Sunday, May 29, 2011

“May snow depths are deeper than anything we have seen in the last 45 years”

That’s from the avalanche center in the Tetons, and here is a current web-cam view up Yosemite Valley towards still-closed Tioga Pass (in the left background):
Tioga Pass webcam
AP has a nice roundup of late snow and snowpack news (including the Teton quote). Just weather. No mention of climate. Nothing this time about snow and cold being caused by global warming. Now if we could just get the press to do the same when there is a regional hot spell. Still, it’s progress. Remember the spinning on last winter’s snowzilla?
Most amusing was Al Gore’s quote from “the scientific community“:
A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species.
A click on Gore’s link showed “the scientific community” to be Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page. Gore should also have quoted Page’s credentials, which Page listed in his next line:
That’s simple science even for me, a guy whose scientific education pretty much ended with the old “Watch Mr. Wizard” TV show and a subscription to Popular Mechanics.
Unfortunately, Gore could have quoted some actual scientists to the same effect, as Andrew Bolt quoted the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research:
The overall warming of the earth’s northern half could result in cold winters… Recent severe winters like last year’s or the one of 2005-06 do not conflict with the global warming picture, but rather supplement it.
But as Bolt also quoted, the Potsdammer’s IPCC bible had predicted the opposite:
Fewer cold outbreaks; fewer, shorter, intense cold spells / cold extremes in winter” as being consistent across all model projections for Europe
What, are there no takers this time around? Are they tiring of the ridicule?

3 comments:

ciccio said...

I have just finished some research on global warming and the evidence I have uncovered almost frightens me. It is frightening because I appear to be the one and only superbrain in the world who has managed to delve to the very core of the problem.

It is now some 20 years that the banner of global warming has been the one waved in front of the troops fighting the fight for a better world. Countries like Germany have spent untold resources planting more forests, closing coal plants, the list is endless, the results minimal. On the other hand, the developing world is increasing their per capita because they want more cars and more power stations. They want what we got.

In 1990 Germany had a population of 79 million and 10 million something hectares of forest, forests are the lungs of the world, chop them all down and the world is dead. By 2010 the population has risen to 81 million, the forest had risen to just over 11 million.

In 1990 Pakistan had a population of 108 million, most of the forests had been cut down in the previous 50 years to make room for the quadrupled population. Forests are not only the lungs of the planet, in hill countries (like Pakistan) its roots are the glue that holds the land together. The annual landslides kept the population down a little bit. Its forest were down to 2.5 million hectares. By 2010 the population was 187 million, its forests down to 1.5 million.

Why does no one even mention those extra 79 million, all those resources they consume, the carbon they generate, its like discussing sexy altar boys at a conclave of cardinals. Going from global warming into politics, (a bit like going from a blow-job to fellatio) it is a curious coincidence that all the countries experiencing the throes of Arab spring and the burgeoning democracy have quadrupled their populations in the last 50 years. Could that perhaps have something to do with the recent study that found that the most peaceful countries in the world are Norway, Luxembourg, Iceland and New Zealand whose combine total population would not even fill New York.

Anonymous said...

Yes.... global warming is going to be the cause of longer colder winters and shorter cooler summers.......

Pastorius said...

Great comment, Ciccio. You should become a blogger.

Let me know if you want to contribute.

Of course, blogging requires linking to back up your assertions. If you want to do it, let me know.