Guest post by Steven Goddard
Global warming has predictably struck again.
White said climate change caused by global warming likely is changing ice conditions and adding to the unpredictability.
Kate White is a civil engineer at the Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., and one of the nation’s leading experts on ice jams.
“I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating. … If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota, and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there,’ that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.”
From the Scientific American Blog
River ice generated by global warming in North Dakota
The Red River in Fargo, North Dakota had been expected to crest as high as 43 feet on Saturday, but instead it peaked at less than 41 feet due to freezing springtime temperatures.
The river crested in Fargo at 40.82 feet (12.44 meters) shortly after midnight yesterday, never reaching the 42-foot forecast the weather service expected, which would have put it at the top of some city dikes. The crest broke the record of 40.1 feet set in April 1897.
The river was at 40.27 feet as of 4:15 a.m. local time this morning and was forecast to recede to 38.1 feet as of 1 a.m. on April 5, according to the National Weather Service.
Freezing Temperatures
Temperatures as cold as 7 degrees Fahrenheit froze water running into the river and are responsible for turning back the flood, said David Kellenbenz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, North Dakota, about 80 miles north of Fargo.
The weather service had said earlier that the Red River could crest as high as 43 feet.
In fact, temperatures in North Dakota have been running about 5-10 degrees below normal for the entire winter and spring.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/hprcc/nd/Last3mTDeptHPRCC-ND.png
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/hprcc/nd/MonthTDeptHPRCC-ND.png
NOAA’s Center for Climate Prediction had incorrectly forecast a warm winter for the region last autumn.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/archives/long_lead/gifs/2008/200810temp.gif
Using AGW logic, it all makes perfect sense. The models forecast a warm winter. The models were wrong, and instead it was extremely cold and snowy. All that late melting snow caused a flood, so the flood must be blamed on the global warming predicted by the models. AGW Commandment #1 : Reality must never take precedence over computer models.
Author’s Note : Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is now known as “climate change” because the scientists were just kidding when they gave it the original name.
Find the following text using Google. You will be surprised!!!!!!! See how yesterday’s arguments were the same that are used today to reinforce the opposite idea!!! Even the burn of fossil fuels is there.
“In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada’s wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone’s recollection.”
http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/index.html?region=National&year=2009&month=9&day=1&units=e
Almost 1/3 of continental USA has snow cover. Most on this date since foor at least the last five years…
… and just plain dumb.
Antonio San (11:37:26) :
‘The “great global warming” of 1897 is very well documented… however the co-relation between flood crest and CO2 concentration is not that clear… More work is needed and a new super computer too…’
You forgot to say “more money needed”.
If the CO2 cap and trade program is passed, EPA annual budget will increase by 34.9%
Hmmm, what has the effect been on winter crops?
The fact that most of the area had over twice the normal snowfall, and it keeps coming, seems to have escaped scrutiny in the rush to say the computer models are real.
Tell Mr Obama, are computer models real science? Because that’s all the proof you have.
You don’t have to tell me about the ”departure from normal” temperatures in ND this winter:
I spent the last 3 months in far northern ND, right there in one of the 6-to-8 degrees BELOW normal bands. We had a 3-day blizzard last week; was snowed in for several days. After getting down into single digits above zero again last night, FINALLY today it made it into the mid-30s above.
So WRT a little ”global warming”, all I can say is:
BRING IT ON !!…. please…..
AGW freezes water.
Oh, my. No, it’s the Gore Effect that causes rivers to freeze.
AGW, Artificial Gore Warning.
Media Hysteria. Crying Wolf.
These people are living in a cartoon world.
What is thier ultimate goal? Running around bare in the Garden of Eden?
Return to Planet of the Neanderthals?
Archeologically Generated World.
Al Gore & James Hansen, meet Grans Solar Minimum (GSM).
My cousin has been doing insurance claim settlements in New Orleans. He told me about the 4″ of snow they had.
The South, paralyzed with snow.
Good grief. GSM.
During negative or cool phases of PDO there are more La Nina’s and more STRONG and MODERATE La Nina’s than during the positive phases. This contributes to more cold winters and colder years during negative PDO.
The current cool PDO phase is why we have had all the cold weather and cooling during the last 3 years and this may have directly contributed to the Red River Flooding of 2009 ,
Under typical La Nina conditions , polar jet stream splits into two paths , one going further north to Alaska and then comes south across the Canadian western and Prairie provinces bringing all the cold air to the western provinces and the US northern central states . The other lower branch of the jet stream brings extra rain and snow across to the states of Washington and Oregon and then to the northern US states close to the Canadian border where all the flooding is now happening.
Of 20 most significant Red River floods in terms of discharge or flow rates [1950m3/sec or more], 14-15 happened during NEGATIVE PDO. See the attached reference for these floods [http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/floods/redriver/table1_e.php]
As there may be an extended[ 20-30 years] NEGATIVE or cool PDO phase, there will be more La Nina’s and associated more snow and cold in the Red River region an the northern states. More floods are possible. There were 10 floods with flows 1800 m3/sec or more during the last negative phase of the PDO between 1944 and 1976, with 1950 flood being the largest at 3058 m3/sec. Looks like the 2009 flood which was spawned under similar negative PDO and near La Nina conditions is the first of those that may yet come.
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/education/lanina/canadian/region/index_mean_e.cfm?region=prairies
This is an excellent web page maintained by the Meterological Services of Canada. It shows how La Nina Conditions affect the winter weather in the Canadian Prairie Provinces adjacent the Red River area. Similar weather pattern existed south of the border.
I can’t imagine worse conditions for a flood, flood waters are bad enough when the weathers warm and the water contains just the usual suspects like mud. Trying to cope with freezing water with chunks of ice in it , no thanks.
Of course this was all the fault of global warming, just like any natural disaster.
Even with a cold PDO and La Nina, it does not help to have comatose Solar Activity added on top of it. That’s putting the cart before the horse, as the biggest kid should be leading, but there be no acceptance of the Sun affecting climate on Earth, there is no evidence.
Just looney-tunes models.
Goofy and Baby Huey call the shots.
FROM ENVIORNMENT CANADA’S OWN 2008/2009 WINTER CLIMATE REPORT
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/ccrm/bulletin/rtable_e.html?region=f&table=temperature&season=Annual&date=2008&rows=61
BETWEEN 2006-2009 [WINTERS ONLY], THE REGIONAL WINTER TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES DECLINED AS BELOW
GREAT LAKES AREA COOLED 3.1 C
NORTHEASTERN FORESTS COOLED 3.4C
NORTHWESTERN FORESTS COOLED 7.1C
PRARIES COOLED 6.6 C
Notice that the winters of the Canadian Prairies which are directly north of North Dakota cooled 6.6 degrees since 2006. This happens whenever the PDO goes cool or negative. The entire north central region gets more snow and is colder than normal. When all this snow melts we have more floods.
The flooding has nothing to do with global warming but everything to do with cyclic global cooling due to the cyclic negative PDO like we had 1944-1976
Obama made his ill-informed (gibbering) statement while trying to sell Dakotans on his multi-trillion dollar cap-and-trade tax that will bankrupt N and S Dakota (and the rest of the country, too) and leave the residents with no power and no means to forestall or mitigate floods, which, as has been pointed out, are a common occurrence in the flat plains of Glacial Lake Agassiz.
The remedy proffered by the President is no remedy at all but instead an enormous back-breaker impediment to the economy and to public health and safety. He got the science wrong on purpose, because science is now just a propaganda tool, and he got the economics wrong on purpose because economics are a joke to party in power.
Be imaginative. Send Lake Agassiz water west. Solve global warming/climate change and La Nina problems all in one fell swoop — without bankrupting the USA. No more floods for the Red River Valley (love the sound of those words-“From this valley…”) and no more desertification during La Nina for the West.
Just when I think we’re making progress. I was watching some Mt. Redoubt video’s on youtube. And somehow, the comments in one turned to Arctic warming. On idjit claimed that “In my town it used to be 70 or 80 degrees in the summer, now it’s over 100!!! We’re all gonna die!(I just added that last). What a bunch of Maroons.
I’m getting pretty tired of the media, government and environmental special interest groups dictating what is truth.
This whole AGW farce is ten years past it’s use-by date. It is no longer about science, weather or climate. It’s about a political agenda and a Socialist, global agenda at that.
I don’t mind Political debate, nor a redefinition of societal goals and direction….. But only if the process is based on facts and knowledge to arrive at an accepted truth for people to discuss.
Once again we have the “Vanguard” of elites pretending to support the interests of the people, the planet and the future…… But as usual. It is all based on a lie.
It’s an obvious lie and it’s time it was called one.
Hey Steven.
I understood what you were doing with the caption, and only wanted to clear it up for the person who seemed to have misinterpreted it.
Good post…
Joel Wallach (12:13:16) :
Well, I correctly deduced her Email address. I sent a test message and started typing a message inviting her to post here and was surprised to get a reply from her before I sent the second message.
Her first reply mentioned http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1331/ , that draws too much from the IPCC for my tastes and I pointed out “Temperature increases are expected to change the mix of precipitation toward more rain and less snow. These shifts have already been reported in northern New England, the Great Lakes region, and the Western United States.” Last year’s snowfall in New Hampshire nearly broke the all time record and this year is above average. I left out the last two regions. Pity – it’s snowing in Chicago now.
I’ve never lived west of Ohio, but apparently one of the problems is that the flood plains is miles wide so to be out of the flood plain is to be miles away from one’s livelihood. Less of a problem now than it was before cars.
I loved that remark when Obama made it also. Let’s see, more snow equals more sping run off equals global warming. Opps.
I thought this president could read or had advisors who could.
It’s a mistake to confuse weather with climate… a mistake made by both sides in the debate.
But global warming as a trend is real. Sorry to disappoint any naysayers. Let’s all revisit this topic in 20 years, and see who’s ready for some crow. ; )
Well Mr. President the Red River flows north into Canada and eventually into Hudson Bay but it can’t because there is still ice on the Red River in Canada, which acts as a dam and won’t let the water pass. So if it were 2 degrees warmer in Manitoba, probably nothing would change, but lets say it was 10 degrees warmer, then there would be NO FLOODING in Fargo.
So you are right, this flood has nothing to to do with Global Warming, it has everything to do with ICE not melting. It happens every spring to some degree, but it is worse after a harsh winter like this one.
http://minnesotansforglobalwarming.com/m4gw/2009/03/never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste.html
So, no Tornados or Thunderstorms. No hail, wind or a soaking rain. Not even a drizzle.
Any tall mountains to store a winter full of snow for spring runoff?
Where did all the flood water and ice come from? A heavy fog?
Our President says it was global warming. Must have been that smell of brimstone hanging in the air that tipped him off. I guess the Times sniffed it to.
“I’ve never lived west of Ohio, but apparently one of the problems is that the flood plains is miles wide so to be out of the flood plain is to be miles away from one’s livelihood. Less of a problem now than it was before cars.”
I have lived in the west, CA specifically. There was a lake bed in the desert I lived in that would fill every time it rained significantly, and these little creatures (spade-footed toad & brine shrimp), would rise out of the desert floor, lay their eggs, and their spawn would return to wait for the next rain. Isn’t it odd how life can bloom in the harshest of climes?