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.
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I skied Cypress every year over the past 15 years. Always a crapshoot as far as snow quality/availability, that’s why I never bothered buying a pass. Current situation reminds me of a few years ago, when I skied there on a perfect day, sunny, -10C, 6 feet of hardpack in December (this year, I skied there in December at -5C, sunny and 5 feet of hardpack). Then the next day, temperature shot up to +10C, skies opened for 3 days of downpour. The place is right on the Pacific coast, you can see the ocean from the chair – 3 days later, the place was totally green, top-to-bottom (worse than now). No snow until March, when the temperature plunged and the incessant rain we always get here in winter was coming down as snow. We skied in March. This is how this place is. Last year, we had 2 feet of snow and 6 weeks of freezing temps in Nov-Jan – never happened before in my lifetime. Nobody dared to bleat about global warming then, the entire city shut down (only a few have winter tires here, almost never snows in winter). I loved the last winter – white paradise. Suzuki is a local PC hero – what else is he supposed to spew about – this stuff brings him funding and he’s not about to admit that he was wrong all these times and retire.
JonesII (05:13:12)
“…What if this is instead related to the change in geomagnetic fields, as pointed out by our friend Vuk, which is changing the patterns of winds, currents, displacement of north magnetic pole to Siberia, etc…..”
Ocean currents, Geomagnetic field (GMF) and the Earth climate appear to be inextricably linked. Changes in GMF may act either in very short term (as per Svensmark) or long term via bidirectional feedback between the GMF and the oceans’ currents:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC8.htm
There is also a profound long term link between the Sunspot intensity and the GMF:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC9.htm
Of course these may be coincidences, and science will treat them as such, unless a convincing transfer mechanism is postulated.
More magnetic graphs on:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/GandF.htm
On your planet? Not mine; not here in Texas anyway.
Can I summarize: “You’re nuts”. Or the conjurers of the figures you quote are …
Therein lies a problem with so-called one-number characterizations of an issue; IFF you could accurately cite for me the global thermal budget (solar thermally radiated energy in + geothermal vs earth radiated energy out) THEN it might be on the road to being meaningful.
.
@MJK (07:39:50) :
Don’t worry. I doubt they will get much media attentioin for this argument. It will be drowned out by the loud chorus of sceptics who are claining the snow storms in DC is proof that AGW is false. This group has become the new experts at using isoltaed weather events to push their views. Many sceptics are no better than the so called “warmists/alarmists/trolls etc..” that they so much despise. If you want proof, just look back on this blog for the last few weeks.
Now there is the rub, right? One thing you didn’t mention, however, is that since the CAGW crowd has been running around pointing out specious connections between weather and climate for years, folks are conditioned to think that weather events are directly connected to climate. Their own creation, a population that sees signs of climate around every corner, is majority responsible for the backlash we’re witnessing.
I can only speak for myself, but I always crack jokes about “must be global warming” or “OMG get the global-warming shovels out” not because I believe that weather=climate, but because I believe that the CAGW crowd chasing every seemingly spurious weather event and saying “look its global warming” was ridiculous to begin with.
With the current situation, by all means I am egging it on, not because I really believe we’re experiencing global cooling – but as a way of pointing out to those I associate with that reading the weather as tea leaves is an absolutely ridiculous exercise to begin with.
vukcevic (11:15:44) :
unless a convincing transfer mechanism is postulated
As Piers Corbyn suggests: Solar flares, solar “wind”, Solar Weather Impact Periods (SWIPs),…
And, if electric sky guys are right, then, the solar wind, being a current between the anode sun and cathode earth would affect GMF’s and climate, and this phenomena could be also affected by the moon’s position, that is why he points always at third quarter positions when forecasting those SWIP.
R. Gates (09:59:07) :
Here’s the one indiputable [sic] fact:
In the midst of all these records being set, we have the wamest January (GLOBALLY), on record.
In the troposphere, maybe, though adjustments have yet to be made. Does that portend future higher temps, or is it indicative of outward energy flux portending continuing decline in surface temps?
Make of that what thou whilst: I just found a german language news article that explains “worldwirde extreme weather” (meaning this winter) with El Nino. Congrats. Even more surprising is that the german words for “climate change” and “global warming” don’t appear anywhere in the article.
I don’t know what irritates me more, the extreme propaganda of the BBC or the strange silence in Germany, given that both the UK and Germany are victims of Kyoto.
http://nachrichten.t-online.de/extremwetter-schnee-duerre-hitze-warum-das-wetter-verrueckt-spielt/id_21724416/index
If you all check out Cypress using google earth, you can see the Pacific water from the mouintain top view. Looks like around 1 mile away.
265 cm snow depth.
MJK: Philadelphia got a bit more snow than in 1899. Let’s just say that 1899 and 2010’s winter look pretty similar. The AGW hypothesis posits that the earth is warming, caused by industrial CO2 emissions. How is it then that this winter looks exactly like the winter in 1899? My hypothesis is that there was no statistically significant warming. That’s why these two winters can look so similar. Prove me wrong without using the data homogenization tricks of GISS that nobody outside GISS can justify.
[REPLY – No need to homogenize. Pasteurization should prove quite sufficient. ~Evan]
It’s always Marcia, Marcia (10:38:53) :
“You’re side is loosing.”
It is rather sad that you see this as a competition- but not surprising. Many sceptics are driven by an ideological hatred of environmentalists and thus attack AGW merely because of its “association” with the environment movement. It’s a bit like a group of sixth graders saying—Ha Ha you loose, you stupid greenies.
And yes, talking to you on your level, I agree that sceintists trying to spread the message about AGW are “loosing” their battle. It is a classic case of shoot the messanger being pursued by people such as yourself. Let’s not foget the global climate continues to warm and set new records, despite all the US scentirc noise on this blog about local snow storms.
The warmth in Vancouver is no differnt to the cold in the south and east. IT IS CALLED WEATHER and a buckled Jet Stream caused in part by El Nino. New Orleans is going to 10 degrees COLDER than Vancouver tonight. Don’t tell Joe Romm over at Climate Progress. He made fun of an Olympic Committee Chairman in Vancouver who blamed on El Nino. Joe Romm pontificated that it was AGW, (Of course he left out the record cold in the south and added the snow storms in the East were also caused by AGW) pretty much calling him an idiot. I think he truly believes what he says……Well as hard as it is to swallow…..Maybe not. Sincerely, John
“MJK (11:46:16) :
[…]
And yes, talking to you on your level, I agree that sceintists trying to spread the message about AGW are “loosing” their battle. ”
Maybe because of weak, exaggerated, spurious, dubiously sourced, falsified and non-existent evidence?
R. Gates (09:59:07) The following graph is from the UN’s FAO, look at Figure 9.1 in page 50:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
This is real, and it correlates perfectly with: GMF
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LOD-GMF.gif
So, don’t be cheated by that Vodoo Gaia cult and its prophet Al “Baby”.
JonesII: Landscheidt was frighteningly accurate, too. I hope his forecast is wrong now, though, or we’re all in a mess of trouble. (I think I’ll move south)
“MJK (11:46:16) :
[…]
global climate continues to warm and set new records, despite all the US scentirc noise on this blog about local snow storms.”
Define local. Does Northern Europe count? I know it’s a small continent so let’s add Russia up to Siberia. Oh heck let’s include Mongolia:
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/39634/icode/
LOCAL snowstorms? Are you stark howling mad?
“JonesII (12:01:18) :
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
”
Thanks, i was looking for that link the other day but ended up in the AGW propaganda section of the FAO. They’re a bit two-faced…
Snow in Germany breaks all time high since begin of recording in the north-east of Germany and in Saarbruecken (which is south-west)
German language article
http://nachrichten.t-online.de/enorme-schneemengen-tief-miriam-bricht-schneerekorde/id_21607662/index
DirkH (12:05:36) :
No DirkH, I suspect it is you that has gone mad. What about South America, Australia, Africa, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, the arctic, Antarctica, the middle east, central and south east asia, most of the world’s ocean areas–all well above normal? I think DR Spencer’s latest post helps to explain why the planet showed record heat–despite a few places (where most sceptics happen to live) being a little cooler than normal. http://www.drroyspencer.com/ You need to take a global view of the problem and not focus on what is outside your own lounge room window.
“I’ve watched in horror as the snow has just melted away from Cypress Mountain,” Suzuki said…
O, the humidity!!
I’ve had the experience of skiing Cypress in a February melt – puddles of water on the chair lift, rain and mud. It was risky to schedule events there. I don’t know why they wouldn’t just move the events to Whistler. How does a thousand truckloads of snow moved a couple hundred kilometers fit into the “greenest” Olympics?
Good grief!
We have a foot of snow in Dallas, Texas!
Yesterday, I flew down to Houston on a 1-day (or so I thought) business trip to attend the NAPE Expo (an oil industry trade show). I was on the 0700 Southwest flight from Dallas-Love to Houston-Hobby. We pulled out of the gate on time… Then spent an hour-and-a-half in line, waiting to be de-iced… De-iced in Dallas. I should have taken a clue from the 2-in diameter snowflakes that were falling that this was not just a bit of snow flurries.
Darn near every flight to Dallas yesterday afternoon was cancelled. I was lucky enough to get a room at a La Quinta near Hobby and was booked on the 0730 flight to Love. When I got to Hobby, Southwest announced that my flight wasn’t exactly cancelled; it just wasn’t going to stop in Dallas on the way to Amarillo and then St. Louis.
I managed to get one of two Avis rent-a-cars that were available for one-way rental from Houston-Dallas… (I was very close to taking a taxi to the Greyhound station.)
There was freaking snow on the ground as far south as Conroe… Just north of Houston. From Centerville (half-way from Houston to Dallas) there was at least 2-3 inches of snow. From Fairfield north (~90 miles south of Dallas), the left lane of I-45 had about six inches of snow over most of the remainder of the trip to Dallas.
Oh… It wasn’t just “wet” in Houston… It was freaking cold too!
The lady at the Avis counter said, “I don’t believe this global warming bull! I think we’re going into an ice age. We’ve never had this much cold weather here.” I just smiled and agreed with her.
As a Welsh man who lived in Vancouver I was disappointed to see no snow in the city for the 3 years I lived there and come to the conclusion that Vancouver and the lower mainland was wetter and warmer than Wales. True there was snow on Grouse mountain and Cypress, but you had to go up pretty high to see it. Canada does not always = snow.
Lack of snow in BC is a reason the world cup gave BC a pass for many seasons. Cyprus is virtually in the city…
It shouldn’t be climate-alarmo-freak news that the form of Vancouver area precipitation is very strong influenced by both elevation & ENSO.
Late January & early February temperatures in 2010 are comparable to early June (yes you read that right: early JUNE) 2008 temperatures. I remember sea-kayaking (AT SEA LEVEL) in a 2.5 hour blizzard on APRIL 18, 2008 in Burrard Inlet and finding leaf & blossom damage on salmonberries & black cottonwoods shortly thereafter. I also remember snowshoeing while it was snowing on the North Shore at an elevation lower than Cypress Mountain on JUNE 10, 2008. Winter 2008/9 brought nearly ’round-the-clock heavy, dense snowfall at sea level for 3 straight weeks. It was hard to find my car (which was buried) some days (on more than one occasion). Winter 2007/8 was also La Nina, bringing lots of good low-elevation snowshoeing.
A few degrees change with elevation or ENSO (not just with season) turns a lot of rain into a lot of snow or vice versa. Ski operation managers on the North Shore are chronically worried some winters when freezing level oscillates, alternating weeks of snow with weeks of rain …and some winters are long & great – and some are rainy. It’s not the elevation of the ski resort that changes from year-to-year; rather it’s ENSO.
As far as I know, the state of “global warming” isn’t oscillating on an interannual timescale, but it appears Suzuki’s imagination might be if he cannot publicly attribute ENSO. Does anyone remember how much snow the North Shore Mountains got in 1999? Good heavens climate-alarmo-folks, let’s not try to trivialize the complexity of such strong interannual oscillations that make the difference between 9 metres (30 feet) of snow and a LOT of rain.
Separate (but related) note:
This winter whenever Piers Corbyn forecasts major worldwide SWIPs, coastal BC gets stronger winds & heavy rains.
An Olympic athlete is dead, Georgian men’s luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.
“Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled, went over the track wall and struck an unpadded steel pole near the finish line at Whistler Sliding Center. ”
As I would expect in the upcoming inquiry, it will be wondered if so much attention has been focused on Cypress (which shouldn’t have been chosen) that preparation at Whistler was lacking.
For now, a moment of silence, and prayers for his family.