Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[WolfStock1]

Funny the Florida example should come up.  U-Haul just came out with their annual migration index the other day:

https://www.uhaul.com/About/Migration/

Florida is the #2 growth state, with 8 of the top 10 and 12 of the top 25 growth metros.

Lots of people committing suicide, I guess.

(in case anyone's wondering - Texas is the #1 state and California is #50)

 

 

[ChescoWx]

Some folks had asked me to perform an analysis of both the Winter and Summer Average Temperature by Complete Decades for just here in Chester County from the 1900's thru the 2010's. You will see the very cyclical nature of our warming and cooling patterns. Overall, we have seen some slight warming of winters and conversely some cooling of our summers across Chester County PA. The warmest decade for both summers and winters was way back in the 1930's. Of note so far here in the partial decade of the 2020's we are so far running as the warmest winter decade since the 1930's!! However, last winter was the coldest winter in 10 years and we are off to a colder than normal start to this winter so we will wait and see if this is the start of the next cooling trend across the County. These are also updated on the http://www.chescowx.com website. Let me know if you have any questions.

[chubbs]

Large increase in 0-2000m ocean heat content last year. NOAA data through mid-year also shows a large increase.

[WolfStock1]

32 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Large increase in 0-2000m ocean heat content last year. NOAA data through mid-year also shows a large increase.

 

Request - whenever providing data like this, please provide a link to the source.

[bluewave]

 

Brian McNoldy

 

‪@bmcnoldy.bsky.social‬

 

Follow

The average water level measured at Virginia Key (near #Miami) set a new monthly record high in October, which is also the new *all-time* record high month. I also feel confident that it was the highest monthly water level there since the last interglacial period... ~120,000 years ago.

 

ALT

 

ALT

8:12 AM · Nov 2, 2025

Everybody can

[chubbs]

1 hour ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Request - whenever providing data like this, please provide a link to the source.

http://www.ocean.iap.ac.cn/pages/dataService/dataService.html?languageType=en&navAnchor=dataService

[chubbs]

54 minutes ago, bluewave said:

 

Brian McNoldy

 

‪@bmcnoldy.bsky.social‬

 

Follow

The average water level measured at Virginia Key (near #Miami) set a new monthly record high in October, which is also the new *all-time* record high month. I also feel confident that it was the highest monthly water level there since the last interglacial period... ~120,000 years ago.

 

ALT

 

ALT

8:12 AM · Nov 2, 2025

Everybody can

Sea level rise is accelerating along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Here are Savannah and Cape May for instance. Data available at link below.

https://psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/395.php

Savannah

Cape May

[Typhoon Tip]

https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ocean-temperatures-high.html

[bluewave]

On 1/8/2026 at 7:20 AM, chubbs said:

Yes impressive cold in Alaska and Yukon. Cool here in Philly also. Our coolest December since 2010. 

The shrinking Northern Hemisphere cold pool is leading to these Arctic outbreaks covering a smaller geographic region than they used to. 
 

 

[chubbs]

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ocean-temperatures-high.html

A chart from the technical paper shows that the rate of ocean warming is increasing. Note that data is from a number of sources including satellite net radiation measurements.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-026-5876-0

 

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

Sea level rise is accelerating along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Here are Savannah and Cape May for instance. Data available at link below.

https://psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/395.php

Savannah

Cape May

Significant increase in high tide or sunny day flooding across the areas in Florida which have experienced the greatest sea level rise.

https://southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/initiative/climate-indicators-high-tide-flooding/

[Brewbeer]

20 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Here's another thing - Miami/Dade population:

2000: 2.259M

2010:  2.507M

2020: 2.696M

2024: 2.838M 

Funny how people seem to want to move *to* this area that supposedly has all these flood problems.   They apparently haven't gotten the news about the sky falling.

(BTW - I used to live in the area, and visit Florida regularly - I know what it's like.   The sky is not falling.)

I wouldn't propose that flooding won't be more frequent there - it will.   I'm just saying it's not some kind of life-threatening - or even lifestyle-threatening - thing.  It just means that over time (we're talking centuries here, not years or even decades) new things need to be built on slightly higher ground and/or with more sea walls in low-lying historic areas.   It's not that hard.   Dealing with it will certainly be a lot less disruptive than the sudden worldwide loss of fossil fuels required to prevent it.

 

 

Lies.

It's not "constant" as the 5-year old image in the post claims, both the frequency and intensity have been increasing, and the rate of change is accelerating. 

I imagine if you aren't being personally affected, it's easier to internally justify "nothing to see here"

19 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

Florida is the #2 growth state, with 8 of the top 10 and 12 of the top 25 growth metros.

Lots of people committing suicide, I guess.

hot take

19 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

(in case anyone's wondering - Texas is the #1 state and California is #50)

this pretty clearly indicates you have a political agenda, and because of that, your postings on this topic can be summarily dismissed 

[tacoman25]

32 minutes ago, Brewbeer said:

hot take

this pretty clearly indicates you have a political agenda, and because of that, your postings on this topic can be summarily dismissed 

That makes things easier, huh? But was he wrong?

[WolfStock1]

4 hours ago, Brewbeer said:

Lies.

It's not "constant" as the 5-year old image in the post claims, both the frequency and intensity have been increasing, and the rate of change is accelerating. 

I imagine if you aren't being personally affected, it's easier to internally justify "nothing to see here"

hot take

this pretty clearly indicates you have a political agenda, and because of that, your postings on this topic can be summarily dismissed 

 

Talk about political agenda - you love twisting everything that doesn't fit your narrative, don't you?

There is no claim that there hasn't been an increase in the frequency of flooding in Miami.   The "constant" just refers to the fact that Miami has experienced flooding all along - i.e. it's not something new to them; and therefore people who live there have to know how to deal with it.   

(As a tangible example of this - I recently rented a house on a Florida island that had recently experienced some hurricane flooding.  The owner had recently done a couple of things - installed 2' stainless steel flood barriers in the doorways, and raised the output of the dryer from 6" off the ground to 4' off the ground.   The barriers were already in place before the flooding; the dryer output thing got done after the flooding; apparently water got in there, though generally the house was fine.)

It's noteworthy that you ignored the actual point and data presented, in your dismissal of my information based on my "political agenda".    That's pretty typical of doomers I suppose - put your hands over your ears, shut your eyes, and ignore anything that doesn't fit your narrative, rather than presenting a counter-argument.

[WolfStock1]

6 hours ago, chubbs said:

http://www.ocean.iap.ac.cn/pages/dataService/dataService.html?languageType=en&navAnchor=dataService

 

Thanks.

[TheClimateChanger]

So I've been working on a new concept I call "climate analog pairs" and basically it looks to pair a location's current climate with a late 20th century climate of another location hundreds of miles south. I actually think it's more intuitive going in the opposite direction. As a millennial, you may want to determine where you can locate the climate of your childhood. Unfortunately, it's no longer going to be in your hometown but rather hundreds of miles north of your hometown. I think this is a better way of looking at climate change - rather than saying its warmed a couple of degrees, one could say instead it's warmed so much that the local climate has been replaced with the late 20th century climate conditions 200 miles south of here. Here's the thread where I explain the concept and then address a couple of anticipated objections.

Any thoughts?

 

[WolfStock1]

24 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

So I've been working on a new concept I call "climate analog pairs" and basically it looks to pair a location's current climate with a late 20th century climate of another location hundreds of miles south. I actually think it's more intuitive going in the opposite direction. As a millennial, you may want to determine where you can locate the climate of your childhood. Unfortunately, it's no longer going to be in your hometown but rather hundreds of miles north of your hometown. I think this is a better way of looking at climate change - rather than saying its warmed a couple of degrees, one could say instead it's warmed so much that the local climate has been replaced with the late 20th century climate conditions 200 miles south of here. Here's the thread where I explain the concept and then address a couple of anticipated objections.

Any thoughts?

 

 

From the way you describe it seems like your premise is that the climate (temperature in this case) is just a straight north-south gradient (?) and without seasonality.    There are lots of places of course where the climate gets colder as you go south (e.g. into mountains); also it depends on the season - in many areas it gets hotter as you go north in the summer, but colder when you follow the same path in the winter.   This is typical for instance as you move away from oceanside areas.

E.g. Tampa's average peak high is 91 degrees, but if you go north to Tallahassee the average peak high is 93 degrees.    But Tallahassee gets a lot colder than Tampa in the winter.   So when shifting via warming the climate analog not only shifts around from season to season, but could even flip north/south depending on the location.

That said -  you could certain find some "pairs" of similar locations to do what you said.   It just wouldn't work for a lot of locations.

[TheClimateChanger]

1 minute ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

From the way you describe it seems like your premise is that the climate (temperature in this case) is just a straight north-south gradient (?) and without seasonality.    There are lots of places of course where the climate gets colder as you go south (e.g. into mountains); also it depends on the season - in many areas it gets hotter as you go north in the summer, but colder when you follow the same path in the winter.   This is typical for instance as you move away from oceanside areas.

E.g. Tampa's average peak high is 91 degrees, but if you go north to Tallahassee the average peak high is 93 degrees.    But Tallahassee gets a lot colder than Tampa in the winter.   So when shifting via warming the climate analog not only shifts around from season to season, but could even flip north/south depending on the location.

 

Obviously, you want to find pairs that aren't drastically different in elevation. I would not agree that "many areas it gets hotter as you go north in the summer" - that may be the case for the Florida peninsula, but mean summertime temperature changes are still largely consistent with latitudinal changes for the bulk of the continental US, even if the gradient is somewhat reduced. Again, obviously, excluding higher elevated locations to the south where the elevation induces cooling.

[TheClimateChanger]

10 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Obviously, you want to find pairs that aren't drastically different in elevation. I would not agree that "many areas it gets hotter as you go north in the summer" - that may be the case for the Florida peninsula, but mean summertime temperature changes are still largely consistent with latitudinal changes for the bulk of the continental US, even if the gradient is somewhat reduced. Again, obviously, excluding higher elevated locations to the south where the elevation induces cooling.

Here's another example of a pairing. This subforum spends a disproportionate amount of time discussing Chester County, PA. So I decided to locate a pair for the small town of Avondale, Pennsylvania. And if you look at the data, it's very similar to Warrenton, Va. of the late 20th century, over the past 10 years. And these two sites are acceptable pairs because they are both small towns on the edge of large metro areas, at similar elevation, and in a similar location relative to the coast.

 

[WolfStock1]

I like the idea, though when presenting I wouldn't be so specific.   It wouldn't just be for millennials of course; it would be interesting for us Gen Xers as well  (thus allow for longer-term data if you can).   Also I wouldn't state "look to find a location hundreds of miles south" - that makes it look like you're purposely biasing the data; instead perhaps just "look to find a location that most closely matches the location of childhood" and the the user come to their own conclusions (typically they would find it some distance north/south; depending on whether looking back to childhood from a given location or looking forward to present from a given childhood location).

[chubbs]

2 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

So I've been working on a new concept I call "climate analog pairs" and basically it looks to pair a location's current climate with a late 20th century climate of another location hundreds of miles south. I actually think it's more intuitive going in the opposite direction. As a millennial, you may want to determine where you can locate the climate of your childhood. Unfortunately, it's no longer going to be in your hometown but rather hundreds of miles north of your hometown. I think this is a better way of looking at climate change - rather than saying its warmed a couple of degrees, one could say instead it's warmed so much that the local climate has been replaced with the late 20th century climate conditions 200 miles south of here. Here's the thread where I explain the concept and then address a couple of anticipated objections.

Any thoughts?

 

Here's a study from a few years back with a similar goal. How far will my climate shift in the future.   

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190212120044.htm

https://www.umces.edu/futureurbanclimates