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Florida: It’s Hot But Don’t Blame Global Warming
Roger Pielke Sr has featured an interesting article from ‘Florida Trend’ magazine on his climate science weblog entitled: ‘It’s Hot But Don’t Blame Global Warming’ Some Florida cities are getting hotter, but the evolution has more to do with bulldozers and pavement than global warming.
The article features Florida State University emeritus professor Morton D. Winsberg:
With help from geography students and researchers at FSU’s Population Center and Florida Climate Center, Winsberg and co-author Melanie Simmons gathered and analyzed temperature data from 57 Florida weather stations going back six decades.
Their research showed that the hot season in Florida has gotten a lot hotter — and longer — in some places, but not at all in others. The change, however, is unrelated to global warming, the increase in the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. Rather, they found, it’s a function of the lesser-known phenomenon of local warming. The analysis “shows that weather can be very local,” says Winsberg, “and also that weather can be a function of population growth.”
Winsberg found the most notable climate changes along the state’s southeastern coast, where development and wetlands drainage have been heaviest. In most areas he analyzed, the heat is getting more intense. Of the 57 weather stations, 49 saw an increase in the number of days with an average temperature of 80 degrees. When it came to the length of the hot season, the biggest increase was in Hialeah, with a 72-day increase, followed by Miami, with a 45-day increase……
August 26th, 2009 at 4:28 am
While I do believe in Global Warming, sometimes there are other factors. I know that, yet, sometimes I’m disappointed because I know big businesses will use research like this to try to prove that global warming doesn’t exist at all.