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.
Still below average temperatures here in Scotland, and no sign of any warming in the Baltic – http://ocean.dmi.dk/satellite/index.php
So far, I have seen a great number of theories (like the GW community) as to why the planet is cooling and each one can be blown out of the water as well.
There are actual physical changes our planet has created as an evolution to prevent the water from evaporating. A very facinating cycle that opens the north Atlantic into one big freshwater lake. It killed off millions of saltwater salmon last year trying to get back to their spawning grounds. The equatoral waters are have extra salinity on the surface to prevent evaporation in the warmer climates.
Our scientist completely missed an area of science that is highly important to understanding how and why the planet and solar system works and that is rotation.
Actually, the lack of snow in Vancouver is not the worst thing that could have happened for the Olympics. The worst thing that could happen would be if we did get snow. Since we are in such a warm climate, the city is very poorly equipped with snow clearing equipment. Large amounts of snow are quite rare. Normally, we get one or two snowfalls a year, but they very quickly turn to rain, and everything turns to slush and melts away. Even small amounts of snow that persist for more than a few days completely paralyzes the city.
Just need to clarify some of the points other posters have been making.
First, even though the Cypress website claims a base of 265 cm, it means nothing of the sort. I skied at the neighboring Grouse Mountain a couple weeks ago, and the snow conditions were atrocious, though they also claimed a base of about that amount. They really having nothing to speak of, and what has fallen in the past couple days is quickly being washed away by rain.
Secondly, while Vancouver does have warm winters with low snowfall on the mountains from time to time, January was the record-setter for warmest January on record. This year has not been normal.
It would be an interesting exercise to integrate the heat dumped into space from all this snow. A cold rain vs a snow event are two very different things in terms of heat.
“MJK (12:42:32) :
[…]
need to take a global view of the problem and not focus on what is outside your own lounge room window.”
Thanks, MJK. From my lounge window here in Braunschweig, Germany, i can overlook the plains of Mongolia, at the horizon there is Ulan Bator, you’re right, i’m deluded – it’s a local phenomenon.
It’s always fun to talk to you. BTW Australia is in the southern hemisphere. It’s summer there ATM.
But you know what? I don’t care. I’ve got a job in the subsidized green economy of Germany. I can wait and watch AGW fall apart. You go and figure why the friggin ocean ain’t storing the missing energy in the meantime…
I’m from the Vancouver, BC area. It’s true that there isn’t much snow on Cypress and the other local mountains this year due to el nino, but Suzuki’s selective memory is working overtime (as usual). The current conditions are very unusual. The local mountains (Cypress, Grouse, Seymore and Baker) usually have 5-10 meters of settled snow. Last year at this time, Metro Vancouver was literally buried in snow. The piles of snow were so high it was hard to shovel more onto them and most of the streets were narrowed. As was pointed out, if we had that much snow this year, it would be a major problem. Fortunately, lots of snow has been stockpiled in Cypress and they are also trucking snow in from Manning Park so the Olympic events there should be fine. The reason the WC circuit takes a pass on Whistler is not because of a lack of snow, but because there tends to be a lot of fog.
Joe Romm says no snow in Dallas. It will be a dust bowl permanently
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/26/noaa-climate-change-irreversible-1000-years-drought-dust-bowls/
I see he is claiming blizzards on one hand are not blizzards and that extreme wet was predicted.
If dust bowls are permanent, that means he has in writing ruled out rain and snow events. We are letting these spooks get by with too much voodoo forecasting.
The events are being held on two hills Cypress and Whistler. One has awesome natural snow currently the other not so much but it is snowing at both currently even in the face of the pineapple express weather front. Wouldn’t global warming cause both to be dry?
BTW, when I was young and David Suzuki was still a scientist I had a lot of respect for him. It is sad to see how he has fallen.
Climate is being changed by anthropogenic particles from the turbines of jet aircraft. Temperature limits of the turbine blades and NOx output generate large quantities of PAH particles by pyrosynthesis.
Water vapour is condensed to liquid droplets by a combination of low temperature, hydroscopic attractors such as salt particles and natural cohesion; the process is reversible. .Without the attractors water reverts to the vapour state and dissappears.
The transpolar flight paths were approved in January 2001. By June 2008 the North Pole ice cap had vanished. These forces are still at work all over the Globe.
Jet fuel consumption in 2009 was 15.6 million gallons. I think we should stop.
Still snowing here in CHARLESTON, SC
Austin (14:25:12) “It would be an interesting exercise to integrate the heat dumped into space from all this snow. A cold rain vs a snow event are two very different things in terms of heat.”
Warm rain (not cold) where there’s no snowpack & no frost in the ground [on the northwest Pacific coast — in contrast, freezing rain is the norm on the northeast Atlantic coast — not even remotely similar events].
I watched the Olberman rant. Did anyone notice how Fineman mentioned that Republicans would “rather have the nuclear operators have their way”? If there’s one industry that wouldn’t get hit with cap and trade, it would be the nuclear industry.
Most of our liquid formed flowing products from gasoline to molases have a certain amount of O2. Not just jet fuel but it is offset by the amount of liquid we manufacture trapped from the containers. Slicks over water also inhibit evaporation. Not to meantion the trillions of gallons of water pumped in the ground to build-up oil pressure to come out of the ground.
Suzuki apparently slept through last winter’s record-breaking snow in the PNW…
I watched in horror as the snow melted from Cypress in 2005…the year I bought my ski pass to the mountain (beginning of January was epic before the rains came). I has always been hit or miss on the West Van Mountain. So, I got my Edge Card for Whistler every other year. I learned my lesson; you want good snow? Go to Whistler.
Oh and Suzuki is a charlatan in the truest sense of the word.
So you’re going to write up a long explanation as to why little snow doesn’t prove global warming, but still hold the snow in the Eastern U.S. as a disproof? Don’t you realize that’s an equally severe oversimplification? You’re also making the mistake of equating snowfall to temperature – you know, what you’re trying to disprove.
@maarten (11:12:51)
I have lived in Greater Vancouver for more than 45 years and we get on average 2 to 3 FEET of snow each year, the only area that does not is right down by the ocean where it snows and melts by noon. This year has been a typical el nino year for us and the winter olympics have had a “plan B” for just such a case. Although, who would have thought after the winter we had last year, 7 foot piles of snow beside the driveway for about 2 months, that they would have to truck in snow. Raincouver has an appropriate nickname.
TamRob (14:25:04) “This year has not been normal.”
Agree – and last year was just as “abnormal” in the other direction …and so we come to realize that the definition of “normal” is abstract. (I used to teach stats – apologies for seizing a good teaching example.)
Documented snow in 49 out of 50 states at the same time.
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/USA/2010/ims2010043_usa.gif
Beginning analysis of AAA (21:18:56) :
So you’re going to write up a long explanation as to why little snow doesn’t prove global warming
Hypothesis 1: Small amounts of snow, as opposed to large amounts, are not proof of global warming.
but still hold the snow in the Eastern U.S. as a disproof?
Hypothesis 2: (Increased) snow in a regional area is disproof of global warming.
Don’t you realize that’s an equally severe oversimplification?
Hypothesis 3: Hypotheses 1 and 2 are oversimplifications of equal severity.
Analysis of H1: Individual snow totals are weather events, thus not able to prove or disprove global warming, which constitutes a long-term climate trend. Long-term trends in snow totals are generally not able to prove or disprove global warming at temperature extremes. Example: if the globe is overall too warm for snow, lack of snow cannot indicate further warming. Example: Antarctica is very cold and dry, with little snow.
For there to be large snowfall totals, there needs to be enough energy (heat, warmth) to evaporate large amounts of water. Thus coming from the cold extreme, increased snowfall totals can indicate global warming, for example record large snowfalls in Antarctica. Going into the warm extreme, a decrease in global totals from historically small to minuscule to nothing would indicate global warming.
In between the extremes, other variables need to be examined. Increased snowfall totals can indicate warming when trending from a cold world to cool, as they indicate more thermal energy is present yielding more evaporation. Later on decreased snowfall totals can indicate warming as temperatures become too warm for snow, yielding rain instead. Increased snowfall totals can also indicate a trending from warm to cool, as temperatures decrease to where snow increases in relation to rain. Decreased snowfall totals may also indicate a trending from cool to cold, due to less evaporation. Thus overall totals of precipitation, as it shows the amounts of water evaporated thus the amounts of thermal energy available, need to be examined.
Conclusions on H1: As the planet is currently between extremes, trends in snowfall totals by themselves can neither prove nor disprove global warming.
Analysis of H2: Increased snowfall could indicate a region is warming from cold to cool (example: Antarctica), but may not in itself indicate a global trend. Likewise it could indicate a regional cooling.
Conclusions on H2: Invalidated as H1.
Analysis of H3: Both H1 and H2 use snowfall totals alone as an indicator of global temperature, with H2 similar to H1 but stated as extrapolating a global trend from a regional event and/or trend. H1 is an oversimplification, with H2 compounding the oversimplification with an error in reasoning.
Conclusions on H3: True if “all nonsense is equal.”
You’re also making the mistake of equating snowfall to temperature
Hypothesis 4: An additional error is being made, namely the equating of snowfall to temperature
Analysis of H4: For events this is acceptable, as snow in the air indicates air temperatures below freezing, and snow laying on the ground and accumulating indicates ground temperatures below freezing. For trends, snowfall and temperature have been de-linked numerous times on this site in many articles, as with UAH global temperature reports showing a warm(est) month despite large snowfall totals, and explanations of latent heat showing how warm global temperatures can exist alongside record snowfalls.
Conclusions on H4: No error was made, thus there is nothing to add.
you know, what you’re trying to disprove.
Hypothesis 5: “You,” presumably Mr. Watts, is trying to disprove the equating of snowfall to temperature.
Analysis of H5: Facts and the analyses of them are reported on this site. Snowfall and temperature have been shown to not be reliably connected. Cold weather events are quite often posted with the “weather is not climate” disclaimer.
Conclusions on H5: True on the face of it. However the subtext is important. This site has acquired an “anti-AGW” reputation somehow. AGW proponents have been predicting that with the warmer temperatures there will be less snowfall, thus allowing more snowfall to be cited as proof that AGW theories are inaccurate and that global cooling may be occurring. Thus the manner in which the equating of snowfall and temperature has been disproven does not by itself discredit the AGW theorists, but removes snowfall totals by themselves from being cited as conclusive evidence by either camp.
And why did you only mention the Eastern US? Look around, there is snow all over the country. See here, it’s looking like there will be snow in all 50 states, only Florida was the holdout. Most of the Northern Hemisphere has snow, far as I know.
Well actually, most of the land in the NH has snow, I think. Now if most of the NH bodies of water also had snowfall laying on them, then we could conclusively say that global cooling has occurred. Don’t you agree?
No one that I know takes Dr. Fruitfly seriously (not clear why he is considered a climate “expert”). Here in Kamloops, in the BC interior, we’re having a very nice mild winter which I’ve enjoyed since I don’t have to shovel snow. There are times when I miss the snow as I’d rather have sunny days with -10 C temperatures rather than the dreary overcast days with +5 C temperatures we’ve had too many of. Stargazing has been the pits this winter.
This type of variation is completely normal and I’m glad I didn’t decide to take a winter vacation to go to Florida this year which I notice is only slightly warmer than what we have in Kamloops. As far as the winter olympics goes, that was the last straw that made me finally decide to leave Vancouver. If I was still in Vancouver I’d have to close my downtown practice for 2-3 weeks now as none of my patients would be able to access my office by vehicle. Don’t miss the rain at all and am 200 miles further away from Dr. Fruitfly’s rantings.
Romm lives up to expectations-
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/13/winter-olympic-sports-vancouver-climate-change-global-warming-richard-brenne/
“What can the Winter Olympic sports tell us about climate change?”
MJK (11:46:16) :
You speak of games and shooting messengers:
tell me, how’s your game of deception on the 25 month smoothing in Roy Spencer’s graph going for you? You still are insisting the 25 month smoothing hid an incline?
And what about your treatment of an excellent scientist, Roy Spencer? In view of your critique of shooting messengers are you now repentant of your despicable treatment of Roy Spencer and are now treating him with the respect he deserves?
DirkH (12:05:36) :
“MJK (11:46:16) :
MJK left out the snows of China, Miongolia, Russia, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia.
Also the snow in Rome for the first time in 24 years, and the snow on the French Riviera.
He also didn’t mention the snow in all 50 States,
So is it just local to the Eastern US??
Dear Readers:
I am probably the first in the world to propose this product. I guess I am the inventor of it but I am not going to get a patent for it because I know it doesn’t work. Its a Carbon Dioxide Solar Heating Panel!!! If CO2 is the greenhouse gas that Al Gore and David Suzuki claims it is, the Olympic committee should have heated the Olympic village with it. My device uses pure CO2 which means the concentration of CO2 is 2632 times what’s in the atmosphere which definitely means the Tracy Malloy Carbon Dioxide Solar Heating Panel proposed for the 2010 Olympics would glow red with heat. This could have been a news item that these heating panels in the village were badly designed and were too hot for the application and it affected the athletes performance. Just think, the athletes could use these to warm their toesies and fingers at the top of the slopes. They are good butt warmers too.