One of the first breathless rebuttals to climate change is to point out how the high temperatures during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s were higher than they are today. Today's featured chart takes a deeper look into that by comparing the distribution of high temperatures for Des Moines. The most recent ten years are compared with the 1930s. The top panel shows a smoothed density estimate (histogram) for the two periods and the bottom panel plots the difference between the two. So while yes, the 1930s featured more days with very hot high temperatures, our present climate has more days with temperatures in the 80s. A first pass explanation is the increase in humidity which tends to prevent really hot temperatures during the summer time. Also of interest, check out the mean temperature for each period. Even with fewer very hot days, the mean temperature is fractionally higher than it was during the 1930s.

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