Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

[ScreamingEagle]

February 25, 2008

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289

 

[Steerpike]

Our attempt to predict long-term climate trends is full of variables (many of which we probably aren't even aware of) that we cannot account for. The system is too complex, and our data much too limited. A couple of decades ago we were told a new ice age was coming (and it may well be). We're in the middle of an interglacial warming period and just recently (particularly in geologic time) came out of the "little ice age."

When science gets politicized, accuracy and "good" science goes out the window. It's happened time and again throughout history, and that's what has happened in the global warming debate.

 

[CharlestonChad]

February 25, 2008

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289

Drudgereport eh... No wonder your perception of this country is so out of whack.

 

[Steerpike]

Drudgereport eh... No wonder your perception of this country is so out of whack.

The link is to the National Post. Do you have anything substantive to say about the article? Or the underlying issue?

 

[Bern80]

The link is to the National Post. Do you have anything substantive to say about the article? Or the underlying issue?

Don't bother. Some seem to be under the impression that the location of the information = who authored the information.

 

[CharlestonChad]

The link is to the National Post. Do you have anything substantive to say about the article? Or the underlying issue?

Nope. I was just commenting on the poster who provided this news. You see, drudge cherry picks what is news, and some people get all of their news from that website, so naturally they will have an incomplete sampling of the news, which means they usually have an incomplete understand of many things.



If you want me to comment on the article then:

Snowfall isn't an indicator of global climate. It can snow at 32 degrees and at -32 degrees. Comparing snowfall to global climate is like judging the best football team by time of possession, instead of who won.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Nope. I was just commenting on the poster who provided this news. You see, drudge cherry picks what is news, and some people get all of their news from that website, so naturally they will have an incomplete sampling of the news, which means they usually have an incomplete understand of many things.



If you want me to comment on the article then:

Snowfall isn't an indicator of global climate. It can snow at 32 degrees and at -32 degrees. Comparing snowfall to global climate is like judging the best football team by time of possession, instead of who won.

Over time I've posted extensively on the subject of global warming. I like to bring up global cooling every now and then. Nobody knows for sure which is going to happen. Despite what Al Snore says.

Of course snowfall isn't proof of global cooling....anymore than melting ice is proof positive of global warming.

 

[Bern80]

Nope. I was just commenting on the poster who provided this news. You see, drudge cherry picks what is news, and some people get all of their news from that website, so naturally they will have an incomplete sampling of the news, which means they usually have an incomplete understand of many things.

NEWSFLASH: (no pun intended) Every form of news outlet in the world cherry picks the news for the simple reason that there is more going on than space/time to report it. And they all have agendas of some form or other that are behind the decision of what to report. That particular argument doesn't hold much water.

If you want me to comment on the article then:

Snowfall isn't an indicator of global climate. It can snow at 32 degrees and at -32 degrees. Comparing snowfall to global climate is like judging the best football team by time of possession, instead of who won.

Actually it is far more likely that it will snow at 32 degrees rather than -32. Lot of chemistry and physics involved but believe it or not there is such a concept as too cold for snow. Here in MN every winter pretty much like clock work from the end of January to beginning of February we can count on a two or so week cold snap of -40 weather. I can't recall an exception in the last 10 years. It gets really cold, but it doesn't snow. I would say it is accurate though that precipitation is really no climate indicator.

 

[Toro]

Global Cooling comes back in a big way

Dr. Kenneth Tapping is worried about the sun. Solar activity comes in regular cycles, but the latest one is refusing to start. Sunspots have all but vanished, and activity is suspiciously quiet. The last time this happened was 400 years ago -- and it signaled a solar event known as a "Maunder Minimum," along with the start of what we now call the "Little Ice Age."

Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, says it may be happening again. Overseeing a giant radio telescope he calls a "stethoscope for the sun," Tapping says, if the pattern doesn't change quickly, the earth is in for some very chilly weather.

During the Little Ice Age, global temperatures dropped sharply. New York Harbor froze hard enough to allow people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island, and in Britain, people reported sighting eskimos paddling canoes off the coast. Glaciers in Norway grew up to 100 meters a year, destroying farms and villages.

But will it happen again?

In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov predicted the sun would soon peak, triggering a rapid decline in world temperatures. Only last month, the view was echoed by Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. who advised the world to "stock up on fur coats." Sorokhtin, who calls man's contribution to climate change "a drop in the bucket," predicts the solar minimum to occur by the year 2040, with icy weather lasting till 2100 or beyond.

Observational data seems to support the claims -- or doesn't contradict it, at least. According to data from Britain's Met Office, the earth has cooled very slightly since 1998. The Met Office says global warming "will pick up again shortly." Others aren't so sure.

Researcher Dr. Timothy Patterson, director of the Geoscience Center at Carleton University, shares the concern. Patterson is finding "excellent correlations" between solar fluctuations, a relationship that historically, he says doesn't exist between CO2 and past climate changes. According to Patterson. we shouldn't be surprised by a solar link. "The sun [is] the ultimate source of energy on this planet," he says.

Such research dates back to 1991, when the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study showing that world temperatures over the past several centuries correlated very closely with solar cycles. A 2004 study by the Max Planck Institute found a similar correlation, but concluded the timing was only coincidental, as the solar variance seemed too small to explain temperature changes.

However, researchers at DMI continued to work, eventually discovering what they believe to be the link. The key factor isn't changes in solar output, but rather changes in the sun's magnetosphere A stronger field shields the earth more from cosmic rays, which act as "seeds" for cloud formation. The result is less cloud cover, and a warming planet. When the field weakens, clouds increases, reflecting more light back to space, and the earth cools off.

Recently, lead researcher Henrik Svensmark was able to experimentally verify the link between cosmic rays and cloud formation, in a cloud chamber experiment called "SKY" at the Danish National Space Center. CERN plans a similar experiment this year.

Even NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies -- long the nation's most ardent champion of anthropogenic global warming -- is getting in on the act. Drew Shindell, a researcher at GISS, says there are some "interesting relationships we don't fully understand" between solar activity and climate.

http://www.dailytech.com/Solar+Activity+Di...rticle10630.htm

 

[Bern80]

I think I might just sit and enjoy the silence for a while.