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.
Getting some of that warming causes snow falling in central Texas today. Looks a lot like it did back in the 70s. You know, things that have happened before and will happen again.
Jay,
When I did the February calculation last week, it was based on available weekly data combined with the current day.
We have had much more snow than normal here in North Texas this year. It has also been much colder than normal. Somehow I suspect these two things are correlated. I note that the record snowfall in Moscow is also accompanied by unusually cold temperatures.
Jay, you badly need to develop a concept of geologic time. Arbitrarily picking a period of time beginning when your preferred instrumentation became available, and then pretending that said period is a particularly significant length of time, is specious. This is particularly true when other types of instrumental observations (thermometers and tidal gauges, maybe?) have been in continuous operation in many places for much longer periods of time. As we have seen repeatedly in posts on this site, records of that kind have a strong tendency to indicate that current observations are nothing unusual. Nothing unusual = no need to invoke human causation.
Rain today in northern Vermont, mixed tomorrow, One of the poorest snow seasons in memory. No bitter cold to speak of all season. Just “flatlander” cold.
Hi Steve.
Thanks for accusing me of avoiding your question after I answered it. I could point out that I’ve asked you to explain your method for arriving at your Jan/Feb 2010 three times now without answer, but I won’t. Oh wait I just did. Make it four (see below).
I do not dispute, other than a remaining query about the 2010 plot, that you have plotted an upwards trend line for the last 20 years of winter snow cover, but I do not know whether your trend reliably tells us something useful about variable data like snow cover because it fails basic statistical significance tests. Do you dispute that the trend for snow cover in the N.H. from 1967 is down? It is because it is possible to identify trends in all sorts of directions that it is important to properly gauge statistical confidence in any trend – otherwise one might be lead to draw conclusions that aren’t properly backed up by the data.
Now back to that Jan/Feb data point. I think I’m using the same data as you (it’s the data you linked to from Rutgers last week) but I have got very different results to you for Jan/Feb 2010. I’d like to find at why – and to that end I’m curious as to your method for arriving at a figure for Jan/Feb 2010. Perhaps you’d be good enough to, very briefly, explain how you did it so I can attempt to reproduce your figure.
You’re not going to make me send a FOI request are you?
All the best…
At least Russians have an equipment and an experience to deal with the snow, they don’t lose power supply every time it’s snowing, and they don’t think it’s the end of the world as we know it — unlike some jar-eared ventriloquist’s dummies in Chicago on Potomac.
Having said that, I must admit that Moscow traffic is truly nightmarish, and that Moscow mayor Luzhkov is one of the most unscrupulous, brazen thieves on the face of our planet, bristling like a porcupine with organized crime connections. He and Al Gore would understand each other without words: no interpreter needed.
Robert Kral.
Thanks for your comment Robert. I simply used the data and methodology (as best as I can fathom it) Steve Goddard kindly provided to in his posts at WUWT last week. Is there some problem with this approach?
Jay,
As soon as I start getting Federal funding (or any other funding) feel free to file an FOI request.
http://www.state.gov/m/a/ips/
Prior to 1989 the trend for winter/summer snow cover was down. (How many times do I have to repeat that?) Since 1989, winter is up, summer is flat. (How many times do I have to repeat that?)
Simple yes or no will do. Do you agree with Tamino that winter snow extent has not increased since 1989?
My question has always been what weather event would not be consist with global warming theory? It seem every time there is a weather event that is hotter/colder, wetter/dryer it is consistent with AGW.
Fortunately I work with several other engineers that are AGW skeptics. Engineers seem to have a good grasp of the fallacies of AGW theory.
MJ Penny, PE
Steve said:
“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”
Again Steve, with the insults. Do you think I would post data here unless I was pretty darn certain of what I speak? Do you think you can find data that disputes what a long term native of Colorado (who also studies weather in depth) knows? The height to which your self-certainty soars knows no bounds. Here’s the official Denver records going back to the 1880’s:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/bou/?n=denver_snowfall
Please note: I do stand slightly corrected though: It is March, November, and then April as Denver’s snowiest months…but certainly not December…and CERTAINLY not our coldest months…January and February…since any novice student of weather and climate knows that COLD=DRY. November is warmer than December and January, so it makes sense it would have more snow, but only very slightly more than April here in Denver.
And finally Steve, there is no way that December is Littleton CO coldest month…every weather student in the world knows that the end of January into the very beginning of February is the coldest part of the year at this latitude of the N. Hemisphere. See:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/recreation/outdoors/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/USCO0105?from=search
Warm=Wet, Cold=Dry…physics and climate 101.
The OtherDan,
looks like you need to move south for cold. Here are the last five months.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/WaterTDeptUS.png
Here’s mine from 2003 (on the left) if it is any help
http://arnholm.org/astro/mars/mars_20030831_0117ut.jpg
It shows the Mars polar ice cap as seen through an amateur telescope + attached webcam. Mars was unusually close when the image was taken in August 2003.
Can of Compressed Weather
Warning: contents under extreme pressure
Do not use outdoors.
Implosion Hazard.
Keep out of the reach of children, politicians, and wannabe Dr. Frankensteins.
Jay: Espen – you’re asking about individual decades, but using a 30 year moving average.
Not really, I was using a 11 year MA (though I added 30 year graphs in addition).
Anyway, my message is really that pointing to the 50s is cherry-picking, since that was well into a colder period.
Warm also equals rain, not snow.
Living most of my life near Wash. I can tell you that big snow events like this are rare because Wash generally has high temps above freezing in the winter, and have for as long as data has been recorded. A major snowstorm in DC is rare, despite Bobby Kennedy’s memories, two or three major storms is once or twice in a lifetime stuff. A foot of snow in DC will shut the place down for days, a couple hours north and a foot of snow is seen as a fun day to take your Subie out for a spin.
I just wish these guys could say, yea, we fudged it, let’s start over and do it properly rather than start spinning like Dirvishes on crack.
The AGW people keep yelling “Local weather isn’t climate!” whenever anyone mentions the massive snowfalls this year.
….but they conveniently forget that it’s not just the entire US that was blanketed, but Europe all the way over to Russia as well. Records busted THROUGHOUT the entire Northern Hemisphere. That is NOT ‘local weather’…..
WE had a nice foot of white-warming over the weekend. As soon as it cleared we dropped to -8°F this am. This makes two days below zero after 2/14 for the first time I’ve seen in 38 years here. From 1972-2009, I first observed, then learned to count on no sub-zero mornings after that date.
E.M.Smith (06:28:13) : NASA has archives of a bunch of martian imagery, here is one quick link I found:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/images/image-collection_archive_1.html
A few years back I found a huge NASA montage of the 360° horizon in color and had a large format printer to output it at 28″ X 120″, photographic quality.
Snow is bad for business and drives stock exchanges down:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aB0PF.Eg5OCo&pos=1
Ecotretas
R Gates,
I spend most of my time in Colorado too.
Sorry you don’t like the WRCC data for Littleton – you should complain to NOAA, not me. The Denver link you provided showed that for the last three years December snow has been almost 3X March.
I calculated snowfall for all 318 Colorado WRCC sites from here:
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/htmlfiles/co/co.sno.html
Averaged across the entire state the snowiest months in Colorado are:
March 12.5 inches
December 11.4 inches
January 11.2 inches
February 9.8 inches
November 8.8 inches
April 8.7 inches
October 3.7 inches
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdGhHc01yT25Ic0Nvcnc4SWNCWTlnSWc&oid=1&v=1266958485734
You are going to have a tough time proving your assertion that snowfall increases with temperature. Three of the four snowiest months are also the three coldest (December-February) You said April is #2 – it actually is #6.
“Simple yes or no will do.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s relevant Steve, and I really don’t think pushing it is going to help your case.
It’s not my strong subject by any means, but the point of a trend is to fit the data. One judges confidence in a trend by how well it fits. I don’t have a crystal ball, so I can’t say what the data is going to do in the future – but without doing anything fancy I can compare your trend line with data from before 1989 and it’s very obvious it’s way off. Way, way off.
Unless something significant happened in 1989 it looks like your trend line isn’t helpful. There’s nothing in that data that makes me thing snow isn’t likely to fall off as you claim the models predict. And you’ve not provided an alternative understanding of the physics either – so there’s nothing else to go on.
When you plot the entire data set from 1967 the truth is, it looks like particularly low snow cover in the 1990s and a few peaks in the 2000s are skewing your conclusions. It’s premature to say that it looks like the models are right or wrong based on your analysis.
All the best again.
“Anyway, my message is really that pointing to the 50s is cherry-picking, since that was well into a colder period.”
Espen, That may or may not be, but similarly my message is really that quote mining isn’t the same thing as being representative of what scientists say.
As an aside the Met Office have station data for the uk
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata/
Looking at some of the longer running stations like Lowerstoft and Durham don’t seem to support the idea that the 50s were a unique period. The 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s all look much of a muchness to my quick eyeball. The 60s look chilly but warming doesn’t really pick up until the 70s. I don’t see anything in those Temperature records to suggest Dr Allen was being wayward.
R Gates,
I tried a slightly different experiment, where I averaged monthly snowfall for the 50 snowiest sites in Colorado. December and March tied as the snowiest months at 32.0 inches.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdGhHc01yT25Ic0Nvcnc4SWNCWTlnSWc&oid=2&v=1266962445434
The snowiest sites are at the highest elevations and are generally the coldest. Snowfall increases at colder locations and is identical in March and December.
How does that fit into your theory?
Jay,
I don’t think the trend is linear either. It appears to have an upwards curvature during the last five years indicating that the increase in snowfall is accelerating.
I also have no idea what next year will be like. Might be the beginning of a 30 year drought. Who knows? Certainly not the climate modelers.
On the news this evening;
Coldest winther in Oslo since WWII.
hohoho. And a new cold-period coming.
I hope the Nobel-commitee is freeeeeezing.
OT but not entirely: I’ve just come across a short discussion of the “snowball earth” theory (earth in a complete deep freeze with all land-masses and oceans ice-covered) in a book I’m reviewing and am wondering if anybody here has devoted any attention to that theory. I’ve Googled the theory, and note that while it has been debunked by at least one scientific study , Connolley will not permit the Wikipedia article to be modified to reflect this. It occurs to me that CO2 concentrations argued to be necessary to have pulled the earth out of this condition at 130,000 ppm puts the warmists in rather a self-contradictory position: while CO2 is hypothesized to have been the forcing agent that brought the ‘snowball’ condition to an end, the posited concentrations did not succeed in making the earth come to a boil – they merely allowed the ice to melt sufficiently to allow the Cambrian explosion! Presumably the subsequent reduction of CO2 concentrations to modern concentrations was facilitated by autotrophs (i.e. photosynthesizing life forms). Just food for thought.
vigilantfish (14:21:10)
Start here for Snowball Earth studies.