Guest post by Steven Goddard
Photo above from: NY Daily News: Record Snowfall in New York
Now that we have reached the end of the meteorological winter (December-February,) Rutgers University Global Snow Lab numbers (1967-2010) show that the just completed decade (2001-2010) had the snowiest Northern Hemisphere winters on record. The just completed winter was also the second snowiest on record, exceeded only by 1978. Average winter snow extent during the past decade was greater than 45,500,000 km2, beating out the 1960s by about 70,000 km2, and beating out the 1990s by nearly 1,000,000 km2. The bar chart below shows average winter snow extent for each decade going back to the late 1960s.
Here are a few interesting facts.
- Average winter snow extent has increased since the 1990s, by nearly the area of Texas and California combined.
- Three of the four snowiest winters in the Rutgers record occurred during the last decade – the top four winters are (in order) 1978, 2010, 2008, 2003
- The third week of February, 2010 had the second highest weekly extent (52,170,000 m2) out of the 2,229 week record
The bar graph below shows winter data for each year in the Rutgers database, color coded by decade. The yellow line shows the mean winter snow extent through the period. Note that the past decade only had two winters below 45 million km2. The 1990s had seven winters below the 45 million km2, the 1980s had five winters below 45 million km2, and the 1970s had four winters below 45 million km2. This indicates that the past decade not only had the most snowfall, but it also had the most consistently high snowfall, year over year.
It appears that AGW claims of the demise of snowfall have been exaggerated. And so far things are not looking very good for the climate model predictions of declining snowfall in the 21st century.
Many regions of the Northern Hemisphere have seen record snowfall this winter, including Washington D.C, Moscow, China, and Korea. Dr. Hansen’s office at Columbia University has seen record snowfall, and Al Gore has ineptly described the record snow :
“Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm,”
A decade long record across the entire Northern Hemisphere is not appropriately described as a “snowstorm.”
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Some days I wonder about all this and think: no way.
This is part of what my Jeep and I have warmed up (That white ball behind the space station is what I refer to).
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/1003/iss_sts130_big.jpg
Well – I had to use my Dodge pickup, too. As a result the world is in peril. If it’s any consolation I don’t have my airplane any longer, but still – AGW is really all my fault.
All seriousness aside, what I see in that photo is a huge spherical radiator, half of which is exposed to the night time sky and its unforgiving -70º heat sink, and much of the other half hiding behind clouds. It’s difficult to imagine the temperature on the surface of the ball is anywhere near stable over time. And I guess it’s not.
My latest upload on Youtube
The State of AGW Climate Change Theory 3-1-2010
See my previous video post at 6:20 to see Nathan Thurn in that one.
Nathan Thurm interviewed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Steve Goddard (22:51:25) :
Thanks Steve, it took a week of some digging to finally get my mind set straight, to me anyway.
And Leif, this is not meant against you, but contraire, I owe you a big thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I seem to have looked at these finer points of statistics in the wrong way for years. Other people of science had hood-winked me on these points before, using statistics as the hammer. Hopefully, never so easily again. However, don’t jump too fast to say someone is implying continuation of a trend within a certain confidence level when they may merely be saying, statistically, the points plotted against time are pointing up, level, or downward within a certain range, no continuation of confidence said, meant, or implied. Once again, if this is wrong, let me know, I am always trying to learn the next thing I do not know.
I think I’m seeing a pattern here. This is how the extreme environmental thoughts were implanted in the sheeples brains through SNL among other places. This video is the precursor to the Green Police videos. It may have been used for test marketing purposes.
Wastebusters! (Nathan Thurm)
>>Many regions of the Northern Hemisphere have seen
>>record snowfall this winter, including Washington D.C,
>>Moscow, China, and Korea.
And N.W. Europe (UK and neighbouring regions).
.
Maybe I missed something during my Maths classes, but AFAIK:
01-02 1
02-03 2
03-04 3
…
08-09 8
09-10 9
implying that Feb ’01-Feb ’10 equates to nine years.
Note: Misspelled my name earlier, it’s Baltutis.
Was the decade significantly snowier? If not you really have no story.
Roger Knights (18:58:52) :
John Balttutis (17:21:04) :
Not bad for nine-year decade!
“Now that we have reached the end of the meteorological winter (December-February,) Rutgers University Global Snow Lab numbers (1967-2010) show that the just completed decade (2001-2010) had the snowiest Northern Hemisphere winters on record.”
Don’t worry about it, Roger. John Balttutis appears to have trouble counting from 1 to 10.
Ah! After a walk around the cool, night air, I see the error of my ways.
12/00-2/01 1
12/01-2/02 2
…
12/08-2/09 9
12/09-2/10 10
So, it should read the last ten winters, 12/00-2/10 and not the decade of 2001-2010, which implies 01/01-12/10, inclusive.
‘ Gary Hladik (17:16:47) :
Wait a sec: the “warmest decade on record” is also the snowiest? Has AGW raised the melting point of snow? Yikes, IWTWT! ‘
OMG – Ice Nine has arrived!
Willis; how dare you upset Steve’s wonderful satire in chartmanship and tabloid headlining! 🙂
I saw the graphs and thought I was looking at a RealClimate blog article.
You’d form a rock band if you wanted to make money from noise in the 1970’s. Since the 1990’s, “the buzz” has been to go into climatology. Lots of money to be made from noise.
The choice of the 30-year nominal period to define climate is especially appropriate. Climate was previously observed to occur in significant cycles of *at least* twice as long as that, so profits from “climate change” are a certainty.
Yes, but this is the raw data. You should give us the graph of the “value added” data. I am sure there is a significant downward trend there.
I’m sure that when the historians of a hundred years hence try to explain the CAGW global scam, the first decade of the 21st century will be seen as the ‘tipping point’ of failure. Snow is such an obvious event that it can’t be fudged or hidden.
Hasn’t the world population greatly increased since 1967?
And, at the same time, hasn’t the world’s urban population, and the size of cities, increased by an even larger percentage since 1967?
So if the climate were constant, wouldn’t we expect snow coverage to decline slightly, just because of the larger urban areas?
Finally a true hockey-stick except for the pure chance interval in 1987 , but even a champion sometimes looses , mr obama can confirm this although algore will detect another rhythm , his new movie will show the inevitable melting of this snow of yesterday
Well, the meteorological winter may be over. But how about the meteorological spring? Are we heading towards any sort of snowiest spring(s) of any sort of record? ‘Cause I’ve just been outdoors, it’s snowing right now, it’s accumulating, and it’s been awhile since it was all gone. This does not look promising.
Kate:
‘Climateprogress is patting itself on the back for displaying a list of scientists who support Global Warming’
I checked out this site. How very depressing. How many of these organisations are being supported by the taxpayers the world over? Should we tell them that we have record snow fall these ten years? How far will the glaciers of the next ice age advance before these dinasaurs notice?
There was a small crumb of comfort – one of the bloggers pointed out that the climate deniers seem to be winning. Hurrah!! Onward doubting soldiers….
Peter Jones: “Thus, this is actually an indication of average temperature during the winter. It is a very exact thermometer since we don’t have to adjust for differences in where the solid-liquid transition of water is; we only can’t know how much colder or warmer it is. In any case, it certainly brings further question to the temperature record.”
Peter, that would be true if the temperature were the only variant. However, if e.g. the quantity of precipitation were to increase, then you would get more snow – so by one argument more snow cover, but as I know to my cost (spoilt weekends) more precipitation can also mean more rain which very quickly wipes the Scottish hills of snow.
It should also be possible to get less snow with the same amount of precipitation if e.g. the day-night variation increases, in that snow melts during the heat of the day and even if the cold of the night averages out the temperature, the added cold cannot remake the lost snow.
There will be other factors like the type of snow (fluffy stuff melts quicker compared to granular) vegetative ground cover (snow melts on concrete but settles on grass)
The snowfall short term trends over 50 years may not show the complete picture.
While agreeing with Willis re the thermostat theory (how do you post your graphs?) the dataset is quite limited. 1976 although coming out of a cool era cannot be compared with a solar grand minimum, the thermostat perhaps works better when the solar measures are on the increase.
Lets visit the same graph in 10 years time. Its early days.
Bernd Felsche (01:12:54) : edit
Dang … if that was satire, it went entirely over my head. Steve, was that satire? I’m losing my touch …
Why haven’t I seen this before?
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Robert E. Phelan (17:34:31) :
I also remember that very cold winter of 1976-77. The sea-ice was pretty amazing up in Maine, and I remember harbors had troubles with sea-ice all the way down to Chesapeake Bay. This winter is balmy, up in the northeast, by comparison.
I think that 1976-77 winter might be repeated once the AMO enters its cold phase. As I recall both the AMO and PDO were in their cold phases back then.
In 1976-77 a ridge of high pressure got stuck out west, and California was sunny with a drought all winter. The jet stream curved all the way up to Alaska, and I think their winter was mild, at least near the coast. However the jet stream then curved around, and came southeast clear down to the Gulf of Mexico, before turning back up to the northeast. In Maine the winds shifted to the northwest in October and pretty much stayed northwest for months, only occasionally shifting northeast for storms. The colder AMO did not put up such a fight against the cold as it did this year.
This year the clash between the arctic flow from the northwest and the warmer AMO has allowed the big blizzards to blow up along the mid-Atlantic coast. As these storms have exploded the north side of the storms have drawn milder, maritime air east over Eastern Canada. On several occasions I’ve seen the moisture thrown all the way west to Chicago, even as the arctic air plunged all the way south to Florida. On one occasion it was colder in Augusta Georgia than it was in Augusta Maine.
If I was judging the winter simply by how often the water buckets froze in my barn, I’d have to call it a mild winter, in New Hampshire. I thank the warm phase of the AMO, but know that is going to change in the next few years.
Mike Haseler
My point is, that we have all seen how we can’t trust the temperature record due to the problems with siting weather stations. Since Snow Extent is an area measurement, then we know region that has maintained cold enough temperatures to not lose snow cover. Moreover, while there are other variants, we have this observational record for the complete area and we don’t have to worry about sampling bias and homogenization. Yes, it is a more crude assessment, where snow will melt as some function of the thickness and the average high temperature for the day, but the thing is that we have the data for every single point on the map. We can’t get a fuller dataset.
Doesn’t count — it’s not *multi-year* snow.
Yet…