Jeez, there’s no excuse for this spectacular failure to understand one of most basic principles about the Earth’s weather and climate. From:
How to respond to people who say the cold weather disproves global warming | Grist
This helpful diagram taught in grade school science, is relevant. Note the proximity of Earth to the sun at the winter solstice and at perihelion -vs- the summer solstice and Aphelion:
Of course, they’ve deleted the sentence in red now. It reads now:
The author writes:
Update: This post originally included a line about the Earth’s distance from the Sun that was an intentional oversimplification, but a dumb one, as (lots of) people have pointed out. I removed it. Your comments about irony and hubris are welcome.
This of course illustrates why GRIST is such a well respected source for climate entertainment. Cold weather events don’t disprove global warming any more than hot weather events prove global warming. Let’s all remind GRIST of this fact come summer.
h/t to Tom Nelson
UPDATE: Must be something in the air today, more hilarity:
CNN Weatherman: Don’t Laugh! Cold Temps Come from Global Warming | NewsBusters
We were amused by this one. In the 1 pm hour, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers was talking about the frigid temperatures in the eastern United States. Guess the culprit? As always, global warming.
“So what’s causing all of this cold air? If I tell you and I look at you straight in the face and tell you global warming, you’re going to laugh at me. But in fact, it’s the case.”
PS: Years ago, Myers dared to be a bit more skeptical on this politically loaded issue.
MYERS: Because there’s no sea ice up in the Arctic, the Arctic is warmer than it should be. In fact, Quebec is colder than the Arctic. When this happens, when this kind of surface happens, there’s not cold air just pounded over here, right over Santa Claus, the jet stream is allowed to expand farther to the south. And because the jet stream is expanding farther to the south, the cold air that should be bottled up here, making more sea ice and it’s not, now expands into China, expands into Russia, and all the way down to the U.S. And that’s exactly the position we’re in right now.
There’s no sea ice up in the Arctic? Could have fooled me. From the WUWT Sea Ice reference page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Chad must have been given his orders after his initial scepticism. The explanation he gives for colder because of warming is the kind one gets from someone suddenly having a microphone stuck under his nose to elicit an explanation. No, Chad stuck the mike under his own nose. He did at least expect people would laugh. Gee I think he was pulling our legs.
“But … but, you see, every night we are further away from the sun, than the other side of the world where it is daytime. And nights are colder, so our theory about distance and temperature is sane and therefore also the other things we claim about climate change.”
when you’re pretty you don’t have to be smart….obviously applies to actors, politicians and tv people of all kinds
Everyone in kindergarten knows snow has nothing to do with the sun. It is Santa, shaking his beard. A few years back he got angry because of our carbon pollution, but now he can see the President is going to fix it, that’s why.
The Aussies, if they behave themselves and pay their carbon taxes regularly, may see Santa shaking his beard on them around Christmas as well in a few years. Weird folks, anyway, they are, walking upside down.
There, I have fixed your science for you.
CNN meteorologist Chad Myers should take a page from the Grist book by declaring that “no ice” was an intentional oversimplification, and subsequently correct this by stating exactly the same.
is this promiscuous stupidity? are the science molesters in rut?
I haven’t seen this in the comments so far, but somebody should say it.
Ahem.
The stupid, it BURNS!!!
Try this version,
It is a well known fact that cold air falls.
Every Arctic resident knows this well, you can see the cold air flow in through an open door.
So its obvious the super cold air caused by global warming is falling toward the equator.
For all good climatologists know that the north pole is on top off the planet.
Dress this up a bit and it will be the new wisdom.
Ian Holton says:
January 23, 2013 at 1:25 pm
“…obviously, the distance of sun from earth is minor player compared to the first mentioned effects.”
In fact, the center of the Earth is closer to the Sun in Winter. I don’t have the numbers at hand, but maybe someone can answer just for grins: is the North Pole actually closer or farther away from the Sun in Winter? It’s farther due to the tilt, but it’s closer due to the orbit.
_Jim says:
January 23, 2013 at 3:02 pm
“I, for one, Konrad, would like a little more than just bold assertion on this point (i.e. include a cite or reference please if you could). Thank you.”
—————————————————————————————-
Jim, happy to help. The reference would be your own work. Yes you read that correctly, your own work.
I can give you instructions on how to build and run this simple empirical experiment
http://i48.tinypic.com/124fry8.jpg
The image depicts two closed boxes constructed of 25mm EPS foam sheet (shown transparent in the image). Internal volume should be around 1000 x 1000 x 100mm. (if building smaller, include ground friction control on the interior base of the box) Each box has a K-type Thermocouple in its centre. (Connect these to a dual probe thermometer with 0.1 C resolution.) Also penetrating each box a a number of thin aluminium tubes. (use K&S tube from a hobby store) These tubes are connected as shown in the image by flexible fish tank tubing. You will note there are input and output lines to each of the four groups of tubes. I suggest connecting the cold inputs to a cold water tap and the hot inputs to a hot water tap. Modifying rubber furniture leg ends from a hardware store with a punch is a good way of doing this. I used hot and cold water tanks with pumps but this is expensive and tank volume limits run time. Make the two cold water input tubes several meters longer than needed so you can coil them through a tank of water and party ice. Run all four output lines back to a sink. Gently turn on the water flows so as not to blow the tubing and ensure flow rate from all tubes back into the sink is the same.
While this experiment runs wholly on conduction it simply demonstrates the importance of cooling at altitude. Box 1 represents an atmosphere in which gas heated at the surface can cool at altitude. Box 2 represents a non radiative atmosphere that can only heat and cool at the surface.
Which box gets hotter, and why? (note – you will not get the right answer using AGW maths.)
PS. Warmist bafflegabbers claim that greater conductive cooling at the surface can offset conductive heating at the surface. I have another simple experiment you can build that shows that is also a load of pseudo scientific tripe.
Also, a 1,000 mile difference between the two seasons (aphelion and perihelion) isn’t much of a change considering the sun is 92,960,000 miles away from earth. That’s a .001% difference in on distance at aphelion and perihelion. That’s like having 1,000 miles plus adding 52 feet to make up the .001% change in distance at aphelion. Not much change in distance considering the distance of the Earth from the Sun. It’s all about scale. The difference on the distance between Earth and Sun at aphelion and perihelion is quite small. A thousand miles difference is minutely small when distances are measured in millions of miles. Those folks failed miserably in the field of science.
” there’s a place called the southern hemisphere.. you may have heard of it. We’re waaay down here and it’s summer now.”
No way!!! The so-called “Southern Hemisphere”, with its purported reverse weather, is a total myth! /irony
So you want your chart to put Aphelion at July 4, not June.
Show that diagram to school kids in the southern hemisphere and you’ll be laughed out of class.
Surely if the seasons reverse (being in the southern hemisphere I can confirm that they do) and when it is cold in the North and hot in the South then the average would remain the same as when it is hot in the North and cold in the South?
Surely if the seasons reverse (being in the southern hemisphere I can confirm that they do) and when it is cold in the North and hot in the South then the average would remain the same as when it is hot in the North and cold in the South?
Note to Mods, sorry mistyped my email address
Their explanation is still wrong. It’s not about the trivial difference in the distance from the sun, the change in seasons is due to the shorter or longer days we get due to axial tilt.
As much as they are idiots to make this kind of statement (as anyone can see we are closer to the sun in the winter), the difference in distance and the difference in insolation is not trivial. at Perihelion the Total Solar Illumination (TSI) is about 1388-1390 watts/m2. At Amphelion the TSI is about 1326-28 watts/m2. This is over 60 w/m2 which is not trivial. The earth is in a near circular orbit at this time but as the eccentricity changes over the 110,000 year cycle that increases to where the difference is up to 150 watts/m2. To see what the importance of this is, the current glacial/interglacial periods are driven by this factor.
Whoa! Wait a second!
The earth’s tilt, which causes the seasons, is irrelevant to whether colder temperatures – be they short term (just weather) or for a couple decades or more (climate) – disprove CAGW. Cold trends of a couple decades or more show that natural causes overwhelm CO2, and that would show that CAGW is BS.
A friend of mine in Churchill Manitoba is laughing at Chad Mayers. The Arctic Ocean has a beautiful frozen Ice wig that is solid except for breathing holes for Seals and the occasional crack. Chad Mayers is a crack pot!
Hey, good catch! They might have disappeared it, but TOO late! }:o)
And BTW, that has got to be one of the most jaw-droppingly stupid things to write – I can scarcely believe it. Distance from the sun is the sort of thing a little kid might get confused about – “why isn’t it hotter at the top of this mountain, Dad – we’re nearer to the sun?”
Oh, and is it just me or is the whole of that spiel from Myers total gobbledygook?! He completely lost me around the ‘Santa Claus’ part. What a numpty!
From the text:
“So for part of the year as the Earth rotates around the Sun, . . . ”
Earth rotates on its axis. Earth revolves around the Sun.
MarkW says:
January 23, 2013 at 2:04 pm
21° tilt? 23.44° is “right” last I checked (it wobbles a little bit over thousands of years). The graphic says “23,5 deg.” That’s close enough.
Amazing! Who would have thought that a mere 0.002% difference in the distance from the sun could be responsible for the 7% difference in the received sunlight.
This just in: Hangnails caused by global warming! Film at 11.
Same logic the AGW proponents use – anything and everything weather-wise is caused by it.
*”If I tell you and I look at you straight in the face and tell you global warming, you’re going to laugh at me. But in fact, it’s the case.”*
That is classically bad tactics.
Imagine your reaction when somebody says: “Look, I’m not a racist, but I really can’t stand those [fill in as required] carrying on like that in my neighbourhood.”
We remember and internalise the preamble, not the rebuttal.
He has, in effect, told everyone to laugh at him when he says that cold weather is a result of global warming.