Heat Wave: Climate or Weather?

  

                                   

 

Yesterday, July 19, I turned 84. In all my years I do not recall a July that has not been hot. Heat in July is a natural weather phenomenon that occurs every year. However, headlines are making dire claims about global warming and quoting politicians calling for emergency action. It is totally unreasonable and unscientific to confuse or equate weather and climate.

Changes in weather occur routinely every year and range from summertime heat to below zero in winter. It is perfectly normal for temperatures to climb into the 90s during the summer. It is not a sign of global warming. It takes centuries to really notice changes in climate.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, temperatures have been tracked in New York City’s Central Park. Here, for example, is a list of the highest temperatures recorded at the start of each decade since the beginning of the last century

2021—98 degrees

2011—104 degrees 

2001—103 degrees

1991—102 degrees

1981—96 degrees

1971—96 degrees

1961—97 degrees

1951—94 degrees

1941—98 degrees

1931—99 degrees

1921—96 degrees

1911—100 degrees

1901—100 degrees.

 

The highest temperature recorded was on July 9, 1936. The thermometer hit 106 degrees that day. I know that the figures above are just a statistical snapshot, but they do illustrate that it is supposed to be hot in July and August. Looking at the figures, the only real difference over the past 100 years is that we have done something about the weather. Air-conditioning, one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century, has revolutionized life in this country.

Our homes, offices, factories, shopping centers, theaters, arenas, and churches are  comfortably air-conditioned.  Actually, without air-conditioning our modern way of life would be unthinkable. We owe it all to fossil fuels which have provided the electricity that powers every air-conditioning unit. I am old enough to know what it was like to live without air-conditioning and it was not nice. I still think of my poor mother who gave birth to me in July. 

 

Anyway, weather is not climate. As noted above, weather goes through normal annual cycles, but climate cycles can take centuries to detect. Recently, studies have claimed  that the global temperature has increased by 1.1 degree Celsius since the nineteenth century, and that the increase is due to human activity in the industrial age. I can imagine that today scientists using modern technology can measure global temperatures, but I do not understand how they can come up with figures from over 100 years ago. 

 

Moreover, modern climate studies admit that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to factor in the effect of volcanic or solar activity in calculations of global temperature. Some believe that solar activity like sunspots are a significant factor in climate change. After all, the sun is our furnace. 

 

But let’s assume that the studies are correct, and that global temperature has increased by 1.1 degree Celsius since the nineteenth century. Rather than disaster, it has coincided with the greatest period of human development and prosperity in history. Although headlines carry stories of heat related deaths during the current heat wave, deaths from heat have decreased dramatically over the past century. Deaths related to cold are five times greater. Starvation and malnutrition as a cause of death has also reached all-time lows in the past century even considering the well-known man-made starvation efforts in Communist dominated countries. 

So even if the global climate is changing it might not be such a bad thing.  Our planet has been around for over 13 billion years. It has gone through every imaginable catastrophe during that time. It revolves around a large star 93 million miles away which is itself located on the periphery of a huge galaxy which is moving rapidly through the universe. During my lifetime, this planet has probably carried me millions of miles away from where it was in 1939. 

Human beings  have been around less than 50000 years on this planet. We certainly have the ability to make our lives better or worse but to think we can save Planet Earth seems to me the height of arrogance. In 1933 composer Irving Berlin wrote the song “Heat Wave.” In 1958 composer Cole Porter wrote “Too Darn Hot” for his hit musical “Kiss Me Kate.” Both songs referred to wickedly hot weather like we are experiencing today. Since these songs were written, human ingenuity used air conditioning to do something about the weather. But I suspect that our efforts to deal with climate change will do little good and potentially much harm to life on our planet.

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