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This Was America's Warmest Winter On Record (slate.com)
hondo77 writes: On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its official assessment of December, January, and February's temperatures across the United States, and the results are striking: Not a single state in the U.S. had a cooler than average winter. (NOAA treats Alaska and Hawaii separately, due to shorter weather data records there -- though both states were significantly warmer than normal this winter. Weather records for the contiguous United States go back to 1895.) NOAA blames the recent warm weather on a record-strength El Nino "and other climate patterns," most notably, global warming. As a whole, this winter in the lower 48 was about 4.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average: a sharp contrast to the previous back-to-back frigid polar vortex winters, especially in the Northeast.
Write your congress critter and tell him we want more mild winters.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Global warming proven to be a lie!
Just saying. Take the global warming bs and shove it up your ass.
Global warming has nothing to do with how much snow is in your driveway, the snow in your driveway this year is "weather", not "climate". Measure it over the next decade, then get back to us.
Or the previous decade.
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Here's the rankings of warmest from the decade
2015 - 1st
2014 - 2nd
2013 - 4th
2012 - 8th
2011 - 11th
2010 -3rd
All 15 years this century are in the top 15 warmest years on record.
We had 30" of snow in 24 hours this winter. That's all the snow we received.
Why? Because we had temperatures in the 40s and 50s through all of December, including hitting 71 on the 24th. We've had 40s through large portions of January and February and February had 50s at the end of the month. Today our temperature was almost 70, tomorrow it will be above 70 and winter isn't yet over.
See how the game works?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
In all fairness, the story isn't really about global warming, either. It's about the weather in the United States. In recent summers, the US has been abnormally cool while the rest of the world has been hot. Overall, the Earth has been very warm, but the weather in the United States doesn't necessarily indicate as such. By the way, mid-latitude weather may not be the best indicator of global warming, especially during the winter.
The Arctic Oscillation has two phases, the positive phase being a strong polar vortex that traps the cold air in the Arctic, while the negative phase weakens the polar vortex and allows more cold air outbreaks in the mid-latitudes. The Arctic Oscillation is very much related to sudden stratospheric warming, which is often a precursor to the onset of mid-latitude cold air outbreaks. It makes sense that the stratosphere would have a role in weakening the polar vortex, which is actually a semi-permanent large-scale feature near the tropopause. In the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation, the polar regions can be quite cold while the mid-latitude regions are warm.
Global warming means global warming, not regional warming. And there are reasons why the weather in the United States might be decoupled from other parts of the Earth. Even with global warming, a few regions of the Earth might actually cool. For example, if global warming slows the North Atlantic Drift current, the British Isles may cool because of global warming. My point is that scientists have to be precise in what they say, otherwise climate deniers (and trolls, in the case of the OP) will distort their message and attack them.
Steven Goddard doesn't have the best record on climate change issues.
He was very critical the National Snow and Ice Data Center's data on Arctic sea ice extent before being proved wrong and having to retract his claims.
He's also accused the National Climatic Data Center of fabricating global warming, saying their "adjustments" to the data are the only global warming signal. The adjustments actually exist because many of the monitoring stations have been relocated from urban areas into rural areas. That introduces a cool bias to the data that needs to be corrected for. The NCDC has been very transparent about this, but Goddard continues to persist in his claims of data manipulation. It's also worth noting that some other adjustments have lowered modern temperature records. For example, sea temperature measurements used to be taken by lowering a bucket from a ship into the water. Now, temperatures are measured as water cycles through the engine of a ship. Of course, the engines heat the water, so the bias must be removed. Conveniently, Goddard hasn't objected to this adjustment.
Radiosonde measurements certainly do show lower tropospheric warming, consistent with other instruments. Global warming typically refers to warming at the surface or through the lower troposphere.
Now, if you want to reduce CO2 emissions at the same time, feel free. I just don't want to be sent back to the 18th Century...
nothing screams 18th century like nuclear and solar power
You should be aware that even in global warming scenarios where the planet on average is several degrees warmer it'll still get cold enough for snow to fall out of the sky in most places where snow has historically been common. What you'll have a slight tendency to have less snow in many places due to temperature that's offset by a lot more water going into the atmosphere. Many places may see lots more snow.
In many high temperate regions you'll also see more frequent cold snaps. Global warming doesn't mean the climate gets warmer every day of every year; it means there are more total joules of thermal energy in the atmosphere. Since we're talking about a giant rotating ball of fluid which is exchanging heat with the surface and space what you get is much more complicated stuff happening.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, here in the Netherlands, the number of days there was frost at day-time this winter could be counted on a single hand. I may have had central heating on for maybe two weeks in days in total ('80s concrete apartment, 60 sq.m, bottom corner, reasonably isolated, double glass on one side, no indirect heat from neighbours because that apartment is empty) the past half year. It certainly has been the mildest winter in human recollection here. Positive: I'll probably get returned a shit-load of money on my energy bill advances this year. There has been no snow to mention this year. In the northern part there has been one frosty period of a week or so and some nice snow... but not in the center and bottom 2/3ds of our country.
Spring flowers are in full bloom, bees are collecting honey, trees are budding... at the end of February/start of March... it's all quite strange...
A few decades ago we would have been able to ice-skate on natural ice for several weeks or even months each year... Marathons and '11 cities' full day races on frozen canals and rivers. One year even the Rhine (the largest river in the northwestern part of the European continent) froze over. In the last couple of years the number of days of skate-able ice may have been a few weeks, at the most. And this year it was only a few hours. So there were national championships ice skating on natural ice this year... the one day it was possible to skate on a thoroughly nurtured 'natural' ice track somewhere in the north-eastern part of our country...
Speaking as someone who's live in New England for almost 60 years now, for most of my life there was one regular pattern you could count on each winter: bitter, very dry cold would settle in in late December, followed by a slight rise in temperature in early February that would bring the first real snow of the season. The snow would get heavier and wetter as winter drew to a close.
You need two things for snow: sub-freezing temperatures AND water in the air. The 5F - 20F temperatures we had in January were plenty cold enough for snow, but the air was bone dry. The January skies were a deep, startling blue, often without a single wisp of cloud to be seen. The lack of water was also a contributor to the cold. Days with snow are almost always warmer because the clouds trap heat that would radiate into space. It's desert nights out west where the temperatures plunge fifty degrees after sundown.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That paper deals only with temperatures between 1958 and 1977, specifically a brief dip in 1960-1965 (and caused primarily by the Mount Agung volcanic eruption). Holding that up as "contradicting" the 150 year trend of global warming is ludicrous, and a prime example of cherry-picking.
Also describing it as a "global cooling scare" is far overstating the case. The paper merely notes the cooling of the time as a datapoint of interest. Perhaps you're confusing it with sensationalist media reports?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Yes. It's about using solid physics to develop a model, experimenting with inputs and comparing models with real data until the models improve.
Funny how people will believe economists making a guesses with the help of MS Excel instead of people using applied physics and multiple server farms.
The Polar Vortex was a local phenomenon, and while the Lower 48 was freezing its nuts off, Alaska was 18 degrees C warmer than usual.
You're confusing local weather events with the global temperature record. I wouldn't go yelling about bad science if I were you...
Except for the small fact that so far their models have proven to be very very wrong.
A broad, vague statement that demands a citation before it can even be discussed.
Until they can show any form of prediction, iterative models are garbage.
The process of scientific investigation includes making predictions (right or wrong) and then learning from them. Wrong answers are not "garbage" -- they're a baseline that allows scientists to plot the course towards more correct ones. And iteration is the process that improves them. If you oppose iteration, then it's clear you have an anti-science agenda.
And no, iterative models cannot be wrong in the 5 year timeframe, but right in the longer term (except by sheer chance), because errors are cumulative.
*FACEPALM*
There are many models of many things that cannot make accurate short-term predictions, but become more accurate in the longer-term. Oh, look!
All pretty much scientific method 101 here kids.
I'm doubting you ever took any science courses beyond high school.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
This El Nino was actually weaker than the 1998 event, but the recent winter was still warmer, suggesting the record temperatures have their source elsewhere.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Translation: "I don't understand science. I don't want to understand science. I assume all scientists are corrupt, because they are saying things I don't like to hear, even though their methods have increased my life expectancy massively, and provided me this computer which I use to loudly proclaim how wrong they are."