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.
Icarus, remember Phil Jones in his recent BBC interview:
Q) “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming [?]”
“Yes, but only just.”
So Icarus, do you agree with Phil Jones about there has been no statistically-significant global warming since 1995?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Just in case you are a newcomer to global climate change scares:
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=globalclimatefacts.wordpress.com
as found on this page:
http://globalclimatefacts.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/%E2%80%98in-search-of-%E2%80%A6-the-coming-ice-age%E2%80%99-a-video-from-1978/
And oh, how Leanord Nimoy delivered.
Basil (09:59:26)
Exactly right about the zonal / meridional issue.
As the equatorial air masses shrink during a cooling spell the air circulation systems in the mid latitudes have more room to wander about meridionally because there is less pressure from the equator squeezing them into the narrower more zonal east west track.
Ultimately one even gets the polar high pressure cells migrating down over the mid latitudes leaving room for lower pressure to develop at the poles.
Pretty much what has happened this winter in fact.
So the main controlling feature of the climate syatem in synoptic terms is the balance between equatorial oceanic air masses pressing poleward (or not) and the polar atmospheric air masses pressing equatorward (or not).
The rate of energy release from the oceans dictating the former and the rate of energy loss to space dictating the latter.
The observed climate is just the equilibrium response to such variations in energy transfer rates with the positions of the air circulation systems and the speed of the hydrological cycle always adjusting to bring energy variations above and below the troposphere back towards equilibrium (Wilde’s Law ?)
Tom P,
Corrected version (w/ Decembers lined up to the correct year, overlaid on the Rutgers graph is here:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddw82wws_396g45kcjgn
Trend line for the last 20 years is 63000 km2/year.
Expanding snow cover and cold snaps? Exactly as predicted by Global Warming, thats what most unquoted/unreferenced climate scientists say.
“It snowed in Rome over the weekend, the first time in a generation?
Sorry that’s weather not climate?”
Also precisely predicted by global warming.
“Things cused by Global Warming
1)Snow (ie East cost snow)
2)Lack of snow (ie Vancouver)
3)Floods
4)Droughts
5)Warmth (NW area of NA)
6)Cold (Texas, Alabama and Florida)
7)Earth-Quakes
8) Well as Joe Romm would say everything
So there it is the Earth is heating up and is caused by man, what more proof do you need?
John”
Replace that factor(GW) with God and you have religion. Drought? God did it. Heat waves? God did it. Blizzards in Dallas, God did it. What a nice simple world we live in. Good luck reasoning with the GW bible belt.
By the way Anthony, it appears Denmark and Sweden might be crossable by ice.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e&mode=img&date=set&y=2010&m=02&d=14
“It’s not just temperature rises that tell us the world is warming,” [Kevin Trenberth] said. “We also have physical changes like the fact that sea levels have risen around five inches since 1972, the Arctic icecap has declined by 40 per cent and snow cover in the northern hemisphere has declined.”
So this record snowfall is good. Now they must be happy that there is some snow cover back in the northern hemisphere.
No, wait that’s bad, because there was more water vapor in the air from global warming which caused the snow cover.
No, wait that’s good, because all the greenhouse gas (water vapor) is now out of the atmosphere and on the ground.
No, wait that’s bad, because it was an anomaly, and broke records, and was extreme.
No, wait that’s good because at least there are not unseasonable highs like in Vancouver for the games.
Love to see this to its conclusion, but I gotta go…clean my garage or something. 🙂
Possible quote of the week:
[Jones} said: “I don’t think we should be taking much notice of what’s on blogs because they seem to be hijacking the peer-review process.”
From the lead story in The Guardian:
“Hacked climate emails: Phil Jones admits loss of weather data was ‘not acceptable’
Head of the Climate Research Unit at the University East Anglia says he would consider correcting his paper on the degree of warming in China”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/phil-jones-lost-weather-data
Steve Goddard
Steve you have been coming here for long enough to know that you should ignore TOM [snip (P)]
It just goes round and round. Just ignore him.
It doesn’t matter if the China weather stations were moved. “The science still holds up.”
Jones in http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100215/full/news.2010.71.html
Everything is consistent with AGW. Now, we’d like you to go ahead and give us 5% of your money and income (EVERYONE, that is) so we can get on with the business of saving the world!
stephan,
Tom P made a valid point. The first version of the spreadsheet had an error and he caught it. I appreciate him pointing it out.
Here’s an anecdotal anecdote: My wife and I don’t have children. We have two house dogs which are perfectly behaved and excellently breed (mutts). Our larger animal (100lbs.) is Sadie. She is part Doberman and very loyal. She lays by the door and pines (whines) when I’m away. When my wife and I are both away, Sadie tends to snick some oddment of clothing in which to lay with until we return. Sometimes she finds her way into the dirty clothes hamper, sometimes she takes her prize out through the doggie door onto the back deck. You can sense where this is headed? No? Think cold…
I live in Arkansas. We get snow, yes, but usually in mild doses that come and go rather quickly. We do a fair amount of grilling and smoking during the winter months. Folk up North have been relocating here for ages, seeking the mild winters. That being said here’s where Sadie, Winter and Watts Up With That combine for some bottom lines:
We got a heavy snow that covered our unroofed deck. The snow lasted for days. Some thawing took place, yet not nearly enough to expose the deck boards. More snow fell, another winter storm. The deck was covered deeper than before. Now it’s been weeks since the deck has been clear. This time, now well into February, the snow finally melted down… exposing a pair of boxer briefs that had to have been drug out onto the deck weeks before. I don’t know about other folks, but I really don’t relish the fact that I had dirty underwear out on my deck for so many weeks, but let this anecdote give a little hint how the snow is falling oftener and lasting longer this year.
pwl (10:43:43) :
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,/i>
The real question it he/she is paid for that. Ethics or courage are long gone virtues.
For those who agree that the IPCC and Al Gore have gone too far, signing the online petition “Al Gore and The UN IPCC Should Give Back Their Nobel Prize!” seems like a reasonable option. The link is http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/nomorenobel/
Ecotretas
Gary
Thanks for that story, it brings “global warming” really home, does it not?
Do enjoy your global warming while it lasts
because I have a funny feeling that things are still going to get a lot colder still
How about moving more south?
(I also have two naughty dogs, one of them always has to chew on anything that I touched)
Veronica (England),
The graph was taken from one of the numerous skeptic sites, but I didn’t note which one. Sorry, I should have. But I think it was from NOAA data, like this very similar one for October anomalies going back to 1900: click
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/phil-jones-lost-weather-data
roger (07:29:57) :
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!
—————
It’s not that he didn’t fly; he just didn’t know where he was going. CC is the same ball of wax.
From a story about how the New York Times has ignored the climategate story:
“Meanwhile, out in the real world, the multifaceted credibility collapse that is Climategate majestically and inexorably unfolds.”
I wish I wrote that line! Nice prose! “majestically and inexorably” indeed!
Gail (10:28:37) :
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!.
———
Gail, you’ll have seen occasional allusion to ‘rotten ice’ or ‘rotten something’ in the comments here and you have happened upon the inspiration behind them.
Here’s where this was discussed at WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=barber
If we take the Schove estimates of the maximum magnitudes (R(M)) from the period 1500-1750 and the measurements from 1750, we get (the rounding for exact centuries done only to make the general picture clear):
1410-1500 ? cold (Sporer minimum)
1510-1600 107 warm
1610-1700 61 cold (Maunder minimum)
1710-1800 114 warm
1810-1900 95 cold (Dalton minimum)
1910-2000 151 warm
2010-2100 ? cold?
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspot5.html#historic
graham UK 10:08:52
I love words that are different from what I normally use to describe something and your term “hillwalkers” just amused me a bunch-I’m going to use it now instead of hiking.
Coincidental with the Snow Line moving south are the Active Regions on the N. Hemisphere of the Sun going south a bit early.
“Watch OUT! Soon the glaciers will start growing again and it’ll be panic stations, they’ll be engulfing towns.
I would have thought glaciers receding is good, more land!”
Reasonable thought to have. But in many parts of the world, glaciers serve as natural reservoirs, capturing excess precipitation and releasing it gradually as melt. Without glaciers, over a billion people around the world would be subject to more intense flooding and droughts (I can hear the “skeptics” now: “Droughts AND floods! Maybe glacier retreat causes acne, too!”)