Watch John Holdren struggle to explain the “waviness” of the circumpolar vortex aka the ‘polar vortex’ in today’s news cycle. Also, he says:
“If you’ve been hearing that extreme cold spells like the one we’re having in the United States now disprove global warming, don’t believe it,”
“The fact is that no single weather episode can either prove or disprove global climate change.”
From the video description:
President Obama’s Science and Technology Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, explains the polar vortex in 2 minutes—and why climate change makes extreme weather more likely going forward. Learn more at http://wh.gov/climate-change.
Seems they had to rush this to press so as to not to miss the news cycle before the cold air went away. Watch, and be sure to have your air sickness bag handy.
I’m too busy at work right now, so I’ll leave readers to point out the weaknesses.
h/t to Steve Milloy
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“The fact is that no single weather episode can either prove or disprove global climate change.”
Who is trying to prove the climate doesn’t change? He probably meant ‘global warming’, of the man made variety, in which case he is correct. Mother nature does a good job disproving that. This is what we have been trying to explain to the alarmists for years. Their assertion was for dangerous warming in the future. Though, when they said warming, they actually meant cooling. But it could mean warming, unless it’s cooling.
Oh yeah, we should be listening more to these people. (sarc.)
The Political Left is pushing their “Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) propaganda agenda with a vengeance. They are using this junk science to justify their attack on the American Economy and Industry. This is garbage pure and simple!
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Now we can add, Warm is Cold. Please promise me I can keep my Doctor too and I will follow you anywhere.
It really is a mental disorder. This is so sickening.
“The fact is that no single weather episode can either prove or disprove global climate change.”
Except of course, “Hurricane” Sandy, which definitely proves climate change… rightttttt
Damage control from the White House? Whoever claimed that global warming, aka climate change, was politicized?
Beyond belief. Simply beyond belief. The whole video reeks of desperation. How on earth did Obama’s White House allow him to record this? Massive own goal. End of.
Wow, I’ve never seen Dr. Holdren’s phizz before. He looks familiar–wait! Isn’t he the fried-chicken guy?! :>)
They are making it up as they go along. That’s the beauty of CAGW, though. It’s “science” on-the-fly. It only has to sound somehow vaguely plausible for the MSM to parrot it, and the True Believer useful idiots to lap it up.
“The fact is that no single weather episode can either prove or disprove global climate change.”
So this must work when its hot, windier, dryer, rainier, and so on.
I see hundreds of billions of progressive democrat money invested in brainwashing the public into believing man-made global warming, going down the drain and trillions in carbon dioxide taxes evaporating. I’m glad I didn’t piss away any of my Libertarian dollars on this scam.
First, it is NOT the polar vortex.
The polar vortex, as variable as it is, is still right over the North Pole where is almost always is.
This is just cold Arctic-type air which has pushed fairly far south as it often does in the winter and in the summer. It is a combination of the Low-High set-up winds (mostly) and the Jetstream location (only partially in this case.)
Jet Stream animations from SFSU which was the main goto source for this until recently; available here. Should be able to figure out to use this site.
http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream.html.
200 Mb height winds from the NCEP GFS model (the world’s best) as forecast 2 days ago which was bang on available here: Click on “200 Mb Winds” then “Loop” to see the real Jetstream in action. Note that tropicaltidbits.com might provide the best weather model forecast animations of anyone. Spend some time looking through it.
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2014010618/
Too funny – Holdren hid the decline.
He stopped his arctic ice cap graphic at 2012, before the 2013 excursion back to normal ice coverage.
During the shift to the wavey polar vortex, there seems to be a hint of a hexagon, like saturn.
He is talking about the polar vortex while showing the jet stream. Top US scientist has no clue. Was he just reading lines off the teleprompter.?
Pretty obvious to me that Obama is gonna launch some sort of global warming initiative during his state of the union speech in a couple weeks, that’s why the warmistas have been trying so hard to nullify the cold weather with words.
Gail Combs: Super posts!
What is this Polar Vortex excitement? I recall past years when the jetstream dipped way south bringing lot’s of cold. I believe that that terms like “yankee clipper” and “polar express” were used. So what’s the big deal with this one? I bet we’ll get another one in the next couple of years.
No matter whether Holdren’s views are right or wrong, claiming that severe cold is due to global warming is not going to engender public trust.
The weather might end up costing them the White House. Quick, Mr. Obama, tweet it.
Bill Illis your comment had not posted prior to mine but nice links. Holdren has no clue as to the difference between the jet stream and polar vortex, or wind at any level perhaps.
RE: Chuck L says:
January 8, 2014 at 3:26 pm
“-50′s to -60′sF in Siberia. Return engagement of “polar vortex” in 10 days…..”
You noticed that too, I see.
One thing about a “meridianal” flow is that it spreads snow further south. As soon as you have snow cover over vast areas of Tundra and Taiga you have in place land that can make it colder than the Pole more easily than the Pole. (Even when ice is in place the “heat” of seawater around 29 degrees has an effect through the ice, and the air over the Pole seldom gets below 40 below, unless it comes streaming from colder lands via cross-polar-flow.)
According to Holden’s line of logic a “zonal” flow from a colder world would keep the cold air up over the Arctic Sea, and limit the snow-cover over Tundra and Taiga, which would result in a warmer world. Conversely he suggests a more relaxed flow would be generated by a warmer world, resulting in snow cover further south and a colder world. Very crafty! The only problem is it blows a hole in the whole idea of Global Warming reducing albedo to have this gigantic snow-cover in place, reflecting sunlight as days get longer than nights. (Even though most of the snow is melted by July 1, by then a gigantic amount of radiation is bounced away, and the days are already getting shorter. It isn’t a bit relaxed.)
Another weakness is his logic involves the fact these Polar Vortexes, when they get stretched out, are not slow and lazy, like a summer jet stream. They are ferocious beasts, bringing air colder than the Pole to the latitude of northern Africa in both North America, (Texas and Northern Mexico,) and Asia (China.) Every body of water in their way is sapped of heat, and faces spring significantly colder.
Thirdly, if one pokes a bit through history books one finds warm periods were not marked by ferocious storms. If they had been so bad I doubt we’d call them “optimums.”
One thing that cued me in to the fact this might be a nasty winter was the fact the Tundra and Taiga of Siberia were completely covered by snow very early, and generating cold through radiational cooling especially early. It is fascinating to watch, for the winds change, as do the effects of the winds, when the Tundra goes from being much warmer than the Arctic Sea to much colder. The early snowfall made this phenomenon happen much more swiftly this year.
Not that Holden notices the glory of nature. I imagine he thinks his B.S. is more glorious, nearly as glorious as his perm.
Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, but the guy makes my blood boil. Anyone notice the crucial line at the end of the video where he doesn’t say, “science proves,” but rather, “I believe.” Spoken like a man covering his….retreat.
Might I suggest that WUWT readers, and all others so inclined, send an ‘open’ email to the gentleman and his boss, politely asking that they STOP INSULTING OUR INTELLIGENCE! ?
Great cartoon on polar vortex over on Judith Curry’s blog!
Kyle M says:
January 8, 2014 at 2:46 pm
> There is a flip side to the cold wave. Serbia is hot.
> http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/2013/12/where-siberia-winter-gone-2013121992332312557.html
If Serbia is hot, why did you post a link to a story about Siberia? Especially one that may have been taken in the summer given that the story refers to things like:
I get the sense those rivers won’t be flowing freely much longer.
(There are other notes about warming, feel free to read, but there’s nothing about Serbia in that article. There are two references here from people who likely didn’t read the target.)
So, let me get this straight: In a “warming world’, the Whirlpool gets weak & “wavy”, and more cold air escapes to the South, and more Warm air “invades” to the North . . . ergo, in a ‘Cooling World’ the Whirlpool would get strong and circular, the cold air would be imprisoned right at the North Pole, and we could build Walt Disney World North in effing NEWFOUNDLAND?
Will It be an ‘Equatorial Vortex’ when a heat wave hits?
News for 2014,
Climastrologists wishing to retain Government funding will have to Include C02 driven ‘Vortexes’ Into their studies.
(sarc)