Limbaugh goes deeper off the deep end on climate

I actually heard part of this today, and wanted to hear more (if only to confirm my level of disdain for the Limblob), but I had things to do and had to turn him off. I occasionally do have the chance to listen to his blatherings, but I can't take the brainless conservative idiots that call in and talk to him, so I usually can him at that point.

But his meandering mistruths are part of the problem with explaining climate change rationally and reasonably; Chris Mooney has been doing an intermittent series on The Intersection on why people believe irrational things over the rational even after the errors of the irrational are explained to them. (Example here.) One of those reasons is that an erroneous position on an issue is more strongly adhered to if that position is aligned with one's sociopolitical beliefs than the correct position, which would be sociopolitically misaligned.

Got all that? Put more simply, if someone you believe in (both personally and positionally) says something boldfacedly wrong, but which supports your core assumptions, you'll believe what was said because you believe and trust the source.

So anyway, what Limbaugh said is that the heat index is a liberal conspiracy to make climate change seem worse than it is.

Oh my. Not as if it might actually help save lives (or at least preserve health) by telling people when conditions are not just oppressively hot outside, they are DANGEROUSLY oppressively hot. Like is happening now where I live (and where a lot of others of us live, too).

I noted a tweet, I think, that Minneapolis-St. Paul set a three-day consecutive dew point record, which, get this -- HAD NEVER EVER HAPPENED BEFORE. EVER. (Confirmation, and some other info, like Minneapolis - St. Paul setting an all-time dewpoint record.)

Note to Rush: Dew point is not a created index. It's a standard meteorological variable.

And people wonder if positive water vapor feedback is a real phenomenon!

So what's the heat index? Here's the answer, Wikipedia style. It was created by a broadcast meteorologist.

Here's the whole thing (which searching the blogs, nobody else has except ME -- and Rush's site, where I got it from:

This heat index, how old do you think that is, folks? How long have you heard about the heat index and what actually is the heat index? Well, I did a little research out there. The heat index was developed in 1978 by George Winterling, and he called it the humiture. It was a combination of the temperature and the humidity, and in 1979 the National Weather Service under Jimmy Carter adopted it. So some guy comes along and says, "You know what, there's a thing called a heat index out there."

"Like the wind chill index, the heat index contains assumptions about the human body mass and height, clothing, amount of physical activity, thickness of blood, sunlight and ultraviolet radiation exposure, and the wind speed. Significant deviations from these will result in heat index values which do not accurately reflect the perceived temperature." So we move forward to today, and I look here at Drudge: "Stifling States of America, DC Heat to 116." Now, I saw that and I said, "Whoa. It's gonna hit 116 degrees in Washington." So I called up all my weather apps, and what I found was this. Today high temperature in Washington, 95. I scratched my head. Then I went to Thursday, 100 degrees. Friday, 103. Saturday it's gonna be 101, Sunday it's gonna be 96, and Monday 93. I don't see 116 here anywhere.

So then I went to the Washington Post, I figure, well, if it's gonna hit 116 degrees in Washington they certainly will have the news. And, lo and behold, they did. Here's the headline: "Shock Forecast: NOAA Predicts Heat Index of 116 in Washington Friday." Not temperature. So the arbitrary, "You're gonna feel like it's 116," but let me ask you, how many of you were anywhere where it was 116 in the last few years, months, to know what 116 feels like? Why not just report the temperature of what it's gonna be? It's gonna be a hundred degrees, it's gonna be 103. That happens every summer in Washington. And now it's gonna be 116! It's gonna be deadly hot, unprecedented heat, 116 heat index. More manipulation. You wait. What's predictably to follow here? Global warming stories.

As there should be, when temperature records are falling right and left. Oh wait -- that's because the weather stations are in the wrong places. Right?

Wrong.