By Steve Goddard
As La Niña takes hold in South America, we are seeing something I’m not sure I have ever seen before. Temperatures in some parts of the Andes Mountains of Bolivia are forecast to average below -5C this week. The entire country of Bolivia is located inside the Tropic of Capricorn.
Closeup below :
Temperatures are 6-10C below normal in much of South America.
The image below shows Unisys SST anomalies combined with NCEP forecast anomalies. Note how sea surface temperatures affect the land temperatures.
Our friend Joe Romm is very focused on the Northeastern US, but there is a whole big world out there.
Cold Weather Proves Killer in Parts of South America (Source: Time newsfeed)
Strange but true: despite blazing hot temperatures, sometimes in the triple digits, sweeping across the United States, the opposite is true in much of South America where a cold front has actually claimed more than 400 lives in parts of Peru and Argentina. The temperatures, which have hovered in the upper 30s in the southern part of the continent qualify as a rather typical winter by North American standards. But in some places, like the Andes mountains the thermometer has dropped as low as -11 degrees F and decimated alpaca and cattle herds. The usually subtropical areas affected are particularly vulnerable because the populations are largely poor, live in conditions that are not equipped for cold weather and the governments do not have the infrastructure to handle winter conditions.
As La Niña develops, climate alarmists will soon be seeking shelter from the storm.
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stevengoddard says:
July 30, 2010 at 11:17 am
Gail Combs
San Jose light rail has bike racks inside all their trains.
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Great, I spammed Congress with letters about that 15 – 20 years ago.
Should be a “preview” function on this site.
REPLY: I’ve asked wordpress.com (where this site is freely hosted) several times for this feature, I cannot add it. -Anthony
To wws: I agree 100% with your assessment of the current situation. I’m not a scientist, but I can smell a political con job when it’s cooking and AGW is the biggest con job of all time, and could prove to be one of the most expensive. You nailed it so well that I’m repeating your post below. And you’re right; they don’t even care if the fraud is uncovered anymore. The main risk I see now is that a lame-duck Congress goes hog wild and passes an extreme cap and trade law. Then it will be up to the new Congress to defund the effort, not to mention defunding everyone in the EPA involved in regulating CO2. The fastest way to get bureaucrats under control is to cut off their supply of money.
wws says:
July 30, 2010 at 8:16 am
Regarding the recent rash of outbursts claiming that this is going to be “The Hottest Year Evah!!!!”
It’s obvious to even the most casual (but honest) observer that this is scientific nonsense for a number of reasons. (you don’t make “conclusions” about any dataset before half of it has even been measured) However, it DOES make sense politically – this is a big push to establish a political narrative before the fall US elections. Time is running out to accomplish this goal, and they know it. They lost the narrative last December, and the purveyors of this nonsense would do anything to try and get it back.
As I keep saying in various posts – this isn’t about the science, it hasn’t been about the science for a very long time. This is about politics, and this is a purely political push by a group that is so desperate that they don’t even attempt to hide the scientific fraud anymore. And they don’t even care if the fraud is exposed, because they know they have less than 100 days before their game is up for good. They would do anything, tell any lie, manufacture any data, to avoid that end.
How incredibly infuriating it must be to them to realize that the public isn’t listening to them anymore! But they have no choice but to try, because when this finally falls apart everything they believe and trust in, including their own careers, falls with it. And they know this.
And for those who don’t believe that this is a co-ordinated message coming out – have you been reading the Journo-list archives printed by The Daily Caller? Very similar to the Climategate e-mails in that it shows that people supposedly at the top of their crafts (in this case, journalism) casually conspire to betray everything that they are supposed to stand for simply to gain advantage for their favorite political causes. What comes out most clearly is that virtually no one in the business thought it was wrong to lie to the public as long as the correct political goals were achieved. That’s the mindset we’re dealing with.
They make the old Pravda look like a bunch of ham-handed amateurs.
Just for the record, can someone keep track of the GISS temperature records for South America this month, so we can see how they evolve over the months and years ahead.
Pascvaks says:
July 30, 2010 at 12:29 pm
…So true Keith! We definitely need to step back and look at all this climate stuff from a different perspective. I’ve found a graphic that fairly well illustrates just what we’re in for……
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/8615/allpaleotemp.png
A bit of explanation please.
The left side is the present , correct?
The zero line is the current global average temperature ?
If that is true we are a wee bit cold at present – as in near glacial temps are we not?
re: sowing the oceans with iron.
The oceans are really, really big. Like, Big. Man couldn’t seriously affect the oceans even if he ground up every car in every junkyard in the world and dropped them all in. It’s just too big!
Probably the only way to seriously affect the oceans with iron would be to vaporize something like 100 mile diameter iron asteroid immediately above the ocean and allow that to percolate in.
Although I kind of suspect that might make the warming problem for the planet quite acute for a few thousand years.
I wonder how 400 plus people dying from cold weather isn’t a bigger story than a few days of really nice weather that hardly kills any one.wuwt
Stephen Wilde says:
July 30, 2010 at 7:10 am
==============================
Good stuff as always. How’s that book coming along, Stephen?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
adrian smits says:
July 30, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I wonder how 400 plus people dying from cold weather isn’t a bigger story than a few days of really nice weather that hardly kills any one.wuwt
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I leave you with a comment posted on a UK Daily Telegraph blog by “HostileLogic”
“Journalism, once known as a teller of truth and a bulwark against tyranny, was known as the 4th estate. Now it has morphed into the 5th column and has become a threat to our freedoms.
The press was once a magnificent lady. Now she is a malignant prostitute.”
stevengoddard says: “Look at the closeup image. That is why I provided it. Bolivia has a region at -5-10C.”
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/frozentropicscloseup.jpg
I did look at it and (because it’s one of your posts) several times. (1) The Bolivian blue region is very small; (2) It’s light blue, which, per the legend, corresponds to 0°C to -5°C. There is no significant area of Bolivia shown between -5 to -10°C. It’s just a forecast, so I think there’s not a lot to it, even if you use a microscope. Let’s see the actual data when it’s available. Or photos of people ice skating on that lake that might get me snipped if I mention its name.
wws says:
“As I keep saying in various posts – this isn’t about the science, it hasn’t been about the science for a very long time. This is about politics, and this is a purely political push by a group that is so desperate that they don’t even attempt to hide the scientific fraud anymore. And they don’t even care if the fraud is exposed, because they know they have less than 100 days before their game is up for good. They would do anything, tell any lie, manufacture any data, to avoid that end. ”
Bullseye. Said the same thing myself now in these posts several times. But sites like this help to expose the lies.
jorgekafkazar
Exactly what I said.
“Temperatures in some parts of the Andes Mountains of Bolivia are forecast to average below -5C this week. “
“savethesharks says:
July 30, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Stephen Wilde says:
July 30, 2010 at 7:10 am
==============================
Good stuff as always. How’s that book coming along, Stephen?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA”
Thanks, Chris.
I’m still doing the day job so no chance of a book.
However if I’m proved right in due course the record of my contribution is spread far and wide and could well be collated to make an interesting story.
“Ulric Lyons says:
July 30, 2010 at 9:38 am
@Stephen Fisher Wilde says:
July 30, 2010 at 7:10 am
“When the polar oscillations are negative as now the polar high pressure cells sink equatorward and limit the poleward transfer of energy…”
That is the wrong way around.
Have a look when SSW`s occur, that will give you a good clue.”
Yes Ulric I know that’s your view and some of the time on short term events you may see enough of a correlation to suit you.
However to explain multidecadal and millennial changes both logic and physics suggest that I have it the right way round.
Unfortunately the available data is not good enough so we just have to wait and watch to resolve the issue.
Earlier on, Fred N. posted a link to 3-month-seasonal CFS forecasts from NOAA. They also have monthly forecasts. For the next 6 months, see…
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/glbT2mMon.gif for that forecast. For comparison, see also the archived forecast from 3 years ago at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst_history/200708/images/glbT2mMon.gif Remember the stir that January 2008 caused, with Hadley’s anomaly at only +.053 and UAH and RSS going negative? It looks like January 2011 will be January 2008 on steroids.
This is *NOT* a good thing. Remember the rice shortages and export embargos and high prices of that time? It’ll hit crisis levels. With PDO-caused cooling for the next quarter century, we may have hit “peak food”, analagous to “peak oil”. I’m afraid of food wars in the next decade.
“Geoff Sharp says:
July 30, 2010 at 8:44 am
Stephen Wilde says:
July 30, 2010 at 7:10 am
When the polar oscillations are negative as now the polar high pressure cells sink equatorward and limit the poleward transfer of energy so helping to mitigate the global (as opposed to regional) rate of energy loss to space.
Steve, the AAO is at a record positive right now: http://www.landscheidt.info/images/aoo.png, this should strengthen the La Nina phase.”
Geoff, the AAO (Antarctic Oscillation) index is more heavily affected by oceanic events due to more oceans in the southern hemisphere so the current short lived AAO spike is a consequence of the recent El Nino. I did say that what matters is the GLOBAL balance between solar and oceanic influences. Only if the jets are shifted latitudinally is there a significant change to the speed of the hydrological cycle and that short term AAO peak doesn’t seem to have done it just yet.
If the AAO index were to remain highly positive despite a La Nina event then I would attach more weight to your observation. Short term spikes need to be interpreted in the light of the longer term trend which does appear to have peaked even in the southern hemisphere.
I agree with you that a persistent positive AAO and AO (Arctic Oscillation) would enhance any La Nina effect
The AO being less affected by oceanic behaviour due to the northern hemisphere land masses I would expect it to lead any response to a change in solar activity levels and with the northern hemisphere jets going less poleward than they did during late 20th Century El Nino events I still judge that a solar induced (quiet sun) reduction in energy loss to space process has begun in the troposphere despite that El Nino and the consequent AAO spike.
I am grateful to you for pointing out that the response of the AAO to the solar/oceanic balancing act differs to some degree from the AO response. That is useful to me.
Could anybody here comment on the expected effects of this year’s predicted strong La Nina on summer rainfall in eastern and northeastern Australia? Aside from the generalisation that there should be higher rainfall in those areas (eg. from Aust. bom), I would good to have some idea of how certain this is, or how unpredictable it might be due to dependence on the erratic development and track of tropical cyclones.
There was certainly unusually heavy summer rainfall in inland Queensland last summer. A lot of the inland routes across Coopers Creek have been inaccessible for months now, and the effects of the flooding are being felt all the way south to Lake Eyre in South Australia – http://www.lakeeyreyc.com/Status/latest.html#bottom (enjoy the Landsat of a typical inland Australian Landscape: sief dunes and salt lakes). With another summer of heavy rains up in Queensland , Lake Eyre may even fill, as it does every 25 years or so.
If anyone can offer their expertise, I would very much appreciate it.
With thanks in advance,
Larry Kirk
Where I live in Australia we are having a cold winter, the second in a row. There has been less snow in the mountains, but we have had more, colder, and earlier frosts. I don’t expect every winter to be the same, though. I wonder how GISS and the CSIRO determine how ‘2010 is the hottest year ever’ which they seem to keep saying. How do they make this measurement? Where do they stick the thermometer? I can see that the number of temperature reporting stations used has been drastically reduced, and also that many of them are situated on airfields and near asphalt or air conditioners. Their output must be nonsense.
It seems to me that the only way to measure the GLOBAL temperature (and surely that’s what the ‘G’ in AGW stands for) would be to use a radiometer responding to all wavelengths at a distance of about 100,000 km in space. Its field would cover almost a whole hemisphere of the Earth. From this the energy flux could be measured over a long period – of course it would vary from hour to hour and day to day – and then this could be converted, using (I think) the Stephan-Boltzmann law relating radiation and temperature.
Nobody can say here and now what such an instrument might show!
stevengoddard says: “Glaciers in Bolivia are located on isolated peaks between 17,000 and 22,000 feet elevation. The NCEP forecast is showing areas at 12,000 feet below -5C”
Thank you for the clarification.
stephan says:
July 30, 2010 at 9:26 am
What this shows is that in the NH summer the NH heats up and the SH cools down. Its really very, very, simple and extremely normal. LOL
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
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You linked to a sea surface temperature map. But you were talking about land temperatures? Also, the tempratures in South America are not 6-10C below summer temperatures but they are 6-10C below normal winter temperatures. Also, the Northern Hemisphere is not heating up. There are only few areas that are hot. Everywhere else is having mild temperatures, even cool.
These cooling temperatures are beginning to show in the data sets, except the American government data sets. Those will still show record heat. But those are government temperature data sets. Those show what the politics of Washington are not the temperature of the earth.
Jeff says:
July 30, 2010 at 10:23 am
Steve, I was reading a few months ago how BART was pushing people back into their cars in the Bay Area because their car commutes were 20 minutes & BART was taking them 2½ hours for the same trip. The commuters seemed to value sleep in bed & time with the family over the train ride.
Jeff
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That story you tell is exceptionally wrong. You may need to look carefully over what you wrote. You will find errors.
stevengoddard says:
July 30, 2010 at 10:24 am
“Smokey
Caltrain from San Jose to San Francisco is faster and cheaper than driving, plus you don’t have to park.”
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I like to take 280. I go 65 all the way. 101 is usually awful, stop and go all the way. And 280 is beautiful, especially when the fog is creeping over the hills. But I do agree about the parking in San Francisco. Hard to find and you constantly feed the meters.
Walter Dnes says:
July 30, 2010 at 3:59 pm
This is *NOT* a good thing. Remember the rice shortages and export embargos and high prices of that time? It’ll hit crisis levels. With PDO-caused cooling for the next quarter century, we may have hit “peak food”, analagous to “peak oil”. I’m afraid of food wars in the next decade.
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It does not help that the grain traders convinced governments to do away with grain reserves setting the world up for massive famine in the case of major crop failures. Think 1930’s Dust Bowl
The North American Export Grain Association: Joint Letter with NGFA to President Bush, Arguing Against a Global Reserve Grain
http://www.naega.org/images/pdf/grain_reserves_for_food_aid.pdf
… [Amstutz] represented the culmination of this “free market” ideology by calling for the elimination, over 7 years, of all price floors and grain reserves….
Grain trader Dan Amstutz (VP of Cargill) wrote the “freedom to fail” farm act of 1996 getting rid of the US grain reserve: http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/95/15revie.htm
And Amstutz wrote the AoA – World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture:
” Public storage programmes are a commonly used means of reducing volatile food prices. Yet many of the big producer countries have reduced their holdings, in part because they are expensive to maintain, but also because of disciplines introduced by the AoA; its rules discourage public stockholding. The effect has been significant: for example, between 1991 and 1999, European Commission expenditure on storage fell from 18.3 percent of total Common Agricultural Policy costs to 4 percent….
Global stocks to use ratios, used by FAO to measure grain reserves in case of harvest failures, are at low levels by recent historical standards. So why has diminished supply not been reflected in higher, or at least stable, prices?… At least part of the answer seems to lie in the market power of transnational agribusiness….”
http://www.foodgrainsbank.ca/uploads/fjt_invisible.pdf
“In summary, we have record low grain inventories globally as we move into a new crop year. We have demand growing strongly. Which means that going forward even small crop failures are going to drive grain prices to record levels. As an investor, we continue to find these long term trends … very attractive.” Food shortfalls predicted: 2008 http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/dancy/2008/0104.html
What is happening in the South vs North is repeated each solstice.
There is an escalation each time. That is the pattern we in the N. Hemisphere need to be prepared for.
Don’t look for anyone to do it for you, especially not the Talking Heads or the Govt. which have thier heads buried in hot sands.
-20°C at Mazocruz, Puno, Peru:
Low temperatures in Puno have already killed 42 children
Violence climate . Cold has withered pastures and crops , as well as frozen streams. And in the Ica region has recorded more than 49 000 cases of respiratory infections.
The cold wave is sweeping the highlands of the country. In the Puno region at least 42 children died of pneumonia since the beginning of this season. In addition , low temperatures have destroyed the grasslands and frozen streams.
As reported by residents in the district of Masocruz Puna , province of Collao, on the last Monday there have been 22 degrees below zero, severely affecting all living in this town . ” This is the largest ice in recent years ( …) The alpaca livestock dying for lack of pasture and water, “he said.
Also reported that, so far, the authorities have given their support for , such as coats or other material support to overcome the intense cold.
Ica also affects
But the low temperatures also reached the Peruvian coast. This week in the Ica District Ocucaje the temperature dropped to three degrees Celsius and in the center of the region arrived at six degrees. The Regional Health Bureau reported that in the region 49.800 reported cases of respiratory infections.
http://www.larepublica.pe/archive/all/larepublica/20100717/20/node/278864/todos/13