Climate Poetic justice in the land of ETS. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
Freak snowfall has NZ reeling
WELLINGTON: New Zealand is shivering through a one-in-50-year polar blast that has brought snow to much of the country, the weather service says.
A bitterly cold southerly blast has caused snow to fall in areas of New Zealand which do not usually receive it, making roads impassable in many areas on both islands, closing airports and cutting power to thousands.
Staff at Wellington Zoo took advantage of the first major snowfall in the capital for 40 years to give the visiting penguin ”Happy Feet” a dip in an icy saltwater pool.
…
The MetService head forecaster, Peter Kreft, said the polar blast was ”of the order of a 50-year” event and warned it could last for days. The level of snow that had fallen in Wellington had not been seen since at least the 1970s, he said.
In Wanganui in the North Island, snow had settled for the first time since 1974, Constable Simon Beswarick said.
…
The MetService has forecast the heavy snow to continue today before easing tomorrow. It is unlikely to continue down to sea level.
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Patrick Davis says:
August 16, 2011 at 8:06 am
“SteveE says:
August 16, 2011 at 4:07 am”
And what has changed in the UK since 1910?
————-
The Governement, transport network, communication network, population, the industry base, teaching methods, technology, the economy, lots of things really… What’s your point.
trust Lubos to put a proper light on the subject.
Thanks very much Theo,
Those points are important. Maybe get groups of locals interested; our charges are low anyhow but a group could get forecasts with a view to trying them out and subscribing separately later. The more subscribers we get then the lower the possible price in the long run.
Piers
polistra says:
August 16, 2011 at 3:30 am
Well, it’s a nice theory, but Oz actually has a wide annual climate range. One thing that makes Aussies more temperate (Aussies, not Australia itself) is their predominance on the coast. If you live near the sea, the weather tends to be milder as the huge thermal capacity of the sea acts as a large buffer.
I live in Sydney, and have relatively mild weather. It ranges from near 0 to 20 C in the winter to 20 to up to 40 (occasionally) in the summer. That is still a fair spread! Inland it is a greater spread, probably 5C colder in the winter, and 5C warmer in the summer.
Not so narrow a range, really. It is actually bloody cold sometimes in Sydney. I’m moving to Mackay soon, where I can get some real warmth, and use my pool at least 9 months a year!
Sun is once again bereft of sunspots. ENSO is neutral. Again wondering out loud, is ENSO being trumped by GCRs? Our winter in the NH will be interesting to observe, to see if we have another tough one like last year.
General question. Heidi Cullen’s Climate Central bio says:
A doctorate in climatology, by name? Hadn’t heard of such before. The same line is repeated in her American Meteorological Society bio.
I found that school’s site, it says this:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/education/programs/graduate-studies
That’s the only PhD listed. Is “Earth and Environmental Sciences” just a general term, depending on the specific courses taken and work done it can morph into something that can properly be said to be a PhD “in climatology and ocean-atmosphere dynamics”?
Here in Auckland I had ice on my windscreen before midnight….I’ve never seen that before. Its usually 4-5 am before it gets that cold…but then I could see my breath at 9 pm and that’s a first.
stephen richards says:
August 16, 2011 at 4:39 am
Alan Ogden says:
August 16, 2011 at 2:15 am
For UK readers, a familiar face discusses the weather in Wellington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Corbett
SteveE says:
August 16, 2011 at 1:21 am
“Snow, in winter, now there’s a turn up for the books!”
What drives your beliefs Steve? This is a 50 year event and semi-tropical Aukland, which received their first snow in half a century. In earlier comments I made on “worst wildfires” in Texas in 50 years, worsts floods on the prairies in 50 years, biggest snowfall in 50 years in New England, and similar worsts-in-50 yrs for winters in Europe, Argentina, Peru (250 children froze to death a year or two ago) and even in Brazil were domestic animals and wild died of the cold, submarines surfacing at the north pole 50 years ago….. I felt that these events provide some skill in longer range forecasting. For posterity, let me predict that we are going into a strong cooling period, will have another warming period through mid century and a cooling one through 2100 with the polar ice building up and declining and rebuilding again.
Anthony, if someone isn’t already doing this kind of forecasting, I think it might be a good thing to look at. For WUWT, you could have a “50 yrs ago today” type of feature that would be entertaining and informative.
It’s hard to blame the Kiwis for ETS. They got screwed on the Kyoto deal. When they signed on to Kyoto, they thought that they would have no problem meeting emission targets; lots of trees and greenery, few industrial emissions, etc. Then after the ink was dry, someone realized all their sheep and cows have considerable emissions. Instead of being “carbon neutral”; Kyoto would cost each human inhabitant of New Zealand NZ$1000/year.
http://www.news.com.au/opinion/committing-to-kyoto-would-come-at-cost/story-e6frfs99-1111114657019
Staff at Wellington Zoo took advantage of the first major snowfall in the capital for 40 years to give the visiting penguin ”Happy Feet” a dip in an icy saltwater pool.
Hmm. Are we still so sure that the penguin was lost? Perhaps he’s an advance scout looking for new feeding and breeding grounds. 🙂
“Anthony, if someone isn’t already doing this kind of forecasting, I think it might be a good thing to look at. For WUWT, you could have a “50 yrs ago today” type of feature that would be entertaining and informative.”
Not a bad idea!
I’d also like to see a feature where we compare current conditions (along with where we are in the solar cycle) with what was going on 11 years ago…or 22…or 33…or 44…you get the idea.
I’m not questioning Dr. Cullen’s curriculum vitae, I’m questioning the veracity of her statements. As she has a doctorate in science, she is presumably qualified to offer an educated opinion.
The question remains: Where is the evidence that backs up her opinion?
I live about 25m above sea level near Hamilton in the North Island. It snowed here on Monday. I wasn’t around in 1939 so for me it was a first. With the sun going quiet, I wonder how long it will be before it happens again?
Geoff Sharp says:
August 16, 2011 at 4:52 am
NZ is in the grip of a severe jet stream straight from Antarctica. This seems to be the pattern during winter when the Sun is extra quiet. The amount of low pressure systems around the bottom end is notably different from what we would normally expect.
Interesting, just what I was thinking today when reading about NZ and looking at the daily temperature anomalies. The temperature anomaly over the Antarctic continent has been quite high over the last weeks of winter, just as there was a positive anomaly in the Arctic as Europe (and Florida – and parts of Asia, even Vietnam!) was freezing last NH winter.
This also explains why the global temperature indexes that include more of the area near the poles (UAH and GISS – and RSS in the NH) are showing higher anomalies than the others (RSS in the SH and HadCrut). I think that including the winter temperatures above 70N or below 70S in a measure of “global warming” (remember, 10 C “warmer” may just mean that it’s -50C instead of -60C in the Antarctic mountains…) is just making the “warming signal” noisier because it conceals the cooling of the mid-latitudes.
Heat records in all 50 states?
Here in Oregon it has been cold. We had the coldest spring ever recorded.
There is still a great amount of snow in the passes east of where I am. My
house is at about 1500 feet elevation, and it was in the high 40s at night last
week. Across the street from my house the blackberries are not even ripe yet.
Farmers have given up on a 3rd crop for this year.
I am going to cut and split an extra cord of wood for the coming winter.
Jer0me says:
August 16, 2011 at 2:36 am
OMG, Al Gore is in NZ?
***
Not as far as I know, but Helen Clark, our former PM and responsible for the ETS legislation, was here on a visit last week from New York (where she works for the UN). Perhaps the Al Gore effect is spreading to acolytes.
Kadaka, in my experience, PhDs are offered by programmes or departments, but they are not endorsed by name in anything. The PhD is a generic, University wide qualification. Mine was undertaken in a department of Geography with an urban studies topic, so it is correct for me to say that I have a PhD in either Geography or Urban Studies. But the certificate says only PhD.
Heidi can thus say that her PhD is in Environmental Science or climate science, etc, depending on the context without being misleading.
Now thawing in Dunedin, but still plenty of snow inland and on the hills.
Well we haven’t had that much more snow than some winters in the last few years here in Dunedin but it has remained on the ground a lot longer than usual and twice in three weeks is unusual. But then one year in the mid 70’s we had snow at Christmas (supposed to be summer at that time of the year here). It’s all just weather as far as I can judge.
Douglas
“Once in a lifetime” or “once in 50 years” are not quite accurate, I feel. Surely we are seeing a similar event to those from around 1976/77 and 1939. Were these not periods of unstable weather accompanying a change in direction of climate (1939 was before the change to cooling, 1976/77 was before the change to warming)?
Paul Deacon
I agree with you . There have been a number of things happening recently that last happened in the early 1970’s — eg . Queensland floods and the last time the flood gates had to be opened on the lower Mississippi River
I moved to Rotorua 6 years ago, and people thought that winter felt the coldest for ages, though no snow fell.
4 years ago we had a snow shower (more like sleet really) in town, and people said it was the first time that this had happened for years.
Each winter since then we have had snow falling either in town or on the surrounding hills (the city is in a volcanic crater 320m above sea level, with hills rising up to a peak around 720m, though most are a lot lower) down to about 60m above lake/town level.
This snow fall was the longest duration in town, but less settled on the hills than last year.
So, whilst this snow storm is only a weather event, I am wondering how many snowy winters in a row makes a trend and can be classed as climate?
@ur momisugly Peter S
I am wondering how many snowy winters in a row makes a trend and can be classed as climate?
Those years will be removed from the data range just like the Maunder, Dalton and Spörer Minimums where removed, we can’t have a wobbly hockey stick, the plebs wont understand it. /sarc off
I think that is a really good question, who says it has to be 30 years, wouldn’t a billion be better, maybe 3 will do, to me a data set (climate) is more than one point of data, for example two points of data, that would show a trend, the more data points the better we understand the trend or do we? In terms of this planet will we ever have the grey matter to understand it. I don’t know.
This is in today’s NZ Herald.
Opposing weather patterns to blame
Snow, sleet, graupel, hail and ice – New Zealand has seen the entire range of frozen conditions over the past few days of Arctic weather.
The extreme conditions have been caused by opposing weather patterns, said Niwa principal scientist James Renwick. (One of our Warmists)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10745581
Cold sees electricity demand skyrocket
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/weather/news/article.cfm?c_id=10&objectid=10745582
Never fear, Dr. John Holdren, White House Science Advisor, is here!
Please see his powerpoint presentation regarding “Meeting the Energy-Climate Challenge” for some of his brilliant insights into how anthropogenic carbon emissions cause heat, rain, snow, plagues of locusts and miasmas….or, as he puts it, “climate disruption.”
http://www.iit.edu/grand_challenges/powerpoint_presentations.shtml
For example, his Slide 4:
Climate = weather patterns, meaning averages, extremes, timing, spatial distribution of…
-hot & cold
-cloudy & clear
-humid & dry
-drizzles & downpours
-snowfall, snowpack, & snowmelt
-breezes, blizzards, tornadoes, & typhoons
Climate change means disruption of the patterns.
(he left out flatulence, B.O. and other disruptive conditions IMHO)