The 130-Degree F Reading in Death Valley Is A World Record
Con: 134 degrees in 1913 is still the official record and there is no reason to change it.
But here’s something the media tends to ignore. July 1913 had several days at or above 128°F. This is simply “business as usual” for Death Valley. In fact, back in 1913, over 100 years of “global warming” ago, Death Valley’s official weather station at Greenland Ranch also hit 130°F or higher three times that July. This was an intense stretch of hot weather from the 5th through the 14th when the high temperature reached 125°F or higher each and every day. In fact, this 10-day stretch still ranks as the hottest stretch ever recorded in Death Valley. The hottest days in this time period occurred from the 9th through the 13th when the high temperature reached at least 129°F with the hottest being on July 10th when the record-breaking 134°F was measured.
The Global Temperature Record Says We Are in a ‘Climate Emergency’
Con: The widely cited NASA global temperature graph is highly magnified and visually misleading.
The entire graph and temperature data set from NASA GISS is displaying just the small change of 1.1°C of temperature, which is highly magnified to show the trend. Because this small temperature change is magnified, it gives the false impression of having a steep rising slope. For the unobservant, that steep slope looks like a dangerous trend that would constitute a “climate emergency”.
Why Antarctica And Greenland Ice Melt is Not Serious
Writing in the journal Nature, scientists at Columbia University and the University of Victoria, British Columbia report,
The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. ”The scientists also observe that over the past several decades, “Antarctic sea ice area has modestly expanded.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-00143-w
Climate Change is Causing Accelerated 21st Century Surface Warming
Most Observed Warming is Natural
Almost half of the global warming in the 21st century is due to El Niño events
A major uncertainty in figuring out how much of recent warming has been human-caused is knowing how much nature has caused. The IPCC is quite sure that nature is responsible for less than half of the warming since the mid-1900s, but some climate scientists, politicians, activists, and various green energy pundits go even further, behaving as if warming is 100% human-caused.
Climate Change is Increasing the Strength and Frequency of Hurricanes
Hurricanes are Not Getting Worse
Devastating hurricanes occurred long before the invention of SUVs and coal-fired power plants. Real-world hurricane activity shows little or no impact from global warming. Even the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2018 “Interim Report” observes there is “only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences.”
Climate Change Will Increase the Number and Severity of Tornadoes
Tornadoes are Getting Less Dangerous
Despite the lack of sufficient long-term tornado data, there is a very short period of historical data from [1850] to the present that can be analyzed. This historical tornado data, show that the number of all categories of tornadoes has been declining for the past 45 years and the number of strong tornadoes, F3 or higher, has been dramatically declining for the past 45 years.
Climate Change and Crop Production
Food Production is Growing and Safe
As global climate modestly warms, U.S. and global crop yields are setting new records almost every year. The same is true for nearly all other nations, too. Thanks in large part to longer growing seasons, fewer frost events, more precipitation, and the fertilization effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide, farmers are producing more food on less land, allowing them to feed a growing global population.
Climate Change is Causing Floods
Flooding is Not Increasing
The U.N. IPCC admits having “low confidence” in even the “sign” of any changes—in other words, it is just as likely that climate change is making floods less frequent and less severe. Even if more flooding occurs in the future, any asserted increase in heavy precipitation would likely reduce drought frequency and severity. This is very important because drought is generally a greater climate concern than abundant precipitation.
Global Warming is Causing Cold Spells
Extreme Weather has always Occurred
Global warming does not cause an increase in the frequency or severity of cold weather events such as colder than normal winter outbreaks of “The Polar Vortex”. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports it is “very likely” that there have been fewer cold days and nights in recent decades. The U.N. IPCC reports it is “virtually certain” that there will continue to be decreases in cold temperature extremes.
Seawater is Alkaline and the Changes are Miniscule and Harmless
Although climate models suggest the ocean’s surface pH has dropped from pH 8.2 to 8.1 since 1750 that change was never actually measured. The pH drop is merely a modeled conjecture2 that is, unfortunately, constantly repeated as fact. The concept of pH was first introduced by in 1909 and the pH concept was not modernized in Chemistry until the 1920s. Citrus growers later developed field instruments to measure pH in the 1930s.
Heat Waves are Not Increasing
Claims of increased U.S. heat wave frequency and length are often misleading because they ignore the worst heat waves the U.S. ever experienced in the 1930s, even though records are publicly available. According to the best state-of-the-art temperature data available, there has been no sustained increase in maximum temperatures in the United States since 2005.
U.S. Temperatures are rising dramatically
There are No Real Warming Trends in the US
There has been no significant warming in the United States since at least 2005. Any claimed recent warming and impacts at specific places in the United States are isolated and indicate random variation rather than long-term warming.
We Need to Limit Global Warming to 1.5 Degrees C°
These Temperatures Are Not Abnormal or Dangerous
Climate alarmists (and the IPCC) say we need to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times to avoid disastrous consequences, but data show we have already reached such temperatures.European temperature data show temperatures began rising about the year 1890.
Note that this was before the large modern rise in CO2 emissions, and as shown by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, catastrophic predictions of extreme climate change have not come true.
Great Lakes Water Levels are falling due to Climate Change
The Great Lakes are Doing Fine
The Great Lakes are currently benefiting from record-high water levels just a few years after alarmists claimed global warming causes low water levels. In fact, water levels have been above normal since 2014.
Alarmists will likely now try to claim global warming causes high water levels, but they have already claimed global warming causes low water levels. Sound science does not allow activists to flip what they assert is “settled science.”
Droughts are Not Getting Worse
Currently, The United States is benefiting from fewer and less extreme drought events as the climate modestly warms. In fact, in 2017 and 2019, the United States registered its smallest percentage of land area experiencing drought in recorded history. The United States is undergoing its longest period in recorded history with fewer than 40 percent of the country experiencing “very dry” conditions. And even the U.N. IPCC reports with “high confidence” that precipitation has increased over mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere (including the United States) during the past 70 years, while IPCC has “low confidence” about any negative trends globally.
Is The US surface Temperature Record a Reliable Indicator of Warming?
Too Many Stations are Compromised And Not Maintained
A study in 2009 showed that almost 90% of weather stations used to measure climate in the USA have been compromised by urbanization effects. Some stations were in pristine rural condition years ago when first established, but now have become surrounded by asphalt, concrete, and builds which act as heat sinks, and energy sources such as air conditioner exhausts which raise local temperatures at night. Another 2015 study1 showed that almost half of the climate warming trend in the USA disappears if data from stations that have not been compromised is used.
Measuring the Earth’s Global Average Temperature is a Scientific and Objective Process
Surface Temperature Records are Distorted
Broad areas of the world don’t have any temperature measurements being made, now or in the past. In order to get a global temperature average, scientists interpolate data from surrounding areas that have data. When such interpolation is done, the measured global temperature actually increases.
Greenland Ice Melting Will Cause Dangerous Sea Level Rise
The Amount Of Melting Ice Isn’t Significant
Climate activists, including government bureaucrats, claim the Greenland ice sheet is melting six times faster than it was 30 years ago. Thirty years ago, the Greenland ice sheet was barely melting at all. “Six times” almost no ice loss remains almost no ice loss.
Sea-level measurements contradict claims that Greenland ice loss threatens coastal flooding. NASA satellite instruments, with readings dating back to 1993, show global sea level rising at a pace of merely 1.2 inches per decade, which is not significantly different than the typical rate of sea-level rise since the mid-1800s.
Coral Reefs are Dying Because of Climate Change
Coral reefs are thriving around the globe. Coral has existed continuously for the past 40 million years, surviving temperatures and carbon dioxide levels significantly higher and lower than what is occurring today. Since the peak of the last glacial maximum 33-26 thousand yearsago, global average temperature reached its highest point approximately 7,000 years ago, at least 1 or 2 degrees C higher than today, during which coral reefs thrived.
Sea Level Rise is Accelerating Dramatically
Most of the recent alarmism on sea level rise has been due to climate model projections, which foresee a drastic and accelerating increase in sea level rise in the future.
Ocean tide gauge data shows that the sea level trend has not changed in over 100 years, and show no signs of drastic acceleration. In New York City, sea level has risen only 0.94 feet in 100 years, and started well before human carbon dioxide emissions were significant. The trend is unchanged since 1856. All of the perceived acceleration comes from satellite measurements and could be within the range of measurement error.
El Niño’s are a natural phenomenon and of little concern
El Niño events in the Pacific Ocean are natural patterns that have been going on for millions of years. It’s true that El Niño events in the 21st century have had some very strong warming spikes. However, if you remove the effect warming El Niño events in the climate record, the amount of warming since 2000, you find almost half of the global warming in the 21st century is due to El Niño events.
Tipping Point – 1.5 Degrees Celsius Warming
1.5 degrees is unnoticeable and not a threat
Climate alarmists (and the IPCC) say we need to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times to avoid disastrous consequences, but data show we have already reached such temperatures.
European temperature data show temperatures began rising about the year 1890. (Note that this was before the large modern rise in CO2 emissions.) As shown by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and many articles such as this, catastrophic predictions of extreme climate change have not come true.
Climate Sensitivity is Likely Low Enough to be of Little Concern
Predictions of substantial global warming assume high climate sensitivity to a doubling of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. For decades, scientists have debated the effect of climate sensitivity, due to the uncertain nature of climate feedback in various models and estimates vary widely.
Estimates in peer reviewed studies range from 0.8°C warming to almost 6.0°C warming by 2100. Such a large range of uncertainty means climate model temperature projections remain dubious, at best.
The best evidence indicates climate sensitivity is at the low end of the range, unlikely to exceed 1.5°C in the 21st century.
Lake Tahoe Levels Are Fluctuating Normally
Mother nature put a stake in the heart of this short-lived issue. Lake Tahoe has reached the maximum allowable water level during each of the past three years (2017-19), requiring special water releases into the Truckee River. The 2015-16 northern California drought was very brief and followed by three consecutive years of abundant precipitation and maximum allowable Lake Tahoe water levels. Alarmists claiming the 2015-16 drought signaled a “new normal” of drought and low water levels caused by climate change have been embarrassed and proven wrong.
Coal Pollution Can Be Seen Pouring From Power Plant Smokestacks
These photos are pure propaganda, blatantly and deliberately deceiving readers
What do you suppose those black, deadly-looking plumes of “emissions” really are? Condensing steam, that’s what. Just plain water. Plumes of condensing water vapor normally look white and benign, but by artfully choosing a vantage point to the east of the plant, and a time just after sunset, the photographers manage to make the pretty white plumes of harmless steam look black and threatening.
Climate Models have Accurately Predicted 30 Years of Warming
Global Ocean Temperatures are Warming at Only ~50% the Rate of Climate Model Projections
The 42 years of observations we now have since 1979 (bold black line) shows that warming is occurring much more slowly than the average climate model says it should have.
Urban Heat Islands Do Not Exaggerate Global Warming
Urban Heat Islands Distort the Temperature Record
The majority of U.S. temperature stations utilized for NOAA and NASA temperature records have been compromised by encroachment of artificial surfaces like concrete, asphalt, buildings, and air conditioner exhausts. This creates a substantial false warming trend that is responsible for almost half of reported U.S. warming. When only pristine temperature stations are used, warming trends are quite minimal.
We are in the ‘Hottest Ever’ Period Due to Climate Change
Earth’s hottest periods occurred before humans existed.
New studies sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution show that Earth experienced much warmer periods in the past than we have today. In the recent past global mean temperature appears to have risen by as much as 9-14°F (5-8°C) to an average temperature as high as 73°F compared to the 20th century global average of 56.7°F.
One of the most common arguments by climate alarmists is that our current global temperature is the “hottest ever” and humans burning fossil fuels are to blame. But, results from a Smithsonian Institution project examining Earth’s average surface temperature over the past 500 million years showed that for most of the time, global temperatures appear to have been too warm for polar ice caps.
Instrumental Temperature Records Demonstrate Man-Made Global Warming
Earth has been emerging from a period known as the Little Ice Age as long as we’ve been measuring temperatures
During the height of the Little Ice Age , it was in general about one degree Celsius colder than at present. The Baltic Sea froze over, as did most of the rivers in Europe. Winters were bitterly cold and prolonged, reducing the growing season by several weeks. These conditions led to widespread crop failure, famine, and in some regions population decline.
Unprecedented Heat Wave in Pacific Northwest was Driven by Climate Change
A rare heat wave, but cannot be attributed to climate change
This concurrence of a number of factors coming together at one place and time was why the extreme heat occurred, with a very small assist from global warming, which added a few degrees to an already extreme event.
It is important to note that the atmosphere comes up sixes regularly, but not necessarily in the same place. The atmosphere is churning with all kinds of variability inherent in the physics of the atmosphere (also called natural variability).
Increase in U.S. Wildfires Due to Climate Change
Wildfires are far less frequent and severe than was the case throughout the first half of the 20th century.
Wildfires, especially in arid parts of the United States, have always been a natural part of the environment and likely always will. Global warming did not create wildfires. In fact, wildfires have become less frequent and less severe in recent decades. A contributing factor has been less drought in the United States during recent decades. In fact, data displayed by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, NOAA, show no discernable trend for increased drought in the United States in over 125 years.1