Not Even Wrong?

Cliff Mass shows a graph, taken from the Seattle Times, of the hottest temperature each July from 1945 through 2022 at Seattle/Tacoma airport (SEATAC). He then says “… and there is very little upward trend! How could this be?”

Then he goes further:

Just to check on the Seattle Times… I did the same thing for July and August over the past 50 years, plotting the warmest observed temperature at both SeaTac and Pasco (see below).

Hardly any change in the extreme high temperatures each year at either site. No long-term trend….and you would expect a trend if global warming was important for the extreme heat waves!

Unfortunately for Cliff Mass, the data contradict him.

Extra-Ordinary Heat Wave

The heatwave which invaded England recently was no ordinary one.

At numerous locations the temperature exceeded 40°C (104°F) which, as far as we know, has never before happened in the British Isles. England definitely isn’t prepared for such temperatures, as Melissa Harrison makes abundantly clear in the Washington Post; an airport closed when the runway deformed in the heat, railway tracks buckled, the London fire department got so many calls it was their busiest day since world war II. The U.K. Meteorological Office advised people (especially the young, the old, and the ill) to go nowhere and do nothing but stay hydrated.

Not an ordinary heat wave.