From the Weather is not climate unless we say it is department: Over at Climate Progress, paid propagandist Joe Romm wails about “journalistic malpractice” from Michael Mann’s words in a tweet:
The wailing (Jan 31st and again Feb 4th) was because the LA Times didn’t use the words “global warming” or “climate change” in a story about the mild winter in the USA. But Romm and Mann both ignore the much bigger story of a bitterly cold winter in Europe with snow reaching into northern Africa which has caused nearly three hundred deaths. Conversely, there doesn’t seem to be any deaths associated with the mild winter in the USA that Romm and Mann are wailing about. You can decide who’s committing “journalistic malpractice”.
Rutgers Snow Lab has the current NH snow extent:
Romm’s buddy, Dr. Jeff Masters puts the temperature departure in Europe and Alaska in perspective with the continental USA:
And here’s a CNN story from today about the severe winter weather in Europe:
Situation ‘tragic’ as winter weather blankets Europe (Snow Reported as far south as Algeria in Northern Africa)
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 12:23 PM EST, Sun February 5, 2012
London (CNN) — Heavy snow left several Italian villages paralyzed and without power as winter weather and cold temperatures spread across Europe, the mayor of one village said. Many of the 32 villages in the Aniene Valley, near Rome, lost electricity on Friday when an electric pylon fell because of the snow, said Piero Moscardini, mayor of Vallinfreda. The valley, home to about 50,000 people, has received some 100 cm (39 inches) of snow, Moscardini said. “It’s the worst snow since 1956,” he said. “The situation is tragic. We need the Army to save us.”
Ambulances cannot traverse the roads, he said, and some villagers cannot reach their stables to feed livestock. Meanwhile, deaths continued to increase from the cold. In Romania, four people died on Saturday and another six on Sunday, authorities said. A total of 34 people have died since the cold snap began in late January. Nineteen national roads and one highway remained closed on Sunday. More than 30 cities and villages are isolated, authorities said, and power outages were reported in 200 cities and villages. More than 3,000 employees belonging to the Interior Ministry were involved in rescue operations, as hundreds sought refuge in temporary shelters and hundreds more were hospitalized because of hypothermia.
In Poland, TVN Poland said a total of 53 people have died, eight of them in the past 24 hours. The victims are mainly homeless people, according to the report. Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest international airports, canceled about half of its flights Sunday, its owner said Sunday — about 260 more flights than it expected to cancel as of the night before. Between two and four inches of snow fell on London overnight, as the British capital became the latest European city to be hit by winter weather wending its way west. Drivers in both London and Rome will need to worry about ice as temperatures rise slightly, then fall again to below freezing, CNN meteorologist Tom Sater said Sunday.
Full story here
People stand in snow in front of the Colosseum on Saturday, February 4, in Rome.
A boy and his mother skate on the partly frozen Elbe River as the skyline of the eastern German city of Dresden is silhouetted in the background on Thursday, February 2. A cold snap kept Europe in its icy grip, pushing the death toll past 150 as countries from Italy to Ukraine struggled to cope with temperatures that reached record lows in some places.
A man pets a dog next to frozen sea waters in Constanta, Romania, on Wednesday, February 1. Temperatures plunged to -34 degrees Celsius (-29 degrees Fahrenheit) in central Romania, where eight people died due to cold-related causes, according to local media.
Freshly plowed snow frames a road in Bucharest, Romania, on Friday, January 27.
iReporter Cosmin Stan sent in this photo from Bucharest, Romania, on Thursday, January 26. “The problem was not the quantity of the snow, but the strong winds,” he told CNN.
I have just tried to leave a post on the LA Times website referring to Mr Mann, all three have been deleted. The first post received a response saying it was under mediation then I placed a second post and then it and the first just disappeared the third likewise. Clearly anyone who cares to contradict their God like fervour for Co2 induced AGW are not welcome, lets all sing America the land of the free, remember hand on chest, this is a democracy!!
Mods, a Mulligan if I may (do-over from prev. post) TIA _Jim
In whom would I place more trust? Joe or Gates …
A Peanut Gallery occupant (a guesser?) with zero _skill_ in the predictive meteorology biz or someone actively engaged in the field?
No brainer … go with ‘Gates’ …
/Major sarc
.
And downunder, at least in supposedly sunny Sydney, the cool spell continues. I’ve had to wear shoes & socks at times these last few weeks I mean, really, how bad can it get? We’ve had a few days slightly, and only very slightly, above the average, the rest are well below.
There is also a lot of rain, and people are getting flooded out all up the east coast. That is what a double la nina will give us, here on the west Pacific rim. I hope never to see it again, and some warm weather arrives soon! I am losing my tan!
Moving to the tropics this year with any luck….
tokyoboy says:
February 5, 2012 at 10:49 pm
R. Gates says: February 5, 2012 at 10:26 pm ……
Maybe you should quit being a worrier, for your mental health.
——–
No worries at all. This is a most interesting time to be studying and observing the climate. Highest greenhouse gas concentrations in at least 800,000 years (probably much longer) versus a quiet sun— what more could you ask for? We will know so much more in 20 years than we know now. Very exciting times…hardly a time to worry. Unless of course things really are worse than most here at WUWT suspect…
European cold snap, 2012: 300 deaths
Those are the people, who were found frozen on streets or in makeshift shelters. So far, no one was counting people, who died of cardiac and respiratory ailments exacerbated by freezing temperatures.
In the death toll of 2003 heat wave not many people dropped dead directly on streets and the thousands counted died due to worsening of their already fragile health and dehydration.
These victims remain yet to be counted for the current freeze.
Isn’t Tweeting itself an indicator of arrested development? I thought it was for teenage girls and others unable to shut up.
Ian W says:
February 5, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Whenever I see a story with a headline “one death every X minutes” I tend to assume either bad math or misleading statistics. If you read the linked article, the actual body of the text says:
So first of all, the normal winter death rate in England and Wales is 1,560 per week more than the typical non-winter week. Winter death increases could be due to all sorts of reasons not directly attributed to cold: auto accidents, house fires, breaking one’s neck while skiing, etc. At at all times other than war and natural disasters most of the dying are elderly, so I have no idea why pensioner groups would consider this “shocking”.
Now Professor Davies “expects” a substantial increase to 2,000 per week over the non-winter death rate due to the extreme cold. So the actual increase attributed to the extreme cold would be 2,000 – 1,560, or 440 per week. This works out to one extra expected death every 23 minutes. In a normal winter, one extra person dies every six and a half minutes; Professor Davies expects one extra person to die every 5 minutes during the period of extreme cold. Keep in mind extra means in addition to the non-winter death rate, which the article does not give.
So, not only bad math and misleading statistics, but no actual data: just expectations as well.
Tragic winter weather in Europe doesn’t fit the Mannian narrative
Nothing fits the Mannian narrative. It is ALL Mann made. GK
See
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097292/Big-freeze-Europe-shows-signs-letting-Venices-famous-waterways-ice-over.html
Canals frozen in Venice & Holland!!!!!
Actually, this can all be explained quite well with the phrase climate extremes caused by AGW warming and CO2. It just requires the explanation in each separate venue at a time and from a distance of course. All extremes all the time r us, until you are told otherwise and with no debate since the debate has ended.
The most remarkable characteristic is the snow cover in Turkey. While snow there is not uncommon, complete coverage especially near the coasts is. Now we see the origin of the Santa Clause figure (St. Nicolas, an Anatollian Christian).
Its only a warm winter in the US if you’re not in Alaska. If you do include Alaska, is it still warmer in the whole US?
My guess is that anAL GOREtentive is on an extended European speaking tour
You guys keep reporting on all these extreme global weather anomalies but can’t recognize the one constant other extreme anomaly – the size of the human foot print on this little ball of mud.
The party is over, time to go to work on living with-in our means. Make your own food. Ride a bicycle as much as possible. Work from home. Do something to make your life simpler. Go to bed with the sun set.
@Geoff Sharp
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/224
@M.A.Vukcevic
Polar vortex splitting appears to be affected by intensity of geomagnetic field.
Siberia field is getting stronger, Hudson bay weaker. Strong field drives the winter temperatures down.
Maybe you 2 should get together and try to unify the solar/terrestrial cycle thingy?
Just from reading both posts, it appears there may be a relationship between the solar AM and terrestrial geomagnetic shifting.
Worth looking at this relationship, IMHO…
Check out this story (referenced by Daily Bayonet).Note this bit: “But as Europe huddled indoors for warmth, Russian gas giant Gazprom said it could not satisfy western Europe’s demand for more energy.”
Relax folks, normal service has been resumed, and not only is global warming responsible for the “Year without a winter”, it is now also responsible for the brutal winter conditions in Europe.
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/02/06/Sea-ice-loss-said-driving-European-chill/UPI-37981328575253/?spt=hs&or=sn
It was predicted by “models” years ago, seemingly. Anyway, not all of Europe is suffering the GW induced cold weather at the moment. Here in south-east Ireland its a beautiful, mild, spring-like morning,
I promised to eat my hat if Feb did not go cold:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/#comment-859562
RE: tom says:
February 6, 2012 at 5:20 pm
“You guys keep reporting on all these extreme global weather anomalies but can’t recognize the one constant other extreme anomaly – the size of the human foot print on this little ball of mud.”
FYI: You are not Bigfoot, nor is our planet a little ball of mud.
“The party is over, time to go to work on living with-in our means. Make your own food. Ride a bicycle as much as possible. Work from home. Do something to make your life simpler. Go to bed with the sun set.”
Be my guest. It is a wonderful learning experience. I tried it, back in the early 1970’s. It sounded so nice: Instead of a dreary job, and only fishing on the weekends, I could fish all week long, and eat fish. It turned out to not be easy, even in the summer. Winter absolutely sucked.
You ought to study the breakdown of the Native American infrastructures, in pre-Columbian societies. The Mayan and Anazsazi and numerous Mound-Builder societies all went through horrific crashes, without Europeans to blame. It doesn’t take much, and in fifty years a whole people’s “footprint” is just dust in the wind.
It is madness to be trying to replace an infrastructure that works with one that, at the very least, is untested. Things could turn into a horrific crash, without a Little Ice Age to blame.
Caleb says on February 7, 2012 at 10:25 am
Only for those who do not stand to benefit from that replacement (oh, and the fools they have convinced but who will be cut out of the game.)
RE: Richard Sharpe says:
February 7, 2012 at 10:42 am
“Only for those who do not stand to benefit from that replacement (oh, and the fools they have convinced but who will be cut out of the game.)”
I imagine there are some foolish enough to believe that they could “benefit” from a “reduction in the population of the world,” leaving only a half-billion survivors. They likely imagine they themselves hiding in some safe place, with a small army to protect them, and a nice stash of food. However the problem with such a genocide, (and that is what it is,) is that six and a half billion do not go quietly into oblivion. Also a “small army” can turn on its leader.
And so on and so forth. It is an interesting mental excersize to think of all the ways such a sick “utopia” could fail to account for every contingency, and face things back-firing. When you erase six and a half billion people, there is a great likelihood you have eraced some vital idea or answer it turns out you yourself greatly need. (The example of Germany’s need for scientists to make the A-bomb in WW2 springs to mind. They erased the very geniuses they needed.)
I think a lot of the worry about over-population is absurd. The people most worried have plenty of space and food, and have seldom actually experienced living in a crowded village. I myself feel people are wonderful, and that there are compassionate solutions to problems created by over-crowding and famine in certain parts of the world. For the most part, “The more the merrier,” within limits. It seems the world has shown people recognize “the limits,” and are able to level off population growth, in all but the most desperate situations. Therefore the answer is to end desperation, not to seek a desperate solution.
To replace an infrastructure that works with one that, at the very least, is untried is a desperate solution. It is a straw grasped by desperate people. The question is, what are they so cotton-picking desperate about? Are they but grandmothers, seeing a mouse and screaming? (I probably offended grandmothers; sorry.)