Washington’s new climate ‘normals’ are hotter
By Paul Homewood
Today’s fraud from the Washington Post:
New climate normals, describing the average weather over the past 30 years, were released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday. Around the country, the increase seen in temperatures and precipitation compared with earlier 30-year periods is palpable. Around D.C., it’s a similar tale.
NOAA unveils new U.S. climate ‘normals’ that are warmer than ever
Washington’s rising temperatures mean the city now has a streak in the summer when 90 degrees is the new “normal” high. On the other end of the scale, “normal” lows in the 20s are all but gone, with the city now bottoming out at a rounded average of 30 degrees.
Precipitation is up. Especially in summer. Despite that, snow is declining, a downer for fans of winter.
Temperatures are up across the board
All months of the year now have a higher temperature average than they used to in Washington. Let’s compare the new normals, based on the period 1991-2020, with the old normals, based on the period 1981-2010.
December has seen the biggest gain, warming 2.0 degrees. Oddly enough, November is the smallest, with a bump of just 0.3 degrees.
Monthly temperatures in the current and last two normal periods. (Ian Livingston/The Washington Post)
Annually, Washington’s average temperature is up from 58.2 to 59.3, a gain of 1.1 degrees. In general, average low temperatures are rising faster than highs. Annual lows are up 1.4 degrees and average highs are up 1.1 degrees.
The increase in temperature over the past two 30-year periods continues a long-term upward trend. During the last update in 30-year normals a decade ago, every month gained warmth as well. The gains were even larger with the current update.
More hot days and fewer freezes
Perhaps the most significant change in the new normals is that our hottest summer days now have an average high of 90 degrees.
There’s now a 22-day streak from July 6 to July 27 where the typical high is indeed 90.
The increase in temperature over the past two 30-year periods continues a long-term upward trend. During the last update in 30-year normals a decade ago, every month gained warmth as well. The gains were even larger with the current update.
This is a breathtaking increase, given that in the old normals our summer peak temperature was 89 degrees for 16 days in a row. The new normals have a remarkable 45 days at or above 89 degrees, running from June 28 to Aug. 11.
Washington winters are rapidly warming up and feeling more Southern
But perhaps this change shouldn’t come as a surprise. Recall that last summer we hit 90 degrees on 20 straight days, the second-longest such streak on record. And, in July, we posted 28 90-degree days, the most in any month on record.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/05/washington-dc-new-climate-normals/
The nearest, long running rural weather station is at Purcellville, 75 miles from Washington DC. Data back to 1900 from KNMI show that recent daily temperature highs are not any greater than the past, and lower than in many other periods:
CLIMOD shows exactly the same thing. Both KNMI and CLIMOD, of course, use official NOAA data:
http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/
The article also claims that days of 90F and over are becoming more frequent, but again this is not supported by the data. What is clear, however, is that they became less frequent during the 1970s and 80s, which is the period against today’s climate is being compared. The article talks about “28 90-degree days” last July; but over the summer as a whole, the 40 such days recorded at Winchester, were not in the least unusual:
The contrast with winter days is even more stark. The article claims:
Cold is less cold, as well. Before the new normals were published, the city had 37 days with lows at or below 29 degrees from Dec. 31 to Feb. 5.
Now? We have zero such days.
But the data for Winchester shows winter lows are similar to the period 1920 to 1960. There is, however, a clearly much colder interlude in the 1970s and 80s.
Washington itself is, of course, heavily affected by the urban heat island effect. Competent meteorologists, unlike the Capital Weather Gang, would not confuse this with climate.
Finally, let’s look at rainfall. What we find is that annual rainfall is much more consistent than at times in the past, when severe droughts were common. Again, we can note that the 1970s and 80s, had many years with significantly below average rainfall. Most people would regard this as a good thing.
Climate at a Glance | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (noaa.gov)
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
As ever, when the facts don’t fit their hypothesis, change (or misrepresent) the facts. Climate science!
Why are they using those strange overlapping periods? It’s almost always fraud to use periods rather than a straightforward line graph that shows a clear trend. My bet would be a line graph would be hugely ambiguous. And of course if you did it from 1920 you would see a similar warm period in the 1930s.
Nothing but fraud.
I have a vague recollection from a decade or more ago that SKS (yes, that bunch) produced stepped charts of temperature based on periods which he’d them to show incredible rises in temp. I think Chris Monkton had something to say on it…
Yes, Phoenix44. NOAA’s “Climate at a Glance” database for CITIES does not allow one to see what temperatures were like before 1946. Thus the warm 1920s and 30s are left out.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/city/time-series/USW00013743/tavg/12/12/1895-2021?base_prd=true&begbaseyear=1901&endbaseyear=2000
In addition, NOAA has systematically and seasonally lowered the STATE monthly means from those officially published by the US Weather Bureau for the years BEFORE 1940.
This is the opposite of what one might do to normalize for the urban heat-island effect. It is not some conspiracy but it sure looks like it?
I’ve noticed of late that the word “Fraud” and Washington DC, have become almost joined at the hip!
Not the deliberate use of the word “hotter” rather than what would be more reasonable, “Wetter”. The weasels language inflation continues. Also Why are they STILL using city and airports as representative while ignoring the real representative locals which are out in the Boonies? One would almost think they need that UHI to play their games with.
Hi Paul. Did you see this one?
America’s new normal: A degree (F) hotter than two decades ago. Associated Press piece by Seth Borenstein in LAT’s, yesterday – page A2. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-05-04/americas-new-normal-a-degree-hotter-than-two-decades-ago.
Your first graphic (WaPost) is down at the bottom of NOAA’s dandy work:
Click to access 20210420.pdf
Cheers.
Nowadays ice ages are referred to as “glaciations”, apparently because it turns out that our planet has been experiencing a cooling trend for the past 65 million years. Over the past 1.3 million years there have been 13 glaciations, average duration 90,000 years, each followed by a warming period (such as we now enjoy) average duration 10,000 years.
Google “Post-Glaciation Sea Level Rise” or “12,000 year graph of sea level” if the graph does not appear in place of this comment.
This graph sends an important message because it likely reflects typical sea level response during any of the past 13 interim warming periods. About 6,000 years ago the RATE of increase in sea level began to drop and that decreasing rate has continued. Now the rate of increase is a minuscule 1 to 3 mm per year. (1mm = about 4/100 of one inch). During this warming period sea level has increased more than 400 feet. The concern about rising ocean levels over the past several decades is based on the last few inches of sea level increase.
If this 1.3-million year trend continues then another glaciation is next. A foot or two of water covering the Big Apple is hardly comparable to sitting under a mile high glacier for a goodly portion of the next 90,000 years.
CO2 increase began in the mid 1800s, as our industrial revolution started. That increase is at least partially related to human activity. However, even though CO2 increase has been consistent there have been periods of no temperature increase, and a three decade cooling period between 1945 and 1975. There are other stronger forcings. The popular belief is that increasing CO2 causes global warming which not only warms the oceans, but also causes glacier melt.
But there is no evidence that CO2 has ever had any impact on our global temperature. The proponents of warming have generated numerous computer models to justify their position. These models all assume that CO2 causes warming, but not much. The supposed CO2 impact is not enough to be worrisome so the models introduced another culprit, water vapor feedback, which generates 2 to 3 times the temperature increase as supposedly brought on by CO2 increase.
However, recently some Oslo researchers have demonstrated experimentally that CO2 levels increasing from .04% to 100% lead to no observable temperature increase.
https://notrickszone.com/2021/04/01/physicists-lab-experiment-shows-a-co2-increase-from-0-04-to-100-leads-to-no-observable-warming/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=physicists-lab-experiment-shows-a-co2-increase-from-0-04-to-100-leads-to-no-observable-warming
If CO2 has little or no impact on warming that also rules out the possibility of any significant impact from water vapor feedback. There are also other problems with the water vapor feedback assumption. That feedback claim depends on the applicability of the greenhouse gas theory to actions which involve the open atmosphere. The GHG theory brings with it a necessary condition – there is an accompanying necessary (but not sufficient) condition that there also be a warmer region about 10km above the tropics, a “hot spot”. Despite decades of radiosondes that hot spot has never been found. The alarmists’ response about that missing hot spot offers little more than speculation as to where it may have gone.
But there’s more. Sun activity (sun spots) has recently gone quiet. Sun activity has driven every warming and cooling period during the past 800,000 years according to Don Easterbrook (geologist). His book “The Solar Magnetic Cause of Climate Changes and Origin of the Ice Ages” is available at Amazon. It’s based strictly on data. John Casey also talks about sun influence in “Dark Winter”.
Henrik Svensmark, Danish physicist, was claiming the same back in the 90s. Svensmark’s theory is that cosmic rays entering the lower atmosphere contribute to cloud cover. (CERN has long since validated Svensmark’s theory.) The normally unchanging stream of cosmic rays entering the lower atmosphere are partially blocked when the sun is active because of the sun’s strengthened magnetic field. An active sun therefore results in fewer cosmic rays entering the lower atmosphere hence lower average cloud cover which implies that more sun radiation reaches the earth’s surface, hence a warmer earth. When the sun is inactive the lower atmosphere receives more cosmic rays which leads to more cloud cover. More sun radiation is reflected back to space so less radiation reaches the earth’s surface which leads to cooling. It’s simple, and as Svensmark puts it – cloud cover dictates climate.
The sun has been active until recently which supposedly brought on our current warming. But now the sun has become quiet so average cloud cover should be increasing and a cooling should follow. Some indications of the arrival of cooling are the temperatures since 2016, (see Dr. Roy Spencer’s graph), also February 2021 was the coolest in about four decades. Texas experienced a record cold winter. England has experienced the coldest April (as of the 18th) since 1922 and Germany the chilliest April since 1917. The theory is simple and the data is beginning to support it.
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/2021/04/englands-coldest-april-since-1922.html#comment-5352497312
There is considerable evidence that COOLING, rather than warming, is next on Mother Nature’s agenda. Those trillions of dollars to fight global warming can be shelved unless fighting a naturally-caused colder climate can be justified.
Denis, you’ve managed to pack virtually all of the major talking points about so-called manmade climate change into a very succinct and eminently readable essay. In my experience, this is no easy task and I congratulate you for it.
18 months ago, I tackled this topic differently and sent many of my friends and acquaintances a dozen climate essays averaging some 4000 words each. I sent one about every 3 weeks and the purpose was to do very much what you’ve done here, which is to pull the rug out from under the anthropogenic global warming deception.
I tried to keep each essay as breezy, conversational, and entertaining as possible, with colourful images and easy-to-read graphs. But 75% of the recipients have yet to respond(!), presumably because they classify me as some kind of climate-denier nutcase.
The problem is, many people are unable to comprehend that ‘the authorities’ are indeed engaged in a conspiracy designed to convince the average person that CO2 is a problem. There are reasons why they’re doing this but all of those reasons involve nefarious political motives which sound so fantastic (in the original sense of the word) as to be unbelievable to the majority of us.
Thus, arises the superficially logical belief that rising CO2 MUST be a serious problem, and humans MUST be responsible, and anyone questioning it MUST be either a certifiable lunatic or “in the pay of Big Oil”.
This is why all the blogs like this one, and all the attempts by professional scientists to alert people to the mountain of facts contradicting the anthropogenic climate change deception, have little hope of success.
We’re being duped by global politics and big money, and by a vast, complicit, media network owned by the same two groups.
The truth is deliberately obscured and falsehoods relentlessly promulgated, on a planetary scale, to the point where no one is listening to the facts any more.
In other words, Denis, you’re wasting your valuable time.
Or at least you are for the time being … until the imminent plunge into the next glaciation gets everybody’s attention!