Image Credit: Remote Sensing Systems (RSS)
By WUWT regular “Just The Facts”
I recommend that everyone watch this brief Weather Channel segment titled “Blame Climate Change for Long Winter“, the video description states that, “In much of the country this winter has stretched well into spring. The Weather Channel meteorologist Julie Martin asks the experts if climate change is to blame.” The Weather Channel segment puts forth the case that the “Long Winter” was caused by “Global Climate Change”, whatever that means. This argument is supported by this Huffington Post article “Climate Change ‘Causing Colder British Winters’ Says Met Office Chief Scientist“.
“Dr Julia Slingo told ITV News global warming may be responsible for the extreme weather.” “It definitely seems like the warming of the arctic is ‘loading the dice’ over cold dry winters.”
“As Britain experienced freezing cold weather and snow, with thousands of homes across the UK without power, the government’s outgoing chief advisor warned last month that climate change will bring greater extremes.
After the coldest March for 50 years, Professor Sir John Beddington said Britain was already experiencing climate change.”
Accuweather also adds support in their piece, “Historic Snowstorm Records; Climate Change to Blame?”
“While the debate as to whether climate change is responsible for the rare May snow across the Plains and Upper Midwest continues, there is no question that the snowstorm is historical with numerous records broken.”
“Before this snowstorm, “no station has reported an inch or more of snowfall in Iowa in May since 1967,” stated General Forecaster Jim Lee in a report issued by National Weather Service’s Des Moines Office.
Not only did the 3.1 inches of snow in Omaha break the previous May record of 2.0 inches from 1945, but also marked the city’s first measurable snow in 46 years.
Thursday was only the second time in recorded history that Kansas City, Mo., received measurable snow in May. A total of 0.5 of an inch fell Thursday, while the only other such occurrence was May 3, 1907.”
“For some, the historical aspect of this snowstorm raises the question as to whether climate change is fully or partially responsible.”
However, there are apparently some dissenting opinions who don’t think that Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change are the cause of Long Cold winters and late winter storms, e.g. in the same AccuWeather article:
AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Bernie Rayno weighed in by saying, “I do not believe this [snowstorm] has anything to do with climate change. It is ridiculous that ‘climate change’ is being blamed for seemingly everything recently.”
As such, let us explore an alternate explanation for this year’s Long Cold Winter and late season snowstorms. RSS Northern Polar Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly – 1979 to Present;
was -0.27° K/C in March, 2013. Note that RSS uses a base period of 1979-1998 (20 years) versus the WMO standard of 1981-2010.
Also in this 3-Year snapshot of RSS Northern Polar Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly – 1979 to Present;
Northern Polar Troposphere Temperature is currently at its lowest point in the last three years.
I will leave it to WUWT’s readers to sort this one out…
TimTheToolMan says: May 5, 2013 at 4:30 am
anthropogenic
Corrected, thanks.
In the spirit of hysteria over weather, I will pretend we are all going to freeze/starve due to an inactive sun.
Then introduce Sun Worship and the need for heretic/witches to be sacrificed, by firing them into the sun.
Enough additional matter should “stoke” the furnaces of the sun and save our society.
Identify all the CAGW cliche as the witches and we have a retribution and scapegoating scheme worthy of our ancestors.(Technically “deniers” of the Sun’s power)
And of course using this impeccable logic (IPCC TM), when no effect is noticeable, we can only respond by firing even more of the self identified group, into the sun.
Sick I know, but consistent with human nature and provides a “proof” that the social justice, enviro-nutz and doom by co2 people are actually good for something.
Now I do offer this sarcasm tongue in cheek, but I too have a need for retribution upon the fools who have debased science, squandered public wealth and abandoned reason.
Far too many of these loons will retire, rewarded with public pensions and escape fitting punishment for the harm they have created.
For the damage has been enormous, if one had maliciously planned to destroy the poor, what more effective tools could they have chosen?
Bill Illis says:
May 5, 2013 at 6:24 am
Good catch.
The AGW theorists clearly caught making mutually incompatible claims as regards jet stream shifts which is a point I have been making for several years.
If, however, one proposes stratospheric cooling when the sun is more active and stratospheric warming when it is less active then everything falls into place.
That, however is the opposite of the conventional wisdom as I have pointed out many times before both here and elsewhere.
The established view of the sign of the solar effect on temperatures in mesosphere and stratosphere must be wrong otherwise we cannot account for recent observations or the climate zone and jet stream shifts observed in LIA and MWP.
An active sun must cool the stratosphere in order to induce poleward shifting as observed in the MWP and recent warm period.
The observed change in temperature trend in the stratosphere around 2000 with subsequent changes in jet stream behaviour favours solar rather than CO2 causation.
Jimbo says: May 5, 2013 at 8:57 am
Please note also that the Met Office this April said that the Arctic was not to blame for the harsh winter. They need to get their act together. Julia Slingbat needs to shut up, investigate things first they make pronouncements.
Yes, there is a big difference between the large uncertainties contained within the April 2013 Met Office report you state, that has Julia Slingo’s name on it;
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/i/2/March2013.pdf
and this April 11th ITV News interview with Julia:
In the Met Office report it states that:
In the ITV News interview, Julia Slingo focuses only on the Arctic as the driver of cold weather and uses the highly suspect terms disrupted, disruption and disruptions, which don’t appear anywhere in the Met Office report. It seems apparent the Julia Slingo is being duplicitous and spouting alarmist rhetoric. Quite a sad spectacle coming from the Met Office’s Chief Scientist…
Oh. Now I get it… warm makes cold.
Just think how much money I can save this summer by not running the air conditioning.
One of the problems is that terms like “Global Warming”, “Global Climate Change”, “Anthropogenic Global warming” are used by media interchangeably. We should not fall into that trap oourselves.
Few of us with any sense of geology will deny the existence of Climate Change.
Many of us will even agree that we are actually living in a period of major changes in climate.
These changes have little or nothing to do with carbon dioxide, but are due to major happenings in our solar system (both of a gravity and a magnetic nature), which have a number of reputable solar physicists declare that we are entering a Grand Minimum, with comparisons to the Dalton or even the Maunder. These signs are reflected in several earthly manifestations, mostly in the oceans.
Look to Leroux’ Mobile Polar Highs for the Arctic outbursts that we have been witnessing. The MPH is strong and is sending its fingers to the lower attitudes, taking advantage of the patterns of Rossby waves. As a result, sliding under the Hadley cell’s warm air, it contorts the Jet Stream pattern and creates so-called “blocking highs” that keeps these outbreaks (or for that matter the Russian/Pakistan summer hot trend a couple of years ago) in place longer than usual.
Now, I know this is not proof. I am a geologist, not a meteorologist. But the subject matter of sun/earth interaction is one that attracts little research funding and that too few researchers are pursuing.
Finally, those in the advocacy field should concentrate on the alternative of a CO2-ruled climate change , accept climate change as it is, i.e. natural cooling as well as warming, and propagate the need for society to prepare for the consequences of a prolonged cooling spell, with all its hazards of food supply and living conditions.
Seriously, It’s the sun.
Not much question that climate change is associated with changes in the climate.
But it is remarkable that so many consider this deeply meaningful somehow.
@Chad Jessup says:
May 4, 2013 at 10:11 pm
There have been some pretty good minds that say look at the pole/equator temperature gradients for a fairly predictable winter forecast.
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Colder climate causes longer winters. Warmer climate causes longer summers. The colder the earth the steeper the gradient and vice-a-versa.
When you are right its a reason, when wrong an excuse
If I may suggest a post I did recently
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/17763
There is no end in site. Its not unlike watching the knight guarding the bridge in The Search for the Holy Grail.. one limb after another gets chopped off and he thinks he’s winning
“The colder the earth the steeper the gradient and vice-a-versa.”
Not so simple.
Both warming from the equatorial surface and cooling above the tropopause will increase the gradient.
Both cooling from the equatorial surface and warming above the tropopause will decrease the gradient.
The change in the gradient in response to any cause is actually a negative system response seeking to cancel out the forcing element that caused the change in gradient.
That change in gradient alters the latitudinal position of the climate zones and jet streams so as to change the rate of throughput of energy.
The effect is to maintain top of atmosphere radiative balance over time thereby preserving the system energy content which is set only by atmospheric mass, the strength of the gravitational field and the intensity of insolation.
The radiative characteristics of constituent molecules cannot influence system energy content, merely the sizes positions and intensities of the permanent climate zones and compared to natural influences from solar and oceanic variability radiative characteristics count for nothing.
It was Vicky Pope head of climate predictions whose flight to Cancun was cancelled from global warming piled up at Gatwick:
“Snow irony
Vicky Pope, head of the climate predictions programme at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, was stuck at Gatwick airport this week, a victim of Britain’s brutal cold snap. Ironically, she was on her way to Cancún to announce, together with the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation, that 2010 had provisionally tied with 1998 as the hottest year on record. Scientists from the Noaaa and Nasa, the two other institutes that provide data on global temperatures were wisely staying put in the US, having already stated that it looked like being the hottest year ever.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/cancun-climate-change-summit-zapatistas
Stephen Wilde says:
May 5, 2013 at 11:20 am
“The colder the earth the steeper the gradient and vice-a-versa.”
Not so simple.
———————————————
That is very interesting, but isn’t that shorter term and therefore weather rather than climate? Within a year will not all that balance out? I am sure it will as heat transport, the main driver of the weather, is very efficient in maintaining the gradient.
Goode ’nuff says:
May 5, 2013 at 12:57 am
Very interesting, thanks. May I suggest that when you post you remind everyone what part of the country you are talking about.
Albert Jacobs says:
May 5, 2013 at 10:54 am
“One of the problems is that terms like “Global Warming”, “Global Climate Change”, “Anthropogenic Global warming” are used by media interchangeably.”
Another problem is that all television talking heads continue to benefit from the “airhead assumption” for news readers that has long prevailed. None of them get criticism for the shallowness of their knowledge of climate science and their willingness to say things that they do not understand in the least. Some of them get criticism for their willingness to spout a party line but most do not. The citizens of the USA have the power to change this deplorable situation through our individual actions. Call them out.
Laurence Clark Crossen said:
“That is very interesting, but isn’t that shorter term and therefore weather rather than climate? Within a year will not all that balance out? I am sure it will as heat transport, the main driver of the weather, is very efficient in maintaining the gradient”
Indeed, non radiative heat transport, the main driver of the weather, is very efficient at maintaining the gradient.
That is my point.
On longer term time scales than seasonal variability many factors seek to disturb the gradient set by mass, gravity and insolation. One of those factors is the radiative characteristics of constituent molecules such as CO2.
Whatever the disruptive influence (other than mass, gravity or insolation) the gradient is maintained over time.
Weather and climate change (shifting climate zones and jets) is the negative system response in action.
We can see from MWP and LIA that the natural solar and ocean induced variations are very large, about 1000 miles latitudinally. Our CO2 might contribute a mile or so.
Doesn’t their claim of longer winters support the argument that the earth has a natural response to global warming? (Man-made warming or natural warming doesn’t matter to the earth.)
Longer winters following a period of warmer than average climate, seems like a natural negative feedback. What am I missing?
I don’t know if anyone noticed that the AO has been negative for 6 months with lowest March reading since 1950 of -2.535 and the lowest single reading of -5.5 . This is sure to bring a lot of cold Arctic air south . Add to this the lowest solar sunspot readings since 1900, cooling global SST, more frequent and bigger sudden stratospheric warming which can bring even more cold air south from the Arctic ,no El Ninos and the land covered with 4th highest snow levels on record . All this has very liitle to do with climate change caused by global warming caused by man but everything to do with natural climate cycles that would change whether man was on this planet or not. and which periodically change in magnitude and frequency
I am going to correct myself . This past March had the second lowest AO reading of -2.535. The March of 1962 had a slightly lower level of -2.848.
Let me get this straight –
The overheated atmosphere causes the ice to melt excessively. Everyone knows that ice has to absorb energy to melt and this cools the overheated atmosphere resulting in a cold winter while the melted ice is rapidly re-freezing releasing heat to the cold atmosphere causing – er – warming ?
Yeah – that makes sense !
In reply to;
Joseph Bastardi says:
May 5, 2013 at 11:12 am
When you are right its a reason, when wrong an excuse
If I may suggest a post I did recently
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/17763
There is no end in site. Its not unlike watching the knight guarding the bridge in The Search for the Holy Grail.. one limb after another gets chopped off and he thinks he’s winning
Best wishes Joe,
William.
I concur with your comments. Thank-you for articles here and elsewhere. I hope things are going well for you.
I have been busy working away to solve the details of the forcing mechanisms that cause the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, the Heinrich events, and the glacial/interglacial cycles. I have made significant progress although there are a few issues particularly timing of the phases that I am unsure of.
The current solar observations strongly point to the start of the cooling phase of either a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle or possibly and likely to a Heinrich event. If there are signs of Dansgaard-Oeschger cooling, there should be business opportunities as the climate change problem will be significant global cooling.
There are periods of millions of years when planetary temperature does not correlate with atmospheric CO2 levels. There have been a series of papers that have been written to attempt redact the evidence.
It appears the greenhouse gas warming mechanisms saturate. Part of the solution to the anomaly is the Lindzen and Choi’s finding that clouds in the tropics resist forcing changes by reflecting more or less sunlight off into space. I suspect that there is however something else that has been missed.
Tom in Indy: I don’t think you’re missing anything; increased snowfall in Canada and Siberia as a result of increased moisture availability, and consequently a larger snowpack at the end of winter, is a very definite negative feedback.
More on topic, I’m not sure I follow the point of the original post. I mean, to me it reads as something along the lines of “cold northern hemisphere weather was caused by cold northern hemisphere weather.” Fair enough, but why the frigidity? What was the cause of the low tropospheric temperatures from 60˚ to 82.5˚ N?
They got it wrong. The long and cold winter could mean some climate change, because to change the climate you need first to change the weather.
I expect still that “climate change” means what it says, that climate changes and in any direction.
This is actually great news because a key part of the process of demise of the settled science is absurdity and over reach. It loses elections and it loses political science of global warming.
Joseph Bastardi says:
May 5, 2013 at 11:12 am
____________________________________________________
Nice job Mr. B! Well worth linking again.
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/17763
Succinct and poignant. Just like the conversation should be with respect to science.
What a great interview/online discussion to have on WUWT TV Anthony.
Just sayin>
“Were Late Season Snowstorms and the Long Cold Winter Caused by Anthropogenic Global Warming or a Cold Northern Polar Region?”
The question is why the AO went so negative in March. And if the short term solar signal is responsible, there will be no internal forcing mechanism to be found.