Guest essay by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
On Sunday, Death Valley temperatures reached 129oF, a new June record high for the United States, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas reached 117oF, tying the previous record set in 1942 and 2005. National Geographic, NBC News, and other media ran stories attributing the Southwest heat wave to human-caused global warming. But history shows that today’s temperatures are nothing extraordinary.
The United States high temperature record was set in 1913, measured in Death Valley on July 10th. Twenty-three of the 50 US state high temperature records date back to the decade of the 1930s. Seventy percent of state high records were set prior to 1970.
The alarm about climate change is all about one degree. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global surface temperatures have increased about 1.3oF (0.7oC) since 1880. Proponents of the theory of man-made warming claim that this is evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are raising global temperatures.
One degree over more than 130 years isn’t very much. In contrast, Chicago temperatures vary from about -5oF to 95oF, about 100 degrees, each year.
When compared to this 100-degree annual swing, the rise in global temperatures since the 1800s is trivial, captured by a thin line on a graph.
Nevertheless, NOAA repeatedly raises concern about global temperatures. The NOAA website proclaims that “May 2013 global temperatures were the third highest on record.” This sounds alarming unless one understands that “on record” refers to the thermometer record, which only dates back to about 1880.
Climate changes over hundreds and thousands of years. Data from ice cores show several periods during the last 10,000 years that were warmer than today, including the Roman Climate Optimum at the height of the Roman Empire and the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings settled southwest Greenland. The warm and cool eras since the last ice age were due to natural climate cycles, not greenhouse gas emissions. The “on record” period that NOAA references is only a tiny part of the climatic picture.
Global average temperature is difficult to measure. The data sets of NOAA are an artificial estimate at best. They start with a patchwork collection of thousands of thermometer stations that inadequately cover the globe. Station coverage of the oceans and of the far northern and southern regions is inconsistent and poor. To cover areas without thermometers, averaging estimates are made from surrounding stations to try to fill in the holes.
In addition to coverage problems, gauge measurements often contain large errors. Man-made structures such as buildings and parking lots absorb sunlight, artificially increasing local temperatures. Cars, air conditioners, and other equipment generate heat when operating, creating what is called an Urban Heat Island effect.
The accuracy of the US temperature record is questionable. Meteorologist Anthony Watts, creator of the science website WattsUpWithThat, led a team of volunteers that audited more than 1,000 US temperature gauge stations from 2007 to 2011. Over 70 percent of the sites were found to be located near artificial heating surfaces such as buildings or parking lots, rated as poor or very poor by the site rating system of the National Climatic Data Center, a NOAA organization. These stations were subject to temperature errors as large as 3.6oF (2oC).
Simple problems can throw off gauge readings. Temperature stations are louvered enclosures that are painted white to reflect sunlight and minimize solar heating. As the station weathers and the paint ages, gauge stations read artificially high temperatures. A study published last month found that after only five years of aging, temperature stations will record a temperature error of 2.9oF (1.6oC) too high. This is greater than the one degree rise in the last 130 years that NOAA is alarmed about.
In addition to temperature measurement error, NOAA makes “adjustments” to the raw temperature data. According to a 2008 paper, after raw thermometer data is received, a computer algorithm “homogenizes” the data, adjusting for time-of-observation, station moves, thermometer types, and other factors to arrive at the official temperature data set.
This sounds good until one looks at the adjustment that NOAA has added. For temperature data from 1900 to 1960, very little adjustment is added. But after 1960, NOAA adds an upward adjustment to the thermometer data that rises to 0.5oF (0.3oC) by the year 2000. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “man-made global warming.”
Heat waves are real just as climate change is real. But a heat record in Las Vegas or one degree of temperature rise since the Civil War is not evidence that humans should be overly alarmed when other factors have been shown to be contributors of the same or greater magnitude than the posited temperature rise from greenhouse gas emissions.
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.
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Extreme high temperatures have always occurred in the past, but they were flukes, caused by fortuitous combinations of local and temporary circumstances. We are now experiencing an increasing number of such “flukes” — so much so that it is reasonable to suspect that something other than combinations of local and temporary circumstances are at work. The increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 very plausibly account for this increasing number. Explanations such as “cycles of nature” or “rebounds from the LIA”, because they are hardly more than phrases, explain very little.
No Jesse, it does not appear we are experiencing more “flukes”. What we are being fed is propaganda from media sources that highlights all the recent “flukes” and ignores the reality that even our rather poor temperature record is extremely short. We do have some data like the various US state record highs. Almost half of those were set in the 1930s. And, it appears the reason is one of those “cycles of nature” that actually explain quite a bit.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/figure-113.png
One thing we do know is the planet is in a cooling mode at the current time.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996.9/to/plot/rss/from:1996.9/trend/plot/rss/from:2005/trend
So, based entirely on data, we see that recent high temperatures are easily explained by natural cycles that also created warm temperatures in the early 20th century. And, just as the planet cooled after reaching that peak, it now appears we are once again cooling after reaching a peak.
Peter the Printer says:
July 4, 2013 at 2:53 am
Pity all those deaths didn’t include some of you retards, but that would have been too much like karma, one day though you won’t be able to deny any longer. Then, the new generation whose future you squandered will come looking for you, they will want to make the guilty ones who not only did nothing despite all the evidence …
Right back at you. Are you ready to stand up and defend all the deaths caused by policies created explicitly to respond to global warming hysteria?
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=ethanol%20millions%20of%20deaths&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDMQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Flarouchepac.com%2Ffiles%2F20130625-ethanol-kills-millions_1.pdf&ei=GobVUdWRFITFyAHx6oDIBQ&usg=AFQjCNFQw_N7B5NQPNOQ5UH1FqW6i50SNg&bvm=bv.48705608,d.aWc
Richard M, Nine of the ten hottest years on record — a record that goes back almost a century and half — have occurred in the 21st century; the tenth of the top ten being 1998. It is very unlikely that this is the result of the natural random variation in global temperatures. Those who doubt that man made emissions of CO2 are behind this trend have yet to present a different explanation that is plausible and backed up by scientific evidence. They have yet to explain how our practice of adding millions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year can not be causing the Earth’s average surface temperature to rise.
Jesse Fell, They could have made the same argument back in the 1920’s and 1930’s when CO2 was much lower and increasing more slowly (in real terms not %). Proves nothing. If the planet is warming from a prior cold time and you are in the middle of a waming time, the last few years will ALWAYS be warmer than the previous and the warmest in 100 years.
Then if you cool the past and increase the present and always find ways to interpret your data in a way that promotes warming, the trend is exaggerated and some times that were flat can look like they were warming. Let’s wait about ten more years and see if the climate models actually improve or if what we see now is just a short term blip.
Bill W, I’d be in favor of adopting the wait and see approach that you recommend (often the wisest choice) except for two things. The first is that atmospheric CO2 and the Earth’s average global temperature have, since the 1970s, both been rising more rapidly than before — not always at the same rate, but both rising, and this is closely in accord with what the much maligned climate models predicted. The second is the immensity of what is at stake. We are running an uncontrolled experiment with the only planet that we have to live on. Already we have seen signs that this experiment can have lethal results. The European heat wave of 2003 killed tens of thousands of people not only because of anomalously high temperatures, but because the nights remained warm, giving the sick and elderly no respite from heat stress — and warmer nights are one of the things that the climate models predicted. The average annual total power of tropical storms has increased by roughly 50% since the 1970s (Kerry Emmanuel, MIT). This year’s heat wave in the south western part of the country promises to be out of bounds by many scales of measurement. It is true that isolated phenomena are best dismissed as flukes. But the flukes are coming faster and more frequently. My definition of conservatism is to err on the side of caution when something precious is at stake. It don’t see us erring on the side of caution so far; we aren’t listening to the scientists — we are listening to Bobby McFerrin!
jesse fell says:
July 4, 2013 at 7:41 am
Richard M, Nine of the ten hottest years on record — a record that goes back almost a century and half — have occurred in the 21st century; the tenth of the top ten being 1998. It is very unlikely that this is the result of the natural random variation in global temperatures. Those who doubt that man made emissions of CO2 are behind this trend have yet to present a different explanation that is plausible and backed up by scientific evidence. They have yet to explain how our practice of adding millions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year can not be causing the Earth’s average surface temperature to rise.
+++++++++++
Seriously Jesse: specifically your statement “They have yet to explain how our practice of adding millions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year can not be causing the Earth’s average surface temperature to rise.”
You are easily manipulated. You’d certainly be one of the people who’d accuse others of being witches, and to hang them to prove their innocence. No – It’s up to YOU to prove that CO2 has caused temperatures to changes, and how much if any. You have not been able to, and if you actually spent the time trying to find truth, you’d know that there is no evidence that CO2 is driving climate. Your people are always looking to kill a witch to kill to quell their own self loathing and they become wealth by taking other people’s money.
Follow the money… Your people take other people’s money (read that as tax money), they should be scrutinized (Think Al Gore, Obama). On the other hand, the people who are producing goods by selling something others want, are being attacked by your ilk.
Your people are in fact causing death, hunger, and pain right now to today’s people with this nonsense. So I can understand why you are among the self loathing.
Mario, If I have been “manipulated” by anyone, it’s been by Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius, G.S. Callendar, Charles Keeling, and a host of contemporary scientists who maintain that the level of atmospheric CO2 is a significant determinant of the Earth’s average surface temperature. The important papers by these scientists are collected in the anthology “The Warming Papers”, ed. Archer and Pierrehumbert. It is the conclusion of these scientists — an almost universally shared conclusion, from all that I gather — that if there were no CO2 or other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the average surface temperature of the Earth would be much lower — by most calculations, around zero degrees fahrenheit. If you know of a study which refutes this particular conclusion, please cite it in your reply.
Otherwise, we have to explain why adding additional CO2 will cause no further change in the Earth’s temperature. I have not seen a credible explanation of why this should be so — again, if you know of a study that addresses this question, please cite it.
davidmhoffer, Could you please tell me why you find that Ryan Maue’s estimate of the annual strength of tropical storms is more convincing to you than Kerry Emmanuel’s? Please cite a study that compares the work of these two men and shows who makes the most sense of the available data. In the meanwhile, I have been reading “Projected Atlantic Hurricane Surge Threat from Rising Temperatures”, by Grinsted, Moore, and Jevreja, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (approved for publication by Kerry Emmanuel, February 11. 2013). The thesis of this study is that rising temperatures do contribute to the intensity of tropical storms (which are fueled, fundamentally, by heat) — particularly extreme events such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.
Jesse Fell;
The average annual total power of tropical storms has increased by roughly 50% since the 1970s (Kerry Emmanuel, MIT)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well Jesse, the truth is that ACE has been falling for the last 20 years:
http://policlimate.com/tropical/global_running_ace.png
During this time, CO2 has risen dramatically. But put that aside for the moment and consider that the physics itself predicts that a warmer world will be a more tranquil world because temperatures become more uniform and what drives storm strength is temperature differential. If you’re going to rely on what the models say, sorry to burst your bubble, but the draft IPCC AR5 report predicts that this trend of declining ACE will continue to at least 2100, admitting that their earlier position on the matter was wrong.
The rest of your points are similarly out of context and unsupported by the facts.
Well, once again. The article pimps for more delay in limiting emissions (the goal of Stink Tanks such as this one) Delay = $600 billion/year for each year and at least 150,000 deaths (a very low estimate from the World Health Organization).
For the so-called skeptics (skeptical of mainstream science, slavish when is comes to their own cherry picking claims), here is a bet you can’t turn down. Pick a month, any month, say next September. In a stable climate the average Sept. temperatures have a 50:50 chance of being warmer than the average Sept. of the entire 2oth Ce. And a 50:50 chance of being cooler.
Here’s what I’m a gonna do! I will put up my $10,000 against your $5,000 and bet you that the next global average in Sept. will be warmer than 20th Ce averages. That’s two to one!. If if were just a “coin toss”, natural fluctuations, and all that crap, it would be a great bet. Any takers?
Well, don’t bother. The last 340 or so consecutive months have been warmer than those months have been in the last century, on average. That beat odds of one divided by the number of stars in the universe. Don’t want to take your money…. but, if you insist….
I wonder if we’ll see him or Harrabin in the Arctic this year
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23174535
“Death Valley: Hot enough to fry an egg?”
jfreed27 says:
“Here’s what I’m a gonna do! I will put up my $10,000 against your $5,000 and bet you that the next global average in Sept. will be warmer than 20th Ce averages.”
I see what you did there.
jesse fell;
davidmhoffer, Could you please tell me why you find that Ryan Maue’s estimate of the annual strength of tropical storms is more convincing to you than Kerry Emmanuel’s? Please cite a study that compares the work of these two men and shows who makes the most sense of the available data.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I did. I cited draft AR5 which accepts Maue and extends the trend to 2100 as their prediction.
davidmhoffer, Got it — thanks. It’s in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, which is still in the draft stage and will be finalized next year. The only article on the AR5 web site that cites Maue is “Changes in Climate Extremes and Their Impacts on the Natural Environment” by Seneviratne, Nicholls, et al. Here, Maue is cited as saying that globally, tropical storm activity is in a quiescent phase, after having reached a high point in 2005. In the same article, Emmanuel is cited as saying that in parts of the world’s oceans where sea surface temperatures (SSTs) have been rising most rapidly, the annual dissipation of energy by these storms has been increasing significantly. This is seen principally in the tropical Atlantic, where both SSTs and the total annual dissipation of energy by tropical storms have been rising. So, there is an apparent correlation between SSTs and the total energy dissipated by tropical storms — observing confirming what theory led us to expect. Heat is, fundamentally, the fuel of tropical storms. Emmanuel’s work on SSTs and tropical storms has, by the way, been corroborated by the research of Peter Webster at Georgia Tech.
Great graphic of Chicago climate . Good variation of Lindzen’s Spring in Boston .
I’ve already linked to it on Facebook .
jesse fell;
Heat is, fundamentally, the fuel of tropical storms.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No, it is not. Temperature differential is the fuel of tropical storms.
You can site the specifics of whose work is mentioned in what way in AR5, but bottom line is that they predict decreasing tropical storm activity from now until 2100.
davidmhoffer, Could you point to me where the draft AR5 predicts decreasing storm activity from now until 2100? I was not able to find anything like that in the articles on the web site. Your formulation, that temperature differential is the fuel of storms, rather than my formulation, heat, is more precise. Still, heat is energy, and where the SST is rising most rapidly, the total energy dissipated by tropical storms annually, is also rising. BTW, it is a pleasure to be arguing with someone on this site who relies on the IPCC as his authority. That’s progress!
The great scientist Alexander Von Humboldt laid out what the lineaments of scientific genius ,not in an explicit way,but hinting at its tendencies when looking at the terrestrial and celestial arena.bY definition a scientific genius cannot manufacture a conclusion and collate information to support that conclusion but rather expand the field of view thereby raising the standard for everyone else.
“This assemblage of imperfect dogmas bequeathed by one age to another— this physical philosophy, which is composed of popular prejudices,—is not only injurious because it perpetuates error with the obstinacy engendered by the evidence of ill observed facts, but also because it hinders the mind from attaining to higher views of nature. Instead of seeking to discover the mean or medium point, around which oscillate, in apparent independence of forces, all the phenomena of the external world, this system delights in multiplying exceptions to the law, and seeks, amid phenomena and in organic forms, for something beyond the marvel of a regular succession, and an internal and progressive development. Ever inclined to believe that the order of nature is disturbed, it refuses to recognise in the present any analogy with the past, and guided by its own varying hypotheses, seeks at hazard, either in the interior of the globe or in the regions of space, for the cause of these pretended perturbations. It is the special object of the present work to combat those errors which derive their source from a vicious empiricism and from imperfect inductions.” Von Homboldt ,Cosmos
He could be referring to climate but he is not,he refers to a vicious strain of empiricism that nobody wants to know about because it is so dominant in this era.
@ur momisugly David M. Hoffer
“Oh my. You’re in so far over your head that you don’t know you are drowning.”
[David M. Hoffer at 10:58PM 7/3/13]
DID YOU SEE WHAT I POSTED AT 10:58PM 7/3/13?!
Pretty cool, huh? #[:)]
God is on our side!
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, EVERYBODY!!
========================================================================
I don’t know about the globe but for my little spot on it in 2012 at least 52 to 71 daily record Highs and Lows that were on the 2007 list were changed. Not new ones set but old ones changed. (“Adjusted”, if you prefer)
Tell you what, I’ll bet you the same amounts on who won the Super Bowl last year but I reserve the right “adjust” the scores.
jesse fell;
Could you point to me where the draft AR5 predicts decreasing storm activity from now until 2100?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Certainly. AR5, Chapter 11, Executive Summary:
Two recent reports, the SREX (IPCC, 2012; particularly Seneviratne et al., 2012) assessment and a WMO Expert Team report on tropical cyclones and climate change (Knutson et al., 2010) indicate the response of global tropical cyclone frequency to projected radiative forcing changes is likely to be either no change or a decrease of up to a third by the end of the 21st century.
David Hoffer,
How about telling Mr. Lazy to GO LOOK IT UP YOURSELF.
Someone who twists your words (“… relies on the IPCC as his authority…”) so dishonestly (stupidly?) doesn’t deserve a response from a fine mind like yours.
Janice
Mr. Hoffer, you are far more gracious than I will EVER be with a slimer like Jesse.
jesse fell;
Still, heat is energy, and where the SST is rising most rapidly, the total energy dissipated by tropical storms annually, is also rising.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Wrong. Where SST is rising more rapidly than adjacent areas is where energy must be dissipated. If there is no differential, there is no storm, no matter how much temps go up. Since the foundation of CO2 GHG theory is that colder temps warm more than warmer temps, temperature differentials must drop. Night/day variation becomes less, summer/winter variation becomes less, polar/equatorial variation becomes less. Less variation = less storm activity, the reality of which the IPCC is finaly acknowledging.
Take two fully charged car batteries and hoot them up in parallel. Nothing happens, despite them being fully charged. Hook them up in series though, and you’ll be ducking for cover from the shower of sparks when the connection is completed and the cables will most likely weld themselves solid and will get hot enough to start a fire. It doesn’t matter how much energy is in the batteries, unless they are hooked up +ve to -ve, there is no differential and no movement of energy as a result.
The relative equations in this regard for storm activity are SB Law and the Ideal Gas Law. Learn how they work and you will soon see that a warmer world is a more tranquil world from the perspective of storm activity.
davidmhoffer, Still, the tropical Atlantic IS getting warmer, and Katrina and Wilma did not seem like harbingers of tranquility. As for your adjacent areas theory, the high intensity tropical storms that we have been seeing in the tropical Atlantic have occurred within that region, not at the boundaries. I don’t think your battery analogy is useful, because the two systems compared have too little in common.
Jesse Fell;
I don’t think your battery analogy is useful, because the two systems compared have too little in common.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You may as well have announced to the world that you don’t understand SB Law and the Ideal Gas Law then. Confronted with the physics, confronted with the data, confronted with the IPCC AR5, SREX and WMO climb down on the issue, you now trot out Katrina and Wilma to support your position? Which is it? Do you want to quote the consensus science, argue with it, or just make up your own?
Come back when you can justify your position based on the science. Anecdotal reference to two storms is not science.
I didn’t know that Katrina and Wilma were anecdotes. If they were, then I suppose that Sandy was a bed time story.
No, I don’t think it’s fruitful to compare systems that are as dissimilar as chemically stored electricity and climatic systems that produce storms. Any similarities between them would be too general and abstract to make it possible to predict the behavior of one from the behavior of the other. Sorry.
Kerry Emmanuel, Peter Webster, and other scientists do not agree with you about heat and storms; but, since consensus science is in support of your position, we must conclude that these men do not exist.
Anyway, it’s the Fourth of July. Let’s break for potato salad. Happy Holiday!
Sorry.
Kerry Emmanuel, Peter Webster, and other scientists do not agree with you about heat and storms;
>>>>>>>>>>>
So you are saying that the IPCC AR5, the IPCC SREX and the WMO are all wrong and that they don’t represent the consensus science?
Stop making a fool of yourself.
jesse fell;
No, I don’t think it’s fruitful to compare systems that are as dissimilar as chemically stored electricity and climatic systems that produce storms.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That you don’t understand the physics is obvious. That you refuse to learn it is sad.
davdmhoffer, The behavior of the weather and the stock market are both hard to predict, both are driven to some extent by self-reinforcing mechanisms, and so on — it would be possible to mention other similarities at that level of abstraction. But a decision by Ben Bernanke is not going to affect the weather.
The factors that go into the making of any storm are various in the extreme and most are peculiar to the climate system. My car battery is vastly simpler — its performance depends on the state of the chemicals that it contains and a few relatively simple principles of chemistry and physics — while the factors that produce storms are of a different composition and obey many laws that are not applicable to the chemistry and physics of batteries. The laws of thermodynamics do not in general have much to do with whether my car is going to start when I turn the ignition.
But how did we get on this particular tangent? I started it, for which you have my apologies.
jesse fell;
My car battery is vastly simpler
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Of course it is. You missed the point entirely. Are you going to try and learn something if I try and explain it to you?
All weather events are driven by energy flowing from high concentration to low concentration. A high pressure zone next to a low pressure zone results in wind, air moving from high pressure to low pressure. Pressure is a way of storing energy, the wind blowing from high to low pressure is moving the energy from an area of high concentration to one of low concentration. Hot air adjacent to cold air rises, it is displaced by the heavier cold air adjacent to it. There MUST be a differential, pressure in the first example, temperature in the second, or the wind doesn’t blow. Just as in a car battery, energy flows if you give it a path. Hook two car batteries up in parallel though, and even with a path, no energy flows, because there is no differential. Get it now?
Stefan-Boltzmann Law is that P=5.67*10^-8*T^4 where P is in w/m2 and T is in degrees K. Note that the relationship is NOT linear. So, if we assume per the IPCC consensus estimate that doubling of CO2 results in an average of 3.7 w/m2, we can plug that into SB Law and calculate that night time lows will increase in temperature MORE than day time highs. So, the differential between night and day temps decreases, and hence the weather processes that the day/night cycle drives also decrease. The same for seasons with winters warming more than summers, and narrowing that differential as well which reduces the major drivers of weather in spring and fall when the systems are re-balancing. The same is true of the massive amount of energy that is moved from the tropics to the poles 24×7. Since the poles warm more than the tropics, the differential between them is reduced, and hence all the processes driven by them are less intense, even though the amount of energy in the system is greater..
So yes, it is more complicated than a car battery because there are hundreds of processes all occurring all the time and they affect each other. But break them down into their component parts and what you will find is that the vast majority of them are reduced in intensity because even though there is more energy in the system, the differentials are lower.
That’s not to say that hurricanes won’t happen in a warmer world. Just that there will be fewer of them and that they will be less intense. That’s what the physics has said all along as I and many others have been pointing out for years. That’s what the actual ACE data says has been happening, and citing single events like Sandy is meaningless in the larger picture which shows that on average, there are fewer and less intense hurricanes. That’s what the IPCC and the WMO are now saying as well because the evidence is overwhelming.
Hope you learned something from this, and that you re-evaluate your belief system because it doesn’t have a shred of data or science to justify it, even the most rampant warmist scientists in the world are admitting that now.