excerpts:
From Joe’s European Weather Blog:
The current unseasonable cold across northwest Europe is not the only place where the arctic hound is calling as yet another blast of reality gets lobbed into the base camp of agenda driven warmingistas, who of course refuse to see anything that could possibly challenge their false idols. I will not say that the cold that has been occurring is a sign an ice age it is on the way, but it is a sign that people worldwide had better wake up to the idea that the “science is in” crowd does not want them to see facts.
First of all, cries out of the U.S. government-based NOAA of “Here comes El Nino” are 5 months late to a party I starting throwing last winter. They are out of touch on this being a warm year unless of course they get to skew the data worldwide. The satellites which measure temps without instrument bias have been seeing the cooling. But here we find the private sector saying something 5 months before, and now the U.S. government mets are suddenly seeing it and issuing a) el nino watches and then b) taken the nonsensical step of saying we will have a hot time because of it. The El Nino is coming while the PDO is cold, and a winter more harsh than last year may be shaping up for Europe.
And from an AccuWeather article on lightning, Joe says parts of the US may have a year without a summer”:
According to Long Range Expert Joe Bastardi, areas from the northern Plains into the Northeast will have a “year without a summer.” The jet stream, which is suppressed abnormally south this spring, is also suppressing the number of thunderstorms that can form.
Yikes!
The NOAA Climate Prediction Center 8-14 day forecast says it is already shaping up to be a cold June:
and the 30 day CPC forecast here
Stumpy,
just to clarify things for you, southern hemisphere winter “officially,” starts at 6.00 hrs U.T.C. (18 hrs N.Z.S.T.) on June 21st. Don’t listen to the T.V. meteorologists and geographers when they claim that winter starts on June 1st. That is just another good example of their expediency in action. The calendar has been outta whack with the seasons since the time of Julius Caesar. Big Julie missed the golden opportunity to get it right. The upshot of that is we still have the official, as directed by astronomers, 12 weeks of winter to enjoy yet!
Fiona Maddock.
your forecast for your part of England looks very similar to our forecast in Palmerston North, New Zealand. The difference is that the 16 degrees C we are hoping for will be the highest temperature for the week!
I have a weather (not climate) question for all you weather experts. In the linked article on lightning it says:
HAVE THUNDERSTORMS BEEN MORE ELECTRIFIED THIS YEAR?
… Actually, the number of lightning flashes is considerably less than what was reported this time last year. As of June 3, 2009, there have been 5,589,686 flashes, with 6,517,381 reported by June 3, 2008. …
The jet stream, which is suppressed abnormally south this spring, is also suppressing the number of thunderstorms that can form. The ones that do form in areas of the Ohio Valley and West are forming in places with very cold temperatures, which can lead to more electrified thunderstorms than normal this year. …
Why is that? Isn’t lightning caused by the electric polarity between the ground and water vapor in the air? More water vapor -> more lightning, I thought. Why would colder temps, meaning less water vapor, lead to less lightning (that part makes sense to me) but stronger bolts (which I think is what was implied)?
BTW, we had a monster lightning storm in Oregon last week when a counter-cyclonic Pacific low sent warm, wet, southerly winds into a high pressure cell perched over Eastern Oregon.
Last year we saw a dry lightning storm that ignited over 2,000 fires in California (The Giant Fire Bust of 2008). I have never understood dry lightning. I get that there was lightning without rain, but there had to be water vapor aloft or there would have been no lightning, right?
If anyone reading this is a lightning expert, I for one would very much appreciate an informative essay/post on the subject.
Flanagan (22:39:49) :
“The satellites which measure temps without instrument bias have been seeing the cooling. ”
Does he mean the global cooling since 2008?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2008/plot/rss/from:2008/trend
or in the last 12 months?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/last:12/plot/rss/last:12/trend
Flanagan – Maaate… You would have to admit that this 12 month plot is the “mother of all cherry picks”!
Surely – in all honesty – what were you thinking?
Eyeballing the RSS data over longer time frames it jags up and down all the time. Picking a short enough time interval will allow you to “demonstrate” any “trend” that you like – but doesn’t support your credibility.
I really think that you are a true AGW believer, might I suggest that you read Michael Crichton
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
Are you using the AGW meme, with its apocalyptic/salvationist structure as crutch to support an experience of meaningfulness for your life?
Where would you be if “the world did not need saving – and you wern’t saving it”?
Is the insignificance of man your greatest personal fear?
Is the impotence of man in the face of the awesome forces of nature a deep and secret concern?
Do you sometimes plumb the depths of meaninglessness when contemplating a universe that is indifferent to the welfare of humanity? and then desperately seek the security blanket of the AGW meme where humanity is in the central role as driver of the worlds climate?
I really would like to understand your motivations.
Frank Lansner (15:30:41) : said
“Hi Tony thankyou very much, i will let you know how it went, the television documentary. I Believe i already have your email from the discussion with Beck and Engel been?”
Correct, you do
Tonyb
Frank Mosher: You wrote, “Adam in Kansas has asked which models, ( statistical, or dynamic), are more accurate. I have no idea. Perhaps Bob Tisdale or Bill Illis know.”
Ditto. I have no idea.
WHOA.
To everyone, this is a bit of a rant!
OK. Let’s divide the Earth into 3 sections…
The poles, and the tropics. (I say 3 because we have N & S poles)
Number them
1 = N Pole
2 = tTopics
3 = S Pole
Hypothetically
2 decreases 0.5ºC
3 decreases 025ºC
1 INCREASES 1ºC
That’s an increase of 0.0833ºc globally
There’s something missing though
The humidity of the tropics means that the ENERGY loss is greater, so the Earth has actually COOLED.
Go figure.
DaveE.
Forgot to mention.
Ever notice that the HOT places are always ARID?
DaveE.
Frank Lansner (10:47:44) :
Dr. Roy Spencer has done a lot recently with the concept of feedback and cloud cover. I’m not sure that it fits your needs, but it’s at least very good background. It asks 2 questions that are critical to understanding climate change: 1) does cloud cover cover cause positive or negative feedback; 2) do increased temperatures reduce low cloud cover or does reduced cloud cover cause increased temperatures? Question 2 will throw your opponent for a loop. I’m sure he’s never thought that a primary AGW assumption is simply that: an assumption. Dr. Spencer’s most recent entry on this was May 29 at:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
DaveE (17:54:01) :
I suppose that depends on your definition of “hot”. My son, John, currently near Basra, insists that the temperature is 120F and rising… but weather underground disagrees…. my old stomping grounds in the Asian tropics (Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila) are recording higher temperatures than Iraq and are certainly NOT arid. I remember 100 plus degree days in Taipei with the humidity near 100%… and in the morning we sent the kids off to school, barefoot in the snow…. forget that last part. The Asian tropics are hot and NOT arid.
I looked at Unysis today and it seemed the PDO area went from being a solid horseshoe to no longer in the cool phase in less than a week, is it going back into the warm phase already? What’s causing it? Will the entire area be all warm anomalies as there’s pretty warm anomalies shown in the supposed warm part in a cool PDO?
Also noticed the rapid advance of reds on wxmaps.org going into Europe and down Canada with the colder blue areas now confined to the U.S and mountain regions only in the Northern Hemisphere.
Also there has been notice of cooler than normal temps. forecast for much of the tropics and in many high mountain areas, is that where a grand minimum could be felt first as they tend to get more intense sun?
DaveE, I always understood that the majority of deserts were cold. Atacama; Anatartica; Gobi?
Anyone have a comment on this?
To add further to that comment about deserts being cold.
My father fought in North Africa during WWII. He was issued a sheep-skin overcoat to sleep in at nights, due to the cold.
No clouds to keep the heat in; it radiated right out to outer space. (His observation).
Adam from Kansas @ur momisugly 18:37:18
I can assure you that in this Eastern part of Canada, the capital called Ottawa, it is below normal temps that have prevailed for the past two weeks.
And, interesting correlation: lots of cloud cover.
DaveE @17:54:01
Ever notice that the HOT places are always ARID?
You don’t get out much, do you?
A PDO flip can last months to years to decades. What is interesting is that the PDO will generally be cold or warm with mild reversals during these periods. It is entirely expected that during a cold phase, an El Nino will develop, only to return rather quickly to an over all longer La Nina pattern. The reverse is true for a warm PDO. Case in point. During 1996, in the middle of a generally warmer phase, the PDO flipped within a 6 month period, causing tons of La Nina snow followed by tons of warm El Nino rain. Most predictions are for a short lived El Nino encased in ENSO-neutral conditions with a return to La Nina late in 2009. This would be typical of a cold PDO phase.
Adolfo Giurfa (11:38:55) :
SteveSadlov (09:11:18) :
Officially, the period 2001AD – 4000AD is called the Age of Aquarius.
“When the moon is in the seventh house,
and Jupiter is aligned with Mars,
then peace will guide the planets…”
Aquarius..aquarius
The alarmists remind me of the old astrology.
With regard to George E. Smith’s comment of (14:26:14) the use of the Gaussian or Normal distribution is typically based on the assumption that there are many small effects whose contributions can consist of any type distribution at all. But in the limit of many small contributions the sum of the effects becomes Gaussian…
However, the atmosphere does not work this way. Rather, the atmosphere’s effect is that of a power law distribution of effects where the largest effects have much more energy than the smallest scales. Hence, while it is conceivable that small scale effects may approach Gaussian, these small scale effects are often driven or at least strongly coupled to larger scale non-Gaussian effects and these depend strongly on the nonlinear effects that George mentioned.
With all this talk of cold I’m re-reading my copy of “The Sixth Winter” by John Gribbin and Douglas Orgill. About the sudden onset of an ice age. Scary. Gribbin is a well known science writer and even Stephen Schneider and a few others make it into the novel. Just shows that the “getting colder” meme was doing quite well in the late 1970’s.
Allan M R MacRae (03:05:44) :
If Joe B is right, what is the impact, if any, on the Canada + USA grain harvest this year?
Down by 10%, 20%, 30% or more?
Has Joe’s prediction had any effect on grain futures yet?
———————————————–
Thanks to all who commented on this important subject of crop yields. Please continue to update.
Sounds like US Wheat down ~20%, and US Corn as much as 35% from 2008.
Is this correct? If so, it does not sound encouraging.
[source Tarnsman (09:44:40)]
Would really appreciate some global warming any time now. Even all that hot air from the warming alarmists is failing to have the desired effect.
**********************************
Note to Anthony et al:
Would be helpful to follow this subject as the growing season unfolds, for North America at least, and also for Europe and Russia if possible?
**********************************
I recall when I was quite young we were always shipping wheat to Russia because they had crop failures (due in part to Lysenkoism, which reportedly lasted until 1964?). It was also colder then.
What happens if we have a significant crop failure now due to cold weather?
I understand from some posts that we have very little grain in storage.
It seems like many of the grain elevators that used to stand guard over the prairies have been knocked down.
I obviously know very little about the subject of crops and grain storage.
Would appreciate more comments from those who do.
Thanks and regards, Allan
Flanagan (22:39:49) :
This is what he is talking about
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2010/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
Oh, the irony of coming here from a Canadian server only to see Nature Canada’s ad for ‘sign our global warming petition’ illustrated with a pair of polar bear cubs. Especially in a thread about this shaping up to be a year without a summer over much of the continent.
SE Minnesota, eh? Dave Wendt, maybe you can find out what is with the Century High School weather station that is consistently 5-10 degrees higher than the airport or suburban weather stations. (Century is up out of the Zumbro Valley – it -should- be -cooler- (except when there is no wind and a clear sky)
Hey Mike D. (16:41:42)
Water vapor or distilled water will not conduct a charge, you need salt in the water for conduction(and to form a rain drop). Hence we salty humans are very conductive! :p
Oh and the charge comes up from the ground. All rain water has salt in it, so more conductivity for lightening.
Less rain, less lighting, BUT more static builds up and soon or a later the spark will arc up and release with more intensity then when it rains.
Oh and that’s why rain always follows a thunderstorm. It’s releasing the energy or the static into the atmosphere.
Allan MacRae
What happens if we have a significant crop failure now due to cold weather?
I agree that this is a matter worth following. I too know little about the subject, but I can see that a large crop failure in the US and Canada would do more to shoot down the warmists than any external debate about science. Even politicians will listen when voters need to be fed!