By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow
As we reported, the eco-pressure group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, as part of a continuing misinformation campaign sponsored a teleconference yesterday with a very confused Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, opportunist Mark Serreze of NSIDC and a UCS environmentalist. Their performance was a scientific disappointment to say the least as one scientist wrote me “Masters lost all my respect. Serreze never had it”. He didn’t mention the UCS. It is the crazy uncle no one talks about.
The Union of Concerned Scientists recall had sponsored a workshop on Mt. Washington in 2007 in which they promised ski areas that snow would be hard to come by even in northern areas and they might consider another profession. That very winter, northern New England set a record for the greatest seasonal snow and ski areas had the best year in their history. Across the hemisphere that winter was surpassed only by 1977/78, 2009/10. Through January this winter, the Northern Hemisphere had more snow than any of those years and will rank likely in the top 5.
The UCS was not alone in predicting warming means less snow. NOAA in their CCSP and the EPA in their TSD said most cities with winter avergaes near freezing (the case of most metros in the east) would see more rain and much less snow. Recall the IPCC stated: “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms”. Recall RFK Jr. in 2008 promised DC children would be deprived of the fun of sledding due to warming – of course all-time record snows fell in 2009/10 and sleds and skiis were the only way to get around the DC area.
Now the alarmists have flipped their position claiming warming means more snow although it is a major stretch to think that would apply to Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, and Atlanta in a warming world. But back to the teleconference.
“Heavy snowstorms are not inconsistent with a warming planet,” said scientist Jeff Masters. “In fact, as the Earth gets warmer and more moisture gets absorbed into the atmosphere, we are steadily loading the dice in favor of more extreme storms in all seasons, capable of causing greater impacts on society.” “The old adage, ‘It’s too cold to snow,’ has some truth to it,” said Masters. “A colder atmosphere holds less moisture, limiting the snowfall that can occur.”
First of all the winter was colder than normal not warmer as can be seen by this preliminary analysis from NOAA CPC.
Second the global oceans are colder than normal, especially around the United States as seen from this UNISYS SST anomaly analysis.
Third the amount of moisture in the air this winter was below normal (blues) in all the areas that had abnormal snow.
The actual tropspheric precipitable water content from surface to 500mb shows most the tropical atmosphere has over ten times the water content of the polar and middle latitudes.
Marc Morano collated other scientist responses on Climate Depot. He adds (1) tropospheric relative and specific humidity has significantly declined since ‘safe CO2 levels’ of 1948, 2) atmospheric water vapor has declined since satellite measurements began in 1983, 3) there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.
The snow resulted from a rapid cooling as we went from a strong El Nino to a strong La Nina and high latitude blocking consistent with a warm AMO mode and a still quiet sun (maybe some residual help from the high latitude volcanoes of recent years). Global temperature anomalies may have plunged more than a whole degree (F) from their peak last summer and early fall. February 2011’s anomaly (UAH) came in as -0.018F relative to the 30 year average. Recall global temperatures lag ENSO by about 7 months. Global teleconnections are most similar to the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when frequent snowy cold winters caused the world to increasingly think an ice age was coming.
Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, said less sea ice in the Arctic translates to more moisture in the atmosphere, and could also cause an atmospheric circulation pattern in polar regions known as Arctic Oscillation.
“It’s still cutting-edge research and there’s no smoking gun, but there’s evidence that with less sea ice, you put a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, and the circulation of the atmosphere responds to that,” Serreze said.
He would not know cutting edge research if he fell over it. Forecasters were using the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in forecasting temperatures for over a decade. It correlates very strongly with the Northern Hemispheric temperatures and with wintertime North Atlantic Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. Even the IPCC talks about the natural cyclical behavior of the AMO (60-70 year cycle). The warm AMO mode which began in 1995 biases the atmosphere towards a negative AO and NAO. It also contributes to less arctic ice as the warmer than normal waters near the Barents Sea work their way under the ice and thin it from the bottom. See.
Before Serreze took over NSIDC seeing the huge grant funding windfall opportunity, an honest scientist in their blog in 2007 admitted the roles of the oceans in arctic ice and the uncertainty that existed in the science:
“One prominent researcher, Igor Polyakov at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, points out that pulses of unusually warm water have been entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic, which several years later are seen in the ocean north of Siberia. These pulses of water are helping to heat the upper Arctic Ocean, contributing to summer ice melt and helping to reduce winter ice growth. Another scientist, Koji Shimada of the Japan Agency for Marine – Earth Science and Technology, reports evidence of changes in ocean circulation in the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean. Through a complex interaction with declining sea ice, warm water entering the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait in summer is being shunted from the Alaskan coast into the Arctic Ocean, where it fosters further ice loss.” Many questions still remain to be answered, but these changes in ocean circulation may be important keys for understanding the observed loss of Arctic sea ice.”
CO2 has nothing at all to do with it. Cold open arctic waters serve as a major sink of CO2 just as the warm tropical waters serve as a source. Roger Pielke Sr. suggests the ocean heat content (OHC) as a more robust measure of temperature trends. Models suggest OHC should be rising rapidly as the greenhouse gases build, especially in the tropics. Here is the buoy based OHC in the top 300 meters of the equatorial from NOAA (between 5 degrees north and south of the equator) Pacific from 130 E to 80W. During El Ninos, the eastern half is warm and the west cool, in La Ninas the eastern half is cool and the western warm. The fact there is not net warming, instead actually a slight cooling of the entire belt may the most damning proof that global warming is nothing more than a government funded political campaign.
Meanwhile, check out the interesting snow stories as we enter the last quarter mile of the winter season. Ask the people in these areas whether they think global warming is something to worry about.
And Central Park’s snowiest months:
Chicago had a helleva February.
Minneapolis is climbing the top ten list of snowiest winters.
As is Boston.
The UCS was not alone in predicting warming means less snow. NOAA in their CCSP and the EPA in their TSD said most cities with winter avergaes near freezing (the case of most metros in the east) would see more rain and much less snow. Recall the IPCC stated: “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms”. Recall RFK Jr. in 2008 promised DC children would be deprived of the fun of sledding due to warming – of course all-time record snows fell in 2009/10 and sleds and skiis were the only way to get around the DC area.
Now the alarmists have flipped their position claiming warming means more snow although it is a major stretch to think that would apply to Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, and Atlanta in a warming world. But back to the teleconference.
“Heavy snowstorms are not inconsistent with a warming planet,” said scientist Jeff Masters. “In fact, as the Earth gets warmer and more moisture gets absorbed into the atmosphere, we are steadily loading the dice in favor of more extreme storms in all seasons, capable of causing greater impacts on society.” “The old adage, ‘It’s too cold to snow,’ has some truth to it,” said Masters. “A colder atmosphere holds less moisture, limiting the snowfall that can occur.”
First of all the winter was colder than normal not warmer as can be seen by this preliminary analysis from NOAA CPC.
Second the global oceans are colder than normal, especially around the United States as seen from this UNISYS SST anomaly analysis.
Third the amount of moisture in the air this winter was below normal (blues) in all the areas that had abnormal snow.
The actual tropspheric precipitable water content from surface to 500mb shows most the tropical atmosphere has over ten times the water content of the polar and middle latitudes.
Marc Morano collated other scientist responses on Climate Depot. He adds (1) tropospheric relative and specific humidity has significantly declined since ‘safe CO2 levels’ of 1948, 2) atmospheric water vapor has declined since satellite measurements began in 1983, 3) there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.
The snow resulted from a rapid cooling as we went from a strong El Nino to a strong La Nina and high latitude blocking consistent with a warm AMO mode and a still quiet sun (maybe some residual help from the high latitude volcanoes of recent years). Global temperature anomalies may have plunged more than a whole degree (F) from their peak last summer and early fall. February 2011’s anomaly (UAH) came in as -0.018F relative to the 30 year average. Recall global temperatures lag ENSO by about 7 months. Global teleconnections are most similar to the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when frequent snowy cold winters caused the world to increasingly think an ice age was coming.
Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, said less sea ice in the Arctic translates to more moisture in the atmosphere, and could also cause an atmospheric circulation pattern in polar regions known as Arctic Oscillation.
“It’s still cutting-edge research and there’s no smoking gun, but there’s evidence that with less sea ice, you put a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, and the circulation of the atmosphere responds to that,” Serreze said.
He would not know cutting edge research if he fell over it. Forecasters were using the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in forecasting temperatures for over a decade. It correlates very strongly with the Northern Hemispheric temperatures and with wintertime North Atlantic Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation. Even the IPCC talks about the natural cyclical behavior of the AMO (60-70 year cycle). The warm AMO mode which began in 1995 biases the atmosphere towards a negative AO and NAO. It also contributes to less arctic ice as the warmer than normal waters near the Barents Sea work their way under the ice and thin it from the bottom. See.
Before Serreze took over NSIDC seeing the huge grant funding windfall opportunity, an honest scientist in their blog in 2007 admitted the roles of the oceans in arctic ice and the uncertainty that existed in the science:
“One prominent researcher, Igor Polyakov at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, points out that pulses of unusually warm water have been entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic, which several years later are seen in the ocean north of Siberia. These pulses of water are helping to heat the upper Arctic Ocean, contributing to summer ice melt and helping to reduce winter ice growth. Another scientist, Koji Shimada of the Japan Agency for Marine – Earth Science and Technology, reports evidence of changes in ocean circulation in the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean. Through a complex interaction with declining sea ice, warm water entering the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait in summer is being shunted from the Alaskan coast into the Arctic Ocean, where it fosters further ice loss.” Many questions still remain to be answered, but these changes in ocean circulation may be important keys for understanding the observed loss of Arctic sea ice.”
CO2 has nothing at all to do with it. Cold open arctic waters serve as a major sink of CO2 just as the warm tropical waters serve as a source. Roger Pielke Sr. suggests the ocean heat content (OHC) as a more robust measure of temperature trends. Models suggest OHC should be rising rapidly as the greenhouse gases build, especially in the tropics. Here is the buoy based OHC in the top 300 meters of the equatorial from NOAA (between 5 degrees north and south of the equator) Pacific from 130 E to 80W. During El Ninos, the eastern half is warm and the west cool, in La Ninas the eastern half is cool and the western warm. The fact there is not net warming, instead actually a slight cooling of the entire belt may the most damning proof that global warming is nothing more than a government funded political campaign.
Meanwhile, check out the interesting snow stories as we enter the last quarter mile of the winter season. Ask the people in these areas whether they think global warming is something to worry about.
And Central Park’s snowiest months:
Chicago had a helleva February.
Minneapolis is climbing the top ten list of snowiest winters.
As is Boston.
This record cold and heavy snow being caused by global warming thing wasn’t passed through peer review before they went public with it.
OK, the final offer – Global warming means hotter snow…
This reads like more Post Normal Science where facts are mere impediments to the narrative.
In New Hampshire, this winter has been one of the snowiest and COLDEST that I can remember in my 15 years living here. The skiing areas have been doing great! As for the Union of
CommunistConcerned Scientists and their pronouncement that “snow would be hard to come by” – well, they are clearly idiots.Also, I am not going to use the weather underground anymore. There are other (better) weather sites, and Jeff Masters has clearly jumped the shark (though he’s been a manic CAGW believer for some time now).
Speaking of Newsweek and left wing alarmism here’s their article from April 28, 1975 on “The Cooling World” about the coming ice age:
http://sweetness-light.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
The main problem with their “more moisture” discovery is, of course, that would this would reduce droughts as well, though I never noticed them mentioning that or discuss anything like the green Sahara of the warmer and wetter past.
In total, a world with more precipitation would be more fertile and beneficial to mankind. I didn’t notice them say this either.
Video about The Coming Ice Age that opens with the 1975 Newsweek alarmist article:
Who needs peer review, just ask anyone living in northern Canada how much moisture is in the air during winter!
Several problems with this whole nonsense (er, theory) about this year’s “warmer climate = more now + less ice (in the Arctic = more water vapor = more snow …
1. “Weather” is an instant thing, not a “climate” thing. The United States “weather” blows in from the west-northwest and crosses the US in about 3-4 days. Not years. Days. The “weather” in any particular minute at any particular position on the earth depends NOT on the “climate” of the past 150 years – which HAS been warming by about a 1.2 degree – but on the winds, temperature, humidity and Arctic wind streams of the current three or fours days.
Thus, the snows of 2010-2011 CANNOT be said to depend on the global average temperature of December or January or February – which HAVE NOT in any case changed from those of 1970 – 1980! Since the weather of 2010 – 2-11 is occurring at the same temperatures as 1970 – 1980, these CAGW so-called “scientists” are immediately falsified and their CAGW theory is proved wrong unless the snow falls and ice state of 1970 – 1980 are identical to what is supposedly influencing the weather of winter 2010-2010.
2. We KNOW the ice extent in December 2010, January 2011, February 2011. We KNOW the snowfalls, humidity, high-level winds, temperatures across the US, and progression of the cold fronts and winds across the US the past three months. If the esteemed so-called “scientists” at the NSIDC want to pretend to blame these recent snowfall on increased Arctic water exposure, then THEY must show exactly what happened. And when. And why this year’s increased snowfalls did NOT occur in January and February 2006 when ice extent was LOWER than today and temperatures were essentially the same.
Again. CAGW is falsified by world-level experiments.
The only thing for sure is whatever the weather or the climate they will try and make it say what they want. They are treating the public like fools and the anger of the public is turning against them. People in many parts can no longer afford to keep warm and must cut back on what they are eating – this is criminal – and all the while the green rich get richer!
Sherlock Holmes in 1891: ‘It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.
Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts’
*sniff* It kinda smells like climate disruption in here…..
Amino Acids, thanks for the video link. Definitely interesting.
David Rouse — love the quote.
Niiiicccceeeee. 😉
Ed Waage says: (March 3, 2011 at 9:16 pm)
This reads like more Post Normal Science where facts are mere impediments to the narrative.
As a useful side-note on that, Ed; the origination of the term:
Australian politics is insane. The Federal Govt has appointed Tim Flannery to brainwash the public. The media is still giving credence to CAGW. Summer was cool and wet in southern Australia. Not many days over 40, in Melbourne and Adelaide, and only three days over thirty here in Hobart. Here our hottest day was 34. In summer of 2009/2010 we had ten days over thirty, and the highest was 38. In Tasmania we’ve endured a week of freezing gales, and if March is going to reach its average maximum we’ll have to have a couple of very hot days to make up for this Antarctic blast. Three snowfalls on Mt wellington down to 900 metres. The first one was in February. I can’t remember seeing snow on it so many times so early. This is a good example of what happens when El Nino is replaced by La Nina. A lot of cold weather eventually translates into a cold climate, since climate is described by the same parameters that describe the weather. The people of Oz need to wake up to the fact that various oscillations control the climate, not homo sapiens.
In Oz we have Professors Carter and Plimer, to name just two real scientists, but the media takes no notice of them. I can’t understand why anyone takes notice of Flannery. He said the rains would dry up, and two cities, Melbourne and Brisbane, now have redundant desal plants.
The PM says we have to have a carbon tax next year to prevent CAGW. How do we convince ordinary working people that Flannery and Julia Ghoulia are deluded. I tell all my friends that I don’t vote Labor now, that govt. policy shouldn’t be based on green myths, and that a vote for Labor is a vote for Green. Australia is being run by Carbonazzis, and I’m getting madder by the minute. A lot of my friends think I’ve turned into a nutter. Thank God for WUWT, you keep me sane.
More like “climate desperation”
The most annoying aspect of these CAGWists is their complete lack (preferentially?) of research on oceanic cycles, of which we’re now in a cooling period similar to the 1945-1975 oscillation:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm
This, coupled with a lack of solar activity would definitely have the effect described. The Australian droughts here have broken, dams are either overflowing or filling and, this happens in regular cycles, which CAGWists appear to ignore, misconstrue and/or lie about.
First they say “less snow and droughts”,now they say “more snow and floods”. We’re back to 1974 When Time Magazine lamented an oncoming ice age:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-1,00.html
No wonder they’re confused, with NASA GISS’ James Hansen blatantly and fraudulently fiddling with temperature figures to send the message he prefers to back – highly likely in order to continue his funding:
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/1998uschanges3.gif
CAGWists appear to think that climate began from their birth and nothing in history matters or occurred, such as Minoan Warming, Roman Climate Optimum, Mediaeval Warm Period or even the Little Ice Age (Also called The Maunder Minimum due to lack of solar activity), which is what we’re recovering from. All this evidence in history is ignored, not publicly reported or simply covered up for their agenda – more funding.
The general public have been suckered into the “green” ideal as if it’s the only “cause” worth fighting for. Sure, place scrubbers on smokestacks and reduce your actual impact on the planet in many ways, but they’ve forgotten all the basics of photosynthesis. Imagine all plant life mandate for a reduction in oxygen because it feeds fire. Greenies would suddenly jump the fence I’m sure..
Frank K. says: Also, I am not going to use the weather underground anymore. There are other (better) weather sites, and Jeff Masters has clearly jumped the shark (though he’s been a manic CAGW believer for some time now).
So, got any suggestions? I’m a bit addicted to Wunderground and would not mind an alternative. I have found one site (in a comment on WUWT!) that I used in a posting here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/fun-data-temperature-site/
but you kind of have limited control of it. It’s a ‘way cool’ site and gives interesting comparison sites that show cooling next to “warming” sites in the GHCN:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/comparison-temperatures/
But it’s hard to ask for a particular site and isn’t exactly weather oriented… So “suggestions welcomed”.
@Joe Kirklin D’Aleo:
You swing a mean set of data! Nothing like the facts to shoot down a bunch of pompous posturing hypotheticals! Go Joe!
BTW, I’ve run into this “hot is cold” a few times now (not the least of which was in that horrid movie that used it in the plot… almost enough to make you think folks had cooked up these talking points in preparation a while ago… just say’n…). What I’ve noticed is that not a lot of the public are buying it.
Furthermore, the ROW is not going to buy it at all. The Chinese have had 2 cold brutal winters in a row, and Korea is even dropping tariffs on food to get more in. It’s cold, crops are failing, and they know it. Russia knows it too. In Latin America we’ve got cold rains and lower snow levels in the mountains. They know cold when they see it… So the only ones listening to this Loony Tune are the folks in PARTS of Europe (not Czech for example), and some of Australia/ N.Z and Canada / USA. Even there folks like the Tomato Growers (and consumers) of USA and Mexico are pretty clear that there isn’t any warming.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/the-tomato-knows/
So these folks when they run off shouting that “hot is cold” are just looking ever more loony bin material. Some folks gave them one, or even two, cold winters. “Weather is not climate” and all. But “3 or more is a trend” in most folks minds.
From here on out, AGW is ever more a “hot potato” that sane politicians will “distance themselves” from. The populations of the world have started taking names and overturning governments. That’s not a time to annoy them, and the smart pols know that.
It takes about 18 years for a shift of water temps in the Pacific to work its way up from the equator to the Arctic. From 1998, we’re a dozen years in. We’re in the home stretch. From here on out, it’s colder and more ice. After 3 or 4 winters of it, the “Warmers” are likely to be BBQed if they try to convince a frozen person it is due to warming. I’d not want to be in their shoes. And anyone who DOES get their pet project through (such as a Cap’N’Tax as is being promoted in Australia) will be all the more villified after the fact. Just look what is happening to ObamaCare, and we expect to get “free benefits” from it, not just a big fat tax….
So while I’m not really looking forward to the next half dozen years of colder and more shrill (from the other side) I am pretty sure when the end game leads. And that path is back to understanding that a 60 year cycle is not a 30 year trend…
Spin
I’ve lost all respect for Serreze. Hes obviously a non-scientist or a very poor one. I hope you wont be quoting here anymore of ice data. BTW this is good news for skeptics the more idiots making pronounce such as the above, the better.
We have plenty of data Dr Watson. It is a question of who dunnit.
That is the elementary question that we must be patient to be answered.
But it WILL be resolved.
All in good time Dr Watson -all in good time.
Jeez, if it get’s any warmer we are all gonna freeze to death.
like Battye says: if it gets any “warmer”, I’m wondering how in going to pay to heat my flat in winter…
There’s always another gravy train for the alarmists.
How about this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=which-nations-most-risk-climate-change&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20110303