While the squabbling continues on MSNBC (see Bill Nye here and Morano with the American Progress guy here, and by all means don’t miss this Olberman rant ) over whether the big Washington DC snow means anything, the venue of the argument is about to shift west. The argument may stop in Dallas, TX along the way west.
The Times reports: Too much snow forces Scottish resort to close
One of the low elevation Vancouver skiing venues (Cypress Mountain) is short on snow this year due to El Nino, and the Global Warming machine is soon going to saturate the news with this story. It has already started and is ramping up.
VANCOUVER, B.C. — One morning last week, environmentalist David Suzuki looked across English Bay from his Vancouver home to Cypress Mountain, usually covered in snow this time of year but now left all but bare by a warm winter.
“I’ve watched in horror as the snow has just melted away from Cypress Mountain,” Suzuki said, referring to the 2010 Olympic Games snowboarding and freestyle skiing venue. The view from Vancouver, Suzuki and others say, provides a glimpse into the future for the Winter Olympics.
Cypress Mountain (yellow insert) from NASA’s Earth Observatory
UPDATE: Image above and NASA Earth Observatory writes:
In early February 2010, organizers were putting the finishing touches on venues for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. Two months earlier, on December 6, 2009, the Thematic Mapper Plus on NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite captured a detailed image of the area where the games will be held.
The image on the left provides a view of the area from Vancouver northward to the Whistler skiing village. Areas outlined in yellow delineate close-up views on the right. The top close-up shows venues near the village of Whistler, where Nordic and alpine skiing events will be held. The bottom close-up shows Cypress Mountain, the planned venue for freestyle skiing and snowboarding, among other events.
Throughout the scene, snow blankets the highest peaks, and low-angled sunlight illuminates south-facing slopes while leaving north-facing slopes in shadow. Valleys and lower slopes are lush green. The venues near Whistler appear as patchworks of green forest interrupted by long, thin trails of snowy white. Just north of the city of Vancouver, Cypress Mountain also holds snowy ski trails, but overall has far less snow.
After unusually warm conditions in January 2010, snow remained scarce on Cypress Mountain. The Los Angeles Times reported that snow was being trucked to Cypress Mountain from higher elevations, and Vancouver Now reported that organizers had placed tubes filled with dry ice on courses to keep surrounding snow from breaking down. A surprise snowstorm struck on February 10, just two days before the games opened, boosting the snowpack. The snowstorm did not, however, change the short-term forecast for rain.
Never mind that most of the ski areas in the world are having excellent seasons, including other Olympic venues like Whistler – which has already received over 1,000 cm of snow this winter. Arizona Snowbowl has received 238 inches of snow this winter! You read that correctly – Arizona.
Squaw Valley, California (site of the 1960 Winter Olympics) is reporting at least 10 feet of snow on the ground. Ski conditions around Salt Lake City (site of the 2002 Olympics) are excellent. Wolf Creek, Colorado is reporting close to ten feet on the ground. European ski areas are reporting excellent snow. Pajarito Mountain, New Mexico is reporting one of their best ski seasons ever. North Carolina ski areas are reporting some of their best conditions ever. Scotland is reporting the best ski conditions in 50 years. Washington DC is shut down due to snow.
Most of the ski areas in British Columbia have excellent snow, but be assured that the press will highlight the one area which doesn’t – and will not provide a sensible explanation for the cause. They will blame it on global warming, and will intentionally ignore ski conditions in most of the globe.
The glass is 10% empty, not 90% full.
Climate change blamed for Olympic snow shortage
Winter snow season has been slowly shrinking in past 50 years, says researcher
This graphic might help some people understand the winter weather patterns in an El Nino year. Same thing happened in 1998. Note where Vancouver is: in the warm pattern.
You have to live in Vancouver to know that this is normal and even more so when there is an El Nino. I don’t know many people here in BC that take Suzuki seriously anyway… why now?
I’ve actually been surprised this hasn’t been trumpeted any sooner than now. Likely the ongoing snowstorm in D.C. is dampening the lack-of-snow-means-global-warming “news.”
El Nino’s are meant to give milder winters in the UK, this one has been anything but mild. Scotland has its coldest ever December-January pairing. Sorry, coldest ever on record.
The canal down’t road has been iced up since mid December.
So? Cypress Mountain isn’t one of the tallest peaks in the world
Top elevation: 1440 m / 4724 ft. Base elevation: 910 m / 2985 ft
and it is quite close to open water. Organizers should have had an alternative. Using helicopters to bring in snow is news worthy. The snow resorts with snow – that’s not alarming. And the media, mostly, and the AGW crowd will make of it what they can.
The thought about organizers having and alternative – they should have given the Goracle plane tickets and free passes.
David Suzuki is trapped by his ego. Too stupid to admit he may be wrong, he keeps on barking up the same tree. Within a few years he and his kind including Al Gore – the carbon Wh-re will start their back down.
Hopefully the silly Carbon trading market will have fallen flat on it’s face and left Gore and the other opportunists scrambling to fund their retirement pensions.
I can dream anyway.
Another good Whistler page is http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/weather/stats/index.htm – new record snowfall for Nov/Dec/Jan over a rather short period. In 04/05 they only had 2.5m, this year they’ve had 9.9m.
If snowfall correlates with warming, that’s one heck of a warm up. 🙂 If it doesn’t, that’s one heck of an example of why one shouldn’t try to link climate with snowfall, it’s just too variable.
I’ve lived in New England for 35 years and still haven’t seen a normal winter. 🙂
The snows in decline,you cant hide it. It’s worse than we thought
When the average person can see the record cold and snow elsewhere the global warming machine only continues to destroy what little if any credibility they have left. Sickening thing is their media frenzy is often paid for by our taxes!
He might be trapped by his ego, but isn’t he the guy that wants to lock up and/or shoot sceptics ? Stupid can still be deadly.
So snow in DC and no snow in one area in BC are both signs of GW?
I wish these guys could get their stories right.
Step # 1: obtain soapbox. Step #2:stand on soapbox. Step # 3, …..
I just left this as comment #14 over at Climate Progress under his 11 February post about the winter olympics:
This is a pathetic portrayal of our climate. Having served as a state climatologist for 20 years I’m stunned to see what goes on here at Climate Progress. Global warmism is beginning to look much like McCarthyism in the 50s. Everything is exaggerated by a factor of 10. We will likely look back at this period of our history 10 to 20 years from now with considerable embarrassment.
I agree with twawki, they will do this (saw in Guardian that ‘Canada’ was exceptionally hot!), but it will fly back at them. Its like reading a media story on a subject you are familiar with, and seeing all the glaring errors/biases. The smart advocates will just try to balance it against the cold elsewhere (which is correct), but most aren’t that smart.
Suzuki whose Foundation’s chairman is green peddler extraordinaire Hoggan founder of… Desmogblog…
Last year the same area had about 3 ft of snow at sea level, a feast that did not happen for almost 40 years according to locals! And Suzuki was nowhere to clear driveways… LOL
Einstein spent the last 30 years of his life in a futile quest for a Theory of Everything. Global warming proponents have now succeeded where Einstein failed. Everything from heat to cold, rain or snow to drought, and sun to shade can now be explained by The Theory of Global Warming. Quite an accomplishment.
It just might make more sense to helicopter the contestants over the hill to where the snow is, eh? Wasn’t there an old tale told about bringing the mountain to Mohammed being the wrong solution? This seems a bit silly but I’d wager well that the problem has more to do with camera angles and hotel reservations than taking the athletes to where the snow is.
Cold is never due to an excess of energy, as Bill Nye claims. Cold is (by definition) the absence of energy.
Adjacent to the BC coast range in Washington and Oregon we have seen an increase in snowpack over the past 33 years back to 1976 as seen here for a composite of 83 snotel/survey sites in the Cascade Mtns as measured on 1 April of each year:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/swe.waor_west.1976-2008.gif
The cheapest trick in the Global Warming book: Report an unusual warm & dry place to everywhere but the place where it is happening.
You don’t want the people who actually live in Vancouver to tell the world that this happens during an El Nino, and it’s part of the deal.
You want as many places in the US to think that the big snow & cold they are experiencing is happening ONLY in thier neck of the woods, while the rest of the nation or whatever is broiling.
In 1986 Whistler hosted the World Cup skiing competition. They worried and sweated then too about conditions being too warm.
I’ve skied Cypress both in drizzle and at -10C (about the coldest it gets there). Cypress and Grouse (the other low elevation ski hill in Vancouver) are always a crap shoot for good snow. I can’t imagine why they would have chosen Cypress.
That’s why Whistler was developed an hour out of the city back in the 1970’s. The top of the runs at Whistler are almost 7,500 feet elevation and the village below is about 2,100 feet. Usually you go from powder at the peak to slush or ice at the base (the transition can be nasty if you get ice).
Hurry, hurry, move the olympics to Scotland !
I can attest to the snow in Dallas but I don’t know that we’re ready to host the Winter Olympics. It’s 1:10 a.m. and I just got finished towing my kids around our neighborhood using a Jeep, a rope and one of those round disc/sled thingies. It’s the Texas version of sledding since we don’t have much in the way of hills to speak of and rarely have snow deep enough to even think about something like this. Don’t worry, tomorrow’s a snow day and the kiddos (and I) will sleep in.
Man I love this global warming!
I’m confused. Global warming caused record snows on the East Coast, but not enough snow at low elevations on the West Coast, record rain in SoCal, and what else? And El Nino doesn’t count, or does it?
Global warming is causing increased tree growth, but the CRU crew had to hide the decline in tree growth. Which is it?
No matter what happens, global warming caused it. Why did the Saints win the Super Bowl? Easy, it was global warming. Why is Congress packed with numbskulls? Ditto.
Global warming is like a god. Good and evil, birth and death, whatever happens to mice and men, global warming did it. Why has the world gone stark raving mad? You know the answer.
The endless snarking about how recent cold and snow “disproves” the AGW hypothesis really does tend to undermine a properly reasoned skeptical critique and rebuttal of this “Cargo Cult Science” bilge.
There were periods of miserable (even killing) hot weather during the Little Ice Age in Europe and North America – of which anyone well-read in military history knows quite well; consider the temperatures prevalent on the field during the Battle of Monmouth (28 June 1778) as an example – and it understood that periods of extreme cold and heavy snowfall can occur even over relatively large areas during a sustained regime of warming.
Though to consider anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions as a forcing factor in “climate change” consisting of cooling is a helluva stretch.
Extraordinary assertions such as this one require extraordinary support, and insofar as I’ve been able to determine, the Watermelon warmists have got about as much support for this wowzer as did Jonathon Swift’s flying island of Laputa.
I think we need to stick to that instead of gloating about how the snow has paralyzed Mordor-on-the-Potomac.
—
The New Zealand Ski industry is gearing up for bigger numbers. Fairly big investments in infrastructure and air connections.
Kiwis are a bunch of pragmatists who can see through the BS. There is some pandering to the political correct police for the media’ssake. My general feeling in NZ is that most feel that cap and trade is a pointless exercise and we can manage our own future without the help of some political scientists in another hemisphere. The major political parties can’t quite see this though.
I’d really like to ask any politician how they are going to measure the ROI of cap and trade and feed that back to the public in a transparent manner. Hell freezes over meantime…
OT, I don’t know if the Agitprop movie The Age of Stupid is on general release worldwide, http://www.ageofstupid.net
but I find the title somewhat titillating..
David Suzuki is the Al Gore of Canada and sells “quality” carbon offsets. He roped a bunch of NHL players into buying and promoting carbon offsets. He said on his site last year a bunch of players bought Gold Standard offsets, (which were from Suzuki’s company). He helped players determine their own carbon emissions. As Robert Redford said in 2003, :”We have to go to sports.”
“this thing of denying science…science has done so much to make this country what it is…to deny what scientific evidence is showing is…when I get wound up – unpatriotic.”
Forget Tim Flannery, we need this Science Guy downunder!
The mainstream media is disgusting and demented. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and saw the distinct variability from season to season, with some Winters very cold and snowy, other Winters very warm and dry, and some Winters right in the middle. What is happening right now in B.C. is “normal” and not due to anthropogenic “climate change” or “global warming.” One day all of these Green ideologues in the media and the governments will crumble under the weight of their own lies and deceptions, and that will be a great day.
As much as I am enjoying this Winter in the East, I cringe when I watch the 540 thickness oscillate above and below BC like a fire hose. Let us all pray to the Snow Gods…
OH if the Olympics were just one year earlier….or two months earlier, in December.
The event is so monumental…and like trying to turn an aircraft carrier on a dime….you just can’t do it. It is too bad they can’t plan the event around the weather and not vice versa.
Occasionally the Snow Gods come together for a magical Winter Olympics. (Anyone remember the heavy snow falling in an awards ceremony at Turin….or the storybook opening ceremonies at Lillehammer in 1994?
But I also remember Calgary 1988. Sheez. Canada, a principality that is built around snow….deserves better! 😉
Again….only if the Olympics were last year!
Regardless….beyond all the hand-wringing over the current state…everyone please enjoy the Olympics.
They are…snow or no snow…a wonderful testament to the majesty of our species. Enjoy.
And maybe next time the Olympic planners should listen to good long-range forecasters like Joe Bastardi who has been predicting this very winter for a very, very long time now.
Then he set it in stone last July….when the UK Met was still opining about a BBQ summer that wasn’t and a mild, non-eventful winter.
The persistent high height anomaly in western Canada was forecast well in advance.
Perhaps Bastardi would have recommended that the Winter Olympics for this yea… be held in Philadelphia…or Baltimore…..or DC….where there is 2 to 3 feet of snow on the ground….and no real significant sign of melting through the remainder of the month….and more snow to come.
Yikes.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Olympics – Snow finally falls on bare Cypress
Thu, Feb 11 02:41 AM
http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20100211/375/tsp-olympics-snow-finally-falls-on-bare.html
Vancouver Olympics organisers breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday as Mother Nature finally cooperated and snow began to fall on the barren hills of Cypress Mountain three days before moguls competition begins.
“It’s snowing quite well right now,” said Stephen Bourdeau, spokesman at the Cypress Mountain Olympic venue. “We’ve had a nice little dumping that’s covering the trees. We expect more of this in the next couple of days.”
Temperatures hovered just below freezing so the rain that was falling in Vancouver had turned to snow on Cypress, a mountain on the outskirts of the city.
“It’s just cold enough,” Bourdeau said. “We’re very happy — we’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”
Suzuki you dimwit.
The first few days of the 88 Calgary Winter Olympics were bitter cold, below -30. They had to cancel outdoor events for the cold.
Then a Chinook blew through, and I was THERE as the hill was melting on the day they tried to cram 3 days worth of events into one. That was the day Eddy the Eagle waved at my camcorder, it was almost room temperature, and it was windy.
It’s Canada, and it’s an El Nino year. Weather changes. Grow up and deal with it. How embarrassing that this twit “represents” my country.
Did he really ‘watch in horror’ some snow melting. What would he do if a large flaming meteorite was coming his way, perhaps ‘Watch in really really truly truly horror, oh the horror, the horror’?
Does the term ‘Drama Queen’ apply here? Environmentalists need there hyperbole gene turned down a notch.
Did you catch Olberman say “. . . man-made or man-influenced extreme weather”?
So, when it’s warming it’s man-made global warming; when it’s cooling it’s man-made climate change; when records more than 100 years old are being broken it’s man-made extreme weather. It is impossible to reason with these people when, no matter what’s happening, it’s all caused by the questionable behavior of greedy industrialists, soccer moms driving mini-vans, recovering Catholics, and everyone else, for that matter.
Next up, a man-made average spring. We’d need to do something about that, for sure!
Some time back the AGW proponents were able to successfully change Anthropogenic Global Warming to Climate Change. Perhaps it is now time to take the next step and call it Climate Theory of Everything or CTOE.
David Suzuki is a supposed Canadian icon, but really he is nothing more than a shrill, self-promoting CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) talking head. His popularity has always been supported by the heavy public funding of the CBC and his friendships with the CBC power brokers. But don’t dismiss his influence; he actually has the ear of a great many Canadian politicians merely due to his relative fame in Canada. It doesn’t make him right, but it has made him dangerous at times.
Same old, same old. Snow, no matter how deep and how prolonged, is weather and melting snow is global warming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah.
How stupid do these people think we are?
Historical temperatures around Vancouver for last 160 years:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icrutem3_hadsst2_230-243.5E_45-52.5N_na.png
Luckily, they did not organize Olympic Games in the mid of 19th century.
The only thing to learn from this story is not to host an Olympic competition on a hill near the ocean, at low altitude in an el Nino year.
Europe is enjoying a colder than normal season, with good, but not record-breaking snowfall as well. The Siberian High has been further west and the jet stream further south. As a result, alpine resorts are doing well. Scotland’s industry may be kept going for 5 years as a result of business done this year – it’s their best for 25 years. Last year was superb and the year before pretty damn good. A return of belief is the order of the day in Europe, not fear of global warming…..
This has gone far beyond proper reporting…….
whistler has a record of snowfall this year.. so..
It’s gonna keep on snowing ’til Gore freezes over.
Anthony, I’m in Vancouver if you need anyone to check on anything for these stories… or if you want photos… or a fresh video…
We had our snowmaggedon in Vancouver about a year ago. This year it’s warmer and wetter… I’ve lived here almost continuously since 1979 and it’s the usual variable winter as far as I can tell. Over this winter season I’ve heard Canadian weather forecasters on the CBC attribute the warm Vancouver and west coast weather to the Arctic cold front that descended into the mid and eastern USA. I’m not clear on all the details.
David Suzuki is sort of our Al Gore and Jim Hansen rolled into one. A friend overhear him and another gentleman talking at a trendy Vancouver cafe years ago talking about how they could make lots and lots of money presenting the “right bits” of the science to the policy makers and the public. They didn’t realize my friend was in the next booth and talked about this for over half an hour and were startled when they got up and saw that he’d been sitting there overhearing what they were saying. Too bad there wasn’t a recording. Sigh, another scientist gone to the dark side with his agenda driven non-science.
Oh, as a Canadian I must apologize to the world for Maurice Strong who is one who started this mess early on decades ago.
Please know that many Canadians really don’t believe this nonsense about man destroying our planet with CO2. Some of us actually want hard science to prevail over predetermined political agenda driven climate science.
Excess snow proves global warming and lack of snow proves global warming…..my head hurts.
Utterly O/T, but thought you should know, the company running the New Zealand Stock Exchange has just announced it’s bailed out of carbon trading and taken a $19 million loss on the sale of the carbon business, citing a lack of political will on carbon markets.
Details at The Briefing Room http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2010/02/nzx-makes-loss-as-gloss-goes-from-carbon-market.html
2010 Winter Games Climate/Weather Forecast by Environment Canada
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/2010/index_e.html
Google News on Vancouver 2010 Weather
http://news.google.ca/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=ca&hl=en&q=vancouver+2010+weather
Not only do we have a strong el nino, there is a major north Atalantic oscillation in play as well, which is why the northern latitudes of the eastern US, the UK and most of the European ski resorts are seeing record snowfalls and low temperatures.
The el nino is driving warm air up to high latitudes on the Pacific coast, the NOA is driving the polar winds down the east coast causing the huge snowfalls in Canada and the US. This in turn is creating deep atlantic depressions picking up warm, wet air in the tropics which unwind over western europe where they run in to more polar wind and the result is snow.
The only “weather” or “climate” I studied was at school and even I can see this from the pressure charts.
When we get freezing, record breaking weather in the US / UK they say its just weather; when we get lack of snow in Vancouver they jump on the global warming bandwagon. They seem to want it both ways, “heads I win, tails you lose”.
Here are 4825 webcams in ski resorts from 45 countries.
http://www.snoweye.com/
Here are accumulated snowfall forecast for the next 3 days worldwide.
http://www.snow-forecast.com/maps/worldwide_accumulation
According to Bill Nye the “Science” guy the IPCC got a Nobel Prize in science and that proves global warming.
Since when is “peace” a scientific award?
That guy is a joke.
These people are really clutching at straws if they think weather is climate.
The fact is that most of the NH has had a very cold winter so far and the predicted CAGW isn’t happening any time soon. This furore is very damaging to their credibility and exemplifies the cargo cult science alarm-ism.
Here’s the current info from the Cypress weather centre:-
“Snow Conditions
New Snow (Over Night): 15 cm
New Snow (Last 24 hrs): 15 cm
New Snow (7 days): 20 cm – mid mountain Alpine Area
Total Snow Fall (Season) 466 cm
Alpine Snow Conditions: n/a
Snow Depth (Mid Mtn.): 273 cm”
http://cypressmountain.com/alpine-conditions
Yesterday I heard, that on Siberia the are enjoying the coldest winter in last 40 years.
Just to remind, the mother of all European winters 1941/42 (when Germans froze at the Moscow suburbs) was accompanied by extremely warm Arctic:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=0&type=anoms&mean_gen=01&year1=1942&year2=1942&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
Had such extreme winter happened in Eurasia again, we would have been taught about unprecedented warmth in Alaska and Northern Siberia, no doubt.
Somebody should write a book!!! I bet there are 10+ in the mill.
Vancouver – a bit like Bing Crosby et al waiting for the snow in White Christmas. Altogether now, I’m dreaming of……
Don’t tell me they have picked the only ski resort in the world that won’t get snow this winter!!!
How did the AGW circus manage to guess that right?
We’ll never hear the end of this now….. every day and night of the Winter Olympics and for the rest of the winter, all we’ll hear is how bad AGW has affected the Snow fall….. and snow anywhere else is because extra moisture causes more snow… except where olympic games are being held of course….
It’s enough to make one sick.
Suzuki needs to keep raving and ranting as much as he can. Citizens at large already see through the bs and are even more put off by his climate change observations. The problem for Suzuki is that nowadays everything is recorded and their ignorance comes back to haunt them at some stage. “The science is settled” was the greatest sound bit ever for the warmists when marketing the global warming hoax and it worked brilliantly for awhile. But those very words are coming back to haunt them.
We need to encourage more Bill Nye on TV. The “misunderstood genius” of our time weighing in on global warming. It is unfortunate truth that he wears dicky bow’s to get his intellectual superiority across to us, the stupid masses. We get the picture all right.
Observations after weather events take place is the new science of the climate alarmists.
Slightly off topic, but there was a mention further up this comment thread of the UK’s “Barbecue Summer” so here’s the scoop.
We got to late July 2009 and the summer had been crap. At the same time, the credit crunch was hitting the UK hard and foreign tourists were not booking UK holidays in large numbers. The government had the bright idea that announcing that the August weather was going to be fabulous would induce British families (whose kids are off school in August) to holiday in the UK and give a much needed boost to the tourism industry.
The Met Office, which after all is staffed by civil servants and so is a branch of government, was asked to announce a “BBQ summer” for propaganda purposes. They duly did so, in order to stay in the good books of the government. The summer weather remained crap throughout.
Ask yourself – is a man like Suzuki up to hi ears in carbon credit derivatives and greentech stocks? And if not, why not?
It’s now 5:00 AM and it’s still a veritable “Winter Wonderland” outside! Very picturesque with snow covering and sticking to everything … snow is now JUST tapering off as a short expedition outside and RADAR verifies …
.
.
In Toronto in Canada this winter,for almost the first time in recorded history there has been almost no snow, yet around 700 miles to the south in Washington, it is at record levels.
Of course, it is supposed to be the other way round. As the alarmists would say:” this is just another clear sign of man made global warming.”
At least most of the Canadian newspapers are blaming El Nino for the snow problems at the lower levels of the Whistler Olympic site – nevertheless, there are large amounts of snow on the upper levels..
What do the tongues call global warming today?
Snow, or no snow.
So let it snow, let it snow, and let it snow…
OT:
Is the Toyota Prius the future?
I, like a lot of car owners have to run an old banger.Even an electric window going wrong can be a major issue.
I then try to imagine owning a second hand, ten year old Prius.
The future for us proles is standing at bus stops watching the champagne socialists waft by.
The Olympics, both Summer & Winter, are allocated to regions of the planet 8 years in advance at least. Surely this just goes to show that one cannot predict weather so far in advance? Wasn’t the recent Greek Olympics somewhat hotter than the usual warmth in that region at the time?
O/T but relevent, (I think) I enjoyed my beer with my Met Office friend whom I sing with in the Church choir, I admire & respect him. Upshot, we agreed to dissagree, it was friendly of course & frank & honest, I think I did reasonably well. Degrees of uncertainty in the GCMs was an interesting case in point. He pointed out the warmth in Canada, I pointed out the extreme cold in much of the United States! He agreed that too much money & politics were involved in climate science. We discussed the Ice Ages, their likely causes. He made the point about the “rate of warming” being unusual, I made the point about the Younger Dryas cooling & then recovery & that rate of cooling & then sudden warming (up to 10°C in 10 yrs). I also made the point about political activism, the Club of Rome, Maurice Strong, et al, Greenpeace & WWF, the Marxist Sociliast desire for Global Governance, etc, & the “irony” about how the AGW solutions & the desire of the CoR, MS (both) & GG, were the same! The beer was good!
BTW you Canutts better watch out, we have a good woman for the bobsleigh & a cracking team for the curling (again)! As usual it seems we Brits leave the cold weather sports to the women.
Is this correct? Whistler – 1,000 cm of snow this winter. In Australia we would kill for 10% of this.
Just move the Olympics to Washington D.C. This solves two problems. 1) there is more than enough snow there and 2) the politicians will be so busy partying that they’ll not pass any more draconian laws.
Weather always aims for balance. Nature do so. We might be surprised by the fact that heat and cold appears at the same time not far away from each other. The warmer and the colder it is on either side, the worse is often the weather going to be. My self are living at high latitude (60), close to the Atlantic ocean which takes along huge amount of warm surface water. Western parts of Norway then can welcome between 3000 and 5000 mm of precipitation each year. Other parts of the country get only one tenth of this.
My point is that without a warm ocean and cold air, no precipitation. Spitsbergen /Svalbard now endure one of the warmest winters ever measured (1912). Same can be said about the sothern parts of Greenland and some parts of NW America.
We now know that our glaciers retracted over several years, but increased after the mild and wet years in the nineties. It always snows above 1000 meter asl.
Norway have had an significant temperaturerise since 1970, with some setbacks. Our areas from latitudes 60 to 80 have experienced up to 2 degrees Celcius rise in 40 years.
We have to realize that IPPC often use NH as an example of global warming and uprecedented in regard to the rise just mentioned.
The Hockey Stick Graph is correct if startpoint is 1900 and in regard to Norway alone…
We all know in Norway the Wikings experienced a mild climate for centuries towards the Great Plague (1349). So I don’t doubt the theory about even higher mean temperatures between 800 and 1200 AD in Norway than today.
What we do know for a fact is that cold climate is worse than the opposite for most living creatures.
MarkA (22:54:24) :
AGW is environmentalism’s Vietnam. The coverage of this story by MSM is equivalent to McCarthyism of the ’50s. You have it exactly right.
I won’t look back with embarrassment, just bemusement. I’m sure there will be some sort of other crisis the world will have to do something about.
Of course real problems with simple solutions, such as fixing broken sewer mains, will be overlooked.
PMH (23:03:47) Said:
“Everything from heat to cold, rain or snow to drought, and sun to shade can now be explained by The Theory of Global Warming.”
There’s a site listing them all:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Another climate model failure. I thought at least one of the how ever many climate models are out there would have predicted this. That none apparently did continues their sterling record; after all, if they can’t predict the past they can’t predict the future. David Suzuki and his ilk have failed again to show that they have the minimal brain capacity required to breathe air.
Thanx to Ray for the local knowledge that this is expected in an El Nino event. I guess David Suzuki doesn’t track local patterns.
I’m in the Seattle area, a mere three hours south of Vancouver. Yes, it’s confusing to go outside and feel like it should be March while the rest of the country is shoveling loads of global warming. I have also attributed it to a God who is blessing those who live below the Howard Hansen Dam – it is in serious danger of failing. Being fairly dry, without our typical winter storms and certainly NOT having a repeat of last winter (a number of snow storms where one is notable), does take the pressure off this earthen dam while it undergoes repair.
The graphic doesn’t explain why the Eastern Canadian Arctic temperatures have been well above normal this year.
Could it be possible that the north pole’s temperature is travelling south along with the jet stream to finally settle at the right coordinates of Al Baby´s house?
Well:
“Vancouver in 3rd place under the category of “Lowest Snowfall” among 100 major Canadian cities.”
And now there is apparently snow snow falling in the area. So perhaps they are actually striking lucky rather than sinking in ecological doom after all.
We have developed a generation of people and journalists who cry “wolf” every time the weather does not arrive on time. Pathetic.
as it turns out Bill Nye is kind of weird. besides not knowing data, he also wants to reduce the population.
[Reply: and he wears a bow tie. Über-weird. ~dbs]
The 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid had the same problem, very little snow that season. But fortunately, the region still had plenty of cold, so it was possible to manufacture snow in abundance. Snow-making equipment from all the Adirondacks was hauled to Whiteface. Just before the games commenced, snow to begin to fall, upsetting the organizers who had by then created perfectly groomed trails. Oh that Mother Gaia, such a sense of humor!
as long as far left political hacks like Keith Olbermann are pushing global warming you can be assured that the mainstream of the population will have doubts about it.
btw, few people watch his show. you’d have to add the numbers for 7 days of his viewers to equal 1 day of Glenn Beck’s viewers, and Glenn Beck isn’t even in prime time like Olberman is.
I liked two things particularly about the Morano interview. I liked the way Dan White walked right into Marc’s trap about falsifiability, and I liked the way this functionary of the Center for American Progress used George Bush to establish some credibility.
New name for ClimateGate—-HilarityGate.
===========================
maybe if Keith Olbermann wasn’t such a mindless ideologue of the left he would notice these stories…..and would get better ratings:
Snow in All 50 States?
Patrick Marsh said it’s likely by the end of the week snow will be on the ground in all 50 states…..is a meteorology student at OU who is trying to collect pictures of snow on the ground from all 50 states…..”Hopefully I’ll get photos from all 50 states, and if I do, I’ll put them into a Google Earth map and make a snow snapshot of America.”
http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=11973034
Record 11 inches of Goreflakes in Dallas.
The socialists want Olympic failure.
They also hate competition and want all athletes to get a gold medal.
Just a quick correction about the ski conditions around salt lake city. The salt lake and park city areas are having a well below average year. Might want to leave that reference out.
It’s the thermofascists who demanded that patterns of weather last for 30 years instead of the former 10 before they could be classified as climate – why do they have such trouble following their own rules?
Please look at the current temperature anomalies along the equator line:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Not so much as for a real El Nino; just a little in El Nino 3+4 area.
What if this is instead related to the change in geomagnetic fields, as pointed out by our friend Vuk, which is changing the patterns of winds, currents, displacement of north magnetic pole to Siberia, etc.
It is not the usual El Nino. Is it the developing characteristics of a phenomenon not seen before in our generation but perhaps in the Maunder Minimum time?
Low Ap index, high neutron count numbers, increased clouds cover over certain areas, etc.
A more general view is needed, perhaps if we start with the Sun it will be possible, so as to get something structurated and stop groping in the dark. If this view is accomplished then there will be no place to non rational speculations as those from the global warming church and its japanese cleric.
Whstler had 18 feet of snow in November. The warmistas aren’t good with maps. Whistler is not adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. If we go North, Girdwood Alyeska ski resort is near the water and low elevation also. It is however around the corner from the open ocean.
Romm is spinning every thing he can grasp. Let him get a little more desparate on convicted felon George soros money. Climate progress is in meltdown.
Bill Nye and Keith Olbermann will blame this on global warming
snow in Rome
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100212/wl_nm/us_italy_snow_1
Suzuki, since he flipped, Hansen-like, into a climate crime accuser, is someone worth ignoring completely.
The first problem was hosting the Olympics in Vancouver. It is the warmest place in all of Canada… many Canadians migrate to Vancouver because of the nice weather and very small winter than they get. This is normal. If they wanted a winter wonderland they could have had them in any other part of the country except the southwest coast. Idiots.
Never mind that Suzuki doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what happens to the winter Olympics. Think of all the CO2 that the snow-making machinery, and snow-grooming equipment, and lift-tows, and transportation to the back-country ski resorts spew out. In a Suzuki world, we would all be out in the snow in wooden clogs gathering nuts and berries, and looking for firewood.
British Columbia has warm weather during the winter all the time. I live in Calgary, and when the cloud formations over the Rockies are just right, we get the benefit of warm air from the west that can turn -40C weather to +5C in a matter of hours.
This type of propaganda is meant for people who are completely unaware of how winters are like in Western Canada.
Canada must be quite hot as just about all the ice bridges / roads are open:
http://www.dot.gov.nt.ca/_live/pages/wpPages/roadConditions.aspx
OT I know, but we have this statement from our climate change minister in NZ that is on the front page of the NZ herald site ATM.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10625837
It follows a 5 minute speech from the leader of the Coalition ACT party last week, where over half the speech was devoted to NIWA and the IPCC’s errors
When CBC released this story last week, I sent a letter to the David Suzuki Foundation asking how they could determine that the cause of no snow on our local mountains, was due to Global Warming caused by Climate change ,(this was based on “only” 50 years of research data as reported in the article). Since this is a common even on the local mountains, I asked them for proof of what conditions were like prior to 1960, 75 years, 150, 500 and a 1000 years ago.
.
I also complained to the CBC for reporting unsubstantiated information and sensationalizing this event, along with a complaint about the CBC to the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission) for irresponsible reporting. So far I have not heard anything back from all three and no acknowledgment of receipt of the complaint.
Up here, we refer to david suzuki as Dr. Fruit Fly.
He’s made a pile of money off the greeny scare machine . . . he’s wound up tighter than stink on doggy-poo with that desmogblog greeny agit prop website and his foundation makes $millions off the scam.
BBC News had a major item about lack of snow at Cypress. If you didn’t know otherwise, you’d think the whole Winter Games was there – nothing about the fantastic snow at Whistler where most of the events are being held, and no update to say that it is now snowing. Doesn’t fit the narrative.
This is quite normal. I live in Alberta. It is well known that BC snow can be unreliable even in February – especially so as you get closer to the coast.
They actually make wine and grow fruit in the Okanagan valley in BC. The only issue here is holding the winter olympics in a place that is warmed by a maritime climate.
Just look where Cypress Mountain is
http://cypressmountain.com/
….right on the coast. What would you expect but mild maritime climate? Serious skiers in Vancouver do not ski at Cypress Mountain – they drive inland towards the Rockies for about 2 hours. Cypress is simply a family and kids small ski hill adjacent to the City.
Suzuki – the guy has a surprising amount of influence in Canada. He had a science show on the CBC for quite a while which was very good as long as he stuck to his area of expertise (GENETICS!). He soon learned that there was more money in making headlines than there was in just plain old science, so he switched to things like climate, for which a degree in genetics clearly prepared him.
But forget Susuki, I have a different question. If these gods of climate research or so certain that they know exactly what the future holds for us, one would think they might have warned us. Hey Olympic committee, CRU and IPCC on the line here, you may not want to award 2010 winter olympics to Vancouver, they won’t have any snow. But listen, global warming will cause major snow falls elsewhere here’s our list of recommended sites. But no, selfish SOB’s, they know exactly what the climate is doing but they won’t say anything except “its gonna be very bad”.
Perhaps the Olympic committee should put out a tender for a climate forecast contract (4 years out is climate, not weather, don’t let anyone tell you different) to help them pick the next site. Big bonus for getting it right, big penalty clause for getting it wrong. One of these models accurate to within one degree 19 times out of 20 to a confidence rate of 90% within range of tolerance ought to step up and go fo the money…. just one… no cahonies any of them….?
The Rachel Maddow Comedy Show: Record Snow Does Not Disprove Global Warming
If you don’t believe in climate change you are Unpatriotic.
http://www.infowars.com/the-rachel-maddow-comedy-show-record-snow-does-not-disprove-global-warming/
Veronica,
Interesting theory, but the Met Office made their “Barbecue Summer” prediction in April.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090430.html
“JonesII (05:13:12) :
[…]
It is not the usual El Nino.”
Maybe this is how El Nino typically looks like in the cool phase of the PDO. Somebody call Bob Tisdale for a more informed opinion.
Carbon Mullah Suzuki is starved for attention.
I am rooting for my speed skating relatives from Manitoba, Rempel and Klassen. Talk about fast ladies.
Most of the extreme left are only happy when others are miserable.
Just recently Edmonton had 46 degrees below zero. where was Imam Suzuki?
Keith Olberman is an idiot. He doesnt even know what he’s talking about, and people are also blaimng Vancouver for not having snow on AGW. Give me a break! The reason why my shirt is blue, is because of AGW. Those warmists like Kieth Olberman need to step outside and simmer down.
Assuming AGW is the predominant outlook on all things “Climate” (including that maleable thing called “Weather”), who are the “powers that be” that would schedule the Olympics here of all places, “knowing full well” that snow is a thing of the past?
Were they setting themselves up for failure? Or did they not believe the implications of their own mantra?
Who are the disbelievers? Off with their heads (or as a modicum, let them pay for this financial diasaster when snow fails to arrive).
Or do they simply say one thing and do another, not being able to connect their dots?
This time around, it isn’t just El Nino. It is working it’s magic in cahoots with a negative AO. The Earth’s oceanic, hydrogical, topographical, and atmospheric parameters, all completely natural, are capable of producing extreme weather events without considering the infinitesimal amount of CO2 that is less than 1% (0.03%) of the atmosphere. Wait. I am not done about that tiny %.
Just to be clear, the media is reporting on wide spread peer reviewed “climate change extremes” panic based on man-made CO2 emissions of 14% of 0.03%. If you truly believe that riding a bicycle will stop snow, floods, drought, and sea level change, then you, AGW’ers, not us heathen skeptics, are capable of believing the world is flat and God made this flat pancake in 6 days, then went to the Bahamas on the 7th day to get some Sun, admire the shapely handiwork he created, and drink pina coladas.
The CAGW crowd really has created a perfect storm of illogical reasoning. You start with a tautology:
AGW causes increasing intensity of weather, both warming and cooling, both precipitation and lack of precipitation
Then sprinkle in a dash of “Summer of the Sharks” by running around highlighting abnormal bits of weather even when, as in this case, they’re not really abnormal at all.
To finish it all of mischaracterize the research of people who study extreme weather and claim it agrees with you.
Before you know it, you have made Consensus Salad… a theory that is impossible to falsify (because anything that disagrees with it is just weather, but everything that supports it is a sign of the climate), and gains popular support because, repeated often enough, people will start to see Global Warming behind every corner.
It’s a good thing reason and logic aren’t completely lost arts – I raise my coffee cup to the sincere wish that cool-headed, quality science and truth will prevail in the end!
I have been trying to get Suzuki to look at the research I have accumlating for years now. Nope. Solid physical actual changes. Nope.
Must have really ticked him off that Pres. Obama recieved the next peace prize and not him while IPCC and Gore recieved theirs.
Last year our gardens were terrible all across the region in my area in Ontario, Canada for growing as it was fairly cool all summer. Good September was it for the year.
The Olympic organizers knew there would be little snow in Vancouver and had always planned to either make snow or haul it in for the “popular” events they are staging close to the city (things like snow-cross, snowboard etc.). This was so that they could use facilities built in Vancouver as improvements to the city after 2010. A purely financial decision and one which will work fine once everyone has got forgotten about flying snow in with helicopters.
The “real” snow events (alpine and nordic skiing – showing my bias as a semi-Norwegian) are taking place in the the mountains where there is snow, but has suffered from some fog which has delayed practice on some slopes.
Can’t wait to see Bjoerndalen cement his place as the best ever (Winter) Olympian with more gold in the biathlon. Now that is a real sport – ski your lungs out and then shoot straight, fabulous!
Anthony/Charles you may want to see this. http://bushynews.com/?p=73
Another illogical pattern: Folks commonly refer to the Great Lakes having a snow affect on the surrounding areas and think nothing of attributing this phenomenon to natural parameters, as they should. But Gawd Forbid that we consider the hugely huge ponds we have on both sides of the Americas and propose that they are also capable of producing an extreme snow affect. Nope. It’s okay to call it “lake affects” in and around the Great Lakes, but the extreme amounts of snow we are getting further south is all because of man-made CO2 emissions. Has nothing to do with those little ponds. They are innocent. Ignore the ponds. It’s C02 what done it. And it’s even been peer reviewed.
Oh ! the horror of snow melting, too bad Marlon Brando isnt alive, he could play a sweating David Suzuki in Apocalypse No
It’s funny. The CBC has quit talking about this probably because the Great Lakes (includes the political center of Canada, Toronto) are not having a balmy year. It probably receives an onslaught from its viewers every time it makes a AGW – Olympics connection.
The fact is metro Vancouver has always been like this. The only way that it wouldn’t be is for us to get one of those Arctic Highs parked above me giving then one of those periods of ‘Arctic outflow’ over the coast. Something that has happened once a year in the past couple of years but is not really that common.
The Wet Coast has their contingencies for Cypress Mountain and I don’t see why I should wish for miserable weather just so the only temperate few acres of Canada can get a chill.
Steve
OK… I didn’t see it didn’t get coverage in the MSM until July. But, as the recession was already happening in April, I stand by my theory that it was economic forecsating rather than weather forecasting that drove the prediction.
RockyRoad
You really are dragging everybody into the conspiracy theory if you think that the Winter Olympics organising “powers that be” are all AGW activists! Could be a completely different set of people.
DirkH (06:49:00) :Look Dirk, I live in the El Nino 1+2 area, when there is a real Nino there is a temperature anomaly along the northern coasts of Peru, where the El Nino was precisely given its name by the fishermen, and when that happens the El Nino current runs from the equator southwards warming the coastal waters, which is not the case right now, instead you see those blue areas which indicate that the antagonist and most permanent current, the cold Humbolt´s current it is running from south to north, btw activated by the pacific anticyclone winds which run counterclockwise. When there is a real Nino it rains, really floods, along the northern coasts and there are drought conditions in the south east (high andean plateau in the Puno region, next to Bolivia), however now it is flooding in both places and, from the 12 degrees latitude to 18 °S the coast is dry as usual but now most days covered with low clouds. You see, instead of being warmer the pacific ocean along the equator is a bit warmer in the El Nino 3+4 area and at the central south pacific, in this case you see these warm waters surrounded by cold ones which follow the pacific anticyclone. So this is a different phenomenon due to the “interesting times” we are living in.
Well, the BBC news mentioned ‘Pineapple express’… first time I’ve heard of it, but seems it’s a non-AGW event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Express
But it’s heart warming to know this was going to be blamed on global warming anyway. After all, if a weather average isn’t being met it has to be because of our evil carbon dioxide.
The record snows on the east coast and the lack of snow elsewhere prove nothing for nor against AGW.
However, January 2010 saw record global warmth…and that’s the thing about GLOBAL warming…it doesn’t matter what it was doing in your neighborhood. Also, while freakish snow in one area and freakish warmth in another prove nothing for certain, they are not inconsistent in the least with AGW models. Those of you who don’t get this, don’t understand the models and are simply mouthing something you heard some pundit spew out…
Olberman and Bill Nye form the twin side of Limbaugh and Beck. They all get some things right but their really stupid mistakes fall into the same category of being able to “…see Russia from my house”. I wouldn’t trust any of them to explain how to boil water.
Algore and facebook friend Barney Frank did NOT qualify for the 2 man bobsled. They of course have gravity on their side.
Yeah. Woke up yesterday to six inches of “slight chance of mixed precipitation with no chance of significant accumulation” in my Dallas area yard.
9 am weather predicted “no additional accumulations expected.”
By 7 pm I had a total of 10 inches of “no additional accumulation” in the yard.
I haven’t seen this much snow since I was a kid maybe…uhm…35 years ago?
On the plus side…it’s GREAT heavy, wet packing snow!
By all means conserve the environment, but don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s acid rain.
Captain fruit fly is a prat. I can’t believe that I used to watch his show. having lived in Vancouver for a number of years, I can attest to the fact that during el Ninio years, there is very little snow on the lower slopes of Cypress and Grouse. this is not new, this has been going on for the last 50 years at least. Whistler is having great snow, the hills in the interior and the Okanagan are having fantastic years, best in years actually.
Don’t worry. I doubt they will get much media attentioin for this argument. It will be drowned out by the loud chorus of sceptics who are claining the snow storms in DC is proof that AGW is false. This group has become the new experts at using isoltaed weather events to push their views. Many sceptics are no better than the so called “warmists/alarmists/trolls etc..” that they so much despise. If you want proof, just look back on this blog for the last few weeks.
OT but relevant, in the weather not climate department:
“.. Greatest all-time calendar day snow on record set at Dallas Fort
Worth..”.
“Record daily maximum snowfall for February 11th set at Dallas
Fort Worth…”
“… Greatest all-time 24-hour snowfall total set at Dallas Fort
Worth…”
Well if what is just happened in Dallas is just weather….umm, then so is what is going on in Vancouver!
They can’t have it both ways.
Oh that’s right, in their doublespeak world, they can!
AGW causes less snow.
AGW causes more snow.
AGW causes the Winter Olympics to be located in places they don’t want to.
AGW is the reason I drink too much.
Etc….ad nauseum.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Sunspot 1046 produces M8.3 Flare – Out of nowhere Sunspot 1046 produced a strong M8.3 Solar flare Friday morning which is now the largest flare of Cycle 24.
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
This, following Piers Corbyn’ s idea, would produce a “Solar Weather Impact Periods (SWIPs)”, in about 5 1/2 days according to the current solar wind velocity:300 km/seg.
Any Canadian knows that the lower mainland of BC is a mild and temperate climate – otherwise why would almost everyone retire there!!! At the higher levels of the coastal mountains snow falls but it has been variable for many years. When Vancouver bid on the games many years ago – snow on the mountains was identified as a possible problem and that they should prepare for it. So what is new??? Nothing.
The only reason I sometimes watch Keith Olbermann is in the hope it just might be the moment when his head explodes!! So far no such luck. I am an hour from Vancouver. This is normal Feb weather. I predict a big dump of snow on Cypress late this weekend and everything will be fine.
GO CANADA GO
David suzuki
On another blog there is some robust attack of people that do not have a degree such as PHD climate Science
DSc. Doctorate Scientology, Climate.
I notice Suzuki joins Algore and being climate science irrelevant
David suzuki has a biology degree specializing in fruit flies
Drosophila melanogaster
Suzuki is an outsider. Imposter.
Not worthy of reading a rain guage for Anthony Watts.
OOPS, Something was missed in this story…
They had a massive amount of rain in the region.
If it was Goreflakes….a different story.
Time Magazine weighs in…see ICECAP for commentary
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962294,00.html
Among my favorites…
“the two major storms that hit Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., this winter — in December and during the first weekend of February — are already among the 10 heaviest snowfalls those cities have ever recorded. The chance of that happening in the same winter is incredibly unlikely.” Um, DC and Baltimore are 45 miles from each other.
And…
“As global temperatures have risen, the winter ice cover over the Great Lakes has shrunk, which has led to even more moisture in the atmosphere and more snow in the already hard-hit Great Lakes region, according to a 2003 study in the Journal of Climate.” Um, it’s 2010.
Also amusing, an article from the Vancouver Sun from last summer quoting NOAA’s prediction that El Nino (no mention of AGW) would result in less snow this winter in the Pacific Northwest.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/2010+alert+Here+comes+Nino/1777894/story.html
Watts, also on Ski Apache near Ruidoso, NM is experiencing a great ski season so far, too. Currently 155 inches of snow fell and normally at the end of the ski season the average amount they get would be around 75 inches. Ski Apache is on the Lincoln National Forest in south central New Mexico starting at an elevation of 9200 feet. Arizona Snowbowl is about 150 miles further north (latitude wise) than Ski Apache which begins at 9700 ft elevation to 11300 feet next to the peak Sierra Blanca which means “White Mountain.”
http://skiapachesnowreport.com/
Professor Tim Ball explains that cooling and not warming is causing the heavy snowfall in DC.
http://live.radioamerica.org/loudwater/player.pl?upload=1746&name=wnd
To the warmers; well Duh!
Current wind warning for east Vancouver Island and we’ve already had one ‘Pineapple express’ this year. One Windstorm went over our roof like a freight train on steroids.
Yup. it’s an El Nino year. The previous two years weren’t. As one TV Weather forecaster said recently; “It’s bang on the average.” The only warming is in Suzuki’s head and bank account.
Sad to see Bill Nye so totally divorced from science. He shows absolutely no knowledge scientific method in general nor of the actual issues.
As i have been trying to tell folks, yes this warmth here is record breaking, but in actuallity, aside from Cypress Mtn. it is a good thing for the Olympics. If you have ever tried to get around Greater Vancouver or up/down the SeatoSky Highway when there is cold, snow and ice on the roads, it is a nightmare, and has been deadly! Cypress is on the North Shore of Vancouve, ever hear of the Coastal Range? Mostly it rains first, clears, freezes, then snows.
This warm period, imo, is just what the doctor ordered for a safe successful Olympics!
Has anyone considered that’s just how you make the features for these events? Halfpipes and 5′ moguls don’t fall out of the sky. They are made, by men….moving snow around. They could have ALL the snow in the world fall on them and they would STILL be moving snow because THAT’s how you make those features…
Nothing but sound and fury…
Notice they aren’t moving any snow at Whistler, where the downhill events are.
Looking at the models, Dallas is likely to get two more snow days in the next 10 days. This will then break the all time snowiest winter.
I can attest that this has been one of the worst winter flying weeks in the last few years given the snow in Dallas and the East Coast.
AT MIDNIGHT ON FEBRUARY 11TH…DFW AIRPORT HAD RECORDED 11.2 INCHES
OF SNOW. THIS BREAKS THE PREVIOUS DAILY RECORD FOR FEBRUARY 11TH OF
1.4 INCHES SET IN 1988. THIS ALSO BREAKS THE PREVIOUS 24-HOUR RECORD
FOR FEBRUARY…7.5 INCHES ON FEBRUARY 17, 1978 AND FEBRUARY 25, 1924.
AT 4 AM ON FEBRUARY 12TH…DFW AIRPORT HAD REPORTED A 24-HOUR
SNOWFALL TOTAL OF 12.5 INCHES. THIS BREAKS THE PREVIOUS ALL TIME
24-HOUR SNOWFALL TOTAL RECORD OF 12.1 INCHES SET JANUARY 15-16, 1964.
THE SNOWFALL TOTAL ON FEBRUARY 11TH IS THE GREATEST CALENDAR-DAY
SNOWFALL TOTAL ON RECORD FOR DALLAS/FORT WORTH. THE PREVIOUS RECORD
WAS 7.8 INCHES ON JANUARY 15, 1964 AND JANUARY 14, 1917.
THIS BRINGS THE SEASONAL SNOWFALL TOTAL TO 15.7 INCHES…WHICH IS
THE 2ND HIGHEST SEASONAL TOTAL ON RECORD FOR DALLAS/FORT WORTH. THIS
IS THE SNOWIEST WINTER IN 32 SEASONS (SINCE 1977-1978).
Less snow in the Cascades is the ecotopian ideal for the promotion of AGW.
El Nino is part of that-ignore the Data.Usuing data gets Professors fired or retired,-ask George Taylor of OSU…
“They have greenshirts, but their underwear is brown.”-old Oregon
libetarian hippie I once knew…
Veronica (07:16:11) :
RockyRoad
You really are dragging everybody into the conspiracy theory if you think that the Winter Olympics organising “powers that be” are all AGW activists! Could be a completely different set of people.
———
Reply:
My point exactly. Or else they failed, indeed, to “connect THEIR dots”.
“I’ve watched in horror as the snow has just melted away from Cypress Mountain,” Suzuki said, …”
Just a little hyperbole here? Hmmm?
I wonder how he would express his thoughts if he had witnessed, say, a suicide bombing in Iraq or Afghanistan?
A year ago there was record cold and snow in downtown Vancouver. There was no parking in town because they had no where to put all the snow. It’s worse than we thought—things really warmed up fast in the last year.
looks like maybe major changes at Nature. They have posted the Editors resignation not censored and puit back some very critical posts. maybe Olie and co plus maybe EIC may have to go… gone….
I can remember years when the ski hills on the north shore mountains were virtually closed all winter . This is not the first year that they lack snow. It would be interesting to find records for the number of ski days per year over the last 40 years. Does anyone know were to find such records ?
Bill Sticker (08:02:15) :Let’s don’t put inmediately a named sticker on any phenomena we watch. This is not a usual el Nino, so let’s try to dig in it and see if we can find a more thoughtful explanation. Of course not the Susuki’s or any other source of the SHOW BUSINESS.
It’s about the narrative; objective facts don’t matter. Expect NBC’s environmental correspondent, Ann Thompson, to be on the story.
OT – but Pielke Snr’s got a great one up currently!
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/henk-tennekes-resigns-from-dutch-academy/
A few excerpts, call me a cherry-picker if you will, but fruit like this shouldn’t be ignored and left for the birds.
“The system by which professional colleagues judge each other’s performance is called Peer Review. Only peers in the same discipline may pass judgment on their colleagues’ funding requests and on the quality of their papers”
“…Tennekes uses the ultimate tool he has to object to the conflicts of interest within the Academy. It is supposed to be the highest independent scientific advisory body in the country, but at the same time it runs a number of research institutes, and has to lobby for their budgets. “That conflict of interest is breaking the wings of its advisory function,” he says”
Can you believe the trash Joe Romm over at Climate Progress. Over-course he posted up snow in DC was GW and no snow in Vancouver was GW. But of course this is the guy who posted up the bridge collapse in Minneapolis was also GW. It is one thing if a site does not agree on the science. But this guy has fell over the cliff and became a ranting left-wing maniac. He does not even post up any science anymore, just political nasty one-sided drivel. I think he is just plain losing it…John…
Anthony, here is a sat image from the region, maybe you could add it to the article:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42629&src=eorss-iotd
REPLY: Thanks! posted -A
When all weather is climate, then all climate is weather, and any change it the weather is due to a change in climate. That is what the alarmists want us to believe, but most people are to smart for this. The alarmist argument has falling so far since the CRU email where released, that this is the what they have to resort to.
Now according to Bill Nye the elementary school science guy If you don’t believe that humans cause global warming, you’re unpatriotic. The facts have to really be against you to resort to this sort of stuff.
Here are the present webcams at Whistler Mountain. I’m not sure why they didn’t put all the events there. I believe they have over 10 m of snow there and there has been some fresh snow the last few days (20-30cm, nearly a foot). Don’t just look at the weather at “Whistler, BC”. This would be Whistler village. Whistler Airport is only 658m ( that is only 2,160 feet) and they have snow forecast for the next few days. The highest mountain lift goes to 2,284 metres (7,494 feet). Its -5C presently. Complete stats and weather forecast for the mountain at http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/weather/snowreport/index.htm
http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/weather/cams/whistler/index.htm
John from MN (08:43:32) :
Just wait for nature’s reatliation, just in a few days, MORE SNOW COMING! (Feb.16th or 17th).
The statement by Nye that the Nobel Peace Prize given to the IPCC and Gore was a science prize is surprising and disappointing, and bolsters a common misconception. He is either ignorant, or intentionally misleading his audience. It was a political prize awarded by politicians. They believed that it provided justification to take from rich countries and give to poor, thus promoting world peace and harmony by spreading the wealth.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html
I used to live on the same block as Mr. Suzuki back in ’86. I was 6 doors down from his home on West 10th. and first noticed who it was after deciding to accost the unruly speeder that used to race down the alley behind our house at high speeds. I was astonished to see that it was Suzuki. At the time I held him in high regard so it came as quite a shock to find out that he is not a very nice person. He never did slow down.
“PMH (00:03:32) :
Some time back the AGW proponents were able to successfully change Anthropogenic Global Warming to Climate Change.”
I don’t think people go along with that. The MSM may try to but it’s just too ridiculous. Any ole skeptic like me can poke his stick into that and say “Cold Winter means no warming” and make the defenders of the term “climate change” look silly. Nobody wants to look silly and they usually just shut up.
No amount of proof will ever convince the warmers that AGW is false. Some of these folks are not grounded in reality. Here’s a classic example:
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid argues that income taxes are voluntary.
Other examples;
-The left arguing that “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms” does not apply to the people.
-Others from the left saying the American people should be required to preform service for the government despite the 13th amendment’s ban on slavery and involuntary servitude. (i.e. Charlie Rangel’s Bill the Universal National Service Act)
It seems like a form of insanity. Sorry if this sounds somewhat OT, but the philosophy of disputing reality seems to be a common thread.
Remember, everything is due to Global Warming and what isn’t is Bush’s fault.
A common Winter passtime for residents of Vancouver (I lived there for 10 years) is to brag about the mild weather that the city experiences in February while folks on the East Coast of the country are still gripped by winter. “The weather?” they would often say to their relatives in Toronto. “Why it’s balmy here! I can see crocuses blooming in my garden. How’s the weather in Toronto? Three feet of snow today? Wow that’s too bad.”
Now, of course, they’re up in arms about the same thing they were wont to brag about.
They don’t call it “The Wet Coast” for nothing. That’s the reason for this joke: “What comes after three days of rain in Vancouver? Monday!”
Ironic, as Vancouver is also wont to brag that it is one of the greenest cities in the world and has pledged to be “the” greenest by 2020.
All that granola eating green living promoted by David Nutzuki for the last 10 years hasn’t helped to bring snow to Cypress Mountain. And yes, camera angles, proximity of five star hotels and other business interests is what led to the boneheaded decision to hold events at Cypress and not at Whistler Mountain.
UK Sceptic (00:11:46) :
(…)
How stupid do these people think we are?
Gordon Brown in the UK, Kevin Rudd in Australia, Barack Obama in the USA… Ah heck, toss in Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
The “evidence” would seem to support the assertion that the general population can be very stupid indeed. Although I would rather believe it demonstrates the effectiveness of the refined science of marketing, especially when selling something that is not exactly the truth.
UKIP (22:37:22) : I agree. This is a different El Nino. See>JonesII (07:17:52) :
Vancouver (Can) always has been one of my all time favorite cities. One of its perpetual tourist teasers, has been that you can go to the beach for a picnic, and then go skiiing all on the same day.
It’s still one of my favorite places; as is the whole of BC, and Western Canada for that matter. Not that I have anything against Eastern Canada; just never been there.
Good luck for the games; too bad that Lindsay Vonn, may not be up at the starting gates; Olympic opportunities only come for a short time. But she will leave her mark on competition skiing; games or no games.
I’ve been enjoying all the snow for skiing here in AZ. 🙂
JonesII: “not a usual el Nino, so let’s try to dig in it and see if we can find a more thoughtful explanation.”
An El Nino combined with a negative Arctic Oscillation seems reasonable.
I’ve had the worst experience skiing at cypress-in Feburary-it is the nature of a ski area on the freaking coast!You’d have as much luck holding the Winter games in Phoenix Az! maybe better.
Arrgh!..
Coos Bay, Seattle,Astoria,Vancouver,even Ketchican-all the same type of
maritime climate!…
“I’ve watched in horror as the snow has just melted away from Cypress Mountain,” Suzuki said,
I think that was Chicken Little’s reaction to the acorn too.
Here’s the one indiputable fact:
In the midst of all these records being set, we have the wamest January (GLOBALLY), on record. These may or may not be related, except for the fact that they happened on the same planet at about same time. What it does though is to point at a possible (but hardly definitive) cause-effect. Now if we’d had the coldest January of all time, that might also be pointing toward some cause-effect. But that’s not the case…
BBC still lying. PM programme says that there is no snow on Cypress Mountain, however Cypress website says:
February 12, 2010 at 8:00am ie 2 hours ago
Weather Conditions: High Overcast
Temperature: 3 C
New Snow (Last 24 hrs): 15 cm
Snow Depth (Mid Mtn.): 265 cm
I live in BC and yes, it’s been an incredible winter. Here in the interior of the province there’s hardly any snow except higher up.
Let’s compare that to the past two winters that were exceptionally cold and snowy, even Vancouver itself got more than its fair share, and it was cold well into the spring. My last year’s calendar notes the last of the snow on the Adam’s Plateau wasn’t gone until June 9 when it’s normally gone in May. Except that was supposedly global warming too. Tricky stuff, that global warming. Puts one in mind of the old saying, ‘to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail’. I know what I’d like to do with that hammer – drive the last nail into the coffin of AGW hysteria.
Squalor and Genamum (07:39:43) :
If they were sharp, they’d just send Al Gore to visit Vancouver.
=================================================
Ah yes, the Gore Effect.
LOL
Sean Peake (09:51:45) :Absolutely!…but let’s dig deeper. Let’s see what the other guys say about it.
Anthony-
I just want to say that this blog is really great. Those of us with an interest in the “climate thing” are free to comment instantaneously from all over the world-
Australia/New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, UK, Germany, Russia(?), USA and Canada coast to coast, and many other countries. Such a change from the “bad old days” when one in a hundred might get a letter published in an internationally-circulated magazine. And many thanks for getting the ball rolling with the survey of ground weather stations. I think that things have snowballed far beyond your wildest imaginings!
IanM [in New Brunswick, where the winter has generally been milder and less snowy than usual. It’s plus 5°C today here in the south of the province].]
Suzuki “watched in horror as the snow melted”? Up here in Canada, half of it locked in permafrost, we watch with joyful tears as the $%^&*#@ snow melts.
Hey, Suzuki, there’s plenty of room on Ellesmere Island, and the snow never melts there. Never. Move there and leave us alone.
JonesII: I can’t figure out how Piers Corbyn figured out an M-Class flare would occur. The timing is perfect for his forecast.
If memory serves, the issue of adequate snow on Cypress Mountain was known and discussed during the process of bidding to host the games. Options such as trucking in snow were even discussed at this time. Anyone who lives in the area knows this. The fact that it is now being touted by Suzuki and regurgitated by media as proof of climate change should only damage their credibility.
I love to watch winter olympics. It´s sad but the current weather will probably make it a little more difficult for Vancover to succed in having a great olympics games.
kadaka (09:26:55)
It is not so much stupidity as a talent for mass manipulation. GW scientists have imparted this successfully as governments are sponsoring their research.
Politicians voted in are now a popularity contest and not actual issues.
All it takes is a good speech righter (ops sorry), writer and some overpaid psychologists that plan out the manipulation.
Mind you, the SSDD in schools have been taught for years, so where is the higher education? Dump on more junk theories?
MJK (07:39:50) :
Don’t worry.
I wasn’t worrying MJK. You’re side is losing.
But thanks for the concern.
How’s the weather under the bridge?
Like many BC bloggers have already noted the weather in southern Bc is typical and comparable to other El Nino years . It should be no surprise that there is more rain than snow as the Enviornment Canada web page shows. Sounds like Suzuki is unfamiliar with his own contrie’s weather experts.
http://www.msc.ec.gc.ca/education/elnino/canadian/region/index_mean_e.cfm?region=southern_bc
Sorry, here it ends the sentence: …by the late Theodore Landscheidt.
I just pressed enter accidentally. Here the end of the sentence:
….studied by the late Theodore Landscheidt
I skied Cypress every year over the past 15 years. Always a crapshoot as far as snow quality/availability, that’s why I never bothered buying a pass. Current situation reminds me of a few years ago, when I skied there on a perfect day, sunny, -10C, 6 feet of hardpack in December (this year, I skied there in December at -5C, sunny and 5 feet of hardpack). Then the next day, temperature shot up to +10C, skies opened for 3 days of downpour. The place is right on the Pacific coast, you can see the ocean from the chair – 3 days later, the place was totally green, top-to-bottom (worse than now). No snow until March, when the temperature plunged and the incessant rain we always get here in winter was coming down as snow. We skied in March. This is how this place is. Last year, we had 2 feet of snow and 6 weeks of freezing temps in Nov-Jan – never happened before in my lifetime. Nobody dared to bleat about global warming then, the entire city shut down (only a few have winter tires here, almost never snows in winter). I loved the last winter – white paradise. Suzuki is a local PC hero – what else is he supposed to spew about – this stuff brings him funding and he’s not about to admit that he was wrong all these times and retire.
JonesII (05:13:12)
“…What if this is instead related to the change in geomagnetic fields, as pointed out by our friend Vuk, which is changing the patterns of winds, currents, displacement of north magnetic pole to Siberia, etc…..”
Ocean currents, Geomagnetic field (GMF) and the Earth climate appear to be inextricably linked. Changes in GMF may act either in very short term (as per Svensmark) or long term via bidirectional feedback between the GMF and the oceans’ currents:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC8.htm
There is also a profound long term link between the Sunspot intensity and the GMF:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC9.htm
Of course these may be coincidences, and science will treat them as such, unless a convincing transfer mechanism is postulated.
More magnetic graphs on:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/GandF.htm
On your planet? Not mine; not here in Texas anyway.
Can I summarize: “You’re nuts”. Or the conjurers of the figures you quote are …
Therein lies a problem with so-called one-number characterizations of an issue; IFF you could accurately cite for me the global thermal budget (solar thermally radiated energy in + geothermal vs earth radiated energy out) THEN it might be on the road to being meaningful.
.
@MJK (07:39:50) :
Don’t worry. I doubt they will get much media attentioin for this argument. It will be drowned out by the loud chorus of sceptics who are claining the snow storms in DC is proof that AGW is false. This group has become the new experts at using isoltaed weather events to push their views. Many sceptics are no better than the so called “warmists/alarmists/trolls etc..” that they so much despise. If you want proof, just look back on this blog for the last few weeks.
Now there is the rub, right? One thing you didn’t mention, however, is that since the CAGW crowd has been running around pointing out specious connections between weather and climate for years, folks are conditioned to think that weather events are directly connected to climate. Their own creation, a population that sees signs of climate around every corner, is majority responsible for the backlash we’re witnessing.
I can only speak for myself, but I always crack jokes about “must be global warming” or “OMG get the global-warming shovels out” not because I believe that weather=climate, but because I believe that the CAGW crowd chasing every seemingly spurious weather event and saying “look its global warming” was ridiculous to begin with.
With the current situation, by all means I am egging it on, not because I really believe we’re experiencing global cooling – but as a way of pointing out to those I associate with that reading the weather as tea leaves is an absolutely ridiculous exercise to begin with.
vukcevic (11:15:44) :
unless a convincing transfer mechanism is postulated
As Piers Corbyn suggests: Solar flares, solar “wind”, Solar Weather Impact Periods (SWIPs),…
And, if electric sky guys are right, then, the solar wind, being a current between the anode sun and cathode earth would affect GMF’s and climate, and this phenomena could be also affected by the moon’s position, that is why he points always at third quarter positions when forecasting those SWIP.
R. Gates (09:59:07) :
Here’s the one indiputable [sic] fact:
In the midst of all these records being set, we have the wamest January (GLOBALLY), on record.
In the troposphere, maybe, though adjustments have yet to be made. Does that portend future higher temps, or is it indicative of outward energy flux portending continuing decline in surface temps?
Make of that what thou whilst: I just found a german language news article that explains “worldwirde extreme weather” (meaning this winter) with El Nino. Congrats. Even more surprising is that the german words for “climate change” and “global warming” don’t appear anywhere in the article.
I don’t know what irritates me more, the extreme propaganda of the BBC or the strange silence in Germany, given that both the UK and Germany are victims of Kyoto.
http://nachrichten.t-online.de/extremwetter-schnee-duerre-hitze-warum-das-wetter-verrueckt-spielt/id_21724416/index
If you all check out Cypress using google earth, you can see the Pacific water from the mouintain top view. Looks like around 1 mile away.
265 cm snow depth.
MJK: Philadelphia got a bit more snow than in 1899. Let’s just say that 1899 and 2010’s winter look pretty similar. The AGW hypothesis posits that the earth is warming, caused by industrial CO2 emissions. How is it then that this winter looks exactly like the winter in 1899? My hypothesis is that there was no statistically significant warming. That’s why these two winters can look so similar. Prove me wrong without using the data homogenization tricks of GISS that nobody outside GISS can justify.
[REPLY – No need to homogenize. Pasteurization should prove quite sufficient. ~Evan]
It’s always Marcia, Marcia (10:38:53) :
“You’re side is loosing.”
It is rather sad that you see this as a competition- but not surprising. Many sceptics are driven by an ideological hatred of environmentalists and thus attack AGW merely because of its “association” with the environment movement. It’s a bit like a group of sixth graders saying—Ha Ha you loose, you stupid greenies.
And yes, talking to you on your level, I agree that sceintists trying to spread the message about AGW are “loosing” their battle. It is a classic case of shoot the messanger being pursued by people such as yourself. Let’s not foget the global climate continues to warm and set new records, despite all the US scentirc noise on this blog about local snow storms.
The warmth in Vancouver is no differnt to the cold in the south and east. IT IS CALLED WEATHER and a buckled Jet Stream caused in part by El Nino. New Orleans is going to 10 degrees COLDER than Vancouver tonight. Don’t tell Joe Romm over at Climate Progress. He made fun of an Olympic Committee Chairman in Vancouver who blamed on El Nino. Joe Romm pontificated that it was AGW, (Of course he left out the record cold in the south and added the snow storms in the East were also caused by AGW) pretty much calling him an idiot. I think he truly believes what he says……Well as hard as it is to swallow…..Maybe not. Sincerely, John
“MJK (11:46:16) :
[…]
And yes, talking to you on your level, I agree that sceintists trying to spread the message about AGW are “loosing” their battle. ”
Maybe because of weak, exaggerated, spurious, dubiously sourced, falsified and non-existent evidence?
R. Gates (09:59:07) The following graph is from the UN’s FAO, look at Figure 9.1 in page 50:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
This is real, and it correlates perfectly with: GMF
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LOD-GMF.gif
So, don’t be cheated by that Vodoo Gaia cult and its prophet Al “Baby”.
JonesII: Landscheidt was frighteningly accurate, too. I hope his forecast is wrong now, though, or we’re all in a mess of trouble. (I think I’ll move south)
“MJK (11:46:16) :
[…]
global climate continues to warm and set new records, despite all the US scentirc noise on this blog about local snow storms.”
Define local. Does Northern Europe count? I know it’s a small continent so let’s add Russia up to Siberia. Oh heck let’s include Mongolia:
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/39634/icode/
LOCAL snowstorms? Are you stark howling mad?
“JonesII (12:01:18) :
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
”
Thanks, i was looking for that link the other day but ended up in the AGW propaganda section of the FAO. They’re a bit two-faced…
Snow in Germany breaks all time high since begin of recording in the north-east of Germany and in Saarbruecken (which is south-west)
German language article
http://nachrichten.t-online.de/enorme-schneemengen-tief-miriam-bricht-schneerekorde/id_21607662/index
DirkH (12:05:36) :
No DirkH, I suspect it is you that has gone mad. What about South America, Australia, Africa, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, the arctic, Antarctica, the middle east, central and south east asia, most of the world’s ocean areas–all well above normal? I think DR Spencer’s latest post helps to explain why the planet showed record heat–despite a few places (where most sceptics happen to live) being a little cooler than normal. http://www.drroyspencer.com/ You need to take a global view of the problem and not focus on what is outside your own lounge room window.
“I’ve watched in horror as the snow has just melted away from Cypress Mountain,” Suzuki said…
O, the humidity!!
I’ve had the experience of skiing Cypress in a February melt – puddles of water on the chair lift, rain and mud. It was risky to schedule events there. I don’t know why they wouldn’t just move the events to Whistler. How does a thousand truckloads of snow moved a couple hundred kilometers fit into the “greenest” Olympics?
Good grief!
We have a foot of snow in Dallas, Texas!
Yesterday, I flew down to Houston on a 1-day (or so I thought) business trip to attend the NAPE Expo (an oil industry trade show). I was on the 0700 Southwest flight from Dallas-Love to Houston-Hobby. We pulled out of the gate on time… Then spent an hour-and-a-half in line, waiting to be de-iced… De-iced in Dallas. I should have taken a clue from the 2-in diameter snowflakes that were falling that this was not just a bit of snow flurries.
Darn near every flight to Dallas yesterday afternoon was cancelled. I was lucky enough to get a room at a La Quinta near Hobby and was booked on the 0730 flight to Love. When I got to Hobby, Southwest announced that my flight wasn’t exactly cancelled; it just wasn’t going to stop in Dallas on the way to Amarillo and then St. Louis.
I managed to get one of two Avis rent-a-cars that were available for one-way rental from Houston-Dallas… (I was very close to taking a taxi to the Greyhound station.)
There was freaking snow on the ground as far south as Conroe… Just north of Houston. From Centerville (half-way from Houston to Dallas) there was at least 2-3 inches of snow. From Fairfield north (~90 miles south of Dallas), the left lane of I-45 had about six inches of snow over most of the remainder of the trip to Dallas.
Oh… It wasn’t just “wet” in Houston… It was freaking cold too!
The lady at the Avis counter said, “I don’t believe this global warming bull! I think we’re going into an ice age. We’ve never had this much cold weather here.” I just smiled and agreed with her.
As a Welsh man who lived in Vancouver I was disappointed to see no snow in the city for the 3 years I lived there and come to the conclusion that Vancouver and the lower mainland was wetter and warmer than Wales. True there was snow on Grouse mountain and Cypress, but you had to go up pretty high to see it. Canada does not always = snow.
Lack of snow in BC is a reason the world cup gave BC a pass for many seasons. Cyprus is virtually in the city…
It shouldn’t be climate-alarmo-freak news that the form of Vancouver area precipitation is very strong influenced by both elevation & ENSO.
Late January & early February temperatures in 2010 are comparable to early June (yes you read that right: early JUNE) 2008 temperatures. I remember sea-kayaking (AT SEA LEVEL) in a 2.5 hour blizzard on APRIL 18, 2008 in Burrard Inlet and finding leaf & blossom damage on salmonberries & black cottonwoods shortly thereafter. I also remember snowshoeing while it was snowing on the North Shore at an elevation lower than Cypress Mountain on JUNE 10, 2008. Winter 2008/9 brought nearly ’round-the-clock heavy, dense snowfall at sea level for 3 straight weeks. It was hard to find my car (which was buried) some days (on more than one occasion). Winter 2007/8 was also La Nina, bringing lots of good low-elevation snowshoeing.
A few degrees change with elevation or ENSO (not just with season) turns a lot of rain into a lot of snow or vice versa. Ski operation managers on the North Shore are chronically worried some winters when freezing level oscillates, alternating weeks of snow with weeks of rain …and some winters are long & great – and some are rainy. It’s not the elevation of the ski resort that changes from year-to-year; rather it’s ENSO.
As far as I know, the state of “global warming” isn’t oscillating on an interannual timescale, but it appears Suzuki’s imagination might be if he cannot publicly attribute ENSO. Does anyone remember how much snow the North Shore Mountains got in 1999? Good heavens climate-alarmo-folks, let’s not try to trivialize the complexity of such strong interannual oscillations that make the difference between 9 metres (30 feet) of snow and a LOT of rain.
Separate (but related) note:
This winter whenever Piers Corbyn forecasts major worldwide SWIPs, coastal BC gets stronger winds & heavy rains.
An Olympic athlete is dead, Georgian men’s luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.
“Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled, went over the track wall and struck an unpadded steel pole near the finish line at Whistler Sliding Center. ”
As I would expect in the upcoming inquiry, it will be wondered if so much attention has been focused on Cypress (which shouldn’t have been chosen) that preparation at Whistler was lacking.
For now, a moment of silence, and prayers for his family.
Still below average temperatures here in Scotland, and no sign of any warming in the Baltic – http://ocean.dmi.dk/satellite/index.php
So far, I have seen a great number of theories (like the GW community) as to why the planet is cooling and each one can be blown out of the water as well.
There are actual physical changes our planet has created as an evolution to prevent the water from evaporating. A very facinating cycle that opens the north Atlantic into one big freshwater lake. It killed off millions of saltwater salmon last year trying to get back to their spawning grounds. The equatoral waters are have extra salinity on the surface to prevent evaporation in the warmer climates.
Our scientist completely missed an area of science that is highly important to understanding how and why the planet and solar system works and that is rotation.
Actually, the lack of snow in Vancouver is not the worst thing that could have happened for the Olympics. The worst thing that could happen would be if we did get snow. Since we are in such a warm climate, the city is very poorly equipped with snow clearing equipment. Large amounts of snow are quite rare. Normally, we get one or two snowfalls a year, but they very quickly turn to rain, and everything turns to slush and melts away. Even small amounts of snow that persist for more than a few days completely paralyzes the city.
Just need to clarify some of the points other posters have been making.
First, even though the Cypress website claims a base of 265 cm, it means nothing of the sort. I skied at the neighboring Grouse Mountain a couple weeks ago, and the snow conditions were atrocious, though they also claimed a base of about that amount. They really having nothing to speak of, and what has fallen in the past couple days is quickly being washed away by rain.
Secondly, while Vancouver does have warm winters with low snowfall on the mountains from time to time, January was the record-setter for warmest January on record. This year has not been normal.
It would be an interesting exercise to integrate the heat dumped into space from all this snow. A cold rain vs a snow event are two very different things in terms of heat.
“MJK (12:42:32) :
[…]
need to take a global view of the problem and not focus on what is outside your own lounge room window.”
Thanks, MJK. From my lounge window here in Braunschweig, Germany, i can overlook the plains of Mongolia, at the horizon there is Ulan Bator, you’re right, i’m deluded – it’s a local phenomenon.
It’s always fun to talk to you. BTW Australia is in the southern hemisphere. It’s summer there ATM.
But you know what? I don’t care. I’ve got a job in the subsidized green economy of Germany. I can wait and watch AGW fall apart. You go and figure why the friggin ocean ain’t storing the missing energy in the meantime…
I’m from the Vancouver, BC area. It’s true that there isn’t much snow on Cypress and the other local mountains this year due to el nino, but Suzuki’s selective memory is working overtime (as usual). The current conditions are very unusual. The local mountains (Cypress, Grouse, Seymore and Baker) usually have 5-10 meters of settled snow. Last year at this time, Metro Vancouver was literally buried in snow. The piles of snow were so high it was hard to shovel more onto them and most of the streets were narrowed. As was pointed out, if we had that much snow this year, it would be a major problem. Fortunately, lots of snow has been stockpiled in Cypress and they are also trucking snow in from Manning Park so the Olympic events there should be fine. The reason the WC circuit takes a pass on Whistler is not because of a lack of snow, but because there tends to be a lot of fog.
Joe Romm says no snow in Dallas. It will be a dust bowl permanently
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/26/noaa-climate-change-irreversible-1000-years-drought-dust-bowls/
I see he is claiming blizzards on one hand are not blizzards and that extreme wet was predicted.
If dust bowls are permanent, that means he has in writing ruled out rain and snow events. We are letting these spooks get by with too much voodoo forecasting.
The events are being held on two hills Cypress and Whistler. One has awesome natural snow currently the other not so much but it is snowing at both currently even in the face of the pineapple express weather front. Wouldn’t global warming cause both to be dry?
BTW, when I was young and David Suzuki was still a scientist I had a lot of respect for him. It is sad to see how he has fallen.
Climate is being changed by anthropogenic particles from the turbines of jet aircraft. Temperature limits of the turbine blades and NOx output generate large quantities of PAH particles by pyrosynthesis.
Water vapour is condensed to liquid droplets by a combination of low temperature, hydroscopic attractors such as salt particles and natural cohesion; the process is reversible. .Without the attractors water reverts to the vapour state and dissappears.
The transpolar flight paths were approved in January 2001. By June 2008 the North Pole ice cap had vanished. These forces are still at work all over the Globe.
Jet fuel consumption in 2009 was 15.6 million gallons. I think we should stop.
Still snowing here in CHARLESTON, SC
Austin (14:25:12) “It would be an interesting exercise to integrate the heat dumped into space from all this snow. A cold rain vs a snow event are two very different things in terms of heat.”
Warm rain (not cold) where there’s no snowpack & no frost in the ground [on the northwest Pacific coast — in contrast, freezing rain is the norm on the northeast Atlantic coast — not even remotely similar events].
I watched the Olberman rant. Did anyone notice how Fineman mentioned that Republicans would “rather have the nuclear operators have their way”? If there’s one industry that wouldn’t get hit with cap and trade, it would be the nuclear industry.
Most of our liquid formed flowing products from gasoline to molases have a certain amount of O2. Not just jet fuel but it is offset by the amount of liquid we manufacture trapped from the containers. Slicks over water also inhibit evaporation. Not to meantion the trillions of gallons of water pumped in the ground to build-up oil pressure to come out of the ground.
Suzuki apparently slept through last winter’s record-breaking snow in the PNW…
I watched in horror as the snow melted from Cypress in 2005…the year I bought my ski pass to the mountain (beginning of January was epic before the rains came). I has always been hit or miss on the West Van Mountain. So, I got my Edge Card for Whistler every other year. I learned my lesson; you want good snow? Go to Whistler.
Oh and Suzuki is a charlatan in the truest sense of the word.
So you’re going to write up a long explanation as to why little snow doesn’t prove global warming, but still hold the snow in the Eastern U.S. as a disproof? Don’t you realize that’s an equally severe oversimplification? You’re also making the mistake of equating snowfall to temperature – you know, what you’re trying to disprove.
@maarten (11:12:51)
I have lived in Greater Vancouver for more than 45 years and we get on average 2 to 3 FEET of snow each year, the only area that does not is right down by the ocean where it snows and melts by noon. This year has been a typical el nino year for us and the winter olympics have had a “plan B” for just such a case. Although, who would have thought after the winter we had last year, 7 foot piles of snow beside the driveway for about 2 months, that they would have to truck in snow. Raincouver has an appropriate nickname.
TamRob (14:25:04) “This year has not been normal.”
Agree – and last year was just as “abnormal” in the other direction …and so we come to realize that the definition of “normal” is abstract. (I used to teach stats – apologies for seizing a good teaching example.)
Documented snow in 49 out of 50 states at the same time.
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/USA/2010/ims2010043_usa.gif
Beginning analysis of AAA (21:18:56) :
So you’re going to write up a long explanation as to why little snow doesn’t prove global warming
Hypothesis 1: Small amounts of snow, as opposed to large amounts, are not proof of global warming.
but still hold the snow in the Eastern U.S. as a disproof?
Hypothesis 2: (Increased) snow in a regional area is disproof of global warming.
Don’t you realize that’s an equally severe oversimplification?
Hypothesis 3: Hypotheses 1 and 2 are oversimplifications of equal severity.
Analysis of H1: Individual snow totals are weather events, thus not able to prove or disprove global warming, which constitutes a long-term climate trend. Long-term trends in snow totals are generally not able to prove or disprove global warming at temperature extremes. Example: if the globe is overall too warm for snow, lack of snow cannot indicate further warming. Example: Antarctica is very cold and dry, with little snow.
For there to be large snowfall totals, there needs to be enough energy (heat, warmth) to evaporate large amounts of water. Thus coming from the cold extreme, increased snowfall totals can indicate global warming, for example record large snowfalls in Antarctica. Going into the warm extreme, a decrease in global totals from historically small to minuscule to nothing would indicate global warming.
In between the extremes, other variables need to be examined. Increased snowfall totals can indicate warming when trending from a cold world to cool, as they indicate more thermal energy is present yielding more evaporation. Later on decreased snowfall totals can indicate warming as temperatures become too warm for snow, yielding rain instead. Increased snowfall totals can also indicate a trending from warm to cool, as temperatures decrease to where snow increases in relation to rain. Decreased snowfall totals may also indicate a trending from cool to cold, due to less evaporation. Thus overall totals of precipitation, as it shows the amounts of water evaporated thus the amounts of thermal energy available, need to be examined.
Conclusions on H1: As the planet is currently between extremes, trends in snowfall totals by themselves can neither prove nor disprove global warming.
Analysis of H2: Increased snowfall could indicate a region is warming from cold to cool (example: Antarctica), but may not in itself indicate a global trend. Likewise it could indicate a regional cooling.
Conclusions on H2: Invalidated as H1.
Analysis of H3: Both H1 and H2 use snowfall totals alone as an indicator of global temperature, with H2 similar to H1 but stated as extrapolating a global trend from a regional event and/or trend. H1 is an oversimplification, with H2 compounding the oversimplification with an error in reasoning.
Conclusions on H3: True if “all nonsense is equal.”
You’re also making the mistake of equating snowfall to temperature
Hypothesis 4: An additional error is being made, namely the equating of snowfall to temperature
Analysis of H4: For events this is acceptable, as snow in the air indicates air temperatures below freezing, and snow laying on the ground and accumulating indicates ground temperatures below freezing. For trends, snowfall and temperature have been de-linked numerous times on this site in many articles, as with UAH global temperature reports showing a warm(est) month despite large snowfall totals, and explanations of latent heat showing how warm global temperatures can exist alongside record snowfalls.
Conclusions on H4: No error was made, thus there is nothing to add.
you know, what you’re trying to disprove.
Hypothesis 5: “You,” presumably Mr. Watts, is trying to disprove the equating of snowfall to temperature.
Analysis of H5: Facts and the analyses of them are reported on this site. Snowfall and temperature have been shown to not be reliably connected. Cold weather events are quite often posted with the “weather is not climate” disclaimer.
Conclusions on H5: True on the face of it. However the subtext is important. This site has acquired an “anti-AGW” reputation somehow. AGW proponents have been predicting that with the warmer temperatures there will be less snowfall, thus allowing more snowfall to be cited as proof that AGW theories are inaccurate and that global cooling may be occurring. Thus the manner in which the equating of snowfall and temperature has been disproven does not by itself discredit the AGW theorists, but removes snowfall totals by themselves from being cited as conclusive evidence by either camp.
And why did you only mention the Eastern US? Look around, there is snow all over the country. See here, it’s looking like there will be snow in all 50 states, only Florida was the holdout. Most of the Northern Hemisphere has snow, far as I know.
Well actually, most of the land in the NH has snow, I think. Now if most of the NH bodies of water also had snowfall laying on them, then we could conclusively say that global cooling has occurred. Don’t you agree?
No one that I know takes Dr. Fruitfly seriously (not clear why he is considered a climate “expert”). Here in Kamloops, in the BC interior, we’re having a very nice mild winter which I’ve enjoyed since I don’t have to shovel snow. There are times when I miss the snow as I’d rather have sunny days with -10 C temperatures rather than the dreary overcast days with +5 C temperatures we’ve had too many of. Stargazing has been the pits this winter.
This type of variation is completely normal and I’m glad I didn’t decide to take a winter vacation to go to Florida this year which I notice is only slightly warmer than what we have in Kamloops. As far as the winter olympics goes, that was the last straw that made me finally decide to leave Vancouver. If I was still in Vancouver I’d have to close my downtown practice for 2-3 weeks now as none of my patients would be able to access my office by vehicle. Don’t miss the rain at all and am 200 miles further away from Dr. Fruitfly’s rantings.
Romm lives up to expectations-
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/13/winter-olympic-sports-vancouver-climate-change-global-warming-richard-brenne/
“What can the Winter Olympic sports tell us about climate change?”
MJK (11:46:16) :
You speak of games and shooting messengers:
tell me, how’s your game of deception on the 25 month smoothing in Roy Spencer’s graph going for you? You still are insisting the 25 month smoothing hid an incline?
And what about your treatment of an excellent scientist, Roy Spencer? In view of your critique of shooting messengers are you now repentant of your despicable treatment of Roy Spencer and are now treating him with the respect he deserves?
DirkH (12:05:36) :
“MJK (11:46:16) :
MJK left out the snows of China, Miongolia, Russia, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia.
Also the snow in Rome for the first time in 24 years, and the snow on the French Riviera.
He also didn’t mention the snow in all 50 States,
So is it just local to the Eastern US??
Dear Readers:
I am probably the first in the world to propose this product. I guess I am the inventor of it but I am not going to get a patent for it because I know it doesn’t work. Its a Carbon Dioxide Solar Heating Panel!!! If CO2 is the greenhouse gas that Al Gore and David Suzuki claims it is, the Olympic committee should have heated the Olympic village with it. My device uses pure CO2 which means the concentration of CO2 is 2632 times what’s in the atmosphere which definitely means the Tracy Malloy Carbon Dioxide Solar Heating Panel proposed for the 2010 Olympics would glow red with heat. This could have been a news item that these heating panels in the village were badly designed and were too hot for the application and it affected the athletes performance. Just think, the athletes could use these to warm their toesies and fingers at the top of the slopes. They are good butt warmers too.
David Suzuki is the Al Gore of Canada and sells “quality” carbon offsets.
Any one know where I can get some cheap Chinese knock-offs? Or better yet bootleg copies.
Since when is “peace” a scientific award?
You have never heard of dynamite for peace?
“IOC: Global Warming Could Affect Winter Olympics
The International Olympic Committee is beginning to worry about how global warming may affect future Olympic Games. ”
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1821094/ioc_global_warming_could_affect_winter_olympics/
ONE DAY SOMEONE WILL WAKE UP TO THE REAL CAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
THE WHOLE ATMOSPHERE IS BEING AFFECTED BY THE EXHAUST FUMES FROM JET AIRCRAFT.
IN 2009 THEY CONSUMED 15.6 BILLION GALLONS OF KEROSENE.
THAT IS THE CAUSE OF GLOBAL DRYING AND CHAOTIC WEATHER AND FLOODS.
hAVE A NICE DAY.
Real Climate is realy whining about thehandling of Jones in the press so I sent them this link (it’s in the CRU-mails too):
http://www.slideshare.net/Futerra/futerra-sustainability-communications-2544698
Can somebody provide me literature of the MWP in the Southern Hemisphere (possible peer-reviewed 🙂 )?
That’s where it’s at, at the moment.