Seattle Times: "The truth about global warming"

Below is excerpted from a letter to the Wenatchee World published on Aug. 3, 2006. The letter is signed by Jim Holcomb, "National Weather Service retired:"

"...The all-time highest temperature recorded at the TFRC (Tree Fruit Research Center on Western Ave., Wenatchee, WA) is 108 on August 3, 1961. The all-time highest July temperature at the TFRC is 107, on four different days: one day in 1952, two days in 1960, and the latest occuring on July 23 of this year. The all-time high temperature at Pangborn Field (East Wenatchee, WA) is 109, set on Aug. 4, 1961, and the highest temperature in July at Pangborn is 108, on July 27, 1998. Pangborn reached 107 on July 23 of this year, breaking the record for that date.
The all-time highest temperature among these three sites (Wenatchee sites) belongs to the Worthen Street site where, despite its location near the Columbia River, the temperature reached 110 on July 16 and 17, 1941. This is the reading given as the warmest ever recorded in Wenatchee."

A note from my personal experience is a temp of 107 according to my Casio altimeter/ thermometer watch (questionable accuracy, of course) at the Leavenworth Front St. Park exactly one week before the 1994 (Chelan County) fires started.


Other articles posted on Drudge:

A Bit of History for Global Warmers: Look at 1930
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
August 04, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - People sweltering from a heat wave in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. might find cold comfort in the fact that the temperatures of the past few days are not the hottest on record. That "honor" belongs to a summer 76 years ago -- decades before the controversy over "man-made global warming" began.

"From June 1 to August 31, 1930, 21 days had high temperatures that were 100 degrees or above" in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, Patrick Michaels, senior fellow for environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Cybercast News Service. "That summer has never been approached, and it's not going to be approached this year."

Between July 19 and Aug. 9 of that year, heat records were set on nine days and they remain unbroken more than three-quarters of a century later. "That's hot," added Michaels, who also serves as professor of natural resources at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.

The summer of 1930 also marked the beginning of the longest drought of the 20th century. In 1934, dry regions stretched from New York and Pennsylvania across the Great Plains to California. A "dust bowl" covered about 50 million acres in the south-central plains during the winter of 1935-1936.

However, the first six months of this year were the hottest across the nation since the federal government began keeping records in 1890, according to Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who told NBC News that about 50 all-time high-temperature records were broken during the month of July.

But Michaels noted that high temperatures are common in the middle of the summer.

"Climatologically, the last week in July is the warmest week of the year on average, and when the atmospheric flow patterns get into anomalously warm configurations during this time of the year, temperatures will skyrocket," he said.

Along with an unusual upper-air pattern, the Washington, D.C., area "was exceedingly dry" during the summer of 1930, Michaels stated.

"Generally speaking, when the ground is moist here, temperatures cap out in the high 90s," he noted. "That's because the sun's energy is divided into evaporating water and directly heating the surface. If the surface is dry, then everything goes into heating the surface, and you get exceedingly hot temperatures like you saw in 1930.

"Big cities are getting warmer -- with or without global warming -- because the bricks and the buildings and the pavement retain heat," Michaels added. For that reason, he prefers to compare temperatures in nearby rural areas. "There's been very little change" in those areas, "so we trust the record to be a reliable indicator of base climate."

Residents of the nation's capital can look forward to some relief, as weather forecasts for the weekend call for a cooling trend. "If we were going to go into the 100s -- the 103 and 104 degree range -- we would have done it, but there's just a little bit too much moisture in the surface to allow that to happen," Michaels said. He noted, however, that temperatures are expected to rise again next week.

The mid-summer temperatures have provided more opportunities for environmentalists subscribing to the theory that man is responsible for the current global warming.

Jay Gulledge, senior research fellow for science and impacts at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, told NBC News on Wednesday that "this heat wave and other extreme events we've seen in recent years are completely consistent with what we expect to become more common as a result of global warming, even though we can't be definitive on any single event."

Michaels acknowledged that "global temperatures have been warming slightly for several decades" and noted that the surface of the world "is a little bit warmer than it was in the 1930s" even though "temperatures dropped between 1940 and 1975."

"Usually, the way the jet stream breaks out is very hot in the East and relatively cool in the West or vice versa," he said. "This time around, it looks more like the summers of the 1930s," but he dismissed the idea that the extreme temperatures of that time were caused by man-made "global warming" since "it wasn't around then."

Although the recent heat wave have not convinced Michaels that "global warming" is a severe problem, it was apparently enough to make a "convert" out of conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson.

"We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels," Robertson said during his "700 Club" broadcast on Thursday. The high temperatures in some regions of the U.S. East are "the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time," he added.




Now That’s Hot

The highest temperature recorded anywhere on Earth was in Aziziyah, Libya, in September of 1922 – 136 degrees Fahrenheit.

The highest temperature recorded in the United States was in Death Valley, Calif., in July of 1913 – 134 degrees Fahrenheit.

(SOURCE: Goddard Space Flight Center)

So Pat Robertson used to think global warming was a hoax despite all the science behind it, and now because of one heat wave, he believes it's true?

Hmm.

Alternate viewpoints are welcome: challenge the viewpoint, not the person;

I'd challenge the person if their viewpoint is based on either 1) being totally ignorant, or 2) taking whatever position best serves their interests at the time.

Did you miss that the above quote is listed under "General Posting Guidelines?"

Yes, I missed it - I don't have the guidelines memorized.

I'm not sure what I said that was wrong. I was just pointing out the questionable motives of a person who ignores overwhelming scientific evidence and arrives at a certain conclusion, and then suddenly changes their opinion based on a data point that isn't evidence at all.