Global Warming Science - www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming

 

Illinois

 

[last update: 2010/04/29]

 

 

Illinois Temperatures

 

The following figure shows average annual temperature in Illinois for 1920-2009 (plotted at the NOAA NCDC website: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/state.html) No warming.

 

 

 

 

 

Obama’s Misleading Advisors

 

Science Advisor, John Holdren: “Lessening our global dependence on fossil fuels and increasing energy production from renewable resources is vital in reducing the harmful effects of climate change, said Holdren. … “It’s [global warming] actually lulled people into a degree of complacency about this problem,” Holdren said, calling the term a “dangerous misnomer.” Climate data on increases in floods, droughts, heat waves, pest outbreaks, typhoons and hurricanes of the largest categories, among several factors, show the pattern of what is actually happening to the Earth— not just what you would expect to happen if global climate change was the cause, said Holdren.” (from the Northwestern University Medill School report “Global warming picking up steam, Obama top science adviser says” 2010/04/28. [http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=163838]) Too bad he ignores the data showing what is actually happening.

 

Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu: “in the Midwest, the temperature will increase 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit on average. With hotter summers, that means that during the growing season, the soil moisture will decrease by 20 to 30 percent. Now, if you take that at face value, then the great agricultural machinery of the U.S. is at risk, with huge economic consequences.”

[http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/10/03_chu.shtml]

 

 

 

Northwestern University, Chicago – Not So Educated

 

“Climate change poses health hazards for Chicago” 2010/03/11 [http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=161559]

 

  • “Heat-related deaths, the spread of infectious diseases and the threat of natural disasters in Chicago could skyrocket in the coming decades unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed … In July 1995, an extreme heat wave hit Chicago, killing over 750 people and hospitalizing thousands more. Projections from the Chicago Climate Task-Force show that heat waves as severe as the 1995 event could occur as frequently as every other year by the end of the century.”

 

  • “There’s no doubt among mainstream scientists that climate is changing and that we’re contributing to it,” said Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard University Medical School. “I really think that there’s a deep down emotional desire to think this evolving instability in the climate and its potential consequences for our health, for the global community, for politics is not really happening. But it’s very real.”

 

They present the following figure as the expected future due to increased CO2.

 

 

They mention a deadly July 1995 heat wave. The following figure shows that July temperatures have been declining since the 1930s.

 

 

 

The following figure shows the July average maximum temperature for 3 NOAA GHCN stations around Chicago (Chicago Midway, O’Hare and Aurora, plotted at http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx)

 

 

 

A 1997 study of the 1995 heat wave, reported in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society [http://lightning.sbs.ohio-state.edu/geo622/paper_heatwave_Karl1997.pdf] states: “The data would suggest that trends of Tap in Chicago are increasing at an appreciably faster rate near the time of the daily maximum temperature compared with times near the minimum, but this is likely to be at least partially, if not fully, due to a change from the HO-63 to the HO-83 instrument that the National Weather Service introduced at all of its primary stations in throughout much of the 1980s. … the severity of the heat wave during 1995 was quite rare”

 

The following figure is from a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences report in 2003 (Davis et al, “Changing Heat-Related Mortality in the United States” [http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2003/6336/6336.html]). The figure shows annual heat-related excess mortality by decade (Each histogram bar indicates a different decade: from left to right, 1960s-1970s, 1980-1989, and 1990-1998.) The figure shown here shows the Chicago data (CHI). The report states: “In 19 of our 28 study cities, total annual heat-related (population-adjusted) mortality was statistically significantly lower in the 1990s than in our 1960s-1970s decade”

 

 

 

 

Cooling Study

 

[http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55527/title/Crop_irrigation_could_be__cooling_Midwest]

 

From the above study:

 

  • “While average global temperatures rose about 0.74 degrees Celsius during the past century, the U.S. Midwest has experienced a noticeable slump in summer temperatures in recent decades … the recent cool temperatures seem to be part of a steady long-term decline in summertime highs in Chicago”

 

  • “Changnon suggested that fewer hot days and more precipitation are linked, because humid air warms more slowly than dry air does. One likely source of the extra moisture is the region’s agriculture. Plants pump vast amounts of water from surface soil into the atmosphere as they grow, and thirsty row crops such as corn and soybeans are much more prevalent in the region these days — about 97 percent of farmland is planted in those crops now, versus about 57 percent in the 1930s”

 

  • “Even if much of the extra summer rainfall in the Midwest derives from water in local soils, the original source of that moisture might be an irrigation spigot somewhere on the Great Plains. A rapid rise in irrigation in that region apparently has boosted precipitation downwind in the Midwest”

 

 

 

Summer Climate Data

 

The following figures show the average summer temperature and summer precipitation for Illinois (plotted at the NOAA NCDC website: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/state.html). Neither trend is statistically significant.

 

 

 

 

The following figure shows the annual average temperature for the 5x5 degree grid encompassing Chicago (from the Hadley / UEA Climatic Research Unit (CRU) data plotted at http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx)

The figure includes a linear trend and confidence interval of the trend (0.019 +/- 0.061 deg./decade). There is no statistically significant trend in annual average temperature.

 

 

 

 

 

Agriculture

 

Stephen Chu says the “great agricultural machinery of the U.S. is at risk” due to global warming. An Agronomy Journal report [http://agron.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/100/Supplement_3/S-79] states: “The dramatic increases in corn yield that occurred since the founding of ASA in 1907 occurred almost entirely in the second half of the 20th century”. The following figure is from that report showing corn and soybean yields per acre for Illinois. Unlike Chu’s alarmist position, the data show the opposite trend.

 

 

 

 

 

The Lunch

 

Steven Chu is out to lunch if he thinks somehow the above trends will suddenly change and it will warm by several degrees just because the climate models say so.

 

Holdren carefully selects his data in order to misrepresent the trends.

 

For more on Chu and Holdren’s lack of scientific understanding (as well as other Obama people) see:

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/ObamasGovernment.htm

 

Universities promoting alarmist scare stories when the data show the opposite – they have joined the alarmist propaganda team.