North American snow models miss the mark – observed trend opposite of the predictions

Is that snow in Mexico? I’m no expert but I’m guessing that is quite rare?

There is the most powerful repudiation of agw. You can actually see how cold it is getting!

Once again it is shown that climate models have no skill at regional forecasting. This sort of thing isn’t science, it’s pure speculation. Reputable journals should stop publishing these papers.

Will they revisit the data and post the new findings? Unlikely. Has anybody asked the authors, “what say you?”

Fortunately the ink was dry and the predictions were recorded. The words that the snow was exactly as ‘we’ said turn out to be the current convenient advantage of hindsight mixed with the hope of short memory of the public.
Thank you Steven Goddard for the clear as always post.

Oh another hockey stick that proves AGW!
Don’t you know? More snow means it’s getting warmer. Yes snow way down south in Florida and Houston means – WARMER!

O/T but I have noticed in the IJIS site with sea ice extent, that there has been a significant jump upward over the past couple weeks. Shockingly, there has been no press announcements about it by the warmists, even though, when it was below 2007 levels in January, they were all over it.

Hmm… I find it interesting… those pushing the AGW agenda claim that the extra snow is an expected outcome supporting AGW due to increased water vapour in the air. However, this study clearly shows that the AGW predictions for the US was clearly LESS snow. So far, then, reality is falsifying the predictions, meaning the models have clear problems. If an AGW supporter would still like to claim that the extra winter snow is an expected outcome, can they please point to scientific studies showing that was clearly the expectation for the US? You cannot predict one thing based on your AGW science, then when the outcome is the opposite, then claim that *that* scenario is also consistent. Such makes AGW unfalsifiable and hence unscientific.

Do you know if there are any plots from the data on:
http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/
that show the daily “Area Covered By Snow” data by year?
The coverage for US seems to be running 10-15% higher consistently this year (which agrees with your post). The data is accessible… I just don’t want to reinvent the wheel if a plot is available.
Thanks,
Bob

You`re using ths data upside down.

It was Langmuir who said that it is a characteristic of pathological science to give ad hoc answers, invented on the spur of the moment, to any and all criticisms. See Number Watch for a listing of all Langmuir’s conclusions.

If the alarmists can come up with a theory, one that makes sense, that says global warming SHOULD result in more snow cover, that’s fine. But here’s my problem. If you can come up with a theory that says global warming should result in MORE snow cover (as they now have) AND a theory that says that global warming should result in LESS snow cover (which they have in the past), then whatever happens to snow cover, it can be blamed on global warming. A similar paradox exists for hurricanes (one theory says that global warming should result in more and more severe hurricanes, and another says global warming (at least that of the anthropogenic persuasion) should result in less and less severe hurricanes) and Antarctic ice cover. And I’m sure, for other climate variables, if the facts contradicted what the AGW theory says, they could just come up with another theory to explain why the data says something different from what the previous theory said, but still be consistent with the notion of AGW.
The problem here is, no matter what happens with snow, ice cover, glaciers, rainfall, hurricanes, air temperatures, ocean currents, ocean temperatures, sea levels, and anything else that has anything to do with climate, SOMEBODY is going to come up with a theory, one that makes sense on some level, to explain how it is caused by anthropogenic global warming. And so, no matter what happens, AGW can NEVER be disproven, unless, maybe, everything stayed exactly the same for about 30 years straight. Of course, that will never happen, but even if it did, I’m sure some alarmist would come up with a theory about how a complete lack of climate change was evidence of climate change.
So, I guess what I’m saying is, I challenge the global warming alarmists to specify any and all circumstances, with respect to levels and/or changes in any set of climate variables, over any time span, that they would accept as evidence that either a) global warming is not occurring, or b) global warming is not caused by mankind. If they cannot specify any such set of circumstances, then we know that it is impossible to ever change their minds, and we can restrict this discussion to one of REAL science.

The 1970 data is interesting in comparison to 2000; considering that 1970 was the great global cooling scare. I wonder if the sky was falling, media wise, with each snow storm back then?

Modelling is pseudo-scientists child games. Not matured men and women replace thinking and empirical testing by playing, THIS IS PLAYING, it is like day-dreaming, it´s onanistic. It reveals an astounding decline in the american culture. This is your private and yours only apocalypse, your long awaited armageddon. But you can reborn out from the ashes like a phoenix, you can remake yourselves by radically pulling out all those evil weeds growing everywhere in your society.

Excellent stuff. Warmists sometimes try to say that “models actually expected Antarctic ice to grow”, while looking into IPCC, exact opposite is found.

Here’s a link to the original paper:
http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/people/fac/frei/frei_gong_2005_grl.pdf
The money quote (please see Fig. 1 in the paper):
“Mean simulated NA-SCE values range between
0.55 and 0.95, compared to observed values of ~0.75
(for perspective, Greenland represents ~0.10 of North
America) (Figure 1). Only two models have mean values
within ±0.05 of observed values; only two models overestimate
NA-SCE; and all other models underestimate NASCE.
Neither model that overestimates NA-SCE accounts
for fractional snow coverage in grid boxes. There is no
apparent relationship between model spatial resolution and
mean NA-SCE (not shown).”
“Figure 1 indicates that models disagree with each
other, and with observations, on the timing of decadal scale
NA-SCE variations. None of the model simulations capture
the observed temporal pattern or anything similar . While
some models at least approximately capture the magnitude
of decadal scale variations in NA-SCE, others show little or
no decadal scale variability.”
heh.

Must be all the dirty coal particulates and pollutants reflecting energy back into space!
Thank the Almighty for all those sooty coal-burning Indian and Chinese industries!
Ever since I saw the NASA sat pics clearly showing heavy banding of CO2 (especially in the northern hemisphere) around the globe, as opposed to a blanket layering as I understood was being claimed, I’ve wondered of the implications. I am not an atmospheric scientist so forgive me if the following questions seem too basic.
1) Do the various climate models use an evenly-distributed blanket of CO2 for their calculations, or do at least some of them use the uneven concentrations clearly shown by the sat photos?
2) What are the PPM’s of the areas of concentration as opposed to areas that are clearly devoid of excess CO2? It defies logic to accept that the concentrated bands of CO2 would have the same parts per million of CO2 as areas that show no concentration of CO2.
3) Intuitively, these CO2 concentrations could have some effect on weather patterns in those areas of concentration. These bands of concentrated CO2 should also positively affect the land-based flora of the massed regions as it’s “settled science” that plants love CO2. Am I off on my thinking here?
Any help from the cognoscenti is truly appreciated!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I remember it they were not only predicting less snow due to AGW, they were counting on that in the models as one of the drivers for the high ends of their temperature predictions for the year 2100.
Less snow = lower albedo = faster warming making even less snow and melting poles, which makes for even faster warming- a vicious circle or, if you prefer, a snowball effect.
So, at what point does the failed prediction of diminishing snow coverage alter the predicted temp range for the year 2100?

The reality is that if anyone normal had build a model or series of models for a client organisation which was so dismal in its forecast accuracy, the client (and with good reason) would probably ask for its money back.
Maybe the way to attack this is through a taxpayers alliance!

James Crisp (07:36:51) :
Is that snow in Mexico? I’m no expert but I’m guessing that is quite rare?

In the mountains, that’s normal. There’s even one small ski resort in Mexico – Monterreal.
Further south, in the mountains of Equador, one (or rather, two) can even have a snowball fight over the equator.
“The snows of Kilimanjaro” also are located just some 330 km from the equator.

After a new temp history is constructed from the efforts at surfacestations.org and the E M Smith analysis, will we see we’re right where we were in 1977 ?
…why UAH doesn’t reflect this I couldn’t say. I expected a calibration issue until Roy’s last post.

Is there not a danger in the programming of these models? The danger being that you observe what is perceived as a trend in reality, put it into the puter, & out pops a trend like the one apparently observed, then claim that the model are validated? Perhaps it’s just me then.

You’re saying “the climate models have the wrong polarity on their predictions of winter snow cover changes”??
That’s easy to fix: Just reverse polarity on the batteries and everything will be just fine.
Duh.

I don’t know if the ice extent has so much taken an upward jaunt that interests me, as much as the slope since the first of the year has not begun to roll over yet. Another two weeks of average cold Arctic temps (quite possible due to the high snow extent?) and the ice extent could be be the second highest since 2003. Add that to the information posted earlier that the multi-year ice is gaining strongly and we could have some decent, persistent summer ice cover.

Physics Major (08:45:16) :
“So anyone who claims that increased snow extent is consistent with CO2 induced global warming is what?”
One needs two things for snow, moist air and temperatures below 32F.
Warmer oceans provide moist air. Score 1 for Global Warming Crowd.
It would appear that more moist air is creating more snow, which has a cooling effect. Score 1 for the skeptics side.
The big disagreements in the ‘Climate Debate’ have been over how nature will react to compensate.
I.E. WIth more CO2 emissions will trees grow faster? Will we get more or less snow, which will have a cooling or heating effect.
What happens to clouds?
The doomsdayer’s all assume natures reactions will compound the problem. The Skeptics say natures reactions will mitigate the problem.

Why doesn’t a journalist ask them what they think has caused the discrepancy between the models and observations?
The Hockey Team and the other Climate Bandits must sooner or later realise that AGW is close to being falsified if not already.

Looking at the Northern Hemisphere graph above, one wonders how the modelers will hide the incline.

Yeah, but the data is raw, and thus needs to be adjusted.

Watts Up With That? Stockholm has never been so cold since 1829!!!!
That means Global Warming isn’t it? 😉

Just look at this:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
A ring of warm waters north of the equator, from the pacific to the atlantic, reaching north africa…and, as earth rotates from west to east, all that atlantic humidity will feed US snow.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…

After a slow start it looks like N/H sea ice extent is putting in something of a sprint at the end.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png

Veronica (09:52:57) :Every prayer can be summirized as follows:
Please God, make 2+2 not being equal to 4…and God can’t make it because it would destroy its creation.

“While some other bloggers and journalists insist that recent winter snows are proof of global warming effects,”
It’d be nice to have a link for that straw man. I think most people would say that they are not inconsistent with global warming, not that they are proof of global warming.
“they miss the fact that models have been predicting less snow in the norther hemisphere.”
Over the course of the 21st century. Maybe. Look at the caveats from the paper cited:
“Significant between-model variability is found, with most models underestimating mean NA-SCE. 20th century simulations are poorly correlated with observations, and, while individual ensemble members capture the magnitude of decadal scale variability, the variability of the signal is dampened in the ensemble mean, indicating that decadal-scale NA-SCE variability is associated predominantly with internal model variability rather than external forcing.”
— Frei, A., and G. Gong (2005), Decadal to century scale trends in North American snow extent in coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L18502, doi:10.1029/2005GL023394.
They aren’t exactly overflowing with confidence about he predictive power of their models for snow, are they? Also note the title, “Decadal to century scale trends.” Ultimately they say:
“Two 21st century emission scenarios with realistic (moderate or significant) greenhouse gas emission rates produce decreasing NA-SCE trends, while one unrealistic scenario with fixed concentrations produces little or no NA-SCE trend. These results suggest that snow cover may be a sensitive indicator of climate change, and that North American snow extent will probably decrease in response to greenhouse gas emissions, although the magnitude of the response may be nonlinear.”
So, at some point in the 21st century you can expect winter snow extent to decrease, as opposed to have no significant trend, as now.
Current conditions seem to be anticipated well by one of the paper which cites the paper above:
“The sensitivity analysis suggested a potentially complex elevation response of SCD and SWEmax to increasing temperature and precipitation in mountain regions as a result of nonlinear interactions between the duration of the snow season and snow accumulation rates.”
” These findings were echoed by the climate models that showed earlier and more widespread decreases in SCD than annual maximum snow water equivalent (SWEmax)”
— Brown, Ross D., and Philip W. Mote (2009), The Response of Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover to a Changing Climate*, J Clim, 22(8), 2124.
We are, of course, seeing significant decreases in SCD with no significant change in SWEmax. So that paper holds up quite well. Anyone know if one of these papers is more representative of the current state of the science?
REPLY: It’s not a strawman.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962294,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012800041.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/science/earth/11climate.html
And I have a question. Since you are using a public email address of an educational institution, do they approve of your posting opinions here? See our policy page. – Anthony

Robert,
The trend for winter snow in the Northern Hemisphere since 1999 is +220,000 km2/yr with rsq = 3.13 – culminating in the second greatest extent on record last week.
Your claim that there is no 21st century trend is patently absurd.

Johnc,
I’ve answered the same question about three dozen times now. 1989 was the year when the trend started upwards. Prior to that, snow extent was declining. It makes no sense to do a linear fit across two legs of a cyclical pattern.
Want January? Even better. Trend = 102,000 km2/year rsq = 3.12
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdHFzTFVnTlVrYnV0bEpxLWt5aXE2UEE&oid=3&v=1266604809333

John R. Judge (08:05:38) :
When the pundits and politicians say that the current snow storms are not “proof”, they are correct. When they say that they are not “evidence”, as many of them do, they are blowing smoke. Rising graphs may have ups and downs. They don’t have 100+ year records.
I believe there are 100+ year records for individual sites, but they are not in the form that is currently being discussed. You will find historical records in places where ordinary people kept track of 1st snow, last snow, last snow on ground, etc.
The sad thing about the models is that they cannot account for increases, i.e. – they are uni-directional.

In a frivolous note the 02/12/10 snow map, misses the snow that covered South Carolina the afternoon and evening of 02/12/09. By midnight most of the coastal region had snow on the ground.

Leif Svalgaard (10:51:17) :
Steve Goddard (10:17:55) :
Your graphs don’t change anything and you seem to have forgotten that there are several weeks left in 2010 which will probably score in the top 100.
My graphs show how careful one has to be. You did not comment on the smallness of the 1960s on your graph. Did you multiply by 2.5 to compensate for the decade only having data a quarter of the decade? If not, your graph is sloppy work.
The winter Dec-Feb 2010 does not have ’several’ weeks to go. The Rudgers data go though week 7 of 2010.
__________________________________________________________________
There are several weeks of winter left. Obviously, there will be no remaining Winter 2010 data, for Rutgers or anyone else, to show until those weeks have passed into Spring. Unless of course, you use one of those vaunted models that predict weather and climate with such accuracy! 😀

very interesting post.
i suppose it is only a matter of time until some one says ‘ ah yes – but snow is not climate’
slightly off topic but – does anyone know where i could get monthly rainfall levels for med. north africa area.
it appears to have been raining for most of this year in southern spain, portugal, algeria, morocco etc.
in view of the recent IPCC scandal of ‘50% decline in food production’ in this area due to projected AGW lack of rain, it would be of interest to see what is really happening.

Another great post Steve, although I believed you the first time around. 🙂
Your thread is all about proving that the GCM’s used by the IPCC were completely wrong, and this you achieved. I don’t think that statistics and trends are important. Just eye-balling the numbers shows that snow levels have returned to what we experienced 30-40years ago. This was not predicted by the GCM’s.
Bearing in mind that the much of the alarmist twaddle from the IPCC relies on model predictions, what you’ve done by falsifying their prediction is a significant nail in the CAGW coffin.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2010/aas-eclipse.html
Oliver K. Manuel (08:23:26) :
“Decades of filth and abuse of science by the National Academy of Sciences and all the research agencies whose budgets require NAS review (NASA, DOE, NOAA, etc) are concealed beneath the climategate iceberg, so you can expect negative comments from those with a vested interest in the flow of federal reserch funds.
This is what happens when government and big business control the purse string. I’m afraid that this CAGW cancer has also spread to many other main-stream areas of science and currently little progress is being made. Science which has no useful predictive power is in need of new paradigms.
OT – don’t know if you so this recent NASA article about the discovery of Fe in the suns corona seen during several eclipse?

Tamino agrees. Obviously there’s a censorship issue here as well. The horror! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. I am the wizard who doesn’t have a college degree.
“Ordinarily, with 22 data points you’d only need the t-value to exceed plus or minus 2.09 to reach 95% confidence. But when cherry-picking the strongest trend from any point to the end, for a set of 44 data points, the necessary t-value for 95% confidence is much larger, 3.75. Goddard’s value, 2.91, isn’t even close, it doesn’t even reach significance at 90% confidence.
Goddard’s trend is not statistically significant and his emphasis on the recent extreme snow cover is nothing more than a weather report.”

Should be “weather is not climate.” Although winter is not climate either, I suppose.

Physics Major (08:45:16) :
So anyone who claims that increased snow extent is consistent with CO2 induced global warming is what? A liar maybe?
Keep in mind that in AGWSpeak, “consistent with” in this context means not utterly impossible. 25-Sigma events would probably be considered consistent with AGW models.

Robert,
One more thing. I am not “ignoring” anything. It has scarcely been 24 hours since I discussed the decline in summer snow extent.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/18/why-is-winter-snow-extent-interesting/
Did you forget that already?

Leo G,
Climate is absolutely not linear. If it were, earth would either be like Venus or Pluto.
This obsession with trying to identify very long-term linear trends makes no sense when discussing cyclical behaviour.

So, in 2005 nine computer models predicted that snow cover would decline significantly, starting in 1990, FIFTEEN YEARS previous to the publication of the study. Why did they need computer models to predict for these fifteen years? Why did they not just use data from actual observation?

Climate Modelling
As I understand it, the proponents of Catastrophic Anthropological Global Warming rely upon the release of so called greenhouse gasses (mainly co2) that are mainly derived from fossil fuels and released into the atmosphere by man as the cause of global warming. While the release of such gasses is true and the amount considerable, it is none the less, an infinitesimally small proportion of the total emission of co2 so released. They have never been able to separate the natural GHGs from the man made contribution let alone prove that this has had any significant effect upon climate.
They seem to be rushing around finding all sorts of events to use as proof of their theory but which at best have only very tenuous and unproven linkages to this theory.
On the other hand Dr. Miskolczi has proven, as far as I can ascertain, that Co2 emissions are irrelevant in regard to earth’s climate.
Dr. Miskolczi first published his work in the Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Services in 2004, Volume 108, No 4. He published further statistical proof in the same Journal in 2007, Volume 111, No. 1. Since he first published his results, not one peer review has come back disproving his theory, or his Constant. To date, as far as I am aware, not one scientist has come forward to disprove Miskolczi’s theory that the Earth’s climate is at equilibrium, and that Carbon Dioxide cannot be released in amounts great enough to upset that equilibrium.
If it is true that his work has not been challenged then all I can say is that the AGW had better get their act together or shut up.
All their modelling efforts to show that earth’s temperatures are rising and are caused by increased amounts of co2 are no better that the soothsayer’s crystal ball.

Leif,
Agreed – the 1960 bar should not be included in the graph.

“If you want statistics, how about doing a correlation of GCM predictions vs. actual for the first decade of the 21st century?”
It would seem to me that the desire to change the subject to others’ shortcomings does not reflect a lot of confidence on your part in how this discussion is going.
“The only reason I did rsq() was because other people wanted it.”
It’s great that you did that; thank you. The reason I brought it up is because we were discussing whether the trend was statistically significant. I know a few ways to measure that (not being a statistics expert) and for all I knew, RSQ was a method of doing so I didn’t know.
“The graph is clearly in disagreement with the GCM forecasts.”
Some of them. On the other hand it seems to agree well with the models used in the Journal of Climate paper from 2009. And the spring and summer snow cover are declining, as predicted. I think it’s too early to judge the long-term trend. I mean, how would you react to the claim that numbers like these, 1999-present, showed long-term warming would occur in the 21st century?
“Some web sites love using statistics to obfuscate. I have zero respect for those people.”
Statistical significance is an important concept. As Einstein put it “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
joe (11:56:30) : “In other words, you have no clue. But your high salary depends on it, so here you are.”
Now I have a high salary that depends on AGW. Fascinating. Each data I post here, I learn surprising things about my background and circumstances.

We have a problem in British Columbia as the winter has been quite mild do to el Nino. Yes we have snow cover but not much. The provincial government here has blessed us with a carbon tax on gasoline and will be raised this year. There has been reports in media and implied by the David Suzuki foundation that our mild winter is proof of AGW ignoring what is happening over the rest of the world.
Our mayor in Prince George is factouring in AGW calculating the city snow removal budget.
Oh I never mentioned that Gorden Campbell, the provincial premier considers himself buds with Arnold Schwarzenegger, governer of California. So it can be seen what we are up against.
At the Olympics they have a few hydrogen powered buses at a cost of 58 million with the hydrogen trucked in from Quebec! Also snow was trucked and helicoptered in. So much for the green Olympics.

Jim F (08:01:04) :
How to back up your argument.
This site is fun:
“…A complete list of things caused by global warming….”
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
I followed the link. This is really great!

Now folks, that over there…. that is a troll. You can look at it and listen to it all that you want. But for God’s sake and the rest of our sanity, DO NOT feed it!

“One of the most striking things about ‘climate scientists’ is how unscientific they seem to be! They don’t seem to pay even lip service to the idea that a theory should be falsifiable – so cold weather is evidence of global warming, just as warm weather would be.”
I would say 4-5 years averaging what years averaged from 1951-1980, absent some clear explanation like a giant volcano eruption, would seriously call the theory of global warming into question (if there is no warming trend, this ought to be happening half the time). The last time that happened? 1974-1979.
AGW is perfectly falsifiable — it’s simply that the world, so far, shows no interest in falsifying it.

From a 13 January 2005 article on the GreenPeace site:
“Ski slopes everywhere, International — Snow machines aren’t going to cut it, and we all know that slush sucks. Research in Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, France and Scotland all say the same thing: global warming will affect the winter tourism industry. So far, the nothern hemisphere ski season is suggesting that skiers and snowboarders need to start getting active if they want their sport to survive.
According to the National Climactic Data Center in the US, the global combined average land and sea temperatures were the warmest on record for September – November 2004. That’s bad news for winter sport. A UN report states the obvious: “Climate change is a severe threat to snow related sports such as skiing, snowboarding and cross-country skiing”.
The “threat to the ski industry” meme was also used as an excuse for joining RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative) here in the Northeast, so it’s hilarious that they’re now trying to claim that AGW is responsible for all this snow. They really do try very hard to have their carrot cake and eat it too.

“Pittsburgh Nearing Snowiest Month on Record”
http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?partner=forecastfox&traveler=0&article=9
Tamino should shovel their 40″ of snow and demonstrate that it is statistically insignificant. He seems to be proficient with a shovel.

After reading this article and reading Tamino’s reply, not to mention Leif’s cogent observations, it seems to me that Steve’s analysis is misleading in terms of tracking a genuine statistical trend. Whether its for or against AGW, we should not believe something just because we want to. And please no ubuiquitous, “but Tamino is just a holy priest of the AGW order therefore believe nothing he says” reply. Whatever his motivations, his understanding of statistical analysis is obviously greater than most.

Tenuc,
Looks to me like they are blaming everything on CO2. What they are saying is that no change in CO2 means no snow cover change.

Steve Goddard (12:14:42) :
“Actual data” is the last thing that some people want to use. It would put them out of business.
Yes, but for these fifteen years, they used their models to predict the past – which they seem to have got wrong.
Well, perhaps Alice could explain it.

Steve Keohane (13:54:41) :
If you are north of me (NW Calif.) then your snow levels are below the 4000-5000′ averages we have been getting. Which is on the cold side for El Nino’s.
The only other example in my lifetime was 1982-83.

Robert (12:58:35) :
AGW is perfectly falsifiable — it’s simply that the world, so far, shows no interest in falsifying it.
Which world, Robert, the make-it-up-as-you-go-along hearsay world or the real one?
Previous to this last warm cycle, it was not unusual for late May-June snow-melts in the Midwest and other places to cause havoc on crops and the Mississippi overflowing.
Seems to me the world now returns to a not-so-pleasant cooler cycle, where erratic patterns dominate.
In neither case was the end-of-the-world in the cards.
I for one am glad the ‘we must act quickly and take drastic countermeasures’ proposals got eyed suspiciously. AGW was wrong.

Steve, in your dec-feb_snow_ext.png graph, how did you compute the 2010 data point? There are still 2 weeks of February data to go, and presumably they will lower the average, because at this time of year snow cover is decreasing by 1 million km^2 per week, on average.
I would not include 2010 in the graph, but if I wanted to include that point, I would average in two weeks that were 1 and 2 million km^2 less than the last value, respectively, and then label it as “(projected)”.

Anthony you are right: Tamino implies it well enough himself for all to see.

Steven,
The observed data to compare to the models are the January snow extents in North America:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nam&ui_month=1
The title of the post is “North American snow models miss the mark – observed trend opposite of the predictions.” There is no significant observed trend.

@mikec (13:37:35) : “…This should be no surprise… a warming world means a moister atmosphere which means more snow….”
That’s just plain silly. Snow forms at 32℉ and below. The reason we’re having these record-breaking snows is because moist air, courtesy El Nino, is slamming into air masses at well below 32℉. If the atmosphere is warming, how is this cold air – the driver of snow – to exist and be so prevalent – i.e. covering huge chunks of a given hemisphere? In a warming world, snow should become more rare, more restricted to certain portions of a given hemisphere.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, in a global sense. Now as to current conditions, the moving and collision of cold air masses and wet air masses is the province of weather. However, the extent and vigor of this snowy weather don’t inspire my confidence in a dramatically warming globe. In fact, I suggest we adopt the 400 ways to say “snow” used by the Inuit into the English language.

To; rbateman (12:39:23
Good one. I was being kind, and trying to be sceptical even about scepticism. Personally, I would turn on every red light for the AGW limo. Mind you, ‘cos of green tax we don’t drive much – UK petrol (gas) is at equivalent $7 per US gallon and set to go higher. Plus surcharges on new low gas mileage/high CO2 cars, and higher p.a. road tax too … $600 p.a. or so. Coming soon to the US of A, I guess, courtesey of AGW…

Interesting non-response/fog/snow-job from Gavin.
Gavin, can you help me out here?
A numbr of commentators have stated that increased snow cover (in the U.S.) is consistent with climate change.
But Frei, A. and G. Gong, (2005). Decadal to Century Scale Trends in North American Snow Extent in Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models. Geophysical Research Letters, 32:L18502, doi: 10.1029/2005GL023394.
using nine general circulation models (GCMs) of the global atmosphere-ocean system show that all nine models exhibit a clear and statistically significant decreasing trend in 21st century.
Who is correct here?
[Response: Frei and Gong are using a single index for snow-cover across North America, but the situation is somewhat spatially and temporally heterogeneous. I haven’t looked into this much myself but you can get a sense from the graphs available on the GISS website (for instance, 20C3M+SRES A1B ensemble). Choose ‘Snow Cover %’, choose a month (Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar) and a period (1980-2010 say) and plot the trend. You get decreases in the northern US, and slight increases in the southern US depending on month. Thus I’d say the picture is likely to be a little confused over short time periods with a lot of weather-related noise. Intensity of precipitation is forecast to increase pretty much uniformly, and so that might be a contributing factor to the southern US trends, but that is just speculation at this point. The bigger issue is that single years are not climate change, regardless of the sign of the anomaly. – gavin]

Latest medium range models are showing a 5-10 inches of snow across Texas early next week. NWS is putting up an advisory tonight.

In business, a predictive model that never yields accurate results is promptly junked. In government, the loons repeatedly try to fix the problem by spending enormous sums of taxpayer money making the model bigger and bigger. Got news for you, boys and girls! If the “outas” of a little one can’t even come close to the mark, you have a problem with your “inzas” and your “around-and-aroundas”. Making the thing bigger is not going to help solve your basic problem, even though it will give you bragging rights among your loony peers.

For What It’s Worth –
– An Observation on the Tone of Recent Blog Comments…
People are a sensitive lot every day of the week. On Fridays especially. Sometimes, without warning, sometimes with, they find themselves beset with various career, economic, political, medical, family, travel, and/or personal “issues”. For these reasons they’re a little less friendly and courteous than they normally are in public or on the Web. Many times, changes in the weather can also result in this condition; temperature, air pressure, humidity, rain, snow, ice, etc., can all singly or collectively tick people off and make them boil. When these times happen, when you start to show that inner-you, the part of “you” normally hided from everyone, or when you start to slip –even just a little– get some fresh air. Go out and smell the roses.
No roses? Pretend. But go out and take a deep breath of fresh air. Or Two.
PS: There seemed to be an unusual edge in the discussion lately.

The results of a look at the NA snow cover data are on the link on my name.
Doesn’t look like a great deal is going on but I can of course be wrong.

johnhayte,
So you are suggesting that these trends are actually downwards and match the models?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/dec-feb_snow_ext.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/north_american_winter_dec-feb_snow_extent_1989-2010.png
Tamino is piling it up pretty thick this time.

“We have no accurate global temperatures (you are referring to temperature I presume) before 1979.”
We have an instrument record that goes back a hundred a thirty years. On what basis would you argue we ought to throw it out? The satellite data (to which I assume you are referring, agrees well with the ground measurements when the two instruments are pointed in the same place.

Quote: starzmom (16:55:10) :
“We are expecting another 5-6″ of global warming here in the Kansas City area this weekend. I know, I know, weather isn’t climate, but quite frankly, I’m getting tired of hearing that about the warming climate, when the winters keep getting colder and snowier.”
Welcome to double-speak!
Didn’t you notice when we passed through 1984 about a quarter century ago?
Seriously, keep those snow flakes as a personal gift from Al Gore. We’ve already had more than our fair share of Al’s generosity here in Missouri !
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel in
The Show-Me State

Robert (16:49:54) :
An instrument record that has been heavily damaged by monkeyfingering and “the dog ate my B-91’s”.

Superb reportage.
It is important to nail the Global Warmers failed predictions one by one and not let them switch stories or rewrite what they might have meant.
Undeniably they always predicted milder winters for USA and everywhere but here beware ‘at least’ – they bleat – ‘the West coast of USA is mild and the winter Olympics in Vancouver are very mild’.
This again illustrates the need to get to the roots of everything the GWers or their apologists say; and ask could whatever is observed be explained by more CO2?
The point about the cold and snowy winter in most of the USA is that like all weather it depends on a pressure pattern. In this case on a persistent ridge over the Rockies and THAT also caused the mild west coast. THIS weather pressure and weather pattern of ice and snow in most USA and the consequent mild sliver on the west was predicted in the long range by solar activity (the Solar Weather Technique of long range forecasting), and NOTHING to do with CO2, see: http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews10No9.pdf
The GWers have 4 problems:
Their science has failed;
Their ‘evidence’ is false or fiction;
Their predictions have all failed and
They can predict nothing.
Piers Corbyn, http://www.WeatherAction.com

Piers Corbyn do you see any Lunar declinational patterns in the use of your forecasting method?
The pattern I find most use full is 240 cycles of the Lunar declination atmospheric tides in the atmosphere, which is just one 27.32 day cycle short of the Saros cycle period.
I have not used any solar activity adjustments, and still it shows a good correlation, and possible insight into the effects seen by solar cycle influences.
copied this snippet below, from the link at top of this entry..
Richard Mackey (04:34:31) :
To help better understand the phenomena now clearly visible in that magnificent video, I’ve extracted some relevant segments from my Journal of Energy and Environment paper (VOLUME 20 No. 1 2009)
The lunar nodal cycle and climate
The 18.6 year lunar nodal cycle (LNC) tidal periodicity has a pervasive role in climate change. It is the period of a full rotation of the Moon’s orbital plane around the ecliptic, the geometric plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. It is the clearest tidal signal in the thousands of time series analysed.
The LNC encodes information about the Moon, Earth, Sun geometry that relates to tidal extremes, at least at high latitudes. It defines how the angle of the Moon’s orbit to the Earth’s equatorial plane combines with, or partially cancels out, the tilt in the Earth’s axis. From the perspective of an observer on the Earth, during the LNC the Moon moves along a northern latitude about ten degrees from a position about 18.5 degrees north of the equator to one that is 28.5 degrees, which it reaches after 18.6 years.
The regular sequence of eclipses is a result of the regular, highly predictable rotation of the plane of the Moon’s orbit round the Earth. It has been known since ancient times that eclipses occurred in regular predictable cycles of a little more than 18 years. This period is known as the Saros cycle.

Why does Lief engage in the technique “off axis graphing” method like everyone else, to exaggerate points?
A vertical axis on the left, going to ZERO with TWO HASH MARKS to indicate the “off access” is better procedure for “scientific” work.
But then if Lief is an economist, he is forgiven.

Piers, Steven;
Show the whole story. Let’s see monthly plots of snow covered area, for all months, and for the entire period of record, and let the data speak for themselves. This is not an example of a failed prediction, nor is it superb reportage. It is simply a fail.

Interesting…
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/AOSOI.pdf
In April 2009, we talked about Mt Redoubt’s eruption (and later Russia’s Sarychev) and the effect it might have on high latitude blocking and cooler summer and winter.
Oman et al (2005) and others have shown that though major volcanic eruptions seem to have their greatest cooling effect in the summer months, the location of the volcano determines whether the winters are colder or warmer over large parts of North America and Eurasia. According to their modeling, tropical region volcanoes like El Chichon and Pinatubo actually produce a warming in winter due to a tendency for a more positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO). In the positive phase of these large scale pressure oscillations, low pressure and cold air is trapped in high latitudes and the resulting more westerly jet stream winds drives milder maritime air into the continents.
It goes on to explain how volcanic eruption location makes for colder and snowier NH winters… You might like this Steve.

@ Leif Svalgaard (10:01:13) re Will’s graphics:
I was curious also and looked into the page source for that matter. Quite simple if you have an URL.

Robert (11:29:43) : It’s not a strawman.
do you really think that
“several references to the idea that more intense storms may be more common in a warming world”
is different in meaning to:
“recent winter storms.. proof of global warming.”
then if you do, a career in law, with its subtle nuances of distinguishing one word from another, is for you.
I would think most people would see these arguments as identical.
AR4 referred to more warm events and fewer cold events. I think they were wrong.

There’s a large and increasing list of AGW predictions that are turning out as to be as wrong as it’s almost possible to be. In any normal science this would pretty well have destroyed AGW as a serious theory. But hey, (as Steve M likes to say) this is climate science….
To Piers Corbyn,
Very nice to hear from you. Keep up the good work!
Chris

marky48 (11:30:39) : Thanks for the tool.

jose (21:36:59) :
“Show the whole story. Let’s see monthly plots of snow covered area, for all months, and for the entire period of record, and let the data speak for themselves. This is not an example of a failed prediction, nor is it superb reportage. It is simply a fail.}
Help me out Jose. I thought the model predictions were for northern hemisphere winter snow cover, predicting a decreasing trend, and that the data showed the opposite sign and an increasing trend over the same period.
It looks to me like the models “fail”, not the article. Please feel free to explain what I missed, and link to your own graph.

And the spring and summer snow cover are declining, as predicted.
since 1995 spring and summer snow cover appear to be rising
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j237/hausfath/Picture41.png

Perhaps someone should inform Obama. He’s saying snow in Dallas is due to global warming.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2010/02/breaking-obama-blames-record-dallas.html

Steve Goddard (05:30:31) wrote:
> …
> When people publicly nitpick about minor details, they create the
> impression that they disagree with the conclusions.
> …
That is simply not the case. Nobody is more strongly opposed to the insanity that is the AGW scam than I am. It is precisely for that reason that we need to be above reproach when presenting data. The crowd-sourced “peer-review” that you have been receiving here is a strength of the grass-roots process. Your article makes a convincing case that the decrease in Winter snow cover predicted by the AGW models has been proven dead wrong, and that the decrease in Summer snow might be better explained by soot than by warming. That should be enough.
Leif and I disagree with your conclusion that recent Winters have defined a new upward snow trend that is distinct from the range of variation seen in the last 43 years, and I have defended my disagreement with objective measures of the data. That doesn’t mean we are haters on the side of AGW.
You can see my relevant graphs at my blog (click on my nickname) or by going here (I wish I could post pictures like Willis did):
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_w7fygMMfkv0/S4BTB0ztPhI/AAAAAAAAADM/apFyaERXqyc/s1600-h/NHSnowCover2.png
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_w7fygMMfkv0/S3_tV3TrijI/AAAAAAAAADE/zUmKqB8S7Hk/s1600-h/NHWeeklySnowCover2.png
You still haven’t said how you computed the Winter 2010 snow data point with 1-2 weeks of February remaining. This time of year the NH snow decreases at an average rate of 1 million km^2 per week, so the remaining weeks will almost certainly bring the average for the season down.
Best Regards,
-Peter

davidmhoffer,
That is very interesting and useful information, thanks.

MikeC (13:37:35) :
“This should be no surprise… a warming world means a moister atmosphere which means more snow”
+++++++
I don’t mean to pick on you Mike, but there are several repetitions of this ‘moister means more snow’ in these posts and occasionally on other threads.
One of the fallacies promoted by AGW proponents is ‘Because the atmosphere is warmer it will evaporate more water and therefore rain more because the air will be wetter.’ What follows also applies to ‘cloudiness’.
I want to caution that wetness is relative. The air above the moister air will also be warmer, and the air above that and so on because the warming is ‘global’. In order to have precipitation air has to cool to the dew point. The temperature is irrelevant. If it is warmer rather than cooler, it won’t rain (or snow) any more than it does now because it will cool less by the same amount that it is warmer elsewhere.
Although the absolute humidity of the air will be higher when it is warmer, the relative humidity is very likely to stay exactly the same – it has to do with the amount of ocean surface, primarily. It will rapidly move to an equilibrium (on global average) in a day or two. A 2 degree Kelvin rise in temperature (0.6%) will pick that much more moisture and hold onto it, raising the baseline.
Just being warmer will not detectably yield more precipitation because the dew point will also rise, as will the temperature to which things cool.
The snowfall (instead of rainfall) pattern in the US this year is the result of lower temperatures, not Global Warming as there hasn’t been any for years. It is not because of Global Cooling either, because there hasn’t been much of that. It is an El Nino event combined with a longer term deepening (North-South) of the jet streams. This deepening was beautifully demonstrated last year when the Northern States of the US were rained on (massively) because of the ‘Omega’ wind pattern which stalled on its Eastbound track. Again this NH winter the deepening was evident several times.
Yes I know there are other processes and atmospheric limitations and possible drying of the upper atmosphere from increased storm height, larger ocean surface area which will cause other effects… My main point is that it won’t rain or snow a lot more if it is warmer. In order for that to happen, the warmer air would have to be over the ocean and it would have to /not/ be warmer over land – extremely unlikely. And if there were to happen the warming would not be global.
Warmer/cooler world: substantially the same precipitation.

As a further sign that all the snow is due to global warming, Europe just came within a couple of degrees of breaking their all-time record lowest temperature.
http://www.accuweather.com/mt-news-blogs.asp?partner=forecastfox&blog=Andrews&pgurl=/mtweb/content/Andrews/archives/2010/02/nearly_an_alltime_record_low_in_europe.asp

to:Crispin in Waterloo (00:35:39)
Thank you, you put into words what has been bgging me about the “warmer = more moister = more precipitation = more snow in winter” AGW remix argument. RH, of course! More argument down the pub (bar)….

Tamino suggests:
“If we look at monthly snow cover anomaly for all months of the year covered by the Rutgers data we see a long-term decline of 37,000 km^2/year, which is statistically significant:”
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/cherry-snow/#more-2308
He suggests that January shows no decline and that Goddard has omitted data prior to 1989.
Any comments please ?

I don’t know how you can compare reality to predicted without discussing the stated error bar ranges of the predictions. Given the annual and decadal variability in winter snow cover I would estimate that any GCM derived 20-yr prediction would be something like -.01 +/- .15 million sq km/yr in which case the model prediction is not invalidated. The effect of climate change over 20 years is so minimal it is drowned out by natural variation. I assume that studies predicting winter extent contained formal error estimates due to natural variation, and would be interested to see if the observed trend falls outside of those predicted error ranges.

In science, predictions are never confirmed they are only invalidated. I do not know if these model predictions have been invalidated because I do not know what their stated error range is for a 20-yr prediction. As I said before, because on a 20-yr timescale natural variation would drown out almost any climate signal, my guess is that the observed trend is not outside the error ranges. But without knowing the error ranges for these models, none of us know.
Any regular WUWT reader should be familiar with these types of calculations. Several authors here and people cited here have shown that GCM temperature predictions are on the edge of being invalidated. That is, the observed 12-yr temperature trend falls just inside the lower bound error range given by models. Were we to see a return to recent ’08-09 temperatures following this El Nino, they would be statistically invalidated outside of a 95% confidence interval, as the work of some like Lucia have shown. You haven’t performed such an analysis.

Andrew P,
Statistical analysis would be interesting if were predicting a trend into the future. I am not making any predictions, so the statistics are meaningless and an unwanted distraction.
It is quite clear that the negative projections of the GCMs have been incorrect so far. It requires no statistical analysis to see that snow extent has not been declining the last twenty years.

Andrew P,
Climate models predicted declining winter snow extent. Snow extent has increased. If the error bar is great enough to absorb the opposite polarity, then it isn’t much of a forecast, is it?

Insane…global warming is such a misuse of the characterization of what is going on. Climate change means that there is more energy in the atmosphere (at least, this time around) and that the global and regional weather patterns are going to become more erratic and extreme. A temperature change of 20C to 30C still means that it can snow, but the higher temperature means that there can be more humidity in the air, and as a result more snow. The truth is that the science is getting better, and the need for accurate and un-biased data has never been needed more than now.
And besides…petroleum makes our enemies rich. Who cares about the climate? We’re all gonna be dead before the sh*t hits the fan anyway.