EPA Disappears More Inconvenient Climate Data, Including the 1930s U.S. Dust Bowl

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brought back its Climate Change Indicator’s platform last week under the new Biden administration. In the new web presentation, EPA has simply disappeared data that was inconvenient to the narrative that humans are causing dangerous climate change. By not presenting the full historical data-set EPA previously showed, the agency is misleading the public by playing fast and loose with climate facts. Climate Realism first demonstrated this Biden administration data disappearing act in our report National Fire Center Disappears ‘Inconvenient’ U.S. Wildfire Data.

Now the EPA is doing the same thing – erasing important historic temperature data. EPA has deleted its earlier web page Climate Change Indicators: High and Low Temperature and replaced it with a new one. Previously, they showed the U.S. Heat Wave Index from 1895 to 2015 that clearly established the unique drought and heat period of the 1930s.

Fortunately, the Internet never forgets, and as recently as May 1^st, 2021, the original EPA page was archived on the Internet, as shown as Figure 1.

Note in Figure 1 that there is a very prominent spike of temperatures during the 1930s during the so-called “dust bowl” period in United States history. According to the National Weather Service,

“The “Dust Bowl” years of 1930-36 brought some of the hottest summers on record to the United States, especially across the Plains, Upper Midwest and Great Lake States. For the Upper Mississippi River Valley, the first few weeks of July 1936 provided the hottest temperatures of that period, including many all-time record highs.

The string of hot, dry days was also deadly. Nationally, around 5000 deaths were associated with the heat wave.”

That long-standing heat wave index chart has now been replaced by a new chart which simply “disappears” any notion of the great heat wave period of the 1930s. The EPA erased the previous data, substituting data more favorable to an alarmist narrative, as Figure 2 below shows.

The EPA has also added another new page Climate Change Indicators: Heat Waves that does not even contain the 1930s “dust bowl.” Instead, EPA’s report starts in the 1960s, a low-point for heatwaves in the 20^th century, as seen in Figure 3. By starting the new graphs in the 1960s, rather than using all the available data back to 1895, EPA ensures a positive and uninterrupted upward trend in heat waves.

On a positive note, the EPA has retained the original page, Climate Change Indicators: Drought seen in Figure 4, which remains the same and shows no worsening drought trend in the United States. Given the recent changes EPA’s other charts, this non-alarming drought chart is probably short-lived on EPA’s webpage.

At the outset of its Climate Change Indicator’s page EPA makes some demonstrably false statements

“The Earth’s climate is changing. Temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and more extreme climate events – like heavy rainstorms and record high temperatures – are already happening. Many of these observed changes are linked to the rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, caused by human activities.”

The decision to erase weather and climate data history makes it clear EPA’s opening argument is weak, based on cherry picking data that only agrees with their premise.

It appears that we have entered the Soviet style era of “disappearing” charts and data. If the EPA’s new Climate Change Indicators Series is any indication of the future government climate reports, it appears we are now entering the era of the “Biden inconvenient climate data purge.”