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.”
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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.
Steven Mosher says:
February 5, 2013 at 7:40 pm
That declining Arctic ice sure is being naughty eh? Making the jet stream go all loopy and blocking the highs and making more moisture in the air and causing all that cold and snowy weather down below.
Oh dear
And there I was thinking the Russians carried antibodies to this tripe.
Maybe now people wonder why Putin doesn’t want NGOs in Russia??
Oh, theo… do you know what MbW stands for…. or UCT
Must Be Wrong. and Unreflective counterfactual Thinking.
Global Warming is a catch-all.
Less slow = more global warming
More snow = more global warming
More extreme weather = more global warming
More drought = more global warming
More flooding = more global warming
Essentially there is no conceivable weather phenomenon that cannot be subjectively attributed to Global Warming, nor is there any way to prove/disprove whether Global Warming caused some weather phenomenon because at the end of the day it’s all statistics and chaos theory and crazy unpredictable weather anyways.
TimTheToolman says
February 5, 2013 at 5:43 pm:
“…On the other side Canada appears to have missed this and has been exceptionally warm. …”
One way or another, the perception I carried in my head of the Canadian weather history for the last few weeks was somewhat different from what this says, so I put the following query:
“Last 4 weeks weather history for Canada”
into the input field at the Wolfram Alpha site and below is the gist of what it came up with ( there are couple of references to yesterday in parathenses the are mine otherwise the output is just text copy of the Alpha output):
——————————
time range | Wednesday, January 9, 2013 to Tuesday, February 5, 2013
temperature | (-40 to -18) °C (average low: -34 °C | average high: -28 °C
low -40°C recorded jan 16. 2013 | high -18 °C recorded jan 29. 2013
relative humidity | (59 to 84)% (average low: 63% | average high: 74%)
wind speed | (0 to 17) m/s (average: 7 m/s)
snow: 23.7% (7.1 days)
———————————————————————-
percpitation rate in the range from 0 to 55 mm/h.
with the 55 mm/h maximum recorded on feb 5. 2013 ( i.e. yesterday)
daily percpitation amount in the range of 0 to 33 cm.
with the 33 cm recorded recorded on feb. 5. 2013.
(N.B. 7 cm above the Moscow 100 high also recorded there yesterday)
———————————————————————-
tomorrow’s forecast:
between -33 °C and -29 °C
snow (all day) | cloudy (mid-morning to mid-afternoon) | partly cloudy (late afternoon onward)
(using weather station CYEK: 132 km NNE of center of Canada)
——————————————————————–
——————————————————————–
I know Canada is a large country , and I noticed that the Alpha site did choose to reference a a single station claiming it was the the most central it could find for Canada, rather than coming up with some kind of an average for the whole country, so I realize this is not really representative of anything but a single location and its close environs (‘but of course that close environ is roughly 1.75 million square miles if I use GISS infilling with 1200 Km radii /sarc’).
But caveats aside, I have a hard time visualizing temperatures between 20 to 40 °C below zero and up to 33 cm of snowfall in a single day as the ideal sunbathing weather you seem to be trying to impress on the readers here, but is rather an indication that my orginal perception ( =” cold and wet/snowy” ) of recent Canadian weather hisory was not so far off.
You all have it wrong. It’s George Bush’s fault…
Steven Mosher: I agree with you that the arctic ice vs snow theory is interesting – but did they really predict that these blocking patterns would last as long as to February? After all, there’s lots of ice up there now…
Anyway, this would be a negative feedback so not good for Cagw theory…
Mosher writes “The increase in amplitude means a lower frequency and higher probablity of blocking patterns. Confirmed.”
Not in this case though. This SSW was a specific (and from what I can tell quite rare) event. To link the snow to CO2 in this case means linking the SSW to CO2 and that would be like trying to link a specific storm to CO2…not likely to happen.
Steven Mosher says: February 5, 2013 at 7:40 pm
Higher winter snowfall?… makes sense [….]
The link between less ice and more winter snow in particular locations is an interesting one. Surely not settled. But, its not exactly wrong as the events in moscow attest. In fact we can probably say that it will never be proven, and can always be doubted, but since it was predicted one can hardly call it evidence disproving AGW. observe the subtle differences in that sentence.
Mosh, my dear friend. We are talking here about zealots who have been crying “We must act NOW, there is no time to waste!!” and wanting to make major untested changes to the global economy…
And their old predictions all failed, eg:
Other_Andy says: February 5, 2013 at 6:55 pm
http://www.climateadaptation.eu/russia/en#climate-change
Due to climate warming, a substantial reduction in snow cover is expected in most of the country.
…. But luckily they happen to have done thousands of runs with several different GCMs, so of course they can find in there that yes, somewhere, someone predicted this …
I can only quote your own feeble lines: “…But, it’s not exactly wrong as the events in Moscow attest. In fact we can probably say that it will never be proven, and can always be doubted…”
Their vaguely plausible theories are becoming barely defensible, and become even less so with unconvincing warriors such as Mosh tottering to the ramparts, armed with nought.
How can anyone doubt that snow in Russia is all the fault of CAGW? How, when watermelon NGO’s and greed-head corporations spend tens of millions every year on alarmist propaganda, to the praise of scientifically-illiterate media and opportunistic politicians, could I possibly suspect it’s not true?
“See, we were right, we can blame any kind of flippin’ weather. Send money quick, before you figure out we’re lyyyyyying.”
You silly skeptics, don’t you know that correllation doesn’t mean causation? Therefore no correlation = 100% YES causation…. therefore the heavy snow is ONLY due to lost sea ice = global warming.
Marc Morano points out this hilarity: Warmist Tobis says heavy snow is agw: calls anyone who mocks ‘clueless’ Logic Fail Logic Fail
Heh. http://planet3.org/2013/02/05/logic-fail-logic-fail/
I’m not able to comment there, but I have to laugh at the juxtaposition of Dana Nuccitelli’s comment with the Tobis comment policy statement right below it.
So other than an angry rant basically saying “global warming caused it cuz we say it does”, what has Tobis got in the way of a factual argument? Where is his supporting data? And he didn’t answer the question: “If global warming caused this snowfall event, what caused the heavy snow 100 years ago when CO2 levels were below Hansen’s “safe” 350ppm?”
His two commenters didn’t answer the question either. They also offered no supporting data, such as can be seen in the graphs I posted above.
For the record I grew up in the midwest, and faced the great blizzard of 1978 with its exceptionally cold temperatures and huge snowfalls, plus the Chicago Blizzard of 1979 (to name a couple I experienced firsthand). Tobis and friends seem to think that living in Northern California now somehow disqualifies me from understanding snow and temperature. That’s probably the lamest argument ever put forth by that guy. Imagine if I made the same argument because Tobis lives in Austin, TX. where “snowfall is rare“.
Whether the weather be hot,
Whether the weather be cold,
Whatever the weather,
We’ll weather the weather,
Whether we like it or not.
Anyone who really thinks warming can cause snow is delusional.
Alexei Kokorin, director of the climate and energy program at WWF Russia, is the same person who claimed that malaria never occurred in Russia before late 20th century warming. He claimed that malaria for the first time entered Russia because of global warming in 1990’s.
Also via Steven Goddard: Record 10 feet of snow in Pakistan. Pakistan is a good long way from the pole unless continental drift just took a surge. Don’t think polar ice has much to do with the precipitation in that area. I believe that mostly comes from a more southerly source of moisture: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/ten-feet-of-snow-in-pakistan/
Why anyone still listens to what these alarmists say is beyond me. Lets back up and take a look at the rhetoric over time:
Global warming will cause increased drought.
Global warming means snow in Europe will be a thing of the past.
Global warming will cause increased precipitation.
Global warming means snow in Europe will increase to record levels not seen in 100 years back when temperatures were cooler.
Does anyone still take these people seriously? If so, why?
It all sounds more and more like Willis’s “storm feedback theory of global temperature regulation” may extend to cover this as well ….
So soon the AGW will become NGSR (Natural Global Self Regulation).
Then we can simply blame ALL weather events on NGSR.
@crosspatch says:
February 5, 2013 at 11:30 pm
Why anyone still listens to what these alarmists say is beyond me. Lets back up and take a look at the rhetoric over time:
Global warming will cause increased drought.
Global warming means snow in Europe will be a thing of the past.
Global warming will cause increased precipitation.
Global warming means snow in Europe will increase to record levels not seen in 100 years back when temperatures were cooler.
Does anyone still take these people seriously? If so, why?
+++++++++++++
The short answer to your good question is and great post is: Yes, Mosher.
That Mosher can read your post and still make the statements that he does, boggles the mind. How do you do it Mosher?
I live in CA and stand against the tide of morons who parrot the same silliness… and I thought I was taking abuse. However, it’s fun having logic, sense and a science and process control background on my side; because I get to see dumbfounded faces as they squirm for rebuttals (which don’t exist.) tick tock… but but, the polar bears, but the glaciers… but, but the big oil… and that’s all folks…nothing.
And exactly 200 years ago (winter of 1812-13) Napoleon Bonaparte wasn’t exactly impressed by the Russian weather either
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Napoleons_retreat_from_moscow.jpg
It’s going to get worse in the next few years, Dalton type minimum approaching around 2020.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
Mosher: The “predictions” of more snow with less arctic ice, only came after the fact. Several IPCC reports, and many scientists like Viner, predicted less snow. When this did not happen, then a new theory had to be produced. That is, that a warming arctic causes meridional flow of the jet stream, which produces blocking highs.
Unfortunately, the prevailing theory until this point, was that warming causes the jet steam to contract, and follow a more zonal path, which reduces the number of blocking highs. Note the chart on this 1975 article. This is diametrically opposed to the new theory.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/download/id/37739/name/CHILLING_POSSIBILITIES
At the very least, this shows that science in the past few decades, had no idea on how the climate worked. On this faulkty science we are to base trillions of dollars in spending?
At the very worst, it means the old theory on zonal/meridional flow were right, and the current ones wrong. The result is that the new ones have been minted to force a round peg in a square hole. It also voids the null hypothesis. If it snows, its AGW. If doesn’t snow, its AGW.
I like empirical data, myself. Goddard’s charts on temps vs. snow fall show that at the very least, there is a negative feedback to a warmer arctic. Of course the R2 shows a relationship to arctic warmth and NH snow, to be unlikely.
From someone living in northern Sweden, I thought it was common knowledge that mild winters = more snow, cold winters = less snow.
Towards the end of the last Ice Age about 10-13 thousands year ago, the Neanderthals of Europe went on a march …. http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/winterblunder.jpg
The WWF are a completely despicable organisation …. the last place that still takes these idiot zealots seriously …. mainly as they are nothing more than a much of climate alarmists.
Personally, every time I see their advert on WattsUpWithThat, I click it this probably costs them about £1 each and every time I click.
More extreme weather from a ‘Lance Armstrong’ climate.
Keep rolling those dice…