Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
On June 29th, the temperature at Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Washington, DC, hit 104 °F and it was duly noted by all and sundry that this was the hottest June day EVAH. Typical was the Washington Post story:
D.C. shatters all-time June record high, sizzles to 104
Mark Richards, weather observer at Reagan National Airport, says the temperature at 2:48 p.m. hit 104, blowing by the old June record of 102 set on June 9 in both 1874 and 2011. We are now experiencing D.C.’s hottest June temperatures in 142 years.
Indeed, 104 °F was the highest temperature ever measured in June in the vicinity of Reagan National Airport. But was it the warmest day in Washington, DC, ever?
This is what Reagan National Airport looks like in the present.
Figure 1: Photograph from 2011. At left foreground is the Jefferson Monument. Behind it on the other side of the river, with the plane hovering over it is Reagan National Airport. Note the development, Crystal City, on the right hand side, also on the other side of the river.
But here is a photograph that shows us what this area look like a few decades ago.
Figure 2: This picture, taken in 1942, shows the Jefferson Monument under construction. There is no Crystal City on the right, nor is there any Reagan National Airport. In fact, as one can see, that area was still being filled in. In the 19th century, the area occupied by the Memorial and adjacent land was also water, since much of this is also filled-in land.
Clearly, comparing temperature readings taken in 2012 at Reagan National against those taken over past decades at the same location is not an apples-to-apples comparison. That is, the data are not homogeneous. And whether the claim that June 29th, 2012 was the warmest Washington June day in 142 years is correct (or not), that claim cannot be supported by merely looking at the temperature readings at the airport.
The two degree difference between the previous record reading and the June 29th one may well be due to both the urban heat island effect and the “airport heat island effect,” a much understudied phenomenon (despite the fact that anyone who has stepped on asphalt in the middle of summer knows that the only thing worse is walking on coals).
104°C? That’s hotter than the Sahara!
Surely it’s F, not C?
[REPLY: Fixed. Thanks. -REP]
Just remember while the AGW crowd will be bleating about the hottest year EVAH in the USA ask them about the record temperatures and drought in the UK as predicted by the Met office. They will be oddly silent.
In the UK we have been suffering torrential rain and storms and the period April to June has been one of the worst on record,
BBC report 29 June 2012
“Rainy weather breaks UK record for three months to June
April to June this year has been the wettest second quarter in the UK since records began in 1910.”
Yet the Met Office forecast for the periods seems out of line with reality.
Met Office 3-month Outlook
Period: May – July 2012 Issue date: 26.04.12
The forecast presented here is for May and the average of the May-June-July period for the United Kingdom as a whole. This forecast is based on information from observations, several numerical models and expert judgement. [My sarc “Expert Judgement?” ]
SUMMARY – PRECIPITATION:
For UK-average rainfall, the predicted probabilities slightly favour above-normal values during both May and May-June-July. However, confidence in this prediction is not high, and there is still a significant probability of below-normal rainfall. Whilst the wet weather of recent weeks will have had a positive effect on soil moisture, with all that that implies for agriculture, it is unlikely to have had a significant impact on groundwater supplies. With the forecast for May and May-June-July not favouring a continuation of the current very wet spell, groundwater resources in southern, eastern and central England are very unlikely to recover during this period.
The probability that UK-average rainfall for May-June-July will fall into the driest of our five categories is around 15%, whilst the probability that it will fall into the wettest of our five categories is around 30% (the 1971-2000 climatological probability for each of these categories is 20%).
Remember the March forecast:
Met Office 3-month Outlook
Period: April – June 2012 Issue date: 23.03.12
SUMMARY – PRECIPITATION:
The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April-May-June as a whole, and also slightly favours April being the driest of the 3 months.
…….The probability that UK precipitation for April-May-June will fall into the driest of our five categories is 20-25%
And they say they need more money for a new computer?
“The Met Office needs new powerful computers to deliver extreme weather warnings, more accurate long-term forecasts and improved climate modelling, according to Parliament’s science and technology committee.” – The Guardian, that well known unbiased [sarc] reporter of climate change.
104C? You sure about that?
[REPLY: Fixed. Thanks. -REP]
Didn’t you see the steam rising off the river? 🙂
Typo???
“Indeed, 104 °C…..”
The linked to story does not mention 104 °C but 104
[REPLY: Obviously. Got it fixed, thanks. -REP]
@Adrian, you have got it all wrong. Thwe very fact that the UK has had exceptionally wet weather, whilst Washington has had record high temperatures is simply proof positive that climatic extremes are on the increase, caused by increased CO2 (sarc).
Thanks Adrian Kerton. Now that June is over WUWT might want to re-visit the Met Office original forecast. This is one for the weather not climate fail files.
104 C is above boiling point of water. Methinks something is wrong!
[REPLY: Well, he did say “…it was duly noted by all and sundry that this was the hottest June day EVAH…”It’s fixed! It’s fixed! -REP]
Looks to me like the temperature was more likely 102F. Looking at some locations surrounding Washington DC that haven’t really changed much over the past 50 years, all of those locations report 102F for that day. These are locations to the east, west, and north of DC.
Great Falls, VA, Frederick, MD, and Chestertown MD all report 102F.
Also, Upper Marlboro, MD which is basically straight East out of DC on Pennsylvania Ave was also 102F that day. So judging from the various locations around Washington all being 102F that day, I will go out on a limb and say DC was probably seeing 2 degrees of UHI.
I’m sittin on my Big Tractor today playing with my new IT Gadget and the mobile internet:
“urban heat island effect and the “airport heat island effect,” ” Yes … now THAT is a kind of Manmade Global warming I can / could / do agree with: MAN _ MADE Politics interfering in our Agriculture = Carrot n Stick Politics – no longer mixed Agriculture – large scale ‘monoculture’ large areas of a particular crop at certain / the same time of year, = large areas with the same absorptive / reflective indices etc….fieldwater run-off, water absorption / CO2 release at night, etc etc ( leave that all for the good Botanists to elaborate upon..) ……. suffice to say , I have been in the fields long enough to tell the difference between patchwork smallish fields and large scale ( tho’ not Praire scale) to see the difference…….. Mid-morning Convective currents from low-wind weather causing us the grief whilst crop-spraying etc., Then the Lunchtime High winds and the similar early evening High winds following the daily Heating cycles from the hills around us too – Like the Tides…………. BUT! 🙂 we live where we work and see all this all the time – wot can we do about Nature – ’tis the Townee Scientists who tell us its AGW etc and Tax us something stupid to counter the effects….. Same old story… Spend more money to solve the problem ….Eh? Throughing money at anything never solved the problem. The little Dutch Boy just stuck his finger IN it ( probably never even occurred to him that he should have stuffed £ notes in the hole……. an’ how long would the paper have lasted ? DON’t even THINK about saying it would have “bought” = given him time to go and get help to stem the flow…. Dat’s wot I got a new4n 4 …….. – F the cld decy4 txt *%^&” datz Y the water condenses out of warm air: more trees around here and OSR too adding to Pollen levels – too late for the OSR Pollen now but Hey! its maybe the Barley Pollen – an awful lot of Cereals have come on very quickly despite the awful spring we’ve had – may be an early harvest after all..
Mus Shift – am parked in the way!
The comment about the UK forecast, April, May, June, by the UKMet. Office has been reported by Christopher Booker in today’s Sunday Telegraph. The forecast was 180 degrees wrong. Yet the computer models used for this disastrous result were the same as those used to forecast the climate/weather 100years hence and used by the IPCC. So what faith do we have in their cataclysmic scenarios of future climate change.
Every time I drive past London Heathrow Airport, on the various local roads which get within a couple of hundred yards of the runways, my car’s external temperature reading goes up noticeably. Typically +2 deg C, sometimes as much as +4 deg C.
The preponderance of airport sited temperature records is the main reason for any statistical increase in “global” temperatures. Oh, and fiddling the present upwards, and the past downwards, and reducing the numbers of high latitude locations, etc etc…
Or the coldest day in Melbourne in 17 yeas. But then, Australia now has a carbon tax, so there is a reason for the sudden cooling
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/melbourne-cracking-a-coldie/21999
Words such as “record” and “hottest” mean so little. The highest heat I have experienced in my part of Oz was in late summer 2004 (this was on the heels of the Big Heat in Europe in ’03). The worst heat, however, was when inland north westerlies combined with summer heat in the early 1980s and around the year 2000. This lethal pattern was first reported by very reliable naval officers in Sydney – in the summer of 1791-1792! Their description and temp readings would indicate that the Big Heat of that summer was worse than anything I have experienced. There were mass wildlife deaths, with parrots and bats dropping dead from the air. It is factors such as wind direction and how long the heat is sustained that matter, as much as a temp reading. Mind you, those 1791-2 temps were very high. (To further amaze, the most recent and best known editor of the journals which relate these weather events is…Tim Flannery! No joke!)
For what it’s worth, the coolest summer I ever experienced in my 63 years was the one just past. Which proves absolutely nothing.
What? Hot? 104 Kelvin? You call that HOT?????
– MJM
“104°C? That’s hotter than the Sahara!”
It was just a prophetic slip of the tongue. That’s not the temperature at the location of where the politicians are right now – it’s the one at the location were most of them are are going to be later.
( Not fixed from what I’m seeing BTW. “Indeed, 104 °C was the highest temperature…”)
[REPLY: Drats! There were two of them! Fixed NOW. -REP]
Add to that what you don’t see. Across the river is now Bolling Airforce Base and Blue Plains Sewage Treatment Plant, Naval Research Lab, and Southeast DC. Just beyond Crystal City is Alexandria and the Capitol Beltway. The road in the foreground is 395 (site of the infamous Florida Air 90 crash) which is a major commuter artery as is the GW parkway which runs next to the airport. In essence, the airport is in the middle of a city as opposed to the edge. In addition it sits on (in) the Potomac River which has to bias the temps just by the effect of the water. Snowfall is often measured as smaller than that reported in other nearby sites for example.
Speaking of airports now even the FAA is foisting emission reduction bunk on us. This is the silliest thing I’ve ever seen from the FAA; enough even to make me afraid to fly… Ya’ll be careful up there! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfhh9xRauHk
Why not require airliners to keep their landing gear and flaps up until the last possible moment? That will save a LOT more emissions on approach than this idea.
http://www.faa.gov/NextGen/
“[REPLY: Well, he did say “…it was duly noted by all and sundry that this was the hottest June day EVAH…”It’s fixed! It’s fixed! -REP]”
No, the third paragraph has not yet been fixed.
[REPLY: It is now. Thanks. -REP]
.Never mind being barefoot on asphalt. Simply walk across a parking lot, then walk across a park. Then come back and tell me there’s only a .1 Degree UHI. Do it when it’s dark, tell me it’s not affecting nighttime temps. For that matter, even where there’s no concrete or asphalt, temps can vary with the presence of, or lack of, grass. Much of DC, and many urban areas, are let’s say…lacking in grass on their soil. There’s quite a difference in air temps depending on presence of grass, or hard packed dirt.
Interesting picture of DC. Also remember that historically, that area was a tidal swamp. Most of which has been filled in, creating more land use changes.
Hey, it still says “Indeed, 104 degrees C”.
Check all your data, not just some of it.
[REPLY: Yeah. Thanks. Fixed. -REP]
WHat a wasted analysis. When a record is broken it is obvious it is due to global warming that too man-made. Keep these fossil fueled analyses to yourself. /sarc
“a few decades ago”
2012 and 1942 means to Mr. Goklany a few decades ago. To me ‘a few’ means more than one, but certainly not more than five.
In the 70s and 80s it was cool in the forests and countryside during hot summerdays, but these days it’s just as warm and humid in forests as it is in towns and cities. At least in my country. There is no way to escape the heat anymore during hot summers. Why do you think the resulting thunderstorms have become so violent? It’s a strange thing that these violent thunderstorms do not form over cities, but over the “cooler” countryside.
Mr. Goklany: If the countryside was much cooler the thunderstorms would be milder in nature, but unfortunately they are not.
But OK let’s blame it on the UHI for that 2° temperature increase. In 70 years from now the increase may be 4-6° to 2012. Surely resulting in more violent thunderstorms. Are you then going to show us pictures about the situation in 2082 comparing it with 2012 too and blame it on the newly invented term ‘enhanced urban heat island effect’ (EUHI)?
And what about the situation in 2150 when temperatures are hotter if we go on with business as usual and superviolent thunderstorms have become the norm? Yet another new term: The ‘super enhanced urban heat island effect’ (SEUHI).
About the Met Office here in the UK and their longer range forecasts. Do you folk know nothing of statistics and probability. Daily Mail journalists all of you? The Met Office offers probabilities of weather outcomes for the season ahead, based on seasonal records going back over centuries here in the UK. Bit like betting in many ways. When the fave for a race is stuffed by a hundred to one outsider it doesn’t happen very often. Twice in the last fifty years at the Grand National. So they say there’s an eighty percent chance of dry but there’s still a twenty percent chance of wet. Get over yourselves. Think about science and maths. I know there’s a problem with the Met Office for some of you folk here because it’s state owned. Would the RAF, The Navy, The British Army, British Airways and many others use it’s service if it was such a bunch of crap?
Shocking, I say. Shocking. Back in the ’30s summer heatwaves (especially 1934), temps in downtown DC were well into the 100s, but they knew even then not to use those sites for records because they were obviously UHIE contaminated.
Er, fourth paragraph, it is still 104 C.
[REPLY: Missed that one. Fixed. -REP]
BTW, it was 97F here in rural western MD. About the avg annual high for a typical summer. Next day (yesterday) the high was a comfortable 88F. The state heat record is in nearby Cumberland in 1934 at an amazing 109F. The same day in ’34 saw records of 110F+ in PA & WV.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
When Drudge has six stories on storms and record heat, I would expect to see similar coverage on WUWT. If it’s offset by record cold, that’s also news. The issue here is not ideology or cause, but simple newsworthiness.
Even if it is the hottest in 142 years, is there something special about the last 142 years or even the last 1,420 years that makes it unusual over a geologically significant time scale?
Let’s see.. If we have 200 years of acccurate temps for DC and the earth is 4,500,000,000 years old then, with .000004 % of the temperature data in hand and the rest unknown, we can use the term hottest ever, how?
We must remember that congress is in session. So that accounts for at least an extra two degrees of hot air.
“Every time I drive past London Heathrow Airport, on the various local roads which get within a couple of hundred yards of the runways, my car’s external temperature reading goes up noticeably. Typically +2 deg C, sometimes as much as +4 deg C.”
Yes, Everyday I leave town on a calm sunny day the temp drops about 4 F, as I pass the airport, the temp is always higher, then further from the heat island it is cooler. As soon as I leave the freeway another 4 F drop. I have observed any where up to 10 F drop in temp from town to home. The first 4 deg F are just outside the urban sprawl.
My point is the drama the news folks create regarding temperature readings, Extremism sells print.
Use a coin toss as a model for climate and weather. If you throw a lot of tails in a row it is cold, and a lot of heads in a row is hot. Most of the time, temperatures will be about average.
However, if you toss the coin long enough eventually you will toss 3 heads in a row. And if you continue to toss, eventually you will toss 4 heads in a row. And if you toss long enough you will toss 5 heads in a row. And if you continue to toss, you will eventually break this record as well. Over time every record hot and cold spell will be broken by a new record.
Question: is the coin (climate/weather) changing, so that it created more “record temperatures” when you toss? If the coin (climate/weather) isn’t changing, then how come you set new records the longer you toss the coin?
… and people were boiling their potatoes in the streets as mandated by law to conserve electricity when temperatures surpass 100 C as noted in paragraph three…104 C… 🙂
(its a cruel world)
[REPLY: Sorry, missed that one. Fixed. Thanks. -REP]
What?
Robbie says:
July 1, 2012 at 5:07 am
“In 70 years from now the increase may be 4-6° to 2012. Surely resulting in more violent thunderstorms. Are you then going to show us pictures about the situation in 2082 comparing it with 2012 too and blame it on the newly invented term ‘enhanced urban heat island effect’ (EUHI)?”
I think you left out the /sarc.
Or at least it SOUNDS like you did. In 70 years from now, a lot of things ‘may’ happen. You might even be clarvoyant by then. But I don’t think so. UHI wins, no matter how many sarcastic prefixes you add to the original abbreviation.
What the AGW faithful do not understand is that setting record temps is an accounting issue, and nothing to do with the temperature getting hotter. Even assuming the 140 year record history, that is no were near enough time to fill in all possible slots of temps. On the first day that temperature records are started, every day is a record breaking day, then as the years pass, those number of record breaking days drops off in a decay curve. Thus if you look at the number of record breaking days and count them for each year, you will find the bulk of them are in the beginning of the 1900’s. And it would take more than 3000 years to finally get to the point of no more record breaking days. For example, if the possible range of temps on July 1 at any given location is between 20 and 40C, and we measure in 1/10’s of a degree, then that is 200 possible slots. Times 365 days and the number of possible record breaking days to fill in is enormous, thousands of years to fill them all in, without an increasing temperature.
Keith Pearson, formerly bikermailman, Anonymous no longer says:
July 1, 2012 at 4:11 am
Also remember that historically, that area was a tidal swamp. Most of which has been filled in, creating more land use changes.
They didn’t fill it in enough — the place still attracts the bottom feeders…
Back in the 80s or early 90s, don’t remember exactly which year, it was over 100 deg F in Columbia, SC for 26 straight days. We are talking 70% + RH so it was indeed miserable.
An important point to keep in mind: monthly averaged data generally undergoes the “adjustment” process that allegedly removes urban effects etc. (probably not all that effective, really) but daily data don’t receive this treatment. So looking at record braking dailies will inevitably mislead you, especially because of urbanization.
[Jim R says:
July 1, 2012 at 5:19 am]
[“Would the RAF, The Navy, The British Army, British Airways and many others use it’s service if it was such a bunch of crap?”]
Jim, there is a world of difference between the ‘weather’ forecasting talents of the hundreds of (generally) good forecasters who work for the Met Office around the UK issuing forecasts on a daily basis to the services you quoted, and the complete buffoons who try to issue ‘climate scare’ predictions based on complex computer models fed rubbish data by people who have a vested interest in continuing a totally unjustified belief that a minor trace gas can cause a significant change in the Earth’s climate!
I have been listening to the genuine forecasters for over thirty years. Some are good and some are not so good. It would not be a lie to say that the “RAF, [Royal] Navy and British Army” etc take note of the forecasts but do not assume they are 100% correct. Many years ago (80s?), there was an excellent cartoon by ‘Tugg’ (bless him) – a brilliant cartoonist who specialised in Royal Navy Flight Safety cartoons – who portrayed a Squadron briefing room on board a ship where the Met Officer was giving a met briefing dressed in shorts, sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt and, unseen behind him, the Commander Air was walking into the room covered in snow with a scowl on his face! It appears that Tugg was more than a little prescient about the state of ‘climate forecasting’ in the Met Office! 🙂
I am pretty sure that many, if not most, meteorologists working for the Met Office cringe with embarrassment when they read the climate predictions issued in their name…
Assuming there is no foul play with the data coming from Virginia, (????- Mann???)
looking carefully at all the data from the weather station at Reagan airport, I note it follows closely those of NY Kennedy airport.
For the results of New York, see
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
Note that there is a sharp warming trend evident there over the past 12 years.
I should hasten to tell you that this warming is local and probably only applies to some parts of the west coast of the USA and Norway. Global cooling is still happening and it is still very real.
It seems to me that due to the fall in global temperatures, parts of the world are just getting some benefit of more clouds and more condensing water vapor, trapping some heat. Perhaps some more warmer on-shore wind may also be caused by the colder sun. There could be other factors causing some local warming due to a cooling earth.
However, these countries must not think they are safe from the cold that is coming.
Average temps. in Washington DC Reagan airport have actually started falling slightly since 2005 (looking only at all the data for the period 2005-2011, compared to the average for the same period 2005-2011).
Earth’s energy store is still very big, but eventually we are going to play catch up with falling maximum temperatures.
Average temps. in Washington DC Reagan airport have actually started falling slightly since 2005 (looking only at all the data for the period 2005-2011, compared to the average for the same period 2005-2011).
Sorry, that should read:
Average temps. in Washington DC Reagan airport have actually started falling slightly since 2005 (looking only at all the data for the period 2006-2011, compared to the average for the same period 2006-2011).
@ Jimbo
Thanks Adrian Kerton. Now that June is over WUWT might want to re-visit the Met Office original forecast. This is one for the weather not climate fail files.
Stay tuned, Jimbo. The Met usually take a week to get their numbers together. I’ll be knocking up a post then.
If the EPA can lower the temperature of the globe then cooling down an airport shouldn’t be a problem. EPA documentation accompanying proposed greenhouse gas emission regulations states that it’s regulations will reduce the average global temperature by ’0.006 to 0.0015C by 2100.’ The mathematical precison of the government science authoritarians of global warming is astounding! We should insist on this kind of precision in economics–e.g., dead and dying Old Europe will go bellyup in 104 days, 4 hours, 23 minutes and 7 seconds.
“Sal Minella says:
July 1, 2012 at 6:19 am
Let’s see.. If we have 200 years of acccurate temps for DC and the earth is 4,500,000,000 years old then, with .000004 % of the temperature data in hand and the rest unknown, we can use the term hottest ever, how?”
Even if you only take the 6000 years during which civilization has flourished, you get a very insignificant 3.3%.
They will just have to crank up the power output from the coal-fired power plant that serves Congress.
Nevertheless, Pelosi has the private jet fleet to head out of town at the first sign of a power flicker or heat wave.
It is both amazing and disconcerting that a few thunderstorms can roll back as much of he veneer of civilization as it has. But, if there is any accuracy in the reports of the elderly dying in the heat, and other catastrophic consequences of the grid being down for a bit, one thinks we would be more careful in arbitrarily reducing our capacity based on “climate change”. For 72 hours some had to live as they did in the 20’s. Happens every hurricane here in Florida. Hey DC – would ya have been better off with a bunch of windmills amidst the monuments — or would a little extra cost to harden the grid be a better option. The Grid becoming unreliable will have the same effect whether the cause is downed trees or downed coal-fired plant. It’s obviously cruel to wish ill on anyone. I apologise, tho storms are pretty much a random event enywhere.. But this object lesson should be taken seriously as to the importance of reliable and plentiful power as a precondition to the rest of our lifestyles. ,
I wonder how many wind turbines were destroyed by this storm. If the govt wants us to rely more on wind power, storms such as this would tend to destroy a lot of our generating capacity.
Well, more than ‘just a few thunderstorms’; try hurricane force winds fostered out of a Derecho event!
Derecho – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derecho – excerpt:
ABOUT DERECHOS – http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/derechofacts.htm – poignant excerpt
Folks in/near Muskegon, MI experienced a Derecho a number of years back in the dead of night; they are nothing to ‘sneeze’ at …
.
My apologies for the foul up on degree C and degree F. And thanks to the moderator(s) for fixing it!
Robbie, July 1, 2012 at 5:07 am. You ought to write a book, The Future of Global Warming: When Fahrenheit turns to Centigrade!
I am now a Climate Migrant — am I an Energy Migrant? –having been forced to move by the derecho from Northern Virginia — no electricity, no safe water — to Asheville, NC. It’s not a whole lot cooler in Asheville, but we do have A/C functioning (so far) and safe water.
Correction: I am now a Climate Migrant — OR am I an Energy Migrant? –having been forced to move by the derecho from Northern Virginia — no electricity, no safe water — to Asheville, NC. It’s not a whole lot cooler in Asheville, but we do have A/C functioning (so far) and safe water.
Bill Tuttle: They didn’t fill it in enough — the place still attracts the bottom feeders
But they moved up the Hill. See, it’s consistent with climate change — ecosystems will migrate uphill (and to the north).
“We are now experiencing D.C.’s hottest June temperatures in 142 years.”
So was June, 1870, as hot or hotter? And at the “airport”? Or was June, 1870, cooler than 2012, but the hottest over the 1870-2011 period, making all the rest of the intervening Junes cooler than the 1870 June? Me, I never know what the hell this kind of statement means. Even if the “mainstream” Climate Scientists instead wanted to convey a Hockey Stick or at least a consistent increase from 1870 actually shown by the data, why didn’t they say so?/ Ok, asked and answered. Ye’all sinners just gotta believe!
Temperatures at Norton Dam reached 118F, breaking a record of 113F set just days earlier. I googled images of Norton Dam, it looks a pretty place and not that built up – UHI, I don’t think so.
At what height above ground is the measurement of temperature valid as related to climate? Doesn’t climate go up very high even into outer space? This is not a question just an aimless thought that where climate is concerned measurements a little higher up than the tail pipe of a jet might be useful.
National AP has only been the official weather statistic since the AP was built/filled in around WW II. Before the temps were taken else where around DC. The heat island effect has been greatly felt by the weather statistics. Often National will show only a trace of snow during the winter, when the suburbs of DC will have 10 to 14″ of white stuff.
The summer temperatures in the city at National can be as much as 10 degrees F more than the suburbs or rural areas. Even some of the local urban areas will show a heat island effect. For example. We visited with friends in Rockville (a suburb of DC to the north). As we went home on I270 (much further north), as we ran through a more rural area the temperatures dropped 5 degrees F, but as we approached the City of Frederick, the temperature went up 4 degrees, then dropped another 5 degrees F as we arrived home in farmland country (very rural). We had an outside temperature gauge in the car.
All along the Potomac River, the area has been filled in to make way for buildings and development. Even the water is a warmer temperature thanks to Blue Plains (a sewage treatment plant for most of DC area), and Alexandria has warm water dumped into the river by heating plants. So I think the moderation of the river water is marginal to National’s temperatures. The heat island is major.
Of course this is only anecdotal. Following a somewhat extreme winter (at least for North Vancouver, BC – we actually had snow on the ground in the city multiple days in December, for more than half the month of January, then again in February!), a cool and wet “spring” that saw very few temps above 60F until May (and not very many afterwards!), the “summer” is turning into a repeat of the cool and wet conditions that have dominated since the end of March. The PDO is killing us, would someone please HELP!! Thank you for your support.
According to CNN some 1600 US temperature records were broken this week, including 140 all-time highs (http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/01/us/extreme-heat/index.html). Twenty-three states are under partial or complete excessive heat advisories (http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-11/us/heat.wave_1_excessive-heat-heat-advisories-heat-wave?_s=PM:US).
Yes, the DC landscape has changed over the years. But d***, it’s hot this month… and complaining about UHI baseline changes in one location doesn’t change that fact.
Henry@Michael
https://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/the-highest-temperature-reading-doesnt-necessarily-mean-a-record-hot-day/#comment-1022145
Sorry, in the comment I messed up with your east and west coast.
The east coast is warming a bit
the west coast is cooling
So, sorry cannot help you
it is the sun that is doing it
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
Blimey you lot remind me of ostriches. 35000 hi temp records gone in the US alone and still it’s all denied as evidence of AGW. I came on here in the winter when some of the cold temp records meant a coming ice age. That gave me a good laugh.
But I think you’re right. If you ignore all the evidence climate change just isn’t happening.
REPLY: Show citations or your comment is just opinionated noise – Anthony
New high temperature record for DC? I thought that was due to IHI effect, Inferno Heat Island, as the unprecedented growth of the federal bureaucracy and the dramatic increases in the numbers of the power-hungry has resulted in an exponential rise of direct passages to Hell.
Weather or climate, Joe Romm, -er- I mean Richard?
Would you rather follow the lemmings ‘over the cliff’ in a headlong rush to turn back the hand of time to an era less ‘progressive’?
That be my question, mate …
.
Jim
Record high temp doesn’t mean hottest day?!
Can you not see how silly and laughable that is.
Progressive or otherwise, its happening, and its about time we all realised that.
BarryW
July 1, 2012 at 3:50 am
“Boiling” Airforce Base; The temp there was probably a little cooler, like 100°C.
Richard, It’s that Spanish sounding thing, you know. La Nina? Hey, who cares since it’s from that other ocean nobody talks about but Willis.
At my home here in America, and it’s been ten degrees below typical for months. Including today. So for you warm counts but cold doesn’t? Good marketing, for awhile at least.
I suggest when it’s very hot, look also for very cool, one goes with the other.
Anthony – “REPLY: Show citations or your comment is just opinionated noise”
I would point to Meehl et al 2009 (ftp://ftp.soest.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/US%20temp%20range%20Meehl%202009.pdf), documenting that record highs have outpaced record lows in recent years, at a ratio of 1.14:1 in the 80’s, 1.36:1 in the 90’s, and 2.04:1 in the 2000’s.
I would agree with Richard Lloyd – if you ignore the evidence, climate change appears not to be happening.
Richard Lloyd said (July 1, 2012 at 1:31 pm)
“…Blimey you lot remind me of ostriches. 35000 hi temp records gone in the US alone and still it’s all denied as evidence of AGW. I came on here in the winter when some of the cold temp records meant a coming ice age. That gave me a good laugh.
But I think you’re right. If you ignore all the evidence climate change just isn’t happening…”
A couple of comments about your rant – first “…35000 hi temp records gone in the US alone and still it’s all denied as evidence of AGW…”
Just as the Russian heat wave of 2010 was also supposed to be evidence of CAGW, right?
“…The Russian heat wave of 2010 has been an extreme and abrupt event. The July heat did not simply follow on the heals (sic) of a sequence of progressively warmer summers over recent decades, but stands out as a discrete event that is reminiscent of the often sharp year-to-year swings in this region’s July surface temperatures during the last 130 years. In many ways, the heat wave is a “black swan” event in that it is well beyond the normal expectations in the instrumental record…”
Even NOAA wasn’t able to tie that event into CAGW – rather seeing what’s called a “blocking high”:
“…Whereas an event of this magnitude was unexpected for the summer of 2010, and indeed there was little if any advance warming from long lead seasonal forecasts, it is nonetheless important to assess the factors that may have been responsible for such an extreme heat wave. There is strong evidence that the immediate cause can be placed at the doorstep of an extreme pattern of atmospheric winds – widely referred to as blocking. In the situation of anticyclonic blocking such as developed over western Russia in early July 2010, the normal west-to-east movement of weather systems is inhibited, with the center of a blocking experiencing persistently quiescent weather…”
Not CAGW, but weather.
Second part of your rant – “…But I think you’re right. If you ignore all the evidence climate change just isn’t happening…”
We keep looking at the evidence that’s piling up, telling us that current temps are unprecedented – Yamal, strip-bark bristlecone pines, mis-use of PCA, upside down Tiljander, hide-the-decline – all sorts of “evidence”. So you’re right – if you ignore all the “evidence” climate change just isn’t happening.
So, somebody claim it is getting warmer – others don’t agree. – So what?
Oh, I see; “It’s getting warmer” is ‘code’ for AGW or even CAGW. –
Well I suppose as long as the so called “AGW sceptics” (AGWS) are happy to side up with the CAGW crowd on the theory that CO2, or any other GHG for that matter, can cause global warming, then the question: “How much warming is CO2 gonna cause” is a pretty useless one. – If one agrees to an impossible cause in the first instance then it is, of course, useless to argue about the extent or outcome of the end result.
Then again – maybe that was the idea in the first place – what do I know?
To “prove” whether CO2 does absorb “Radiant Heat” (RH) – whatever that is – or not, is quite simple.
Even to prove that “invisible heat” (Infra Red) does not radiate through the air, or atmosphere is basic science for 11 year olds – Or at least it was in my school 60 years ago -.
By the way, just as an afterthought; is atmospheric moisture content (WV percentage) a (to within 0.01 %) known constant?
0.01 % is the absolute maximum “human caused increase” of anthropogenic caused CO2 increase in the Atmosphere over these past 150 years.
Richard LLoyd wrote, “Record high temp doesn’t mean hottest day?! Can you not see how silly and laughable that is. Progressive or otherwise, its happening, and its about time we all realised that.”
If the temperature the night before was fairly cool, and a big forest fire ten miles away combined with an unusual weather system to bring the temperature at 11am to a record high that was almost immediately broken by a huge thunderstorm that buried the city in sleet and left it in the low 40s through the rest of the day…
Would that be “the hottest day”?
Conversely, if the record high were 102, but the temp on such a day hit 101 by 11am and stayed between 98 and 101 up through 11pm … couldn’t that quite easily and accurately be spoken of as “the hottest day?
I don’t think “its happening” is a logical followup to a news story about a single record temperature reading.
– MJM
@richard LLoyd
Conservative or otherwise, there is nothing we can do about it and it’s about time we all realized that.
From KR on July 1, 2012 at 2:41 pm:
But looking at “record highs” is a false logic as the base keeps changing.
You generate some random numbers in the range of +/- 2. You add those to 10, and establish the record highs and lows. Then you take more random numbers in the same range and add them to 11. Compared to the previous results you should have more record highs than lows. Then take more of those random numbers but add them to 12. You’ve made it virtually impossible to get any record lows compared to when you were adding them to 10, and virtually guaranteed you’ll only get record highs.
Since based on the mangled historical temperature records it is generally agreed the planet has been warming over the long term, since the ending of the Little Ice Age around 1850, noting there are more record highs than lows is basically worthless as it is nothing more than what would be expected.
Who denies the climate changes? It’s been changing since the planet was formed. Temperatures go up and down naturally. What does it matter if the current trend is going up? One thing, it’s a mere geological eyeblink before the inevitable end of this interglacial and the big freeze takes hold.
But mainly, the onus is still the same. You’re saying “climate change” when you mean anthropogenic global warming, that the rise in temperatures gets blamed on humans. You have yet to prove the rise is not natural, not within the range of natural variability.
And your false logic of “breaking records” is certainly not proof.
KR: “documenting that record highs have outpaced record lows in recent years, at a ratio of 1.14:1 in the 80′s, 1.36:1 in the 90′s, and 2.04:1 in the 2000′s. ”
Well I’m glad you brought that up, because this illustrates yet another Team-AGW confidence trick. How great an increase in the rate of temperature increase would you need to get to ensure that record LOW temperatures were NEVER broken? Well 0.01Celsius per decade would be enough, because once a record low temperature has been set even this slightly underlying trend will ensure that the record low temperature is NEVER re-visited. Since most skeptics point out that there has been a small increase in temperatures for the last 300 years as we exited the “little ice age” and as shown in the central england temperature record there is nothing spectacular about record high temperatures outpacing record low temperatures. If you look at the graph of the CET you will see a record low temperature was set in the mid 18th century – and you can also see that this record won’t ever be broken until the beginning of the next ice-age! No real sign of AGW over that 300 year period however.
What you have conveniently pointed out to all of us is nothing more than Team AGW “sleight of hand”. Come on KR, admit to yourself that Team AGW are pulling the wool over your eyes and come over to our side.
KR says
I would agree with Richard Lloyd – if you ignore the evidence, climate change appears not to be happening.
Henry says
Actually I agree with you both…….
Climate change is happening. It’s getting a bit warmer on the east coast – for the moment – but not for long, I think.
On the west coast it has been getting colder for quite some time already. At LAX average temperatures have dropped by about 0.5 degrees (C or K) since 1980.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
To KR,
I for one will start getting real worried when the “Record Lows” outpace the “Record Highs”
If you look at the Holocene temps the earth is getting gradually cooler throughout the Holocene.
Greenland Ice Core temperature graph (10,000 years)
Vostok Antarctica Ice Core temperature graph (10,000 years)
The Holocene has had the most stable temp of the last five interglacials
Vostok Graph of temp, Last five interglacials – Holocene on the left
The CO2 in the Holocene does not have much to do with the stability of the Holocene temperature. Compare the temperatures and CO2 for the Eemian interglacial and for the Holocene interglacial and you can see CO2 is not the “Control Knob”
Vostok Graph of temp, Last five interglacials – Holocene on the right
From NOAA
More on what scientists say drives the climate….
The whole article plus comments is well worth reading.
So regardless of the UHI argument, DC just broke a high temperature record.
We are to understand (believe) that CO2 has caused this.
My two questions:
What caused the record hot day 142 years ago?
How do we know it’s not the same cause now?
How can Washington be hotter than it used to be if Washington, as it was, is not there to BE of any particular temperature?
Richard Lloyd, So how is it you know, you are sure, that CO2 is the cause of record warm temps.
Nobody who looks at the empirical data would deny that our climate has been warming naturally since the so called Littlle Ice Age. There has been no acceleration in that rate of warming even though CO2 content has risen. This defies your CO2 dogma. Look at UN-ADJUSTED empirical data, no models, no fudge factors; there is no evidence.
There is no evidence of CO2 caused catastrophe. To say so is a lie.
I emailed the Capital Weather Gang on Friday and asked how comparing a 2012 temp reading at the National Airport with a 1874 temp that I am sure was not located anywhere near the airport was valid. Funny that I have not received an answer. 🙂
Resourceguy says:
July 1, 2012 at 9:06 am
Nevertheless, Pelosi has the private jet fleet to head out of town at the first sign of a power flicker or heat wave.
==========
In return thousands of people must live without producing any CO2, so that Nancy can be carbon neutral.
The leader in the third world are well paid to make sure these people produce no CO2, so that Important People like Gore and Pelosi can fly all over the world telling us how much we all need to stop producing CO2.
Important People like Strong and Hillary tell us that REDD is the future. That our tax money is needed to convert land in the third world into forests for the benefit of future generations (future generations of Important People). Those generations that live on the land today will have to move somewhere else (because they are Not Important People).
RobRoy says:
July 2, 2012 at 7:10 am
Look at UN-ADJUSTED empirical data, no models, no fudge factors; there is no evidence
=========
Look at average daily maximum temperatures. They have not increased anywhere. Even in the Arctic.
We are told there is global warming, but the evidence says otherwise. What is happening is that minimum temperatures are increasing. The cold is becoming less cold. However, the warm is not becoming more warm.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Thus, what we have is Global Moderation. Not Global Warming. Climate is becoming more temperate and less extreme. It is only Climate Science that is becoming more extreme. Extreme Nonsense.
[snip. Read the site Policy. And use a valid email address. ~dbs, mod.]
A remark, and then a question or two. Or three:
First, a run-down on historic mercury-busting temps can be found here:
http://ggweather.com/climate/extremes_us.htm
You’ll note that while many of these high temps on the hit parade of hell were recent, many if not most of them were earlier in the 20th century. AGW enthusiasts respond sometimes by saying that while that might be the case, note also we’ve not had many super LOW temps of late.
The winters are warming, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever again see parts of Georgia and South Carolina dip to -10 F. Of course, they’ll also say this is well-noted in AGW literature and that warming winters more than warming summers are just the thing one should expect from atmospheric increases in CO2.
Those in the know are more than welcome to chime in, warmers and anti-warmers alike, naturally, and do tell if any of these have been re-busted by the current heat wave. It WAS 107 in Columbia SC the other day. Yes, it’s always hotter than hell here, other than the middle of January, but “hot all the time” has to my knowledge not corresponded even here with “Like unto the Mojave desert”.
And yes, it can make a difference. Even 100 F for days in a row is actually tolerable for most garden veggies, even without the first spot of water–one day of 107F, however, can destroy them depending on soil and humidity, etc.—in a single day. No matter how much water and shade given. They can’t handle it.
There ARE tipping points, as the Greens say. Or so it would seem.
Question: Those measurements going back to, say, 100 years or so–just how reliable are they? Do we know if those instruments were calibrated correctly? How so? Has any rightsizing been done to account for any variations, if not?
Temp measurements in 1942, Washington DC are one thing to trust, 1899 would be quite another matter to trust. Or no?
ferdberple says
1) Look at average daily maximum temperatures. They have not increased anywhere. Even in the Arctic
2) We are told there is global warming, but the evidence says otherwise. What is happening is that minimum temperatures are increasing. The cold is becoming less cold. However, the warm is not becoming more warm.
Henry@ferdberple
the first statement is true
maxima are dropping and from the sample that I took you can easily see that it follows on a nice curve downwards,
you can actually easily predict with high accuracy it will go further down
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
Your assumption that minima are rising, pushing up the mean temperature, is in fact the general AGW meme. However, it cannot be confirmed from my sample. Sure, at some places (like Las Vegas) you do get minima rising quite dramatically, but this is due to
1) increasing vegetation (where there was none before)
2) UHI
3) removal of snow (as in some of the northern countries)
However, in general, all three parameters,
Maxima
Means
and
Minima
have started going down, globally,
from somewhere around 1994/5
Earth has some stored energy, but I don’t think it can keep on handling less heat from the sun.
\Eventually it is going to get colder. According to my assessment temps. will continue to drop until at least 2025.
“It WAS 107 in Columbia SC the other hot. ” Typo– make that “the other DAY.”
[REPLY: OK, I fixed your typo, but you need to remember that site policy prohibits indiscriminant screen-name changing. Please select one screen name and stick with it. -REP]
Yea, well, my car thermometer can be 10 degrees cooler than the Bank parking lot thermometer that everyone quotes when it’s *really* hot in the summer. Hi/Lo temp are readings are utterly meaningless since site standards have been tossed out the window. 105 is hot, hell yea, but I’ve expereince a few 105 degree days hundreds of miles north of NC. My dad lived in AZ in the 50s and it was over 100 for practically half the year. It was nice mid-80s weekend her in Central PA and a few weeks ago we had hi tems in the mid 60s in June. Called weather people, it does funky stuff. Now if every summer was hitting 90-100 practically every day for 3-4 months for several years in a row, I’d be starting to worry, and planning on heading north.
Don’t even start on percip. Lots of farms in my area and the farmers are always complaining that it is too wet or too dry. This year’s wet spring was bad for the crops, now that it hasn’t rained for a whole 10 days, welll that’s not true, we have got 3-4 Thunder Storms, but anyway, now it’s too dry! Evidently farmers and greenies don’t know what an average (mean, median or othewise) is.
REP:
Thanks. Sorry about the name flip, but for some reason it didn’t “stick” like on most sites. So on the second post for some reason, perhaps due to the email tag, it reverted by to my real name., Wakefield Tolbert is in point of fact my real name, but few people believe this, it caused issues due to that the last time I was around these parts, with more than a few commenters swearing it must be El Fako, and therefore, since no one believed it anyone, I said “Well, golly wiz wilkers, I’ll just go ahead and make a new handle. So, I tried out a funky new one just for shiggles–one that sounded dark and foreboding and fun. Too bad WordPress says “Verboten”!
Regards,
Pull My Finger says: July 2, 2012 at 11:27 am
“…Don’t even start on precip. Lots of farms in my area and the farmers are always complaining that it is too wet or too dry….”
Ha ha – too true!
I come from farming family. Weather is always the discussion and it is ALWAYS bad …. one week its; “Damn, we need some rain soon …” , the next week I hear; “Damn, we are 2 weeks behind here because this damn rain never stops…”
No doubt if the heat wave were to continue, we’d see this more often.
Yes.Full Snark Mode here. Really now….But don’t tell that to Greenpeace.
http://now.msn.com/now/0703-homeless-polar-bear.aspx
REP;
it’s people like you switching metric systems that caused the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter. You’d think one horrible example would be enough to learn you, but noooo …