Record CA Cold Snap

Records are being set all over the world - heat, cold, wind, and rain. Why is the recent short-term weather so different from the expected long-term climatic norm?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Jan 16 2007, 10:51 PM) [snapback]377013[/snapback]</div>

Not sure I understand your question. Regardless, how long have weather "records" been reliably kept? A century, or maybe as little as a few decades in most parts of the world. So when you see a record high or a record low, you are looking at a "record" within a tiny, tiny window of time.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Jan 16 2007, 10:47 PM) [snapback]377011[/snapback]</div>

I predict the price of "citrus based de-greaser" is due for a fall...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 17 2007, 02:58 AM) [snapback]377017[/snapback]</div>

Yes, paper and electronic records are relatively recent. There are many other indicators of past climate in the fossil record and in ice sheets, which go back a very long time.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 17 2007, 03:51 PM) [snapback]377006[/snapback]</div>

My post began:

"Fully realizing that weather is not climate, I'd like to say that this year is topping the charts for confusing the plants in my yard, here in Northern Virginia. " It was an interesting observation of what was occurring in my yard.

Upon reflection, I'm no longer going to read your posts. Not because you presented a snarky dig at my prior post, in effect, saying that I was stupid. But because this seems to be systematic.

In particular, for my post on the NOAA announcement of 2006 US mean temperature, you went way out of your way to present me with evidence that, upon inspection, turned out to be a ludicrously biased summary of recent NOAA research. Which I then had to track down in order to get the straight story. I said nothing at the time except to point out what NOAA actually said, as opposed to what you posted, but for the benefit of other readers, I'll briefly recap here.

A few days back, I posted a brief innocuous message, to point people to the NOAA webpage, where NOAA stated that 2006 was the hottest year in the US on record. By a small margin. I thought that got relatively little press, yet was noteworthy.

You then came back with a laundry list of record cold events. Goodness, I thought, what does this guy know that I don't. And, being fair-minded, I tracked those back to the source. Which was -- a NOAA summary of record weather events for the year, from which you had a) cherry-picked just events dealing with cold, and B) somehow failed to mention NOAAs overarching conclusion, printed in big letters at the bottom of their main graphic, which was that this was the 6th warmest year on record for the earth as a whole.

So I hope you can see the reasonableness of my position. I posted a notice of an accurate and unbiased NOAA measurement of US land temperatures. I was unaware the NOAA in fact also declared this the 6th warmest year ever for the globe as a whole. But you took the NOAA data source that said that, cherry picked the cold events, and used it to argue that NOAAs finding meant nothing in the context of truly global assessment. Whether you did the cherry-picking, or the source from which you get your information did the cherrypicking, is irrelevant from my standpoint. NOAA went to great effort to do an accurate and unbiased assessment of mean global temperature, but had I relied on your information, I would have gotten a completely warped and incorrect conclusion, one that was in fact the opposite of NOAA's own conclusion.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 17 2007, 12:51 PM) [snapback]377006[/snapback]</div>

That is the general consensus among most climate scientists I have read.

On the otherhand, when you see trends it can lend itself to a possible hypothesis so they should not be ignored altogether.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Jan 16 2007, 11:53 PM) [snapback]377029[/snapback]</div>

Again - mixing up WEATHER and CLIMATE. There are any number of climate proxies that go back very far, some more reliable than others. But they are not meant to infer daily, weekly, or annual weather events / "records". So when you are talking WEATHER records, those are only available for the past hundred years or so - at best - insomuch as humans have recorded such events.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Jan 17 2007, 12:13 AM) [snapback]377034[/snapback]</div>

Your post was titled "Late Fall Tulips - just another global warming observation".

So to me, the "gist" of your post - despite any disclaimers within - was that your tulip blooms are evidence of global warming. If this was not your intent, my apologies. I certainly did not intend to offend, but I take issue with this assertion.

As for the NOAA data - I was using available data to point out that if you want to cherry pick, you can "prove" anything (i.e., using short term local data I could easily demonstrate the earth is cooling just as well as I could show it is warming). Data should not be used in that manner, and that is my point. So I hope you too can see the reasonableness of my position.

I agree with your statement that NOAA says this is the 6th warmest year "on record". Also, IMO, there has been a general warming trend overall since the Little Ice Age. However, I remain unconvinced that this is only - or even mostly - the result of anthropogenic causes. Some of it is, some of it is not.

 

If blooming winter tulips on the east coast are a sure sign of global warming - as was posted previously - then what are we to make of this record setting CA cold snap? A sure sign there is no such thing as global warming? My opinion - there is nothing to make of either case - relative to "global warming" (climate change). Short-lived local observations are WEATHER, people, not CLIMATE. Please remember that.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../n135145S71.DTL

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 17 2007, 07:34 AM) [snapback]377082[/snapback]</div>

We don't seem to be speaking the same language here. Would you define climate as the long term average weather?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 17 2007, 06:47 AM) [snapback]377096[/snapback]</div>

Yes there are other causes for climate change besides anthropogenic causes, the climate was changing long before humans arrived on the scene. However despite the rather minimal warming to date, the rate of change of predicted (the median estimate of the IPCC) warming is unprecedented in the last 400,000 years. Those who remain skeptical that global warming will be a problem in the next 50 to 100 years are increasingly in the minority among scientists, if we do not change behavior and continue emit greenhouse gases at our current rate of growth, then warming will tend to be on the high side of the IPCC estimates.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Jan 18 2007, 08:35 AM) [snapback]377201[/snapback]</div>

A long term average is influenced very little by a warm december or a cold january (i.e., short term fluctuations). I'm not sure how else to convey my point. Others seem to have got it, so sorry if there is something here that remains unclear. <_<

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Jan 17 2007, 02:53 AM) [snapback]377029[/snapback]</div>

The glaciers melted over a million years ago before homosapiens were rubbing two sticks together and creating global warming trends.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 19 2007, 02:14 PM) [snapback]377793[/snapback]</div>

You seem very insistent that weather is not climate, yet the difference is merely short term versus long term. By definition, climate is weather, averaged over a long period of time. I understand your point that any one weather event in any one location has so little effect on the long term average that it cannot be called climate, and is not in itself indicative of climate change. My point is that there are so many wild variations from the expected norm in so many places, that climate change is indicated.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jan 19 2007, 10:18 AM) [snapback]377795[/snapback]</div>

Thats great but how fast did it happen and did those "cavemen" have a delicate infrastructure that they depended heavily upon?

 

Coincindence? I think not!

 

This is such a pointless arguement. Over-population is going to destroy the earth well before Global Warming has any significant affect. I am only 54 years old, yet the population of the United States has more than doubled during my lifetime.

As population continues to rise at its current rate, demand for such basic things such as food, clothing, housing, and energy will skyrocket. Where will all of these resources come from, especially energy? These are very real needs that will have to be met in the very near future.

If nothing is done to stop population increase, the earth is most definitely doomed. We will be living in either a nightmarish world of pollution, global warming, and critical shortages, or an even more nightmarish world devasted by monsterous wars killing tens of millions at least, brought upon by competition for the earth's remaining resources.

The fight against global warming will be lost unless population increases can be brought under control.

Lance

 

Weather is the day-to-day condition of the atmosphere. Climate is the means and extremes of a 30-year period (1971-2000, 1981-2010, 1991-2020, 2001-2030, etc.).

It takes 30 years (360 months) of measured mean monthly temperature and precipitation, plus soil moisture, potential evapotranspiration, moisture surplus, moisture deficit and net primary productivity to compare against the previous 30-year period, in order to make a credible statement about climate change. Surface energy bugets are increasingly important in determining specific location climate.

A few days of the subpolar jet stream veering north or south is not an indicator of climate change, just a change in the weather. Anecdotal evidence is rarely credible.