By Steve Goddard
From the Declining Spring Snowpack Department:
Mammoth Mountain, California June 2, 2010
State % of Average Snowpack ----------- ------------ NEVADA 186 CALIFORNIA 176 OREGON 154 IDAHO 129 WYOMING 116 MONTANA 114 WASHINGTON 112 UTAH 107 ALASKA 79 COLORADO 54 NEW MEXICO 36 ARIZONA 9
A few years ago, our friends at Real Climate made this not very insightful post :
Has Pacific Northwest snowpack declined? Yes.
Well, actually – no. Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor lost his job over this issue. He dared to question the Global Warming Church Orthodoxy.
George Taylor on Global Warming.
by Gienie Assink Tuesday, October 16. 2007
By: Suzanne Penegor
Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor returned to the Lane County Rubicon Society on Sept. 27th to speak as a private citizen regarding global warming issues. The political climate for Taylor has been heated since he disagreed with Gov. Kulongoski by refusing to toe the “politically correct” political line.
Taylor said he still expects the governor to take away his title of state climatologist because of a slight disagreement on global warming issues. When Kulongoski developed the Oregon Strategy for Greenhouse Gas Reductions recently, he didn’t even ask for Taylor’s input.
Taylor discussed the history of climate cycles and how, for example, Oregon’s climate was actually much warmer in the 1930s than they are today. Also in the early 1800s there were 2 years where we had no summers in the US. Taylor said World War II enhanced a temperature increase and discussed how cities’ temperatures tend to be higher than rural areas due to human development. Taylor noted that where measurements are taken can affect the temperatures and the data we use to determine climate changes.
Taylor said the greenhouse effect is invisible and essential to life on Earth. He said 90% of it is water vapor and then the rest of it is methane and carbon dioxide.
Taylor noted that the tropical pacific patterns, the El Nino and La Nina events, and the impact they have on global temperatures overall. He said humans have some impact, but not nearly as much as sunspot activity or natural disturbances like volcanic activity over time.
Taylor went on to say that those who espouse the global warming line often point to the snowpack levels. He said a Washington climatologist was fired over climate issues that were not politically correct regarding snowpack levels and left sided concerns. Taylor said there are cyclical periods of La Nina and El Nino which effect snowpack levels.
He said the debate over sea level changes is an ongoing debate over whether the current changes are steady and reliable trends. He also mentioned how it is estimated that at the current rate, the global sea level may rise 8 to 17 inches per 100 years.
Moreover, heating the ocean takes a considerable amount of time. He said in the 1940s there was also an increase in arctic temperatures. And in the 1970s the big concern in the media was the possibility of another ice age or global cooling.
Taylor goes on to say scientists believe that in 2020 the global climate could return to a cooler period as sunspot activity is expected to change.
Taylor addressed the issue of whether the glaciers, sharing how they are shrinking due to human impact. He said there was much melting of the glaciers before 1950 and the SUV theory was a bit off. Taylor said surface temperatures may not be the best measure of climate change anyway, particularly on where the measurements are taken.
It was noted that the Montreal Protocol banned the use of human-made compounds that were suspected of damaging the ozone layer; however, no apparent change has occurred since that Protocol was created, so it begs the question of whether humans really impact the ozone layer as scientists predicted.
Taylor is a published author of several books regarding Oregon’s climate history.
Hopefully the California drought cycle will revert to a wetter period.
84% of the Shasta/Trinity No. Calif. snowpack water content is still ‘up there’.
I can look out my freaking window and see it glimmering at 7-8000′ (when there aren’t clouds dumping on it).
387% of normal for June 1st.
If, by some strange turn of events, we don’t get around to some summer weather (heaven forbid), it won’t be melting. Next winter will dump more on top of it. And that’s how we grow glaciers.
Let me rephrase that so it’s perfectly clear:
84% of Trinity/Shasta N. Calif snowpack water content from April 1st is still ‘up there’.
16% of the April 1st snowpack water content has made it to the reservoirs.
Shasta is FULL up to it’s eyeballs.
Trinity is 65%.
This week on the news, it was reported that Shasta Reservoir is preparing to dump 20,000 cfs when melt gets underway.
So, this rigamarole about ‘drought’ is a cute technicality, as the reservoirs are behind for this date.
Truth be told, the melt is delayed due to a very much colder Spring.
Prepare to be assimilated.
The drought in California. Last couple of years, they stopped flow of water for agricultural irrigation. It seems the Delta Smelt was more important. The irrigation interference by a judge is the big issue.
You should be in Wallowa County right now. We have all that melted global warming carving out new fishing holes and river beds into our little valley. Funny thing about this. All the buildings put up before the 50’s are up away from the rivers and swamp areas. All the buildings put up after are right next to…or are in…the river beds and swamp lands. hmmmm. To really rub it in, many of the buildings put up away from the rivers were put up during one of the driest decades in the county. 2nd verse of hmmmmm. The Snake is now on the rise so the Columbia will be next. But I don’t expect it to be as bad as 76 or 96. 3rd verse of hmmmmm. This is 20 some odd years later.
This late in the season snow pack measurements are very difficult to make sense of, as it is essentially impossible to make useful measurements when we get into the spring thaw cycle and snow depths get very shallow.
This paper gives a look at both snow pack and water supply forecasts based on the seasons measurements. Note that they state the snow conditions are quite typical for a typical El Nino pattern.
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/downloads/wsf/201005wsfwww.pdf
Seasonal water supply in this part of the country is highly variable year to year so small percentage variations from “average” mean very little. Annual precipitation in Colorado near Denver for instance averages near 15 inches per year but during hard drought conditions can go as low as 7 inches per year. The major front range cities have sufficient reservoir storage for water to cope with that degree of variability, even if the low precipitation cycles run for 2 – 3 years, although we get into watering restrictions so those who are not bright enough to realize we live in a near desert climate will not waste too much water doing things like washing sidewalks with a garden hose, and only watering every other day for limited durations.
Larry
Larry
In Oz its cold but no snow – except from snow machines. East coast is copping a lot of rain.
Has Pacific Northwest snowpack declined? Yes.
If you want global warming propaganda go to RealClimate.
If you want to see watt’s really going on with climate go to Watt’sUpWithThat.
Taylor seems to have set himself up as president of Applied Climate Services.
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2010/02/10/george-taylor-on-climate-change/
But there is not much info:
http://www.manta.com/c/mtm13s6/applied-climate-services-llc
You can see there is more snow on the ground in the Northern Hemisphere today than on the same day in 1980:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=06&fd=04&fy=1980&sm=06&sd=04&sy=2010
and in 1990:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=06&fd=04&fy=1990&sm=06&sd=04&sy=2010
and in 2000:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=06&fd=04&fy=2000&sm=06&sd=04&sy=2010
The earth is cooling. It is not warming. Global warming predictions are failing.
juanslayton
The graph and table contain the snowtel data from June 1. It is no longer June 1, and the data has of course changed.
stevengoddard says:
June 5, 2010 at 7:23 pm
While it is June 5th now, not much has changed.
Same old cloudy weather in TrinitySylvania Alps and the rest of the high country in N. Calif.
Here in the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington State we can still see the remains of snow on ridges above 4000 feet elevation, and the strawberries grown in these mountain valleys are 1 month behind – we will not be harvesting our local strawberries until the first of July.
George is around and active.
Here’s the scoop on the snow pack episode.
http://www.sustainableoregon.com/nwsnow.html
The Phil Mote is the same one who is now the Oregon Climate guru. He recently apologized for getting political and sending out a political email from his state office.
http://theoregonpolitico.com/blog/2010/06/01/university-e-mail-chain-creates-climate-controversy/
Willie Soon is now calling for Mote to resign.
It is simply unacceptable to have phil mote running his own personal brand of
“climate justice” under tax-payer funded money from his office while taking
such deliberate attacks on Art Robinson as a candidate to the US House of Representatives …
his apology needs to come with actual punishment … words are no longer enough in his case (considering the history
of exaggerations and activism from him completely outside of the realm of his office for “climate science”)
w
George Taylor is my good friend, so I hope this update is taken as it should be — completely biased.
GT is doing fine, has an excellent little company, Applied Climate Services, and is probably the world’s foremost expert on PMP, prediction of maximum precipitation. PMP involves the use of rainfall and snow records, complex mapping, and high-level statistics to predict 100-year or other extreme precipitation events. That information (modeling) is useful to watershed managers such as the Corps of Engineers who build and maintain flood control structures (dams, levees, etc.).
He left OSU of his own accord, on his own terms, taking early retirement. It could be said that he was forced out by the Governor and the Dept. Chair, and that is partially true IMHO, but the terms suited George, and he has done very well since.
The turmoil that led to the parting was not due to a radio interview but to a well-publicized debate hosted by Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society in Portland in January 2007. See The Great State Climate Debate:
http://www.sosforests.com/?p=455
George Taylor “debated” Phil Mote of Univ. Washington. The debate was more of a discussion, and both men were polite and gracious. But because political types had declared the climate debate over, the event drew considerable media attention.
And George, to put it frankly if ungraciously, cleaned Phil’s clock. George Taylor is so charmingly laidback and kindhearted that everyone who knows him well just loves him. And he is super-smart and knows his subject backwards and forwards. At one point in the evening the two debaters high-fived each other, and at another had their arms on each others’ shoulders in mutual admiration. Part of the reason George won the debate is that he has such a winning personality.
The other is that his scientific arguments were stronger. Taylor agreed with Mote that a small global temperature increase has occurred in the last 100 years. Taylor disagreed that human activities were the primary drivers behind it. He backed his assertions up with numerous technical slides. The audience was composed of smart people, too, who knew the subject well, and the general tone afterwards was “poor Phil, he lost.”
That did not sit well with the political types (the Governor, the Dept. Chair) who have a great deal of political capital invested in global warming alarmism. The Gov popped his cork to a reporter, saying “George Taylor is not my climatologist,” and the reporter reported it. The Gov (Ted Taxandgougeme) was forced to recant, but privately made a huge stink with the Dept. Chair (Nimrod Weaner), who was consumed by issues of funding (and we all know what draws in the funding — it ain’t climate skepticism).
So George gracefully took a big departure check, and a fat pension, and set up his own company doing his specialty, and has grow rich if not famous. He is a stellar human being, a leader in his church, a family man with a wonderful family, and is much beloved in the community for his character, charity, and compassion — climate issues aside.
The Goober subsequently made Phil Mote head of his newly created Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, where poor Phil has continued to make a fool of himself (speaking charitably). Dr. Weaner has moved on and is forgotten.
Do not mourn for George. He is happy and healthy. He spoke at one or two of the Heartland conferences, but I think he skipped the last one. He is still involved in meteorology, still writing an occasional column for the local paper, and glad to be doing excellent and profitable science out of the limelight.
As for snowpack, George was right, Phil was wrong. It has not declined. See for instance:
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2008/11/21/no-trend-in-idaho-snowpack-over-the-last-75-years/
http://www.oregonlive.com/weather/
Go to this site, scroll down and read the headlines. It has been wet and miserable here in the Portland area.
One more thing, I just returned from a trip, drove I84 from Idaho to Portland. Here is a first hand report on the state of our rivers. Snake-muddy, John Day-muddy, Deschutes-muddy, Umatilla-muddy, Grande Rhonde- muddy, Willamette-muddy, Clackamas-muddy, the whole damn state is muddy.
You get a drought in California because research like this is INTENTIONALLY buried:
http://fresnobeehive.com/news/2010/05/heres_the_glibert_study_read_i.html#comments
http://fresnobeehive.com/news/glibert-reviews-in-fisheries-sci-pre-publication-copy.pdf
My comments and cliff notes of the study in the first link.
Bottom line is I’d LOVE to see this BLOG chew some Enviro-Nut backside in this Water-Gate fraud that has been perpetrated on the Farmers in California.
Carbongate
Climategate
Water-Gate
We’re 3 for 3 guys…
According to the Rutgers snowlab the NH and North American snow cover for May is the lowest of the 44 years of their record. About 77% of the mean.
the percentage of snowpack, for the sierra anyway, is relative to april 1st.
i can confirm that at least here in the sierra, the melt has only just started.
the crest is literally across the street, and just yesterday the dry waterfalls started flowing….and i mean flowing.
while i was working at the firestation this afternoon we had a run on sandbags, and i suspect by the volume of water coming down into canyon that we will get called out tommorrow to go help fill and place them.
I predict that the ‘controllers’ of the reservoirs are going to get the system into a huge bind, what with the politically driven emphasis on California Drought. They will hoard the water until the realization sets in: there’s too much water in the non-melted snowpack and not enough space in the reservoirs.
Panic Dump.
Not like they haven’t done that before.
My weekend ride along the Poudre River is currently diverted in several places, because the bike path is flooded from snow melt. The river is right up to its banks.
Pamela:
Funny thing about this. All the buildings put up before the 50′s are up away from the rivers and swamp areas. All the buildings put up after are right next to…or are in…the river beds and swamp lands. hmmmm.
We have the same problem in the UK.
We have lots of flooding nowadays of new houses built upon flood plains – and this is apparently due to “Global Warming”.
The clue lies in the name for this land, chaps, the clue is in the name. Where do they get these ‘Brave New World’ planners and media types from? Is there a sink-estate university somewhere, that churns out nothing but cretins?
.
Tesla_X says:
June 5, 2010 at 9:05 pm
You get a drought in California because research like this is INTENTIONALLY buried:
http://fresnobeehive.com/news/2010/05/heres_the_glibert_study_read_i.html#comments
Never mind the drought, check out that supermarket advert. $2.99 per lb for boneless steak?? No wonder the average Yank is, err, umm, well, sooo biiiggg.
.
Mike D.
George Taylor is also fortunate to have friends like you.
Dear Larry,
Nice data that you quote from USDA. Page 3 graph would seem to indicate differential effects of the precipitation variables (El Nino related, this with respect to winter precip.?) in different west US regions, while, if I understand correctly, the 1 April to 1 May differential reflects more temp. effects (less melting uniformly in west?). The US gov. data seem to fit nicely the expected natural variables when there isn’t an actual institutional imperative to corrupt data (food is too important!).
Bruce