New Website To Replace Shuttered Climate.gov Thrives, But Can It Continue On A Long-Term Volunteer Basis?

A group of scientists have created climate.us to replace
a climate change information website to replace 
the federal website that the Trump administration
shut down so they can continue to deny that climate
change. So far. climate.us. seems quite popular

Our government does not work on our behalf. Under Trump, it's all about pleasing the billionaire class, along with associated scammers, criminals and such. 

So anything that is potentially helpful does not come from the federal government. 

So, we have to go around them. Canada, fed up with Donald Trump's constant verbal attacks and tariffs, is just creating new trade agreements with other nations and ignoring the United States. 

It's the same with information. Which takes us to a new website, climate.us.

Before the Trump goons took over, a NOAA-run website called climate.gov was a fantastic go-to place for climate information and the latest climate science. 

Climate science is, to steal from Al Gore's long ago book, an inconvenient truth to fossil fuel interests. Since Trump loves his billionaire fossil fuel buddies, so we can't have information on climate change lying around, can we?

So, Trump's administration shut down climate.gov's day to day operations last year. And big layoffs got rid of those pesky federal climate scientists who insisted fossil fuels were the problem. Gawd, science is so annoying!

Speaking o which, you can't keep climate scientists and climate information down. So in late June, the web site climate.us suddenly start to grace the internet. 

"Trusted climate information should not disappear when politics change," said Rebecca Lindsey, Managing Director of Climate.us."Climate.us is building an independent, durable platform so people can continue to find the data  and information they need to understand and talk about climate, and to teach, report, plan, prepare and make informed decisions."

The reborn climate web site restored the old Climate.gov's 15-year collection of climate news and stories, expert analysis, maps, data, classroom material and the Fifth National Climate Assessment.

Lindsey had been fired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the infamous DOGE cutbacks of 2025. She had been the lead writer and editor of the she and her team had built over 15 or so years. 

After she lost her job, she worried about all the information on climate.gov and how the science there conflicted with the worldview of Trump and his minions. 

Sure enough, The Trumpsters shut down the web site, hilariously calling the move "restoring gold standard science." 

Climate.gov had been heavily used by educators, policymakers and just interested members of the public. After the shutdown, people who had worked on the climate.gov website met periodically to figure out what could be preserved from the web site. They settled on created an independent, nongovernmental version, which is climate.us, reports Grist. 

Climate.us.is not just an archive. Frequent updates will include new videos, articles, Q&As and other features. "We just try to constantly take the pulse of what scientists say is valuable and important and needs to be talked about and explained,' Lindsey said. 

The web site launched in mid-June and received roughly 800,000 page views, which is pretty good, considering the old NOAA site had about a million views per month. 

The fact that climate.us is popular is also reflected in the funding. Lindsey ad her team crowdsourced $280,000 to get the technical part of the climate site off the ground. 

Volunteer also readily signed up to run climate.us including 80 scientists who are serving as subject matter experts to fact check what the site publishes, NPR reports. An anonymous donor also provided a one-time grant that will keep the site up until at least February, 2027.

Grabbing the content from the old climate.gov, was easy, since it was public information anyway. The technical aspects were harder, including establishing a cost-effective search capability on the site. But it's been done. Where there's a will there's a way. 

It's an example of how we now need to get accurate information from our now very inaccurate government. As NPR reported

"Now we have a lot of expertise outside the government because of so much brain drain from the government, and we can really stand up things. We can have powerful interventions, and (Climate.us), I think is a success story of that," said Gretchen Gehrek a science communicator at the Environmental /da and Governance Initiative, a nonprofit group that works to make information about the environment available to the public. 

It's not just climate.us.  As Grist reports, other groups are trying to take over the tasks that the Trumpsters abandoned: 

"The American Geophysical Union is trying to fill the void where it can. It has launched a global initiative to ensure that environmental datasets are more resilient against threats such as political interference, pulling together a group of 100 experts around the world.

It's also working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading authority on climate science, hosting an academic network that allows U.S. scientists to participate in key international reports even after the Trump administration withdrew from the group. 

Along with the American Meteorological Society, it has also released an invitation for climate manuscripts to maintain the research momentum of what would have been the sixth National Climate Assessment, with plans to eventually publish a special climate collection across different peer-reviewed journals." 

Also, NOAA used to track billion dollar weather and climate disasters. The Trump people ended that program last year. I guess it helped prove climate change is expensive, which we're not supposed know, apparently. 

So, Adam Smith who led the NOAA billion dollar disaster data base, is leading, maintaining and updating the information at the nonprofit Climate Central. Smith is working to take the project further and is working on documenting disasters that cost $100 million or more dating back to 1980.

This isn't a perfect solution. A patchwork of non-profit groups doesn't have the comprehensive presence of the federal government.  Donor money can dry up unpredictably.  But I'm encouraged by the outpouring of scientists who won't shut up, like the Trump regime wants. Science has gotta science, and we are grateful at least somebody isn't lying to us. 

How Shady Social Media Influencers Uses Scary, False Weather Forecasts For Profit

A computer forecast issued on January 23 indicated New
England would be blasted by a historic nor'easter
tonight and tomorrow, February 2/3. Obviously this
will not happen and we will have calm weather instead.
But social media weather "influencers" are using
these scary but false long range forecasts to
scare and mislead the public for fun and profit. 

 That stupid groundhog in Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil, supposedly saw his shadow this morning, and that allegedly means six more weeks of winter. 

The whole thing is silly of course. First of all, up here in Vermont, we're going to have six more weeks of winter no matter what any rodent has to say. And we know a groundhog can't forecast the weather. 

Punxsutawney Phil is a fun little tradition, but that's about it. 

Speaking of long range forecasts, the computer models that forecast two weeks or more in advance have become a problem. 

There's nothing really wrong with the computer models. It's actually how social media weather "influencers" use them to frighten the public to enhance clicks and revenue. 

On social media, I've seen so many dark warnings of storms or cold waves of the century  this year already that if I had a penny for each one, I'd be lounging in my expensive tropical island retreat by now. 

Sadly, if you want to make money online, you scare people. Let's lay the whole scam out:

THE COMPUTER MODELS 

This morning's run of the same model has no storm at 
all in New England. Perhaps the January 23 forecast
was sort of picking up on that storm you see in this 
forecast east of Labrador. On line weather
"influencers" use scary, inaccurate long range
forecasters to scare people for clicks and revenue

If you look at these models, like the American or European that meteorologists refer to, you'll see a string of forecast maps that show storms and fronts and whatnot crisscrossing the U.S., or whatever map location you're looking at. These computer forecasts typically forecast for up to two weeks out. 

The forecast maps in these models for the next couple of days are pretty good, but then they get less and less accurate as you get further and further into the future.

The maps for a week or more into the future should be taken with a big grain of salt.  The specifics are always wrong. The long range forecasts can give you a general idea of the trend in the weather,  but the can't handle things like the placement and strength of storms.  

For example, I've been saying lately in this here blog thingy that we'll have generally cold weather until mid-February, then some sort of change might be in the works. I'm being purposefully vague. 

The computer models have been consistently saying the first half of February will be generally chilly. But future nor'easters and cold fronts a week or more beyond the date the forecast is issued appear and disappearlike puffs of snow in a chilly February breeze. 

A classic example:  On January 23, I could have frightened the pants off of you with an American model forecast that showed what practically looked like the worst, biggest nor'easter EVER in New England that would hit tonight and tomorrow (February 2-3)

The next run of the American model a few hours later on January 23 didn't have much of anything in New England. Since then, the computer models have not been forecasting anything particularly scary around here. 

Sure enough, instead of the Storm of the Century tonight, we're going to have basic normal, boring early February weather.  It'll get down to near 0 degrees tonight with light winds. Tomorrow will be generally sunny and seasonable (highs in the 20s) with light winds. 

So much for most destructive nor'easter in memory. 

 It looks like the computer models on January 23 did manage to sniff out a storm two weeks in advance. But at such a long range, it was way off on location, strength and orientation of the system.  It was probably the nor'easter that hit North Carolina over the weekend. Which is now the nor'easter that tonight will be somewhere east of Labrador, not over New England. 

The long range models sometimes spit out scenarios a week or two down the road that are virtually meteorologically impossible. It's a case of garbage in, garbage out.  They'll predict a storm in the Bahamas that ends up in New York a week later. Or a hurricane that impossibly strengthens over Pennsylvania. The computer models don't have a lot of information to work with in their predictions for something like 10 days from now. So you get off the charts forecasts.

THE HARM

Those boffo, bizarre long range forecasts would just be a source of weird harmless entertainment for strange weather geeks like me. Except now, some of us are putting these horrifying forecasts online for the public to be, well  horrified by. 

Here's an example. North Carolina, and many other areas of the South have had a rough winter so far. North Carolina had a bunch of freezing rain on January 25-26, stopping road travel in parts of the state and cutting power to many. Then, this past weekend, a nor'easter dumped up to 17 inches of snow in eastern parts of the state. That's an area where it's kind of shocking to receive two inches. 

North Carolinians can be forgiven if they desperately want February to turn out to be sunny, warm and pleasant. 

Well, along comes a Facebook account which I won't name that gives us a forecast for insane amounts of snow during the first half of February in North Carolina and elsewhere.  

This forecast has central North Carolina receiving about four and a half feet of snow over the next couple of weeks. Under this scenario, Atlanta, Georgia would receive three feet or so, and snow would once again dust the ground in places like northern Florida and New Orleans. 

The person who posted this wild forecast wrote, "Definitely not my forecast but when fantasy snow keeps showing up there is probably a reason why."

Yeah, the reason was a bad computer run.  This dude needs to just shut up. 

By the way, I've looked up the seven day National Weather Service forecast for Raleigh, North Carolina. Other than a little bit of light rain and perhaps a thin scrim of snow Wednesday and Wednesday night, no stormy weather is in the forecast for at least the next seven days. 

I'm picking on this one particular social media post with the epic North Carolina snow, but there are zillions of them out there. On YouTube, the headline will be "MAJOR STORMS COMING" with AI images of destroyed cities. Then when you click into the video, the narrator finds ways to hype routine weather. 

Not only do these weird, extreme forecasts scare people, it makes the public lose confidence in meteorologists and weather forecasting in general. Maybe this type of scaremongering is feeding the conspiracy theories that somebody is trying to "control the weather" somehow. 

It also encourages the "cry wolf" syndrome. People see so many forecasts of impending doom that turn out to be fabricated. Then, when a bonafide major weather threats finally arrive, people just say, 'Meh, another false alarm.' These false alarms can endanger lives.  

My rants on this aren't going to stop the fear forecasts on line. There's too much money, and too few morals involved.  

But the next time you see a forecast that says your community will be destroyed by the Storm Of The Century in two weeks, relax. Take a deep breath. Find a reliable weather source like the National Weather Service or your local television meteorologist, and just take their word for what's going to happen. 

 

Climate Denialists Use 1930s Heat As A Red Herring

 It seems like every time somebody mentions climate change on social media, some clown will interject "but the 1930s!"

From Berkeley Earth: Maps show how far
above or below the 20th century average
summertime high temperatures were in the
1930s (top) and the period 2013-2022
(bottom). So no, the world was NOT hotter
in the 1930s, despite extreme heat
in central North America. 

That's because many of the worst heat waves in U.S. history happened then. In 14 states, the  hottest temperatures on record came in July, 1936 and those records still stand.  

Many cities in the Great Plains, Midwest and Middle Atlantic States still have all time record highs occurring in the 1930s. 

The denialists are absolutely correct that the heat in the middle of North America as off the charts in the 1930s. 

What the forget to note is most of the rest of the world was relatively cool. They kinda take the "globe" out of global warming. 

They also don't talk about the reasons why those summers were so hot.  Farming practices contributed to the heat. Also, there are natural cycles that will make certain place especially hot or cold, and this will happen with or without climate change.  

The denialists also forget about the fact that there were intensely, record cold winters in the 1930s, and the winter cold was much more widespread than the summer heat. 

DUST BOWL HEAT REASONS

The 1930s brought the Great Depression, which was bad enough, and the famous "Dust Bowl" years. 

The University of Nebraska National Drought Mitigation Center tells us what led to the heat and the Dust Bowl:

"'Boosters of the region, hoping to  promote settlement, put forth glowing but inaccurate accounts of the Great Plains' agricultural potential. In addition to this inaccurate information, most settlers had little moment and few other assets, and their farming experience was based on conditions in the more humid eastern United States, so the crops and cultivation practices they chose were often not suitable for the Great Plains. 

But the earliest settlements occurred during a wet cycle, and the first crops flourished, so settlers were encouraged to continue prices that would later have to be abandoned."

Then, as Yale Climate Connections explains, natural cycles with roots in far away oceans contributed to an intense Great Plains drought from about 1928 to around 1942. 

This cycle encouraged the familiar "heat dome" we so frequently talk about nowadays to set up shop over the middle of North America.  

Those bad agricultural practices created vast expanses of bare soil that absorbed the sun's heat to maximize the sun's heating. That made temperatures soar to unprecedented levels. Those record highs stand to this day. 

The heat was so intense it was able to spread into south-central Canada and the Mid-Atlantic States. But much of the world avoided this disaster, partly because climate change hadn't kicked in yet. 

COOL ELSEWHERE   

Vermont was much like the rest of the world in the 1930s. We sat out the 1930s dust bowl heat. July, 1936 was cooler than normal. Burlington that month only made it to 90 twice, and reached 80 or above just eight days during the entire month. 

July, 1934 was also extremely hot in the Great Plains and other parts of the nation. Not so here in Vermont. July that year in Burlington had close to average temperatures, but the hottest it got all month was one day of 90 degree temperatures. 

Berkeley Earth did a comparison showing how average daily maximum temperatures worldwide during the 1930s compare to "normal" base on 1951-1980.

The maps show central North America was indeed very hot. Much of Europe was on the warm side, too. But vast areas of the world were a little on the cool side during Depression-era summer afternoons. 

If you look at the 1930s based on the whole year, not just the summer, you see that central North America was only barely warmer than average. Intensely cold winters during the 1930s offset those hot summers. 

Meanwhile, the most recent ten year period cited in the data  from 2013 to 2022 shows almost the entire world was warmer than in the 1930s. In many cases much warmer. 

 That climate denial trolls keep citing the 1930s heat in the Great Plains is a classic example of "cherry picking."

As Andrew Kessler and Zeke Hausfather wrote in The Climate Brink last year:

"Cherry picking is a tactic where someone selectively chooses a small portion of a data set that contradicts the conclusion drawn from the entire dataset. This aims to mislead the audience by presenting a distorted picture of reality, leading them to question established facts."

In other words, they're practicing the art of Kellyanne Conway's famous "alternative facts." Another word for all this is gaslighting.

Always look out for that. 

The bottom line: No, the world wasn't hotter in the 1930s. Turns out that's a pants on fire lie.