From Al’s Journal, some seriously dysfunctional thinking using props he doesn’t understand. Al brings attention to the fact that at Washington Reagan National Airport some tarmac asphalt got soft on a hot day, and the tires sunk into it a bit…making it a monumental event in his world of “weather is now climate”context.

Al Gore writes:

So Hot the Asphalt is Melting July 13, 2012 : 2:53 PM

Sustained high temperatures from this year’s record-breaking heat wave caused an unusual disruption at Washington’s Reagan-National Airport. The Washington Post reports: “Things were proceeding normally Friday evening as a US Airways flight was leaving the gate at Reagan National Airport to begin its flight to Charleston, S.C. “But the temperature reached 100 degrees in Washington on Friday and that apparently softened the airport paving enough to immobilize the airplane. The small vehicle that usually tows planes away from the gate tugged and pulled, but the plane was stuck.” . . . “It was “pretty rare,” Mohr said. But then, she noted, “we’ve also had very unusual temperatures.”

Asphalt softening and rutting is something that happens at many traffic intersections around the world where cars idle in high temperature. It is a common occurrence.

High temperatures soften the asphalt binder, allowing heavy tire loads to deform the pavement into ruts. Paradoxically, high heat and strong sunlight also causes the asphalt to oxidize, becoming stiffer, less resilient and cracking. Cold temperatures can cause cracks as the asphalt contracts. Cold asphalt is also less resilient and more vulnerable to cracking. Source: Asphalt concrete degradation and restoration

Here’s an example from the Oregon Department of Transportation via Oregon State University:

The ASOS weather station at Reagan National Airport is right on the asphalt. That makes it the worst of the worst when it comes to station siting.

And Dr. James Hansen’s NASA GISS uses that very station in climate trend analysis, as seen here from their database:

Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425724050000&data_set=12&num_neighbors=1

Here’s Washington National Airport temperature data again (in blue), but this time plotted along with nearby neighboring stations within 40 km:

Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425724050000&data_set=12&num_neighbors=4

Given the growth of Washington DC and the airport itself, is it any surprise that it is the hottest station in the area? From Indur Goklany’s essay: The Highest Temperature Reading Doesn’t Necessarily Mean a Record Hot Day:

This is what Reagan National Airport looks like in the present.

Figure 1: Photograph from 2011. At left foreground is the Jefferson Monument. Behind it on the other side of the river, with the plane hovering over it is Reagan National Airport. Note the development, Crystal City, on the right hand side, also on the other side of the river.

But here is a photograph that shows us what this area look like a few decades ago.

Figure 2: This picture, taken in 1942, shows the Jefferson Monument under construction. There is no Crystal City on the right, nor is there any Reagan National Airport. In fact, as one can see, that area was still being filled in. In the 19th century, the area occupied by the Memorial and adjacent land was also water, since much of this is also filled-in land.

Remember this quote from airline spokesperson Michelle Mohr?

“It was “pretty rare,” Mohr said. But then, she noted, “we’ve also had very unusual temperatures.”

Well…no. What is even funnier, is that the 100°F temperature that day wasn’t even a record high:

Source: http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDCA/2012/7/6/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA&theprefset=SHOWMETAR&theprefvalue=1&MR=1

I think the only thing that’s soft here is Al Gore’s argument.

h/t to Tom Nelson for Al’s comment

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