Lake Superior last froze over in 2003. It has now, again, frozen over. The frequency of freeze overs has historically been around once every 20 years. Now, in the last decade, we have seen two freeze overs.
The picture below is a beautiful satellite photo of Lake Superior from yesterday. With the well below freezing temperatures seen over the region Thursday night (-20 F), any isolated open water could have frozen.
The NWS in Marquette MI writes:
Due to the recent cold spell and below normal temperatures for much of the winter of 2008-2009, ice covers nearly all of Lake Superior. Only small areas of open water remain. This image was taken on Tuesday, March 3rd. If arctic air does not return in the next couple of weeks, it is likely that this will be the day of maximum ice cover on Lake Superior for this winter as warmer weather and periods of stronger winds through the end of this week will cause open water areas to expand. Click on the image to view a higher resolution satellite picture (image is large — just under 1mb).
Source:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mqt/?n=lake_superior_ice
h/t to Kevin Klimek
johnofmirecourt (08:08:58) :
Why is using short term weather as gloating /dreaming / wishing / against all evidence commenting such a popular meme for denying there are effects happening from man’s increasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?
The sheer delight of these sorts of events by skeptics, i suppose, is directly proportional to the avalanche of reports of weather events blamed on global warming by consensus experts in the media and elsewhere. I have an automatic Google search come to be every day for Climate Change. Every day it is full of news reports of weather events (or other strange and wonderful events) blamed on global warming. And, no doubt, somewhere on this large planet there is a solemn scientist explaining to a friendly reporter that the freezing of Lake Superior is proof of AGW and was anticipated in all the climate models. While the majority, like yourself apparently, will be shrugging and saying “it got a little cooler? That’s just weather, get over it.”
If consensus scientists would say that every time there was a warming weather event the story probably wouldn’t be on this blog.
“johnofmirecourt (08:08:58) :
Why is using short term weather as gloating /dreaming / wishing / against all evidence commenting such a popular meme for denying there are effects happening from man’s increasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?”
If you were right John then there would be no need for you to be here. But people like you keep coming back. All of you must be feeling uncertain.
The data shows a cooling trend in the earth. Manmade co2 levels are rising faster than was predicted it would. But still the earth is cooling. Warming ended in 1998. As anyone can see manmade co2 does not have the power to control what happens in the earth’s climate.
And this is not being done : “Especially if the intent is to convince people that there is nothing to consider in all the climate change research.” No one here, or at the other blogs like this one, is discarding climate research.
re: johnofmirecourt (08:08:58) :
You’re correct short term is almost meaningless whether it’s one winter or 20-30. There is no doubt that historical records indicate that long term we’re headed for ice and it now appears that these natural forces are dominant – AGW is insignificant and will not save us from the next ice age.
Thanks for posting this. It will never make the “news”, though.
johnofmirecourt (08:08:58) : said;
“Why is using short term weather as gloating /dreaming / wishing / against all evidence commenting such a popular meme for denying there are effects happening from man’s increasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?”
Please confirm what this evidence is, and let’s stick to the legal term of that word i.e. ‘facts’. Theoretical models from Computers that even the IPCC say are flawed are inadmissable, wishing something is true is inadmissable, saying something is true lots of times is inadmissable, believing something is true just because someone with letters after their name has told you that is inadmissable.
Please provide me with three FACTS that back up what you say.
Thank you
TonyB
for any Great White Norther over 50, this will be nostalgic
The NWS said: “IF ARCTIC AIR DOES NOT RETURN IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS, it is likely that this will be the day of maximum ice cover on Lake Superior…..”
You gotta love that government-generated C.Y.A!
Maybe the fierce winds from the old-fashioned blizzard coming mid-week will break up some of those flows, but the DIRECT discharge of Arctic air following, will not help the situation no doubt.
Also….and interestingly….no mention from the NWS on what is statistically is a TWENTY-year event, has now occurred TWICE in the last SIX.
Anything that shows evidence of global cooling…even anecdotal….is downplayed and suppressed.
But U.S. government employee James Hansen has no problem showing up at a AGW protest in a blinding March snowstorm, and Gore has no problem shoving out his greedy hands to accept an UNDESERVED, ILL-GOTTEN Scripps prize. (I thought it might snow when Gore got the prize in sunny San Diego.)
Amazingly, the “evidence” of the “stories” in our public science community that get the news spotlight, point one way…. while “MOTHER SUPERIOR”, her icy cloak, and other legion indicators in nature, point the other.
Nature does not lie! And it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.
And she is making her opinion known what she thinks of the sham science of AGW.
E.M.Smith (05:51:22) :
“. . .FWIW, I’ve gotten the source code up for GIStemp from all but STEP2 with some commentary …>
Remind me, since GIStemp is missing from the Glossary, what it does. Is it the homogenizer, the maker-up of missing data, or something else?
johnofmirecourt (08:08:58) wrote:
“using short term weather as gloating /dreaming / wishing / … doesn’t it fly in the face of logic to continue using it? … Usually it is only seen in the uninformed letters to the editor….”
But the same could be said for the crowing over short-term and/or essentially localized weather events by the Global Warming Insisters, such as:
Arctic melting in 2008
Greenland melting in 2007
Sea level rising in a low-lying Pacific Island (name forgotten)
Brush fires in Australia
Katrina and other hurricanes
Every other heat-wave
Etc.
I agree that playing “Gotcha” with short-term local weather events is childish and “anecdotal” in the worst sense of the word. And I’m sure that it therefore makes a bad impression on objective critical thinkers. If this were a disinterested debate between adults, our side shouldn’t stoop to it. But we’ve been provoked by the cheap and fiendishly effective hysteria-inducing techniques of the other side into responding in kind. My hope is that once this site gets its slice of the pie from the latest climate research appropriation bill, it will segregate this sort of juvenilia in a hard-to-find portion of the site, prefaced with a warning page.
I guess our side could plead “guilty with an explanation” (unlike the Insisters), because a skeptical side is only obliged to falsify, to point to “white crows”–i.e., exceptions that disprove the Insisters’ Rule (“It’s the CO2, stupid”).
johnofmirecourt
Weather v climate again, eh? Well, if you read the comments you will note that the “meme” is that this is part of a pattern. One that all the expensive GCMs failed to predict. Indeed couldn’t predict because they take no account of the factors mentioned in Matt V’s post above. Yes, man is putting CO2 into the atmosphere (and has been since about three seconds after he first drew breath) but there is no evidence that it is having any effect on the earth at all. Unlike some of the other stuff he does (de-forestation, SO2, concreteing over everything in sight etc.) What is it about the numbers which suggest global temperature has been dropping for at least ten years that you disagree with?
LOL George Gillian, and further to that they will merely state that it’s all “new ice.”
I have a great interest in the big lake, I have spent a lot of time up there over the years. I would live there year round if I could. Though it’s majestic in all seasons, I especially love it in the dead of winter.
But surely you folks have it all wrong, the lake can’t have frozen over. Only in 2007 the University of Minnesota Duluth was quoted in the attached – the lack of ice is a clear signal of Global Warming.
http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=19839
So on that basis what does more ice mean ? Global Cooling ? Duh ?
I was up there in March 2008 and the ice cover was amazing then, absolutely beautiful to look at.
For the entire lake to freeze over it takes a combination of conditions, cold temps go without saying – it’s frequently cold up there – but there also has to be low wind conditions to minimize surface choppiness. Hence every 20 eyars or so the conditions come together and hey presto ! Or every six years from here on out maybe ?
Here’s an interesting statistic for you concerning the absolute size of the lake. If you could invert the lake like a tea cup and pour all the water out of it then it would be enough, topography permitting, to cover the entire surface area of North AND South America to a depth of one foot.
There’s enough water in the big lake to fill all of the other Great Lakes combined and still have a lot of water left over.
Like I said I love the big lake.
Anybody care to comment on the complete record of the freeze-over events of the world’s largest freshwater lake? And to how often and when the once-every 20-year-event threshold is broken, like it has been now?
Would also be interested to know if the overall wind energy across Mother Superior has been less this winter, or is it that the extreme and prolonged cold has just overwhelmed other factors such as wind that would help keep the ice sheet from forming?
This winter will be an interesting study no doubt.
But beneath the ice, there is heat in the pipeline. Once the ice melts, it will be released with a vengeance.
Thanks for the picture. Interesting stuff–as always.
Winds no doubt will have a huge affect as they always do on water. Unless it is windy, Superior won’t be melting too much in the next week:
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/on-162_metric_e.html
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/on-100_metric_e.html
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/on-138_metric_e.html
Most interesting to see another picture in a few days.
Clive
Still from the frozen plains of southern Alberta
…where the forecast for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday will be 16C° below average… that’s 29F° below average! Lordy .. would the headlines be predictable if it was that much ABOVE average. ☺
the_butcher:
The tag in the pic you posted: 20030307
March 7, 2003….
Sorry to go o/t, but can anyone direct me to a link to Dr Christie, or Spencer’s work on the AQUA Satellite data?
Savethesharks
Nit-picking probably, but isn’t Lake Baikal the biggest? Before the Ruskies half emptied it and poisoned the rest, I believe it accounted for 1/6th of the world’s liquid fresh water.
The next ~10 years or so will be very interesting, as Al Gore and the politically correct ”debate is over” crowd may well have to contend with both the growing volume of scientific data and scientists that refuse to conform to what has effectively become the religious dogma of Rev. Gore and his acolytes; AND with discrete events like Superior freezing over more often that are easily comprehended by all.
SIDEBAR: Outdoor digital said 17.3 degrees below zero F. this morning at my 2nd home here in northern ND; where as we used to say ”the only thing between us and the North Pole is a barbed wire fence.”
IMO one reason simple discrete events like Lake Superior freezing over twice in 7 years instead of the average once every 20 years are important, is that they have a much better chance of penetrating and ”sticking” in the conciousness and memory of the average voter; compared to reams of scientific data, no matter how compelling. Collectively if we have enough events like this in the next 10+ years, eventually the ”conventional wisdom” on ”climate change” may (hopefully) shift enough to bring a return to sanity. Unfortunately, the unknown variable we cannot solve for yet is: How_Long_Will_That_Take_??
Certainly in the last couple years we already have a fair start on discrete world-wide ”weather events” that start to counterbalance the ”debate is over” mantra (snow events in the Persian Gulf and North Africa, tough winter in the U.K., etc. etc.). But likely it will take a lot more of the same and similar over many years to get hoi polloi spun up enough to demand a course change; hopefully some time before we irretrievably hit the economic iceberg. Too bad the increased velocity of the River Thames thru London after the bridge-building and other changes in the 19th Century make it very unlikely that it will freeze over again even if it gets very cold. Having another ”Ice Fair” on the Thames would get some attention. . . .
And it is sobering to consider that many of the lessons of history regarding the battles of science versus politically correct dogma are not encouraging; i.e.:
Galileo Galilei versus the Inquisition in the late Middle Ages, etcetera. Inquisitor-in-Chief Mr. Gore and his legions of Torquemadas will not be dethroned easily. . . .
Kum Dollison
You said
“Don’t get too carried away with the AMO dipping into negative territory, folks. That’s about a fifty year cycle that probably won’t go truly negative for another 20 years.”
While I agree that the positive phase of an AMO cycle or even the complete cycle of positive and neagtive can be as long as 50 years [the last positive phase went from 1926 to 1964 and was about 39 years] ,this is more of an exception than the norm. The full range of durations for the positive phase only for the AMO were 6 to 60 years from 1600 to 2008. The average is closer to the low or mid 20’s. There is a cumulative probability of the AMO interval [both negative and positive] of being below 25 of about 80%. The most recent positive phases prior the last one of 1925-1964 were 11, 30, 14, 11 and 16. The key current factor is that the oceans have also been cooling since 2004 in the northern hemisphere and globally since 2003. The solar activity is low with an extended minimum like conditions or period and future solar activity is projected to be low as well for the next one or possibly the next two cycles. I don’t see anything to keep the AMO positive or warm for another 20 years despite your comments. As I previously said, the AMO monthly has been dropping since 2005 and while the January 2009 figure is not for the entire year yet, my current estimate is that the AMO may be negative all year in not too distant future and not 20 years away .
“I’m skeptical of the manual drilling in view of the physical effort required to pull sleds and just survive. We’ll hope for good data! I have a look each day at: http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/”
Hey? Are these nuts pulling the sledges themselves like Parry did back in 1827? What’s wrong with dogs? There was a big comparative trial run by Scott and Amundsen back in 1912 and as far as I recall the dogs definitely won
A blip I think.
savethesharks:
Of course! Scripps has initiated this first annual award to the Goreacle so he will have someplace to come, at least for now, to receive an award where it won’t snow. How clever, now demonstrators ought to be able to leave there parkas, boots and snow shoes home for a change.
Matt V, perhaps I misread the graph when I looked at it, but it looked to me like the AMO last went positive in 1930, and turned negative in 1980.
Do you have a link to it? I’d like to look at it, again. Thanks.
Related to Great Lakes icing over:
Does anyone have data on ice roads in Alaska; start and end dates?
It would be interesting to see if the end dates are earlier or later each year.