340 replies to this topic

[Rogerdodger]

First October snow since 1922 blankets London as global warming bill debated...

29th October 2008 12:35 GMT Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.

In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.

The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic apparatus for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute.

60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won't be as bad "as people say".
Both figures are higher than a year ago - and the poll was taken before the non-summer of 2008, and the (latest) credit crisis.

[Rogerdodger]

Temps in most areas of country below average in '08...

[OEXCHAOS]

FWIW, we had a pretty mild winter last year, and a rather mild summer this year. and frankly it seems like Sunday was the first cold fall day this year. This is in the Ohio Valley. I know others have seen some extremes (we only got a major earth quake and a hurricane). We've been out of the conditioned space a lot this year and are rather amazed at how mild it has been. This year would be a good one for a mild winter. M

[Rogerdodger]

Utah ski resort opens early as 46 inches of snow piles up!

'The first day was awesome'
Snow arrives early at Snowbird
Snowbird marks its second-earliest start in 38 years
By Maggie Thach
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 11/10/2008 06:39:17 AM MST

Skiers Michael Plummer, right, and Seabury Davies and their sons scan the scenery as the Tram at Snowbird approaches the dropoff point, on Sunday. (Scott Sommerdorf / The Salt Lake Tribune)
Michael Plummer was looking forward to the ski season after sitting out all of last year because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament. But he didn't think it would come this early.
Tuesday's snowstorm kicked off a five-day accumulation that has reached about 46 inches of snow, allowing Snowbird Ski Resort to open Friday, the second-earliest start in the resort's 38-year history. The resort didn't open until Nov. 28 last year.

[mss]

If ant hills are high in July, winter will be snowy. If the first week in August is unusually warm, the coming Winter will be snowy and long. When leaves fall late, winter will be severe. For every fog in August, there will be a snowfall in Winter. (6 here) Squirrels gathering nuts in a flurry, will cause snow to gather in a hurry. A warm October, A cold February. Flowers bloomin' in late Autumn, A sure sign of a bad Winter comin'. A warm November is the sign of a bad Winter. Onion skins thick and tough, coming Winter cold and rough. A tough Winter is ahead if: corn husks are thick and tight... apple skins are tough... birds migrate early... squirrels tails are very bushy... berries and nuts are plentiful... bees build their nests high in the trees. So far all of the above is true around here, leaves still on trees, birds are gone, squirrels tails bushy and they are now eating off the ground which means their nests are full. So it is going to be cold

[Rogerdodger]

squirrels tails bushy and they are now eating off the ground which means their nests are full.
So it is going to be cold

What more proof do we need?

[Rogerdodger]

LINK telegraph.co.uk

The world has never seen such freezing heat

By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 16/11/2008

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.
This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.
The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 16 November 2008 - 02:50 PM.

[Rogerdodger]

Climate scientists say '08 will be coolest year of decade...

But once again the "Experts" say that cooler temperatures do not mean that it's getting cooler.

[mss]

Climate scientists say '08 will be coolest year of decade...

But once again the "Experts" say that cooler temperatures do not mean that it's getting cooler.

Because the EXPERTS want to keep their BAILOUT in.

[Rogerdodger]

Rare 50 year Arctic Blast Sets Sights On Southern California...

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - December 8, 2008 (OWSweather.com)
Rare 50 year Arctic Blast Sets Sights On Southern California.

With a week away, and a sure sign of things to come, OWSweather.com is making preparations on the server to handle the traffic from this next event. UJEAS is in line with the majority if not all the other models in keeping a near historical arctic air mass into the Southern California region.

With a warm November, Southern California is finally ready for cold storms to make their way in. Resort level snow will be likely next week, and in pretty hefty amounts if things stay on track. OWSweather.com Meteorologist Kevin Martin predicts a 50 year event. While Martin is usually conservative on these events, the pattern highly favors it. "We are in a pre-1950 type pattern, "said Martin.
"Temperatures in Siberia, Russia will be -81 degrees this week, "said Martin. "With those type of temperatures the arctic air mass has to spill somewhere. Our answer of the exact track will become more clear this week. All residents in the mountain communities should prepare this week for very cold, winter weather, with snow."Indications are a second, colder storm could hit near the 18th-22nd time-frame. The details on that will have to be sorted out.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 09 December 2008 - 11:32 AM.