Over 2000 cold and snow records set in the USA this past week

eric1skeptic says:
December 14, 2013 at 10:23 am
TB (December 14, 2013 at 2:58 am) “We have basic physics to consider here – conservation of energy.”
That is absolutely incorrect. The planet cannot conserve energy because it is not a closed system.
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Eric I am not referring to the overall radiative balance between Sun-Earth-Space when I stated the above. The chart in the link is a snapshot of the temperature at 5000ft in the NH. That is all. It does not have anything to do with flow of energy to/from Earth – other than the fundamental truth behind Earth’s energy budget.
What we have is a balance in total energy within the atmosphere at that instant. AND it must be conserved – in that the –ves and the +ves (ANOMALIES remember) sum to zero throughout the atmosphere. In reality they may not at the 850mb level taken on its own.
AND
“TB (December 13, 2013 at 3:19 pm) :The lesson here is that where there is unusual cold – there are also areas of unusual warmth.”
That is true sometimes, but not always. When the polar jet pushes cold air south it might also push some north, but it might not. The average temperature of the earth doesn’t balance. There is no equilibrium anywhere never mind everywhere. When it gets warm. somewhere there is no balancing cold and vice versa.
The lesson here is that the earth can cool off drastically and there’s not much we can do about it.
The earth is warmed only by somewhat feeble sunlight, which can be bounced back into space. The alleged increase in storminess also causes an increase in the earth’s net heat loss. Those effects can produce local cold that are not balanced by warmth somewhere else.”
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Eric, when the polar jet pushes cold air south, warm air MUST push north. If you do not understand the Meteorology then think of it as a draught through your living room. If cold air comes in from outside, ergo warm air inside will flow out. There is only some much energy and mass to be accommodated.
The Earth can only “cool off drastically” if the Sun suddenly loses power. If the Earth suddenly moved (further away) in orbit, or favoured the SH more for its winter sunshine – ie the NH got less in its summer. (Greater land-mass means more sensible heating). Or (God-forbid) there is a nuclear winter/massive volcanic aerosol concentrations emitted high into the Strat.
There is no extra heat loss via “alleged increased storminess” that is internal to the system and is just a vigorous mixing of air-masses in restoring (internal) thermodynamic equilibrium. The net Solar absorbed minus IR emitted will remain the same so long as the above external drivers do not change.

Regarding weather modification that has been bringing “snow” into unusual areas in the States, including Texas recently, it makes you wonder what kind of chemical agents [rest is trimmed per site policy. Mod]

_Jim (December 14, 2013 at 5:37 pm) “I’m having a little difficulty with this concept; is it your assertion that ‘jets’ are responsible for the movement of cold, polar air masses southward by ‘pushing’ them (the fronts)? I’ve yet to see them depicted that way on meteo charts or synopsis maps, in fact, they seem to run parallel to cold/warm fronts shown on meteo maps.”
_Jim, you are correct that the jet runs parallel to the isobars or in between the warm and cold air masses. That is due to the Coriolis force, otherwise the air motion at the altitude of the jet (aloft) would be from the high pressure over low latitudes to low pressure at high latitudes. The jet follows the polar front at the surface because that is the area of the highest horizontal temperature contrast and also the highest vertical contrast.
Thus there is control from the surface temperature contrast to the jet. But there is also control from the jet to the surface. As the jet develops waves, those waves push cold air south. A surface storm can do the same thing, but a surface storm is more typically a result of the upper wave itself.
There is often a Rossby wave over the North American continent due to the mountains along the west coast of the continent. However that wave, like all waves, eventually propagates east. But before it does it pushes cold air south into the US, so essentially it can be said that the Rockies can push cold air south.
However my main point is not that cold air is pushed south (and thus warm air north) but that cold air can develop spontaneously from weather. When it does, there is no counterbalancing warm air somewhere else. Thus TB’s claim that “where there is unusual cold – there are also areas of unusual warmth” is not necessarily true and there are absolutely no constraints on global weather by the instantaneous conservation of energy in the earth’s atmosphere. The basic reason is that the net ocean and space fluxes can vary greatly over just a single day thanks to the coincidence of cooling or warming weather across the planet. That weather can average out but it does not have to.

We should send some nucular bombs into the sun to get it stated again. And Obuma should fire up those coal burning power plants before this absence of heat turns into ALgore’s next crusade
REPLY: The sum total of the nuclear arsenal on Earth wouldn’t even make a blip in the sun’s energy processes – Anthony

Mario Lento December 14, 2013 at 1:57 pm
The post says ironic, but you feel like even though the word used was irony, that it was meant to imply “important”. You say you frequent WUWT, however if you did, you would know clearly that skeptics believe weather is not climate. The irony is that the basic theme of warmists is that weather is in fact climate if it can be used as proof of AGW. If you do not understand irony, and if you do not understand the warmists beliefs because you feel rather than comprehend, then perhaps you should take your own advice and not make a peep.
I missed the word “irony” in the post. I apologize for this. Still, when numbers of cold-temperature records within a brief period are announced, I think this should be accompanied by some analysis discussion of how likely or unlikely this is, and what its significance, if any, for the global warming question. One reason I think so is that the analysis might show that it was significant in some way. To excuse the lack of analysis by saying that the announcement is mere irony is either to assume that a spate of records is not significant, or to encourage some people to assume that it is significant.
Furthermore, it’s an interesting question. Czech physicist and AGW skeptic Lubos Motl (motls.blogspot.com), in the past, has posted at least twice on the question, and, not only this, but there are a priori determinations which anyone with a decent math background who bothered to think about the question could make, but I’ve never seen anyone bother, except that now I’ve seen a couple of WUWT posts which someone here pointed out for me in this thread, for which I thank him.
As I said, I missed the word “irony,” and I apologize for this, but I think your message is about as bigoted as some others. I notice that you had to pick out one point in order to be sarcastic, ignoring all the others.