During the hottest week of the year, the Union of Concerned Scientists has warned that we are all going to burn up in future summers, unless we take action to reduce emissions.
They generated this chart, with a bold statement and no uncertainty :
TABLE 1. Extreme Heat Will Become More Frequent and More Severe in All Regions of the Country
killer-heat-analysis-full-report.pdf
Their claim is that hot weather is caused by CO2. Yet The National Climate Assessment shows that hot weather used to be more frequent, extreme and intense in the US, and that it has declined sharply over the past 80 years as CO2 has increased.
Temperature Changes in the United States – Climate Science Special Report
Data from NOAA shows unequivocally that the frequency of hot days has declined in the US as CO2 has increased.
Midwest heat has declined sharply.
Northeast heat has declined.
Northern Plains heat has declined sharply.
Northwest heat has increased.
However, most of that increase occurred more than 100 years ago. Over the past century there has been almost no change.
Southeastern US heat has decreased.
Southern Plains heat has decreased.
Southwest heat has increased.
However, all of that increase occurred more than 100 years ago. Over the past century there has been no change.
All of the bold claims in the UCSUSA special report are baseless, particularly the claim that the US can control CO2 emissions. China is building lots of new coal fired power plants, and even if the US dropped off the face of the earth – CO2 emissions would continue to increase.
Climate change: Where we are in seven charts and what you can do to help – BBC News
With US emissions declining, China is on target to increase their lead, just as they promised President Obama they would do.
Climate Goals Pledged by China and the U.S. – The New York Times
As Beijing Joins Climate Fight, Chinese Companies Build Coal Plants
Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world, some in countries that today burn little or no coal, according to tallies compiled by Urgewald, an environmental group based in Berlin. Many of the plants are in China, but by capacity, roughly a fifth of these new coal power stations are in other countries.
Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to Urgewald’s tally, which uses data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent. The fleet of new coal plants would make it virtually impossible to meet the goals set in the Paris climate accord
As Beijing Joins Climate Fight, Chinese Companies Build Coal Plants – The New York Times
“Climate action” has no impact on either CO2 levels or the climate.
ESRL Global Monitoring Division – Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network
So who are the people behind this fraudulent study? They are defending science budgets and relying on feelings rather than data.
Rachel Licker works to defend climate science budgets and programs.
Kristy Dahl : Feeling Blue About Climate Change? You’re Not Alone.
It’s been a tough year for those of us in the climate change community. Each week has seemed to bring either a fresh report reminding us of how precious little time we have left to try to turn this ship around or a disaster that has climate change’s fingerprints all over it.
Beautiful graphs!
Just wondering how long before someone comments on Dahl, Cleetus, Licker?
It may have been a tough year for Kristy defending those “climate budgets” but it is going to get a lot tougher in the coming decade as temperatures continue to fall.
With the important staple crop losses this year due to cold weather getting people’s attention, defending their orthodoxy is going to take extra effort.
Maybe CO2 is making things hotter somewhere else.
My advice to UCS, as a faith-based organisation, is to better embody the virtues of humility, honesty and perspective.
I just find this interesting…. one determined citizen, armed with a computer and using publicly available information, **completely demolishes** a 52-page(!) bloated scientific piece written by 10(!) senior scientists over several months, plus 17(!) additional team members – no doubt funded by a $75,000 grant – published in one of our *best* scientific journals, complete with giant photographs of suffering people which have no connection to the story-line… and does it in one afternoon after lunch using quantitative-historical analysis. This illustrates so many things…
“With the important staple crop losses this year due to cold weather getting people’s attention, defending their orthodoxy is going to take extra effort.”
And they are doing just that. The MSM are pulling out all the stops. Right now.
Now, no jokes about Ms. Licker’s name please.
Then they spend at least 4 pages on “government action required” – basically new design standards needed for infrastructure, commercial buildings, and housing stock to reduce energy consumption, etc etc.
Haven’t these people heard of the Green Building Codes, Sustainable Design movement, LEED??!! They are only about 10 years behind times…. Apparently these “senior scientists” don’t have a f– clue beyond their little walled off gardens.
Their 52-page effort by 27 people(!?) could have been submitted by one or two graduate students as a class paper – for one class.
While the “Northwest” is a politically defined region, it is not close to being a “climatically consistent region” – if that phrase means anything – which I doubt.
The coasts of Oregon and Washington and inland to an elevation of about 750 feet (~230 m) on the west slopes are (roughly) a climate region. Note that inland, near the Hanford Nuclear site, the elevation is <400 feet, temperature is often above 95°F, and rainfall is as scarce as pink Unicorns.
Geography (land forms and situation) are climate controlling factors.
This is the same reason that reports cities will probably experience "novel climates with no modern equivalent" — are nonsense.
One such: a CNN post by Jen Christensen
That’s why they had geographer Juan Declet-Barreto on the case. His work focuses on urban heat islands, and a publication on ragweed allergies. He’s a trove of meme-worthy quotes, though; these from July 16, 2019 at https://news.wgcu.org/post/its-going-feel-100-degrees-florida-lot-more-often-study-finds :
* “Think of…experiencing a temperature of 80 degrees in a dry, hot place like Arizona. And then think about what that temperature would feel like in a place like Florida, when you factor in the humidity of 68%. That feels like temperature becomes a lot higher.”
* “If we don’t take rapid action on climate now, many more people in the U.S. are going to be experiencing many more days of killer heat.”
* “We can’t just think that we can delay action until the late century, because that is just going to get us into a catastrophic consequences.”
I tremble already in fear of 80 degree heat with 68% humidity.
The mass exodus of Floridians to North Dakota is driving property prices down in Miami.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article225546415.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/home-prices-hit-a-new-record.html
I really like the new graphs, Tony. They are gorgeous, and illustrate your points very well. Bravo for this stunning rebuttal of their BS.
Hi Tony, can you please give us the script to generate these new graphs?
With us all BOILING in our shoes, why is energy consumption not increasing?
We have all these gadgets and phones and more and more HEAT HEAT HEAT. You would think per capita energy use would be soaring…
But it is flat since 1974. Sure some of that is better efficiency, but we are talking Climate Change here. The planet is on fire. People should be sweating and Air Conditioning and don’t forget all those gadgets…
Where is the energy consumption that you may expect?
Communists disguised in green trying to steal other people’s money.
Mr Heller: Thanks for your great work.
Communists disguised in green trying to steal other people’s money.
Mr Heller: Thanks for your great work. We would be lost in this big lie without your knowledge.
A graph that won’t appear in the NYT.
Obviously UCS member Kenji had no input in this propaganda. I think they should be forced to consult that pup before publishing anything.
Hey rah! Yes, thanks for mentioning Kenji. For those who do not know, Kenji is a proud member (well, a member, but probably not proud) of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Kenji also happens to be Anthony Watts’ dog. It turns out that the UCS is not concerned at all about whether its members are really scientists or not. Just send in your membership fee and “POOF!” you’re a scientist! Watts proved that by buying a membership for his dog. Of all the frauds the UCS has perpetrated, the very first and largest is their name.
Interesting info about the US. Unfortunately, Australia is seeing the exact reverse.
Yesterday, the temperature in Melbourne peaked at 43 C. That’s 109.4 F, and it’s hot. Inland, it was hotter still, and the heat exacerbated bushfires burning across great swathes of the country.
But global climate change isn’t just about heat, it’s about extremes of temperature and the events associated with them.
In 2009, 173 people died, here in my state, as a direct result of the Black Saturday bushfires. A 1-in-100 year event? It should have been. Instead, 10 years later, we have another unprecedented bushfire event. Six people have died and our summer has barely begun.
Climate change doesn’t cause bushfires, but it does make them a whole lot worse, and it makes them happen more and more frequently. Those predictions by climate scientists are spot on in Australia.
You can see a temperature graph of Australia since 1910 on the official BOM site here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/acorn-sat/
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the graph.
I suspect that if you looked at a similar graph for your California, and linked it to the incidence, severity and frequency of fires there, you’d see something similar.
Thing is, climate predictions aren’t just for /your/ country. They’re for the whole world, which means that there’s going to be an awful lot of variability there. And extremes. Lots of them. And that’s precisely what the climate scientists are saying.
You can believe the whole thing is a hoax, but who benefits from it?
I can see how the fossil fuel industry would benefit from denying climate change and the role of CO2, it’s their billion dollar profits after all. But all those scientists? From ALL. OVER. THE. WORLD? What are they getting out of this so-called ‘hoax’?
Research funding goes to departments. The scientists working in those departments get paid a wage. That wage is very little in comparison to the salary of a top level exec from Mobile Exon.
And scientists don’t get bonuses for how well they ‘scare people’.
Why would ALL of those scientists lie and cheat when they get just an normal wage?
And who persuaded all these scientists, from all across the world, to lie and cheat for peanuts?
I’m sorry, but it doesn’t make sense to me.