By Steve Goddard
The experts at East Anglia and CRU told us in 2000 that :
(March, 2000) 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.
David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes – or eventually “feel” virtual cold.
The 255 experts at the AAAS denouncing “climate deniers” in an open letter described this past winter in these cleverly sarcastic terms :
The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
I appreciate that government bureaucrats believe that there is no world outside Washington, yet nature has given us the opportunity to grade both the predictive and observational skills of the experts. And it looks like they deserve a rather poor grade. According to data collected by Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, this past October through March period was the snowiest on record in the Northern Hemisphere – with an average monthly snow cover of 39,720,106 km2. Second place occurred in 1970 at 39,574,224 km2.
‘
We also know that the past decade had the snowiest winters on record.
A month ago I discussed an AGW sacred cow – Glacier National Park. At that time, a WUWT reader (Craig Moore) expressed his concern about the lack of snowcover in Montana this year. The good news for Craig is that as of yesterday, snowpack in Montana is 98% of normal. California is 117% of normal. Arizona is 175% of normal. Wyoming is 101% of normal, etc.
Every good and conscientious citizen knows that snow cover is disappearing due to global warming. Google turns up over 100,000 hits on that topic. This is what the disappearing snowcover looked like in my neighborhood yesterday morning.
With lots more cold and snow on the way.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp1.html
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Owen says:
May 14, 2010 at 1:00 pm
“We have seen an increase in mean sea level that closely parallels the temperature rise.”
Owen, look here on sealevel;
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/NilsAxelMornerinterview.pdf
Larry Geiger says:
May 14, 2010 at 11:51 am
Ok, R. Gates, I’ll bite:
——————
Larry, again, you cite a specific prediction made by a single scientist, and models are not so precise. “Arctic ice free by 2013” , “Snowfall a rare and exciting event in a few years” etc. are all irresponsible scientific prediction that has no basis in anything that AGW models tell us. However, for a scientist to look at the models and say, “based on the modesl there is a reasonably good chance that your great great grandchildren will see an arctic that is ice free in the summer” is an accurate and responsible statement. Considering that a human life span is 70+ years and your great great grandchildren have likely not even been born yet, this easily falls within the range of even the average AGW models.
Phil. says:
May 13, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Jimbo says:
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.
Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. “We’re really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time,” he said.
Seems like he was fairly accurate, of course you don’t get the same picture when only the first part is quoted.
——————
Sorry to reply so late but:
How was her fairly accurate? Is ‘fairly’ being like a climate scientist? And what about my second serving regarding tipping point. Can you please address that Phil.
Correction:
——————
Sorry to reply so late but:
How was he fairly accurate? Is ‘fairly’ being like a climate scientist? And what about my second serving regarding tipping point. Can you please address that Phil.
Owen
Please read my article about satellite temperatures and El Nino
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/14/satellite-temperatures-and-el-nino/
Gail Combs says:
May 14, 2010 at 11:45 am
“Correct me if I am wrong. If I recall Dr Spencer stated to me that the higher troposphere temps at the beginning of the year indicated that heat was being transferred from a warm (El Nino) ocean through the troposphere and out to space.”
————–
Don’t know how the honorable Dr. Spencer can possibly say that all the LW radiation coming from El Nino warmth is going directly THROUGH the troposphere into space. This is exactly what does not happen with GH gases, as the LW radiation is absorbed and re-emitted in multiple directions, and only a portion of it would ever go directly into space. The more GH gases, the more LW radiation that is specifically NOT transmitted into space, but is either back-scattered toward the surface (land and water) or is absorbed and re-transmitted immediately by other GH gases in the troposphere.
————
Gail Combs also says (about R. Gates):
“Second you state “..we’ve got several years of increasing solar activity until the solar max in 2013″ How do you figure that???
—————
To be honest, I think the graphs you use and the data you cite are complete nonsense. I’ll go by this graph, where we see the Solar Max will hit sometime in early 2013…
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/
So, we’ve got the rest of 2010, 2011, and 2012…about 2.75 years until Solar Max…I call that “several”. I think you find very very few credible solar experts who would no believe that the Solar Max for cycle 24 is anything other than about 2.5 to 2.75 years away…
“Disruptive snowfall” was a self-fulfilling prophecy. By predicting the end of snow, they caused cities to stop preparing for it.
For Phil
“Also, local councils have been convinced by statements like “snow a thing of the past” and subsequently reduce their winter requirements for the aquisition and storage of snow clearing materials and equipment.”
And cold weather deaths in the UK are still very high this winter. All this blogging is not just about people with opposite points of view but it’s about people dying. Get a sense of responsibility and decency. Your mortgage is not more important than a poverty stricken war pensioner’s life living in South London.
Follow the money!!!!!!
Phil. says: May 13, 2010 at 7:31 pm Jimbo says:
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.
Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. “We’re really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time,” he said.
“Seems like he was fairly accurate, of course you don’t get the same picture when only the first part is quoted.”
How does it seem fairly accurate to you Dr Phil? Aside from the fact that heavy snowfall has caused chaos since then, does it appear, from the snow cover chart, that winter snowfall is getting to be “a very rare and exciting event”?
Or are you saying he was accurate based on the unpreparedness of officials, as a judgement on their efficiency, and not on snowfall as such? Any minor weather disturbance does seem to catch them flatfooted.
Or can you see into the future and know this will be accurate in 2020?
Kwik – Since 1993 three different satellites (topex/poseidon, jason I, and jason II) have been measuring the average sea level by precise and accurate altimetry measurements (an uncertainty of 3 mm). These satellite measurements ( http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ ) closely match the more direct tidal gauge measurements. The agreement of the two very different methods provides powerful confirmation of the sea level measurements.
Ulric Lyons says May 14, 2010 at 2:30 pm: So what caused the change in frequency of the glaciation series so recently? can we really assume that the current 100kyr cycle is here to stay? There are clues.
Ulric, I think our discussion is much more interesting than all the repartee with trolls. The article above did relate to albedo changes, after all.
Personally, I would not discount Milankovitch forcing, even if we don’t understand how that forcing actually works. The correlations have been too strong for too long. And it is certainly true that Milankovitch cycles are orbital mechanics and therefore affected by other objects in the the Solar System. How it works on the Earth’s surface is the question.
On a shorter time scale some postulate solar output dynamics alter global temps. One mechanism hypothesized is cosmic rays, which when you drill into it is an albedo theory.
Another mystery, which you allude to, is the remarkable longevity of warmer temps in this interglacial.
Some say the Holocene is like MIS 11 (Marine Isotopic Stage) 11, from 420 to 360 ka, allegedly the longest and warmest interglacial interval of the last 500 kyr. But the evidence is sparse and contradictory. It was a long time ago, and there aren’t many cores in relation to the breadth of the world’s oceans. Besides, it’s a comparison, not an explanation.
Some say anthropogenic burning has prolonged the Holocene, either by increasing atmospheric CO2 or by changing the albedo. Without delving into all the (sparse) evidence either way, I tend to favor the anthropogenic prolongation hypothesis, with emphasis on albedo darkening. As a forester and student of historical human influences on the environment, the evidence I am familiar with strongly suggests that human beings have been torching much of the terrestrial surface of the planet in a big way for a long time, especially during the Holocene (or Anthropocene as some wags would have it).
I speculate that historical anthropogenic albedo alteration does not correspond well with gravitational dynamics or solar output. People burned the landscape whether there were sunspots or not, whether Venus was in retrograde or not, all the time and whenever they felt like it. Fire is as much a part of who we are as opposable thumbs.
So while astronomic forcing may have induced Heinrich events during the last Glaciation, astronomic influences during the Anthropocene are understandably of little significance.
I am coming late into this discussion and admit I have not read all the 240 odd comments however I have seen some that state snow represents positive feedback because snow has a high albedo (in the visible) and therefore reflects incoming solar energy reducing the amount abosorbed. I am continuously amazed about how readily and with what glee people claim positive feedback in our climate system. I am not at all sure that snow represents positive feedback.
Yes it does mean a higher albedo reflecting more incoming energy away -no doubt of that. Remember however that this is only half the story – the surface also radiates thermal infra red to space and that also depends on surface emissivity. So lower emissivity reduces both the absorption of incoming energy and the radiation of energy away to space.
I know that researchers claim the emissivity of snow in the infra red is 1 ie: a perfect emitter and that they have done the measurements to prove it. I have read at least one of those peer reviewed studies and I have to say (as someone who has spent the last 35 years doing research into spectroscopy instrumentation) that if I had reviewed the paper I would have recommended it be rejected because in my view the methodology used is seriously flawed. The researchers have simply assumed the instrument gives correct answers without thinking about how it works and what they are doing. Their methodology assumes that snow is completely opaque, with all reflections coming from the surface. This is patently very far from the truth. Snow is quite translucent (take a cm of snow on a glass plate – does some light get through the cm of snow?) so some and possibly a substantial amount of the reflection will come from deep below the surface. Their methodology will exclude this reflected light giving an artifically low albedo or high emissivity. At the same time the Nimbus data is only explicable if we assume the surface of snow has a relatively modest emissivity in the thermal infra red. Then there is the more qualitiative data. For example, most of us have been in caves and can testify to how cold they are. The walls of a cave will have an absorptivity/emissivity close to 1 and are typically at about 10C. The walls of an igloo are below 0C and if they also have an emissivity of near 1 an igloo should be far colder – in fact as cold as stepping into a walk in freezer with metal walls. Yet all the reports I have read state that igloos are surprisingly warm. How come unless of course snow has a low absorptivity/emissivity and hence reflects most of the body heat straight back.
Mike D. says:
May 14, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Milankovich 100kyr coerrelation only works back just over 1myr, why did it change from 41kyr for 50/60myr like that? Sudden orbital dynamics change? I don`t think so.
As the LIA was the coldest event since the Younger Dryas, I do not see any sound reason to consider that anthropogenic burning has prolonged the Holocene.
I would expect sinusoidal changes from slowly changing orbital patterns, the glaciation pattern is very sawtooth, it doesn`t fit, and the only parameter that really matters is the tilt of the Earth`s axis, which if more upright would leave the poles essentially at the Equinoxes, which means they never get a full winter. If the axis was more tilted then the poles would get better summers and worse winters. Changes to the anomalistic orbit shape are purely seasonal in their effect, and too small to be of consideration to account for the magnitude (and shape) of a glaciation cycle.
There are patentently much larger solar variation factors to consider, from January to January, being close to the Sun then doesn`t make all that difference compared to the speed of the solar wind in any given January.
Orbital changes do not account for any important detail or sub cycles whatsoever.
Astronomically driven solar changes through the Anthropocene, is our temperature history. Through all these minmums and maximums;
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/geos462/holobib.html
mapping the rise and fall of civilisations, and changes in the natural landscape, right down to the cold winter we just had, and the blaze of heat just round the corner.
It is a number of event patterns that cycle, and are modulated by longer cycles, the immediate concern is the seasonal events that determine cold winters or droughts.
From philip c on May 13, 2010 at 11:48 am:
Troubleshooting:
1. Can you click on the link at the top of page? Does your browser then try to load the T&N page? If not, try the following direct link:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-to-wuwt-5/
2. If the browser is trying to load the page:
The T&N page tends to be very long. On dial-up it can take several minutes to load. You may have insufficient memory to fully load and display the page.
a. This may be relative to the browser, you may have insufficient cache memory available. With Firefox (and other Mozilla-based browsers) in the location bar you can type “about:cache” (no spaces), this will bring up info on your RAM and disk caches, even the location of your disk cache. To increase size, type in “about:config” (note the “Enter if ye dare” warning) and use “cache” for the filter word. Both your disk and memory caches should be enabled of course (right-click and select Toggle otherwise). Disk cache size is specified in kilobytes, default value on mine is 50000 (50 thousand KB or 50 MB). Unless you’ve got a small hard drive and/or little free space, increase to 200 or more MB, then try loading T&N again.
(Note to first-time configuration adjusters: You do not “Save” when done, just go Back to where you were, close the tab, or go somewhere else. The cache size change is dynamically-implemented, restarting the browser isn’t required.)
b. Your system may have too little physical memory (RAM) and using “virtual memory” ain’t cutting it, you need more physical memory for the system to process that page. An upgrade is indicated.
I just upped my disk cache to 300MB, and got a rather fast loading of T&N as opposed to last time, on dial-up. There were 1,559 comments when I checked. Yup, it can take a lot to load all that into memory and display it.
michael hammer says:
May 15, 2010 at 2:32 am
This is patently very far from the truth. Snow is quite translucent (take a cm of snow on a glass plate – does some light get through the cm of snow?) so some and possibly a substantial amount of the reflection will come from deep below the surface. Their methodology will exclude this reflected light giving an artifically low albedo or high emissivity.
Try doing the same experiment with IR at about 10 μm.
PS – Re: Phil. I am uncomfortable with his mail being pre-censored.
I greatly admire you Anthony Watts and in part because there is no censorship on this site. On the other hand I do not like Phil. I crossed swords with him early on – on Climate Audit on a thread on sea ice where he challenged me on a quote by Al Gore, I have forgotten what. I had another listen and realised that Phil. was right. It no way changed the broad picture of Al Gore’s bull, but Phil. delights catching people’s errors and, if possible, thoroughly humiliating them.
He did this with some character on WUWT regarding the freezing of CO2 from the atmosphere. CO2 cannot freeze (sublime) on Earth because, though temperatures reach less than the freezing point of CO2 at 1 atmospheric pressure which is only -57C, because CO2 is just a trace gas on Earth, the partial pressure of CO2 on Earth dictates that the temperatures have to be far lower, much lower than those found on Earth. This discussion came up later and I chanced upon it and I was referred to Phil.’s discussion on it earlier with some other guy. I read that post and sized up Phil. from that. Instead of pointing this out to the fellow and referring him to a phase diagram of CO2, which I am sure Phil. has and that fellow hadn’t, Phil. drew him out and then thoroughly humiliated him in quite a nasty manner. I wonder if he treats his students the same way? I would put my money on it.
Having said that, to paraphrase Voltaire – I disapprove of Phil. and his surly obnoxious manner, but I defend his right to say it. Freedom of speech is in peril in today’s world, as we have just seen in the University of Upsalla. The effect of a person being shouted at and head butted while giving a lecture has resulted in him being debarred from the University. A sad state of affairs.
I am not suggesting that freedom of speech is in peril here, and there is no need to compare this site with RealClimate, but why give anyone the slightest handle to complain?
Dr. Schweinsgruber said on May 13, 2010 at 11:23 am:
“…”
“I conclude: two half wits [sic] yield a dim wit [sic]!”
To my mind it takes a special kind of dimwit to not know how to spell his own name.
The German/Swiss name that your chosen name here very closely approximates to is Schweingruber (i.e., without an “s” after the “Schwein”). I am not sure how this name was historically derived, but it straightforwardly translates from pure German as “pig inhabitant of a pit” or maybe “inhabitant of a pig pit”. There is a possibility, however, that the “gruber” part of the name could alternatively derive from the German Yiddish “grub” meaning “rude and impolite”, so possibly your medieval antecedents had a reputation for the kind of behavior that you are exhibiting here and earned themselves the nickname “pig ignorant” which then stuck.
Ah, but your name is not the same because it has that extra “s” in it, doesn’t it. Well actually, not here it doesn’t:
http://friendsofginandtonic.org/page1/files/d161515b8af3f9f02f59f47706182ee8-0.html
where you sign your letter “Derek L. Schweingruber, PhD”.
So, how is it that you can’t remember, or can’t decide, how to spell your (presumably real) own name?
And then there is also the matter of your claimed doctorate. Obviously you use it as a form of argument from authority (to put us natives in our place, as it were), so, it is therefore legitimate for us to question what subject your doctorate is in and which university you got it from. I have to say that I have searched the Web for answers to these questions but the only presence that I have been able to establish for a Dr. Schweinsgruber or a Dr Shweingruber is in connection with your Friends of Gin and Tonic blog. In fact, it is almost as if you didn’t exist before you established it.
R. Gates. I’m going to try and educate you about energy. You say that we had a cold snowy winter because of global warming putting more moisture in the air. Therefore, more moisture to produce snowfall. Where I think you miss is that the temp difference is relative. For example, hurricanes happen because of moisture and pressure differences, not because we had a hot summer. It’s why fog can happen on a cold morning. The ground can be cold and the air above it just a little warmer, allowing moisture evaporate and then hit another layer and condense. We’ve had plenty of rain without much daytime heating thanks to massive cloud cover. The rain happens from instability brought about by the differences of high and low pressure and, of all things, a dry line. So, no, it’s not the heat energy that drives the snow storm. In fact, in years like 1998, there was less cloud cover and the temps were warmer. And, with less cloud cover, there were less snow storms. Heat doesn’t cause snow storms, clouds in cold areas do. So, what drives the cloud formation? Cosmic radiation. It enters the atmosphere, causing aerosols upon which moisture can condense and form clouds until they become so laden they drop the moisture (sunshine storms, where the moisture rises until it reaches cooler air and is condensed back to liquid, falling as rain and pulling cold air down with it.)
I dare you to answer this. If CAGW states that CO2 from man is increasing latent heat holding ability and, as you wish to state, increased heat is causing increased evaporation to cause increased clouds, how can it be hotter? It is an observed fact that years with less cloud cover are warmer because more sunlight is hitting the Earth. Why? Because clouds have an high albedo or reflectivity to reflect heat and radiation back out to space. That’s why a cloud covered day is cooler. That’s called negative feedback. Unless you want to say that increased CO2 inhibits the production of clouds which would go against the crux of the AGW theory that CO2 increases cloud production by retaining heat to cause more evaporation.
Which also violates the law of Thermodynamics. A particle releases its heat to a cooler object. That original particle is now cooler. Period, paragraph, new book. So, a section of ocean heats up and moisture evaporates to the air. That spot of ocean is now cooler. Until heated up again by an outside source. By the way, CO2 is not a source of heat. It is a translucent gas with no albedo to speak of, good or bad. But that moisture is not going to collect as a cloud unless it undergoes a pressure difference or reaches a cooler layer of air and then it will proceed to precipitate. Having particulate, such as aerosols from sub-atomic collisions of cosmic radiation with particles in our atmosphere gives it something to coalesce upon.
Following your thinking, we should have our rainiest months in Texas in July and August. We get days and weeks of 100 F and we call that August. And usually begin a drought around the end of June. It gets hot around here, a high pressure cap builds which prevents rainstorms. So the idea of higher temperatures automatically producing more clouds and more precipitation fails when dealing with actual evidence.
So, the moisture goes elsewhere where the high pressure cap is not in place. It’s a matter of how gas releases its heat when it enters a lower pressure and it is why your air conditioner works, as well as with the other laws of Thermodynamics. And it’s all about relative temp differences, not what is the highest temperature. I’ve watched this happen in my own area. We can get a high pressure area that covers 5 or 6 counties. A storm blows up somewhere else and moves along, hits the “wall” of our high pressure area and dissipates. I live not too far from Lake Texoma, at one time, the third largest man-made lake. It does affect local weather, at times.
There is precipitation at the South Pole. Actual collected data shows that it has been getting thicker by inches to a foot per year. That doesn’t happen by magic. It happens by precipitation, with a relative minor temperature differential but is due more to moisture and pressure differentials. As you correctly pointed out, Antarctica is a desert continent.
Even if CO2 could drive more cloud production (it doesn’t and not you or any one has proven that), it would result in negative feedback. In order to have snow, surround temps must be at 32 F or below. And the moisture is not a result of the highest heat, it is the result of moisture and pressure differentials and it is why a pot of water boils.
Scientists warned the public here in Norway (on the TV-news this evening) that we are heading for a new Ice Age.
First its Globull Warming, and CO2 tax .( 1/3 of the electricity bill in Norway is CO2 tax, and yet we are 100% self-contained with hydro-power)
And now a new Ice Age.
They must conclude its globull warming that is the cause of the Ice Age.
How fitting for the governmint that electricity will cost more, if we are heading for a cooling period!
R. Gates says:
May 14, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Don’t know how the honorable Dr. Spencer can possibly say….
—————————————————————————————————
Oh, Mr. Gates, there’s a lot you don’t know.
I appreciate that government bureaucrats believe that there is no world outside Washington, yet nature has given us the opportunity to grade both the predictive and observational skills of the experts. And it looks like they deserve a rather poor grade.
———————————————————————————————–
It’s good to let the public know global warming predictions are wrong.
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
— Abraham Lincoln
Dr. Schweinsgruber says:
May 13, 2010 at 11:23 am
And western Canada has seen the mildest winter on record.
————————————————————————————————-
That was caused by El Nino. The typical pattern from El Nino causes that.
http://forces.si.edu/elnino/exhibition_3a1.html
But your cherry picking didn’t present that.
R. Gates says:
May 13, 2010 at 12:55 pm
……while the Arctic enjoyed mild and even warm conditions
Were people walking around in t-shirts ans shorts?
Could you tell us how the “warm” was “enjoyed” in the arctic? Please, tell me.
R. Gates says:
May 13, 2010 at 12:55 pm
……while the Arctic enjoyed mild and even warm conditions
I mean really, you said “enjoyed”. Do you even have a slightest clue how stupid that is?
So it was -51F instead of -54F? Is that was made for “enjoyed” “warm conditions”?
stevengoddard says:
May 13, 2010 at 1:40 pm
R. Gates
If you knew that global warming was going to cause more cold and snow, you should have warned Hadley and CRU when they were predicting the opposite. You could have saved them a lot of embarrassment.
——————————————————————————————-
R. Gates is unable to stop himself from being embarrassed. I can’t see how he can stop others.