by CRAIG JAMES

Meteorologist Craig James, new Squire columnist

Over the past couple of months I have written several articles on why I am skeptical over the claim that increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere will bring about catastrophic global warming. Al Gore and others have stated that human-induced global warming “is the most dangerous challenge mankind has ever faced.” Hogwash! That is nothing but a political statement.

The correct view of the issue has been summed up nicely by Dr. Richard Lindzen from M.I.T. in his testimony before the House Committee on Science and Technology in November of last year when he stated, “It is not about whether CO2 is increasing; it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming; it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes.”

I’ve written about how as CO2 increases in the atmosphere it has a smaller and smaller effect on the temperature—a fact indeed acknowledged even by the alarmists. The catastrophic claims arise from computer models. It has been shown by many in the science community that the models have made false assumptions about what would happen in a warmer world, which leads to forecasts of way too much warming. When we have been able to test those models, we find that the real world temperatures (even if we accept the faulty surface temperature record) are below all of the computer forecasts. The models are wrong. How many more years will be needed of cooler temperatures than forecast before the alarmists acknowledge this fact?

Every instance of severe weather seems to send alarmists running to the national media to claim, “It’s even worse than we thought,” or as Time Magazine has headlined, “This is the new normal.” The alarmists seem to have no interest in actually going back through the weather records to find out whether these events have ever happened in the past. They have, and CO2 levels were lower at the time.

Several university studies as well as NOAA’s climate science investigators have found no link between any of the recent severe weather events, from the heat wave in Russia to the floods in Pakistan and Australia to the tornadoes in the southern U.S. this spring season, to increasing CO2 levels.

NOAA’s Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project forced the participants to acknowledge they “were surprised” to discover that “researchers have yet to find evidence of more-extreme weather patterns over the period, contrary to what the models predict. There’s no data-driven answer yet to the question of how human activity has affected extreme weather.”

The United States Global Change Research Program, which has spent billions of dollars in climate research and education, recently released a publication with the following information:

• Over the long term, U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.

• Nationwide, there have been no long-term increases in drought.

• Despite increases in some measures of precipitation, there have not been corresponding increases in peak stream flows.

• There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms.

• There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast storms called Nor’easters.

• There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells.

What the data actually says is in most cases different than what people feel to be true.

Dr. Lindzen closed his testimony with the following comment: “Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.”

I’ll leave you to contemplate those words over the next several weeks as I take some time off to enjoy Michigan and Alaska and anything else I can find to do in our short summer.

Craig James has been retired since July 1, 2008, after 40 years of broadcasting television weather. He was chief meteorologist at WZZM-TV for 12 years and chief meteorologist at WOOD-TV for 24 years. He is a graduate of Penn State University, where he received a Centennial Fellowship Award. He was also honored as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Meteorologist Craig James, new Squire columnist

We had our first Ozone Action Day of the season last week, except they are now called Clean Air Action Days. According to the website of the West Michigan Clean Air Coalition, they are just “thrilled to announce that its Ozone Action program has now become the Clean Air Action program.” I guess they really get excited by this stuff. The change means we will now be getting Clean Air Action Days, not only in the summer due to ozone levels, but year round when fine particulate matter exceeds certain levels.

Fine particulate matter is defined as having a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller. A single hair from your head is about 70 micrometers in diameter, which means a hair is 30 times larger than the largest fine particle. These particles are present in haze, smoke and pollution, and are small enough to enter the lungs, causing respiratory problems in some people. Thankfully, West Michigan doesn’t very often have a problem with fine particulate matter and ozone levels only reach unhealthy levels a few days each year.

Actions to lower ozone or fine particulate matter are voluntary at the current time. These actions include things I’m sure you’ve heard many times before, such as not mowing the lawn, not filling up your gas tank, or using a grill during the heat of the day, as well as curtailing driving. If air quality standards, which keep being strengthened, are not achieved by voluntary action, then the government will step in and mandate certain actions such as automobile emission inspections, which will be a cost to everyone.

We did set a record high temperature in Grand Rapids last week on June 7 at 94 degrees. It is the warmest temperature in June in the past two years but, more notably, it is the first time since 1953 that we have set a record high in June. Bill Steffen went back through the records and found out: “Most all of our summer season record high temperatures are old and not recent. If you take the months of June, July and August… those 92 days… only 14 days have record high temperatures that have been set or tied since 1959. The other 78 days all have record high temperatures from before 1960.”

Minneapolis also set a record high that day of 103 degrees, which is the warmest reading there since 1988. As a testimony to how cold the spring season was, in the nearby city of St. Paul, at 5 p.m. on June 7, the last of the winter snow piles finally melted in the parking lot of the Sears store. As a cold front dropped south across Lake Superior on June 7, the temperature at Munising, Mich. fell from 93 degrees to 57 degrees in less than one hour as the wind shifted from southerly to northerly off the lake.

Speaking of heat, there was another heat burst in the plains states on the morning of June 9. The temperature at Wichita, Kansas jumped from 84 degrees to 102 degrees in about a half hour and the humidity fell from 55% to 7%. This event happened a little after midnight.

A heat burst is a rare atmospheric phenomenon characterized by gusty winds and a rapid increase in temperature and decrease in dew point (moisture). Heat bursts typically occur during nighttime and are associated with decaying thunderstorms. We are not exactly sure what causes heat bursts but they are probably caused when rain evaporates in a parcel of cold dry air high in the atmosphere, making the air denser than its surroundings. The parcel descends rapidly and warms due to higher pressure at lower heights and reaches the ground at speeds frequently exceeding 50 mph.

Back in June 1960, a heat burst occurred near Waco, Texas that reportedly sent the temperature soaring from near 70 degrees to almost 140 degrees in the middle of the night, desiccating most of the vegetation in the area. There have been press reports from Portugal, Turkey and Iran telling of temperatures as high as 188 degrees, which actually turned asphalt to mush.

These extreme reports exceed the highest temperatures officially recorded on Earth, generally accepted as the Death Valley, Calif. report of 134 degrees and the Libya reading of 136 degrees. These heat bursts are not counted because (thus far) the worst heat bursts have been localized events, falling in-between local weather stations. I suspect they would be very scary events, especially in the middle of the night.

Craig James has been retired since July 1, 2008, after 40 years of broadcasting television weather. He was chief meteorologist at WZZM-TV for 12 years and chief meteorologist at WOOD-TV for 24 years. He is a graduate of Penn State University, where he received a Centennial Fellowship Award. He was also honored as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Meteorologist Craig James, new Squire columnist

Over the past couple of months I’ve written several articles that explain why I do not believe in the theory that an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause catastrophic warming. Up until now at least, there has been no measurable evidence to support such a theory. The theory has come about due to computer models. But the computer models have been fine-tuned to bad data, have been programmed with false assumptions and as a result have produced incorrect forecasts.

In an article two weeks ago I wrote that, “One of the main tenants of global warming theory is that if greenhouses gases are warming the planet, that warming will happen first in the layer of air 20,000-40,000 ft above the tropics. All 20-odd-climate models predict warming there first—it’s the fingerprint of greenhouse gas warming, as opposed to warming by some other cause. The hotspot is not incidental to IPCC climate theory—it lies at its heart…” The evidence shows that this hotspot is missing, indicating that the global warming theory is wrong.

There is another way to look at the computer model forecasts as shown by the following graph. This graph may look a little intimidating at first but let me walk you through it.

The light grey line represents the actual temperatures as measured by satellite. The data is from Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, California and is very similar to the satellite temperature data from the University of Huntsville, Alabama. You can see the cooling that occurred in 1992 from the eruption of Mt. Pinautbo and the large spike up in temperatures in 1998 from the very strong El Niño.

The bold black line represents the computer model forecasts of the temperatures out beyond the year 2020. Two lighter black lines represent the outer limits of the uncertainty in the forecast. In other words, the forecast temperature could fall anywhere within the outer two lines but is most likely near the bold black line. The solid red line is the actual trend in the temperatures and the dashed red lines indicate the limits of the uncertainty in the measured temperatures.

The graph has been set to 1996. When the models are run backwards from that time, they do a fairly good job of reproducing the temperatures back to 1980, even showing the volcanic cooling, because it was programmed into the model. But when the models are run into the future from 1996, they produce too much warming. The actual measured temperature trend, shown by the solid red line is well below the forecast trend shown by the solid black line. In fact, even all of the possible errors in the measured trend are lower than the possible forecast errors. The models are wrong. How many more years will be needed of cooler temperatures than forecast before the alarmists acknowledge this fact?

The computer models also forecast sea surface temperatures as shown in this graphic.

The observed sea surface temperatures are plotted in blue with the computer simulation in red. You can see that the trend line of the model forecast in red is warmer than the actual measured sea surface temperatures. The models are once again forecasting too much warming.

A new paper just published in The Journal of Forecasting concludes, ““The scientific community of global climate modelers has surely taken unnecessary risks in raising the stakes so high when depending on forecasts and models that have many weaknesses.” In addition, “the primary emphasis on controlling global CO2 emissions is misguided”.

Misguided indeed. We are spending billions of dollars we don’t have each year on a problem that only exists in flawed computer models.

Craig James has been retired since July 1, 2008, after 40 years of broadcasting television weather. He was chief meteorologist at WZZM-TV for 12 years and chief meteorologist at WOOD-TV for 24 years. He is a graduate of Penn State University, where he received a Centennial Fellowship Award. He was also honored as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

by CRAIG JAMES

Meteorologist Craig James, new Squire columnist

Can you believe Lake Michigan has nearly three trillion more gallons of water in it than at this time last month? With the wet spring we have had, the lake has risen seven inches since mid April, which translates to 2.73 trillion gallons more water. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lake Michigan is still about two inches below last year at this time and 16 inches below the long-term average for May. Lake Michigan is an amazing 47 inches below the highest level of record set back in 1986, but it is 13 inches higher than the lowest level of record set in 1996.

Lakes Erie and Ontario are above average for this time of year. In fact, Lake Ontario is up 18 inches from last year and is now six inches above its long-term average for May. Lake Michigan is expected to come up another three inches by mid June; Lake Superior may rise another four inches, while the eastern lakes should remain nearly unchanged. The total increase of water in the five Great Lakes in the last month is over 11 TRILLION gallons!

Farther south, the Corps of Engineers is releasing water through spillways on the Mississippi River to prevent another flood the magnitude of the 1927 flood, which is the worst flood ever recorded for that river.

The water is flowing at the rate of 1.5 million cubic feet per second through the river between Arkansas and Mississippi. Last Sunday, May 15, the Grand River in Grand Rapids was flowing at just 7.6 thousand cubic feet per second. An engineer has calculated that at the rate the Mississippi is flowing, the water could completely fill the Superdome in New Orleans in just 50 seconds.

Opening the spillway will release enough water to submerge about 3,000 square miles of land under as much as 25 feet of water. This will take the pressure off the downstream levees protecting New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi. However, it could mean ruin to many of the farmers who grow crops in the flooded area.

The government tells us there is little inflation. However, the index of commodities shows the price of cotton, corn and soybeans has risen 50% to 100% since last year. The farmers who are now flooded were counting on the higher prices this year pulling many of them out of debt, but not now. The river’s rise may also force the closing of the river to shipping, from Baton Rouge to the mouth of the Mississippi. That would cause grain barges from the heartland to stack up, along with other commodities, costing the U.S. economy hundreds of millions of dollars per day.

Not far west of the Mississippi River, it is a lack of water causing problems. The first map from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NOAA shows much of Texas and New Mexico in what is termed an “exceptional” drought. Over 48% of Texas is in an exceptional drought. In parts of southeastern New Mexico, no measurable precipitation has been recorded for three to six months.

The drought is expected to persist in most areas through at least the end of July. Crop losses in Texas alone could exceed $3 billion dollars.

Still farther to the west and northwest, the second map shows stream flow forecasts. No forecasts have been made for the areas in white but the blue, green and purple colors indicate that due to melting of above average snowfall, stream flows are expected to be 100% to 200% of normal. Farmers in these areas are delighted. They will have plenty of water for irrigation. Farming is tough. One farmer in Louisiana stated he will have enough money from insurance after bills are paid to go to a movie, but only if it is dollar night.

Craig James has been retired since July 1, 2008, after 40 years of broadcasting television weather. He was chief meteorologist at WZZM-TV for 12 years and chief meteorologist at WOOD-TV for 24 years. He is a graduate of Penn State University, where he received a Centennial Fellowship Award. He was also honored as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Meteorologist Craig James, new Squire columnist

In last week’s article I gave you the basic overview of what I think the science really says about human induced global warming. Let’s start this article by taking a look at the poorly named greenhouse effect.

I think there are several things about our atmosphere most people are not aware of. The first is that the energy from the sun, short wave radiation, does not heat up the air. About half of the solar radiation is reflected back into space from clouds, water, ice, etc while the other half is absorbed by the ground. As the ground absorbs the short wave radiation, it heats up and emits what is called long wave radiation back into the atmosphere and this long wave radiation is what heats the air.

Some of this long wave radiation passes through the atmosphere back out into space but most is absorbed by greenhouse gas molecules and clouds, then re-emitted in all directions. Much of the re-emitted radiation goes back to earth while other greenhouse gas molecules and clouds absorb some of this energy only to re-emit it again. The effect of all of this is to warm the air. Without our atmosphere, the earth would average about 50 degrees colder than it is now.

However, at no time does the atmosphere act like a blanket or a greenhouse and trap heat. When someone says CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere they don’t understand what is actually occurring. Nothing is trapped. The energy courses through the system without being trapped within it and this process, poorly labeled the greenhouse effect, is absolutely necessary for life as we know it.

If the amount of energy leaving the top of the atmosphere equals the amount of energy being added to the atmosphere from the sun and the greenhouse gases, the earth’s average temperature will remain unchanged. Many natural processes such as a change in the amount of cloud cover or volcanic eruptions disturb this balance and the earth is always cooling or warming slightly at any time.

It seems to be rather intuitive then that if you add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, you will increase the temperature of the atmosphere. The question is, how much? There are currently 390 molecules of CO2 per one million molecules of atmosphere. That represents just 0.039%, or just a trace amount. By far and away, the most prevalent and effective greenhouse gas is water vapor. As you can see from this pie chart, water vapor contributes about 95% to the greenhouse effect and CO2 from human activity contributes about 0.28%.

We do know for certain that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing, but how much of a direct effect does an increase in CO2 produce? Let’s pretend we have an atmosphere with no CO2. As you can see from the following graph, the first 20 parts of CO2 we add to the atmosphere have a much greater impact on the temperature than the next 20 parts and the next 20 parts, etc.

There is only a small effect on the temperature as we increase the CO2 from 280 parts per million, the pre-industrial level, to the current level. Doubling the CO2 concentration from here would have very little direct effect at all. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere has what is called a logarithmic effect, not a linear one. The more CO2 you add, the less impact there is upon the temperature. What is amazing is even the people who believe in catastrophic global warming agree that this is so.

So how do we get to catastrophic warming by adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere? Ah…it is from those wonderful computer models. The models that are tuned to bad data, incorporate false assumptions about the atmosphere, and have proven to be wrong where we can test them. I’ll show you this in future articles.

Craig James has been retired since July 1, 2008, after 40 years of broadcasting television weather. He was chief meteorologist at WZZM-TV for 12 years and chief meteorologist at WOOD-TV for 24 years. He is a graduate of Penn State University, where he received a Centennial Fellowship Award. He was also honored as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Meteorologist Craig James, new Squire columnist

Our first 70-degree day this season also turned out to be the first 80-degree day of the season. The thermometer hit 85 degrees on Sunday, April 10. It hasn’t been that warm since mid September and it was also a record high temperature for the date. On average, the first 70-degree day in our area occurs in the last half of March. However, back in 1950, the first 70-degree day did not occur until May 3. It was a very cold spring that year but temperatures were in the mid 60s during the month of January for a topsy-turvy winter and spring.

The earliest we have seen a 70-degree day was March 3, 1983, although in 1999 the thermometer hit 69 on February 11. The months of December, January and February are the only three months when the temperature has never hit 70 degrees in Grand Rapids. I guess that is a more comforting thought than the fact that the months of June, July and August are the only three months when we have not seen any snowflakes.

As I have written several times already, this looks like a very active spring for severe weather. Our area has been fortunate so far in that all of the severe weather has occurred around us and not here. On April 4, there were over 1,300 reports of wind damage in the southeastern United States in a 24-hour period, making it the greatest number of wind damage events (not tornadoes) ever reported in one day. Keep in mind, however, these records only go back to 1950.

Last Saturday evening, the 9th of April, an EF3 rated tornado three quarters of a mile wide with winds between 136 and 165 mph damaged at least 60 percent of the town of Mapleton in the western part of Iowa. Fortunately there were no deaths, but this is the same region of western Iowa where four Boy Scouts died in a tornado that struck a scouting ranch in June 2008.

Some of you may remember the severe weather that occurred in our area on April 11, 1965, which was a Palm Sunday. There were 47 tornadoes in the Midwest that day with 271 fatalities and 1,500 injuries; 1,200 of those injuries were in the state of Indiana. Here is a picture of a huge tornado with two separate funnels on the ground that day near Elkhart, Ind.

This tornado was given the strongest rating of an F5 because 25 homes in a trailer park were literally wiped off the face of the Earth, with no signs of them ever found. In our area, an F4 tornado produced a 21-mile-long damage path from near Allendale to Comstock Park. There were five fatalities and 142 injuries. Two other F4 tornadoes struck Branch and Hillsdale counties 30 minutes apart with 21 lives lost. An actual wind gust of 151 mph was reported near the tornado in the town of Tecumseh. Since we have had this type of severe weather in our area in the past, it is just a question of when, not if, we will see something like this occur again.

I also cannot rule out seeing at least a few more snowflakes again this month. It could even happen this weekend. This Palm Sunday, the 17th, will be way too cold for any tornadoes in the Midwest this year. The western part of the country continues to see more snow, too. Believe it or not, both the Squaw Valley Ski Area near Lake Tahoe and the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in southern California will still have enough snow on the ground that they are planning on having a day of skiing on July 4th!

Craig James has been retired since July 1, 2008, after 40 years of broadcasting television weather. He was chief meteorologist at WZZM-TV for 12 years and chief meteorologist at WOOD-TV for 24 years. He is a graduate of Penn State University, where he received a Centennial Fellowship Award. He was also honored as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.