CHICAGO — The Windy City is preparing for a heat wave — a permanent one.
Climate scientists have told city planners that based on current trends, Chicago will feel more like Baton Rouge than a Northern metropolis before the end of this century.
So, Chicago is getting ready for a wetter, steamier future. Public alleyways are being repaved with materials that are permeable to water. The white oak, the state tree of Illinois, has been banned from city planting lists, and swamp oaks and sweet gum trees from the South have been given new priority. Thermal radar is being used to map the city’s hottest spots, which are then targets for pavement removal and the addition of vegetation to roofs. And air-conditioners are being considered for all 750 public schools, which until now have been heated but rarely cooled.
Summers in Illinois have been cooling for at least eighty years. What trends are these climate scientists talking about? Once again, I have to ask – are they dishonest, or just grossly incompetent?
Even the annual temps in Illinois have falling over the last 100 years. Maybe the trends they speak of are fashion trends or something.
Haven’t you received the memo? The debate we never had is over, according to Climate Commissioner, Will Steffen, in The Critical Decade: Climate science, risks and responses (p. 3):
See also “Four Lies in Four Sentences”.
If you look at the period from 1895 to present, the Summer trend is essentially flat: -.02 degF/decade. Winter over the same period gives a .05 degF/decade warming. Spring gives a .11 degF/decade warming. Fall gives an almost flat .01 degF/decade cooling. If we take these trends at face value (probably not a good supportable), we would expect summer, winter and Fall to remain essentially unchanged but Spring to be warmer. Certainly doesn’t seem to be headed toward Baton Rouge.
Shhhh! Don’t tell them there’s an Internet.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/advchart/frames/frames.asp?show=&insttype=Stock&symb=NYT&time=20&startdate=1/4/1999&enddate=5/23/2011&freq=1&compidx=aaaaa:0&comptemptext=&comp=none&ma=0&maval=9&uf=0&lf=1&lf2=0&lf3=0&type=2&style=320&size=2&x=52&y=12&timeFrameToggle=false&compareToToggle=false&indicatorsToggle=false&chartStyleToggle=false&state=8
Hey, can you make links just work instead if show up as plain text? When I manually enter the href crap it just hides them. Or add a preview button. On an iPhone it’s hard to proofread when the screen keyboard takes up 60% of the screen and I can’t scroll up easy anyway.
Quite the chart. Wonder who bought that at the top, confusing that short term rise with a long term trend? Probably a lot of people from the AGW industry.
Oh, it worked. I still need a preview button though.
Steve I think they are probably listening to Ray Pierrehumbert and the Hyde Park Hippies at the University of Chicago.
http://research.chicagobooth.edu/energy/faculty/pierrehumbert.aspx
Where does dishonesty end? When does stupidty and insanity take over? Very good questions. There are plenty of all three to go around.
Chicago looks to to be headed towards another fire
http://screencast.com/t/7CFpZiiu
This is loony. Rahm land?
Looks like a lot of much more expensive new trees which will probably die.
Lost of jobs in “pavement removal and the addition of vegetation to roofs.”
“And air-conditioners are being considered for all 750 public schools, which until now have been heated but rarely cooled.”
From GE? What are the odds?
From the Wikipedia entry on the sweet gum tree:
The wood is brittle and the tree drops branches easily in storms.
The spiked “gumballs” can be unpleasant to walk on (in fact in California they are known as “ankle biters” or “ankle twisters,” and in North Carolina as “pinkelponkers”), and their profusion can leave a lawn lumpy unless removed, because the fruit do not decay easily.
Branches may have ridges or “wings” that cause more surface area, increasing weight of snow and ice accumlation on the tree.
This doesn’t sound like the ideal tree to plant in a place known as “The Windy City” and for severe storms (snow, ice) in the winter.
I can confirm your description of Sweet Gums. One more thing though, they make walking barefoot in your yard an extremely painful experience,
One point often overlooked is that local climate is impacted by local geography…the idea that a city’s climate zone just shift along a meridian with temperature is mind-bogglingly ignorant of reality.
Standard thinking for a “Climatologist”! Chicago will be just like Key Largo and Fairbanks rolled into one! They will have Mangrove Trees in one region and Tundra in another part of the city.
That is because Chicago will become both the new coast city of the Gulf Of Mexico and the southern edge of the Arctic Ice Cap.
A little investigation of would probably reveal names like Jarret, Daley, Rahm, Stroger Axelrod, (the usual suspects) in the mix to benefit in terms $100’s of millions on this hustle. Remember the late CCX? The insiders in that racket walked away with $100’s of millions? AGW is a grfters dream.
http://hereticjournal.com/?p=421
With the Democrats importing trees from down south wouldn’t those be considered invasive species?
I guess since they goy dissed buy the Olympic committee and missed out on that cash cow they’ve moved onto ‘greener’ pastures.