Thoughts on this Harsh Winter

[lawrocket 3]

The sides now participating in the spinning of this winter - which appears to be particularly harsh in the Northern Hemisphere. "What happened to global warming?". "Here's proof that it isn't happening."

From the other side, "this is within the normal variation." "This is what we'd expect from global climate change." Etc.

It is not well known that other oceans have their oscillations. The Pacific has El Nino/La Nina. Well, the Arctic has one, too. Due to the seasonality it expriences (unlike the equatorial Pacific) it is much more unpreedictable, unstable and less understood than even the poorly understood El Nino.

One thing seems pretty certain, however - data suggests that this is not a normal event. Rather, this year's Arctic Oscillation was more extreme (recorded) only once since 1950 - Jan 1977. This is not a "normal" variance - unless "normal" is defined as "anything."

This winter has other implications. Will it generate large amounts of sea ice that some will call "recovery" and others will call "irrelevant to the long-term trend?" Will it increase glaciation? (I note that whenever the sea ice pack is smaller the alarmists cite it as evidence. Whenever it isn't smaller it is irrelevant.) I do note that the trend since 1950 is slightly up (peaking in about 1990 and slightly downward over last 20 years.)

I can see the different possibilities but I also see the arguments. "Ice pack thicker than seen since 1979 proof of climate change fraud." Or, "ice pack recovery insignificant." Or "Even with the harsh winter the ice pack remains thinner than any time prior to 2007." Yawn.

There are additional arguments that consist of positional inference. "It's a cold winter in London but Alaska has near-record warmth." This argument is used to buttress the AGW side. Another inference that is just as valid is, "yeah. It's warm in Alaska. So what? Check out the rest of the Northern Hemisphere."

To me, what I am interested in most is how the Arctic Oscillation will moderate the existing El Nino. It's been predicted that this may be the warmest year on record because of the somewhat strong El Nino. The Arctic oscillation appears to be fucking that up somewhat. It will affect global temperatures.

What will this do to Hadley Center's prediction? What will the data do? How is it that the poles (where climate change and particularly warming) is to be most pronounced in the winter is going to look? Will the polar temperatures be warmer since the sinking jet stream has redistributed southern warmth northward?

It'll be interesting to see. But just be on the lookout for allegations of proof from either side.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[RonD1120 62]

It has always been thus. Sometimes the winters are cold and there is a lot of snow; other years not so much. Some summers are very hot and there is little rain. Other years there are consistent downpours. If it wasn't for Al Gore and the lame stream media I couldn't tell the difference.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[rhaig 0]

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It'll be interesting to see. But just be on the lookout for allegations of proof from either side.

what all the vacillations mean to me is that neither side really has any facts to prove anything.

--
Rob

[Southern_Man 0]

Rather, this year's Arctic Oscillation was more extreme (recorded) only once since 1950 - Jan 1977.

The whole problem to me is that this is not a statistically meaningful data set when you are talking about global warming and cooling and what a "normal" variation looks like. Climate varies naturally on a more geological time scale, not on a year-to-year basis.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[lawrocket 3]

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Rather, this year's Arctic Oscillation was more extreme (recorded) only once since 1950 - Jan 1977.

The whole problem to me is that this is not a statistically meaningful data set when you are talking about global warming and cooling and what a "normal" variation looks like. Climate varies naturally on a more geological time scale, not on a year-to-year basis.

Meaningful? Subjective interpretation, right?

My problem is that we've got people are saying everything is natural variability except climate. What, only climate is exempt from natural variability?

It is a key problem. You say it is not "meaningful" as if it is objective proof. Using adjectives to describe science takes it from science to rhetoric.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Southern_Man 0]

I am fully aware that meaningful is a subjective interpretation.

Choosing a data set, however, is also subjective and not purely scientific. A data set which represents 27 years is hard to measure against any sort of historical record. How much, for examples, did polar ice coverage differ in a 27 year period during the Medieval Warm Period? More than this? Less than this? We don't know.

I'd put more stock in any of the climate prediction models if they had been reliably back tested, though.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[mnealtx 0]

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What will the data do? How is it that the poles (where climate change and particularly warming) is to be most pronounced in the winter is going to look?

Like the song says... "It Ain't Necessarily So".

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[lawrocket 3]

I'd like to shake your hand. The lack of knowledge of ice coverage historically is a huge issue with me. We don't know, and that's why when I read claims about lack of sea ice being "unprecedented" I have to chuckle.

It's why I specifically mentioned "since 1950" because I won't say "once in the last 2000 years."

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[quade 4]

I know this is going to sound like a contradiction, but . . .

Weather does not equal climate.

What's happening on any given day, month or year simply is not indicative of what's happening at much longer time scales.

What's happening in any given city, county or state is not indicative of what's happening globally.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[lawrocket 3]

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I know this is going to sound like a contradiction, but . . .

Weather does not equal climate.

True. However, weather is an indispensible part of it. Hence, the reason why climate predictions indicate all kinds of nasty weather phenomena, like increased in droughts (or floods), increases in blizzards (or lowered snowfalls), increases in humidity (or in aridity), increases in cloudy days (and cloudless days), more tornadoes (or fewer), hotter summers (or cooler ones), warmer winters (or colder ones), more hurricanes (or fewer ones) - all attributable to anthropogenic global warming.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[mnealtx 0]

Ever notice that hotter summers and warmer winters are evidence of global warming, but cooler summers and colder winters are 'just weather'?

Funny how that works.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[lawrocket 3]

Yes I have. The warmer temps are what they predict and they are invested in them - "see? I told you it's warming." A cool temperarature is different. "Of course we expect some cool times. But they are irrelevant with the long term trend starting with the Little Ice Age.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billvon 3,173]

>Ever notice that hotter summers and warmer winters are evidence of
>global warming, but cooler summers and colder winters are 'just weather'?

75F here today.

[rehmwa 2]

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75F here today.

that's global warming - it's all Bush's fault, though Clinton did it first, and Obama is doing it worse. It would be much cooler if we all ate better.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[billvon 3,173]

> It would be much cooler if we all ate better.

Not enough whale in our diet, no doubt.

[Gawain 0]

What was the science being cited back in the 70s when it was front-cover news of a coming ice age?

What was the agenda, if any, behind that? What measures were being advocated?

Compare and contrast with today's movements.

1975 Newsweek: Coming Ice Age

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Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Time Magazine 1974 to 2006

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1974 -- In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone's recollection....
...
Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since.

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2006 -- Be worried, be very worried
The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame ...
...
As fast as global warming is changing the oceans and ice caps, it's having an even more immediate effect on land. Droughts are increasingly common as higher temperatures also bake moisture out of soil faster, causing dry regions that live at the margins to tip into full-blown crisis.

So, "oh my God!!!" ... it's going to be a freezing burn!!!

What I see is scientists trying to ask the questions. I see the press and the political tint in the reporting, even 30+ years ago, using the same f**k**g excuses to new agendas.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[billvon 3,173]

>What was the science being cited back in the 70s when it was
>front-cover news of a coming ice age?

It was an extrapolation of a study of high altitude aerosols, which were causing cooling at the time. Newsweek took this and ran with it, claiming it meant a "new ice age." None of the actual studies claimed that.

You shouldn't get your science from Newsweek magazine.

[mnealtx 0]

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>What was the science being cited back in the 70s when it was
>front-cover news of a coming ice age?

It was an extrapolation of a study of high altitude aerosols, which were causing cooling at the time. Newsweek took this and ran with it, claiming it meant a "new ice age." None of the actual studies claimed that.

You shouldn't get your science from Newsweek magazine.

Wasn't that Hansen's story, back in the 70's?

Didn't the claimed global warming purportedly start in the mid 70's, in close correlation to the Clean Air Act?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[vortexring 0]

Perhaps the only real thought worth thinking of is the simple and rather obvious fact being that the weather man always speak with forked tongue!

Scientists may well collate suitable data which support their theories but unfortunately it's pretty frickin' far from being conclusive at the moment, either way.

If indeed global warming does get eventually proven as being a result of our carbon emissions, it'll more than likely be too late anyway.

So who gives a shit?

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[mnealtx 0]

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So who gives a shit?

Al Gore's 'carbon credit' company?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[billvon 3,173]

>Wasn't that Hansen's story, back in the 70's?

Nope. Again, best to get your science from science journals, and not FOX News (or Newsweek.)

>Didn't the claimed global warming purportedly start in the mid 70's,
>in close correlation to the Clean Air Act?

No, actually it's been happening since about 1850.

But maybe you're right. What else happened in the mid 1970's? Star Wars! Before that, there were no Wookies. Then Star Wars comes along and - bang! - some more global warming, along with Wookies, who are furry and (presumably) warm. Why is so-called "consensus science" suppressing the Wookie Hypothesis? I guess Hansen doesn't want you to know the TRUTH!

[vortexring 0]

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So who gives a shit?

Al Gore's 'carbon credit' company?

Fair enough - at the very least that can encompass our species lackadaisical mindset towards what really counts....

Anyway, you crack on with your global warming sparring session with Bill; ding ding: Round 374 589...

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[mnealtx 0]

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>Wasn't that Hansen's story, back in the 70's?

Nope. Again, best to get your science from science journals, and not FOX News (or Newsweek.)

How about Science Magazine and NASA GISS? Are they valid sources, Bill?

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>Didn't the claimed global warming purportedly start in the mid 70's,
>in close correlation to the Clean Air Act?

No, actually it's been happening since about 1850.

[kallend 2,228]

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So who gives a shit?

Al Gore's 'carbon credit' company?

The conservatives' "patron saint" of economics, Ronald H. Coase, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and the 1991 Nobel laureate in economics, about whom Conservapedia.com, (an online encyclopedia with a conservative orientation) writes "Mr. Coase’s extraordinary insight was that the free market always reaches the most efficient level of productive activity, in the absence of transaction costs” has recently weighed in.

Coase's paper “The Problem of Social Cost,” has become one of the most-often-cited economics papers ever published. He shows that actions with harmful side effects — negative externalities, in economists’ parlance — are quintessentially practical problems. They are best solved, he argued, not by chanting slogans about rights and freedoms, but by steering mitigation efforts to those who can perform them most efficiently.

Coase agrees that both taxes and tradable permits satisfy his criterion of concentrating damage abatement with those who can accomplish it at least cost. Those with inexpensive ways of reducing emissions will find it attractive to adopt them, thus avoiding carbon dioxide taxes or the need to purchase costly permits. Others will find it cheaper to pay taxes or buy permits.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 2,228]

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The sides now participating in the spinning of this winter - which appears to be particularly harsh in the Northern Hemisphere. "What happened to global warming?". "Here's proof that it isn't happening."

.

Not unusually cold here in Chicago.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.