“The line must be drawn here! This far and no further!”
Bryan Walsh deserves a giant watermelon for his journalistic efforts this Time around in his annual piece on global warming causing blizzards.
He comes out swinging right away: “A big winter snowstorm provides more fodder for the global-warming skeptics. But they’re wrong”
Oh really? Bryan, if you can find any (credible) scientist that wants to go on record supporting your contortionist logic with respect to this holiday blizzard, please quote them directly on the record, and do not cherry-pick their blog postings or opinion-editorials. Is this the type of new “green journalism” expertise that we can expect from the vaunted and much lauded Climate Science Rapid Response Team? Preemptive straw man arguments that would make the master blush? This article is just another in a long line of really speculative pieces that reek of scientific ignorance. Enough of it, please!
Before getting to this year’s Time Life installment of “blizzards gone wild”, let’s go back to February 10, 2010 and Snowmageddon when Bryan Walsh authored this gem:
Indeed, what happened to that climate change — perhaps a follow up on that Virginia state GOP campaign strategy (Tsunami warning).
We’re braced. Semi-interested readers will see from that February Time piece that Bryan Walsh relies on Dr. Jeff Masters‘ blog posting to rationalize the blizzard and global warming saying that warmer air carries more moisture — true. However, intense baroclinic cyclones such as blizzards also rely on Arctic-cold air for their fuel which is usually provided behind dynamically-positioned midlatitude troughs. I haven’t read any peer-reviewed literature lately linking an increase in moisture being responsible for that blizzard’s intensity or existence, specifically. That reasoning is essentially a thought experiment extrapolated to the situation at hand. Walsh finishes up:
We are in agreement on that. Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. says the same thing over at his Climate Science blog in reaction to the woeful Dr. Judah Cohen opinion editorial.
Fast forward to December 28, 2010 and the most recent blizzard. Everyone that participated in our sarcastic peremptory analysis of the blizzard journalism-to-come had some jolly holiday laughs conjuring up what was expected to be written by the liberal media. Time Magazine does not disappoint!
First off, let’s get our time-scales right. Decadal-time-scale, mean-global warming on the order of tenths of a degree is not an event. The blizzard is an event. Who is coming out saying that “climate change” is a myth? The climate is always changing — I’d be surprised and alarmed if it stayed the same. Alas, I thought you weren’t supposed to conflate a singular weather event to climate change/global warming/disruption/something. There are two main arguments that are cobbled together to form a scientific thesis:
(1) A warmer Arctic will lead to colder and snowier winters in the middle-latitudes due to the “continued Arctic sea-ice meltdown”. The loss of ice will make the surface darker, absorb more heat, and change pressure patterns leading to a weakening of the jet stream, which allows cold-air to seep into Europe. This is called the Warm Arctic – Cold Continents theory by NOAA and operates exclusively in the fall months. Dr. Jeff Masters’ calls it “leaving the refrigerator door open” to cool your house.
(2) Dr. Judah Cohen’s theory about Siberian snow-cover early in the fall leading to a dome of cold air forming near the mountains which in turn “bends the passing jet stream”. This affects the middle-latitude waveguide and results in a highly amplified pattern. Thus, more meridional flow exchanges of cold-air equatorward. This is an appeal to the negative Arctic Oscillation phase.
Okay, these theories are not in dispute but their applicability to the current blizzard is. Dr. Cohen’s scholarship on Arctic climate dynamics is top-notch. Conversely, his recent NY Times op-ed was not received well. But, what does this have to do with a singular event like a blizzard which has happened many, many times in the past? The Arctic Oscillation has been negative before. Look at this time-series graphic. To establish a causal chain that links these theories to the situation at hand requires a leap of faith:
How are autumn sea-ice or snow-cover changes supposed to affect the winter circulation three-months later when the troposphere has such a short memory?
See the aforementioned Pielke, Sr. posting for additional science reasoning. I’m just going to throw something out there that the Climate Rapid Response Team might want to discover: El Nino and La Nina (ENSO) in that potentially important body of water known as the Pacific Ocean. Have you heard anything about this driving our current climate/weather in the media lately? Crickets…
No objective person will disagree that Time Magazine or the NY Times’ “green journalism” is liberal in nature and fits perfectly in with the political agenda of the Democrat party. So, why did Bryan Walsh go from correctly stating in February that one storm or event isn’t proof of anything to unabashedly blaming global warming for the most recent blizzard? Open question…
While Dr. Oppenheimer talks about “loaded dice” with respect to global warming and extreme events, Walsh and the drive-by media are putting their cards down too soon, and are in effect overplaying their hand in a reflexive manner. They are looking for theories hidden in the tapestry to make the world’s weather fit a narrative. In doing this, “green journalism” ends up being science fiction, unsupportable, reflexive, and only worthy of watermelons.
In the meantime, the line is drawn here, no more of this type of article, please. Blow up the damn ship!
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“There is some evidence that climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm.”
I’ll repeat what I said before. For the sake of the argument, let us assume that the quoted thesis is correct: A warming climate causes more massive snowstorms. That would mean that snowcover in the winter increases. Snow, especially on lower latitudes, will greatly enhance albedo, which in turn will cause cooling. Increasing snow cover will perform as a strong negative feedback mechanism.
Why respond in an agitated manner? You’re only putting yourself way down at their non-credible level of discussion and dignifying their bogus assertions.
Nobody listens to them anymore. I don’t even bother debating them. The best is to ridicule or ignore their junk. It’s worthy of nothing more.
“Increasing snow cover will perform as a strong negative feedback mechanism.”
By the way. While that feedback mechanisme may work as a negative feedback on warming, it works as a positive feedback on cooling. I have always wondered how climate science apparently (correct me if I am wrong) considers “the” feedback of Earths climate as some sort of a constant.
Respond by parading all their past predictions of warm, snowless winters – again, and again, and again. and again…
It indeed effectively shuts these charlatans up.
The thesis just boils down to “it’s cold because it’s hot” and that is an oxymoron if ever there was one.
BTW, I find that I’m hearing “Yellow journalism” now when reading “Green”… I think you’re on to something with that… “Green Journalism”… hey, it’s right next to it on the rainbow 😉 (And if they don’t ask, I won’t tell 😉
Yep, I’ve had enough !
Just tonight, on “Our ABC” 7.00 PM news here in Australia, I get this,
CSIRO claims the cold in the northern hemisphere does not mean the end of global warming.
And then an interview with Alan Stokes, a rep. from the National Sea Change Task Force, (supposedly set up to help the “baby boomers” who have / will retire by the sea) help people living near the sea cope with rising sea levels.
I’m a “baby boomer” and retired, and I live 100 meters from the sea, and I don’t need any help !
I am just so sick of hearing this BS every day I happen to watch the news on TV. Thank God for WUWT, where I get reassured that there is a few left with some brains.
If it stops raining tomorrow, I’ll take the boat for a run and escape this madness.
You never hear them talk about Global Warming on Star Trek
TO ME IT,S A LOT OF HOT AIR
And warm the planet 16 cylinders at a time !!
Warming equals more snow blizzards in a warming world. Eventually it will be so hot we will be covered in snow. Heh? Wha…
Someone needs to go back to 5th grade and review some basic science. In the winter the Earth tilts AWAY from the sun on it axis. That’s why it gets cold. Add less solar activity and you get an even colder winter. Do they even teach that in public schools these days? They did in 1960.
Place me in P Gosselin’s corner. I value the rebuttal, the links to responsible sources, the reminders of failed predictions. But I won’t send readers from other sites to posts here so long as the tone is so weighted toward ridicule. I read this site almost daily, but find it impossible to cite, much as I value the information.
Ryan, I heard a person described as a representative of the CSIRO on Australian ABC radio this morning, when I was only half awake.
What he said made sense I think, although I do not agree with him for other reasons.
He simply said that there are two forces at work, CO2 emissions causing a long term linear rise in temperature and cyclic, directionless influences such as the PDO, which override the CO2 effect in the short term but do not influence the long term direction.
Now I wont go into what he did not say, about the dublious accuracy of the global indexes, the impact of UHI on the data, the uncertainty in the direction of net feedbacks, the influence of the magnetic flux between sun, planets and moons etc etc etc.
But I take it he is a practicing scientist from a very reputable organisantion and he did make a reasonable case that it could be getting colder and colder within a longer term upward moving trend. It’s just, as I’ve said, he’s left so much other stuff out.
We’ll just have to wait and see who’s right – me, an ignorant member of the general public; or him – an experienced scientist who (presumably) has studied all the above and much much more, and can explain it all away.
You/we are not alone in having heavy snow, whether the Chinese link it to global warming/climate change/climate disruption or one of those things is unclear:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8228676/Heavy-snow-grips-northern-China.html
I don’t know if the video link in the article will work.
Ryan – I should have said that it is really clear that the science is settled and has been settled for more than 100 years. Adding CO2 to an enclosed vessel raises the temperature of the gasses inside, all other things being the same and held constant, as the economists always say.
Economic theory is never wrong by the way.
It is always clear and certain.
It’s just that it cannot describe the complexity of the real world and its forecasts are always wrong, except occasionally in the very short term.
Does that sound at all familiar?
Warmest decade ever.
Well, of course. Since they used a new algorithm for this decade and it shows it is the warmest ever decade of this decade it is in fact the warmest decade of the single decade measured.
This day is the coldest day ever of all of this one day that was measured. :p
For a theory to hold up it must be tested, the Warm Arctic Cold Continent theory has already failed the test. 2007 was the lowest arctic ice extent. That year the AO and NAO was positive. Also the prevailing temperature readings that influence the AO and NAO are in the stratosphere. Warm stratosphere temps are associated with the weak polar vortex as we have now. The ever so strong CO2 layer at the tropopause is surely shielding us from any stratospheric warming?
Me thinketh you protesteth too much Act III
The jet stream is not looking good in the first week of 2011. There is a good chance of another round of major cold and snow in the UK, Europe, Russia and the top end of North America.
I fear that Bryan Walsh does not need to be correct to influence people. As a Science teacher of long standing, Ignorance of simple Science is Rampant in our society. Bryan needs only a wide audience to be affective, and vastly more people read Time than read WUWT.
Even religions like global warming need to be consistent in their internal logic otherwise they just look naff.
These eco-journalists give proper religious nutters a bad name!
Yes, its funny. Here is the AGW nightmare scenario; As the years go by now RSS and UAH shows a further decline in global temperatures. GISS shows an ever increasing temperature.
Strange noone drops temperature sensors with GPS transponders over the pole area?
Perhaps the “Climate Rapid Response Team” should change its name to the Climate Response Action Panel.
As basic physics says, when heating a pot of water, in one part it will boil and in other part it will freeze, extremes will increase but overall it will keep warming. Or something.
One detail, future colder winters mean that annual averages will fall down. Will be this commented as a) models predicted exactly that, b) but it is warming elsewhere, c) green police on you!
Stockholm Sweden has broken all cold records since 1788 ( 222 years ago ) over the period of the 4 weeks before christmas. That means that we are already back in Little ICE age conditions here . The Baltic sea is freezing over fast and is now already frozen at the state it use to be in the end of January. At this rate the Baltic will freeze down to Poland and Germany in the end March.
Live Long and Prosper.