Record Snow in Sierra – Near 200% of normal at Boreal Ski resort

I am to old to get any of it but my son says his Burton Joystick is still in full use! As an old Brit living in Cyprus with my lad living in San Fran and going to Lake Tahoe every weekend I can only imagine he is water ski-ing!
Help!

I’m not familiar with the spring time pattern of snow melt on the west coast, but in many cases this much snow can lead to catastrophic floods. Is that a concern in this case?
Mike.

OK. Now get ready for the next crisis. Although peoples attention has been focused on the San Andreas fault due to the recent 9.0 quake in Japan, pay attention to the levees in the Sacramento Delta. They’re old, and probably won’t be able to handle the massive amount of snow melt that will be coming off the mountains this year.

Massive scientific misconduct is not inconsistent with Global Warming!

Good story. The prediction was less snow. The actual observation is more snow. Whatever else can be said about it, the prediction was wrong.

There is some talk that some of the Utah ski resorts may be able to stay open through the 4th of July weekend.

Well just wait till you see some other rocket scientist decide to let water go from our very few Califonia reservoirs, to make room for the great runoff we are going to have; and then we will have a prolonged winter/spring, and the water will run normally and those reservoirs will all be empty.

Wow! 94-95 was terrific for skiing. Mammoth was open until August 13 that year. This whole “water shortage” meme which justifies putting thousands of small farmers out of business is reminiscent of the movie “Chinatown”. For those who are not in the know, the central story of Chinatown was loosely based on the history of water use in Los Angeles. Out west, water is money. It is the difference between productive agricultural land and a desert. In the movie the alleged water shortage was being used to force farmers in the San Fernando Valley out of business by depriving them of water.
Now the alleged water shortage, totally created by the federal government, is being used to force small farmers in California’s central valley out of business. And Jeremy, you can’t eat grass. But you can eat rice. A large percentage of the food we eat in this country is grown in the Central Valley of California. And the Western Sierra watershed is more than adequate most years to supply the water needed to grow the crops which include just about every fruit– oranges, kiwis, lemons, peaches, avocados, grapes, many vegetables and even wheat and corn. Nut and fruit trees — which represent an investment that will normally last for years, are dying for lack of water. Yet our representatives look the other way. It isn’t about water. It’s about power. And I’m not talking about electricity. We need another Jake Gittes to find out who is really the beneficiary of this deception.

So the answer to the global warming problem is right under our noses!
Wake up America, we have to save the world!
http://lwolt.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/i-have-the-answer-the-global-warming-problem/

RGates said “It seems AGW skeptics want to point out heavy snowfall in the winter as a sign the world’s not warming,”
I think the snow stories are merely being compared to the past predictions of less snow.
Falsifying predictions is just basic science.

@ R Gates.
Your comment “Greater accumulation (of snow) is generally a sign of warmer, not cooler climate:” is a gross oversimplification. In areas where the winter temperature hovers just below freezing, a warmer climate means rain and not snow.
Here in my small area of the world, my pond is frozen solid, the first time in 6 years this late in the year. It has been a colder winter for sure. Yes, just weather, although 1998 was the warmest year on record lest we forget. Or was it 2003? Oh wait, they’re changing the graphs again…

Donner Pass, huh? I seem to remember some story about a pretty cold, snowed in winter there once. About 165 years ago, I think.

“Generally though, warmer winters can lead to greater snowfall in areas prone to snowfall because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, until such time as the world warms enough that the snow will fall as rain.”
Then why were the snow levels in New England significantly below the average for the last 30 years, prior to 2009 (at which time they recovered)?
This is an example of Warmists always being right.

R. Gates says:
March 29, 2011 at 8:02 am
Wow, we talk about snow a lot here on WUWT. Greater accumulation is generally a sign of warmer, not cooler climate:……

Remind how warm it was during this winter in the United States, UK and the rest of Europe in December? There was near panick in the UK over the snow AND cold. Crabs died off the coast. Where was the warmth you talk about?
I have also read that Scotland and many ski resorts in the European Alps had a terrific season which was entirely consistent with the new Warmcold Theory.

BBC – January 13 2011
Thousands of dead crabs have been washed up on Kent’s beaches after being killed by the cold weather.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/8456514.stm

ScienceDaily March 22, 2011)
The Pacific oyster was discovered in large numbers along the west coast of Sweden in 2007. The mortality rate in some places during the past two winters has been 100%, but………
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110322105738.htm

Cold on land and sea. Where was your heat?

So, What is the math for determining Normal/time?

R. Gates says:
March 29, 2011 at 8:02 am
Wow, we talk about snow a lot here on WUWT. Greater accumulation is generally a sign of warmer, not cooler climate:……

This explains why the UK nearly ran out of grit there. Aiports closed down due to snow accumulation.
The UK has just had its COLDEST December for 100 years. What part of cold don’t you understand. Europeran COLD records also fell. Play another record sunshine!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/05/december-coldest-uk-month-100-years

Gates,
When the US and Europe has a shortage of snowfall was that consistent with a warmer climate? You can’t have it both ways.

If it keeps going like this, when world temperatures really start climbing,
the winter roads up there will be covered with Glaciers !

The Northern Hemisphere snow extent has also been of record size the past two years.
For the area of snow cover to increase, temperatures must be cooler than normal. The snow extent can only grow in extent for one primary reason, it is cold enough to snow in areas where it normally rains.
Snow extent increases due to cooler temperatures and not ‘global warming’.

@ R. Gates
He is getting too much flak. He is not a troll. He has a point. The previous record snowfall was 1994. I was hoping it would be 1944 or 1920 or something.

Looking at the discussions on California and water, it seems that there are a lot of misunderstandings. The California Department of Water Resources has been conducting studies of rainfall for decades and the common conclusion of those studies is that there simply is not enough rainfall to support even the current population if the extreme droughts of the MWP were to return, not if every river in the state were dammed.
The MWP is very visible in the dendrochronological record in the Sierra, and the picture is not pretty. There’s no way to say how hot it might have been (and the heat isn’t even relevant), but the drought state is very evident. Lake Tahoe ceased to spill into the Truckee River for extended periods (long enough to leave a geological signature) and yellow pines rooted in stream channels on the east slope and grew to significant ages (they don’t like their roots wet); pollen evidence from the Sacramento – San Joaquin delta shows that salt water marsh expanded inland significantly prior to the Little Ice Age when it retreated. Historic USGS topographic maps show relict aeolian lunate and seif dunes in the San Joaquin Valley, where grasslands grew historically and which are now irrigated orchards. There are no active aeolian landscapes in Central California, but that have been multiple periods over the last 5,000 years, including the MWP, when there were. What this means is that California has not had a significant drought in the last two centuries, not if we understand the available data. Yeah, we have had short-term dry spells, but not a real serious drought as measured against the geological and paleobotanical records. The only true water issue we have is the sheer number of people in the state that want to drink, wash their clothes, grow crops and water lawns. It isn’t a climate problem, it is a people problem.

Jeremy says:
March 29, 2011 at 9:23 am
R. Gates says:
March 29, 2011 at 8:02 am
Wow, we talk about snow a lot here on WUWT. Greater accumulation is generally a sign of warmer, not cooler climate:
Greater accumulation means warmer climate? I can’t believe you actually posted that. Any fool knows that the ground has to be cold to get snow accumulation.
Also, aren’t you tired of saying this same thing over and over on here, only to get slapped down? I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve said this absurdity, only to have someone post a reply documenting how wrong you are, and you then mysteriously vanish into the either, never to reply again. Is your whole purpose to simply troll early-troll often?
____
I don’t recall being “slapped down” at all around here–except by Anthony, who put me in “time out” a few times for bad behavior.
Be that as it may, rather than take a party-line on snowfall accumulation, I rather just see what the science research and basic physics tells us, and ignore the models.
In general, colder periods on earth were dry, not wet, and snowfall accumulation was lower not higher. The coldest place on earth, Antarctica is also one of the most dry in terms of precipitation. 100,000+ years of ice core data shows that when the planet began to warm, accumulation increases and when it begins to cool (as in going into a a glacial period, accumulation decreases. The thing about glacial periods is not that it is snowing much more, but rather, the spring and summers are much cooler so the snow doesn’t melt, and then when the next winter comes, it snows on older snow, and guess what, you get glacial growth. That’s the way it happens.
Big snows in the winter don’t necessarily mean anything other than we’ve had a warm enough atmosphere to transport and hold all that moisture. It takes a lot of energy to move all that moisture and warm atmosphere to hold it while it is being moved. You don’t get big snowfalls EVER in the middle of Antarctica– basic physics tells you that.
Now, as far as “predictions” by the AGW community as to whether there will be snowier or less snowier winters– yes, there will be. But in a system like the climate, that exhibits spatio-temporal chaos, it is a crap shoot to say when and where it will be snowier or less snowier and there is not a consensus opinion among the experts about any of this, but for some reason, AGW skeptics want to paint it that way.

peter2108 says:
March 29, 2011 at 10:57 am
###
He is a troll ….
And we aren’t laughing at him because we think “snow disproves CAGW” and he says differently; we are making fun of him because he does not get it that what we are commenting about is the fact that the Global Warmists themselves said that the snow was going to go away and it did not. His comment is irrelevant and the product of deliberate misdirection in an attempt to channel the narrative onto “defensible ground” or, the product of his greeny thought processes.

If it’s too cold you don’t get precipitation and hence no snow. If it is too warm then you get no snow. A great deal of snow means it is Goldilocks temperature – just right – which anyone will tell you means it’s weather and not climate unless it supports warming then it’s climate. Whether or not warmer means more snow is not really the point and is why R. Gates is a Troll (he throws comments in hoping to get a bite and sits back enjoying the aftermath). The point is you can’t have it both ways. Everything can’t be attributed (or consistent with) warming. SOMETHING has to be able to prove it is not warming and, as Sarah says above, until sceptics are ‘allowed’ one thing that doesn’t prove warming there is no point entering into a conversation on the subject (well, other than the fact that anyone with a lick of logic can’t stand the inconsistencies and has to say something or explode). I just wish I was there to enjoy the skiing. It’s been a long time since I lived in Sacramento and went skiing nearly every weekend in winter. 4th of July party on the slopes anyone?

Mosh, is “likely” the same as a 50% chance……..
…and we all know a 50% chance means nothing
I predict that there’s a “likely” chance of rain tomorrow.
Doesn’t matter where you are……….

steven mosher said:

really. The science as it stands does not make very finely grained predictions about “snowfall”. People who havent read what the science actually predicts, should prolly do some reading.
Want to know what the theory ACTUALLY projects?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html

Since the TAR, there is an improving understanding of projected patterns of precipitation. Increases in the amount of precipitation are very likely in high latitudes, while decreases are likely in most subtropical land regions (by as much as about 20% in the A1B scenario in 2100, see Figure SPM.7), continuing observed patterns in recent trends. {3.3, 8.3, 9.5, 10.3, 11.2 to 11.9}

INCREASES in the amount of precipitation are likely in the high latitudes.
not CERTAIN. Not highly probable. LIKELY. That is, given the current state of the science the best projections show that increases in precipitation are LIKELY.

(My emphasis.)
Steve, you eliminated the intensifier very in your interpretation above which changes the meaning, I believe …
The “science” would look more like science to me if I could find their falsification criteria …
At the moment, climate “science” looks like creationism to me, what with anthropogenic global warming being the all-purpose boogie man and the cause of all bad things to come and the cause of every single bad piece of weather for the last few years.
Did you see how it was claimed (by some) to be the cause of the 9.0M earthquake off of Japan?

Dave Nash says:
“SOMETHING has to be able to prove it is not warming…”
____
Many things would. Cooler temps in summer, especially nighttime temps. Increasing Arctic sea ice over a long-term period. Glacial growth worldwide (the majority of glaciers would be growing). Ice-mass gain in Greenland. Lower global humidity levels. A record coldest decade on instrument record (2000-2009 was the warmest)…etc. etc. etc.

@R Gates
Why we ROTFLOAO* is that ‘nothing is inconsistent with global warming’ ©Anthony.
I presume ‘nothing’ includes ‘nothing’.
* the first ‘O’ is for ‘our’ rather than the normal ‘M’ for ‘my’ and the ‘A’ is plural.

@ R. Gates
Unfortunately, your graphs do not even show what you are trying to say they show. On top of that, we already know that this winter the water content of the air was DOWN, not up.
Now, let’s go into BASIC physics. There are two factors, absolute humidity, and relative humidity. Precipitation only occurs when the relative humidity (how much water is in the air verses the amount of water it can actually hold) goes above the point needed for nucleation and condensation of water droplets by particles in the air. This is a function of TEMPERATURE. But any temperature can have a relative humidity of 100%. Any temperature can be completely “wet” for the amount of water the air can hold at that temperature.
The absolute humidity values decrease with temperature. As the atmosphere cools, less water can remain as gas within it, and the extra condenses out (very special conditions can create super saturation, with extreme consequence). So, for it to snow, for it to rain, you need moist air that cools down fast enough to cause precipitation.
Again, ANY temperature can have precipitation. It is dependent on the air cooling down and driving moisture out of it in the process.
This is simple stuff!
So, why would it precipitate less during a glacial period? The reason is because less cooling occurs — the temperature is more stable across the globe, and more wet. Hotter temperatures do not mean more precipitation, but in fact, as the air would warm, the threshold of water required to cause precipitation would increase.
Therein, the only way to greatly increase precipitation is to either greatly increase evaporation and circulation of moisturized warm air into cool air areas to drive condensation, or cool down globally. Once you’ve bottomed out, precipitation would greatly decrease, as again, it’s the ACT OF COOLING AIR (or filling it with nucleating particles that can reduce the water content precipitation threshold) that drives precipitation if you are not in super saturation conditions.
All the stuff you’re spurting is incorrect, and defies physics. It is unscientific and already disproven. Now, that does not mean the record snows lately have much to do with global temperatures, but rather, have to do with global atmospheric circulation and inhomogenies of temperature throughout that mixing atmosphere.
The greater the local temperature gradients, the greater the precipitation events; pure and simple.

A relevant news item doing the rounds in Australasian newspapers a while
back was this: that “global warming” in the Snowy Mountains area in Australia
had resulted in a diminution of snow cover, thereby incidentally benefitting
the NZ snowfield tourism industry, as more Australians were heading to NZ
to do their skiing.
Two points:
1. It was not sufficient that the assumed cause was ‘warming’ in the Snowy
Mountains area, or even ‘warming’ in New South Wales, or yet even ‘warming’
in Australia … no, it had to be “global warming”.
2. That being so, how come the NZ snowfields were not affected by this
“global warming”, since they are ‘only’ 1,300 miles away from the affected
areas in the Snowy Mountains?
And of course the idea that the GW was causing a lessening in snow is
contrary to the latest nonsense that it is causing increasing snow.
It is correct to hammer the point (“until the cows come home”) that now
there is NO climatic event that is inconsistent with the GW theory.
I wonder what Karl Popper would have said about that.

Should also point out, that ice cores which suggest lower precipitation amounts during glacial periods come from, of course, glaciers currently surviving our inter-glacial period. So, what would happen to such constantly cold, constantly covered in glaciers, areas of the world during a glacial period? Would they tell us how much precipitation was occurring around say the equator? Or areas where the glaciers extended and then retreated before the present day?
Indeed, the best that can be said is only for those areas during those periods. And it should be no wonder those areas get less precipitation, as for the warm atmosphere to circulate up to their locations, it has to already pass over the extended, lower latitude ice fields which would rapidly cool that air and drive out its moisture before it has the chance to reach where the ice cores are.

DO any of WUWT´s readers have info on Scandinavian snow levels? BBC weather maps would suggest they have had an awful lot of snow this year.

Here in central Calaveras County about 90 miles SSW of Lake Tahoe at 2500′ my Davis weather station recorded 12.59″ of rain for March and 42.53″ for the season to date. That’s about 140% of an average years rainfall.

Ged Darkstorm said:
“So, why would it precipitate less during a glacial period? The reason is because less cooling occurs — the temperature is more stable across the globe, and more wet.”
____
You also flunk Climate 101. Cooler period (i.e. glacials) on earth have always been more dry on average. There is less evaporation of water from the oceans and the atmospshere can hold less. I would love to believe your wishful thinking on this, but I’d rather trust basic physics and 100,000+ years of ice-core data.

steven mosher says:
March 29, 2011 at 11:02 am
“really. The science as it stands does not make very finely grained predictions about “snowfall”. People who havent read what the science actually predicts, should prolly do some reading.
Want to know what the theory ACTUALLY projects?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html”
So, what does this mean? Stating the science in a clear, concise paragraph is beyond your ability? That is a shame. I would just love to debate you on these matters but you cannot debate someone who does nothing but give you references to articles.

Isn’t this the point where the AGW’s would say, ‘yes, there’s more snow, but it’s all rotten snow!’

“”””” Jeremy says:
March 29, 2011 at 10:01 am
George E. Smith says:
March 29, 2011 at 9:26 am
Let me Guess, Jeremy, you are NOT a central valley farmer ?
Nope.
…If you tell the farmers that you need that Sierra snow pack melt water, to water all the golf courses in Southern California; all built where Mother Gaia, never wanted to have a golf course in the first place,
Interesting point to try to make since all golf courses in LA county are required to use reclaimed wastewater for their grass. “””””
Well Jeremy, if there is one thing you should not try to hoodwink me on, it is Southern California Water supplies; of which they produce virtually none.
I drive down Hiway-5; or “The 5” as they say in SoCal, on a regular basis, so I know every bump in the road going over the grapevine; and I know also exactly how high the water level is in Pyramid Lake, and I know exactly where all the Pipes are at Wheeler Ridge, pumping that water up over the Mountains, into that canal, that feeds Northern California Water into Pyramid Lake; and there is never a time, when you could add a thimble full of water to Pyramid Lake; meanwhile all of the lakes in Silicon Valley, and Santa Clara Clounty in general, will be empty or dry, except for a pair of mercury contaminated lakes, that they keep non-drinkable water in to use for the annual forest fire season to bail out all the green weenies in the Santa Cruz Mountains, when their still or pot factory gets out of control, and sets their forest Eden on fire.
And I also go by Lake Perris off the 215 on the way back via the Tehachapi Route, so I know that you also can’t put a thimble fullof water in that either; well they have a lot of water skiers in SoCal, and those people get mighty riled up, when they can’t jump into their pick-em-up truck, and tow the boat to Pyramid, or Perris for a beer party.
So I don’t care whether they use sewage water to make the fairways greener, or not; they still don’t produce much of their water usage locally; well it is still a natural desert isn’t it.
Oh my MIL lives over there in Temecula just down the road from the East Side Reservoir. Now just how on earth did they find any water around there to fill a thimble; let alone a humungous lake.
Well I suggest that LA can get its water needs from Lake Arrowhead; and then there is always the Pacific Ocean that they could desalinate. I don’t really have a lot of empathy for the golf course needs of LA; it’s kinda the New Orleans of Southern California, isn’t it; except it was built in a desert basin by the Spanish, rather than underwater by the French.

My god they’re slippery when wet!

R. Gates says: (March 29, 2011 at 8:02 am)
The issues with such statements are…
1. (Reliable) satellite temperature are now back to average. Temperatures off the Californian cost are particularly low and the increased moisture mantra just doesn’t make sense. Snow fall appears to be related much more to La Nina than anything else.
2. When snow levels were low, same people told the opposite story in the past.
3. During droughts, you never hear warmists talking about increased moisture in the air and increase of precipitation. The greening biosphere and the greening Sahara is another unconvinient truth.

R. Gates says on March 29, 2011 at 2:02 pm

Ged Darkstorm said:
“So, why would it precipitate less during a glacial period? The reason is because less cooling occurs — the temperature is more stable across the globe, and more wet.”
____
You also flunk Climate 101. Cooler period (i.e. glacials) on earth have always been more dry on average. There is less evaporation of water from the oceans and the atmospshere can hold less. I would love to believe your wishful thinking on this, but I’d rather trust basic physics and 100,000+ years of ice-core data.

So how did all that water get up onto the land? IIRC, there were glacial shields a mile or so thick covering North America at least to New York, and similar such shields on Europe and Russia … and the sea level was some 100+ meters lower than today.
How did it all get there? Was there a burst of non-Anthropogenic Global Warming followed by sudden cooling?
Have you thought about how that had to play out from a scenario like the present if cooling leads to less moisture in the atmosphere?
Please give us more details and less hand waving.

JJ says:
March 29, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Isnt it strange that Seattle gets so much more rain (and snow) than most parts of California (its so much warmer where is the moisture laiden air)? Also, all the COLD weather Florida had this winter, snow in Texas, Thailand is warm – but no snow, Alaska is cold – but lots of snow, global warming is assaulting St. Louis – but it was FREEZING this winter, etc.
I have also noticed a strange trend this winter with very little rain on the warmer days, but a lot of snow when the cold fronts are pushing down.
Isnt the world just backwards sometimes, Gates??
Strange
____
One thing I try not to do is try and compare apples and oranges, and to take any basic principal to an extreme. It tends to be snowier in Greenland when it is -40C on average than when it is -55C.
(see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif)
But some would like to “mock” this basic science and claim that means it would be even snowier if it was 10C versus -55C, which is of course absurd.
Each region of the world needs to be compared to its own history and climate to see any meaningful trends. March is normally the snowiest month in the Denver area where I live, but this year, we’ve had very little snow in March and a series of forest fires in the area. If this continues into the summer, we’re going to be in big trouble along the front range in Colorado. I attribute this year’s weather more to La Nina than any global warming, but I don’t discount that global warming could play some role in the longer-term weather changes I’ve seen in Denver over my lifetime here.

Mosh, I’m pretty sure these two things are “science”.
They might not be convenient science, but it’s things like this that led to all the predictions of less snow.
2006, “Consequences across the region,” Climate Choices, Union of Concerned Scientists
“ and winters are becoming warmer and less snowy. These changes are consistent with global warming,”
IPCC
Climate Change 2001:
Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
“Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms”
=================================================
but it really doesn’t matter…..
…truth is, there really has not been more or less snow, it’s all within “normal”
As far as precipitation, until we have another decade long drought, like the dust bowl 1930’s-1940’s, everything else is above normal precipitation and we should be glad for it………….
As far as “normal”, since everything has been trending below “normal” ever since they declared what “normal” was, it might be time to readjust what “normal” is…………
…there’s a distinct possibility that “normal” is wrong

evanmjones says:
March 29, 2011 at 8:02 am
Nothing is inconsistent with Global Warming.
“Everything gives you cancer.” – Joe Jackson
With the abandonment of Falsification, the now irrefutable meme of “Man Made Global Warming” continues it’s march into the realm of pseudoscientific dogma.

steven mosher says:
March 29, 2011 at 11:02 am
There are so many different GCMs making different and contrary predictions about specific phenomena in a given geographical region that you can pick whichever one is best suited to support your claim of accuracy.
GCMs are expensive toys that produce pretty pictures. I’d put the legislators and regulators using them in the Bernie Madoff category, albeit worse. Arguably, we’ve already lost $trillions due to CAGW propped up by this over-hyped science. And greater losses are on the way.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/six_questions_for_jim_manzi
“If we introduced a tax high enough to keep atmospheric carbon concentration to no more than 1.5x its current level (assuming we could get the whole world to go along), we would expect to spend about $17 trillion more than the benefits that we would achieve in the expected case.”

Go George E. Smith!

So according to R. Gates, just about any climate, cold, dry, warm, wet, are consistent with global warming. In which case we have nothing to worry about since the climate has always been cold, dry, warm or wet. We thrive regardless of these changes.

RGates is just having you on. He’s just cutting and pasting response 33B from his list of retorts—too bad we’ve seen that one before though. Almost had us.

Watching the snow is interesting, to say the least. and of course the warmists have it completely wrong. Consistency is required in physics.
One of the things that I prefer to watch for evidence of climate change is the heating degree days, and the cooling degree days. Even here in Los Angeles, an urban heat island of world-class proportions, the heating degree days are increased this year, and the cooling degree days have dropped off. LA normally has 61 cooling degree days on this date, measured since January 1, yet this year we have had only 25. Similarly, the heating degree days normally is 691 since the previous July 1, yet we have 995 on this date. That represents approximately 60 percent fewer cooling degree days, and 25 percent more heating degree days. By any measure, it’s definitely getting colder in Los Angeles. This is so, even with massive urban heat island effect due to many millions of population. Meanwhile, of course, CO2 increases in the atmosphere. The disconnect is obvious.
It doesn’t snow much in Los Angeles proper, although the surrounding mountains do get quite a bit of snow, so much so that we have ski resorts on some of the mountains.
Cooling and heating degree days from:
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=ICAO:KCQT&almanac=1
As to the snow in California, tomorrow (March 30) the state will take the final official snow measurements and make the water availability statements.
See this link for details:
http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/032511snow.pdf

Pamela Gray says:
March 29, 2011 at 6:08 pm
R. Gates, La Nina almost always brings more snow to Pacific mountain regions. If you don’t know why, go find a more basic blog and learn why. I am tired of comments that are at such a sub-par level of understanding. Even the warmest-bent NOAA has info on this.
=======================
Right on.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

R. Gates says:
As 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on instrument record, your notion that the “globe will continue to cool” seems a bit odd, unless you’re talking about the shorter-term cooling which corresponds quite regularly with every short-term La Nina cycle, but that’s of course weather and not climate.
========================
Show us the data. Show the warming, R.
Can you? You can’t.

Why would anyone study Climate 101? The guy that has been teaching that class has been wrong all of his life. Better to just go outside and look around and believe what you see. pg

Mammoth Mountain has had its first 600 inch plus snow season in its history (dating to 1969).
http://www.mammothmountain.com
They keep pretty good monthly snow cover records since then as well in their links.

I found this link interesting in regards to the information in the post.
http://www.mindfully.org/Water/Global-Warming-Water.htm

Jeremy says:
March 29, 2011 at 2:36 pm
R. Gates says:
March 29, 2011 at 1:55 pm
“Until then, continue to believe, as you stated, that warmer ground temperatures mean more snow accumulation.”
____
Jeremy, please don’t put words in my mouth. Precision is important in these matters and I never said anything about warmer GROUND temperatures. Also, the accumulation of snow during warmer climate periods is not a matter of belief, but a matter of record and pure science– 100,000+ years of ice-core data and basic physics.
The primary reason that the central part of Antarctica is a desert is because the air so cold and dry. Yes, circulation is a factor, but not the prime one. Even if storms could begin to head towards region, its so cold that the moisture would be wrung out of the storms long before they made it to the central Antarctic.

…. hmmm, you claim the ice core data, presumably Dome C, Vostok etc, proves your claims about accumulation of snow during warmer periods … correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t the very ice core data you quote as support for your claims about increased snowfall FROM the Antarctic – the place you claim in next paragraph has little or no precipitation because of the local conditions?
Seems to me there is a reason they are called “glacial” periods. And the ice core and other data show clear well defined “cycles” – appx every 110,000 year we move from warm interglacial to cold glacial periods.
The ice core record you tout in fact shows the last 12 – 15,000 years of temperatures are extremely and unusually STABLE – we are well overdue for a warm period tipping point peak – which the record shows is usually sharp and quick – witha rapid descent into glacial period.
The SAME ice core data shows that despite CO2 rising at appx the same pace for the last 5000 years or so temperatures – when reviewed in the context of the last 15,000 years, appx 10% of the total time of ONE climate cycle – are extremely STABLE – moving up and DOWN within a narrow range of natural variability

And please lets not forget that almost ALL of the temp discussions and claims are NOT based on REAL temperatures.
They are based on the DEVIATION – or anomalies – from a “mean” period. This mean period is variously chosen to be 1901-2000, and most often 1961-1990 and similar. In other words – once again we do not see how current temperatures com[pare to past historical record on a long term climatic scale … instead we see how the temps compare to the 30 or 100 year RECENT periods
When a meaningful measure would be to compare current temps to the mean of the last 15,000 years

R. Gates says:
March 29, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Jeremy, please don’t put words in my mouth.

No problem, I’ll just repeat what you said then:

R. Gates says:
March 29, 2011 at 8:02 am
Wow, we talk about snow a lot here on WUWT. Greater accumulation is generally a sign of warmer, not cooler climate:

You said greater accumulation is a sign of a warmer climate. Since you understand physics so well, I’m guessing you have some new energy equations to explain how a warmer temperature overall would not mean warmer surface temperatures (since the surface is generally the warmest part of the atmosphere) and this would thus create more snow accumulation on the ground.
I’m waiting, but not holding my breath.

The primary reason that the central part of Antarctica is a desert is because the air so cold and dry. Yes, circulation is a factor, but not the prime one. Even if storms could begin to head towards region, its so cold that the moisture would be wrung out of the storms long before they made it to the central Antarctic.

Wait, I’m confused. Did you just admit that I was right (even if partially)? You say that the air over the Antarctic is dry in an effort to explain why the antarctic does not get precipitation. That’s a fairly circular argument if I’ve ever seen one. Yes, cold air can hold less moisture, but this says *nothing* about why moisture does not make it there. Moisture does not make it over the antarctic content as much as any other continent because the atmospheric circulation patterns have no prevailing wind direction to blow moisture over it. Why does the ENSO change precipitation patterns over the NH? It does this because it alters the storm track. Alter the air circulation pattern over the south pole, and you’ll see air with more moisture make it over the south pole.

Tom in Florida says:
March 29, 2011 at 6:22 pm
R. Gates says: (March 29, 2011 at 4:47 pm)
” As 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on instrument record, your notion that the “globe will continue to cool” seems a bit odd”
I give you your own evidence supplied in an earlier post by you, yourself.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
Not only does the decade 2000-2009 come no where near being the warmest, but the rate and amount of warming has been greater in the past. Do you not read your own evidence? Now I know you cleverly insert “on instrument record” to be able to dance around what I just said, but as we all know that record only covers the last 30 years. The semantics game you like to play is getting old.
___
This does get tiresome, but I know AGW skeptics want to try to refute the science. No matter how you try and get around it, the period of 2000-2009 was the warmest on instrument record, not going back just 30 years, but going back to 1880. Beyond that, you must start relying on proxies:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_10-017_Warmest_temps.html
I play no semantics games, I simply look at the science and the data.
It is absolutely true that if you go back further in the Holocene, or even earlier still, you can find other periods of warming. Duh. What is important is looking at mechanisms behind that warming. Some people seem confused as to what it means to be a chaotic (yet deterministic system). The climate doesn’t change randomly. Chaos doesn’t mean randomness. There are always reasons why things happen at specific times. The warming of the 20th century and first decade of the 21st can only currently be explained by including the role of the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s. Take away this forcing, and the warming has no known cause. Those are the facts and the science.

Werner Brozek says:
March 29, 2011 at 6:35 pm
With the huge amounts of snow and ice still on the ground over much of North America, I would expect the arctic sea ice to have a slow start to its melt season. This would be similar to what happened last year when the April values for 2010 were the highest since 2002. With this being a La Nina year instead of an El Nino year like last year, I expect a decent sea ice coverage in September.
___
Don’t know what you mean by “decent” as far as Septembers low sea ice extent, but you’d be better at looking at the late spring/early summer N. Hemisphere snow cover before making any such judgement. Early indications are that this summer’s minimum sea ice extent could be very close to the modern instrument record low set in 2007. Arctic temps have been running high all winter, and we’ve had lower sea ice all winter, so it will be a very interesting melt season to watch.

The Sierra Nevada has a history of extreme weather. It’s just weather.
http://www.sierranevadavirtualmuseum.com/docs/galleries/nathist/weather/snowfall.htm
There is a tendency to put a great deal of importance in the weather when it reinforces your views of climate. A few years ago, during a multi-year drought in the south east, the alarmists were saying it was a permanent condition attributable to climate change, and we needed to make permanent changes to our water consumption, inter-connect river basins, and ration water for each city. Even while the rivers ran over their banks, there were restrictions on lawn watering. Anyway, the drought ended, everything is back to normal, and the alarmists have gone away until the next unusual weather event that they can blame on climate change.

R. Gates,

Seasonal Cycle Shifts in Hydroclimatology over the Western United States – 2004
Analyses of streamflow, snow mass temperature, and precipitation in snowmelt-dominated river basins in the western United States indicate an advance in the timing of peak spring season flows over the past 50 years. Warm temperature spells in spring have occurred much earlier in recent years, which explains in part the trend in the timing of the spring peak flow. In addition, a decrease in snow water equivalent and a general increase in winter precipitation are evident for many stations in the western United States. It appears that in recent decades more of the precipitation is coming as rain rather than snow.

Is this as a result of a warmer climate or colder climate?

I would be interested in some calculations on what it would take to remove 100M of the ocean and deposit it as snow, and eventually, as an expanding shield of ice at the poles.
The ocean surface area seems to be 361,132,000km^2. Multiply that 100M suggests that we are talking about 3.6 x 10^16 m^3 of water, or 3.6 x 10^19 kg of water.
Over 100,000 years, it would seem we are talking about a need to transport 3.6 x 10^14 kg, or 3.6 x 10^11 tons of water per year to the poles, or approximately 10^9 tones per day.
I hope my numbers are not screwed up in any way. Perhaps someone can correct me.

Steven Mosher and R. Gates,
Snow is not consistent with AGW if it occurs repeatedly in areas or in months that usually receive rain. Saying otherwise is simply dishonest (I’m not sure where you stand on this as I don’t have the time or patience to read every post – but just in case … ).
Cheers
François

Jimbo,
It’s all about effects over ranges of temperatures. In Greenland, for example, we know that there is greater snowfall in winter when it is -40C versus -55C, (100,000+ years of ice-core data prove this), but this does not of course mean there’d be greater snowfall in winter when it is 10C versus -55C. You get rain, or perhaps something else. Extrapolating effects beyond a range is dangerous and usually wrong. For example, we know that in the atmosphere, as you increase elevation the temp drops, but then, it begins to rise again at a certain elevation, and then in drops again.
So, a world that is 1C warmer might have dramatically different effects than a world that is 2C, 3C, or 6C warmer. It is a chaotic system with nonlinear responses. Hence, why it is wrong to simply extrapolate the effects of an increase in CO2 along some logarithmic curve, expecting effects to follow neatly and predictably along that curve.

François GM says:
March 30, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Steven Mosher and R. Gates,
Snow is not consistent with AGW if it occurs repeatedly in areas or in months that usually receive rain. Saying otherwise is simply dishonest (I’m not sure where you stand on this as I don’t have the time or patience to read every post – but just in case … ).
Cheers
François
_____
I only go by what 100,000+ years of ice-core data say. Warmer meant greater accumulations of snow in winter months, but paradoxically (but factually) retreating glaciers, as the accumulated snow melted in the summer months because, like the winters, they were warmer as well.
So, if we see the great snows of this winter stick around through the summer because the summers are colder, THEN it’d be an entirely different topic. Right now though, heavy snows of winters are not necessarily indicative of anything, but over the longer run, the facts tell us that warmer temps meant greater snows in winter in areas prone to snow.

R. Gates says on March 30, 2011 at 3:42 pm

The 40% increase in CO2 (regardless of the ppm) represents the greatest amount of CO2 in our atmosphere in at least 800,000 years. During this time, CO2 has existed with nice comfortable range, 150 to 280 ppm or so, rising and falling with glacial advances and retreats. Now, in a geologically very short time, we gone 40% above the high point of that range. The key issue now is: how sensitive is the earth’s climate system to this relatively rapid increase?

Why look at only the last 800,000?
We have seen higher CO2 levels in the past, indeed, considerably higher concentrations, if geologists are to be believed, and yet the world did not end.

Smokey,
Here you go contradicting yourself again. You said:
“It is completely unnecessary, and scientifically irresponsible because of the total lack of supporting evidence, to attribute an unnecessary entity like CO2 to natural variability.”
You say CO2 is an “unnecessary entity” and at the same time a few paragraphs earlier, you said:
“If any conclusion can be drawn, it is that more CO2 is better for life.”
So which is it for CO2? Unnecessary or better for life?
Get this Smokey: The Dose Makes the Poison. Your body and the biosphere like things within ranges. Go outside that range and bad things (for your body and the biosphere) can happen. CO2 is both better for life and necessary (within a range) and the only real issue is what is that range? Or said another way: how sensitive is the climate to CO2 going outside the range we’ve seen the past 800,000 years?
You don’t like this answer Smokey because you’re a die-hard skeptic, but it is the most accurate and scientifically justifiable one there is.

R. Gates says on March 30, 2011 at 5:28 pm

Richard Sharpe says:
March 30, 2011 at 4:33 pm
R. Gates says on March 30, 2011 at 3:42 pm
The 40% increase in CO2 (regardless of the ppm) represents the greatest amount of CO2 in our atmosphere in at least 800,000 years. During this time, CO2 has existed with nice comfortable range, 150 to 280 ppm or so, rising and falling with glacial advances and retreats. Now, in a geologically very short time, we gone 40% above the high point of that range. The key issue now is: how sensitive is the earth’s climate system to this relatively rapid increase?
Why look at only the last 800,000?
We have seen higher CO2 levels in the past, indeed, considerably higher concentrations, if geologists are to be believed, and yet the world did not end.

Not being a believer in catastrophic global warming, I can’t comment about that. You’re right though, CO2 has been higher in the more remote past…much higher, but then again, our ancestors were tree-shrews at the time.

Well, what then do you think the problem is?
Is it some vague “God did not mean for the world to do that?”
If you think there is a problem (with, say the 40% higher than it has been in the last 800,000 years, but it wasn’t a problem when our ancestors were tree-shrews) then perhaps you should state what you think the problem is.
We cannot argue with your position if you will not state it.

jtom says:
March 30, 2011 at 8:36 pm
Well, R. Gates, I was thinking you were holding your own fairly well in the discussions, and may actually have some intelligent points, until you wrote, “During this time, CO2 has existed with nice comfortable range, 150 to 280 ppm or so, rising and falling with glacial advances and retreats.”
You clearly do not understand the basic need of CO2 to support life if you think the “nice comfortable range, 150 to 280 ppm” is a GOOD thing. A ‘perfect temperature’ (at least by your standards) doesn’t mean too much if most all life is extinct.
Furthermore, you cherry picked the last 800,000 years wrt CO2 levels, although CO2 levels have been reconstructed for the last several million years. That reconstruction clearly shows that over the last few hundred thousand years there has been an impoverished level of CO2. Moreover, what history – and science – tells us is that the “comfortable range” for life on this planet is around 1000 ppm of CO2.
______
CO2 levels beyond what we’ve measured in ice-core data are proxy reconstructions at best. However, CO2 levels have certainly been higher in the past, and some forms of life certainly did well in such climates. As for homo sapiens, we’ve pretty much enjoyed the range of 150-280 ppm, and seemed well served by it overall, with the higher part of that range certainly lending itself to a more comfortable existence for humans living in more northerly latitudes.
We are now well out of the range our species has enjoyed for as long as we’ve been homo sapiens. What a higher range will mean for the climate and for us is the issue, isn’t it? It is also of interest to not that currently, now that we’re outside this range, we are seeing a greater loss of species than seen in many millions of years. This loss I am NOT attributing to the rise in CO2, though the two events (species loss and rise in CO2) certainly may have a common connection.

jtom says:
March 31, 2011 at 1:48 pm
R Gates: “CO2 levels beyond what we’ve measured in ice-core data are proxy reconstructions at best. However, CO2 levels have certainly been higher in the past, and some forms of life certainly did well in such climates. As for homo sapiens, we’ve pretty much enjoyed the range of 150-280 ppm, and seemed well served by it overall, with the higher part of that range certainly lending itself to a more comfortable existence for humans living in more northerly latitudes”
—————————–
Before making a fool of yourself a THIRD time, please research what happens to photosynthesis in plants when CO2 levels fall below 200 ppm, then consider what happens up the food chain.
____
Not sure what you’re getting at here. Plants and animals together make up the biosphere, and together we kinda like a range for CO2, and oddly enough, so does the entire background carbon cycle. Seems you get too much CO2 and the hydrological cycle speeds up, more rock weathering occurs, CO2 is taken out of the atmosphere. You get too little CO2, and oddly, plant growth declines as the hydrological cycles slows down as well. This allows CO2 to build-up again. So there is this curious relationship between plants, animals, the carbon cycle, and the hydrological cycle on earth, where they all work together to keep CO2 in an interesting range for the benefit of all…seems an interesting focus on such a “minor” little trace gas..at least, that what the past 800,000 years of ice-core data tell us.
Make no mistake…CO2 is good…when kept in a range. The Dose Makes the Poison.

R Gates, really. The poison is in the dose? Then answer this: How soon will you die if you increase oxygen compared to carbon dioxide in the air you breath? And how soon will you die if you increase carbon dioxide compared to oxygen in the air you breath? Or this: What does your body do if given too much oxygen? What will your body do if given what you think is too much CO2? And how sensitive are you to these changes? Did you know that your body craves CO2 more than it does O2? And did you know that if you increase deep breathing in a mistaken effort to deliver more O2 to your system, it will shut down O2 absorption mechanisms leaving you with less O2 instead of more? Now tell me again, which is more toxic? And what is the preferred range?
Sometimes the hole in the hat you talk through gets really big.

I’ve noticed that most folks don’t have a good subjective view of the difference between weather, and climate. Not even many experienced climate scientists. But believe it, or not, you get pretty good examples just driving an 18 wheeler. I did that for a few years back in the ’80s, and early ‘90s. And I wore out a pretty nice long nose Peterbuilt doing it.
One year I hauled a lot of supplies to some mines way up north. One in the Yukon. Another was a little north of Nome, Alaska. That place in the Yukon had to do all of their hauling in the winter on the ice road. Because, up north, many of the routes are impassable if the ground isn’t frozen.
So a typical trip would be to pick up a load of grinding balls that are used in huge tumblers to crush ore, in Chandler Az. And in 70 degree T shirt weather. And the other end of the trip would be well north of the Arctic circle. And well into Arctic winter conditions. I’d return to Arizona with a load of Ore concentrate. And do it all over again.
Weather was what was happening at any given location, anywhere along the way. Climate was the whole dang trip, taken as a whole.
When we hear Canadians complaining of the economical consequences of ice roads that no longer freeze in the winter, then you can believe things are warming up. The ice roads are doing just fine from what I hear. As for me, I don’t see anything here in California that’s not just locally screwy weather.
And it’s been really screwy here in Ca. The scary thing about all the extra snow is that it has the potential to melt quickly in the spring. Just a few years ago, in ‘97, some unusually heavy snows were followed by heavy rains in the high country. That warm rain accelerated the melting of a lot of the extra snowpack. And all hell broke loose downstream. It got so bad, they had to evacuate Yosemite Valley. There’s a hell of a lot more snow on the ground now, then there was before that ‘500 year flood’. More than twice as much. And the warm spring rains are only just beginning to fall.
I wonder; would two ‘500 year flood’ events Ca. in less than 20 years, be seen as evidence of climate change?