As I understand it, this winter’s cold weather is not due specifically to global warming/cooling, but to La Nina:
Agreed. You too.
elfkin, did you get an answer that made sense to you?
Sorry, I tried to reply to this days ago and it was eaten by “page can’t be found” before forgetting about it. The answer seems to be that they’re full of it, which is what I suspected all along. One winter doesn’t prove or disprove anything, much as they’d like to convince people otherwise.
This is as good a chance as any to make wreckage out of scientific language.
As the polar and other icecaps melt, they have a good deal of stored-up cold to transmit. It has to go somewhere; the occasional extra opportunity for snowball fights will be one result. Also, loads more water in the atmosphere, and just generally more energy, distributed in such a way that only makes sense to the Chaos Math Department of whatever university that has such a department.
(Quick thanks to CK Dexter, who pointed this out first)
My Google-fu has a long way to go before it’s even white-belt, but Human-Caused Global-Warming is nothing new; an issue of Chemical & Engineering News had it as a cover story in ~1998. This rag is NOT known for being sympathetic to environmentalism.
What about snow conditions over the entire northern hemisphere? Apparently January 2008 saw the largest snow cover anomaly since 1966
Ok, so if winters are consistently less snowy, that’s evidence against global warming, right?
brazil84, I was deliberately being a little facetious. I hope you’re doing the same, though I’m starting to think you may be not be.
really frozen water> not-quite-as-frozen-water>snowfall>heavy rain, floods, droughts
If I thought it would do any good, I might break out with a tutorial on vapor-pressure, hydrodensity clines due to temperature and relative salinity, and the rest. But some people don’t wanna learn.
Wll, I’m not sure what your point was. Why don’t you just spell it out, rather than leave me to guess?
And some people do. Why don’t you start by spelling out your point?
It seems like you are saying that greater snowfall is an expected consequence of global warming. Or did I misunderstand you?
Okay, my training and experience in physics and engineering does not agree with your statement. If I take a glass of ice out of the freezer and add heat, at no time do any of the contents get colder. The stored cold is released only to the extent that heat is added.
If you’re somehow trying to include the Heat of Fusion of the ice, you are still wrong. The effect there would be merely to prevent the melting of the ice until it reaches 0C.
I think you’re trying to count the energy absorption of the polar ice twice.
It snows more. It melts faster. The system is more energetic. More energetic, get it? Having more intrinsic energy.
Why does evidence that supports global climate change get dismissed, when it covers the entire world, and multiple decades, but your favorite evidence is believed when it covers small regions and short time periods?
Perhaps it is because you have some vested interest or philosophical predisposition that has more to do with your opinion than any reasoned debate.
Tris
Ok, so if winters in the northern hemisphere are consistently less snowy, that’s evidence against global warming, right?
Is this question addressed to me?
But that ice draws heat from somewhere, no?
If you have a closed system into which you put some ice, ultimately heat will distribute evenly throughout the system, so that the water and its environment are the same temperature.
How long, how wide spread, how similar/dissimilar to the southern hemisphere, and whether the seasonal maximum, minimum, and effective average snow cover was gaining or loosing area over decade long periods would all be necessary elements for evaluating that.
Not you alone, but the many others who post individual weather events as if they were evidence of something other than individual weather stories.
I was present for the coldest temperature ever recorded in my state. That doesn’t mean that a new Ice Age is coming. It means we had some really cold weather.
Tris
Not to speak for The Them, but I think his point is yes, maybe. But, lack thereof does not disprove it, which is what you want him to agree to.
Ok, then let me ask you the question this way: What patterns of snowfal over the next 20 years would be consistent with global warming, and what patterns would be inconsistent with global warming?
Ok, then the apparent fact that “the total Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was the fourth lowest on record for March,” is not evidence of anything other than individual weather. Right?
No it isn’t. The question is whether less snowy winters are evidence against global warming.
Snowfall is only a single aspect of weather, and alone it is not sufficient to evaluate climate trends. The accumulated variations of snow cover over decades, including maximums, and minimums, at all latitudes are somewhat more significant. This brings us to the disingenuous half quote you provide for me to answer your proposed evaluation. Had you included the entire sentence, rather than cherry picking half of it, it would have been an honest question.
The existence of your half quote is evidence that you are more interested in proving a prior opinion than examining actual evidence.
Tris
Well, of course, but we’re talking about a change to an already stable system - adding heat. It cannot possibly get colder when you add slightly more heat.
I guess we’re not speaking the same language. Because I asked a simple question in English. I didn’t ask what would be necessary to evaluate climate trends. I asked what patterns of snowfall over 20 years would be consistent with global warming. And what patterns would be inconsistent with global warming.
Fine, so there is some significance to the patterns of snowfall over 20 years.
Which patterns would be consistent with global warming? Which would be inconsistent?
Nonsense. The fact is that you made reference to a narrow weather event as if that event had some significance. Your source could have simply referred to an average over some number of years, but it didn’t.