Guest post by Steven Goddard
According to Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, last week’s Northern Hemisphere winter snow extent was the second highest on record, at 52,166,840 km2. This was only topped by the second week in February, 1978 at 53,647,305 km2. Rutgers has kept records continuously for the last 2,227 weeks, so being #2 is quite an accomplishment.
Daily Snow – February 13, 2010 (Day 44)
Source : Rutgers University Global Snow Lab
According to Rutgers University data through mid February, Northern Hemisphere winter snow extent has been increasing at a rate of over 100,000 km2 per year.
As discussed on WUWT, the implication is that Northern Hemisphere snow cover has only extended this far south one other time, since Rutgers University started keeping records. Additionally, North American snow extent broke its all time record last week. Canada is normally completely covered with snow in the winter (except for Olympic venues) so the implication is that the US had more snow last week than has been seen in at least the last 44 years.
Two of the fundamental precepts of global warming theory are that the tropics are supposed to expand, and the Arctic is supposed to warm disproportionately and shrink.
Expanding tropics ‘a threat to millions’
By Steve Connor, Science Editor The Independent
Monday, 3 December 2007
The tropical belt that girdles the Earth is expanding north and south, which could have dire consequences for large regions of the world where the climate is likely to become more arid or more stormy, scientists have warned in a seminal study published today. Climate change is having a dramatic impact on the tropics by pushing their boundaries towards the poles at an unprecedented rate not foreseen by computer models, which had predicted this sort of poleward movement only by the end of the century.
Arctic Ice Melting at Alarming Pace as Temperatures Rise
New studies show that the region is warming even faster than many scientists had feared
By Thomas Omestad
Posted December 16, 2008
New studies being released this week indicate that climate change is exerting massive and worrying change on the Arctic region—reducing the volume of ice, releasing methane gas into the atmosphere, and dramatically raising air temperatures in some parts of the Arctic. The findings will give fresh urgency to international deliberations on the next global climate change pact planned for December 2009 in Copenhagen. The studies also will likely intensify international pressure on the incoming Obama administration to embrace major cuts in the emission of greenhouse gases in an effort to help stabilize global temperatures. NASA scientists will reveal that more than 2 trillion tons of land ice on Greenland and Alaska, along with in Antarctica, have melted since 2003. Satellite measurements suggest half of the loss has come from Greenland. Melting of land ice slowly raises sea levels.
The World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, is also reporting that ice volume in the Arctic this year fell to its lowest recorded level to date.
Experts from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado will further reveal that temperatures this fall in some Arctic areas north of Alaska were 9 or 10 degrees Fahrenheit above average. The long-predicted phenomenon is known as “Arctic amplification.” As global air temperatures increase, the Arctic tends to show greater changes because the ice pack that once reflected solar heat is reduced in scope. More heat is therefore absorbed. The study is being discussed at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
The last time that snow extended this far south was in the 1970s, when climatologists were worried about the onset of an ice age, and some suggested that we needed to melt the polar ice caps by covering them with soot.
Newsweek, April 28, 1975
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
Time Magazine Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.
During the 1970s the southern snow cover was seen as a sign of an impending ice age, and the solution was to melt the polar ice caps. In 2010, the nearly identical snow cover is a sign of out of control global warming and the solution is to shut down modern civilization.
Ice age or a fiery tipping point? What do readers think?
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Tom P (11:25:23) :
Steven Goddard:
“According to Rutgers University data through mid February, Northern Hemisphere snow extent has been increasing at a rate of over 100,000 km2 per year.”
Not if you plot all the data:
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/396/snowextent.png”
So Rutgers included data from 1965 and the author chose data only from 1990??. Is this true?
As I have previously said, despite the cool PDO, negative AO, AMO heading south, low solar activity, volcanic activity- winter temps and winter length just are no where near what they were in my youth (1960-1980). No 30 below nights, snow cover in April, whole weeks that struggle to get out of the single digits above zero. I came to this site years ago, hoping to find evidence that global warming was not real. Still looking.
BillyBob (11:25:15) :
“Kevin Trenbeth is a blatant liar”
No, Kevin Trenbeth was correct when he stated “…snow cover in the northern hemisphere has declined.”
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=0&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=1
As for Steven Goddard, please read his own comments at (11:53:28).
Greensboro, NC – Our local weatherman last night showed the average temp for February is running 5.7F below normal. We’ve had a run of about 3 weeks of temperatures not reaching average levels. Makes me wonder where Al Gore is hanging out these days!
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/reports/EXECSUM
Looks like California agriculture will be around for at least one more year (sorry Secretary Chu).
🙂
Antarctica is climactically isolated from the rest of Planet Earth.
Unfortunately for the N. Hemisphere, the same is not true for the Arctic.
It’s blowing down on top of us.
In a zero-sum game ( the rosiest scenario) we are the zeroes buried under the x-flakes of snow.
Have you had your hot bowl of AGW Chowder today? No?
Better get a move on, then, because Lisa is fixing to appropriate your heating fuel, and she doesn’t take Arctic Express.
I find myself in need of some info and, of course, I ask here and here alone.
The vaunted ghg/co2 catastrophe scenario postulates a warm Arctic.
Why?
To keep this in perspective, it is very important to look at the snow cover anomalies over the past 44 years:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=0&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=1
Do you see a trend? It certainly isn’t up…
Where did all that moisture for the snow come from? Warmer, not cooler, oceans. Warmer oceans are part of AGW models, not some pending Ice Age.
January 2010 also saw record warmth in the troposphere. Is there pattern here? Yep…warmer oceans, warmer troposphere, more snow in Winter, all part of AGW models, until winters in get so warm that the precip falls as rain. But of course this will fall on deaf ears as some will get thier laugh at the thought of warmth and snow combined as they fail to understand the finer nuances…
http://portal.fma.fi/sivu/www/baltice/ice_forecast
We can now WALK from Sweden to Russia if it wasn’t for the
pesky icebreakers .
//Lars
Michael,
“So let me be very clear about this observation;
SHIPPING US MANUFACTURING JOBS OVERSEAS CAUSES MORE PLANETARY POLLUTION, NOT LESS!”
The passage of Cap and Trade would result the acceleration of that transfer, of course.
Steve Goddard (11:53:28) :
My bad. I meant to say “winter snow extent has been increasing at 100,000km2 per year”
Cherry picking?
The snow is likely the result of the El Nino pumping more moisture into the air coupled with strong negative oscillations of the NAO, pushing storm patterns a bit further south over land areas. Satellite temperatures globally are still very warm and the global sea ice extent is below average. Nothing here is surprising or evidence of significant climate change one way or another.
All of this snow can only have a negative impact on temperatures (increased albedo), but the amount of land covered above the average is still small potatoes compared to the total area of the planet surface, so the change in albedo will be small.
The satellite data is still the way to go for following global atmospheric temperatures and it is running warm right now, but I bet it will drop quickly as the El Nino begins to fade.
I don’t know if this has been seen here at WUWT yet but it was inevitable that the infamously recycled Hit|3r video would have yet another climate spin take. This one is quite good. Don’t drink anything while watching. You have been warned… 8^)
[Snip. Anthony’s policy is no more embedded Hitler videos. The hot link to this one has been posted a couple of times, though. ~dbs]
When something proves everything, it really proves nothing. A theory must be falsifiable in order to be scientific. Part of the way the AGW alarmists have tried to insolate themselves from criticism is by refusing to define the circumstances under which their theory can be falsified. Then when the falsifying data arrive and are obvious to all, they suddenly claim that their theory explains that too.
Looking merely at the behaviors of the alarmists in this matter of theory falsifiability, even if you know little or nothing about the content of their arguments, you can tell that something is wrong, terribly wrong.
Does anyone know of a source for near term planetary albedo data? it would be interesting to see if the recent NH weather is having a detectable effect on the albedo numbers.
I visited Realclimate to check out the warmista’s current views and I learnt something – a credibility thingy named ‘the Overton Window’ which, apparently, causes swings in the public’s interests. I went to Primary school with the Overton girls and they were cute but feisty – and no boy peeked through their windows, as Old Man Overton woulda killed then skinned alive any boy who did.
Seriously, the game is up over there when they start using pop Sociology to justify their maunderings.
JonesII (11:06:44) :
Forecasts? Hmm.
Sadly I have it on good authority that we have been extremely fortunate with the timing of the climate and Climategate. The go-to-guy ’round here says 2010 warm, 2011 warm, 2012 warm, 2013 warm… but then watch out. And for decades. Cold. We have to push home our advantage, fast, because the shrieking and rending of hair will resume.
How’s that for a forecast. If he hadn’t been right 95% of the time since perfecting his system a couple of years ago I wouldn’t give him the time of day, or WUWT his predictions. Especially as it would seem highly unlikely given our current perspective.
I wonder what the expanding ice sheets in the Antarctic and increasing snow coverage in the Northern Hemisphere mean to the earth’s global ‘climate’. Are these factors more important than than the increasing average temperatures that we have seen over some centuries since the LIA?
What I am asking here is why we almost solely equate the climate with the average temperature, which is only one parameter amongst the many which define climate. The parameters which are relevant to biological life include air temperature, wind speed and direction, rainfall, extent of snow, ocean temperatures, ocean current circultion, sunshine hours, cloud cover, atmospheric chemical composition, dust in the atmosphere, humidity, air pressure, and many others.
Climate must mean different things to different people. A cereal farmer in North America might be more concerned with snow extent and persistence than temperature, if it meant that too much snow delayed the start of the planting season. If you are a recreational yachtsman, then wind speed and direction patterns define your definition of a suitable climate; temperature has little to do with yacht performance.
We measure air temperatures by averaging a daily temp max and a temp min. But what if the max temp is only achieved for a few minutes of the day in one area, but is sustained over some hours in another? They may have the same average, but the second area would have been exposed longer; a different experience. Should we not measure total daily energy input changes instead?
So what is climate? Not the simple long term aggregating of reported weather parameters surely, because they are not adequate descriptions of energy changes going on in the atmosphere, ground and the oceans. The definition of a Climate must also include the objects upon which has its effects. Thus there are at least a human climate, a plant life climate, an oceanic life climate, and a climate with influences on the geology of the earth.
I’ve looked at earlier El Niño years with similar patterns, and the 1941-42 El Niño was somewhat similar, with a very strong winter in Europe. 1941-42 was approximately at the top of the previous warm period, after that the world saw more than three decades of gradually cooling temperatures. I think we may be in for 30 gradually cooler years, and that politicians should finally start worrying equally about a scenario for an abnormally cold 2040 than they now worry about a warm 2040. Or preferably, worry MORE about that scenario, since it’s much, much more scary. It’s a scenario where food supplies get really scarce because of cold and dry weather in large parts of the world. A first step would be to stop the dangerous experiments with bio fuel immediately, and rather support research into real long term energy solutions, like Thorium nuclear power and, ultimately, fusion power.
Here’s a nuance: 4 of the top 6 Southern Hemisphere sea ice extents measured since 1979 have taken place in the last 5 years:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.antarctic.png
As temps at the South Pole continue to decline …
We know, we know … cooler South Pole, more sea ice, but warmer continent, bright red, etc.
Michael (11:51:44) :
“Winters are arriving much earlier in the year now too. This is because of the 3 year long solar minimum. Snow storms were wide spread across the US this past October”
Ski areas in Vermont opened weeks later than usual this year due to temps too warm to get or make snow.
Well I would say that there are in fact many of us who DO associate more precipitation with warmer ocean temperatures. But the AGW enthusiasts have insisted that global warming leads to droughts and water shortages; that has not been the claim of skeptics.
See Frank Wentz et al, SCIENCE Jul-7 2007, “How much more Rain will Global Warming bring ?” They say 7% per deg C rise in mean global surface temperature.
Also not all of us deny that there may be, and have been recently warming of the oceans. We just don’t blame it on either CO2 or humans.
As to snow coverage increase; my understanding is that “ice ages” are associated with increased snow and ice coverage; not necessarily with lower global temperatures. A steady increase in northern hemisphere winter snow coverage, would be quite expected with any onset of an ice age; not that I am suggesting that is the current situation.
Many of us don’t doubt that the collection of thermometers presently used (and those used in the past) to represent surface temperatures (lower atmosphere) have shown recent periods of “warming”; that being defined as an increase in the output numbers derived from that collection of thermometers.
As to whether that thermometer assemblage does or ever did represent the near surface temperature of the entire earth; that is an entirely different issue, and at least some of us say it does not.
It’s the insistence that recent weather and climate changes have been shown unequivocally to be the result of human activities, that some of us disagree with.
Well i will agree without reservation that the somewhat recent submergence of the City of New Orleans; was a direct consequence of human activity; namely building a swimming pool around the entire city; and then waiting for Gaia to come along and fill it for us.
Gavin “lets one through the gate” at surrealclimate. Probably so he can snipe at it. Trouble is I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the…..
“[Response: You are confusing alarming with alarmist. And I note that your entire argument is based on your perception of the presentation, and not any actual statement of fact. – gavin]”
Any facts in the article? Not that I could see. More like an op-ed in defence of a rumour wrapped inside a dream.
It’s having severe adverse effects on wildlife too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8520000/newsid_8520300/8520306.stm
“Thousands of deer in Scotland are at risk of starving to death because of this year’s cold winter.
Deer mainly munch on grass and purple heather growing in the area.
But, because the weather’s so cold food is buried under snow and ice – meaning the deer can’t get to it and so huge numbers are dying of hunger.
Every year there’s a cull of female red deer, but many estates stopped it for this season when they realised lots of deer were dying.
Walkers in Scotland are being advised not to go near herds of deer as if the animals run away they might use up what little energy they have left.
Wildlife experts are hoping the weather gets better in the coming months. They’re worried that if there’s a cold spring even more deer could be lost.”
R. Gates (12:25:50)
“Where did all that moisture for the snow come from? Warmer, not cooler, oceans. Warmer oceans are part of AGW models, not some pending Ice Age.”
Are you saying its a previously unpredicted negative feed back?
North American snow cover, 16 Feb 2010:
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/USA/2010/ims2010047_usa.gif
Northern Hemishphere snow cover, 17 Feb 2010:
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/NHem/2010/ims2010047.gif
Northern Hemisphere ice, 17 Feb 2010:
http://www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/data/analysis/350_50.gif
Observed reality puts the lie to “scientific” hyper-speculation.
Imagine the tree-ring divergence problems the lingering snow
cover is producing for future Climateers.