Alberta’s Average Annual Temperature
OPS-66 Just a short one pager today. After watching one of Tony Heller’s videos, I noticed that he had built in an annual average temperature function option into his Real Climate Tools software. This post displays and summarizes that data for Alberta, Canada. This post is obviously localized (despite Alberta’s large footprint). But the same process can be applied anywhere in the world (and you should do just that for your area). So, what does that tell us about climate in Alberta? Strangely, the answer does not fit the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) alarmist narrative. Temperatures must be rising in this province. They keep telling us the northern latitudes will warm (are warming) faster than the rest of the world. Well, I have lived in the Great White North throughout my 65 years on this planet and with a quick look out the window, I can confirm that I still live in the Great White North. No, Alberta’s annual temperatures are not rising. They have declined at a rate of 1.36 °C/century and are currently fluctuating around the average of the 1884 to 2022 dataset.
#climatechange #delaythegreen #globalwarming #showusthedata
The CAGW alarmist narrative implies that CO2 is the primary climate driver. But atmospheric CO2 concentration increases slowly and steadily (with some acceleration). Not so with the temperature data. The temperatures fluctuate wildly year to year and on decadal long cycles. Does CO2 play a role? Yes, but a variety of ocean cycles and solar activity easily dominate the minor CO2 influences (sometimes warming, sometimes cooling). That same general discussion applies to the global temperature datasets and was discussed in more detail in my recent CSS-35 – Climate Change – It’s Complicated (CCIC) post. Also, remember that 86%+ of human emissions occurred post-1950. So, you can argue that CO2 is contributing to the post-1950 warming in Alberta, but you still must ask what other drivers were active and which drivers will be active in the future. The CAGW alarmists do not ask those questions. They simply restate their original narrative and then re-homogenize (i.e.: manipulate) the temperature datasets to fit that narrative. In the real world, those other drivers are going into colder phases. In the CAGW alarmist virtual reality world created by the models (that self-admittedly run too hot), the fake temperatures will continue to rise.
I have written a few posts on Calgary specifically (accessible through the links below). What did those posts show. Homogenization is off the charts for the Calgary temperature data. The measured temperature (since the new weather station at the airport was installed in 1973) has declined at an average rate of 1.76 °C/century. With homogenization, our temperatures have apparently risen at 1.35 °C/century (a +3.11 °C/century adjustment (?)). Seriously? I live in the real world and I experience measured temperatures not homogenized temperatures. I also looked at Calgary’s maximum temperatures since 1884. No support for the alarmist’s narrative there either. Maximum temperatures have increased at a paltry 0.02 °C/century since 1884. Up until 2017, the maximum temperature had been declining at 0.2 °C/century. A brief heat wave in 2018 and the Pacific Northwest Heat Dome in 2021 (both anomalous to the general trends) brought the overall trend back to statistically flat. Neither maximum temperature (2018 or 2021) can be contributed directly to CO2.
The other Calgary specific posts relate directly to “Climate Change” economics and are applicable globally. Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) put out a report on November 8th, 2022, stating that Canada’s GDP growth would drop by just 6.6%, 80 years from now if “Climate Change” (based on IPCC “science”) was allowed to continue unabated on our current path. Links below. Instead of 388% GDP growth (80 years from now at 2 %/year), our growth would only be 371.4%. In dollar terms, instead of a GDP of 9.90 trillion dollars, our GDP would be just 9.76 trillion dollars. A difference of just 0.14 trillion dollars (i.e.: 140 billion dollars). If we could totally alleviate all the negative GDP consequences (for Canada), that is the best we could do. But the PBO went one step further and looked at the benefits global adherence to the 2015 Paris Accord commitments would bestow upon us. With all of us working together to ‘save the world’, we would only see a 5.8% GDP drop (instead of 6.6%), an improvement of just 0.8% (a whopping 17 billion dollars). Our political leaders somehow feel that spending hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars to improve our GDP by 17 billion dollars makes sense.
Somehow, our federal government sees a business case for these ludicrous “green” initiatives but not for badly needed Canadian LNG projects that could help our European allies (and the rest of the world) through their very real energy crisis (soon to be ours). Our municipal governments are no better. Calgary’s Climate Strategy – Pathways to 2050, proposes to spend 87 billion dollars on fighting “climate change”. Unfortunately, that will make no perceptible difference on either the temperature or our economic realities 80 years from now. That does not let our provincial government off the hook. They are still pushing aspects of the “Climate Change” agenda (like NetZero and Carbon Capture) out of political necessity. Unfortunately, these programs will not improve our temperatures measurably and will continue to harm our fiscal stability (what we have left), all while ignoring the real problems our society will face over the next few decades.
We, the citizens/taxpayers/voters are allowing Prime Minister Trudeau, Mayor Gondek and yes, Premier Smith (to a lesser degree) to fiddle while Canada freezes and falls apart financially. The same scenario is playing out at just about every level of government around the world. I truly fear for my (and your) children’s and grandchildren’s future. As should you. Unless we turn away from ideology to science and common sense real soon.
Open Letter: Calgary City Council – Climate Change Initiatives
Real Climate Tools – Tony Heller
CSS-13 – A Look at Homogenization
CSS-19 – Calgary Homogenization
CSS-27 – Is CO2 Really the Primary Climate Driver?
OPS-61 – Were the Hottest Temperatures in Calgary pre-1950 or post-1950
Here are some additional posts that provide further context to this discussion.
CLINTEL: World Climate Declaration – There is NO Climate Emergency
Open Letter: Calgary City Council – Climate Change Initiatives
Real Climate Tools – Tony Heller
CSS-13 – A Look at Homogenization
CSS-19 – Calgary Homogenization
CSS-27 – Is CO2 Really the Primary Climate Driver?
CSS-35 – Climate Change – It’s Complicated (CCIC)
OPS-55 – The State of Climate Science
OPS-61 – Were the Hottest Temperatures in Calgary pre-1950 or post-1950?
You are a very persuasive writer. I can see this in your article.
Great post. I am facing a couple of these problems.