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
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These “scientists” are sellouts. It’s not about truth; it’s about money.
Perhaps Rice was referring to all the media articles earlier in the years.
I noticed that classes are cancelled today at K-State due to a snow storm so Prof Rice should have plenty of time to defend his claims.
The Gore effect??? 😉
I saw this pic on the Drudge Report’s main page this morning. It’s my niece walking in the snow yesterday at Friends University here in Wichita.
http://www.drudgereport.com/
As a 1968 KSU physics graduate, I am disturbed. I am praying that there are some cautious, skeptical, non alarmist influences on campus. KSU was the very epicenter of cautiousness and conservativeness (the old meaning of conservative..). Some balance would be nice, but it seems wanting in our current world. How can you not accept the millions of dollars to further your beliefs? It seems a disgusting incestuous arrangement. We need to get the government out of all this stuff, but I don’t see how anymore….. I think a tipping point has been reached. All downhill from here. Very sad. WUWT and the like are the only bright lites it seems.
Sad.
Thanks for the black eye.
What is even more pathetic is that the State’s Climatologist is at K-State.
Kansas State Climatologist’s Office
Weather Data Library
211 Umberger Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506-3402
785-532-7019
And the offices are within walking distance.
DCA – you ought to send to the President of our beloved University.
So much for turning the University into a top 50 Research Institution.
Owing to predicted 18″ of snow… “Kansas State University announced on its website that Thursday classes were canceled.”
Box,
Consider it done.
Jim Rose says:
February 20, 2013 at 3:21 pm
…..The last four posts are simply ridicule of climate scientists — seemingly warranted…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
These are articles countering propaganda.
Given that academics are making up “facts” and using them for ‘peer-reviewed’ papers such as Lewandowsky’s bear-baiting behavior and even calling for our trials and deaths ~ University of Graz Responds to Parncutt’s calls for death penalty for “deniers” what do you expect us to do kiss their rosy red rectums? There are people DYING as a result of this vile propaganda. In the UK alone it ” works out at 65 deaths a day.” Yet Hansen and the rest want to export this death by fuel poverty and starvation to the rest of the world.
It is even happening here in the USA. We already have an unemployment rate of about 23% The “Green Energy companies funded with tax payer dollars are going bankrupt at an alarming rate So far, [thats] 34 companies
As Obama Promised: Energy Prices to Soon Skyrocket
Another way of looking at the cost:
The EPA and Department of Energy drastically underestimated the effects of the new EPA rulings. Many more plants are closing than anticipated. This means electricity prices will sky rocket and the electric grid could become unstable New Regulations to Take 34 GW of Electricity Generation Offline and the Plant Closing Announcements Keep Coming… According to EPA, …. these regulations will only shutter 9.5 GW of electricity generation capacity. OOPS, I guess the government miscalculated.
A power systems engineer commented here on WUWT stated:
“Letting non-professionals get involved in the power grid is like giving the keys to the family car and a bottle of whiskey to a 14 year old boy and his pals. If the renewables were viable, we’d adopt them by the train-load and build them so fast your head would spin.”
What the politicians neglect to say is their plan for making this work is to install Smart Meters, an attractive opportunity for Investors This theoretically allows residential electricity to be turned off so the system can be balanced as wind and solar power surges and declines. Of course with renewables bankrupting, smart meters not installed and coal plants closing at three time the rate expected, this put a real big kink in that plan.
However BP and ENRON who Invented The Global Warming Industry were well aware of that and knew gas would be the last man standing.
Even Uber-green Germany has finally seen the oncoming economic crash at the end of the tunnel and has twenty three-new coal-fired power plants… under construction in Germany, because Germany is worried about the increasing cost of electricity
Interestingly, comparing the annual temperatures at Concordia, you get
2012 – 56.4F
1934 – 57.6F
So, even with the mild winter last year, 1934 was still warmer.
Like Kenny Henriksen, a crop and livestock farmer in Jewell County, Kansas my father was too in the 1930’s and left in 1939. Stories from my Dad was that some rain fell and they would quickly run a cultivator to throw the wet dirt onto the plant roots. At the end of the season they would have a mound up to 12″ high. What drove many off the land was the selling price of corn was so low, most could not meet the mortgage payments and not so much the low yields.
When we visited in August, 1970, the creek bed on the farm had water standing and deer tracks. He didn’t remember that from when he was a kid.
I also have a problem with this statement.
“In the heartland of the US that is the prevailing view among many because we have these cycles all the time,” said Rice. “But our analysis over 100 years shows we are seeing longer growing periods, with earlier springs and later falls. With a longer growing season you are going to need more water.”
As a soil microbiology Phd, has he ever heard of “Growing Degree Days” for corn? Since there will not be two crops a season, it will take less time for the corn to mature, so the growing season will be shorter not longer. http://ohioline.osu.edu/agf-fact/0101.html
Additionally there are spikes in the temperature. When born on the farm in June 1923 it was so hot, Grandpa put him down on the floor unwrapped and fan him to keep cool.
Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more. It’s much warmer!
Gail Combs, I’ve been reading lately (sorry, can’t remember where, except I’m pretty sure Benny Peiser’s newsletter has covered it several times) that the biggest reason coal-fired generating plants have been shutting down is that they can’t compete with natural gas, which has gotten ridiculously cheap from fracking. Seems many have converted to natural gas. Have you run across this? If you could find a few reliable sources, it wld. be much appreciated – you always seem to have great sources.
Laying on the irony a bit thick there, aren’t we Paul?
As written above…
Louis, well stated, here here !
Louis Hooffstetter says:
February 20, 2013 at 4:19 pm
Jim Rose says:
“Please try to resist the temptation to heap contempt on one’s political opponents and stick closer to the science. ”
Sorry Jim, but in addition to providing good, solid, reproducible science on climate change, this site exposes gross scientific incompetence. Climate science is where these supposed ‘Climate Scientists’ (AKA useful idiots) fail miserably. These ‘Climate Scientists” aren’t political opponents as much as they are simply sock puppets that spout scientific nonsense (that supports an apparent political agenda). And for that, they bring derision upon themselves, and deserve whatever they get here and more.
Oh surely even the CAGW alarmists will take Chuck to task./is sarc. necessary?
Pamela Gray says:
February 20, 2013 at 5:29 pm
Who’s to blame for such poor quality researchers with Ph.D.s ?
Pamela – I’m trying [to] be “PC” here, but by my observation, there is two ways to navigate the academic system in recent times. 1) is traditional, but 2) is via “playing” the system by sucking up to its beliefs – which currently run with the “green” agenda and the funds (grants, etc.) that this movement has brought into play for academia and like minded research projects.
Right now the system is corrupted with leftist thinking on both the academic and government sides.
It has been compromised. Sorry, no other way to put it…
If this chap is really a Prof, then god help his students.
Droughts (and record high temperatures) don’t only occur during the summer. The drought in Kansas has been going on for some time now.
The same “Climate at Glance” source used in the top post shows that 2012 ranked as the hottest year on record for Kansas (Jan-Dec average). The quote above does say “temperatures clocked last year“, not “last summer” or “last July”.
Now, 2012 was only slightly warmer than the next warmest year, so “significantly warmer” may be a bit of a stretch, but it was still the warmest year.