More indicators of a colder than normal winter continuing in the northern hemisphere.
From the London Telegraph:
Britain is enduring its most miserable Easter for 25 years as Arctic winds sweep in, bringing snow, hail and sleet.
Easter Sunday temperatures could drop to as low as -3C at night with a band of snow and sleet forecast to move down from the North. The bad weather is most likely to affect the Midlands but snow could even reach London, forecasters said.
From the Sofia news agency:
Bulgaria Meets Vernal Equinox With Snow, Sun Gleams
From This is London:
It’s Bad Friday: Britain braced for worst Easter weather in 25 years as country is battered by gales and sleet.
From the Stars and Stripes:
Snow hits Germany military bases with more possible for Easter.
From CTV.ca
‘Spring’ weather nasty for Eastern Canada
Also from CTV.ca
Six more weeks of winter, top weatherman forecasts
From KDKA-TV:
Snow Advisory In Effect For Parts Of Western Pa
From RedOrbit:
Nebraskans and Iowans heading east for the Easter weekend were experiencing flight delays or snow-covered roads today, and the troubles could continue into Saturday.
From the Detroit Free Press:
Heavy snow across Michigan and points west meant increasing cancellations and delays at Metro Airport today, with things getting worse as snow piled up.
From swissinfo.ch
The Easter break has started with heavy snowfall and strong winds in Switzerland, causing some disruption to traffic.
The global warmerers are doubtless saying this is just one cold winter, and they have a point. After all, 1998 looked like pretty good evidence that something urgent had to be done about anthropogenic global warming or else dreadful disaster was imminent.
The evidence that world climate is primarily controlled by the sun will show up to the extent that the solar trend differs substantially from the CO2 trend for ten years or so, not for six months or so. If the next solar cycle starts tomorrow, the global warming trend might well continue, leaving the cause of climate change unclear.
Of course what I am hoping for is a complete shutdown of the solar sunspot cycle, with the earth rapidly heading into little ice age conditions, with, as in the last little ice age, massive crop failures, soaring food prices, wars as people blame other people for economic deterioration – and even blame other people for the bad weather. Expect that as the wars begin, the global warmers will be first to denounce the Jews, the witches, and the white anglo saxon protestant males for causing the crops to fail and the cow’s milk to dry up. But a complete shutdown of the solar cycle will give me the the satisfaction of knowing for sure the real cause of climate change.
REPLY: I truly hope you are wrong, modern civilization has ridden on the coattails of a warming cycle.
Hello, I can confirm that it snowed from Brussels to Luxembourg on friday the 21st. The snow had no hold though and melt directly, except a little in the Ardennes.
Bluddy cold, this global warming thingy…..
But of course the AGW mob’ll say, ” that’s because Easter is early this year….”
…So instead…. It’s a bluddy cold March 22nd then….
: )
Good thing they switched to calling it climate change. Whatever happens, it’s man’s fault. But, if everyone just switches of their lights and stops breathing for one hour on March 29 from 8pm – 9pm we will all be saved. Hallelujah, and praise the climatelord Gore, Amen.
I’ve been looking at the 10 day forecast models for the last few weeks: http://weather.unisys.com/gfsx/9panel/gfsx_500p_9panel.html hoping for spring to arrive.
I’m certainly not a weather/climate specialist, but I am a scientist (physics) who also suffers through New England winters 🙂 . The pattern I see in the models looks like a merry-go-round of lows moving around the North Pole. Reminds me of the more usual pattern seen in January. I read somewhere this is due to the “Polar Vortex” shifting a bit south and until it decides to move back north, the pattern will continue. Can anyone verify that?
Of course it is all due to global warming. AKA: natural variation or normal climate change. As it stated in the song years ago: “What will be will be the future is not ours to see.
Maybe if they had cleaned their crystal balls they would have seen this coming.
Of course Easter doesn’t occur on the same date every year. In fact this is one of the earlier Easters we’ll see in our lifetimes.
[…] In America’s northern regions, it continues to snow, but Eupore is really gettin hit. From Watt’s Up With That: More indicators of a colder than normal winter continuing in the northern […]
James~ you’ve read my mind, but I am also hoping things don’t get quite that bad. I DO expect the agw hystericysts and the MSM to ignore the solar situation for as long as possible, or until the goreacle et al can find a way to exploit it for power over the people- not to mention Money.
And somehow if it were warmer than “normal” that would be a bad thing, whereas being this cold is demonstrably a bad thing.
The night to the 22 of march was the coldest night this year in Norway with every single station below 0 deegre celsius…
I tend to go with the usual view that the usual solar cycles don’t change much (c. 0.1C/cycle) but that a major shutdown can cause serious downward swings. If it’s true that the sun spends 10 to 20% of it’s time in a major minimum state, we are definitely overdue.
James and Otter,
I don’t think you underestimate the AGW hysterics and the charlatans like Gore, but I think the contemporary news media may surprise you. The Print Media in particular has lost millions of readers because their agenda is so obvious. They risk near total irrelevance if they fail to report a climate trend that everyone can see with their own eyes. The fact that the Alarmists have had to constantly move the goal posts and, even change the definition from Global Warming to Climate Change is not lost on a large number of people. I think, at this point, time is our friend. The next step is to elect people who emphasize positive, productive energy policies vs. Gorian scams like carbon credits and cap and trade.
I’m one of those grandfathers who like to sit my grandkids on my knee and tell them how, back in the late 50’s and early 60’s I trudged a mile to high school, in sub-zero temperatures, through a foot of snow, uphill – both ways. (OK that last part is a bit of an exaggeration). Who in their right mind would want to return to those days?
As I write this, it’s 27 degrees and snowing pretty hard in Northeastern Indiana.
BTW, how can it be a “continuing cold winter”–after March 22? How can it be a “winter” anything? (Silent Spring, anyone?)
Anthony says:
I truly hope you are wrong, modern civilization has ridden on the coattails of a warming cycle.It is truely a sad state of affairs where some feel they must hope for the lesser evil of a mini ice age in order to avoid the greater evil of carbon regulation induced poverty and suffering. This would not be necessary if the warmers had not turned science into a religion with computer models as the holy books.
Raven,
That’s the most concise description of the dilemma we face that I have read recently. And to call it a “truly sad state of affairs” is an understatement.
Sorry to warm up the discussion, but Northern California weather is absolute perfect right now. 🙂
That aside, I’ve been studying the link between accumulated number of spotless days during solar cycle transition as a predictor of solar cycle magnitude and global climate. A particularly chilling prediction comes from David Archibald who advocates low solar activity for solar cycles 24 and 25 consistent with the Dalton Minimum.
It is clear that cycle 24 is behaving much differently then past cycles 16-23 which occurred during the period of 20th century warming, and behaving consistent with solar cycles occurring during the little ice age.
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotlessevolution.png
It’s a real shame the consequences of a cooler Earth, which is potentially more dangerous to humanity, does not receive any media attention. Global warming is portrayed as inevitable and catastrophic based on an anthropogenic warming theory which is without sound evidence, no I do not believe the models.
If the Earth enters a cooling trend, it will force the AGW advocates to rethink their models, but the media will not retrace the AGW story that has been told. I believe it will be up to the community that believes the climate is mostly affected by natural causes, such as those who participate in this blob, to reverse the brain washing done to the public.
By way of the Drudge Report the AGW faithful down-under are acknowledging the cooling weather.
Climate facts to warm to
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html
In response to James Donald’s post, the people who are demanding that we give up our freedom so that they can save us from Global Warming will be demanding that we give up our freedom so they can save us from Global Cooling, nothing will change. How dare the Capitalists exploiters of the downtrodden control the world’s food supplies!
I was hopping that that we might have the nukes online before things got really bad, but with the way the sun is behaving and all the idiots in Washington that is not very likely. I wonder how much longer NASA and NOAA can keep the lid on. I suspect nothing will be reported until after the November election and one of The Three Stooges is elected President of the United States.
Bean Books has a free eBook library which has a title by the name of Fallen Angels, which many of you may find of interest. If the sun continues its current behavior Fallen Angels may prove to be prophetic.
http://www.webscription.net/p-137-fallen-angels.aspx
IT ALL HAPPENED SO FAST
One minute the two space Hab astronauts were scoop-diving the atmosphere, the next they’d been shot down over the North Dakota Glacier and were the object of a massive manhunt by the United States government.
That government, dedicated to saving the environment from the evils of technology, had been voted into power because everybody knew that the Green House Effect had to be controlled, whatever the cost. But who would have thought that the cost of ending pollution would include not only total government control of day-to-day life, but the onset of a new Ice Age?
Stranded in the anti-technological heartland of America, paralyzed by Earth’s gravity, the “Angels” had no way back to the Space Habs, the last bastions of high technology and intellectual freedom on or over the Earth. But help was on its way, help from the most unlikely sources ….
By the way, Jim Bean, who passed away in 2006, was a skeptic and a great friend of freedom.
Mike
Vancouver Island: Snow finally melting on lower slopes of Mt Benson, near Nanaimo, but mountains inland still have snow cover with no readily discernible change. Current external temperature 5 degrees celsius.
In response to James Donald’s post, the people who are demanding that we give up our freedom so that they can save us from Global Warming will be demanding that we give up our freedom so they can save us from Global Cooling, nothing will change.
Yeah, it’s like I said. Your 10-year old kid expresses all sorts of different problems. It turns out that all of them can be solved only by letting him stay up until 11:30.
The solutions is to treat them like the 10-year old kids they are.
I, saw wet snow falling today in Bedfont Lakes near Heathrow (London, I can hear Big Ben ringing as I write this). It did not stick, but I did get bombarded by hail while waiting outside for my cab
Poor Tom’s a-cold!
Unfortunately, it’s looking like the same weather pattern,for the most part, the next couple weeks. Polar vortex holding tough and the 540 line just does some northward teases. 540 line is the freezing line that is a good indicator of rain or snow for precip. Be prepared for a cool Spring and continued flooding issues in the middle of the U.S.
This will probably be the year that breaks the buzz phrase “global warming”.
Here in Sweden this winter has been one of the warmest for years, but this Easter is one of the cooldest Easter for years in March.
– 36 C in north and – 10 C here I live in the south of Sweden.
pekke
Winter in most West Europe was very warm this year because of Jet and NAO pattern, but this pattern has just broken in the last days, maybe to late for much cold in Europe.
Here in East Anglia we’re having wind, snow and hail – it’s our first cold weather since December.
Just saw a post on solarcylce24.com refering to this article:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html
which refers to NASAs Aqua satellite, which I never heard of before today. According to the article, the data from the Aqua satellite indicates that increased warming (from CO2 or any other soucrce) causes a decrease in water vapor! If this is correct, then AGW is D-E-A-D. RIP.
The result does not surprise me because the climate system has a lot of negative feedbacks. The article does not state that magnitude of the feedback.
Don’t count on this appearing in the MSM anytime soon. When the truth finally does come out, I predict that the “climate change” crowd (don’t call them AGWers) will say: Oops we had it wrong. The sun has had this warming influence over the past century and we didn’t see it in the data before, but now look, clearly, there is it. Now the sun is going to a less active stage. And, CO2 causes a decrease in water vapor, cooling the earth. Oh my! Man is causing an ice age! Stop putting out CO2!
I hope that can’t get away with something like this but I’ve seen enough that I wouldn’t count it out. Hopefully there are enough people out there that can see how two faced this argument is. Or perhaps the the climate change crowd will go crawl into a hole somewhere. Place your bets.
How would the IPCC rewrite their SPMs for global cooling?- “all policy makers must introduce additional GHG producing industries, required increase 90% by 2050– mandated maximum 10 mpg for all shopping trolleys to commence immediately–lights must be left on at all times”etc?
Coaldust, if I could get money on at IPCC odds [95% certain = 19: 1] I’d be in it like a flash. Know any possibilities?
pekke: Tjenixen! You’re right, winter in the list of records should be between december and februari, and we had a typical La Nina winter, just as 1999.
Unfortenately a few AGW supporters here in Sweden used this winter in Sweden – a winter pretty cold globally – as an argument. Also I’ve never heard about the globally cold winter yet in the media. Surprice surprice? Not! 🙁
But I think it’s right to not use one year of cold weather/climate to disprove the sloppy AGW scince. There are lots of far better argument against it. But if the coldness prevail that will be a problem for AGW apologists, the present political aganda and …the holy discourse of our times(?).
Or perhaps the the climate change crowd will go crawl into a hole somewhere. Place your bets.
I’ll place two bets: (1) they will not go down without a fight because a whole lot of money as well as thousands of careers are resting on the outcome; and (2) they will never admit to being wrong but simply find a new “crisis” to champion and start all over again.
In that case, Stan, they must be isolated.
What enrages my sensibilities the most in this whole debate is the false appeal to Pascal’s flutter.
The entire premise of Pascal (and expanded upon by Santayana in regard to the aesthetics) is that there is nothing to lose on the caution side of the equation.
There is everything to lose. Everything. There is the price of the continuation of mass death in the third and fourth world. There is the price of technological advance which can only be fueled by an intensity of wealth that does not today exist.
Technology which will make climate control a trivial solution.
Technology which will trnasform mankind and save the ecology of the planet.
Technology which will regenerate and rebuild our cells and prolong our lives, perhaps indefinitely.
Technology which will house and provide overplentiful resources cleanly for a hundred, where one was housed before, using less land providing more elbow-room than ever in history.
Technology which will bring an end of the great historical causes of human misery.
We are at a tipping point, all right. The great, glorious tipping point of humanity. The first time in history when “interesting times” is NOT an ancient Chinese curse.
THAT is what we are asked to sacrifice on the bloody altar of anti-industrialism.
Not only that, but it is widely acknowledged, even among its proponents, that Kyoto, even if implemented and upheld, would produce a miniscule result. Kyoto whould choke off wealth to an extent where mankind could not cope with climate severe change (in either direction) even stipulating that is is a real, severe, and anthropogenic problem.
Those who stand in the way of progress stand Pascal on his very head.
Kyoto is a promise by the great nations of the world to halt the progress of mankind. “I urge you to break this promise.”
FWIW It tried to snow on the higher ground of the French Riviera today. Was only a few spots but there was distinct solid white stuff hitting the ground briefly. Also a dusting of snow was observable on the higher north facing slopes
Observed location: Le Broc and points above it alt 500-900m approx 15km inland from Nice.
Here in London we have had some light snow falling this morning (Easter Sunday). It has been too wet for the snow to settle, but it is still raw out there. Tomorrow we’re down to a max temperature of 3 degrees Celsius, with further wintry showers to come. They’re making snowmen up in Yorkshire!
I’m not worried about “the team” crawling into a hole. I want to stop the “BOYS and Girls” in Washington from any type of CO2 regulations.
By the way how many of you have read the NAPC study 308?
An Audit of the IPCC report
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/308
old construcker worker:
Thx a lot for the tip! Havn’t heard about it; this is only a URL correction:
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st308/
This morning we had snowfall here near Bremen Germany. According to weather records, it’s the first March 24 snowfall since 1969.
I’ve noticed lately that it hasn’t been possible to write comments at the forum of the USA Today online weather page.
Maybe they’ve noticed that many of the readers are skeptics like me and Seth Borenstein and Co. got tired of us debunking their twisted AGW stories.
Slightly off topic, but here’s a simple way to compute the date of Easter:
“A simple program, used by the western church in computing the date of Easter, also giving accurate moon phases within a day or two is the following:
In this system, March is month 1, April is month 2, and so on. January
is month 11 of the prior year, February is month 12 of the prior year.
For a concrete example, let’s consider the phase of the moon on March 21,
1997.
1. Divide the year by 19, consider only the remainder. 1997/19 has a
remainder of 2
2.multiply the remainder by 11. 2*11=22
3.Add 8. 22+8=30.
4.Divide the number of centuries by 4, ignoring the remainder. There are
19 centuries in 1997, 19/4=4 plus a remainder. 30+4=34
5.Divide the number of centuries by 3, ignoring the remainder. 19/3=6
plus a remainder. 34+6=40.
6. Subtract the number of centuries in the year. 40-19=21.
7. Add the month number. March is month 1, 21+1=22.
8. Add the day of the month. March 21 is the 21st day of the month,
22+21=43. For a total over 30, cast out 30s. 43-30=13 so the moon
was 13 days old on March 21, 1997. 0 days would be a new moon, 15 days a
full moon. For calculating Easter, the spring equinox is assumed to
be on March 21. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon
occurring on or after the spring equinox. The moon was 13 days old on
March 21, 15 days old on March 21, Easter of 1997 was the first
Sunday after March 23, 1997. ”
Obviously, the earliest date Easter can fall on is March 22 of a given year.
RE: Brian (12:35:26)
Global food shortage – this year.
I just dropped by your site because google gave me a link when I asked for sunspot activity, 2008 – I thought I would just mention that I live in the N.W. near Seattle. It isn’t warming up here… we get a few sunny days, but no ‘heart breakers’ – the sunny days we get sometimes between wet & chilly spring storms. When I got up this morning NOAA predicted SNOW in the evening. Now they are predicting rain and temps over 32 but below 40.
Winter = rain and warm (35-50) or clear & cold – very few snow storms below 500 ft. S.L.
with a usual ‘heart breaker’ week in mid-Feb. — didn’t have it this year. I don’t think we have seen much of anything over 58 F ( I admit I I might have missed it, but I doubt it.)
Thanks for the information. My husband told me about low/ minimum sunspot activity, today.
Even the ice fishermen are sick of this winter. Not kidding.
The Weather Anomaly Which Must Not Be Named.
There have been many reports in the news media of the rising food prices. One of the hardest hit crops is rice which is a staple food for billons of the world’s population. Three recent news reports in Google News attribute the rising prices to poor harvests caused primarily by “Abnormal Weather”, “Bad Weather” and “Erratic Weather”
Memo to Arroyo forecasts rice crisis: KMP
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=112750
Abnormal weather
The NFA memo also cited Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration’s (PAGASA) forecast of “abnormal weather” conditions this year as a factor for the projected rice shortage.
“The abnormal weather condition will more likely result to stress the standing palay crop, more especially during its booting stage which would result to low yields,” the NFA said.
The DA memo also noted that Vietnam and China have “now imposed volume limitations on their rice exports.”
Philippines Takes Steps to Secure Rice Supplies as World Prices Rise
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-03-19-voa17.cfm
A number of factors are cutting world production of rice and driving up the cost. Secretary Yap says bad weather hurt crops in Thailand and Vietnam, which are leading exporters, and also cut production in China, a major consumer of rice.
“China’s winter harvest has been wrecked,” Yap said. “You’ve got flooding in Thailand, flooding in Vietnam. You’ve got high prices of fuel for transportation. Urea fertilizer is 150 percent higher in the last two years.”
The imminent crisis in rice
http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=2256
Various reasons have been blamed for the sharp slide in supply: erratic weather; natural disasters; soaring fuel and transport costs; supply hoarding and smuggling; conversion of agricultural lands to cash crops, biofuel production, and other commercial purposes, etcetera.
Even as early as February 2008 weather related food price problems were being reported.
Worldwide shortage of rice shoots prices soaring
http://www.independent-bangladesh.com/200802212190/business/worldwide-shortage-of-rice-shoots-prices-soaring.html
The causes of the shortages and high prices are diverse, and vary from country to country. They include natural disasters or adverse weather; high fuel prices, which add to transport costs;
In South-east Asia, rice traders are waiting for the results of the rice harvest in another major producing country in the region—Vietnam.
Exactly what is this mysterious weather anomaly which doesn’t have a name? Other news sources provide us with a clue but don’t look for them on Google News. Fortunately Ice Age Now ( http://www.iceagenow.com/2007_Other_Parts_of_the_World.htm ) has been recording some of the events.
Severe cold spell kills over 13,500 cattle (In Vietnam)
http://www.nhandan.com.vn/english/news/150208/domestic_s.htm
Snow disaster leaves 1.6 mln people frostbitten in NW China province
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/02/content_7698015.htm
Searching the official English language news feeds of the Chinese and Vietnamese Communist Parties we learn the identity of the weather anomaly which is impacting rice production.
China island province faces severe agricultural losses for cold weather
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/29/content_7689597.htm
Hai Duong farmers fight cold to save rice
http://www.nhandan.com.vn/english/business/140208/business_ha.htm
The culprit for reduced rice production, the weather anomaly which doesn’t have a name is “Cold Temperatures”!
It is a sad commentary on the state of Western Journalism that one has to resort to reading Communist Party news feeds to learn about any event which doesn’t conform to the Anthropogenic Global Warming playbook. In the coming struggle against this new form of world totalitarianism, no news source is to be trusted. We must conduct our own research using multiple independent sources, verify every fact and then re-verify again.
In the meantime we will continue to be feed these lies:
UN makes special appeal for food aid money
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/24/europe/EU-GEN-UN-Food-Aid.php
From rice in Peru to miso in Japan, food prices are rising
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/25/business/LA-FEA-FIN-Mexico-Fighting-for-Food.php
Mike
Breaking news – 100 car pileup in Austria. Due to snow.
MR: “It is a sad commentary on the state of Western Journalism that one has to resort to reading Communist Party news feeds to learn about any event which doesn’t conform to the Anthropogenic Global Warming playbook.”
Brutal and quotable.
I’m definitely going to Costco this weekend. Got to top off preps again, to a higher level.
Here in the Catskill Mtns it was as low as 12F this past weekend over night and I heard that the maple syrup season is off to a delayed start from local producers. I seem to remember the prediction that the sap would start flowing in January due to AGW.