Global Warming alarmists have long claimed that snowfall would soon be a thing of the past in the Swiss Alps, that the glaciers would melt, tourists would leave, and the ski industry would die. There CERTAINLY would not be any snowfall at lower altitudes, or any snowfall even before the official start of autumn. Yet today there fell snow as low as 1200 meters, with heavy falls in St. Moritz, a very early time for a blizzard in the alps.
As reported by NZZ Online:
Translation to English:
Earlier onset of winter in the Alps
Several disabled passes
With the first snow in the mountains in the middle of the winter moved in September. In Graubünden the snow line was at 1,200 meters. In some places the snow piled up to half a meter high. Yet the soil is warm, the white splendor should melt quickly.
(Sda) On Sunday, a cold front moved from west of the Jura and the Bernese Oberland Grisons in the Alps. In the high alpine regions, there was up to half a meter of fresh snow. In parts of the Grisons, the snow line was at 1,200 meters above sea level or even lower. In the Midlands at the weekend when temperatures dropped some heavy rain and thunderstorms to just over 10 degrees. In Valais, the temperatures were on Saturday still climbed to 28 degrees.
In the snow caused traffic in the Alpine passes of disability. According to the traffic information service Viasuisse since Sunday afternoon, the Furka Pass and Klaus are locked. Snow covered are the Gotthard and the Nufenenpass. The entrance to the San Bernardino tunnel is more difficult.
The Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) in Davos warns climbers, hunters and hikers in the face of the snowfall to be cautious in steep terrain. Below 3000 meters the snow could slide off on the warm ground. Climbers could also bring fresh-driven snow fields to slip.
Note: There have been no Al Gore sightings in the region recently…
I still think it is going to be a late, wet Spring in Northern California. Might be skiing again on July 4th in Tahoe.
Joe Bastardi said this winter won’t be quite as bad and with my travel experience over the years, my thinkolator is in agreement with that. The La Niña story could take another turn soon.
And yet here in Melbourne yesterday it was 29C. That’s 12C higher than the September average. We should be seeing that sort of temp in December, not now.
That was one funny translation! Auto-translate? Ha! For example, “Climbers could also bring fresh-driven snow fields to slip.” Watch out for those sneaky climbers!
Yes, Tegiri @ur momisugly 8.10 pm. ice ages or even mini ice ages follow warmer periods. The
arctic sea ice does melt normally in varying degrees of severity seasonally. The fresh water that enters the Northern Hemisphere (from melting sea ice and rain too flowing into the sea etc) drives the warmer gulf stream sea water down and diverts the gulf stream. Some say the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico also affected the Gulf Stream. Even some have suggested putting giant fans under the sea (?) to keep the gulf stream flowing. (WOT! I said?). We are overdue for another mini or full blown glacial period, if we take palaeoclimatological cyclical records into account.
Even Carl Sagan warned about bringing on a glacial period by warming the climate artificially
from AGW would happen. He wasn’t strictly right but correct to mention glacial periods follow a warming cycle. In someways natural global warming happens, has happened in the past and there is ‘b’ all we can do to stop it, or even try to. But we will have to adapt. The writer
is correct, winters will become longer and this will effect growing periods for agriculture. Other
than the mini ice age that went from the 14th Century until about 1850, humans haven’t experienced one yet in order to adapt successfully. Can you imagine living in countries that have the midnight sun?
By the way, the Southern Hemisphere is not effected as much. No glaciers in Australia other than on the Alps and in Tasmania during the last full glacial period. However, tree lines lowered and
rainforests (tropical) were not abundant. Because precipitation patterns alter, as evaporation
lessens. Seismic activity will increase but as far as I know some of the Monsoon regions will dry up. Sea levels will eventually (after many thousands of years) be lower than today.
To me warmists have not accepted that Earth is really an ice planet, always has been and some parts of the world have only become inhabitable in the last 10,000 years because of glacial formations. No animals to hunt. Or fish to fry. (sea was too far away from land).
Hoser at 10.06 pm. LOL. I think they meant could cause avalanches? It’s like some of Japanese
or Chinese translations on noodle packets. ‘Noodles burn hands when boiling water is added’.
I have a feeling that the concern about ‘Global Warming’ is more related to a usually beneficial, instinctive compulsion for cleanliness more than anything else. Many may look at all these industrial smokestacks releasing huge quantities of dirty looking vapor (probably mostly H2O) into the atmosphere and have an instinctive subliminal feeling that there must be something very wrong about that. Concern about ‘Global Warming’ may only be a rationalization for their unfounded instinctive fear of unclean air. This may apply to the lay public and otherwise rational scientists as well.
For much of northern Europe, this has been the Year Without a Summer.
Nothing but rain, cloud and cold northerly winds. The low pressures that normally spiral above Scotland in the summer have been running through the English channel instead, and giving us terrible weather.
But if the winter is true to this form, then the pressure systems will be more south in the winter too. This places the low pressures in the Mediterranean, and give northern Europe fine, cold anticycloninc weather. This is what happened in 2009 and 2010, when we had our cold winters.
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For much of northern Europe, this has been the Year Without a Summer.
Nothing but rain, cloud and cold northerly winds. The low pressures that normally spiral above Scotland in the summer have been running through the English channel instead, and giving us terrible weather.
But if the winter is true to this form, then the pressure systems will be more south in the winter too. This places the low pressures in the Mediterranean, and give northern Europe fine, cold anticycloninc weather. This is what happened in 2009 and 2010, when we had our cold winters.
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I think Spector at 10.18 pm, that they also have become hot house flowers, living in artificially cooled interiors and when they go out it is ‘phew’. Same with central heating. In the olde days in London, coal fires or wood fires were the norm. You rugged up in winter, and had only hot water bottles to keep you warm. Jack frost patterns on the interior of the windows. Icicles hanging off the eaves and inside the house on the taps. Frozen pipes. People dieing from the cold or getting stuck in snow drifts, particularly in Scotland. Once people come out of their comfort zone, they think something is wrong. It’s all to do with adaptation. My son and I live in a cold area of
NSW, and we don’t heat the house, other than if we have visitors and an two bar electric fire is put
on. I have an electric blanket. Unfortunately I lost some of my indoor plants this year mainly tropical ones. 10C inside was most probably too cold even for them.
I believe the infamous reference to “snow becoming a thing of the past” was made by a British climate scientist (about the UK).
But yes, eyeballing from my window, the snowline is at about 1200 m.
Guys, this IS just weather (not newsworthy wrt climate). If we get an extended period of cold weather, that would be newsworthy. And if it snows heavily over the next 3 mo.,, that would be good for tourism (& bad for solar power).
Kurt in Switzerland
Tegiri Nenashi says:
This complies with GW predictions: as gulfstream ceases to exist, winters in Europe become colder. This is a major reason why Europeans embraced GW religion — who likes cold weather?
Thing is, the GW religion espouses draconian measures intended to lower the temperature. Sounds like they like cold weather to me. After all, they were bewailing no more snow! Ski resorts will have to close! Warmth is bad—ignoring the fact that mortality rates from cold weather are far higher than from high temperatures.
Does Switzerland have an “official start of autumn”?
@ur momisugly D Marshall.
Here here. I am glad that I reread the comments before posting.
Of the four references provided only the Huffington Post link supports the paraphrasing in this post. And no serious person can take the Huffington Post seriously. That E! For politics.
Further, doesn’t anyone else find it ironic that WUWT taunts the warmists for their inability to distinguish climate from weather by confusing climate and weather?
Katherine. But so far Europe’s emissions have not got lower, possibly volcanoes have some influence too. Usually when it is warmer than norm, rain follows, and in Australia we always need
rain, it just draining it away that has become a problem.
Interestingly St Moritz Switzerland was one of the places we identified in our cooling trends article.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/04/in-search-of-cooling-trends/
It has been cooling for several decades and is one of thousands of places around the world to show such a trend. I estimate that around 30% of all stations show a cooliong trend over a climatic\ally meaningful period of 30 years.
tonyb
@DGH Thank you. I was wondering if anyone else would note that. And I’m glad Kurt in Switzerland chimed in as well as I have no direct experience with Swiss weather.
DGH says:
September 19, 2011 at 11:25 pm
Further, doesn’t anyone else find it ironic that WUWT taunts the warmists for their inability to distinguish climate from weather by confusing climate and weather?
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You’ve missed the subtle irony. When they get confused about weather/climate we laugh at them. When we do it (like early snow or short term sea level drops), we do it as a form of humor. We get to laugh either way and nothing is funnier than a p*ssed off would be saviour of the world that doesn’t recognize that ‘irony’ is the missing subatomic force.
Silence as per the weekend when unseasonably warm weather will rule for a prolonged period.
D Marshall is absolutely correct.The Beniston paper of your first link does not make the claim [or cite any other] that “snowfall would soon be a thing of the past in the Swiss Alps”. It definitely says that snowfall will likely be less at altitudes below 2000m,and the snow season shorter,so it does not support your second assertion that “there CERTAINLY would not be any snowfall at lower altitudes,or even before the start of autumn”. How did you arrive at your reading of the paper,mike?
Dale says: September 19, 2011 at 9:43 pm “And yet here in Melbourne yesterday it was 29C. That’s 12C higher than the September average. We should be seeing that sort of temp in December, not now.”
Wow, sounds like what happened in the southwest United States recently. Despite what some ‘frogs in a well’ have said, Oklahoma and Texas scorched. It was worse than I have ever witnessed. As in with my own eyes…
OK, kiddos, this is a lot like in the 1930’s when volcanoes were going off all over the place. In the southern hemisphere Puyehue-Cordón Caulle in Chile/Argentina blew hard and high, beginning in June. Only just now has it subsided. Flights resuming after three months. I have been expecting to hear from the SH what Dale is saying because volcanic gasses and aerosols naturally perturb the weather.
The high altitude plumes happen more numerous as solar ramp down nears the bottom. The temperature gradients sharpen and the winds and evaporation pick up. Dumping flooding rains and heavy snows. The volcanic activity subsides for a few months at solar cycle bottom and picks back up during ramp up. Subsides again as the solar cycle gets into full swing as it is now. If the volcanoes remain subdued, as they should overall, then weather should become more tranquil in a year.
@dale jennings
“And yet here in Melbourne yesterday it was 29C. That’s 12C higher than the September average. We should be seeing that sort of temp in December, not now.”
Rubbish.
This is typical spring weather. It’s the time of gales and storms and wild changes from northerly to southerly winds. We’re close to the “roaring forties”.
Max today was 17.6C, .6C higher than the September average. Whoop-de-doo. Melbourne is, of course, a heat island. I wonder where the weather station is located?
Mt Buller, a very low altitude ski resort, still has loads of snow. Wasn’t that going to disappear by now?
Richard.
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. It’s weather (and volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes, storms, hurricanes, floods, cyclones etc) that kill us. I know Australia is a large island continent with a dead center. But really more than 50 miles from the sea, precipitation lessens. And altitude also dictates this. Anyway, I love this debate, but taxing carbon will not alter either the climate or the weather. Cutting down domestic coal fire use in London, did help prevent
dangerous smogs. But you know where I live on the Northern Tablelands of NSW, a town of approximately 20,000 with another on the country belt of say 2,000. My friend who lives lower down than me, will say ‘It’s belting down with rain here’ Well it is not where I live 2.5 kms away.
We had a bad storm and a mere 1.5 km away damage was done to the Eastern side of the city
(a mere 1.5 km from me) I wasn’t even aware there was a storm at the time. Although it did a good job of blowing away flowers from the local cemetery. But the track of the storm missed most parts of the town. A twister type storm cut a track that blew down heaps of trees not far away,
luckily no stock or people were killed, but not a wif of this anywhere else. What about the storm that hit UK, knocking down over a million trees.
So AGW ists can go on making up fairy tales, and not blame it on the weather as they see fit but
on humans. True climate change is either seasonal based or of cause coming from an interglacial to a glacial period. Don’t throw your Ugg boots away.
Even the UK Met. Office predict a colder than ‘normal’ winter.
Cooling is not a welcome thing as the comfort and well-being index may soon be tied to the price of grain. Millions will suffer because of the wasted decades with trillions of dollars diverted to green cr$p.