Heat Wave of 1930

Still holding down the blog while Portia is in D.C.; she'll have a full report upon her return. She had a layover in Minnesota and said it was hot there, which goes along well with this story:

Apparently 1930 was a sweltering year for heat waves. So where does this fit in with Al Gore's global warming theory? Not very well.

People sweltering from a heat wave in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. might find cold comfort in the fact that the temperatures of the past few days are not the hottest on record. That "honor" belongs to a summer 76 years ago -- decades before the controversy over "man-made global warming" began.

"From June 1 to August 31, 1930, 21 days had high temperatures that were 100 degrees or above" in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, Patrick Michaels, senior fellow for environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Cybercast News Service. "That summer has never been approached, and it's not going to be approached this year."

There are other more practical factors explaining why cities are getting hotter.

"Big cities are getting warmer -- with or without global warming -- because the bricks and the buildings and the pavement retain heat," Michaels added. For that reason, he prefers to compare temperatures in nearby rural areas. "There's been very little change" in those areas, "so we trust the record to be a reliable indicator of base climate."

Unfortunately Pat Robertson is now a "convert".

Although the recent heat wave have not convinced Michaels that "global warming" is a severe problem, it was apparently enough to make a "convert" out of conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson.

"We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels," Robertson said during his "700 Club" broadcast on Thursday. The high temperatures in some regions of the U.S. East are "the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time," he added.

Tip: Drudge