Coldest April Ever in California?

UPDATE 1: April 26, 2010 - And the games begin, yet again. NOAA changed the color palette today, making the state appear much less cold. All the blue color would be purple, as shown below in Figure 2. -- Roger

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And now we can see the shape of California's temperature record for April, 2010, percalclim.dril.edu's website. I wrote on their inappropriate choices of colors for their graphicsearlier, but now they have restored the color palette that shows the alarmingly cold month we have had. It has not only been cold, with snow and rain, there is more in the forecast with only 6 more days to go in the month. The figure below shows the various temperatures, as anomalies from a long-term mean.

The climate warmists, those who fervently believe that CO2 is causing the Earth to warm catastrophically, simply cannot explain such cold temperatures. This goes completely against their deeply-held beliefs. Instead of cooling, California should be much hotter than normal. The purple areas shown in the figure should be red, or deep red. How else can AB 32 be justified, unless the prolonged and severe heat waves appear? How else can the sea levels rise, the polar ice caps melt, the polar bears die off while swimming thousands of miles in a vain search for ice to sit on?

No, this is not good news for those in the warmist camp. Stubborn Earth, it is simply refusing to cooperate with the warmists' agenda.

Figure 1 - April Anomalies to 4-22

Update 1: As shown below in Figure 2, the coldest color (hot pink) now represents 10 deg F below the average, compared to 5 degrees in Figure 1. NOAA again is playing games with the color palette, probably in an attempt to hide the decline.

Figure 2 - April Anomalies to 4-24

UPDATE 2, April 30, 2010. The figure 3 below shows the temperature anomalies for almost the entire month, from the 1st to the 29th. And, we are back to the 5 degree coldest color, and the state is clearly much colder than average as vast areas of purple and pink show. Calclim has not yet updated their monthly anomaly bar chart for April, but I will include that when it becomes available (probably on Monday May 3 or the next day). However, based on their existing chart from 1895 through 2009, this April's statewide average should be one of the 4 or 5 coldest of the entire record. Still, the climate warmists maintain that one state shows nothing, but the global average must be the concern. And, they will likely say that the global average is hotter than normal, perhaps one of the hottest on record.

Even so, it is quite amazing, this CO2. It can chill an entire state (California) while other parts of the globe are supposedly toasting. Highly selective stuff, CO2. Perhaps the CO2 in California is more of the rebel type, anti-authoritarian, rejecting any attempts at controlling its behavior.

As to the dire impacts of global warming that led to the passage of California's AB 32 (see above), none of them are or were happening in April, 2010. Except that more electricity was required to heat up houses. At least we can say that we avoided the killer heat waves. And, it is not likely that all those tropical diseases got a good start this month.

Figure 3 - April Anomalies to 4-29

UPDATE 4, May 3, 2010. The figure 4 below shows the California temperature anomalies for April, since 1895. This year's was lower than average, but did not quite reach my predicted point of top 4 or 5. It did, however, make number 12 out of 116. The average for April was 3.5 degrees F below normal (approximately 2.0 degrees C). The trend line (in black) shows a steady decline since 1990, and is more prolonged and steeper than any decline on record. (Sorry, have to do this) To NOAA's credit, at least they are not trying to hide the decline.

Figure 4 - April Temperature Anomalies in California

It is getting colder in California, at least for the month of April. Has the CO2 blown away?

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California (and shivering from the cold)

Deceitful Climate Scientists 2010

UPDATE 1 April 10, 2010: I had hoped the chicanery was finished, but it is not. As California continues to cool, NOAA has again changed their color palette so that the coldest colors are now 20 degrees colder than normal. Previously, it was only 15 degrees colder. For the entire month of March, 2010, the coldest color was only 5 degrees colder. See color chart at the end (Figure 3) - Roger [end update]

Much has been written, and spoken, about scientists behaving badly, especially those scientists involved in the debate over whether (and how much) the Earth is warming, but more especially, what causes the warming. There are at least two camps, those who maintain that man's activities caused inordinate warming, and those who maintain that any warming, if it actually does exist at all, is entirely or almost entirely natural. I refer to the two camps as the Warmistas and the Skeptics. Sometimes, the former camp is labelled as the Carbon Is Gonna Kill Us All Crowd. The Warmistas resort to devious tactics, distortions, making up data, perversion of peer review processes, withholding their data and methods, and in some cases destroying the data. Skeptics have the better view, in my opinion, because the science just does not support the idea that man-made trace gases (especially CO2) in the atmosphere can warm up the Earth.

This post shows a blatant example of the devious tactic of distortion, that is, using human perceptions to hide a blatant cooling. The instigator, or distorting entity, in this case is NOAA Regional Climate Center, where NOAA is an acronym for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a part of the United States government. As some of my readers will remember, I sometimes post an article on how California fared in the most recent month, as to average temperatures. The information is from www.calclim.dri.edu, and shows how the state is doing each day via color-coded maps. Two such maps are shown below as Figure 1 and Figure 2.

Note the devious tactic? No? See the text below Figure 2 for an explanation.

Figure 1

California temperatures March 2010

Departures from Average

Figure 2

California temperatures April 2010

Departures from Average

The temperatures for the first few days of April are extremely cold, relative to the temperatures for March. The color bar (the key) below Figure 2 shows the dark blue zone to be 9 to 12 degrees F below the average. Such very cold temperatures would be off the chart if they were presented using the color scheme of Figure 1. To the casual observer, it would appear that April is not all that cold, as the dark blue under the Figure 1 scheme is only 3 to 4 degrees F below average. Yet, by carefully selecting their temperature palette, the Warmistas at NOAA make it appear that nothing much is going on. The reality is that it is cold in California. There was a snow storm just today, April 4, in the Sierras.

One could speculate as to why the Warmistas find it necessary to resort to such deviousness. Is it so the children are not scared? Perhaps so the general population will not notice that it is colder than usual? Perhaps there is a technical reason, say, the graphics program NOAA uses does not have any more colors in the software? Perhaps it is just because some NOAA employee likes blues and magenta, so the chart receives those colors? There could be many reasons.

Yet, this is a favorite technique of the Warmistas, to use visual techniques to attempt to over-emphasize warming and downplay any cooling. One can simply refer to a chart where world temperature anomalies are shown by various colors, and the colors are skewed to the reds and oranges. These colors are normally associated with hot. Blues are normally associated with cooler or cold. The NOAA charts above do the same, using oranges and reds for the hotter anomalies.

The Warmistas also choose the scale of graphs where numbers are charted so that a tiny change appears mountainous. The famous graph of CO2 in the atmosphere, from Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, does this. The start of the graph is at approximately 300 ppm, and the end is at approximately 400 ppm. This produces a large, ascending curve. Yet, the entire data is only a few hundred ppm. In the grand scheme of things, this is a trace gas. Warmistas do the same for temperature anomalies, where charts present data in 0.1 degree C increments. An increase of 0.5 degrees is bally-hooed as amazingly important - yet many places in the world change from -20 degrees C to +30 degrees C during the course of a year.

So, we can keep tabs on the Warmistas as they continue in their efforts to scare the adults, or even to hide the decline. It certainly is cold in California during the first week of April. Temperatures have declined, and dramatically.

One would have a difficult time in determining that it is indeed much, much colder than normal, by looking at the devious charts from NOAA.

That's ok, NOAA. We're on to you.

UPDATE 1: As Figure 3 below shows, NOAA has changed the color palette so that the state appears warmer than it would be if the previous color scheme had been maintained. Essentially, the chart below shows a lot of green area, which would be blue under the previous scheme. Green "appears" to be "not so bad," whereas blue "appears" to be cold. -- Roger

Figure 3

California temperatures April 1 - 8, 2010

Departures from Average

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey.

Colder in California in March 2010

It appears that global warming has run and hidden in California during March, 2010. Despite wild claims of increasing CO2 causing heat waves, sea level rises, health crises, droughts, melting polar ice, huge hurricanes, and similar disasters, we had a colder-than-usual month during March, 2010 in California. No sizzling heat, no huge loads on the power grid, just 23 days of below-average temperature, and a few days of above average. The average for the state was negative 0.5 degrees compared to the long-term average of 1949 to 2005. The period chosen for the average is interesting, though, as it begins at a very cold period (see Figure 1 below), so for this month to be colder than that average, it must be cold indeed.

Figure 1

source: here

For this month to be colder than average is indeed puzzling, perhaps one could say that the cooling cannot be explained by increased CO2, and that is a travesty. But then, one might be accused of plagiarism, since similar words were written by noted climate scientists in another context.

The fact remains, though, that CO2 continues to increase in the atmosphere, while temperatures are not rising. Even the official results for California show a colder than usual March.

There is no factual or scientific basis for the economy-killing rules of AB 32, as each cold month shows. The law must be suspended, as it will be put to the voters in November, 2010 (assuming sufficient signatures are collected).

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey

Cost Increases from AB 32

As an example of how AB 32 is bad for California's economy, and the opposition to its requirements, the Los Angeles City Council rejected a rate increase request for the local city-owned utility, Department of Water and Power (DWP). Some background is probably in order here.

DWP purchases and imports approximately 40 percent of its power from coal-burning power plants in Utah. The power is transmitted via high-voltage power lines approximately 500 miles. Recently, though, the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, required that Los Angeles "go green" and replace the coal-based power with renewable power. There are also state laws (SB 1368) that require the coal-based power to be reduced and then eliminated, but those laws do not require renewable power as the replacement, simply more efficient power plants. DWP requires a 28 percent increase in power prices to support its replacement power plants to meet the Mayor's goals. That 28 percent increase is very high, especially when one considers the dismal state of the city's finances. Basically, the recession and poor fiscal policies have left the city broke.

One of the mandates of AB 32 is for 20 percent of the state's electric power be provided by renewable sources, by December 31, 2010 (Renewable Portfolio Standard). A further requirement is for 33 percent by 2020. Meeting these percentages means not only building more renewable power plants (solar, wind, geothermal, waste-to-power, landfill gas, etc.) but increasing power prices to pay for the plants. What DWP is proposing is not at all unusual, nor out of line. It costs money to build the renewable power plants, and lots of it.

The sad part of all this is that AB 32 proponents view this as a good thing. They believe (and are on record) that increasing power costs will allow California to "break through" to renewables, and "break free" from the yoke of fossil fuels. The problem is, as they see it, that electric power prices are too LOW, not too high. Higher electric prices will make their dream come true: power from windmills, and solar, and geothermal, and evil fossil fuels can be forever eliminated.

Higher power prices are not good for the economy, for small businesses, or for large businesses, for schools, for hospitals, for any enterprise of any type that purchases electricity. That includes just about every activity in California.

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey