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.
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jbrodhead (00:11:48) :
As glaciers expand, will sealevels drop…
Glaciers are shrinking worldwide –
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb10/Abb2.pdf
So much new speculation and theorizing here. Isn’t the real lesson for all of us that observation and watchful waiting are all that our narrow and partly opaque window in time will permit? You have theories that are internally inconsistent, predictions that vary more than a compass needle in an iron mine, i.e., literally from North to South, and still everyone wants to predict what a truly humble scientist would admit in the face of the imperfect and contradictory data: we don’t really have an idea of where it is going next.
Mia Nony (00:21:06) :
THE TROUBLE is that people have been so focused on proving or disproving warming that as a whole they are largely COMPLETELY UNPREPARED for a very severe prolonged COOLING TREND. Google “The Year Summer Never Came”. Late 1700s, I think, During the lifetime of the author of Frankenstein, who documented this as well. It was like a plague. It became very very cold. Millions died, in Europe and in North America, and there were vast crop failures. Are we wasting valuable time now?
[REPLY – 1816. Eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death. The Tambora eruption (inter alia). ~ Evan]
Certainly a very large eruption would cool the planet, but it’s not so easy to predict large volcanic eruptions, and to the best of my knowledge none are predicted, whereas ‘greenhouse’ warming is well-understood and is happening now. Best to prepare for what we know is a danger right now, rather than for something unpredictable that might not occur for hundreds of years.
What do you think is the ideal level of CO2 in the atmosphere?(opinion)
aMINO aCIDS iN mETEORITES (00:33:42) :
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?
=================================================
Important question.
What climate scientists are actually telling us is that heavier snowfall is consistent with global warming (because of increased atmospheric water vapour content) and that in a warmer world we should expect to see a higher incidence of extreme precipitation events. Neither of these things are in any way contradicted by the occurrence of heavy snowfall events in the past, for reasons which should be obvious.
Snow moves to the south, and if craziness prevails, as industries moved to China and Asia – and with it your GDP-, so you will have to move there too, just to have the possibility of breathing, as exhaling poisoning CO2 by you nasty humans beings has been forbidden by your EPA.
Stephen Wilde (03:43:18) : Patterns of air circulation are most probable driven by changes in geomagnetic field/LOD:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LOD-GMF.gif
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GeoMagField.gif
Something to watch in these interesting times.
Ja, ja, more snow because of all that global warming. I already saw it coming. What else can they say now? That is why they started using the term “climate change” instead of global warming. In this way you can always explain anything!
I cannot even say anymore: enjoy your global warming while it lasts!
The reality is that we are heading towards global cooling.
All indicators are that we tipped towards cooling in 2003. We were just lagging some time before the down turn. It is always like that when you are on a top: you first have to stand still before you start moving down.
I am actually scared. We all know that more snow will cause more cooling (reflection of sunlight out to space)
As Easterbrook noted on WUWT last year: it might get a lot worse. Does he have any comments on which way the global cooling is going to go?
Joe Romm says the dustbowl in the southwest is becoming permanent.
Floods in southern California, snow Arizona, New Mexico and blizzards Houston to Dallas.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/07/11/drought-news-once-in-a-century-texas-drought-stunting-crops-drought-twice-as-likely-to-lead-to-mental-health-problems/
Then Joe says mental health is compromised by drought.
Snow is a sign of drought? Neurosis is a symptom of mental health? So Joe as a fool makes up information. He says drought doubles the onset of mental illness. I guess with rain, snow and ice, a lot of people have been cured. Of course foreclosure and homellessness after losing jobs to China or other causes is stressfull.
I wonder how Joe who admires Spain where there is 22% unemployment is doing. Warmists use fear to promote the agenda.
I guess the drift of the snow line will be followed by a drop in scripts for psychotropic meds.
Steven Goddard:
“Today’s NBA All-Star game in Dallas is covered with snow. Last time I checked, Texas was in the South.”
Not necessarily. My theory is “mini-plate tectonics.” Texas is slowly moving north towards Wisconsin. Just wait about 2.5 million years and you’ll see that I’m absolutely correct. ;o)
Proof now, you say? Most of the ‘Red’ states are in the West and most of the ‘Blue’ states are in the east. Massachusetts seems to be shifting from a ‘Blue’ state to a ‘Red’ state i.e., moving west, given the recent special election. Obviously, mini-plate tectonics is causing that shift, too. ;o) ;o)
Me? I’m counting on mini-plate tectonics to shift my home in the Midwest down towards Florida so I don’t have to sell here and buy there ;o) ;o) ;o)
(Nice article, Steven. Earlier commenters have hit the more salient points, so I thought I’d take a shot at expanding “global warming science.” They’re gonna’ need something to replace the CO2 model, ya know.)
Off topic, but…
The Google ad at the bottom of this post on the main page looks very much like just another WUWT blog entry: font style, size, color, layout. The title says, “Global Warming”, and it takes you to bookmarky.com or some such.
Pretty sneaky, if intentional.
Icarus (04:32:21) :
“The planet is warming, therefore atmospheric moisture content is rising*, therefore we are seeing more heavy precipitation.”
It is actually too moist. Climate models are based on the principle that increased CO2 leads to more warmth which then evaporates more water. This paper by Wentz et al. looked at rain, both as modeled by GCMs and as measured.
GCMs predict that rain will increase some 1-3% per degree C of warming. However, satellite data since 1987 show an increase of 7% per degree, an amount somewhere between 2.3 and 7 times larger than what is predicted by climate models.
Theoretically, the only way to bring the two results in harmony would be through a decrease in global wind speeds by some 0.8% per decade. Unfortunately, data shows just the opposite, an increase of 1% per decade.
Wentz writes “the reason for the discrepancy between the observational data and the GCMs is not clear.” He also states that this dramatic difference between the real world and the virtual world of climate modeling “has enormous impact with respect to the consequences of global warming” concluding that the questions raised by the discrepancy “are far from being settled.”
How Much More Rain Will Global Warming Bring?
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/317/5835/233
Re: Basil (Feb 15 03:50),
Thnks for the response and link Basil.
All the hypothesis here, warming causes snow, cooling causes droughts etc reminded me of Get Smart Harry Hoo episode.
Icarus is begging to look like real silly when someone decides to collate “scientists say” (not to mention the blowhard politicians) articles on ‘global warming = less snow’.
What exactly would be inconsistent with AGW? I’d sure like to know.
Easy. If AGW makes more snow & frost in places that normally dont have it, global cooling would need to be named as responsible if next winter is rainy, warm or just dry in these places. I could already imagine the headlines this time next year. Would be logic, or? Hmmm, some doubts about main stream media tackling it in a strict logical way. Maybe they could ask Al Gore for an interview to explain.
So, now that the polar bear’s territory has expanded down to Georgia, does that mean that the southern brown bear will become endangered?
<i. Tom P (04:26:23) : It’s probably not coincidental that arctic sea ice has also shown the greatest relative loss during the summer months over the last three decades.
With a total of three decades of data, your statement is relative to when?
Stephen Wilde (03:43:18) :
…At the same time the sea surfaces have been gradually cooling albeit fitfully.
Cite?
This paper suggests the opposite:
http://www.euro-argo.eu/content/download/49437/368494/file/VonSchukmann_et_al_2009_inpress.pdf
Page 50, top figure – Global ocean heat storage, 0 to 2000m, 2003 – 2008.
0.77±0.11W/m²
Agreed that the AGW shills shot themselves in the foot when they linked old snow records to the current weather begging the question – “Where’s the “catastrophic climate change” if today’s climate is generating weather not much different than over a 100 years ago?” I found myself shouting at my computer monitor, (again), when I read NYT: “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.” (So now not only do they inject subterfuge, they inject disproven subterfuge.)
The science is so settled that those same ‘most’ climate scientists proved it to NYT reporter John Broder by showing him a video by Vinny the Scam-Wow guy of how to make ice cubes on a stove top, (in ‘real time’!).
The real question here is, when AGW alarmists shoot themselves in the foot in the middle of a complicit MSM, – does it make a sound?
The AGW folks reason “a priori” only and they never encounter a disconfirming fact. From that it follows that “climate change” is causing the snow line to move
south. Got it?
Maybe “Snowgate” can be added to the list of “gates” explained here:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-234092–.html
No one seems to have responded to this observation yet. Is TLM right, and if so, how does that affect the argument pro or con the effect of putative (A)GW?
/Mr Lynn
Henry Pool (04:58:55) :
The reality is that we are heading towards global cooling.
Apparently not. The planet is warming at about 0.2°C per decade –
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980/to:2008/plot/rss/from:1980/to:2008/trend
Ocean heat content is rising –
ttp://www.euro-argo.eu/content/download/49437/368494/file/VonSchukmann_et_al_2009_inpress.pdf
Northern Hemisphere snow cover is declining –
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=0&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=1
Glaciers are shrinking worldwide –
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb10/Abb2.pdf
Arctic sea ice is declining at 3.2% per decade –
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100203_Figure3.png
Seems like global warming to me.
I read an oldish book. 2 ex weather/sciance chaps. called “the Sixth Winter”
so if their theory re ice age coming was right it should prove it in about 4 to 5 years from now.
personally I am storing woolen items heavy boots and planning to make sure my home could stand extreme cold as well as normal aussie Heat.
caution doesnt go astray.
Looks like the snowline is moving down AND over to the east a bit too.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250983/Met-Office-warns-Britain-brace-heavy-snow.html