New Mexico and Kansas Droughts Shrinking: Climate Change Doomsayers Wrong Again
A few days ago I wrote a story about journalists not understanding science and math leads to silly stories about weather and climate. The original story, from the Los Angeles Times, included a quote that said the recent rains (which had been very heavy) would not put a "dent" in the drought. It also said, due to 'climate change,' the rainfall might never return to normal.
Fast forward just one week: According to the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center, the drought has already ended in much of New Mexico (white areas) and has significantly improved in much of the rest of the state (see map below).
The climate change people, as recently as July 25, were telling Kansans droughts would be "more frequent and severe" and that the current drought was "spurring them into action." As you can also see in the map, much of Kansas is white (drought over) and it is much improved elsewhere. I guess they can stop acting.
In February, the people of Wichita were told Lake Cheney, our primary source of drinking water, was going to run dry (!) in 2015.
The climate doomsayers are spectacularly wrong again: The lake is now over 151% full (see below from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers):
Fast forward just one week: According to the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center, the drought has already ended in much of New Mexico (white areas) and has significantly improved in much of the rest of the state (see map below).
The climate change people, as recently as July 25, were telling Kansans droughts would be "more frequent and severe" and that the current drought was "spurring them into action." As you can also see in the map, much of Kansas is white (drought over) and it is much improved elsewhere. I guess they can stop acting.
In February, the people of Wichita were told Lake Cheney, our primary source of drinking water, was going to run dry (!) in 2015.
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| Wichita "Eagle" |
This spectacular turn of events, just a week after the story was published, to me illustrates several serious problems:
- Today's journalism education apparently does not train students in the scientific method (i.e., proof is demanded of outlandish claims like "normal rainfall may never return", etc). It seems that if one of these claims comes from an official-sounding source, that is sufficient. Now, just a week after that claim was published, the drought is officially over in some of those areas -- the complete opposite outcome from what the story would have had us believe.
- The Times' silly claim about it being unusual that precipitation was below normal "nearly half the time" would have been laughed out of a high school statistics class.
- The catastrophic global warming crowd gets these apocalyptic claims wrong time after time again but nothing shakes their "faith" (and that is the right word). To paraphrase Sir George Jessel, "I may be wrong but am never in doubt!"
America needs quality journalism for its people and electorate to make informed choices. When it comes to science, geography, and math, the quality of reporting is too often wrong. This desperately needs to change.
Also needing change is the mainstream media's faith in catastrophic global warming. I haven't posted
the latest temperatures in a while but, as you can see, the atmosphere stubbornly continues not to warm. With all the commotion about 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere several months ago (which, by the way, has fallen back below 400 recently), global warming theory says the warming should have accelerated. It has manifestly not done so. When is the U.S. mainstream media going to wake up about Al Gore and others' failed claims and start asking hard questions?
Would be nice if you would include URL's when you post your drought maps. I looked at these Climate Prediction Center maps, which don't quite match your map: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Drought/ and couldn't find your map.
ReplyDeleteIt is not my map, it is the CPC's. Here is the URL: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/addpcp.gif
ReplyDeleteAs to the differences: The map you cite is August 6, mine is August 10 data. Second, those are not CPC maps but are produced by the drought center in Lincoln, Neb. They have an extra level of "dryness" that is not found in the generally-accepted (i.e., for decades) Palmer Drought Index maps. My map is based on the Palmer, which is the standard.