From the Cliff High Volume Weather Blog
If the country is going to deal effectively with human-caused global warming, then its citizens must be provided with accurate information about the climate and how it is changing.
Unfortunately, the Seattle Times does not believe in communicating the truth but regularly provides deceptive, false, or exaggerated information.
Last week, a story–These areas of WA are likely to get hotter – but people keep moving there-— is a prime example of the kind of problematic “journalism” appearing in the Seattle Times.
The claim of this Seattle Times story is that there is a new wave of residents to areas (Three Cities) that will see more intense heatwaves in the coming decades.
How stupid they are! is the implied message.
The material in the article is not from a number of peer-reviewed studies published in a number of reputable journals. No… it’s based on a report Toxic heat by a climate NGO called First Street Organization by Brooklyn NY.
The key image in the Seattle Times article is shown below, showing the increase in the number of days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit over the next thirty years. As noted in the caption, this image is based on “models from the NY-based nonprofit First Street Foundation.”
OH. The temperature rises HUGE around the Cities, with OVER TWELVE days above 90 degrees F. The heart of the influx of new residents.
According to this work, the Columbia River Basin would be a mostly heat-free Hell, with most of the time spending more than 9 days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
How could people be so stupid to move to this area?, implied Seattle Times.
Image courtesy of Seattle Times But there’s a lot to look out for in this picture. Most of western Washington will only see 1-4 days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, much less of an issue.
Some areas are unchanged (gray areas), including the North Cascades and even scattered areas of eastern Washington. This seems very strange… why does global warming ignore these regions?
How did the people on First Street get these results? They start with global climate models driven by increases in greenhouse gases, and then perform “statistical scaling” to provide higher resolution maps of change. temperature.
What is really going on?
When I read the Seattle Times article and reviewed the First Street Hazardous Temperatures material, the problem with this “research” was immediately apparent. Let me show you the “dark arts” in use.
I go to the Climate Explorer website and plot the climate’s mean summer temperatures (this is for 30 years ending in 1990).
Mom Mia! Seems a lot like the Seattle Times plot to change the number of days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 30 years!
Temperatures are warmest in the lower elevations of the Columbia River Basin. Also warm in the Willamette Valley, with warmer temperatures into SW Washington.
This general pattern, fixed by the region’s topography and land-water contrast, is evident in the map of average maximum temperatures over the past 60 days this summer (see below).
So, according to the Seattle Times and First Street, there will be a significant rise above 90F only in regions that are already warm.
So global warming would avoid much of western Washington but really hit areas that are already hot.
This is simply meaningless. Those who moved to the Tri-Cities weren’t stupid and stupid. Let me prove this to you.
The false story in the Seattle Times story and the first street report
It’s no coincidence that the ST/First Street numbers show a big increase in 90F days when it’s already hot. THAT IS THAT WAY. Such a number tells you almost nothing about climate change.
But that’s a good example of how choosing an arbitrary threshold (90F in this case) and determining how often you exceed it, is a completely flawed approach. I will show you.
Imagine if global warming increased temperatures across the region by 2F (very close to warming over the last 50 years for global and regional).
So places with multiple temperatures in the 88 and 89F range, touch 90F and count in the Seattle Times/First Street approach. But cooler places, WITH WAR MONEY, but temperatures lower than 88/89F, will show little (or NO) transition down to 90F.
So the automated methodology is more suggestive of a major global warming problem in warm regions, but less likely in cooler areas, even with similar or even warming. greater in cooler areas.
Want more proof?
Consider a year: 2020. Below are the number of days with high temperatures of 88 or 89 degrees Fahrenheit in Pasco in the tri-region cities. THIRD day.
But for Hoquiam, on the Washington Coast, ONLY ONE.
So a two-degree warming across the region would cause 13 more “hazardous” events in Pasco and just one in Hoquiam.
Thus, in the Triple Cities, a location very accustomed to heat and where AC is everywhere, a few degrees warmer and therefore more transitions across the 90F barrier are worrisome, while along the According to the coast, where AC is rare, warming is minimal. Note.
And to beat a dead horse, here are the annual highs in the Three Cities (Kennewick). There is no clear uptrend.
See why the Seattle Times story is so silly? And scam.
But there’s more than that. The Seattle Times chose not to display another image found in the First Street report, one that contradicts their plot of the heat around the Three Cities.
First Street also analyzed the situation in a different way: instead of using a threshold of 90F, they found the 2% warmest days on record for every location and then determined how the number of warmer days changed with the change in temperature. global warming in the next 30 years. These days are known as “Local Hot Days”.
The results will be displayed below. A VERY different map from for one showing up in the Seattle Times. According to this result, the San Juan Islands will warm up the most, with Whatcom and Skagit counties right behind. Ironically, these are some of the best, most temperate areas of the State. There is no particular warming for the Three Cities and eastern WA in this image!
Graphics provided by First Street Foundation
Last Notes
The Seattle Times has a deep history of inaccurate and exaggerated reporting on climate change. With scary, baseless titles and poorly researched stories, they do not properly inform local readers about this important topic.
The people who should care most about this poor newspaper are those most concerned about climate change.
Society cannot properly solve this problem if the true nature of the problem is not accurately described. How can we adapt to climate change if people don’t understand the real threat? The hype and exaggeration not only keep people from solving the problem but also sway it in a way that can lead to division and inaction.
And exaggeration/exaggeration harms the psyche of the most vulnerable.
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