Edmonton Canada bests March 10th record low by -12 degrees, columnist questions climate situation

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…

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.

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&region=aus&time=latest

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

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.

That is simply weather…
Actually it is a sign of climate change…
blah blah blah

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

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 😎

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&region=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.

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.

Wolfie!
“…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. …”
First, it was “Black Saturday” not “black Friday”…:)
And second… there’s a painting in the State Library of Victoria called “Black Thursday”
http://www.chig.asn.au/black_thursday_bushfires_1851.htm
I acknowledge that “official” records don’t extend as far back as 1851, however, the conditions then were as bad if not worse than on Black Saturday. In the following piece – which extracts newspaper clippings from that time – it is suggested that temperatures reached 117 Fahrenheit in the shade, and 129F in the open… (10Mb pdf)
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/artpam/0/3/8/pdf/ar0380.pdf
I quote:
“At 12 o’clock the thermometer of Fahrenheit was 110 in the shade, and 129 in the sun at the shop of Brentani, a jeweller in Collins-Street; at 11 o’clock at another place it was 117 in the shade; at 1 fell to 109; but at 4pm went to 113.” (p13-14)
There has been debate on some sites as to whether this temp is valid, as it seemed to drop from this high at 11am and climbed again later in the afternoon. To forestall this, it must be remembered that the albedo of the smoke and ashes in the sky which were so thick that:
“This darkness, according to the accounts which we have received of it, began to be perceived about one o’clock in the afternoon, and gradually increased until it became so intense as to hide from sight even the nearest objects” (p18)
And some other accounts:
http://home.iprimus.com.au/foo7/fire1851.html
Whether Black Saturday was worse that Black Thursday will remain a matter of conjecture – however, the conditions were about equivalent but happened 150 years ago in a climate not subject to GHG warming. The Edmonton -ve departure happened in a climate subject to GHG warming, and thus is oh so much more noteworthy.
cheers
Arnost

acoording to NOAA feb 2009
9th warmest feb ever ?!
whattsupwiththat?
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090313_february.html

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:144/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:144
It’s 12 years now.

I’m getting really tired of people getting weather confused with climate, so let’s make sure everyone understands:
When it is cold, or there are less frequent and/or less powerful storms, this is what is technically known as weather.
When it is warm or hot, or there are more frequent and/or more powerful storms, that is what is technically known as climate.

John Goulton from Saratoga (the one in Oz),
I am 66 and remember as a teenager wearing a Duffel coat that weighed more than I did also warm jumpers and jackets, today I don’t even own a rain coat let alone a jumper.
My car a little Renault 750 had a heater, primitive but good, I used it a lot, I have never used the heater in my present vehicle, the demister sometimes.
In those days a few blankets on the bed were the norm, not now, and no I don’t own an electric blanket.
I rest my case your honour.

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.
That one off event is known as weather, not climate. The 8 years of static to cooling temperatures, resulting in broken cooling records is climatic.

Allan M R MacRae (22:30:49) :

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 that 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.

That really sums up the moral issues for us today, does it not?
AGW proponents claim skeptics don’t care for their grandchildren, future generations, etc. when their proposals are rejected. Yet, they will sit on their hands regarding simple solutions benefiting millions of children living today.
The attraction of working on climate issues is it can be done in the comfort of one’s home or office, with a cup of Starbucks on the side. Providing clean drinking water for the world’s truly poor and disadvantaged would require living with those truly poor and disadvantaged. This would include exposure to the very real health risks of those living in a society with non-existent energy sources.
My granddaughter is incensed at the notion a child in Africa can contract malaria when not provided with a mosquito net costing less than a dollar.
Why can’t we spend some of these billions wasted on computer models for some mosquito nets?
Thank you very much for highlighting the real moral issues regarding this nonsense on global warming.

Good one Lorne! Thanks. (Thanks for posting Anthony.)
Southern Alberta from Nov to Feb was “average” (1970-2000) but that was mostly because of a warm November. Since 1986, mean annual temperatures where I live (500 km S of Mr. Gunter) have declined slightly …warmer winters (thank God) and cooler summers…on ‘average.’
Everyone around here is complaining about the winter from hell, but THIS is what the warmers want for us. Bloody nonsense. Massive heating costs and bad roads…no thanks. Hard on wildlife..hard on people.
For much of the Northern Hemisphere, warmer is better by FAR!
And from San Francisco:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/Examiner-Editorial-Cap-and-trade-is-Obamas-economic-dagger-41235777.html
Well done Lorne! Thanks.
Clive
Coaldale, Alberta

Mike Lorrie, for the record Melbourne’s latitude is 38′ South, not 47′. I live in Geelong, which is south of Melbourne and the temperature here was 47 Celsius on that terrible day in January. I can assure you there wasn’t any urban heat island effect – it was really that hot. Having said that I agree with most posts that it was simply a weather event in a seasonally hot part of the world, and not reflective of climate change. Many of my fellow Victorians would disagree.

Responding to Wolfie Rankin – I also live in Victoria and was out fighting fires as a volunteer on Black Saturday 2009 and it was hot but I must say he needs only to look at the records of 1851 for a precedent. (No AGW back then)
THE WEATHER. ( from the Melbourne “Argus” Newspaper Feb. 8.1851 )
” Thursday was one of the most oppresive hot-days we have experienced for some years.
In the early morning the atmosphere was perfectly scorching, and at eleven o’clock the thermometer stood as high as 117 degrees ( 47.2 Celsius ) in the shade; at one o’clock it had fallen to 109 degrees and at four in the afternoon was up to 113 degrees.( 45 Celsius )
The blasts of air were so impregnated with smoke and heat, that the lungs seemed absolutely to collapse under their withering influence; the murkiness of the atmosphere was so great that the roads were actually bright by contrast.
The usual unpleasantness of hot wind was considerably aggravated by the existence of extensive bush fires to the northward, said by some to have an extent of 40 or 50 miles.
In the evening, after an hour’s battle for the supremacy, the cool breeze came down, sweeping away the pestilential exhalation of the day, and bringing in its train a light and refreshing rain; for a considerable time yesterday, the parched earth greedily absorbed it as it fell, but a day’s continuance of such very seasonable weather will do no more than cool the surface.-Argus. Feb. 8. ( 1851 ) ”
Who can say how many days in the past were like this before white settlement began in Victoria in 1835. Hot days are not new in Victoria and nor are bushfires – stop blaming global warming and recognise we live in one of the most bushfire prone areas of the world and there are more of us now therefore unfortunately and sadly casualties will be higher.

“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.”
O RLY?

Just weather, not climate. Nothing to see. Move along. Shame on you, Anthony, for this anecdotal drivel 🙂

i enjoyed the story….but this is not true:
“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.”
i wonder why he said that?

Frederick Michael (04:45:39) :
I DON’T believe it. This has the feel of something that will be retracted/corrected.
Fred, which of the fourteen independent measurements do you think is responsible for the “error”?
It must be a tranmissible error disease:
“Fred from Canuckistan . . . (04:47:32) :
Two new cold records set last week in Vancouver and we had snow yesterday afternoon….”

EricH (23:06:14) said :
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?
COULDN’T AGREE MORE.
Try to get an AGW acolyte to answer this question;
What set of data would convince you that “global warming” is NOT man-made?
I ask that of EVERYONE who evens whispers “carbon” in my presence. So far, NOBODY has answered. NOBODY. [obligatory Federally mandated French translation for our Canadian Friends: PERSONNE! (I know how that drives Albertans nuts).]
I’m going to switch to EricH’s question: How cold does it have to get before you’re happy?
PS I accidentally discovered how to start a bar-fight in Calgary (correct pronunciation: Cal GARY); Suggest that the Meech Lake Accord was idiotic, and that Alberta and BC should secede and join the States as 51 and 52, eh?
Screw Ottawa. Screw the damned loonie (best said when the Loonie’s in the dumps and yanks are buying-up everything in sight)! We’d let you keep what you earn instead of giving it all to Kay Beckers and the Noofies, eh?
The “discussion” will simmer long enough for you to make it out the door before all hell breaks loose. Fawk (apparently an expletive referring to Guy Fawkes), where’s the damned yank who STARTED this, eh?

Central MN set another daily record last Mon., -15 F. Third daily record for the season, the coldest since 1994.

Stick to the science – leave the economics and social critiques to people who are have some background in those fields.
Like anyone who pays bills and has family or friends – i.e. has a stake in government decisions.

“Government of the people, by the people, and for the people”
I don’t think Lincoln would necessarily have approved of “government by peer-reviewed Columbia educated elitists.”

Epaminondas (01:36:04) :
Please see “How not to measure temperature” elsewhere on this site. The trouble is even the things we all “know” aren’t all that known. In fact the more I learn the less certain I become. We certainly don’t get our info from the weather channel.

Richard (04:41:58) :
“… Global Warming would produce much colder wetter winters, because the Gulf Stream (a body of warm water on our western shores) would move away and we would then experience a similar climate to others on the same latitude, such as er……Canada. Therefore, our unusually cold and wet winter is seen as evidence that Global Warming is actually happening !…”
GISS map of Dec-Feb 2009 temp anomalies showing water temps at or slightly above 1980 levels. Closest water body to Edmonton is quite a bit colder.

I will say something that I have been thinking during the last years: It seems that temperatures have “migrated” downwards to Canada and, consequently, the lowest temperatures are not longer recorded in the north pole, and, at the “other side”, in Moscow winters became milder. Is this so?

“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?”
Right. Anecdotal evidence. But it really was cold – both de-icing trucks froze up. And this is not Las Vegas. Those guys de-ice aircraft in very cold conditions all the time.
My cryptic reference to: Edmonton International -43C; Edmonton City Centre -32C at the same time – was intended to draw attention to Edmonton as a great case study of an Urban Heat Island. I have had the opportunity to – anecdotaly – observe UHI around Edmonton for many years. Very prominent, particularly on cold, clear nights. If anyone was looking for a classic illustration of UHI, there would be no better data set than Edmonton City Centre Airport (urban), Edmonton International Airport (semi-rural) and the Alberta Research Council station at Royal Park (utterly rural).
Cheers, Bruce

Poor Wolfie, makes a comment about weather in a thread about weather and gets flamed.
anecdotal evidence is srs bsns.

Here in Scotland we have had a cold winter. Colder than for a decade or two, but nothing remarkable about record lows, or record high snow-fall. Just persistent cool weather since about November.
I was quite surprised to see UAH coming in at a perky +0.35C for Feb. But also note cold water appearing in the E equatorial Pacific.

I agree that one city and one cold spell does not make a trend, but what Gunter is trying to point out is that because the cool phases are not reported as often as the warm phases when they happen, the true cooling and big climate picture is lost. This cooling is real and has been happening all over the planet and for several years now. Here is what has happened just in Canada alone recently:
More cold weather and unusually more snow in BC [4 snow falls in March alone and big blizzard in December2008] In the 30 years prior to 1998, there were only two blizzards in March]
Record cold across Alberta during January and March [-41.5C at Edmonton International Airport March 10, 2009]
Record cold wind chills of -50C in Saskatchewan Jan 4, 2009
Record Cold over Southern Manitoba as 6 communities set cold records [as low as -43.8 in Sprague January 13, 2009]
Record cold in Fredericton and Edmunston, New Brunswick [record-43.3 C in Edmunston on January 12, 2009, 124 year record set in Fredericton on Jan 16 of -34.3 C
Rare near complete freeze over of 3 of the 5 Great Lakes, Superior, Erie, Huron in March, 2009. Lake Superior freezes about once in every 20 years
Rare coast to coast snow right across CANADA in December 2008. [Similar to 1970’s]
Record cold in Maine, US [-50 C at Big Black River Jan16, 2009]
I have not looked at possible records in other Northern US States but there must be similar records in states like Minnesota, North Dakota, etc.
The message here is that Canada and the entire northern half of the North American continent has started to cool down to the climate conditions and temperatures that existed in the 1960-1970’s due to the emergence of the negative or cool phases of the PDO and AMO. This will spread slowly further south.These recent cooling and global warming periods have nothing to do with changing carbon dioxide levels. Similar cool cycles existed in the period 1900-1925 especially 1903-1915 when AMO and PDO were also negative or in cool phase.

OT but I thought you would all be interested. Dr James Hansen is attending a protest meeting in Coventry ( UK) on Thursday. I seems he feels it necessary to protest against a third runway at London Airport ( I wonder how he got to the UK in the first place) see
more information at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4995872/Day-of-climate-change-protests-planned.html
Who is paying for this? the US taxpayer?

@ Epaminondas
The experts here can correct several of your remarks with appropriate citations. I would like to comment on the claim that oceans are warming. There is now a very powerful system of drifting bouys that can report ocean temperature to satellites — I think there is something like 3,000 all over the world. The director of the Argos system has remarked that there is no recent warming trend. It seems, however that open access to the data is restricted — perhaps someone here can comment on that aspect.
In regard to synchronization of a chaotic system — a short article has just appeared:
UW-Milwaukee Study Could Realign Climate Change Theory
Scientists Claim Earth Is Undergoing Natural Climate Shift
http://www.wisn.com/weather/18935841/detail.html

Didn’t Dr. Gray say that colder weather caused hurricanes, not warmer weather?

Anthony for your information:
“Musical prof a mouthpiece for eco-propaganda
She should know the jury’s still out on climate change
By Jon Ferry, The Province March 16, 2009 7:02 AM
REPLY: Thanks, I’ve made an article from it. – Anthony

The article is referring to the record low for March 10. The writer seems to be (incorrectly) under the impression that this was also the March low. As others have mentioned, early March 2003 also recorded temperatures near -40. The truth of the matter is that this isn’t significantly lower than previous March lows at Edmonton International.

Don’t know if it’s been posted before but here’s a news story about an interesting study done using Chaos theory applied to climate to say that ‘warming stopped in about 2001 and will not resume for another 20-30 years’. University of Wisconsin – Milwakee (which I’m sure is receiving most of its funding from Exxon).
http://www.wisn.com/weather/18935841/detail.html

Let’s see here. A nice temperature for humans might be 20 to 25 C.
When I lived in Mumbai and Los Angeles they (as in well off young people who mostly haven’t done a day’s work in their lives) would complain it was cold when it dropped to 20C in the winter. I said they should try living in England. When you see your heating bill at the end of winter then complain!
And England is nothing compared to many countries that get far colder.

Zen (No. 1):
Your’s too??
Beyond coincidence!!!

Wolfie (#3)
I live in Canada, but was born and raised in Melbourne. The 9 Feb max of 46.4° was 0.8° above the previous 1939 max.
We’re talking 12° C in Edmonton.
Read and absorb or go away.

Let us see how BIG the lie’s are from the warm mongers!!!!!
My turn my turn!!!!!!
……… Epaminondas (01:36:04) :………..
One of the problems in seeking a rational debate about complex matters that is these are trivialized by labels. The overall effect of ‘global cooling’, the reason for a simplistic name, is an observed overall decrease in the world’s average temperature. A simple hot snap in one area does not invalidate the argument that climates are changing, and generally becoming cooler.
The simple and undeniable fact that the world’s average temperature is decreasing does not rule out the possibility of a reverse in local situations.
For example, at any time now, a giant ocean current that starts in the north Atlantic might stop, because warming around the strait between Alaska and Siberia has reduced the amount of sea ice formed. The current is kicked off by cold brine, descending into the ocean at the top of the Pacific as freshwater ice forms on the surface.
This current, known as ‘The Conveyor’, runs down, around Cape Horn and up into the Pacific , and it drives the Gulf Stream. If the Gulf Stream stops, a large part of north-western Europe could be subject to sea ice and even be frozen in, each winter, because of global cooling. I say it again: global cooling can cause places to freeze over that have not frozen in recent times.
It hasn’t happened yet. At the same time, it looks as though southern Australia could become more drought-prone, even as northern parts get higher rainfall in the next half-century. There will be floods in the south, maybe even droughts in the north, but the overall effect will be soggy tropics and dry temperate regions.
**** sounds like weather to me!!!!! eah?
Weather patterns settle into sort-of stable forms, but if you kick the weather, jolt the weather from its track, don’t expect it to bounce back when you stop kicking. It will be on a new track.
The seas are getting cooler”la-nina” , they are getting less saturated in CO2 “and so more acidic”???? (SO2?)( less alkaline ) , we are approaching a situation where calcium carbonate exoskeletons (shells) are less and less able to stay solid(calcium carbonate has CO2 in it). That means we may see the breakdown and collapse of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. If that happens, much of Australia’s north-east coast will be battered by ocean waves generated by the cyclones (the equivalent of hurricanes) that are expected to increase in numbers and size. (((((sorry all speculation here)))))
There has been no sea ice between the island of Saarinen and the Estonian coast in 15 years, the most recent northern winter was the first time in 15 years that the canals of Amsterdam froze over. If ‘The Conveyor’ stops, because of global cooling, the moose of Saarinen will be able to spread all over Europe.
((“good for the moose’s”))
Predicting the actual results is close to impossible, so saying “oh this prediction didn’t happen in Double-Dubuque last Tuesday” is not an argument. It is cherry-picking the data to come up with a scenario that suits one’s share portfolio or political ‘word view’ . It is a facile and simplistic failed attempt at obfuscation by somebody who knows squat( ALGORE? ).
Weather patterns change and climate changes, all over the world. All we can really say in the way of prediction is that the vast majority of the foreseeable futures look very, very cold, and no amount of waffle will change that.
Face it: just because you watch the Weather Channel, that doesn’t mean you’re a meteorologist. I’m not an expert either, but I pay attention to what the research says, as opposed to what the self-seeking grand-standers warm mongers say.
Dose everyone understand the lies here? how it is so easy to see through it?
how this is. ” This argument IS ours too!!!
enjoy peps.

K Stricker
Gunter said this “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.”
You may well be correct in that he meant to say March 10 but the fact is that he did not.
I can see the City Centre Airport from my rooftop, have a weather station and it was 12 ° colder at my house on that day than any March temperature than I have recorded inside the UHI. But then I’ve only got 4 years of data. 🙂

Mr Lynn (05:26:17) :
Lovelock is what those on the professional engineering sideof the fence would call “f**kwit” or something similar.
Self-regulating entity??

Accusing posters at this site of confusing weather with climate is a straw man argument.

What frightens me is that I completely understand how one could overlook the sarcasm of my intentionally absurd statement. To clarify, I was mocking those who go into hysterics over every heatwave or hurricane, but ignore cold snaps and calm storm seasons. I neglected to consider how many people actually say very similar things with utter sincerity.

rephelan: You can get hourly readings for a specific day from the Environment Canada site. It didn’t give me any linkable URLs while I was doing that (POST form) so I didn’t link any. The trick is to start at the ‘Climate Data Online’ link in the left menu.

Oh, and rephelan, thanks for getting his source. There’s a note floating above the “Alberta” section on the weather network page.
“*Monthly record: the lowest March temperature on record for that station.”
Looks like he probably made a mapping error and assumed that note applied to the entire section rather than to the single value from Clinton, BC.

“Predicting the actual results is close to impossible, so saying “oh this prediction didn’t happen in Double-Dubuque last Tuesday” is not an argument. It is cherry-picking the data to come up with a scenario that suits one’s share portfolio or political weltanschauung (take that as ‘word view’ if you wish). It is a facile and simplistic failed attempt at obfuscation by somebody who knows squat.”
Oh, and so alarmist types like yourself, Epaminondas, don’t ever cherry-pick data. Like when the Senate turned off the room air conditioning and scheduled a hearing for one of the hottest days in Washington, D.C. to have James Hansen and others testify in favor of doing something about “global warming.” You have a lot of chutzpah, sir, a lot. Your premise about average temperatures still going up is also wrong. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary recently. The temperatures in Edmonton, Alberta are just one of many examples over the past couple of years.
I also note that none of the trends that appear over the past few years were predicted by the models. It is not cherry-picking to point that out. As always, the problem with computer models is garbage in, garbage out. They are not good at predicting long term weather, pure and simple. If I were a judge presiding over the case of what will happen and whether there is AGW that requires action, I would throw those models out as incompetent evidence.
Don’t resort to ideology to attack others whom you accuse of “cherry picking.”

Wolfie (#3), The Australian bush fire deaths were mainly caused by green stupidity.
DOING FINE: A patriot’s vision saved his house despite persecution from enviro-bureaucrats
By VEXNEWS ⋅ February 12, 2009
patriotwithaxe Liam Sheahan is almost certainly a boofhead. But he’s a patriot too. A very large Aussie flag flies patriotically from his property in Reedy Creek. He cracks a smile when he sees a chainsaw.
Years ago, he decided to clear by subtle means of bulldozer a whole bunch of trees surrounding his home on top of a hill which is no doubt also his castle.
The local council – Mitchell Shire – cracked the sads at his unilateral approach to fire safety, persecuting and prosecuting him, securing a $50000 fine and costing the axe-wielding patriot another fifty thousand in legals. He was ably represented in the hearing by barrister and former Melbourne Deputy Lord Mayor Clem Newton-Browne.
As noted by a commenter below who helpfully put up this link, the bloke’s cause was probably not helped when the council pursued him over the removal of the trees, according to the Herald Sun he responded [pdf] patriotically but perhaps unwisely:
the Sheahans told the complaining residents and the council to ‘‘get stuffed’’ when asked to explain the clearing. ‘‘We could not care any less than we do now what any self-righteous self appointed ‘green police’ person thinks about what we are doing,’’ they wrote. ‘‘It is our place, not theirs. We have owned it since 1982. We paid for it, not them, and they can go and get stuffed.’
Ultimately his decision to remove 250 trees saved his family and his home during the weekend’s bushfires.
http://www.vexnews.com/news/2745/doing-fine-a-patriots-vision-saved-his-house-despite-persecution-from-enviro-bureaucrats/

Re Wolfie (22:22:10),
Meanwile in Queensland temperatures were below average for February, up to 4 degrees below average – Australia doesn’t stop at the victorian border.
Also that record was set in Melbourne (look up UHI) and was a small increase on the previous record set at Mildura. Mildura (a rural station) did not break it’s previous record from 1939.

>Also that record was set in Melbourne (look up UHI) and was a small increase on the previous record set at Mildura.
AlexB all you have written is wrong. The record FFDI was not in Melbourne in 1939 nor in 2009.
Further, the record for Victoria in the 2009 heatwave was 48.8C at Hopetoun – this is a small town in NW Victoria – a region which has experienced population decline . The previous Feb record for Victoria was 46.7C – bettered by more than 2C. The previous all month record for Victoria was that at Mildura set in 1939 at 47.2C which was bettered by more than 1C.
As for Melbourne – the record in Melbourne was broken by 3C. The heat had nothing to do with urban heat islands as records were smashed by large margins in rural areas surrounding Melbourne.
Once again facts contradict “sceptics” claims. The real facts are summarised at the report available at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs17d.pdf.
Reply: Everyone please get back on topic. This thread is a report on Edmonton. ~dbstealey, mod.

My car thermometer that day recorded -38c at the outskirts of Edmonton.
Another anecdotal record as my car thermometer isn’t calibrated.
——-Epaminondas (01:36:04)
“descending into the ocean at the top of the Pacific as freshwater ice forms on the surface”
One thing I have difficulty understanding how exactly does one make freshwater ice out of ocean water?
Isn’t the Arctic all sea ice with only some places where ice shelves from glaciers float atop the salty sea water.
Perhaps you are a self-seeking grand-stander yourself?

lmao. i hate it when people attribute every little spike or dip in temperature to omfg global warming! you can’t just look at ONE record low or high.
And, you (not “you,” specifically) do realize that it’s technically “climate change” and NOT “global warming?” Some areas will get colder, others warmer.

DJ
there are plenty of bushfire experts in Victoria who have come out publicly with a very different take on things to your “unmitigated nonsense’. Perhaps the reality is somewhere in the middle. Yes it was a bad day for fires – I know what the conditions were like here in Adelaide that same day – but there was a lot that could and should have been done before the fire that wasn’t due to environmental regulations etc.

“rtgr (02:00:34) : acoording to NOAA feb 2009
9th warmest feb ever ?!
whattsupwiththat?”
What’s up? What’s up is that global warming says it’s supposed to be warmer than 9th warmest. But there’s 8 February’s warmer.

Mr Lynn (05:26:17) :
Neil O’Rourke (01:04:31) :
(Quoting from here: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,25195980-1702,00.html?from=widget_rss )
. . . 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.
The idea that the entire Earth is “a single, self-regulating system” has always struck me as vastly oversimplified if not just plain fanciful, just a step away from the preposterous sci-fi notion that the Earth is some kind of giant organism. Yet Lovelock “commands respect because he understood [this] decades before his peers.” Do any of his peers here accept this idea?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything#Answer_to_Life.2C_the_Universe.2C_and_Everything_.2842.29
“This new computer will incorporate living beings in the “computational matrix”, with the pan-dimensional creators assuming the form of mice.”
WRT just a step away from the preposterous sci-fi notion that the Earth is some kind of giant organism.
It’s been done.

” Richard (04:41:58) : ‘one swallow does not make a summer’.”
I think you guys can drop saying this by now. There’s been a cooling trend in the earth since 2004 (really since 1998 😉 ) and it’s continuing. There’s been record cold reported for more than two years. Cooling PDO and AMO happening now. A quiet sun…
You can believe the data. It’s ok.

There ought to be a law

“UPDATE: The author’s claim of breaking a record by -12 degrees may be in error. I’m checking and will make an update this evening. – Anthony”
I had read it was broken by -14, not -12.
I’ll be looking for what Anthony finds in the data.

Just Want Truth… (17:08:18) :
” Richard (04:41:58) : ‘one swallow does not make a summer’.”
I think you guys can drop saying this by now. There’s been a cooling trend in the earth since 2004 (really since 1998 😉 ) and it’s continuing. There’s been record cold reported for more than two years. Cooling PDO and AMO happening now. A quiet sun…
You can believe the data. It’s ok.
I keep reading about the AMO shifting cool – but I haven’t seen a link to any evidence.
Could someone please supply a link.
Thanks in advance. G

“Graeme Rodaughan (18:38:02) : I wouldn’t pop the champange corks yet.”
I didn’t. Here’s the movie scene that the line is from :

One day this war will end too.

Grhm. Cracker needs a link.
I think a killer link w/depository is due by now…
In my opinion, the climate sciences are cool and fun to follow. We all know that climate science is not resolved. In my humble opinion, climate science is far from fact. Thus no consensus.
As a civil guy, I have to study the geotechnical angles at times. I have to study the drainage characteristics of the formation, the creations of which I am convinced, are chaotic on the earth’s surface. Thus I have to contend the atmosphere is also chaotic, thus two chaotic forces creating our environment. I never knew we could model chaotic phenomena.
Climate models seem no more accurate than guestimates, uneducated guesses at that.
In fact, hasn’t Lucia falsified 95% of the models?

For Graeme Rodaughan:
Here is some more good info on the AMO. It is still in its warm phase, so not to be confused with the cold phase of its bigger cousin, the PDO.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceananddrought.html

Robin Kral (20:02:57) :
“Gaia my ass. I’ll believe Earth is an organism when it splits into two daughter Earths.”
Very funny…but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Dismissing the possibility that the Earth behaves as a sort of superorganism is almost as silly as considering it something that has the ability to reproduce.
Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle.
As you can tell, with my screen name, conservationism is extremely important to me. Yet I don’t buy (at all) the Mann hockey stick..neither do I accept the AGW orthodoxy.
There is some truth in the Gaia idea. To throw it out completely…is just as foolish as to expect Earth to split by some mitosis as you say.
Back to TOPIC: Are the record minima in Alberta at least partially corellated by the super stratospheric warming event of late Jan early February?
Did the heating stratosphere SQUEEZE the troposphere down onto North America…and this combined with the gathering effects of a cold PDO….help tip the scales to what we have before us today?
Chris
Norfolk, VA

savethesharks wrote:

Here is some more good info on the AMO. It is still in its warm phase, so not to be confused with the cold phase of its bigger cousin, the PDO.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceananddrought.html

Interesting, but the data there doesn’t include anything later than 2005. According to NOAA, AMO apparently went negative in 2009 with January at -0.007 and February -0.113.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/correlation/amon.us.data

savethesharks (20:16:46) :
Katherine (20:45:11) :
Thanks guys, that data really drops off the cliff over the last few months.
Cheers G

So….Back to TOPIC: Are the record minima in Alberta at least partially corellated by the super stratospheric warming event of late Jan early February?
Did the heating stratosphere SQUEEZE the troposphere down onto North America…and this combined with the gathering effects of a cold PDO….help tip the scales to what we have before us today?
Chris
Norfolk, VA

Regardless of how you define it, it was a cold winter, and its far from over.
I don’t think there was one stretch where we had “Keep your Eye on the Idaho High” at play. Instead the bit of moderation we saw was with a flat jet stream (?). Maybe I never paid attention to that detail but I just don’t remember it being like this even during the cold in the 70’s and with this March coming in like a Lion like it did … this winter is definately on par with those. I’m not sure about a record but it bounces around so much that’s possible … heck when I was a sprout I walked to school in 6 feet of snow, up hill both ways in -40 with …
Only 40 more to go 😀 … unfortunately capped off with ice … before it trends the right way.

lol so the headline is “March low temperature records not broken”… and “Original article a total fraud based on sloppy research and the desire to spread misinformation about climate.”
When will you chance the comment “The author’s (Lorne Gunter) claim of breaking a record by -12 degrees is only partially correct.” to the more correct:
“The author’s (Lorne Gunter) claim of breaking a record by -12 degrees is completely fabricated and I apologise to my dedicated readers that I let this one slip through the net as it makes my site look as though it could just be about spreading ~snip~ misinformation.”

Re: MattB (04:57:34) :
The “first comment on the Edmonton Journal article” is actually the last comment, and is dated after 10pm last night. This story has been here for over a day…
p.s. Rachel/charlie98 should really get the credit for finding the correct records from env. Canada before I did (1972 and 2003 both hit the record of -42.2)…;)

“Katherine (20:45:11) :”
Thanks for pointing this out. It saved me the effort–phew!

Anthony, please *do* continue posting articles like this one to WUWT. I think it is essential that we read and discuss what is actually being reported. We are all learning to say, “Hey, what’s up with that?!” You’re doing a magnificent job of increasing awareness and understanding; I learn something new from WUWT every day. No docile sheep here! Thank you for sharing your time, wisdom, and humor.

It’s kinda like the “’90s were warmest decade in the 20th century and we will never admit that the ’30s were! So there!”

MattB (04:57:34) :
Seriously this is a GOLD MEDAL mistake and one I hope the blogosphere crucifies.”
Please come down off your high horse for a moment – do you get so worked up about any incorrect reported and exaggerations that pass for the MSM’s daily rubbish on AGW? No, I didn’t think so.
And it is not a gold medal mistake, its not even on the first page of results.
You will notice that Anthony has posted an update correction, something most media outlets don’t bother with. And it was still a record low for that day despite your vitriolic attitude.

Chris could you imagine the lampooning here if a warmist site ran a major headline because such and such was the warmest October 2, or the warmest 9:30 on the second thursday after Easter…. it is a meaningless record… totally meaningless. The article ONLY got a run here because it claimed a total March record by a staggeringly large amount… and that turned out to be bulldust, and Whatzits insistance on still running with it with a minor correction that still suggests it is a meaningful record, AFTER being prompted, exposes him as a fraud IMO.

Could someone please explain the meaning of the following, if this was only a record for March 10?
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/almanac_e.html?timeframe=1&Prov=XX&StationID=1865&Year=2009&Month=3&Day=10
Looks like a record low for the month of March? Admittedly by a mere 0.5 degree, and may be changed in the future, as “Data for this day has undergone only preliminary quality checking”

Matt – quit flogging a dead horse. The mistake was pointed out and corrected. The issue of anecdotal reports of cooling events has been discussed here before, and they are somewhat controversial. However, the evidence of a cooling trend is mounting. And no, a cooling trend by itself does not refute AGW, but it is one factor among many that do.
Unfortunately, your comments, particularly those denigrating Anthony do not put you in a good light here, and brand you as an ideologue. Perhaps you can redeem yourself on one of the other, more science-based topics, but I rather doubt you will.

And just to flog the dead horse one more time…
I note the “correction” states “The previous March record Tmin occurred in 2003 and was -42.2°C”
Erm no… that is STILL the record, not the “previous” record. Sentence should read “The March Record is -42.2 decC” or am I too picky on the “Best Science Blog”?

From the same site but “top weather stories for 2007”:
“Edmonton International Airport recorded its highest average July temperature at 18.4°C, eclipsing the high mark set only last year.”
wow where was this hack journo then?

why would you be interested in Jan – Oct if you were looking at long term temps?
What pray tell just what does your post have to do with the FACT that the linked Edmonton Journal article is just making stuff up, and most likely deliberatively false.
If you are not appalled by the articles blatant inaccuracies… then I suggest you are not a sceptic.

Perhaps the following table will illustrate how much cooling has taken place during the past several winters in the Edmonton region or the NORTHWESTERN FOREST region as used by ENVIORNMENT CANADA. Figures are comparison to the 1948-2009 trend and cover the months of december, january and february only
2006 winter-2 nd warmest [+6.5c]
2007 winter-10 th warmest[+3.7c]
2008 winter – 36 th warmest [+0.6C]
2009 winter-42 nd warmest [-0.6C]
For comparison 1972 was the second coldest at [-4.5C]
1950 was the coldest winter at {-5.5C]
All these are during years when PDO was NEGATIVE or in the cool phase
The message here is that we are not yet experiencing record cold for the entire winer for the entire region but as the PDO extends for 20-30 years, we may. Currently we are already having isolated records lasting shorter periods only as posted by Gunter.

JFrykman (12:09:13)
>If you are going to talk “average” you need to be very specific as to what average means AND how it is calculated. Hint: The average speed of a car traveling at 40 km/h for an hour and then 60 km/h for the next hour is not 50 km/h.
Perhaps you should read your own problem statement. If you travel at 40km/h for one hour, and 60km/h for one hour, you will travel 100km in 2 hours, or 50km/h.
However, if you travel 120km at 40km/h and 120km at 60km/h, you will have traveled 240km in 5 hours, or a 48km/h average. This is a quite different problem statement from yours.

mattB
You have again misunderstood the data posted.
No one is claiming that the entire 2008-2009 winter in the Edmonton or Nothern Alberta region was the coldest ever. All we are saying is that some short term cold records are already being broken now in this regions.My previous post clearly showed that global warming has stopped for the last two years regionally in this area. [ also in Canda and globally i might add ]. The temperature anomaly dropped from +6.5C in 2006 to -0.6 in 2009 a drop of 7.1 degrees for the entire winter . There is no global warming here ? We could very well during the next decade in Alberta reach even colder temperatures like those in1972 and 1950 which were 5C lower than 2009 for the entire winter

Sure I do apologise if I have offended you Anthony. it may be wordplay but I was actually challenging you to be brave and honest – I had no idea you were compelled to remove blog posts to edit them, or might have expected that if a post was mid-edit you could easily put in red “BLOG BEING UPDATED” at the top.
Sure I may have been being a bit of a smart ass at times… but if you don;t keep a tab on articles like this you risk becoming less credible than I have the feeling you would like.
The Edmonton article is bulldust and makes up a sensationalist headline to grab blog attention. “Edmonton has 3rd coldest say in 48 years” is a headline worthy of a local rag as a point of interest.
REPLY: When I edit in the evening, I often take posts offline because I have young children about, and sometimes I am pulled away from the computer for several minutes or longer. I’ve been burnt before by the autosave feature of WordPress putting up a half edited post. Putting it offline in these conditions prevents an incomplete presentation, but risks overreaction from people like yourself that are looking for changes. Catch-22. No more edits will be made until I hear from Mr. Gunter. I have a new email address for him so hopefully that will be soon. Feel free to discuss anything else on any other part of the blog until then. – Anthony

Global warming is now a religion, and you know how religions can prove everything about their religion is true, well that’s what is happening to the Global Warming sect. As in…all weather proves Global Warming, no matter what the weather.