In the Cache Valley Daily newspaper from Logan, Utah -- just north of Salt Lake City, Troy Wilde has an article predicting that average summer maximum temperatures in this region will undergo a massive increase by the year 2100:

Bernadette Woods Placky, a meteorologist with Climate Central, says her organization evaluates the level of current greenhouse gas emissions to project future temperatures.

"The average summer high temperature for Salt Lake City is 88.3 degrees," says Woods Placky. "With these projections, that temperature is going to rise to 99.6 degrees, which is equivalent to the Catalina Foothills in Arizona today. That's an 11 degree temperature rise."

Woods Placky says climate change has been causing temperatures to increase in the U.S. since the 1970s.

Once again, we resort to the raw data to see what is really going on in this area of Utah. Since 1970, there has been no significant trend in average summer high temperatures for the Salt Lake City region.

In fact, if you look back at the historical record in detail, it becomes clear that average summer maximum temperatures in Salt Lake City were about constant from the 1870s to the 1920s, after which they increased rapidly from the 1920s to the 1960s, and there has been no significant trend since the early 1960s.

Thus, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases has increased most rapidly during the timeframe over which Salt Lake City's summer highs changed the least, and increased least rapidly during the period that this region's summer highs changed the most. Isn't that backwards to the mechanistic prediction being made by Climate Central, and which was uncritically reproduced by local media in Utah?

Here is another fly in the climate ointment. The following chart using NOAA's own data shows average summer maximum temperatures for the entire contiguous United States over the past century.

There has been no significant trend whatsoever for the past 100 years and counting, and the 1930s peak hasn't come close to being exceeded in recent years. It is plots like this that show exactly why patience is required, and climate hysteria is not justified.