UHI in the U.S.A.

Zeke Hausfather has contributed a guest post at RealClimate about his latest publication studying the impact of the “urban heat island” (UHI) effect on temperature trends, and how effective present correction methods are. The two-sentence summary:

The simple take-away is that while UHI and other urban-correlated biases are real (and can have a big effect), current methods of detecting and correcting localized breakpoints are generally effective in removing that bias. Blog claims that UHI explains any substantial fraction of the recent warming in the US are just not supported by the data.

Do take a look at the RC post, it has much more detail, and at the paper.

Some people can’t be reasoned with

If you keep an eye on global warming denier blogs, you expect to see some pretty stupid stuff. But every now and then they exceed expectation. Sometimes they even take it to a new level. This particular bit was featured by Anthony Watts, but it originates with Steve Goddard.

Death by Chartsmanship

Willard Tony has a new post by Willis Eschenbach accusing Chris Mooney of “chartsmanship” to achieve “raw, pure, visceral alarmism.” But it’s Willis who has turned sniper to show off his “chartsmanship.”

Welcome to the Jungle

A reader recently commented that he had moved to the coutnry and taken steps to arrange an independent and sustainable life. His reason: that he expects, when the climate shit hits the fan, that people may place their own survival above the rules of ethics, that we may attempt to scratch and claw our way to the top of the heap at the expense of others, that life for most people will become a “law of the jungle.” He was providing for his own escape from what he viewed as a future not unlike the post-apocalyptic nightmare of a Mad Max movie.

I sometimes have similar thoughts.

Spreading like Wildfire

Twice we’ve examined the fakery from George Will about the danger of wildfire in the U.S. and its relation to global warming. It’s hard to imagine being more ignorant about this issue than George Will. Or, is he simply willing to mislead people deliberately, to expose our nation and our people to extreme danger, just to push a political agenda? Or … both?

This much is certain: George Will is completely wrong about wildfire risk in the U.S. But he is oh so right about propaganda! To create doubt about the scientific truth of increased wildfire risk, all you need to do is say whatever you want. No matter how wrong, it will be repeated by those who push your same political agenda. Doubt is their product.

Just say NO to Keystone XL Pipeline

From Natural Resources Defense Council.

Willful Ignorance

In the last post we saw how ignorant George Will is about global warming and its consequences — yet nonetheless Will is willing to spew his ignorance in order to influence public policy.

Where there’s a Will … theres a way to distort the truth

And George Will will.

Extreme Weather: When Worlds Collide

Real data — temperature, for instance — are almost always the combination of signal and noise, which we could also refer to as trend and fluctuation. Fluctuations are ubiquitous, they happen all the time. Sometimes they go up, sometimes down, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, but the one thing they don’t do is stop.

Hot down under, and up over

Australia started this new year with the worst heat wave they have ever experienced. It is notable not just for its high temperatures, but for its extent — both geographic and temporal. This heat wave affected nearly the entire country, pushing the continent-wide temperature record to a new high of 40.33°C (104.6°F) — and that’s the average for the entire nation. It has also endured longer than previous extremes. As scientists from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) have stated publicly

It is not that common for the Australian-average temperature to exceed 39°C for even two days in a row. A run of three days above 39°C has occurred on only three occasions, and a run of four days just once, in 1972.

The current heat wave has seen a sequence of Australian temperatures above 39°C of seven days, and above 38°C of 11 days straight.