By Dr. Fred Ward Op Ed in the Machester Union Leader

In the New Hampshire Union Leader this past summer, I exchanged some opinions on global warming with Dr. Cameron Wake of the University of New Hampshire. With this long, cold winter winding down, it is time to revisit the discussion. The debate started with Wake calculating that the winter temperatures in New England had warmed by 1 1/2 degrees per decade for the last three decades of the last century, or more than 4 degrees! He concluded that this extreme warming was likely due to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by man’s activities.

Moreover, he warned that if we continued to pump CO2 into the air, we would likely see this warming of 1 1/2 degrees per decade continue into the present century. He also made some dire predictions of the effect of this continued warming on all manner of biological plants and animals, right down to the final New England skier. We have just finished the ninth of the 10 winters of the first decade of this century, an appropriate time to look at the latest data. Did the rise of 1 1/2 degrees per decade (1 1/3 degrees for these nine winters) continue with its attendant catastrophic consequences?

The data for the first five years of the new millennium, 1999-00 to 2003-04, yield an average winter temperature of 24.6 degrees, and a temperature for the most recent four winters of 25.9. But if Wake’s expected warming continued (1 1/3 degrees for 9/10th of another decade), we should have found a temperature for the 2004-05 to 2007-08 winters of between 28 and 29 degrees. Not only did the winter temperature not rise to 28.4 degrees, as Wake projected, it actually fell one to two degrees toward the levels we’ve been seeing all our lives.  This reversal from warming to cooling occurred despite continuing increases in man-made carbon-dioxide emissions. Wake’s pessimistic forecast of catastrophic increases in temperature have simply not comported with reality.

Wake also pointed out that there was a decrease in the winter snowfall in New England in recent times, implying a trend likely to continue. So where did all this snow come from? Read more and comments here. Note: Concord, New Hampshire had a record snowy December to February period and for the entire season is second only to 1873/74. Also St Johnsbury, Vermont yesterday set a new record for seasonal snow when they reached 139.1 inches, breaking the prior record set in 1968/69. Records there extend back to 1894.

Fred Ward of Stoddard has a Ph.D. in meteorology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a meteorologist on Channel 7 in Boston in the 1960s and 1970s.