Guest post by Steve Goreham
The summer of 2012 will be remembered as a hot one by most Americans. Beginning with an unseasonably warm spring, the year continued with a prolonged heat wave into July and August in the Midwest and other locations. Temperatures exceeded triple digits for days in Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, and many other heartland states, producing the worst agricultural drought since the 1950s. Temperatures were described by the news media as “broiling,” “sizzling,” “scorching,” “frying,” and “unprecedented.”
The U.S. corn crop was heavily impacted. By September 12, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had designated over 2,000 counties in 32 states as natural disaster areas. The U.S. corn harvest totaled 10.7 billion bushels, down 13 percent from 2011. Soybean production finished at 2.9 billion bushels, down 8 percent from 2011.
Climate alarmism was as hot as the weather. Dr. James Overpeck of the University of Arizona told the Associated Press, “This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about…This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level.” Articles in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications blamed “human-induced climate change” for the heat wave. Proponents of Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are destroying Earth’s climate, proclaimed disaster from sea to shining sea.
The summer of 2012 is now over and all temperature data recorded. Guess how many states set new state high-temperature records in 2012? None! According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), not one of our 50 states set a new state high temperature record in 2012 (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec).
When wildfires raged through Colorado in June, Dr. Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University told Reuters, “What we’re seeing is a window into what global warming really looks like…It looks like heat, it looks like fires, it looks like this kind of environmental disaster…” Temperatures in Denver did reach 105oF in June, but this was far below the state record-high temperature of 114oF, set jointly in 1933 and 1954. Were Colorado wildfires worse in 1933 and 1954?
It was hot in Arkansas, reaching 111oF in Little Rock. But this high was well below the all-time state-high record of 120oF set in 1936. Lansing, Michigan, reached 103oF, but also fell short of the state record of 112oF set in 1936.
In fact, only one state high-temperature record has been broken in the last fifteen years, that in Ft. Pierre, South Dakota in 2006. High-temperature records for 23 of our 50 states date back to the decade of the 1930s, during worst-ever U.S. droughts in the period termed the “dust bowl.” Two-thirds of state high-temperature records were set prior to 1960, countering claims that the recent decade was “the warmest ever.”
On the contrary, what we saw during the summer of 2012 was natural temperature variation in action, not the effects of CO2, a trace gas in our atmosphere. In our United States it gets hot in the summer and sometimes also dry.
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Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
G. E. Pease says:
October 24, 2012 at 7:24 pm
I cannot find your “Year and Decade of Highest U.S. State Temperature Records” data in the http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec
I found a table which is consistent with the map in the blog at the link . When I first clicked there was an information page only but then the table came up. It must be a glitch in the html programming of the page.
I wonder what the temperatures would be if the thermometers were not situated in heat islands ie on airport runways and next to air-conditioning outlets?
G. E. Pease says: October 24, 2012 at 7:24 pm
I cannot find your “Year and Decade of Highest U.S. State Temperature Records” data in the http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec
Essentially the same information is found in ”The World Almanac and Book of Facts”, p.311, World Almanac Education (2010).
G. E. Pease said:
October 24, 2012 at 7:24 pm
Steve Gorham:
I cannot find your “Year and Decade of Highest U.S. State Temperature Records” data in the
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec…
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Maybe Hansen made them take it down.
Climate change only exists in statistical graphs and tables,
that is why no one can find it in reality!
Fantastic post here Steve. Says it all.
25 Oct: JoanneNova: Where did that El Nino go? Wiped out by unprecedented cool shift?
The Australian weather bureau has never seen anything quite like it. The El Nino that was predicted for this summer down-under seems to be gone suddenly.
“Forecasters surprised by El Nino turnaround” [ABC]
The chief climate forecaster says it is the biggest turnaround in weather patterns since records began…
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/where-did-that-el-nino-go-wiped-out-by-unprecedented-cool-shift/#comment-1150759
This is important. “Raw data shows that maximum temperature across the continental USA was higher in the 1930s than today. Is the noise about Global Warming just hype?”
Get this out to the mainstream media far & wide.
Kurt in Switzerland
Errata: make that the entire USA. Perhaps someone could compare data for Provinces in Canada, too. For that matter, what do the records show for Europe & Australia?
Kurt in Switzerland
Seventh highest ever corn crop in the worst drought since 1956, 56 years
So after all the gnashing and grinding and wailing there’s nothing to see here. I kept pushing at Warmists telling them it’s just the weather and not the climate and according to the NOAA I was right.
Anna v @ur momisugly October 24, at 9:11 pm
When I clicked on that link I couldn’t find the table that popped up for you after a delay but was highly entertained by the following. After discussing a couple of committees they went on to say, incorporating yet other authorities; my bold:
Is it not true that that strange beast the Camel was designed by a committee?
Thanks anna v,
Trying again, I was able to bring up the large (10 page) State Climate Extremes Committee table showing
State: All States, Element: All Elements.
The element of current interest for each state is Maximum Temperature. Additional elements are Minimum Temperatures, 24-Hour Precipitation, 24-hour snowfall, and Snow Depth and the exact date, location, and station ID for each element. I printed out the entire table, since it seems to be a useful reference for comparisons and further investigations.
Are record high temperatures alone really pertinent to the argument? Surely it is the length of time that generally high temperatures and droughts prevail that is important not a record high in isolation that might occur over just a few days. Whilst record high temperatures are of interest, comparisons of historical temperature records should also embrace the the duration of prevailing high temperatures and droughts in order to make sense of the comparisons. In other words, three months of drought at 100% is more significant than three days at a record 115% which might be followed by normal temperatures.
As a 100 per cent sceptic, I make the point in order be sure that our arguments against the warmists can always stand up to scrutiny.
Dr. Deanster says:
“We’re not seeing any new “high” records … because the “low temps” for the day are not as cool.
…That is the smoke and mirrors of the CAGW cabal.”
Perhaps so – but how would we know ? You do realize that over 70% of such values (1840 – 1960’s) are generally represented by ONE minimum and ONE maximum recorded observation per day with liquid in glass thermometers. The variance and standard error of ONE observation is ∞ and the limit of observation for liquid in glass instruments is plus or minus point 5 to 1 degree C as reported by their manufacturers. [temp +- .5 + ∞ ] As such, observations prior to the use of modern recording instruments are statistically useless but employed by pseudo-scientist just the same. There are other more esoteric statistical deficiencies as well…..
Garbage IN = Garbage OUT
Your book cover art unfairly smears P-Bears. Far from promoting Warmist scares and nonsense, they just wanna be left alone to hunt seals and raid garbage dumps.
Brian H says:
Your book cover art unfairly smears P-Bears. Far from promoting Warmist scares and nonsense, they just wanna be left alone to hunt seals and raid garbage dumps.
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Yes, but, they still need transportation! Ice and snow are hard on the paws.
As Pat notes: While JoNova points out how the Oz BoM are now flummoxed by the disappearing El Nino, you really shouldn’t miss these wonderful epistles of love for it’s coming back in April, that are ‘so dear to all our hearts’-
‘Professor Andy Pitman, the director of the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales, says the link is uncertain.’
“We can’t formally attribute the drying to global warming, that does not mean it’s not caused by global warming, it means we can’t say it with scientific certainty at this time,” Professor Pitman said.
“Each year that you get an ongoing drying trend it gives you a little bit more data that gives you a little more statistical certainty around the drying trend.
“My suspicion is that as more high quality science comes to the table, we will become increasingly convinced that the drying trend is caused in part at least by global warming.
“Climate science is as complex a problem as any in the natural sciences and it takes a hell of a long time to make definitive statements about issues that are close to our heart. Doesn’t mean to say that we don’t think it’s caused by global warming, it’s that we can’t with certainty prove that it is.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-24/drier-warmer-outlook-for-se-australia/3968500
Even you hardened men and women of science really must feel for that all that unrequited love, Holocaust deniers exempted of course.
A bit OT:
Another item for the ‘everything is caused by global warming’ department. A report in today’s printed Daily Telegraph says that the melting of a runway in Antarctica was caused by global warming.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/antarctica/9630314/Australias-Antarctic-airstrip-melts.html
I just fired this email off to the Telegraph, though I doubt they’ll print it:
.
Your reported claim that a runway built just four years ago has melted due to global warming is obvious nonsense. Even if global warming continued today, no significant change could occur in four years. And if these ‘researchers’ are such experts on global warming, why did they build the runway in the first place?
Data from the Met Office, and other similar organisations around the world, show that there has been no global warming for well over ten years. This alone shows the claim to be nonsense. But it gets better. Unlike the Arctic, Antarctic ice has been steadily growing for many years and a new record was recently set. Perhaps the experts overlooked a simple fact: that, even in the Arctic and Antarctic, huge amounts of ice routinely melt in the summer, only to refreeze when winter returns. Finally, here’s a quote from the Telegraph online report: “Despite the melting runway, an Australian supply ship, the Aurora Australis, is currently stuck in Antarctica because there is too much ice.” You couldn’t make this up.
According to the ‘experts’, everything is the fault of global warming. But the facts show this to be nonsense. The melting runway could not have been caused by global warming, as there hasn’t been any since the last century. Most likely it was caused by incompetence. And a strange phenomenon commonly known as ‘summer’.
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Response to G E Pease: The NOAA website is http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec/records. The last update is listed as July 23, 2012, but I have talked with Deke Arndt, Chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch at NOAA. NOAA has a committee that looks at measurements and determines whether any records are broken. He informs me that no new high temperature records for 2012 remain to be added to the data.
For George Lawson–Yes duration and continuity are important factors in looking at annual temperatures versus records. I follow the Kansas City temperatures through NWS, and note that fully one third of all high temperature records were set in the 1930s most in 1934 and 1936. That is true even considering that in tabular form, where a record is tied, the later date is inserted as the date of the record. Kansas City has a record that spans 124 years now (1888-2012). I expect that in looking at individual locations, the 1930s records will hold up most places, unless they are tampered with.
The 1913 year for California reminded me, and Dr. Google, my research assistant, confirms:
“… San Diego. To me, anytime it goes below freezing at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s cold! … The coldest was back in 1913 when it hit 25 degrees. The cold … ”
1913 hot and cold for California.
Well, that’s comforting. The highest temp here could reach ~110F, and it wouldn’t be unprecedented.
BTW, in 9 summers here (in a rural spot) the highest temp has been 99F, despite several purported “unprecedented” summers.
Notice that no state had a record high in the 1940s? I’ll bet that if you normalized, homogenized and averaged, you would find the 40s a decade of “unprecedented” cold.
The declining temps of the 1940s should be an embarrassment to the warmists. But when today’s science is special, one gets a pass.