Anyone reading the latest Associated Press article in the Tennessean titled "State follows world with warmer temperatures" might be led to believe that our beautiful state is turning into one giant oven. The article, which claims that Tennessee cities are "hotter than normal," is based on information and statistics provided by a political organization based in Washington, D.C. So, yes, I was a bit skeptical when reading the findings.
For starters, we must acknowledge that the organization providing the information, Clear the Air, has a mission. And that mission is to convince the masses that global warming does exist and that it is probably caused by people driving around in SUVs. The conclusion is formed by the organization before the stats are ever gathered. All that is left for Clear the Air to do is to find figures and use them in a way that makes their desired conclusion a statistical reality.
Certainly, the stats used in the "study" are by no means falsified. They are factually correct. In fact, I used the same exact source for my research. But as the old saying goes: Statistics don't lie, statisticians do. And as far as this study goes, the
statisticians are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
The first thing I wondered is why the study only used figures from between 1961-1990 when figures were available from as early as 1871 and as late as 2004. If a point is to provide proof for long-term global heating patterns, it makes sense to include as much data as possible. It took only a little research to figure out why the study reduced their findings to a 40-year period. Though the organization studied many cities, I reduced my research to the city of Nashville.
According to the study, the average 11-month temperature for Nashville in 2005 was 72.9 degrees, compared to a 71.5 average in the fairly limited study period of 1961-1990. This counts for a 1.4 degree jump in 2005, providing evidence that Nashville, according to the study, is indeed getting hotter.
But why didn't Clear the Air include the 1950s in its study, or any other earlier decade for that matter? Simply put, the 1950s was just too hot of a decade and would have increased the average temperature of their study period, thus making the results proving drastic warming far less staggering. In fact, between 1952-1956 the average high temperature in
Nashville was 73.9 degrees, making that 5-year span in the fifties 1 degree hotter than 2005 and 2.4 degrees hotter than the 1961-1990 period, all before "global warming" really started to kick in. Since then, no five-year period in Nashville has come even close to being as hot as that period some fifty years ago.
In addition, I figured that if global warming really were coming to Nashville, and everywhere else, then at the very least the summers would be hotter than normal in the 2000s than they were in the 1900s, and certainly hotter than they were in the 1800s.
So I researched the statistics for the hottest mean temperatures in Nashville since 1871 during the months of June, July, and August. Researchers for Clean the Air might be surprised to learn that the 10 hottest summers for Nashville during that period all happened before 1961, the convenient starting point for their study. Despite covering just a 30 year period, 5 of Nashville's hottest summers came in the 1800s. One would think with all this heating, our summers would at least be hotter than they were some 100 years ago. But they aren't.
While 2005 saw Nashville's 14th hottest summer on record, It
came in a tie with 1921. This is hardly an indication of long-term heating patterns. Global warming is not supposed to be a one year phenomenon. Comparably, 2004 registered one of the coolest summers to date, coming in very low as just the 122nd warmest summer out of the 135-year test period. 2003 popped in at #109, also one of the coolest summers in Nashville history.
While news sources release data compiled by organizations with an undeniable bias, questionable data usage, and a predetermined goal, a balanced assessment of the situation is nowhere to be seen. There are literally thousands of statistics available on weather patterns. So many, in fact, that I can select any set I choose and prove any end result I want. I could probably prove that the earth is actually cooling, not warming, and blame a lack of SUV drivers as the main culprit. But then, that would make me no different from the global warming activists.
D.M. Hawkins is a columnist and social commentator living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the Editor and Publisher of The Capitol Hill Journal (www.capitolhilljournal.com).