Over at the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota, we are told, "Don't deny climate is changing."

Perhaps this was the most astonishing statement in the opinion piece:

Climate change is happening exponentially ... Extreme facts ... The polar regions have lost unprecedented amounts of ice pack. Sea levels worldwide has risen not in inches, but feet as a result.

Really?  That is indeed an extreme fact.  I wasn't aware that the sea levels around the world had risen in feet rather than inches.

Over at the NASA Global Climate Change website – hardly a climate skeptic database – NASA-GCC states the following:

Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century.

Leaving aside the valid debate over what the actual rate of sea level rise is, and what portion of the rise can be attributed to climate change – particularly anthropogenic climate change – we seem to be a long way from the statement that because of "climate change ... sea levels worldwide has risen not in inches, but feet as a result."  Actually, it appears that at most, climate change has led to sea levels rising by a few inches.

Climate realists often laugh when they read such claims, but the collective impact of such claims over the past couple decades has fueled climate hysteria and the loss of cheap energy and many personal freedoms.  It is time for the mainstream media to report the facts and only the facts.

Also under the climate change "extreme facts" section of this St. Cloud Times opinion article was the following:

Hundreds of people died during a five-day heatwave in Chicago in 1995. The human tragedy was enormous.

The State Climatologist Office for Illinois has released a statement regarding this event:

The really hot weather occurred from July 12 to July 16. The 106º F on July 13th set the record for the warmest July temperature since records began at Midway in 1928.

The NOAA National Weather Service database shows that complete records began at the "CHICAGO MIDWAY AP 3 SW, IL" site in September 1980, not 1928.  Not sure what is going on here.  It should also be noted the State Climatologist Office made no mention of climate change regarding the event, either.

But according to the NOAA-NWS, the Chicago area reached 104º F on July 13, 1995, which was exceeded by 105º F on July 24, 1934.  So we can argue about what was the hottest day in the Chicago region during July since records began, but if we go by the NOAA-NWS records, here are the extreme maximum temperatures for each July dating back for a century.

Not only was that extremely hot day in July 1995 not even a record for the area, but it is not even part of a trend.  The correlation in the extreme maximum temperatures during this month over the last 100 years is negative (cooling), not positive (warming).  Same goes with the correlations since 1970 or over the last three decades – both toward cooling.  That low extreme maximum July temperature in 2009 was the coldest since records began in 1872.

The record for the highest average maximum temperature during July in Chicago was 1955 at 91.5º F.  By comparison, 1995 was only 88.0º F – ranked only 8^th highest.  The correlations since 1970 and 1985 have been toward cooling.

The average temperature in Chicago during July 1995 was 77.6º F, far from the record of 81.3º F set in 1955.  Not any remote sign of a significant trend in average July temperatures for the Windy City over the last 100 years, since 1970, or during the past three decades.

In 1995, only five days exceeded 95º F.  Compare that to five in 1911, 1931, 1940, and 1983; six in 1930, 1955, and 1977; seven in 1991; and ten each in 1988 and 2012.

A group of researchers from the Illinois State Water Survey and the Iowa State University published an analysis of Chicago's 1995 heat wave in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.  The authors note that the intensity of Chicago's 1995 event was exceeded by a "few periods in the 1910s and 1930s ... The 1995 heat wave lasted only a few days and does not compare in length with some past multiweek heat waves, notably those in the 1930s."  Hence, not a record.

The researchers went on to conclude the following:

The mid-July 1995 heat wave was the third most intense 4-day heat wave in this century, exceeded only by two heat waves during the 1930s. For the [Chicago] city/O'Hare data series, the 1995 value of 31.4º C ranked fifth, exceeded by the 1934 and 1936 heat waves and by heat waves in late July 1916 (32.9º C) and early July 1911 (32.2º C).

There does not appear to be any linkage of this event to climate change in the study.

Global sea levels do not appear to have risen by feet due to climate change, and Chicago's 1995 heat wave does not appear to be linked to climate change.  Consider this a dose of climate realism for our friends in Minnesota.