Heat In 1936 Vs Now: Yes, Middle America Was Hotter Then, But World Toastier Now

People sleep on the Statehouse Lawn in Lincoln,
Nebraska during July, 1936. During the intense heat,
when nobody had air conditioning, houses were 
too hot to sleep in. 

There's been so much in the news media, including in this here blog thingy, about the intense heat waves that have engulfed huge swaths of the northern hemisphere this summer. 

It's pretty clear that climate change has influenced most of these hot spells. Climate change hasn't necessarily caused them, but probably made them worse than they otherwise would be. 

The climate change denial camp uses a variety of tactics to dismiss climate change. The one that seems to be the go to method among the denialists this summer is whataboutism. 

Anytime somebody has a big heat wave, you're sure to hear, "Yeah, but what about the great heat of (insert your year here). 

 Never mind that all time record high temperatures have been set from China to Great Britain. And many other nations have seen these all time highs. 

A couple weeks ago,  temperatures in Great Britain reached 40C (104F) for the first in history.  The fossil fuel fans came back with, "What about 1976?"  Great Britain had a terrible heat wave that year that did last long than this year's but wasn't nearly as hot. So that failed.

The favorite whataboutism this year seems to be "What about 1936?" I've been hearing chatter lately from people who say this hot summer in the northern hemisphere is no big deal.

The denialists will tell you that the 1936 heat wave was worse.  The denial argument always has some truth, but always lacks context and explanation. 

It's very true that the 1936 heat wave in large swaths of the United States was much worse than anything we're experiencing this summer. Or any summer for that matter. 

Map compares summertime temperatures in
the 1930s vs. summertime temperatures in 
the 2010s.  Blue areas were hotter in the 
1930s, red areas were hotter in the 2010s.
Image from Twitter from climate 
scientist @AndrewDessler 

At present, 23 states still list their all time high temperatures as occurring in the 1930s, most of those in 1936. That was quite a summer, for sure. Way up near the Canadian border, North Dakota saw a whopping temperature of 121 degrees. Kansas also had an afternoon that hot. A town in Wisconsin hit 114 degrees.

But for the world as a whole, the summer of 1936 was much chillier than anything we're experiencing now. 

In fact, some corners of the United States were kind of chilly in the summer of 1936. Just for fun, I looked up the weather in the summer of 1936 here in Vermont. Not a warm summer. At all. 

The heat dome of 1936 was centered over the middle of the United States. We were northeast of that dome, which meant the Green Mountain State has a steady stream of cool air on a northwest flow from Canada. 

In June of that year, Burlington only went as high as 85 degrees for the entire month. On June 30, 1936, the early morning temperature in Burlington was 42 degrees, which still stands as the record low for that date. 

While much of the rest of the nation baked that July, Burlington could only muster a brief modest warm spell that peaked at 91 degrees on July 8.  During what is normally the hottest portion of July, the temperature failed to even reach 80 degrees for 13 straight days from July 13 through July 27. August was also on the cool side.

But that's just one corner of the world.' You can't just cherry pick one dot on the map. 

An analysis done recently compared the hottest temperatures across the globe in 1936 compared to the hottest months of the 2010s.

Areas shaded in blue on their map, which you can see in this post, are areas that were hotter in 1936 than the 2010s.  The only areas hotter in 1936 were the central United States, south central Canada, and very small areas of central Europe, eastern China and western Africa. 

Meanwhile, almost the entire world came in hotter in the 2010s than in 1936.

The 1936 U.S.heat wave was borne of man made factors that had nothing to do with climate change. It did hit the United States hard. 

As Matthew Cappucci wrote in the Washington Post last month:

"Years of land mismanagement and unsustainable farming techniques degraded topsoil, which killed native species of grass that trapped soil moisture. The result? Unshakeable drought and rolling dust storms that could travel hundreds of miles and turn day into night."

That lack of soil moisture meant the air didn't have much humidity in it either. Very dry air warms up much more quickly than humid air.  That meant that temperatures could really soar. 

Nowadays, land management is much better. Though, as we've seen this spring and summer, dust storms and wildfires are again raging across pretty good sized swaths of the Great Plains. 

However, there's more vegetation now. That adds humidity to the air. Humid air can't heat up as efficiently as dry air. You could argue, though, that current conditions are almost as uncomfortable as 1936. Temperatures are a little higher, but humidity is much higher. 

In Iowa, vast crop fields produce what's known as "corn sweat" that makes the air ultra humid. You can get days in Iowa with temperatures in the mid 90s and a dew point of around 80 degrees. That translates to a heat index of 115 degrees. Such dew points are usually limited to tropical areas. 

The Dust Bowl years are instructive for us now, in the age of climate change. Heat waves are coming closer and closer, and even occasionally exceeding the temperatures we saw back in the 1930s. Droughts are more common now, it seems, especially in the central and southern Plains. It could be just a matter of time when current generations experience the same thing their grandparents and great grandparents experienced 90 years ago.