Guest post by A. Scott
Even though we all know “weather is not “climate,” that rarely stops CAGW’s fiercest proponents, so we might as well have a little fun with it as well. This weekend is the 2013 Minnesota State Fishing Opener. And the joke around these parts is the most important equipment a fisherman needs this year is …. an ice auger.
Minnesota, like much of the country (as reported at WUWT here) is currently undergoing its own ‘little ice age’ with record late season snows (18″ in southeastern MN a week ago) and cold, and near record ice out dates on the State’s lakes. Lakes in the southern third of the State saw ice outs approaching new records and many lakes in the northern half of the state are still ice covered today.
“Lake Minnetonka” in the Mpls/St. Paul area finally saw ice out on May 2nd, which easily could have been extended to May 5th or 6th had the 18″ snowstorm moved about 40 miles to the West. The Freshwater Society history shows 134 years of ice out dates for Lake Minnetonka, going back to the mid 1800’s. Median ice out for Lake Minnetonka over the last 150+ years is April 14th. Only 3 years – 1856, 1857 and 1859 – saw later ice out dates than 2013.
The story is more fun as you travel to central and northern Minnesota. Outdoors writer and photographer Ron Hustvedt wote today in a story in the Star Tribune:
In 30-plus years of fishing the mythical Minnesota walleye opener, I can safely say I’ve never seen ice on my favorite lakes this late in the season. It’s been close a few years but never like this and, according to the record books, only a time or two like this in the last century.
The picture above isn’t just a random ice auger shot – its real, from earlier today. Here’s another … 
Please do not try this at home – these guys intimately knew the area, were well outfitted with life preservers and safety gear, and never ventured into areas more than a few feet deep.
In another story, from Thursday, the Star Tribune’s Doug Smith notes:
Some of Minnesota’s most popular fishing lakes are expected to be iced in on Saturday’s fishing opener — an occurrence not seen in perhaps 60 years. Ice reportedly is still 2 feet thick on some northern lakes, and … major lakes from Lake Mille Lacs north … still could be mostly ice-covered Saturday. “There will be substantial ice cover on the northern third of the state,’’ said Henry Drewes, Department of Natural Resources regional fisheries manager in Bemidji. “It will not be gone by Saturday. This is certainly the most significant late-season ice cover I have seen in my 25 years with the DNR.’’
Some great live pictures from MN lake webcams at www.mnlakecams.com
Oh, and it was snowing earlier today in Duluth, MN. On May 11th.
And here’s what you really came to see – a live, active “glacier” – a moving wall of ice – a ‘little ice age’- right here, right now, in Minnesota today 😉 …
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Well, this ice thing is perfectly consistent with cAGW theory, is it not?
For each theory, according to logic, can be reduced to a (usually complex) set of propositions. If it is consistent with any state of affairs, the result happens to be pretty simple: Av~A, were A stands for a proposition of your choice.
Now, who can deny cAGW theory is simple, elegant & self explanatory?
Andg55, I am always intrigued with ‘the earth’s climate has always changed so so what we are experiencing is normal.’ argument.
First thing to remember is that previous climates have not always been capable of supporting humans, at least not 7 billion of them. Modern humans have only been around for 100,000 years or so and haven’t experienced many of the climates of the past.
The second thing is that climate changes for reason. It just doesn’t decide it’s time for a change and then changes. Something has to force it to change. Wobbles in the axis of spin, or the shape of the path taken around the sun have and effect as does volcanic activity etc.
The question I would ask are: what is causing the current change in climate and will the change be conductive to supporting 7 (or 9) billion people?
BTW, we are experiencing another prolonged dry period here in SE Oz. We are also enjoying the warm autumn weather, but I really wish it would rain! I fear another drought coming on.
Berényi Péter says: Now, who can deny cAGW theory is simple, elegant & self explanatory?
There is the Sherrington Prediction to come. This states that global warming will increase the number of time periods in which absolutely nothing of any interest happens. This is a necessary mathematical consequence of the CAGW postulate that we will see increased numbers of extreme events, after you apply an averaging factor.
You just know your satire has hit its mark when the resident troll Traffy gets his panties in a bunch about it.
Just for point of interest, here’s my lake in Calgary (Alberta)… thaw dates only, date is first completely ice-free day:
1996 – April 24
1997 – April 23
1998 – April 8
1999 – April 19
2000 – April 20
2001 – April 30
2002 – April 14
2003 – April 6
2004 – April 7
2005 – April 13
2006 – April 13
2007 – April 18
2008 – April 19
2009 – April 30
2010 – April 3
2011 – May 7
2012 – April 12
2013 – April 26
Does anyone else NOT see a trend?
No Traffy, its all just evidence of NATURAL climate variation.
And this puts a MAJOR hole in cagw fart.
If it was CO2 warming, then it would keep warming,
but it ISN’T warming, and it HASN’T for something like 17 years +
(darn, did it again…..I meant…… FARCE)
Ttrafamadore says:
May 12, 2013 at 12:10 am
“So I am guessing that, in fair play, you are allowing the media hyping last summers record hot spell evidence of global warming, a pass? Cool.”
Are you saying that last summers record hot spell in a tiny area of the surface of the planet is NOT a sign of impending doom? Please check in at your local warmist re-education centre for an examination of your ideological alignment before grabbing the next grant.
Andyg55, the earth has warmed up. The satellites tell us there is an energy imbalance on earth with more heat coming in than going out. Your 17 year claim only refers to surface temperature. The oceans are heating up and are absorbing 97% of the heat energy.
There have been apparent plateaus in the surface temperature in the last 150 years, but it inevitably trends up again. It has to as one of the problems with continual accumulating heat, eventually the temperature rises.
Meanwhile here in New Hampshire, “ice-out” on the big lake (Lake Winnipesaukee) is defined as when the cruise ship MS Mount Washington would, in theory, be able to reach all of its ports of call. Records go back to 1887, and back then, of course, the determination was made from shore. Nowadays, one man (Dave Emerson) makes the determination by doing a fly-over 2-3 times a day. The median date appears to be April 20th, and this year it occurred on April 17th, matching the date in 1996. The earliest date was last year, on March 23rd, with the latest being May 12th in 1888. With so many variables affecting both ice formation, as well as melting, my guess would be that no trend of less than a century would be meaningful. Overall, the trend has been for earlier ice-outs over the past century, which would suggest warming. By happy coincidence, we skeptics don’t claim that it hasn’t warmed up some, just that it takes a special type of goggles to see the human signal in that warming. It’s just that we prefer to look at things with a clear, unobstructed view. Different strokes, I guess.
We had about an hour of snow yesterday, 1100 – 1200 11 May 2013 N45.38287 W86.89728
Not enough, or cold enough, to persist, but quite a contrast to all the spring blossoms.
Moe, do you actually believe that? Really? 97%? Into the oceans, you say…
Deep oceans, I assume. So, can you come up with a credible mechanism for “heat” to be bypassing the atmosphere and going directly into the oceans? After all, the oceans liberate heat fairly easily into the atmosphere, whereas it is difficult for the atmosphere to heat the oceans.
Do you know what portion of the oceans the sun (or other direct radiative energy) actually affects? As in, how deep radiative energy heats (or transfers energy into) saltwater?
Sadly for Trenberth et. al, it isn’t very deep. Oh, and we don’t allow “magic” to enter into the equation.
Old locals warning, “Don’t build there.” This applies to tornadoes and cheap land speculation. The reason there are no houses there and the land is cheap is the local empiric knowledge of tornado touch-downs.
I just looked up to see more snow falling very lightly.
High-res Land temp anomaly map from April 2013 (Modis satellites) shows the Canadian Prairies to Minnesota as a very impressive cold-spot. Up to -10C below normal (which would be the coldest April for this region on record tieing one other bad April in 1907).
The rest of the planet looked pretty normal actually.
http://s15.postimg.org/seyxnapiz/Land_Temps_Apr2013.jpg
UAH lower troposphere was 0.103C for the month but was declining throughout the month so it ended up below 0.0C at the end of the month (in all hemispheres / regions). Daily UAH temps 2012 and 2013.
http://s11.postimg.org/vtk52y5g3/UAH_Daily_Apr2013.png
Temps are now at their coldest since February 2012 and really, they are no different than they were in the 1980 UAH record, before Volcanoes and Super-El Ninos came along and distorted the temp trend record.
Moe says:
May 12, 2013 at 4:04 am
The oceans are heating up and are absorbing 97% of the heat energy.
So THAT’s where the heat is going. Interesting! So, sometimes it heats up the land, and other times, the oceans. That is fascinating! Please do tell us more.
Moe says:
May 12, 2013 at 4:04 am
“The oceans are heating up and are absorbing 97% of the heat energy.”
That’s interesting. 97% you say (now where have I seen that figure before?). And all without the Argo buoys picking up anything.
You got any actual evidence to back that rather dubious claim up? Which data set is showing rapid warming, and how do you know it represents 97% of (what) heat energy?
Moe forgot the /sarc lol
I HATE COLD !!!!
I cannot imagine under any circumstance that I would voluntarily sit in an ice filled lake !!
Hope they caught something .
Ok I see a lot of people cannot see that the oceans are possible of gaining heat, fair enough, but ask yourself where is the heat going?
Following a barrage of stories about our imminent doom following Mauna Loa’s recordation of 400 ppm of CO2 and a host of stories damning the evil fossil fuel companies, even NPR ( National Propaganda Radio ) carried a story on Minnesota’s still-frozen lakes:
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/11/183029107/frozen-lakes-cut-into-minnesota-fishing-tradition
“an occurrence not seen in perhaps 60 years.”
Funny how that number 60 keeps popping up.
OK Moe–if, and its a big if, there is heat going somewhere, here on this site, we’d like to see the assertion backed up by some actual facts. So the questions are: What heat, how much and where does it come from; and what is the evidence to suggest that it is going to the oceans? We try not to engage in idle unsupported speculation here, especially not of the “It must be going here, because I can’t imagine where else it would be going” sort. That is the worst–unsupported speculation combined with a poor imagination.
PS record low in Kansas City this am. Frost on the Mother’s Day lawn. Happy Mother’s Day to all Moms too.
RE: a jones says:
May 11, 2013 at 10:10 pm
Regarding sailing ice south; my great-great-grandfather’s younger brother sailed a schooner south with New England ice, and traded it for rum in Jamaica. No government grant was involved. Profits were pretty good. No expense for fuel.
Oh, I forgot to mention. He went one trip too many. Vanished. Family lore suggests he got mixed up with a hurricane.
I guess it goes to show you, wind power had its problems, even back then. However they had no “alternative energy.” All they had was guts.
The problem is that Australia is so big that that it has several different climates all at once. So AndyG55 can have nice pleasant weather, slightly warmer than normal, while Moe complains that he wants a bit of rain, while I, a 1000 miles north, probably, would rather have more than an hour’s sunshine every three days. My brother, over 1000 miles to the south, was complaining about the days – weeks – on end with 40 degree heat and no rain, here it has been about 28 at best and a bit more rain than I want. Difficult to mow the lawn as when I have the time and feel like it (not often) it is pouring with rain or gently drizzling (often). When it is nice and sunny and the lawn is dry, I have something more important to do.
And I remember one Boxing Day when it snowed at Thredbo – admittedly at a ski resort – but not what you would expect in mid summer. Frock shops that only had summer clothing, if open, suddenly had to dig around and find all the woollies, fur lined boots and thermal underwear for all the tourists who had arrived for a nice warm summer holiday in the Alps.
But I do love that glacier!
Starzmom, try googling ‘energy embalance of the earth.’
First item the search comes back with:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page3.php
Explains what is happening..
Dudley, good points. It shows we are experiencing unusual weather events, some people get extra rain, others less, some are experiencing hotter weather, some others get unseasonably cold weather. The weather records are falling over like ten pins, with hot records out numbering cold records at about three to one.
Personally, I not looking forward to when the surface temperature starts its upward trend again. My water bill came in the other day and I am using three times the amount of water than I did only a couple of years ago.