Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As temperatures plummet in Eastern states, NYT has published their usual screed on why global warming is responsible for cold winters.
Feeling a Chill? Blame the Polar Vortex. And Global Warming.
On Thursday, temperatures on the East Coast are expected to plummet, and some people — fellow journalists and weather broadcasters, we’re looking at you — may start talking about a “polar vortex.”
We thought you might want to know what the polar vortex is, and what it’s not.
(And we wanted to pre-empt the inevitable chatter about climate change that usually crops up when the thermometer drops — “It’s bone-shakingly cold, how could the Earth be warming?” We’ll tell you how.)
…
New York Times published similar articles blaming global warming for extreme winter weather in 2014, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008…
How much more of this global warming driven extreme cold can we take?
Christmas is coming + Cold weather = Opportunity!
Trigger/microaggression warnings [g][r][h][e]
Baby it’s cold outside…
[f]-gender – females portrayed as objects of sexual desire, potential male coercion, questionable informed consent, hetero-sexual normative values presumed
[r]-religious – Christian-centric view of major American winter holiday
[h]-health – cigarettes, cigars and alcohol mentioned favorably
[e] – environment – dirty wood fire burning in fireplace, protagonist insists on driving home, emitting CO2
It’s relatively mild in western Europe for the moment, no doubt that is due to AGW. When the warm up in the eastern US comes the next 5-10 days, AGW will also be cited for melting the snow just before Christmas.
re-reading Michael Crichton State Of Fear today, funny to see this type of story pop up just as I was at sections talking about media blitz.
and….brrr.
was -11 deg F at 630 am (wind chills around -35 or so) on 2 thermometers and high temp touched 4 deg F today in central maine.
neighbor said he was up around 445am and it was -15F.
IIRC they also blamed AGW for an unseasonably warm Xmas in 2015! So warming produces extremely cold weather almost every year, interposed by extremely mild weather?
Whatever happens, it’s our fault, and its bad.
“In Northern Hemisphere wintertime, there is a weakening of the stratospheric westerly jet by up to ∼3–4 m s−1, with the largest changes occurring in January–February. This is accompanied by a deepening of the Aleutian Low at the surface and an increase in blocking over Northern Europe and the North Pacific. There is also an equatorward shift in the Southern Hemisphere midlatitude eddy‐driven jet in austral spring. The occurrence of an amplified regional response during winter and spring suggests a contribution from a top‐down pathway for solar‐climate coupling; this is tested using an experiment in which ultraviolet (200–320 nm) radiation is decreased in isolation of other changes. The results show that a large decline in solar activity over the 21st century could have important impacts on the stratosphere and regional surface climate.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4758621/
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/blocking/real_time_nh/500gz_anomalies_nh.gif
New York never had snow and cold WX until man-made global warming started.
It was however buried under a mile of ice repeatedly before anatomically modern humans evolved.
Ancient Aliens!
As the cold and snow move east, the PNW will get a brief break. The coldest low, below zero F, will occur tonight, as temperature has fallen all day here. Then, for a couple of days next week, we’ll enjoy highs above freezing, making for black ice on the roads. Might have to cancel my Xmas travel plans.
This December reminds me of the chilly ’60s and ’70s. How about some real global warming?
https://gma.yahoo.com/winter-storm-wallop-midwest-northeast-more-snow-ice-161304410–abc-news-topstories.html#
“This December reminds me of the chilly ’60s and ’70s. How about some real global warming?”
Shhh…the dirty secret that you don’t see in the headlines about the inevitable “this is the X hottest year in Y years” is that:
1) they aren’t actually comparing temperature readings but the difference from a year’s average temperature (which is problematic to begin with) from a 30 year average; and,
2) that 30 year average includes the chilly 60s and 70s.
(I know most WUWT readers know this, but is amazing how often I have to point this out to Chicken Littles).
I recall two winters in particular. Record low for the State of Washington was set in December 1968, when Oregon didn’t quite set a record. But the same day it did hit 35 below zero F where I lived then. Then there was 1977, the year the PDO flipped.
But it’s worse than we thought!
The corrupt gatekeepers of NASA, NOAA and HadCRU have warmed up the post-WWII Big Chill of the ’40s to ’70s and cooled the ’80s, ’90s and early ’00s to make the past decade look warmer. And of course likewise cooled the 1920s to ’40s, which were actually warmer than this century so far.
But the public is hip to their tricks.
How much more of this global warming driven extreme cold drivel can we take?
Fixed.
Well lets give them a new term ..subtropical ridge, cause that is going to be denying winter in the east later this month into Jan. However our analog winters all had a month that was warmer in them. And what is scary about all this is one of the similar scenarios is 84-85 The ridge got so strong in the east around Christmas, a piece of the northern branch dropped down the east side of it and begat Lili which tried to hit Hispaniola from the NE Christmas day. Within a month the Super Bowl Sunday outbreak of 85 with record cold hit, forcing the Inauguration of Ronald Reagan indoors. My point is that the fake weather news press is as complicit in this as in all the all the other stuff we are seeing. Its why WUWT, not the NYT is the place to look. Thank God for the Internet ( which I am sure the media wants shut down, hence the worship of HRC etc)
People! People! This is a no brainer! It wasn’t the Russians in either case, the hacking or the vortex. The vortex was/is the fat guy in the red suit, with the reindeer and sled. And the NYT had to come up with something, they couldn’t “give” the old guy up. Give-em a break! /sarc
Arctic Blast Brings Coldest Air of the Season.
http://www.intellicast.com/Video/Player.aspx?id=58d48db2-cf93-43f4-95e9-83206ebf831e
BTW, The bathtub slosh idea worked like a charm and we used it at Weatherbell to forecast a very cold December from back in October and November. I did videos on it, discussions on it, our clients were well aware and ready . Tweeted on it before the fact a bunch of times First heard about it in 1962! My dad took me up to the weather station at Texas A and M a week before Christmas and one of the guys up there ( Dad was the oldest freshman on A and M campus, going on a VA) mentioned he thought it would get real cold cause Asia was so cold in OCt and November, its like a bathtub sloshing. I was in the teletype room pretending I was typing obs and remember it well. Why? That was the year me, my brother and Dad all had the mumps for Christmas. I got better first and 3 days after that Christmas was outside in front of our apartment trying to push some sleet that had fallen into piles in a desperate attempt to recreate what I left behind in Rhode Island ( our last winter there was 60-61) Years later when I researched it, sure enough it was there. Its a very interesting theory, one I wont bore you with here, but the whole result is that cold seeks warm. The arctic is warm true, the cold instead seeks the true warm, on the other side of the pole over the center of the NAMER continent and it was very sneaky It does not come over the top, it comes from the west into Alaska and then down into the west so you get some big central and western US outbreaks., you are seeing the result of the fight that went on the bundling of the cold and the powerful jet, so it pulls up after a while BUT THIS SHOULD NOT LAST. Instead once we break into smaller wavelengths we should see blocking develop and the cold overwhelm the pattern mid and late Jan again, and then be very stubborn centered further east into spring. There is a lot of what I called bare knuckled research in the private sector, We develop ideas that we do not have time to peer review ( nor do we get the grant money to just research) and instead real time battle test them for all to see. And the sting of criticism and being wrong and being forced to find out why leads to the advancment. I try to tell my academia friends, you guys the Queensberry rules, out in the blogs and what we do is more like Charles Bronson Hard Times fighting. ( Great movie btw) Joe D Aleos Pioneer model has been forecasting a cold winter since summer.
Yup Joe, you called it early. Keep up the good work!
“My dad took me up to the weather station at Texas A and M a week before Christmas and one of the guys up there ( Dad was the oldest freshman on A and M campus, going on a VA) mentioned he thought it would get real cold cause Asia was so cold in OCt and November, its like a bathtub sloshing.”
Looking at the NullSchool graphic below, it looks like the circular movement around the North Pole has modified itself into an out-of-round shape with one end of it stretched down into Canada and North America. So it looks like the sloshing you mention. Cold air sloshing out of its circular pattern.
The whole circulation pattern is a little off-center to the North Pole. It will be interesting to watch how it moves in the future. Love that nullschool view! 🙂
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=251.87,75.10,315
Here in New England, the ‘Polar Vortex’ used to be called the ‘Montreal Express’, and there was even a song about it:
For a little history of that recording and the song, see here:
https://hillbillyatharvard.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/the-montreal-express/
/Mr Lynn
It’s the onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere,
and Baby, it gets cold at this time of year!
It ain’t ‘Global Warming’ or ‘Climate Disrupt’.
It’s just winter, Suck It Up, Buttercup!
I have a pleasant hunch that fewer and fewer dispassionate readers of claims like this (blaming very cold weather on global warming) will accept them at face value. “You can fool some of the people all of the time …”. Thanks God for the Internet. If everyone still got their hard “truth” only from Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather, or the New York Times, or the Associated Press, or NPR, it’d be time to start picking out your cave dwelling of choice. We are slowly turning the tide, I can feel it. Yesterday I posted the AP story about the US Fish and Wildlife Service approving killing up to 4200 eagles with windmills “to save the planet” on a state-wide birdwatcher forum, and was surprised how many skeptics came out of the shadows to cast aspersions of “green energy” and praise fossil fuels. Of course, the forum moderator had to lock the thread, to stop [ahem] “off topic” discussion, but I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged. Of course, I still don’t dare mention I engage in upland bird hunting, since the demise of even a single bird (even a tasty Chukar Partridge – introduced species, by the way) is a tragedy to many of those folks, bless ’em.
What we are experiencing is AGWC – Anthropogenic Global Winter Cooling. AGWC is the result of human efforts to cool the summers, but with the Southern and Northern hemispheres reversed in the climate models. This results in a 6-month lag in the effect on climate of AGW campaigners’ attempts to turn down The Great Climate Thermostat In The Sky. Thus the attempts to cool overheated summers result in the cooling of winters instead, and attempts to moderate cold winters cause summers to be hotter.
Officials at the Climate Computing Department at Topsy Turvey University near Cambridge, UK, confirmed that they are working on a revision of their computer models of climate, to correct this “slightly misprogrammed algorythm”, promising that, in future, we would see warmer winters, cooler summers, and falling sea levels. Meanwhile, Officials in the Climate Records Department of Topsy Turvey University have announced via Twitter that, once the temperature records for the winter of 2016-2017 are “Seasonally Adjusted”, all apparently anomalous figures for temperatures and snowfall will disappear into “Normality”. “Normality” is defined by them as “within 2 standard deviations of whatever figure we decide to publish in support of the figures predicted by our computer models”. /
Officials explained that the error in the original algorythm arose from employing Australian computer programmers in London to code the Topsy Turvey climate models. Australians, the university has now discovered, view the World upside down, and the seasons 6 months out of phase.
Australians also view the constellation Orion upside down. Which must have confounded the aborigines before they had recourse to books.
Al Tinfoil, not manmade at all. This is Mother Gaia fighting back against the infection called humanity. Lower the temperature, send some snow and ice, and we’ll see Mother beating back those nasty human beings. It all evens out in the end – a little fever, a little chill. She’ll be right, you see?
Meh, makes about as much sense as anything else.
Further fuel on the NYT credibility fire
El Nino drought ends in CA, with record breaking rainfall yesterday, to be followed by cold. From our host’s part of the world:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/weather/article121282558.html
The probably record-breaking cold for the Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers game Sunday has already been mentioned. Any fan of US football will know how really cold it would have to be to beat out the famous snow and ice bowls of that rivalry’s history.
Go the cheese heads.
Robert,
They’re favored. They’re now playing great after a bad middle of the season. Their QB Aaron Rodgers is still lame, however.
If they beat the Bears, MN Vikings and Lions, as well they might, they’ll have come from behind to win their division, currently led by Detroit Lions.
They humiliated the West Division champion Seahawks in terrible conditions at home.
“… that rivalry’s history.” ?? Not Da Bears. The “Ice Bowl” in GB was with the Cowboys… 1967, I wasn’t in GB but it was just as cold in Milwaukee. Where I lived then was on a very busy street and about 2 blocks away from where I bought my beer. At half time I walked up there, bought a case that was NOT chilled and by the time I got back home it was almost frozen, which my eye brows were. Amazing? Nah, that’s Wisconsin in the winter. What was amazing was not a single person or car passed me during my walk! NOBODY in Wisconsin misses a championship Packers football game! – – and you got’a have beer… 🙂
I listened to NPR last night and they did the forecast for central PA. I was really surprised when the mentioned that “a cold front” is coming in and that tomorrow would(12/16) would be well below normal and that rain/sleet/snow would be coming tonight into Saturday.
Nary a mention of “the polar vortex” or “polar air intrusions” or climate change. I suspect maybe around here they decided to taper off on some of the leftist liberal talking points because donations are down. Now they are advertising for people to donate only $1200 a month!
This media source is just typical of the spin in global warming over the decades.
The tropospheric-stratospheric polar vortex breakdown of January 1977
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/GL004i004p00151/full
“An extraordinary warming of the stratosphere in December-January 1976-77 was followed by tropospheric warming in the polar region and cooling in middle latitudes. During January 10-20, the associated polar anticyclone extended from the surface to 10 mb.”
This is why the recent years surface adjustments are nonsense and ignore warming in the Arctic during colder periods in the northern hemisphere especially. Colder winters in the past for most people living in mid-latitude regions were caused by warming in the polar regions. Ignoring the warming back then in data sets and adding the warming even more now when this occurs, just adds false comparison of extra warming now because it wasn’t applied back then. Confirmation bias at it’s best by very selective data cherry picking.
The polar vortex has been known for decades and we can literally blame no sun light reaching the Arctic.
“Feeling a Chill? Blame the Polar Vortex. And Global Warming.”
So does global warming cause no sun light reaching the Arctic? NO
Therefore it has nothing to do with global warming or global cooling or no change or climate change or Summer. It is just weather caused by a displacement of very cold Arctic air because there is no sun light from the source.
A warmer planet doesn’t cause cold waves (no sun light), like a cooler planet doesn’t cause heat waves (sun light). The changes in global temperatures are so small that it makes no difference to the behaviour of the planet whether warming, cooling or remaining the same when the mechanisms rely on either sunlight or no sunlight present at all.
Awesome Matt, nailed it. QED.
Just go back and look at the “i believe” statement from John Holdren. That was not science.
The main purveyor of “fake news” keeps right on churning it out, no matter what…..
Weather forecast.
http://www.intellicast.com/Video/Player.aspx?id=58d48db2-cf93-43f4-95e9-83206ebf831e
Very low solar activity.
http://www.n3kl.org/sun/images/noaa_satenv.gif?
Polar vortex is open to the North America.
http://pics.tinypic.pl/i/00851/sc9g3ipa5kvl.png
http://www.findlocalweather.com/weather_maps/temperature_north_america.html
Much worse cold is coming to the northeast USA as the front moves off the prairies and to the east. Get your wool socks out and stay warm folks.