By ROBERT SEITZ
On Aug. 6, the highest ever temperature was recorded for Deadhorse, Alaska.
The event was described to bake Deadhorse. A story in the Alaska Beacon stated the “average annual temperatures on the North Slope rose by 5.8 degrees Fahrenheit from 1969 to 2018”.
In my article published in Must Read Alaska on July 17, I explained that this average annual increase does not represent high summer temperature, but does represent a lack of extreme cold temperatures. This is a manipulation of facts by math.
I have also been stating that warm days are caused by the presence of high pressure areas in the summer, which are determined by the location and configuration of the jet stream. And I have been stating that the warming we have experienced is just the recovery from the Little Ice Age.
In the interior and northern Alaska the average annual temperature is still below freezing and recent winters have brought back extreme low temperatures.
I have been checking online for the position of the jet stream frequently and have noticed that when heat domes are forecast that the jet stream is positioned properly to cause high pressure areas where the heat domes are projected to occur. I have also been following the jet stream position with respect to Alaska and around Aug. 1, the jet stream looped around Alaska with the eastward flow to be just above the northern shore of Alaska, which would result in a high pressure to the south of that flow.
The data shows that a high pressure began building on Aug. 1, and built to its highest pressure of about 1018 millibar on Aug. 3, then declined until late Aug. 6. The sky was partly cloudy much of the time which would allow the 19 hr. 58 min of sunlight to shine through. The dew point was 41 degrees which is fairly dry (not humid). All the conditions were in line to allow warming, and for each day between Aug. 1-6 the high temperature would rise 8 to 10 degrees warmer than the previous day.
Just a few hours before the high temperature, the wind dropped to around 4 mph, which helps achieve a higher temperature. Each day the high temperature did not last for long before the temperature would cool to about 55F.
But was it baking? I don’t think so. I’ve been in Deadhorse in the 1980s and 1990s when the sun shined and the wind stopped blowing and when it was over 70F. It was uncomfortable, but the worst part was the mosquitos.
The temperature at the Seawater Treatment Plant at Westdock in Prudhoe Bay reached 75, Barrow got to 74 and Kaktovik also reached 74 degrees. While these may represent record values, they do not represent a heat wave, they just made a warm day amongst a bunch of normal temperature days.
This has been a normal year; even the rain is within a normal range. In Chinitna Bay in lower Cook Inlet it rained 96 inches in 90 days in 1958.
I believe it is time to no longer say we have human caused heating of the planet. It is time to no longer say Alaska is warming two to four times faster than the rest of the planet. It is time to stop referring to the average annual temperature comparisons, as they are very misleading. It is time to accept that we are just about through the recovery from the Little Ice Age that is manifested in our extended growing season. It is time for Alaskans to reject Al Gore and Greta Thunberg pleas to abandon fossil fuel and the fear of greenhouse gases. It is time we reject anthropogenic warming as a cause of our weather.
It is time for Alaska leaders in business and government to get behind efforts to terminate the strangle hold the federal government has over Alaska’s resources. It is a time to fight in court for our ability to produce oil and gas and minerals, against all the non-governmental organization’s that have interfered with our ability to maintain a viable economy.
It is time for the leaders to use all their political capital, all their gravitas, and all of their experience and determination to find the solutions necessary to get more Cook Inlet Gas into production. It is time to not let ESG, or DEI, or any other environmental or social scare tactics that interfere with getting that Cook Inlet gas into increased production.
It is time to not cower or capitulate to minor forces.
The sky is not falling and CO2 is a benefit to humans, as well as the rest of the planet. Whatever problems we have with weather, we need to work on adapting to whatever changes are necessary while our weather adjusts to recovery from Little Ice Age. Increase oil and gas production is great for the Alaska economy, but it does not mean the end of development of renewable and alternate energy in Alaska.
Our remote communities still need to have good sources of energy that they can depend on without having to barge in millions of gallons of diesel fuel each year. We have progressed in many of those communities and can provide for more progress in the others who still need to achieve more energy independence. If each remote community has sufficient energy and power they can create industry and business to provide more purpose and benefit to their community with more comforts and more reason to grow their community.
Oil and gas have been good to Alaska and Alaskans. This time around let’s have plans for what we do before we do it so that we don’t waste everything that oil and gas and mining have brought to us. We know that we may have to plan for some alternate to Cook Inlet gas. If we get busy with increasing the Cook Inlet gas production we should have a good long time to work out what comes next. In the meantime enjoy the weather and don’t worry about the climate change. And one thing to keep in mind: If Alaska is not suffering from greenhouse gas warming, neither is the rest of the planet. Other areas are affected by the jet stream and high and low pressure areas just like we are.
Robert Seitz, is a professional electrical engineer and lifelong Alaskan.
Great. Climate science explained by an electrical engineer. Maybe next we can have a plumber explain differential equations.
As opposed to the so called scientists who mandated everyone get an untested ‘medical treatment’ for a condition with a 95-99% recovery rate.
Or you can just use your head and think just a little bit, you don’t need to be a scientist to understand that these people are liars who are relying on ignorant drones like yourself to accept the next dictate that they have that increases their power over you, me, and every other person you have disdain for, wake up you midwitt, the climate cultists aren’t offering anything that will help the climate, ever hear them mention planting a tree? china? india? how bout cut down the military pollution? God no, who would bomb the third world?
Having studied oceanography and meteorology and having set up instrumentation stations for both it is something I can do with great capability and understanding. The data is available on line and easy to follow. I bet you could do it with whatever background you have. I probably know a plumber or two who can work differential equations. What can you do?
Thank you for bringing this perspective Robert. The general public will always be easily swayed by headlines and colorful graphs, but it takes a critical mind to research. Many of us have the capability, few have the time. I have long pondered what benefits our arctic communities could experience with a changing climate if indeed warming is on the horizon. It’s also important to note that water at the equator is cooling and we’re getting very close to switching from el Nino to el Nina. We have weather cycles within cycles that the average person has never delved in to. Federal funds for “climate change” by the billions have poured into Alaska, hopefully some of it has been spent wisely.
Great job for saying it Bob.
cman, climate science is a real science. There are a lot of variables that make it so that many numbers and concepts are not definitive or precisely calculable. If an Electrical Engineer can understand it, I believe plumbers and truck drivers and politicians can understand it. Well, maybe not politicians, but certainly so called “Climate Scientists” should be able to understand and articulate it. People are so gullible that they will believe just about any hairbrained idea that somehow carbon is bad. 18% of your own body is made of carbon. Plants breath in CO2, and yet somehow there are people out there trying to limit the amount of carbon emissions. What, are they trying to kill all our plants? And are they naive enough to think there is anything that humans could do to change our climate? The earth changes it all on its own and has been doing so for millions and millions of years. Get off your high horse.
Great job Bob
It’s not the fact that there is CO2 in the atmosphere or that plants breath it in. Its the RATE at which anthropological activities are putting it into the atmosphere. If you look at just about any long term dataset (some of which are tens of thousands of years old like the Antarctic ice cores), they all show an increasing trend of CO2 in the atmosphere at a rate since the industrial revolution that has no equal in many millennia previously. In the mid 1700’s there was about 250 to 280 ppm of CO2 and now this number is somewhere around 420 to 430 ppm. If you can find another causal factor to account for this data, feel free to expound on it.
If you look at just about any long term dataset they all show warming precedes atmospheric CO2 rise, and there are times when warming and atmospheric CO2 rate of rise are similar to today…you literally have to dismiss science and happily repeat talking points to claim otherwise.
A few of the natural process that have been shown to counter your outdated talking points include Dansgaard–Oeschger events, Heinrich events and other hyperthermal events. Science has shown that as much as 25% of atmospheric CO2 comes from lakes and as a natural feedback loop the warming environment potentially could double that amount, it is known that as frozen plant life thaws atmospheric CO2 is released, once again showing warming preceding the atmospheric CO2 rise. There are numerous long term cycles that we know of that impact warming, one is that roughly every 2.4 million years Mars pulls on Earth affecting how close we are to the sun which causes warming and affects the oceans which drives further warming through the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Of course there are the Milankovitch cycles with periods of 405,000, 100,000, 41,000 and 23,000 years. Then there is the cyclical flipping of the Earth’s magnetic field.
There are plenty of other known scientifically sound sources that explain what is being observed, the fact that you dismiss science speaks volumes as to your beliefs.
So you say I dismiss science when I quote science? OK. If you want to ignore the clear correlation I spoke about and the data behind it that also shows causality, then be my guest. We’ll know one way or another in the next couple of decades.
You asked for other causal factors, they were provided and your response shows that you dismiss science in favor of talking points. You can’t hold up science as the bedrock of your belief while simultaneously dismissing science, that’s not how science works even if it is how your belief system works.
Cman
You’re still using fossil fuels why?
Your statements have no merit because you don’t follow in your beliefs. You’re just a mouthpiece, trying to scare up everybody else and believing this climate change crap
Mark. Such weak thinking. If you had critical thinking skills you’d realize that living with the effects of carbon is not a 100-0% equation.
If there wasn’t so much money to be made by our leaders who dictate energy policy global warming wouldn’t be such a rant.
Albert Gore lives in a huge mansion as a result of his political ranting harvesting millions.
Obama is living very nicely in Martha’s Vineyard with his investing in Solara so lucrative He is buying up expensive oceanfront properties. Makes one wonder how the federal government will payout for owners of oceanfront properties that are eroding.
The only way to guaranty an investment is to be able to regulate the feds.
Yeah, and thank goodness there’s no money to be made in carbon extraction and all of those activities are done on a solely altruistic basis. But you do make an excellent strawman argument. Congrats.
Very well stated!! The big whole picture of what weather is. IT’S WEATHER, PEOPLE!!! The temperature goes up and the temperature goes down. That’s called climate change. THE SKY IS NOT FALLING!!!
As a…chemist who discussed this same issue with many of my professors ’99-’05, you are, in fact, correct.
As with almost all of the inflated temps we see, they are recorded where most of the weather stations are located: airports and in cities. What is endemic to airports and cities? Great expanses of asphalt and concrete that absorb and reflect the suns heat. If we look at temperatures from remote weather stations, they’re remaining relatively constant.
The weather is moving, not stationary.
Weather is not climate. Want to try again?
Thanks for pointing this out, my thoughts exactly. My former hometown south of Seattle floods with regularity. Climate change? No, there’s nowhere for the water to go. Massive warehouses built by Costco, Amazon, and others. Add to this massive asphalt parking lots and expanded freeways. Yes, the sun’s heat reflects off all this creating more warmth.
Something Bob didn’t mention but was pointed out by TheChemist is the effect of heat islands where the temperature immediately around the recording stations is impacted by development much more than the area as a whole. There are gravel pads in locations previously covered by wet tundra on the developed areas of the North Slope. These create a heat islands around recording stations. The fact that the record temperatures occurred when the wind was calm points to localized heating of the air near the recording stations. The gravel pads at Deadhorse are in no way representative of the North Slope as a whole. Such temperature anomalies are convenient for those who like to exaggerate the rate of “Man Made” climate change.
Chemist. You think professional scientists haven’t understood and removed this bias?
Excellent fact based and common sense article. Thank you.
Remember, when dealing with the Left, they are trusting and naive with anything the government says. Plus, they believe that a perfect world IS possible, and by human action alone! And because Marx said so. They can’t believe the gov’t ever lies, unless it is run by a conservative. THEN it’s a liar. And they ignore all the nefarious stuff that is performed by their own favored puppets.
Excellent article Bob, thank you for a commonsense explanation that even someone with no background in life should be able to understand. Even cman if he were willing to do a little research.
“no background in life”. What does that mean?
The number one source of global warming is the Sun. Nothing you can do about that.
You could always attempt to block out the sun with geo engineering aka chem trails, but no matter what the parasite class tries to gaslight you with, paying more in taxes is not going to solve the problems that they create in attempts to keep you in fear.
Explain the palm trees and tropical vegetation 300 to 600’ under north slope tundra. Drilling rigs have been pulling it up for years
Tropical dinosaur remains buried in north western Alaska.
I never miss a night of sleep thinking about it.
A record high in Deadhorse, which has had weather data recorded from around the 1960’s I believe, is akin to a pimple on an elephant’s a– when discussing millennial climate patterns! Gimme a break. I mean, we’ve been told by scientists that all that oil on the North Slope was the result of the decaying jungle that once covered that area when the planet was much warmer than today. Carbon in the atmosphere was also estimated to have been almost three times higher millions of years ago than it is now. But hey, don’t let science get in the way of a lucrative con.
Here is my take on it, I write on substack under the Vigilant Alaskan, I think we both touch on different flaws in the argument and complement each other well. I also took apart the climate action plan and focused on some different parts than you, going into the groups creating it, the UN and its host of NGO’s, would love to get some feedback, feel free to use it as a reference, everything is well sourced, and fact checked.
‘https://vigilantalaskan.substack.com/p/climate-changers-fake-dangers-and
Many of the commentors have lost track of what my original objective was. I was looking at the statement “that Alaska is warming 2 to 4 time faster than the rest of the planet” and that the warming is human caused because of green house gas emissions from fossil fuels. I tried to demonstrate that the math does not show more heat than what we might attribute to recovery from the Little Ice Age; that a single high temperature is just weather affected by the jet stream and resultant high pressures and low pressures. The evidence does not seem to be there to support global warming from green house gas. I don’t really care about millenium of climate variations. I just want to look at what is happening now and does it support the climate hysteria we are bombarded with.
It does not…. 😉
Its amusing to hear some peoples misguided takes, even if its my own.
Rock on Bob.
Say “NO” to the climate change hoax and the greener agenda. It is all a lie and anyone that supports it, no matter how “innocent” they may sound, are part of that agenda. No windmills. No solar energy.
Check out this article about this farmer that, for the third time, had a windmill blow apart and the damages to her farm because of it. First off – that was not very smart of her after the second time to allow a third windmill to be installed.
‘https://www.kcrg.com/2024/08/17/wind-turbine-fire-mechanicsville-could-cost-farmer-millions/
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