Obama Blames Poor GDP On (Unadjusted) Cold Weather!
By Paul Homewood
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/05/29/second-estimate-gdp-first-quarter-2014
The White House has released their latest disappointing estimate for Q1 GDP, and comment:
Overall the first quarter was subject to a number of notable influences, including historically severe winter weather, which temporarily lowered growth.
They go on to show this graph of heating days and comment:
The first quarter of 2014 was marked by unusually severe winter weather, including record cold temperatures and snowstorms, which explains part of the difference in GDP growth relative to previous quarters. The left chart shows the quarterly deviation in heating degree days from its average for the same quarter over the previous five years. By this measure, the first quarter of 2014 was the third most unusually cold quarter over the last sixty years, behind only the first quarter of 1978 and the fourth quarter of 1976.
This is all rather strange, because the heavily adjusted temperatures, published by NOAA, show this winter to have been nothing of the sort.
In the last 60 years, this quarter ranks as only 17th coldest.
So which is it, Mr President?
Have you exaggerated the cold weather, in order to provide a flimsy excuse for poor GDP figures?
Or are you now admitting that NOAA’s figures are wrong?
I think the public deserve an answer!
Trackbacks
- Whitehouse Admits Warmer Weather Best For Economy | sunshine hours
- Obama Blames Poor GDP On (Unadjusted) Cold Weather! | Beige Nixon
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reblogged this on the WeatherAction Blog.
According to the NOAA it is the 9th highest number of heating degree days from 1954.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/110/00/hdd/3/03/1954-2014
(Set base period to just 2014 Q1 to give it a visual line)
I can make neither head nor tail of the Whitehouse chart intro.
I’ve tried setting the 1st quarter heating degree days figures over the past 5 years as the anomaly base period, which is what I *think* it’s saying it does. I get a chart that looks sort of similar to the Whitehouse chart, but as sunshinehours1 above says, Q1 of 2014 is only the 9th highest on record, not the 3rd.
The chart data are attributed to NOAA but the “calculations” are done by the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).
Funnily enough ….
Using their “logic” :
More heating degree days = lower GDP.
Therefore:
Less heating degree days = higher GDP.
Therefore:
More “global warming” = higher GDP
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
Sir Walter Scott
Re-blogged this excellent post.
http://defendingthetruth.com/current-events/39642-first-quarter-gdp-readjusted-down-weather-blamed.html
Reblogged this on Real Science.
Reblogged this on Climatism.
Thanks, Paul. An excellent post!
I think sooner or later reality catches up.
Weird. I’m sure it’s just an oversight. Or some video on youtube caused this.
In utterly unrelated news, the furnace here came on this morning. This might be the coldest May I’ve ever seen (& I survived the Winter of 1978).
The IRS will be at your door in 3….2….1…
Industry relies on people turning up for work. People don’t fail to turn up for work because it’s cold; they fail to turn up because the roads have not been cleared of snow.
Heating degree days are an inappropriate measure. Number of school ‘snow days’ would be a more appropriate (but not perfect) measure.
The graph does NOT demonstrate what it purports to demonstrate and reliance on it to rank this year in comparison with other years is particularly inappropriate.
The corrleation between temperature and GDP is weak. Q4-Q1 temperatures have trended flat since the ’70s, while mean Q4-Q1 GDP growth has steadily declined over the past 25 years. http://mortalweight.blogspot.com/2014/05/temperature-and-gdp.html
Reblogged this on The Insomniac Libertarian.