Yes more anecdotal evidence of a colder winter in the northern hemisphere. This is the second time in 5 years. A USATODAY story says it was “the first time ever” in 2004. Even the BBC reported it. There seems to be some confusion on the precendence between news organizations. In the 2004 stories, USATODAY says “first time ever” while BBC says “every 20 to 30 years”. I would tend to believe the Abu Dhabi local newspaper (over the BBC) who now says “second time in recorded history” in their story below. – Anthony
This is the frozen north … of the UAE
by Anna Zacharias of The National, in Abu Dhabi
Snow settles on the Jebel Jais mountain in Ras al Khaimah yesterday. Courtesy of Ras al Khaimah government
RAS AL KHAIMAH // Snow covered the Jebel Jais area for only the second time in recorded history yesterday.
So rare was the event that one lifelong resident said the local dialect had no word for it.
According to the RAK Government, temperatures on Jebel Jais dropped to -3°C on Friday night. On Saturday, the area had reached 1°C.
Major Saeed Rashid al Yamahi, a helicopter pilot and the manager of the Air Wing of RAK Police, said the snow covered an area of five kilometres and was 10cm deep.
“The sight up there this morning was totally unbelievable, with the snow-capped mountain and the entire area covered with fresh, dazzling white snow,” Major al Yamahi said.
“The snowfall started at 3pm Friday, and heavy snowing began at 8pm and continued till midnight, covering the entire area in a thick blanket of snow. Much of the snow was still there even when we flew back from the mountain this afternoon. It is still freezing cold up there and there are chances that it might snow again tonight.”
Aisha al Hebsy, a woman in her 50s who has lived in the mountains near Jebel Jais all her life, said snowfall in the area was so unheard of the local dialect does not even have a word for it. Hail is known as bared, which literally translates as cold. “Twenty years ago we had lots of hail,” said Ms al Hebsy. “Last night was like this. At four in the morning we came out and the ground was white.”
Jebel Jais was dusted in snow on Dec 28, 2004, the first snowfall in living memory for Ras al Khaimah residents.
“I had flown there in 2004 when it snowed, but this time it was much bigger and the snowing lasted longer as well,” said Major al Yamahi.
At the base of the mountains, residents also reported severe hail on Friday night. “We had hail. Last night was very cold, but there can only be snow on Jebel Jais because it’s the tallest,” said Fatima al Ali, 30, a resident of a village beneath the mountains.
In Ras al Khaimah City, 25km from Jebel Jais, sheet lightning and thunder shook houses.
Main roads from Qusaidat to Nakheel were still badly flooded on Saturday, while temperatures at the RAK International Airport fluctuated between 10 and 22°C.
M Varghese, an observer at the RAK Airport Meteorological Office, told of the storms that hit the emirate on Friday night.
“We had thunderstorms with rain for more than 12 hours and we had around 18mm rain,” Mr Varghese said. “The rain, along with the cold easterly winds and low-lying clouds, could have bought the temperatures further down on the mountains.”
Giorgio Alessio, a meteorologist at the Dubai meteorology office, said: “In thunderstorms, the rain comes down very rapidly from higher levels, and the rain that usually forms can reach the ground in some places as snow. In the next few days the weather regime is completely different and will return to normal for the season, with a maximum temperature of 23°C or 24°C.
“The night might cool down in the desert below 10°C. There is variability in the weather from year to year but it hasn’t shown a trend in getting colder or getting warmer.”
The RAK Government plans to transform the 1,740m Jebel Jais into the UAE’s first outdoor ski resort, using Australian technology that will allow tourists to ski in temperatures up to 35°C.
Abu Dhabi and Dubai also had heavy rain on Friday night.
The American Thinker website has three articles on AGW related topics today (1/25/09). The AT editors are following the political aspects, which should turn into a hot topic this year. So, if politics is not appropriate here, you can post at the American Thinker.
http://www.americanthinker.com/
OK, the other shoe has fallen:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7810
Some scientists even maintain that increasing CO2 levels may actually result in lower global temperatures. For example, a scientific paper, “Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect”, just published in the leading scientific journal Environmental Geology by University of Southern California (Los Angeles) Professor George V. Chilingar et al (read paper http://www.springerlink.com/content/c47m4x8222886n12/fulltext.pdf here), concludes:
“rising concentration of CO2 should result in the cooling of climate.”
So of course there is snow in the emirates. CO2 is rising and the weather is cooling after all !!! Unfortunately the article is not free .
Consciousness and Anthropogenic Global Warming
As a species we have a problem. Well lots of problems but the most evident is our illusion of consciousnesses.
In believing we are conscious we actually have defined what consciousness is in an absolute term, rather than a relative term. There is no objective way of determining if we are indeed conscious, more so than other mammals or even if our consciousnesses is not an abstraction created by the need for the brain to coordinate all the different complex modules existing in our brain.
Given that the brain is now recognized to be created fully equipped with all the necessary modules for managing the supporting structure (the body), modules for interpreting sensory input, modules for interacting with the environment and various others with varying degrees of complexity and purpose we can come to understand that our brain is primary a, albeit highly complex, reactive instrument.
Lots of these modules have evolved over time into a standard structure, the mammal brain. These modules seem to be quite rigid in their scope and flexibility and operate way beyond our awareness. Nevertheless they are at the base of all our decision making process. Out of sight, quietly they do their work supplying information to the regulatory module of the brain.
This regulatory module is the most important part of this brain, as it needs to correlate all incoming data and in split seconds make a qualified judgment as to what, if any, action is required. These judgments have been proven to take place without our advance knowledge and as such take place not out of free will but out of pure reflex. Research done on living human brain has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that actions taken by our brain have a delay of being made aware of several tenths of seconds, depending on the amount of judgment needed up to half a second, before we become aware of the decision the brain has made for us.
After the fact, note well. Our brain reacted to the environment and tried to put this into context some time later what they have done. Well filtered of all information deemed unnecessary by our brain it is presented in such a way that we have the illusion of being the instigator of the action, thus in full conscious control.
But who/what is this consciousness ?
Here comes the difficult part, accepting the above to be the case we have no objective way of judging our level of consciousness if the consciousness we try to determine is the determining agent. And even worse that consciousness cannot even objectively proven to be existent. We don’t really exist other then as an illusion created by the need for the regulatory module to have a continuous flow of action/reaction on which to augment its chances for survival.
Now we, our consciousnesses, are put into interaction with others forming a vast network surpassing the scope of the single and with it the capability to create very complex adaptations of reality. Unfortunately the only ones who can test the accuracy of these realities are the very illusionary consciousnesses who created them in the first place.
A prime example of this system in action is the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming. A vast complex theory has been constructed to explain a reality as we see it. The reality in this case being the ever changing climate as we perceive it. As we are forced by our brains to anthropocentric thought, the regulatory module just can’t surpass its own limits as being the creator of itself, we are forced to give ourselves a primary role in all what happens around us.
Most people do this by religion, they put it down to their own failings in the eye of god and thus the deserving cause of all mishap. Others just create a religion and then blame it on themselves in this way. Others just don’t care one way or the other by having a less complex regulatory module and thereby being incapable to sustain the level of illusion needed or the having the means to assimilate the information.
One thing is sure, whatever we think and whatever we do or don’t do we will never escape the entrapment of anthropocentric reasoning no more then a moth can escape the lure of a light at night.
Were we able to escape this trap, we’d be able to accept the simple truth:
The larger the scale the smaller the variance, nothing really matters at all.
Turn all that creative energy to solving the enormous other problems actually happening now; poverty, violence and all that stuff.
“rising concentration of CO2 should result in the cooling of climate.”
So CO2 is a negative forcing?
Thanks for posting- did you get my email first?
REPLY: I didn’t see any email from you, but it may have been caught in a spam trap if a link was inlcuded. Anthony
Peter Taylor got me thinking, for those who think we’re in for a prolonged period of cooling, how bad is it going to be? My motivation for this is the possibility of getting some grip. Maybe if we have an idea of what we will be dealing with in say ten years this will open out to be a source of power. America is looking pretty chilly already. The Dalton’s in Britain wasn’t that bad but if this winter is the beginning. Any estimates, visions, predictions?
There does appear to be patches of 20-40% sea ice around northern Iceland on the latest cryosphere images, but this is probably just ice that has broken off the greenland sheet due a storm perhaps… I remember an image from about 4 months ago that showed trails of similar green extending far south, just off the coast of Canada but had disappeared from the next image.
But then again perhaps the ice may form a bridge to iceland, which would be a first since 1961!
There must have been a heck of a snow storm in Siberia and in Northern Canada.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=01&fd=20&fy=2009&sm=01&sd=24&sy=2009
note the dates I’ve inserted there.
Haven’t found any news stories though.
Has anybody seen any stories about snow up there?
Could someone, perhaps even an occasional visitor, point me to a peer-reviewed paper on anthropogenic climate disruption and its causes, with particular reference as to how we can mitigate this through atmospheric carbon dioxide control ??
Just perused Joseph D’Aleo, “U.S. & Global Data Integrity Issues”, from link at IceCap. Great discussion of the contributions of Anthony Watts — surfacestations.org and WattsUpWithThat — and Steve McIntyre’s efforts. My question: Neither of you are listed in the “References”, pp 23-25; only print articles seem to be appropriate; shouldn’t the creative work and the science be referenced as such? Or, is there any discussion about how to cite blog efforts?
Frederick Davies (02:13:42) :
At this rate, how long until the expression “until Hell freezes over” looses it meaning, I wonder? 😉
Too late! From:
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=hell&wuSelect=WEATHER
Hell, Michigan
Local Time: 1:28 PM EST (GMT -05) — Set My Timezone Lat/Lon: 42.5° N 83.9° W (Google Map)
[…]
Current Conditions
Woodbury Park / R. Peter, Howell, Michigan (PWS)
Updated: 1:27 PM EST on January 25, 2009
18.5 °F
Scattered Clouds
Windchill: 18 °F
18.5F looks frozen to me…
Is it possible that the IPCC uses the radiative forcing concept to force their 25 or so computer models to produce the desired output of anthropogenic CO2 and bovine CH4 are collectively causing the Earth to warm?
———————————————————
“The radiative forcing concept has also been used effectively in policy applications. The concept is already entrained in the policy dialogue, particularly through the emphasis given it in the IPCC reports. Policy analysts have input radiative forcing into simple climate models, which are used to examine a wide range of scenarios of past, present, and future climate. Comparison between these simple models and the more complex fully coupled models also helps in interpreting causal mechanisms in the fully coupled models (e.g., Murphy, 1995; Raper et al., 2001).”
————————————————————
Could be that the “forcing” concept is more universal than, and could possibly replace, the Finagle, Bougerre and Diddle concepts combined.
Smokey (08:58:18) :
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a788582859~db=all
Published in: Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, Volume 30, Issue 1 January 2008 , pages 1 – 9
“Computations based on the adiabatic theory of greenhouse effect show that increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere results in cooling rather than warming of the Earth’s atmosphere.”
philincalifornia (10:04:02) :
“….a peer-reviewed paper on anthropogenic climate disruption and its causes, with particular reference as to how we can mitigate this through atmospheric carbon dioxide control..”
The Holy Grail might be easier to find. I doubt if that search had the equivalent budget pushed at it either 😉
United States & Global Data Integrity Issues
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow
January 27, 2009
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/DAleo-DC_Brief.pdf
Issues with the United States and especially the global data bases make them inadequate to use for trend analysis and thus any important policy decisions based on climate change. These issues include inadequate adjustments for urban data, bad instrument siting, use of instruments with proven biases that are not adjusted for, major global station dropout., an increase in missing monthly data and questionable adjustment practices.
Anthony Watts started a volunteer effort to document siting issues with all 1221 stations in US. He and his team is now through over 600 stations.
An audit by researcher Steve McIntyre reveals that NASA has made urban adjustments of temperature data in its GISS temperature record in the wrong direction. The urban adjustment is supposed to remove the effects of urbanization, but the NASA negative adjustments increases the urbanization effects. The result is that the surface temperature trend utilized by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is exaggerated …
The net warming in the UHI adjusted GISS US data set from the peak around 1930 to the peak near 2000 was a meager 0.15C. It may be assumed the same would be true for the world if we could make a similar needed UHI adjustment.
philincalifornia
Could someone, perhaps even an occasional visitor, point me to a peer-reviewed paper on anthropogenic climate disruption and its causes, with particular reference as to how we can mitigate this through atmospheric carbon dioxide control ??
I commented on another thread (see below) on this, and while it is not exactly a paper, it is published in a highly-esteemed journal, Hydrocarbon Processing. The references are especially good reading.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/23/archibald-makes-an-ap-index-prediction/
Then, do a *find* on Latour.
There is a ‘back to the nineties’ mentality here in the States. We want to go back to the ‘end of history’ euphoria, the good economic times (even though it was a bubble), back to the foreign policy as well so there is no more war, only crime scenes. And I’m sure the AGW advocates wish to go back to the warmth then instead of trying to explain away, or ignore, the current cooling.
And there is probably an expectation that when Cycle 24 ramps up, it will take us back there. Many, including me, strongly suspect that won’t be the case. We will know soon enough, but I feel the advocates are scrambling.
anna v (08:54:31) :
OK, the other shoe has fallen:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7810
Some scientists even maintain that increasing CO2 levels may actually result in lower global temperatures. For example, a scientific paper, “Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect”, just published in the leading scientific journal Environmental Geology by University of Southern California (Los Angeles) Professor George V. Chilingar et al (read paper http://www.springerlink.com/content/c47m4×8222886n12/fulltext.pdf here), concludes:
“rising concentration of CO2 should result in the cooling of climate.”
So of course there is snow in the emirates. CO2 is rising and the weather is cooling after all !!! Unfortunately the article is not free .”
Thank goodness it is paywalled – you wouldn’t buy it based on that precis. Warming is the new cooling and cooling is the new warming. What miracles can’t CO2 achieve?
Peter Taylor (07:25:58) :
Nobody seems to be studying the jet stream – the key to these regional shifts. NASA’a early work on the LIA jet stream (Shindell) is more relevant than ever but they don’t seem to have followed it up.
This is what I have been on lately… we need to quantify the jet stream and pdo amo etc.
CO2 caused Global Warming, and CO2 is now causing Global Cooling.
CO2, the cause, AND the solution of all man’s problems!
TonyB
‘How by any stretch of the imagination is 56cm of rain per year in Central Victoria-around 22inches-considered a drought? The much derided British climate has this sort of rainfall in some parts of the east of the country.’
TonyB while 56cm does not sound like a drought I can assure you it is. We have a deficit of 1.53m of rainfall over this period. Water storages are 2 or 3% of capacity and ground water is greatly reduced, I have seen dramatic dieback of drought affected vegetation – the landscape is changing dramatically.
Having said this I do not think it due to AGW but it may be a shift in climate. As I said this drought is being used by CSIRO and politicians to promote AGW in the mainstream media. The Australian public is readily accepting a new tax in the form of an emission trading scheme that will allegedly save Great Barrier Reef and eventually the world. Plus carpetbaggers are promoting wind farms as part of this world saving plan and are greedily accepting taxpayer money for the priveledge of despoiling our landscape.
TonyB while 56cm does not sound like a drought I can assure you it is. We have a deficit of 1.53m of rainfall over this period. Water storages are 2 or 3% of capacity and ground water is greatly reduced, I have seen dramatic dieback of drought affected vegetation – the landscape is changing dramatically.
Having said this I do not think it due to AGW but it may be a shift in climate. As I said this drought is being used by CSIRO and politicians to promote AGW in the mainstream media. The Australian public is readily accepting a new tax in the form of an emission trading scheme that will allegedly save Great Barrier Reef and eventually the world. Plus carpetbaggers are promoting wind farms as part of this world saving plan and are greedily accepting taxpayer money for the priveledge of despoiling our landscape.
>SE Australia has so far had one of its coolest summers in recent memory. The mean temp for Dec ‘08 was about 3 lower that it was in Dec ‘07. Yes we are finally starting to warm up and get the heat waves that are part of every summer.
Temperatures for December were a little below average and January has been warmer than average (www.bom.gov.au/climate). With an extreme heatwave forecasted for the week ahead summer will be on the average at the end of January.
Of course, this might seem cool because 2007 was the regions hottest year on record and recent summers have been very hot – indeed just last March the region experienced the longest heatwave event in history.
Meanwhile its likely that the little town of Gascoyne Junction in WA will record the hottest month for any station for any month for Australia on record. This beats the record set just 2 summers ago. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW6047.latest.shtml .
>In Central Victoria, Australia we are still in the grip of a drought that has now lasted for 8 years. It is the main reason The Age Newspaper (an influential Melbourne Daily) has been able to beat the climate change drum…
The drought started in 1996. Its 12 years long – about 3 times the previous longest drought on record. Its also been the hottest drought on record by a long way – http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/special-statements.shtml. There is a large volume of scientific literature linking drying of the subtropics to global warming.
Pretty interesting
DJ and Gerard,
“…in the 1960s and 1970s, a retired [British] patent officer examiner, Arthur Pedrick, [obtained] patents on a range of … inventions… including UK patent number 1047735, which was his plan to get snowballs of 10 ft in diameter to run down mountains in Antarctica, attaining speeds of about 500 mph, then being piped to Australia where they could be used to solve [various problems].” — my insertions in brackets.
Pedrick was a maverick, and obtained numerous patents on schemes that were deemed ridiculous or foolhardy. Yet, this one [GB1047735] may have some merit. It required digging a tunnel through the ice cap and under the ocean from Antarctica to Australia, then pushing giant ice-balls into the tunnel so that gravity and coriolis effect would propel the ice-balls to Australia. The friction in the tunnel would melt the ice, leaving fresh water to exit into a new lake in Australia. Cost of water delivered was not disclosed. Probably pretty high, I would imagine.
The practical problems of course are immense. It might be cheaper just to install a rudder, mast, and sails on a giant iceberg and sail it to Sydney. I do not know if the prevailing winds are favorable.
We had a similar proposal involving towing icebergs to Los Angeles to alleviate our water shortages.
http://v3.espacenet.com/searchResults?locale=en_GB&PN=GB1047735&compact=false&DB=EPODOC
Roger E. Sowell
Peter Taylor (07:25:58) : Nobody seems to be studying the jet stream – the key to these regional shifts.
It would be really interesting to have a thread here on this topic.