From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
There were a few days of hot weather in the US a couple of weeks ago. Attribution “scientists” immediately jumped up and announced that the heatwave would have been “virtually impossible” without challenge.
It’s the same old, unsubstantiated claim that gets wheeled out every time it gets hot. And every time they ignore the lessons of history.
If heatwaves are caused by global warming, what caused them in the past? Not only have they always occurred, they were considerably more severe in the past in the US.
In 2017, the US Global Change Research Program published the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a report mandated by Congress:
https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/19486
Running to 400+ pages, it was an extremely detailed, fully referenced assessment of the US climate and how it had changed over the years. Chapter 6, “Temperature Changes in the United States”, included this section on temperature extremes:
The evidence was unarguable. By all measures, heatwaves in most of the country, with the exception of the west, had been considerably more severe in the past.
Conversely the same was true of extreme cold – that too had been more severe in the past.
Bear in mind that we are not talking about an isolated phenomenon, the Mid-West dustbowl years. The heatwaves of the 1930s were a national event, not a regional one, and were not confined to one summer. Indeed the heatwaves of the 1910s, 1920s, 1950s and 1980s were all memorable.
These findings were embarrassing to say the least. I recall at the time an attempt to bury them by excluding them from the Executive Summary.
That was in 1917. Six years later, the next edition, the Fifth National Climate Assessment came out with the same message:
https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/61592
Heatwaves had lessened in severity, except in the west. At the same time, cold extremes had also declined, alongside an apparent warming trend at night.
These two reports are now buried in the archives. They are no longer available from the usual public sources.
Thanks to my old links and Wayback though, I have now managed to download both from the NOAA Institutional Repository.
This one
was produced from NOAA’s Climate at a Glance * in 2017
I wonder if a redo would still show the same results
*The link to NOAA above doesn’t work
Why has there been a huge uptake in heatwaves or cold spells recently? They keep saying it’s hotter but in PA I keep feeling it’s colder, but I am not thermometer.
“They” tell you that there’s been an uptake (did you mean uptick?)
and you believe them. You say, ” They keep saying . . .” Well, that’s
how it works. Short search comes up with
“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth“
Wikipedia attributes that familiar quote to Goebbels or Lenin or
…. who ever, doesn’t matter it seems to work. When the entire media
tells you something it must be true. Personal pressure results from
media reporting. People tell me, “Do you really believe there’s a big
conspiracy?” My answer is, “That’s what it looks like.” and they roll
their eyes.
“That was in 1917” think you meant 2017
I believe you have identified a typo.
“In 2017, the US Global Change Research Program published the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a report mandated by Congress:”
Why? Easy answer: TRUMP (his number should have been “42”)
”Oh yeah? That’s just regional.” Everywhere else in the world is “boiling!”
But, but, the data are lying.I can just look out the window and see climate change! The anxiety is too much for me __ I need counseling!
Is “/s” really needed?
You need some intensive traning by Gretta so you can see CO2.
I recently updated several plots of U.S. data from a list of 655 long-term GHCN stations. It is from that same list that NOAA generated plots in figures 2, 3, and 4 in their 2022 state climate summary report (for WY) using data for all of the contiguous 48 states. My updates here use data through 2025.
My six plots are:
Avg # days Tmax >= 90F
Avg # days Tmax >= 95F
Avg # days Tmin >= 65F
Avg # days Tmin >= 70F
Avg # days Tmin <= 0F
Avg # days Tmin <= -10F
Same general result as in this article.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BgFd6y0_5e-V_vozFBVLj3Jhp9eldkDX?usp=sharing
This is the NOAA state climate summary report from 2022 for WY.
https://statesummaries.ncics.org/chapter/wy/
Thank you for your attention to the data.
All of this reminds me that Steinbeck was a great writer, and that I should watch John Ford’s adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath.
The dust bowl had more to do with soil disturbance from plowing where it shouldn’t be plowed than the weather.
Yep, I’m aware! But the image that introduces this article inevitably makes me think of the magnificent opening of The Grapes of Wrath. The intertwining of heat waves, dust storms, and the financial crash must have been terrifying to experience.
It is rarely the accounts of the most joyful experiences that produce the greatest works of literature…
Yuh, like those big Russian novels based on their unjoyful history. I tried reading one- and couldn’t do it.
Another big lie. You can look the dust bowl up and find out that
in the ’30s it hit 100 F in nearly all 48 states. And yeah that’s
because they did too much plowing back then, what a crock.
Wikipedia says:
“The 1936 North American heat wave was one of the most
severe heat waves in the modern history of North America.
It took place in the middle of the Great Depression and
Dust Bowl of the 1930s and caused more than 5,000 deaths.
Many state and city record high temperatures set during
the 1936 heat wave stood until the 2012 North American
heat wave.Many more endure to this day; as of 2022, 13
state record high temperatures were set in 1936. The 1936
heat wave followed one of the coldest winters on record.”
And the winters were colder than normal which when averaged
in with the summers results in no uptick showing for the’30s
on the temperature charts NASA & NOAA put out. If you want
to know how hot it got, measure how hot it gets when it gets hot.
Averaging winter & summer temperatures together is about as
meaningful as the average telephone number New York.
See that first post above.
I believe there is a misunderstanding. Mr. Zorzin’s point was solely to clarify that the dust storms were caused by soil exhaustion due to over-plowing, combined with severe drought. If the land hadn’t been damaged in this way, the soil wouldn’t have crumbled like that, even with such a severe drought.
This is something that should probably be explained to all the anti-pesticide activists in the world. You have to choose between plowing and expanding farmland (lower yields without pesticides) and controlling weeds with agrochemicals, which helps save land that benefits local biodiversity.
So I entered this leading phrase in to Google:
“poor land management cause heat waves of the 1930s”
And lo and behold didn’t Google AI show up with this:
“Yes, poor land management was a primary cause that
amplified the record-breaking heat waves of the 1930s.
The widespread removal of native deep-rooted grasses,
known as “plowing up the plains,” coupled with intense
drought, left the soil exposed, causing a loss of moisture
and creating a “furnace” effect that escalated temperatures.”
I believe there is misdirection on Google’s part. The Climate
Cult twists what ever events there are into “is caused by” or
“will cause Global Warming”.
Caused by list: Numbers Watch Warm List
Causes global warming is a shorter list, but much of it is ridiculous
Agricultural N2O
Methane from cattle & rice paddies
CO2 causes sea level rise
Vapor trails (just looked up, and Google said yes)
All of the refrigerants with those ridiculous GWP numbers
And off course CO2 causes warming but water vapor is usually ignored.
It mostly in the “short grass prairie”. It could tolerate millions of buffalo but not deep plowing. And I certainly wasn’t implying there wasn’t a heat wave.
UAH figures for March 2026 are out on Roy Spencer’s blog.
Warmest March and warmest temperature anomaly for any month on record for the US ‘lower 48’.
Here’s the ‘all months’ version:
I believe the upward trend is due to warmer nights and warmer low temperatures that then show up in the average. The high temperatures in general are not the ones going up or have gone up much less.
Anomalies are not temperatures.
Is a 10 C rise above -20 C “hotter” as a 1 C rise above 40 C?
They’re differences from temperature averages. So they are derived directly from temperatures, which is why every single global temperature data set uses them, including UAH.
Are these ‘average temperatures’ constructs as informative and useful as those constructs of ‘average’ tire pressures in a vehicle whose 4 tire pressures are supposed to be 40 psi each, but are measured at 15, 60, 35 and 50 psi respectively.
So, the “average” tire pressure is 40 psi, but would any thinking person think this vehicle is fit for purpose in any real sense?
“Global average temperature” constructs are equally of no use in any practical sense.
So what?
“I believe the upward trend is due to warmer nights and warmer low temperatures…”
That doesn’t seem to be true for March. According to NOAA, since 1979 minimums have been rising at 0.22°C / decade, but maximums at 0.38°C / decade.
Since 1895 the trends are similar, but with maximums still slightly faster than minimums.
Apart from the small 2016 El Nino step change, and some heat spikes from the 2023/4/5 El Nino…
…there is essentially no warming in any of the 3 USA temperature series since 1979.
Certainly no sign of any human caused warming..
I doubt anyone why even the remotest common sense could put this anomalous spike down to any human causation.
Doesn’t show the 1930s
UAH starts in Dec 1978. NOAA will be updating the 1880-present US data shortly.
NOAA before 2000 is rife with mal-manipulations that COOL the past.
Real measured temperatures were warmer in the 1930s and 40s.
Much more than 1 month. !!
You start at 1978, while the article started at 1900, a slight difference that you again can’t understand because you are an afflicted warmest/alarmist propagandist.
Here is the headline that you forgot already, your dishonesty skill remains intact.
US Heatwaves Much Worse In Past
Roy’s data set starts in 1978 (Dec), so I was kin of influenced by that.
Still that clueless you are as the article is based on 1900 onwards and heatwaves were much worse before 1978.
The UAH chart you posted doesn’t address the point of the article whatsoever.
You are a lost boy.
Let’s await the NOAA data for the ‘lower 48’ then.
(Something tells me you won’t like that, either.)
You are running on empty; it is clear you are here to produce fog and bullshit.
Again, here is the headline of the article you didn’t read,
US Heatwaves Much Worse In Past
US Heatwaves Much Worse In Past
US Heatwaves Much Worse In Past
one anomalous month is WEATHER..
A person has to be pretty brain-washed or incredibly stupid to think it was caused by humans , when the rest of the world is doing nothing.
So what?
Since 1978……
cherry pick ??
See above…
I can’t hindcast UAH pre Dec 1978 because that’s when it starts.
Funny how climate is a 30 year interval yet the graph and trendline extend for 47 years.
Anomalies do not cut it when trying to define warmest or coldest.
1 C above 20 C is not the same as 1 C above 10 C.
(Tmax – Tmin)/2 is not the average. for a 24 hour day it is off by at least 10% based on spherical geometry and a rotating planet.
I put the trendline over the entire period of record, Dec 1978-Mar 2026. It is +0.21C per decade.
If we were to use 30-year trends then for USA48 that rises to +0.24C per decade.
Be careful what you wish for.
I thought you were concerned about “GLOBAL” climate change? Which ever so slightly decreased. *I realize Dr. Spencer pointed out the US Continental data, but I would expect more from someone with your expertise.
The thread is about US heatwaves, so….?
… so why did you pick a data set that starts in 1978 when the article goes back to 1900’s?
The article used data sets (though he had to dig for them) that go back that far.
If you want to see a longer data set, here’s NOAA’s data for March. Up to 2025 the warmest March was in 2012, with 2010 second warmest, about half a degree cooler.
Going by the UAH data set (not necessarily a good indicator of ground temperatures) it seems quite likely that 2026 will be at least as warm and possibly much warmer than 2012.
UAH has March 2012 at +2.24°C, and March 2026 at +3.74°C above the 1991-2020 average.
2012, Isn’t that when the earth’s crust shifted and most of the world was wiped out by huge tsunamis?
Funny how that looks nothing like recorded temperatures 😉
How many times does this need to be explained?
You can explain something that’s meaningless as often as you want. It is still meaningless.
So when someone asks you why you show a data set that starts in 1978 and you explain that that is when that particular data set starts, it’s “meaningless”?
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW,
You seem to fail to realize no one here is disputing the UAH chart it is misuse of the chart is what bothers people as relational people understand the point is the decline in severe heatwaves from the article.
Try thinking it through instead, you might surprise yourself.
In what way is the chart ‘misused’?
It’s UAH data, the links are provided, the charts are clearly labelled.
If you don’t like what it shows, take it up with UAH.
And UAH shows no warming except at El Nino events in 2016 and around 2023/4/5
Red thumbs.. please show warming in UAH that is NOT associated with 2016 and 2023/4/5 El Nino events.
Which you have completely avoided because you are mentally damaged by climate propaganda.
The article is about Heatwaves and how they were worse in the previous century.
OK, let’s see what NOAA says about March 2026 in the lower 48 US data. It goes back to 1885, I think.
I’ll be surprised if 2026 isn’t the warmest March in the record.
Then we’ll get a whole lot more of other excuses…
Why so manic about a very localised WEATHER event when the rest of the world has done absolutely nothing ???
But there were probably MUCH warmer Marches back in the much warmer 1930s and 40s.
NOAA shows March 2026 as warmest for the USA in their data set.
Except for dearth of precipitation, it was the nicest weather in Colorado in my recollection.
Bravo!
Yep a slightly warmer spring month.. Oh so horrible !! 😉
It’s intentionally misleading to claim that the March 2026 temperature “anomaly” (compared to an average) is the warmest “on record for the US ‘lower 48′” since that record goes back only to 1978 using UAH data, when the whole point of this discussion was to highlight how heatwaves in the US lower 48 were worse in the 1930’s. You would have been less disingenuous if you had more appropriately said “warmest month anomaly in 48 years using UAH data,” but since that wouldn’t counter any of the argument about the 1930’s being more anomalously hot than this year, you probably wouldn’t have posted that, or if you did, you would have been more thoroughly lambasted by the intelligent folks who post on here more than they already have….
Think about that for a minute. I said it was UAH data. I provided a link. My chart showed the data from the link. I stated it was UAH on the chart and clearly showed the start and end dates.
Don’t confuse ‘misleading’ with ‘easily misled’.
So the data you rely on for your warmest on record statement goes back only to 1978, when the discussion is about the heatwaves back to the 1930’s being the worst in modern American history. I’ll say it again. It’s intentionally misleading.
So what?
Are the climate alarmists not arguing for a form of climate stasis, whereby the climate stops changing and just goes ever on as it currently is/was? That seems to be the basis of their aims.
My question to them is what is their ideal baseline year? It’s probably in the 1640s…
What can I do to stop climate change? – Greenpeace
Silly. You can’t stop it.
It is in our human DNA to be afraid of change.
It was a species survival trait in the early years of human existence.
It is hubris (to the extreme) thinking we can control the temperature across the globe to such precision.
We cannot even keep the temperature much better than +/- 2 C in our climate controlled living rooms.
I wonder how well controlled the temperature is in the Orion (Integrity) capsule currently on lunar trajectory. Ah. Found it. +21 C to +26 C.
This is our best technology in a small volume with 4 humans and someone thinks we can do better with an entire planet with 8 billion humans?
One time I placed three high accuracy liquid in glass laboratory thermometers next to each other within a few mm on a bench. All three measured a different reading, though within about 1C.
Algorithm Instructions: Throw out the top and bottom figures, then add, say, 40% to the median value to get the acutal ambient temperature; (Optionally) Set hair on fire; Run outside shouting: “it’s over, we’re all done for!”
“There were a few days of hot weather in the US a couple of weeks ago.”
There were a few months of exceptionally warm weather here in the West. Let’s not minimize this. But it was caused by La Niña and ridiculously strong, stubborn high pressure.
I think all these variations cover too short a time span.
Reading McPherson’s book on the US civil war there are numerous references to exceptional weather e.g. a dry spell lowering rivers so the ironclads were stuck, or exceptional rains making tracks glutinous, or a sudden nine inches of overnight snow.
Also, in about 900 AD it was so cold the Nile froze, as did the Black Sea. In about 137 BC it was so hot in Spain the Roman legions could only march at night.
These has been well-established facts for decades already; yet the alarmists frequently sidestep them and try to tell us that any isolated heat waves are a guarantee of things to come on a regular basis along with more violent storms, droughts, floods, you name it. And the mainstream media does its part by downplaying or suppressing details of the Dust Bowl period of the 1930s while conveniently omitting to mention that more normal rainfall and steadily improving agricultural output has followed for decades now.
US Heatwaves Much Worse In Past: Thats no lie. I am 88 years of age and grew up on the Great plains on a farm that is now in Hi yield corn and soybean country. Four of my siblings were born in the 1920’s with me on the tale end of the family. They told me many stories of the summers of 34 and 36 when temperatures were above 105F for mor than 30 days during the months of July and August. Today temperatures above 100Fare seldom seenfor more than 3 or 4 days fo the entire year.
If you check official records you still find 26 states with record High temperaturs during the decade of the 1930’s.
And let’s not forget, this one month anomaly, is actually in early mid Spring in the USA.. so hardly “hot”,..
.. just a bit warmer than usual. !
“These findings were embarrassing to say the least. I recall at the time an attempt to bury them by excluding them from the Executive Summary.
These two reports are now buried in the archives. They are no longer available from the usual public sources.”
More Homewood nonsense….
All you have to do is, err, let’s see, type into Google eg “Fourth climate assessment” and lo and behold you get, after clicking on “Download”and there it is, all 477 pages of it!….
https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/19486/noaa_19486_DS1.pdf?download-document-submit=Download
“If heatwaves are caused by global warming, what caused them in the past? Not only have they always occurred, they were considerably more severe in the past in the US.”
The US Dustbowl event of the 30’s was unique whereby an ENSO initiated event was made worse via the stupid practices of farmers causing a feedback effect and exacerbating it.
”There were a few days of hot weather in the US a couple of weeks ago. Attribution “scientists” immediately jumped up and announced that the heatwave would have been “virtually impossible” without challenge.
It’s the same old, unsubstantiated claim that gets wheeled out every time it gets hot. And every time they ignore the lessons of history.”
Scientists don’t ignore it – you will find many scientific assessments of the event online, though the concept of using Google as your friend seems to have escaped Homewood.- and the recent event happened in March not during the summer months.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/heat-wave-most-record-highs-since-1951-hottest-march-in-7-states/1876492
“NOAA’s NCEI says that 3,331 weather stations across the West set daily record high temperatures, and 1,598 set their highest March temperatures on record during the peak of the heat wave on March 18 and March 22. Data continues to pour in. For the month, over 8,200 daily and more than 2,000 monthly records have been set.
From a smaller subset of 247 U.S. towns in the Climate Central database, the number of record highs this March (813) is the largest number set for any month after 1950. The runner-up is 771 in June 1952.
In 429 of those monthly records, weather station records go back more than 100 years, including Lawrence, Kansas, (157 years); Winnemucca, Nevada, (149 years); and Fort McKavett, Texas, (148 years).
To put it another way, the heat in Lawrence, Kansas, was worse than anything on record since 1869, when there were only 37 states and the first transcontinental railroad was completed. This was eight years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and Alexander Graham Bell installed the first commercial telephone.”
and in other AccuWeather news
https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/ice-and-snow-to-bring-power-outages-travel-risks-to-northern-us/1877640