Readers of WUWT and millions of climate skeptics have read this article before, and in fact it is likely one of the most cited articles ever that illustrates the chutzpah and sheer hubris on display from a climate scientist who was so certain he could predict the future with certainty. Dr. David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit who famously said:
From the Independent’s most cited article: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past by Charles Onians:
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.
It seems however, that after over 15 years, the Independent has removed that article, and the URL now comes up like this:
Here is what it originally looked like:
Fortunately, I have preserved the entire article as a PDF for posterity:
Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past – The Independent (PDF)
One wonders about the timing, whether it is related to the upcoming COP21 climate confab in Paris, or if it was simply some blunder, oversight, or archive purge on the part of The Independent.
Note: I owe a hat tip to a WUWT reader, whose email/comment seems to be lost in the firehose of communications I get daily. If you are reading, leave a note in comments and I’ll correct this. The reader was Cole Pritchard, who sent the info to my phone via IM, Thanks Cole.
Update: It gets curiouser, searching on The Independent website using their search engine for the phrase “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past” yields only one result for that exact string – a story lambasting the original article that contained the phrase.
Published in the year 2000, I thought maybe the story was just too old, and the Independent simply removed the story to save archive space, or maybe this had to do with some site redesign and the URL simply got broken. Yet when I remove the quote marks to search for the phrase in general, and not exactly, other stories back as far as 1994 about global warming and snow appear:
It seems clear now that the removal was deliberate.
Will you please stop repeating this story. Please bury it as It’s sort of embarrassing.
My council was trying to get some snow clearing equipment – just to shift it from the paths leading to the local schools. We didn’t have any and the schools didn’t have any as “well, we were told we wouldn’t be getting anymore snow so we got rid of it as it was taking up space”.
A lot of small councils dumped their snow shifting equipment at clearance rates on the basis of this advice. It cost a lot to replace.
Big mistake…
“They” must want to start over with clean slate. Too late!
“However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers.”
———————-
To me is so amazing while looking around and seeing so many blind ones.
You see the above is the basic undeniable conclusion of a global warming, either natural or anthropogenic
( as per effect of RF).
The winters should be warming, or be less cold as claimed, in a warming climate (as per effect of RF).
According to this guy there should be a warming trend for winters, as he actually believed in the AGW.
That is how it supposes to be and expected to be.
As that seems to be not the case with reality, then is not a surprise that such claims are deleted to “oblivion”.
Especially when considering that the latest approach on proving AGW is by expecting to observe in the future a considerable further increase of extremes in the summer – winter temps, the opposite of the claim above, when and where the winters should be colder or less warmer while the summers keep warming or be hotter, which by the way seems to be the case in reality so far to a degree.
So trying a new way to “prove” AGW through some thing that supposes to disprove it, requires that the old basic simple claim be destroyed and deleted to “oblivion”, as it creates a paradox and contradiction to the the new false and spin-doctored one.
So a simple possible fact that winters have being in a cooling trend for the last ~ 15 years, which actually puts very much in doubt any possible continuing GW (as per RF effect), either natural or anthropogenic one, is going to be used as evidence and proof of AGW…..and that requires the deletion of past statements as the one above, which clearly will be a contradiction to the new coned desperate approach…….and there is an abundance of such past statements and articles in the road to “perdition”.
Don’t be so surprised…:)
It is the AGW way….anything is possible….even full – proof insanity……..or foolproof AGW……..
cheers
The Independent’s own perma-link also returns a 404 – Page Not Found. ind.pn/8Xiaa8 from Connor’s article.
Viner probably got tired of rolling his eyes and saying “Yes. I really did say that.”
Steve Connor “lambasts” the story because it’s not subtle enough. But he agrees with the message. He is also an alarmist, and just as wrong as Viner. And just as wrong, saying that the peat bog fires around Moscow were caused by global warming. Even the IPCC concluded that that was false.
If someone ever writes the history of climate alarmism, he will find layers upon layers upon layers of garbage.
Something like a big municipal dump.
Here are some more backup copies
https://mynaturaldiary.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-environment-the-independent-000320.pdf
https://archive.is/UN322
‘Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past’
from the start was a journalistic try to fill the summer gap – parliaments in vacancie, citizens + childs out to swim:
hebrew ‘zarot and jakrut’,
look up
ger. Term ‘Saure Gurkenzeit’:
volksetymologische Erklärung
verbindet ihn mit dem
spätsommerlichen, also in die
Ferienzeit fallenden Angebot
frisch eingelegter saurer Gurken
Verballhornung des jiddischen
Zóres- und Jókresszeit, hebräisch zarót und jakrút;
jiddisch zoro und joker), der „Zeit der Not und der Teuerung“.
____
‘missing snowfall’ is just a header to sell a paper.
Regards – Hans
Of course it was deliberate. You can’t use the heat waves and heavy snow fall we’re having now to sell the lie that temperatures have risen dramatically since 1998 if you have articles floating around talking about the mild winters we were having right around then. So you have to disappear them.
We’ve always been at war with Oceana. And he loved Big Brother.
I read the story at the link where the post says Steve Connor lambasted the original article that said snow would be rare. That article didn’t lambaste the original, it supported the use of the statement that said snow would be rare because you have to have brief headlines. It also supported the premise of the original article. I don’t know if someone else posted this thought as I didn’t read all of the comments.