DO NEW TEMPERATURE RECORDS INDICATE GLOBAL WARMING AND/OR COOLING?

Each year there is an opportunity for 444,935 new High temperature records and 444,935 new Low temperature records in the United States. I determine that from the fact that there are 1,219 weather stations in the United States recording hourly temperatures each day. There are 365 days in the year. You do the math. I decided to write about this subject since the forecast for the Southeastern United States is for some record high temperatures for the date. In Wilmington, for example, the high is forecasted to be 88 degrees F. If the forecaster is right does that serve as evidence for global warming? Of course not. It's a statistical certainty that some records will be broken each year. While the 88 degrees for the date is warm, it's no where near all time record proportions for the season. For example the record for Wilmington for March 29 was 95 degrees and was set in 1907. On the Weather Channel this morning one of the cute lady 'forecasters' stated that with a record cold winter this heat just 'came out of nowhere'. That is simply not true. In the middle of the cold spell I wrote in this blog to expect 'record high temperatures' when the cold snap was over. (Click here for the post of January 7, 2010.) I am no genius for predicting this ninety days ahead of its occurrence. As I said in that post "It's just the way the atmosphere works." If there is an excess of heat in one area there will be a corresponding pool of very cold air elsewhere. If there is true global warming then we would have extended periods of record high temperatures, not just a day here and a day there. And....it would be year after year after year, not periods interspersed with record lows. Also, we would be having new ALL TIME record highs for the state.That has not happened in any concentration except in the 1930s. The only ALL TIME temperature extreme I've been able to find in the past several years was in Illinois in January 2009. The ALL TIME record LOW temperature was tied at minus 36 degrees. According to the Weather Channel there have been over 1,100 record high temperatures since the weather pattern began. Based upon the above I believe that to be statistically insignificant. It's not enough to be even one very hot day across the USA. We have only been keeping high and low temperatures for 120 years, a very short base line. Let's look at it 500 years from now and you just might be amazed at the variations, both hot and cold, to come in the future.

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE IN LIGHT OF MELTING METHANE?

The article right below this one is pretty scary. Thought I would post this to give you hope instead of nightmares. If methane is melting and adding to greenhouse woes it might seem hopeless, especially in light of the statement in that video that the methane is greater in quantity that all of the greenhouse gases released by Mankind. Let me remind you of a few facts. Changes in the atmosphere usually are slow. Long term changes do not occur over night. (Except in the case of volcanic ash which can cause sudden cooling for several years depending on the magnitude of the eruption.) If Phil Jones, a leading advocate in the past of man caused global warming, said there has been no global warming for fifteen years and he is correct, then the methane melt is one of the effects which follows the cause by several years, in this case decades. In fact I still believe the peak of the warming was in the 1930s. Click here for my chart posting record high temperatures for each state over the last 120 years. Air is constantly circulating around each hemi-sphere as well as moving up and down. It might take an abnormally hot system a couple of years to circle the globe. Then it might take decades before that air is mixed with the rest of the atmosphere. As the hot air rises from the surface it is lifted to extreme altitudes where much of its excess heat is radiated into space. These altitudes are far above any green house gases. Phil Jones also has recently admitted that it was likely WARMER in the MIDDLE AGES than it is now. Click here for my previous report on the Medievil Warm Period. I arrived at that same conclusion over a year ago. Click here for my graph correcting temperatures for the past 1,200 years for comparison with the temperatures today. If they survived and prospered so will we. Click here for the full report on Dr Phil Jones, recently at the heart of Climategate until he was busted and allowed the truth to come out. A few of his statements in the article I had not read before.

MICRO RECORD

The highest temperature on record for Wilmington, NC for this date, March 29th, was recorded in 1907. The temperature was 95 degrees fahrenheit. Where is global warming today? Not even close. A high of 70 degrees. The Weather Channel spouts record high after record high. Where are their records when they don't fit their profile?

ICELAND'S VOLCANOES MAY CHANGE WEATHER PATTERNS

As lava and hot gases melt snow pack and glaciers in Iceland there is some proof that other changes in real weather patterns (as opposed to localized melting) will occur. The volcano which just erupted had been dormant for over 200 years. However, historically whenever it erupts its sister volcano, Katla erupts shortly thereafter. The last time this happened gases and ash disrupted climate patterns and caused distruction and deaths in Europe. Many people died of poison gas inhalation in England. The ash and gases floated around the atmosphere reflecting radiation back into space. Temperatures fell in what was already the Little Ice Age. The waters of the Mississippi froze around New Orleans. For the full MSNBC report click here.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING?

This is in response to a question from one of our site followers (John W in Reno, NV). 'Global Warming' can be, in a limited sense, 'climate change'. When there is global warming there is certain to be 'climate change'. This is true regardless of the cause of the global warming whether increased or decreased sunspot activity, changes in ocean currents, or a blanket of dust in the air caused by the collision of a comet with Earth. In the case of the Medieval Warm Period we cannot blame auto emissions nor the industrial age for the warming. However, when there is 'global cooling' there is also 'climate change' although with different effects. Extremes are seen in the effects of the last Ice Age (ending around 12,000 BC) as well as the 'Little Ice Age' in the 1600s through the late 1800s. However, these are only two of the causes of 'climate change'. Changes in ocean currents may not cause either global warming nor global cooling but will change the climate on either side of the former path of the ocean current as well as along either side of its new path. The Gulf Stream (by way of illustration and not by way of limitation) stopped flowing around 2004 AD. It simply stopped. After several days it started again. This stream of warm water affects weather or climate from the tip of Florida, along its Eastern shore, the shores of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and then over to England, Ireland and Scotland and even some portions of the Netherlands. If this current had stopped for a longer period of time it would have caused significant cooling over the formerly British Isles. Maybe even have given that area an ice age like feel. Along the Eastern seaboard states mentioned it could have caused severe droughts, affecting food supplies. Fish migration patterns would have changed again affecting food supplies. There might also be benefits. Hurricanes moving up the coast would no longer have its warm waters as a 'heat engine' and the storms would die while still in the tropics. The storms might change to severe Nor' Easters but the East coast would be spared hurricanes. The reader had an excellent question and one which illustrates many of the criticisms rambled on about in this blog. Therefore, I shall give you another definition as obviously adopted by extreme left wing greens. 'Global Warming' is when there is strong scientific evidence of a general trend of warming air temperatures around the globe. 'Climate Change' is when there is insufficient evidence that the air is warming, and caught in their lies and misrepresentations, extreme left wing greens and their intellectually challenged and gullible followers need another name for their movement, thus coining a less inflammatory and more nebulous phrase, i.e. 'climate change'. It is an attempt to gracefully exit the debate without admitting they were simply wrong. It also reflects their lack of a scientific cause of the alleged warming.

DISTRESSING CLIMATE NEWS FROM WASHINGTON POST

Attached MessageWeather Bureau Report: The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.I'm sorry, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922 as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post. (Special thanks to Mert Greif for this article.)

DO YOU KNOW YOUR STATE'S RECORD TEMPS?

Here I present arrays of all time record low and high temperatures by state along with that record reading, and, the decade it occurred. Click on the chart to enlarge it and find your state.

RECORD HIGH 1880

June 15, 2009: Residents of Wilmington, NC are all complaining about the 'heat'. Muggy. Never been like this before this early. It's a high temperature of 82 degrees and it's only the middle of June. Global Warmers inform us 'it feels like' 85. We're so simple we don't even know how hot weather feels. Poor us. Good Ole Al Gore and company will help us understand how we really feel. Actually the hottest temperature on record in Wilmington for this date was 100 degrees in 1880, 129 years ago. Where is Global Warming? Al Gore, where were you 129 years ago? Aren't you a little late on this subject?

THE LITTLE ICE AGE

If the theories are correct this is a story of a tender and sensitive atmosphere. A butterfly flaps its wings on the Arctic tundra, a cariboo sneezes. A year later a new Ice Age begins.

I researched the causes of The Little Ice Age through several sources and they generally agree. The Little Ice Age began due to the Black Death plague in Europe. So many people died from 1350 A.D. through 1450 A.D. that there was heavy reforestation. Forests which had been cut to provide space for homes began to thrive once more. Fields once cleared to provide crops were covered with trees. So many new trees grew that CO2 was vacuumed out of the air in large amounts. Temperatures began to slide downward. At the same time there was a decrease in solar radiation due to the cycle of Sun spot activity. A few volcanoes became more active throwing dust into the air decreasing the amount of solar radiation reaching the ground. Cooling began on a global scale. For a complete explanation of one such theory click here for The Discovery Channel explanation.

However, just after the time all of this was happening Europeans rediscovered North and South America. At the time (1500 A.D.) there were sixty million Aztecs and Incas living either in Central America or just North or South of there. When the Europeans arrived they brought with them many new, and to the Aztecs exotic, diseases for which the native people had no defenses. 90% of the native people died from the early 1500s to around 1600.

Resultantly, around 190,000 square miles of farmland converted (not reverted) to verdant jungle. The jungle plants again vacuumed tremendous amounts of CO2 from the air. The combination of the above factors caused global cooling which reached such a point that it has become called ‘The Little Ice Age’.

No wonder the ‘Greens’ are concerned with the devastation of the rain forests of the Amazon. I don’t like that much either, even without the global warming ramifications. However, there are many other factors to consider. Did the Aztecs and the Incas cause Global Warming when they destroyed all of the verdant jungle for crops? .... No! .... Why not? .... There were no jungles when the Aztecs arrive in 1300-1400 A.D. All of Central America was simply savannah and grassland. The jungles came afterwards, after the Aztecs improved the soils, etc. Or, perhaps simply as a result of coincidental climate change when they arrived. Or, perhaps 54,000,000 bodies of disease ridden Aztecs added sufficient nutrients to the soil to allow the jungle to survive. Nasty thought.

At any rate by around 1850 A.D. the globe began to warm once more. As one author said a few bad winters will cause the old people to talk and complain. Two hundred bad winters in a row is a climate change. The Little Ice Age was a two hundred and fifty year worldwide climate change.

How does this affect our quest for an understanding of global Warming? Well, it does raise a few questions with me. For one the volcanoes threw up a lot of dust and no doubt lots of solar radiation was reflected back into outer space. However, what about all of the CO2 released in these eruptions? Why didn't it offset the cooling if it's such a 'Demon Gas'? That might be a good topic for research in another post. Also, if there were no jungles there before 1600 why wasn’t the Earth much hotter? We did have the Medieval Warm Period but it was preceded by another cold period without the jungles. Seems scientists might be putting too much weight on trees absorbing CO2. Or else... maybe they are putting too much weight on CO2 in the atmosphere. If so it means that Al Gore and crew are simply wrong. We’ll continue researching this and see where it leads us.

Mankind flourished throughout the Medieval Warm Period and really advanced coming through and out of the Little Ice Age. Perhaps the "greens’" idea of what Earth should be like is all wrong.

THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD

Something happened from 800 AD through about 1300 AD. The world grew warmer. This period has become known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) Records are sketchy except in Europe as one might expect. Writing was not much in vogue over the rest of the planet during that time period. However, scientists have attempted to piece together temperature records from other sources. These include lake sediments, ice cores and tree rings.

Wikipedia cites records of warming in Europe but states that NOAA said this was confined to the north Atlantic region and Europe. However, then they cite many records to show that the phenomenom was worldwide. Examples include sediments in the Hudson Valley (U.S) which show a warm period from 800AD to 1300 AD; the Western U.S and Alaska showed evidence of droughts and warmer than normal temepratures from 850 AD to 1200AD; ice cores from Antartica showed that there was warming in the MWP but in certain regions only and not at others; equatorial East Africa was much drier from 1000 AD through 1270 AD; and, lake sediments in central Japan verified the existence of MWP there. How can they say it's wasn't worldwide and then cite evidence that it was indeed worldwide? As a footnote droughts are often associated with warmer than normal periods of weather. Elsewhere in this blog you will find green opinions that Sun spot caused warming actually causes more clouds and thus cools the planet. Above they cite the relationship between warming and droughts. The inconsistencies in statements by these 'man caused' global warming advocates would be hilarious if they didn't have the attention of so many politicians who have little or no scientific training and little or no (apparently) analytical and reasoning power. Show them a graph and they're yours forever. They'll never question the source data behind a graph or a pie chart. Give them a 'Power Point' presentation and they'll kill for you.

NOAA'S VERSION
Read an interesting article on NOAA's position regarding the MWP. Note the contradictions in their statements.

MANY SCIENTISTS LABEL THESE THEORIES 'HORSE HOCKEY' There are numerous scientists who label NOAA's interpretation of the MWP as 'horse hockey". One of the most interesting I found is linked here. They represent that over the last 150 years global temperatures have increased by 1.5 degrees Celsius, only a small portion of which is an upward departure from 'normal'. Remember that during the first fifty years of that period we were recovering from the Little Ice Age. One of the scientists quoted in the article actually revised NOAA's Chart of Global Warming to what he believes is a more accurate representation. His theory and interpretation of the facts agrees with our analysis and revised chart as presented in the posting herein titled 'Problems with NOAA's Graph of Global Warming'. He also cites statements from 'Green' scientists (sic) who state that they need to 'get rid of' the MWP.

RECORD HIGH/LOW TEMPERATURES USA

There are several problems with methodology in making any statement about record high or low temperatures. (1) A measurement must be taken of 'world' temperatures, not just one locale or even one continent; (2) The National Weather Service in the US has only taken and recorded temperature readings since the 1880s. This is a very small time period to make any judgment as to trends. The Earth has obviously been warming since the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago, so how can we use temperature patterns or trends for 114 years (up to the year of Our Lord 1999) to make any conclusion? (3) Errors may be made in data collection. Instruments can become poorly calibrated, the personnel doing the reading can be having a bad day, or, as in one instance in Russia, simply be lazy or below budget or hung over and repeat the readings taken in September and use them again for October's numbers. However, the 'Greens' use the last 114 years as 'proof' so let's concentrate on that time period. Also, a major high pressure system which might produce record temperatures does not simply dissolve and end. It moves across and around the hemi-sphere. A storm system, for example, can produce violent weather in North America and then be traced once it moves on to the same effects in Europe, then on to Asia. For the sake of argument let's assume that record high or low temperatures were caused in the US by systems which moved on and produced similar effects elsewhere in the hemi-sphere. The numbers below are taken from the National Climatic Data Center for the US. It tracks how many new record all time high or all time low temperatures were set within the fifty states for each decade. For example, in the 1920s two states had all time record high temperatures. In the 1960s there were three states which recorded record all time low temperatures during that decade. In other words, in the sixties three states had temperatures which were the coldest ever recorded in those three states. These temperatures were not necessarily recorded in the same year, just within the same decade. I chose that unit of measurement to simplify and summarize the results.
...................# OF RECORDS ...............# OF RECORDS
....................SET FOR HIGH ................SET FOR LOW
DECADE ......TEMPERATURES.............TEMPERATURES
1880s ..........................1...................................0....
1890s ..........................2...................................5....
1900s ..........................1...................................5....
1910s ..........................5...................................3....
1920s ..........................2...................................1....
1930s ........................25..................................10....
1940s ..........................0...................................4....
1950s ..........................4...................................2....
1960s ..........................1...................................3....
1970s ..........................2...................................4....
1980s ..........................2...................................6....
1990s ..........................5...................................7....

From the numbers presented it appears obvious that the 1930s was the 'hottest' decade on record with half of the states recording record all time high temperatures. However, a significant number of record low temperatures were also recorded. Another point of interest is that from 1940 through 1999 there were 26 record all time low temperatures recorded while only 14 record all time high temperatures were recorded. Can we say that Global Cooling was occuring during these decades? No. We cannot say that. Only by analyzing temperatures all over the world, in both hemi-spheres on an hour by hour basis and deriving an hourly average temperature can we make that assumption. However, it is likely that a large portion of US temperatures followed closely in trends to these record highs and record lows. Many 'Greens' ignore these historical temperatures and have instead hysterically stated that it was growing warmer during the 1940s through 1999. Not so. In a stable atmosphere it might be safe to say that record highs and record lows would have a fairly even distribution over the 130 years of data. Except for the 1930s that seems to be the case. Of course in the 1930s we had a high number of record highs and a high number of record lows. Something was going on in the atmosphere during that decade but we cannot say what. We would have to research the upper air long wave patterns to learn more about this and then to determine what caused the long wave patterns to be distorted. It is normal that there would be record 'highs' and record 'lows' since there were no measurements before.