But it's just AGW rain hiding itself as snow so it can come out again as itself in,say April?

The warm mongers will classify 75 percent of North America being plunged into the deep freeze as local weather and not part of the overall climate.

Hasn't NOAA seen those propaganda pieces put out by the WWF? The ice caps are melting! The polar bears are dying! It's all true just ask that boneheaded actor they hired as their front man.

Hasn't everyone heard? Global cooling is actually global warming in disguise! Drink the coolaid everyone, Sukuki and Goracle haven't defrauded enough people yet....

I'll bet people will have fun with this one.
http://weheartworld.com/green-living/pledge-to-be-green/

Good to see that Canada, and particularly Ottawa, avoided all that precipitation stuff.

Now I'm off to the canal for a skate.

We've already had freeze-up, a whole winter worth of snow and a river-flooding spring thaw at Chez Phantom.

The Grand River overflowed its banks last week and got right up to highway 54 in several spots. The water was within a foot of the tops of the bridge supports at York.

I'm far from the river, but my sump pump was coming on every five minutes. Leading me to make arrangements for a spare in case it broke and a power source in case the hydro quits. I do -not- want a basement full of water. No.

That was two snowstorms worth melting. If this snow keeps up through April, spring is going to be really something. Got yer generators tuned up, kids?

a few days ago I shovelled 14 inches of global warming off the roof of my church here in Northern New Mexico :)

Yes, here in Kelowna, we've just had another dump of snow, further adding to the already "record" snowfall, most precip since '69, coldest temperatures in 50 years.

My traitorous wife is thinking of heading down to Florida for a few weeks! Tsk.

I don't dare mention AGW in her presence for fear of verbal abuse.

Why does the snow stop at Saskatchewan?

In 1989 the deep thoughtful intellectual "Ted Danson", stood on a Hollywood stage and told us we had only ten years to save the "planet". Now the great intellectuals Algore Suzuki and Ted Turner say we have only ten years to save the planet. Well folks we did it once, lets do it one more time for Hollywood, we have to save this planet, idle those cars and suv.s and smoke those stacks that drive the MSM nuts, we have to save the planet, by warming the bugger up! Think of the polar bears, by sending me money.

Phantom...Is your new snow blower safe? I remember how happy you were with it purring through the snow drifts...man vs. nature and man winning!

Its falling again as I type. B.C. lower mainland.

Minus 51 this morning with wind chill in the Swift Current area. Will someone - anyone - please bring on that global warming thing, please!

BC Lower Mainland AKA Lotus Land (no more)...I've lived here 30 years and never experienced such an extended snow and cold period.
I have a new understanding as to why the old folks build their houses so close to the road and NOT at the end of a steep driveway....
I miss the rain....

I saw on the Spokane news last night that they've had almost 70" of snow so far. The normal amount is 46" for the whole winter.

Calgary had the most snow in December since 1923 at 51.4cm.

Send all Global warming fanatics to the antarctic to live out their lives calculating the loss of ice. Its really no punishment, for any day now by there calculations, they could be in the tropics. Create an ark for mankind with them as the hero's deep in a city of ice under the world. I would pay for that. Us deniers can stay behind while these fanisists can live in the ice caves of their fantasy.

"Its falling again as I type. B.C. lower mainland."

What, the sky? Again?!

FYI it's snowy here in the Maritimes too.
("National" they say...)

No, I think Paul Ehrlich was right in the '70s with his highly-regarded doomsday books about The Great Cooling. If only we'd listened to Paul.

All those Al Gore trained enviro-bots should be harnmessed to snowplows and treadmills to make enviromentally friendly snow blowers.

Yes, We Can! ... Save The Planet!

Revnant, look. Mo What'shisname, Boob-John Lea's Uncle, has an ark set/ready to go. Book early, book often.
...-

"The Earth Charter & the Ark of the Gaia Covenant
Placed within the Ark, along with the Earth Charter, were various items called .... The Earth Charter Initiative was launched in 1994 by Maurice Strong, ...
www.conspiracyarchive.com/NewAge/Earth_Charter_Ark.htm"

OK All in unison: "waaahhh!" Gnashing of teeth; their gaining on us!! It must be the incomparable Iggy The Popular.

We are doomed!!!

We need to encourage this BS so we can sneek in in full daylight ... and full delight :-)

Sorry. Somehow, this post ended up in the wrong thread.

For a bonus of 5 points: Which thread does it belong in?

Glengarrian, yes the snowblower is safe, but it has succumbed to the hot rodder's disease: too much horsepower. I was blowing some disgusting wet stuff and she threw the belt off. No surprise, 13 horse on an ancient machine designed for about 6, belts will be thrown.

But, what breaks can be fixed! It shall rise again! Bwaha!

Seems some of your are confused over what AGW means. It DOESN'T mean that every day, all the time, the weather will be warmer than before. A more proper term would be climate instability. This is not just a result of fossil fuels, if it is at all. The bigger concern is the destruction of the living systems that buffer our climate. Cutting down forests in a way in which does not replace them is one example. Meanwhile we dump pollutants into the atmosphere (a major controller of our climate).

Snow in New Mexico isn't normal, is it? No, so what makes you think that it's a sign that everything is just peachy?

You can look at this web site, which is worth a look for the funny picture at the head of this article alone, for an explanation from Gavin Schmidt at Realclimate, from NASA, a leading proponent of AGW theory which says that it is a canard that AGW leads to more climate variability. In fact, it should lead to less "weather" as the poles warm faster, reducing the temp differences with mid latitudes that cause storms. Of course, that is not what Al Gore says, only what the IPCC says. Al Gore has been proven wrong on many points, and this is one of them.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/12/snorkeling-in-nebraska.html

Taunting Dan Gardiner again, eh Kate? heh.

Good!

Deeznuts: "A more proper term would be climate instability"

Not that long ago, geologically speaking, there was a rather thick layer of ice where my house is now. And long before that, there were swamps and future fossil fuels strolling through what would become my backyard. And I haven't included all the climates in between. Was the cold period stable, or the warm? Or maybe it was one of the others?

Also, snow being unusual in New Mexico might come as a surprise to the operators of the 8 ski resorts that I found through a quick Google. Average annual snowfall ranges from 3" in the south to 100" in the north.

Kathryn.....please don't respond to the troll.It's just cranky cause mommy hasn't fed it yet.

Troll? Is that what you call people who don't share your same opinions? Wow, you must feel good to be a part of such an open, multifarious, and accepting group for discussion.

Ok, so I chose a bad example...Northern New Mexico has an extremely variable climate as it stands.

How about I use someone else's comment as an example.

"Yes, here in Kelowna, we've just had another dump of snow, further adding to the already "record" snowfall, most precip since '69, coldest temperatures in 50 years."

-dmorris

"We've already had freeze-up, a whole winter worth of snow and a river-flooding spring thaw at Chez Phantom.

The Grand River overflowed its banks last week and got right up to highway 54 in several spots. The water was within a foot of the tops of the bridge supports at York.

I'm far from the river, but my sump pump was coming on every five minutes. Leading me to make arrangements for a spare in case it broke and a power source in case the hydro quits. I do -not- want a basement full of water. No.

That was two snowstorms worth melting. If this snow keeps up through April, spring is going to be really something. Got yer generators tuned up, kids?"

-The Phantom

"BC Lower Mainland AKA Lotus Land (no more)...I've lived here 30 years and never experienced such an extended snow and cold period.
I have a new understanding as to why the old folks build their houses so close to the road and NOT at the end of a steep driveway....
I miss the rain...."

-Helene

Someone named Kathryn even said it...please tell me that wasn't the same person.

"I saw on the Spokane news last night that they've had almost 70" of snow so far. The normal amount is 46" for the whole winter.

Calgary had the most snow in December since 1923 at 51.4cm."

-Kathryn

So please tell me how this, at the least, "out of the ordinary" weather somehow negates the possibility that we are influencing our climate.

"Seems some of your are confused over what AGW means"

Seems some people are overly concerned with "Think Locally, Act Globally" bumpersticker propaganda. To the extent that they are so obsessed with Gaia in 200 years (when they'll of course be dead, no fault there) that their brains have fallen out and been replaced with something else.

"After 5PM slip brains through slot in door". Hmmm, musta been a liberal office.

Deeznuts: None of these things were out of the ordinary a few decades ago. It seems far more obvious to me that this is driven by the sun.

Deezenuts, please tell us how this "out of the ordinary" weather somehow proves the possibility that humans are indeed influencing the climate.

randall g: I'm sorry randall, a few decades ago? Did you not read the comments?

"Calgary had the most snow in December since 1923 at 51.4cm."

8.5 decades was the last time this happened...and I have a strong feeling it wasn't ordinary back then either.

"I've lived here 30 years and never experienced such an extended snow and cold period."

hasn't been ordinary for the last 3 decades it would appear.

"further adding to the already "record" snowfall, most precip since '69, coldest temperatures in 50 years."

4 decades since that much snow, probably not the ordinary back then, and 5 decades since it was that cold, probably not the ordinary back then either.

Just what would lead you to conclude it was the sun anyways? Just a random hunch? I'm sorry if I don't trust that logic...or lack thereof.

Al Gore has really stepped in it this time. He could have spent the rest of his global warming career collecting money by spreading fear over events that were a century or at least half century in the future. Oh, but that wasn't good enough for Big Al. He's now told the biggest global warming whopper of his alarmist career:

AL GORE HAS GUARANTEED THAT THE NORTHERN POLAR ICE CAP WILL BE COMPLETELY GONE IN FIVE YEARS!!!

When I heard this I assumed it was a rumor started by skeptics to make Gore look bad. It wasn't until I viewed the video that I realized what Gore had done. Gore has started a five year credibility countdown timer ticking and it's up to all of us to make sure that he is held accountable and proven to be a fraud when his dire prediction aimed at drumming up support doesn't come close to coming true.

The mainstream media isn't going to let this video see the light of day because they, unlike Al, understand the precarious position in which he has placed himself.

It is therefore up to us to spread the word about Big Al's prediction. He must be exposed for the fear mongering opportunist that he has become.

To view the video, please visit the following site and click on the picture of Big Al holding up five fingers.

http://www.hootervillegazette.com

While visiting this site, you might want to watch a preview of the film "Not Evil, Just wrong" or watch "The Great Global Warming Swindle" which is found in the video section. Happy Viewing!!!

Free Thinker: I didn't state that it proves anything. I simply stated that it DOESN'T disprove human induced climate change. If anything it could support it, human induced climate change is believed to throw off global energy systems, so weather extremes can be the result.

"8.5 decades was the last time this happened...and I have a strong feeling it wasn't ordinary back then either."

8.5 decades ago, out of 450 million decades. Of course we haven't kept accurate records that long.

You are right though, it wasn't ordinary back then - the WHOLE POINT is that there IS NO ORDINARY.

i did my own little check and its seems all but 12 states had temps below freezing in dec 2008.

deeznuts, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'll bet that you believe in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and space aliens also, all the while demanding that "deniers" provide proof that they don't exist.

It is a sad thing when mental development stops at the age of 12.

Deeznuts,
Do you have any scientific studies which show that global warming leads to climate instability?

I provided you a quote from Gavin Schmidt, who has been studying planetary climate since he got his Phd and developed programs used in the study of Venus and is still working at NASA on the climate modelling issue. He is the leading scientific public voice on "climate change" and works directly with James Hansen, whose name you also should know, who heads up NASA's Goddard Space Center. He is also one of the founders of "RealClimate", which is one of the most influential sites on the web regarding AGW, and which spares no effort to defend the concept scientifically.

Gavin says

I’m not quite sure where the idea that AGW implies more “varied” climate comes from. It certainly isn’t a general rule, and I’m not really sure that I know it to be a fact even in specific cases. There is certainly no indication from the models that variability (about the trend) in global mean temperature should change.

Al Gore, on the other hand, who has a bachelor's degree and who flunked out of divinity school says that extreme weather will increase.

"Just what would lead you to conclude it was the sun anyways? Just a random hunch? " deezenuts

Your ignorance on this matter, as in so many others, is astounding. Actually, it is not your ignorance that is astounding, it is your confidence in your own opinions in light of your ignorance that is astounding.

Henrik Svensmark is director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish Space Research Institute (DSRI), a part of the Danish National Space Center. He previously headed the sun-climate group at DSRI. He held postdoctoral positions in physics at three other organizations: University of California, Berkeley, Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, and the Niels Bohr Institute.[1] In 1997, Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen popularised a theory that linked galactic cosmic rays and global climate change mediated primarily by variations in the intensity of the solar wind, which they have termed cosmoclimatology.

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Svensmark

Of course the Wikipedia, being constantly monitored by AGW zealots, makes sure that there is a lot of verbiage attacking Svensmark in the article, which you are free to peruse. Just remember that it is quite a coincidence that the solar activity dropped off the table and this cold spell came. If the solar activity remains low and the Arctic ice cap melts in five years, then us skeptics will have the rug pulled out from under us, but as it looks now, the observations are going Svensmark's way.

Deeznuts,

I'll concede that the most snow in December in Calgary since 1923 shows instability. I'll even concede that the 1923 snow, being the most since Dec. 1882, showed instability and ask - so what? The world didn't end after either of those snowfalls, as a matter of fact, it wasn't even threatened and nothing bad will happen after this past December. All it means is that it snowed in December in Calgary - wow, now there's a shocker.

Speaking of instability, consider June 6, 1951, with a record 24.9cm of snow; July 23, 1918, .3cm; or August 25, 1900, 6.1 cm. The most recent summer "instability" was almost 58 years ago. The wettest day was July 15, 1927; the snowiest May 6, 1981; the coldest Feb. 4, 1893; the hottest July 15, 1919. This instability doesn't signify a thing except Calgary's elevation and geographical location.

BTW, I'm still curious about which climate period was the "stable" one - dinosaurs, ice age or somewhere in between.

Deezenuts: That's the nefarious nature of the AGW quasi-religion. Everything MIGHT prove it nothing MIGHT disprove it. It's all a matter of qualified opinion.

All I want to know is where does all the cold air come from, to make new record cold temperatures, if it is really GLOBAL warming that is occurring?

The logic escapes me.

Steve Burton: We're not concerned with the climate of the the entire life of the planet. The atmosphere as we know it has been a very recent phenomenon in geological terms...a couple hundred million years. The climate of the past 10,000 years has been quite stable, allowing us to flourish.

http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/climchange.pdf Page 6 chart

PiperPaul: Just what claim is extraordinary? As for the rest, you got me...I DO believe in that stuff...you're so smart!

Tim: I didn't say that global warming leads to cilmate instability...they are two different terms to describe the climate in two different time scales. Global warming is a long-term process, climate instability is a short-term process.

As for the quote...you should try using google scholar for you information.

"Changes in the mean climate state have been found to affect the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events as well (Mearns et al. 1984; Katz and Brown 1992; Groisman et al. 1999; Meehl et al. 2000)."

http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~jbell/Belletal2003_manuscript.pdf

"We find that extreme temperature and precipitation events are likely to respond substantially to anthropogenically enhanced greenhouse forcing and that fine-scale climate system modifiers are likely to play a critical role in the net response. At present, such events impact a wide variety of natural and human systems, and future changes in their frequency and/or magnitude could have dramatic ecological, economic, and sociological consequences. Our results indicate that fine-scale snow albedo effects influence the response of both hot and cold events and that peak increases in extreme hot events are amplified by surface moisture feedbacks. Likewise, we find that extreme precipitation is enhanced on the lee side of rain shadows and over coastal areas dominated by convective precipitation. We project substantial, spatially heterogeneous increases in both hot and wet events over the contiguous United States by the end of the next century, suggesting that consideration of fine-scale processes is critical for accurate assessment of local- and regional-scale vulnerability to climate change. "

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/44/15774.abstract

"The effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on the frequency of extreme hydrologic events in the Western United States (WUS) for the 10-yr period of 2040–2049 are examined using dynamically downscaled regional climate change signals. For assessing the changes in the occurrence of hydrologic extremes, downscaled climate change signals in daily precipitation and runoff that are likely to indicate the occurrence of extreme events are examined. Downscaled climate change signals in the selected indicators suggest that the global warming induced by increased CO2 is likely to increase extreme hydrologic events in the WUS."

http://www.springerlink.com/content/rgj537w4v443143r/

rockyt: The cold air comes from the poles. Most of the sun's energy strikes earth at the equator. The global climate is the result of the energy inbalance that results from this uneven heating of the earth. Cold air is dense with high pressure while warm air is light with low pressure. This forces cold air underneath warm air in an attempt to equalize pressure. The warm air then moves overtop of the incoming cold air. It is much like the process of a sea-land breeze.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_breeze

The records can be broken in a state of global warming because a) the records are temporal (ie. coldest in DECEMBER) therefore, due to a changing climate, the way in which the earth's energy is balanced may change temporally. This caused cold air to flow more strongly than usual during this time of the year.
b) even without taking time based records into account, changes in the characteristics (timing, strength) of spatial energy differences can produce different climatic events...such as more cold air from the poles.

My husband noticed that the 'Gore effect' works even over the television. As the CBC was using my tax dollars to run Gore's propaganda movie on January 1st the inconvenient truth was that we were in the middle of a big blizzard in NS.

Deeznuts,

Where do you find the cold events in quotes like this?

"We project substantial, spatially heterogeneous increases in both hot and wet events over the contiguous United States by the end of the next century"

Cold events are nowhere mentioned as "extreme events" to be anticipated. That would come under the heading of "temperature variation about the mean" The globe is colder right now, and it has nothing to do with hot air flowing over cold air.

You should try understanding your own posts.

"Steve Burton: We're not concerned with the climate of the the entire life of the planet. The atmosphere as we know it has been a very recent phenomenon in geological terms...a couple hundred million years. The climate of the past 10,000 years has been quite stable, allowing us to flourish."

I was embellishing, but you make a good point.

8.5 decades is nothing out of 1000 decades either. It is an insignificant length of time.

There isn't one shred of evidence that man-made CO2 affects global temperature, only that increases in temp lead to increased CO2.

NASA's initial data was false, they say so.

It's been getting colder for the past 10 years, suddenly that's a result of AGW.

If it gets warmer it's AGW. If it gets colder it's AGW. More OR less storms are the fault of AGW, depending on who you ask.

Which year exactly is the basis for what should be normal? Is there a clear "average year" that has been observed for 500 or 1000 or your 10000 years, with X number of hurricanes, and an average global temperature of Y degrees?

We don't know that either, because we haven't kept accurate records for even a century.

Heck we don't even keep accurate records now, we have guesses. Nobody knows the temperature at every spot in the oceans, in the atmosphere. It's these little things that surprise us with things like weather - which we cannot predict a week in advance. And can only predict in general at any rate. We get weather 'warnings' 'cause we don't even know if what we see is going to be weather in the next hour.

So while I am sure that there is a mean average global temperature, I'm sure we don't know it.

And it is absolutely ludicrous to think that the activity of the sun - who's only activity is heat-releasing fusion, and which probably affects cloud cover- doesn't play an affect on global temperature. Think about that next time you walk from the sun into the shade, and then smack yourself in the face.

I think we should all take a step back and remember this is a decade old science which isn't fairing very well in its predictions and doesn't even have a very solid foundation, and that we shouldn't be throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at its claims. Nobody has proven anything.

AGW is a media created entity. I used to believe in it myself. Why wouldn't I, the TV was screaming all these horrible doomsday scenarios. Then I researched it a bit, and became sceptical. Now common sense is telling many many people that it's not as bad as they've been hearing, if it's real at all.

Tim: Nothing to do with hot air flowing over cold air?? I think you need to do some research/reading up on basic physical geography my friend..especially before you start debating over climate change.

Steve: There are lots of shred's Steve..you're embellishing again. Please show me a primary resource showing the 10 year cooling trend you make claim to.

As for your claim to people saying that everything is attributed to climate change. Number one, that doesn't negate the realities of climate change. Secondly, you need to separate the media from the truth..if you rely on secondary resources such as journalist articles as you source of information you are bound to be overwhelmed by hysteria and bias. That's a problem with today's media, not the science behind climate change.

The climate has fallen within a fairly tight average globally for the past 10,000 years. This has allowed us to prosper..it has been approaching/straying outside this range for the past couple decades +.

As for "the little spots"...I have no clue where you're going with that or where you got it from. As far as I know you made it up.

Please read my posts more carefully while responding. I never claimed the sun doesn't influence the climate, I claimed that recent fluxuations in our climate cannot be entirely explained by the sun.

Throwing away billions of dollars? The only event(s) I know of currently throwing away billions..in fact trillions of dollars..are oil wars. Hmmmmmm......

Can I ask what resources you used in your research?

"Nothing to do with hot air flowing over cold air?? I think you need to do some research/reading up on basic physical geography my friend.." -deeznuts

There it is, his whole argument. It does not address the fact that the entire global temperature has gone down, not just moving cold air around "spatially". Where is the warm air then? Just a simple empty post complete with rhetorical question, no evidence or logic offered, then a declaration of victory. This is why you warmies are lousy debaters. You appeal to those who already agree with you, show yourself as an idiot to anybody who comes into this argument with an open mind, or skepticism.

Who are you trying to kid deeznuts? Us your yourself? You made a statement, you apparently can't coherantly defend it.

If it is a case of cold air being forced down from the poles due to displacement by warmer air, then the global temperature would not have fallen as it has. Here is a hint, temperature is defined as average energy, it dropped. If it is what you said, the average temperature would not have dropped.

Your argument would make sense under the following conditions. If the average temperature of the earth was rising, it would still be possible for it to be bitterly cold in Saskatoon, but it would be unusually warm someplace else in the northern hemisphere. That is possible, and that is the point that the scientists you quote are making. Critical thinking is not your strong suit, is it?

Using Wackopedia as an authority at the end there was a nice touch too. Did you get that link from google scholar?

Tim: I'm sorry, I don't quite follow your statements. What's my whole argument? The statement "hot air travels over cold air" is a small process within the context of climate/physical geography...that's it. Check it out for yourself.

"Weather occurs primarily due to density (temperature and moisture) differences between one place to another. These differences can occur due to the sun angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude from the tropics. In other words, the farther from the tropics you lie, the lower the sun angle is, which causes those locations to be cooler due to the indirect sunlight.[6] The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the jet stream.[7] Weather systems in the mid-latitudes, such as extratropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet stream flow (see baroclinity).[8] Weather systems in the tropics, such as monsoons or organized thunderstorm systems, are caused by different processes"

"Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences. A hot surface heats the air above it and the air expands, lowering the air pressure and its density.[14] The resulting horizontal pressure gradient accelerates the air from high to low pressure, creating wind, and Earth's rotation then causes curvature of the flow via the Coriolis effect.[15] The simple systems thus formed can then display emergent behaviour to produce more complex systems and thus other weather phenomena. Large scale examples include the Hadley cell while a smaller scale example would be coastal breezes."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather

Please show me a primary source that shows global average temperature dropping. It can drop due to modifications in our atmosphere...ie. differences from year to year in cloud cover, amount of air particles, changes in land use, changes in solar radiation, changes in the atmospheric content, and fluxuations in all the millions and millions of processes happening all over the earth.