Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Lakeshore Weekly News has listed the terrifying consequences of global warming for icy Minnesota – milder winters, wetter, hotter summers, longer growing seasons.
With climate change, Minnesota will not be as we know it
By Hannah Jones hjones@swpub.com
The Freshwater Society and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Water Patrol track ice-out dates for Lake Minnetonka. In some places, such as Prior Lake, people watch for ice-in dates, too.
But this annual Minnesota tradition is gradually going to change as Minnesota feels the effects of climate change. Sam Potter, a Minnesota native with a doctorate in atmospheric and oceanic sciences from Princeton University, can tell you just how much it has changed already.
“This is a lot of what global warming is. It’s moving toward a new state,” he said.
Potter said over the last 30 years, the average Minnesota temperature has warmed nearly 2 degrees.
That may not seem like much, and in reality, climate change’s effect on Minnesota life isn’t as cut and dried as the word “warming” would imply. For instance, from 1951 to 1980, in a given month, temperatures could fluctuate from 13 degrees below average to 15 above. For the last 30 years, that trend has shifted. The range is now from 12 below to more than 21 above.
“This is the big fingerprint of global warming — extremes,” he said.
That means a number of things. It means there will be more “tropical” nights when the temperature doesn’t drop below 68 degrees. It means growing seasons will be longer but peppered with more extreme storms. It means winters will be milder. Summers will be hotter. More rain, less snow.
…
Living on the edge of the tropics, I feel qualified to describe life in a warmer climate. The temperature in my hometown hasn’t dropped below 68F for at least two months. Our only relief from this unrelenting 24 hour heat is to drink beer, hold lots of late night outdoor BBQs, to avoid the heatstroke risks of indoor cooking, and when all else fails, to cool off splashing about in our large swimming pools.
Only by acting now can Minnesotans avoid this same awful fate.
The following is a cautionary video prepared by Minnesotans for Global Warming, detailing the consequences of allowing global warming to continue in their state.
Oh! The Horror! Any more Global Warming and Minnesota might become comfortably habitable year-round.
Worse still, the Global Warming might overcome the 2-degree drop in average temperature in Minnesota over the last 30 years.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of climate “scientists” know absolutely nothing of history. For example, there were major droughts in the 9th and 13th centuries (perhaps the Inkas manufactured automobile and burned fossil fuels???), In the California High Sierras there was a 200 year mega-drought that lasted from the 9th to 12th centuries, but I guess that because it doesn’t fit the desired model, we won’t talk about it. You can also read material by searching for: Long-term aridity changes in the western United States/Science E.R. Cook, C. Woodhouse, C.M. Meek et al; and D.M. Meko, C.W. Stockton and W.R. Boggess. The tree-ring record of severe sustained drought./Water Resources Bulletin/31. Search also for “Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating)” for additional facts. And of course, few people know about the year without summer (1832), where a mini-ice age gripped the North American continent. The bottom-line: there is not such a thing as global warming, which can be blamed on man.
I thought the “year without summer” was 1816, following the massive Mt. Tambora eruption in 1815.
A good reminder that dendrochronology generally undermines the hockey-stick view of climate history.
I wonder how Lake Wobegone will handle warmer temperatures? 😉
Disappear due to accelerated evaporation?
They will all go skinny dipping.
Eric,
The “post card” has the same palm tree inserted into the view THREE times,
but how did they get the three to properly reflect in the water? Is this the
same Photoshop program that gave us a polar bear marooned on a tiny
ice burg?
Here in northern Ohio, our weather lags Minnesota’s by about two days…
should we put in our orders for palms or bamboo starts?
Four Palm trees, mate. The one on the left is a reverse of the others
Eight times. The reflections are the same but flipped vertically.
Birdynumnum wins!
Trust me. You do not want bamboo. It grows like kudzu.
In excess of an inch an hour with enough water, a rate of growth almost perceptible to the naked eye. One alleged VietCong torture method involved cutting a thick bamboo stalk close to the ground, whittling it to a sharp point, then suspending the prisoner over it. The bamboo would proceed to *grow* up into the victim’s back, a slowest-motion impalement.
Bamboo makes great flooring.
There are two types – running and clumping. Those that have issues usually get the running by accident. Bamboo isn’t necessarily evil. Also some bamboo is acclimated to snowy winter climates. It isn’t just a tropical plant.
Using Photoshop to produce misleading images should probably be illegal.
In France it is now illegal to Photoshop models’ bodies without disclosure. There is up to six months in jail and a 75,000 euro fine. link
We now have the technology to create movies featuring stars who have been dead for decades. link
The technology will get better and better and cheaper and cheaper. We are approaching the time when video and audio are completely unreliable, just as still images are now completely unreliable.
Serving suggestion only.
Did say “artists impression”… 🙂
Indeed. I meant this makes mockery of humans, not that I’d consider (female?) models comparable of cheap foodstuff.
Commiebob’s note about reality in images being untrustable is kind of scary. We’ve seen the mocking Time covers, all advertising, propaganda where a lone polar bear is photoshopped on an ice floe. This is the age of history being retold by pictures that depict what never was. Small and big fakes. The winner defines which pictures and which lies go unchecked, which are funny, and which are busted as fake news.
BTW, a just reread what Zeke wrote in 2015 on TOBS adjustment. And, it looked frank. Now what’s wrong with me? I’m starting to believe impossible things, like that TOBS bias totally hid all CO2 warming in the US?
“We now have the technology to create movies featuring stars who have been dead for decades.”
Wonder is the digital counterparts will share the same contempt for the common Man?
Ice fishing will be a thing of the past!
I finally went out for a walk today around a lake after almost two weeks of 10-30 F below average temperatures. Yup, people were ice fishing.
The difference between people out ice-fishing and people in jail is that the latter know they are being punished.
Oh you wouldn’t sit 4 hours in -25C in the middle of nowhere to get one small bass? And claim it was a refreshing outdoor activity?
I’d call it home work, but the feminists won’t allow me.
All of the warming has been in the winter months (yeah, I live in Minnesota). There’s been no warming at all in the summer. So the bottom line is 100% positive.
I wonder why Sam Potter forgot to mention this? Could it be he is dishonest?
Richard M January 7, 2018 at 8:00 pm
“All of the warming has been in the winter months (yeah, I live in Minnesota). There’s been no warming at all in the summer………………”
Just like the Arctic.
That is true everywhere, we have an outbreak of ‘mildness’. Slight decrease in summer maximums offset by slightly higher winter and night minimums, leaving averages very slightly higher. Terrible it is, really terrible.
I’m starting to believe it IS terrible, due to the fact that when you have +2C in the boreal winter, it often is heavily overcast. The warming means you see less Sun during the mid winter, which dark in any case.
It is different from the wet bulb 40C hothouse, but annoying in any case.
I saw the Sun today. It was -1C, above mean. Terrible, I say, terrible.
OMG the children will never get to go icefishing
Living next door to Minnesota in Wisconsin, I can only say that I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for the day when I can grow coconut palm trees (like in the video picture) outdoors around here. In fact, I’ll bet the recent cold snap that found its way down to South Florida made it a bit too cold for the coconut palms down there. Naples got down to 37 degrees F one night last week.
They make it sound like we’re headed for a tropical-like climate up here. Um…..yea.
Coconut palms do not do well under 40F (4.44C).
Where did you get those coconuts? This is a temporal climate!
Believe it or not, in the town in which I was born, Princeton, Minnesota, there used to be palm trees in the front lawn of city hall. Not making this up!
Wait we know he is wrong, the winters must also be colder,
the rain falls more intense, the droughts longer,
the muskelunge’s smaller, the insects bigger, and the lutefisk more translucent.
The mosquitos will carry malaria, Zika, West Nile, Chikungungya and dengue!
The water quality will drop, murders will rise, dormant volcanoes will spring to life, and infant mortality
will rise!
Minnesotan’s won’t sleep as well and ice fishing will be more dangerous.
It is hypothesized that blondes IQ’s will drop and blue eyes will become dominant.
Oh the travesty!
Cats and dogs living together! Total chaos!
“Potter said over the last 30 years, the average Minnesota temperature has warmed nearly 2 degrees”
Can this be verified? This rate of increase far exceeds anywhere else I know about.
Oh – I get it: fahrenheit . Gee man when will the American system come of age? 🙁
It’s the base-10 digital numbering system that is out of whack. 32 degrees F freezing temp. for water fits neatly into a base-16 hexadecimal numbering system. And, by the way, so does 16 ft. per second per second acceleration for a free falling object. And 16 ounces in a pound. But there is a drawback: You can’t count on your fingers.
HA HA, …… metric is better for the “fingercounters”.
+10
Actually with 8 fingers and two thumbs it is quite easy to count base 8, base 16 a wee bit harder need those toes and big toes to really get quick at it.
16 ft per s^2? You mean 32.2…
A lot of metrics is just as arbitrary. Other than being slightly easier to measure distance – I see little advantage to making a change. But yes – as we were taught in school, whenever using numbers one should include the units or else the numbers are meaningless.
What the heck! You guys all lose your smartphones?
“And 16 ounces in a pound.”
What about a dollar?
“And 16 ounces in a pound.”
And 100 pence in a pound. 🙂
“And 100 pence in a pound. “
Or 20 shillings.
Or 240 pennies.
In Frostbite Falls, “Minnesotans For Global Warming” parkas are a big thing again this winter. I haven’t got mine out yet because where I live, we’re still at 40 odd degrees (F) and raining, usually sideways.
So you sent all of your usually snippy weather down here to my kingdom???
Would you please take it back? Ice is falling off buildings in Chicago. Huge icicles the size of taxi cabs with pointy ends to them are threatening people on sidewalks below. They start their growth on fire escapes, and like the insidious beings that they are, icicles grow large and multiply and scatter their seed when they crash onto the pavement below. Then they attach themselves to the pants legs or boots of passing commuters trying to get to work, and spread to other areas faster than it takes to talk about it.
Please, I’m begging you, take your nasty, cold, icicle-generating weather back up there where it belongs!!
Hotter summers? Not so says NOAA’s Climate at a Glance
http://oi65.tinypic.com/24quykp.jpg
From Tony Heller:
Tony will tell you straight away that NOAA’s Climate at a Glance is “Fake Data” but I post it anyway.
Why does NOAA’s logo look like a Dairy Queen sign? Every time I see that, I want one of those ridiculous chocolate-coated fake ice cream treats on a stick.
Interesting, but the 1930 endpoint is quite cherrypicked. If you go back to the beginning of the data, the trend is much loser to flat.
And 1930 is arbitrary as well, if you chose 1830 the slope should be up! Those arbitrary dates always doing their arbitrary date things.
An interesting gal, that nerdy Hannah. I wonder which James Bond she likes.
Hannah Jones
Reporter
Hannah Jones is a Prior Lake American reporter who loves revealing the hidden worlds within a community, like trash collection and school board happenings. She is quiet, creative and unabashedly nerdy. She also likes to run, bake and watch James Bond.
Surprised they didn’t add either lake level rise or disappearance…or stoke fears of climate refugees from Iowa.
“Our only relief from this heat is to drink beer and have bbqs”. You mean climate change will cause liver disease and poor diets based on red meat. Oh the horror of climate change knows no bounds.
Yep, we got it tough 🙂
You will also need to play cricket. You will soon beat England 🙁
You probably can already after this winter’s less-than-superb performance in the Antipodes.
Auto
Having grown up in Minnesota and living through winters in the 60’s and 70’s when it was unusually cold, I don’t mind the different weather cycles. I remember the winter of 86-87 when we had 17″ of total snow and the average temp was in the 30’s, and then the winter of 92 when we had 38″ of snow on Halloween. It was -5 degrees Friday 1/5 and 30 degrees today with a forecast of 40 by Wednesday 1/10.
Lived in Minnesota 75 years now. IF I can trust the thermometers, I have been through -40 F to +105 F. (It certainly felt like both temperatures!) That was back in the 40s and 50s. Hasn’t been nearly as fierce in either direction recently. That, of course, is anecdote; but the plural of anecdote bears some semblance to data. I remember the Halloween blizzard, all right! The blizzard wasn’t so bad, but I broke my wrist slipping on the ice a week later. Theater of the Seasons, we are, but at least not as many disaster flicks lately.
Minnesota is well positioned from a standpoint of disaster movies. When the sharknadoes form over ocean waters, picking up giant killer sharks in the process, not many of them carry enough energy to hold on to the giant killers for the entire trip to Minneapolis. Usually, the sharks rain out over the Cascades or the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana, with a very occasional 500 year sharknado dropping it’s load on Mount Rushmore tourists. A sharknado in Minneapolis would be a 1000 year event, at minimum. But this does not mean that Minneapolis doesn’t suffer under the onslaught of the far more common, but less deadly Northern Pike-nadoes, or Walleyenadoes, which depending on their size, can inflict some nasty bites.
The Left wants the working class people of Minnesota to be energy poor. That is, they want electricity and fossil fuels to be so expensive that modern-day Minnesotans become like the 19th-20th Century Native American tribes, dependent on govt welfare and handouts. In otherwords, A guaranteed voting block for Democrats ready to hand out OPM for political power.
Climate Change has zero to do with climate, and everything to do with bringing about a concentration of political power in the Liberal elites’ hands.
There is a huge percentage of the earth’s land mass that would benefit from global warming. Almost all of Canada and Russia, probably half of USA and China.
Add in almost all of Europe, especially Scandinavia, Japan, Korea, and many others.
These cAGW folks are like atoms.
They make up everything.
Please send some of your bounty over here. But he, the rest of the planet is much warmer than usual. Really?
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-76.58,50.47,451/loc=-54.670,66.277
that’s beautiful
It’s true, & Waddhams was right all along….you can see that the Arctic, Greenland, Canada& Siberia are warming on that map, look at all the lovely warm pink areas (there will be Palm trees growing there soon), temperatures in the 30s & 40s (ignore the little dash in front); going on TripAdvisor for a hotel.
Forgot about that site! JUST BEAUTIFUL, but note: there is a river of warm air driving from the Gulf through Alabama heading straight to Ohio and Lake Erie. Are we going to see a real snow dump there soon?
I live in Villavicencio, Colombia, and I must admit that the weather here has been unusually normal….
“America’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research, insists that “winter storms are a manifestation of winter, not climate change”.
writes Matt Ridley in today’s Times
2 degrees in 30 years?? As a fingerprint of global warming??
The only place this fingerprint doesn’t show up is in the actual atmospheric data from UAH. If there was a story there, people would be pointing to real, rigorous satellite data. Not to obscure derivatives or “fingerprints” or anecdotes, or microclimates.
“This is the big fingerprint of global warming — extremes,”
The sheriff has been reading too many detective novels.
@ Eric,
Our only relief from this unrelenting 24 hour heat is to drink beer, hold lots of late night outdoor BBQs, to avoid the heatstroke risks of indoor cooking, and when all else fails, to cool off splashing about in our large swimming pools.
We feel your pain, will organize Red Cross parcels of beer & steak, don’t despair, help is on the way.
Thanks 1save, your generous gesture is appreciated.
Are you providing beach chaises and umbrellas for this torturous existence?
I’m keeping track of the actual weather in my kingdom, especially Accuweather’s frequently inaccurate forecasts. I find that they do change their forecast with the time of day, and generally do not anticipate anything but averages, whatever that means. Weather Underground is more accurate. I think I may spring some cash for my own weather station this year, just for the fun of it. It would give the birds an extra place to build a nest. But I digress.
What I find strange is that Accuweather posts panicky warnings couched in sales pitch language (buy this forecast now or be left out!) and those warnings turn out to be badly exaggerated or false. So between the missteps of both Almanacs (OFA and FA) and Accuweather’s panic-stricken hyperbole, I’d say we’re having a normal winter and the rest of winter looks normal, too. There does not seem to be anything unusual planned by Mother Nature for this winter, just snow, sleet, obnoxious bouts of ice on my front steps, and begging, tearful tweets from the local birds. This is turning out to be a sloppy winter, too.
I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about. It’s winter, for Pete’s sake! They act like they’ve never heard of seasonal changes. It’s like trying to understand a yapping chihuahua – lots of noise, fuss and bother, with no productive result.
Weather underground is now owned by the Weather Channel. Makes me think their quality is probably dropping.
“This is a lot of what global warming is. It’s moving toward a new state,” he said.
Yeah, “Global Warming” = “Climate Change”. How profound. And how idiotic. And this climate numpty Potter has a doctorate? They must pass them out like candy now.
Why is the cool period, ending around 1980, the ideal?
I for one have no problem believing the planet is warming, and that mankind is (partly) responsible.
We are putting enormous amounts of heat into the atmosphere compared to even 50 yrs ago.
But what are you going to do about it, stop heating and air conditioning, stop driving or flying.
No chance.
Get rid of half the population,,,which half?
We are lots smarter than the dinosaurs, I’m pretty sure, had they not been wiped out they would never have put a raptor on the moon.
We will survive.
Only small dinosaurs would be able to explore space. Unless they come up with a much better method of propulsion.
@Ray;
To put the “enormous amounts of heat” into perspective, all the forms of energy utilized by man over the course of an entire year is equal to the amount of energy delivered to the earth by the sun in a single hour.
Liberals can take one position, that the recent record cold is normal and natural, when they are taking the position opposite of President Trump. Liberals can then take the exact opposite position when they are defending Al Gore and Michael Mann. The position a liberal will take isn’t dependent upon the science, data or facts, the position a liberal will take is dependent upon who is making the claim. If Conservative believe the facts point to climate change being a fraud, liberals will defend it to the death as scientific truth. Liberals are so oblivious to the facts that The Guardian recently published an article about global warming and defended their position by using quotes that disprove the very position they were intended to defend.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/climate-change-double-standard-double-speak-proves-slimate-clience-is-a-fraud/
I posted this in 2013 I need to do an update.
The ice was officially out on Lake Minnetonka on May 2, 2013. This was the 3rd latest ice-out date since records have been taken all the way back to 1855. The only two years where the ice went out on a later date than 2013 was May 5th, 1857 and May 4th, 1859. The earliest ice-out date was March 11, 1879. Last year was the third earliest ice-out date March 31, 2012.
Lake Minnetonka is the Twin Cities largest metro area lake and they have been keeping track of the ice-out dates for over 150 years. As you can see by this chart there doesn’t seem to be any trend one way or the other even with the urban heat island effect.
http://m4gw.com/images/2018/MinnetonkaIceOut-2013.jpg
Lake Minnetonka’s ice out dates since 2013 are:
April 24, 2014
April 5, 2015
March 17, 2016
March 27, 2017
The last couple are of ice out dates are pretty early, 2016 is the second earliest but I have a feeling 2018 will be pretty late the ice is really thick hopefully before the 4thof July.
Incidentally the Average ice out date for Lake Minnetonka is April 15th and the ice has never gone out on April 15th.
I’m ever grateful to the state of Minnesota, first for giving me life, and secondly, (and just narrowly behind) is because it also spawned the Minnesotans For Global Warming video “Hide the Decline”
Aww, thanks Micky.
Well if it gets any warmer in MN we might stray above 0F, that would be awful! (It is actually almost 30F today, so I’m speaking of last week’s temps…)
Oh, it would be awful to be able to grow 100 day corn up here.
Or, to enjoy the abundance of game that mild winters bring.
The HORROR!
In all honesty I would not be surprised if Minnesota winters have warmed 2ºF on average over the last 60 years but on the flip side Minnesota summers seem to be getting cooler.
Chart compliments of Tony Heller AKA Steve Goddard
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/07/hottest-day-in-minnesota/
So if Minnesota winters are getting warmer and Minnesota summers are getting cooler that means our climate is getting what? Anyone… anyone?
Less extreme.
Which is what? Anyone… anyone?
A good thing.
Hence the name of my blog.
http://m4gw.com/images/2018/M4GWShirt2.jpg
And less extreme is always welcome. As mentioned in the comments above, and as experienced by myself in a lifetime of living here, Minnesota is full of extremes. From -50F all the way to 100F with dew points in the mid 70s, it can be an extreme environment.
Why do people choose to live here? I have been asked that question many times. My standard answer is- “Because there is very little else that lives here that can kill me.” No poisonous snakes, spiders, scorpions, Africanised bees, alligators, grizzly bears, etc… So unless I get taken out by an angry moose or an escaped psychopath, (both of which are extremely unlikely…) chances are good I will live a long comfortable life quietly in the woods with only the (soon to be less?) extreme heat or cold to complain about.
Doesn’t sound too bad to me!
Without weather extremes what will Minnesotans talk about? The residents will walk around like zombies with blank looks on their faces. Oh no, a zombie apocalypse. Here you go, Hollywood …. a ready made script and all brought you by global warmcoolwetdrying.
Or maybe the subject of another M4GW video.
I thought it was more cold caused by global warming. At that was the case last week.