“Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms,” says the IPCC in 2001.
Recent snows suggest much for AGW induced snow worries, but still the hype continues:
“Heavy snowstorms are not inconsistent with a warming planet,” said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology for www.wunderground.com (source Breitbart)
Heavy snow would be tragic if it weren’t so funny. Memo to Dr. Masters: with the current mindset, nothing is inconsistent with global warming. – Anthony
By Joe D’Aleo, ICECAP
It is called “Miracle March 2011” in the Sierra. At Boreal, near Donner Summit, as of a few days ago, they had received 217 inches this March bringing the seasonal snowfall to 762 inches. The previous record was 662 inches in 1994/95. The recent prolonged storm brought 6-7 feet of snow. The normal for the season is around 400 inches. Their snowbase is between 275 and 375 inches (20-30 feet).
The Snow Water Equivalent is well above normal and bodes well for both agriculture and coastal cities which rely on the melting snow for irrigation and drinking water. There have been battles for decades over how much water the farmers should get to use in the long dry growing season.
As show above, and confirmed below, this wet season has brought over 80 inches of water equivalent to some of the higher terrain.
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Ok Gates. Tell us why reality does not match the words of the IPCC in 2001? Did the railroad engineer who runs it change his mind?
@ur momisugly 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.
Karen D says:
March 29, 2011 at 8:35 am
Good story. The prediction was less snow. The actual observation is more snow. Whatever else can be said about it, the prediction was wrong.
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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
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.
More detail here as to what the state of the science really is
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-3-1-2.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-3-4.html
Models are improving, but still have wide confidence bounds, especially for precipitation
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-3-5.html
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.
Another factor that will contribute to higher springtime flows in the western rivers is the massive pine beetle infestation. With so many pines dead from the beetles they do not absorb any of the snow melt, meaning it all becomes runoff. I would estimate 60-70 percent of the pines in the area (SE Wyoming/Northern Colorado) have been killed off over the last 5 years. Hopefully the extreme cold we experienced in January killed these little suckers off.
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.
Geoff says:
March 29, 2011 at 10:37 am
The Northern Hemisphere snow extent has also been of record size the past two years.
____
When the planet really does begin to cool into the the next glacial period, it won’t be record snows that we’ll see, but whatever snow does fall will stay around all summer, at higher elevations and latitudes at first, but then, as the glacial period advances, it will be south and down the mountains.
Big snows in winters are generally a sign only of warmer atmospheric temps and greater evaporation from the oceans. 100,000 years of ice-core data makes this very clear…
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.
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
############
the science never said the snow was going away. where do you get this nonsense.
read the ar4 links i provided
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?
Time to set up shop selling Ark supplies in the Central Valley?
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……….
Greetings from the High Sierra.
We got an entire winters snowfall in December. Then we got an entire winters snowfall again last week.
5 out of the top 6 snow years are in the last 7. That means out of the last 7 years only 2 of them were not in the top 6.
And R Gates is an idiot. In the last year it has snowed every month except July. The 2004 season, the previous number one season behind this year, we started the year with 7 feet of snow in October. It did not stop snowing until May. Again, last season we were accumulating snow until May. All of our lakes were still frozen over for the start of fishing season!
Take a look at the blue line on this graph and tell me again about early snow melts 😉
http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp013390.pdf
steven mosher said:
(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?
DesertYote says:
March 29, 2011 at 11:39 am
(Regarding the fool R. Gates) “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…”
____
And my point is that it’s funny that AGW skeptics bring up this particular issue (greater snowfall in the winter) as proof that warmist can’t accurately predict the spatio-temporal chaos of the climate system, when this particular issue shows an effect consistent with a warmer– not cooler, climate. The AGW skeptics might as well make fun of the GCM’s for not predicting the dramatic sea ice loss in 2007 correctly, as that would somehow be proof that warming in the arctic is not occurring.
Again, if the N. Hemisphere snow cover was increasing in the late spring and summer, the AGW skeptics might have something of interest (i.e. the approach of the next glacial period)
Wa-a-ay off thread – but do see today’s Dilbert strip, if you haven’t already.
http://www.dilbert.com/
REPLY: Thanks, but may I suggest you use the scroll bar? – Anthony
R. Gates says:
“… 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.”
No one here is suggesting there is a consensus. The original point of this post was to point out the conflicting statments being made by the alarmists – some who predict less snow with warming while others indicate more snow is consistent with warming. They along with the MSM are painting themselves into a corner by attempting to make every extreme weather event (no matter what it is) consistent with increasing CO2. No painting required by skeptics.
mosh,
Desert Yote pointed out the fact that Gates was attempting to re-frame the argument. I think you’re doing likewise. If you look again at the chart Gates posted…
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
…you will see that the cooler the Holocene has become, the greater the snowfall.
When there is a discrepancy between observations and models, which one are you going to believe?
Anthony, I can’t get the tips blog to work….
Steven Goddard posted this on his blog, can you check to see if it’s true.
If it is, what in this world is their reason for retroactively warming Jan, two months later?
“HadCRUT February data is out. Not only did February warm up, but January also warmed up retroactively.
Last month the January anomaly was .204, and this month the January anomaly is .216. February is listed as .277.”
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.
So, you still think that a warmer surface temperature means more snow accumulation?
What an interesting way to completely ignore the effects of jetstream movement of moisture through the atmosphere. Antarctica is dry, not because it is cold, but because there is no prevailing wind direction that brings moisture from an ocean over land. Every other land mass on Earth generally deals with storm systems blown in a prevailing direction by the jetstream. There is no jetstream on the south pole, hence, there is no easy method to get storms far inland on a consistent basis. I’m not a climatologist, but I do know that changes to earths climate usually include changes in the amplitude of the jetstream. I think you should consider what happens to the movement of moisture around Antarctica when the temperature changes. I think you’ll find that the warmer the planet, the more air movement occurs at higher (absolute) lattitudes.
No, basic physics tells me how energy moves around. An understanding of polar air movement tells me that you don’t get big snowfalls because there are no high-altitude winds to carry moisture from an ocean into the antarctic continent. Oh wait, we already covered this.
^^ This is hilarious ^^
Here’s a sneak peak at the new WUWT Weather History – USA Reference Page, which should go live in the next week and offers an array of temperature and precipitation maps:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/weather-history-usa/
Password: WUWT
Any suggestions on additional content for the page are most welcome.
Here’s an aggregation of all the pressure plate snow sensors distributed throughout the Sierra Nevada, that report the snow water content, with this year, last year, average, min and max plotted. Provided by the California Department of Water Resources, California Data Exchange Center. Looks to be about a week behind. This is as official as data gets. A very useful plot, it should go somewhere in one of the sidebars. Information like this is what CA DWR uses to make yearly water allocation decisions.
@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 says:
March 29, 2011 at 11:25 am
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.
==================================================
thank you for clearing that up……………..
Can we just say there’s a 50% chance………..and it’s “likely”