On Sunday, August 16th the National Weather Service in Las Vegas, Nevada sent out a Tweet highlighting a new maximum daily temperature of 130°F in Death Valley:
Predictably, the media jumped on this number with the Los Angeles Times saying “…possibly the highest mercury reading on Earth since 1913“. Even the Drudge Report got into the act putting the 130°F temperature headline front and center.
(Added) and on the NWS Las Vegas Facebook page, they posted this:
While global warming activists are rubbing their hands together in anticipation and glee hoping this will aid their case, what they and the LA Times aren’t telling you is that this is simply “business as usual” for Death Valley. In fact, back in 1913, over 100 years of “global warming” ago, Death Valley’s official weather station at Greenland Ranch hit an all time record of 134°F, and also hit 130°F or higher three times that July:
And here is the table of records for Death Valley:
While climate crusaders would like you to think today’s 130°F temperature is more “proof” of global warming aka “climate change” induced by fossil fuel use putting more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, the irrefutable fact is that in 1913, CO2 in our atmosphere was about 43% lower than today at 290 parts per million in 1913 compared to the “Climate crisis” level of 414 PPM today.
You have to wonder, if current CO2 levels are responsible for record heat waves today, as climate activists like to claim, how did it produce a still unbroken record temperature of 134°F back in July 1913?
The answer is; it didn’t then, and didn’t today.
The unbearably hot weather in Death Valley is a combination of a hot regional weather pattern and local factors found nowhere else on Earth, according to the National Park Service:
“The depth and shape of Death Valley influence its summer temperatures. The valley is a long, narrow basin 282 feet (86 m) below sea level, yet is walled by high, steep mountain ranges. The clear, dry air and sparse plant cover allow sunlight to heat the desert surface. Heat radiates back from the rocks and soil, then becomes trapped in the valley’s depths. Summer nights provide little relief as overnight lows may only dip into the 85°F to 95°F (30°C to 35°C) range. Heated air rises, yet is trapped by the high valley walls, is cooled and recycled back down to the valley floor. These pockets of descending air are only slightly cooler than the surrounding hot air. As they descend, they are compressed and heated even more by the low elevation air pressure. These moving masses of super heated air blow through the valley creating extreme high temperatures.”
So, don’t fret about climate change because Death Valley got hot again, it’s business as usual for the place, and not an indicator for global temperatures in any way.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Only it isn’t “the hottest in 100 years”. That is El Azizia, Libya in 1922: 58C or 136F. Oh.
And 1934 was the warmest year. Oh.
And the 1930s were the warmest decade. Oh.
I see that the WMO “cancelled” El Azizia’s record in 2012, claiming it to be “illegitimate.”
Why am I not surprised?
If the 1930s was the warmest decade, why are none of the record hottest days in Death Valley from the 1930s?
With the climate temperature wavetrain being fractal, it is inevitable that records are regularly broken even in the absence of any long term trend up or down.
“While global warming activists are rubbing their hands together in anticipation and glee…”
That only happens in children’s cartoons you fool. Only in a puerile, deeply deluded mind could that idea possible spawn and be presented as a possibility. Good luck.
Is that really the only thing you could find to whine about. A bloody visual metaphor?
Your paymaster must be hanging his head in shame these days.
“Only in a puerile, deeply deluded mind”
And there’s Loy-doh !!
Never realised he was so introspective.
Loydo, were you born w/o a sense of humor, or did you have it surgically removed?
Why are we concerned that the National Weather Service Las Vegas is proclaiming a new temperature record in Death Valley. All weather bureaus do this. In Australia it’s par for the course with our Bureau of Meteorology. I expect it give taxpayer funded public servants something to do to overcome boredom.
Death Valley is hot? Wow, that’s amazing. I wonder why they called it Death Valley?
Incidentally Baghdad regularly reaches 50 C in summer, which is 122 F. Yet 7 million people live there despite poverty, bad electricity supply and limited aircon. It always amuses me that CAGW activists wet themselves over a temperature rise of 1.5 C when humans do perfectly well in places like Baghdad.
This is what is the problem with the young Earth dogma implicit in Climate Alarmism.
The highest temperature ever measured is conflated with the highest temperture ever.
The temperature record, at best, goes back to 1850. We have no idea what the temperatures were in Death Valley during the Medieval Warm Period or the Roman Warm Period. We have no hockey sticks made out of Joshua trees.
So two different readings, at two different times on two different thermometers? How much urbanisation around the thermometer site in 110 years?
The station’s placement is invalid.
Literally the temperature in Death Valley isn’t admissible because the station is not only right beside asphalt but it is also over gravel and stone near signs that effect air flow and has a circulation vector that includes more than one air conditioner… let alone the fact that it’s BELOW SEA LEVEL and the reading isn’t adjusted for altitude.
Adjusted for altitude the reading was only about 126°F without adjusting for station placement violations.
The problem here is that the mechanisms we use for detecting ambient temperature aren’t “laboratory” quality, so the increased density of air at -230ft changes the specific heat of a volume of air.
Inconvenient facts:
The heat waves of the 1930’s blew away anything at any other time of US recorded history:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-high-and-low-temperatures
1934 was an especially brutal/fatal year:
Cincinnati Has Never Topped Records Set in the Heat Wave of 1934
The summer of 1934 was a hot one all around the United States, but the focus of the heat was the Ohio Valley around Cincinnati.
https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/cincinnati-has-never-topped-records-set-in-the-heat-wave-of-1934/
Drought Monitor 1934:
?resize=550%2C500
1936 North American heat wave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave
Summer Scorchers: America’s 9 Worst Heat Waves Ever Recorded:
https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/summer-scorchers-americas-9-worst-heat-waves-ever-recorded/
In the last 20 years, how many US states have set all time hottest temps?
Just 3, Colorado-2019 , South Carolina-2012 and South Dakota-2006.
Half of the states set their all time hottest temperature during the hottest decade for Summer heat…….the 1930’s.
Despite the modest, mostly beneficial global warming recently we have not topped those historic highs in 47 out of the 50 states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_territory_temperature_extremes
If you start to record something, it is inevitable that because you do not have the whole population of the variable, that new record values will be found. Unless an extended trend have been found then it is not really possible to say that the population has moved to a new average value and even then there is a good chance that this is just a short term anomaly. This was exemplified by the recent study of hurricane intensities that showed mean hurricane intensities had remained stable for 167 years but that there had been short term variations about that mean.
Everyone forgets this and also forgets that a record temperature is a record even if it is only a small fraction of a degree different from the previous value. One swallow does not make a summer!!
TYPICAL SLOPPY REPORTING by MSM picked up and amplified by the usual suspects. The original story was that it was the hottest day for the month of AUGUST in Death Valley. The hottest days on record are in JULY.
Here is the REAL story: the last blackout due to heat in CA was in the Bay area in 2001. Temps in San Francisco hit 103 F. THIS time, the highest temp in SF was this past Friday, when it reached 95 F. CA has done such a poor job of meeting the growth in demand for power, that after almost two decades, they are now having blackouts when temps are eight degrees lower. If their policies continue, blackouts will be the norm for typical summer days.
Even Gov. Newsom is throwing in the towel saying, “that the state had to “sober up” about the fact that renewable energy sources had failed to provide enough power for the state at peak demand, and needed “backup” and “insurance” from other sources.”
Reality is biting them in the backsides, which many of us expected was going to happen.
We can of course argue about the temperature and whether it is a record. The other issue is whether this temperature has an interpretation in terms of AGW climate change.
Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/16/the-internal-variability-issue/
Where we find that ….
“Internal variability of climate limits the ability of climate science to attribute localized extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming. Localized means geographically limited and Event means time span limited”
Temperature records are also a result of high pressure systems. There’s always heat from the sun during the summer; it’s the movement and the creation of high and low pressure zones which cause “heat waves” versus “normal temps”. Does CO2 cause an increase in air pressure too?
“And here is the table of records for Death Valley”
So of the 30 hottest days in the last 110 years, over half were recorded in the last 20 years, and a third in the last 10.
Only 6 were recorded before 1960, all of them in the same 6 day period in 1913.
THANKS Anthony
Time to reprise / republish your write-up on the badly sited weather station in DV. As i remember the site was surrounded by asphalt and other heat emitters.
“And here is the table of records for Death Valley”
So of the 30 hottest days in the last 110 years, over half were recorded in the last 20 years, and a third in the last 10.
Only 6 were recorded before to 1960, all of them in the same 6 day period in 1913.
Why was it so hot on those days in 1913?
The Stevenson that recorded the 1913 record of 134F was an approved site but skeptics are questioning its validity largely because similar extreme temperatures weren’t recorded on the day at surrounding sites.
Nowadays the site can be 15C to 20C hotter than nearby stations but the scant recordings from 1913 suggest its 134C was about 30C hotter than the others. However, I believe Death Valley is a fairly unique local environment and reports on the 1913 day in question were that there was a fierce wind blowing down the valley. There was a death and first-hand accounts that it really was as hot as the instruments suggested.
The similarly extreme surrounding days in July 2013, including 130F and 131F, suggest possibly a blocked high pressure ridge above western Nevada over several days or a combination of other persistent weather elements. The alternative skeptic view would be an error with the thermometers that lasted for a week or so before it was fixed. Evidence required.
An archived article worth checking is ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/docs.lib/htdocs/rescue/mwr/061/mwr-061-02-0033.pdf in the Monthly Weather Review of February 1933 by Ernest Eklund from the San Fransisco Weather Bureau.
Extract …
“High temperatures are by no means rare in Death Valley, judging from the records of Greenland Ranch, and it seems probable that even higher temperatures occur on the floor of the Valley, 98 feet lower than Green- land Ranch, considering the probable cooling effect of irrigated land and green vegetation at Greenland Ranch and the greater effect of insolation at the lower elevation. Extreme maximum temperatures of 120′ F. or higher have occurred at Greenland Ranch in every month from May to September, inclusive, and such temperatures have occurred there each year since the record began. In July 1929 the mean maximum temperature was 119.5′ F.”
And at ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/docs.lib/htdocs/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-01-0010.pdf cited in Anthony’s post (including a 1922 pic of the site and screen) …
“Nearly every summer during the past few years the highest natural air temperatures recorded in the United States by means of tested thermometers under approved methods of exposure have been those for Greenland Ranch.
…
The extreme maximum temperature of 134 degrees recorded on July 10, 1913, is the highest natural-air temperature ever recorded on the earth’s surface by means of a tested standard thermometer exposed in a standard ventilated instrument shelter. By way of explanation it should be stated that the instrument shelter used at this station is the same as those used at several thousand other weather stations maintained by the Weather Bureau throughout the United States. It has louvered sides, a double roof, tight floor, is painted white, faces north, and its floor is about 4 feet from the round. It is about 50 feet distant from the nearest high object. There is a free circulation of the air through the louvered sides, the double roof cuts off the heating effect of the sunshine, and the tight floor shuts out reflected and radiated heat from the ground.”
It’s also worth clicking the PDF link at https://journals.ametsoc.org/bams/article/84/12/1725/58161
As per https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/earths-hottest-temperature …
“On September 12, 2012, the World Meteorological Organization officially certified the 134°F reading at Death Valley as the all-time highest surface air temperature recorded on the planet.”
If the WMO officially certified it just eight years ago, it’ll seem a bit odd if the 134F in 1913 is ruled invalid by the review of the validity of the 130F a few days ago as the hottest ever recorded maximum on the planet.
BTW, Death Valley also has the world record longest heatwave of 154 days above 100F in 2001, a record previously held by Marble Bar in Western Australia with 160 days in 1923/24. The Marble Bar world record was technically erased a bit over a year ago when the BoM aka ACORN adjusted/cooled the historic daily temperatures so there’s now only 124 consecutive days above 100F in 1923/24 (see http://www.waclimate.net/very-hot-days-marble-bar.html).
So Death Valley can now lay claim to the hottest ever day and the longest ever heatwave recorded on earth.
The Stevenson that recorded the 1913 record of 134F was an approved site but skeptics are questioning its validity largely because similar extreme temperatures weren’t recorded on the day at surrounding sites.
Nowadays the site can be 15C to 20C hotter than nearby stations but the scant recordings from 1913 suggest its 134C was about 30C hotter than the others. However, I believe Death Valley is a fairly unique local environment and reports on the 1913 day in question were that there was a fierce wind blowing down the valley. There was a death and first-hand accounts that it really was as hot as the instruments suggested.
The similarly extreme surrounding days in July 2013, including 130F and 131F, suggest possibly a blocked high pressure ridge above western Nevada over several days or a combination of other persistent weather elements. The alternative skeptic view would be an error with the thermometers that lasted for a week or so before it was fixed. Evidence required.
An archived article worth checking is ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/docs.lib/htdocs/rescue/mwr/061/mwr-061-02-0033.pdf in the Monthly Weather Review of February 1933 by Ernest Eklund from the San Fransisco Weather Bureau.
Extract …
“High temperatures are by no means rare in Death Valley, judging from the records of Greenland Ranch, and it seems probable that even higher temperatures occur on the floor of the Valley, 98 feet lower than Green- land Ranch, considering the probable cooling effect of irrigated land and green vegetation at Greenland Ranch and the greater effect of insolation at the lower elevation. Extreme maximum temperatures of 120′ F. or higher have occurred at Greenland Ranch in every month from May to September, inclusive, and such temperatures have occurred there each year since the record began. In July 1929 the mean maximum temperature was 119.5′ F.”
And at ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/docs.lib/htdocs/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-01-0010.pdf cited in Anthony’s post (including a 1922 pic of the site and screen) …
“Nearly every summer during the past few years the highest natural air temperatures recorded in the United States by means of tested thermometers under approved methods of exposure have been those for Greenland Ranch.
…
The extreme maximum temperature of 134 degrees recorded on July 10, 1913, is the highest natural-air temperature ever recorded on the earth’s surface by means of a tested standard thermometer exposed in a standard ventilated instrument shelter. By way of explanation it should be stated that the instrument shelter used at this station is the same as those used at several thousand other weather stations maintained by the Weather Bureau throughout the United States. It has louvered sides, a double roof, tight floor, is painted white, faces north, and its floor is about 4 feet from the round. It is about 50 feet distant from the nearest high object. There is a free circulation of the air through the louvered sides, the double roof cuts off the heating effect of the sunshine, and the tight floor shuts out reflected and radiated heat from the ground.”
It’s also worth clicking the PDF link at https://journals.ametsoc.org/bams/article/84/12/1725/58161
As per https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/earths-hottest-temperature …
“On September 12, 2012, the World Meteorological Organization officially certified the 134°F reading at Death Valley as the all-time highest surface air temperature recorded on the planet.”
If the WMO officially certified it just eight years ago, it’ll seem a bit odd if the 134F in 1913 is ruled invalid by the review of the validity of the 130F a few days ago as the hottest ever recorded maximum on the planet.
BTW, Death Valley also has the world record longest heatwave of 154 days above 100F in 2001, a record previously held by Marble Bar in Western Australia with 160 days in 1923/24. The Marble Bar world record was technically erased a bit over a year ago when the BoM aka ACORN adjusted/cooled the historic daily temperatures so there’s now only 124 consecutive days above 100F in 1923/24 (see http://www.waclimate.net/very-hot-days-marble-bar.html).
So Death Valley can now lay claim to the hottest ever day and the longest ever heatwave recorded on earth.
“……possibly the highest mercury reading on Earth since 1913”
If atmospheric CO2 causes global warming then there must have been a hell of a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere in the year 1913!
No?
Is it just possible CO2 does not have much to do with global air temperature at all?
“And here is the table of records for Death Valley”
So of the 30 hottest days in the last 110 years, over half were recorded in the last 20 years, and a third in the last 10.
Only 6 were recorded before 1960, all in the same 6 day period in 1913.
The heat waves of the 1930’s blow away any US heat waves that we’ve had recently.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-high-and-low-temperatures
Sometimes seeing graphs/data doesn’t help you to envision the reality.
How about this article from the state of Ohio about 1934:
Cincinnati Has Never Topped Records Set in the Heat Wave of 1934
The summer of 1934 was a hot one all around the United States, but the focus of the heat was the Ohio Valley around Cincinnati.
https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/cincinnati-has-never-topped-records-set-in-the-heat-wave-of-1934/
Imagine a drought monitor map in 2020, like this one from 1934 and the explanations that we would be reading about for what supposedly caused it:
?resize=550%2C500
Latest soil moisture:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Soilmst_Monitoring/US/Soilmst/Soilmst.shtml#
1936 North American heat wave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave
Summer Scorchers: America’s 9 Worst Heat Waves Ever Recorded
https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/summer-scorchers-americas-9-worst-heat-waves-ever-recorded/
In the last 20 years, how many US states have set all time hottest temps?
Just 3, Colorado-2019 , South Carolina-2012 and South Dakota-2006.
Half of the states set their all time hottest temperature during the hottest decade for Summer heat…….the 1930’s.
Despite the modest, mostly beneficial global warming recently we have not topped those historic highs in 47 out of the 50 states.
U.S. state and territory temperature extremes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_territory_temperature_extremes
The heat waves of the 1930’s blow away any US heat waves that we’ve had recently.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-high-and-low-temperatures
Sometimes seeing graphs/data doesn’t help you to envision the reality.
How about this article from the state of Ohio about 1934:
Cincinnati Has Never Topped Records Set in the Heat Wave of 1934
The summer of 1934 was a hot one all around the United States, but the focus of the heat was the Ohio Valley around Cincinnati.
https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/cincinnati-has-never-topped-records-set-in-the-heat-wave-of-1934/
Imagine a drought monitor map in 2020 like this one from 1934 and the explanations that we would be reading about for what supposedly caused it:
?resize=550%2C500
Latest soil moisture:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Soilmst_Monitoring/US/Soilmst/Soilmst.shtml#
1936 North American heat wave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave
Summer Scorchers: America’s 9 Worst Heat Waves Ever Recorded
https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/summer-scorchers-americas-9-worst-heat-waves-ever-recorded/
In the last 20 years, how many US states have set all time hottest temps?
Just 3, Colorado-2019 , South Carolina-2012 and South Dakota-2006.
Half of the states set their all time hottest temperature during the hottest decade for Summer heat…….the 1930’s.
Despite the modest, mostly beneficial global warming recently we have not topped those historic highs in 47 out of the 50 states.
U.S. state and territory temperature extremes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_territory_temperature_extremes
Having stayed in Furnace Creek I wanted to know where the thermometer was located. Google maps revealed that the Visitor Centre is “temporarily closed”. Why? Refurbishment? Moving the recording instruments? Rather than cast doubt on the 1913 records, should not the recent reading be carefully analysed? Perhaps Mr. Moshe knew something and was referring to 2020 when he wrote “the observer was a dolt, faked a bunch of readings”
“And here is the table of records …”
So of the 30 hottest days in the last 110 years, over half were recorded in the last 20 years, and a third in the last 10.
Only 6 were recorded before 1960, all in the same 6 day period in 1913.