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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About heating, I like to keep Specific Heat Capacities in mind, of particularly water (as a submarine reactor plant engineer/technician) and air (being a human living half way to the North Pole). Depending on the specific quantity, water has four (mass) to a thousand times (volume) the heat capacity of air.
Remember that global warming is magical. It can warm the deepest oceans where we can not measure it, and yet not warm the atmosphere or the tops of the oceans. The heat is not transported, it is simply displaced magically. How does the heat get down there if not through transport? Why, only a true believer would fall for that one. Its slight of hand folks, remember that the heat could be hiding in the bowels of the Earth for all we know. Perhaps it is hiding in some arctic village as well where the heat magically skipped every other single place on the globe but caused this one location to warm up through magic. But forget about the mechanism for how the heat moves magically, we must all believe in the arrogance and the infallibality of these scientists otherwise we are the deniers. No, global warming is not a religion at all.
Most of that was sarcastic just in case.
Here in NE oregon we’ve had a warm, dry spring. Summer like temps little rain. I’m about to go
to Flight/ground school for Airtanker training after a 10 year absence . Trained DC-7 crew do not grow on trees. Of course the local warmists are wringing their hands over the warmth,
Worried about fossil fuels etc. If it wasn’t for Fossil fuels we couldn’t fight the fires…..
Lost an Ancestor to a prairie fire in NW Kansas..AH the “good old days..”
We Minnesotans actually like us some winter, and tend to scoff at those who can’t handle a little snow and ice. But this year when the calendar turned to May and we were still covered in the stuff, folks started getting a little surly. And messing with the “fishing opener” is considered High Treason by many in this state.
Most of the ice-outs in the state this year are anywhere from “latest in 50 years” to actual record setters going back deep into the second 1/2 of the 1800s.
Moe,
Quite enjoyed that NASA link. Some excellent illustrations.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page6.php
What strikes me as strange about the explanation is that so little emphasis is given to water vapor. It seems to be implying that the energy outflows from water are relatively fixed e.g. evaporation is characterized as 25% of the energy outflow. But if increased warmth and energy inflow results in increased evaporation & thunderstorms & convection near the equator, and that speeds up the hydrological cycle transporting increased latent heat to the top of the atmosphere, you have a built in negative feedback loop.
Increased evaporation and convection could offset most of the heat trapping effects of CO2 on our 3/4 water planet. Do you have a good source for why evaporation & convection are considered fixed energy outflows? I don’t see a lot of heat getting trapped in the oceans. Maybe it’s just being convected away?
As a result, air from up there is going to cause a damaging frost here in west MD tomorrow morning.
Thats soft ice, dirty ice.. Its thinner and nowhere near as moral as the ice we used to know..
Im surprised you people are not up to speed on the emotional state of ice..
Moe says:
May 12, 2013 at 4:04 am
“The oceans are heating up and are absorbing 97% of the heat energy.”
>>>>>>>>>>>
I just hit me that of this were true ( doubt it is ) the warmists would be destroying their own meme. If only 3% goes into the atmosphere, then sensitivity in the atmosphere is about 1/33 of what the models predicted. And sensitivity in the oceans would be even LESS. The oceans have a mass 1400 TIMES that of the atmosphere, and hence it would take a LOT more energy to arrive at a measurable temperature change, let alone a catastrophic one.
In the meantime Moe says he is using three times the water he was two years ago. His assumption that this is somehow tied to global warming suggests that Larry, Curly and Joe are hanging out with him.
Moe says:
May 12, 2013 at 5:19 am
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?
==================================
You seem to be making the assumption that there exists some “heat” due to a radiative imbalance, and not having found this (Trenberths) missing heat, conclude it must have gone somewhere.
Ok, but the radiative imbalance, if it exists at all, is only around 0.8 watts per metre squared, based on Hansens calculations. Next point, the temperature of a radiating body is proportional to the 4th root of the energy that it radiates with. So we are looking for temperature anomalies based on the 4th root of an increase in energy of 0.8 w/m2.
You ask where this additional heat is? It simply cannot be detected because it is too small to separate out from the noise in the data.
That satellite image is fascinating. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, with its subsidiary peninsula, The Keweenaw, shows prominent white bands running parallel to the shore of Lake Superior. These white areas are forested highlands (ridge-like bands of half-billion year old basaltic lavas in which great deposits of native (pure) copper were discovered and mined). This is the eastern edge of the Mid-Continent Gravity High, a huge, ultimately failed, continental rift system that formed a triple junction in the Lake Superior Basin, where more than 50,000 feet of lavas and sediments were deposited.
These highlands form a lake effect snow belt that collects up to around 400 inches of snow a year. That’s why they show up. There’s still a good deal of snow lying there. I can see it out my window.
The ice surge video really impressed me. I wonder if such a phenomena has any relevance to the quick-frozen mammoths that are found in Siberia.
But did you catch any fish?
Moe says: May 12, 2013 at 4:04 am
“….The satellites tell us there is an energy imbalance on earth with more heat coming in than going out. ..”
That would be an open and shut case Moe, but unfortunately, they are not quite up to that level of precision …. an ‘objective constrainment algorithm’ based on theory and modeling is required to ‘slightly’ adjust the measure to make it match (and slightly is an understatement):
Loeb etal 2009 ‘Toward Optimal Closure of the Earth’s Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Budget’ J. Climate, 22, 748–766
The 5-yr global mean CERES net flux from the standard CERES product is 6.5 Wm2, much larger than the best estimate of 0.85 Wm2 based on observed ocean heat content data and model simulations…
….An objective constrainment algorithm is used to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their range of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the earth– atmosphere system.
Toward Optimal Closure of the Earth’s Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Budget
Loeb et al 2008
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008JCLI2637.1
That’s it!
That’s where all the extra heat is going ….. into the water first, and then into the air!
When we thought it was going into the air first, and then into the water, we were all wet!
(Or were we? Whatever.)
Craig says:
May 12, 2013 at 9:15 am
But did you catch any fish?
Finally, someone gets to one of the important things in life!
Ice, snow, sun, rain, lakes, wind; this s— just happens.
Catching fish is important.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And Moe, lay off the water; switch to beer (more filling, use less); make more sense.
Matthew W says:
May 12, 2013 at 5:17 am
I HATE COLD !!!!
I cannot imagine under any circumstance that I would voluntarily sit in an ice filled lake !!
Hope they caught something .
==========
If they weren’t hardy Minnesotans, I’d guess it’d be a choice between pneumonia and Trench Foot!
Auto
And from further north look at this:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/11/owners-pick-through-remains-of-manitoba-homes-crushed-by-9-metre-high-wall-of-ice/
Are Minnosotans For Global Warming (MFGW) going to bring out another video-song about this? “Hide the Glacier”, or something…..
.
check the Nenana Ice Classic, also very late this year.
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/
Moe says:
May 12, 2013 at 5:19 am
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?
——————————————————————
Moe,
You misunderstand. You asserted that the oceans are warming. Some asked you to produce a data set that showed that. No one said that “the oceans cannot gain heat”, just asked you produce the evidence necessary to make that claim.
TomR
may be she is a blond but she is the only one to capture the phenomenon 3:)
I suggest you re-read my first sentence … while you un-knot your panties.
🙂
@ur momisugly Moe “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?”
The sun caused most of the very slight warming during the second part of last century. Human effect were noticable on thermometers in enlarged urban areas.
Because the Sun seems to be having a snooze, we will now be heading into a cooler period, and no, that will not be conducive to supporting the world population. Colder is NOT good.
America and other countries need to stop the biofuel madness and start stockpiling grain again, countries need to start beefing up their electricity systems by getting rid of wind and solar generation and building new clean coal or gas fired stations.
Unfortunately, CO2 only help plant life flourish with slight warming, not cooling.
Andyg55, there have been three solar cycles in the last 30 years or so, I am interested in your ‘Sunnis taking a snooze’ theory. Could you direct me to it.
Your second point about siting thermometers in urban areas, has 1. Been shown to be incorrect, and 2. Been made mute by satellite data.
So you are expecting a cooler world. At what point will you change your mind that there is something going on with the climate. I mean having 10 hottest years in 150 years happening in the last 11 years, should shock most people into thinking it is NOT getting cooler.
Having been involved in producing food, the ‘co2 as a plant food’ argument annoys me. It is usually spouted by people that have never grown food. People who grow food, know, benign weather and water are critical in being successful.
We are in agreement about growing crops for bio fuel. That was introduced to support grain farmers. The energy used in plowing fertilising, harvesting, transporting, distilling etc in converting grain to ethanol is never recovered in the fuel you produce.
Markx, thanks for the reference. From what I can read, it addresses the uncertainty with calibration rather than conclusion that the earth is heating up. They are saying (or as far as I can read), the heat is still accumulating on the earth, but there is some contention about how much it is accumulating. Please advise if I had read this incorrectly.