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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Phil. says:
May 13, 2010 at 6:13 pm
I note that ‘geo’, ‘jinki’, ‘Slabadang’, ‘Scott’, ‘mailman’, Fred’ et al. are not subject to the same restrictions.
++++
How’d I get on that list? Anthony knows who I am. You can too if you like, I’m on the front page of the surfacestations database “recent updates” at the moment. I don’t post from .edu domains, however.
geo,
My feelings are hurt. I wasn’t on Phil’s list, which is now only about ‘restrictions.’
I wonder what happened to his complaint about being “censored”? That sounds just like James Hansen complaining that President G.W. Bush was censoring him… then people started pointing out the hundreds of interviews Hansen had given [it’s interesting that it is Obama who has apparently told Hansen to shut up, since we don’t hear from him any more].
To see actual government sponsored censorship in action, go to realclimate and tell them to falsify the null hypothesis.
Once more you waltz in and pronounce.
R. Gates, why don’t you reply based on the point of the article. I’ll repeat that, based on the point of the article. Not deception, not misleading, not misdirecting. You may very well be correct in what you say, but what you said has nothing to do with the MODEL PREDICTIONS THIS IS TALKING ABOUT.
They, as in you, have been prediciting by their (your) models, that by 2010, 2011 DISASTROUS things will have been occuring. Like NO SNOW AT ALL. EVER AGAIN. Quit changing the subject. The point here, if I need to explain it to you, is that the models and predictions were wrong. Erroneous. Incorrect. Non-Predictive. What part of that don’t you understand?
Now to continue the logic, if you need some help with that, if the predictions have been so wrong in the past and present, why should we believe any current predictions. YMMV.
Smokey,
Speaking of censorship and university types, I wonder if we will ever hear from Dr. Schweinsgruber again or if he has decided to take his marbles and go home since we do not act like his awe struck students. One thing you can say for Phil and R. Gates, they are tenacious makes the site fun to read instead of dead dull like Real Climate.
Keith Martin says:
May 14, 2010 at 4:10 am
This year being the snowiest on record is very interesting. A few posts ago on WUWT, it was pointed out that tropospheric temperatures were quite high, particularly April. It was speculated whether it had to do with ocean cooling observed in the Pacific, and transfer of heat to the atmosphere. The troposphere is showing fairly high temperatures, yet Arctic ice has recovered, and the northern hemisphere has had record snow. Any thoughts on why these apparently opposite situations coincide?
________________
1. Troposphere is showing near 20 year record high temps- some transfer some oceans and some unknown (possibly AGW). Afterall, we’ve got the highest level of GH gases in the troposphere in many tens of thousands of years, and the troposphere is exactly where the GH gases “do their thing” (i.e. absorb and re-radiate LW radiation). The warming of the troposphere is exactly the primary effect expected by AGWT.
2. This myth (propagated primarily by AGW skeptics) that arctic sea ice has recovered to some longer term norm is just that– a myth. A simple glace at the longer term charts tells you that. Arctic sea ice has not shown a positive anomaly since 2004, when on average it should occilate into the positive anomaly range and then into the negative anomaly range. Instead, it’s been in the negative range for nearly 6 years. Also, it’s volume has been way down.
3. As discussed over and over again, the two ingredients that caused the record snow are the negative AO index combined with El Nino induced moisture. Bring the two together, and you get snow. The entire N. Hemipshere was not bitterly cold this winter, as we had warmer than average temps in the arctic as high pressure forced all that cold air south. These high arctic temps by the way, are one of the main reasons were seeing such a dramatic melting around Greenland and over into the Barants Sea. The first year ice in those regions didn’t get as thick this winter because of the higher temps, and this all relates back to the negative AO index– the cold air was forced south, leading to snow in Florida and other regions of the deep south.
R. Gates
Must be a lot warmer in Denver where you live. I’ve been freezing my rear off a few miles to the north.
Mike D. says:
May 13, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Being serious though, starting say at the peak of an interglacial, warm with lots of water vapour to provide a natural greenhouse, it would appear to me that the solar output is slowly decreasing, and the atmosphere, naturally gradually drying. This peaks at the last Heinrich events (including their quarter divisions, like the 1157yr period between LIA, the Dark Ages, and the Greek/Homer Dark Ages) such as the Dryas episodes. Then in a relatively short time (saw tooth), it bounces right back up again. I can map out the astronomical causation of a Heinrich event and its inverse, and am cuurently working on why they cascade down more and more Diminished, and then re-set to the Augmented condition. The older 41kyr sequence comprises 43, returns of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus that also harmonise with the Earth/Venus synodic period, at 953yrs (43*953=40979), but does not fit the 4627.33yr Heinrich event period. These I would suggest cascade down in the same manner. The more recent 100kyr sequence, where we can clearly see Heinrich event periods, would plot out to 21 or 23 x 4627.33yrs, 21 is the better harmony with the 953yr period that I have shown has direct correlation to the N.H. winters of AD 829, 1010, 1784, 1963.
The nature of the modern and Ice Age sequence of 100kyr is very severe (bigger highs and lows than the 41kyr seq) and is the lowest that World temperatures have been for many tens of millions of years. Surely we should be looking into this more, rather than a nice bit of sunshine and rain?
Larry Geiger says:
May 14, 2010 at 6:04 am
Once more you waltz in and pronounce.
R. Gates, why don’t you reply based on the point of the article. I’ll repeat that, based on the point of the article. Not deception, not misleading, not misdirecting. You may very well be correct in what you say, but what you said has nothing to do with the MODEL PREDICTIONS THIS IS TALKING ABOUT.
They, as in you, have been prediciting by their (your) models, that by 2010, 2011 DISASTROUS things will have been occuring. Like NO SNOW AT ALL. EVER AGAIN. Quit changing the subject.
———————
First of all, I think you are confused about what a model does or doesn’t specify, and what a “prediction” is. For example, prior to the very low summer sea ice in 2007, the models were showing the summer being ice free by in the next century or so– a pretty wide target. That’s about as close a models can get. Then, based on the summer of 2007, one (not too brilliant) scientist made the prediction of an ice free summer by 2013. The models never said this, nor could they be that specific.
As far as N. Hemisphere snow goes, the models show that sometime in the next century or so, the winters will get warm enough that snowfall will be reduced. This does not mean we won’t get moisture in the winter– in fact, some regions will get much more than they have been getting on average, but over the next century, the AGW models show that a warmer troposphere will inhibit snowfall. No models predicted no snowfall for the winter of any specific year. Steve’s point, which is really about weather, has no validity in terms of climate models…just as the statement, “look, it’s snowing in Florida, where’s the global warming?!” has no validity, and would only be spoken by an ignorant person.
stevengoddard says:
May 14, 2010 at 7:51 am
R. Gates
Must be a lot warmer in Denver where you live. I’ve been freezing my rear off a few miles to the north.
——————-
It’s been a cold spring in Colorado, that’s for sure, and I’ll be coming up to Ft. Collins later today in fact to pick up my son at CSU for summer break. I’ve also noticed most of my plants bloomed a bit later. Somehow I can’t help but think the negative AO is somehow connected to all this. If global temps were running so high, I might start to think this is more than just weather variability, but global temps and ocean heat content continue to run high, and we’ve got several years of increasing solar activity until the solar max in 2013. I see no reason for global temps not to go higher…despite the late season cold and snow here in Colorado
[snip] Continued use of the D-word will have repercussions. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip]
[snip]
Because more snow means colder? Is that what we are saying here?
NS says:
May 14, 2010 at 12:23 am
“My general point is that it takes warmth to provide the energy for evaporating the moisture of snowstorms, and warmer air to hold that moisture and bring it to Colorado. Places like Antarctica are dry specifically because they are so cold. ”
I don’t know why people are arguing this point, it’s quite basic science. I wouldn’t base my argument against AGW on higher snowfall.
By your Logic, it should snow the most in the Summer, does it do that where you live?
Please check the average global temperature anomalies as determined by University of Alabama Huntsville from data from the advanced microvave sounding unit of the AQUA satellite (http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/). Dr. Roy Spencer, who runs the UAH data analysis, is a well known AGW skeptic. UAH data shows that January 2010 was the warmest January on record, and the months of Feb through April have been exceptionally warm. All that in spite of heavier than normal snowfall in the US and Europe. 2010 is on track to be the warmest year ever.
R. Gates says:
May 14, 2010 at 8:21 am
“….. Somehow I can’t help but think the negative AO is somehow connected to all this. If global temps were running so high, I might start to think this is more than just weather variability, but global temps and ocean heat content continue to run high, and we’ve got several years of increasing solar activity until the solar max in 2013. I see no reason for global temps not to go higher…despite the late season cold and snow here in Colorado.”
_____________________________________________________________________
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. After he made that statement the earth saw a large drop in ocean temps. “The decrease in upper ocean heat content from March to April was 1C – largest since 1979″ How is a major drop in upper ocean heat content and the waning of the El Nino “ocean heat content continuing to run high”, especially when Trenberth can not find the “missing heat”
Second you state “..we’ve got several years of increasing solar activity until the solar max in 2013” How do you figure that???
Using Cycle 23 as a template and this graph we are about 55 to 60 months into cycle 24. In cycle 23 the maximum was around 50 to 60 months so we should already be at solar maximum. According to this article the cycle length “has decreased from around 11.5 years to less than 10 years” in recent times.
If you go with Tamino the end of solar cycle 23, and the beginning of solar cycle 24 was October 2007 then we are 31 months into cycle 24 and if you use <a href="layman’s count“>cycle five as a template we should see ramping up within the next year. This also agrees with Dr Svalgaard’s prediction of a2011 maximum . But so far all we see is the sun headed into another funk with F10.7 dropping again.
Anyway you slice it I do not call the one or possibly two years until solar max “several”
Owen says:
“2010 is on track to be the warmest year ever.”
That statement is ridiculous. There are records going back hundreds of thousands of years. Here is one from Vostok going back 10,000 years.
Today’s climate is well within the parameters of natural variability.
Ok, R. Gates, I’ll bite:
“(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.”
Please define for all of us the usually easily understandable term, “within a few years”.
From R. Gates “the models were showing the summer being ice free by in the next century or so– a pretty wide target.” Once more, just a little misdirection? Again, I’ll ask, what does “within a few years” mean?
From R. Gates “but over the next century”. Once more, just a little misdirection? Again, I’ll ask, what does “within a few years” mean? 5 or 6? A decade? 5 decades? A century?
Larry Geiger says:
May 14, 2010 at 11:51 am
Ok, R. Gates, I’ll bite:
“(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.”
Please define for all of us the usually easily understandable term, “within a few years”.
From R. Gates “the models were showing the summer being ice free by in the next century or so– a pretty wide target.” Once more, just a little misdirection? Again, I’ll ask, what does “within a few years” mean?
From R. Gates “but over the next century”. Once more, just a little misdirection? Again, I’ll ask, what does “within a few years” mean? 5 or 6? A decade? 5 decades? A century?
__________________________________________________________________________
That is a real easy question to answer Larry.
R Gates stated [May 14, 2010 at 8:21 am] “..we’ve got several years of increasing solar activity until the solar max in 2013″ It is now May of 2010 and several years has been defined by R. Gates as the time between now and 2013 or a maximum of four years, rounding to the nearest whole number and December 2013 being the latest date specified. Since few is less than several then few must mean 3 or less years.
See a simple bit of logic.
The hubris of Government climate analysts, highlighted by Climategate, has shown up again in New Zealand. CRU-trained Jim Salinger acted as a missionary down-under, finding 1.0°C warming in the country’s official temperature record and co-publishing 9 papers with Phil Jones in 9 years.
But Dr Salinger’s reign is over, and his firing by the Government’s climate agency has been the subject of a high-profile case in the Employment Courts. More importantly, his CRU temperature adjustment methods have been blown out of the water. See today’s article at http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/05/crisis-in-new-zealand-climatology.
Smokey, pardon my imprecision. 2010 is well on its way to being the warmest year on record (i.e., since direct and accurate measurements made calculations of an average global temperature possible).
We have experienced a persistent rise in surface temperature of over one degree over the past century. We have seen an increase in mean sea level that closely parallels the temperature rise. We now see through the GRACE mission accurate measurements of decreasing ice mass in both the Greenland and Antarctic land ice sheets (with an acceleration in the rate of loss in both areas the past 3-4 years). We have seen a steady and now accelerating loss in the volume of arctic sea ice (http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php). All of these effects are in lockstep with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The physics of CO2 absorption of long wave thermal radiation provide a clear quantitative mechanism to explain the warming phenomenon.
Please don’t tell me the mechanism is natural variablilty – be specific and identify the forcing agent for the profound changes we have seen in the past century.
Owen
Let me correct some more of your imprecision. Had-Crut has 2010 as fifth warmest year so far, and the GISS long term trend is only 0.65C/century.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 14, 2010 at 8:03 am
Mike D. says:
May 13, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Being serious though, starting say at the peak of an interglacial, warm with lots of water vapour to provide a natural greenhouse, it would appear to me that the solar output is slowly decreasing, and the atmosphere, naturally gradually drying. This peaks at the last Heinrich events (including their quarter divisions, like the 1157yr period between LIA, the Dark Ages, and the Greek/Homer Dark Ages) such as the Dryas episodes. Then in a relatively short time (saw tooth), it bounces right back up again. I can map out the astronomical causation of a Heinrich event and its inverse, and am currently working on why they cascade down more and more Diminished, and then re-set to the Augmented condition. The older 41kyr sequence comprises 43, returns of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus that also harmonise with the Earth/Venus synodic period, at 953yrs (43*953=40979), but does not fit the 4627.33yr Heinrich event period. These I would suggest cascade down in the same manner. The more recent 100kyr sequence, where we can clearly see Heinrich event periods, would plot out to 21 or 23 x 4627.33yrs, 21 is the better harmony with the 953yr period that I have shown has direct correlation to the N.H. winters of AD 829, 1010, 1784, 1963.
The nature of the modern and Ice Age sequence of 100kyr is very severe (bigger highs and lows than the 41kyr seq) and is the lowest that World temperatures have been for many tens of millions of years.
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.
Owen says: at 1:00 pm
physics of CO2 absorption of long wave thermal radiation provide a clear quantitative mechanism to explain the warming phenomenon.
No it doesn’t. The theory of: “Increased CO2 causes an ever increasing delay of molecular energy moving to higher altitudes and dissipating into space, through a so called “forcing via reradiating” of long wave thermal radiation (IR) to moisture (vaporized H2O) in the atmosphere at the tropospheric level, primarily above the tropics” is what supposedly explains “the warming”… Of course, the only place that has (virtually) ever occurred is inside of a super computer where only a few mice live.
Steve, To see one emerging picture of 2010, take a look at http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps which is the daily update by Roy Spencer of the average global temperatures at various levels of the troposphere. Spencer instructs us to use channel five. Using that channel, plot 2010 data versus all other years shown. 2010 clearly stands out (thus far) as being exceptionally warm. The strong agreement with the microwave-based and surface temperatures, both completely independent of each other, gives me great faith in the satellite measurements.