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…
Ulric Lyons says:
May 5, 2013 at 6:44 pm
“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.
___________-__________________________________________________
The question would actually be,,,,, what is the timing of the Forcing/Feedback of a major injection of fresh water into the North Atlantic due to a week long cyclonic event directly over the North Pole in early August of last year that transported a huge amount of Arctic Ice to their melting point, no?
Is that science settled ?
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic-storm.html
Sam Yates says: May 5, 2013 at 3:20 pm
NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source[/caption]
NOAA – National Weather Service – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at source[/caption]
Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) – Microwave Sounding Units (MSU) – Click the pic to view at source[/caption]
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.”
Nope, you followed it just fine. I almost incorporated “Captain Obvious” somewhere into the article title. 🙂 The point is as simple as the long cold winter/later season snowstorms were caused by cooling, not warming. Absurd that it even has to be argued, but given how contorted the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming narrative has become, the Warmists are stuck trying to argue how warming causes cooling.
Fair enough, but why the frigidity? What was the cause of the low tropospheric temperatures from 60˚ to 82.5˚ N?
Simple answer is, I’ve got no idea. As herkimer says: May 5, 2013 at 1:50 pm and Ulric Lyons says: May 5, 2013 at 6:44 pm pointed out, there was a strong Arctic Oscillation/Polar Vortex later this winter, i.e. Northern Hemisphere – Vertical Cross Section of Geopotential Height Anomalies (Polar Vortex);
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="578"]
which can be seen as the cool spot over the Northern Polar region in this Zonal Mean Temperatures at 50-hPa/mb Height Temperature Anomalies – Atmospheric Temperature Anomalies At Approximately 20,100 meters (66,000 feet):
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="578"]
There was also a strong Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) this winter i.e. RSS Northern Polar Temperature Lower Stratosphere (TLS) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly – 1979 to Present;
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="578"]
This BBC article and video;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/20998895
offers some helpful insights on the 2013 SSW event.
Well I can’t see any connection between the squiggly line which is presumably data in Microwave Sounding Units; whatever they are, and past time since 1979, which seems to be one standard climate time interval, and the regular staircase line superimposed on top of that.
It seems to my quite untrained eye, that the Microwave sounding units stay pretty much level from 1979 to 1995, It then suddenly kicks up to a new level by about 1997-8 and stays there till about 20002 and another slight jog to a level that it has stayed at ever since.
I presume TLT refers to the tilt of the unexplained staircase plot.
It would be nice if people spoke in complete sentences, and use standard SI units for their data plots, so we have some idea what they are talking about.
Many thanks for responding! In the interest of full disclosure, I, uh, should probably clarify that I AM a “warmist” (just getting that out there now, before anyone gets the impression that I’m trying to sneak about here with a false wig and beard), and have wondered whether this is a manifestation of the sort of phenomenon that Dr. Jennifer Francis has proposed, and can be connected to the record low sea ice last winter (I’m sure you’ve had a variety of aggressive folks yammering at you about that before, so I won’t trouble your ears with yet more yammering). On the other hand, the strong negative excursion of the AO happened awfully late in the season for that mechanism to have been responsible, so I have to say that I half-suspect that you’re basically right here. Sometimes these things do just happen, and sometimes (most of the time, actually) the weather twists itself into knots for no climatologically significant reason.
I agree with Stan Stendera – AGW alarmism is already killing thousands and making millions suffer unspeakably – and I myself can’t just sit idly by while these mass murderers keep going on their rampage. This is not an extreme statement – it is factual, and there is plenty of empirical data to support it.
Sam Yates says: May 5, 2013 at 8:29 pm
In the interest of full disclosure, I, uh, should probably clarify that I AM a “warmist” (just getting that out there now, before anyone gets the impression that I’m trying to sneak about here with a false wig and beard), and have wondered whether this is a manifestation of the sort of phenomenon that Dr. Jennifer Francis has proposed
I would actually beg to differ, I don’t think you are a Warmist. You might believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, you might believe the anthropogenic CO2 emissions have a measurable warming influence on Earth’s temperature, and you might even believe that humans are negatively impacting mother Earth, but I believe all those things too. The reason that I don’t think you are Warmist is that your tone is friendly and open, and that you used the word “wondering”. In my parlance, Warmists are those who advocate the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming narrative without skepticism or doubt.
have wondered whether this is a manifestation of the sort of phenomenon that Dr. Jennifer Francis has proposed and can be connected to the record low sea ice last winter (I’m sure you’ve had a variety of aggressive folks yammering at you about that before, so I won’t trouble your ears with yet more yammering).
There’s actually been no yammering, and your opinion is most welcome. I certainly cannot dismiss the possibility that the significant decrease in summer sea ice has influenced late winter polar temperatures, however I have not seen any empirical evidence to support this possibility.
On the other hand, the strong negative excursion of the AO happened awfully late in the season for that mechanism to have been responsible, so I have to say that I half-suspect that you’re basically right here. Sometimes these things do just happen, and sometimes (most of the time, actually) the weather twists itself into knots for no climatologically significant reason.
I agree, that’s fundamentally my point on the whole climate system, i.e. it is a ridiculously complex, continually evolving, and sometimes chaotic beast, with a tremendous number of variables and feedbacks:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/research-pages/potential-climatic-variables/
Furthermore, our understanding of Earth’s climate system is currently rudimentary at best, our measurement capabilities are limited and our historical record is laughably brief.
I think almost everyone on this thread would agree with you that “the weather twists itself into knots for no climatologically significant reason”. Now if we could just get Julia Slingo et al. to understand that, we might be able to get on with the process of understanding of Earth’s climate system, rather than trying to attribute every short term variance to Global Climate Warming Change Disruption. 🙂
Joseph Bastardi says: May 5, 2013 at 11:12 am
I fear the Black Climate Knights are in league with the Knights who say Nit, such is the movement of goal posts.
********
wws on May 5, 2013 at 7:45 am All of this can be fixed if the Tribe will just throw all of their gold into the Volcano, Then the Earth Gods will be appeased.The High Priests will have to get their cut, of course. But the Holy Men who talk to the Gods for us deserve no less, right?
Whilst your logic is to be praised I must correct you.
Gold must be hoarded not smelted in Hekla/Katla etc but can be accepted as payment for ‘presentations’ and to fund the jetsetting to spread the word so more people lie awake at night fearing the climate apocalypse. A tithe is an acceptable penance (paid in gold) however, and this is the fatal flaw in your logic, Volcano Gods are only appeased by human sacrifice. Therefore to avert the end of times we must throw unbelievers into the lava pits.
/sarc
Myrrh on May 5th 2013 at 1:00
Global Warming piling up at the airport stopping flights. I love that, its brilliant. “Hey look at all of that lovely global warming covering that mountain” “Hey kids lets make a globalwarming man in the backyard” Globalwarming is my new word for snow, Thanks Im using that from now on thats it.
Asking the question (in the title) is answering it. Just apply Occam’s rule.
I’m just waiting for the headline which reads “Abnormally long stretch of average temperatures and weather blamed on climate change.” They already have climate change as a suspect for both colder than normal and warmer than normal — why not average as well?
Why does anyone still watch the Weather Channel?? After they started their infantile storm naming practice, I quit using them as a reliable source of weather information (along with the awful “Weather Underground,” which I discarded a long time ago).
Funny… changed from Global Warming to Climate Change.. of course the climate always changes over time. WTF, what a Load of Crap blaming warmer than average artic temperatures (There still cold up north) when we get cold weather down south.
Interesting polar temperature graphs. The first one shows steady long term warming from 1979 on. This means that the Arctic today is the only part of the world still warming. And no thanks to the greenhouse effect which Ferenc Miskolczi has proved to be non-existent. What is warming the Arctic now is not any anthropogenic carbon dioxide cloud but warm currents of the Atlantic Ocean. As I proved in my peer reviewed paper on the Arctic, It all started with a change in the North Atlantic current system at the turn of the twentieth century. Arctic temperature prior to this was two thousand years of slow cooling. The warming started at the turn of the century, paused for thirty years from 1940 to 1970, then resumed, and is apparently still going strong to judge by the RSS data in your graph. There are numerous observations of this warming from the twenties to the 2000s. Direct measurements in 2010 by Spielhagen et al. determined that water temperature reaching the Arctic then was the highest in 2000 years of Arctic history. The source of this warmth can be nothing but warm Gulf Stream water carried north by currents. The interruption of warming in mid-century very likely was caused by return of the previous flow pattern of ocean currents. But something that has happened before can happen again. Your second figure shows a recent slowdown of this warming and even a hint of a downward trend. Could this be the start of another interruption of warming like the one from 1940 to 1970? I don’t know, but the situation in the Arctic should be closely monitored because of all the plans that depend on the continuation of Arctic warming. It is important to note that the slowdown in mid-century was not just a slowdown but an actual cooling at the rate of 0.3 degrees per decade. If it happened again today it could have a strong inhibitory effect on Arctic trade and exploitation of resources that Arctic nations are looking forward to.
Watching the Weather Channel is like watching MSNBC. If I wanted to watch the news I’d switch to the “news” (programming) channels or the internet. The Weather Channel in the distant past, actually did a great job reporting the Nation’s weather. Now they are pretty much doing everything but the weather. They should change their name to the “hype channel” since they drum up every storm like its a catastrophe!
And the great Valley Fever outbreak is caused by the drought (true) which is caused by Global Warming (false) as opposed to the dreaded La Nina / Neutral – Negative PDO combination.
To justthefactswuwt:
You wrote: “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….and this April 11th ITV News interview with Julia…”
You’re right, we have here a tremendous example of the “Stephen Schneider” type of
misleading comments. He recommended this form of selective distortion in a 1989 interview
with Discover magazine:
Met Office report: scientific method. ITV interview: simplified, dramatic statement.
“the weather twists itself into knots for no climatologically significant reason”
Having made a solar based forecast for at least three weeks very cold conditions through this March, I don’t think the weather does that to itself.
While climate science is kept hopping around chasing the link between CO2 and man made global warming signals . Man (GOD) has been playing around with man made climate change before they signed this http://www.scribd.com/doc/3436120/UN-1976-Weather-Weapon-Treaty The one thing they didn’t state was that it can’t be used on their own people But what we know is if we create a change in the atmosphere above us now there will be a change in the atmosphere to the west some hours later Your heard the saying Red sky at dawn sailor be warned, Red sky at night sailors delight They found out all they needed to do here http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/31/64/49/PDF/angeo-16-1212-1998.pdf By using this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra7FMnpWMhY and all is explained here http://www.iki.rssi.ru/asp/pub_sha1/pub_sha1.htm It looks like their on there way to achieving their goal http://csat.au.af.mil/2025/volume3/vol3ch15.pdf Man made weather modification is the new norm
We are told Earth’s atmospheric heat is due to the greenhouse effect.
We are told water in the atmosphere is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse heat effect, the remaining 5% being due to the other trace greenhouse gases largely represented by carbon dioxide. But lets just assume a worse case scenario that the whole 5% is due to carbon dioxide.
We’re told by the IPCC that more carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere each year is causing global warming.
In its 2007 report – IPCC AR4 – the IPCC indicates that 97% of the carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere each year is from natural sources and only 3% is from human activities. This means then that 4.85% of the extra greenhouse heat effect is caused by carbon dioxide from natural sources leaving only 0.15 of 1% due to human activities.
But carbon dioxide represents approximately 72% of the other trace greenhouse gases, right? Which means the greenhouse heat effect from human activity carbon dioxide emissions is more like about 0.11 of 1% rather than 0.15 of 1%.
Are people really serious that this incredibly insignificant contribution to the greenhouse heat effect (0.11 of 1%) by human activity is causing dangerous global warming and is the key driver of climate change?
Or have people now simply lost all sense of proportion, reality and common sense?