 years”
Guess the planet is only 30 years old. Morons.
The US Climate Extremes Database allows everyone to examine climate change trends for themselves (interactively). Good.
Anthony is correct to warn of sources that cherry-pick climate data in service of political agendas. Needless to say, responsible citizens and scientists alike take care not to base their opinions upon cherry-picked data sets.
“Record-breaking” was defined as exceeding the monthly maximum for each event type over the past 30 years”
This must be the LOL statement of the year. Really? I *mean* REALLY? I am begining to think these people think we/us are clueless…
Or they’ve only been keeping records for 30 years. Dolts.
Their interactive map is crap. The only incident that had any info in Colorado when clicked on was:
Groundhog Day Blizzard
A large winter storm impacting many central, eastern and northeastern states. The city of Chicago was brought to a virtual standstill and hundreds were trapped in their cars. Property damage totaled greater than $1.8 billion and 36 deaths.
Apparently the only icons that have info are the ones that appear on a red background, so they are only ‘record’ events, not extreme events. We paid how much for this irrelevant compilation?
And how many of those stations went through an equipment switch? Reading about records is not a simple exercise. Ask Jones and his tribe of yes men and women. Better yet, ask the computer programmers. U will find them in your local hospital talking gibberish. Do we have a ptsd program for those unfortunate souls?
Yeah, that 30 year narrative is the real propaganda that needs to be discussed more often. It is easy to see the tactic of the alarmists in their ever shrinking window of comparative data.
We saw the alarmism of the 90s and the “hottest in 2000 years!” reduced to 1000 years when they thought that Mann had found the holy hockey stick. Then that was completely trashed and they dropped any meaningful comparison to history and retreated to simply focusing on the warming trend of the last 150 years because THAT was settled! Then questions about the veracity of the tail end of the data started popping up and again the focus moved… now to the last 30 years, and the degree of the “slope” (ignoring that they lost any valid “slope” comparison when they lost the 2000 year argument).
But they are losing the 30 year and slope argument even as these 30 year markers are still used in the advocacy literature.
Now the focus has come back to the forcings and arguing AGW on an almost strictly theoretical basis again while trying to make it seem that they aren’t back at square 1 with no new theories.
Joe! Excellent comment!
Anthoy bolded the 30 mins bit. That’s much better.
This record breaking stuff is bogus nonsense. When records are first started EVERY DAY was a record breaker for the first year. Then as the years go by the number of record breaking days drops off in a decay curve. But how long would it take for there to be no more record breaking days? If one looks at temps, we have been taking records for some 100 years. The temp increments are 0.1C. If the range of possible July 1 temps is between 20 and 40C for any given location, how many slots is that? 20*10, or 200 possible temps. In only 100 years. So at best we are at the halfway point. But the extreme ends of temps are very rare, above the upper second standard deviation. So how long would it take to fill them all for all days of the year? I did a quick program to calculate that. It’s more than 3000 years! Record breaking is not about changes in the climate, it’s about accounting.
Certainly, within a 30 year period of general warming, the cherry-pick results in lots of juicy sweet ones to select from…
That map is scary. I am writing a huge check to the NRDC so there won’t be any more bad weather records. Only good weather, until my money runs out.
I clicked the link on the first line of the post and found, for the first time, the article “How to talk to a climate sceptic”.
At first I had the best laugh in a long time.
After a while, though, I felt sad.
ChE says:
December 27, 2011 at 8:08 am
Guess the planet is only 30 years old. Morons.
Or they’ve only been keeping records for 30 years. Dolts.
=======================================================
lol, yeh, that’s prolly what happened. Way back then it didn’t occur to people to write stuff down. Oh sure, we painted on the walls in caves and whatnot, but …..
Trouble is that if The USA continues to allow this mediocrity to persist in its government institutions eventually the world will lose respect for USA science *not to say that most climate science everywhere is unadulterated @rap. You have got to change next government and fix this or your scientific endeavours will be delayed for decades!
As far as Texas is concerned, summer temperatures were similar to 1980 for most of the summer. Indeed there were more days above 92F in 1980.
What made this year’s average higher was that the heatwave lasted throughout August, whereas in 1980 it broke around 10th August.
The same pattern emerges in 1934 and 1936 as well.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/texas-summer-2011how-hot-was-it-really/
Something MUST BE DONE or we’re all going to perish due to the increasing temps, sea level, , etc. When will all you skeptics accept that the science has been settled and stop trying to undermine the efforts of real humanitarians who are funneling money, er, I mean, utilizing financial resources to battle the onslaught of extreme weather events.
Guess the planet is only 30 years old. Morons.
Or they’ve only been keeping records for 30 years. Dolts.
I’ve only been keeping records since 2am this morning, and my records show that the Earth will burst into flames by 3pm New Years day based on the 3 degree rise in the last 9 hours.
Some deniars say that it’s the sun causing the warming… but I know better!
Joe, not to state the obious but wouldn’t that be the rotation of Earth causing your warming trend this morning?
I think the NRDC deserves a big box of sea cucumbers for their efforts here.
When one plots the BEST temperature trend over the past 200+ years, the results show that the highs are decreasing and the lows are increasing. Rather than becoming more extreme, over the past 200 years temperatues have become less extreme.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/best-upper/trend/plot/best-lower/trend
Guess the planet is only 30 years old. Morons.
And these people complain about Roy Spencer being a creationist. At least he figures the earth is 6,000 years old.
I’ve hit the point that I’m honestly getting tired of this doomsday crap. Do all ya’ll think we are in the waning days of the hysteria? I hope so. I can’t take much more of it. But I fear we have decades of this nonsense to go, if not more.
“At least he figures the earth is 6,000 years old.”
Quote, please. Make it a cut ‘n’ paste, or retract.
“Record-breaking” was defined as exceeding the monthly maximum for each event type over the past 30 years.”
Speaking of lying with numbers.
Point 1: When the average person see’s the phrase “record breaking”, they immediately form a belief that an actual record is being broken. They don’t think that we are talking about merely being the warmest in the last few decades.
Point 2: We are at the end of a 30 year warm cycle in the PDO. Is it any surprise that the warmest temperatures in the last 30 years are happening now?
These guys went out of there way to be deceptive.
@jrwakefield on December 27, 2011 at 8:23
Excellent analysis! You are absolutely correct. It’s even worse when you not only hear about breaking a record but when you also hear that it was “the fifth warmest day” or “third wettest season”. By allowing those “statistics” you are pushing the hysteria to events between one and two standard deviations. If you feel like it try those frequency calculations as well.