Forecast is for more snow in polar regions, less for the rest of us (Journal of Climate) Posted on February 22, 2013
By Catherine Zandonella, Office of the Dean for Research
A new climate model predicts an increase in snowfall for the Earth’s polar regions and highest altitudes, but an overall drop in snowfall for the globe, as carbon dioxide levels rise over the next century.
The decline in snowfall could spell trouble for regions such as the western United States that rely on snowmelt as a source of fresh water.
The projections are the result of a new climate model developed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and analyzed by scientists at GFDL and Princeton University. The study was published in the Journal of Climate.
The model indicates that the majority of the planet would experience less snowfall as a result of warming due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Observations show that atmospheric carbon dioxide has already increased by 40 percent from values in the mid-19th century, and, given projected trends, could exceed twice those values later this century. In North America, the greatest reductions in snowfall will occur along the northeast coast, in the mountainous west, and in the Pacific Northwest. Coastal regions from Virginia to Maine, as well as coastal Oregon and Washington, will get less than half the amount of snow currently received.
In very cold regions of the globe, however, snowfall will rise because as air warms it can hold more moisture, leading to increased precipitation in the form of snow. The researchers found that regions in and around the Arctic and Antarctica will get more snow than they now receive.
The highest mountain peaks in the northwestern Himalayas, the Andes and the Yukon region will also receive greater amounts of snowfall after carbon dioxide doubles. This finding clashes with other models which predicted declines in snowfall for these high-altitude regions. However, the new model’s prediction is consistent with current snowfall observations in these regions.
The model is an improvement over previous models in that it utilizes greater detail about the world’s topography – the mountains, valleys and other features. This new “high-resolution” model is analogous to having a high-definition model of the planet’s climate instead of a blurred picture.
The study was conducted by Sarah Kapnick, a postdoctoral research scientist in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Princeton University and jointly affiliated with NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, and Thomas Delworth, senior physical scientist at GFDL.
Read a plain-language summary of the article on GFDL’s web site.
Citation: Kapnick, Sarah B. and Thomas L. Delworth, 2013. Controls of Global Snow Under a Changed Climate. Journal of Climate. Early online release published Feb. 6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12–00528.1
This work was supported by the Cooperative Institute for Climate Science, a collaborative institute between Princeton University and GFDL.
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Mark Bofill says:
February 22, 2013 at 7:44 pm
Mark, I agree with all of this.
We’re using technology to post on a blog that was verified by models and simulators. There’s nothing wrong with simulation technology. But you have to understand the fidelity of your model. And GCM’s have very low fidelity, at least for now.
Mark Bofill says:
February 23, 2013 at 8:09 am
Yes, but it does not make AGW mute either.
The mass of the Earth is 5.97(10^24) kg. The mass of the atmosphere 5.3(10^18) kg, the oceans 1.4(10^21) kg, the surface area of the oceans 3.61(10^8) sq. km, land 1.4(10^8) sq. km… this is a profoundly huge and complicated system…then there is topography and … i cannot list all the variable related to climate on a global scale (have they all been discerned?) nor can i proclaim to know all the (likely) non-linear inter-relationship between these n variables … it seems as daunting a task as solving Scroedinger’s Equation in the early 1900s
The fact that the scientists created simple models and then began to speculate (like with the doom and gloom of the pending ice-age in the 1960s), their boiling planet speculation was picked up by the media as a commodity to exploit, the politician begin to see a boogie-man to distract the public and provide an income stream as well as an amulet to charm the masses, the academics see a new field to exploit (like the social worker craze of the last half century?) corporations jump in the band wagon or slap the politicians in the head and say look at this opportunity (leading the band wagon) blah blah blah.
What results is polarized belief systems too invested in to stop the gravy trains and faith based emoters.
I am not arguing that AGW is true, i am saying that it is a likely contributor to climate that will change (weather (pun) humans are in the audience or naught). My concern of late is that iff there is a kernel of truth to AGW it will be lost in this sea of incompetence and bluster.
Noticed that advocacy for many societal concerns are sweep aside by the hypnotizing boogie of the media machine.
Divide and conquer has become confuse and confiscate.
>>>old construction worker says:
February 22, 2013 at 4:36 pm
Well, the North Pole Region must include the mountains of Arizona, Colorado, Buffalo NY as well as the ski slopes of Vermont.
>>> So the model calls for more snow where it’s wanted, and less snow where it’s just a nuisance. Sounds like a good thing to me!
Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen.
Sorry mod; meant capitulate not confiscate…i should have proof read, like i usually do.
kjjk
vivendi says:
February 23, 2013 at 8:38 am
They are giving the “purpose” of the paper away right at the beginning, when they say:
” … as a result of warming due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide”. Does CO2 have to DOUBLE to create warming? They are just throwing in some propagandistic buzzwords, a serious scientist would never use this kind of wording.
==========
Keep your eye on the pea…….not long ago it was tipping points……now it’s doubling
“The study was published in the Journal of Climate.”
>>> About thirty years ago, I wrote a paper modeling snow accumulation during the Pleistocene ice age. Based on the results, I offered a “projection” of future snow in the paper. “Too speculative”, the reviewers said, so I removed that section from the paper. The rest was published in the Annals of Glaciology – “Statistical-dynamical model of accumulation on the Greenland Ice Sheet”, Annals of Glaciology, 5, 69-74 (1984), to be exact. It was a nice, compact paper, and included an admission that it would be difficult to verify what the snow accumulation during the ice age actually was.
Times have changed. These days they triple cow farts, push a button to run a model, and the results are readily published without question, speculation be damned. The next year they triple dog emissions to keep their publication count active.
That’s one reason the journals are hardly worth reading any more, and future generations will find it frustrating to go through these journals looking for something of lasting significance. Of course, they could do a negative search for keywords “might” and “could” and “possible”.
Sometimes less is more.
The poles obviously now extend at least half-way to the equator, possibly further if required.
One point that Moshe and the other modelling supporters don’t take into account is this: While an airplane may be designed by models, if it fails the testing at any point in its production cycle the reason if found and the MODEL IS CHANGED. In climatology, it’s the data that is changed. Constantly.
You can only have it one way, either mock them for changing the model or mock them for adapting to new data. Climatologists aren’t working on an engineering project, they’re trying to accumulate data. Changing data is a good reason to alter a model designed to gather data to support, alter, or reject theory. As we all know the data is constantly changing. Right here, people get excited about snowstorms using them as evidence even while knowing that the weather could change next week and provide new supposed evidence. Stay with the data.
Collect and study.
“old construction worker says:
February 22, 2013 at 4:36 pm
Well, the North Pole Region must include the mountains of Arizona, Colorado, Buffalo NY as well as the ski slopes of Vermont.”
Well I might as well add Florida to the list
I thought that more snow at the poles and less elsewhere was the way it has always been.
I think their claim that they can resolve the snowfall signal due to changes in CO2 versus all other inputs in the blackbox of our cilmate is pure bull sh17. A demonstration is in order. Of course I am certain they will dare nothing in the present, we will have to wait and point it out to the charlatans. CO2 is irrelevant in the signal to the point that it cannot be resolved against the noise. This is more crap that we paid for. Thanks libtards.
Well, Theo say CO2 doubling implies less snow everywhere except for the poles, but implicitly it says doubling CO2 implies higher temp implies less snow etc… The second part of the reasonning could well be true: since there si no warming any more, we have as much snow as before!
For several years, I’ve been asking myself why a significant number of both scientists and laymen apparently place the same level of faith in computer models that they do in empirical evidence. After all, computer models are only predictions or simulations, often based upon unproven presuppositions. In order for a computer model to be true, it must be verified over time by data collection and by observation of real-world events.
Now that 17 years have gone by with no apparent increase in world temperatures, even while CO2 levels have continued to rise dramatically, it was inevitable that politicians, people in the scientific community and the MSM would simply redouble their efforts and resort to the only game that pays (and the only one they know how to play). All of us are, after all, creatures of habit and easily maintained in our behavior by whatever is reinforcing to us. So long as we continue to receive social or monetary reinforcement for whatever we do, we will continue to do it. You can take that to the bank. In fact, all of us do, on a regular basis, since money is a major reinforcement.
Climate that is controlled by CO2 is a climate modeler’s “one trick pony,” fast becoming a “dead horse” which will be beaten until the modeler sees no value in continuing to beat it. The value will go out of beating that horse once a critical mass of people say, “enough is enough,” and the government, through it’s various organs like the NSF, stops funding research in this area. It’s hard to say just when that will happen. It’s possible that the whole thing could implode sometime soon, or the Obama administration and its special interests may be able to keep AGW alive for another 4 years. Or the whole thing will simply spin down, and at some time in the future people will wonder what all of the hysteria was about.
In any event, it seems likely that the “climate,” will continue to be uncooperative, and the modeler’s predictions will continue to fail, even though they may adjust their models and data to reflect current conditions. The problem is that the whole theory that the models are based upon is just wrong.
You are correct “You can only have it one way,” Yet, for those of us paying attention Warmists have wanted both ways in regards to snow in the northern hemisphere.
Now click on the link below and inform those Warmists that the weather is just the weather and not the climate. Tell them that long term data is what counts and not weather events. Also remember this in relation to heatwaves like the recent Russian one etc.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/22/snowjobs-are-just-a-thing-of-the-past-er-present/
Secondly, can you please let me know right here what would falsify the theory of AGW? Would 16 years of no warming do it? What about 17 years do it? If it’s science then it has to have a way of being falsified.
Bob,
See these:
David says:
February 22, 2013 at 5:02 pm
What a neat idea. Create a (dynamic) map of the world that rearranges the planet’s geography to make it consistent with Alarmist claims.
Mark Bofill says:
February 22, 2013 at 7:44 pm
Steven Mosher says:
February 22, 2013 at 6:40 pm
———————-
“I completely agree with you Steven. I think pursuing the models are worthwhile even if they aren’t of much use today. Maybe if we keep at it someday they’ll be more useful. However, I think this misses the point. What drives everybody insane IMO is that these models aren’t viewed as grossly imperfect tools that have a long way to go. Results from climate models are being used to justify policy changes that have a very real and severe impact on people as if they were already accurate today.”
Mark nails the point exactly. If you admit that the models are seriously imperfect then he cannot claim that they are useful as tools for policy decisions. You cannot have it both ways.
I want to add that the models are being used as replacements for a scientific theory of climate that does not yet exist. The models are being sold as Scientific Tools when not one of them, nor an ensemble of them, can pass the basic test of confirmed predictions.
So, if the future temps at the poles go from a winter time average of -50 deg F to -45 deg F there will be a significant increase in polar snowfall? I don’t have the calculations handy, but at such low temps, the ability of the atmosphere to hold water is so low that a +5 F deg increment is meaningless.
There IS no warming anymore???
JP says:
February 24, 2013 at 1:28 pm
“So, if the future temps at the poles go from a winter time average of -50 deg F to -45 deg F there will be a significant increase in polar snowfall? I don’t have the calculations handy, but at such low temps, the ability of the atmosphere to hold water is so low that a +5 F deg increment is meaningless.”
Modelers don’t know this sort of thing. You must have an interest in the facts in the environment and, hopefully, some experience of the environment to acquire this kind of knowledge. I have never encountered a modeler who did not express contempt for facts and experience.
Adrien says:
February 24, 2013 at 4:06 am
Good observation. No doubt some Alarmist will steal your logic and misuse it in some tricky press release.
RESnape says:
February 23, 2013 at 2:15 am
“In short, scientists are trying to reduce the complex chaotic behaviour of the climate down to a set of mathematical equations, in the HOPE that they can then begin to understand the processes that are going on.”
This is the absolute truth about modelers. If the modelers had well confirmed physical hypotheses which could be used to predict some behavior of the climate then you can bet that those hypotheses would have been on the front page of the NYT long ago. For lack of a science, they use models in the hope that they can stumble into the beginnings of a science.
ALL climate models are nothing but contrivances to try to back up an untenable hypothesis, relying on the ignorance of uninformed people. Touting models is nothing but incontrovertible proof of mendacity.
Climate models are to mitigate inconceivable complexity. The problem with the models is the ignorance of the designers, and the apparent unscientific approach or perhaps a new mathematics is needed or the math exists and has not been applied. Perhaps group theory and statistical thermodynamics…