Recently sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative Bill O’Reilly posed this question, “Why has southern New York turned into the Tundra?” Of course Bill was being funny when he asked that. Tundra is located in the Arctic, mountainous areas and Antarctica. It has very few trees, in many areas none and under its surface there is permafrost, the ground a few inches down is permanently frozen. Actually the Tundra has very little snowfall and is really a cold desert in many parts of the world with 6 inches or less of annual precipitation. So if you think the Tundra is covered in 10 feet of snow you would be wrong.

Self proclaimed climate expert Al Gore responded to Bills question saying “In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe.” He went on to say “A rise in global temperature can cause all kinds of havoc ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires (from global warming?) and loss of endangered species.”

Funny how Gore never mentioned that global warming would cause more severe snow storms or colder winters in his 2006 move “An Inconvenient Truth.” Not once in the movie was there any indication that global warming would cause anything other than higher temperatures, melting ice, shorter and less cold winters and less snowfall. His answer to Bill is clearly an attempt to cover his tracks.

Are snowstorms really getting more severe? No. History is replete with massive snowstorms decades and centuries ago. Chicago’s biggest snowstorm was from January 26th to the 27th 1967 with 23.0 inches, not the most recent storm. The Blizzard of March 11th to the 14th 1888 dumped an incredible 50 inches of snow on Connecticut! Can you imagine what the media would say if that happened today? In the late winter of 1717 a series of 4 storms from late February to early march buried parts of New England in 10 to 15 feet of snow! And you thought 3 feet was something unusual.

There is a fundamental problem with Al Gore and others who believe that global warming is causing bigger snow storms and every other severe weather event around the world. That problem is that they have no appreciation for the massive natural variability of everyday weather. They are confusing weather with climate. Weather is what we wake up to and deal with every day. But weather also operates on weekly, monthly and yearly time scales. If we had a hot summer last year that was not climate, it was weather. If we had a big snowstorm a few weeks ago that was weather, not climate. If December was record cold that was weather, not climate. A hurricane that struck 5 years ago was not climate, it was weather. Oh and by the way Al, a forest fire is not cause by global warming. Also, the earth’s interior does not have a temperature of several million degrees as he said on late night TV last year.

Climate is the average of the weather over a longer, rather arbitrary time period. Typically climatologists like to use 30 year time periods to take an average of the weather and then call it climate. Climate trends can be inferred from shorter time periods like 15 to 20 years but the standard is 30 years.

The average temperature of the earth, as inferred from our 160 years of thermometer measurements has increased about 1 degree Fahrenheit since those readings began. Historically this is not a big number, not even close. Data from ice cores in Greenland show us that over the last 10,000 years temperature has varied by 6 degrees Fahrenheit, far more than the rise of the last 160 years. In fact the average monthly global temperature of the earth can vary by 1 degree or more in just one year! This means that in just one year we can experience all of the average global warming that has taken 160 years to accumulate. What does that mean? It tells us that from day to day, week to week and year to year the variability of THE WEATHER can be massive and have nothing to do with the long term climate trend. If a baseball player hits 500 for the week with 7 home runs and knocks in 20 runs does that mean he will be in the hall of fame at the end of his career? Of course not, it’s his long term performance (his baseball climate history) that will determine that. In the same light big snow storms or floods or heat waves or any other extreme weather event is not an indication of what the long term climate is doing or will do, it’s just weather.

The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has temperature records dating back to 1850. Although the data is somewhat tainted due to very questionable “adjustments” that have been made, we can still roust out details of the large month to month and year to year temperature variability. One of the most striking examples of just how much the monthly average temperature can change in a short time was in the middle 1940s. From early 1945 to late 1946 the earth’s average monthly temperature fell 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That is one and a half times the total “global warming” of the last 160 years in a one year period! More recently the satellite derived temperature data showed a remarkable rise from of 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit from May of 1997 to March of 1998. In a little less than one year the temperature variation dwarfed all the average global warming of the last 160 years. This dramatic temperature rise was due to a dominant El Nino in the Pacific Ocean. The very warm water along equator warmed the entire planet just as El Nino’s always do to one degree or another.  The warmth from the El Nino peaked in spring of 1998 and a La Nina developed, cooling the waters. In response to this cooler water the earth’s temperature plunged 1.8 degrees from May of 1998 to February of 2000, a drop nearly double all the average temperature rise in the last 160 years in a little less than two years!

Recently NOAA declared that 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year on record. “On record” is the period of time the earth’s temperature has been measured with thermometers, since 1880 for NOAA. The attempt was to make this sound like global warming had something to do with it since NOAA is firmly in he camp of global warming alarmists. But look at what’s happened to the average global temperature since last April. In the 9 months since then the temperature has crashed 1 degree as of the end of January 2011. In just 9 months we wiped out all the global warming of the last 160 years! No, of course that’s not true at all. And that’s my point. The big drop since April is the weather. The rise of the last 160 years is climate.

So what does that all have to do with Al Gore and climate alarmists and global warming making cold weather and snowstorms? What is says is that the year to year and even month to month variability of weather is so large that it can be double the average temperature rise of the last 160 years. It tells us that we could have the same weather experienced in March of 1888 today, tomorrow or next month or next year. Last winter Washington DC had 55.9 inches of snow. That total broke the record of 54.4 inches set in the winter of 1898/99, a record that stood for 111 winters. Many said hurricane Katrina was the worst hurricane in United States history but the Galveston hurricane of September 1900 killed 8,000 people. In England the winter of 1249 was a remarkable example of just how extreme the weather can be, 762 years ago. “Last winter there was so pleasant, sweet and warm that people fancied the season was changed. There was no snow or frost the whole winter. Folks threw off their cloaks and went in the thinnest, lightest summer dress.” Now that’s extreme. If that took place today the howls of terror from the global warming alarmists would be heard from here to eternity!

Extreme weather will come and go with all its amazing variety and social impacts, it always has and always will. The answer to Bill’s question is perhaps best addressed by Mark Twain. He said in 1876 “Now, as to the size of the weather in New England - lengthways, I mean. It is utterly disproportioned to the size of that little country. Half the time, when it is packed as full as it can stick, you will see that New England weather sticking out beyond the edges and projecting around hundreds and hundreds of miles over the neighboring states (New York). She can’t hold a tenth part of her weather. You can see cracks all about, where she has strained herself trying to do it.” That about says it all Bill.

We have published a set of papers that discuss an under recognized climate feedback which constrains how warm and cold the troposphere can become. These papers present a constraint based on the temperatures of the sea surface and the deep cumulus response to these temperatures.

The idea is straightforward and originated in an idea from Ben Herman at the University of Arizona. When cold air masses travel over unfrozen ocean, vertical mixing through deep cumulus convection mixes the air through the troposphere such that temperatures at 500mb, for example, hardly ever becomes colder than -40C to -45C.  These cold values are actually reached in November in the Northern Hemisphere despite several more months of winter.

This limit on tropospheric cooling is reported on in our papers:

Chase, T.N., B. Herman, R.A. Pielke Sr., X. Zeng, and M. Leuthold, 2002: A proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum midtropospheric temperatures in the Arctic. J. Geophys. Res., 107(D14), 10.10291/2001JD001425

Tsukernik, M., T.N. Chase, M.C. Serreze, R.G. Barry, R. Pielke Sr., B. Herman, and X. Zeng, 2004: On the regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric temperatures in the Arctic. Geophys. Res. Letts., 31, L06112, doi:10.1029/2003GL018831

Herman, B., M. Barlage, T.N. Chase, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2008: Update on a proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum mid-tropospheric and surface temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D24101, doi:10.1029/2008JD009799.

Herman, B.M. M.A. Brunke, R.A. Pielke Sr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2010: Global and hemispheric lower tropospheric temperature trends. Remote Sensing, 2, 2561-2570; doi:10.3390/rs2112561.

Since, as discussed in my post

The Westerlies Explain The Recent Extreme Winter Weather, Not “Global Warming” it is the cold tropospheric air towards the poles and the warmer tropospheric air to the south that drives the westerlies, if the coldest that the troposphere can achieve is -40C to -45C, irrespective of a global average surface temperature trend, this is a self-regulation of the climate system.

Similarly, tropospheric temperatures cannot become warmer than about -5C at 500mb in the tropics for very long as deep convection over the warmest oceans still results in temperatures at that level of ~-5C.  This deep convection is prevalent over tropical oceans as air travels around the globe.

Only if the high latitude oceans warm to well above freezing almost everywhere (which means most of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice disappears) and/or the tropical oceans warm substantially above their current values, will this self-regulation of the climate system change.  The role of human climate forcings would have to be large enough to alter these surface temperatures.

The latest sea surface temperature and temperature anomaly maps show that large enough changes have not yet occurred to alter this self-regulation of the climate system - as illustrated below. The 2007 IPCC, and more recent pronouncements have ignored assessing the role of this self-regulation of the climate.

H/T Climate Depot

Special Issue

This week we announce the release of our newest major report, Carbon Dioxide and Earth’s Future: Pursuing the Prudent Path. Based on the voluminous periodic reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ongoing rise in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration has come to be viewed as a monumental danger - not only to human society, but to the world of nature as well. But are the horrific “doomsday scenarios” promulgated by the climate alarmists as set-in-stone as the public is led to believe?

In what follows, we conduct just such an appraisal, comparing against real-world observations ten of the more ominous model-based predictions of what will occur in response to continued business-as-usual anthropogenic CO2 emissions: (1) unprecedented warming of the planet, (2) more frequent and severe floods and droughts, (3) more numerous and stronger hurricanes, (4) dangerous sea level rise, (5) more frequent and severe storms, (6) increased human mortality, (7) widespread plant and animal extinctions, (8) declining vegetative productivity, (9) deadly coral bleaching, and (10) a decimation of the planet’s marine life due to ocean acidification. And in conjunction with these analyses, we proffer our view of what the future may hold with respect to the climatic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content, concluding by providing an assessment of what we feel should be done about the situation.

Download the full report in a pdf file (2.5 mb in size) by clicking here.

Alan S. Blinder is a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. All of which might explain why the nation is broke and why “intellectuals” like Blinder are responsible for some of the most stupid ideas ever imposed on citizens who lack their credentials.

In the January 31st edition of The Wall Street Journal, Blinder had a commentary titled, “The Carbon Tax Miracle Cure.” It is a masterpiece of ignorance.

Blinder claimed that “Everyone knows that CO2 emissions are the major cause of global climate change, that climate change poses a clear and present danger to our planet, and that the U.S. contributes a huge share of global emissions.”

One can only conclude that Blinder is among the last of Al Gore’s acolytes who has not heard that the only “climate change” occurring is the same that has been going on for 4.5 billion years on planet Earth.

Blinder’s miracle tax is “a carbon tax - really, a carbon dioxide tax - but one that starts at zero and ramps up gradually over time.” Will someone please tell Blinder that the scheme to sell “carbon credits” for the right to emit carbon dioxide (CO2) has gone bust? Even the Chicago Exchange created to foster this “global warming” fraud has closed its doors.

The idiocy of Blinder’s “miracle tax” is that, if you can tax CO2, what is to prevent government from taxing oxygen too? Or nitrogen? Hell, just tax the entirety of the Earth’s atmosphere because, obviously, we are just using too much of it.

Blinder’s justification is that “the U.S. contributes a huge share of global emissions.” So, naturally, Americans should be taxed for exhaling six pounds of CO2 every day, along with every other activity from manufacturing to transportation, as well as heating and cooling our homes and all other structures. Every living creature and most all human activity emits CO2 along with the earth’s numerous active volcanoes.

It probably never occurred to Blinder that all other nations also “contribute” global emissions.

For the record the Earth’s atmosphere is composed of 76.55% nitrogen, 20.54% oxygen, and 0.91% argon. Of the remaining 2% of the atmosphere, water vapor constitutes 1.95%, while carbon dioxide is 0.0389%. Let me repeat that, 0.0389%.

Despite what the liars at the Environmental Protection Agency are loudly shouting these days, carbon dioxide is not a “pollutant.” In earlier eras that was far more CO2 in the atmosphere than now, providing the dinosaurs vast amounts of vegetation on which to dine and something to eat for those dinosaurs with a taste for other dinosaurs.

The only “global warming” in recent times has been the one degree of warming that began to occur at the merciful end of the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850. The Earth has, since 1998, entered a new cycle of completely natural cooling due to a solar cycle called the Maunder Minimum when the Sun’s radiation is reduced.

Acknowledging that “this is a terrible time to hit (the nation) with some big new tax”, Blinder nonetheless advocates a carbon tax that “should be set at zero for 2011 and 2012. After that, it would ramp up gradually.”

“The tax might start at something like $8 per ton of CO2 in 2013 (that’s roughly eight cents per gallon of gasoline), reach $25 a ton by 2015 (still just 26 cents per gallon), $40 a ton by 2020, and keep on rising. I’d like to see it top out at more than $300 a ton in, say 2040.”

This would lead, says Blinder, to “lucrative opportunities from carbon-saving devices and technologies.” He envisions “80% of our electricity being generated by clean energy sources in 2035.”

By clean energy Blinder means wind and solar energy which, together, barely produce one percent of the electricity America uses daily. It is unreliable and would not exist were it not for government subsidies and mandates requiring its use.

Meanwhile, the vast bulk of our electricity comes from coal, just over 50%, and a combination of natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectricity (dams). Even if we blanketed several States with solar mirrors and wind turbines, we could never match the cost effectiveness and efficiency of fossil fuels.

Blinder notes that “No one likes to pay higher taxes” and dismisses value-added taxes (a favorite form of extortion in Europe), but in his view “A CO2 tax trumps them all”, concluding that a carbon tax would reduce oil imports.”

Apparently, it has not occurred to Blinder that extracting some of America’s vast oil reserves, billions of barrels worth, might also reduce oil imports, but what is one to expect from a professor of economics who thinks taxing a minor component of the atmosphere would solve our present economic problems?

Only morons want to turn America’s corn into “biofuels.” Only charlatans want to “reduce” greenhouse gas emissions. And only those locked in academic ivory towers keep insisting that man-made “climate change” is “a clear and present danger.”

You end recessions by reducing taxes, not inventing new ones. You end recessions by encouraging access to the nation’s reserves of coal, natural gas, and oil because that generates real jobs, not “green” ones. And you end recessions by not listening to the likes of Alan S. Blinder.

Icecap Note: Alan is spot on. CO2, nature’s gift to man is an evil gas according to the ingornant elitists like Binder and Gore.  See also Alan’s perspective on Ground Hog day, Can Spring Be Far Behind a Groundhog’s Behind?.