Press Release
March 10, 2009
Temperatures for winter, December 2008 – February 2009, across the contiguous United States were near average, based on records dating back to 1895, according to a preliminary analysis by scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. For February 2009 alone, the average temperature was above the long-term average.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
Winter Temperature Highlights
- The December 2008 – February 2009 average temperature was 33.49 degrees F, which is 0.53 degree F above normal.
- On a regional basis, temperatures were warmer than average across the southern tier states and central Rockies, while the upper Midwest, Great Lakes, Maine, and Washington had a cooler-than-average winter.
- Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 0.4 percent above average during winter.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
February Temperature Highlights
- The average February temperature of 36.9 degrees F was 2.3 degrees F above the 20th century average.
- February temperatures were above average across much of the country. Only parts of the Southeast, Northwest, and West experienced near-normal temperatures.
- Oklahoma and Texas had their ninth and 10th, respectively, warmest February. Florida was the only state to experience a cooler-than-average temperature for the month.
- The contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 4.1 percent below average in February.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
Winter Precipitation Highlights
- The United States experienced its fifth driest December-February period on record. Texas had its driest winter ever and the Southeast experienced its 10th driest winter. Only the East-North-Central region (Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) had precipitation averages that were above normal.
- Twelve states (in the southern Plains, Southeast, and Northeast) had their 10th driest, or drier, January-February period in the 1895-2009 record.
February Precipitation Highlights
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
- Precipitation across the contiguous United States in February averaged 1.40 inches, which is 0.62 inch below the 1901-2000 average and tied with February 1954 as the eighth driest February on record.
- Much of the country received below-average precipitation, resulting in the eighth driest February for the contiguous U.S. It was especially dry in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where New Jersey and Delaware had their driest February on record.
- At the end of February, 24 percent of the contiguous United States was in moderate-to-exceptional drought, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Severe-to-extreme drought conditions continued in the western Carolinas, northeast Georgia, the southern Plains, and parts of California and Hawai’i, with exceptional drought in southern Texas.
- About 20 percent of the contiguous United States had moderately-to-extremely wet conditions at the end of February, according to the Palmer Index (a well-known index that measures both drought intensity and wet spell intensity). This is about three percent less than at the end of January.
Other Highlights
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
- January-February 2009 was the driest, first two month-period in the 1895-2009 record for the contiguous United States. Precipitation across the nation averaged 2.69 inches for January-February.
- NOAA satellite observations of snow cover extent showed 6.7 million square miles of North America were covered by snow in February 2009, which is 0.1 million square miles above the 1966-2009 average of 6.6 million square miles.
NCDC’s preliminary reports, which assess the current state of the climate, are released soon after the end of each month. These analyses are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when late reports are received several weeks after the end of the month and as increased scientific methods improve NCDC’s processing algorithms.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
Don’t you just love that last sentence “NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources”? So they understand and predict sunspots! And they understand and predict ocean currents! No problems there then; easy-peasy.
NOAA. We feel your heat.
To what extent could these temperature outcomes be biased by the badly placed thermometers in the States?
Does anyone know how the winter season was for Canada?
On a regional basis, temperatures were warmer than average across the southern tier states and central Rockies, while the upper Midwest, Great Lakes, Maine, had a cooler-than-average winter, Washington was damn colder than average.
Fixed it for them
Has NOAA been reporting temperature averages for the US based on data dating back to 1895 all along? They may have, I’m just a climate science newbie.
I for one am really struggling with these January and February numbers. Look at this winters news reports: over 50% of contiguous US covered in snow, Great Lakes freezing over, record cold in Maine and the midwest, down to a record 51F in Hawaii, and a long and wicked cold spell in Canada, especially the west. Short of furnace exhaust heat blasting onto a majority of weather stations, maybe the 2009 charts require re-evaluation.
Dick,
Can’t speak for Canada, however, I operate a climate station for environment canada(south of Calgary AB.) and have 19 years of data, and our winter Dec-Feb was below normal for that period. I don’t have the exact numbers with me.
The implication of NOAA’s report is clear. Water now freezes at a much higher temperature than ever before.
I do agree that locally (nort of Seattle) a big part of February was quite mild. However, my roses don’t agree it was mild. They are barely putting out leaf buds. In some years in the past they would be blooming in early March.
So, there is some problem with all this. If we only measure high and low, it still doesn’t count heat contents for the day. After all plants grow based on total heat/light content, not min. and max.
This is a cold winter, so far. The average is perhaps correct, but the reality doesn’t match it.
If any of you American and Canadian fellows feel like you’re gonna miss snowfalls in the near future, the good news is there’s some snow already to be seen in New Zealand:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2253646/Winter-falls-early-as-temperatures-drop
We’ve lived in greater Atlanta for more than a decade. This is one of the coldest winters that we have experienced – probably as cold as last year’s. Certainly, 2005 – 2006 was noticeably warmer.
It seemed like every day that we got up and looked at the weather channel, it was just about as cold in Atlanta as in NY Metro. Usually low-high twenties. Interestingly, November was unusually cold and the cool weather hit early November, rather than in mid-late November, as it ususally does.
A few simple concepts is all is needed to understand the misconceptions surrounding climate change.
Although it is true that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing, the global temperature of the planet is dropping. If this the case, why are glaciers shrinking? Why is the snow mass of the Sierra Nevada mountains dropping?
You may have wondered why your ice cubes in your refrigerator shrink as time goes by. The reason is that colder temperatures cause a drop in humidity (the opposite is also true, that is why the Florida swamps are warm and humid).
As the humidity drops due to global cooling, there is less snow precipitation and glaciers gradually shrink.
It is remarkable that this simple and obvious fact has been so thoroughly misunderstood or ignored by so many people. The real danger is not global warming due to CO2, but CO2-induced global cooling and it drying-up effect.
Dick H. Ahles @ 10:04:17
It was cold in Canada this winter, as it usually is 🙂
In some places, colder than normal, others normal. A white Christmas all ov er, which is rare as the coats of British California usually stays wet and warm, as does Vancouver Island.
“Does anyone know how the winter season was for Canada?”
Cold…very. Even here on Vancouver Island we are well below normal. Saskatchewan has been -30C with only a few breaks since before Christmas.
Overall, this has been a Canadian winter which, among other things, means it is not over yet. We still have wisps of snow on the ground here in Victoria and that is very, very, odd.
OT- Mauna Loa CO2 is out…
“An Arctic high pressure system has meant icy temperatures and broken records across Western Canada.”
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=prairiecold_11_03_2009&warningtype=aw
…-
March 11, 2009
Y2Kyoto: If You Don’t Believe In Global Warming
Just look out your window!
The cold is making history today.This is the coldest March 11th in the 125-year history of weather record keeping.And according to [senior climatologist] Dave Phillips with Environment Canada it’s been the coldest winter in 30 years, so far. “That is factoring the temperatures from December, January, February, not even working in March.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/010942.html#comments
“Has NOAA been reporting temperature averages for the US based on data dating back to 1895 all along?”
x2. I suppose comparisons with usual 1950-2000 averages didn´t yield satisfactory message, so they had to go back into the little ice age.
I hope that the same remarks are made about the “normal temperatures” as when some people thinks it was necessary to do when I talked about normal global temperatures are (far) above “average” for february 2009.
Look at the forecast NOAA issued back in October 2008 for the coming winter and compare it with what happened:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AMnne6QOtig/SP5yz7_-olI/AAAAAAAABgw/_RK4DmQ4lFc/s1600-h/cpc_1.5_DJF_2008.png
Oops!
I agree with Ken Luknowsky on this matter .After seeing so many temperature sensors being in bias locations next to air condition exhaust or beside asphault or cement parking lots just to name a few how can anyony give NOAA any credit for their findings.I can say without any dout that the global warming crowd will have this info front and center.Final answer.One final tidbit is in the NOAA report they sat the we used 0.4 more energy.How did that happen if it was wermer than normal .That alone should send a red flag that something is up.I know i’ve used more kilowatts this year than last and I’ve not made any changes at home.
Anyone notice that nsidc is reporting another almost half-million loss over the last several days?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
They show Missouri as “normal”. We’ll I’ve only lived here for 15 years, but this has been the coldest one yet…
Dick: The winter season for Canada? Cold. Damn cold.
It was -35 deg C this morning, and has been for nearly a week.
Winter started here, in early December, with exceptional cold, and seems to be finishing off that way, too.
Doug (10:09:02) :
“Has NOAA been reporting temperature averages for the US based on data dating back to 1895 all along? They may have, I’m just a climate science newbie.”
Bit of humor, from Wiki:
“Keeling camped at Big Sur where he used his new device to measure the level of carbon dioxide and found that it had risen since the 19th century.”
Must have been a long camping trip.
That first graphic should be compared with this one:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/outlooktemp.jpg
None of the “blue” in the first graphic were predicted by NOAA, and the spatial distribution of the warmer than usual areas were missed, also.
BTW, here’s a slightly more finely grained version of the first image, which shows the recent winter by climate division, rather than by state:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=3&mon1=12&mon2=2&iy%5B1%5D=2008&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=&irange2=&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&scale=&iwhite=1&Submit=Create+Plot
It shows better how the cooler than normal weather spread down the west coast, and into the northeast, and wasn’t limited to just the blue states in the original graphic.
At the other end of the globe, Australia February’s average temp was slightly above normal. However, “the month was marked by two extreme events which were only partially reflected in the monthly totals and averages: the heat which affected the south-east in the first week of February, and the severe flooding which affected parts of Queensland during the month.”
In some parts of the SE temperatures were the highest on record and the bush-fires in the State of Victoria have the most of the MSM and ruling politicians proclaiming the fires were as a result of climate change:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml
However, I can announce that the Great Barrier Reef is still alive and kicking and somewhat cold soaked by the heavy rains.
I for one am really struggling with these January and February numbers. Look at this winters news reports: over 50% of contiguous US covered in snow, Great Lakes freezing over, record cold in Maine and the midwest, down to a record 51F in Hawaii, and a long and wicked cold spell in Canada, especially the west. Short of furnace exhaust heat blasting onto a majority of weather stations, maybe the 2009 charts require re-evaluation.
What we have here is heightened urban heat island effects contaminating the readings.
Because this winter has been so long and so cold, humans have had to use more heating to warm their homes and drive more to get around the snow blocked roads. Somehow somewhere this is sending the readings up regardless of how bad the winter was.
This is what we would look forward to if greenhouse gases were forcibly reduced. Without GHGs acting as a buffer to trap heat and protecting us from the cold winters will be longer, energy use higher, but the temperature readings won’t show drops because of increased urban heat island effect. In fact, temperature readings could very well still show an increase.
Basically, we have to completely reevaluate the way we collect temperature data. No urban stations at all, nothing near buildings (even in Antarctica!), only rural, only at altitudes above 1000 feet.
And we need a reconstruction of all historic data with the above in mind to get a good picture of climate change.
When we do this then the whole skeptics vs alarmists thing will end, the fears will be reduced, the politicization will vaporize and integrity can be restored to science.
So PDO negative, major solar minimum-when do the winter temps fall to those we saw back 30 years ago in the last neg PDO? Aren’t we getting on into this PDO shift?
The use of the period from 1895 is a real giveaway. I haven’t seen that period used as a comparator for decades.
If we have only recently (since 1998) started coming down from a natural peak of warmth it would take some time to get back to the levels of 1970 let alone 1895.
In fact for the weather to have been average for the period since 1895 it must have been well below average for the period 1970 to 2000.
I live near Houston, and log hourly temperatures (have for years – why else would be regularly read this website LOL).
From my data, I agree with my part of this. Houston was slightly warmer in January and much warmer than in February than typical. Both much in drought conditions.
Cannot speak to the rest of the country, but this is correct for here.
Off Topic, but this may be of interest to WUWT readers:
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V11/N20/C1.php
“Temperatures for winter, December 2008 – February 2009, across the contiguous United States were near average, based on records dating back to 1895”
Wait, let me get this correct, the temperatures are near average using the basis from the end of the LIA (+40 years) to present? That means it was cold!
Glenn (11:17:24) :
These people are also reporting ice loss in the Arctic.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
I live in Indiana and my last natural gas bill said that February was 20% colder than last year. I guess they were measuring it in terms of heating energy required to keep the house warm.
Stephen Wilde (11:37:57) :
The use of the period from 1895 is a real giveaway. I haven’t seen that period used as a comparator for decades.
It is a giveaway perhaps, but not the way you imagine. There is a standard US dataset of temperature, precip, drought index, HDDs and CDDs that goes back to 1895.
See here:
http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/CDODivisionalSelect.jsp
That’s probably the basis for this. Not what you think (though I’m not sure I know what you think).
“Temperatures for winter, December 2008 – February 2009, across the contiguous United States were near average…”
Yeah, in the way of the old joke about a statistician being someone who can stand with one foot in a bucket of boiling water, and the other foot in a bucket of ice water, and say that “on the average” he feels fine.
The quoted statement is correct only in a very broad, and meaningless, way. Some parts were near normal, some were colder than normal, and some were warmer than normal. The latter two roughly cancel out, leaving the average across the CONUS near average on the whole. But lots of areas had a clearly colder than normal winter (and some had warmer than normal), as the data clearly shows.
Re: Canada’s winter 08-09;
Heating degree days were greater than winter 07-08, indicating much colder. Data for February not included yet.
see link below, from Canadian Gas Association :
http://www.cga.ca/publications/documents/Chart10-HeatingDegreeDays_000.pdf
Paul S (11:52:53) :
“Temperatures for winter, December 2008 – February 2009, across the contiguous United States were near average, based on records dating back to 1895″
Wait, let me get this correct, the temperatures are near average using the basis from the end of the LIA (+40 years) to present? That means it was cold!
Not necessarily. It does mean, though, that the cold years from the early part of the 20th century should factor in somehow.
Maybe like this:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=4&mon1=12&mon2=2&iy%5B1%5D=2008&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=&irange2=&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&scale=&iwhite=1&Submit=Create+Plot
I don’t understand the NOAA findings, as this just does not seem to jive with observation. I’ve have been paying attention to weather the past few years a lot more closely than usual. Here in Tennessee, we seemingly have been significantly cooler than normal. I have been comparing our daily temperatures against our typical averages all winter and they have consistently been 5-15F cooler than averages for the respective months.
Also, coming originally from North Dakota, I have been tracking their temperatures this winter as well. They have been as cold if not colder than the 1996-97 winter which consistently set new all time records all winter long. North Dakota has been comparable this year to 96-97, and they just finished a 24hr. blizzard this morning that also tickled the record books.
I just don’t get NOAA’s report here … it just doesn’t seem to fit reality!
I’m suspicious…
Basil (12:24:05) :
Not necessarily.
I would suggest yes necessarily, just on the basis that they [NOAA] have to use a 105 years average to show above average temperatures for 2008/9 winter. Most climate centres use the previous 30 years average. I suspect it might show much colder temps to average using this accepted benchmark.
Do not confuse how the temperature is changing year to year with where the temperature happens to be with respect to the average temperature over the last 103 years. I notice that they didn’t break out the January temperature compared to the average. Did that particular month happen to be colder than the average? It could well be that temperatures this winter were above the average between now and 1895, but still were closer to that average than last year’s and the year before that, etc. In other words, the climate may be cooling but still hasn’t cooled enough to reach the Dec.- Feb. average since 1895.
I track temps in SE Michigan where it was near normal… 1 degree below normal for Feb. The overall state rank was 20th coldest while the heat index energy usage was 85th… indicating a warmer than normal month. I’m only guessing here, but 11.6% unemployment, higher foreclosure rates, and people abandoning the area might be a better causal explanation that “warmer than normal.”
Usind daily temperature data from the weather channel I calculate that our area, Utica Michigan, was;
6 degrees F colder than average in January
0.9 degrees warmer than average in February.
Actually, just curious, the map that Basil kindly posted above, does anyone know if it is possible to change the inputs online in some way, a bit like a woodfortrees type thing? I can’t find anything obvious to allow it.
Thanks all!
Sorry that should have read “Using daily …”
Something about this data struck me. I’ve been keeping track of temps in Connecticut for about 10 years. Looking at NOAA’a own data:
http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=box
and pulling up the Hartford numbers, specifically NOAA’a own assesment of temperature departure, I get the following averages:
December 1.5
January -10.5
February 6.0
So, December looks “near normal”, January was definitely below normal (my heating bills confirm this), and February was above normal. But, February was not as far above normal as January was below, so how can NOAA claim Connecticut was “near normal”? I would put it a bit below. I guess it boils down to what the plus/minus variation NOAA uses for vague terms like “near”, “far”, etc.
Why not just show the actual numeric variation??
Anthony,
What alternate universe was this report for? I can’t speak for the rest of the world but it has been very cold in Northern New Jersey. All we have been talking about is how cold it is and when would spring be arriving. It has been so bad that I have serious concerns for some of the plants in my garden. To be truthful I have be taking advantage of the New York City Heat Island to keep plans which would not normally survive.
Mike
Paul,
Go here for the interactive page:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/usclimdivs/
Squidly (12:30:40) :
Tennessee’s winter was near “normal” with normal being the average for 1971-2000. Since the early 2000’s were warmer than the 1971-2000 normal, a return to that normal seems like a return to colder weather.
Basil (13:02:20) :
Paul,
Go here for the interactive page:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/usclimdivs/
Much appreciated.
1971-2000 average here
Looks more like average and defiantly cooler than the graph in the article.
Sorry, meant to write cooler than the graph posted by Basil (12:24:05)
My heads up by backside today!
Like somebody else already mentioned, they are mostly (if not all) measuring temperatures within towns, cities etc
If you drive a motorcycle in winter you know that when you enter even a small town you feel like in home, WAY much warmer than outside the town.
UHI
Surely this will go in step changes. Add tarmac round the base – increase temperature but next year the offset will be the same. It will not be a year on year increase?
Mike
Warmer than 2008? Not according to my diary. On this day 11th March 2008 in Nanaimo we experienced daily highs of 10.5 degrees celsius with overnight lows of 5.5 degrees celsius. Current high 4 degrees celsius and down to minus 5 celsius overnight. The 2007 figures for the same date was a high of 12 Celsius, and overnight low of 9.2 Celsius. 2006 was rather like today, 2005 a balmy 15.5 Celsius and 2004 just crawling into double figures.
But of course that’s just ‘Weather’ isn’t it?
Data source: http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/hourlydata_e.html
Paul S (13:51:52) :
Sorry, meant to write cooler than the graph posted by Basil (12:24:05)
My heads up by backside today!
Except that I posted exactly the same one you posted (i.e. using the 1971-2000 climatology) in my earlier ” Basil (11:24:38) :” post.
The reason I used 1895-2000 in my “(12:24:05)” was to show what this winter looked like “based on records dating back to 1895” since that seemed to be the context of your reply.
It is natural that the recent winter would look cooler compared to 1971-2000 than to 1895-2000 (given the overall upward trend through the 20th century).
I’m not sure what this has to do with anything. When I said “not necessarily” I was thinking of how even going all the way back to 1895, some regions show cooling, and some show warming when comparing this winter to the 1895-2000 average. That some of the area still shows cooling using that data is remarkable, and may be the point you were making. But some also show warming.
There’s no argument here. Just some confusion on how to describe what the data shows.
I just find it hard to believe anything they say. The government, including NOAA is corrupted.
NOAA has used Hansen’s time machine that lowers historical data to account for UHI effects and that of course makes current data warmer than normal.
For the posts on sea ice…. the sea ice tends to be quite volatile over short time frames. Wind and currnet can pack it up or spread it out making it appear to melt or freeze rapidly over a week or so. The sudden drop is probibly nothing. You can only really get a feel for the seasons trend over a month or two.
Maybe NOAA changed their correction factors to correct for the normal cooling of the planet so they can still claim global warming is still alive and well.
I live in the Fraser Valley and yes it has been cold this winter. Even during that “warmer” week in February it was colder than the average. Here are the numbers for average February temperature for the past 3 years from a local underground station not too far from here:
2007 5.4 C
2008 5.3 C
2009 4.1 C
I know that this is local, but the problem is that we see people saying htat it has been colder than usual, yet NOAA says differently. There is a serious concern on the validity of their claims.
It’s going to turn out that NOAA was using September’s temperatures for Siberia.
Basil (14:28:20) :
I think you may be right. I’ll have re-read over it in the morning.
I think that last line “NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.” should actually include the following disclaimer:
“We don’t really understand the surface of the sun and our predictions for Solar Cycle 24 have turned out to be wrong but we keep trying.”
What arrogance!
Surely this all shows that climate proxies are not a good indicator of climate.
The NOAA temperature record is opposite with the Great Lakes freezing over proxy, the Antartica is warming temperature record reconstruction, is at odds with the Antartic increasing amount of sea ice proxy.
Professor Mann and the IPCC believe in proxies, I have doubts.
It could also be the temperature records and reconstructions are not very good.
Also possible that nothing is really changing other than the way we choose to look at it.
I know this is barely tangential, but. . .
Wassup with NSIDC arctic ice extent the last few days? It’s not quite so sudden as the last satellite sensor era drop as to confidently say “that can’t be right”, but it is still pretty striking a drop. Natural variation or not?
This is ridiculous. I looked at my gas and electric bills and all winter both said the average temperature was almost 10 degrees below normal from November to end of January. I am in pittsburgh. We did not get very much snow but it has been cold.
“The December 2008 – February 2009 average temperature was 33.49 degrees F, which is 0.53 degree F above normal.”
And,
“Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 0.4 percent above average during winter.”
I guess that makes sense: the winter has been warmer, but all the newly-unemployed have been at home, using the lights, the TV, etc.
Sorry – not much time, but I have to ask: when they talk about % above normal, what are they referring to?
Logically, it would be Kelvin. If not, % are completely and utterly meaningless and misleading
Something just doesn’t seem right. If you look at the arctic ice minimum for the last 3 years, there is a step function drop – a 25% drop in minimum ice extent from 2007 to 2008. No other year, from 1978 on, shows such a drop. This is all the more suspicious as the maximum extent has increased each year from 2007. Before the alarmists jump all over me, I admit that I have nothing else but a suspicion and a ‘gut feeling’ that something is wrong here. Could it be that the 2007 mimimum was less than the chart shows? Could it be that something has changed in the instrumentation? (overstating the minimum in 2008 and/or 2009) Further confusing is the fact that there appears to be a 11 million sq km increase from min to max, equal to or greater than any time in the data presented? Or, it may be that there is nothing wrong at all and that this is just the way it is.
With all that flooding that occured in Oregon/Washington December through January, then the massive snowfalls, then more rain, they should have enough water for 2 years. Where is this data coming from? Our relatives in Washington state were nearly floating, for crying out loud. Roads closed due to standing water, rivers overflowing, mudslides, 5 foot snowpacks in the Spokane area.
No wonder the Governor of California declared a drought and state of emergency: Someone is playing silly games and has suceeded in scaring folks half to death. It’s the February hit the Panic button report of last year.
They dumped half of the reservoirs in California, and sat behind thier desks refusing to stop when told the rainy season didn’t extend past February. They had double snowpack levels and ended up looking like fools.
This is in line with that big Arctic Melt that turned out to be a degraded->failed satellite sensor.
Richard: I am quite sure that the reported data can be intercepted and changed by someone with an agenda to run a drought scare. If they don’t have reservoirs to dump out to sea, they can fix the numbers to pump the AGW scare.
Storms headed for Pacific Northwest again this weekend. Those folks have to be very soggy at this point what with the constant parade since November.
Texas has been very dry, but we make up for a few months in the next few days. Been raining pretty hard for going on 24 hours now.
IIRC, there appears to be a broad spectrum of opinion about how significant the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is, when it comes to making adjustments to collected data.
I’m faintly aware that some studies have shown an empirical (logarithmic?) relationship between ‘close-by’ population sizes and its effect on increasing measured temperatures and I’m also aware that many informal, similar studies have reinforced the hypothesis that human induced warming does bias the observed temperatures towards the, much beloved by ‘scientific agencies’ , ‘positive anomalies’ – that show that the debate (When did that happen?) is over!
In laymans language, i.e. mine, It’s warmer living close by other folks than it is out and isolated in the country!
I have two questions to ask but doubt that they are remotely answerable in their entirety.
(Q1) Ignoring scenarios such as proximate energy usage, prevailing winds and other micro-climate factors, what is the most likely, average UHI adjustment that should be used to ‘determine’ the temperature at any particular site? Some say 0.xx, others say xx.xx! (I’ve heard figures bandied about betwixt 0.08C and 8C-but, as I’m hard of hearing, I’ll be delighted to be corrected!)
Secondly: Given that the ‘temperature’ recorded, in any time period, by many/some/all sites is a simple average of a minimum and a maximum (I’m happy to be proven wrong on this- as I’m making a supposition) says nothing about what the observer on the ground experiences. Example – The sun shines all day- we hit 15C – (I’m in scotland – forgive me my low expectations) – most of the night hovers around 10C (Yup I’m an optimist) until we drop to 4C for the half-hour I’m on snooze-control and wondering whether I should suddenly develop man-flu and phone in sick!
Result- average temperature that day = (15+4)/2=9.5C.
The next day, it was rainy and overcast apart (Min 12C) from half an hour of an, almost tropical, species-threatening extinction event (22C). Result 17C ((12+22)/2).
So, we have a positive anomaly of +7.5C (17C to 9.5C) on day two but Day one was so much warmer!
With that background- If a local temperature number is meaningless- then (Q2) how can a ‘Global Average temperature’ be taken seriously?
I’d love to ask Q3- but as I’d only put in a bid for two questions – I guess I’ve disqualified myself!
This is what we feel…. see link below…. and gas company’s data goes back how far?
We had a NORMAL WINTER!!!!! here in Michigan.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=5&mon1=1&mon2=1&iy%5B1%5D=&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=&irange2=&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&scale=&iwhite=1&Submit=Create+Plot
Things – (winter weather) will get worse much worse!!!!!!
We had it good for 10~20 years. it is cooling, prepare for what is ahead because your government is 10 years behind reality!!!! you have been warned!
God be with us all
Tim
Employees of the Canadian Government Meteorological Service, like those in the US, normally strictly toe the party line on AGW. So it was interesting to see the following article appear in BC newspapers on 10 March. It explicitly mentions the negative phase of the PDO and the possibility of colder weather for several decades to come. Remember this was written by an unnamed journalist, not by the meteorologist.
“Extreme B.C. winters could become norm: climatologists say”
Vancouver – March snowfalls and extreme winter weather are expected to become the rule rather than the exception for B.C. in coming decades, climatologists say.
This winter’s uncharacteristic snowstorms, including five centimetres dumped on the Lower Mainland Monday and the December blizzards that stranded thousands of travellers, is evidence the region is entering a long period of lower temperatures.
The natural climate shift, known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, refers to the way winter temperatures in the Pacific Northwest appear to drop every 20 to 30 years.
“In the fifties and sixties, even into the early seventies, we had horrible, incredible snowfall events,” said David Jones, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. “We’ve been in a warm phase for a long time. The winters seemed to be getting milder.”
Those mild winters may be over for now.
Monday’s snowfall marked the third March snowfall since 1998, the year extreme snow in B.C. led researchers to believe a warm phase was ending.
In the 30 years prior to 1998, there were only two blizzards in March.
Sixty years ago, during the last cold period, there were 15 snowstorms in March.
Before that, “we had some really nasty winters around the turn of the (20th) century,” during the first recorded cold phase, Jones said.
Some climatologists debate the existence of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Weather records in B.C. only began to be collected in the late 19th century.
Canadian Press
NOAA is play games with the charts. The 2008 anomaly is based upon 1895 to 2000 data. The 2009 anomaly is based upon 1971 to 2000. Why not 1934 to 2007 or 1979 to 2007?
Comparative averages based upon variable time frames are garbage. NOAA is our national shame.
Wow Bob S thanks for that telling article.
Thanks to the Canadian Press to help educate people about the PDO.
Also let’s not forget its younger smaller cousin, the AMO (and he is still in his warm phase).
But yes yes and YES….most of the earths energy budget is stored in the oceans…so oceanic forcing playeth a big big BIG part in the weather…way more than the AGW Church would lead the public to believe!
And the same to be said with SOLAR forcing….
Bravo Canadian Press. HEY….just in TIME for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Enjoy it.
Let it snow!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
NOAA also calculates heating days for the EIA. They use 1971-2000 as “normal” for that series. They also show 8% more heating days for ’09 than ’08 for January. It would be even more had the it not been so toasty on the Pacific Coast in January.
Key question about precipitation in the US:
If it falls as snow and hence much of it melts slowly and seeps into the ground, do you need as much precipitation to have healthy levels of ground water and hence growing potential as if it falls as rain?
What are the implications of more snow but less precipitation on the US agricultural prospects?
That’s what it’s all about isn’t it?
Not just simple figures……which vary year on year anyway……
Domingo Tavella (10:51:47) :
As the humidity drops due to global cooling, there is less snow precipitation and glaciers gradually shrink.
It is remarkable that this simple and obvious fact has been so thoroughly misunderstood or ignored by so many people. The real danger is not global warming due to CO2, but CO2-induced global cooling and it drying-up effect”.
Dominigo,
I dig your posting except for the last remark,
CO2-induced cooling? Are you joking?
Here in North Dakota, the December-February average was three to five degrees below normal, with some cities receiving triple their normal snowfall. It will mean significant spring flooding in Fargo.
March is starting much, much colder. The average so far is an amazing 14 degrees below the norm (1971-2000 avg). Daytime highs this time of year should be in the mid to upper 30s. Bismarck didn’t get about zero Tuesday – a record low maximum of -1°F. This morning Jamestown set a new record low with -21°F.
And the IPCC says global warming will be most noticeable in northern latitudes?
Nothing but cherry-picked data graphs to scare those riding on the fence. Buying time with thier AGW agenda. Just wait until another year goes by and this PDO cold + Grand Minimum gets out of 1st gear.
Notice the spin: average from 1895 to 2000. What happened to the 1950-2000 average? I’ll tell you: it would have show a pretty cold winter, as everyone looking at his heating bill will know.
“Richard (17:33:13) :
Something just doesn’t seem right. If you look at the arctic ice minimum for the last 3 years, there is a step function drop – a 25% drop in minimum ice extent from 2007 to 2008. No other year, from 1978 on, shows such a drop.”
If you have been following stories about the arctic for a few years, you would have read the steady stream of stories in the late 90s about long term thinning being reported from declassified submarine sonar records. These were records from nuclear submarine patrols during the cold war.
This steady thinning meant that the arctic sea ice became more able to break up, be pushed around by wind and able to be flushed out of the Fraam straight. The collapse in ice area in recent years has been due to the decades of change observed by transient submersible visitors. Now that it is so thin it is very vaulnrable to changes in wind and unusual melt conditions.
The problem with that is that water retains a huge amount more heat than the ice would have so the arctic sea warms slightly.
The other side effect is that it takes longer to freeze over the winter releasing that heat back into the atmosphere, lifting the average temperature. This is part of the ‘polar amplification’.
There is very little controvosy over this. The only real challange is whether this is new for the holocene or periods like this occured during eras such as the mediviel warm period.
Worth pointing out that summer insolation at high lattitudes is at the lowest it has been during the holocene so we should be expecting a stadial type event. Whether solar or greenhouse caused, we do seem to be experiancing something of an anolomy in the nothern hemisphere over the past 100 odd years.
Rhys Jaggar (01:21:55) :
The whole mess is a lot more complicated than what makes the news. While things vary with region, here’s what happens in New Hampshire, one of the most forested states in the country:
Winter: Ground frozen unless there’s a lot of snow. In either case, there’s little transport of water into the ground.
March: snow and ground melts, ground gets saturated, water rises in basement sumps (which are supposed to let water out but don’t work when things are this wet)
April: sun reaches forest floor, drying out old leaves. This is the closest thing we have to a fire season. Ground is still saturated.
May: Trees leave out, forest floor cools, get shade, fire risk ends. Tree transpire a huge amount of water into the atmosphere and the ground dries out.
July/August: Often the driest time, though we do get about 3 inches of precip for each month of the year. I look forward to not mowing the lawn.
October: Foliage season, we usually have at least a couple of cool, clear, dry days around the peak of the colors that are so wonderful that we forget about all the awful weather the rest of the year. Come & spend money here! Then go home!
November/mid-December: Blah, dull brown, gray skies, long nights. With dormant trees, ground moisture climbs, ground surface freezes.
mid-December-March:
Cold and snow, except for some warm breaks and rain when storms go west of us.
The best answer to your question is that trees and crops (and sun) dry out the ground surface so we need rain during the summer to keep things growing.
We need the ground water for wells for people and crops, that is helped by gentle, protracted rains and snowmelt.
We need water in lakes and rivers for the same reasons, that is helped by heavy rains like thunderstorms and fast snow melt.
Moderation in all things works out the best, but the extremes are more entertaining.
Ron de Haan (01:38:34) :
Domingo Tavella (10:51:47) :
As the humidity drops due to global cooling, there is less snow precipitation and glaciers gradually shrink.
It is remarkable that this simple and obvious fact has been so thoroughly misunderstood or ignored by so many people. The real danger is not global warming due to CO2, but CO2-induced global cooling and it drying-up effect”.
Dominigo,
I dig your posting except for the last remark,
CO2-induced cooling? Are you joking?
Not necessarily
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=252066
Twin Cities actuals for winter 2008/09
10/1/08 thru 3/12/09
Normal number of days with an overnight temp < 0 F = 30
2008/09 number of days with an overnight temp < 0 F = 36
That’s plus +25% and does not take into account the UHI effect.
It’s been a long cold winter.
Mr Watts
It would be interesting, once your survey of groundstations is complete, to look only at the temp data from those stations determined to be appropriately sited. Is this part of your intent? I know that the “n” is small in comparison to the total, but still would be interesting.
Ed Zuiderwijk (04:11:53) :
Notice the spin: average from 1895 to 2000. What happened to the 1950-2000 average? I’ll tell you: it would have show a pretty cold winter, as everyone looking at his heating bill will know.
Ed,
Using 1950-2000 doesn’t show any colder of a winter than 1895-2000. In fact, it shows a warmer past winter for the parts that were warmer than normal. Here’s 1950-2000:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=7&mon1=12&mon2=2&iy%5B1%5D=2008&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=&irange2=&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&scale=&iwhite=1&Submit=Create+Plot
There is a lot to criticize NOAA for, but lets be fair and accurate in the criticism.
Oopps bad math
Should read
That’s plus +20% and does not take into account the UHI effect.
It’s been a long cold winter.
Dorlomin (04:48:02) :
I think you have your dates wrong. The drop was between 2006 and 2007. 2008 showed a small recovery in both minima and maxima.
minice
2003 6.032031
2004 5.784688
2005 5.315156
2006 5.781719
2007 4.254531
2008 4.707813
how about a recent report issued by MIT double its previous projections for the temperature increase humanity faces if there is no action to curb emissions.
http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=990
Here is the abstract:
“The MIT Integrated Global System Model is used to make probabilistic projections of climate change from 1861 to 2100. Since the model’s first projections were published in 2003 substantial improvements have been made to the model and improved estimates of the probability distributions of uncertain input parameters have become available. The new projections are considerably warmer than the 2003 projections, e.g., the median surface warming in 2091 to 2100 is 5.1°C compared to 2.4°C in the earlier study. Many changes contribute to the stronger warming; among the more important ones are taking into account the cooling in the second half of the 20th century due to volcanic eruptions for input parameter estimation and a more sophisticated method for projecting GDP growth which eliminated many low emission scenarios. However, if recently published data, suggesting stronger 20th century ocean warming, are used to determine the input climate parameters, the median projected warming at the end of the 21st century is only 4.1°C. Nevertheless all our simulations have a very small probability of warming less than 2.4°C, the lower bound of the IPCC AR4 projected likely range for the A1FI scenario, which has forcing very similar to our median projection. The probability distribution for the surface warming produced by our analysis is more symmetric than the distribution assumed by the IPCC due to a different feedback between the climate and the carbon cycle, resulting from a different treatment of the carbon-nitrogen interaction in the terrestrial ecosystem.”
Do you want to gamble??
“For the no policy scenario, the researchers concluded that there is now a nine percent chance (about one in 11 odds) that the global average surface temperature would increase by more than 7°C (12.6°F) by the end of this century, compared with only a less than one percent chance (one in 100 odds) that warming would be limited to below 3°C (5.4°F).”
MIT’s conclusion?
“The take home message from the new greenhouse gamble wheels is that if we do little or nothing about lowering greenhouse gas emissions that the dangers are much greater than we thought three or four years ago,” said Ronald G. Prinn, professor of atmospheric chemistry at MIT. “It is making the impetus for serious policy much more urgent than we previously thought.”
Ron de Haan (01:38:34) :
w.r.t : Domingo Tavella (10:51:47) :
CO2-induced cooling? Are you joking?
Ah well now.
In the late 1970’s the BBC were educating us about Global Cooling.
“One missed summer and we would be plunged into the next Ice Age”, we were told in an alarming voice. (I can still remember this being said. Yes Plunged in the next Ice Age.)
What was causing this uncontrollable run away cooling?
The BBC said it was a gas called Carbon Dioxide.
Take it your looking a bit puzzled.
No Ron it was no joke, trust me.
Then, according to the BBC, CO2 made plants grow much faster and they were releasing more Oxygen into the atmosphere. There you have it, the Northern Hemisphere greens up every summer and releases extra Oxygen which in turn was cooling the planet.
The BBC even showed us satellite images taken from SPACE!!
Wow!!!
The images clearly showed Europe turning green during the summer.
Proof beyond proof an image from Space that showed a changing world which was all our fault.
This was real cutting edge science.
What else would you have expected from the BBC?
We had a special BBC program called “The Weather Machine”.
The CO2 was cooling the planet, we were clearly doomed as a new Ice Age was on its way and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
They were spot on as usual.
Pen Hadow, Arctic “Explorer” is moving backwards while walking forwards to the North Pole. Actually getting much closer to his start point on Day 12 than he was on Day 6. BBC is giving plenty of coverage on a daily basis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7897392.stm
He seems amazed that the ice he is standing/walking on is moving. And they are having a rest because it is so cold. -50ºC and looking for signs of melting?
I wonder how much funding he raised by using the code phrase “Global Warming – Melting Ice Caps”?
FYI: AMO dipped in February to -0.113
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/correlation/amon.us.long.data
AMO has not been that low since 1994 when it switched from cool phase to warm phase.
PDO was at -0.155 for feb
Also, it is something I’ve been predicting since December:
Spotless years & PDO and AMO
http://solarcycle24com.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=globalwarming&action=display&thread=319
Interesting disconnect between NOAA and our local meteorologists in FL. Last week our TV meteorologist announced that the ‘winter’ average temperature in FL was 3.3 F below normal. NOAA indicates that FL was ‘near normal’. Does a -3.3 F anomaly count as ‘near normal?”
chris y … that’s just weatherspeak ☺
10 degrees below average and they say “Slightly cooler than average.”
5 degrees below average and they say “near normal”
At average and they say “average but a warming trend”
5 degrees above average and they say “Well above average. Extreme heat.”
10 degrees above average and they say “We are doomed!” ☺
I spent Jan-Feb in Florida south of Tampa. Every day the paper prints the expected temperature and the seasonal avg for the date. We averaged close to 10 deg F below normal consistently, yes there were a few days at or even a couple degrees above normal but mostly below. Long time residents called it their coldest Jan-Feb in memory. Meanwhile, back home in NH according to my electric and propane companies we had another strongly below normal winter with lots more snow than avg. Why are the utility companies claiming extreme cold degree days?
This ‘anecdotal’ evidence makes me very skeptical of a report that has both Florida and NH as ‘normal’.
For some reason I did a quick search as to when the winters in Ontario was cold enough to freeze the Niagara falls over. This is very interesting. We know that it froze over in 1848 and in 1911. Some people say that it also froze in 1934. In 1848 they were just coming out of a solar minimum. We can also guess that it must have been frozen during the Maunder minimum.
Generally, the freeze over of Niagara falls seems to happen not during the minima but sometime during the recovery of solar activity.
It would certainly be interesting to see if those dates also correspond to other records and if they relate to the PDO.
Could it be possible that by 2020 Niagara falls freeze over again? If that is the case, we are on for very harsh winters in the years to come.
Check those pictures: http://www.seanbuckley.ca/blog/2006/08/28/niagara-falls-was-frozen-in-1911/
Tell me how can you have 6.7 million square miles of land mass covered with snow yet have higher than average temperatures?
Maybe its being caused by the millions of tons of oil and gas being burned to keep from freezing to death.
What is the problem with the earth getting warmer anyway, it would save me a fortune if I didnt have to burn so much expensive gas these greens and global warming bandits are never satisified.
A warmer planet means we use less natural resources to keep warm, just remember to leave the airconditioning unit on low when it gets too hot.
The only time you win is when you die, no more energy bills and seeing as we are all going there anyway at some point in time think everyone should find some more interesting to do that faf about worrying whether you are going to fry or freeze.
Why do so many people still besotted with computers and its computers that are turning out all of this gibberish, burn the bloody things and then we can just get on with our lives.
Who said dementia only affects the old?
David Wells
Brian Johnson (07:05:17) :
Pen Hadow, Arctic “Explorer” is moving backwards while walking forwards to the North Pole. Actually getting much closer to his start point on Day 12 than he was on Day 6. BBC is giving plenty of coverage on a daily basis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7897392.stm
Brian this is Monty Python at its best!!!!
“We have been battered by wind, bitten by frost and bruised from falls on the ice. ”
This is the Arctic how unfortunate to get wind and frost.
Poor wee soles have got bruised. Oh dear.
“you’ve slogged for a day and then wake up the next morning having drifted back to where you started. ”
Guess they did not do any homework.
That is what ice does it drifts, and when you are at the North Pole it can only drift in one direction. They should have set off from somewhere else or somewhere warmer.
Poor wee lost soles.
“The Arctic sea ice is constantly moving, breaking open and reforming into different shapes”
What a surprise??
The poor wee soles computer model obviously only showed trends.
“The wind chill today will slice us up – it’s taking the temperature down to below -50C”
What a swine, -50C at the North Pole at the end of winter, how unexpected.
Poor wee cold soles.
“so we have decided to take a day’s rest to recharge our batteries and soothe the aches and pains. ”
Oh dear, to soooooooooooothe the aches and pains. My heat bleats.
Oh yes and to rest up for a day on the same drifting ice that is he says, “drifted back to where you started. ”
Poor wee demented soles.
What are the odds on what is left of them being airlifted off the ice on 1st April?
Yet to re-appear with significant data which shows that the Arctic is warming and the ice is in a worse condition than they had previously thought.
I cannot wait until tomorrow so that I can read the next thrilling instalment.
@Rick Ballard (19:49:32) :
“NOAA also calculates heating days for the EIA. They use 1971-2000 as “normal” for that series. They also show 8% more heating days for ‘09 than ‘08 for January. It would be even more had … it not been so toasty on the Pacific Coast in January.”
Thanks for the link on heating degree days by month.
Here in Los Angeles, we are compensating for that toasty January, with cooler February and (thus far) cooler March. (see first link below) Very interesting, especially since March 2008 was much warmer than what we have experienced thus far. But, this is not mentioned in the news, as far as I can tell. (see second link below, for 2008 March temp data for Los Angeles).
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/temp_graphs.php?wfo=lox
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/temp_graphs.php?wfo=lox&stn=KCQT&year=2008
Our weather-gurus are predicting unseasonably cool temperatures until next Monday. But, another cold front with rain is about to smack Seattle WA again, (at least it is not snow this time). We may get more cooling and rain from that system if it progresses this far south.
Roger
B Kerr (12:41:53) :
This is like that group that tried to kayak to the pole last year. Of course they picked the side that had the most ice and didn’t get anywhere. It looks like this group didn’t look to see what the ice flows were doing before they picked their route.
Sorry I missed the best quote which I should have included in my previous post.
Are you ready for it?
“What a weird feeling – here we are floating on the ice in the Arctic, and I’ve just had a chat with International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander and over 300 people in the audience at the Department for International Development conference on world poverty, which is being held in London. ”
“I’m really pleased it all worked and I hear that Gordon Brown turned up to round off just after my call. ”
I am not making any comment.
I am far to polite.
BarryW (12:54:46) :
This is like that group that tried to kayak to the pole last year.
Yes but they had a success as they had kayaked further north than any one else before.
Guess the Inuit have never used kayaks and have never travelled north.
The team did speak to Gordon Brown.
Is there a trend here?
So PDO negative, major solar minimum-when do the winter temps fall to those we saw back 30 years ago in the last neg PDO? Aren’t we getting on into this PDO shift?
Well, you have to consider that from 1976 – 2001 all of the “big six” (PDO, IPO, AMO, NAO, AO, AAO) switched from cold to warm phase, one by one. As of yet, only the PDO has reverted (though the AO and the NOA are showing signs of it). So there is a lot to swing, yet.
A normal solar minimum only swings things by 0.1C. until and unless a Grand Minimum clicks in, which hasn’t happened yet), the sun delta (sic) won’t be a prime driver. We’ll have to wait and see about that.
Bob S[16:45:25]
Could you identify which B.C. Canadian papers carried the article ” Extreme B.C. winters could become the norm: climatologists say” on March 10
Barry W
Pugh kayaked further north than anyone before? Have you never heard of Nansen-who probably didnt have support boats equipped with all the latest aids.
Tonyb
matt v
I don’t have a list of which papers carried the article on extreme B.C. winters. The Kamloops Daily News did. Since the Canadian Press is the major wire service in the country, I imagine many others did as well. CP might be able to tell you who carried it. Or I suppose with some digging you could find out if a specific paper carried the article.
Bob s
I did confirm that the Kamloops Daily News carried the article. They sent me an e-mail to confirm. The reason I could not find it on the internet is that they do not archive their past editions on line . You have to apply to the local library. Thanks for posting the important article as it confirmed what many of us have been saying and two of the authors at the recent HEARTLAND Conference further confirmed that PDO really does affect our cimate
A perspective regarding the globqal warming issue…..the area of the United States is only 1.8% of the global surface area (land and water).
My prediction is that the Gore-acular dupe-poop will continue. IF we get a warmer Summer, the first indication of it will send AGW-freaks into yet more spasms of Obasmic self-satisfaction.
Should reality ever regain its position of prominence in evidence, a new generation will defy the traditional fixations of old. And then, maybe, we all shall have another independent chance for reason — instead of the inbred necessity for control.
As I write, the white flakes are falling thickly on the dark, foreboding Ides of March …
… on VI, though daffodils grow, row on row.
Oh one other thing for the “it felt colder” types: There is such a thing as “wind chill” which means NOTHING in terms of actual measured temps. It is simply a “measure” of the PERCEIVED temperature which turns out to be quite a bit lower in windy conditions (mostly because the warmed boundary layer of air on your skin keeps getting blown away.
The actual temperature is not lower, only your PERCEPTION of it.
So, if THAT can happen, how can you be sure that your current PERCEPTION is in anyway a physical reality and no t just more [snip]
Well, how you tell is MEASURE it, and guess what NOAA found when they did?
Reply: I’ll let this one through with slight edit, but behave and you can post here all you like. Continued ranting will simply be deleted ~ charles the moderator
Well, thank you for allowing at least part of my “rant” through. Of course I’m not surprised you would have refused the rest that thoroughly destroyed your “case”.
Oh well if you can’t win a fair fight, I guess cheating is your best option!
REPLY: Cheating? For snipping boorish language? I think not. Off to the troll bin with you then. – Anthony, blog owner
I can only provide anecdotal evidence and some limited temperature readings, but up and down the east coast the US and Canada, this was a much cooler winter than we’ve had in the past.
Lakes were frozen solid in New Brunswick and Maine, the first time I saw that in quite a while. Here in southern Virginia, we had cold spells long enough to put a thin layer of ice on the lakes, which is an extreme rarity. Aside from a couple of warm spells, this is one of the coldest and longest winters I can remember. As of March 24, we are still having overnight temperatures below freezing.
I’ve also noticed that winters here (with the exception of 04-05) have been longer and colder than during the 1990s, but not quite as cold and snowy as the early 1980s.