From the “weather is not climate unless it supports global warming department”, Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. responds to the claim elevated by Joe Romm (and now picked up by Time Magazine) that the east coast snowstorms are indicators of global warming. While you ponder that, click to watch the DC blizzard in progress via the US Senate live stream:
Comment on Time Article “Another Snowstorm: What Happened to Global Warming?”
There is an article in Time magazine (h/t to Marc Morano for alerting us to it) by Bryan Walsh titled
Another Snowstorm: What Happened to Global Warming?
The article correctly writes
“….it’s a mistake to use any one storm — or even a season’s worth of storms — to disprove climate change (or to prove it)…”
and
“Weather is what will happen next weekend; climate is what will happen over the next decades and centuries. And while our ability to predict the former has become reasonably reliable, scientists are still a long way from being able to make accurate projections about the future of the global climate.”
However, the article contains misinformation. I briefly comment on two issues presented in the article.
1. It is written
“The 2009 U.S. Climate Impacts Report found that large-scale cold-weather storm systems have gradually tracked to the north in the U.S. over the past 50 years.”
The current set of snowstorms in the Middle Atlantic states this winter actually have become intense further south than average. New England is certainly accustomed to these nor’easters. In an earlier post (see figure top), illustrates that the jet stream (as represented by the lower tropospheric temperature anomalies) was well south of its average position across the northern hemisphere. It is the polar jet stream which is where winter storms develop and intensify.
2. It is written
“As global temperatures have risen, the winter ice cover over the Great Lakes has shrunk, which has led to even more moisture in the atmosphere and more snow in the already hard-hit Great Lakes region, according to a 2003 study in the Journal of Climate.”
A new paper in EOS titled Severe Ice Cover on Great Lakes During Winter 2008–2009 [subscription needed]
writes
“After a decade of little ice cover, from 1997–1998 to 2007–2008, the Great Lakes experienced extensive ice cover during the 2008–2009 winter. The area of Lake Superior covered by ice during the 2008–2009 winter reached 75,010 square kilometers on 2 March 2009, nearly twice the maximum average of nearly 40,000 square kilometers. By this time, Lake Superior was nearly completely ice covered, as were Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake St. Clair, a small basin between Huron and Erie (Figure 1a). Even northern Lake Michigan experienced severe ice cover.”
These news articles would be more accurate (and effective) if the actual behavior of the climate system were presented.
==================================
For those interested, here is a typical winter pattern when we have an El Nino – Anthony
Luboš Motl also weighs in on the issue of linking these snows here
What must be driving Romm crazy is that even Dem senators now admit that Climate Change legislation is dead this session. They’re blaming it on the snowstorm, but as we know it was dead long before this.
The storm is just the “Icing” on the cake!
“Democratic senators say a bill that was once a top priority for the party and for President Barack Obama cannot be dug up again during 2010.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/80485-climate-bill-buried-under-record-snowfall
still, you gotta love the way things work out – right when the plans to crank out comprehensive climate change legislation were due to get all wound up, “Forecasts predicted another six to 20 inches to fall on Tuesday and Wednesday, putting the city on course to break a 111-year-old record for its snowiest winter.”
And this on top of the fact that the Copenhagen conference was hit with the coldest blast of arctic air that Europe had seen in 30 years. Gaia just ain’t cooperating.
OT: I’m thinking maybe tv is to blame for the immature science by the political climatologists and their ilk in CAGW.. see below.
Romm left science for agiprop many years ago. He served in the Clinton Admin in the Dept of Energy. He liked the politics and hasn’t looked back.
The global warming means more snowstorms meme is such a joke that I don’;t think very many warmongers actually believe it.
Translation for this idiot? Do as I say, not as I do. I have all the crayons, and you can’t have any. No! The climate is my toy! I SAY WHAT IT DOES! UN! The Climate Isn’t Behaving! Make it stop! Pass a rule against snowstorms and questioning RIGHT NOW! The other.. scientists… are making fun of me… *sobs*. I want my pacifier!
I may be a total idiot, but shouldn’t the same rules apply to all sides? Isn’t science about questioning and debate, and allowing the data to support the position, rather than altering the data to make the position? More and more I see points of view pushed as fact, and this bothers me. People get paid to find the information, then say they won’t share it, except for what they’ve already looked over and made sure fits their opinions. Frankly, statisticians and mathematicians are perfectly capable and qualified to look at math.
The nature of science is attacking hypothesis in order to determine if they are true to the best of observational parameters. New observational parameters must alter the hypothesis, not the parameters, and, lest we forget, the earth-centric universe, with a flat earth was ‘consensus’. It was attacked, and successfully and rightfully. Let the science play out, and get the politics out of it.
In the United States, the National Weather Service defines a blizzard as sustained winds or frequent gusts reaching or exceeding 35 mph (56 km/h) which lead to blowing snow and cause visibilities of ¼ mile (or 400 m) or less, lasting for at least 3 hours. Temperature is not taken into consideration when issuing a blizzard warning, but the nature of these storms is such that cold air is often present when the other criteria are met.[1] Temperatures are generally below 0 °C (32 °F).
I think Washington is having a BLIZZARD!
The flaw in that logic is that weather is what we experience. Proponents can trumpet Global Warming all they like but when the weather that people are experiencing is colder and snowier that noise will fall on deaf ears.
I really wish people would come to understand the long cycle stuff. The coming ice age hysteria in the early 1970s was the bottom of the AMO. The global warming hysteria was the top of the AMO. We are now on the down slope again. I predict ice age hysteria in about 30 years.
From a UK point of view. Two years ago we had a light sprinkling of early snow when our government was passing it’s climate bill. Last year we had heavier snow. This year it’s been heavier still. Once is natural variability, twice is coincidence, three times is Gaia with a sense of humour? Maybe it’s the Gore effect, the bigger the legislation and economic impact, the more snow you get.
Add to the snowstorm timing the irony that Al G.’s AIT was released In 2006) just when the ocean systems turned to cooling. It was too late even then. Thus, they have had to yell louder and louder to distract the world from what was occurring in reality. I guess that that was the being of the Gore Effect.
A friend of mine just spouted the idea that wild fluctuations such as now are expected from global warming. However, it appears that ENSO events cause more wild fluctuations during generally cold times (the 1970s and 80s) than warmer (the early 2000s and maybe even the 1930s to 40s). Oh well.
Excellent response, such mega snow storms for DC area require the jet stream to be abnormally low, so enough cold air keeps the moisture into snow and not rain.
Of course they are adjusting their claims to prove this is what they predicted after all. It is obvious that vast vast interests are invested into the cap and trade. So much infrastructure has been set up and so many green companies have intentionally been created, waiting to make trillions of dollars for the global elite and convert people into serfdom peacefully. It is no wonder why our media is behaving like a communist state news agency. Covering up every climate scandal and even telling people cold and blizzards=evidence of global warming.
Personally I like the debate of climate change, because it is bound to wake up the smartest people in society that something is wrong. Having scientists break ranks will increase our odds of defeating the New World Order.
Joe Romm’s judgment has fallen off the map. I really think his judgment vanished when Marc Morano put Romm in a state of hysterical frenzy in a televised debate; Romm hasn’t been able to produce anything coherent ever sine
The widespread claim among the remaining faithful that “warming means cooling” is in fact very important – it signifies the final, complete shift of the movement away from science and into the realm of religion.
This is why – one of the key elements of any scientific theory is that it is falsifiable. A theory is put out, it makes certain predictions, if they do not come true, that theory was wrong and you work on a new one which explains the observations more completely. There should not be any great emotions attached to a theory that fails, because that is how science works.
BUT – the hallmark of a religious idea is that it is *never* falsifiable. Every possible outcome can be explained by some wrinkle in the doctrine, which is why it is impossible and futile to attempt to dissuade anyone from a religious belief through simple argument.
It is now a matter of *faith*, and as a matter of faith many of these people will go to their graves believing it even if the world ices over. To someone who sees things from a purely religious point of view, as the warmists do now, facts no longer have any meaning. Neither does logical argument.
But because of this they also have the problem that every doomsday cult in history runs into – what happens when you predict Thermageddon, go sit on the hill and wait for it, and then it doesn’t show up? What happens is that the general public moves on and forgets all about you, that’s what.
as willy wonka said, reverse that – supposed to say the belief that cooling means warming.
It’s actually worse than we thought:
Some have argued that the snow storms in the mid-atlantic are stronger because of the increase in water vapor in the atmosphere due to global warming. I don’t know what to make of that. The thing I have seen that does not support global warming is the cold that was experienced in Florida in January. Under a warming earth, we would expect the pole to equator difference in temperature to be smaller and therefore less cold intrusions into the south.
From the TIME article: About these two storms: The chance of that happening in the same winter is incredibly unlikely.
This statement appears to be from meteorologist Jeff Masters.
I’ll take issue with this. When global wind patterns shift and the polar front is south of its average location severe winter storms will appear along this stretch more frequently than would appear to be the normal if one just looks at the long term averages.
I believe this mistake stems from the common statement that climate is the average of weather. It is better to think of climates (note the s) as patterns of weather that move and change with the dynamics so often discussed here on WUWT. As Pielke Sr. states New England is certainly accustomed to these nor’easters. In an earlier post (see figure top), illustrates that the jet stream (as represented by the lower tropospheric temperature anomalies) was well south of its average position across the northern hemisphere. It is the polar jet stream which is where winter storms develop and intensify.
His reference to the polar jet stream and my wording ‘polar front’ are parts of the midlatitude weather systems.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/science_sky/96424
heh heh…its even more ironic that when a hot and sweaty spell was used by Hanson to scare Congress, in ’88 (???) another weather blip, a cold one and as totally unrelated to climate as Hansons ‘isn’t it hot today’ speech was, has made Congress stop in its tracks.
Oh…the poetry of it.
A load of of manure gets plowed in and has no long term effect on the odour of the countryside. bushy 2010. Need ideas here on fun project. http://bushynews.com/
Sitting in my office a block away from the White House right now and it’s awful (high winds/blowing snow).
I’ve lived here all my life and we “normally” get a storm such as the 30″ blizzard last weekend every year around President’s Day…..last weekend’s 30″ storm was our typical, annual, President’s Day storm.
We had a pretty big snowstorm on December 19th and a storm today; however, today’s storm isn’t the snowfall amounts, it’s the wind……….
The snowstorms that we’ve received this season are not “abnormal”…………it’s just that Washington DC is a “southern” city and not accustomed to dealing with large amounts of snow as would Buffalo (for instance). These storms are no more abnormal then Oklahoma Tornados or Florida Hurricanes…….they reoccur almost like clockwork here. Also, the local weather pundits like to sensationalize.
The fact that a large portion of the snow removal equipment is out of commission due to government incompetence is the major problem here today.
I remember as a teenager, after staying up late and telling ghost stories, sitting in the dark, my friend and I convinced each other that the room was shrinking. Defying all logic, I was so scared I had to run and get my mother.
The human mind is funny, it can look at the randomness of weather and convince itself of all kinds of logic defying things. Weather has been the result of the wrath of gods, the results of chants (Rain, rain go away, come again another day!) and now the result of the benign gas CO2.
Silly people.
“Joe Romm (and now picked up by Time Magazine) that the east coast snowstorms are indicators of global warming.”
____________
The older you get the more things change. And Not.
There was a day that if TIME had it between the covers you could pretty much figure it was so. The same could have been said about most of America’s top periodicals and newspapers. Now we have propaganda rags in place of these once great sources of news pushing corporate agendas. I guess the thing that hurts the most is that some worthless Tyme-Wernar, Ink., Haverd MBA kept the name TIME and turned it into a pathetic joke.
One day soon all the print of yesteryear will be history. When the last TIME is published don’t run out and buy a copy for ‘old times sake’ you’ll only be throwing your money away. TIME died years ago.
“Weather is what will happen next weekend; climate is what will happen over the next decades and centuries. And while our ability to predict the former has become reasonably reliable, scientists are still a long way from being able to make accurate projections about the future of the global climate.”
To me climate is compendium of past regional weather data over past decades, centuries, millennia, and longer periods of time. Climate data (history) may be indicative of future weather over varying time periods. Am I wrong?
The AGWers and MSM have cleverly merged weather and climate into synonyms that are applied to fit whatever circumstances they choose. Proper definition and use of these terms is essential for refutation of AGW rhetoric.
Ok Smokey, you got me……….I was all ready to point out that these scares have been going on for years and I figured it out……….
Science: Another Ice Age?
Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims… 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…………….
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html#ixzz0f9xPtGuL
Just something to think about. This Danish programmer took the NOAA original temprerature data from weather stations accross the globe. He calculted a global average and made his code open source. Never a hockey stick and even a little cooling in a remarcable stable global climate. http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2010/01/global-warming/
Another thing to follow is the composition of the Dutch IPCC delegation. (Warning Google translated from Dutch)
Today elsevier published that a full 109 of the 110 people of the government delegation were Alarmist. There were four prominent members of the environmental movement: Donald Pols of Friends of the earth, Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace, Arjette Stevens of Nature and Environment and Sven Teske of Greenpeace.
Steve Sawyer sailed on Greenpeace action ships and is described as one of the best lobbyists from Greenpeace. These four along with written recommendations for climate, which were taken by environment ministers in several countries – including Jacqueline Cramer (PvdA), who comes from the environmental movement.
The delegation (sent by the Dutch government, which also pays travel and subsistence) also included environmental and climate scientists who benefit from the commotion about global warming as the IPCC report describes controversial.
Main Suppliers were ECN (Netherlands Energy Research Center, propagandist of windmills and solar cells), RIVM (National Institute of Public Health and Environment) and the KNMI (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute).
There were also four consultants in that earned money with the climate of giving advice, says Elsevier.
Elsevier is now checking the academic background of these people but many dont hold a PhD or even a Bachelor in a relevant study.
>>Romm left science for agiprop many years ago. He served in the Clinton Admin in the Dept of Energy. He liked the politics and hasn’t looked back.
Too true. And now he is the mouthpiece for the Soros funded Center for American Progress on all things climate related.
He’s not a scientist, he’s a left wing propagandist.
Pascvaks (10:25:14) :
“Joe Romm (and now picked up by Time Magazine) that the east coast snowstorms are indicators of global warming.”
I keep looking upstream from the East Coast, trying to find that massive tropical heat wave.
Anybody’s seen my global warming dragon?
I left him tied up in Vegas, but he seem’s to have gotten off again.
Here spot, here boy. Come and get some nice jalapeno pepperoni.
Brute @ 10:22:18 says it’s the wind.
When just glancing at the “Live Stream of U.S. Capitol” nothing appears to be happening. Watch the darker areas with the background of trees and you can see the snow blowing sideways, from right to left. There is no accumulation of snow on the tree limbs as they shake violently at times.
[Opinion from Dec. 2009] RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/RFK-79834057.html
RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC
East Coast Blizzards equals Man-made global warming.
Tough sell.
And if that’s what it’s come to…
They’re on the losing end of that card game.
Paddy (10:31:50) : “The AGWers and MSM have cleverly merged weather and climate into synonyms that are applied to fit whatever circumstances they choose. Proper definition and use of these terms is essential for refutation of AGW rhetoric.”
Right you are, and it is a neverending battle as those who seek to control do so through deliberately re-forming meaning constantly in our living language.
Words change meaning, and those in the vanguard of the deliberate change then use them to manipulate those who think they understand what’s being said to them–two groups (deliberately) miscommunicating because they are working with differing accepted definitions.
Who controls language controls quite a bit, unfortunately.
Claims that the cold and snow are due to excess heat are absurd. Heat does not produce cold.
My 12 year old asked last night – “if all this warm air is going to the Arctic and melting the ice, shouldn’t it be warm here too?” I thought it over for a minute and told him that it made perfect sense.
DC – Baltimore. 30+ inches on the ground with more falling and considerable drifting.
For folks in NJ, NYC, Long Island and SE New England….do not be deceived about the light rain and the lull this morning.
Already that has begun to change.
A wall of white, a blinding winter cyclone, is cranking up and headed your way.
This AM I went running in a surprisingly intense wraparound snowband that set up over our area, as the arctic front collapsed toward the coast on west-southwest gales.
Rapid, explosive cyclogenesis off the Delmarva coast right now…so do not be deceived about the lull points north.
Make no mistake about it…a white hurricane is headed your way….
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
ShrNfr (09:39:57) :
(…) I predict ice age hysteria in about 30 years.
Why wait that long? We can get ahead of the curve, start now, and avoid the rush.
We’re about 2000 years overdue for the next ice age, long-term cycles are heading towards cooling, and the Sun is not cooperating.
Therefore we clearly need more nuclear power, right now. When the long-term cold hits, we will need reliable power. And travel could become restricted, we don’t want coal plants shutting down because the supply trains can’t get through. Northern reserves of oil and gas could become unreachable and unusable, as pumps and pipelines get buried under snow and ice. If we have to hunker down for a very long time, an energy supply that requires the least amount of transportation to produce and maintain would be best, and that is nuclear.
So bring on the ice age hysteria, and get those nuke plants built! Go with the “precautionary principle” as well, if we do get warming instead, well then, wasn’t carbon-free power what was needed anyway? Do it!
Pascvaks
There was a day that if TIME had it between the covers you could pretty much figure it was so. The same could have been said about most of America’s top periodicals and newspapers.
—————————————
I’m sure around the world most people thought that their own major, serious news outlets at least reported the facts honestly even if one found their opinions of what those facts meant debatable.
However, I have to wonder now how much of that confidence was always misplaced.
If it hadn’t been for the internet most of us would have had no solid reason to doubt the “scientific consensus”. Even if we had a vague doubt we may not have realised that anyone else in the world felt the same and we certainly wouldn’t have benefited from the information and dissection by those with the skills to evaluate the information.
If it wasn’t for the internet most of the MSM would still be suppressing any hint of scepticism – how often in the past have they done so with major issues, scientific or otherwise, while we have been blissfully unaware?
This is not inconsistent. There were times in the past where it was very cold
and temperatures were rising! There is a tipping point.
http://tinyurl.com/ylnxxfd
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/chinese-climatologist-ipcc-reform
Pascvaks wrote:
“The same could have been said about most of America’s top periodicals and newspapers. Now we have propaganda rags in place of these once great sources of news pushing corporate agendas.”
———————————————–
I grew up in the 1950’s and notice the same decline in reliability of print and broadcast media as you. I actually first started noticing this back in the late 60’s and early 70’s with the coverage of the Vietnam War. I’ve been a long-time listener of shortwave broadcasting (since I was ~10) and I’ve noticed the same on the radio dial. Everyone wants to push some agenda down your throat instead of just telling you what happened and letting you form your own opinions about it. It was a dark day indeed when I could no longer rely on VOA and BBC World Service to do what they used to do so well – just report the facts. What had been beacons of sanity had become no better than Radio Moscow or Radio Beijing.
But take heart pascvaks, there was a story floating around the net yesterday or the day before about Time’s circulation being down 9.1%. At that rate, they’re not long for this world.
To me, the role of the media in becoming shills for the AGW crowd verges on the criminal. Now that the AGW hypothesis is finally being exposed to the harsh light of reality, some media people and organisations are moving away from their previous positions, but the American press in particular, seen to have way too much invested in sticking with their AGW story, no matter how much it hurts them.
There are patterns of Natural Variability in the weather that have longer periods than younger people’s memory spans. I have put together a natural analog weather forecast using these sorts of patterns, that shows the repeating patterns are usable as a forecast.
Quite simply the last three times ~18 years apart we had this same type of weather shows up again this time. To look at Maps of the past weather, that work for forecasting the future, (Today even);
http://www.aerology.com/national.aspx
weather is how the natural variability is unfolding in this cycle, climate is the patterns generated over many compounding interacting cycles, of different lengths. To solve the weather or climate forecasting problem, all you have to do is demodulate the compound signal, into it’s separate component parts then, recombine the known parts to generate the on going pattern.
The more segments of the nonrandom cyclic components you can define and consider the more accurate the forecast. Obviously more cyclic components are yet to be identified and added to the methods that mainstream meteorological models are using.
Maybe the colder weather is the result of negative feedbacks from the recent warming (more evaporation, etc). Thus the positive feedback mechanisms may not be as significant as the IPCC have predicted.
This climatic balancing act probably happens as long as there is no other natural event affecting the system (eg volcanoes. rotation, etc).
Traditionally, March has some very bad blizzards as well.
Given the strength of the current and last Arctic Oscillations, we could see one in March and one in April this year if the AO keeps up.
Pop your popcorn and stock up!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Storm_of_the_Century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1888
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19820406&id=X_wxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YuQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2220,3459100
The only way that I find it useful to think about short term weather and long term climate together, is to use yearly and decadal temperature trends as a way to calibrate results of climate models. You can’t say a climate model has any relevance until it is well calibrated against reality (that is merely necessary, but not sufficient, to have any trust in climate models).
Romm is misguieded. He begs how can the message be changed so people will believe in warming to a greater extent. Well truth will help people believe it is cooling. George Soros has deep pockets and Romm will support the eco agenda.
He is paid to.
From the article:
“Weather is what will happen next weekend; climate is what will happen over the next decades and centuries. ”
I disagree. Weather is what will happen next weekend, next month, and for the rest of the year. But if the same “weather” happens for 3 or 5 or 10 years, then it’s climate.
What will happen in decades is still climate, but the probability is that it won’t be the same “climate” as “now”. What will happen in centuries is also climate, but the probability is that it won’t be the same “climate” as the intervening “decades.
Now THAT’S funny…
I can watch the snow scenes in Washington, New York and Philadelphia on Fox news.
Or I can look out the window here in Normandy, France and watch the snow scene. We have our own Nor’easter going too, 28 degrees and heavy snow falling. Six inches forecast…
wws (09:30:27) :
What must be driving Romm crazy is that even Dem senators now admit that Climate Change legislation is dead this session. They’re blaming it on the snowstorm, but as we know it was dead long before this
Not for a good lawyer. The devil’s counselor would say. See:
1.Snow it is made of water.
2.Water evaporates because of warming.
3.It’s global warming/climate change!
4.We must pass the Cap&Trade legislation urgently!
@ Luc VC (10:44:37)
Your information on the Dutch team is very interesting, it would be nice to see this information on other delegations, I have taken the liberty of quoting your comment on another site ,hope this is OK 🙂
Steve Goddard (10:57:21) :
Like a hot knife through the buttery logic.
Art Linkletter loved to get kids to talk.
Yes, if all that tropical searing-hot global warming air is headed to the Arctic to melt it, it should be 75 degrees shirt-sleeve weather in DC right now. The snow plow drivers would be sipping mai-tais at the pool, not pulled over in their plows in a sea of white slush.
When a meteorologist can’t take it any more:
Snowpocalyse now.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mCmNZkD2rQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Scence we’d like to see: Forecasting in a MAD Magazine Jugular Vein.
Anthony, can you add a laugh track for these type posts? It would spruce up the place and not leave a lot on the ground.
Now if it were 100 degrees wouldn’t that be proof of global warming, of course supported by the fraudulent hockey stick.
Weather isn’t climate but neither is atmospheric CO2.
Joe Romm and Joy Behar. what a team. They attack Gov Palin. She must be the threat to the planet. At least Gov Palin knows that you put water into the freezer it freezes. Can’t make bisquits in a freezer.
Freezing ice in a freezer is not a sign of warming.
Smokey, I loved this part:
We make it warm… We make it cool…. Man… are we awesome or what!!!!!!
Until a few months ago, people used to believe that snow was associated with cold weather. Humanity has since had an epiphany and has discovered that snow is now caused by heat, rather than cold.
“Sitting in my office a block away from the White House right now and it’s awful (high winds/blowing snow). I’ve lived here all my life and we “normally” get a storm such as the 30″ blizzard last weekend every year around President’s Day…..last weekend’s 30″ storm was our typical, annual, President’s Day storm.”
Normal, just more of it:
“Reagan National Airport (DCA) reported 1″ of snow last hour, upping its storm total (unofficially) to 9.7″. By our math, it now has received 54.8″ this year, exceeding the 54.4″ of 1898-1899.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/
I’ll have to differ with you. I grew up in NoVa (from the early 60s to 2002, Fairfax, Manassas, Reston, Herndon, Ashburn, Front Royal…), and these 30″ storms were very rare. I experienced only 2 of them in my lifetime. We night get 30″ over the course of an entire winter, but even that’s fairly unusual. And in DC the snowfall is almost always less than the suburbs (UHI and all).
This VA history of snowfall doesn’t bear out your claim either: http://www.vdem.state.va.us/newsroom/history/winter.cfm
Well if it was in the 60s and sunny in Washington, the Joe Romn would see that as a sign of an imminient tipping point.
You have to be very flexible with your interpretation of the climate system to find no problem with both weather patterns pointing to the same cause.
I guess every weather pattern between the two must also be due to AGW.
I guess this is what passes for science in the land of government grants.
Steve Goddard (12:01:48) I liked that word you used: Epiphany. Who’s the guy who suffered such a catharsis of libido?, Saint Al “Baby” perhaps?
You damn Yanks, your snow is falling on us here in the British Isles again. I want a Cap&Trade agreement between us immediately, whereby the USA pays Britain Billions of $ a year to cover the added costs of your cold weather – IPCC please note for AR5.
The change from the old, reliable news organs of years gone by to the politicised propaganda sheets is one of perception – the world now has the Internet, where you and I can access information we use as ‘truth tests’ for the veracity of statements our politicians make. From my general reading, I believe politicians have been quite liberal with the truth with the aid of a generally subservient MSM.
Intereting times, indeed. Thanks Anthony and crew!
Only if you can get the Top Gear guys to pronounce Prius, Hyundai, Nissan, and every other car name properly 😉
For all “new agers” : It’s AQUARIUS’ lady emptying her jug full of water!
The BBC’s Media Show today had an interesting discussion on the media’s involvement in hyping AGW, between Simon Jenkins of the Times, and Professor Lewis of the Cardiff school of journalism. Those in the UK can hear it again;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qj1qs
I burst out laughing when the Prof (apparently an AGW protagonist) started whingeing about the hard time the skeptics have been giving the Climate Scientists ……. and that the attacks had been unremitting for the last 20 years …
Unfortunately no-one in the studio had the wit to ask whether the UK climate had actually changed much over that period; and if not, wasn’t that a pretty good reason for giving the AGWers a hard time?
Latest news on the dutch climate fatalists .
According to a committee of dutch selfproclaimed climate scientists the turmoil about the ipcc-claims is nothing more than a storm in a pint of waterAGW stands as a rock and the little bit of smoke from the deniers does not change reality . Their reality of course , their annual grants are in jeopardy now and when you are totally dependent , then of course you behave like a slave of the AGW – singsong . It would be great when elsevier would find out how much these selfproclaimed scientists are cashing directly or indirectly from our dutch green , red and purple government . Only the copenhagen show was supported with over 1.000.000 euro government grants and a famous rioter was given hundreds of thousands euros to support his expensive hobbies , now our dutch parliament has an extra dotation for some wageningen scientists , which is in fact an agricultural university , but like in davis here are apparently the experts, for …………….
propaganda , to make the public aware of their facts . In their view anything is a fact as long as it supports their ideas of global warming and will bring them more financial gains . Who is going to teach them a lesson ?
Sometimes God or we do not need to do it , the climate itself will judge them .
“If it’s cool, it’s weather; if it’s warm, it’s climate.” Or again: All Climate Cultists cheat and lie, but not all cheaters and liars are Climate Cultists. Even yet: If AGW overheats all things, and only those things, that do not overheat themselves, does AGW overheat itself? Hint: If it does, it doesn’t; and if it doesn’t, it does. This “formally undecidable proposition” results from Epimonides’ Paradox of Contradictory Self-reference, which demolished Bertrand Russell and led to Godel’s Theorem concerning axiomatic-systems’ completeness and consistency (1932).
Warmists could do worse than scrutinize Kurt Godel, review Edward Lorenz’s Chaos Theory (1964), familiarize themselves with basic principles of thermodynamic Conservation Laws (see Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s paper in the “Journal of Modern Physics”, March 2009, equating any global atmospheric Greenhouse Effect with perpetual motion, manifestly violating Boltzman’s Law of Entropy). As asserted, AGW on Planet Earth is thus a logical fallacy (Godel); a mathematical fiction (Lorenz); and physically impossible (Boltzman). But, boy! do those Green Bucks roll in.
Smokey>> From the old TIME article:
Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F.
How does that compute in the light of the IPCC stated temperature rise since the 19th century? 🙂
@ Atomic Hairdryer (09:45:18) :
From a UK point of view. Two years ago we had a light sprinkling of early snow when our government was passing it’s climate bill. Last year we had heavier snow. This year it’s been heavier still. Once is natural variability, twice is coincidence, three times is Gaia with a sense of humour? Maybe it’s the Gore effect …”
Guido Fawkes, the UK’s gadfly political blogger, would argue that it’s actually Brown’s Jonah Curse, since whenever he endorses something it tends to collapse into ruin and chaos (a bit like our economy, that was one). And it was Brown who called us all flat-earthers ….
For instance:
http://order-order.com/2010/02/05/jonah-curses-toyota/
The flashing blink gif shows our Dear Leader incanting the spell …
WARNING! The comments (if you bother to read them) can be and usually invariably are deeply offensive to those of a sensitive disposition.
Global Warming causing blizzards etc is raising a laugh everywhere. However the suspicion is that had we not had Hockeystick, Yamal, Climategate, Glaciergate etc etc this nonsense would have been swallowed whole by a lot of people, including the ‘Climate Correspondents’ in the MSM who have jobs depending on the whole scam.
@ David Holliday (09:39:48) :
“The flaw in that logic is that weather is what we experience. Proponents can trumpet Global Warming all they like but when the weather that people are experiencing is colder and snowier that noise will fall on deaf ears.”
Ah, David, but they have a cunning plan to deal with that. I suggest you find a couple of matchsticks to keep your eyes open while you read this:
“The Social Simulation of the Public Perception of Weather Events and their Effect upon the Development of Belief in Anthropogenic Climate Change”
http://www.tyndall.uea.ac.uk/sites/default/files/wp58.pdf
Try the diagram on page 10. You’ll be immediately convinced.
Snowing again at the moment down here in Sunny Sussex b the sea. Very unusual to get this much snow in this part of England!
I was expecting to see the effects of the slow start to solar cycle 24 in a couple of years and I find it worrying that the effects are happening so soon. Thank goodness it’s only weather 🙂
“But take heart pascvaks, there was a story floating around the net yesterday or the day before about Time’s circulation being down 9.1%. At that rate, they’re not long for this world.”
I saw a recent copy in my hospital’s waiting room that was so thin that I couldn’t believe it was really Time magazine. Ads are obviously way, way down. The clock is indeed ticking.
Democrats predicted NO SNow.
http://www.blip.tv/file/3199262/
People are hurting.
Oh, I’ve already seen the beginnings of it.
Deconstruction has entered science in the guise of climatology. Cherry picking data and events to support the answer you think is socially correct or supports you’re own agenda.
I wish they’d stop saying “the basic science is robust.” It isn’t robust it’s plain “bust”.
FWIW:I think the DC area now has had the snowiest winter on record with over 55 inches of snow (reported on TV — it’s hard to find actual numbers). Here in the Balt-DC corridor the storm supposed to last until 10PM with another 4 inches expected.
Not quite clear here …
Why is a respected Scientist like Pielke Sr. responding to any claim “elevated” by Joe Romm? Romm is a complete wack-job who, if he were in the latter stages of hypothermia and Goldman Sachs reps arrived at his door to steal his last winter fuel dime, would still be claiming that the forests are on fire and we are all going to die. [snip], if the guy had no money he would be wandering up and down high street with a placard.
The guy lives in his own world with a few accollites (I went to CP earlier, just to check). I wish I could claim that he just does it all for the money but no – he really has simply lost the plot.
I once had a Prof. who, when questioned (about a very basic matter), headed to the door with her fingers stuck in her ears chanting la..la..la (no joke)
Romm is that Prof. I wish I could offer some sympathy (and a dime or two in his can) but he really is such a nasty piece of work that I just have to laugh as each piece of the collapse hits him square on the head.
Should Pielke Sr. really be spending any valuable time on “Romm Rants”?
How about – yea Joe, warming is cooling, more is less, high is low and blow me – we are the anti-science. [self snip rest of rant…]
Jeff Alberts (12:49:23) :and Bob (Sceptical Redcoat)
But does any self respecting US show have this?
The WINTER OLYMPICS should have been held in DC and Virginia this year.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
What with the snow in the UK a few weeks ago and what looks like a bit more snow tomorrow, I got to thinking about the whole ‘models say increased winter precipitation will occur; hence more snow’ idea. The first thing was to Google winter precipitation and the general idea and impression is this will mean milder winters i.e. more water vapour in the air, and the chance of cold but more rain. Now there is a reason for this which I’ll come to in a minute.
The second little surprise to me (being an empirical physicist and engineer) was Nature’s little show and tell when the snow had come down and took a long time to melt/be cleared (please insert comment about councils here if you see fit). I found out a number of things:
1) When the snow is lying on the ground the surface temperature is colder than when its not (I’m not messing around with this one, just saying)
2) Humidity goes down i.e. the air is a lot dryer
3) The air is generally a lot stiller as well on average (yes there are biting winds) but the air doesn’t feel as warm. Clouds are not as low or as heavy except when another dump or rain is coming.
Now with regards to physics this makes sense. Snow drops surface temperatures, freezes out any vapour close to the surface, thus reducing humidity and dew point, takes a long time to melt and in the process keeps the surface colder (latent heat of fusion) and lets not forget the increased albedo. It’s one big carpet of negative feedback. In fact you could even go as far to say that the heat transfer process becomes dominated by radiative heat transfer because local convection is reduced. The only way the snow goes away in fact is if a warm or wet weather front comes in from somewhere warmer and wetter, otherwise it just sits there waiting on the seasons. Now this may be a bit of a generalisation but how exactly is this snow fall caused by ‘winter precipitation’ going to produce more winter precipitation in the same region once the snow has fallen and sticks? And how is this going to be congruent with an increased surface temperature throughout the winter to produce more winter precipitation?
A logical answer would be well it doesn’t does it? If there is increased winter precipitation then the only chance of maintaining it is if it falls as rain and the surface never freezes over to cause a negative feedback. Then the local evaporation cycle would be maintained without dealing with phase changes in water (as in ice to water) and the shift in local atmospheric constituents and thermodynamics. So either I’m just way off the mark or using the winter precipitation is snow argument is all a load of porkies
@Tenuc (14:47:25) :
“Snowing again at the moment down here in Sunny Sussex b the sea. Very unusual to get this much snow in this part of England!”
Glad to see there are other South Saxons around, feels comradely. Easy to imagine one’s alone in heresy. I’ve been in Sussex for 24 years now and these last winters have certainly been harder than I remember (not that I’ve kept records). As you say …
“Thank goodness it’s only weather :-)” 🙂
“supercritical (12:55:30) :
The BBC’s Media Show today had an interesting discussion on the media’s involvement in hyping AGW, between Simon Jenkins of the Times, and Professor Lewis of the Cardiff school of journalism. ”
Simon Jenkins now writes for the Guardian (and the Sunday Times but was there for the Guardian) and smugly said that his paper had reviewed all the IPCC information and found that it was all still correct (my bad paraphrasing). So that’s all right then. I guess the next review can cite the Guardian as having peer reviewed their work to add gravitas.
“Jeff Alberts (12:49:23) :
Bob (Sceptical Redcoat) (12:41:19) :
You damn Yanks, your snow is falling on us here in the British Isles again. I want a Cap&Trade agreement between us immediately, whereby the USA pays Britain Billions of $ a year to cover the added costs of your cold weather – IPCC please note for AR5.
Only if you can get the Top Gear guys to pronounce Prius, Hyundai, Nissan, and every other car name properly ;)”
Get real, you yanks, it’s you lot that can’t speak proper english!!!
Magazines like Time were probably feeding us as much BS two decades ago as now, but how would we know? The web has made it much harder to economize with the truth. Though the print media are certainly trying.
Romm is clearly a malignant narcissist. You can easily see that in his blog. As such, he will never admit he was wrong. To do so would destroy him as he has to believe he is smarter and better than everyone else.
In addition, he also believes that everyone else is just like him and has exactly the same motivations. People like Romm project constantly. If you want to know what he thinks of himself just read his comments on others.
Bridget H-S (16:00:45):
“Get real, you yanks, it’s you lot that can’t speak proper english!!!”
That is no doubt true. But remember, we learned it from our British ancestors ☺
“weather is not climate unless it supports global warming department”,
this is a more perfect way to put it
http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2009/03/great_lakes_have_seen_a_30_dro.html
This article shows 30% drop in ice coverage since 1979. Actually I’m surprised the article above put all its eggs in one basket with 2008 2009 larger ice extent. After all one winter does not disprove AGW. Its the long term average.
I think Time magazine is just after some of that sweet “Onion” ad revenue.
re: the lights on the dome. So much for making sure the grid stays on for folks who need to warm their apartments and houses during this blizzard. Tell you what Obummer. Turn the damn lights off, those big ones that light up the sky, and give the saved dollars and cents to the little ol’ lady who collects cats so that she can heat her house. On your dime. Now that would make perfect climate sense.
Smokey (10:16:52) : “It’s actually worse than we thought:”
I followed the link. You debbil, you!
Bill Nye (the Science Guy) declared only minutes ago on the Rachael Maddow show that those who’ve responded to the unprecedented snow (72″ in DC?!) from the ongoing blizzards on the Atlantic Coast with any second thoughts about Climate Change are “unpatriotic.”
No kidding…
Any lingering doubts over whether celebrity alarmist “science guys” have become downright political street walkers are, I think, at an end.
Great Lakes Ice, I’m not seeing much yet this year and I live about a half mile north of the bridges in Port Huron MI. Right now I can see water all the way east to Canada, and I actually expected a lot of ice this year. All summer the weatherman said “record lows” or “near record lows” all summer so I figured the big water would be cooler than normal but it’s actually disappointing. actually the local weather was worried that last week’s storm would be a Nor’easter for us because the lakes weren’t frozen but nothing special happened.
Oh you poor things….
I sit here watching birds flutter about a sun splashed back yard in tropical North Queensland… It’s 32 degree celsius, a soft breeze is blowing…. It’s hard. But somebody has to do it.
…. oh, there’s a spangled drongo…..
Sure is a truckload of really angry Rommulans over on CP…all 10 of them!!
Seems even the CRU thought something was rotten in the state of Denmark.
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-climategate-shocker-even-cru.html
J.Hansford (19:25:16) :
Oh you poor things….
I sit here watching birds flutter about a sun splashed back yard in tropical North Queensland… It’s 32 degree celsius, a soft breeze is blowing…. It’s hard. But somebody has to do it.
…. oh, there’s a spangled drongo…..
——
Whatever happened to Spangled Drongo? I miss his contributions – but especially seeing his tag.
I enjoy it when people post what the weather is doing where they are. Learning that it’s snowing in Normandy is oddly comforting, as is the weather report from J. Handsford’s backyard in North Queensland. My beloved late aunt in Cardiff always used to send long missives with half the pages devoted to weather details, which I was puzzled at when young but now understand. Learning about what the weather’s doing elsewhere right now makes the rather grim (and this year boring) Toronto winter seem more evanescent. BTW my sons are envious of the people in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. – they have the snowballs and snow days that we’re not getting here.
3×2 (15:29:57):
I don’t believe he is wasting his time. Every time one of this myth mechants lies we need to call for the truth. I am grateful to Dr. Pielke for risking his refutation to refute the false accusations that every crisis in the world is caused by AGW.
Please, please, please Anthony do introduce all your weather posts with
This short phrase lets warmists who read your website know that we are onto their double standards and hypocracy.
@Kevin MI
“Some have argued that the snow storms in the mid-atlantic are stronger because of the increase in water vapor in the atmosphere due to global warming. I don’t know what to make of that. ..”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Note the examples about end-of-the-world religions. When the end of the world does not arrive, the faithful do not give up their religion. Instead, they invent new excuses for why it did not happen, which often become increasingly bizarre in an attempt to retain the critical parts of their belief against overwhelming evidence….
Quit reading Time magazine years ago. My father always read it and I followed suit, being a faithful subscriber for years, even when we were really hard up for cash.
Then I started noticing something. When covering topics I knew something about, Time always had a subtle twist on the story. Not really false, but not really in line with the facts either. Once I noticed this, it became obvious the writers were twisting the story to fit their view.
I asked myself a very simple question: If Time is not getting it right on the things I know something about, how do I know they are telling the whole truth about matters I am ignorant of?
At that point, I swore I would never read another Time magazine as long as I lived. Haven’t and won’t.
All the comments here about the demise of Time as a source of news are right on the nail. It is only a matter of time before time runs out on Time.
Kevin MI (10:18:39) :
“The thing I have seen that does not support global warming is the cold that was experienced in Florida in January. ”
This has been particularly hard on the manatee.
As feared, Manatee mortality due to cold stress shot through the roof in January. Year-to-date perliminary numbers indicated 77 deaths through January 23:
http://myfwc.com/NEWSROOM/10/statewide/News_10_X_ManateeCold1.htm
But in the most up-to-date numbers, current thrrough February 7, the number has shot to 165!
http://research.myfwc.com/engine/download_redirection_process.asp?file=Feb09.pdf&objid=19105&dltype=article
The average cold stress death total for the same time period, over the last 5 years is only 10!
“climate is what we expect weather is what we get”
M. Twain
DM Dickson (18:37:10) :
Bill Nye (the Science Guy) declared only minutes ago on the Rachael Maddow show that those who’ve responded to the unprecedented snow (72″ in DC?!) from the ongoing blizzards on the Atlantic Coast with any second thoughts about Climate Change are “unpatriotic.”
No kidding…
Any lingering doubts over whether celebrity alarmist “science guys” have become downright political street walkers are, I think, at an end.
Well, maybe not in this case.
Bill Nye and Ed Begley Jr. have been in a “greener than thou” competition for years, starting when they became neighbors. Both are very eco-minded, with the cash and time to invest in whatever looks best, never mind any “payback period.” Solar panels, home gardens, rainwater collection, etc.
And both are now seeing just how badly they have been lied to, and both are… going nuts.
Now would be a good time for Hollywood mental health professionals to offer Green Disease recovery. Maybe Bill and Ed can join a therapy group.
With the comments about the transition from ‘weather’ to ‘climate’ one needs to remember…the Climate Prediction Center starts their climate forecasts period 2 weeks into the future.
There is the short-term climate, medium-term climate & long-term climate. However, it is all averaged weather.
Climate *is* weather…averaged.
Regards,
Jeff
Climate Progress has a piece denigrating Andy Revkin for daring to challenge, ask questions about AGW orthodoxy. Also, another funny piece about Anthony Watts’ conflict of interest for selling weather stations. I wrote this. It disappeared from the “moderated” pile to the wastebasket in minutes. Having written it, thought it might amuse your readers. ….Lady in Red
“I dunna know, folk! This isn’t hanging together for me, and I’m not even a scientist.
But what I “see” as a reader is hysterical AGW screaming. There is no “science” that is allowed challenging AGW. It’s all lockstep: more warming, more warming.
I watched an interview on the BBC with the head of the British Met Office which missed predicting the awful snow storms there at the end of December. He hemmed about that mistake, admitted, sadly, that seasonal weather predictions were much much tougher to do than anything else — and the Met Office was working on that. Finally, he explained, beaming, that what the Met Office did really perfectly was predict long term climate change. Is that funny? From the people who can’t get the weather right next week, or the seasons, we’re supposed to believe their long term climate models? Why?
The folk on the “other side of the aisle” – those who contend we’re not warming at all; those who contend we may be warming, but we can’t affect it significantly; those who contend warming ain’t all bad – there seems to be a consistent impartial (attempt, anyway…) to examine facts and data. They “call” the AGW group the AGW group.
You, on the “other side,” don’t communicate with scientific dispassion. There is a kind of hysteria over here. Anyone who asks a question is an “anti-science denier.” Is that nice? Poor Andy Revkin writes a thoughtful piece, and I’m imagining one of you putting a bomb in his mailbox! Never read Revkin again! No! Cover my ears, close my eyes and scream lalalalala until he disappears!
And, you’re the “science side” of this argument? It is unattractive, at the least.
I was also amused by your charge of Anthony Watts’ conflict of interest because he sells weather stations! Say what? The money that is flowing into the AGW community is awesome. Is there anyone in the US who has gotten any NSF grant in the last half dozen years challenging or checking any AGW hypothesis? Maybe one? Smile…. For balance…?
I would like to read a more nuanced blog here, without the damning snipes at Revkin, the revulsion at Watts, etc. Hell, I like Jeff Id at NoConsenses.com, too. He has an interesting piece, today, about the assumptions which must be confirmed in order to “play” in the IPCC funding game. I dunno. It was thoughtful, which is more than I’m seeing on this side of the church.
PS: And why I ask myself is it necessary for you and DeepClimate and Real Climate to moderate comments? Don’t you want an honest exchange of ideas? And ClimateAudit, NoConsenses and WattsUpWithThat do not. (Steve McIntyre snips rants sometimes, once in a blue moon, to maintain quality of tone, or off-topic stuff, but that’s all.) Why is the “science side” so fascistic about controlling ideas, thoughts?”
To J. Hansford,
Summer in north Queensland sounds delightful. I have just finished shoveling the driveway and sidewalks clear of approximately 17 inches of snow here south of Baltimore, Maryland. While my muscles are sore, I console myself with the thought that every such winter storm increases the probability that the atrophied brains of our dinosaur-like U.S.A. politicians will awaken to the wild exaggeration of the effects of man-made CO2.
Romm is saying Permanent dust bowls. Not rare, not cycles but permanent
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/26/noaa-climate-change-irreversible-1000-years-drought-dust-bowls/
When he jumps on the band wagon and claims wet and extreme weather events were predicted by his model, It looks like he is flip flopping and thinks no one reads.