One of the most curious aspects of the climate debate is that almost no one insists on mathematically rigorous tests of the major hypotheses that are involved. This is true among the warmists, of course, but is often true among the skeptics as well. Why the skeptics do not do so is beyond me. But most skeptics do not appear to do so. This often takes the form of endorsement of both natural and man-made sources of global warming, often with the view that the skeptics believe the man-made effects are minor. One of many examples is Benny Peiser, the Executive Director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, probably the leading climate skeptic group in Britain. He has done many useful things for the skeptic cause, but endorsing the concept of man-made global warming is not one of them.

Peiser is a social anthropologist - a discipline that may not widely use the relevant rigorous statistical methods in their work. Peiser has stated that climate change is due both to natural and man-made causes. But there is no rigorous evidence for the latter offered by Peiser or anyone else. So why is it advantageous to skeptics to support the opposition for a belief that has not been rigorously supported using the most appropriate mathematical techniques?

This may be crucial to the outcome of the debate here in the US since a legal case can be made that even a minor human effect is sufficient to invoke the Clean Air Act (CAA), assuming that the Act is even applicable to climate as the courts (but not Congress) have ruled. Now the US CAA is not applicable in Britain, so perhaps Peiser can be excused for not understanding the implications in the US, but the result is the same.

However, everyone needs to use the mathematically proper tools that are readily available, particularly in a controversial topic like climate. This is particularly true given the enormous, totally unnecessary costs involved if the current “consensus” on climate science has in fact no rigorous proof of its validity. The principal “evidence” offered by the warmists is not really evidence at all. Their elaborate mathematical climate models prove nothing except that they make a lot of assumptions, and the results reflect the assumptions they have made. Many billions have been wasted on this “research,” perhaps because some people actually believe in this sophisticated nonsense since all General Circulation Models (except the Russians’ get similar results.

The Merits of an Econometric Approach Compared to Climate Models

Regarding the merits of the methodology discussed here versus that used in developing the climate models relied upon in EPA’s Endangerment Finding and in the IPCC publications, a quote from Congressional testimony by Dr. John Christy is useful here:

“The advantage of the simple statistical treatment discussed here is that the complicated processes such as clouds, ocean-atmosphere interaction, aerosols, etc., are implicitly incorporated by the statistical relationships discovered from the actual data. Climate models attempt to calculate these highly non-linear processes from imperfect parameterizations (estimates) whereas the statistical model directly accounts for them since the bulk atmospheric temperature is the response-variable these processes impact. It is true that the statistical model does not know what each sub-process is or how each might interact with other processes. But it also must be made clear: it is an understatement to say that no IPCC climate model accurately incorporates all of the nonlinear processes that affect the system. I simply point out that because the model is constrained by the ultimate response variable (bulk temperature), these highly complex processes are included.

“The fact that this statistical model {typically} explains 75-90 percent of the real annual temperature variability, depending on the data set, using these influences (ENSO, volcanoes, solar) is an indication the statistical model is useful. This result promotes the conclusion that this approach achieves greater scientific (and policy) utility than results from elaborate climate models which on average fail to reproduce the real world’s global average bulk temperature trend since 1979.”

Warmists Like Some Econometric Methods but Not Others

Although the warmists are all for using econometric methods to tease out the smallest possible indication that pollutants (e.g., NOx, XOx, ozone, etc.) cause adverse economic or physical effects, they seem adamantly opposed to using mathematically proper econometric techniques to determine what impact CO2 have had on Earth’s temperatures. The point is that the proper mathematical methods must be used in both types of analyses. And the proper conclusions produced to date are that actual pollutants above various concentration levels can cause adverse medical and economic effects, but the effects have unfortunately sometimes been exaggerated, but that increasing CO2, including human-related emissions, have not resulted in statistically significant increases in temperatures in the real world.

Unfortunately, many climate skeptics have not accepted these econometric findings and continue to rely on general statements that the effects of increasing CO2 concentration levels have only minor effects on temperatures. But from a US legal viewpoint and the Clean Air Act this may turn out to be a critical issue. There is simply no basis for believing that increasing atmospheric CO2 has had any significant effect in the real world on temperatures and skeptics need to raise this point at every opportunity. The issue is not whether there may be theoretical effects of CO2 on temperatures, but rather whether any significant such effects actually occur in the real world. It is important to point out that there is no basis for climate extremism’s basic tenet. They will no doubt be attempts to ignore this fact, but sometime, somewhere, people might actually pay attention to what the science actually says.

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ICECAP NOTE:

Earth’s temperature changes which have cycled predictably in multi-decadal ways shown to change with ocean and solar cycles and volcanism. When these are considered in a rigorous econometric way, they explain all the changes in temperatures in 14 different data sets without any residual - required if CO2 was a driver.

And by the way note, the carbon pollution most warmists talk about (since CO2 is a beneficial gas to all vegetation and crops and humans breathe out 100 times more CO2 than they breathe in.

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And NOx and Ozone are at or below target levels and declining.

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Poor forest policy is making conflagrations all over California the new norm as forest thinning and logging was halted decades ago.

Blaming climate change for the recent California fires and the state’s water woes appear to be like the kid blaming his dog for eating his homework.

The reality of climate change isn’t the issue. The earth’s climate has warmed and cooled since the beginning of time. Mankind’s impact on climate change remains debatable and laced with hyperbole that does little to solve problems but much to perpetuate political agendas and poor public policy.

Not to be out done, President Trump jumped into the mix recently with a typical tweet that cast the blame on state officials for taking water that otherwise could be used to extinguish fires. While California and the feds seem to be in the business of banning human access to fresh water, that’s not the issue.

Decades ago a hue and cry went out across the U.S. that the timber industry was killing the Northern Spotted Owl, and to end this, logging had to stop. A major California newspaper did a series of stories on logging that used hyperbole and exaggerations, along with some very good photography, to sell this point and win a Pulitzer Prize.

Logging was stopped. Small towns crumbled, and forests became so overgrown that they began to die. Too many trees then competed for a finite amount of water that fell on the forests during the winter months. A northern California rancher once told me that streams and springs he knew as a child dried up because of this competition for water.

This forced deer and elk migrations to change and further changed natural patterns in the forest that exacerbated the problem. Voter-approved ESA-like protections given to the mountain lion didn’t help as the large predators decimate deer herds that once foraged on the forest. We’ve now introduced wolves that will further cause declines in deer and elk populations and force ranchers grazing their cattle on public lands to relocate them.

Stressed trees became fodder for the bark beetle that also killed vast forest vistas. The view from highways connecting places like Susanville and Red Bluff, or Chester and Quincy bear this out. Forest Service policies of squashing just about every lightning-sparked fire compounded the issue as fire has always been a natural part of the forest ecosystem. It is now virtually impossible to have a small, controllable fire anymore.

The consequences of decisions like these are legion, and expensive. Lives and property are lost and destroyed as millions of dollars in fire suppression costs, infrastructure repair and insurance claims are racked up annually because of mankind’s mismanagement of forests.

Public policy is not going to reverse heating and cooling cycles that moved the planet in and out of ice ages. We are likely at the apex of a warm cycle and, according to information I’ve heard, some scientists believe a cyclical change in sunspot patterns may soon move us into a period of cooling.

ICECAP NOTE: Todd is living the story in California. See this rebuttal that supports Todd’s message here.

Meteorological summer (June, July and August) is now over and it’s time to check how the summer temperatures compare with other years.  For a research project a few years ago we developed a statewide summer temperature index for four 100-mile diameter regions centered on the major cities of the state, Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham and Huntsville going back to 1883.  This summer will go down in that database and in NOAA’s official records as being slightly cooler than average.

Somewhat related to this, a reader sent me a link to a New York Times interactive website that claims to provide the number of days above 90F each year for cities across the country.  The results are produced for the Times by an outfit (some might call it an environmental pressure group) called the Climate Impacts Lab.

Since I build numerous datasets of this type, I took a look.  The website asks you for the town and year in which you were born, then provides a time series purportedly showing the number of 90F days per year since your birth and how that has increased.

Though a native of California, I have lived in Huntsville more years than any other place, so I put in my birth year and Huntsville as my hometown.  Immediately I became suspicious when their dataset started only recently in 1960 (and a few years after my birth!) Evidently the Times and the Climate Impacts Lab don’t want to deal with folks older than 58.

For Huntsville and Montgomery, here are their results - kind of scary.  It appears that the number of 90F days has risen to their highest levels ever.  I’m told that in 1960 Huntsville had about 45 days above 90F but by 2017 it was 57 days and rising.

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Then, to make matters even scarier, they use climate model projections to 2090 to tell me that when I’m “80” in 2040, there will be 73 such hot days in Huntsville as seen below.  Yikes!

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Before you sell your house and move to Canada, let’s take a look at the real story.  Having built many climate datasets of Alabama, some starting as early as 1850, I knew the Times story was designed to create alarm and promote the claim that humans who use carbon-based energy (gasoline, natural gas, coal) to help them live better lives are making our summers ever more miserable.  Be aware reader, this webtool is not designed to provide accurate information.

First of all, climate data for Alabama began in the 19th century, not 1960.  In 2016 Dr. Richard McNider (Alabama’s former State Climatologist) and I published a carefully constructed time series of summer temperatures for the state starting from 1883 that utilized numerous station records, some that even the federal government had not archived into its databases (which is the most common source for outfits like the Climate Impacts Lab.) I’ve updated that work to include summer temperatures through 2018 - the result is below.  Not only are summer daytime temperatures not rising, they have actually fallen over the last 136 years.  Hmmm… after looking at the graph, why do you suppose the Climate Impacts Lab decided to start their charts in 1960?

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We went a step further in that paper and demonstrated that climate models failed completely to replicate the downward temperature trend in Alabama over the past 120 years - 76 different models with a 100% failure rate.  Would you trust these same models to tell you about the future as the Times does?  Why did they not check the models for validity?

Now, what about the number of “hot” (or in Alabama we would say ‘typical") 90F days?  For Alabama and the nation, I’ve calculated the average value per station each year since 1895.  The results below speak for themselves (there is no increase of days hotter than 90F) and expose the misinformation provided through the Times.

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Providing accurate information on Alabama’s climate is what we do in our office.  In fact, using real data, I can’t even come close to reproducing the images that the Climate Impacts Lab did which show 2010’s as having the most 90F days in Alabama - I’m guessing they are using some theoretical output rather than sticking with observations. Notice how smooth their graph is compared to real data - it doesn’t look real to me.  I’ll check and follow-up as I can, but something is fishy. 

This is a great state in which people can enjoy life and in which businesses can operate - and our climate resources are one of the reasons we are doing so well in recruitment.  Occasionally though the time comes when I must address claims made by those whose intention is not to inform but to promote false alarm - this usually happens when an environmental pressure group generates a press release whose dramatic statements are published by a willing media (without any fact-checking.) This is one of those times, and I’m sure it will not be the last.

Citation:

Christy, J.R. and R.T. McNider, 2016: Time series construction of summer surface temperatures for Alabama, 1883-2014, and comparisons with tropospheric temperature and climate model simulations.  J. Applied Meteor. Climatology, DOI: 10.1175/JAMC-D-15-0287.1.

Data from the New York Times website accessed on 5 and 6 September, 2018.

Looks good to us.

An article today in The Australian concerning the imminent demise of the Great Barrier Reef and the exhortation that something must be done is interesting not for its bloated and deceitful content but for the comments that follow it. The writer, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, is the director of something called The Global Change Institute at the university of Queensland.

“The Global Change Institute (GCI) at The University of Queensland is an independent source of innovative research, ideas, policy and advice for addressing the challenges of a changing world.”

In other words, do-gooders who managed to wrangle themselves sweet funding under the guise of ‘the end of the world is nigh!’ (Notice how you don’t see those crazy guys holding placards outside dusty train stations anymore? They’re all employed in the climate scam industry.)

The crux of the scaremongering in the article comes down to this bit:

“The changes are being driven by the climate, which is the reef’s most significant threat. The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report, produced by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, makes that clear, as does the Reef 2050 Plan, the overarching framework for protecting and managing it developed by the commonwealth and Queensland governments. It tells us that a lack of action on climate change will see our reef disappear, along with other vital ecosystems.”

Get that? The reef will disappear! (Waves arms and runs around in circles whilst making the boogy-man noise).

The comments that follow the article are uniform in their scorn and ridicule for the false message that the climate doomsters have been predicting for so long now. What a turnaround from just a few years ago when the majority of comments would have elicited tones of deep concern and shock that such a great tragedy was about to befall our nation and our world.

That’s what an increase of over 500% on domestic energy prices will do to your message of doom.

Scientists have sure been banging on for quite some time now about a variety of doomsday disasters caused by us human folk that somehow have all failed to materialize as predicted. We were going to run out of oil, copper, gold, gas and just about every other resource you could poke a stick at by the 1980s. The world was going to be consumed by horrible famines caused by overpopulation, while instead we’re now producing so much food that we’re using the leftovers to fuel vehicles. There was going to be a new ice age, then it was global warming, and finally they hit upon the singular brilliant tautology of climate change.

That last one is indeed true because the climate is not static. Way to go scientists; you got one right! (Not.)

There has been so much scientific bullshit that people are becoming somewhat inured to what so-called scientists claim. James Delingpole just doesn’t trust scientists anymore:

“It’s not science they distrust so much as scientists - especially ones in more nebulous, activism-driven fields like ecology or sociology. As Cofnas told Campus Reform, a site that exposes left-wing bias at universities: ‘Conservatives are right to be sceptical. Take any politicised issue that is connected to some disagreement about scientific fact. I do not believe there is a single case in the last couple of decades where a major scientific organisation took a position that went against the platform of the Democratic party.’ He added: ‘What an odd coincidence that “science” always, without exception, supports the liberal worldview.’”

The politicization of science, the substitution of scientody for scientistry, is in of itself inherently unscientific as it relies on some sort of left-leaning democratic process. To get ahead in this rigged game, people pretending to be scientists have to make things up. How else can one explain the appalling revelation that less than 50% of scientific studies can be replicated.

“Six such projects, including the SSRP, have now been completed. Between them, they’ve successfully replicated just 87 out of 190 studies, for an overall rate of 46 percent.”

No doubt many of these bogus studies were cited in peer-reviewed journals and used to badger dim and corrupt politicians into squandering the resources and wealth of their countries into placating the great climate god Ghia.

But the people aren’t believing it anymore. I’ve been bashing heads with climate change idiots online and in real life for over 10 years, but the turnaround in attitude that we’re now seeing really does underline the fact that the general public isn’t buying it anymore.

Which is too bad for science. You can only cry wolf so many times before the public no longer believes you. And if then a real calamity should present itself, a calamity that only science could identify, predict or solve; what then?

Science. Just one more part of our civilization that the prog army of darkness has successfully destroyed.

THEN THE RAINS CAME

It has been a changeable and at time extreme spring and summer. The cold and snow of March gave way to a cold April and some very chilly days well into the spring. Warmth with some very hot days followed in the early to mid summer. Then the rains came with strong thunderstorms. The wet August spell put an end to a borderline droughty spell the last few years. It became very muggy, keeping nighttime temperatures up and air conditioners on.

The changes all have to do with the wind direction. The jet stream brought chilly air masses (and snow) into eastern Canada even into June. The winds around these cool air masses turn to the northeast here in New England coming in off cool land and water.  Then increasingly warm air masses built north into the Canadian prairies and came east. The surface winds turned northwesterly. In summer, warm air crossing the Appalachians and sinking down into the Merrimack Valley and coast heats by compression 5F or more. Our hottest days come with these ‘downslope winds’.  Historically all the 100F days come with a west to northwest wind.

When late July and August came, our surface winds turned southwesterly.

This change was caused by a sharp cooling of the subtropical Atlantic Ocean waters relative to 2017.

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The Atlantic cool subtropical pattern leads to that stronger than normal Atlantic high pressure called the ‘Bermuda High’. In these patterns, this regular feature of our climate expands south and west and acts as a pump for moisture much like we see in the southeastern and eastern Asia monsoon flow. This causes nights to be warm and muggy, and days very warm and showery here in the east.

Uncomfortable yes, unprecedented heat no.  You may be surprised that most of the extreme heat records for the region, country and world occurred in the early 20th century or earlier. The 1930s was the record decade in the United States as a whole. For the east, the 1950s was the warmest but extreme heat has occurred even in cold periods.

July 1911 was an incredible hot month in the northeast with the northwest wind coming off a warm dry Canada where prairie fires reigned. Read about it on the New England Historical Society site here.

For the region and nation (all stations) the number of 90, 95 and 100F all continue the downtrend since the 1930s. Nights are warmer thanks to the fact most observations are now in urban centers or airports, which hold the daytime heat.

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EFFECT ON THE HURRICANE SEASON

As a general rule, when the subtropical Atlantic is warm, we have more hurricane activity, when it is cool, we have fewer storms. A measure of how much tropical activity energy there was over the season is the ACE (Accumulated Cyclone Energy) Index. See how last year when the subtropical Atlantic was very warm, ranked behind only 1893, 1926, 1933, 1995, 2004 and 2005 in total storm energy (and impact).. It featured major hurricanes that slammed the islands, Florida and Texas.

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With the sub-tropical Atlantic cold this year and El Nino trying to come on in the Pacific, it is likely we will have a quiet year with fewer named storms and less than half the storm energy than last year. See all the cool Atlantic year shown in yellow (most in the 1970s to early 1990s).

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