More Hayhoe Tripe
By Paul Homewood
http://www.climateshift.com/downloads/northeast/confronting-climate-change-in-the-u-s-northeast.pdf
Let’s return to Katharine Hayhoe’s predictions for climate change in the Northeast, and consider this gem.
Uniontown is one of the longer running USHCN stations in Pennsylvania, and, lying in the southern part of the state, should be seeing an increase in 100F+ days. The USHCN database has daily data dating back to 1895, and the following chart plots all days of 100F and over.
Apart from one day in July 2012, there has been a notable absence of 100F+ days in recent decades. This contrasts starkly with the 1930’s, when there were seven such days, including four that set the all-time record of 102F.
Meanwhile, the daily record temperatures (i.e. record temperatures for each day of the year), show a similar pattern, both for summer and all year round.
The records include ties, so there is no statistical reason why earlier decades should show more records. Yet both the 1930’s, and also the two prior decades have most summer temperature records, and along with the 1940’s, most all-year round records as well.
As for the last decade, only the 1970’s recorded fewer daily summertime records.
If it is true that record high temperatures are an indication of global warming, then it follows that the 1930’s would have been a warmer decade globally than the last couple. It is no wonder that, as far as Hayhoe is concerned, history began in 1970.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
May be fairer to quote the reference in context Paul.
It comes from the Executive Summary on page 10 of the report and it’s one bullet point under a heading that clearly states (my emphasis):
“By LATE THIS CENTURY, under the HIGHER EMISSIONS SCENARIO…”
Your selected quote from this 2007 report is referring to a ‘possible’ scenario 80-90 years from now, which is provisional on the assumption that CO2 concentrations continue to increase between now and then.
The report doesn’t make any short term predictions re temperatures above 100F; in fact it states that, although temperatures are likely to increase to mid century, there isn’t likely to be any massive impact until after mid century. Even then only assuming continuously increasing emissions (see the final paragraph on page 9).
So it’s seems a little odd to take a prediction for temperatures expected nearly a century from now and provisional on huge increases in CO2 and test it against temperatures less than 8 years after the prediction was made. And then, on that basis, to call it ‘tripe’… ?
So why does not she state that there were more such heatwave days back in the 1930’s? Is this too inconvenient?
If she is right about more 100F days as global warming increases, she also has to explain why it was so much hotter 80 years ago.
I think “tripe” just about sums it up!
The report addresses possible future climatic changes based on projected greenhouse gas concentrations.
No one is denying that the 1930s were hot in the US, but that’s also irrelevant, since no one is claiming 1930s temperatures were directly attributable to greenhouse gas concentrations.
My point is that it’s unfair to use present temperatures to test a prediction that refers explicitly to temperatures a century or so from now and that anyway is predicated on much higher concentrations of CO2.
As she tells us we are already seeing the effects of global warming, then we should already be seeing an increase in these hottest days, when we are actually seeing the reverse.
I am not suggesting we should be seeing 30/year now.
I still want to know why Hayhoe refuses to acknowledge that the 1930’s had much worse heatwaves than now. Instead she continually talks about “since 1970”.
To most people, this is sheer dishonesty.
If heatwaves were worse in the 1930’s, then Hayhoe needs to explain why, before she blames warming since 1970 on GHG.
In any case, don’t forget she has already misleadingly claimed elsewhere in the report that the hottest days are already becoming more frequent.
Any idiot can tell you that if global temperatures are 10F warmer in 80 yrs time, then regional temperatures are likely to be much higher as well. As far as that goes, the report is just junk.
The report doesn’t predict anywhere that days above 100F will increase before mid century. That’s the bottom line.
In my opinion you should have made it clear (if you knew, which I’m not saying you did) that the predictions were based on late century and much increased CO2.
I have the misfortune of being an Everton fan. I predict that we will win the premier league this season once we secure Ronaldo in October and Messi in December.
Someone might say: ‘well, you just lost 3-0 to Cardiff last night.’ To which I would reply: ‘My prediction is for late 2015’. I might yet be proven wrong.
The mid century comment is interesting. This would suggest we will have to wait half a century just to reach 1930’s conditions!
Swansea, not Cardiff.
I’m in a depressed state.
Don’t worry, it’s probably a premonition for next time you play Cardiff. Just hope it’s not in Division 2!
“and that anyway is predicated on much higher concentrations of CO2.”
Atmospheric CO2 is now about 400ppm. I’m curious what is meant by “much higher” and what is visualized as the future? Consider I grew up with what is now called the plain old telephone system (POTS) that required a lot of copper wire. The world was going to run out of copper as telephones proliferated around the world. I’ve noticed that hasn’t happened and, in fact, apparently POTS will never be deployed much beyond its current area.
So for me to be concerned about the disagreement between David and Paul, I need to have reasonable descriptions of what “much higher” means (now 400; then 800 or 1600?) and how that is going to come about. When I first pumped gas into cars the gas cost 26 US cents per gallon and mileage was about 10 miles per gallon. Now these numbers change faster than I can keep up. Our house was heated with locally sourced coal. That did not last either.
Someone says predictions, about the future, are very hard. I agree.
John F. Hultquist
Rate of CO2 concentration increase over the past 10 years was ~2 ppm/yr. In a ‘business as usual’ scenario, by 2100 concentrations would be ~570 ppm. The IPCC central estimate for climate sensitivity (ECS) is ~3.0C.
570ppm with an ECS of 3.0 C would ultimately result in global average temperatures about +3.0C above pre-industrial levels. The transient response would be slower. Latest IPCC estimates for TCR centre around 1.75C, in which case by 2100 global temperatures would be ~1.0 C warmer than today.
I’m not saying the IPCC ECS/TCR figures or the CO2 ppm forecasts are right, or even likely. Just that those are the figures that the report’s authors would have been using for their prediction re frequency of +100F days by late century.