At one time, Hansen talked about the horrific heat and drought of the 1930s, but he has been working hard over the last few years to erase that inconvenient decade.
Hansen 1999:
Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought. The drought of 1999 covered a smaller area than the 1988 drought, when the Mississippi almost dried up. And 1988 was a temporary inconvenience as compared with repeated droughts during the 1930s “Dust Bowl” that caused an exodus from the prairies, as chronicled in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath…..
in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country
That is an excellent graphic. Might even be better if run a little more slowly.
OK, I slowed it down by 50%. Just reload the page.
Steve,
Much better. What is interesting about the graphic was the 1930s drought was not continuous. It would periodically break and then reform. That makes the “permanent drought” crowd look even dumber, as even the catastrophic drought of the 1930’s was on a large scale not “permanent” for more than a year or so at at time. Rick Perry knew best!