Both WUWT and Climate Audit had posts regarding the ridiculous WaPo story about snowfall being a result of climate change.
This is a follow up to those posts done by guest contributor Steven Goddard.
One of the NWF claims about global warming is that snow in the Colorado mountains is diminishing and has become very erratic, as seen in the NWF graphic at left.
In this article I will show that the claim is incorrect – Colorado snowfall has been generally increasing for the last hundred years and that year over year variability has always been extremely high.
Fortunately, there are excellent long term records of snowfall available from NOAA’s Western Regional Climate Center. I chose the Crested Butte, Colorado station because it is centrally located in the mountains (so is representative of a wide region) and has the most complete and continuous snow record of every month for the past 100 years. I have randomly sampled quite a few other stations in Colorado. None seem to have as a complete a record as Crested Butte, and the pattern described for Crested Butte seems to be fairly consistent in the mountainous regions of the state.
Below are graphs showing annual and monthly snowfall totals (in inches) for Crested Butte since 1909. The trend lines were generated using Google Spreadsheet’s linest() function. Note that every month is trending upwards in snowfall and the standard deviation is very high. Also note that there were several very dry years early in the 20th century with very little snow – and the last few decades have seen more consistent snowfall. Since 1981, every year has received more than 100 inches of snow. Prior to 1930, it was not uncommon to have snow years with less than 100 inches of snow. Prior to 1930, the average annual snowfall was 177 inches. Since 1930, the average annual snowfall has been 200 inches – a 10% increase.
Note – the raw data is incorrect for 1910, 1919, and 1924 due to a significant number of missing measurements, so I substituted a calculated annual value based on the trend line. This probably overestimates the snowfall for 1919 and 1924, and is thus conservative.
Click images below for full-sized ones.
Standard deviation = 67 Mean = 195 Trend = +7.7 inches per decade
Mean = 23.4 Standard Deviation = 15.1
Standard deviation = 25.9 Mean = 33.5
Standard deviation = 27.9 Mean = 38.4
Standard deviation = 19.3 Mean = 33.5
Standard deviation = 18.2 Mean = 31.0
Standard deviation = 13.1 Mean = 16.9
In summary, snowfall is increasing annually and we see upward trends in the months of “snowfall season” in Colorado. Year over year variability has always been very high and may actually be lower in recent years. And, the Colorado mountains no longer have extremely low snow years like they did 80 years ago. By the data, it seems the NWF claims are unfounded.
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It should be a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment to knowingly promulgate false information for the purpose of obtaining donations from the public or grants from the government.
Phil M (15:38:47): @ur momisugly Mike D. (11:23:53) it’s also possible that other climatic variables (e.g. temperature) could be affecting the timing and amount of runoff
Anything is possible, Phil. I demonstrated that the snowpack has not changed. If you wish to posit some freaking minuscule magic climate tweak, then I suggest YOU test your freaking hypothesis using the scientific method.
That’s the problem with Chicken Littles. They stare at brick walls and dream up imaginary catastrophes, and then fling them out as “science”. And when they are shot down by the use of real data, they squirm and worm around it by making up something new. Oh dear, my recreational experience might be impinged upon by an early snow melt, maybe, somehow, no one knows!!!!
Tell you what, Phil. I vote to tax you and only you out of your house and home on the basis of your elaborate imagination. Then you can walk the streets carrying a sign that says The End Is Nigh, The Seas Are Going To Boil and lunch at the soup kitchen and sleep in the alley. Meanwhile the rest of us are not going to do one darn thing about your bizarre tales of doom, because we have already demonstrated that you are wrong on the major claims.
Really wrong. So wrong that your side had to lie, cheat, and fabricate data to defend their unscientific claims. Your side proposes a catatstrophic future and then cherry picks a single tree as evidentiary support!!!!! That is not science. That is something else.
Phil M (17:08:29) :
If you breathe and atmosphere with 10x the current amount of C02, you still wouldn’t feel any difference. .38% is not noticeable.
1%, maybe.
2% yes.
But not .038%: not a chance.
If I pulled you out of a house with 4.0 % C02, you’d be up and walking in 1/2 an hour.
If I pulled you out of a house with 0.4 % C0, and didn’t get you on oxygen and to the the hospital for a blood transfusion promptly, you’d be dead before morning.
Don’t feel picked on, though, because both Lisa Jackson and the Administration wouldn’t get a First Aid card with such a glaring lack of basic understanding.
The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data.’
I live in far north Texas. In March 2006, we had one day that approached 100 F. In March 2008, we had two snow blizzards in one week, each dropping 6 to 8 inches. Both are kind of unsual for March. And you can’t really use either singular event as a model for future climate or weather. They should just get added into the average, as it were. This winter, we’ve had 3 snow storms, latest one last night, since the beginning of December, with the big one being the one in the first week of December. Kind of odd but not without precedent. The precedent of approximately 30-something years ago. As in, it seems we may have the same weather patterns and average temp, now, of say 1978.
By the way, an average temp rise of a few degrees does not change the laws of physics. 32 F (0 C) is still the freezing/melting point. So, if the average winter temp of a place in Colorado is still below freezing, it can still snow. The reason for varying snow depths or presence is all about the moisture and the direction of the jet stream steering the moisture. And that has a lot to do with El Nino either adding to the US or subtracting from the US the amount of available water vapor in the air. As well as the amount of cosmic radiation around which the clouds form. And the amount of cosmic rays has very much to do with whether we have solar flares creating a magnetic shield around the Earth to block cosmic rays (less cloud cover and precipitation and negative feedback of clouds) or a lack of solar flares, less shield, more rays, more clouds and negative feedback, as in cooler temps. As proven experimentally and empirically by Svensmark.
CO2 doesn’t mean squat.
Phil M (16:22:01) :
“… anthropogenic carbon dioxide has been shown to raise the pH of things like rain and ocean water, which has all sorts of negative consequences…”
Ah, that evil anthropogenic carbon dioxide, capable of wreaking harm beyond anything that benign, natural carbon dioxide is capable of. You are implying that naturally produced CO2 will NOT affect the pH of rainwater and oceans and that man’s 4% contribution to the CO2 budget will?
I’m on my third try to get through the NWF’s story, but it’s so annoying to have to read this knowing it’s purpose is scientific in nature rather than a Reader’s Digest human interest story.
It’s interesting to read that the NWF article was wrong about Colorado snow. My bone to pick is their assertion Great Lakes Ice Cover, or lack thereof, is causing more snow and, in particular, using the 2007 Blizzards in Western NY as evidence.
Let’s start with their map, where they show they don’t know Western NY. The map points to south Buffalo — basically at the extreme west end of the state. The storm they cite occurred in the band centering around Oswego and Syracuse in the middle of the state. (Oswego is on the SE corner of Lake Ontario and Syracuse to the south and a little east of it.)
Now for some conditions. Lake effect here either occurs off Lake Ontario or Lake Erie. Lake Ontario never freezes over. Lake Erie often (to consistently) freezes over. We are not significantly affected by Lake Effect from the other lakes (though Lake Effect from the others contributes via the general weather patterns) because it gets dumped before the weather front gets here.
As for our two lakes, Buffalo and the Southern Tier/PA border bears the brunt of Erie Effect and that Effect tails off by Syracuse. Buffalo also tends to avoid the Ontario Effect but the Ontario Effect can hit all points along the Ontario shore and regions east and south as the wind direction chooses, all the way to the PA border.
About that 2007 Blizzard. The bottom line is Lake Erie was frozen over at the time. Lake Ontario, which never freezes, was, of course, not frozen over. The blizzard that dumped the 10 feet of snow on Owsego and Syracuse, was two storms. The first was out of Rockies which blasted the Plains, Midwest and the northern half of the East Coast. The second following storm came out of Canada creating a Lake Ontario Lake Effect snow because … Ontario never freezes over.
Here in Western NY, Lake Effect Blizzards are not unusual, often dumping three or more feet of snow somewhere along the Lake during a season. The large blizzards, like that of 2007 are not frequent but we’ve had them before. Buffalo was hit in 1977 with a nasty blizzard that caused drifts of 25 feet with a new snow drop of about 17″. How, you might ask, could that happen? The major contribution was the 3 to 4 feet of powdery snow that had accumulated on, again, a Frozen Lake Erie.
Here’s the wiki on the 2007 Blizzard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_of_2007
Here’s the Wiki on the 1977 Blizzard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_of_1977
I won’t bore you folks with summaries of the Blizzards of 1966 — my favorite — or 1993. Suffice it to say, big blizzards here are not odd-ball nor have they changed in kind or intensity because of ‘global warming’.
Steve Goddard (17:17:33) :
“Are you claiming that Crested Butte is not “centrally located in the mountains?”
I’m claiming that selecting one site, however you define “centrally located”, and then working from the assumption that you are accurately representing some much larger geographical area is a pretty big leap. It certainly isn’t representative of the entire western U.S., which relies almost exclusively on snow pack to manage water supplies, as I mentioned.
Furthermore, as I mentioned, the author seems completely unconcerned about potential biases introduced over the 100 year period of record as a result of changes in equipment, procedure, or site conditions. This seems to be a significant departure from what I perceived to be the consensus view on this website regarding data collection protocols. My apologies for the head explosion comment; that was a tad overboard.
Mike D. (17:49:30) :
I certainly didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers. I actually thought it was a very interesting analysis, but you seem to take the criticism fairly seriously. Best of luck with future W.I.S.E. endeavors.
Robert E. Phelan (19:04:56) :
“Ah, that evil anthropogenic carbon dioxide, capable of wreaking harm beyond anything that benign, natural carbon dioxide is capable of. You are implying that naturally produced CO2 will NOT affect the pH of rainwater and oceans and that man’s 4% contribution to the CO2 budget will?”
I would be the last person to ascribe moral capacity to carbon dioxide. But clearly, elevated levels of carbon dioxide, anthropogenic or not, can have impacts on ecosystems everywhere. Acidification of rain and oceans and the resulting impacts on ecosystems have been well documented. Just because carbon dioxide levels vary naturally doesn’t mean that rapid increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide as a result of anthropogenic emissions will have no effect and should be ignored. And again, the anthropogenic impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is well documented; this is not speculation on my part.
If more atmospheric carbon dioxide = lower pH of rain/oceans, why should one consider anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions harmless?
rbateman (17:57:56) :
I understand your points about the toxicity of carbon dioxide to humans. My concerns as an environmental scientist are the indirect effects of carbon dioxide. e.g. acidification of rain and oceans and the subsequent effects on various ecosystems.
I seemed to have created some confusion with an earlier remark regarding the toxicity of carbon dioxide to humans. Let me clarify:
I am now, and always have been, aware that atmospheric carbon dioxide will never approach levels toxic to humans. I was having an exchange with Smokey, and I was attempting to make a point regarding over-technical interpretations of arguments made here. I very clearly failed in that attempt, as now that comment seems to be a focus of a few commentators and the subject of highly-technical interpretation.
My bad.
@Steve Goddard (17:17:33)
Bureau of Rec report on the water supply situation for Lakes Mead and Powell, ca. 2004.
http://www.swhydro.arizona.edu/archive/V4_N2/feature1.pdf
Phil M (14:21:51) :
There are more variables than Spring snowpack that affect the water year. A good snowpack is no guarantee that water will be available and lower than “normal” snowpack does not necessarily guarantee water shortages.
Lake Powell would normaly provide a significant buffer for prolonged drought, however, the mandatory Spring release of water every year to improve habitat for the humpback chub have somewhat neutralized that advantage. I am curious to know if those releases are adjusted to yearly fluctuations in the snowmelt?
“Note – the raw data is incorrect for 1910, 1919, and 1924 due to a significant number of missing measurements, so I substituted a calculated annual value based on the trend line. This probably overestimates the snowfall for 1919 and 1924, and is thus conservative.”
Probably overestimates? NOW who’s practicing junk science?
Anthony I noticed that the link you supplied to the msnbc article is now broken. But the article is still available at Washington Post (with a source correction):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012800041.html
Also the full NWF-report can be found at:
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/Media-Center/News-by-Topic/Global-Warming/2010/01-28-10-Global-Warming-Bringing-More-Oddball-Winter-Weather.aspx
This is at least one reason that global warming, having a magnitude of about 1 degree C per hundred years, is largely a non-issue.
The winter of 1976-1977 in Utah was pretty dry and water supplies looked deficient for the next decade according to the experts. They claimed it would take a decade or more of normal precipitation to get reservoirs back to normal storage. Then came the rain and wet snow of the 1977-1978 winter. By spring these experts were releasing water from reservoirs threatening to overtop the dams.
Variability, and especially regional variability, is the great weather threat — always has been, always will be.
Phil M (14:21:51) :
“There are more variables than Spring snowpack that affect the water year. A good snowpack is no guarantee that water will be available and lower than “normal” snowpack does not necessarily guarantee water shortages.
Lake Powell would normaly provide a significant buffer for prolonged drought, however, the mandatory Spring release of water every year to improve habitat for the humpback chub have somewhat neutralized that advantage. I am curious to know if those releases are adjusted to yearly fluctuations in the snowmelt?”
This is precisely the point I was trying to make. That is, that the timing of the snow melt is a extremely important. That simply looking at a specific metric (e.g. % of average SWE, which is very widely used) and concluding that no changes or conflicts exist is inappropriate. I don’t know specifics regarding Lakes Mead or Powell, but in other areas of the West, releases must also be timed to meet minimum flow requirements for wildlife. The considerations for reservoir management go far beyond direct human uses.
There are fiscal interests as well. Energy companies regularly monitor information regarding the amount and timing of snow melt for the purposes of pricing hydroelectric power. Numerous overlapping interests, the multi-million dollar fishing and recreation industries, for example, make water management in the West infinitely more complex than a simple “water in minus water out” approach.
One of my favorite sayings out West: “Whiskey’s for drinkin’, water’s for fightin'”.
The author is analyzing claims of diminishing snowfall. Consequently ,using estimates on the high side to replace missing data grants benefit of doubt to the claim, and is standard practice for a fair analysis — i.e. conservative.
Phil M, take a look at what leaf fall and other sources of natural debri falling into streams do to ph. The variability in ph from natural sources on a global scale FAR outweighs and overwhelms what rain water does as it captures atmospheric CO2 and dribbles it into streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. Acidification by rain? Check your understanding. It isn’t the CO2 in the air what does it.
Shall we review one more time the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
“The Second Law of Thermodynamics – Heat flows naturally from a hot body to a cooler one, never in the opposite direction. Indeed, if the opposite were possible the rough scientists’ problems would be over and they would be able to freeze water simply by allowing heat to flow out of it into the warm atmosphere.”
Indeed, CO2 dissolved in water does make it acidic. But the major components of acid rain on land are SO2 and NOx. I don’t know of any trend that one can pin on CO2 definitively.
I had always understood that CO2 in rainwater on land ends up weathering rock and thereby carrying lots of alkalinity to the ocean as bicarbonate. In fact there was a time that people wondered how the ocean could maintain a very slight basic pH in the face of the onslaught of bicarbonate from rivers.
Now CO2 in rainwater over the oceans might become the major source of surface acidification, but isn’t the science of how this affects oceanic life pretty murky?
Pamela Gray (08:33:30) said:
And in any event, as I said on that other thread where you provided evidence that the IPCC even quotes magazines that play fast and loose with the truth,
I suspect that the biosphere is CO2 constrained and that there would be a higher level of activity by organisms large and small if there was more CO2 in the atmosphere (and thus the hydrosphere).
Guess what water management has done to fish habitat in Wallowa County? Destroyed it. Forcing water into the three main rivers instead of allowing overflow water access into unscreened streams and irrigation gates has caused snowmelt surges to scour out what egg beds we have in our rivers.
When I was a kid we used to pitch salmon and steelhead out of our field ditches (which ran all year long) with shovels. Now they are forced to try to lay their eggs in the rivers. The valley here used to be covered with meandering streams, irrigation ditches, and swamps. But forcing these natural and man-made water ways to shut down or screen out fish is one of the reasons why we don’t have the spawning numbers we used to see. Keeping river flow high to protect fish habitat is exactly the wrong thing to have done.
“Pamela Gray (08:33:30) :
Phil M, take a look at what leaf fall and other sources of natural debri falling into streams do to ph. The variability in ph from natural sources on a global scale FAR outweighs and overwhelms what rain water does as it captures atmospheric CO2 and dribbles it into streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans.”
Pamela, what’s your position on the IPCC’s numbers that say that the oceans pH dropped by 0.1, in the last 250 years or so, from about 8.2 to 8.1? Phil pointed out on a different thread that this corresponds to a drop of H ions by 30% and he’s right about that. Now that’s quite a lot. Or do you say the IPCC’s numbers are bunkum?