A Bit of History for Global Warmers: Look at 1930 [CNSNews]

[megatherium]

People sweltering from a heat wave in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. might find cold comfort in the fact that the temperatures of the past few days are not the hottest on record. That "honor" belongs to a summer 76 years ago -- decades before the controversy over "man-made global warming" began.

"From June 1 to August 31, 1930, 21 days had high temperatures that were 100 degrees or above" in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, Patrick Michaels, senior fellow for environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Cybercast News Service. "That summer has never been approached, and it's not going to be approached this year."

Between July 19 and Aug. 9 of that year, heat records were set on nine days and they remain unbroken more than three-quarters of a century later. "That's hot," added Michaels, who also serves as professor of natural resources at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.

EDIT

"Big cities are getting warmer -- with or without global warming -- because the bricks and the buildings and the pavement retain heat," Michaels added. For that reason, he prefers to compare temperatures in nearby rural areas. "There's been very little change" in those areas, "so we trust the record to be a reliable indicator of base climate."

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200608/NAT20060804c.html

The 1930s seems to be the global warming skeptics' meme du jour.

[skids]

1. They will run out of statistics eventually.

We have a higher baseline now. Those records will fall in short order.

I love how they work in that claptrap submeme about "cities are just hotter because of more buildings now." Last time I looked at the news, the heat wave wasn't just taking place in cities.

Wormtongues, to the last man, those neocons.

[The Deacon]

2. That's Because

They're trying to tie an event (this summer's heat wave) to a trend (overall global warming.) No legit scientist is doing that - just as there is no way to say if Katrina & Rita were made worse by global warming (again, event vs. trend with the added complication of a cyclic increase in hurricanes that is part of a natural cycle.)
They're setting up a straw man, claiming climate science is wrong about something they never claimed in the first place.

[skids]

8. Actually, legitimate scientists do, and already have.

Scientists have decided to take the gloves off and basically run with the fact that an increase in mean generally shifts outliers higher (as long as deviation level remains fixed.) It's true, and if the media people want to slap the headline "scientists link X to global warming" on it, the scientists aren't going to pay that any mind.

They are sick of having their work censored.

[jpak]

3. What will Patrick Michaels find in his Christmas stocking this year???

:evilgrin:

[hatrack]

4. My guess would be five- and six-figure checks from utility companies

I mean, if Fred Singer hasn't already snorted up everything in the trough by the time Christmas rolls around . . .

:eyes:

[megatherium]

5. Either that or a lump of coal! nt

[zeemike]

6. They forget to tell that the dust boll of the 30s was man made

Caused by poor farming practices in the plains.

[mcscajun]

7. CNS News has much to answer for.

I know one person who was as convinced of global warming, climate change, whatever you'd like to call it, as am I, but who changed his tune after getting far too much of his "news" from CNS and FauxSnooze.

One year he was abusing his BIL for being a nonbeliever, a couple of years later, he's jumped ship from facts and joined his BIL's opinion and gone him one better.

[Odin2005]

9. The time peroid between 1850 and 1950 was the early phase of GW.

For some reason we don't fully understand (prehaps some natural variation temporarily overrode the human inputs to the system, possibly the result of a postulated 80-year cycle) the warming reversed itself during the 60's and then restarted again in 1976.