Tag: Cold Snaps

No, NPR, Climate Change Is Not Challenging New York’s Apple Growers

A recent interview from NPR affiliate WAMC Northeast Public Radio’s “Northeast Notebook” titled “Apple growers confront climate change, fuel challenges for 2026 harvest,” blames low apple production in New York on “increasingly unpredictable” weather. This story is promoting a factually inaccurate narrative. If climate change was harming New York apple production, there would be evidence of this in apple production and yields over the long term, but this is not the case.

A cartoon-style illustration depicting a discussion on climate crisis versus apple production. A man with a microphone, representing NPR, talks animatedly on the left, while a farmer stands next to a graph showing apple yield in New York from 1980 to 2025, indicating a record harvest. Background features apple trees, a truck, and harvest crates, highlighting thriving agriculture amidst climate challenges.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

Two children sitting beside a basket of apples, with one child playfully holding apples in front of her face and the other child smiling while holding an apple.

A recent interview from NPR affiliate WAMC Northeast Public Radio’s “Northeast Notebook” titled “Apple growers confront climate change, fuel challenges for 2026 harvest,” blames low apple production in New York on “increasingly unpredictable” weather. This story is promoting a factually inaccurate narrative. If climate change was harming New York apple production, there would be evidence of this in apple production and yields over the long term, but this is not the case.

WAMC published a transcript of an interview style report conducted with Hudson Valley apple growers, who WAMC says “encountered a late April frost, skyrocketing diesel prices, and a federal crackdown on foreign labor in 2026,” which have created “uncertain economic conditions.”

Sam Dingman, reporter for the WAMC’s Northeast Notebook, claimed that apple farmers need to guard themselves “against unexpected losses from increasingly unpredictable spring weather,” ultimately blaming climate change for allegedly worsening growing conditions for apple farmers in New York.

Although it is true that a late spring frost can damage yields for a season, this is normal weather variability, not climate change. Also, the good news is that late spring frosts are becoming less frequent. One need only look at the April minimum temperature data in New York to see that cold snaps are not becoming more extreme or unpredictable during apple bloom season. In fact, previous decades saw larger variation between April lows than recent years. (See figure below)

Line graph showing the minimum temperatures in New York for the month of April from 1900 to 2026, with temperature values ranging from 26.0°F to 38.0°F.

Farmers have have had to deal with bad weather every season, some worse than others, throughout history. The fact that spring blooming seasons are slightly longer today than they were a hundred-plus years ago, does not indicate trouble for crops, rather the opposite.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that apple production and yields in New York have risen 35 percent from just 1980 to 2025, with 2025 having seen an all-time record for production. (See figure below)

Bar graph showing New York apple production and yield from 1980 to 2025. Red bars represent production in millions of pounds, while the black line indicates yield in pounds per acre.

If long term climate change was damaging apple production, one would expect long-term damage to be indicated by the data, but it is not.

Previous Climate Realism articles have covered similar claims about apple production from the U.S. at large, and even Kashmir, and in both of those cases the data showed the same thing: apple production and yields have increased across the United States and the world amid the modest climate change of the past century. That is despite the fact that in the United States at least, the acreage devoted to growing apples has declined in the past few decades.

Of course apple growers in New York and elsewhere may be experiencing difficulties, like higher costs due to skyrocketing diesel prices and a federal crackdown on foreign labor, and that might have made a compelling story, but those factors have nothing to do with the story’s lede, “Climate Change.”

NPR’s affiliate station in New York is promoting a lot of nonsense in this story, in line with standard climate alarmist propaganda. One bad season for apples on certain farms can’t be blamed on climate change, that’s the truth the data shows and nothing but.

Thanks, StudyFinds, For Publicizing Health Study Confirming Cold Temperatures Kill More than Hot Temperatures

The science news site, StudyFinds, recently discussed a study that found that cardiac arrests went up substantially during cold spells. This confirms other research that Climate Realism has previously discussed. Cold temperatures kill far more people each year than hot temperatures, the opposite of the narrative the mainstream media usually spins.

A person dressed warmly in a snow-covered environment, wearing a thick coat, hat, and scarf, with frost on their gloves and face.

From ClimateRealism

By H. Sterling Burnett

The science news site, StudyFinds, recently discussed a study that found that cardiac arrests went up substantially during cold spells. This confirms other research that Climate Realism has previously discussed. Cold temperatures kill far more people each year than hot temperatures, the opposite of the narrative the mainstream media usually spins.

The story, “Cold Snaps Line Up With Cardiac Arrest Spikes, New Study Finds,” reports on the findings of a study published in the journal Public Health examining meteorological factors that influence cardiovascular emergency incidences, in common vernacular, heart attacks. The researchers involved, from various universities in Hungary, examined 114,830 incidences of cardiac arrests across 1,584 days reported by the Hungarian National Ambulance Service from November 2018 to December 2023, excluding the COVID-19 disruption period. They then tracked these cases against various meteorological parameters on those days, such as temperature, wind speed, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and air quality. As reported by StudyFinds, the researchers determined;

  • On the days with the most cardiac arrests, counts ran nearly a third above normal, about 19 extra cases nationwide, and those days tended to be cold and calm;
  • Colder temperatures and lower wind speeds were consistently associated with higher cardiac arrest counts, with weather patterns extending across a window of up to three days;
  • Winter months saw almost 18 percent more cardiac arrests than summer months;
  • Wind . . . appeared protective, likely because moving air helps clear out pollution and improves air quality overall, and the study found a real drop in cardiac arrests on breezier days; and
  • Daily cardiac arrest counts averaged close to 66 cases during winter compared with about 56 during summer, a gap of almost 18% that held up across multiple statistical checks.

Machine learning, that is artificial intelligence, validated the study’s results.

The findings of this study should come as no surprise to readers of Climate Realism, as it has refuted dozens of false reports in the mainstream media claiming that hot temperatures cause the most deaths related to temperatures. In contrast to media claims, as explored in Climate at a Glance: Temperature Related Deaths, the peer reviewed literature consistently finds deaths related to cold temperatures are far more prevalent than premature mortality from heat, and as a result, as the planet has modestly warmed, deaths from non-optimum temperatures have fallen dramatically.

The journal StudyFinds was founded by award-winning editor Steve Fink to bring important science findings to the masses. Its mission statement says:

StudyFinds exists to make science accessible without sacrificing accuracy.

We believe that peer-reviewed research belongs to everyone, not just academics. Our job is to find studies that matter to real people, report what they actually say (not what headlines want them to say), and present that information clearly, fairly, and completely.

We have no agenda. We don’t editorialize about whether a finding is good or bad, politically convenient or inconvenient. We report what the research says, note its limitations, and trust our readers to think for themselves.

That is a laudable mission. One would wish more news outlets sought to report the truth about science matters, but in truth about all matters of public policy import, without political bias or promoting an agenda. StudyFinds reporting on this study examining the relation between cardiac arrests incidences and cold weather clearly reflects its writers’ and editors’ fealty to that mission. They reported the truth about the study, and nothing but the truth, leaving out unnecessary or unjustified context or commentary. Bravo, StudyFinds! If this example is consistent with your other reporting on science, Climate Realism can only hope more readers find their way to your online journal.