UPDATE: The author’s (Lorne Gunter) claim of breaking the all time March record by -12 degrees is only partially correct. The phrase “smashing the previous March low” should have read “smashing the previous March 10th low”. Mr. Gunter erred in his statement.
The official all time March record Tmin occurred in 2003 and was -42.2°C details here from Environment Canada (Thanks to reader K Stricker for the link).
UPDATE#2: 3/18 I’ve sent off a note to Mr. Gunter on the error in the article, and I’m hoping that he will post a correction to the wording in his article below. I have not yet heard back from him and I’m trying an alternate contact route via another person known to have corresponded with him. Gunter’s mistake is that he claims a new low temperature record for the entire Month of March, when it is only for a single day, March 10th. While I can’t correct the text in Mr. Gunter’s article until he makes a correction himself (since I won’t modify another authors words) reader should take note that the claims made in the article are not supported by the actual data. While I agree that “global warming” has indeed stalled in the last few years, the claim of the all time March low for Edmonton is incorrect. – Anthony
Global warming’s no longer happening
So why are eco types moaning about record highs while ignoring record lows?
By Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal
So far this month, at least 14 major weather stations in Alberta have recorded their lowest-ever March temperatures. I’m not talking about daily records; I mean they’ve recorded the lowest temperatures they’ve ever seen in the entire month of March since temperatures began being recorded in Alberta in the 1880s.
This past Tuesday, Edmonton International Airport reported an overnight low of -41.5 C, smashing the previous March low of -29.4 C set in 1975. Records just don’t fall by that much, but the airport’s did. Records are usually broken fractions of degrees. The International’s was exceeded by 12 degrees.
To give you an example of how huge is the difference between the old record and the new, if Edmonton were to exceed its highest-ever summer temperature by the same amount, the high here some July day would have to reach 50 C. That’s a Saudi Arabia-like temperature.
Also on the same day, Lloydminster hit -35.2 C, breaking its old March record of -29.2 C. Fort McMurray — where they know cold — broke a record set in 1950 with a reading of -39.9C. And Cold Lake, Slave Lake, Whitecourt, Peace River, High Level, Jasper and Banff, and a handful of other communities obliterated old cold values, most from the 1950s or 1970s, two of the coldest decades on record in the province.
This has been an especially cold winter across the country, with values returning to levels not often seen since the 1970s, which was an especially brutal decade of winters.
Temperatures began to plummet on the Prairies in December. The cold weather did not hit much of the rest of the country until January, but when it hit, it hit hard. Even against Canada’s normally frigid January standards, “this particular cold snap is noteworthy,” Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said this past January. Many regions across the country had not been as cold for 30 years or more, he added.
Does this prove fear of global warming is misplaced? On its own, probably not. But if records were being broken the other way — if several Alberta centres had recorded their warmest-ever March values — you can bet there would be no end of hand-wringing, horror stories about how we were on the precipice of an ecological disaster of unprecedented proportions.
Environmentalists, scientists who advance the warming theory, politicians and reporters never shy away from hyping those weather stories that support their beliefs. But they tend to ignore or explain away stories that might cast doubt.
In 2005, the summer and fall of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when several major ‘canes pummelled North and Central America, we were told again and again that this was proof warming was happening and it was going to be bad. Al Gore has emissions from industrial smokestacks swirling up into a satellite image of a hurricane on the DVD box for his propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth to underline the point that more and eviller hurricanes will be the result of CO2 output.
But since 2005, only one major hurricane — this year’s Ike — has struck North America. And now comes a study from Florida State University researcher Ryan Maue, that shows worldwide cyclonic activity — typhoons, as well as hurricanes — has reached a 30-year low (tinyurl.com/bunynz).
Indeed, the hiatus may go back more than 30 years because it is difficult to compare records before about 1970 with those since, since measurements four or more decades ago were not as precise or thorough. Current low activity may actually be the lowest in 50 years or more.
If Maue had proven hurricane activity were at a 30-year high, of course his findings would have been reported far and wide. But since he is challenging the dogma of the Holy Mother Church of Climate Change, his research is ignored.
For at least the past five or six years, global temperatures have been falling. Look at the black trend line on the chart at www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ put out by the man who runs NASA’s worldwide network of weather satellites.
Also, in the past few months, two studies — one by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany and another by the University of Wisconsin — have shown a slowing, or even a reversal of warming for at least the next 10 to 20, and perhaps longer.
Even the Arctic sea ice, which has replaced hurricanes as the alarm of the moment ever since hurricanes ceased to threaten, has grown this winter to an extent not seen since around 1980.
Global warming is not only no longer happening, it is not likely to resume until 2025 or later, if then. So why are we continuing to hear so much doomsaying about climate change?
There are a lot of people in every age who think they know better than everyone else and, therefore, have a right to tell everyone how to live. In the 1950s, it was country-club and parish council busybodies with their strict moral codes. In the 1970s, it was social democrats with their fanciful economic theories. Today, it’s environmentalists.
Same instinct, different wrapper.
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Don’t you get it? Global warming causes everything that happens. It’s why my garbage can was blown over today.
Global warming is not only no longer happening, it is not likely to resume until 2025 or later, if then. So why are we continuing to hear so much doomsaying about climate change?
[1] Expectation of dominion over other human beings – Lust for Power.
[2] Expectation of continued funding for AGW “Science” – Addiction to the AGW Gravy Train.
[3] Validation of long held beliefs in the face of contrary evidence – Cognitive Dissonance is Painful.
[4] Because – otherwise they would have to admit being wrong, duped and lied too – Avoidance of Public Shame.
[5] Expectation of “Green” profits from taxpayer funded Government subsidies – Ruthless Greed.
[6] It’s too much fun to stop – Psychopathic Fantasy Wish Fulfillment.
[7] What else would I write? – News Reporter Deadline Anxiety and Fear of Writer’s Block.
[8] Because I would no longer be “Saving the Planet from Evil Humans”. – Self Righteous need for Validation of Personal Meaning in the face of a Meaningless Universe.
[9] Addiction to flying Business Class to International Conferences in Bali, Copenhagen, etc… – Addiction to Free Lunches
Plus some others that I haven’t thought of yet…
…Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia, we had “black friday” this February which shot us into the hottest day we’ve ever had, and due to the terrible dry, as it almost never rains here anymore, we had the worst fires and deaths imaginable. The temperature reached 46 celcius or 115 farenheit. Remember that the world doesn’t end at the US border.
Wolfie!
REPLY: The story was about Edmonton, Canada, well beyond the US border. – Anthony
Yes, this March in Alberta has been more like a January. That same night we got to -27C, which is stupidly cold. We have piles of snow around several feet deep, which is EXTREMELY unusual for Calgary in March. Usually it melts through the winter due to chinooks.
I’m not going to say this has been the worst winter in memory for this area, that still goes to 95-96 by my reckoning. But once the cold hit it was here with a vengeance. From December 13 until still we’ve had significant snow on the ground, which IS unusual. Our side roads are still rutted ice nightmares, and the slightest warmth during the day gets just enough melted that the main roads are like a sea of mud. It’s impossible to keep the car clean.
This is all good, though, it DOES make it very difficult for people to believe that warming is a problem.
We really need to see the global temps in the HadCRUT, UAH, RSS, and even GISS data sets show a dramatic cooling, otherwise these cold weather event will not get significant traction. A diversion with the GISS data set running anomalously warm against the others cooling would have a particularly strong impact on the debate by raising important questions about Hansen’s work.
Hundreds of billions have been already wasted trying to fight global warming.
The recent warming trend that Earth has experienced is largely natural, as is the new cooling trend that could last up to ~30 years.
There are sad consequences of this huge misallocation of scarce global resources to fight a myth – catastrophic humanmade global warming simply does not exist.
What used to exist were about twenty million children age 5 and less, who died in recent decades due to lack of clean drinking water. For no more money than was wasted on the phony war against global warming, clean drinking water and sanitation facilities could have been installed and millions of kids saved.
That is just one cost of badly misplaced priorities.
Regards, Allan
There is another piece of information, not mentioned by Mr Gunter, but likely of interest to many readers of this blog.
But first a side comment off topic. I was sitting in an aircraft, trying to leave Edmonton International, at the exact time the -43C reading occurred. The pilots wanted de-icing fluid on the aircraft. First they explained it was taking a long time because the de-icing truck on the port side had frozen up. Then they said it was taking a longer time because the truck on the starboard side had frozen up. Kind of like that old joke “I hope that last engine doesn’t quit, or we will be up here forever …”.
The interesting data point? Record lows all around Edmonton. -43C at Edmonton International. Low temp that day (or two days, given the 6 a.m. definition of the start of a day at Edmonton City Centre Airport? -33C.
Cheers – I went to Winnipeg.
Wolfie,
Interesting that a country “where it never rains anymore” is not shown as having a drought by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/rain_maps.cgi?map=contours&variable=drought&area=aus&period=3month®ion=aus&time=latest
reply to Wolfie Rankin (22:22:10) :
…Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia, we had “black friday” this February which shot us into the hottest day we’ve ever had, and due to the terrible dry, as it almost never rains here anymore, we had the worst fires and deaths imaginable. The temperature reached 46 celcius or 115 farenheit. Remember that the world doesn’t end at the US border.
Gunter’s point, Wolfie, is we all heard about the record heat in Oz – it was splashed all over the world’s newspapers, even before your tragic fires.
But nobody told the world about breaking record cold temperatures by 12 degrees C in freezing Alberta.
Record heat is news, record cold is not.
Such is the dominance of warmist nonsense propaganda in global media.
Wolfie
the melbourne data came from this weather station in the middle of one of the busiest street in australia.
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?hl=en&q=melbourne%20la%20trobe%202&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
with a well documented urban heat island:
http://mclean.ch/climate/Melbourne_UHI.htm
neither january nor february were particularly warm averaged over all australia
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/temp_maps.cgi?variable=maxanom&area=nat&period=month&time=history&steps=1
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/temp_maps.cgi?variable=maxanom&area=nat&period=month&time=latest
…so this was just weather
… combined with the deadly green politics of not clearing bushes and forests.
breaking the records by small amounts is not really remarkable, it happens every day somewhere.
and after 30 years, ocean currents around australia are now in their cold mode
http://mclean.ch/climate/docs/Aust_temps_alt_view.pdf
I guess all that money spent trying to correct AGW so far is having an effect; or so their propaganda will claim. Just how cold do they want it to get before they will be happy?
The US administration has now re-activated its campaign machine in order to help pass its new budget. This budget relies on Cap & Trade raising over $600 Billion to fund the president’s new programs.
The Obama machine was very successful last year and may again be able to mobilize for this issue. It is likely the last chance that AGW legislation will have if we are in for 20-30 years of cooling, but it is not yet too late.
Once passed, it may take a generation to remove and by then, who knows, we could be back to another warming spell.
“…Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia, we had “black friday” this February which shot us into the hottest day we’ve ever had, and due to the terrible dry, as it almost never rains here anymore, we had the worst fires and deaths imaginable. The temperature reached 46 celcius or 115 farenheit. Remember that the world doesn’t end at the US border.
Wolfie!”
And then there’s the truth…
“Melbourne reached 46.4 degrees on Saturday, the highest in 154 years of record-keeping, overshooting the previous high set on Black Friday – January 13, 1939 – by 0.8 degrees and far exceeding the temperature on Ash Wednesday in 1983, which was 43.2 degrees.”
To me, 154 years of record keeping isn’t an indication of not *ever* happening before.
And…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oodnadatta,_South_Australia
Cheers.
That is simply weather…
Actually it is a sign of climate change…
blah blah blah
But, Wolfie, it’s a dry heat.
Also note that your location is significantly closer (47 deg S) to the Equator than Alberta (51 deg north). I’ll also note that Melbourne never has winter temperatures anywhere close to those normal for Alberta (http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Melbourne-shivers-on-coldest-day-of-year/2007/06/14/1181414415719.html) yet still had a record low in 2007…. Melbourne also rarely even has snowfall.
So, for Melbournes temps to match in warming what Alberta saw in cooling, you folks would need to have a summer high of 65 C.
Is the breaking of a month-long temperature record by 12 degrees C setting off any cautionary warning bells in anyone else’s head? As the author says himself: “Records just don’t fall by that much…” I guess we have anecdotal evidence in this thread from Bruce, but could it be possible there’s some explanation for the extremity of the record in the weather station hardware or some other kind of error? Bruce says other there were record lows at other nearby stations, but were they by at all the same the magnitude?
Cheers,
K
Just reporting in from Edmonton, it’s snowing again right now. If you like Anthony I can email you some pictures, but to be honest I haven’t seen this much snow since I was a little kid in the 70’s.
Thank goodness I said ‘No!’ in the 60s when I was invited to emigrate to Canada!
Waaaarrrrmmmm down under, oooooo comfy!
On the other hand if it hadn’t been for the UHI the temps could have been cooler and maybe more records could have fallen 😎
Wolfie,
I also live in OZ and I’m always interested in hearing the record extreme stories from all parts of the globe. The world is a balanced ecosystem and the record cold from Alberta could be seen as balanced with record heat from down here.
Interestingly,
The February UAH temperatures show a near normal anomoly (from the 30 year average) for the Souther Hemisphere. Sydney had a normal February average of 26 degrees and Hobart was slightly below average with 21.1 deg. Melbourne, located in the middle had an average maximum of 28.1 deg. which is 2.3 degrees above the 30 year average of 25.1. The current average March max. temp in Melbourne is 23.4 deg, -0.4 below average.
Last August was Sydney’s coldest in 40 years. I was forced to dig out the GORE-tex jacket… !
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia, … due to the terrible dry, as it almost never rains here anymore
Rubbish! More than 80% of Australia has had average to above average rainfall over the last 12 months.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/rain_maps.cgi?map=contours&variable=anomaly&area=aus&period=12month®ion=aus&time=latest
The only area that is well below average is in the far south east of Australia, which is a fairly wet area with annual rainfall around 1,000 mm. Which means it rains more there than say London England.
To say’ ‘almost never rains here’ is ridiculous. I happen to know most of Victoria had torrential rain a couple of days ago.
“SCIENTISTS say they are haunted by the failure to convey to the world just how close Earth is to climate catastrophe.”
and
“Hanging over the conference proceedings like an invisible cloud were the apocalyptic predictions of the monstre sacre of Earth sciences, 90-year-old British scientist James Lovelock.
Lovelock commands respect because he understood decades before his peers that Earth behaves as a single, self-regulating system composed of physical, chemical and biological components, a concept he dubbed the Gaia principle.
In his just-released book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, he basically says we have already passed a point of no return, and that it is now impossible “to save the planet as we know it.” “
Mr Wolfie. As a long time resident of Brisbane, I wish it was true’… almost never rains here anymore’. I have much better things to do this summer than cut my long grass every two weeks due to this’..almost never rains here anymore’ coming every few days.By the way, I am Typing this quickly before the huge lightning storm knocks out the electricity. Funny how our local dams are now over 42% from 19% last year.
There’s a typo in the lead-in news story. There should be “years” at the end of “for at least the next 10 to 20,”
Wolfie
you need to get out and about a bit more, i.e. read a bit more than main stream media dribble. Then again according to you perhaps that is the only way you can get any moisture in your neck of the bush.
Try this link from William Kininmonth, former head of Australia’s national Climate Centre.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/anatomy-of-a-firestorm-20090225-8hvi.html?page=-1
Here is an excerpt:
It is fashionable to promote climate change as being a contributor to changing fire frequency and intensity. The pattern of rainfall over the past century does not point to a trend of reduction in rainfall. Nor has any link been offered between global temperature trends and the meteorology of Victorian heatwaves. Extreme bushfire events are rare events and must be analysed according to the statistics relating to rare events; the breaking of a previous temperature record established 70 years earlier does not establish an underlying trend.
You were saying?
Interesting the comments about canada having had snow on the ground since December.
Very similar things could be written about parts of Switzerland. This season I’ve been looking at the webcam for Wengen (www.wengen.com will have a copy) and the classic glaciated Lauterbrunnen valley a lot as I ski there and the observations are strikingly different to previous years.
Lauterbrunnen is an interesting point to study as it is:
i. Relatively low.
ii. In a very steep sided U-shaped valley.
iii. Lacking in direct sunlight in deep winter due to 4000m peaks blocking out the sun.
As a result, if it snows early and it remains cold, the snow stays a long time. If it gets warm the snow melts relatively rapidly.
This year, the snow is still there in mid March after arriving in early December. That hasn’t happened since 1990 when I first went there. It may just have got close to melting due to a hot weekend…..
It’s just one year.
But the signs are that ‘traditional’ winters may be coming back. Heavy, early snowfall and more traditional coldness.
This will necessitate a comparison between the last ‘traditional’ spell and this one. The ‘warm’ spell should be compared with past or future ‘warm’ spells.
That will give us better indications of trends, me thinks…..