CEI is taking John Holdren to task over his “polar vortex” video.
In a post today at globalwarming.org we have this:
DC’s cherry trees hit their official peak blossom date last Thursday, April 10th. That’s the latest in the year that the Capital has experienced peak blossoming in over two decades. (For you botanical historians, the last time that peak blossoming occurred this late or later was in 1993, when the event fell on April 11.)
In 2013 the blossoms were almost as late, hitting their peak on April 9. That was a pretty dramatic change from 2012, when the date fell on March 20. This change was most disconcerting to two groups: tourists trying to plan their trips to DC in advance, and global warming alarmists who trumpeted every earlier-than-expected cherry blossom as yet further proof of global warming. In fact, in a sizzling multi-part blog post series last year, followed by dozens of readers, we charted peak blossom dates against global warming data. We even had graphs. (See Adam Sandberg, Peak Bloom Is Here – DC’s Global Warming Canary Lands with Frost on its Feet, April 15, 2013.)
White House Science adviser John Holdren made some ridiculous and baseless claims about the “polar vortex” being tied to climate change in a hastily produced “never let a good crisis go to waste” style video on YouTube. Readers may recall our January 8th WUWT story:
The White House gets into the ‘polar vortex’ climate change blame business
So as the post at globalwarming.org posits:
We suspect that Holdren’s agency, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), may now have a second video in the works in this Blame-Everything-On-Global-Warming series. Perhaps they’ll call it Delayed Peak Blossoming Explained in 2 Minutes.
I get word from our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) that they are taking the claims made by Holdren in that January video to task. CEI is targeting two claims made in WH videos and blog posts:
“A growing body of evidence suggests that the kind of
extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues.”
We also seek to correct a January 8th OSTP blog post by OSTP Senior Communications Advisor and Web Editor Becky Fried that features the above Polar Vortex Explained video.
We request a correction of its claim that “we also know that this week’s cold spell is of a type there’s reason to believe may become more frequent in a world that’s getting warmer, on average, because of greenhouse-gas pollution.”
Despite the widespread criticism that this claim has received, the video and a related claim are still up on OSTP’s website. The CEI petition uses OSTP’s own regulations (and the Information Quality Act) to request that this misinformation be corrected.
The late onset of cherry blossoms in DC made CEI wonder whether Holdren would soon be releasing a video attributing that to global warming as well.
CEI has a short blog post on this at http://www.globalwarming.org/2014/04/14/will-cherry-blossoms-get-sucked-into-the-polar-vortex/
The blog post links to the OSTP correction request, which can also be found at:
We expect OSTP to shortly post the request on its website.
Just a reminder, we’ve experienced all this before:
In 1977, a nearly identical pattern set up with warmth in Alaska, drought in California, and cold in Florida. Arctic sea ice was near a peak at the time. (h/t Steve Goddard)
And then there’s the winter of 1963, the most “savage winter of the century” according to Life Magazine on February 8th, 1963:
And this illustration is from that Life Magazine article on page 33. Gee, that pattern looks familiar.
Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=o0EEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA31-IA2&vq=jet%20stream&pg=PA31-IA2#v=snippet&q=jet%20stream&f=false
Those who do not study weather history are condemned to bloviate it as yet another effect of “global warming”.
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“Global warming” was also responsible for a much-delayed maple sugar season here in NH. I believe it had a negative effect on overall production. The sap just didn’t seem to want to flow, and when it finally did, it was already getting too late. They’ve been warning about a negative effect on the maple industry due to “global warming” too, so I guess they were right.
Nice to see the h/t to Steve Goddard. His site is one of my favourites, as it so successfully counters the constant re-writing of climate history we see every day. Nice one, Steve!
As the last people who lived through the Dust Bowl pass on we can expect Alarmists to try to tell us current heat waves are “unprecedented.” Nothing we have experienced recently is even close to the heat of the Dust Bowl. However rather than learning from history Alarmists seek to “adjust” the historical record.
I think it is high time to take them to task for their “adjustments.” Is not that “falsifying public documents,” and a crime?
1936 looks familiar as well!
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/polar-vortex-in-1936/
Slightly off topic but maybe every time a FOIA request is made, it should be a press release and/or forwarded to members of Congress followed by the results of the FOIA request? Maybe someone will start to ask “why”.
Back to this this story, is it just me or are “they” are beginning to acknowledge that nothing new is happening but “the nothing new” is now being caused by Man?
Glad that Polar Vortex was not around thousands of years ago-Smile!
Pardon me boy, is that the Cherry Blossom Vortex?
Andrew
I remember last year when they bloomed so damn early. That was global warming. Now they bloom late and that’s global warming too?
Those poor, misguided cherry trees blossomed a week too early. They should’ve waited till the 18th.
WaPo DC area weather for April 16th. Early morning lows were in the mid-20’s to low 30’s.
Dear God! Has it really come down to this?
Science my ar*e.
D
A growing body of evidence suggests that the kind of
extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues.” ROFL!!!! IPCC says otherwise – https://www.flickr.com/photos/101666925@N02/12822503164/in/photostream
Has anybody bothered to interrogate the cherry trees concerning how they decide upon which day they will blossom? That would seem to be the domain of botanists, who are also ‘scientists’ (IIRC).
It should come down to the air temperatures, pressures, moisture and precipitation, winds, and insolation between the thaw and blossoming.
I just hope they won’t require a FOIA request to access the meteorological history of Washington D.C.
What about Canada in this discussion of winter? Ah yes, it is the tradition of policy types in DC to include or exclude Canada from the discussion in order to make a biased point for U.S. audiences. It just depends on whether it fits or not.–
http://www.torontosun.com/2014/01/31/winnipeg-has-coldest-winter-in-64-years
I’m so tired of reading about how the big ridge in the western U.S. and trough in the eastern U.S. this past year was “unprecedented”. People have such short memories. I was in California during the 1976-1977 drought (the year it snowed in Florida). Same kind of pattern. Big ridges in the west and troughs in the east are very common. Depending on what time of year they set up, they can easily become self-perpetuating. There’s nothing new about this.
Bruce Cobb, you write about maple syrup “They’ve been warning about a negative effect on the maple industry due to “global warming” too, so I guess they were right.”
I have kept a close watch on maple syrup production here in Lanark County, Ontario, and from what I can gather, it has been a good season. It may have been late, but when it came, production was good. I have not seen the final report. I suspect they have been so busy making syrup, that they have not had time to update their web site since 12th April
Question regarding plotting these dates based on calendar.
Since our calendar doesn’t match perfectly w/ respect to the Earth’s orbit of the sun, the seasons change at different dates. Specifically, the first day of spring officially a day later than a few decades ago.
Given this fact, wouldn’t it make more sense to plot when these annual events occur relative to the change in season? If so, then this year’s DC cherry blossoms may actually be tied for latest recorded.
Anyway, I had this thought a few weeks back when a post here discussed a site where they were a melting ice event had been recorded for the past ~150 years, and some catastrophists said the median date had shifted in that time frame.
“A growing body of evidence suggests that the kind of
extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues.”
That has to be one of the stupidest statements I have ever read in all my life.
“extreme cold … pattern … we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continutes.” Eat your heart out The Onion.
I think it would be a good idea to include the song “Oh Susanna” in the video, “it was so hot the day I left I nearly froze to death”. Maybe a bouncing ball so we can all sing along.
resourceguy says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/17/the-holdren-cherry-blossom-vortex-information-quality-act-and-u-s-weather-history/#comment-1615524
henry says
it is part of a clear pattern?
Resourceguy says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/17/the-holdren-cherry-blossom-vortex-information-quality-act-and-u-s-weather-history/#comment-1615524
henry says
it is part of a clear pattern?
sorry the image explaining this was not included:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2ql5zq8&s=5
Was Holdren the one who also said, “The whippings shall continue until morale improves.”?
One of the members of this confederacy of dunces that I have labeled parasitic ( they do nothing but take and give nothing back) climatic ambulance chasers. You are free to fill in the other names of the usual suspects
A climate scientist and a Co2 molecule walk into a bar,…….
The short human memory.
If there was man-made global warming, the blossoms would be moving more into winter months towards January. However, we are is a solar sunspot minimum and winters are longer and will get even longer and nastier. Might lose the trees in the end but they are hardwoods. Wait and see.
Paul