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.
Graeme Rodaughan (18:41:09) :
Here’s a start :
http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/a-look-at-the-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-amo-index/
“Graeme Rodaughan (18:38:02) : I wouldn’t pop the champange corks yet.”
I didn’t. Here’s the movie scene that the line is from :
One day this war will end too.
Just Want Truth… (18:56:06) :
Graeme Rodaughan (18:41:09) :
Here’s a start :
http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/a-look-at-the-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-amo-index/
Thanks JWT – much appreciated. G
Grhm. Cracker needs a link.
I think a killer link w/depository is due by now…
In my opinion, the climate sciences are cool and fun to follow. We all know that climate science is not resolved. In my humble opinion, climate science is far from fact. Thus no consensus.
As a civil guy, I have to study the geotechnical angles at times. I have to study the drainage characteristics of the formation, the creations of which I am convinced, are chaotic on the earth’s surface. Thus I have to contend the atmosphere is also chaotic, thus two chaotic forces creating our environment. I never knew we could model chaotic phenomena.
Climate models seem no more accurate than guestimates, uneducated guesses at that.
In fact, hasn’t Lucia falsified 95% of the models?
Gaia my ass. I’ll believe Earth is an organism when it splits into two daughter Earths.
For Graeme Rodaughan:
Here is some more good info on the AMO. It is still in its warm phase, so not to be confused with the cold phase of its bigger cousin, the PDO.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceananddrought.html
Heh. A tad off topic, but since Gaia has come up in several posts… Lovelock should hook up with Michael Behe and William Dembski. A match made in, err… Heaven.
OA
Robin Kral (20:02:57) :
“Gaia my ass. I’ll believe Earth is an organism when it splits into two daughter Earths.”
Very funny…but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Dismissing the possibility that the Earth behaves as a sort of superorganism is almost as silly as considering it something that has the ability to reproduce.
Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle.
As you can tell, with my screen name, conservationism is extremely important to me. Yet I don’t buy (at all) the Mann hockey stick..neither do I accept the AGW orthodoxy.
There is some truth in the Gaia idea. To throw it out completely…is just as foolish as to expect Earth to split by some mitosis as you say.
Back to TOPIC: Are the record minima in Alberta at least partially corellated by the super stratospheric warming event of late Jan early February?
Did the heating stratosphere SQUEEZE the troposphere down onto North America…and this combined with the gathering effects of a cold PDO….help tip the scales to what we have before us today?
Chris
Norfolk, VA
EJ: “Climate models seem no more accurate than guestimates, uneducated guesses at that.”
Worse than that. A guess might have been right, by sheer luck. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, eh? The models were all written with the intent of proving Anthropogenic Global Warming in Edmonton is real. No big surprise that that’s what they seem to do. Heck, I could construct a model that will prove Edmonton is inhabited by little green men and women from Mars, even though that is obviously false. (They’re blue with cold.) Don’t ask to see the code; it’s proprietary.
savethesharks wrote:
Interesting, but the data there doesn’t include anything later than 2005. According to NOAA, AMO apparently went negative in 2009 with January at -0.007 and February -0.113.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/correlation/amon.us.data
Once again, Mr. Gunter has demonstrated himself a gentleman. At about 5:00 p.m. my time EDST, he sent me an update stating that he had checked our sources and acknowledged that the records were somewhat overstated in his article. He really didn’t have to do that. Somewhat uncharacteristically, I refrained from suggesting that he might want to publicly acknowledge that and give some credit to WUWT for the correction. His original point, though, is that record highs are proof of AGW, while lows are met with deafening silence remains true. Anthony, maybe you ought to reach out to the guy.
DJ/EJ – are you the same chimp that goes by TCO on other sites?
savethesharks (20:16:46) :
Katherine (20:45:11) :
Thanks guys, that data really drops off the cliff over the last few months.
Cheers G
Katherine wrote: Interesting, but the data there doesn’t include anything later than 2005. According to NOAA, AMO apparently went negative in 2009 with January at -0.007 and February -0.113.
Against the means yes….but this oscillation is over many years, if not decades.
Certainly it has reached its peak…and perhaps IS on the downturn….but not in the tanks like the full-blown all-out negative of the PDO….yet.
Emphasize the word “yet”.
http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/a-look-at-the-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-amo-index/
CHRIS
Norfolk, VA
So….Back to TOPIC: Are the record minima in Alberta at least partially corellated by the super stratospheric warming event of late Jan early February?
Did the heating stratosphere SQUEEZE the troposphere down onto North America…and this combined with the gathering effects of a cold PDO….help tip the scales to what we have before us today?
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Australia cooler than average… follow the links below.
http://australianclimatemadness.blogspot.com/2009/03/australia-feels-chill.html
BTW: I’ve already got the winter coat out to go to work in… and it’s March…
James Hansen is due in Coventry UK for a demo on thursday. The weather has been nice so far rthis week, but apparently thursday it’s going to break.
The Gore-Hansen effect strikes again?
Edmonton is the Denver of Canada. Or is that Calgary?
Regardless of how you define it, it was a cold winter, and its far from over.
I don’t think there was one stretch where we had “Keep your Eye on the Idaho High” at play. Instead the bit of moderation we saw was with a flat jet stream (?). Maybe I never paid attention to that detail but I just don’t remember it being like this even during the cold in the 70’s and with this March coming in like a Lion like it did … this winter is definately on par with those. I’m not sure about a record but it bounces around so much that’s possible … heck when I was a sprout I walked to school in 6 feet of snow, up hill both ways in -40 with …
Only 40 more to go 😀 … unfortunately capped off with ice … before it trends the right way.
We’re freezing here in Alberta. Everyone is really tired of winter this year.
If it would help, I’d run out and buy the biggest gas-guzzling SUV – but then sensible people know that CO2 is not a significant driver of global warming.
This freezing, unending cold is not unprecedented – it was almost this cold in the 1970’s, and it wasn’t fun then either.
This winter was brought to you by the words “natural” and “cyclical”, and by the number “minus 40”.
Regards, Allan
lol so the headline is “March low temperature records not broken”… and “Original article a total fraud based on sloppy research and the desire to spread misinformation about climate.”
When will you chance the comment “The author’s (Lorne Gunter) claim of breaking a record by -12 degrees is only partially correct.” to the more correct:
“The author’s (Lorne Gunter) claim of breaking a record by -12 degrees is completely fabricated and I apologise to my dedicated readers that I let this one slip through the net as it makes my site look as though it could just be about spreading ~snip~ misinformation.”
In fact I’ll go further… you HAVE to admit that letting this one through without the slightest check of the easily obtainable temperature records is pretty sloppy. Especially given the kind of rigour you apply to UHI, Anatrctic temps, hockey sticks… the list goes on…
One may even believe that the original article is so badly researched that it is an AGW plant to expose the hungry sceptical blogs like your own and say Andrew Bolt’s in Australia. The 1st response to the original article in the Edmonton paper immediately highlights the error… how did you miss it – it was not even a click away!
Just ‘fess up you were very very very sloppy and commit to not being so gullible in the future.
Seriously this is a GOLD MEDAL mistake and one I hope the blogosphere crucifies.
Re: MattB (04:57:34) :
The “first comment on the Edmonton Journal article” is actually the last comment, and is dated after 10pm last night. This story has been here for over a day…
p.s. Rachel/charlie98 should really get the credit for finding the correct records from env. Canada before I did (1972 and 2003 both hit the record of -42.2)…;)
“Robin Kral (20:02:57) : Gaia my ass. I’ll believe Earth is an organism when it splits into two daughter Earths.”
Which planet will be the dad? And if no planet fesses up will we have to run a DNA test to find which one it was?
Or will it be parthenogenesis? 😉
“Katherine (20:45:11) :”
Thanks for pointing this out. It saved me the effort–phew!
“tallbloke (22:45:57) : James Hansen is due in Coventry UK for a demo on thursday. The weather has been nice so far rthis week, but apparently thursday it’s going to break. The Gore-Hansen effect strikes again?”
I can’t say what the weather will be but one thing I know you can expect is a very small turn out to see James Hansen.