Real Climate Science

So far, this February has been the second coldest on record in North Dakota, with afternoon maximums averaging 3F (-16C.)  The frequency of nights below 0F (-18C) has been the highest.

Lots more record cold in the forecast.

10-Day Temperature Outlook for the Conterminous U.S.

The coldest February was 1936, which had similar weather patterns – except for southwest which was mild that year.

ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/docs.lib/htdocs/rescue/mwr/064/mwr-064-02-c1.pdf

Someone left this comment on the blog earlier today :

The author states but doesn’t prove that “The reality is that there is no legitimate evidence extreme weather is increasing or sea level rise is accelerating.” His graph (% day above 90F) doesn’t show the data for % day above 95F or 105F, or something else. What if the % of day above 95F would show an upward trend? His example is not enough to convince me that he hasn’t engaged in cherry picking.

February 22, 2019 at 11:16 pm

While possible mathematically, it is difficult to imagine how (in the real world) you could have fewer 90 degree days, and more 95 degree days. In fact, the same downwards trend is seen for 80, 85, 90, 95, 100 and 105 degree days.

 

Spreadsheet

The US used to be much hotter and drier, which was why millions of people fled the Great Plains and moved to California during the 1930s. At one time, California was a great place to live.

Flagstaff joins 9,000 other cities to join global climate change coalition | News | azdailysun.com

Two weeks ago, Flagstaff, Arizona joined the fight against global warming. They were immediately rewarded with the largest one day snowfall on record, and rescued Minneapolis from global warming at the same time.

Toto went hiking in Prescott, Arizona with an old friend last November.

This is what her place looked like yesterday, after 28 inches of snow.

That was nowhere near the record of 60 inches set in 1967.

20 Dec 1967, Page 1 – Arizona Republic at Newspapers.com

Toto’s friend tells me that her next door neighbor was there for the 1967 storm, and that it was a man-made disaster. The city had sold their snow plows earlier in the year, because they never used them. Apparently, lack of snow is a thing of the past in Arizona.

I’ve been warning climate alarmists about this for a year. Their Arctic sea ice melting scam is dead.

Ocean and Ice Services | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut

CICE_combine_thick_SM_EN_20190221.png (758×631)

Thirty years ago, the UN said we only had until the year 2000 to save ourselves from global warming.

Mercury News: Search Results

But after decades of fear mongering about global warming, five years ago the global warming pause forced climate alarmists in a new direction.

Global warming pause ‘central’ to IPCC climate report – BBC News

Alarmists quit talking about warming, and started talking about “climate change” “climate disruption” and “extreme weather.” Now every weather disaster is shown over and over again on television, and emotionally linked to rising greenhouse gas concentrations – just as Pavlov conditioned dogs to drool when they heard a bell ring.

The brainwashing has been very successful. The Washington Post says the world will end in the year 2o31, unless we give up our cars, fuel supply, freedom, money, democracy and meat. Note that this is a 31 year reprieve from the UN’s 1989 forecast.

Ocasio-Cortez says the world will end in 12 years. She is absolutely right. – The Washington Post

And the New York Times says it is time to panic.

NYT Opinion on Twitter: “Panic might seem counterproductive,

This sort of insanity used to be the banter of isolated cults, but has gone fully mainstream among progressive circles.

Without any perspective of history, many young people have no way to filter climate propaganda. How would Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez know any better?  She is a child who has heard nothing but propaganda for her entire short life.

The only way to know if climate is getting more extreme is to compare current weather with past weather. Claims are being made that heatwaves are increasing, along with fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, sea level rise, earthquakes and just about every other imaginable complaint of the human condition.

This is nothing new – every generation imagines they live in the most extreme climate ever, and have experts and statistics to prove it.

IMAGINARY CHANGES OF CLIMATE.

(Pall Mall Gazette.)

a plentiful crop of speculation from weather prophets and projectors, and half-instructed meteorologists, and all the philosophic tribe of Laputa in general, to whom the periodical press now affords such fatal facilities.

every season is sure to be “extraordinary,” almost every month one of the driest or wettest, or windiest, coldest or hottest, ever known. Much observation, which ought to correct a tendency to exaggerate, seems in some minds to have rather a tendency to increase it.

– Brisbane Courier, January 10 1871

10 Jan 1871 – IMAGINARY CHANGES OF CLIMATE

06 Oct 1939, Page 6 – The Des Moines Register at Newspapers.com

So are hurricanes actually becoming worse? Of the ten deadliest Pacific cyclones, nine occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM. Two of the ten deadliest occurred in 1881. The third deadliest occurred in 1780, and killed 100,000 people.

Template:Deadliest typhoons – Wikipedia

The deadliest Atlantic hurricane also occurred in 1780. Of the ten deadliest Atlantic hurricanes, nine occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM, and three occurred during the Revolutionary War.

List of Atlantic hurricane records – Wikipedia

The deadliest cyclone of all occurred in 1970, and killed half a million people.

1970 Bhola cyclone – Wikipedia

Imagery like this from Florida is shown over and over again on television, and linked to rising carbon dioxide concentrations.

But how many young people know about the 1900 Galveston hurricane, which killed 10,000 people and destroyed the city?

Or the 1926 hurricane, which destroyed Miami?

Or the 1815 New England Hurricane?

It is safe bet that school children aren’t being taught about this, but are instead being exposed to  Nobel laureate Al Gore’s sci-fi flick. Ten years ago, Gore released a book with the satellite imagery below, showing lots of hurricanes including one off the east coast of the United States which was circulating the wrong direction (clockwise) for the Northern Hemisphere. This sort of  junk science and fakery is what school children have been taught as science.

Not finding any, Gore airbrushes in hurricanes for his new book | Watts Up With That?

The United States has the best long term hurricane records of any place on Earth, and shows a long term decline in hurricane strikes – down 25% since the 19th century.  The peak year was 1886, when the US was hit by seven hurricanes.  Four of them hit Texas, and three hit Florida that year.

Major hurricanes peaked in the US during the 1940s, and recent years have been the quietest on record.

Spreadsheet    Data

Three years ago, the Washington Post was terrified by the record lack of hurricanes.

The U.S. coast is in an unprecedented hurricane drought — why this is terrifying – The Washington Post

There is no evidence hurricanes are getting worse, but what about tornadoes? Last year was the first year with no EF4 or EF5 hurricanes in the US.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Twitter: 2018 will be the first year with no violent tornadoes

Compare this with 1925, when a single tornado leveled dozens of cities and killed a huge number of people in at least three states.

19 Mar 1925, Page 1 – Palladium-Item at Newspapers.com

US tornado deaths peaked during the 1920s, and have been declining ever since.

Spreadsheet    Data

Over the last 70 years, the number of F3-F5 tornadoes has declined.

Wayback Machine

There is no indication tornadoes are getting worse, but what about heatwaves?  The United States is the only large area in the world with enough long term daily data to determine heat wave trends. Most of the world has little or no data.

Index of /pub/data/ghcn/daily/figures/

Every indication is that the US climate is becoming less extreme.  Before data tampering by NOAA, maximum temperatures are becoming less extreme.

Minimum temperatures are also becoming less extreme.

The average daily temperature range is becoming less extreme.

The percentage of stations reaching 90F (32C) sometime during the year is becoming smaller.

The percent of hot days is becoming smaller.

The percent of cold nights is becoming smaller.

The first hot day is coming later.

 

The last hot day is coming earlier.

The number of all time record maximum and minimum temperatures being set in the US has been at a record low in recent years.

Spreadsheet

Every indicator shows that US temperatures are becoming less extreme, with less extreme heat and less extreme cold.

What about drought?  Eight years ago during a severe Texas drought, the state’s leading climate experts announced that Texas would be hot and dry for the rest of the century, and they ridiculed Governor Rick Perry for pointing out the obvious – the rains would return.

“we’ll be fine. As my dad says, it’ll rain. It always does.”

– Texas Governor Rick Perry  Summer, 2011

This is how climate alarmists predictably reacted to Governor Perry’s statement.

With No End in Sight for Texas Drought, ABC News Explains: “Every Farmer in the World Will Be Affected by Climate Change” – ThinkProgress

“The weather of the 21st century will be very much like the hot and dry weather of 2011. Giving extra credibility to this forecast is the fact that the weather extremes that we are presently experiencing were predicted in the first edition in 1995.”

– Texas leading climate experts  2011

Texas is vulnerable to warming climate – Houston Chronicle

But Rick Perry was correct, and the academic experts were wrong.  Since 2011, Texas has been having some of their wettest years on record.  The rains did return, and the climate academics once again demonstrated that they are a combination of ambulance chasers and snake oil salesmen. Drought is always followed by wet periods.

Climate at a Glance | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

Climate at a Glance | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

Same thing is true for the entire US, which has been getting wetter since the 19th century.

Climate at a Glance | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

How about fires?  Burn acreage in the US has plummeted over the past 90 years.

Indicator 3.16: Area and percent of forest affected by abiotic agents

23 Jul 1933, Page 12 – Great Falls Tribune at Newspapers.com

October 9, 1938 – NYTimes

And forest fires are down 90% since CO2 was at pre-industrial levels – when an area larger than the state of California burned (on average) every year.

Fire Policy – Cover & TOC

Forest fire burn acreage is down 90% since CO2 was below 280 PPM. What about sea level rise rates? The National Climate Assessment claims that sea level rise rates suddenly doubled, when they switched methodology from tide gauges to satellites in 1992.

Sea Level Rise | National Climate Assessment

No serious scientist would make an apples to oranges comparison like that, but these are climate scientists – not real scientists.  I wrote up the incredible fraud behind this junk science here.

Tide gauges show no change in the rate of sea level rise over the past century. If there was an increase in the rate of sea level rise, it would be visible as an upwards curvature in the graphs below.

Sea Level Trends – NOAA Tides & Currents

Sea Level Trends – NOAA Tides & Currents

Sea Level Trends – NOAA Tides & Currents

The reality is that sea level rise rates are much lower now than for most of the past 20,000 years.

File:Post-Glacial Sea Level.png – Wikimedia Commons

I could spend weeks writing up the historical evidence indicating a decline in extreme weather, but that would not be the most efficient use of time.  Instead, let’s look at a a few of the worst disasters during a period of time when the weather was really extreme – 1925-1938.

As I mentioned earlier, the deadliest tornado in US history struck in 1925.

19 Mar 1925, Page 1 – Palladium-Item at Newspapers.com

The following year, Miami was destroyed by a hurricane.

The next year, 1927, was described by the Red Cross as “the worst year in their history.”

The worst floods in US history occurred in 1927. The Mississippi River was flooded for more than six months, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to abandon their homes permanently. Vermont’s worst flood on record occurred in November, 1927. The Red Cross listed 111 disasters – including 29 tornadoes, 24 floods, 9 hurricanes and 23 fires.

25 Nov 1927, Page 7 – The News-Review at Newspapers.com

St. Louis was largely destroyed by a tornado.

The Pittsburgh Press – Google News Archive Search

November flooding wiped out more than 1,000 bridges in Vermont, and drowned the Lieutenant Governor.

A number of record heatwaves occurred in 1927, including a protracted one in September and October, which killed scores of people.

15 Sep 1927, 1 – The Gazette at Newspapers.com

Warsaw Union – Google News Archive Search

On October 2, 1927, temperatures in upstate New York reached 99 degrees.

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, children were happily sunbathing near the North Pole.

02 Jan 1927 – SUNBATHING NEAR THE NORTH POLE – Trove

The following year. 1928, brought one of the deadliest hurricanes in US history to Florida, while massive forest fires were burning in California.

22 Sep 1928, Page 1 – The Brainerd Daily Dispatch at Newspapers.com

The year 1931 brought the deadliest floods in world history. More than three million people died.

21 Aug 1931 – 30 MILLIONS HUNGRY – Trove

24 Aug 1931, Page 1 – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 

China was having their 1,800th major famine since the year 108 BC.

15 Jun 1931, Page 6 – Montana Butte Standard at Newspapers.com

The year 1934 was the hottest year on record in the US, and brought a world-wide drought. This didn’t suit NASA’s global warming agenda, so they altered their data to make the heat disappear.

NASA 1999    NASA 2018

03 Feb 1934 – “WORLD HEATING UP.” – Trove

30 Dec 1934, Page 13 – The Los Angeles Times at Newspapers.com

22 Jun 1934, Page 3 – Hartford Courant at Newspapers.com

04 Jun 1934 – WORLD DROUGHT – Trove

19 Jul 1934 – DROUGHT IN ENGLAND. – Trove

12 May 1934, 13 – The Guardian at Newspapers.com

19 Jan 1934, Page 10 – The Sydney Morning Herald at Newspapers.com

05 Jun 1934, Page 5 – The News-Chronicle at Newspapers.com

The drought of 1934 was by far the worst in US history.

psi-193407.gif (690×488)

The extreme heat and drought caused millions of climate refugees to flee the Great Plains and move to California, as John Steinbeck described in “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Labor Day 1935 brought the most intense hurricane in US history to the Florida Keys.

06 Sep 1935, Page 1 – The Express at Newspapers.com

This came a few weeks after the worst dust storm and most intense rainfall on record.

On May 31, 1935 Woodward Ranch, Texas set the world record with 22 inches of rain in less than three hours.

Colorado got nearly that much rain a few hours earlier.

Extreme Weather: A Guide & Record Book – Christopher C. Burt – Google Books

The following year was the most extreme year in US history – the winter of 1936 was the coldest, and the summer of 1936 was the hottest.

A huge number of stations set their all-time high temperature record in 1936.  North Dakota and Kansas reached 121 degrees, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas reached 120 degrees. Iowa was 118 degrees, and Wisconsin was 114 degrees. New Jersey was 100 degrees.

Thousands of people died in the heat.

The Bulletin – Google News Archive Search

TimesMachine: July 7, 1936 – NYTimes.com

March of 1936 brought record flooding to the Eastern US.  My grandfather was evacuated by boat from downtown Pittsburgh.

20 Mar 1936 – ALL EASTERN AMERICA UNDER FLOOD WATERS 

19 Mar 1936, Page 1 – The Plain Speaker at Newspapers.com

April of 1936 brought one of the worst tornado outbreaks in US history.

11 Apr 1936, Page 1 – Weekly Town Talk

The following year brought record flooding to the Ohio Valley, an 85 foot crest on the Ohio River.

Seventy percent of Louisville was underwater.

Slide 1

Then came the 1938 New England Hurricane, which missed narrowly missed Manhattan and was the most damaging storm on record in New England.

The weather was far more extreme from 1925 to 1938 than anything Americans have experienced recently, but very few people still have memories of that.  Imagine the hysteria if we had  a period of extreme weather like that now!

There is no indication that the climate is becoming more extreme, but lots of evidence that it is becoming less extreme.  What is becoming more extreme is the misinformation, propaganda and lies from academics, journalists and politicians.  President Eisenhower warned about this in his 1961 farewell speech.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

– President Eisenhower   January 17, 1961

Arizona is having an epic snowstorm today which is breaking one day snowfall records, but the December 1967 storm lasted for seven days and brought 83 inches of snow to Flagstaff.

20 Dec 1967, Page 1 – Arizona Republic at Newspapers.com

The most important argument against climate alarmism centers around the proposed solutions.

“Solar is only during the day, solar only works best in places where it’s warm.

There’s no battery technology that’s even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables and be able to use battery storage in order to deal not only with the 24-hour cycle but also with long periods of time where it’s cloudy and you don’t have sun or you don’t have wind

Power is about reliability. We need to get something that works reliably.”

– Bill Gates

Financial Times

We live in a society which is completely dependent on fossil fuels and/or nuclear energy. Our heat, water, power, transportation, manufacturing, food production and distribution systems; communication, medical, financial and every other critical system depend on an “always on” supply of energy.

As an example, at the turn of the last century, there was tremendous fear that the Y2K bug would make computers non-functional and collapse society.  An intermittent computer network due to a lack of reliable energy would have the same effect. Medical and financial services would be non-functional.

Most Americans have never gone without essential commodities, and take them for granted.  And many, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seem to have no understanding of the catastrophic consequences of running short of energy. People of her generation have never had to do without food, warmth, light or communications. They can’t function if they don’t have a strong phone signal, and have no concept of what a shortage of food, transportation or energy would be like.

The US has been experiencing record cold this winter.  What would the people of Illinois have done without continuously available heat, light and communications during the record cold snap of -38 degrees two weeks ago?  I flew over the Midwest on January 6, 2018 during a similar cold snap. The air was dead calm and wind turbines were useless.  People were completely dependent on fossil fuels and nuclear energy for their survival.

The reason winter is cold, is because of a lack of solar energy.  The sun is low in the sky, days are short, and it is cloudy much of the time.  Yet climate alarmists want people to be dependent on solar energy for their survival.  They imagine that there is some storage technology which can store huge amounts of energy for long periods of time when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. But as Bill Gates pointed out, that technology doesn’t exist.

I have degrees in science and engineering, and have worked for most of the last 45 years as both. The job of scientists is to come up with ideas. By contrast, the primary job of engineers is to make things that work. If a bridge or a microprocessor, doesn’t work – very bad things will happen. Bad engineering is fatal to humans, companies and civilizations.

We need to have engineers making the technology decisions, not academic scientists and politicians – who have never had to deliver anything which works, and don’t have any understanding or experience with the processes required to make things work. Most academics and politicians have no clue what is going on behind the scenes of a technologically functional society.

An analogy would be climate forecasters vs weather forecasters. If a climate forecaster is wrong, few people remember or care in 30 years.  But if a weather forecaster is wrong, everyone knows and there are immediate consequences.

If the people of New York City (who elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) believe that we don’t need fossil fuels, why don’t they prove it to the world by eliminating fossil fuels usage in their own city?  They can end skepticism of their plan by eliminating gasoline, jet fuel and natural gas sales in their city. They should ban all electricity usage from sources other than solar, wind and nuclear. They should ban sale of all products manufactured or transported using fossil fuels.

Why didn’t Michael Bloomberg do this while he was mayor? The reason is simple – it is impossible. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s New Green Deal is impossible, and people in countries like China and India understand that.  That is why they are building more than 1,000 new coal fired power plants.

The US could disappear off the face of the Earth, and it would have minimal impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.  China produces more than twice as much CO2 as the US, and under the deal they made with President Obama, they will continue to increase their CO2 emissions until the year 2030.

FACT SHEET: U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change and Clean Energy Cooperation | whitehouse.gov

US emissions have been declining for a decade due to fracking, while Chinese emissions increased rapidly.

Climate Goals Pledged by China and the U.S. – The New York Times

The UN has been making the same claim that we only have twelve years to save the planet from global warming, for the past 30 years.

A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked

The claim is nonsense, the proposed solutions are unworkable, the US has minimal control over the level of atmospheric CO2, and the only viable conclusion is that the powerful people behind the scenes of the New Green Deal have extremely malicious intent. They refuse to allow any debate, censor all skepticism, and run academics out who resist climate alarmism.

We need to have a robust discussion about our energy future centered around engineers – not decisions based on hysteria by politicians and academics who don’t know the first thing about climate or energy.  The American people need to be educated, not fed propaganda and have their information sources censored. Our survival depends on an adequate supply of energy, not mindless hysteria and fear over an essential trace gas. Without carbon dioxide, life itself can not exist.

Without a reliable supply of energy, modern civilization can’t exist.

I was a studying computer science at Northern Arizona University thirty years ago, when  CO2 just passed 350 PPM.  It snowed a lot then, and it snows a lot now. Nothing has changed.

State of Emergency in Flagstaff after snowiest day on record | 12news.com

Eight weeks ago, the Arizona Republic Repulsive announced the end of snow in Flagstaff, due to global warming.

Climate change: Winter was Flagstaff’s identity. What happens now?

These pictures were taken near Phoenix this morning.