NOAA: U.S. temperatures unchanged since 2005
Huh? How can that be? Everything we read in the media tells us temperatures are rising inexorably, leading us to a future apocalypse. But what we’re reading day after day is wrong. So says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this country’s official source for all climate-related data.
While the U.S. is generally thought to have the world’s best temperature history data gathered for well over 100 years, weather professionals have long recognized serious shortcomings. NOAA says 90 percent of its weather stations are located in or near urban areas that the Environmental Protection Agency calls “heat islands” caused by their buildings, industrial facilities, concrete, and asphalt.
As metro areas have grown over the decades, their temperature measurements have become increasingly suspect. In the past, the NOAA attempted to correct for these changes by “adjusting” the raw data. But these adjustments are by definition estimates and hence controversial.
Skeptics pointed out that a significant part of the reported warming in the United States doesn’t appear in the raw temperature data but was created by government adjustments.
To eliminate both the uncertainty and the criticism, in 2005 the NOAA created a new surface-temperature measurement system, the U.S. Climate Reference Network. It consists of 114 carefully maintained temperature stations in pristine areas across the country. The NOAA chose locations far away from urban heat islands and other places that might compromise readings.
Take a look at NOAA’s graph of 14 years of CRN temperature data. Temperature data gathered by this best-in-class network shows no warming in the United States since its inception in 2005.
That’s right: no warming, zero, nada, zip, nil.
While comparable measurements worldwide are not available, it’s hard to explain why the U.S. is an island of constant temperature while temperatures in the rest of the globe are rising.
Compare an October 2014 snapshot of NOAA’s old METAR temperatures — the ones you and I have seen all our lives — with temperatures measured at the nearest CRN sites. Note that the METAR data we see routinely is significantly higher than temperatures measured outside urban heat islands.
For more technically inclined readers, a scientific paper discusses using CRN data to adjust historical temperature data. In particular, note the comments following the paper where the fact that there has been no temperature increase is discussed.
I’m no climate change denier. I recognize that the Earth has warmed since the end of the “Little Ice Age” in the mid-1800s. And I’m one of the 97 percent of scientists who agree that human-caused carbon dioxide contributed to that warming. But the great uncertainty is how much humans have contributed to global warming.
The 97 percent figure above has been widely misrepresented. As documented in Scientific American, almost all scientists agree that humans contribute but how much is still highly uncertain. The NOAA’s CRN data would indicate that outside our localized heat islands, humans aren’t contributing much at all.
The absence of any widespread warming explains why so many dire environmental predictions have been proven wrong. For example, Al Gore told us that lower Manhattan would be flooded and uninhabitable by 2015.
So how did global warming become the cause du jour of radical environmentalism? The global warming narrative possessed three compelling attributes.
First, it directly threatened human life within a decade or two, raising specters of crop failure, mass starvation, and forced evacuation of inundated low-lying areas.
Second, carbon dioxide created by burning hydrocarbon fuels was fingered as the culprit. With coal already on the air-quality environmental hit list and drilling for oil and gas a sometimes messy and mistake-prone process, an opportunity to eliminate hydrocarbon fuels was an irresistible draw.
Finally, METAR temperatures had risen on average until 1998. Even though METAR temperatures essentially leveled off from 1998 through 2014 — during which carbon dioxide emissions increased by 25 percent — no definitive explanation for the 16-year pause was offered, leaving the door open for an expectation of further increases.
Global warming’s true believers are likely to march on for some time, because far too many public figures in politics and in the media have invested their prestige and egos in the claim. Climate scientists will continue to welcome the attention and the funding that have been lavished on their previously obscure corner of science and will find reasons for continued study.
Barring a definitive upswing in CRN temperatures, expect global warming mania to fade slowly over the coming years only to be replaced by some currently unrecognized threat to civilization as we know it. We humans seem to need one or more existential threats to keep us focused.
Until then, don’t hold your breath waiting for CRN temperatures to be covered in the mainstream media.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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A comment on Mr Sierer’s article about global warming. In his article, Mr. Sierer states: “For more technically inclined readers, a scientific paper discusses using CRN data to adjust historical temperature data.”
His referred to “scientific paper” is actually a blog in Climate Etc., which is written by Dr. Judith Curry. Therefore it is not peer reviewed scientific publication and therefore Dr. Curry can write whatever she wishes. “In 2019 she stated that she would not “bother with” peer-reviewed journals, in favor of publishing her own papers so that she could editorialize and write what she wanted.”
According to a Scientific American interview, Dr. Curry admits to receiving funding from the fossil fuel industry. This article also labeled her a “climate heretic.” Climate Feedback, a climate change fact checker, debunked much of Curry’s testimonials. Other sources, such as Skeptical Science labeled Judith Curry as a “Climate Misinformer.” She is also cited in a Pants on Fire claim by Politifact.
So, Mr. Sierer, it seems that your scientific article is highly biased and is supported by corporations who have a vested interest in denying global warming evidence.
Furthermore, using a longer time range then just the past 15 years, you would see a 150+ year of sporadic, but consistently upward changes in global temperatures. Within this longer time span there are significant intervals in which global temperatures remain relatively constant. Therefore, if your intent is to mislead, you can pick a number of time intervals for which there is no increase, but over the long term each of these “flat” intervals is at a higher temperature level.
Considering the strong possibility that this temperature increase is directly related to human activity over the past 150+ years, I’ll wager you can think of some other increases in human activity that would nicely parallel the rising temperature. Pop quiz next Monday…
See the diagram in this article from the Independent from March 2018.
http://suindependent.com/global-warming-human-activity-climate-change/