The recent devastating floods in western North Carolina were not unprecedented but were certainly rare. A recent masters thesis examining flood deposits in the banks of the French Broad River over the last 250-300 years found that a flood in 1769 produced water levels approximately as high as those reported in the recent flood from Hurricane Helene. So, yes, the flood was historic. Like all severe weather events, a superposition of several contributing factors are necessary to make … [Read more...]
Florida Major Hurricanes, 1900-2024: What Do the Statistics Show?
Florida residents must feel like they have been taking a beating from major hurricanes in recent years, but what do the data show? The problem with human perception of such things is that the time scale of hurricane activity fluctuations is often longer than human experience. For example, a person born in the 1950s would have no memory of the beating Florida took in the 1940s from major hurricanes (a total of 5). But they would have many memories of the hurricane lull period of the 1970s and … [Read more...]
Awaiting the Death of Climate Skeptics
This blog received the following comment from our alarmist friend David Appell, freelance writer: “Roy, nobody who is serious about climate change takes you seriously. You’re a denier who has made too many mistakes. No one who knows anything is going to bother commenting here–they upset you so much that all you can think to do is block them. You long ago left the realm of science. As they say, science advances one funeral at a time. Nobody believes your time series anyway. You did that to … [Read more...]
UAH Global Temperature Update for September, 2024: +0.96 deg. C
The Version 6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for September, 2024 was +0.96 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up from the August, 2024 anomaly of +0.88 deg. C. The linear warming trend since January, 1979 remains at +0.16 C/decade (+0.14 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.21 C/decade over global-averaged land). The following table lists various regional LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 21 months (record highs … [Read more...]
UAH Global Temperature Update for August, 2024: +0.88 deg. C
The Version 6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for August, 2024 was +0.88 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up slightly from the July, 2024 anomaly of +0.85 deg. C. Persistent global-averaged warmth was (unusually) contributed to this month by the Southern Hemisphere. Of the 27 regions we routinely monitor, 5 of them set record-warm (or near-record) high monthly temperature anomalies in August, all due to contributions from the Southern … [Read more...]
Unnecessary Net Zero, Part II: A Demonstration with Global Carbon Project Data
Some commenters on my previous blog post, Net Zero CO2 Emissions: A Damaging and Totally Unnecessary Goal, were dubious of my claim that nature will continue to remove CO2 from the atmosphere at about the same rate even if anthropogenic emissions decrease…or even if they were suddenly eliminated. Rather than appeal to the simple CO2 budget model I created for that blog post, let’s look at the published data from the 123 (!) authors the IPCC relies upon to provide their best estimate of … [Read more...]
Net Zero CO2 Emissions: A Damaging and Totally Unnecessary Goal
The goal of reaching “Net Zero” global anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide sounds overwhelmingly difficult. While humanity continues producing CO2 at increasing rates (with a temporary pause during COVID), how can we ever reach the point where these emissions start to fall, let alone reach zero by 2050 or 2060? What isn’t being discussed (as far as I can tell) is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming) will start to … [Read more...]
Spencer vs. Schmidt: My Response to RealClimate.org Criticisms
EN: Dr. Roy Spencer serves thoughtfully on the Cornwall Alliance Board. What follows is a response to Gavin Schmidt’s blog post at RealClimate.org entitled Spencer’s Shenanigans in which he takes issue with my claims in Global Warming: Observations vs. Climate Models. As I read through his criticism, he seems to be trying too hard to refute my claims while using weak (and even non-existent) evidence. To summarize my claims regarding the science of global warming: In Gavin’s post, he … [Read more...]
‘Demographic Warming’: Humans Increasingly Choose to Live Where It’s Warmer
This is the second of a series of articles in which Cornwall Alliance board member and senior fellow Dr. Roy W. Spencer explains the importance of distinguishing urban heat island effect from global temperature increase and of recognizing that by choosing to live in warmer regions of the world and in cities rather than in cooler and rural or wilderness areas, people demonstrate their preference for warmer temperatures. You can find the first article here, and the second here. and the third … [Read more...]
Examples from our New UAH Urban Heat Island Dataset
This is the second of a series of articles in which Cornwall Alliance board member and senior fellow Dr. Roy W. Spencer explains the importance of distinguishing urban heat island effect from global temperature increase and of recognizing that by choosing to live in warmer regions of the world and in cities rather than in cooler and rural or wilderness areas, people demonstrate their preference for warmer temperatures. You can find the first article here, and the second here. Since few people … [Read more...]
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