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GOOD NEWS FROM KANSAS –"GROUND ZERO" FOR CLIMATE CHANGE APOCALYPSE

(Arlington, VA — April 15, 1999) Arizona State University climatologist and Greening Earth Society science advisor Robert C. Balling in a new report reviews Kansas temperature and precipitation data going back a century and reports "Good News In the Heartland."

In the summer drought of 1988 when "global warming" first surfaced in the popular media as a consequence of NASA scientist James Hansen’s testimony to Congress, Kansas and the Great Plains were featured as "ground zero" in the anticipated climate apocalypse. Time magazine featured Planet Earth as its "Man of the Year" and the PBS documentary "After the Warming" focused on parched crops and devastating drought in America’s breadbasket. Balling’s review of mean annual temperature and precipitation from 1895 to 1998 shows no change between 1895 and 1915, a highly significant warming from 1915 to 1935 (before the dramatic increase in US fossil fuel use), and a slight cooling from 1935 to 1998. "Despite the increase in greenhouse gases over the past half century and the predictions of climate models for substantial warming," Balling writes, "Kansas has cooled a bit rather than warmed!"

Balling also computed the linear change in temperature for each month from 1895 to 1998 and found cooling in January, August, September and November, with statistically significant long-term warming limited to February. "Given that February temperatures in Kansas average less than 33°F, it is highly doubtful that residents of the state would be upset to learn that a small warm-up has occurred in this one month," Balling comments.

Elsewhere in his report, Balling says that a plot of annual precipitation variability from year-to-year shows a small upward drift over the 104 years of record. Finally, a plot of the Palmer Drought Severity Index for Kansas reflects the adversity of the Dust Bowl era, over the entire period it shows a slight trend to more moist conditions.

Balling concludes, "Kansas is a speck on the surface of the earth covering only 0.1 percent of the planet’s total area. The state is largely rural and therefore the urban heat island problems should be at a minimum. Kansas is located in the heart of a continent where greenhouse warming should be pronounced according to the numerical climate models. Also, there is no large sulfate emission source upwind to reduce the warming. Despite the predictions for warming and more droughts, Kansas has seen a cooling over the past half century, no change in precipitation, and a slight trend away from drought."

This is a second "special report" prepared by Balling for Greening Earth Society. It has been preceded by four ASU Climate Data Task Force studies and another special report released in November 1998. Balling’s first study analyzed trends in United States "heating and cooling degree days" between 1950 and 1995. According to Balling, no statistically significant trends over the period of study could be detected. That study led to the formation of the ASU Climate Data Task Force and Greening Earth Society’s research grant to the university.

The previous ASU Climate Task Force report ("Listening to the Pines") was released last month and showed a warming of 0.10°C per decade in northern Arizona that, over the entire 1,437-year record, appears to be "an inconsequential twist in the long road of temperature changes in the region.". The first ("20^th Century Temperatures Atop Mt. Washington") found no change in the sixty-year annualized mean, maximum or minimum temperatures recorded at Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The second ("View of Arctic Temperatures from Drifting Ice") found no warming in the 37-year record of temperature data gathered at Arctic manned sea-ice stations operated by the Soviet Union between 1954 and 1990, and a slight, though statistically insignificant, cooling of annual mean temperature. The third ("A Climate Gift from Rothamsted") examined one of the longest-running and continuous temperature records in the world (121 years) from the Rothamsted Experimental Station near Harpenden in southeastern England. That study revealed early, benign warming in that the bulk of warming took place at night and in winter with almost all of the detected warming (92.5%) taking place before 1950, which is before the exponential rise in greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use.

Under the research agreement with ASU, the results can be submitted for peer-review in the major journals on climatology. The effort will also be a source of continuing information for use by Greening Earth Society in World Climate Report and at the website (http://www.greeningearthsociety.org) to keep GES members abreast of developments in the science of climate change."

The yearlong survey of available ground temperature datasets will use disparate, worldwide official climate data repositories and national meteorological centers, expanding the search to include other institutions, as necessary.

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