Last week we presented our analysis of the causes behind this summer’s record-breaking heat wave in western Russia. We summarized the situation thus: But global warming theory doesn’t come anywhere close to explaining why it’s so darn hot this summer in Moscow. Long-term observations suggest a more basic cause—an unusual and unprecedented (at least since 1950) confluence of several naturally-occurring atmospheric circulation patterns that together combined to set the stage for extreme warmth. Add to that urbanization, changing forestry practices, and perhaps throw in a dash of global warming for good measure, and you take a situation that would otherwise be “very hot” and up it a notch to “record hot.” Since then, another analysis has been released that concludes the same thing—actually, the new analysis is even less sympathetic to assigning any blame to global warming than even we were. And surprise, surprise, the analysis wasn’t from some alleged fossil-fuels backed professional denialist group, but from the folks at the Physical Sciences Division (PSD) of the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the Department of Commerce of the United States Government. These are folks who live and breathe atmospheric dynamics.