While the squabbling continues on MSNBC (see Bill Nye here and Morano with the American Progress guy here, and by all means don’t miss this Olberman rant ) over whether the big Washington DC snow means anything, the venue of the argument is about to shift west. The argument may stop in Dallas, TX along the way west.
The Times reports: Too much snow forces Scottish resort to close
One of the low elevation Vancouver skiing venues (Cypress Mountain) is short on snow this year due to El Nino, and the Global Warming machine is soon going to saturate the news with this story. It has already started and is ramping up.
VANCOUVER, B.C. — One morning last week, environmentalist David Suzuki looked across English Bay from his Vancouver home to Cypress Mountain, usually covered in snow this time of year but now left all but bare by a warm winter.
“I’ve watched in horror as the snow has just melted away from Cypress Mountain,” Suzuki said, referring to the 2010 Olympic Games snowboarding and freestyle skiing venue. The view from Vancouver, Suzuki and others say, provides a glimpse into the future for the Winter Olympics.
Cypress Mountain (yellow insert) from NASA’s Earth Observatory
UPDATE: Image above and NASA Earth Observatory writes:
In early February 2010, organizers were putting the finishing touches on venues for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. Two months earlier, on December 6, 2009, the Thematic Mapper Plus on NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite captured a detailed image of the area where the games will be held.
The image on the left provides a view of the area from Vancouver northward to the Whistler skiing village. Areas outlined in yellow delineate close-up views on the right. The top close-up shows venues near the village of Whistler, where Nordic and alpine skiing events will be held. The bottom close-up shows Cypress Mountain, the planned venue for freestyle skiing and snowboarding, among other events.
Throughout the scene, snow blankets the highest peaks, and low-angled sunlight illuminates south-facing slopes while leaving north-facing slopes in shadow. Valleys and lower slopes are lush green. The venues near Whistler appear as patchworks of green forest interrupted by long, thin trails of snowy white. Just north of the city of Vancouver, Cypress Mountain also holds snowy ski trails, but overall has far less snow.
After unusually warm conditions in January 2010, snow remained scarce on Cypress Mountain. The Los Angeles Times reported that snow was being trucked to Cypress Mountain from higher elevations, and Vancouver Now reported that organizers had placed tubes filled with dry ice on courses to keep surrounding snow from breaking down. A surprise snowstorm struck on February 10, just two days before the games opened, boosting the snowpack. The snowstorm did not, however, change the short-term forecast for rain.
Never mind that most of the ski areas in the world are having excellent seasons, including other Olympic venues like Whistler – which has already received over 1,000 cm of snow this winter. Arizona Snowbowl has received 238 inches of snow this winter! You read that correctly – Arizona.
Squaw Valley, California (site of the 1960 Winter Olympics) is reporting at least 10 feet of snow on the ground. Ski conditions around Salt Lake City (site of the 2002 Olympics) are excellent. Wolf Creek, Colorado is reporting close to ten feet on the ground. European ski areas are reporting excellent snow. Pajarito Mountain, New Mexico is reporting one of their best ski seasons ever. North Carolina ski areas are reporting some of their best conditions ever. Scotland is reporting the best ski conditions in 50 years. Washington DC is shut down due to snow.
Most of the ski areas in British Columbia have excellent snow, but be assured that the press will highlight the one area which doesn’t – and will not provide a sensible explanation for the cause. They will blame it on global warming, and will intentionally ignore ski conditions in most of the globe.
The glass is 10% empty, not 90% full.
Climate change blamed for Olympic snow shortage
Winter snow season has been slowly shrinking in past 50 years, says researcher
This graphic might help some people understand the winter weather patterns in an El Nino year. Same thing happened in 1998. Note where Vancouver is: in the warm pattern.
No amount of proof will ever convince the warmers that AGW is false. Some of these folks are not grounded in reality. Here’s a classic example:
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid argues that income taxes are voluntary.
Other examples;
-The left arguing that “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms” does not apply to the people.
-Others from the left saying the American people should be required to preform service for the government despite the 13th amendment’s ban on slavery and involuntary servitude. (i.e. Charlie Rangel’s Bill the Universal National Service Act)
It seems like a form of insanity. Sorry if this sounds somewhat OT, but the philosophy of disputing reality seems to be a common thread.
Remember, everything is due to Global Warming and what isn’t is Bush’s fault.
A common Winter passtime for residents of Vancouver (I lived there for 10 years) is to brag about the mild weather that the city experiences in February while folks on the East Coast of the country are still gripped by winter. “The weather?” they would often say to their relatives in Toronto. “Why it’s balmy here! I can see crocuses blooming in my garden. How’s the weather in Toronto? Three feet of snow today? Wow that’s too bad.”
Now, of course, they’re up in arms about the same thing they were wont to brag about.
They don’t call it “The Wet Coast” for nothing. That’s the reason for this joke: “What comes after three days of rain in Vancouver? Monday!”
Ironic, as Vancouver is also wont to brag that it is one of the greenest cities in the world and has pledged to be “the” greenest by 2020.
All that granola eating green living promoted by David Nutzuki for the last 10 years hasn’t helped to bring snow to Cypress Mountain. And yes, camera angles, proximity of five star hotels and other business interests is what led to the boneheaded decision to hold events at Cypress and not at Whistler Mountain.
UK Sceptic (00:11:46) :
(…)
How stupid do these people think we are?
Gordon Brown in the UK, Kevin Rudd in Australia, Barack Obama in the USA… Ah heck, toss in Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
The “evidence” would seem to support the assertion that the general population can be very stupid indeed. Although I would rather believe it demonstrates the effectiveness of the refined science of marketing, especially when selling something that is not exactly the truth.
UKIP (22:37:22) : I agree. This is a different El Nino. See>JonesII (07:17:52) :
Vancouver (Can) always has been one of my all time favorite cities. One of its perpetual tourist teasers, has been that you can go to the beach for a picnic, and then go skiiing all on the same day.
It’s still one of my favorite places; as is the whole of BC, and Western Canada for that matter. Not that I have anything against Eastern Canada; just never been there.
Good luck for the games; too bad that Lindsay Vonn, may not be up at the starting gates; Olympic opportunities only come for a short time. But she will leave her mark on competition skiing; games or no games.
I’ve been enjoying all the snow for skiing here in AZ. 🙂
JonesII: “not a usual el Nino, so let’s try to dig in it and see if we can find a more thoughtful explanation.”
An El Nino combined with a negative Arctic Oscillation seems reasonable.
I’ve had the worst experience skiing at cypress-in Feburary-it is the nature of a ski area on the freaking coast!You’d have as much luck holding the Winter games in Phoenix Az! maybe better.
Arrgh!..
Coos Bay, Seattle,Astoria,Vancouver,even Ketchican-all the same type of
maritime climate!…
“I’ve watched in horror as the snow has just melted away from Cypress Mountain,” Suzuki said,
I think that was Chicken Little’s reaction to the acorn too.
Here’s the one indiputable fact:
In the midst of all these records being set, we have the wamest January (GLOBALLY), on record. These may or may not be related, except for the fact that they happened on the same planet at about same time. What it does though is to point at a possible (but hardly definitive) cause-effect. Now if we’d had the coldest January of all time, that might also be pointing toward some cause-effect. But that’s not the case…
BBC still lying. PM programme says that there is no snow on Cypress Mountain, however Cypress website says:
February 12, 2010 at 8:00am ie 2 hours ago
Weather Conditions: High Overcast
Temperature: 3 C
New Snow (Last 24 hrs): 15 cm
Snow Depth (Mid Mtn.): 265 cm
I live in BC and yes, it’s been an incredible winter. Here in the interior of the province there’s hardly any snow except higher up.
Let’s compare that to the past two winters that were exceptionally cold and snowy, even Vancouver itself got more than its fair share, and it was cold well into the spring. My last year’s calendar notes the last of the snow on the Adam’s Plateau wasn’t gone until June 9 when it’s normally gone in May. Except that was supposedly global warming too. Tricky stuff, that global warming. Puts one in mind of the old saying, ‘to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail’. I know what I’d like to do with that hammer – drive the last nail into the coffin of AGW hysteria.
Squalor and Genamum (07:39:43) :
If they were sharp, they’d just send Al Gore to visit Vancouver.
=================================================
Ah yes, the Gore Effect.
LOL
Sean Peake (09:51:45) :Absolutely!…but let’s dig deeper. Let’s see what the other guys say about it.
Anthony-
I just want to say that this blog is really great. Those of us with an interest in the “climate thing” are free to comment instantaneously from all over the world-
Australia/New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, UK, Germany, Russia(?), USA and Canada coast to coast, and many other countries. Such a change from the “bad old days” when one in a hundred might get a letter published in an internationally-circulated magazine. And many thanks for getting the ball rolling with the survey of ground weather stations. I think that things have snowballed far beyond your wildest imaginings!
IanM [in New Brunswick, where the winter has generally been milder and less snowy than usual. It’s plus 5°C today here in the south of the province].]
Suzuki “watched in horror as the snow melted”? Up here in Canada, half of it locked in permafrost, we watch with joyful tears as the $%^&*#@ur momisugly snow melts.
Hey, Suzuki, there’s plenty of room on Ellesmere Island, and the snow never melts there. Never. Move there and leave us alone.
JonesII: I can’t figure out how Piers Corbyn figured out an M-Class flare would occur. The timing is perfect for his forecast.
If memory serves, the issue of adequate snow on Cypress Mountain was known and discussed during the process of bidding to host the games. Options such as trucking in snow were even discussed at this time. Anyone who lives in the area knows this. The fact that it is now being touted by Suzuki and regurgitated by media as proof of climate change should only damage their credibility.
I love to watch winter olympics. It´s sad but the current weather will probably make it a little more difficult for Vancover to succed in having a great olympics games.
kadaka (09:26:55)
It is not so much stupidity as a talent for mass manipulation. GW scientists have imparted this successfully as governments are sponsoring their research.
Politicians voted in are now a popularity contest and not actual issues.
All it takes is a good speech righter (ops sorry), writer and some overpaid psychologists that plan out the manipulation.
Mind you, the SSDD in schools have been taught for years, so where is the higher education? Dump on more junk theories?
MJK (07:39:50) :
Don’t worry.
I wasn’t worrying MJK. You’re side is losing.
But thanks for the concern.
How’s the weather under the bridge?
Like many BC bloggers have already noted the weather in southern Bc is typical and comparable to other El Nino years . It should be no surprise that there is more rain than snow as the Enviornment Canada web page shows. Sounds like Suzuki is unfamiliar with his own contrie’s weather experts.
http://www.msc.ec.gc.ca/education/elnino/canadian/region/index_mean_e.cfm?region=southern_bc
Sorry, here it ends the sentence: …by the late Theodore Landscheidt.
I just pressed enter accidentally. Here the end of the sentence:
….studied by the late Theodore Landscheidt