I was invited by the METSUL to speak in Brazil to farmers at a precision ag conference in 2010 during the World Cup. I was in beautiful Gramada for the semi finals which Brazil lost. I had the good fortune to spend time with meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart and his principal scientist Alexandre Aguiar, both well respected in southern Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul (Porte Allegre). Eugenio responded to a typical Climate Central (affiliated with the increasingly not to be trusted Weather Channel which recently had a special report on the 10 ways the climate is different than 30 years ago - I ask anyone to respond to that nonsense and I will post) unscientific post on how Brazil has warmed. They list it under the category science but TWC sadly doesn’t do science much anymore it should be under the category of propaganda.  JoeD

Dear Brian

Editor - Climate Central

Regarding your story on climate change and the World Cup.

I would like to stress some points and seek some scientific clarifications:

(1) I cannot understand the warming graphic supposed to reflect the climate reality of an entire country that has an area of continental proportions. How many stations were considered to produce the graphic ? And does the graphic consider the fact that a vast portion of Northern Brazil is forest area with very sparse meteorological readings ? Did you use extrapolations to produce it ? How many weather stations records were used to calculate that warming ? Below is a series of temperature charts generated by NASA’s GISS showing a cooling trend in the last decade in several weather stations in Brazil, from South to North, from West to East.

Enlarged

(2) In your article, do you consider the fact that Brazil experiences a massive process of urbanization in the last 50 years and that many of the weather stations in the cities and airports are now much more impacted by Urban Heat Island (UHI) than in the past ? Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, for example, was built in the late 50’s and didn’t exist before 1961.

(3) The winter in Southern Brazil, the coldest part of the country, was in average colder in the last five years than the 1931 to 1960 and 1961 to 1990 averages, mostly in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. Crops experienced heavy losses due to earlier (fall) and later (spring) than normal frost occurrences. It was not an isolated harsh winter or two, but a sequence of colder winters since the PDO flipped to mainly negative with frequent La Nina events.

(4) The winter of 2013 in Southern Brazil was the snowiest in decades. Some areas saw the highest snowfall since 1965, contrary to many climate change forecasts that the region would have a “snow drought”. Curitiba, one of the venues for the World Cup, saw snow last year for the first time since 1975. Roads were blocked by snow and some cities had roof collapses due to the amount of snow, even one foot in some towns. Even reports of thundersnow surfaced. Extraordinary and amazing photos of the snow storms of July and August 2013 in Brazil (yes I said Brazil) can be seen in the links below:

Here,
here, and here.

These are my questions and considerations regarding your article.

Best wishes,

Eugenio Hackbart
Chief Meteorologist
MetSul Meteorologia

Thank you Eugenio for providing sanity and enlightenment in the increasing Climate Dark Ages under world politically driven eco evangelism that has spread to virtually all the media including TWC, our once honorable universities and professional societies. Speaking of the enviro La La land, I gave a one hour talk at a NH Science, Technology and Energy Committee meeting following an hour from a Union of Concerned Scientist UNH professor. He started out by saying he was not a modeler but a data guy so would focus on data then spent most of the hour talking about data FROM THE MODELS. He showed a list of papers (Oreskes, UIL, Cook) that showed 97% of real scientists agreed with him and that I would represent the 3%. I followed by dismembering all his arguments and could tell from the look on the face of the true believers there (many benefiting from green energy or sustainability programs) they were uncomfortably suffering from cognitive dissonance. The professor was heard mumbling to himself through my talk. I would post my PPT it but the size is too large for Icecap. If you know my address write me and I will send it for your use.