By Jim Steele

Dishonest climate alarmism spread by propagandists like

@ECOWARRIORSS,

@GeraldKutney,

@MikeHudema,

@PCarterClimate, or

@MichaelEMann

try to frighten people by mindlessly spouting about the thousands of record high temperatures, but they never explain the science behind those records, because those temperature records can be extremely misleading.

First, heat waves are caused by high pressures systems that suppress convection and form heat domes. In addition, heat domes’ clear skies allow more solar heating, and their dry conditions reduce evaporative cooling, thus promoting extreme temperatures.

Heat domes commonly form beneath the ridges of the jet stream. The jet stream usually keeps high-pressure systems moving eastward, so that very high temperatures are relatively fleeting. But when the waviness of the jet stream is amplified it causes a heat dome to move more slowly or stall, allowing more heat to accumulate.

All wavy flows of air and water can form loops that can separate themselves from the main flow and become stationary, like ox-bow lakes and atmospheric omega blocks (illustrated below). Omega blocks can remain stationary for days. The record high temperatures in Lytton British Columbia happened when an Omega block stalled between June 27thand 29th 2021, causing Lytton to experience consecutive days increasing record high temperatures. But those record highs were limited to a small area around Lytton where convection suppression was greatest. It had nothing to do with CO2 that alarmists suggested.

Heat records are very local events. Thus, small shifts in a high-pressure system’s track, can generate new local records. In addition, urban heat islands and the loss of wetlands that reduce evaporative cooling, also increase the probability of a new record maximum temperature. Thus, just counting the number of local records is a totally irrelevant measure of global climate change.

Geography makes some locations more susceptible to extreme heat. Omega blocks are common in certain locations. The contrast between the cold northeast Pacific and the continental mountains induces a wavier jet stream and more frequent heat domes along the west coast of southern Canada and northwest USA. For that reason, Lytton had long been known and nicknamed “Canada’s hot spot”, setting Canada’s previous record high on July 5, 1937.

Similarly, the Pacific’s summer high pressure blocks any rains from reaching California partially enabling extreme heat in California’s Death Valley, which set the world’s record of 134F (57C) on July 10, 1913.

Thus, to be a plausible measure of global warming, regional record temperatures are better indicators than local records. But regional records are far fewer. So, the alarmists misleadingly prefer to rant about local records. An examination of the record high maximum temperatures for each American state provides a more honest account of global warming’s effect on extreme high temperatures. As seen below 32 of the 48 continental states set their record high temperatures BEFORE 1937.

There is no Climate Crisis