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.
wayne
NASA did state the temperature of the top 700 meters of all oceans have increased since 1955 by 0.18 degF. How long it takes to shed that excess energy if irradiance stays low and the earth is warmer than that irradiation level will support, I don’t know.>
I should have said one more thing. As convection increases, cold air from arctic moves more rapidly south to fill in the hot air at the equator convecting upward. Since the cold air is closer to the ground than the hot air coming back, this would tend to decrease land temps in temperate zones and drive the latitude at which snow can occur southward, even though the net temp across the globe has gone up.
As for the oceans, since long wave only penetrates a few mm of water, which would pretty much evaporate right into the atmosphere, it seems to me that long wave feedbacks cant heat the ocean up very much, they mostly affect atmosphere and land mass. Solar variation on the other hand penetrates hundreds of meters, so that energy is stored there, and radiance by the oceans would tend to mitigate oscillations in atmosphere and landmass, but oscillations in energy being stored from the sun to being released by the ocean would have to be decades at a minimum, and possibly centuries.
TedK (09:26:41) :
Not OT. Joe Bastardi is parellel to what has been said above minus the sun’s influence. Or wait… what I said plus the sun’s influence is parallel with Joe… whatever.
Warming: The snow line moves North.
Cooling: The snow line moves South.
Easy to understand, unless you are Time magazine or The New York Times and you have cast your lot with globalized economic control by the United Nations and as Lord Monckton pointed out, the failed Copenhagen treaty which called for a “world governmental framework” to enforce carbon reduction.
Case closed.
Stephen Wilde (06:21:20) :
Basil (04:07:51)
Unfortunately no one seems to have been mapping jet stream positions globally over time beyond seasonal variability but there is lots of anecdotal evidence and also evidence that the ITCZ also moves latitudinally in line with global tropospheric temperatures.
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1755-1315/6/7/072010/ees9_6_072010.pdf?request-id=8e5e203e-0a2b-4cea-a76c-edf1713da5ad
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Sachs_etal_2009.pdf
Stephen,
It is too bad that there isn’t better data to test this hypothesis with. Long term (decadal) shifts of the jet stream, combined with shifts in wind directions, i.e. zonal vs. meridional, could go a long way toward explaining multidecadal variations in global temperature trends. When the jet stream drifts poleward, I think winds tend to be more zonal, and this moderates climate, especially in the northern latitudes, with climate being dominated by maritime air flows. When the jet stream drifts southward, the polar jet, in particular, becomes more meridional (loopy, Rossby waves) with climate being dominated by continental air masses that bring polar air to lower latitudes (think of snow in Florida!).
I think it is not just the movement of the jet stream, but the tendency of one regime (northern jet streams) to be more zonal in wind flow, and the other (southern jet streams) to be more meridional.
I suspect that there are atmospheric “regimes” here that tie in closely with the PDO and that they contribute significantly to recent trends in global temperatures.
But the data to test the hypothesis doesn’t seem readily accessible.
Basil
“the logical corollary is that ice ages are caused by further warming temperatures. Clearly that is not true.”
Hang on just a minute! Everyone knows that the warm temperatures during an interglacial cause the glaciation that follows, just as summer causes the winter which follows. Cause always precedes effect (except with Co2 warming) 😉
what we really need to do is plan for BOTH eventualities. First we need to build places for people to live where we can control the temperature inside regardless of it getting hotter or colder outside. What? We already did that? OK, next we need to secure food supply. we need to create a monetary system that forces farmers to choose crops that produce maximum yield for their particular local, and consider changing the crop types as climate changes. What? We already did that too? Well next we need to correct world imbalances in food supply. what we need to do is set up some sort of system where areas that can’t grow enough food can trade labour or resources for food from countries that have more than they need. What? we already did that?
How am I supposed to win a Nobel prize if other people keep implementing my ideas before I come up with them? This just isn’t fair.
OT completely, but a sojourn over to RC to see what’s cooking and I immediately notice a phenomena that is becoming more apparent.
1. They accuse the MSM being virtually non-existent, biased and favoring the “other side”.
2. They accuse the “other side” of having an alternative political agenda.
3. The other side is well organized and funded.
4. The other side is guided by sinister forces.
I am aware that this can be a useful tactic, but is it so universally understood to be used by the “average” poster – no offence implied. Or is there the same degree of belief, distrust and paranoia suffered by all opposing forces.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8515375.stm
“Thousands of deer are thought to be at risk of starvation in Scotland following this year’s harsh winter.
Hillwalkers across the country are being warned they will almost certainly come across dead or dying animals.
In Sutherland, there are fears that an entire generation of deer will be lost due to the winter weather.”
Hey Charles … we sense your absence.
Another carnival …. also …. that is carnival…..
The Snow Line is Moving South….(weel)
I have seen snow in the last two years in southern Brazil …. please snow further north.
Many brahmas.
Reply: Been very very busy, not just Climategate. I need to get a new visa as well. Ten years went by sooooo quickly. ~ ctm
The good news of a new ice age is that we’ll be able to walk across the Straight of Georgia from Vancouver to Victoria on ice rather than taking a BC Ferry. Heck we’ll be able to drive the distance! It’ll also lower house prices in Vancouver to an all time affordable level.
pwl
http://www.PathsToKnowledge.net
davidmhoffer (09:44:13) :
Exactly my thoughts, long term.
Look at TedK’s link to accuweather above. The graph Joe keeps showing is the graph I have had in my head for quite a while, I just had never come across it or I would have linked to it earlier. That makes it vividly visual, 20-30 year rolls!
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…
“There is more dangerous weather to come this month for Britain, Ireland, Europe, the USA and other parts
of the world” warned Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction long range forecasters 9th Feb. “Our long range
forecast says the next big hits will be around Feb 11-13th and really dangerous events 15th-17th.
Wish you this time to break records again!!
“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.”
Actually, I recall reading precisely such a theory while I was in high school during the 1950s. It appeared in that prestigious (albeit non-peer reviewed) journal The Readers’ Digest. Since my office is about as cluttered as Phil Jones’, and I’ve misplaced my bound volumes, I’ll have to relate it from memory. It went something like this:
As global temperatures rise, the Arctic ice cap will break up sometime in the late 20th or early 21st Centuries, allowing warm Gulf Stream water to flow into the Arctic Ocean. This in turn will cause much heavier snowfall to occur during the Northern Hemisphere winters and, eventually, glaciation and a new ice age. The author was sufficiently enthusiastic about his theory that he even predicted that we would watch the breakup of the arctic ice cap on TV.
I guess the only part he missed was that we would watch the break up of the Global Climate Consensus on TV, which is actually more entertaining.
If anyone claims this cold and snowey winter is evidence on global warming, show them the headlines from 2000 when the same scientists proclaimed snow storms are a thing of the past!
I know we are only mere non-climate scientists and could not possibly understand the complexity of the “simple physics” behind AGW, but you can not keep changing your story and think the public are so niave that they will not notice!
Off topic but:
“When half of the continental United States is encased in ice, saying “How’s the global warming working out for you?” in an arch and sarcastic way will get you thrown out into the cold. Because while technically you may be right, now is not the time.”
via: http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2010/02/winter-in-scifi-movies.php
OTH, I do have a tendency to gloat.
I’m planning a science-fiction/Fantasy novel based on this stuff. My only fear is that I’m going to hit too close to the truth. That this planet is moving into a new glaciation period. (I’m planning on making it worse than the last Glaciation to give a better imputus to do what my novel is having the people on earth do. But I can’t help but think what if I’m hitting on the truth and we aren’t prepared to tackle the real issues that a major glaciation period would bring. How many people, animals, fish etc etc would die.)
Anthony if you have the capability to email me, please do so, since I’d like to run a few concepts by a more knowledgeable person than myself, so I know I’m on the right track for what could bring on a new glaciation period.
Icarus (09:03:44) :
Global warming isn’t going to stop the weather from happening, so you will still get unusual cold spells as well as record-breaking warm spells – it’s just that the cold spells will become less frequent, and the warm spells more so. I’m sure you’ve seen the evidence that record high temperatures now outnumber record low temperatures 2 to 1 in the US.
Used to be that record highs outnumbered record lows.
The Globe is not warming any more. It’s cooling, and rather abruptly. It is cooling abruptly where it matters the most…. on the land where we live.
And that big Tambora-like eruption that hasn’t happened yet…those type of pops like to happen much more frequently when the Sun is doing it’s lower activity mode…like right about now.
Warmer is cooler, wetter is drier, famine is plenty, lead is gold, darkness is light, ignornance is genius, the Emperor’s clothes are so beautiful that only the purest of heart can see them.
Such ideas as those make sense in a dream world, but upon waking, one laughs off the nightmare.
I am just an interested amateur in the global warming debate. I don’t believe the planet is warming, but what about this article, which Al Gore (I’m no fan!) cites on his blog about satellite pictures and Arctic ice:
Melting Arctic Ice: What Satellite Images Don’t See
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1956932,00.html
My thanks to anyone who can refute the information in this article!
Tom P,
There was an error in the spreadsheet. I was pairing year end December 1990 with year start January 1990. It is fixed now – didn’t change things much but might match the Rutgers winter graph better now. Trend is slightly lower +52,000 km2/year.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdHFzTFVnTlVrYnV0bEpxLWt5aXE2UEE&oid=1&v=1266258598225
I always wondered why Florida with its humidity and heat has had so much more snow than Pennsylvania. Has common sense taken a complete holiday?
Chu’s white rooftops would basically just keep a single building a bit cooler. However in The Great White North having black rooftops is better because we need all the stored solar energy in the fall, winter and spring to save energy. Funny that.
I wonder if all the roof tops of a city were painted white would the Urban Heat Island effect be affected? Would it go down?
Conversely, if all the rooftops of a city were painted black would the Urban Heat Island effect be affected? Would it go up?
Now consider those two questions depending on how far south or north the city is… how does the latitude of each proposition impact the UHI effect? how much energy can be reflected or absorbed to impact each building’s energy costs (air conditioning or heating)?
Doesn’t it make more sense that in the months that it’s cooler the rooftops should be absorbing heat (by being black) to improve the energy efficiency of the building and during the warmer months to be reflecting heat (by being white) to save energy (and reduce cooling costs)?
During some months in the fall and spring it might even change day to day, so one day it’s a bit cooler out but the sun is shining and the rooftop would change to black to absorb the heat, while on another day it’s warmer and the rooftop would change to white to reflect away unwanted heat.
Of course there are now high tech roofing tiles that change from black to white and back again, so maybe this would be viable in the energy profiles of some structures. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/madmec-roof.html
Then of course would it be more efficient to simply absorb the sunlight as energy with solar roofing tiles and use the energy to heat or cool or power lights or whatever as needed. They even make them look nice on homes now: http://www.premierpower.com/solar_energy_residential/roof_solar_tile.php.
The bottom line is that energy solutions need to be considered for each structure, no one solution such as white rooftops fits all needs or situations or geographic locations. Heck in some cases other roof colors might be better, or other roofing materials being their natural color… or maybe a rooftop garden is better… it all depends.
Further study is needed.
pwl
http://www.PathsToKnowledge.net
“Slightly OT, if we are entering a Dalton Minimum, what, if anything, happened to sea level heights during the last one?”
I think the most accurate answer would be that no one was making measurements anywhere in the world that were accurate enough to be able to tell, and the proxy measurements for time scales that short seems to always come down to some guy just making stuff up.
>>>Your post should have been titled: “The Snow Line is Moving North.”
Or better still: “”The Snow Line is Moving Towards the Middle””
.
Icarus
Can you tell me what would falsify AGW?
“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.”
Most of the articles that I’ve seen claiming that AGW causes extreme cooling winter weather events fail to state just HOW such a mechanism would work. So they are propaganda fluff pieces selling the populace on the idea that AGW causes harsh winters. Its’ quite annoying.
The question for any journalist who puts their name on such an article is of course, how does that work and what is the hard evidence for it.