"The Dust Bowl as memorably written about by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath, and photographed by numerous photographers. Droughts today, caused by global warming, are creating similar conditions in the Great Plains. 'If the drought holds on for two or three more years, as droughts have in the past, we will have Dust Bowl conditions in the farming belt,' Craig Cox, an agriculture and natural resources expert with the Environmental Working Group, told Scientific American."
Indeed, back in November 2012, Melissa Gaskill authored a piece at Scientific American
claiming that "climate change threatens long-term sustainability of Great Plains" because "rising temperatures, persistent drought and depleted aquifers on the southern Great Plains could set the stage for a disaster similar to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s." As Gaskill wrote, "North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado [are] where drought is expected to persist or intensify in the foreseeable future."
The reality is that drought-like conditions simply are not getting worse over time throughout much of the Great Plains, and so this round of climate hysteria is unjustified. The statewide annual
drought index (PDSI) exhibits no significant trend since records began in 1895 for North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming and Colorado, and in Montana there has been no significant trend in the PDSI for at least a century. The historical data for this region appears to directly contradict any unqualified concerns that "drought is expected to persist or intensify in the foreseeable future" due to anthropogenic climate change.
Long-term severe droughts have all but disappeared over the past few decades in states such as North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Even the current long-term drought in Texas -- which
appears to be weakening (the percentage of the state in extreme drought or worse is now at only 14 percent, down from 38 percent only three months ago) -- is nowhere near as severe as the one in the 1950s if we use the statewide 60-month PDSI as our metric. Only in Wyoming and Colorado can a potential case be made that long-term severe droughts may be worsening over time, but the trends for these two states are unusual within the Great Plains region as a whole, and thereby simply not representative of what is happening across most of this area.
The Great Plains is a complex region that cycles between dry and wet periods, and significant droughts occur regularly absent any human influences. Despite the alarmist claims, there appears to be no evidence that anthropogenic climate change is generally leading to more persistent or intense droughts across much of the Great Plains.
Over in Michigan, Interlochen Public Radio
interviewed Philip Robertson -- a professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Michigan State University -- about the changing climate in Michigan. According to Robertson, there are more days with temperatures reaching above 95°F in the state. And yet, when I look at the NOAA National Weather Service
database, out of the nine climate regions for the state, four have statistically significant declining -- not increasing -- numbers of days per year above 95°F, and all nine regions have negative -- not positive -- correlations. Even over the last 30 years, there are no significant trends and all but one of Michigan's NOAA-NWS climate regions has a negative correlation towards fewer hot days, not more. Overall, the data unequivocally shows absolutely no sign of an increasing number of days over 95°F anywhere in Michigan, and a clear signal for a century-long decline -- not increase -- in the number of extremely hot days for the state.
Another claim in this uncritical public radio interview was that there has been an increase in the length of the frost-free season for Michigan. As best I can tell, this doesn't appear accurate. Using NOAA-NWS data, it appears that of the nine climate regions in the state, four (the Detroit, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, and Marquette County areas) have significant declining -- not increasing -- trends over the past century, and another three (the Flint, Lansing, and Sault Ste Marie areas) have non-significant trends with negative (declining) correlations. Only the Alpena and Houghton Lake areas have increasing trends towards longer frost-free seasons. In sum, it appears that the general length of the frost-free season in Michigan is decreasing (i.e., getting shorter), not increasing.
The public does need an honest discussion on climate change, and to start, we need scientists to clarify and confirm what are the real trends and which trends are being inaccurately reported by the media. With such an important policy topic, we need to ensure the science is correct and that the public is properly informed. Where public misinformation has occurred, the time must be taken to fully correct the science and then reinform the public. Only after this process has taken place can the public, and their elected representatives, make the correct decision on how to proceed.
