UPDATE: See a new related story here.
From the Moscow Times
The heaviest snowfall in a century brought Moscow and the surrounding region to a near standstill and left hundreds of people without power, officials said Tuesday.
And with snowfall set to continue at least until the end of the week, the authorities are bracing for more chaos on the roads.
“There hasn’t been such a winter in 100 years,” Pyotr Biryukov, deputy mayor for residential issues, said Tuesday in comments carried by Interfax. “The snow this year has already reached one and a half times the climatic norm,” he said.
The capital has seen 216 centimeters of snow fall since the beginning of winter, Biryukov said.
Average snowfall in Moscow is 152 centimeters a year. Biryukov said the city saw 26 centimeters in the 24 hours preceding his Tuesday afternoon news conference and has seen 36 centimeters since the beginning of February.
The heavy snowfall that struck the city Monday quickly led to chaos on the roads. The Yandex Probki traffic monitoring service reached a full 10 points, and on Monday evening it issued the seldom-seen warning that “it’s quicker to walk.”
…
In a similar story here…
The WWF in Russia blames the exceptional winter weather on global warming:
Whether or not Blinkin is right about the tires, City Hall would be well-advised to give the massive snowfall some serious thought. Scientists say such extreme weather is only likely to increase.
“The weather we’ve seen in the past couple of days completely fits with the tendency that was identified a couple of years ago, that we are going to to see much stronger, intensive bursts of precipitation in the future,” said Alexei Kokorin, director of the climate and energy program at WWF Russia. “In the summer, we will probably see stronger bursts of rain.”
===========================================================
Gaia is angry, send more money to Pachauri@wwf.ru
Seriously though, the logic fail here by the WWF spokesman is typical for clueless zealots. If global warming caused this snowfall event, what caused the heavy snow 100 years ago when CO2 levels were below Hansen’s “safe” 350ppm?
Inquiring minds want to know.
UPDATE: The popular warmist theory is that reduced summer sea ice causes the enhanced snow effect, and that sea ice reduction is caused by global warming, but it isn’t cut and dried proof. Then there is the months-long lag problem between reduced sea ice and weather.
From a previous WUWT essay by Willis Eschenbach, I repost this graph. Find the correlation between Arctic sea ice and Snow area.
Figure 2. Arctic sea ice area (blue) and Northern Hemisphere snow area (red). Upper panel shows actual data. Lower panel shows the anomalies of the same data, with the same units (note different scales). The R^2 of the snow and ice anomalies is 0.01, meaninglessly small. The R^2 of the first differences of the anomalies is 0.004, equally insignificant. Neither of these are significantly improved by lags of up to ± 6 months. SNOW DATA ICE DATA
Willis wrote then:
I’m not going to say a whole lot about this graph. It is clear that in general the arctic ice area has been decreasing for twenty years or so. It is equally clear that the northern hemisphere snowfall has not been increasing for the last twenty years. Finally, it is clear that there is no statistical relationship between decreased ice and increased snow.
UPDATE2: Speaking of statistical relationships, here’s a couple.
The graph below plots annual snowfall vs December to April temperature, for all Colorado USHCN stations which have been continuously active since at least 1920.
The Colorado USHCN Stations plotted are:
BOULDER, CANON CITY, CHEESMAN, CHEYENNE WELLS, DEL NORTE 2E, DILLON 1 E, EADS, FT COLLINS, FT MORGAN, FRUITA, GUNNISON 3SW, HERMIT 7 ESE, LAMAR, LAS ANIMAS, MANASSA, MONTROSE #2, ROCKY FORD 2 SE. STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, TRINIDAD, and WRAY
And for those that would say that is too small a sample size, let’s take it up a notch. Below is all USHCN station temperature for December-April in the CONUS versus snowfall.
Here is all USHCN stations annual temperature in the CONUS versus snowfall.
Clearly increased snowfall and decreased temperature correlate. The three graphs above were plotted by Steve Goddard.
But, when you raise an objection and the snow doesnt fall your way, look out for UCT or MbW.
( two patterns of conspiritorial ideation )
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Is that the inverse of CbR?
(Can’t be Right)
I mean given that NoA, this is obviously a purpose designed event with NI. And what is with the deputy mayor? 100 years? Is he that old? How can he make such a claim? Clear case of PV.
So let me get this right. It is freezing with more snow than normal in Russia because the climate has warmed. … …. …. Right…. and I have a bridge you can buy.
Snowing in February in Moscow requires warmer weather.
It doesn’t generally snow when it is very cold (well below freezing). Most of Antarctica, for example, has almost no snowfall.
100 years ago we were in a similar solar cycle a low one!
Co-incidence or connection!
All that extra water vapor from Global Warming has to go somewhere when it doesn’t show up anywhere else.
@ur momisugly Mosher…real world experience refutes your
junk science.
I predict the worst flooding in Moscow in 100 years within the next 90 days.
I predict it will be blamed on AGW causing the snow to melt extra fast.
I predict also that at least one reporter will claim that thermal expansion, which is why sea levels are rising, is partly to blame.
I predict that the reporter will be mocked to no end in the blogosphere.
I predict that there will be no mention of the stupidity in the MSM and the reporter will get a promotion to the science desk of a major news outlet.
I know what Mosher is thinking right now. NoA, CbR, SS and PV. Obviously the reporter is as yet unknown, but has a terrible case of NI spurred on by suspicion of NS and PV when explained to by BOFL (Big Oil Funded Lobbyists).
Nice bit of hindcasting to link to Mosher. Pity they didn’t do a FOREcast.
I’ve always had my doubts about Curry.
@Greg House
I had a recollection of you pushing the warmist man-made CO2-cuses global warming agenda.
I checked some of the past threads and can’t find it.
I must have been wrong
This shows one should check first.
My unreserved apologies.
RockyRoad says, February 5, 2013 at 7:34 pm: “Except, Mr. House, they can’t accuse CO2 for being the villain! The reason? The increase in CO2 for the first two-thirds of this warming period you’ve identified was negligible. In fact, the rate of warming since 1860 ’till the present has been pretty much constant.”
=========================================================
I did not identify any warming period, but you did, like warmists did, too. May I ask why? Did you ever checked their calculations and their “methods”? I guess no, you did not. Does not look particularly skeptical to me.
The second thing is, they do accuse CO2 for being the villain but also for physical reasons. So, even if you show them “cooling”, it will not affect their story about physics. Therefore, just connecting temperature and CO2 you are missing the point again.
It is not only you personally, it is a wide spread wrong approach. You lose on both fronts, if you pardon this comparison. It is time people who call themselves “skeptics” realise that.
Mike says:
February 5, 2013 at 6:10 pm
What starts out as a joke among skeptics is plagiarized by the warmists as being real.
Global warming is everything. As for pokerbuys comment that “The one thing they can’t blame gw is actual global cooling”, give it time and be prepared to be amazed by how alarmists will prove that global warming causes cooling.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I already had some nice old lady at a church event explain to me how CAGW was causing global cooling. I had a hard time keeping a straight face.
Mosher writes:
“For me, when the ice fell below the record, my prior was “expect some record snowfall/colder winters in the NH.” Better than a 50/50 bet. Clearly not a sure thing, but clearly not a pure coin toss.”
Not a prediction and not science. Take it a step farther. You cannot produce one physical hypothesis that has been well confirmed and that can explain the connection you postulate.
Bayesian statistics is the last refuge of frustrated decision theorists. You can use Bayesian methods to eliminate unhelpful patterns in your betting behavior, but doing so tells you nothing about the world.
William McClenney says:
February 5, 2013 at 7:15 pm
OK. I’ll see your….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ROTFLMAO, you have an interesting sense of humor. I was just thinking that earlier today after rereading The End Holocene, or How to Make Out Like a ‘Madoff’ Climate Change Insurer
In Moscow AGW causes heavy snow fall. Here is Michigan the lack of snow is being blamed on AGW. I know there is a logical reason for this……Hmmmmm what could it be.
drought bad
Moisture bad
wish they would make up their minds
William McClenney says:
February 5, 2013 at 7:24 pm
Let’s see if the link works in this paste:
Instability of climate and vegetation dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe during the final stage of the Last Interglacial (Eemian, Mikulino) and Early Glaciation
FIXED (I hope)
MichaelS, I cant seem to find the original image in amongst the many pages of posts on this event. I’ll take another look tonight.
http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/74587-stratosphere-temperature-watch-20122013/
I’m sure another one will pop up before too long though. There was a big warm blob over Canada. Of course warm is relative, I suppose it could still be cold but anomously warm.
Mooloo says:
It doesn’t generally snow when it is very cold (well below freezing). Most of Antarctica, for example, has almost no snowfall.
While there are parts of Antartica that do not get much snow (eg the Dry Valley), where do you think those great ice sheets covering Antartica come from?
If Anarctica doen’t get much snow then why are white out conditions so frequent over much of the continent?
I do believre that there may be a bit of generalising over the whole continent based on what happens in part of it. There are huge dry regions of little snow fall to the west of many of the Antarctic mountain ranges, but regions of heavy snowfall to the east of them.
What caused the snow 100 years ago?
Not a legitimate argument against CO2 today: two different causes, some result. Car goes off a cliff, one is bad brakes, the other murder-suicide.
Not that I believe in CAGW/The IPCC Meme, but a non-argument is a non-argument.
Gail Combs says, February 5, 2013 at 8:38 pm: “I already had some nice old lady at a church event explain to me how CAGW was causing global cooling. I had a hard time keeping a straight face.”
===============================================================
Actually, Gail, some warmists do say sometimes that global warming might be the reason for some regional cooling, but this is a different point.
By the way, I would like ask you something, because you use this “CAGW” acronym instead of “AGW” which indicates that you agree on “A”, “G” and “”W”. Why do you think that global warming can not cause global cooling? I am just curious, because some things causing certain effect long term can cause an opposite effect for a while.
Mooloo says;
“It doesn’t generally snow when it is very cold (well below freezing). Most of Antarctica, for example, has almost no snowfall.”
Most of Antarctica is technically a desert, although it has cold temperatures………….
Dryness/Moisture levels define a desert, not the temperature.
It’s plenty cold up here in Upstate New York (well below freezing for several weeks now) and it’s still snowing lots. Lots of moisture offshore in the Great Lakes, no desert conditions here.
Cheers, Kevin.
@Mosher
The abstract says it will snow more in early winter (based no doubt on the logic that the moisture is hanging around in the air waiting to come south and drop but obviously it couldn’t wait there all winter so better say it will be in early winter so that if it happens to snow a lot it can be said to be a predicted consequence of global warming). It is not early winter. It did not snow any more in early winter than usual because of the record rate of sea ice formation shutting off the warm supply of moisture evaporating into the baking heat of the Arctic Autumn air. Otherwise it would have.
It is snowing a lot because sometimes it does just like sometimes it snows a lot in Ottawa (sometimes a lot more than 2 metres – remember 1972?) My prediction is that sometimes it won’t. This constant variability is no doubt caused by the agonising lack of global warming. I have successfully modelled it using a variety of variable constants.
RE where to send the money. I combine the suggestions from Roland and the guy with two cats:
“Gaia is angry, send more money to Pachauri@wtf.ru“
MichaelS…. found one.
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/TempLS/ERSST1951Ave_Temp_offset%20Jan%202013%20%20base%201951%201980.jpg
Not all of Canada. Perhaps you missed out 😉
@Mosher:
“For me, when the ice fell below the record, my prior was ‘expect some record snowfall/colder winters in the NH.’ Better than a 50/50 bet. Clearly not a sure thing, but clearly not a pure coin toss.”
But your prediction is definitely not good enough to qualify you as a PMCFT [Professional Miss Cleo Fortune Teller]. Although the 100% rate at which the Warmists’ “scientific” predictions fail to materialize, or even impress at all, is….ommmmmm….most likely “unprecedented”!
Birdieshooter says:
February 5, 2013 at 8:51 pm
In Moscow AGW causes heavy snow fall. Here is Michigan the lack of snow is being blamed on AGW. I know there is a logical reason for this……Hmmmmm what could it be.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Simple, the jet stream is now in a more meridional pattern. This means the weather gets ‘weirder” and the CAGW pushers know it. You are going to get blocking highs, droughts, floods, extremes of hot and cold temperature as the loopy jets alternately pull polar or tropical air into a region.
Ozone, UV and EUV seem to cause the shift in the jet stream Ozone depletion trumps greenhouse gas increase in jet-stream shift see my comment
e_media/
Sorry Theo. if you have a problem with Bayes, then take it up with your local stats department, maybe they will offer you a chair. hell, go argue with Nic lewis who uses it to get a low estimate of sensitivity. hell, go argue with matt briggs.
next
”
Not a prediction and not science. Take it a step farther. You cannot produce one physical hypothesis that has been well confirmed and that can explain the connection you postulate.”
Sure I can, the loss of ice is predicted to lead to an increased amplitude in the circulation patterns.. confirmed. The increase in amplitude means a lower frequency and higher probablity of blocking patterns. Confirmed. there are a couple papers published on this. reading is fundamental.