By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM

Deaths from heat waves, property damage from floods and rising seas from melting glaciers are a few of the things Americans can expect as a result of climate change, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a report released on Tuesday, April 28, 2010. 

“...heat waves have increased steadily since the end of the 1970s. “For society, increases in temperature are likely to increase heat-related illnesses and deaths, especially in urban areas,” said the report, which relied on data from a variety of U.S. and international agencies and sources.

One of these sources was the NCAR study by Meehl et al which we covered last year with the help of analysis by Bruce Hall and Dr. Richard Keen here and here.

In it we showed that had they started the analysis before the 1950s, they would have seen the dominance of heat in the 1930s (below, enlarged here).

The IPCC models for the increase in heat from 1990 to 2030 (now the midpoint) show the heat should be concentrated in the central (continental) climates (below, enlarged here).

You can’t get any more central/continental than Des Moines, Iowa. How are they doing for heat records. Let’s look at heat records in June and July in Des Moines by decade (below, enlarged here). No signs of any increasing heat records here. Last record in 1988.

The IPCC models also see less cold - fewer frost days and milder winters (below, enlarged here).

Here is a plot of Des Moines mean winter temperatures since 1980 (below, enlarged here). Notice no trend.

Notice the last three winters were cold (average of 2.83F below the 1951-2009 mean). They were very snowy winters too with this past winters 69” falling just short of the record of 72 inches in 1911/12.

Note that given the El Nino giving way to La Nina, there could well be some developing heat this summer despite the fact most climate models and the soil moisture models say not for the central. Even so, if we have La Nina next winter, look for another cold winter in the north central states. Record show cold kills many more people than heat and deaths from all extremes have been declining.

More hype and lies from your government and the hype-prone Weather Channel.

----------------
Very Late Snow and Cold southwest Eorope.

After a warm spell at the end of April, old man winter made a comeback in May. The State of Catalonia, Spain, experienced the coldest temperatures for a month of May since records exists.

Provincial capitals registered the following minima: 0C in Salamanca, 0.3C in Avila, 0.8C in Burgos and Segovia, 1.8C in Soria, 2C in Guadalajara and Valladolid, 3C in Cuenca, 3,3C in Teruel, and 3.7C in Albacete. This was accompanied by snow in many parts of Northern Spain.

In Southern France: Snow on the city of Carcassone and in South-Western France - “a rare phenomenon this time of year”. 1C was registered at the airport of Tarbes-Lourdes, a record low for a 4th of May since measurements started in 1946. Across South Western France, temperatures dropped 20C within a couple of days (here)

---------------------

Fourth International Conference on Climate Change on May 16-18, 2010, Chicago, Illinois.

Make plans now to attend ICCC-4, an international conference on climate change calling attention to new scientific research on the causes and consequences of climate change, and to economic analysis of the cost and effectiveness of proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.