Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Attention Drudge readers: Anthony Watts booted "Steven Goddard" from WattsUpWithThat some years ago

Seen here.

Drudge recently linked to a "Goddard" (a nom de plume) story about the summer of 2014 being the "coolest summer on record" in the country, through like July 23rd, which it certainly is from the point of view of extreme summer temperatures, i.e. the annual frequency of 90 degree F or above on a percentage basis. For his story showing the chart of the NOAA data, see here. Extreme summer temperatures have been in decline for most of the last century, contrary to the alarmism of the global warming crowd, a point "Goddard" doesn't seem to have emphasized.

There is no reason to doubt his presentation of the facts that I can detect, except that it could be argued from a chart of the other extreme, the annual frequency of below zero temperatures, that for the same period, about eighty years, there has been a slight decline in the frequency of that metric, too. So there may be a decline in extremes also on the cold side if confirmed. So far "Goddard" has not supplied the trend line for that chart in the comments section. But if confirmed, that would suggest a general thesis that climate extremes have been declining within a minor warming trend which may or may not be reversing now. That's big news since climate alarmists keep telling us the warming trend will produce "extreme weather". It isn't. It's producing ameliorating conditions.