Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 10:12:29 AM
I have been very critical of the "hockey stick" graph, besides arguing
that the statistical methods are wrong*, I have also mentioned that it
completely ignores the Medieval warm period which allowed vikings to colonize parts of Greenland, establishing pastures in areas now permanently covered in snow and ice, as well as pointing out how medieval Alpine towns have been discovered buried in glaciers. But, while reading some completely unrelated (and rather tawdry)
website, I came across an interesting quote:
Over the July 4th weekend in 1949, at least 881 people died
nationwide from heat and accidents, a record that still stands today.
So apparently, the hockey stick also hides some rather strong variations in the recent past as well.
I will grant that deaths due to heat are a poor measure, as the lack of air conditioning, an unhealthy populace, an older populace, ro dozens of other factors can help drive up numbers. Still, the number is high enough, and so worthy of mention, one would expect a blimp on the hockey stick in 1949. But all we see is the usual steep, smooth rise.
And, if you think about it, it isn't as if there were that many more air conditioners in 1950 or 1951 or even 1955. Even as late as the 1970's I can recall central air conditioning as the exception rather than the rule in most homes I visited. I don't know if that was specific to my region, or maybe my level of affluence, but it wasn't until the 1980's that I recall central air conditioning being the norm. So that means that from 1949 until say 1979, there were 30 years in which more people could have died from heat, yet did not. Which argues that the summers were cooler, meaning the hockey stick once again hides an aberrant data point in 1949.
Of course, it could have been a regional variation**, perhaps only the US was hotter than usual and the rest of the world was cooler, but somehow I doubt that, given the circulation of weather, it seems anything striking the US would have at least hit the rest of the northern hemisphere. Which would hardly make it an aberration.
So, it seems likely that once again the hockey stick crowd has engaged in a little "data smoothing", evening out data to fit their conclusions. Or, perhaps their 1949 data came from rural weather stations which were subsequently engulfed by urban heat islands, making them seem warmer in subsequent years without any real global warming. In either case, it does argue that the "hockey stick" is simply an absurd chart, though that does not stop its use in environmental propaganda to this day.
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* Or, to be precise, linking to statisticians who show how the methods are wrong.
** Then again, whenever we have a local warm winter or summer heat wave the global warming crowd blames "global warming", so I am just following their lead. After all, one warm day is enough to bring them out in force to play Cassandra and predict flooding, drought, maybe even locust and deaths of the firstborn. If Moses had the track record of environmentalists, the Jews would still be building pyramids. Then again, the Pharaoh would have probably cut him off after the first missing plague.