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America’s Great 2012 Drought
The progress of the drought has been horrific:

The current drought is covering almost as much of the U.S. as during the 1930s dust bowl:

As the Weather Channel pointed out last month, the area covered by drought rivals some of the dust bowl years:

As of June – the area covered by severe drought was still lower than during the Dust Bowl years, but still made the top 10 list:

But – despite the recent rains in some areas, which reduced by 1% the area covered by drought – the farm states remain parched, and the area covered by severe drought is still growing.
Unfortunately, the one certainty is higher food prices.
Much of the area hit during the Dust Bowl – and again today – is naturally prone to drought. As the Weather Channel notes:
The area is known as semi-arid and is naturally prone to drought and high winds. In fact, early settlers referred to it as the “Great American Desert.”
Interestingly, HowStuffWorks notes:
About 90 percent of the 450 million hectares of arid land in North America suffers from moderate to severe desertification [source: Center for International Earth Science Information Network]
But as Ezra Klein notes, there have been much bigger droughts in the distant past:
Scientists have looked at data from tree rings and found (pdf) that North America endured brutal “megadroughts” during the medieval period. These droughts were similar in intensity to today’s dry spells, but lasted 20 to 40 years and were possibly linked to massive La Niña ocean events:
Fortunately, we haven’t seen anything that bad in recent times.
Postscript: July was reportedly the warmest month recorded in the U.S. since records began in 1895. And AP reports:
The first seven months of 2012 were the warmest on record for the nation. And August 2011 through July this year was the warmest 12-month period on record, just beating out the July 2011-June 2012 time period.
Some say this proves global warming is a dire threat, while others say that it is dishonest to claim that short-term weather proves anything.
But we can all agree on the following:
- We should use benign technology - and not cures which are worse than the ailments (like sending nearly microscopic particles of specially made glass into the Earth’s upper atmosphere or cutting down trees and burying them) - to address climate
- Nuclear is not the answer ... although the nuclear lobby would like you to think it is
- As Britain's energy regulator and many others note, microgeneration is key
- Reducing soot is crucial ... and economically feasible
- Imposing fascism is never justified
- Downsizing the military is vital
- Cap and trade is not the least bit helpful
- advertisements -



Everybody going to 30" rows, and then planting the corn itself closer together than I've ever seen it planted in the 60 years I've lived here, didn't help things much either. I don't think anyways.
"...July was the warmest month recorded in the U.S. since records began in 1895...."
Highly unlikely this is true. Unfortunately some scientists like James Hansen, director of GISS, have long ago lost all objectivity in this matter. The result is the "adjustments" to thermometer records have progressively deflated the older records from say the 1930's in the USA 48, so the new records look hotter by comparison. Roy Spencer and Steven Goddard both have excellent posts on their websites recently which reference these adjustments and other ways of filtering the data to see if the current warm spell is any warmer than the 1930's.
Yes, Hanson. Another cunning bastard.
I wonder if he had a joo name originally?
Richard Muller, of Denier fame, who now has come around 180 degrees to the truth, specifically addresses the "thermometer controversy" in the linked video; his team proved, using ALL the available monitoring stations available, as opposed to the limited sampliing and proxy representations (tree rings) that led to Michael Mann's hockey stick. Muller and team's conclusion: The thermometers are and have been accurate; temperature is rising; man is responsible.
http://youtu.be/DOfsSYsvQnI
so HB, you fell for that bit of disinfo too? the MSM sure touted Muller, as you say, "of Denier fame". Too bad THAT'S a lie too. He DID debunk MM's hockey stick graph, but only because as an AGW believer he thought its outrageousness hurt the cause.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Muller
(from 2004) "If you are concerned about global warming (as I am) and think that human-created carbon dioxide may contribute (as I do), then you still should agree that we are much better off having broken the hockey stick. Misinformation can do real harm, because it distorts predictions." Muller's statements were widely quoted on skeptical blogs, and his status as a believer in global warming made his criticism of the "hockey stick" particularly damaging."
Carbon dioxide is a heavy gas. It always sinks down low to where the plants are.
Go get some dry ice (Solid Frozen CO2) at the store. Do some science.
This was a common grade school experiment in the 1950's.
Fill two jars about half full of dirt. Make the dirt damp and plant a bean or other seed in each jar.
Fill one jar with CO2 from a burning candle (burn candle in jar until it goes out) or the dry ice and cover
Notice that the CO2 stays in the jar.
You can test this in a still room by putting a lit match in the jar after about a minute or two. It will go out. No oxygen.
There are several other chemical tests (limewater?) for CO2 (extingushing a flame is easy).
CO2 will stay in there forever as long as the air in the room is still.
That is because it is heavier than most of the other gasses in the atmosphere.
Leave the other jar open to the room air.
Place jars in well lit window.
The bean sprout will grow at least twice as big in the CO2 Jar even though it is sealed without any outside air.
That is because plant mass is made mostly from Carbon - from the CO2!
The plants take in the C and realase the O2 for us to breathe.
More CO2 in the atmosphere = healtheir bigger plants.
CO2 cannot reflect heat because it always seeks lowest point in atmosphere and is taken up by plants.
Very good, do you have more or is that where your Home Schooling left off?
BTW, C02 does not reflect heat
And, why do we have plants at 8,000 ft if all the C02 is at the bottom of the atmosphere???
Remind me at what altitude the Mauna Loa observatory is? You know this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Loa_Observatory
No..they also taught us about things like the wind.
Is there any process in the soil or under the ground that produces CO2.
You know it comes out of volcanoes right?
LOL at observing CO2 levels at Mauna Loa.
That rising CO2 level would indicate that I should probably leave the observatory..since Mauna Loa is on Volcanic Islands.
The fact that matter (including CO2) is never created or destroyed.
and the general Idea that Man is reall pretty insignificant on the Earth when it comes to things like this;
See pics 22 and 27
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/06/volcano_erupts_in_chile.html
Go measure the CO2 levels at the top of that bad boy..I bet they are going up fast!
Here is an experiment with a REALLY Heavy Gas for you to consider.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpaAw2_n5c0
What happens to all those molecules of SF6 when the experiment is over?
Here is something that is plentiful in the rocks of the earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate
OH NOES..look at that first line...could that ever happen in nature..NAH!
Get back to us when you get past Grade 7 science class....
The stick has been vindicated so many times, it is now a hockey team....
.039% of atmospher is CO2
we are responsible for 5% of that roughly
or
.00195% of the atmosphere
AGW?
really?
with those kinda numbers?
c'mon
Really...
Could you remind us what fraction of the atmosphere were GHG? And how those GHG have changed?
Oh yes, we all know that most of the GH effect is from water vapor, remind me again how much WV has changed in the past 100 years?
I'll give you a hint, look here
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
"...ALL the available monitoring stations available..."
Statistically that makes no sense. If you could give me 20 stations in the USA, spatially equally representative, where recording started on an hourly basis in 1850, no hour was ever missed recording, the station was never moved, nor did any land use changes occur in the vicinity of the station, I would give you a more accurate temperature trend than anything that can be produced now for the USA 48. Don't confuse quantity with quality. The station records globally, once you look into them are unfortunately a data splicers nightmare with very few continuous records back a century and by my guess none that meet the above criteria.
The BEST results did not rely on the metadata.... discontinuities were treated as separate stations...
The tell is that the results agree with GISS results using different techniques...
You really should learn what the fuck is being done instead of rattling off talking points picked up at WUWT...
Flakmeister:
You have no clue what you are talking about. Not that I agree with GISS, as noted they use adjusted numbers but at least they are still in the ball park with TLTs from the satellites (for trend). The BEST dataset is no where close. Keep in mind the models say the troposphere should be warming faster than the surface. All the following numbers for global areas (except poles for TLT).
UAH TLT 1979 to 2011 end = 0.14C per decade
RSS TLS 1979 to 2011 end = 0.14C per decade
GISS SAT 1979 to 2011 end = 0.16C per decade
BEST SAT 1979 to 2011 end = 0.26C per decade
What is your link for the BEST results...Here is mine
http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis/
From the second figure I would say GISS and BEST are in good agreement...
As for comparing trends, you are well aware that BEST is a land only data set? Could you perhaps remind us what the errors in the trends are?
Those are not the Land-only UAH trends....
http://woodfortrees.org/notes#trends
BTW, bad form to compare apples and oranges.... Land and Land-Ocean temperature records are not the same...
Remind me what the stratospheric trends are in the RSS and UAM data are and how those stack up against the predicted effects from GHG?
Thankyou for alerting me to the fact the BEST database is land only. I checked UAH Land only and found the TLTs trend for land only is 0.17C/decade, nowhere close to the GISS/BEST land only trend for SAT of 0.26C/decade. Not a good relationship, especially considering that TLT should be warming faster than SAT according to the models, and more confirmation that the adjustments/methods used by GISS/BEST are torquing the warming higher than it really is.
Before getting all excited, check the errors on the trends...
Did you forget to explain the stratosphric data?
Interesting you should bring up the stratospheric trends. The trends have been remarkably flat since the mid 90's. The stratosphere should have been cooling through this period as predicted by modeling but it didn't. Which raises the question of the recent warming trends. Since 2002 there really is no warming in the TLT, TMT, or SAT datasets. The catastrophic AGW warming advocates are telling us that 10 year "flat spots" in the record are to be expected and that soon, warming will pick up again. The warming rate predicted for the first 3 decades of the 21st century is about 0.25C/decade. The trend so far is less than 1/2 that. I'm quoting these numbers from memory, but I think they are pretty close to the truth.
If you want to play games with 10 year trends, I suggest you control first for know sources of variation, i.e. ENSO, aerosols and the solar cycle as is done here
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022
See the discussion re: table 1....
and a more general discussion
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/the-real-global-warming-signal/
The underlying trend is .14 to .16 K per decade and consistent between data sets....
Here are the stratospheric anomalies since records began.....
http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/article/2012/state-of-the-climate-2011-stratospheric-temperature
and the trends....
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/upper-air/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
Given that the effect of the ENSO is very different in the troposphere vs the stratosphere and that we have favoured La Nina states for the past ~10 years, not to mention he massive El Nino in 1998.. I am not surprised by the relative flatness recently...
Flakmeister:
Your linked graph shows the stratospheric trend has been flat since the beginning of 1995 or so, which is going on 18 years now. Tamino's paper on how it's really warming even if it's not, shows no acceleration in the alleged underlying trend. But we know the IPCC says this must happen since the projected warming under all emission scenarios should average 0.32C/decade or so starting in 2011 until 2030. If the models are correct, the warming rate needs to double from Tamino's underlying trend. There's an El Nino building now so the castastrophic AGW proponents will have some warm numbers to crow about this fall and winter, but soon enough we will be on the downside of the solar cycle. The Swanson/Tsonis hypothesis of a climate shift about 2001/2002 is starting to look very believable.
You are clutching at straws....
Please cite a credible reference for your claim of IPCC calling 0.32 C per decade and under what conditions...
The stratospheric trend appears flat because of the 1998 El Nino, and the recent bias due to La Nina conditions...
This is the same El Nino which has been used to make dubious claims that the warming stopped circa 1998...
You might want to brush up on the recent trends and what is quantitatively driving them
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/decadal-trend-in-temperature/
"...Please cite a credible reference for your claim of IPCC calling 0.32 C per decade..."
Table 10.5 of the IPCC 4AR WG1, Chapter 10. From the table projected warming under emission scenarios A2, A1B, B1 are .64, .69, and .66C degrees respectively for the period 2011 to 2030, or 20 years inclusive. That works out to approximately 0.32 C/decade.
Tamino calculates there has been 0.13 degrees C of suppressed warming in the GISS SAT dataset from 2002 to the end of 2011, due to the rotten luck of a cool sun and 2 La Ninas near the end of the period. GISS actual trend for that period is close to zero I would think. The implication is that SAT would have warmed say 0.15 degrees from GHG forcing if ENSO and solar had neutral leverage over this period. As I noted above, the warming rate from GHGs has to really pick up (triple in fact) if your GCM models are to have any credibility.
Think it's possible the models have the feedbacks wrong?
Sorry, that isn't quite how it works and you are ignoring the errors as you are conflating the variability in the temperature with the underlying trend...
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html
The scenarios have central values of ~0.18 to 0.34 C per decade and have largish error bars...
http://www.ipcc-data.org/data/ar4_multimodel_globalmean_tas.txt
So your sleight of hand does not fool us...
Finally remind us of the how S02 emissions are comparing to assumed rates?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/pnas-201102467.pdf
I wonder what the equivalent to Table 10.5 will look like in the Fifth Assessment Report? My bet is that they will reduce the estimates for the next 20 years from the 0.6x degree range they have in 4AR, probably significantly.
If what you claim is anywhere near true, peer reviewed research outside of the blogosphere would exist to show this...
I'll give you a hint why, cherry picking data does not hold up to scrutiny...
There is a paper circulating now (in the blogosphere) which will be submitted to a peer reviewed journal shortly (by Anthony Watts) which directly addresses this issue for USA 48. Here are 3 published papers which suggest adjustments are not being correctly done.
McKitrick, R.R. and P.J. Michaels (2007), Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S09, doi:10.1029/2007JD008465.
de Laat, A. T. J., and A. N. Maurellis (2006), Evidence for influence of anthropogenic surface processes on lower tropospheric and surface temperature
trends, Int. J. Climatol., 26, 897– 913.
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229
McKitrick, R.R. and P.J. Michaels (2007) aka the UHI
I suggest you refresh yourself here
http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advanced.htm
and references cited therein....
BTW, the UHI was first identified by climate scientists back in the 50s.....
Here is a simple analysis of the global trends using only rural stations with publically available data (in the comment section by caerbonnog666)
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/roy-spencer-man-of-mystery/
Can you see a difference in the following???
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8018/rural20x20.jpg
Finally here is the raw and adjusted GHCN data sets:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/raw_adjusted_ghcn.png
You demean the blogosphere and then point to it to corroborate what you're saying?
What about all those manned "rural" Siberian monitoring stations when the Soviet Union collapsed, that then became umanned...has anyone in the "peer reviewed science field" gone back and adjusted their assumptions?
I'm saying no.
Nope... just pointing to an example of where to find the data to do an analysis on your own... Python is very fast and you can create a csv to read into Excel....
The other was an example of someone actually doing that, i.e. plotting the "raw" and "adjusted" to see what the difference was.
You know, like how science works...
PS Did you finally clue in that the reason Mars was "warming" because the massive dust storm had settled out???
There is a paper circulating now (in the blogosphere) which will be submitted to a peer reviewed journal shortly (by Anthony Watts) which directly addresses this issue for USA 48. Here are 3 published papers which suggest adjustments are
McKitrick, R.R. and P.J. Michaels (2007), Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S09, doi:10.1029/2007JD008465.
de Laat, A. T. J., and A. N. Maurellis (2006), Evidence for influence of anthropogenic surface processes on lower tropospheric and surface temperature
trends, Int. J. Climatol., 26, 897– 913.
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229
"...July was the warmest month recorded in the U.S. since records began in 1895...."
Highly unlikely this is true. Unfortunately some scientists like James Hansen, director of GISS, have long ago lost all objectivity in this matter. The result is the "adjustments" to thermometer records have progressively deflated the older records from say the 1930's in the USA 48, so the new records look hotter by comparison. Roy Spencer and Steven Goddard both have excellent posts on their websites recently which reference these adjustments and other ways of filtering the data to see if the current warm spell is any warmer than the 1930's.
Ok... sure thing... could you explain these adjustments to us?
Go ahead and educate us.... we are all ears...
Why not educate yourself by reading Anthony Watts paper?
The adjustments are for changes in the time of day temperatures were recorded, they are for changes in urbanization which increase the heat sink capacity of an area, and increase exhaust heat from anthropogenic sources, plus more complicated to explain, the movement/death/birth of a sensor location. Say for example a new highway requires the relocation of a sensor. It was downwind of a corn field, but it is moved so it is downwind of a shopping mall parking lot. Obviously the old and new records cannot be spliced at their raw values or an artificial "climate jump" would appear in this record due to the heat sinking of the nearby ashphalt. If there is a nearby record with no changes in siting, you can calculate a short term trend and splice the records by the nearby trend, the assumption being since the recording sites are close the adjustment required to the "corn field site" will be what ever is required to show the same trend as the nearby site or sites.
Pretty tricky isn't it? Some records like San Francisco have been moved many times since they first started recording in the late 1800's. My problem with the adjustments is that they are increasingly negative going back in time. Why should this be? If anything urbanization should require older records to show postive adjustments not negative.
Are you fucking serious? The WUWT amatuer hour?
Why don't you ask Tony about the Time of Observation Bias that he "forgot"? You know the one that has his co-authors McIntyre is backpedalling fast and furious over...
The "paper" has about a 0% chance of passing peer review in its current form...
As for the UHI, why don't you look in the recent BEST results which AW "would stand behind no matter what the outcome"....
If anyone is interested, this is a very fair discussion of the paper:
http://skepticalscience.com/watts_new_paper_critique.html
BTW, the above link includes a 65 line python program that allows anyone to play with the data...
Flakmeister:
Steve McIntyre is a competent statistician. If he's involved I have confidence the results will withstand scrutiny. However, anything that questions the status quo on global warming is not easy to get published. That being said it's reasonable to question as Watts did why these adjustments by the GISS are so negative for the previous century portions of the record, particularly since compared to only 4 years ago, they appear to be "rewriting" climate history via adjustments, at least as it applies to USA 48.
Only the data that had been through the so-called "Quality Assurance Process" are made available. Raw data subject to independent examination (in other words, data that are involved in science) need not apply.
No, it is the editors of the conclusions who wish to publish their own data. And then ram it down all of our throats as "scientific consensus." That ain't science.
- Ned
Wow... maybe you should volunteer to perform digital scans of the old log books in order to improve the data... Youi know raw data....
Sorry, if that was the case then why do the records agree over so many years and versions if it was faked, unless you are willing to tell us that there was conspiracy back in the '50s...
Deal with it, the planet is warming at a faster rate than anytime in the history of H. Sapiens...
Jack Chick has a completely different theory about this stuff.
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1055/1055_01.asp
Just sayin...
Good for Jack... tell him to write a paper and submit it for peer review....
Dr. Dino wants a word with you too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szBTl3S24MY
I think from your attitude Sir - that you have not been attending the required '12 step groups' part of this program.
Have you been signing your own attendance slips?
I keep wondering if all the farmers in northern Iowa where I live who tiled the ever living shit out of every every last inch of land they could last winter in order to get a bigger crop this summer still think that was a good idea.
What sort of tiling did they use? glazed?
One can always tell who went to school in America.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tiling
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tilling
Dr. Dino wants to speak with you as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szBTl3S24MY
unrecovered sunk costs of work, diesel, seed, fertilizer, ...?
But that will be covered with the next "farm disaster act."
- Ned
{and I love Iowa, spent time in Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, the Amanas. Real people.}
Do dust-storms in Pheonix count for anything?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/aerial-view-phoenix-disappearing-under-5000-foot-dust-storm
Admittedly, the above is from 2011....but I thought the home cookin' would taste better....
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/very-large-and-historic-dust-s-1/52066
Ooops... I guess it wasn't a 1 in 100 year even as this is from 2012...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Jrxb5209I
If we enter a moderate El Nino, 2013 could make 2012 seem mild...
How much do the ethanol people pay Congress to make inefficient fuel additives for our cars? Ethanol is more expensive than gasoline and produces less energy than gasoline. They say it's green energy? Starving millions of people wordwide for a 10% additive? Hang the bastards taking the bribes!
Looks like some lawmakers might be coming to their senses...link courtesy of RedHeeler's link above...
http://moderator.droughtreporter.unl.edu/RSSfeed/ImpactView/27349
Farmers can change this BTW.
Corn-to-Ethanol is the US version of the Easter Island logging industry....