Saturday, June 1, 2024

In Floridas's Heat, a Fountain of Youth

 Children Playing In Sprinkler Stock Photo - Image of outdoors, three ...

 The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal has a photo (not this one) on the front page of some children playing in a sprinkler during the unspeakably agonizing heat Friday in St. Petersburg, FL.

The caption attached reads: "Chill Out: Brothers Chaddon, 4, left, and Chadarion Ellis, 2, of St. Petersburg cool off in the spray of a water jet while visiting the St. Pete Pier on Friday as temperatures rose into the 90s."

One can't help but think that rather than a normal example of summertime childhood behavior, this was more of the media propaganda meant to emphasize the increasing heat that human-caused climate change has plastered over the world.

Looking back in time, at temperature records for St. Pete, we find that in the Ice Age era that included 1964, 60 years ago, the high temperature for June 15 was 98F. On eleven different occasions in June of that year the high reached or exceeded 94F. On June 1 the official high was 90F. It seems very unlikely that the June temperatures on the Florida Gulf Coast are significantly different than they were 60 years ago. 

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