“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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Prof Richard Lindzen writes:
“If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1°C. …There is ample evidence that the Earth’s temperature as measured at the equator has remained within +/- one degree centigrade for more than the past billion years. Those temperatures have not changed over the past century.” [source]
As one approaches the poles the Earth’s temperature begins to vary more and more from one region to another, and from summer to winter. The closer one gets to the Arctic or Antarctic, the larger the regional temperature cycles.
This is normal, and has always been so. Greenland has very wide temperature swings, while Egypt is very uniform from year to year.
The Earth’s overall temperature is extremely constant, despite Gates’ beliefs. Natural variability is sufficient to explain all what is happening, while the CO2 conjecture has no supporting evidence.
R Gates:
Ok I get it only is cooler if snows stays in summer. Maybe you haven’t noticed but it is not winter anymore so more snow now is not consistent with your claim. So when there are record snows in places like Washington DC where the average winter temperature is above freezing it isn’t because colder weather drop the temperature below freezing so that it can snow, it is because it has gotten warmer so there is more participation that must be as snow, because it is warmer.
But really this silly notion of warming causing snow has been disproved many times here. That you refuse to acknowledge that it has been disproved is your fault not ours.
It would be one thing if people had been going around saying “remember those large snow storms of the 1970s, well you can expect more of them, due to global warming,” but until last year when we got more snow they were saying that we would have less snow.
@ur momisugly 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.
>>steven mosher says: March 29, 2011 at 11:47 am
>>The science never said the snow was going away. where do you get
>>this nonsense. read the ar4 links i provided
The science may not have, but the cheerleaders of the AGW movement certainly did. Take this UK Independent report as an example:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/climate-report-predicts-snow-and-ice-will-be-thing-of-the-past-2442959.html
Now the Independent is a cerebral and influential newspaper amongst liberals, teachers, politicians and Greens, this is where they get their ‘science’ from. This is what is being taught to our children. They deserve better, but the UK teaching profession has been taken over by left-leaning female idealists who have no concept of independent and rational thought.
.
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.
Rex said:
Teleconnection is limited to 1200 miles. See, it’s like Super Man who can only be harmed by kryptonite.
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.
The world is warming and winters will become a thing of the past.
Expect more earth quakes, tornadoes and hurricanes.
Expect more droughts in some areas but catastrophic flooding in others – like Australia.
We could lose our glaciers within 30 years.
Looking at multi-century climate patterns such as the onset of glaciation is a good proxy for year over year weather patterns.
Expect more tsunamis.
Expect more extreme variations in the weather.
CO2 is the dominant factor in global warming.
Warmer weather will result in more snow because of increased moisture in the air.
And all of this, is very very likely to occur, because the science is settled.
R. Gates – did I miss something?
It’s hard to embrace global warming when you’re cold.
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.
To R Gates, I do not remember any predictions of heavy snowfall do to global warming before the heavy snowfall. You have any examples? I do remember that ski resort owners where told to find another occupation as warming will mean less to no snow. But when the big dumps of snow came the tune changed to warming causes snow. Oh I am getting so confused, now reaching for head ache medicine.
Please please unconfuse me.
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.
Jeremy said:
“Antarctica is dry, not because it is cold, but because there is no prevailing wind direction that brings moisture from an ocean over land.”
_____
You flunk Climate 101. Please go back to remedial studies and try again later.
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 11:47 am
the science never said the snow was going away. where do you get this nonsense.
read the ar4 links i provided
=====================================================
My guess would be they predicted it would decelerate………(opposite of acceleration)
=======================================================
Union of ‘Concerned Scientists’ says global warming means less snow
2006, “Consequences across the region,” Climate Choices, Union of Concerned Scientists
“Across the globe, and here in the Northeast (US), the climate is changing. Records show that spring is arriving earlier, summers are growing hotter, and winters are becoming warmer and less snowy. These changes are consistent with global warming, an urgent phenomenon driven by heat-trapping emissions from human activities. Explore the impacts of climate change on coasts, fisheries, forests, wildlife, water, agriculture, winter recreation and health…”
=========================================================
IPCC
Climate Change 2001:
Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms………………..(I think they are saying that warming will decrease heavy snowstorms)
===========================================
Now we know that they were wrong, just 10 years ago…
..and now we know that warming makes more snow
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.
You have a better reason for lack of thermal/pressure-gradient moisture being generally available across the south continent? I’m all ears. Until then, continue to believe, as you stated, that warmer ground temperatures mean more snow accumulation. And of course the choice quote from you today:
…but of course, I’m the one who is supposedly failing Climate 101.
Isn’t this the point where the AGW’s would say, ‘yes, there’s more snow, but it’s all rotten snow!’
They said global warming causes less snow before they said it causes more snow.
As Far as I’ve looked into winter snow extent with the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab numbers, using the basic tools you’d use to decide the fate of 10c washers, (see ANSI/ASQC B1-B3-1996) there is no reason to regard this winter as unusual or special. Just normal natural variation (See comments to http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/02/2001-2010-was-the-snowiest-decade-on-record/).
Theo Goodwin.
You want to debate me. My point is this.
If somebody wants to claim that “the science” predicted “less snow” Then that person has an OBLIGATION to cite a source where “the science” says such a thing.
To help you guys find such a quote, I’m giving you some links to a summary of the science. AR4.
In general the science says effectively what R Gates says. I’ll dumb it down for you.
1. The predictions of changes in precipitation are very broad. This means it is not
completely understood. You have wide error bands. Models are getting better since
the TAR, but there is still some scatter.
2. The LIKELY response we will see depends upon the region of the earth you are looking at. This is called likely because it is not certain.
3. In the higher latitudes you are LIKELY to see more precipitation. Think about
polar amplification.
4. in the subtropics you are likely to see decreases.
If you read through the literature you will also find bits and pieces here and there about lake effect snow. Likely to increase.
Theo, my point is this. There is a BETTER case against the science when you actually cite it directly and accurately. That case is focused on the reliability ( error bands) of models. Folks should note that models that perform well on temperature hindcasts perform poorly on precipitation. To see this you have to look at taylor diagrams.
dont make me educate you on those. read more and comment less.
Stupid skeptcism says “the models predict less snow, and we had 600 inches in tahoe”
That’s stupid because the models said no such thing.
“”””” 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.
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.
My god they’re slippery when wet!
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
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.