{"id":183187,"date":"2022-01-17T10:51:52","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T09:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=183187"},"modified":"2022-01-17T10:51:53","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T09:51:53","slug":"yale-climate-connections-should-go-back-to-school-for-equating-a-year-of-weather-with-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=183187","title":{"rendered":"Yale Climate Connections Should Go Back to School for Equating a Year of Weather with Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In a recently published article, titled \u201cWarmest U.S. December in history caps a stormy, mostly-sizzling year<\/a>,\u201d Yale Climate Connections (YCC) says all of the weather events of the past year are proof of dangerous climate change. They mention the word climate no less than 17 times in the article while at the same time listing dozens of weather events in an attempt to associate weather as being climate-driven. Conflating weather events with climate change is scientifically invalid. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) knows that weather is not directly attributable to the climate conditions of any given year and says so in their most recent report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This fact doesn\u2019t stop YCC from trying to drum up concern and fear in order to advance a climate agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most prominent issue YCC focuses on is the claim that December 2021 was the hottest ever on record, while that is true, it isn\u2019t relevant to the climate change discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YCC writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a strikingly mild autumn, December 2021 was astonishingly warm over large areas, especially the Southern Plains and lower Mississippi Valley, where many locations had multiple days soar well above 70\u00b0F and even 80\u00b0F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preliminary data for December from NOAA showed a total of 6,321 daily record highs and 910 monthly record highs either broken or tied across the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YCC leads the reader to believe that this is something dramatic and unprecedented, when it in fact is nothing more then a persistent weather pattern that is part of our larger La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean this year. In an article at Phys.org<\/a> a senior meteorologist from the National Weather Service had this to say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The jet stream \u2014 the river of air that moves weather from west to east on a rollercoaster-like path\u2014has just been stuck. That means low pressure on one part of the stream is bringing rain to the Pacific Northwest, while high pressure hovering over about two-thirds of the nation produces dry and warmer weather, said Brian Hurley, a senior meteorologist at the weather service\u2019s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the jet stream moves more or bends differently, rain and other extreme weather won\u2019t be as concentrated, Hurley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a typical weather pattern with a natural La Nina weather oscillation, he said. The flip side of El Nino, a La Nina is a cooling of parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes weather patterns across the globe. La Ninas tend to bring more rain to the Pacific Northwest and make the South drier and warmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A graphic (Figure 1) from ABC News 8 in Richmond, VA illustrates how this shapes up across the nation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1 National map of weather impacts from a La Nina weather pattern. Source: https:\/\/www.wric.com\/weather\/john-berniers-38th-annual-winter-outlook-for-rva\/<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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So, in a nutshell, we\u2019ve experienced the usual and expected effects of this pattern. The eastern side of the United States got very warm weather, which just like in spring and summer creates thunderstorms and tornadoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But YCC paints this as unprecedented and catastrophic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look at the national maximum temperature data for December for the U.S. Climate Reference Network<\/a>, the most accurate and state of the art measurement system in the world, as seen in Figure 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure2: December Maximum Temperatures in the Contiguous United States. Source: National Climate Data Center https:\/\/www.ncdc.noaa.gov\/temp-and-precip\/national-temperature-index\/time-series\/anom-tmax\/1\/12<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data confirm it was in fact the warmest U.S. December on record when looking at maximum temperatures, but that isn\u2019t relevant to the climate debate. A month of warm temperature isn\u2019t indicative of climate change. Since the article in YCC is about the year 2021, and its supposedly unprecedented set of climate-driven weather events, lets look at the year of maximum temperatures compare to other years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note that in Figure 3 below, 2021 isn\u2019t special at all compared to other years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3. Annual Maximum Temperatures in the Contiguous United States 2005-2021. Source: National Climate Data Center https:\/\/www.ncdc.noaa.gov\/temp-and-precip\/national-temperature-index\/time-series\/anom-tmax\/ann\/12<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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But here is where it gets really interesting. If we look at ALL of the data available, going back to 1895, using another data set called Climate Divisions<\/a>, the year 2021 isn\u2019t the top year for the \u201crecord warmth\u201d claims. See Figure 4 below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 4. Annual Maximum Temperatures in the Contiguous United States 1895-2021. Source: National Climate Data Center https:\/\/www.ncdc.noaa.gov\/temp-and-precip\/national-temperature-index\/time-series\/anom-tmax\/ann\/12<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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According to data provided by NOAA, 2021 had an anomaly of 1.73\u00b0F<\/strong> above normal, but that is far below 2016 at 2.05\u00b0F, 2012 at 3.04\u00b0F, and 1934 at 2.12\u00b0F. Looking at all the data, 2021 was not an exceptionaly warm year whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate alarmists like to make claims of \u201cworst ever\u201d when it comes to temperature, and then try to use that to bolster arguments that the weather is getting worse due to climate change. Typically, though, they don\u2019t tell the entire story, just the bits that would lend support to other false or misleading claims they make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As illustrated by the YCC piece, the authors use virtually any weather event, hot or cold, below normal, above normal, wet, dry, or just even supposedly unique as \u201cproof\u201d that the climate is changing for the worse and humans are the cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will always be weather disasters, but how we deal with them is what really defines how we move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I wrote in the Climate Realism article, Cambridge University is Explicitly Pushing for Political Authoritarianism in the Name of Climate Change<\/a>,
Dr. Bjorn Lomborg has been tracking climate-related disasters from the database since 1920. This includes floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures. His conclusion from the data is clear and simple: fewer and fewer people are dying today from supposedly climate-related natural disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As seen in the figure, the trend is clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lomborg writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past hundred years, annual climate-related deaths have declined by more than 96%. In the 1920s, the death count from climate-related disasters was 485,000 on average every year. In the last full decade, 2010-2019, the average was 18,362 dead per year, or 96.2% lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is even true of 2021 \u2014 despite breathless climate reporting, almost 99% fewer people died that year than a hundred years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, there was a lot of interesting weather in 2021, as there is interesting weather every year and will continue to be in the years ahead. Humanity\u2019s response to weather extremes improves every year.  There\u2019s no indication that this will change or that \u201cclimate change\u201d is worsening the human condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The post\u00a0Yale Climate Connections Should Go Back to School for Equating a Year of Weather with Climate Change<\/a>\u00a0appeared first on\u00a0ClimateRealism<\/a>.<\/mark><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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via ClimateRealism<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Anthony Watts<\/a>\u00a0-January 14, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yale Climate Connections Should Go Back to School for Equating a Year of Weather with Climate Change<\/a><\/blockquote>