Headlines yesterday mentioned yet another new snowfall record: Moscow Covered by More Than Half Meter of Snow, Most Since 1966
Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) — Moscow’s streets were covered by 53 centimeters (20.9 inches) of snow this morning after 15 centimeters fell in 24 hours, putting Russia’s capital on course for its snowiest February since at least 1966.
Workers cleared a record 392,000 cubic meters (13.8 million cubic feet) of snow over the 24-hour period that ended this morning as precipitation exceeded the average February amount by 50 percent, according to state television station Rossiya 24. The city had 64 centimeters of snow cover on Feb. 23, 1966, the previous record, Rossiya 24 said.
In a story from Russia’s news agency, TASS, they mention that:
This year’s February is quite unique from the meteorological point of view. Not a single thaw has been registered so far and the temperature remains way below the average throughout the month.
I guess the Mayor of Moscow’s “Canute like” promise back in October didn’t work out so well. From Time magazine:
Moscow Mayor Promises a Winter Without Snow
Pigs still can’t fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor’s office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won’t need to constantly clear the streets, and traffic — and quality of life — will undoubtedly improve.
Before they were saying that increased winter snow is due to global warming, climate scientists were saying that decreased winter snow was due to global warming. As discussed already on WUWT, climate models predict declining winter snow cover. And a senior climate scientist predicted ten years ago :
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.
There is no shortage of similar claims:
Decline in Snowpack Is Blamed On Warming Using data collected over the past 50 years, the scientists confirmed that the mountains are getting more rain and less snow http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013101868.html
Many Ski Resorts Heading Downhill as a Result of Global Warming http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=363&ArticleID=4313&l=en
The prediction below was particularly entertaining, given that it was made during Aspen’s all time snowiest winter.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
DENVER — A study of two Rocky Mountain ski resorts says climate change will mean shorter seasons and less snow on lower slopes…. The study by two Colorado researchers says Aspen Mountain in Colorado and Park City in Utah will see dramatic changes even with a reduction in carbon emissions, which fuel climate change …. . Skiing at Aspen, with an average temperature 8.6 degrees higher than now, will be marginal. http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/131044
Global Warming Poses Threat to Ski Resorts in the Alps Climatologists say the warming trend will become dramatic by 2020
Global Warming Poses Threat to Ski Resorts in the Alps – New York Times
Himalayan snow melting in winter too, say scientists Himalayan snow melting in winter too, say scientists – SciDev.Net
Global warming ‘past the point of no return’ Friday, 16 September 2005 Global warming ‘past the point of no return’ – Science, News – The Independent
So what are they saying now?
Global Warming could equal massive snow storms Great Lakes and Global Warming could equal massive snow storms
Snow is consistent with global warming, say scientists Britain may be in the grip of the coldest winter for 30 years and grappling with up to a foot of snow in some places but the extreme weather is entirely consistent with global warming, claim scientists. Snow is consistent with global warming, say scientists – Telegraph
Climate Scientist: Record-Setting Mid-Atlantic Snowfall Linked to Global Warming
The Blizzard of 1996 does indeed qualify as one type of extreme weather to be expected in a warmer climate Blame Global Warming for the Blizzard – NYTimes.com
The great thing about global warming is that you can blame anything on it, and then deny it later.
Pascvaks
I seem to remember some French Dude had a problem with Russian snow, and then this German Dude had a problem with it too. Now the French guy lived in the 18th-19th Century, and the German guy lived in the 19th-20th Century. And here we are talking about Russian snow in the 21st Century.
Hummmm… (probably shouldn’t say this.. go ahead.. no.. go ahead.. ok)… “NOTHING’S CHANGED!!!” >>
Well actually something has changed. The French don’t march on Moscow anymore and neither do the Germans (though they took two cracks at it before really getting it). Now this brings up an obvious question. Are the Russians faking their winter data in order to keep the French and the Germans from marching on Moscow?
Pascvaks (07:25:34) :
“I seem to remember some French Dude had a problem with Russian snow, and then this German Dude had a problem with it too.”
Hopefully these “Statist’s” dudes are gone forever in Europe, replaced by trade and free markeds.
Espen “Here I have applied a 31-year moving average which really makes the long cycles stand out:
http://i48.tinypic.com/x3czdt.jpg
Interstingly, applying the same to summer (June-July-August) temperatures, gives a similar pattern, but it seems to be a few years delayed:”
Espen, a warning: Be very careful with climate data because long-term noise will give the apearance of cyclic-like behaviour where non really exists. The problem is that long term natural variation is greater in amplitude than short term variation. This is different to other many common physical systems, where they have similar amplitude, and you can use the relative size of short-term variation to guestimate the expected size of long-term noise and work out whether a long-term trend is within the normal noise limits, or greater than normal noise aka “abnormal”.
In contrast, climatic variation has a high long-term noise component so it has long ups and downs (I need a graph) which are part of the natural variation, and because of the relatively large size of these natural random long-term term ups-and-downs, you can easily mistake them as cycles or indeed a long-term trend in the signal.
This is particularly bad if you then filter the signal to remove the short-term noise, because it makes the long-term noise component stand out and that gives all the more appearance of it being “something”.
The way I like to describe is that normal noise is a bit like a disco dancer, who bobs around a lot, but basically stays in a fairly predictable place (at least that’s how it used to be). In contrast, climatic noise is a bit like a drunk walking down the street. They’re movement is also erratic, but they follow long sweeps to one side, then the other, forget where they were going and continue on. If you plot their movement, for a short period, it would appear they were intensionally heading onto the road, then heading back to hit the shop window, etc.
Global warming is due to a cyclical rebound from Earth’s 500-year Little Ice Age that ended in the 1880s. Since then, warming-cooling episodes have occurred with shorter frequencies, higher amplitudes, on a 50-40-30 and now 20-year time-scale. Heading into a probable Dalton if not a 70-year Maunder Minimum, we are also overdue for an end of the current 12,250-year Holocene Interglacial Epoch, a well-defined “interstitial” remission of Ice Time that has reliably characterized the Pleistocene Era these last 2.6 million years.
Climate Cultists fondly assert that, “If it’s cool, it’s weather; if it’s warm, it’s climate”. Regarding Warmists’ massive deceit and fraud, they state that regardless of measurements, that is of any objective, rational scientific fact, “It’s warming– warming, we tell you! Quickly, cough up ten trillion dollars before the world becomes a baking desert by January 2010” (UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, September 2009). Alas for the Green Gang, Lorenz’s Chaos Theory proves that linear extrapolations from “complex dynamic systems” such as Earth’s atmosphere are impossible (1964), while Boltzman’s Law of Thermodynamic Entropy prohibits any runaway Greenhouse Effect due to cumulative CO2 emissions, anthropogenic or otherwise (1880s).
In reality, Nature takes her course. Odds are that Planet Earth is tipping rapidly into a new Ice Time lasting a statistical 102,000 years. Having sabotaged, subverted, global energy economies from the late 1960s, the Green Gang’s ranting Luddite sociopaths have much to answer for.
Sorry forgot to smell check my post – apologies!
As the Russians like to say: “What, no invaders this year? Such a good snow is wasted…”
Anyway, can someone comment this?
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/23/britains-weather-office-proposes-climate-gate/
How reliable is the information?
Looks like the Met is waving the white flag. They’re told to do it all over again:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/23/britains-weather-office-proposes-climate-gate/
Maybe this time they’ll allocate enough money for a terra-byte drive to store their data (or even a pair for redundancy)!
Ian E (05:12:15) :
There is a short Sci-Fi story I read many years ago with a title something like ‘I have no mouth, but I must scream’. I know just what the author meant!
————————————
Replace ‘but’ with ‘and’. A post-apocalyptic short by Harlan Ellison back in the 60s. It’s good.
Has anyone asked on RC or something similar what new scientific discovery prompted the change in predictions between less snow models and more snow models? I would think that such an august body surely wouldn’t change the models just because the climate is changing.
I think what we are seeing is quantum climate change. All possible interpretations of climate change form a wave function. Only when viewed by the observer Al Gore does it collapse into the current CC interpretation.
Hi Steve,
Nope, I used *all* the available data. I think it’s already been shown here and elsewhere that ditching half of the data as you seem to prefer doesn’t yield statistically significant results. You don’t get confidence at the required 95%.
Do you have a problem with using all the data? Was there some change in the physical properties of climate that invalidates the data from 1967 to 1989?
As an aside – how do you arrive at your 2010 data point? – it looks to be about 5 million square km over and above the available Jan & Feb data from Rutgers.
Espen – you’re asking about individual decades, but using a 30 year moving average. I’m not sure that’s altogether helpful. It’s a little before my time, but the 1940s were noted for being bloody awful.
http://www.prestwichandwhitefieldguide.co.uk/news/4860957.Brothers_recall_snowfall_in_the_1940s/
http://www.topfoto.co.uk/gallery/1947Winter/default.htm
Feel free to take it up with Dr Allen if you disagree with him though.
Hope this helps.
Pascvaks (07:25:34) said:
Ah ha. I know how to solve global warming. We just need to invade Russia!
IsoTherm: I’m not quite sure if I understand you right, but I agree that I should have been careful with the word ‘cycle’ if that’s what you meant. I tend to think that climate is too much of a chaotic system to show real cyclic behavior.
Jay,
Given that the planet is neither covered with snow, nor bare, it is quite safe to assume that the long term trends of snowfall are flat. It is also quite clear that snowfall declined between 1978 and 1989, and then increased towards the present. The reason that I find the last twenty years interesting is because it is an upwards trend and because that is the period when climate models forecast that it should be declining.
I came up with my February estimate last week based on the available weekly data.
Neither Napoleaon nor the Germans had the power Al “Baby prophet” has to control weather. I think the mayor of Moscow should invite his Climate Highness to buy a “Dasha” over there.
its snowing in the north west of the uk ooops i was wrong its not snow its global warming piling up on the floor in global warming drifts .. 23 rd of feb
I live near Denver, CO. Our snowiest months during the snow season occur during March-April. Why? Because the more heat (relative to Dec-Feb) allows more moisture to be picked up from the Pacific and Gulf and dumped along the front range.
It takes heat to evaporate the moisture that gets turned into snow. Anarctica is one of the driest places on earth in terms of precip just because its one of the coldest.
Heat=moist
Cold=dry
Last glacial period on earth was cold and dry.
Simple physics.
Thanks Steve.
The problem with starting from 1989 though, is that you lose statistical confidence – so your ‘trend’ becomes meaningless. Simply regressing your trend-line backwards shows that it’s a pretty hopeless fit. Snow cover is clearly pretty variable – so it’s easy to see trends that don’t stack up if you’re not careful. Perhaps moving averages would be a better approach for you to take.
“I came up with my February estimate last week based on the available weekly data.”
Yes, but I wondered *how* you arrived at your estimate for Jan/Feb 2010. To my eye it seems to be about 5 million square kilometers over and above what’s in the Rutgers data that you linked to last week. Perhaps you’re using different data or a different method to arrive at your figure?
Ditto Sweden
http://www.thelocal.se/25166/20100223/
Steve Goddard;
The reason that I find the last twenty years interesting is because it is an upwards trend and because that is the period when climate models forecast that it should be declining >>
Well start preparing for some headlines here in North America in the next couple of weeks. The flood forecasts for the Red River (watch for Fargo, North Dakota in the US and Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada) have just started to come out. The catchment area I’m speaking of has a “Moscow like” climate in that snow starts falling in November and doesn’t start melting until March/April, forcing the entire winter’s snowfall from 30,000 km2 throgh the Red River.
In Winnipeg, there was virtually no flooding from the late 1800’s until a major flood in 1950. Then a couple more in 1970’s. Then we got hit in 96, 97, 04, 05, 06 and 09. Initial forecasts for 2010 are for flooding similar to ’09, but as us locals know, a late blizzard can change everything really fast.
So back to Steve’s point…. most of the discussion has been about snow extent which is a lot different from cumulative snow fall, BUT the snow fall in the last 20 years in a 30,000 km2 region spanning parts of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota and Minnesota is a LOT different from the 100 years or so prior to that.
The point here is the temperatures. Global warming may well increase moisture content of the atmosphere but the temperatures are also depressed. Global warming causes cold? Enough now.
Jay,
I’ll ask you the same question I just asked Leif. Do you agree with Tamino that winter snow cover has not increased over the last 20 years?
The final reading of February, 2010 snow cover will make very little difference to the shape of the graph.
R. Gates,
Your claims are incorrect. The closest station to Denver is the suburb Littleton. December is the snowiest month (12.7 inches) and it is also the coldest.
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?co5056
You might want to rethink your “simple physics”
Hi Steve.
I think winter snow cover has both increased and decreased at various times over the last 20 years – which makes establishing a meaningful trend difficult. Clearly 2008 had quite a bit of snow and 2010 has got off to a good start. But snow cover is variable – so it’s difficult to know (I don’t) if this is the exception or the rule.
It’s good to know that the final reading of Feb 2010 snow cover will make little difference to the shape of the graph. But I wonder if you’d explain what method you used to get to your Jan/Feb 2010 figure – only it looks very high when compared to mine.
All the best.
Jay,
You are avoiding the question. Do you agree with Tamino that the overall trend for the last twenty years is not upwards?
R. Gates,
Not only does Moscow have record snow, but temperatures are running far below normal.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/UUEE/2010/2/23/MonthlyHistory.html
Now explain your “simple physics” again about how warmth equals snow.