UPDATE: The author’s (Lorne Gunter) claim of breaking the all time March record by -12 degrees is only partially correct. The phrase “smashing the previous March low” should have read “smashing the previous March 10th low”. Mr. Gunter erred in his statement.
The official all time March record Tmin occurred in 2003 and was -42.2°C details here from Environment Canada (Thanks to reader K Stricker for the link).
UPDATE#2: 3/18 I’ve sent off a note to Mr. Gunter on the error in the article, and I’m hoping that he will post a correction to the wording in his article below. I have not yet heard back from him and I’m trying an alternate contact route via another person known to have corresponded with him. Gunter’s mistake is that he claims a new low temperature record for the entire Month of March, when it is only for a single day, March 10th. While I can’t correct the text in Mr. Gunter’s article until he makes a correction himself (since I won’t modify another authors words) reader should take note that the claims made in the article are not supported by the actual data. While I agree that “global warming” has indeed stalled in the last few years, the claim of the all time March low for Edmonton is incorrect. – Anthony
Global warming’s no longer happening
So why are eco types moaning about record highs while ignoring record lows?
By Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal
So far this month, at least 14 major weather stations in Alberta have recorded their lowest-ever March temperatures. I’m not talking about daily records; I mean they’ve recorded the lowest temperatures they’ve ever seen in the entire month of March since temperatures began being recorded in Alberta in the 1880s.
This past Tuesday, Edmonton International Airport reported an overnight low of -41.5 C, smashing the previous March low of -29.4 C set in 1975. Records just don’t fall by that much, but the airport’s did. Records are usually broken fractions of degrees. The International’s was exceeded by 12 degrees.
To give you an example of how huge is the difference between the old record and the new, if Edmonton were to exceed its highest-ever summer temperature by the same amount, the high here some July day would have to reach 50 C. That’s a Saudi Arabia-like temperature.
Also on the same day, Lloydminster hit -35.2 C, breaking its old March record of -29.2 C. Fort McMurray — where they know cold — broke a record set in 1950 with a reading of -39.9C. And Cold Lake, Slave Lake, Whitecourt, Peace River, High Level, Jasper and Banff, and a handful of other communities obliterated old cold values, most from the 1950s or 1970s, two of the coldest decades on record in the province.
This has been an especially cold winter across the country, with values returning to levels not often seen since the 1970s, which was an especially brutal decade of winters.
Temperatures began to plummet on the Prairies in December. The cold weather did not hit much of the rest of the country until January, but when it hit, it hit hard. Even against Canada’s normally frigid January standards, “this particular cold snap is noteworthy,” Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said this past January. Many regions across the country had not been as cold for 30 years or more, he added.
Does this prove fear of global warming is misplaced? On its own, probably not. But if records were being broken the other way — if several Alberta centres had recorded their warmest-ever March values — you can bet there would be no end of hand-wringing, horror stories about how we were on the precipice of an ecological disaster of unprecedented proportions.
Environmentalists, scientists who advance the warming theory, politicians and reporters never shy away from hyping those weather stories that support their beliefs. But they tend to ignore or explain away stories that might cast doubt.
In 2005, the summer and fall of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when several major ‘canes pummelled North and Central America, we were told again and again that this was proof warming was happening and it was going to be bad. Al Gore has emissions from industrial smokestacks swirling up into a satellite image of a hurricane on the DVD box for his propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth to underline the point that more and eviller hurricanes will be the result of CO2 output.
But since 2005, only one major hurricane — this year’s Ike — has struck North America. And now comes a study from Florida State University researcher Ryan Maue, that shows worldwide cyclonic activity — typhoons, as well as hurricanes — has reached a 30-year low (tinyurl.com/bunynz).
Indeed, the hiatus may go back more than 30 years because it is difficult to compare records before about 1970 with those since, since measurements four or more decades ago were not as precise or thorough. Current low activity may actually be the lowest in 50 years or more.
If Maue had proven hurricane activity were at a 30-year high, of course his findings would have been reported far and wide. But since he is challenging the dogma of the Holy Mother Church of Climate Change, his research is ignored.
For at least the past five or six years, global temperatures have been falling. Look at the black trend line on the chart at www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ put out by the man who runs NASA’s worldwide network of weather satellites.
Also, in the past few months, two studies — one by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany and another by the University of Wisconsin — have shown a slowing, or even a reversal of warming for at least the next 10 to 20, and perhaps longer.
Even the Arctic sea ice, which has replaced hurricanes as the alarm of the moment ever since hurricanes ceased to threaten, has grown this winter to an extent not seen since around 1980.
Global warming is not only no longer happening, it is not likely to resume until 2025 or later, if then. So why are we continuing to hear so much doomsaying about climate change?
There are a lot of people in every age who think they know better than everyone else and, therefore, have a right to tell everyone how to live. In the 1950s, it was country-club and parish council busybodies with their strict moral codes. In the 1970s, it was social democrats with their fanciful economic theories. Today, it’s environmentalists.
Same instinct, different wrapper.
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“I guess we have anecdotal evidence in this thread from Bruce, but could it be possible there’s some explanation for the extremity of the record in the weather station hardware or some other kind of error?”
Right. Anecdotal evidence. But it really was cold – both de-icing trucks froze up. And this is not Las Vegas. Those guys de-ice aircraft in very cold conditions all the time.
My cryptic reference to: Edmonton International -43C; Edmonton City Centre -32C at the same time – was intended to draw attention to Edmonton as a great case study of an Urban Heat Island. I have had the opportunity to – anecdotaly – observe UHI around Edmonton for many years. Very prominent, particularly on cold, clear nights. If anyone was looking for a classic illustration of UHI, there would be no better data set than Edmonton City Centre Airport (urban), Edmonton International Airport (semi-rural) and the Alberta Research Council station at Royal Park (utterly rural).
Cheers, Bruce
John Goulton,
In those days a few blankets on the bed were the norm, not now, and no I don’t own an electric blanket.
I rest my case your honour.
May I ask if you’ve had central heating, draft proofing, wall and roof insulation and/or double glazing put in over the past 30 years? That can make a lot of difference to how cold a winter feels. Also, on the average, middle-aged people are better insulated against the cold by substantial amounts of fat, and by the fact that they have to generate more heat than youngsters do in order to move the additonal bulk around. And then there’s selective cold winter memory syndrome. That ends my cross examination.
If anybody would like to apply for research grant, how about putting together a proposal to study whether the recent record cold temperature recorded at Edmonton Airport was the result of a combination of global warming and the urban heat island effect?
Poor Wolfie, makes a comment about weather in a thread about weather and gets flamed.
anecdotal evidence is srs bsns.
It’s unfortunate that “reporters” don’t verify their facts. If you go to the Environment Canada website and look at Edmonton International you will discover that the record March low was March 1, 1972 was -42.2 °C. BTW that’s only the record since 1971.
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climate_normals/results_e.html?Province=ALL&StationName=edmonton&SearchType=BeginsWith&LocateBy=Province&Proximity=25&ProximityFrom=City&StationNumber=&IDType=MSC&CityName=&ParkName=&LatitudeDegrees=&LatitudeMinutes=&LongitudeDegrees=&LongitudeMinutes=&NormalsClass=A&SelNormals=&StnId=1865&
We read about global warming alarmism, the sky is falling, all the time. Here we have a reporter giving incorrect facts and yet it is accepted as truth because it agrees with our opinion that the climate is cooling.
Being factually incorrect is wrong regardless of which side of this argument you are promoting.
Here in Scotland we have had a cold winter. Colder than for a decade or two, but nothing remarkable about record lows, or record high snow-fall. Just persistent cool weather since about November.
I was quite surprised to see UAH coming in at a perky +0.35C for Feb. But also note cold water appearing in the E equatorial Pacific.
You might find this story intriguing, not altogether OT. Applied mathematics used to build a climate model which works, but since it is based on chaos, they still don’t know why the real thing does what it does.
http://www.wisn.com/weather/18935841/detail.html
I agree that one city and one cold spell does not make a trend, but what Gunter is trying to point out is that because the cool phases are not reported as often as the warm phases when they happen, the true cooling and big climate picture is lost. This cooling is real and has been happening all over the planet and for several years now. Here is what has happened just in Canada alone recently:
More cold weather and unusually more snow in BC [4 snow falls in March alone and big blizzard in December2008] In the 30 years prior to 1998, there were only two blizzards in March]
Record cold across Alberta during January and March [-41.5C at Edmonton International Airport March 10, 2009]
Record cold wind chills of -50C in Saskatchewan Jan 4, 2009
Record Cold over Southern Manitoba as 6 communities set cold records [as low as -43.8 in Sprague January 13, 2009]
Record cold in Fredericton and Edmunston, New Brunswick [record-43.3 C in Edmunston on January 12, 2009, 124 year record set in Fredericton on Jan 16 of -34.3 C
Rare near complete freeze over of 3 of the 5 Great Lakes, Superior, Erie, Huron in March, 2009. Lake Superior freezes about once in every 20 years
Rare coast to coast snow right across CANADA in December 2008. [Similar to 1970’s]
Record cold in Maine, US [-50 C at Big Black River Jan16, 2009]
I have not looked at possible records in other Northern US States but there must be similar records in states like Minnesota, North Dakota, etc.
The message here is that Canada and the entire northern half of the North American continent has started to cool down to the climate conditions and temperatures that existed in the 1960-1970’s due to the emergence of the negative or cool phases of the PDO and AMO. This will spread slowly further south.These recent cooling and global warming periods have nothing to do with changing carbon dioxide levels. Similar cool cycles existed in the period 1900-1925 especially 1903-1915 when AMO and PDO were also negative or in cool phase.
Just waiting for the weather to warm up so I can put my house up for sale in Calgary, still freaking cold! I’m actually on Vancouver Island trying to finish a house I’m building here and of course being delayed a lot because of the cold and SNOW. Not bad for a rain forest type climate. Locals have never seen it so bad, must have had three feet of snow this year, so much for moving to a warmer climate! However , AGW must be real because Zen’s garbage can blew over.LOL
Brent in Calgary
OT but I thought you would all be interested. Dr James Hansen is attending a protest meeting in Coventry ( UK) on Thursday. I seems he feels it necessary to protest against a third runway at London Airport ( I wonder how he got to the UK in the first place) see
more information at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4995872/Day-of-climate-change-protests-planned.html
Who is paying for this? the US taxpayer?
“Face it: just because you watch the Weather Channel, that doesn’t mean you’re a meteorologist. I’m not an expert either…” – but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night…and it was HOT in that room!
@ur momisugly Epaminondas
The experts here can correct several of your remarks with appropriate citations. I would like to comment on the claim that oceans are warming. There is now a very powerful system of drifting bouys that can report ocean temperature to satellites — I think there is something like 3,000 all over the world. The director of the Argos system has remarked that there is no recent warming trend. It seems, however that open access to the data is restricted — perhaps someone here can comment on that aspect.
In regard to synchronization of a chaotic system — a short article has just appeared:
UW-Milwaukee Study Could Realign Climate Change Theory
Scientists Claim Earth Is Undergoing Natural Climate Shift
http://www.wisn.com/weather/18935841/detail.html
Here’s some background:
Edmonton is a city of about a million, an island urban area (ie. it’s a city on its own, not just a section of a larger urban conglomeration.) Edmonton is surrounded by farmland.
The Edmonton airport is about 25km south of CITY LIMITS, so UHI is not a factor. Meanwhile, the other airport is in the middle of the city (but is no longer used for commercial flights), and recorded a temperature that night of “only” -32C. Where I am, 2.5 hours south of Edmonton, recorded -27C that same night. It was a cold, cold front that wandered through, I can say that.
hareynolds, Calgary is pronounced “CAL gree” by natives, any other pronunciation immediately marks the speaker as non-native, therefore subject to all manner of outrageous pranks. While we’re at it, Edmonton is pronounced “E-MUN-en”, in those rare times Calgarians even think about it. For the most part, Edmonton is where we keep our mall. Well, no, Edmonton is where Edmontonians keep their mall. Edmonton used to be where we kept Wayne Gretzky, and many people won’t be surprised to know that one of the main roads there is named for him.
The thing is, Edmonton is far enough north that at pretty much any time the jet stream veers far enough south, a RAW arctic air mass can sit on the city and chill it down. That is what happened last week, and although it’s “just weather”, there seemed to be a lot of it this winter. Consider how cold that air mass was before it wandered south, then tell me about thinning arctic ice.
Didn’t Dr. Gray say that colder weather caused hurricanes, not warmer weather?
Human minds strangely disconnect the measure of large complex systems with their state. There seems little to say to them to disabuse them of this false perception.
Take the curious state of global affairs today. We’re in this grand global economic crisis, with everyone seeming to loudly protest having been misled into trusting things that were too good to be true. At the very same time, the world over, everyone is also saying the solution is clearly to just hurry to back to having things too good to be true all the time,… as usual.
Aren’t we being more than a little whacko? There are sane people around, it does seem, but I think the crazy people just wouldn’t trust them.
Anthony for your information:
“Musical prof a mouthpiece for eco-propaganda
She should know the jury’s still out on climate change
By Jon Ferry, The Province March 16, 2009 7:02 AM
REPLY: Thanks, I’ve made an article from it. – Anthony
Anthony,
I live on one of the Gulf Islands in British Columbia [San Juan’s on the US side]. In 2007 the daffodils were 1 week later than normal, in 2008 2 weeks later and in this year 4 weeks late. Not a hummingbird to be found and they should haven been since the beginning of March. This came up yesterday in a discussion amongst a group of gardeners here [who track these things] as we were commenting on the sleet and wet snow that was coming down [March 16 !]. Anecdotal, for sure but real nonetheless.
Parse Error (02:07:27) :
I’m getting really tired of people getting weather confused with climate, so let’s make sure everyone understands:
When it is cold, or there are less frequent and/or less powerful storms, this is what is technically known as weather.
When it is warm or hot, or there are more frequent and/or more powerful storms, that is what is technically known as climate.
Parse Errror is making the same erroneous assumption that Al Gore and certain other AGW pundits made, namely the assumption that a rise in overall world temperature would lead to stronger and more frequent extreme weather events. In fact, the vaunted climate models show the polar regions warming more than the tropics leading to a lesser temperature gradient between the polar regions and the tropics. It is the temperature gradients and humidity gradients that contains the energy to produce extreme weather events. Witness the number and severity of storms recorded by the British Navy during the little ice age.
Accusing posters at this site of confusing weather with climate is a straw man argument. This site is about weather and climate and I think it clear that most posters understand the difference.
Psi (05:25:32) :
I’m just skeptical of this due to its extreme outlier nature. My guess is that someone misread/misquoted the old record. If this news story turns out to be in error, we will be ridiculed mercilessly. Triple check this before taking the bait.
The article is referring to the record low for March 10. The writer seems to be (incorrectly) under the impression that this was also the March low. As others have mentioned, early March 2003 also recorded temperatures near -40. The truth of the matter is that this isn’t significantly lower than previous March lows at Edmonton International.
Let’s see here. A nice temperature for humans might be 20 to 25 C.
An Oz temp of 40 to 45 C would be an extra 20 degrees Celsius.
A Great White North temp of -35 to -30 would be off target by 55 degrees Celsius.
Without coal and natural gas there would be a few million people who might envy the Oz climate quite a lot.
Don’t know if it’s been posted before but here’s a news story about an interesting study done using Chaos theory applied to climate to say that ‘warming stopped in about 2001 and will not resume for another 20-30 years’. University of Wisconsin – Milwakee (which I’m sure is receiving most of its funding from Exxon).
http://www.wisn.com/weather/18935841/detail.html
Re: Frederick Michael (08:14:11) :
I just checked over the Environment Canada records again. The March low for 1975 was -29.4, and that occurred on March 10. -29.4 was only the March 10 record.
The article is *wrong*.
REPLY: If you can provide a URL to the EC references, I’ll post a correction. – Anthony
Epaminondas (01:36:04) :
Face it: just because you watch the Weather Channel, that doesn’t mean you’re a meteorologist. I’m not an expert either, but I pay attention to what the research says, as opposed to what the self-seeking grand-standers say.
Sheeesh. I’m reminded of those two, nice, shiny, earnest young men with dress shirts and ties and name tags who came to the door the other day wanting to know if I could use some spiritual uplift and inspiration. The professor of sociology of religion thanked them for their concern and wished them well and sent them on their way.
To Epaminondas and any other bright, shiny, earnest AGW type who has come here to bring enlightenment to the foolish and ignorant. Many of the people who post here have awesome credentials. You can check them out. They are real scientists. Many of the people who post here are busy deconstructing and replicating the work that some of your favorite scientists do. It’s fascinating. Some people who post here cherry pick, obfuscate, fulminate, or just plain deliver bad information (like yours, Epaminondas) and everyone else here is happy to point it out. With citations.
Take the time to become informed.
This should be all you need to disprove the 12 degree claim:
Monthly for 1975:
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/monthlydata_e.html?timeframe=3&Prov=AB&StationID=1865&Year=1975&Month=3&Day=15
Monthly for 2003:
http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/monthlydata_e.html?timeframe=3&Prov=AB&StationID=1865&Year=2003&Month=3&Day=15
REPLY: Thanks I’ll check it out. Off to work now, so it will have to wait until tonight. – Anthony
Let’s see here. A nice temperature for humans might be 20 to 25 C.
When I lived in Mumbai and Los Angeles they (as in well off young people who mostly haven’t done a day’s work in their lives) would complain it was cold when it dropped to 20C in the winter. I said they should try living in England. When you see your heating bill at the end of winter then complain!
And England is nothing compared to many countries that get far colder.