Oh Dear, Another Climate Scientist Makes A Fool Of Himself
Guest post by Paul Homewood
I sometimes get accused of being too dismissive of Climate Scientists, probably with justice. However, there are times when they just set themselves up to be shot down.
The Irish Times, (yes, don’t ask me why!!) has just run a report from Courtland, Kansas on the drought last year. Most of the farmers interviewed believe it is all just part of a natural cycle. One typical farmer was quoted
“In western Kansas we sit to the east of the Rocky Mountains, where it is drier. I remember the 1955/56 drought and 1988. My dad went through the 1930s and had to move to the west coast,” said Ron Neff, a farmer in Selden, 150 miles west of Courtland.
But apparently the scientists know better!
Chuck Rice, a professor of soil microbiology and a climate change expert at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, says there is no doubt that droughts are cyclical but temperatures clocked last year in the most recent dry spell have beaten historical records.
“The records weren’t just slightly broken; they were significantly higher,” he said.
Now you would have thought a Climate Scientist from a Kansas University would at the very least be familiar with Kansas historical climate records. Unfortunately, it seems not, though.
The Facts (for Chuck’s benefit)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/ks.html
Let’s start at the state level. Kansas summer temperatures last year ranked 110 out of 118, in other words, 9th warmest since 1895. The hottest summer was 1934, with an average temperature of 83.2F, a full 4.0F higher than last year. 1936 followed in 2nd place with 82.2F.
What about July, the hottest month of the season? Last year was 7th warmest. Again, 1934 was hottest, 2.4F hotter than 2012. The second hottest year, interestingly, was 1980, closely followed by 1954 and 1936.
Of course, averages can cover up a multitude of sins, so what about the extremes? According to the Climatological Data for July 1934, (below)
“Temperatures of 110F or higher occurred in almost every part of the State”.
This is borne out by the data for individual stations. Out of 91 stations, 76 reached 110F. Figures for 1936 were very similar, 77 out of 89. And what about 2012? Just 15 out of 145.
KS_climate_IPS-A48BA846-7987-4DC1-BA33-7B3AFA52FF09 (PDF)
From NCDC IPS: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/IPS/cd/cd.html
The highest temperature ever recorded in Kansas, was 121F, set on two separate days in 1936 at Fredonia and Alton. We also know that, analysing the 28 USHCN stations in Kansas with long term data, 27 recorded temperatures in the 1930’s that were higher than anything registered last year.
Still, perhaps the good Professor was referring to his own particular part of Kansas, which the article was based on. Courtland is a small town in the northern part of the State. The weather station there only dates back to 1961. The nearest station with a long term record is Concordia, about 20 miles away. (It is also close to Manhattan, where Kansas State University is based).
Comparison of monthly mean temperatures at Concordia show:-
| 1934 | 1936 | 2012 | |
| June | 80.3 | 76.8 | 76.5 |
| July | 88.4 | 87.2 | 84.3 |
| August | 82.5 | 85.2 | 74.6 |
And a closer look at July numbers shows:-
| 1934 | 1936 | 2012 | |
| Highest Temperature | 114 | 113 | 107 |
| Average Maximum Temperature | 101.7 | 100.5 | 97.8 |
| Days =>105F | 15 | 10 | 3 |
At the Professor’s town of Manhattan, temperatures reached 115F in both 1934 and 1936. And last year? 107F!
So what have we got?
On a State wide basis:-
- Mean temperatures were much higher in both 1934 and 1936, than in 2012, for the summer as a whole, and July in particular.
- Extreme high temperatures were far more widespread in 1934 and 1936.
- At nearly every USHCN station, the top temperatures, set in both 1934 and 1936, were several degrees higher than 2012.
And on a local scale?
- Mean temperature for each summer month at Concordia was significantly higher in 1934 and 1936.
- Daytime temperatures were also much higher then.
- Extreme heat days were between three and five times as frequent.
- High temperatures were up to 7F higher.
Conclusions?
We have a Professor at Kansas State University making statements that are not simply inaccurate, but wildly wrong. What could be the explanation?
- Is he simply incompetent? This seems unlikely, he would hardly be a Professor, if so.
- Does he think, a la Hayhoe, that history started in 1960?
- Is he blind to any evidence that contradicts his agenda?
- Like the old Soviets, has he swallowed the propaganda, and cannot believe it was hotter in the past?
- Is he even aware that the records I have accessed are available? Does he know how to check them himself?
- Has the climate gravy train really got so bad, that “science” of this sort is acceptable?
- Or does he think it is OK to make up “facts” as he goes along, so long as they suit his agenda? (Safe in the knowledge that our lame stream media are too useless and babyish to check and contradict).
Whatever the answer, it is a sad day for science, in general, and climate science, in particular, when this sort of nonsense is promulgated, and furthermore, allowed to stand.
References
State Climatological Reports are available here.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/IPS/cd/cd.html
http://www.k-state.edu/media/mediaguide/bios/ricebio.html
Pamela Gray says:
Who’s to blame for such poor quality researchers with Ph.D.s? Their doctoral committee for such poor oversite, and journal editors for such poor quality control. If it is any measure of what we are getting from within the Ivory Towers, I refer you to the Whatworksclearinghouse website. Far more PUBLISHED studies are rejected rather than reviewed by that site. Shouldn’t that be the otherwayaround? If research is truly about quality, most studies that get published should be unimpeachable. That they are not also points the finger at us for continuing to fund such institutions of inferior merit.
Pamela unfortunately such poor quality has permeated almost all levels of our society, not only the Ivory Towers, it the local news people not being able to pronounce the local town names to a President that unable to pronounce corpsman. Editors that think a virus and a bacterium is the same thing. To electricians who cannot correctly connect a two way switch to light so they work correctly. We have people in jobs with such a basic lack of knowledge even for their jobs that they endanger us all, yet most of the population do not even know or care how bad things really are.
Yet another scary story Paul, now it’s scorched fish off Western Australia, http://pindanpost.com/2013/02/21/propaganda-heating-up-now-its-scorched-fish/ well suited to a Josh cartoon I would think, saves the barbecue fuel.
Anthony, you are not a real scientist so you don’t understand his super magic science process!
REPLY: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Clarke’s 3rd law
Rice most likely deserves the derision he is receiving here. But wouldn’t the article be more effective as journalism if the author had at least tried to contact Rice for comment before publishing it? It would be constructive to discover what source Rice got his “data” from and how he views the contrary data presented here. Give him a chance to double-down his statement or to publicly retract it. Call him to account; accountability is the ally of truth.
Perhaps he was not referring to records in the state of Kansas, but in the contiguous US, where his statement is perfectly accurate. At no point in the article does it specify what region he’s referring to, and he could very easily have been speaking in terms of the US in general, rather than at a state level.
Just, y’know, throwing that out there. Doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone else, thought I might mention it.
Kansas Chuck, meet Baghdad Bob:
http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/in_our_opinion/baghdad_bob.htm
Chuck Rice
Isn’t that what people do at weddings?
I am envious of those WUWT readers enjoying the requisite scientific background to dissect Rice’s comments and authors of similar published papers.
I deal with own frustrations toward ‘professorial malpractice’ by tracking down the email address of the offending professor. Then, sending him/her a link to the respective WUWT posting with a recommendation to respond to the derisive comments the professor has now sowed. CC’d are the professor’s department heads and co-authors, pointing out my ‘new found concern’ over the knock to their own respective reputations and the school’s credibility and standing. Hopefully a lesson that you’re not going to get away with stupidity and P.S., GO K-STATE! for that last bit disingenuous ‘we’re all on the same team.’
No, I don’t receive appreciate responses in return for my good deeds. But, I sleep well with some small consolation that for a while I’ve set in motion a noticed increase in steamy ears and tight sphincters over at the political back-knifing cesspool of the faculty lounge.
Can twitter be of some help?
If we all post this story’s on twitter somehow someone must catch up?
the drought is connected not only with temperature, but mostly with levels of the moisture. We must compare number of days without rain, not only temperature, so Chuck Rice may be right about record drought?
Please get with the agenda, history and science only started in 1984, before that was waste land, wilderness and dragons. War is peace, today we thank big brother for the increase in the chocolate ration. We also thank him for the wonderful carbon taxes creating clean and cheaper power. Thank you big brother. Once upon a time I believed that a Loon was a type of bird, now I am unsure, this man is in Forrest Gump territory, stupid is as stupid does, my god.
I’ve seen no end of professorial wrongheadedness, but getting very basic data wrong in one’s own field–even a secondary field of study–is fairly rare. Mistakes tend to be at least a little more complicated, unless they’re simple brain farts. Even uncurable dunces who make it through graduate school manage at least to reach a more sophisticated level of stupidity. The really basic mistakes do happen, but it’s not the way to bet. Consequently, you really have to track down the quote and the context, before you can be sure that the speaker was actually as boneheaded as it seemed.
Ignotas says:
February 21, 2013 at 12:07 am
Maybe so, but the quote was specifically about temperature.
Sam Yates says:
February 20, 2013 at 10:15 pm
That’s a whole lot more likely. It’s true, the IrishTimes story has nothing in the quote, or the text, to indicate that the quote referred to Kansas. But it is easy to get this impression upon reading the article. Drought conditions were widespread, so talking about regional, or perhaps nationwide temperatures, would make at least as much sense as talking about just Kansas temperatures.
Actually, we don’t even know that Rice was talking about Kansas, although I’d like to think so…one would hope that the IrishTimes would careful enough to find quotes about the same topic as the story in which they are used, or else to clarify as needed.
As before, I’m reserving judgement until I see an original quote, with context (if that ever happens). But at the moment, the suspicion that a pile of drought-dried prairie grass somehow got assembled into a giant strawman is getting harder to ignore.
The propagandist believing his own propaganda. Same as Germany during the 30’s and early 40’s.
Still reports of our CO2 input into the atmosphere as a mass. This ignores the fact that nature produces 30 times more CO2 than we do and we cannot stop nature.
Matt N
Was he referring to the whole year or just the summer months? I can’t tell from his quotes. How does 2012 in general look compared to 1934 and 1936?
1934 as a whole was 58.5F, compared to 57.8F last year.
Ignotas
the drought is connected not only with temperature, but mostly with levels of the moisture. We must compare number of days without rain, not only temperature, so Chuck Rice may be right about record drought?
Precipitation numbers
2012 – 19.71″
1934 – 19.72″
1936 – 18.44″
(Driest year was 1956 with 15.39″)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pcp&month=12&year=2012&filter=12&state=14&div=0
Don
Give him a chance to double-down his statement or to publicly retract it. Call him to account; accountability is the ally of truth.
I’ve asked Chuck for comments, still waiting for a reply.
“…a climate change expert…”
It would be a propos to point out there are no “climate change experts”, only climate change speculators. Anyone assuming themselves to be a climate change expert is more into self-agrandisement than science.
@Robertson
All well said. Thanks for typing.
@ignotus
The drought issue was already examined here. It was much worse during the dust bowl. The crop losses were higher.
Readers may have forgotten that there were lots of “born in sin” blamers of human action in those days too. When I was young we were taught that the dust bowl was caused by inappropriate farming practices like ploughing.
With more temperature BS than ever making the rounds we see ever more frequent moments of Rice-and-shine. Rather than letting the sun shine in, however, it is more like a mooning.
/cheek
The trash reporting of AGW believers has enabled the trash work of AGW hypesters to make false public claims with impunity.
In the same vein, NPR recently (Monday?) ran a morning piece that condescendingly asserted that meteorologists are too ignorant to understand climate and that if only yet another well funded group of non-scientist, well funded academics could explain the AGW crisis they are obsessed with a little more clearly, well by golly they would finally get the message.
But what is really going to take place is that increasingly anyone- even those who simply demand good data and sound reasoning- will be pushed out of the public square by the little cowardly AGW fanatics.
Pielke, jr. has just experienced this.
Your bullet points..?
I would say: ‘All of the above’…
If you don’t read the newspaper
you are uninformed, if you do
read the newspaper you are
misinformed. — Mark Twain
Nothing could be truer than the Irish Times, a position which does not happen by accident but by design. I personally refuse to read anything in it than the Sports pages, as its writers have demonstrated time and time again that they are pursuing their own agendas. Despite this, the majority of Irish people, who considered themselves informed and educated, swear by it, with the obvious results. So it is absolutely no accident that such an article would appear in the Irish Times, another example would be:
Advocacy journalism completely dominates, the journalist promoting his or her cause with the result that the reader is most certainly not presented with the facts and left to draw his or her own conclusions. For instance I was working in China in late 2011, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was holding its big conference in Durban. Reading the China Daily newspaper on the 6th December, it was reported that China was open to a legally binding climate deal, which would come into effect post 2020. However, there were five preconditions, as was reported elsewhere, these included that a review of climate science should be finished by 2015, and that established principles in which historical responsibility for creating the problem of climate change, and the respective capacity of countries to fight it, would be respected.
I knew that if I logged onto the Irish Times website there would be no mention of the review of climate science. Sure enough, it wasn’t, instead a banner headline on “China ready for legally binding climate deal”, with repeated references to a deal by 2015 and no mention of China’s preconditions and a timeframe strictly post 2020.
One could also point out that the Irish Times’ Senior Environmental Correspondent Frank McDonald was only back from Durban when he was writing in Nature, which once had the reputation as a scientific publication, about the ‘breakthrough’ at the conference, “but it is improbable that this will save the world” and “how there have been dark forces at work over the years”. Many people consider the Irish Times as the paper of record in Ireland and the principle of the Irish Times Trust is to publish:
• “Free from any form of personal or party political, commercial, religious or other sectional control”.
However, there are no measures in place to ensure that this happens. In fact the paper ran a bitter and nasty campaign against a major gas development in the North West of Ireland. As the I and others were appalled at this campaign, we documented the false information, which was being published, and lodged a formal complaint with the Press Ombudsman. As the cost of taking a court action in Ireland are so high, in 2003 the legal advisory group on defamation, established by the Minister for Justice, recommended in its report that the defamation laws be reformed and a statutory press council be established. Instead we got an industry self regulator, who when he received the documentation that myself and others presented, issued used with new unpublished procedures, completely different and opposite to the official and published procedures, in order to justify why he wouldn’t have to take action.
Finally, the latest I [heard] in relation to Frank McDonald, their chief environmental columnist, although I haven’t verified it myself, is that he is a History graduate with no scientific qualifications. He also has a real attitude problem, when the city centre region of Dublin reduced its speed limit to 30 kph, Frank was on the radio in a disparaging manner to the AA motoring correspondent, who was pointing out that many drivers actually find it difficult to maintain attention at such a low speed. It turned out that when he was asked by the same motoring correspondent if he actually drove a car himself, he had to reply in the negative – he had no driving license.
Repeating my favorite quote for the 54,658th time.
From the 1938 WPA Guide to Kansas:
“Recent years of almost unprecedented drought have led to the often expressed belief that the climate of Kansas is changing. Geologists and meteorologists, however, point out that weather runs in cycles, the most pronounced being about a third of a century in length. Conditions during a cycle are easily mistaken by laymen for permanent changes. Despite year by year fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, recorded evidence shows that general climatic conditions remain unchanged.”
At that time the experts were scientific and the people were superstitious. Now it’s the other way around.
Now I’m embarrassed to say I’m a K-State alum.
It appears the social sciences there have infiltrated the hard sciences. I remember a professor back the seventies who’s first words were: “Everything you know about modern day society is f *&ked up.”
First the U of I guy yesterday, then the K-State guy and the Harvard guy today. Maybe there’s enough of them to do a “Professor of Climate Ideology (and not the facts)” of the day post?
I sent professor Rice the following e-mail to see if he responds.
=====================
Professor Rice,
I was reading a blog, Watts Up With That, the most viewed science blog on the web, and saw this storey in which you were the topic.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/20/paging-chuck-rice-at-kansas-state-real-data-is-calling-you-collect/#comment-1229551
The subject is about your interview in an Irish Times article which writes:
“Chuck Rice, a professor of soil microbiology and a climate change expert at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, says there is no doubt that droughts are cyclical but temperatures clocked last year in the most recent dry spell have beaten historical records.”
And you are quoted as saying:
“The records weren’t just slightly broken; they were significantly higher,”
The WUWT article is ridiculing you for exaggerating the “records”. Do you have the “records” to substantiate your claim?
I thought you might want to defend your claim in order to avoid more ridicule. I am a K-State alum and felt the need to defend the integrity of the university.
Sincerely,
DCA 1978