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.
r (05:47:40) :
So, now that the polar bear’s territory has expanded down to Georgia, does that mean that the southern brown bear will become endangered?
———–
Reply:
No, he’ll just turn white and start eating frozen cattle.
Has anyone else noticed that the recent rise in Solar Flux and attendant sunspots coincides with a sudden burst of activity from Icarus, who seems to have awoken from deep sleep to a state of narcassistic reflectiveness, as witnessed by his tortuous emanations above. Climate Change – another idea that just won’t fly!
narcissistic actually
Increased precipitation + increased warmth = more rain at low latitudes. Not heavy snow in the deep south.
Steve Goddard (07:04:59) :
“…the autumn/winter snow line has been moving south over the last decade and has been well above the 50 year mean.”
Are you seriously suggesting a discernible trend in this plot:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=1
while ignoring the significant change here?
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=3
If global warming can really cause more snow, then it means there is a negative feedback to global warming because snow reflects more light to space. I once been said that negative feedback was impossible with CO2.
Apropos of cold weather in our anthrogenically-warmed world: yesterday it was so cold in church that blankets were handed out.
Yes, well at least ole Gav was on topic with the “spin” in his title.
Edited to add El Nino:
The outline of that ice age snow reminds me of a cold PDO, cold Atlantic Oscillation, a negative AO, and a neutral or moderate EL NINO jet stream pattern circulating the globe. hmmmmmm
If warm causes cooling then cooling should cause warming, therefore in order to fix the global warming, we need to increase the global temperature.
Anecdotally, I await Feb. 14 each year. For the past 38 years I’ve been in Colorado, that date marked the end of subzero temps, hinting at spring. This morning changed my point of reference, it was -4°F just before dawn..
Some smart guy should take advantage of this discussion and get a license from Libya to sell lots in the Sahara. When it goes green again as the ice advances across Canada and half the continental US, our offspring can move there.
From what I’ve seen, its still at least 1000 years away and probably 3 millenia with another MWP in the mix … so there will be grapes in Newfoundland again before we get weighed down by a few hundred feet of ice. In between there will be minor Solar Maximums and Grand Minimums to keep us guessing at what the sign of the trend is. 20 to 30 years left in this minimum which by recent activity (if you ignore Sunspot Inflation/Exaggeration from Galileo to now) is more a Dalton type than Maunder.
Oh the misery of Climate Change … it just won’t stay in one place! Homo Sapiens must be the main driver since it looks like nobody is at the wheel. Am I paraphrasing Suzuki? … or Gore?
The idea that snow lines move south when the climate cools and moves north when it warms seems to be confirmed by paleological data.
I’m no expert for sure, but as far as I know, the last ice age was characterised by glaciers moving south, and when the climate warmed, the glaciers retreated north. But of course, I ain’t no climate scientists, so I could be completely wrong.
Steve Goddard
Monarch Pass- Gunnison area
I know they had lots of snow on the front range.There was lots last year too. But, just like Tim mentioned, the snow pack goes away by the time I get there around the second week in Sept. In the past it was always there. This last year was the first time it never was below freezing at our cabin at apx. 10,000 feet also. I’m sure it is just a temporary weather change and not something that really matters. I’m still going.
Frugal Dougal (07:36:01) :
“Apropos of cold weather in our anthrogenically-warmed world: yesterday it was so cold in church that blankets were handed out.”
I don’t want to start an argument but that serves you right for going to Church.
As we say in Thailand: ‘som nam naa’.
Given the conditions I put forth above, as the wet Jet Stream and cold atmospheric systems collide further South, assuming under El Nino conditions (which is one of the few ways Jet Stream moisture can be found further South), The Sahara will likely be a miserable place. The dust storms would be deadly and the night time air very cold. When La Nina occasionally occurs, this would be a triple threat of cold, dust dry, windy air. I wouldn’t be buying any plot of ground there under these kinds of conditions.
Tom P,
The graph you linked shows an upwards winter trend over the last 20 years, and the autumn graph shows an even stronger upwards trend over the last 30 years.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=1
I’ll plot the mean and trend line if it helps you visualize it.
Icarus
If Global warming causes more fresh water to be distributed in the form of snowfall is that good or bad? Would it be better if it was colder and less fresh water was distributed?
Kyle
Icarus (04:43:24) :
Seems you prefer to overlook the fact that eruptions, though hard to predict when, have always happened looking backwards. We haven’t had a big one for some time so might you think we could be due one? Will we be ready when it does happen? Not if we make the earth cooler than what it naturally would be! Man would then be the factor that made the cold period even worse!
As long as the slight warming we had prior to 2000 is manageable and in fact may not continue, I’ll vote to leave nature alone presently. Cold is the larger danger!
I think it would be good for everyone to go back and look at the Rutger’s report for the previous40+ year period, going back to 1966. It can be found here:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/snowdata2008.doc
Especially take a look at the trend line of anomolies for snow cover extent at the end of the report. The trend over the past four decades has been down, not up.
Again, the AGW physics is quite clear on this– greater warmth during the normally cooler months in the N. Hemisphere will INITIALLY lead to greater quantities and more intense snow events. This is of course contrary to nonscientific common-sense thinking. The report references above shows that the snow cover extent may be higher than normal in winter, but quickly goes far less then normal in summer months, making the average over the year less than nomal. The anomoly chart shows that average clearly declining over the four decades. Just as is the case with decreasing arctic sea ice extent, the decreasing ANNUAL AVERAGE snow extent, means a more solar radition to be absorbed and higher land temperatures, and that’s just what we’ve seen:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080417_marchstats.html
Snow jobber?
There once was a pitch-man named Gore,
Who quickly became quite a bore.
He repeated his sayings,
Like a donkey’s brayings,
Lying his ass off, even more.
Tom P,
I plotted the Rutgers winter (Dec-Feb) snow data here.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdHFzTFVnTlVrYnV0bEpxLWt5aXE2UEE&oid=1&v=1266250893404
The trend is an (impressive) increase in NH snow cover of 205,000 km2 per year since 1990. Autumn shows an even stronger trend since 1980.
Data is from
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/moncov.nhland.txt
Tom P,
The 205,000km2 number I just quoted isn’t accurate. That value is the sum total of three months. The actual trend is 1/3 of that value averaged over three months : 68,300 km2/year
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdHFzTFVnTlVrYnV0bEpxLWt5aXE2UEE&oid=1&v=1266251373996
Just wait,
The administration is splashing more $$ to the so called scientists to buy their support for the CAGW agenda. Forget the data, the snow line trend is moving North, just wait till this extra $$$ proves it.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/11/obama-spending-increase-global-warming-research/
“Global warming skeptics are agog that President Obama is seeking to dramatically increase federal funding for global warming research in the wake of the Climate-gate scandals that have emerged during the last three months.
The federal budget for 2011 proposes $2.6 billion for the Global Change Research Program, a 21 percent boost over 2010. It will bring funding to a level higher than under any administration dating back to 1989 — when global warming first attracted federal budget funds.”
It’s a good thing that we are awash in surplus funds in the US treasury.
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.
Concerned as they were for the wellbeing and salvation of Humanity, the U.N.’s noble Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its elite Climate Scientists were not studying “climate change” as otherwise implied, they were hyping and selling AGW by what is solely a gigantic Propaganda Operation. Of course then AGW became “climate change”.
As evidenced by “Climate Science” which for practical purposes has never been real Science, Post Normal Science is malign in itself and eventually destroys word meanings, real Science, and any other meaning it touches, save the “meaning” involved with brute force. The idea that the ipcc, enc., enterprise was not directed toward World Domination via near total destruction of anything truely good right from the start is extremely dubious.