Guest post by Steven Goddard
As we have been discussing on WUWT, three of the last four months have seen top ten Northern Hemisphere snow extents and the decadal trend has been towards increasing (and above normal) snow extent during the autumn and winter. It appears that this month will achieve snow extent among the top two Februaries on record.
As you can see in the Rutgers University maps below for mid-February, the excess snow cover is necessarily found at lower latitudes. Snow cover radiates out from the pole, so the only place where snow extent can increase is towards the south.
The implication of the observed trend towards increasing snow extent is that the Northern Hemisphere autumn/winter snow line is moving southwards over the last ten to twenty years.
Daily Departure – February 13, 2010 (Day 44)
Source : Rutgers University Global Climate Lab
Daily Snow – February 13, 2010 (Day 44)
Source : Rutgers University Global Climate Lab
We see southern snow cover this year in places like Greece, Northern China, and Alabama that are not normally covered with snow in mid-February. The map below shows the “normal” snow extent measured since 1966.
Daily Climatology – February 13 (Day 44)
Source : Rutgers University Global Climate Lab
Some people have been claiming that the anomalous snow this winter is due to warming temperatures. The New York Times reports on the record snow :
Most climate scientists respond that the ferocious storms are consistent with forecasts that a heating planet will produce more frequent and more intense weather events.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense that warming temperatures would cause the snow line to move south. Lower latitudes normally receive rain rather than snow, because the air is already too warm for snow. Further warming would be expected to move the snow line north – not south – and that is exactly what the climate models predict. Indeed, Time Magazine claims that this has already happened: “large-scale cold-weather storm systems have gradually tracked to the north in the U.S. over the past 50 years.”
As far as snow depth goes, Washington D.C. recently broke their 1899 snow record of 54.4 inches and now has a new record of 54.9 inches. We are told that the new record is due to “extreme weather” caused by “global warming.” If so, what caused the nearly identical “extreme weather” over a century ago? Alarmists tell us that heavy snow used to be caused by cold, but now is caused by warmth. The 1899 record was set long before the hockey stick brought temperatures to “unprecedented levels.”
Now lets take their poor logic one step further. Ice ages occur when the snow line moves very far south. If “most climate scientists” are claiming that global warming is causing the snow line to move south, then the logical corollary is that ice ages are caused by further warming temperatures. Clearly that is not true.
Wikipedia map of the last ice age
Furthermore, Hansen correctly tells us that as the snow line moves south, the earth’s albedo increases causing further cooling.
The sensible theory is that the snow line moves south when the climate is cold, and north when the climate is warm. And the record snow we are seeing this winter is due to cold, not warm temperatures.
Today’s NBA All-Star game in Dallas is covered with snow. Last time I checked, Texas was in the South.
Tom P, TLM,
According to Rutgers data, North America broke its’ record last week for the greatest snow extent ever recorded – going back to 1966. Please tell us that this is due to global warming.
Tom P,
Tell me again that this trend is not statistically significant.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdHFzTFVnTlVrYnV0bEpxLWt5aXE2UEE&oid=1&v=1266415282706
Henry@Steve Goddard
Just leave it Steve. Give it up. Like I always say:
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see
(or whose job it is to keep sowing confusion! )
Remember what I said before: there is big,big, money into “green”
They will not give up that money until their own bodies are frozen up
I remember asking one of these greenies (From wwf) : What if we fall into an LIA?
Is honesty in science not more important than a green agenda?
I am still waiting for an answer.
Steve Goddard (06:03:03) :
Of course on the same basis we should ignore all the temperature data before 1989 at Brenham TX if we want to properly understand what’s going on:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/brehamtxuschn.png
Looks like we should all be moving to Brenham Texas to be sure to avoid any upcoming ice age.
Henry,
Skepticism is the new consensus. We need to make sure we don’t fall into the same patterns of ignoring critics as did the hockey team. People who criticize every detail of your theories are very important.
Tom P,
What part of “greatest extent ever recorded” last week is not clear? The winter snow line has been moving south for the last twenty years and has been consistently above average for the last ten.
Europe is buried in deep snow.
http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&article=8
This is not terribly startling to anyone with open eyes and an open mind.
However, I have to point out to some of you…
I see that some of you have been using this website to forward your anti-green, anti-conserving, anti-environment ends. Read up on Anthony Watts before you assume he’s on your (bizarre) side. Even if you discredit AGW (and I do, it’s become far too religious to be taken seriously) you cannot deny that we do things in unsustainable ways, and no amount of debunking the effects of carbon will change the finite nature of oil, the fact that heavy metals are in coal, that particulate matter in diesel fumes causes repiratory problems, and so on. Those things can be proven. Those things have been proved. They don’t require crystal-ball models to prove them.
Personally, that’s why I keep reading WUWT. It drives me nuts that we have power plants that spew out mercury and uranium, cars that spew out benzene, fertilizer that puts cadmium in our food, and all the various things that are totally reliant on a finite amount of stuff we can dig or drill out of the ground. And what does science demand we do? Tax the basic building blocks of life such as carbon and nitrogen. What do they base it on? Computer models which attempt to peer into the future. And what drives me equally nuts? People who think we can ignore the crap we put into our bodies and the finite nature of everything which fuels our society, all because they think that because taxing carbon is ludicrous, anything “green” is equally ludicrous.
We ignore scarcity and toxicity at our (humanity’s) own peril.
regeya (10:03:09) :
“I see that some of you have been using this website to forward your anti-green, anti-conserving, anti-environment ends.”
Where? Be specific.
“And what does science demand we do? Tax the basic building blocks of life such as carbon and nitrogen.”
You’re conflating science with government and special interests. They are the ones who covet your money for their own self-serving purposes.
Also, the U.S. is one of the very cleanest countries on the planet. The EPA heavily regulates the emissions you refer to. And even if they were as dangerous as claimed, human life spans would not have increased so much over the past century.
That is not to say emissions should not be closely monitored and regulated. But there is a trade-off between emissions and the benefits of electricity, just like there are trade-offs between the particles of animal hair, feces and insects in food products, and the benefits of food.
If you want a target rich environment to scold, China is always available.
regeya ,
Life expectancy is about 3X longer now than it was before we started using all this “nasty coal and oil.”
You say Dallas in in **Texas,** but everyone in Al Bore’s group has a consensus that it is in Baffin Island. Therefore, you are wrong. Besides, Al Bore’s group has a zillion dollar contract to provide mukluks to the NBA, so Dallas HAS to be on Baffin Island