Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Climate scientists struggling to reconcile model predictions of the end of snow with the observed abundance of white stuff have come up with a way to predict more and less snow at the same time.
With climate change, Washington may have entered era of more blockbuster snowstorms but less snow overall
By Andrew Freedman
November 26A largely deserted Connecticut Avenue around Dupont Circle during the beginning of the Snowzilla storm on Jan. 22, 2016, in Washington. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post/For The Washington Post)By Andrew FreedmanNovember 26
As Washington’s winter climate has warmed several degrees over the past 120 years, average snowfall has declined by about half a foot, from roughly 21 inches to 15 inches. Yet recent decades have also featured several of the biggest snowstorms the city has ever recorded.
Snowfall trends in Washington, as well as other East Coast cities, are leading scientists to this conclusion: Global warming, while eating away at some snow events, may paradoxically be contributing to an uptick in big East Coast snowstorms.
…
Judah Cohen, a meteorologist at AER, a Verisk Analytics company, has published multiple studies that link changing snowfall trends in the eastern United States to change in the Arctic. His research shows that the loss of Arctic sea ice is contributing to an increase in fall snowfall in parts of Siberia. This is, in turn, having an influence on weather across the Arctic, extending high into the atmosphere above the vast region, favoring weather patterns that tend to direct Arctic air into the Lower 48 states.
…
“Arctic change favors more disruptions of the polar vortex,” Cohen said, noting that he is somewhat lonely in that view. He sees polar vortex splits as a prerequisite to blockbuster East Coast snowstorms.
…
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/11/26/with-climate-change-washington-may-have-entered-era-more-blockbuster-snowstorms-less-snow-overall/
Let’s hope global warming is halted in time to prevent the East Coast from being buried under a permanent snowpack.
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Bafflegab!
“may have” – the words of a non-scientist (or an alarmist).
Can’t do “New Science” without qualifiers.
Models are not science and weather is variable due to many factors.
And their”duck and cover” acolytes with a Greta Thurnberg mascot.
There will be fewer ducks but more canards. (Franco-English joke).
That quacks me up. Do canards feed on red herring?
A guru, E. T. Jaynes, taught ‘eschew ad-hockery’! At chapter 5 of his Probability Theory: The Logic of Science.
More particularly, he advocated a shift AWAY from frequentist probability and statistics to TO Bayesian Inference.
Do you know the meanings of the words you are throwing around?
THE REAL CLIMATE CRISIS IS NOT GLOBAL WARMING, IT IS COOLING, AND IT MAY HAVE ALREADY STARTED
By Allan M.R. MacRae and Joseph D’Aleo, October 26, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/27/the-real-climate-crisis-is-not-global-warming-it-is-cooling-and-it-may-have-already-started/
Told you so – 17 years ago.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/31/extended-forecasts-are-not-reliable/#comment-2836119
The ability to predict is probably the best objective measure of scientific and technical competence. Note that every scary global warming prediction made by the climate alarmists has failed to materialize. Nobody should believe them.
To heck with 10-day forecasts or even seasonal forecasts – here is a successful 17-YEAR forecast.
The last of my three climate-and-energy predictions made in 2002 has now come true. There it is – the perfect Trifecta – my work here is done.
Best regards, Allan MacRae
___________________________________________________
In 2002 co-authors Dr Sallie Baliunas, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian, Dr Tim Patterson, Paleoclimatologist, Carleton, Ottawa and Allan MacRae wrote:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
2. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Allan MacRae published on September 1, 2002, based on a conversation with Dr. Tim Patterson:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/10/polar-sea-ice-changes-are-having-a-net-cooling-effect-on-the-climate/#comment-63579
3. “If [as we believe] solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
Allan MacRae modified his global cooling prediction in 2013:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/02/study-predicts-the-sun-is-headed-for-a-dalton-like-solar-minimum-around-2050/#comment-1147149
3a. “I suggest global cooling starts by 2020 or sooner. Bundle up.”
_______________________________________________________
It’s MY money and I need it NOW!!!!
Call 877-CASHCOW
The meme – is running out of steam…..
It may get so bad that the symptoms of global warming become undetectable.
I think they have been undetectable for quite a while! Check the raw thermometer records for the last 100 years in a variety of cities around the world, and tell me what you detect. The only place I could find any measurable warming was in Sao Paolo, Calcutta, and Bombay. And that’s not because of CO2 back-radiation. (Neighbouring smaller towns don’t show any warming at all.)
The desperation is showing. How will they ‘explain’ the upcoming Grand Solar Minimum?
Can we RICO their fraudulent lying asses?
These moegoes like Flannery have no honour. They never admit when mistaken. All just sychophantic grandstanders and bullshitters.
Here is link to Clive James short essay on
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2017/07/Clive-James.pdf
on Mass death dies hard explaining from the standpoint of a man of letters why people like Flannery ( really mention Flannery in that essay) never admits making any mistake and in fact will ride on any theme promoting mass death. His poem the Imminent Catastrophe that was posted here in WUWT earlier is maybe a summary of the essay. People who are promoting anxiety and mass death because the earth is dying is really concerned about their mortality than earth’s environment.
Nice one eo. I’m reading it but have saved it to savour. Clive James (RIP) was a brilliant wit and a proper journalist. No scientist, but he could cut through the bull “why is this lying barsteward lying to me”?
He checked his sources. “How do you reach these conclusions from these data?” If, but, maybe, perhaps….
The MSM could learn much from Clive James, but professionism doesn’t fit the narrative. 🙁
That was a good read. Thank you for posting it.
Brilliant! Thanks for posting it.
By 2030, snowstorms will be missing one key ingredient – snow.
Climategate Email 1120593115.txt, speaker Phil Jones
This is from an Australian at BMRC (not Neville Nicholls). It began from the attached article. What an idiot. The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK, it has, but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant. … As you know, I’m not political. If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences. This isn’t being political, it is being selfish.
I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right.
What?
And of course there was no rise in global temperature for another 11 years after the scumbag Jones sent that email. And then they omitted to mention a large El Nino as the reason for what has proved a temporary rise in temperature.
Sure, MR., and the tooth fairy and Easter bunny are real, too. Why don’t you psychics take up a hotline and get rich off gullible people instead of wasting your time among educated, thinking people. Rich, insecure people are a gold mine. Open up your 900 line today. (If you were going for sarcasm, keep your day job.)
A bit of frivolity / sarcasm for sure Sheri, but do you often get so easily triggered into an abusive response?
By 2030, snowstorms may be missing one key ingredient- melting.
No, it will that invisible snow that warmist Dr. Viner told us children won’t know what it is.
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
More Snow is Less Snow.
Cold low in early December will move over the Great Lakes.
I know its not nice for the people living there
but damn I love seeing the expanding ice creeping onto land
its all tinkly like broken glass and soooo weird it fascinates me
Crop failures due to excessively low temperatures are being widely reported this Fall.
That includes crop failures due to late spring rains and mud, spring cold and spring frosts that delayed planting earlier in the year.
Maybe the snowflakes are getting smaller!
Seriously, there are no snowflakes in hell so perhaps that’s where climate liars are headed.
Straight out of the ministry of truth. Orwell would have been thrilled with his educating novel. Never could he have imagined it would become the blueprint for 21st century dialogue. Global warming leads to increased cooling, less snow will lead to more snow, the Greens demand less Co2 because it is creating too much green and so on and so on…
“……….Orwell would have been thrilled with his educating novel. Never could he have imagined it would become the blueprint for 21st century dialogue………..”
Er… I think that he imagined it only too well – which was why he wrote the novel. And ‘thrilled’ is hardly the term to use.
He was deeply concerned that, in the aftermath of WW2, Western and World politicians would have learned from Stalin how to effectively oppress and rule a country. He expected that lesson to have been learned quite rapidly, and oppression established in 40 years.
It would not surprise him to find out that it actually took 60-70….
They are always behind events, making it up on the fly. Climate change is a grand old scam.
In Europe we have definitely warmer Winters (at least as I remember being 40yo+). To some extent it is even better – lower heating bills, etc. And still, remember Greenland got its name by purpose. There are also natural switches in global climate – it is not to support pollution and stupid spending resources. Just reminder
The UK Met Office is now issuing cold weather warnings – I get local forecasts through the BBC and the predictions for the next week have been abruptly revised downwards. The strange thing is that a couple of weeks ago the Met Office issued a denial of someone else’s predictions of a cold winter saying, if I remember correctly, that it would be mild in December. I cannot locate that forecast now though I shall keep trying. I wish I had archived it at the time, I should have foreseen this!
You can look at my forecast.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/webAnims/tpw_nrl_colors/europe/mimictpw_europe_latest.gif
https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Blogger/Sunclimate-719393721599910/
Here’s a forecast for Southern Vermont – almost 15 inches of white stuff by 12/2…
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/vt/east-dover/KVTEASTD5?cm_ven=localwx_10day
Victoria Aus is looking forward? to cold and snow again on the high ground..
which means tempsof 15c or less with sth winds for the rest of us
BoM states possibly a lowest ever…temp for the first dy of summer
very little is growing well in gardens and the bees are scarce again this yr little flowering on the gum trees etc due to the cold
I’ve now found the technical archive with the forecast for Nov to Jan but it is so hedged about with probabilities that it could mean anything. The press release was expressed with much greater confidence – does that sound familiar?
The big unknown this winter will be sudden stratospheric warming events and the very quiet Sun has an impact on when they form (though not exclusively). Antarctica went through one recently and they are very unusual in the Southern Hemisphere. SSW’s disrupt the storm tracks and jet streams and can cause extreme cold events in the NH and depending on where they form. As a result you might have a once in century cold spell or it may warm up.
They can form rather rapidly and can impact the weather for quite a few weeks afterward. We are currently going through one in the NH and another one is forecasted (though we still aren’t that good at forecasting them just yet). As a result, you might see a forecast for 3 weeks out get completely blown out of the water from a SSW that forms unexpectedly.
I was googling and stumbled on this.
When the arctic is ice covered in the winter, the sky is very clear. In the summer it is easy to tell where the edge of the ice is because there will be a towering cliff of cloud over the water. Does that mean that loss of ice cover increases upwelling infrared radiation at the top of the atmosphere?
Yes!
commieBob – November 29, 2019 at 1:12 am
I’ll take a guess and say, ….. to me it means that the air over the open water is “warm” and contains abundant humidity and when it flows toward and over the edge of the ice its temperature drops quickly and the humidity condenses into visible water droplets (clouds).
Like the “cloud” of visible vapor one sees when exhaling their breath on a really cold day.
People are laughing at you Judah.
Here maybe.
Par for the course.
But not those that understand meteorology.
Anthony Banton
People are laughing at you as well.
Including Anthony Watts who understands meteorology doubtless better than you do.
As a layman I’m convinced most people (claiming some expertise in the climate field) understand very little about meteorology.
So it’s
Tipping point CO2 level -> (something really sciency) -> higher winds but less snow.
Could someone please explain in layman’s terms what goes on between the parentheses?
The error is in the first step. There are no ‘greenhouse gas tipping points’. They are an artefact of faulty climate models.
I can explain what goes on between the parentheses. The climate models have a very large number of arbitrary parameters. These parameters are used to make the models’ output match observations, without changing the core assumption built into the models. The core assumption is of course that man-made CO2 drives global warming.
So, for example, parameters for feedbacks get tweaked up as necessary to reproduce the late 20thC warming, and hence deliver a very high climate sensitivity to CO2. As time goes by, the models have more and more trouble matching observation. Part of this problem is fixed by adjusting the past to reduce stress on the models’ parameters and to give them more scope to keep up with new developments. But inevitably the job of getting a totally invalid model to match observations becomes more and more difficult. That’s when these absurdities start to appear.
When you have to have more snow to match observation, but your core assumption leads only to less snow, you have two basic options: (a) make the snow more intense (ie, find a way of making less snow look like more snow) or (b) admit that your model failed. The modellers are not ready for option (b) yet, and the left-wing politicians and mainstream media whose power and influence depend on the models are only too happy to support them.
“KilgoreHoover November 29, 2019 at 1:51 am
So it’s
Tipping point CO2 level -> (something really sciency) -> higher winds but less snow.”
____________________________________
CO₂ was never forseen as “point tipper” in the real world – it’s just another trace gas.
Point tippers in the real world are cosmic events like Comets or Meteors:
You don’t have to ask you’ll know when it happened, Kilgore Hoover.
Here in central Virginia, I check WeatherBug a few times a day, including the 10-day forecast. A couple of days ago, the forecast showed several days in the 60s, up to about 65; right now the hottest day in the ten days (including the days predicted for 60+ degree highs) is expected to spiral all the way up to 52. Of course, there is no word on why the change in predictions; but we can now expect the first quarter of December to be cold (though the expected lows don’t go below 30).
Yesterday, 11-28-19, … here in central West Virginia, …. just over the mountains from you, ….. it was like 63 degrees F at one time during the day.
Eric
Big news from Queensland. The Qld Goverment has been ordered to pay ~1 billion victims of floods (i think about 15 years agi I was there) due to mismanagement of dams (keeping water in dams due to BS warmistas insisting it would never rain again re TIM FLANNERY) Just saw in Sky News Channel Australia.
Thanks Eliza. Not really a climate story though AFAIK. I’m aware of the narrative that the flood engineers hesitated to release water because Flannery said it would never flood again, so they were under instructions to hang on to every drop of water, but I don’t have firm evidence this is what happened.
I wasn’t here for the 2011 flood, but I saw the 2013 flood with my own eyes, this is a pic I took of Colleges Crossing upriver of the Queensland State Capital Brisbane at the height of the 2013 floods.
Interesting attempt, by Freedman, at trying to sell the Party Line. My amateur view of Arctic or Antarctic weather making it to lower/higher locations says: weak El Niños produce weak latitude winds and these lose their blocking ability. Here in west-central Argentina the grape growers look mostly at ENSO predictions to prepare for the growing season. Currently, with a weak El Niño, there will be more cold air masses making it “up” to our latitude, meaning less overall summer moisture and less thunderstorms.
Bomb Cyclones. Aka a big-ass snow storm before Al Gore, et al.
Yet again, Climate “Science” is shown to be based entirely on unfalsifiable hypotheses. It is utter drivel.
Very unusual (for December) polar vortex pattern in the central stratosphere. The polar vortex is extremely weak.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2019/11/29/1200Z/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-57.20,77.49,340
Let’s extrapolate this analysis and predict that by the time there is no more snow there will be an infinite number of blockbuster snowstorms.
I don’t think that will stick.
So far, the forecast by the Old Farmers Almanac has been more on the money than those silly “globull warming” people scrambling to cover and/or explain their predictions.
I’ve checked a couple of local rivers which were up over their banks in September, thanks to excessive rain near their headwaters. Now they’r down a bit, but not enough to avoid flooding from runoff in the Spring. At least we take this seriously and prep for it with runoff and catchment basins, which add to the wetland space for water birds and fishing birds. Anticipating what Mom Nature can or will do is a good idea.
But someone please tell me why these geniuses who squawk about ‘globull warming’ always, always, always fail to take water vapor/humidity levels into account before they publish their panic-stricken stuff???
My neighbor was out mowing his lawn and mine on Tuesday because it was still growing. Nothing wrong with that. The ground hasn’t frozen yet, so any precipitation will sink into it, fertilizing it for next Spring.
I hope all of you had a nice Thanksgiving Day.
In my decades of living in Colorado, I’ve had to mow my lawn at least a couple of times around Thanksgiving. This year, it’s under a foot of snow so I assume that it doesn’t need mowing (although I have no visible proof of that). Here’s the kicker, I sold my snow blower this past Spring and I said it would snow more this year (possibly due to lower my CO2 emissions).
Mr. Cohen should learn that by carrying an umbrella, the probability of rain is lessened. He might look at overall trends in total precipitation, rain and snow, as well as temperature to test our theories.
There’s no business like snow business.
On December 1 there will be a strong winter attack throughout Europe.