Roy W. Spencer

Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D., is Principal Research Scientist in Climatology in the University of Alabama’s National Space Science & Technology Center. When he worked at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, he and Dr. John Christy, who heads the NSSTC, jointly received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. He is a Senior Fellow of The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.

The Hottest Summer Days in the U.S. Have Barely Warmed in the Last 40 Years

The total warming of the hottest 3 days in each summer month averaged across 400 mostly-airport weather stations is only 1.2 deg. F over 40 years. I recently posted about the weather observations from Reagan National Airport that showed the warmest days of summer have experienced no statistically significant warming in the last 40 years, despite this […]

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The Hottest Summer Days in D.C. Have Not Gotten Hotter in Last 40 Years

…but the coolest summer nights have warmed by 5 deg. F. John Christy and I continue to examine U.S. air temperature trends, especially those in summer, and John has recently been looking at “heat wave” statistics. My interest is in determining how much the urban heat island (UHI) effect has impacted reported warming trends. Last

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Some Thoughts on Our DOE Report Regarding CO2 Impacts on the U.S. Climate

PREFACE: What follows are my own opinions, not seen by my four co-authors of the Dept. of Energy report just released, entitled A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate. Starting sometime tomorrow, the comment docket at DOE will be open for anyone to post comments regarding the contents of that report.

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133 Years of Texas Hill Country Heavy Rainfall Data Show No Trends

The catastrophic flooding of July 4, 2025 in the Texas hill country has left at least 130 dead. Many news outlets (predictably) have invoked climate change as a contributing cause, for example CNN, NPR, ABC News, The Texas Tribune, et al. As others have documented, there were more than adequate flash flood watches and warnings from the National Weather Service,

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UAH v6.1 Global Temperature Update for June, 2025: +0.48 deg. C

The Version 6.1 global area-averaged linear temperature trend (January 1979 through June 2025) now stands at +0.16 deg/ C/decade (+0.22 C/decade over land, +0.13 C/decade over oceans). The following table lists various regional Version 6.1 LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 18 months (record highs are in red). YEAR MO GLOBE

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Does the Air Force Own the Weather in 2025? Origins of the Chemtrail Theory

2025 isn’t just the current year, or a Heritage Foundation project of conservative principles for political action for the new Republican President. In the 1990s it was also the result of an Air Force directive to “examine the concepts, capabilities, and technologies the United States will require to remain the dominant air and space force in

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UAH v6.1 Global Temperature Update for March, 2025: +0.58 deg. C

The Version 6.1 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for March, 2025 was +0.58 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up from the February, 2025 anomaly of +0.50 deg. C. The Version 6.1 global area-averaged linear temperature trend (January 1979 through March 2025) remains at +0.15 deg/ C/decade (+0.22 C/decade over land, +0.13

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Hey, EPA, Why Not Regulate Water Vapor Emissions While You Are At It?

Some Background I will admit that the legal profession mystifies me. Every time I say anything related to environmental law, one or more lawyers will correct me. But I suppose “turnabout is fair play”, since I will usually correct any lawyers about their details describing climate change science. Lawyers aren’t like us normal people. Their

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Reasons Why Regulating CO2 Emissions Needs to be Reconsidered

March 7, the Washington Post reported the EPA Administrator is considering recommending to the White House that the EPA’s 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding be rescinded. Let’s look at a few of the reasons why this might be a good thing to consider. The Science The science of human-caused climate change is much more uncertain that you have

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UAH v6.1 Global Temperature Update for February, 2025: +0.50 deg. C

The Version 6.1 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for February, 2025 was +0.50 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up a little from the January, 2025 anomaly of +0.45 deg. C. The Version 6.1 global area-averaged linear temperature trend (January 1979 through February 2025) remains at +0.15 deg/ C/decade (+0.22 C/decade over

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