Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As the reality of the USA’s brutal “global warming” induced winter bites, Minnesotan climate scientists are keen to reassure us they are still in control.
Believe it or not, global warming might have caused the arctic blast
As climate destabilizes, Minnesota could see polar snaps more frequently.
By Jennifer Bjorhus Star Tribune
FEBRUARY 2, 2019 — 6:09PMLast week’s arctic temperatures may have shocked millennials, but Minnesotans of a certain age swear they can remember such frigid spells as fairly regular events.
They’re right, and climatologist Kenny Blumenfeld can explain why.
Five or six decades ago, the polar vortex — the thick mass of cold low-pressure air that swirls counterclockwise around the North Pole — would spill bone-chilling air down to Minnesota every two to three years.
Not anymore.
“This one is as bad as we’ve had in three decades,” said Blumenfeld, senior climatologist in the Minnesota State Climatology Office.
And for anyone who developed doubts about global warming in last week’s deep freeze, Blumenfeld says not so. In his mind, the data demonstrate that climate change is real: Decades have passed since Minnesota trudged through its last extreme deep freeze.
“These used to be much more regular occurrences,” he said.
…
Scientists are studying whether the Earth’s rising temperatures might be causing the jet stream to wander even more, Twine said, leading to more frequent leaks of severe cold to more southerly latitudes.
“We don’t know enough about the science to be able to predict whether this is going to happen more or less in the future,” said Twine.
“We’re pretty confident that overall, the winters here are averaging warmer. We just don’t know how these colder outbreaks are going to change.”
…
It may be cold comfort, but he added: “Our winters would be warmer if we weren’t getting these increased polar vortex disruptions.”
Who knows – if we give climate scientists a few more billion dollars, maybe they’ll be able to tell us whether the snow will end.
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War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Warming is Cooling?
War is Peace to those fortunate enough to be killed
Freedom is Slavery after first year of marriage
Ignorance is Strength while asleep
Warming is Cooling at 2880 Broadway New York, NY 10025 USA
“Believe it or not”
OK, I’ll take the latter ( with fries ).
2880 Broadway New York, NY 10025 is the home of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which is where Jim Hansen and Gavin Schmidt proclaim warmunist dogma and do not study space.
On the ground floor of the building is Tom’s Restaurant that appeared so many times in Seinfeld comedy show. When we lived in the neighborhood, before Seinfeld, we call it Ptomaine Tom’s.
Huge asteroid set to wipe out life on Earth in 2880′, there’s just way to much catastrophic news out there
Which is supposed to be under 20 feet or more of sea water according to the doomsayers! Last time I was in NY it was covered in 2 feet of snow.
and, knowing the thought police, “arbeit macht frei”…………
You win the Godwin award for the thread.
Actually, that doesn’t trigger the Godwin law.
Actually Germans capitalise all nouns so it’s : “Arbeit macht Frei”
Probably explains why americans have so much difficulty working out how to use capitals.
Capitals? You can’t use those as reported in the media in the UK:
“Lecturers have been banned from using capital letters when assigning work to students because it might upset them. A memo sent out to staff at Leeds Trinity journalism department suggested using uppercase letters may ‘scare them into failure’ It also suggested ways they could address their students, such as writing in a friendly tone and avoiding overbearing and negative language.”
The USA has always had difficulty with the proper use of Capitals just look at what had been done with D.C. between Jan. 2009 an Jan. 2017.
CCCP = Climaye Change Chameleons Propaganda
UNFCCCP
Didn’t he just say warm weather is better for Minnesota. These polar vortex thingies used to happen all the time, now they don’t. Isn’t that a good thing? Less frozen people.
Yup, not just for Minnesota. The upper 50% of the US would benefit from warming. Probably more. Even Florida with less damage to citrus crops. Do I even have to mention Canada?
Back in the nineteenth century they used to grow citrus up in southern Georgia. I can remember when Orlando was the big citrus center. No more.
The warmer it gets the further south the citrus groves retreat…
Que?
Surely the other way round?
In Koln, NRW, DE they used to grow Dades & Figs in the MWP, not anymore. Still not in same area, except in Greenhouses …
Figs, possibly. Dates, definitely not, not even during the MWP. Palms are extremely frost-sensitive due to the way they grow, which is why this very successful family barely extends outside the tropics.
Orange trees (Citrus sinensis) thrive in temperatures of 55 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. They go dormant in winter, when temperatures drop to 35 to 55 degrees. Freezing weather, however, damages the fruit at 26 to 30 degrees.
Orlando’s warmest average high, monthly temperature is 92. It’s coldest average low, monthly temperature is 52. It’s highest recorded temp is 109, set in 1931. It rarely hits 100. It’s record cold temp is 18 degrees F set in 1894. The chances of it dropping below freezing in any given year is about 30%. That implies that the crops suffer more often from cold than heat. We would have to warm up for citrus crops to be successful in southern GA.
That’s why Orlando is in Orange County.
Citrus county is further north that Orlando.
When they grew tropical stuff in GA and SC, it was a very temporary thing, after some years with no arctic intrusions to the deep south.
For hundreds of years there have been decades long streaks with no freeze cold enough and long enough to kill citrus in Florida, at various latitudes.
And during those years people forgot what happened before and planted further and further north.
Then got wiped out when a series of freezes destroyed all the trees.
Anyone who recollects how things where “when I was younger”, is recalling a particular streak of weather, not “how it used to be” in the past.
This has literally been occurring as long as there has been weather.
Anyone who does not know this is simply unfamiliar with history.
I grew up in Orlando. I can assure you global warming has had zero to do with the loss of Orange groves in central Florida.
Development is what has killed the groves, not weather.
Brazil is what killed off Florida’s orange industry. That an greening.
But Brazil can land orange juice concentrate in Florida for less than we can harvest oranges.
Putin has stolen all of the USA warm winter weather
Moscow temperatures in Centigrade
https://www.bbc.com/weather/0/524901
For the Fahrenheit scroll to the bottom and click on the ‘Celsius’ and select ‘Fahrenheit’
I like it : Our winters might be warmer if it wasn’t for the global warming !
And then this gem of colossal ignorance,
“Scientists are studying whether the Earth’s rising temperatures might be causing the jet stream to wander even more, Twine said, leading to more frequent leaks of severe cold to more southerly latitudes.
“We don’t know enough about the science to be able to predict whether this is going to happen more or less in the future,” said Twine.”
Well, Hubert Lamb had it pretty well figured out in the 1980s on the basis of observed patterns. When the pole-equator temperature differential was small (“global warming”), the jet-stream circulation was “zonal” and stayed in the mid-high latitudes. When the pole-equator temperature differential was large (“global cooling”), the jet-stream circulation was “meridional” and wandered from the high-60s latitudes to the low-30s latitudes.
To know the science, one has to read the science history first.
“When the pole-equator temperature differential was large (“global cooling”), the jet-stream circulation was “meridional”
Can you offer a reference where Lamb published this finding in the 1980s ?
Thanks, RF
Here is a link to the 2nd edition
https://books.google.com/books?id=YKaFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=ISBN+0-415-12735-1&source=bl&ots=98f4xyzw2G&sig=ACfU3U0NqKucDh3iiPKpmoRzCUqZOJy3ww&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGy5bYuqDgAhVC2IMKHbilAkcQ6AEwAnoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=ISBN%200-415-12735-1&f=false
Lamb actually studied the climate for a long enough time to really understand it, rather than writing little snippets to pad the resume. He was instrumental in establishing the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia for the express purpose of documenting natural climate change in the historical, anthropological, and geological records. He knew that one could only understand the climatic impact of human activities after first establishing the natural ranges of climatic change.
RIP, Hubert Lamb
I wonder if “climate science” classes as taught today in universities even bother to teach the work of pioneers like Lamb and Bryson and Rossby.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=oEtXXKbwJMb0kgXDi4rwDg&q=hubert+lamb+when+the+pole-equator+temperature+differential+was+large+%28%E2%80%9Cglobal+cooling%E2%80%9D%29%2C+the+jet-stream+circulation+was+%E2%80%9Cmeridional%E2%80%9D&oq=hubert+lamb+when+the+pole-equator+temperature+differential+was+large+%28%E2%80%9Cglobal+cooling%E2%80%9D%29%2C+the+jet-stream+circulation+was+%E2%80%9Cmeridional%E2%80%9D&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
“We don’t know enough about the science to be able to predict whether this is going to happen more or less in the future, …”
But the science is settled.
Bingo.
So how many people do they think they’re fooling with the “it’s so hot that it’s cold” meme (other than themselves)? Not to confuse weather with climate but shouldn’t the “models” have predicted this?
markl, I think you haven’t understood the climate change modus operandi. All, repeat all, weather phenomena are now evidence of anthropogenic climate change. It doesn’t matter if it’s too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry, it’s all caused by AGW. Heads I win, tails you lose. The models simply churn out random noise, which is then interpreted by the climate change priesthood in much the same manner as priests in Ancient Rome would interpret the gizzards of the birds they sacrificed. All that matters is an ability to chant “it’s worse than we thought” in a suitably convincing manner.
“it’s so hot that it’s cold”
Oh Susanna, how could you say such a thing.
Kenny Blumenfeld………..
“In fact, the state is warming faster than almost any other in the U.S. The winters are getting warmer than they used to be, and there’s new local data to back that up.
A climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources came up with the graph. It shows how the number of -35 or below in Grand Rapids has decreased greatly in the past few decades.”
….try to convince Minnesotans that less severe cold is a bad thing
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/09/12/dnr-climatologist-minnesota-climate-change/
And if they check the maximums they would find that the maximums have dropped.
It appears that climatologist uses his tongue as footrests regularly. In two sentences he admits complete ignorance while claiming their confidence is pretty.
Not to overlook his/their/it’s claims that averages trump recorded observations.
Combined with frequent waffle words makes his/their claims nebulous, at best.
These “extreme weather” events used to be more common, but now they’re less common, but climate change is making them more common. We think. Or something like that.
Yeah, that was a pretty idiotic thing for him to say. In other words, nothing unprecedented is happening. You’d think he would be happy that things are getting back to “normal”.
“Our winters would be warmer if we weren’t getting these increased polar vortex disruptions.”
ROTFL! And my gramma would be a wagon if she had wheels. And if I had a gramma.
Wiv a ladder and some glasses
You could see the ‘Ackney Marshes
If it wasn’t for the ‘ouses in between
I noticed that too, Bruce.
If we do not count the times it gets real cold, overall it is getting warmer.
But the real idiocy is in not recognizing that a few decades is exactly how long these trends relating to the AMO tend to last.
Prior to that, they got more frequent for a few decades.
Yes, the AMO is certainly more a part of this than CO2 warming.
As soon as I started reading this article, I was knocked off “WUWT,” and Norton reported a Web attack with which it had dealt.
That happens to me almost daily.
same happened to me, walter. I think I had scrolled the screen & my mouse pointer crossed onto the advert which I saw in the lower right corner of the article. It has happened before – I guess these scammers let us know that our firewall software is protecting us as claimed.
What do you call it when everything that happens is claimed by you to be proof of your claims , even when its the opposite of the other things you claim proves you are right ?
perhaps voodoo but certainly not science
The great Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Feynman called that pseudoscience, or cargo cult science.
I call it a blatant lie. Others may be of a friendlier disposition and call it fairy tales.
““We don’t know enough about the science to be able to predict whether this is going to happen more or less in the future,” said Twine.”
Well hedged there that man…..
Really unbelievable idiocy being published in a major “news” outlet. Really not a news story at all but an opinion piece with lots of “scientists are studying” and “in his mind” seasoned with “disruption” But Kenny is a State Climatologist no doubt wearing a white lab coat, birth control glasses, and holding an official clipboard. Our consolidated corporate media is pathetic.
Birth control glasses? How does that work?
Wear those glasses and you’ll never get laid. Hence, birth control.
Partial birth control, close one eye.
Partial birth control? How does that work?
You only get one half of a set of twins?
The Star-Tribune went far left quite awhile ago. It is now useless to anyone with a working brain.
It used to be pens and pencils in the shirt pocket.
The more you had, the more important you became.
But fountain pens and early ball-point pens could leak so in the 1950s there was a plastic protection envelope one could put in the shirt pocket.
He is correct, there was a warming period from the 70s cooling onwards and we should all be able to admit that.
It is the reason for the warming that is so contentious.
There was no uniform warming. It warmed in some places, cooled in others, remained relatively static in others. Averaging all those together gives you a totally meaningless graphic.
Yes correct that it warmed for a couple of decades after rising out of three decades of severe cooling that had everyone worried. Nearly all global warming we have ‘endured’ occurred befor the early 1940s when CO2 was ~300ppm. Since, not so much during a 40% increase in CO2.
This unexpected Arctic blast caught them by surprise and in the hurry to blame global warming, they’ve argued it both ways: its caused by globalwarming and now it’s not happening as frequently since the globe has been warming.
So, if logic is still premissible and applicable in climate science, let me see if I can frame this with the theory:
a) global warming is almost insignificant in the tropics, but the phenomenon of polar enhancement results in anomalies being 300% greater than the global average. Reduction in ice extent is a manifestation of this, okay?
b) then please ask the MN State Clime Chief, where did all that cold air come from? A beleaguered balmy Arctic after galloping enhancement in warming since 1850 should be such that spreading all that cold air over the entire continent of North America, would have resulted in temperatures in Chicago at, say, 10F not -25F. The Arctic source must have been -60F. WUWT?
Handwaving explanations are not good enough from a scientist. Quantify it. BTW, weve had several of these events in recent years. Last year, hypothemia struck Louisiana gulf turtles, sharks, frozen solid washed up on Massachusetts beaches.
Ask the MN climato if he would accept that Crisis Global Warming is falsified if we get these deep freezes mor frequently going forward. Lets just see hiw ge handles the question. Don’t let these guys off the hook
Never mind, and don’t be paying any attention to the claims of the “green” Socialists, …… “fossil fuels” will still be readily available for at least the next 50 to 75 years simply because, to wit:
I don’t know why anybody gets riled up about this stuff. The reality is that there are 7 billion people on the planet, there is no practical alternative to fossil fuels, we keep using them, everybody knows we’re going to have to keep using them, the greens talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.
VR is going to make airline travel obsolete, or at least return it to an expensive hobby for the rich. in less than two decades. Why move your body when you can just rent a drone at your destination?
Often in the past my employer has paid thousands of dollars for me to fly thousands of miles just to reconfigure some hardware and come home. Give me a VR-controlled robot at the customer site and all that goes away.
Which means tens of thousands of dollars of airline income a year goes away just from me. Which means airline ticket prices go up, and the appeal of not having to spend thousands of dollars and a few days of your time to sit in a metal tube and transport your body to Egypt and back to see the pyramids is going to rapidly decline when you can just log in and pay a few bucks for a drone rental.
This is just another reason why even the Global Warmers’ predictions of future CO2 production are nonsense, like their temperature predictions. And airlines, like the Global Warmers, are completely ignoring the impact of new technologies on human society.
The “rich” people will pay to travel. “Poor” people will use VR
If it is/was that easy to “reconfigure said hardware” why didn’t you use the telephone to tell someone on site to do it. With the newer “Face Talk” I-phones that would be “duck soup”.
And just how much $$ do you pose a VR-controlled robot at each and every customer site would cost? And ps: iffen ya need one at each and every customer site then I’m sure the item in question is in need of a “re-design”.
His comment later on about “log in and pay a few bucks for a drone rental” suggests that the customer site would not need it’s own dedicated VR-controlled robot, but rather that such a robot can be sent from a near by rental company for less money than it would cost to fly him half-way round the world and back.
In my view, this was a relatively sane response. I think it can, indeed, be shown that in general, winters have become somewhat milder in general. As far as extreme cold is concerned, the trend is less clear (there is less data for that, of course), but there is no indication that it has become more frequent.
What I find much more absurd is when some people now attempt to blame the cold temperatures on global warming without adequate evidence. That way, just about anything can be blamed on global warming, someone will always be able to think up a half-plausible post-hoc explanation about how something unpleasant was caused by global warming.
This idea does not play a major role in this text (it just appears as something hypothetical – extremely cold weather is less frequent than it used to be, but it may be more frequent or more rare in the future), but it is perhaps telling that just this hypothetical idea of blaming cold weather on global warming which the article does not even seriously argue for was chosen for the headline.
“be shown that in general, winters have become somewhat milder in general.”
Generally speaking, in general.
If that could be taken with a colonel of truth it could become a major concern.
Of course, that is quite a rank statement.
“Generally speaking, which is the only way a General can speak, … ”
Norman Schwartzkopf, c. 1991
‘ kernel ‘ of truth
Problem is Tom, Puns that you have to think about float as well as lead balloons. I, who am ‘hated’ for my puns, took a while to figure out that your statement was a pun
lol.
I am not famous in my own mind for puns, and it was an obvious light pun to me, and gave a chuckle.
Adrian E. February 3, 2019 … it can, indeed, be shown that in general, winters have become somewhat milder in general.
And summer afternoons in most of the US48 are cooler:
Yes, the warming seems to have made winters cooler as well as summers.
Since I live in Minnesota I can vouch for the fact that winters have become slightly warmer. Could use about 10°F more warming to make it even better.
What they didn’t say is, as Steve Case pointed out, the summers have gotten cooler. Yes, I can vouch for that too. We rarely see any extended, multiple week spells of hot humid weather like we used to.
Well, after last weeks subzero temps for a couple of days (rather normal here in my kingdom), we’re having a chinook (warm spell, also not unusual) and the pretty white snow is turning into slop. Fine by me. I have things to do. Can’t stay in the cave forever, you know. Have to get out an forage for edible mosses and lichens, and hunt the mastodons that have been snorting around outside in the drumlins.
I was really glad to see a normal winter arrive. Last one was 2011, with 4’6″ of snow piled up against my front door. Had to wait for the neighbors to dig me out. We’ll have more winter like this. They seem to follow rather hot summers, too.
I will still be looking for polar bears on the ice floes when they break up on Lake Michi Gamu.
I know there’s one out there… I can sense it… The smell of wet fur…. Wait a minute! Is that Gorebull’s toupee I”m sensing? Eeeewwww!!!!
” and hunt the mastodons that have been snorting around outside in the drumlins.”
There’s probably quite the market for that manure.
We had a chat with one of our weather guys and I mailed our kid’s school teacher a proposal for a Q&A session where kids can freely interact with folks who face various aspects of weather on a daily basis.
No official response whatsoever albeit a friendly call with our kid’s head teacher. She expressed fears on how potentially career damaging this could be as word spreads to higher instances and unavoidably gets to where my paycheck comes from.
Big sister is watching you.
So she threatened you with termination?
Well I’ve been a NOAA certificated weather observer, still a semi retired professional pilot
and flight instructor..
Too bad your kid and others in the class were deprived of real world instruction..
Dear TG_McCoy
Right colleague, too bad indeed, should see how many kids ask a variety of questions every time I fetch mine from school.
The head teacher just suggested that the brand might not appreciate to it’s full extend when employees go public. Turning the pride of our kid to a shame. Kind of mean.
Has my mail been forwarded to the PR of the brand ? Guess I’m bound to know if I get a prompt from the dog.
I have quite a backlog on climate subjugation of kids with that school, wait and see.
Minnesotans for Global Warming:
http://www.m4gw.com/
Enjoy!
The whole question boils down to what is the natural climate. Dr. Mann tried to erase natural variability with his hockey stick. The only way the CAGW scam gets any traction is by denying natural variability.
We know who the deniers are, and it’s not us.
Is there even a scientific word for climate change resulting from natural variability?
The term “climate change” clearly refers to human caused climate change. So what is natural climate change called?
Weather.
Right on!!!
It supposes to be called simply Climate.
Climate Change supposedly means climate changing to a “new one” due to a climate equilibrium change condition, which can happen only by the anthropogenic effect as far as climatistas can tell…when observing through their “crystal balls”.
Simply, “technical” siency gibberish at this point in time, in my opinion…like cold is warm!
cheers
It is exactly like scholasticism
The whole point is to prove that anything that seems to contradict CAGW dogma, does not in fact contradict CAGW dogma.
So what is natural climate change called?
reality.
Believe it or not? Eh, no.
“The degree to which Arctic air penetrates middle latitudes is related to the AO index, which is defined by surface atmospheric pressure patterns. When the AO index is positive, surface pressure is low in the polar region. This helps the middle latitude jet stream to blow strongly and consistently from west to east, thus keeping cold Arctic air locked in the polar region. When the AO index is negative, there tends to be high pressure in the polar region, weaker zonal winds, and greater movement of frigid polar air into middle latitudes.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_oscillation
Since 1970, the AO has trended towards a more positive index. This would be consistent with the Minnesota observations of less frequent cold winters over the past decades. However, since 1999/2000 the index has been relatively flat. Perhaps change is in the air. https://imgur.com/a/hGIvAqi
I love it when the warmers retreat to the wide temperature swing argument. They hope nobody points out that -30 to 30 vs 0 to 60 is the same swing: their theory promotes the latter not the former.
Let’s see how we finally come out of the winter. After this warmup we have another 3-4 weeks of potentially cold weather. If AGW is true it will be brutal. If AGW is not true its will stay very warm. (isn’t that how it works?).
It really is up is down and right is left. No snow, snow, cold, warm, mild, ice, no ice, drought, floods, heat waves, hurricanes, no hurricanes, tornadoes, no tornadoes and the ever popular sea level rise.. it’s all due to climate change. Help us all.
Right you are. It has now warmed up above freezing in most of Minnesota but here is the forecast for late next week (temps in F):
Friday: Partly sunny, with a high near 7. Northwest wind around 11 mph.
Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around -7. Northwest wind 7 to 10 mph becoming south after midnight.
Just wait for sea levels to drop noticeably. They’re already ignoring the consistent no change in that but what’s a bet they’ll blame AGW for it as damage control.
My BS-meter is now so finely tuned that I can assess dodgy science stories in TWO words. They are: “Scientists believe….”
Real scientists need to dissociate themselves from the climate fraudsters before the entire profession is brought into disrepute.
Believe it or not, global warming might have caused the arctic blast.
==≠=========
Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation.
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds
When I was teaching college in Toronto, one of the most popular topics students wanted to write on was global warming. Students were often upset that I wouldn’t allow it. One record-breakingly cold winter I had a very concerned girl come to me after class arguing that she should be able to write about such an important topic, ending her plea with: “Don’t you realize this is the coldest winter we’ve had in a hundred years?”
“And how,” I asked, “is that caused by global warming?”
She stopped dead in her tirade and after a moment said, “Actually, I never understood that either.” And that was the last I heard of it from her.
It did, however drive home how remarkably brainwashed youth were that they could spout global warming doctrine even while being aware of its inherent inconsistencies.
Climate Change – the theory that Kenyy Blumenfeld claims cannot be falsified.
Science or Pseudoscience?
Scientist or Charlatan quack?