Whatever Happened To Nick Collins, Science Correspondent For The Telegraph? -- August 11, 2015

OPEC surprised by shale tenacity. Reuters is reporting:

OPEC on Tuesday raised its forecast of oil supplies from non-member countries in 2015, a sign that crude's price collapse is taking longer than expected to hit U.S. shale drillers and other competing sources.

In a monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) forecast no extra demand for its crude oil this year despite faster global growth in consumption, because of higher-than-expected production from the United States and other countries outside the group.

In contrast, the U.S. government on Tuesday lowered both its 2015 and 2016 U.S. oil production forecasts, signalling that the 60-percent rout in benchmark prices since last summer may finally be weighing on shale output.

The U.S. 2015 crude oil production growth forecast was cut by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 650,000 bpd from the previous report, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's short-term energy outlook. Meanwhile, it expanded the production decline forecast for 2016 by 400,000 bpd from a 150,000 bpd decline previously.

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Polar Bear Reprieve

Flashback, from November 8, 2011 -- The (London) Telegraph, as reported by Nick Collins:

Prof Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, said the ice that forms over the Arctic sea is shrinking so rapidly that it could vanish altogether in as little as four years' time.

Although it would reappear again every winter, its absence during the peak of summer would rob polar bears of their summer hunting ground and threaten them with extinction.

The mass of ice between northern Russia, Canada and Greenland waxes and wanes with the seasons, currently reaching a minimum size of about four million square kilometres.

Most models, including the latest estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), track the decline in the area covered by ice in recent years to predict the rate at which it will deteriorate.

But citing research compiled by Dr Wieslaw Maslowski, a researcher from the American Naval Postgraduate School, last year Prof Wadhams said such predictions failed to spot how quickly climate change is causing the ice to thin. 

Flash forward to today: from StevenGoddard --  Hudson Bay sea ice extent 4th highest on record. Meanwhile, the Arctic Basin has been covered with clouds and cold air for weeks, and melting has essentially stopped there.

Canadian Coast Guard is reporting "unusual presence of sea ice" int he Hudson.

Whatever happened to Nick Collins, Science Correspondent for The [London] Telegraph?

Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott, The Statler Bros

LiveScience Concurs: Antarctica Ice Growing

Link here to LiveScience.

LiveScience leaves out a lot of history in that story. For the rest of the story, go to Forbes.com: Antarctic ice sets another record.

NPR failed to mention anywhere in its article that Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellites first began measuring the ice 33 years ago and the sea ice has been above the 33-year average throughout 2012.  

Indeed, none of the mainstream media are covering this important story.  

A Google News search of the terms Antarctic, sea ice and record turns up not a single article on the Antarctic sea ice record. Amusingly, page after page of Google News results for Antarctic sea ice record show links to news articles breathlessly spreading fear and warning of calamity because Arctic sea ice recently set a 33-year low.

Global Warming Storm Forces Cancellation of Earth Day in Virginia Beach, Virginia

Link here.

The Earth Day Celebration scheduled for Sunday at Mount Trashmore Park has been canceled due to weather forecasts of inclement weather.

A late winter storm hit the northeast: "unusual, but not unheard of."

Up to 12 inches of snow was expected in the higher elevations of central and western Pennsylvania, as well as New York state, south of Buffalo. A winter storm warning was issued for parts of northeastern Ohio, where 3 to 7 inches of snow was forecast.

Ohio? We're not talking about the Rocky Mountains.

Polar Bears -- Absolutely Nothing To Do With The Bakken

Data points from The Globe and Mail via Carpe Diem.

• polar bear counts 66 percent higher than expected, maybe more
• population: 1,013
• global warming researches predicted numbers as low as 610 due to melting ice, yada, yada, yada
• the government did a count because hunters kept reporting more bears than expected
• reminder: Canada jettisoned the Kyoto Protocol earlier this year

'Nuf said.

Sorry -- Absolutely Nothing To Do With the Bakken

I had not planned to post any stories about global warming, but this was just too much. The first story sent to me today about global warming I linked deep in the bowels of this blog for archival purposes but did not post it where it would be read by anyone. I truly did not want to post any global warming stories, trying to stay on the Bakken.

But this was too much.

First, this: the Himalayas and nearby peaks have not lost any ice in ten (10) years.

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

Not only that, but the discovery has stunned scientists. 

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

The study is the first to survey all the world's icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less then previously estimated, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

Bristol University glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said: "The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero."

By the way,  this is neither surprising nor unexpected. Some time ago (I will never be able to find the link on this site; it was too long ago, and probably not tagged), someone sent me a great article based on science that had a perfectly non-global-warming explanation for loss of glacier ice that has been reported the past twenty years.

In addition, this story references, in passing, another study that revealed that the polar ice caps have melted much less than expected. The bad news was the the oceans around the world are rising at the rate of ... drum roll, please .... 0.06 inches/year.

Ocean levels worldwide are rising about six hundredths of an inch per year, according to researcher John Wahr.

Six-hundredths of an inch per year! Neither statistically significant nor reproducible. I guess that explains why we haven't seen any photo spread in National Geographic showing the ocean depth increasing by 0.06 inch this past year. Memo to self: take my granddaughter out to the beach and place some popsicle sticks in the sand this summer so we can measure the 0.06 inch increase in the high tide next year to compare to this year. Wow, it's gonna be hard finding a ruler with 0.01 inch divisions.

I guess it also explains why we haven't seen any islands disappear in the past year (in fact, something like 200 new islands were identified in the past year or decade, whatever it was -- blogged about earlier).

But it gets worse. Now we have an interview in Der Spiegel who was among the founders of the anthropogenic global warming movement. He feels duped and has withdrawn.

SPIEGEL: You are an electric utility executive by profession. What prompted you to get involved in climatology?

Vahrenholt: In my experience as an energy expert, I learned that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is more of a political than a scientific body. As a rapporteur on renewable energy, I witnessed how thin the factual basis is for predictions that are made at the IPCC. In one case, a Greenpeace activist's absurd claim that 80 percent of the world's energy supply could soon be coming from renewable sources was assumed without scrutiny. This prompted me to examine the IPCC report more carefully.

SPIEGEL: And what was your conclusion?

Vahrenholt: The long version of the IPCC report does mention natural causes of climate change, like the sun and oscillating ocean currents. But they no longer appear in the summary for politicians. They were simply edited out. To this day, many decision-makers don't know that new studies have seriously questioned the dominance of CO2. CO2 alone will never cause a warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. Only with the help of supposed amplification effects, especially water vapor, do the computers arrive at a drastic temperature increase. I say that global warming will remain below two degrees by the end of the century. This is an eminently political message, but it's also good news.

So, I truly apologize. I truly had no plans to post any global warming story at a stand-alone post today, but this is just too much, especially when posted in conjunction with the fact that there has been no global warming in the last 15 years.

It sort of explains why Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2011 (the house of cards is starting to fall), and why the Chinese aren't exactly concerned about anthropogenic global warming.

On top of this, I see that federal workers are being sent home early in anticipation of one inch of snow. One inch of snow. I hope the roughnecks in the Bakken don't see this story. It sort of explains why the EPA bureaucrats are so nervous about fracking. If an inch of snow scares 'em, imagine how they feel about 4 million pounds of proppant going down a Bakken well.

The Connection Between Fracking and Anthropogenic Global Warming

Updates

Minutes later: I cannot make this up. To prove my point (see story below), someone looking for the answer to this question: rome in snow is global warming true?.

09:53:03 -- 23 minutes ago

 

ended up on my site.

Original Post

Years ago when I watched network television (ABC, CBC, and NBC) I knew it was the weekends when the news was only about the weather. All week long, stories out of the Middle East, out of the White House, and out of nowhere. But then, come Saturday and Sunday, the lead story was invariably a weather story. Journalists and newsmakers take the weekend off, also, it appeared, and it appears.

So, I guess the same holds for me. I was not going to post this as a stand-alone post (honestly). I had already posted it at "Global Warming Central, 2011 - 2012," where I place updates. But when I read the lede, it was too important to not post here with some of the usual rambling comments.

Here is the lede:

London's Heathrow Airport, the world's busiest air hub by passenger traffic, cancelled a third of the day's flights, while much of Britain was blanketed in snow, leaving drivers stranded on roads overnight.

In Italy, which reported a seventh victim, snow-covered Rome was virtually paralyzed, thousands of people were trapped on trains, and the weather emergency sparked runs on supermarkets.

And the story goes on to say that nearly 300 deaths directly attributed to the cold have now been reported in central Europe. 

Fracking and global warming have something in common. Science no longer matters. Both issues are now in the political arena where it is being fought out between elitists (the one-per centers) and the rest of us (the 99 percenters).

For global warming, folks keep sending me notes that the science is still accurate, that the earth faces catastrophic consequences due to anthropogenic global warming. It no longer matter whether the science is right or wrong. Two things: tell it to the folks affected by the story above. And then tell them, that to keep warm, their utility costs will have to increase dramatically to pay for alternative energy sources.

So it goes with the controversies surrounding fracking. Science no longer matters to folks who are against fracking.

I suppose there is one difference. Most of the concerns about fracking have to do with consequences that are in the near term, geologically speaking. And yet, after thirty or forty years of fracking and tens (hundreds) of thousands of fracked wells, there have been no adverse consequences confirmed from same.

On the other hand, we are told we will have to wait at least a century, probably longer, to see the consequences of anthropogenic global warming (if it exists -- that is one difference: we know fracking is going on; I cannot say the same for AGW. )

Bottom line: how "we" deal with fracking and AGW will be how "we" deal with most issues: politically.

Notes to the Granddaughters

Speaking of myths, here is simply a bit of rambling for my granddaughters. I advise others not to read the following.

The older granddaughter, now 8.5 years old, has talked about becoming a marine biologist "when she grows up." She and I spend much time reading about sharks, and we never miss an opportunity to visit local public aquariums. A couple of weeks ago, she was given a personal tour of the Boston Aquarium by one of the staff members because of her knowledge and her interest.

Her other two interests in reading are Shakespeare and mythology. I have no idea how that all started. She reads the children's books on Shakespeare and knows the plots of at least two of the tragedies (Macbeth and Hamlet). We go back and re-read them (or portions of them) often.

Likewise, she reads and re-reads her children's books on mythology, and knows more than I do on the genealogy of the gods. I remember having trouble locating Apollo on a huge wall chart of mythic genealogy and she, somewhat sarcastically, told me he was right next to his twin sister, Artemis. She knows all their personalities.

The other night down at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge (no connection to Harvard University), I ran across a new book on mythology: Jon Solomon's translation of Giovanni Boccachhio's Genealogy of the Pagan Gods. It was a real struggle to decide whether to buy it, and if I did whether to buy it at the bookstore or through Amazon.com. No doubt it would be less expensive through Amazon.com but I ended up buying it at the bookstore (for many reasons).

It's a very thick book, about two inches, but very compact. It's kind of a pain to carry in the backpack because of its thickness;  it's 887 pages with index and notes. The thickness / length is a bit misleading. Each facing page on the left is the original Latin and each facing page on the right is the translation. My favorite subject in middle school was Latin, partly because of the subject matter, but mostly because of the teacher who made it come alive for me. I think we can all name the handful of teachers or classes that were our favorite, and 8th grade Latin and Mr Becker were among my favorites.

I didn't open the Boccaccio book for several days; I was afraid I had made a mistake in buying it and did not want to be disappointed. But gradually, little by little, I have been reading it and am not disappointed.

I often have to go back and start reading a book all over agin, having forgotten what I've read, and that's true in this case also. I think this is the third time I have read the introduction to this book, but this time I can honestly say I understand -- or at least think I understand better -- how incredibly important this book is.

Boccacchio was an incredibly faithful Christian living in the 14th century.

Here [in the final two books of the 15-book genealogy] the author [Boccacchio] becomes an advocate of the propositon that the pagan poetry he has been discussing throughout the work has great value in revealing divinely inspired truths to the reader who has been properly guided through allegorical hermeneutics.

When Boccaccio writes of ancient poets in Book 14, it is not to recount and interpret their fables but to cite the lives of the authors as moral and ethical exempla superior to the contemporary icons revered by his detractors or to compare the value of their fables with those told by and about Christ. ....

Aware of the different spiritualities underlying his chronologically broad spectrum of sources, ... Boccacchio accommodates what he considers to be pagan irrationality within a traditional Christian context. 

And this:

Perhaps no passage in the Genealogy is more indicative of Boccaccio's ability to reconcile his pagan and Christian sources than the chapter in Book 15 in which he affirms eloquently and at length his commitment to Christ by citing stories about a fictitious pagan character in Terence and the historical pagan King Mithridates of Pontus.

The book is a reference book, and will be useful in sorting out some of the inconsistencies or unknowns or unreported stories in my granddaughter's children's mythology books.

The commitment, learning, and passion Boccaccio poured into his defense of poetry and the study of pagan literature in Books 14 and 15 contributed to making the Genealogy a standard text for literary critics, scholars, and poets of the Renaissance, and it remained an intellectual high-water mark for Sidney, Wordsworth, and Goethe, who was reportedly reading the Genealogy during the final days before his death.

The 800-page book (technically about 350 pages of mythology) represents the first five books of the 15-book genealogy. The publisher says the rest of the ten books will be published subsequently, but that is a lot of translation yet to be done, so we'll see.

And this is how I'm relaxing, waiting for the Super Bowl tonight.

EU Bracing For Another Potential Energy Crisis -- AP -- Due To Global Warming in Russia

Link here.

The European Union is bracing for another potential energy crisis in the dead of winter as Russian gas supplies to some member states have suddenly dwindled by up to 30 percent.

The European Commission put its gas coordination committee on alert Friday, but insisted the situation had not yet reached an emergency level as nations have pledged to help each other if needed and storage facilities have been upgraded.

Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzner said Russia was going through an extremely cold spell and needed more gas to keep its citizens warm. 

Meanwhile, I just posted, just moments ago, while the EU is bracing for this newest potential energy crisis (didn't they go through this last year, also?), the US has such a glut of energy, the president can kill a huge pipeline that would have brought Canadian oil to US refineries and Gulf coast terminals. In the mind of faux environmentalists it makes more sense to burn that excess diesel in thousands of trucks and Buffett trains transporting that oil. The US is truly blessed to be such a resource-rich republic. The Chinese must think we're nuts. I know the freezing Europeans do.

Global Warming Hits Rome; Eastern Europe in Freezer -- Thank Goodness for the Drudge Report

Italy crippled by winter storm; snow as far south as Naples.

A winter storm battered much of Italy, bringing arctic temperatures to the north and snow as far south as Naples, disrupting transport and commerce across the country.

Rome got between six and eight inches of snow, the most in more than a quarter century, downing trees, snarling traffic and leaving shops shuttered. Some vehicles were trapped for 10 hours on the ring road that surrounds the capital and trucks were forced to pull off highways in much of the center and north of the country, SKYTG24 reported.

Temperatures at Malpensa Airport outside Milan dropped to minus 18 Celsius (0.4 degree Fahrenheit). The average low for February is 2 Celsius with a high of 8 degrees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Snow falls in Rome for first time in 26 years -- MailOnline.

Snow fell in Rome today for the first time in 26 years as freezing temperatures took the death toll across Europe to more than 150.

The Italian capital is usually blessed by a moderate climate but the snowfall prompted authorities to stop visitors from entering the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Palatine Hill, the former home of Rome's ancient emperors.

The last substantial snowfalls in Rome were in 1985 and 1986, though there have been other cases of lighter snow since then, including in 2010.

Global warming temperatures across Eastern Europe send deaths (due to freezing weather) to 150. The military is on alert in the United Kingdom as temperatures drop and heavy snow fall predicted.

Those predictions of a worse winter than usual appear to be holding true, albeit in the wrong part of the world. Those furry caterpillars must not have gotten the memo.

Reuters is posting the same thing: huge chill in central, eastern Europe.

At least 139 people have died across Eastern Europe and Germany since the cold snap began, interrupting what had been an unusually mild European winter.

In the Hungarian village of Farkaslyuk, people clambered up a 30-metre spoil heap from a disused mine to scrape together enough coal to heat their homes and cook for a few days.

Meanwhile, in the states, we have it so good that we can afford to ban Canadian oil via a proposed pipeline. We can use all that excess diesel to fuel thousands of trucks and Buffett trains rather than pipe it.  We are truly blessed to be such a resource-rich republic.

Miscellaneous notes:

Whenever I post that 0.6 degree increase in average global temperature over the next 90 years is neither reproducible nor statistically meaningful, I get a note from "anonymous" telling me that, in fact, 0.6 degrees over 90 years is incredibly significant. Am I missing something?

But, what I find most amusing is that no one is able to tell me a) the perfect average temperature for the earth; and, b) who set the thermostat in the first place, before natural forces and then man reset it, apparently.  

In the October, 2011, issue of National Geographic there is an interesting article, "World Without Ice: 56 million years ago a mysterious surge of carbon into the atmosphere sent global temperatures soaring. In a geologic eyeblink life was forever changed."

It was during that warm spell that modern mammals appeared. And then this quote: "But the lesson is that animals can evolve fast in a changing environment. When he first drove into the Bighorn four decades ago, it was precisely to learn where horse and primates came from. He now thinks that they come from [this time period] -- that those three orders of odern mammals acquired their distinctive characteristics right then, in a burst of evolution driven by the burst of carbon into the atmosphere." -- p. 109, National Geographic, October, 2011.

Global Warming Hits Central Europe -- Scores Dead Due To Cold -- Nothing To Do With The Bakken

Red sent me the link to this global warming story.

A severe and snowy cold snap has killed at least 48 people across central and eastern Europe.


Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday that the number of people who died of hypothermia in recent days reached 30.

.... a "very well-established" area of high pressure in Scandinavia and western Russia that was keeping mild air in southern Spain and northern Africa for the "extreme cold."

In Poland, at least 10 people froze to death as the cold reached minus 26 C (minus 15 F) on Monday.

More Global Warming -- Fairbanks Freezing -- Owls Have Had Enough -- Mary Tyler Moore

Link here.

Winter continued to show her love of Interior Alaska by bestowing yet another cold snap on its beleaguered residents this weekend.

The temperature at Fairbanks International Airport hit 50 below zero Saturday morning for the first time since 2006, while a low of 57 below was reported in North Pole.

Fort Yukon and Huslia were the coldest Interior communities at 63 below zero, while two others beat their own records.

Tanana hit 61 below zero Saturday morning, breaking its previous record low of 58 below, set in 1919, and Bettles, at 60 below, broke its previous record of 56 below, which was set in 1989.

No comment.

In a related article, yesterday there was a story about mass migration of snowy owls from the Arctic. It was suggested it was due to the lemming population. I don't know about you, but when temperatures are hitting -61, it's time for the snowy owls to leave. But if you want to blame it on the lemmings, that's fine with me.

Bird enthusiasts are reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration that a leading owl researcher called “unbelievable.”

Thousands of the snow-white birds, which stand 2 feet tall with 5-foot wingspans, have been spotted from coast to coast, feeding in farmlands in Idaho, roosting on rooftops in Montana, gliding over golf courses in Missouri and soaring over shorelines in Massachusetts.

Holt and other owl experts say the phenomenon is likely linked to lemmings, a rodent that accounts for 90 per cent of the diet of snowy owls during breeding months that stretch from May into September. The largely nocturnal birds also prey on a host of other animals, from voles to geese.

I think these experts either need to read the weather reports or actually visit Fairbanks. Unless the lemmings are migrating en masse to Massachusetts to escape the cold. But wow, that's a long trip for lemmings.

By the way, speaking of weather, I have my older granddaughter give me a weather report every day: temperature, wind, precipitation, cloud cover, etc. It's one of our favorite 30-second activities on the way to school.

I've taught her the gradations of snow precipitation: light snowfall, heavy snowfall, snow storm, blizzard, extreme blizzard, North Dakota blizzard.

Notes to the Granddaughters

I think I mentioned some time ago that I no longer watch FOX (too much fluff, too political); ABC, NBC, and CBS (too much fluff, too political, too hypocritical) except for sports events (NASCAR and football, occasional golf, no basketball). I don't even watch the award shows any more.

In every major metro market, there seems to be at least one "retro" station on cable and that's the station I watch.  The granddaughters and I now make it a habit to catch "MASH" at 7:00 p.m. every night, in between their showers. ("Lost in Space" on Saturday evening is the older one's new favorite. Who woulda thought?)

After they are in bed, then a string of Mary Tyler: Mary Tyler, Bob Newhart, Dick Van Dyke.

The reason I bring this up: today there's a long, long article on MTM in the Los Angeles Times. This is a great article; brings back lots of memories. I knew a lot about MTM but this was the biggest surprise: half of the couple who slept in separate beds in Dick Van Dyke produced "Hill Street Blues," which made news when it showed some male nudity on network prime time television. I didn't see that episode (I generally did not watch HSB but I read about that episode).

Glossed over, but mentioned, is the fact that MTM has diabetes; born in 1936, she must be about 29 years old (again). She has managed her diabetes very, very well. As a kid, I thought she was beautiful. With Dick Van Dyke, she was. In MTM, not so much. But wow, what a dancer. Of all the things MTM is famous for and all that she has done, not much seems to be said about her dancing, unless of course I've missed that, which is very possible.

Global Warming Hits Davos, Switzerland --

"....In the last 42 years, I have never seen so much snow....."

The rest is by paid subscription, but that says it all....

But most, if not all, of the story is here:

The snow is yards deep and continued to pile up Tuesday, despite a short afternoon respite. "In the last 42 years, I have never seen so much snow in Davos," the forum's founder, Klaus Schwab, tweeted on Sunday.

As I said earlier, in 2035, when I'm about 85 years old, they will be talking about a "new Ice Age" and Cher will be completing her umpteenth "Farewell Tour."

Global Warming: South African Summer; Tennessee Winter -- Not About The Bakken Where It Is Still Warm and Balmy

This was priceless. I didn't even see it on the Drudge Report.

I doubt any of you are aware but the UN is holding yet another global warming conference, this time in South Africa -- it's summer there. It turns out, conference promoters are having trouble getting delegates to show up at the convention center: it's too cold. I can't make this stuff up.

The weather gods seem to be making a statement on the issue of climate change, with the east coast [of South Africa] gripped by rainy and unusually cold weather for much of this week.

This comes as Durban puts the finishing touches to preparations for the 17th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) starting next week.

More than 20 000 delegates – government, business and UN leaders, and environment activists, celebrities and media – are expected to descend on the city.

The sun is expected to make a brief appearance on Wednesday, followed by the onset of another cold front.

“The weather gods might be sending us a message here,” joked Salwa Dallalah, the UN’s head organiser for the conference.

“Delegates may find themselves having to carry umbrellas, but we can’t do anything about the weather. I am not a scientist, but Durban people have told me that it’s unusually cold. It will be a pity if the rainy weather continues, especially because many Europeans and Americans will come for COP17 expecting lovely summer weather,” she said.

This is in South Africa, their summer. Too cold for a global warming conference. I cannot make this stuff up. This story is not being reported in very may places. Google and see if you can find it. I first read about it in the hard copy of the Bismarck Tribune, the regional newspaper that is in favor of banning fracking as far as I can tell, but the story is not on-line in the BT.

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In a bit of other global warming news, west Tennessee, which gets winter about as often as drillers hit a dry well in the Bakken, is experiencing a major snow storm.

The snow has started to fall again in Jackson after a break last night, but should stop completely by noon today, according to Chris Duke, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Memphis.

The total amount of snow accumulation in Madison County has been between two to four inches, with some isolated areas of higher amounts, Duke said.

The area may receive another inch before the snow moves out of the area around noon, which is when the winter storm warning ends, he said.

I do not recall Elvis Presley ever singing about snow in Memphis.

In the Ghetto, Elvis Presley

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
because if there's one thing that she don't need
it's another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto

People, don't you understand
this child needs a helping hand
or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day.

If This Is Global Warming, Give Us a Bit More

Bismarck, North Dakota, set a record for high temperature Wednesday: 62 degrees, according to the Williston Herald. This beat the record set in 1890 by one degree.

And that works out just about right. Climatologists have told us that global warming has resulted in global temperatures rising about 0.7 degree in the past century.

It was 53 degrees in downtown Williston -- the heart of the Bakken -- Wednesday afternoon (November 24, 2011) and it felt wonderful; this photo is not time-date stamped, so you will have to trust me.

I don't know what was causing the heat wave back in 1890 but it may have been related to all those wood stoves.

********************

This winter could be a repeat of last year's winter -- Rigzone.com.

As shown in Exhibit 5, the 2011-2012 winter forecast shows that temperatures should average between 1°C and 1.4°C below normal. The forecast for November called for a 1.4°C lower temperature range, which would seem to be consistent with the cooling that has been experienced since late October. The chart shows a multitude of temperature forecasts generated by computer models, virtually all of them showing negative deviations. If one compares the forecasted temperatures for this winter with the temperatures experienced last winter (the far left side of the chart), they look similar, but the forecasted temperature anomalies don't show the move back to zero as experienced last summer. That would suggest that in the United States we may not experience the extreme heat witnessed last summer.

Sounds like to me, global cooling. But then that's just me. And ImpactWeather, a Houston-based weather forecasting and consulting firm.

Global Warming Hits Alaska --

Link here.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that for the second time in three days, Fairbanks set a new low temperature record on Thursday. A temperature of 41 degrees below zero — the first 40 below temperature of the season — was recorded at Fairbanks International Airport at 6:29 a.m.

The National Weather Service in Fairbanks says that broke the old record of 39 below set in 1969.

The last time Fairbanks residents saw 40-below temperatures in November was in 1994. 

Yup. Global warming.  For a moment there, I was concerned that global warming was literally causing the Arctic to melt away.

By the way, Arctic blasts usually head southeast to North Dakota.

Global Warming Central -- Yes, Exactly What is the "Right" Temperature For the Earth? -- And How Does One Measure It?

A Layman's Guide to Anthropogenic (Man-Made) Global Warming

Of all posts, the ones dealing with global warming generate the most comments. Rarely do the comments add anything to the debate. Based on the comments, it appears those commenting are a) not regular readers of the blog but get here by surfing the net (or as Rush would say, "drive by" readers); and, b) don't read the entire post or related posts.

Irrefutable facts that global warming advocates never address:

• "man-made" CO2 represents but 3% of all greenhouse gases, not including water vapor. Water vapor is the number #1 "greenhouse gas" by a huge margin; again, CO2 represents but 3% of all greenhouse gases
• the increase in atmospheric CO2, from 2010 to 2011, is measured at "nearly two parts per million"; the annual variability of atmospheric CO2 is 3 - 9 parts per million
• Canada, one of the first signatories of the Kyoto Protocol, has pulled out of the protocol (2011); the US has never agreed to it
• Germany has switched to coal (from nuclear energy) to provide the bulk of its electricity; of all forms of energy, coal is considered one of the worse for CO2 generation
• most EU countries, in 2011 - 2012, due to financial constraints, have pulled back on renewable energy; some countries have completely banned new renewable initiatives as too expensive
• even ardent global warmers agree that global warming ended 16 years ago, as noted by the British Met Office; these ardent global warmers agree, but argue that a 16-year plateau is too short a period from which to draw conclusions; this plateau occurred during a period of heavy industrialization, especially in China, and when overall CO2 concentration was 140% of that in the pre-industrial age
• Antarctic ice is growing in volume
• CO2 emissions of the United States is currently at a 20-year low 
• despite rising sea levels, 657 new islands were discovered through satellite imagine, announced in 2011 -- this is the weakest of the arguments because it is possible most of these islands were simply "overlooked/missed" in earlier surveys
• no one knows the "correct" setting of the earth's thermostat as set by the "intelligent designer," aka the "Prime Mover"

Those are irrefutable facts.

See also: 

The great global warming swindle: an hour-long scientific video based on data.

Because global warming activists were unable to refute the irrefutable facts, they changed the phrase to "climate change." But increasing levels of CO2 cause global warming, not global cooling. Now that we have global cooling (part of climate change), what is the explanation? Decreasing levels of CO2, which by the way, is exactly what is happening in the US. A very inconvenient truth. 
 
Update   November 15, 2013: Japan slashes commitment to global warming efforts; Australia about to end "global warming" programs. And, of course, China never bought into it in the first place. There goes the Pacific. The EU is gradually facing reality. Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol years ago. About the only country leader left talking about global warming is President Obama. 

October 21, 2013: global warming conferences ban/exclude open discussion/scientific discussion/other views;  LA Times won't publish letters to the editor with opposing viewpoints

May 18, 2013: shoreline data suggests loss of Arctic ice due to melting is much, much less severe than originally thought. 

March 29, 2013: NASA -- global cooling may be caused by burning coal. [I can't make this stuff up.]

February 18, 2013: I guess with "global warming," one can predict any weather pattern one wants -- more blizzards, less snow -- with just a degree-change over 30 years. GIGO.

February 12, 2013: January, 2013, warmest January on record in 35 years. It was warmer during the Age of the Vikings. And, oh by the way, two things: 0.9 degrees above the 30-year baseline, which is really 0.5 degrees Celsius, the temperature scientists use. So, half-a-degree above the 30-year baseline (and why we are using a 30-year baseline is beyond me), and folks are worried about the end of the earth as we know it. The article does not report the "correct" global temperature, and no one says who sets the thermostat. Perhaps the North Koreans?

January 12, 2013:

A draft version of a national report details the accelerated effects of climate change across the U.S., describing battered coastlines, devastating rainfall and drought.  Four observations: a) climate change, not global warming; b) inconsistencies: "devastating rainfall and drought"; c) US-centric; hardly explains the record cold in China and Russia this year; d) still, no one provides the "normal global temperature." I wonder why it's a draft version being released? Everything is released in "draft" these days. The link will break over time, but the photo accompanying the photo is of snow-packed street with two folks trying to get their car out of a snow drift in Ogden, Utah, after a foot of snow fell this past week. Just a few years ago, Joseph Kennedy said "we" would never see snow again, paraphrasing, of course. Before you get too excited about the draft report, visit Singer and Avery.  Back in 2007:

Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting event... Children just aren't going to know what snow is.

I can't make this stuff up. 

January 5, 2013: Russia, China experiencing coldest winter in decades; colder, also, in Alaska

December 14, 2012: the second best way to lower CO2 emissions -- a global recession; the best way? a global depression.

December 8, 2012: Quote of the day --

"It certainly isn't where we need to be in order to prevent islands from going under and other unimaginable impacts."-- AP, Doha, Qatar.

December 7, 2012: this day will live in infamy; the US blows off warnings of global warming.  The Doha-ha-ha-ha Climate Change Conference opened and closed this week. No one noticed.

November 20, 2012: the CIA closes its global warming office.

November 10, 2012: the medieval warming period; nothing new under the sun
October 29, 2012: changing tilt of the earth's axis explains climate changes -- Harvard;

October 16, 2012: global warming stopped 16 years ago -- UK mainstream media

September 19, 2012: Antarctic ice shelf continues to grow. 

September 3, 2012: biodiversity of species will increase with global warming

June 22, 2012: The "grandfather of global warming" speaks up/speaks out. 

June 4, 2012: Greenland glaciers were melting at a faster rate in the 1930s than they are melting now.  Something tells me we won't see this story in the NYT or LAT.
Other links of a similar nature:

• Greenland glaciers not set to cause disastrous sea level rises - study (4 May 2012)
• New sat data shows Himalayan glaciers hardly melting at all (9 February 2012)
• Arctic freshening not due to ice melt after all, says NASA (6 January 2012)
• No 'tipping point' for Arctic sea ice - latest science (10 February 2011)
• Greenland ice loss rates 'one-third' of what was thought (7 September 2010)

June 3, 2012: global warming could open the Arctic -- oil alone worth $900 trillion for the five countries that surround it. Could someone tell me again the downside for global warming?

April 21, 2012: nice summary of where we stand on this issue with additional links at this article in which global warming alarmists want to burn down the houses of skeptics

February 10, 2012: NY Times reporting historic, record-setting winter in Europe.

The successive snowstorms — considered to be the worst onslaught the country [Kosovo] has seen since the 1980s — have also wrought havoc on the country’s agriculture. Farm lobbies told The A.P. that about 100,000 tons of fruit, vegetables and meat products had been left to rot, prevented from reaching markets amid the persistent storms and cold. In the town of Castelvenere, the report said, a funeral was cancelled as snow blocked the arrival of a coffin at the church. 

Last weekend, Ukrainian officials said at least 131 people had died during a lengthy cold snap, as temperatures dropped well below freezing. There were also reports of weather-related deaths in Poland, Italy, France, Hungary and Lithuania. 

In Rome, residents complained last weekend of an inadequate response to the storm. Some regions were left without power well after the snow had passed, and gridlock on some of Rome’s main streets — many unplowed and unsalted — prompted angry calls for the resignation of the city’s mayor.

February 10, 2012: wow, this winter in Europe seems to be getting worse, and worse.

Snow drifts reaching up to rooftops kept tens of thousands of villagers prisoners in their own homes Saturday as the death toll from Europe's big freeze rose past 550.

More heavy snow fell on the Balkans and in Italy, while the Danube river, already closed to shipping for hundreds of kilometres (miles) because of thick ice, froze over in Bulgaria for the first time in 27 years.

Montenegro's capital of Podgorica was brought to a standstill by snow 50 centimetres (20 inches) deep, a 50-year record, closing the city's airport and halting rail services to Serbia because of an avalanche.

February 8, 2012: Earth's  polar icecap melting less than expected. The oceans are rising on average one inch/year.

February 6, 2012: the news continues to get worse in England and central Europe. 

London's Heathrow Airport, the world's busiest air hub by passenger traffic, cancelled a third of the day's flights, while much of Britain was blanketed in snow, leaving drivers stranded on roads overnight.

In Italy, which reported a seventh victim, snow-covered Rome was virtually paralyzed, thousands of people were trapped on trains, and the weather emergency sparked runs on supermarkets.

February 1, 2012: Scores dead to "global warming"  hitting central and eastern Europe.

January 22, 2012: rare storm pattern to hit the south tonight (weather, not Gingrich-Romney).

January 18, 2012: Alaska dogsled races canceled -- too cold, too much snow; passes impassable.
Temperatures were consistently 45 to 50 below zero, according to race officials.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Copper Basin 300 canceled because of impassible trail conditions

January 18, 2012: Japanese northern island hit with record snowfall; most since records began.

January 17, 2012: snowstorm of the decades about to hit Seattle, Washington. As predicted by global warming enthusiasts. By the way, what is the "right" temperature for the earth; and, what is the "right" amount of precipitation for the blue marble? And who, exactly, set the thermostat that Americans are now tampering with.

January 16, 2012: this is a comment from another "average dude." It was sent into another site  but it is worthy of saving:

Climate hysteria is a totalitarian's dream. People believe it because it gives them some pseudo-intellectual cachet. Corrupted scientists spin doctor their results to support it because government grants come pouring in. Politicians love it because it's a "crisis" that can give them power to decide who gets resources and who doesn't all in the guise of "saving the planet".

Funny, when doctors save sick patients, they usually know where the demarcation line is to decide if the patient is cured or getting worse. They know the proper range of body temperature, blood pressure, respiration rate, blood chemistry, etc.

Does anyone really know what the "proper" temperature for the entire planet should be? Does anyone really even know how to get an accurate reading on the temperature of the entire planet? What is too much rainfall? What is too little? And what judgements should be made when it is discovered that temperature data is being "smoothed" and then lost? What judgments should be made when a scientist lies about polar bear population statistics?

Short story: Global warming has no cure. Never will have a cure. Can't even be diagnosed with any trustworthiness. It's adherents are demanding Western civilization bankrupt itself to cure a disease of questionable diagnosis which can never be cured because no one can nor will say what constitutes the AGW problem actually being solved.

The entire AGW movement reeks of a classic apocalyptic scam, just like preachers who predict the end of the World and convince they followers to sell everything they have and abandon all worldly goals and possessions for "salvation". It's no different than that, except it's caught on with the left wing loons who are always numerous enough to do real damage when they go completely off the deep end on yet another off the wall social engineering crusade. They are always wrong too, every time. So much so that few of them actually practice any of what they preach in their day to day lives. They have no intention of destroying themselves; just you.

November 29, 2011: Global warming in South Africa shuts down the conference, sort of. West Tennessee hit with major winter storm.

November 23, 2011: How global warming scientists really feel about the issue.

November 17, 2011: update on Kyoto --- "Obama, for all his personal commitment to the environment, has made clear the world's second biggest carbon emitter will not commit to a new legally-binding protocol at least until after the next presidential election." -- Reuters.

November 8, 2011: Alaska faces one of its worse storms ever, forecasters say -- CNN -- not where I usually get my news:

Alaska is facing a life threatening winter storm with near hurricane force winds, more than a foot of snow and severe coastal flooding, the National Weather Service says.

"This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm which will be one of the worst on record over the Bering Sea and the west coast," NWS forecasters said in a bulletin Monday afternoon.

The storm was about 600 miles southwest of Shemya in the far western Aleutian Islands on Monday afternoon and was expected to move over the Bering Sea toward Alaska's west coast on Tuesday.

November 3, 2011: this school district in eastern Massachusetts -- Bolton, Stow and Lancaster -- have used three of their five snow days and winter has not yet begun.

November 1, 2011: old snow stays in Rockies; adds to glacier size;

Scientists who monitor the effects of global warming are watching glaciers shrink all over the world, but this year could be an exception in parts of the Rocky Mountains.

Snow is already piling up in the high country, but not all of the unusually deep snow from last winter has melted. As a result, some glaciers and snowfields are actually gaining volume this year.

Scientists have measured new ice in Montana's Glacier National Park and atop Colorado's Front Range mountains. In northwest Wyoming, there is photographic evidence of snowfield growth after Bob Comey, director of the Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center, compared photos of peaks from year to year. October 29, 2011: early winter not confined to the northeast

• Amarillo, TX, with 2.5 inches of snow; record; average snowfall for Amarillo is 0.3 inch for the entire month of October

October 29, 2011: early winter storm

• New York City winter storm shatters record
• Historic snowstorm pummeling northeast
• Almost 3 million without power

As of Saturday, October 28, 2011, snowfall, adjectives taken from link above:

• NYC Central Park, 2.9 inches (since 1869 when snowfall records began), the Park had never received a inch of snow on any given October day; the last time the Park had any recorded measurable snow, 1952, one-half inch
• Hartford, CT: buried, 12.3 inches of snow; the previous record, 1.7 inches, October 10, 1979
• Worcester, MA: all-time October snowfall record, 11.4 inches; previous, 7.5 inches, 1979
• Newark, NJ: 5.2 inches; again, an all-time record for October; previously, never an inch on any October day
• Concord, NH: blanketed; 13.6 inches; the previous daily record, 0.2 inch back in 1952
• Albany, NY: 3.8 inches; previous record, 0.4 inch, 2000
• Pittsburgh, PA: 1.6 inches; previous record, 0.6 inch, 2008
• Philadelphia, PA: 0.3 inch, breaking the old record of "trace" set back in 1902
• Wilmington, DE: 0.3 inch, surpassing the "trace" in 2002
• Washington, DC: 0.6 inch; unprecedented in the capital; it had never received any snow on Oct 29
• Bistol CT: 17 inches
• Plainfield, MA; 31 inches

Original Post

  "Early snowfall wreaking havoc on the east coast." -- ESPN2, 4:32 CST.  What is this? October?
New York Times: first snowfall in October since the Civil War.

New York has today been hit by more than one inch of snowfall before Halloween for the first time ever - with experts predicting much more on the way.

A classic nor'easter is chugging up the East Coast at an unusually early period and expected to dump up to 10 inches throughout the region.

More than 1.5 million homes have lost power in the storm.

Some places in mid-Atlantic states saw more than half a foot of snow and approximately 250,000 customers lost power in Pennsylvania and Maryland, requiring utility crews from Ohio and Kentucky to fix it.

Incredible. So much for global warming.

****************

This is what I never hear from those who take umbrage with my global warming posts:

• no one ever admits that we are talking about 0.6 degrees Celsius over 100 years -- neither statistically significant nor reproducible. Again...0.6 degrees Celsius over 100 years; if science were always so precise ... again, 0.6 degrees... are you kidding?
• no evidence of receding beaches or loss of islands worldwide as predicted with ice caps melting; in fact, a published study shows hundreds of new islands since "global warming" become mainstream -- 657 new islands, Huffington Post, hardly a Fox contributor
• Al Gore emphatically stated "we" had ten years or it would be too late; it's been ten years, or very, very close -- any dire consequences to date? Does anyone see any dire consequences in the next 10 years? If so, what are they? And please don't talk about the polar bears, another scam that was exposed.
• no one discusses the fact that without China, India, Brazil, etc., playing by the same rules as "developed" nations. anything the US does will result in no change on a global basis
• no one talks about the positive consequences of global warming (if it exists), such as ice-free passage from northeast Canada to the Arctic; the "fact" that something is happening, doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad; is "global warming" a net negative?  Again, we're talking 0.6 degrees over 100 years
• no one ever talks about the economic impact of Al Gore's recommendations
• no one admits that the prevailing attitude is changing regarding "belief" in global warming based on numerous polls; I am hardly alone on this side of the issue; almost half of Americans consider "global warming issues exaggerated" (48%)

On another note, folks often point out that I never talk about the hot weather spells reported around the world over the past ten years: why would I argue with myself? There's plenty of other folks who will point out the hot weather to counter my cold weather arguments; so, yes, I only present facts that support my argument -- well, duh.

0.6 degrees Celsius over 100 years. Are you kidding?

But this is my favorite: folks saying I troll for people to come to my site when I make these posts. Well duh. Of course, I want folks to come to my site. A page view is a page view.

The Boogie Man Chronicles

Reality: Nemo, New England nor'easter, February 8 - 9, 2013, set new record for Portland, Maine, last set in 1979; fifth or sixth "worse" (or, for children, the "best") storm in history; currently; another inch or so, and it will move to 5th.

Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past, The Independent, March 20, 2000.

Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.

"Children won't know what snow is," says Dr Viner (apparently the "V" is pronounced as a "w"), as repeated by Christopher England, November 28, 2011.