Does climate change play into the local weather equation?
At a basic level, yes, Nielsen-Gammon said.
Temperatures in Texas have increased by 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 30 to 40 years, he said.
“So the current record warmth is probably a couple of degrees warmer than it would have been without climate change,” he said.
Climate change, though, is not just about global warming, Hayhoe said via telephone Tuesday.
“An increase of a few degrees in our average temperature is not really going to have that big of an effect on any of us,” she said. “What’s going to affect us is that our conditions are getting more unpredictable.”
Long-term, temperatures in Texas have not warmed. Over the last ten years, temperatures have been on a downwards trend. The hottest year was 90 years ago. Year to date, 2011 is the 19th warmest – hardly “record warmth.”
“What’s going to affect us is that our conditions are getting more unpredictable.”
Can’t wait for the Met Office to start using that one……….
Nice chart. What is that activity from 1975 to 2010? If I were a “technical chartist” on Wallstreet, I would swear that is an “uptrend” (a zigzag action that is composed of “higher highs….and “higher lows”. But I’m just a bumpkin with a 5th grade education….what do I know? If Texas was a “stock”, now would be a good bet on the “long” (up) side over the next couple of years.
Here’s some more facts from some of those “scientists” showing that the Pine Island Glacier is melting 50% faster than it was in the early 1990’s. Somebody has GOT to keep those scientists from printing this “obviously false” information. I HATE FACTS LIKE THIS. Need to get Chuck and David to put a stop to all this leftist info.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110626145308.htm
Did you forget your meds today?
It sure looks like Chris drank the proper dose of Kool-Aide today!
I would be happy to sell of the stocks I bought at the low because the stocks are headed back in that direction.
You failed to look at the long picture.
Again you fail to see the long picture when you bring up the Pine Island Glacier.
The take home from that research is:So What! That is part of what glaciers do! Fifteen years don’t mean squat as it is only of long term regional weather patterns. It shows what a lot of people already know: Weather varies!
A 105 year long temperature record was too long for you.
LOL
Nice chart. What is that activity from 1920 to 1975? If I were a “technical chartist” on Wallstreet, I would swear that is a “downtrend” (a zigzag action that is composed of “lower highs….and “lower lows”. But I’m just a bumpkin with a 5th grade education….what do I know? If Texas was a “stock”, now would be a good bet on losing my investment over the next couple of decades.
If there is no single year in that graph that could have been predicted from the past conditions how can the predictions be getting any more difficult. Ms. KH. needs to learn to STFU as does JNG they both look like ignorant fools! But they are in the company of many others.
“If I were a “technical chartist” on Wallstreet”
There is a continuing hockey stick technical analysis that I prefer to standard candlestick charts:
http://oi54.tinypic.com/1zvrjoj.jpg
That 12,000 mark is also a psychological barrier. Since I made that ten days ago, the DJIA is still below it.
“Somebody has GOT to keep those scientists from printing this “obviously false” information.”
The Toxoplasma gondii virus also affects humans. It makes mice and rats throw themselves before cats, self-destructively. I think it may be at work on climate scientists, but instead of making them enjoy being around cats, as usual, due to a mutation present in a small percent of the population, it sometimes merely makes self-destruction pleasurable.
“It has been found that the parasite has the ability to change the behaviour of its host: infected rats and mice are less fearful of cats—in fact, some of the infected rats seek out cat-urine-marked areas. This effect is advantageous to the parasite, which will be able to proliferate as a cat could eat the infected rat and later reproduce. The mechanism for this change is not completely understood, but there is evidence that toxoplasmosis infection raises dopamine levels and concentrates in the amygdala in infected mice.”
So the truth is Texas is cooling. And, since bets are flying about, I would bet it has been cooling for 9000 years.
Well, you gotta hand it to them, TX has been warmer than it was 30-40 years ago, and so their record warmth comment might be valid if it’s wrt that time (which it wasn’t made clear if it was or wasn’t.)
But wait! If we shift to 60 or more years ago then TX is normal or maybe below normal. Looking at the plot, I’d think that the biggest anomaly is actually the unusually cool weather in the 1960-90s.
-Scott
According to Hayhoe :-
In many, though not all, places in Texas, rainfall also has been getting more variable, she said.
“We haven’t seen a long-term trend in annual average rainfall, but it has become more variable, with heavy rainfall events and droughts,” she said.
My studies of West Texas suggest there is no evidence of this if you take a trend back to 1930. The evidence suggests there were more heavy rainfall events in the 1930’s.
As for droughts, she likes to cite the case of Lubbock which went a record 98 days without rain in 2005. However in Seminole, a mere 81 miles away, the dry day streak lasted just 62 days and in the following month had several days of rain.
Even the Sierra Club recognise the realities of the Texas Climate :-
Texas weather has sometimes been described as drought punctuated by floods. That may be an overstatement, but undoubtedly the state has experienced a number of regional or statewide droughts over the decades. At times those droughts are broken by major rainstorm events resulting from tropical storms or the effects of El Nino. The reality is, however, that Texas is no stranger to droughts, some of which – such as the historic drought of the 1950s – have been prolonged and widespread and not always easily broken.
http://texas.sierraclub.org/water/20100309b.asp
This is an obvious case of historic records being unreliable due to equipment and method errors. With that in mind I would say that older records should be treated as anecdotal and by older records I mean anything over 24 hours old! Even the 24hr records are questionable.
Speaking of rain records: I measured nine and a half inches in six days this past week. A neighbor claims he heard they received eleven inches in three hours less than 15 miles from my house.
I used the highly accurate tape measure in a five gallon bucket method, I do not know what method they used across the mountain.