“The line must be drawn here! This far and no further!”
Bryan Walsh deserves a giant watermelon for his journalistic efforts this Time around in his annual piece on global warming causing blizzards.
He comes out swinging right away: “A big winter snowstorm provides more fodder for the global-warming skeptics. But they’re wrong”
Oh really? Bryan, if you can find any (credible) scientist that wants to go on record supporting your contortionist logic with respect to this holiday blizzard, please quote them directly on the record, and do not cherry-pick their blog postings or opinion-editorials. Is this the type of new “green journalism” expertise that we can expect from the vaunted and much lauded Climate Science Rapid Response Team? Preemptive straw man arguments that would make the master blush? This article is just another in a long line of really speculative pieces that reek of scientific ignorance. Enough of it, please!
Before getting to this year’s Time Life installment of “blizzards gone wild”, let’s go back to February 10, 2010 and Snowmageddon when Bryan Walsh authored this gem:
Indeed, what happened to that climate change — perhaps a follow up on that Virginia state GOP campaign strategy (Tsunami warning).
We’re braced. Semi-interested readers will see from that February Time piece that Bryan Walsh relies on Dr. Jeff Masters‘ blog posting to rationalize the blizzard and global warming saying that warmer air carries more moisture — true. However, intense baroclinic cyclones such as blizzards also rely on Arctic-cold air for their fuel which is usually provided behind dynamically-positioned midlatitude troughs. I haven’t read any peer-reviewed literature lately linking an increase in moisture being responsible for that blizzard’s intensity or existence, specifically. That reasoning is essentially a thought experiment extrapolated to the situation at hand. Walsh finishes up:
We are in agreement on that. Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. says the same thing over at his Climate Science blog in reaction to the woeful Dr. Judah Cohen opinion editorial.
Fast forward to December 28, 2010 and the most recent blizzard. Everyone that participated in our sarcastic peremptory analysis of the blizzard journalism-to-come had some jolly holiday laughs conjuring up what was expected to be written by the liberal media. Time Magazine does not disappoint!
First off, let’s get our time-scales right. Decadal-time-scale, mean-global warming on the order of tenths of a degree is not an event. The blizzard is an event. Who is coming out saying that “climate change” is a myth? The climate is always changing — I’d be surprised and alarmed if it stayed the same. Alas, I thought you weren’t supposed to conflate a singular weather event to climate change/global warming/disruption/something. There are two main arguments that are cobbled together to form a scientific thesis:
(1) A warmer Arctic will lead to colder and snowier winters in the middle-latitudes due to the “continued Arctic sea-ice meltdown”. The loss of ice will make the surface darker, absorb more heat, and change pressure patterns leading to a weakening of the jet stream, which allows cold-air to seep into Europe. This is called the Warm Arctic – Cold Continents theory by NOAA and operates exclusively in the fall months. Dr. Jeff Masters’ calls it “leaving the refrigerator door open” to cool your house.
(2) Dr. Judah Cohen’s theory about Siberian snow-cover early in the fall leading to a dome of cold air forming near the mountains which in turn “bends the passing jet stream”. This affects the middle-latitude waveguide and results in a highly amplified pattern. Thus, more meridional flow exchanges of cold-air equatorward. This is an appeal to the negative Arctic Oscillation phase.
Okay, these theories are not in dispute but their applicability to the current blizzard is. Dr. Cohen’s scholarship on Arctic climate dynamics is top-notch. Conversely, his recent NY Times op-ed was not received well. But, what does this have to do with a singular event like a blizzard which has happened many, many times in the past? The Arctic Oscillation has been negative before. Look at this time-series graphic. To establish a causal chain that links these theories to the situation at hand requires a leap of faith:
How are autumn sea-ice or snow-cover changes supposed to affect the winter circulation three-months later when the troposphere has such a short memory?
See the aforementioned Pielke, Sr. posting for additional science reasoning. I’m just going to throw something out there that the Climate Rapid Response Team might want to discover: El Nino and La Nina (ENSO) in that potentially important body of water known as the Pacific Ocean. Have you heard anything about this driving our current climate/weather in the media lately? Crickets…
No objective person will disagree that Time Magazine or the NY Times’ “green journalism” is liberal in nature and fits perfectly in with the political agenda of the Democrat party. So, why did Bryan Walsh go from correctly stating in February that one storm or event isn’t proof of anything to unabashedly blaming global warming for the most recent blizzard? Open question…
While Dr. Oppenheimer talks about “loaded dice” with respect to global warming and extreme events, Walsh and the drive-by media are putting their cards down too soon, and are in effect overplaying their hand in a reflexive manner. They are looking for theories hidden in the tapestry to make the world’s weather fit a narrative. In doing this, “green journalism” ends up being science fiction, unsupportable, reflexive, and only worthy of watermelons.
In the meantime, the line is drawn here, no more of this type of article, please. Blow up the damn ship!
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Bruce Cobb said:
I disagree, johanna. The Alarmists have always known that their “science” was not all it was cracked up to be, and that in order to succeed, they needed to exaggerate and even lie in order to convince what they regarded as their flock of sheeple, who would believe the moon was actually made of green cheese as long as enough “scientists” said it was, and the MSM dutifully went along.
Fortunately, it didn’t quite work, but as has been pointed out, the war for the truth is not yet over. There are still plenty of sheeple out there to be shorn, and taxpayers to be fleeced. And yes, to their everlasting disgrace, it is the Democrats and/or Liberals who have primarily spearheaded this campaign against truth, against science, and against Humanity, and I say that as a former died-in-the-wool Democrat.
———————————————————————
Bruce, I think we are at cross purposes here. The reason WUWT has gained the credibility it has is because it has avoided becoming a mouthpiece for any political party, other group, or individual. And, it is very much to Anthony’s credit that all of these traps have been avoided. There are thousands of blogs on both sides of the debate that are not as reputable as WUWT – and this is why.
As I understand it, the purpose of WUWT is not to convert or frighten the ‘sheeple’, but to have a calm and civil discussion of the issues and latest scientific developments. That is its strength.
Sorry if I’m talking about you as though you weren’t here, Anthony – but in keeping with your Christmas resolution, I really hope that you are not here!
Agreed Jeremy!
Filtering off all of the useless hyperpartisan anger in the article, this is what caught my attention:
“This is called the Warm Arctic – Cold Continents theory by NOAA and operates exclusively in the fall months.”
Let’s keep in mind that winter only started a week ago. Note the word “fall” in the quote. Many appear to have written their book on this winter before it began.
Jeremy says:
December 29, 2010 at 7:44 am
good one
I noticed that Bryan Walsh is recycling garbage. Unfortunately it isn’t the Earth friendly garbage recycling. It is the propaganda variety of garbage in the form of recycling the same garbage he wrote in his February 10, 2010 piece, “Another Blizzard: What Happened to Global Warming?” I see a pattern with Bryan (and several other climate journalists). They find a find a scientist (Jeff Masters?) who agrees with their chosen narrative, who is all too happy to create a link between weather and climate, and then write the narrative without doing a fact check or seeking opposing views in an effort to vet facts. Bryan in pre-programmed fashion (like Dr. Maue’s Borg reference) then has the red meat he needs to spin those comments into a predetermined narrative, global warming=> climate change=> climate chaos=> ?, to influence/pursuade his readers. Journalistic integrity+ fact checking + balance = good journalism, be damned. Once invested in the propaganda driven narrative there is no turning back. In for a penny (2/10/12) in for a pound (12/28/10).
Take heart that not all Walsh’s readers have been assimilated as can be seen in the comments section of his articles. ;*) http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2039777,00.html#comments
AusieDan says:
December 29, 2010 at 3:38 am
Ryan, I heard a person described as a representative of the CSIRO on Australian ABC radio this morning, when I was only half awake.
What he said made sense I think, although I do not agree with him for other reasons.
He simply said that there are two forces at work, CO2 emissions causing a long term linear rise in temperature and cyclic, directionless influences such as the PDO, which override the CO2 effect in the short term but do not influence the long term direction.
_____________________________________________________________________
Yes and in the transcript the rep says:
“I analysed one of our climatic experiments where we ran it out to 2100 with carbon dioxide increasing. I found that even up to 2040 and 2050 you can still get cold snaps under greenhouse warming.”
The CSIRO computer climate model I presume. Sorry but predicting weather events (cold snaps) out to this time scale using a model is pure BS. And we know about the in-built CO2 “forcing” evident in these models
He goes on:
“Now the scientific reasons for global warming attributed to the carbon dioxide, the scientific basis is very sound. The basic long-term trend over the next 100 years is for a steady global warming and over most of Australia we can expect to see rainfall decline.”
So far the CSIRO computer predictions of a “dry” continent has failed badly. Record wet season over most of the continent in 2010. When I mentioned this to another CSIRO scientist he just laughed and gave me a smirked look.
My analysis over many years shows there is no correlation evident whatsoever between CO2 levels and the rainfall records from late 1800’s up to 2010.
Baa Humbug says:
December 29, 2010 at 4:58 am
burnside says:
December 29, 2010 at 3:37 am
…But I won’t send readers from other sites to posts here so long as the tone is so weighted toward ridicule. I read this site almost daily, but find it impossible to cite, much as I value the information.
Baa, nice
ridiculelogical deconstruction in response! Instead of a “concern troll”, burnside should be an ipcc Climate Scientist, since they hardly ever seem to read or remember what they’ve said, too, at least when it involves some very important parts of their “science”. In fact, it seems to be a necessary component of their “method” [ = Propaganda Op.].In 2009, Bryan Walsh was still spreading the warmer-winters version of AGW:
“Warming will make skiing, ice-skating and snowmobiling pastimes of the past in many areas of the Northeast, decimating the multibillion-dollar winter-sports industry. The center of maple-syrup production will shift from New England to Canada, and production of apples and other produce that depend on cooler winters will decline.”
From IOP arcticle released one year ago:
“Despite of this change in the NAO index almost 15 years ago, we have not yet
seen clear evidence of more frequent colder winter weather in Europe, a fact which we tentatively attribute to an increasing anthropogenic effect on the North Atlantic and European climate regime. This demonstrates that based on investigations of climate variability beyond the instrumental record it appears to be possible to distinguish between natural and human-induced climate change”
So much for that theory.
Newspaper journalists when they graduate are told their purpose is not to report the news, but to make the world a better place. If this means lying about global warming being manmade to accomplish this purpose, then so be it.
The Editors of Time Magazine and other “news” outlets spewing this global warming baloney must not be allowed to continue without our comments. For every article published there must be a blizzard of letters sent to the Editors questioning the accuracy of their stories.
Ask these Editors to explain two things. One: why is 2010 the 9,099th warmest year out of 10,500 years of GISP2 ice core data? Two: why do the CO2 increases come about 800 years after the temperature increases?
We are not the deniers. We are the admitters. We know the data speaks volumes, and the IPCC computer projections rarely pan out.
The Landscheidt Grand Solar Minimum is well underway. There will be severe crop failures and fuel shortages. We are in for increasingly brutal cold winters for decades to come. Reducing our carbon footprints will be futile. It is planetary mechanics that drives our weather and climate; CO2 drives nothing.
Regarding snow storms and their natural pending increase resulting from global warming, the real issue is why it has been snowing in areas that have not seen snow for decades.
In a warming world you cannot expect future snow storms in areas that haven’t seen snow for years – like Britain.
In Atlantic Canada where terrible snow storms are common, this is just weather and not climate change.
But explain to me how greater moisture in the air leads to snow storms in climates where the temperature has not been falling below freezing during the winter months?
FrankK- I can’t comprehend how formerly respected institutions like BOM and CSIRO have transmuted from impartial collators and transmitters of information to advocates and propagandists. The BOM satellite maps of clouds and storms are better than ever, but why do we have to pay for spin, one way or the other?
(BOM = Bureau of Meteorology, until lately an authoritative source of climate and weather information in Australia; CSIRO – Commonwealth Industrial and Research Organisation, see previous).
ShrNfr says:
December 29, 2010 at 6:02 am
We push the button on our Time wayback machine and return to June 24, 1974: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
=============================================================
Everyone should read this. The plot is familiar-“bizarre and unpredicatable weather pattern;” “record rains in Pakistan …caused some of the worst flooding in centuries;” “man too may be somewhat responsible;” ” …its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic.” Could have been writen yesterday, except that they are talking about the earth getting colder, not warmer.
Apparently climatology has a long history of using the MSM to pronounce the coming catastrophe. And since catastrophe “sells newpapers” the MSM is happy to go along.
USA today has gotten it right.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/forecast/2010-12-28-whysocold28_ST_N.htm?csp=34news
Hurrel did not tell them however that the negative NAO will kikely hang around for thirty years.
For those that are upset about the injection of some politics into the post here is a little bit of information for you: the issue is political. Climate science is political. You need to be able to separate the partisanship from the scholarship, both in the media, and with climate scientists who have formed a “green journalism” nexus.
The part of the post that is political in nature is 5%, the rest is science or commentary on the journalism. The politics is the context — and if you are dismissing the messenger because I am pointing out the obvious — then it clearly isn’t obvious to you. If you want 100% politics and no science, well Time magazine is for you.
Thanks Dr. Maue,
AGW is a dead horse that needs beating!
Ryan Maue says:
December 29, 2010 at 3:25 pm
… the issue is political. Climate science is political.
=============================================================
I don’t think that the science of Climatology has to be political. But the issue of AGW certainly is political. For better-or-worse, most liberal Democrat politicians are currently AGW believers. But this has nothing to do with being a Democrat or a Republican.
When I was boy in the 1940’s and Israel was a new country, in the U.S. , unquestioning support of Israel was a litmus test for liberal Democrats. Now unquestioning support of Israel is a litmus test for conservative Republicans.
It is those who say “I’m a liberal Democrat, therefore I believe in AGW” or “I’m a conservative Republican, therefore I don’t believe AGW” that should pay most attention to the issues that are so well discussed at this site. Don’t let your politics decide your science.
Winter Storm-Blizzard Warnings in 17 States.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Winter_storm-blizzard_warnings_in_17_states.htm
I can’t think of any warmist prediction that has come to pass (I suspect that there must be one, but I can’t think of it save perhaps for the adulterated instrument record that I take with a pinch of salt ). Their explanations as to why matters are not panning out as predicted are becoming ever more desperate and unbelievable.
Here in the UK we have had 3 very cold winters in a row. Last winter we were told was a 1 in 30 year event. Now we have this winter which we are being told is a 1 in 100 year event. What are the odds of having consecutively a 1 in 30 year winter followed by a 1 in 100 year winter?
In fact, this winter (in the UK) is worse than a 1 in 100 year event since it appears that it may well be the coldest for 300 years. See the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1342515/UK-snow-big-freeze-weather-means-winter-set-coldest-300-YEARS.html
Last winter’s experience ought to have persuaded even the most die hard politician that wind energy has no place in the UK energy stratergy but unfortunately, there seems none dumber than a politician so we we are increasing our investment and dependence on these useless monstrosities. A couple of days ago, the Daily Mail ran a good article on this.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1342032/You-dont-need-weatherman-know-way-wind-blows.html
If in the future 30% of the UK’s electricity is generated by these wind turbines (and if there is not sufficient gas or coal powered stations to back up supply), last winter there would have been at least 3 weeks when there would have had to have been electrity rationing, ie., resultant power cuts of 8 to 10 hours a day. This year it may be an even longer period. If these winters are repeated (even if only once in 30 years) there will be hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by the cold and lack of electricty/heating. It seems that the UK government has not thought of this unless there is some hidden agenda to deal with an ever aging population, ie., to permit for a natural cull of the oldest and most vulnerable thereby saving the tax payer money in having to look after the old in their old age. I hope that there is not such a hidden agenda.
Winter has, of course, only just started. It certainly will be bleak if these cold temperatures go on until March.
Some posters have commented on the depth of snow and albedo. The depth is not important, it is the area that is important (ie., the extent of cover) and in particular the retention, ie., how long the covering lasts for. The latter is important not simply because of the time that the reduced albedo remains but also as we head towards Spring (and into Summer), the days are loner and the the incident of sunlight is greater such that snow cover plays an ever increasing role.
At one time, long ago, reporters tried to tell both sides of the story and stick to the facts, but today, many are proud to be an advocate for their cause. In reality, once they do that, they are no longer reporters, but have become speakers of propaganda and deceivers.
News Credibility = ZERO!
gerard – you mentioned farming in Australia.
My family have had long experience of farming in this country.
When it’s fine, it’s hot and when it’s hot it is very, very dry, not to mention bush fires and plagues of grasshoppers.
When it’s wet, it’s cold and we have massive destructive floods.
Farming is not fun.
Most farmers eventually go broke if they keep at it long enough.
Or if not broke, then they themselves are broken by continued disapointments.
However, as a nation, looking at it from the macro scale.
Farming in Australia is fruitful and bountiful.
We must all read Dorethea MacKeller again.
The linkage between (A)GW and consequent blizzards should have been obvious from the outset. After all, if someone is presenting you with a hockey stick, can ice be far away?
Bruce Cobb – I may have not made myself quite clear.
I do not agree with the same Mr. Hunt.
But he at least made a sensible statement.
It is plausable that,
IF – CO2 causes warming on a net basis after feedbacks (let’s say for the sake of arguement),
AND oscillations such as PDO and AMO etc go up and down but are directionless,
AND you ignore all the other possible influences on the global temperature indexes,
THEN you could get a cold spell temporarily overriding a long term secular up trend.
BUT making a plausible statement (rather than an outrightly stupid one, as many of his friends have done) does not necessarily make his analysis correct.
From what I know of science and the climate, my assessment is that he is wrong.
I think that it more likely that when it is hot, it is hot, and when it is cold, then it’s just too darn cold.
Which is why I keep switching the radiator on in the middle of the good old Ausie baking summer.
(But that’s just weather, not climate and climate is not weather and xxxxxx)
I think that I have just understood one of the major AGW claims, the one about this being the warmest decade of the century.
Just define the decade as the calandar years 2001 to 2010 (assuming 2010 to be hot).
And define the century to be this century, which is not as yet quite complete and merely covers the years from 2001 to 2010.
Then you could claim without fear of correction, much less fear of being actually wrong; that this actually really, truely is “the warmest decade of the century”.
Simple actually, when it is expalined properly.
Nothing to see here, move on, move on.
Next question.
Ausie Dan,
True. That also makes this the coldest decade of this century.☺