Letter to the Editor (orginally published in the Washington post, also submitted to WUWT)
For the second year in a row, we’ve had peak cherry blossoms later than the average date of March 31. In 2013, they were nine days late; this year they were 10 days late. That’s not a big surprise; after all, the usual peak date itself is just an average.
But what is curious is how The Post’s coverage of cherry blossoms veers into discussions of global warming in some years but not in others. In 2012, when the blossoms peaked on March 20, one front-page article was ominously headlined, “Much-too-early bloomers? As temperatures rise, scientists speculate that cherry blossom times could advance by a month.” A Capital Weather Gang blog post that month was headlined, “D.C.’s cherry blossoms have shifted 5 days earlier: What about global warming and the future?” Why enjoy an early spring when you can turn it into a teachable moment?
Needless to say, this news angle wilted a bit in the past two years.
When it comes to global warming, the recent late blossoms don’t prove much. But for that matter, neither did the early blossoms of years past.
Sam Kazman, Washington
The writer is general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
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got it….now I just need to let it sink in!
I wish they had made a clearer distinction…it would give more credence to everything else they said
thanks Leif
Good one!
In the spirit of cherry picking: I went over to skepticblog and read the absolute sludge of Prothero’s “it’s not warming”. We (the skeptics) have cherry picked if we choose to take NOW and back up ANY date backwards unless it is at least some 50 years or so it seems. Not allowed to talk about 20 years. Well, the comments were even worse.
I have decided I am going to tell every warmist unless they act, they are hypocrites and have lost any moral high ground. Had a collegue tell me that we need to enact carbon tax so we can “lead the world” then the problem will get solved.
My view: he wants me to pay for “leading the world” so finally “all together now” we can fix the problem, well he has to “lead me first”. If he isn’t walking or biking, reducing his dependence on coal, growing his own vegatables, getting off the grid I won’t bother to even listen to a single comment any more.
I would love to see a 100 pictures of Dana N., S. Lew, Turney, Mann, et. al. roofs and put them right next to a picture of Anthony’s solar roof. Who walks the walk? Time to make them prove they are men of conviction.
I think I am going to start handing out the Pre-amble to the constitution and encourage them to read about how men of conviction act, besides talk.
Other wise they are just a real life Monty Python skit in the “Life of Brian” the committee
You have got to feel pity for the Japanese guys and their study of the Kyoto (?) cherry blossom dates. Just another way to measure the UHI effect. What a waste of years of work.
Again thanks to Lief for REALITY CHECK..
Here is a Japanese record of Cherry Blossoms spanning the last 1000 years
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Cherry-Trees-Japan.pdf
“The dates of cherry tree festivals in Japan have emerged as one of the most important sources
of information on the impacts of climate change on plants. The data set is exceptionally detailed, and extends back in time more than any other known data set on plant flowering times. “
I notice a stark, obvious, upward trend from 1800 ONWARD.
You know if those darned pioneer out here in Minnesocold had just used HORSES and handcarts instead of SUV’s, we wouldn’t have a global warming problem. (Whoops, my bad..first IC engine vehicles in MN were around 1910..and the first NOTICEABLE CO2 increases, Mona Loha data were after WWII. Oh, heck, what’s an error of a hundred and fifty years about anyway!
You say that the “Japanese article was clearly concerned with the UHI effect.” I obviously have a serious comprehension problem and I will back you if you agree that I cannot understand. I see their UHI statement but the overwhelming thrust of their article refers to ‘climate change’. My understanding of ‘climate change’ is NOT UHI. UHI has been one of the biggest gripes from our host on WUWT as per global warming or climate change.
Petty points aside, we know what Warmists mean by global warming and climate change and IT IS NOT UHI.
What’s very evident from these comments is that an alarming amount of you don’t give a fig for my tomatoes or spuds :/
Jimbo says:
April 26, 2014 at 6:15 pm
You say that the “Japanese article was clearly concerned with the UHI effect.” I obviously have a serious comprehension problem and I will back you if you agree that I cannot understand. I see their UHI statement but the overwhelming thrust of their article refers to ‘climate change’.
My reading of the article is that they say the climate has changed. I’ll accept that: the climate changes all the time. Also that it is getting warmer. I’ll accept that too as we are coming out of the LIA, and finally that some of that warming as reflected in the cherry blossom dates is clearly due to the UHI effect. What is there not to understand?
April 26, 2014 at 4:16 pm | joel says
—
Not at all, they have decisively discovered the UHI effect of urbanisation of the cities. As Leif has pointed out, the study shows both the global warming resulting from the gradual release from cold of the LIA and the effects of UHI … “And hard to separate.” Extrapolating this, imagine how impossibly difficult it must be then to extract CAGW from the record.
zootcadillac says:
April 26, 2014 at 6:21 pm
Because of global cooling (or at least in Eastern Oregon), I don’t even bother planting tomatoes any more until May.
Good. The point of the poster’s letter is spot on. We cannot arrive at any conclusions over a few years of observations.
I’ve distorted nothing, Mr. Svalgaard. I quoted the first paragraph of the article without any changes, and invited all who have no reason to close their eyes to see it for what it is.
Leif, you are not new to WUWT. You know full well what they mean by global warming and climate change. Look at the headline of the paper you referenced.
They could have said
You may see UHI as climate change but our opponents don’t. I applaud you on your great intellectual effort, but I doubt it will work here. Maybe most of us just don’t understand. That’s Leif. 😉
Alexander Feht says:
April 26, 2014 at 6:37 pm
I’ve distorted nothing, Mr. Svalgaard. I quoted the first paragraph of the article without any changes
But then added your own misguided and biased interpretation [as the paragraph does not support your contention] and called the whole thing drivel. It seems to me that you must search for drivel much closer to your heart. But perhaps the German proverb Jedem das Seine is applicable here.
Cherry blossoms flowering early is usually a sign that a North Korean leader has had a birthday.
LewSkannen says:
April 26, 2014 at 6:53 pm
And needs a new haircut.
Jimbo says:
April 26, 2014 at 6:39 pm
They could have said
Urban Heat Islands and Cherry Tree Blossom Festivals in Japan
But then they would have been incorrect, because there is both climate change and UHI.
What’s this? Leif has an argument on WUWT, refuses point blank to consider any other viewpoint than his own? Shocker.
Next up: One legged ducks, swimming in circles or just an illusion?
zootcadillac says:
April 26, 2014 at 6:57 pm
What’s this? Leif has an argument on WUWT, refuses point blank to consider any other viewpoint than his own?
What’s your problem. You have your viewpoint and I have mine. Do you consider my viewpoint?
I don’t think, with respect Anthony, that when Cherry blossoms are late in flowering, the temp of the soil is a very good factor for trees (deciduous) coming into flower or leaf. Also in 1969, after spending 10 months in Bermuda, we stayed in London, and they were having an Indian summer, in late October, and there were still leaves on deciduous trees, we then traveled up to Lincoln and they had snow and sleet.
But on the Northern Tablelands of NSW, a late frost and hail, destroyed all flowering fruit trees, in an area where temps had been very mild. However, the night time temps were very low, and my tomatoes would flower and not set fruit.
But late flowering indicates the soil and moisture are just not warm enough. This could be a signal the warmer weather is late this year.
lsvalgaard says:
April 26, 2014 at 7:01 pm
What’s your problem. You have your viewpoint and I have mine. Do you consider my viewpoint?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yup, and dismissed it.
The thread’s semantic urination contest is a deliberate attempt to blur the various contributors to global warming. So-called climate science isn’t quite sure there even was a Little Ice Age, let alone how to separate UHI, Little Ice Age recovery, and any other cause of warming. It’s convenient for warmists (who knows about Leif) to allow deliberately imprecise use of language to convey the false message of CAGW.
Meanwhile, real science (quantum mechanics) has accurately measured the gyromagnetic ratio of the electron to 1 part in a trillion (with a T).
Until “climate science” can play with the big boys, the least they could do is get the vocabulary right. If you can’t even clearly describe the problem, it’s a little tough to solve it.
Chip Javert says:
April 26, 2014 at 9:02 pm
The thread’s semantic urination contest is a deliberate attempt to blur the various contributors to global warming.
My viewpoint is
1) climate changes
2) it is now warmer than during the LIA
3) some of that is due to UHI creeping into the global record
Where is the blur?
Chip Javert says:
April 26, 2014 at 9:02 pm
Yup, and dismissed it.
And which of my three points do you dismiss?
zoot – I didn’t know you grew tomatoes in parts of England. Nor grapes. I lived in Liverpool Lancs for my first few years, and my grandfather grew tomatoes in a greenhouse. I know in Lincolnshire in the early sixties, we couldn’t grow toms easily and that was quite a temperate area.
You could put up a frame around your early sowings. Just a plastic one. Can’t help you with potatoes, we grow them in Guyra just a bit higher than us. Keep them well mulched. But I know my tomatoes suffered badly from low night temps and although flowered would not set fruit. I have given up growing them now, buy from the supermarket. We have a large tomato production place in Guyra, and they are grown in a large greenhouse and they are pollonated by hand. They were trying to import bumble bees but were not allowed. Some import restrictions involved.
Give the potatoes a bit more time to sprout. Your soil is yet too cold. Have you tried putting a cooking thermometer in the soil? I do this with some sensitive pot plants.
Just a short note, when I was freezing during one September general election day, I was with a Green who boasted as having a B.Sc, I had a BA majoring in archaeology and palaeoanthropology. When I mentioned the LIA, he said there was no proof of this. Then I went on to detail that growing grapes was out for some years, but they turned the grape presses into printing presses. There is no one so blind as those that won’t see.