{"id":407812,"date":"2025-10-12T16:16:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T14:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=407812"},"modified":"2025-10-12T16:16:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T14:16:35","slug":"no-bloomberg-one-chart-does-not-prove-the-world-is-getting-hot-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=407812","title":{"rendered":"No, Bloomberg, One Chart Does Not Prove the World Is Getting Hot Fast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In a recent column titled \u201cA Chart Climate Denialists Can\u2019t Ignore,\u201d<\/a> Bloomberg<\/em> writer Mark Gongloff presents a graph from Berkeley Earth\u2019s Zeke Hausfather as proof that \u201cthe world is getting hotter, and fast.\u201d While the chart may accurately display data, it is highly misleading because it doesn\u2019t take the root causes of such temperature records into account, such as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect and the warm-biased placement of weather stations that record temperatures, factors that have nothing to do with climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart, Gongloff claims, shows that nearly 80 percent of global land areas have experienced record monthly high temperatures in this century alone. From this, readers are told that the evidence is overwhelming and that skepticism about catastrophic climate change is \u201cdenial.\u201d It\u2019s a tidy narrative\u2014but like many tidy narratives, it unravels when context and historical data are brought to bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea that today\u2019s heat is \u201cunprecedented\u201d is simply false. In fact, most all-time state high temperature records in the United States were set long before the 21st century began. As detailed in Climate at a Glance: The Facts on Climate Change (2nd Edition, 2025)<\/em><\/a>, \u201cthe all-time high temperature records set in most states occurred in the first half of the twentieth century, decades before anyone was talking about human-caused climate change.\u201d This is not a small technicality. It is a direct contradiction of the claim that modern warming is without historical parallel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1930s remain the standout decade for heat in the American record. Data, drawn from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s (NOAA) U.S. Historical Climatology Network<\/a>, show that both the number and intensity of heatwaves peaked during that period. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Heat Wave Index<\/a>, cited in Climate at a Glance<\/em><\/a>, confirms that the 1930s still dominate in frequency and duration of heatwaves nationwide. A chart from Our World in Data<\/a>, shown below, verifies the EPA heatwave data:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1: U.S. Heat Wave Index, 1895\u20132021, from NOAA via EPA (2024)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0processed\u00a0by Our World in Data<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More recently, the\u00a0U.S. Climate Reference Network<\/a>\u00a0(USCRN)\u2014a pristine system of modern sensors launched in 2005 to avoid problems like urban heat contamination\u2014shows no sustained increase in high-temperature extremes<\/a>\u00a0since its inception, seen in Figure 2 below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2: USCRN high-temperature data from January 2005 to August 2005.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This data matters because the United States has the longest, most carefully maintained temperature record in the world. If there were truly a runaway increase in record heat, it would be evident here first. Instead, as The Heartland Institute notes, \u201cthere has been no significant warming across the United States since 2005\u201d and \u201crecent warming rates are no higher than in the early 20th century.\u201d The NOAA record confirms this trend: when adjustments and urban heat biases are stripped away, the upward slope of U.S. maximum temperatures largely disappears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, a chart of high temperature records for the past century, seen below in Figure 3, easily disproves the Bloomberg<\/em> claim.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Figure 3: The annual mean number of days with a daily maximum temperature \u226595\u00b0, \u2265100\u00b0 and \u2265105\u00b0 each at 828 NOAA USHCN stations with at least 100 years of daily temperature readings between 1895 and 2023. Graph by Chris Martz from NOAA data at https:\/\/www.ncei.noaa.gov\/pub\/data\/ushcn\/v2.5\/<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

What is too often ignored in mainstream reporting is the extent to which temperature datasets have been massaged over the years. Historical temperatures in the far past are routinely adjusted downward<\/a>, and station siting biases in the present exacerbate the problem, exaggerating the appearance of a steep warming trend. An independent audit of the U.S. surface station network done by Heartland in 2022<\/a> found that well over 90 percent of stations fail NOAA\u2019s own siting standards, with many positioned near heat sources such as buildings, parking lots, or air-conditioning exhausts. When only well-sited, rural stations are considered, the long-term warming trend falls dramatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This important context is missing entirely from Gongloff\u2019s piece. Instead, readers are presented with an appealing graphic and a few cherry-picked statistics that appear to seal the case. Yet, as the new Climate at a Glance<\/em> book points out, climate models and global averages often obscure more than they reveal. \u201cModels run too hot,\u201d the book notes, \u201cand they consistently project more warming than is observed in the real world.\u201d The gap between modeled projections and measured outcomes has persisted for decades, which raises questions not about \u201cdenial,\u201d but about scientific humility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the United States, there has been no statistically significant increase in either the number or intensity of heatwaves since the early 20th century. That is not a matter of ideology\u2014it is a matter of record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gongloff closes his piece by warning that the 1930s Dust Bowl may soon \u201cseem like a cool interlude.\u201d That is preposterous \u2013 the data tells a completely different story. America\u2019s hottest decade remains the 1930s<\/em>, and despite rising carbon dioxide emissions, modern heat extremes have not surpassed those early records. Before accepting graphics designed to shock, it\u2019s worth remembering that charts can be constructed to emphasize whatever conclusion the author prefers. History, on the other hand, does not bend so easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, long-term unbiased data and a proper accounting of the UHI effect destroy\u00a0Bloomberg\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0intentionally alarming claims about a rapidly warming world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t

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