Opinion: One Year Later

The Great Heat Wave of June 2021 was brutally hot by any analysis. Portland, Oregon set five daily record high temperatures with three of them in a row that were higher than any high recorded previously in the 80 years of records at the Portland Airport. That makes June 2021 stand out, even when compared with March 2005, when we had five record hot days in a row, or March 1947 when we had four.

June 2021 started out with a record high of 95 F on the first day of the month. This year we only managed 79 F. Last year on the Summer Solstice (June 21), we set a record high of 97 F, while this year we only managed 83 F. The monumental heat last year on June 26, 27, and 28 of 108 F, 112 F and 116 F broke the previous all-time record of 107 F in Portland for any day of the year. This year, we only managed 99 F, 96 F, and 75 F, a far cry from the previous year. In June 2021, our average high temperature was 82.6 F, more than eight degrees above the normal of 74.4 F. This year our average high in June was precisely normal. Last June we had below normal rainfall. This year we were almost twice normal rainfall.

Both June 2021 and 2022 featured a Global Temperature that was very, very close to normal (in the lower atmosphere as measured by NASA satellites). Let me repeat that: NORMAL. Hence, there was no way that anyone pretending to be knowledgeable or even responsible could claim that Global Warming was a significant factor. But they did.

Natasha Stenbock, “Chief Meteorologist” for KOIN-6 TV touted the Great Heat Wave of 2021 as the “new normal.” Her academic credentials are weak. She is a journalist, pretending to be a meteorologist and happy to support the local political climate. Nevertheless, Stenbock should apologize for being spectacularly wrong about the Great Heat Wave. It is but a memory.

Former Oregon State Climatologist Kathie Dello said “If we do not do anything, 2021 will be one of Portland’s coolest summers.” Her PhD is in selling climate hysteria. When once asked what would change her mind about Global Warming, she said “I will carry it to my grave!” Dello had no idea that all who claim scientific expertise have to adhere to the Scientific Method or they are not scientists. Political and religious beliefs are not science. Kathie Dello should apologize for being spectacularly wrong.

Current Oregon State Climatologist, Professor Larry O’Neill said of the Great Heat Wave: “The fact that it was so strong, that is an indication, I think, of climate change contributing to it.” He deserves a prize for muddled thinking. Even an oceanographer should be able to do better than that! But later in the summer of 2021, he went on to predict “perpetual drought” for our area, just before we began a substantially above average rainfall year. O’Neill should also apologize for being spectacularly wrong.

In earlier times, scientists and non-scientists alike realized that highly anomalous weather events were an attribute of the substantially random nature of weather. With vast oceans and atmosphere that are never in equilibrium, our planet will always have random weather events that are difficult to predict more than a few days in advance. Most will be small variations from normal, others will be spectacularly above or below normal. The spectacular variations are also spectacularly rare. This is just an attribute of random events.

But that does not keep us from looking for fundamental changes in the factors that drive climate to see if we can identify those that keep weather from being entirely random. We know, for instance, that our weather gets stuck in particular patterns that allow us to correctly predict for tomorrow what we observe today. In Southern California, the climate generally varies little day to day or even year to year.

But even they have had hot ‘Summer Solstice’ events similar to our Great Heat Wave. On June 17, 1859, Santa Barbara, California experienced a monumental heat wave. Although there were no official reporting stations at the time, local residents measured a high of 133 F, which was widely reported in newspapers of the time and stood as the record high temperature for the USA until eclipsed by Death Valley’s official high temperature of 134 F in 1913.

Almost 60 years after the Santa Barbara event on June 16, 1917, Ojai, California reached 128 F under similar weather conditions that bring hot dry air from interior regions down on communities near the Pacific ocean. As that hot air falls, it further heats and pushes the cool marine layer back out to sea. These typical three day events end abruptly when the marine layer offshore can no longer be held at bay by offshore winds and cool air filters back into coastal regions. Offshore winds in Southern California are called ‘Santa Ana Winds. ‘ In Santa Barbara, they are called ‘Sundowner Winds.’ In the Portland area, we refer to them as ‘East Winds’ that come howling through the Columbia River Gorge.

When Portland reached 116 F on June 28, 2021, we saw an amazing cool-down in the evening. By eleven pm, the temperature was down to just 73 F, a decline of 43 F. It is no coincidence that our high of 75 F on the same day this year is similar to the minimum we reached in 2021. They were both the product of our Pacific ocean air conditioning brought to us on prevailing westerlies. Moderate sea surface temperatures keep us cool in the summer and warm in the winter, as long as the wind is blowing from the west.

Scientists have long known that small changes in sea surface temperatures along the equator off the coast of Peru will produce observable weather changes worldwide that skew the random variations up or down. The reason is simple. Our oceans contain by far the most mobile heat on this planet (far more than the atmosphere) and give up more to the atmosphere when the tropical Pacific ocean surface is a little warmer. We call that an “El Nino” condition, in reference to the Christ child, because it typically begins near Christmas. The opposite and colder situation is called a “La Nina.” Both the warmer and cooler conditions are observable worldwide by NASA satellites that can measure temperatures in the lower atmosphere as well as sea surface temperatures.

The response of those thoroughly sold on Global Warming to their misstatements last year was typical: complete silence. They cannot admit that they were wrong. That would be too psychologically devastating and might bring down the climate hoax. Since their jobs and politics are intimately tied to climate hysteria, they will not entertain any thoughts that they might be scientifically illiterate. Even those with degrees in the sciences have demonstrated that they cannot think like real scientists, who are always willing to challenge superstitions.

Yet one of the worst among them, Kale Williams at the Oregonian, did write a front page story that attempted to set the scientific record straight, by quoting a researcher at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California to the effect that our Great Heat Wave last year was a very rare event that is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. It was a combination of factors that rarely align so perfectly to create a “perfect storm.” Of course, Williams then went on to make sure that the climate faithful do not lose faith: “Temperatures are rising nearly everywhere because of global warming, combining with brutal drought in some places to create more intense, frequent and longer heat waves.”

That is nonsense and propaganda. The Oregonian fell flat again, thanks to their reporter without scientific training.

Gordon J. Fulks lives in Corbett and can be reached at gordonfulks@hotmail.com. He is one of the Directors of the CO2 Coalition and holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago’s Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research.