It appears that some time last month the EPA provided a major update of what it calls its “climate change indicators.” The EPA’s web page for this is headed “Climate Change Indicators in the United States,” with the sub-heading “Climate Change Is Happening Now.” The update is an initiative of the Biden administration, now eager to invest a few trillion dollars of your money in new “green” infrastructure, after several years in which the Trump EPA paid no attention to keeping these data up to date. The New York Times reports on the big update on today’s front page, under the headline “Climate Change Is getting Worse, E.P.A. Says. Just Look Around.”
The basic technique here is to propagandize you with every sort of essentially irrelevant anecdotal information, while diverting your attention away from the only indicator of “climate change” that actually counts, which is temperature. After all, if temperatures aren’t going up, it isn’t “global warming.” Here, we have some 54 supposed climate “indicators” — everything from rain to drought to ice to sea level — out of which the things relating to actual temperature are only a handful, and then are buried deep in the midst of all the others, probably in the hope that you will miss them. And moreover, the temperature data are then grossly misrepresented in what has to be an intentional effort at deception.
But let’s start with the official line from the new Biden EPA.
The Earth’s climate is changing. Temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and more extreme climate events – like heavy rainstorms and record high temperatures – are already happening. Many of these observed changes are linked to the rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, caused by human activities.
The Times then picks up on the theme by its headline calling for you to “just look around” to determine that “climate change” is happening. The idea is that you can determine that there is “climate change” by observing ice on ponds, or something, without having to bother with those complicated thermometers, let alone sophisticated satellite measurements:
Wildfires are bigger, and starting earlier in the year. Heat waves are more frequent. Seas are warmer, and flooding is more common. The air is getting hotter. Even ragweed pollen season is beginning sooner. . . . [EPA’s indicators] map everything from Lyme disease, which is growing more prevalent in some states as a warming climate expands the regions where deer ticks can survive, to the growing drought in the Southwest that threatens the availability of drinking water, increases the likelihood of wildfires but also reduces the ability to generate electricity from hydropower.
So how about the temperature guys? As you can see, the Times does throw in a couple of references to “heat waves” and “hotter air” in the midst of all the stuff about flooding, ragweed pollen, ticks, and whatever else. What’s missing is any citation or link to any source to support the assertion about actual temperatures. But over at the EPA page, under the heading “U.S. and Global Temperature,” we find the following graph, which is said to have been updated to April 2021:
That appears rather scary! Everything looks like it is going up sharply with passing time. Check out especially the green line, which is identified as the “lower troposphere [temperatures] (measured by satellite) of UAH.” The green line ends with a steep uptick, leaving it with the latest data point just below a record reached in 2016, and a full 2 deg F above the 1901-2000 average.
Oh, but here is the actual lower troposphere temperature record from UAH, available at the website of Roy Spencer, who is the guy who compiles the UAH record:
There are a few differences in the presentation that require a little interpretation, like the EPA graph is in deg F and has anomalies from a 1901-2000 mean, while the UAH graph is in deg C and shows anomalies from a 1991-2020 mean. But still, it leaps out that the green line on EPA’s web page, said to be the UAH record, ends with a sharp uptick and with the last point a full 2 deg F above the mean line; while this record, from UAH itself, ends with a sharp downtick and the last point actually below the mean line. Although EPA explicitly says on its web page that it updated the information in April 2021, this downtick in the UAH record began in January 2020 — a year and 4 plus months ago — and reflects a decline in lower troposphere temperatures of some 0.65 deg C, which is almost 1.2 deg F.
In other words, well more than half of the seemingly scary increase in temperature since 1901 shown in the EPA graph has just gone away in the last 16 months. So the Biden EPA, not wanting to complicate the official story of “climate change is happening now,” simply truncated the data in its graph at January 2020 to shut out the last year plus of big temperature declines. There is no way to characterize the EPA graph as other than intentionally deceptive.
The full post is available here.
the whole thing is a “frighten the masses” scam… from global warming to covidstan… if you tell a lie long enough, people start to believe it… like Stockholm syndrome, a certain % of population will sympathize with the abusive govt if they’re consistently told climate change misinformation, half-truths, and outright lies.
Thank you for this informative article.
However, I don’t find +2°F “scary.” Farmers in the American heartland can compensate for that amount of warming by planting about six days earlier. Ho, hum. 🥱
There’s probably something immoral in double-dipping by commenting on both the Contrarian’s site and this one. Here goes: Most of those indicators have proven to be false, and/or shown to have nothing to do with global, or even localized warming. Who is responsible in U.S. government for detecting, retracting, correcting false statements by public officials? If material gain is obtained through the issuance of false statements by public officials, who is responsible for prosecution, restitution, dismissal, and/or punishment? Who can pursue damages in civil court? Who can petition the government for redress of grievance?
Hmmm. I think you have highlighted the governance problem faced particularly in the USA.
The public officials responsible for correcting false statements are part of the corrupt executive branch. Prosecution of those materially gaining through false statements are also part of the corrupt executive branch although to be precise most of your justice department appear to see themselves as unaccountable to anybody. Pursuing civil damages means working through the corrupt court system. And petitioning the government takes you before the corrupt legislative branch.
The short game is to keep pointing out the false and misleading nature of government misinformation, and the corruption rife in the whole of government. The long game is to wait for the whole fake edifice to collapse under its own weight.
Having taken and multiply renewed what was described as a lifetime oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies, and having several current examples of the former as well as latter, with a few that are evidently straddling both categories, it is now down to tactics and target acquisition.
Tactics and target acquisition. Agreed.
I wonder if anyone will get around to looking at the Antarctica Sea Ice. As anyone who has followed it knows, there is not much change over the last 40 years. Regular NYT readers won’t be interested. They have been conned for decades.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-antarctic-sea-ice
On the UAH temperature anomaly graphs – “That appears rather scary!” should be qualified with “to climate fearmongers”. To knowledgeable people, it is the second graph which is scary – if that recent drop in temperature becomes a trend, we could be facing many hardships, especially concerning food and fuel.
Unusual Cold weather is not good for humanity. Early and late freezes can harm millions of people. But cold weather might be the only thing that breaks the back of this Human-Caused Global Warming scam, though.
I’m hoping for an extended pause. Just stay the way it is now. 🙂
But if history is any guide, we can probably expect a few decades of cooling. A repeat of the temperature decline from 1940 to 1980, perhaps.
lt always makes me smile when l get told not to confuse weather with climate, like they is no link between the two. Just how do they think the climate changed during the LIA without any change in the long term weather patterning. Am convinced that the climate change during the LIA and the recent warming here in England at least. Has been mostly down to longer term changes to the weather patterning. Which the current state of the jet stream explaining to me how this can happened.
“There is no way to characterize the EPA graph as other than intentionally deceptive.”
That’s rich. Let’s see what Francis Menton has done. He took this EPA graph
but cut off the heading, which clearly says that it is
1. ConUS, and
2. 1901-2020
Then he compares it to Roy’s plot of global temperatures, monthly to Apr 2021 and says, hey they’re different, the EPA is lying.
… and talking of intentionally misleading, here’s Nick.
Quick, look over there!
Hey Nick. You complain about misleadingly truncating a graph. Did they disclose it? Yes. Does anybody but you know it is also dishonest? Yes, many and increasing numbers every day.
So where does that leave your disingenuous comment?
” Did they disclose it? Yes.”
Did who disclose it? EPA simply provided a graph clearly labelled “Temperatures in the Contiguous 48 States, 1901–2020”. Francis Menton (echoed on this site) suppressed that label (without disclosure), represented it as a global plot, and said it was deceptive because of differences to a UAH global plot.
Nick you have misread both articles and are over emphasizing the significance of what are in truth your own deliberate omissions.
Menton quotes the EPA web page at the same link, where you suppressed the EPA title: Climate Change Indicators: U.S. and Global Temperature
From the EPA graph on that same page, same link, you have ommitted the caption that Menton quotes in the article:
Data source: NOAA, 20211
Web update: April 2021
For the periods covered commonly the two graphs are different, which is exactly Menton’s point.
I find nowhere in the self-published article where Menton uses the word lying. Since he is a practicing and accomplished attorney, he certainly knows how to present evidence so that a reader or juror or judge can come to a conclusion. Just how did you arrive at it?
“For the periods covered commonly the two graphs are different, which is exactly Menton’s point.”
Of course they are different, because one is USA48, the other is global. But Menton cut off the heading which showed that, and attributed the difference to EPA malfeasance.
“uses the word lying…Just how did you arrive at it?”
He says
“There is no way to characterize the EPA graph as other than intentionally deceptive.”
Still willfully wrong, in exactly the same way.
I’m pretty sure that Menton thinks in terms of fraud, gross negligence, and, as stated, deceptive information used as propaganda. Misrepresenting or omitting information, is deceptive, but not lying, just not truthful. There is a difference, and it is your word choice that is demonstrably incorrect, not the authors.
In addition to CONUS v. global, I believe the EPA graph is annual averages so of course it won’t include the months in 2021.
Stop trying to make things in America, just order out including Chinese EVs.
“Climate Change Is Happening Now.”
And now…and now…and now…ad infinitum
A government organization being deceptive? Never!
Providing the real reason “National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC)” deleted inconvenient history.
Biden’s corrupt government is looking to justify their scaremongering while destroying science and America’s economy in the process.
Zero evidence scare-mongering. No problem here see Willis’s
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
Regarding the EPA and its endangerment finding of 7 December 2009, a “day that will live in infamy”,(OK,wrong 7 December!),despite using what the SCOTUS itself describes as a “capacious” definition of ‘pollutant’ under the Clean Air Act, CO2 is neither a pollutant nor toxic.
Here is the Chief Scientist (just retired) of Australia, Dr.Alan Finkel AO,writing in The Quarterly in the latest edition, Issue 81,2021, “Green Zero”-
“A brief digression on carbon dioxide: it is not a pollutant.
Calling it a pollutant runs the risk of trivialising the toxic effects of true pollutants.
Carbon dioxide is not toxic.
It is a product of human metabolism and we exhale it at more than 100 times higher concentration than is found in the atmosphere.
In the reverse cycle, plants absorb carbon dioxide to use as the foodstock for photosynthesis.Carbon dioxide is a fundamental part of our lifecycle but it also happens to be a greenhouse gas.”
So is carbon dioxide a declared “pollutant” in Australia?
Yes and No.
In 2018,The Department of Science etc.undertook a revision of the National Pollutants Inventory (NPI) a list of 93 elements and compounds first set out for business and commerce in 1996 as a result of a Commonwealth ordered committee.
Neither CO2 nor Carbon were listed in the NPI.
The Review lists “non-greenhouse gas pollutants”, (the original 93 listed) and “greenhouse gas pollutants”.
The latter seem to arise from Australia’s obligations to identify and report to the UN and others,pursuant to its obligations under various international covenants e.g. Kyoto etc.
Who determined CO2 was a pollutant at the UNFCCC or UN IPCC?
I don’t have that answer nor when.
The EPA policies are scientifically baseless and economically senseless.
The OBiden Adjustment Bureau is on it. Soon to be fixed.
NASA/GISS will be back to calling it the “Warmest year evah!” as people freeze in powerless homes, and unable to afford skyrocketing food prices, under renewable energy grid blackouts in coming winters, and as crops fail due to late Spring frosts and early Fall freezes. Because Global Warming.
Five stars for the illustrations already.
Leftists are hilarious.
CAGW advocates know the UAH 6.0 global temp anomaly is now at -0.05C and will probably be at -0.15C by the end of May or June.
The disconfirmed CMIP6.0 models predicted the global warming trend would already be at 0.26C/decade by 202, which is about TWICE that of UAH6.0 observations (0.14C/decade).
When the PDO and AMO soon reenter their respective 30-year cool cycles, we’ll have to suffer through 30+ years of global cooling, and by 2050, the UAH global warming trend will likely be around 0.07C/decade since 1979.
The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years so I don’t know why Leftists can’t wait 3~5 years to see what happens to global temperature trends when the PDO and AMO reenter their respective cool cycles rather than waste $100’s of trillions on this silly CAGW scam.
Waiting 3-5 years would bring the gravy train to a halt.
Space aliens are here. Just look around!
The current EPA curve seems to have all the temps “shifted upwards” about 1°F compared to Roy Spencer’s graph. Also the scale seems to be different: a rise of about 0.4°C for one of the peaks in Roy Spencer’s graph corresponds in the other graph to 1.5F when it should be about 0.7°F (doubling of the vertical scale?).
As I noted above, they are plots of different things, which Menton’s post conceals. The EPA plot is of USA48; Roy’s plot is global.
But the main reason for that shift Menton does explain; they are plotted to a different anomaly base. This is necessary if comparing to a surface measure.
The earth is flat, not a sphere. Just look around!
While the various “average” (which are really mid-point) global temperature data sets and the satellite data sets are interesting metrics they really don’t tell you the full picture of the the CLIMATE.
The climate is the ENTIRE temperature profile at a location – meaning it is a time series with a certain variance that is location and geography dependent. If you really want to know the *climate* then you need to integrate the entire temperature profile over the entire period of time that is of interest. Just picking two arbitrary daily data points to create a mid-point value for a day (or a single point from a satellite data dump) is *very* misleading as it pertains to climate. It really doesn’t tell you anything about the climate and the matter gets further compounded when trying to use anomalies to represent the climate.
If I give you an “average” temperature for a location and you can’t tell me exactly what the high and low temperatures were that generated that average then exactly what do you know about the climate at that location? If I give the average *anomaly* for each of the temperatures does that increase or decrease your knowledge of the climate at that location?
Agreed, but aren’t rainfall patterns, winds, and cloud cover also climate?
Until these agencies are challenged on their lack of compliance to congressionally mandated quality standards, this garbage will continue.
Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by the Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov)
OMB Guidelines In Section 515(a) of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (Public Law 106-554; H.R. 5658), Congress directed OMB to issue government-wide guidelines that “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies….” The OMB guidelines direct agencies subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3502(1)) to:
• Issue their own information quality guidelines to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, including statistical information, by no later than one year after the date of issuance of the OMB guidelines;
• Establish administrative mechanisms allowing affected persons to seek and obtain correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agency that does not comply with the OMB or agency guidelines; and
• Report to the Director of OMB the number and nature of complaints received by the agency regarding agency compliance with OMB guidelines concerning the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information and how such complaints were resolved.