Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Snap frozen sharks and brutal winter cold will soon be a thing of the past, according to climate scientists.
Cold snaps just ain’t what they used to be, scientists find
BY ANDREW FREEDMAN
The first week of January was the coldest such week on record in most locations in the Eastern United States. It was so frigid that week, and the week preceding it, that sea ice formed around Cape Cod and Chesapeake Bay, sharks froze to death on Massachusetts beaches, and alligators went into a resting state while entombed in ice.
One might think that a cold snap like this one all but disproves global warming, or at least refutes the more dire scenarios about winter all but disappearing as the globe responds to sharp increases in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane.
However, the reality is far more complex, scientists say. In fact, it’s getting harder to pull off a cold outbreak of the severity and longevity of the late December and early January Arctic blast, according to a new analysis published on Thursday.
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In fact, the attribution analysis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that the effects of global warming on cold outbreaks like this is to make them warmer than they otherwise would be, by about 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
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In fact, the researchers calculated that a cold wave like this occurred about once every 17 years at the beginning of the 20th century, but now can be expected to occur just once out of every 250 years. In other words, there used to be a 5.8 percent chance of such a cold wave occurring in a given year, but now the odds are down to 0.4 percent.
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Read more: http://mashable.com/2018/01/11/frigid-weather-more-rare-global-warming-study/#PyXaNhADvmqY
The abstract of the analysis;
Over the last week of 2017 and first week of 2018, a cold wave gripped the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada, with temperatures over 18ºF (10ºC) colder than is typical at this time of year over this area, setting records at many sites. We show that the temperature of North American cold waves has increased substantially over the last century due to global warming. So, although this cold spell would not have been unusual before global warming, it is now a relatively rare event in any one region. The chance of a cold wave anywhere in North America is much larger than in this specific location. We do not find any evidence for an intensification of these types of cold waves due to the Arctic warming faster than the midlatitudes. On the contrary, they seem to be warming faster than the winter mean as the Arctic air coming south is less cold now.
Read more: https://wwa.climatecentral.org/analyses/north-american-cold-winter-2017-2018/
Climate scientists who explain that global warming is causing extreme winter cold are simply demonstrating their lack of faith. The climate models tell us that winters full of snap frozen sharks and bomb cyclones can now only occur once every 250 years.
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Gee. Sounds to me like they’re just running the same set of alarmist predictions all over again.
They’re really counting on people being too stupid to remember the last round.
What’s really sad is how often that actually works.
These two points have been made above, but I wish to summarize.
First, just what is it about the words “record low temperatures” do these researchers fail to understand? In many stations the data goes back over a hundred years, and if the old record was twenty and the new record is nineteen, you cannot say the nineteen degrees is somehow a “warmer” nineteen than the old twenty. (or, you can do it, but you will look like an idiot if you do so.) Furthermore, if you say the record-setting cold is warmer, what you are in fact saying is that the record would have been broken by five degrees rather than a single degree, and an epic cold wave would have happened, and that really fails to convince people the world is “warming”. You defeat your own purpose.
Second, to bandy about data concerning how often these cold waves occur makes you look especially foolish when a child in third grade can recall worse winters. In actual fact the picture at the start of the post is old file-footage from the winter of 2014-2015. So it is somewhat ridiculous to talk about once-every-seventeen-years, or once-every-250-years, when in actual fact Massachusetts Bay has seen sea-ice three times in five years.
This sort of poor fact-checking is a disgrace to science, and journalism, and even science-fiction. I get the feeling these fellows just make it up as they go along.
Back in 2014-2015 Michael Mann had to dream up an excuse for Boston being buried by snow, so he stated “warmer oceans” created “higher humidity” in Boston, leading to more snow. But he never bothered check Boston’s records. Joe Bastardi did that, and discovered the entire record-setting month of February the humidity was well below average. Also Mann didn’t check out the reports from the shore, and was embarrassed by pictures of “slurpie surf” way out on Nantucket:
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/amazing-cape-cod-sea-ice/
If this proves anything, it’s my original point that reaching scientific protocols in order to allow and unproven positive, results in junk science and proving a negative, and therefore the entire discussion has to be thrown out.
In fact at this point of global panic, I really don’t even think that’s possible that there can never be an objective analysis of the situation. Because you can’t prove a negative. It’s like we are in a Panic Room elevator and all the buttons have been pushed. So it’s just going to stop at every floor… except the top one because a panic monger’s elevator doesn’t reach it.
The Earth could turn to a solid block of ice, and they would still blame human CO2 emissions. That’s what happens when you let a bad apple in the barrel… and precisely why we have basic protocols in the scientific method.
Since these have been breached on both sides, we need to throw the entire discussion on climate change, it’s been a tragic mistrial for which there can be no resolution.