With all the talk of heat waves in the media these days, it is fascinating to note that the Pacific Northwest has NOT had extreme heat this summer.
No major heatwaves. A lack of warm temperature records.
A really moderate, benign summer regarding high temperatures. And the temperate weather is not over.
And more surprises...there is really little evidence over the past decades of increases in extreme July heat in our region.
Let me show you some data, to prove the above to you.
Just a reminder....the end of July is climatologically the warmest time of the year (see the climatology of SeaTac Airport, below). By the end of August, solar radiation has declined so much that the temperatures inevitably decline.
A July Without Extreme HeatBelow you will find plots of the highest temperature in July over many decades for five local stations: Olympia and Bellingham in western Washington, Wenatchee and Kennewick in eastern Washington, and Portland, Oregon. I have plotted the July highs for the entire period of record and plotted a linear trend line for your reference.
Really interesting. The high temperatures in July at these stations have been very average and FAR below record levels.
Most of you have not needed AC this month.
Perhaps Shocking to Some
Now look at the trend of the extreme July temperatures above (brown lines) and you will notice something that is perhaps surprising: there are no large increases in record July temperatures over many decades.
About a 1°F increase at Bellingham and Olympia, roughly .5 °F at Portland and Wenatchee, and a DECLINE of roughly 2 F at Kennewick over many decades.
The background global warming of mean temperatures is about 2F. Our regional extremes are going up LESS than that.
There is no local amplification of extreme temperatures as the planet slowly warms.
To bring home the message of the lack of extreme temperatures this July, below are the temperatures at Olympia and Wenatchee (blue bars showing observed highs and lows), with record daily highs shown by the red colors.
No daily high-temperature records were broken. None. Nada. Zippo.
Finally, the moderate temperatures are not over.
To illustrate, the latest 7-day forecast from the European Center ensemble (shown below) indicates cooler than normal conditions (blue colors) over and west of the Cascade crest (this is for the daily average temperature, NOT the high temperatures).
As noted in my previous blogs, the lack of extreme high temperatures is associated with a persistent atmospheric circulation pattern. It also helps explain the lack of wildfires over the region.
Announcement
I will have a special online session for my Patreon supporters on Sunday at 8 PM. Will talk about local heatwaves and wildfires and answer your questions.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
To further your point, here's some interesting data from the EPA, of all places:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves#%20
This tells us that heatwaves are not only NOT increasing over the past five decades but, in fact, have been DECREASING.
Here's a Nobel Prize - winning physicist who has said repeatedly that we're not in a climate crisis of any sort:
https://junkscience.com/2023/07/2022-nobel-physics-prize-winner-rips-climate-idiocy-no-climate-crisis-and-ipcc-one-of-the-worst-sources-of-dangerous-misinformation/
When you have the MSM leading the charge to discredit anyone contradicting their increasingly unhinged claims regarding the earth's imminent boiling point, remember that they also tried to crucify one of the actual inventors of climatology over a decade ago, MIT professor Richard Lindzen. His heresy? Daring to question the alarmist and insane prognostications among his lessors in their field. The science is never settled, no matter what the propagandists try to sell you.
Eric, can you please help direct us to where that EPA source says heat waves have been decreasing? All key points in that article indicate the opposite. Also, John Clauser is a theoretical physicist, not a climate scientist. Can you help me understand why his views on climate science should be considered? He is definitely critical of the IPCC and believes CO2 is beneficial, but what generally accepted critiques of climate science has he produced?
DeleteChrometrails - I disagree with your conclusions regarding the EPA report. Regarding why Mr. Clauser should not be considered credible because he's a theoretical physicist, please enumerate why anyone should consider individuals such as Al Gore, John Kerry and Greta Thunberg as alleged "experts" in climatology, since they've been traveling the globe preaching about the urgent need for trillions of taypayer monies to be spent in the pursuit of the "net zero" agendas. The scientists pushing for these policies have been been challenged to debate their conclusions many times, but they refuse to do so. As for the IPCC, they've been called to account for years by many independent researchers regarding their methods of collecting data and their refusal to allow others to replicate their findings. Their credibility was called into question years ago -
Deletehttps://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/mckitrick-ipcc_reforms.pdf
Simply put, I'd rather listen to someone who's a theoretical physicist rather than a celebrity who travels in their own private Lear jets and stays in luxury hotels while lecturing the rest of the proletariat on why they should give up their cars, their gas stoves and their AC's in order to further a dubious and unreachable goal. Why don't they jet off to India and China and lecture them instead, since the 3rd world is responsible for the majority of CO2 being released into the atmosphere annually?
Chrome, when I went to college there were no "climate science" people or classes. Usually "climates" were part of the Into-to-Geography classes (see Köppen climate classification) and meteorology (aka weather). Note that Reid Bryson studied geology and meteorology – both involving chemistry and physics. He is known as the founder and first chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Meteorology and Center for Climatic Research. Note that Reid Bryson studied geology and meteorology – both involving chemistry and physics. He is known as the founder and first chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Meteorology and Center for Climatic Research.
DeleteIn the UK, Hubert Horace Lamb has a (sort of) similar trajectory. He favored history and languages, but his father objected. He rebelled, starting his undergraduate career in natural sciences at the University of Cambridge, he defied his father and ended in geography.
To argue that a theoretical physicist is not qualified to research and comment on "climate" is a misunderstanding of how the topic came into being.
The better question IMHO is "Why wouldn't a person consider a highly qualified physicist's views?" (Definition) "Physics is the branch of science that deals with the structure of matter and how the fundamental constituents of the universe interact." Everything "weather and climate" relates to mass and energy - all this, physical stuff. Statistics (statistical games) that don't relate to substance irk me. I often wonder, "Why would anyone in their right mind expect the temperature or precipitation at any given spot of Earth on any given calendar date be the same from year-to-year, or century-to-century (for that matter)?" I also often wonder, "Why would anyone who understands the complexities of physics accept or use terms like 'the Earth's temperature'?" And so on. I watched-listened to this guy's statement, and I found what he had to say worth hearing. He questions the quality of "the science" (and the prognostications). A lot of high-functioning, real scientists (who understand the scientific method) do take a very hard look at what's trotted out. Critique isn't denial, it's essential.
DeleteWe are lucky this June, but in May 2023 there was a terrible heatwave for a few days.
ReplyDeleteSeattle (a hot spot) had a high temperature of 89F that month. No 90s. Is this really a "terrible heatwave?
Delete"terrible" is obviously subjective (though 89F is really no 90s just by 1 degree). I'm sure cold blood animals like snakes probably don't mind 89F. But I do, and I certainly didn't enjoy the early heatwave. There were actually two heatwaves in early May and mid May and they felt bad for me and many wild animals. I don't have an AC, but if I had one, that would be the dates I wanted to use it, which is very unusual in May. Also we still live with profound effects of the early season heatwaves that destroyed our mountain snowpack. I hike every weekend and it is obvious that summer snow is very profoundly missing this year.
DeleteWe have had worse...I remember we hit 90 (or nearly 90) in April a few years ago. This summer was very tame. Some extremes a couple years ago made us go insane and we forgot how normal summers can be...and how heat waves were normal decades ago as well.
DeleteMrs. Dave is remembering temps over 100 degrees LAST YEAR July 2022 and yes, it was hot for our part of the world, but nobody went "alien" and talked about the heat dome over Seattle!! Have these "reporters" not yet caught on what usually happens in the Summertime?? Mrs. Dave has lived in NYC - where heat & humidity are common - plus travelled to other hotspots of the world with high humidity, having to wear a perky airline uniform with girdle & pantyhose (ok I'm dating myself) and these people are whining about a few degrees over a 100 - again in the middle of our summer - making it sound like impending doom!! Good Grief!!
ReplyDeleteWe are living in this strange age where everybody desperately needs to be a Drama Queen. You see examples of it everywhere. It's unhealthy and dysfunctional. I have some theories on why people have become so needy in that regard, but I'll spare you..
DeleteI can relate to Mrs. Dave's perspective. I came to the Pacific Northwest in the early 70's because I detested the heat and humidity back east (I'm originally from Pittsburgh). I recall one particularly horrid summer in Pennsylvania when the temperature at midnight was 100 (and humid), night after night. As for winters, snow would pile up to the windowsills over the winter; we skated on frozen ponds. All the snow would melt rapidly in the spring, resulting in floods-floods-floods. The last couple of summers here have been glorious in comparison to the extremes that much of the rest of the world experiences. PNW weather varies a great deal, the "range of normal" will always change over time in various ways of course, but compared to many spots it's pretty "steady teddy."
DeleteGlacier - people's minds, and memories, play tricks on them. The climate and likelihood of weather extremes in Pennsylvania hasn't changed since you left. Ranges of normal wont change much, if any, over a person's short lifetime. Cliff has tried to explain this to us 1000 times.
DeleteJohn K: Pardon? Indulge me; explain what you meant about minds playing tricks. I did, indeed, say that change everywhere over time is inevitable. What I didn't say or even remotely imply is that change (here) has or will be extreme. The weather here does vary, and I've been very consistent in all of my writings here regarding our wide range of normal. I've been an astronomy hobbyist since I was a kid. There are people who think "the planet" has some perfect temperature; others may not have ever stopped to learn about (nor twig) the Moon's eccentricities, the speed of earth's spin; and variations in our orbit around the Sun. All these things (and mucho-more) drive weather. Over "geologic time" ice ages have come and gone...etc. I can't figure out what the "minds ...play tricks" bit, but if you can explain: please do.
DeleteCliff, you are not only correct but I would go a step further and say that I can't remember a combined June-July over 20 years that had as many comfortable days and nights as this year. It seems that even the summers that haven't had too many 90s+ days that there had been increasing numbers of muggy-warm nights that made it more difficult to use the "natural air conditioning" to cool a house at night-time. Almost every year recently this had increased the thinking about breaking down and getting an AC unit. However, this year that hasn't been a problem. I credit the dryness and the breeze this year. Even the summer days with 80s (and there have been plenty), the air's dryness and a reasonable breeze has cooled things down overnight. If I were to hazard a guess as to a reason for this bounty of comfortableness, I'd say it was the rare combination of receding La Nina and increasing El Nino in the same 1st half of the year. This doesn't happen often. But I think what it did was keep the waters cool over the winter and early spring, which kept the air moisture lower, and then the rising temperatures with the emerging El Nino gave us a warm dry airmass that could cool efficiently. Let us give a collective thank you to Mother Nature for a great summer.
ReplyDeleteLooks like another large pool of warmer than average water has formed in the Pacific off our coast. Is that helping to drive this weather pattern?
ReplyDeleteno..it is just the opposite: the SST responses to the large scale atmospheric flow
DeleteSince you featured Wenatchee temperatures in your current blog I will mention a few other facts about recent July temperatures at Wenatchee. I will use the temperature record from the Wenatchee Tree Fruit Research Center since it has a longer period of record (1936 to present) than Pangborn Field, with TFRC normals calculated for the period 1940 to 1993. While this July has not seen any daily high temperature records broken, in the last 20 years since 2002, 14 of July's 31 days has seen a record high temperature set for that date. Several of these days saw their record broke more than once during the past 20 years. The hottest July day of record occurred last year, 110 on July 28th. This 20-year period has seen the warmest maximum temperatures of any 20-year period at Wenatchee and this includes the record back to 1912 where observations prior to the TFRC record were taken at a downtown location with similar temperatures as the TFRC. The July nighttime minimum temperatures in recent years have been perhaps even more surprisingly warm with every year except one during the past 20 years having above normal minimum temperatures. This July, while not seeing any daily records set, will average nearly 5 degrees above normal for both maximum and minimum temperatures.
ReplyDeleteI think Cliff saying that Seattle's July temps don't show evidence of warming is cherry picking data, something he is eager to accuse others of, but doesn't mind do himself when it pushes his point. I feel Cliff has an opinion he is looking for evidence to support, rather than looking at the evidence to create opinion.
DeleteBut of course, that is just, like, my opinion, man.
willforestwater...you are NOT correctly describing my viewpoint. Global warming is slowly warming the planet. July is a few degrees warmer because of it (about 2F). I back my discussion with data...with observations. Do you have evidence that I am incorrect? If so, please provide it...cm
Deleteyou use the word "few", as if to imply a few degrees is not a huge deal. at the coldest time of the last ice age 20000 years ago the average global temperature was only 4.5C degrees cooler than 20th century global average, i.e. also just a few degrees cooler. A few degrees warmer just like a few degrees cooler on average can mean a huge difference for the ecosystems.
Deletesomeone else, when I talk about a "few" I am talking about F not C. The warming is about 1 C, far less than the 5-6C cooling during the last ice age. Remember that interannual variability at any location can dwarf a few degree variations....clif
DeleteFrom the Wenatchee Tree Fruit Research Center record, the average mean temperature for this century so far, 2000 to 2022, is 3.7F above the long term (1940 -1993) normal. The mean July 2023 temperature will be about 5 degrees above normal, so at Wenatchee so far this century July is doing somewhat better than 2F above normal.
Deletewxman...you are making a fundamental error. One month for one station does not tell us much about trend. Take a look at the climate division data for the eastern slopes...about 2 F warming:
Deletehttps://psl.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries.pl?ntype=2&typediv=1&state=+45&averaged=11&division=6&year1=1900&year2=2023&anom=0&iseas=1&mon1=6&mon2=6&typeout=2&y1=&y2=&plotstyle=0&Submit=Create+Timeseries
Well there's always August and early September for possible extreme heat.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAs someone that has lived here most of my life (since 1965), I have noted that by the first week to 10 days of August, the temps begin to drop as in, our daytime highs slowly drop to where the incidences of 90+ become less commonly seen.
DeleteThe rest of the month we at best top out in the 80's to maybe 90 and Sept, it's mostly starts out in the low 80's, at best before we drop into the 70's as the month progresses. There have been years where the cooling is more pronounced than other years with being out at the Puyallup Fair has mornings being crisp, with warm afternoons being in the 70's, at best. Thus getting really hot is not common in late summer, but it CAN happen, just don't count on it being likely.
I can't wait for the Seattle Times to run an article about how *actually* lack of heatwaves is also a sign of climate change.
ReplyDeleteI get the case you repeatedly make about media overstating climate change. I may have missed you addressing this but I would value reading your synopsis of studies conducted my climatologists of their evaluations of climate change with the kind of depth and breath you lend to your appraisals of media coverage.
ReplyDeleteI talk about peer-reviewed science all the time in this blog. What exactly are you interested in? I am trying to deal with the hyped and false information pushed by the media....something I consider a very serious problem.
DeleteCliff thinks media inaccuracies about global warming are more important than global warming itself.
DeleteMAC...that is NOT what I am saying. I do believe that grossly error-filled information is filling the media...such as the Seattle Times... and it is critical that people know the truth. I note that with all your criticisms you rarely consider facts and peer-reviewed science. You are an advocate and activist...which is your right. But please be more tolerant of someone trying to provide the best science to the community. Global warming is occurring, but it is not an existential threat and most claims regarding extreme weather and hyped and inaccurate...cliff mass
Delete"More than 99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree that climate change is mainly caused by humans, according to a new survey of 88,125 climate-related studies...In spite of such results, public opinion polls as well as opinions of politicians and public representatives point to false beliefs and claims that a significant debate still exists among scientists over the true cause of climate change. " Mark Lynas et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 114005 Cornell University
Deleteconcerned abou climate...this paper is total and absolute nonsense. Faulty methodology and just silly...cliff
DeleteCliff, I would describe this year's July as the most perfect July possibly ever. Cool nights, warm but not too hot during the day, lots of wind and lower humidity, and yet plenty of sunshine (even for July). Wildfire activity is minimal and the highest it got this July at Boeing was 87, on the 5th. A warm July 4th for the fireworks, and we ended our dry streak with a full day of showers in some places. I really hope the media outlets will calm down now, but it's like beating at a dead horse.
ReplyDeleteI'm a sailor, and our community has continually remarked at how good of a sailing year it has been! Its been good weather for the most part - sunny and clear, and WINDY. Does persistent onshore flow patterns have something to do with this?
ReplyDeleteI'm originally from FL. My dad is still propagandized and thinks we're going all gonna burn up, so I plotted Jax data for him. Nothing extraordinary at all.
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TJWfXZcSWxXqwCLP3KWS-pcTkkQhvFCfLWmUh7XNYnE/edit?usp=sharing
He's still convinced that the Climate Narrative is pushing us into a "tipping point". Legacy media does such a good job at what they do.
How about you plot the nighttime lows, or the number of days above 80F, since the 1930s? Climate change, in many places, is less about higher spikey highs and sustained heat and lows creeping up.
ReplyDelete