The Fifth National Climate Assessment Report is Driven by Government Deception & Climate Alarmist Politics

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

The U.S. Government recently released the Fifth National Climate Assessment report which falsely claims that:

“The climate change signal is “even clearer today than it was five years ago,” Hayhoe said. In the U.S., people across all regions are experiencing hotter temperatures and longer-lasting heat waves, with nighttime and winter temperatures warming the fastest.”

“Anyone who willfully denies the impact of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future. Impacts are only going to get worse, more frequent, more ferocious and more costly,” Biden said.

Tuesday’s assessment paints a picture of a country warming about 60% faster than the world as a whole, one that regularly gets smacked with costly weather disasters.”

One of the primary exhibits supposedly supporting these flawed alarmist claims contained in the report is shown below which is alleged to represent the U.S. and Global changes in surface temperature anomalies between 1895 to 2023.

As indicated in the text supporting this graph the average temperature anomaly year 1895 to 2023 data for the U.S. is a hodgepodge of CONUS Only data (light blue), then a mix of CONUS + Alaska data (medium blue line beginning in 1926), then a mix of CONUS + Alaska plus Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other U.S. Affiliated Islands (dark blue lines beginning in 1951). 

These absurd changes contaminate the extensive NOAA Contiguous U.S. temperature database record by combining  climate region data from geographically isolated areas representing the arctic (with large arctic amplification present in Alaska but not being present in the Contiguous U.S.) and tropical global climate regions all located thousands of miles distant from the Contiguous U.S. (shown below).

This contrived distortion and deception hugely impacts the Contiguous U.S. temperate climate region data outcomes leading to the government reports erroneous claims regarding the climate behavior of the “country”.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment report graph below (with the years between year 1965 and 2023 further highlighted on the right display for better comparison) shows the “All US” graph which results from the ridiculous data hodgepodge created by combining geographically isolated disparate climate regions located thousands of miles away from the Contiguous U.S temperate climate region.

Note that the “All US” trend graph completely crosses the 0-degree temperature anomaly line in about 1985 leading to false claims that the “country” experienced rapidly rising temperatures from that time.

NOAA’s average temperature anomaly data from the actual Contiguous U.S. (absent the contrived hodgepodge of geographically isolated disparate climate region additions) is shown below (with the data from about year 1970 to 2023 highlighted on the right display for better comparison) with the same timeframe (move the slide bar on the NOAA graph to Jan. 1895) as presented in the governments manipulated National Climate report shown above.

Note that the NOAA average temperature anomaly data which is much more detailed than the compressed and poorly defined average temperature anomaly data in the National Climate Assessment report does not cross the 0-degree average temperature anomaly line at all during the period from 1985 to 2023.

This NOAA average temperature anomaly data shown above completely disproves the contrived and illegitimate claims that the “country” is “warming about 60% faster than the world as a whole” and experiencing “hotter temperatures and longer-lasting heat waves”.

These false and flawed claims result from the government forcing a hodgepodge of geographically isolated disparate climate regions (arctic and tropical regions combined with the Contiguous U.S. temperate climate region) into the Contiguous U.S. database and thereby contaminating the Contiguous U.S. climate database to conceal its measured climate behavior.

The manipulation of this climate data in the Fifth National Climate Assessment report brings to mind the use of deception and distortion employed in the “Hide the Decline” fiasco during the “Climategate” period in 2009.      

Furthermore, the NOAA temperature anomaly data record for the Contiguous U.S. for the summer June through August periods (uncontaminated by geographically isolated climate data from the arctic and tropical climate regions) representing the maximum, average and minimum temperature anomaly data for each yearly summer period since 1895 is readily available and shown below (use Time Scale: 3 Months, Month: August, move the slide bar to Jan 1895 to obtain these graphs).

Note the average temperature anomaly summer period data (middle graph) shows that the most recent years experienced summer temperature anomalies that are no higher than during the “dust bowl” era of the 1930s before the governments climate alarmism propaganda campaign came into existence.  

Additionally, this NOAA temperature anomaly data shows that the Contiguous U.S. average temperature anomaly is being influenced upward not only by the maximum temperature anomaly increases but even more so by the increasing minimum temperature anomaly (steeper slope) outcomes.

This is a clear reflection of Urban Heat Island (UHI) impacts resulting in higher night time minimum temperatures as was demonstrated with data presented by Dr. Roy Spencer from a prior WUWT article.

The same UHI minimum temperature climate impact on the average temperature is also reflected in NOAA absolute temperature data for the Contiguous U.S. as shown below from a prior WUWT article.

The NOAA temperature data for both Contiguous U.S. anomaly temperatures and Contiguous U.S. absolute temperatures are shown below that clearly show average temperature anomaly and absolute temperatures in the Contiguous U.S are being influenced upward in summer periods because of resulting UHI occurring in higher population cities of the U.S over the last 100 years.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment report is a scientifically flawed technical document because of its contrived distortion and deception of climate data as described above with these actions undermining the government’s credibility regarding both its climate science objectivity and competence.