This morning a friend in Georgia mentioned that the common consensus among his friends there is that recent summers have been much hotter than in the past, and for that reason they’re inclined to believe claims of rapid human-induced global warming. Aside from the facts that what’s happening in one tiny part of the globe doesn’t reveal what’s happening everywhere else and that warming doesn’t prove human causation, I told him I suspected the anecdotal memories might conflict with hard data. That’s a common occurrence.
So I checked by asking one of the best temperature data sources I know, Dr. John Christy, Principal Research Scientist in Climatology at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and Alabama State Climatologist. He provided the raw data (below) from which I then quickly constructed this graph:
Five of the last seven and ten of the last eighteen summers have been below the long-term average of 89.9F. (And that’s despite the fact that the long-term average is weighted downward a bit by the comparatively cold mid-1950s through mid-1970s.) The overall trend is a cooling of 0.06F/decade, or 0.735F for the entire 12-1/4 decades.
I suspect the folks who think it’s been much hotter recently than in their memories of the past probably grew up in the 1960s, which were the coldest decade of the 20th century for North America—and for Georgia, as you can see here. It’s also likely that many grew up in rural areas but now live in urban or suburban areas, which are strongly affected by urban heat island effect. They’re confusing localized heating by urbanization and industrialization for regional or global heating by greenhouse gases.
As we suspected, anecdotal memories often differ significantly from hard data.
Here are Christy’s data:
1895 89.4
1896 90.2
1897 91.0
1898 89.5
1899 91.6
1900 90.7
1901 89.8
1902 92.8
1903 89.7
1904 89.9
1905 90.6
1906 89.8
1907 90.8
1908 90.6
1909 89.9
1910 88.2
1911 91.1
1912 88.6
1913 91.1
1914 92.0
1915 90.9
1916 88.7
1917 90.2
1918 90.8
1919 88.8
1920 89.2
1921 90.6
1922 89.7
1923 88.8
1924 91.9
1925 93.1
1926 90.1
1927 89.3
1928 89.1
1929 89.6
1930 90.7
1931 92.5
1932 90.7
1933 90.6
1934 91.3
1935 90.2
1936 92.0
1937 90.4
1938 89.5
1939 89.8
1940 89.0
1941 90.2
1942 90.1
1943 92.0
1944 90.4
1945 89.8
1946 88.6
1947 88.8
1948 90.1
1949 88.6
1950 89.2
1951 91.8
1952 93.1
1953 89.9
1954 93.8
1955 89.2
1956 90.6
1957 89.4
1958 89.7
1959 90.0
1960 89.8
1961 87.9
1962 90.2
1963 88.9
1964 88.4
1965 87.7
1966 88.1
1967 86.3
1968 90.2
1969 89.6
1970 88.9
1971 88.5
1972 88.5
1973 88.7
1974 87.6
1975 88.0
1976 87.9
1977 91.8
1978 90.1
1979 88.2
1980 92.3
1981 90.7
1982 88.7
1983 90.5
1984 88.6
1985 88.6
1986 92.2
1987 91.2
1988 90.4
1989 88.1
1990 91.6
1991 88.1
1992 87.4
1993 92.2
1994 87.2
1995 89.7
1996 88.8
1997 87.4
1998 92.5
1999 90.4
2000 91.4
2001 88.5
2002 90.3
2003 87.5
2004 88.7
2005 88.4
2006 91.7
2007 91.2
2008 90.4
2009 89.7
2010 92.3
2011 93.7
2012 89.2
2013 86.9
2014 89.7
2015 90.7
2016 92.6
2017 88.4
2018 89.5
louis wachsmuth says
So, a very large governmental report, backed by hundreds of climate scientists just came out. I am waiting to see how Cornwall makes more squiggly charts to “prove” they are all wrong, all liars, all a socialist plot. Get busy Cornwall, all the news sources are talking about it.
Charles Pennington says
These appear to be the average summer HIGH temperatures for Georgia, NOT the average summer temperatures. Please confirm and correct this posting and chart so people can use it!
Thanks!
E. Calvin Beisner says
No, Dr. Christy reported these as the actual average summer temps, not the average summer HIGH temps. What leads you to think otherwise?