That'S is your fault then.

Any comment on the Southern hemisphere in general avergae showing a massive widening of warmth-related climate pohenomeneons and according envcironmental effects? Erosion? Desertification? Loss of fertile farmland capoable to run agriculture on? The movement of warmth-depending species on both global hemipsheres into regions where before they could not have survived - becasue it was too cold for them? Decline of energetic potential in deep ocean tidings, due to a decline in differences between cold and warm water, and sinking salinity levels?

Don't mistake weather with global climate trends. Global warming can cause local paradox effects, I have often explained that. And there is a very basic difference in how GW shows on the Northern and on the southern side of the globe, due to the different distribtuion of land- and water masses. It could be that the spread between winter and summer temeporatuzre sin the North becomes wider again, more extreme temperatures in both summer and winter. On the southern side of Earth however we see a more general trend of more warming.

It helps nobody to simplify things beyond reason and then call that "avoiding to make things unneedingly complex". It is a complex issue.

We have had a very early winter over here, untpyical in timing and intensity by the standards of the past 30 years or so, we also had very much snow 2005 or 2006. But the summers of the past 15 years or so nevertheless for the most saw record temperatures that I cannot remember to have seen in my schooldays.

North-West passage, anyone? It's not only open, but opens even more it seems. Glaciers on the Northern pole, and ice capes? Last year it was shown that the not only melt and brake up, but that they do so at incrasing speed that just before last year was not considered to be possible. Glaciers in the alps? They are shrinking at accelerating pace, some are already gone. In Austria and Switzerland they now protect them with huge monumental foils, to maintain ski toursiom for some years longer in the future, it has become a habit that many prominent ski ressorts that before could completely rely on natural snow, now need to boost up the skiways with snow cannons throughout most of the winter season. Glaciers in South America? There are pics showing that where today there is a pathetic amount of tiny little white, 50, 70 years ago there were 30 meters of km-long ice-coatings - you cannot even recognise the landscape today that easily anymore.

But all that means nothing because it snows in Houston. :88)

Hi from Canada, where we have like 2 feet of snow on the roads

Here in Houston, we can handle the occasional hurricane. We can survive having a couple extra feet of water in the roads. People will tie the boat to the back of the pick-up, and go out and have a great time.

But a quarter inch of snow? That'll shut down the roads. A little bit of ice? People don't know how to drive. It's chaos. We are currently waiting to see if they shut the center down and send us home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh76DVhj0-Y Relevant Mitchell/Webb sketch :D

Video added in by some fool, original sketch was just the audio.

Please explain why greenlands thaw sets in a month ealier and lasts a month longer than normal....twice as much ice melted in 2010 compared to 1972 :doh:

Conspiracy theory:
They say the is is melting is iceland because they know we don't like in iceland!
For the people in iceland, its too cold for them to linger outside, so they stay inside and its not like they would measure the ice!

It's not just Houston Skybird. Even here 2000 miles away in Massachusetts we're getting winters that remind me of the 1960's and 70's.

Of course according to you that doesn't mean anything either right?

There is no scientific body that denies that based on modern instrumentality, the Earth has been warming during the period of such measurements. The HUMAN aspect of it is hypothesis, on the other hand to explain this observation. AGW is by no means "proved." It has not been tested enough to be theory (since there is very little that can be done experimentally).

Tests that have been done are nothing more than back-casting based on hitting computer models. Not backcasting to hit real data. This is a critical distinction.

The notion that human activity could change climate is an entirely reasonable hypothesis, but it is in no way demonstrated enough to make the grade as a theory, IMHO. (note I well understand the scientific definition of theory—making the grade to be a theory makes it "true" with little more than tweaks as to the model—"theory" is a VERY high bar to pass (contrary to the common english usage).

That said, even the notion of "warming" is very dependent on method. How can you compare accurate satellite data (though they don't have pure polar orbiting spacecraft to cover the poles very well) only available in the last couple decades to data from 100 years ago which is in effect crap?

If you make the claim that the word is X degrees warmer now than 1911, and Y degrees warmer than 1811, you would really need to use identical instrumentality and measurement locations. My personal thought is that many of the climate guys are young enough they never really dealt with uncertainty and precision in measurement (and computational errors—something many still forget is very real).

The amounts of warming proposed in these time periods is very small. A couple degrees. Do you really think that the data from 1811 is accurate to 2 degrees compared to satellite data? The error bars are based on the worst data you have, and as any of these plots goes back in time, the error bars should become well in excess of the signal here. Heck, the number of measurements alone is very different. 100, 200, 300 years ago you have discrete measurements in a handful of locations, vs continuous IR imaging over swathes of earth. The difference here is stunning. Trying to create a global model that works with real spot data on the ground (or sea) in 1800 or 1700, AND works with modern data, and works with the terrible proxy data they use is incredibly daunting (which is why the models don't actually work). So they have a computational problem that is in fact very very difficult, then they elect to have people write the code who are not CS professionals, but climate science guys who happened to take FORTRAN in grad school in 1985. LOL. I'd argue that any statement that this is the warmest year needs to take this into account. I flatly don't buy it, the data going back in time is too crappy (sorry, as a physics guy, I have much higher standards for precision that the climate people).

It's important to remember that modern temp data is also measure temperatures in entirely different places (in geographical location, and altitude). In many cases places that there was zero data taken even a few decades ago (the space-based data).

IMHO, the climate models are hopelessly muddled. Someone who knows what they are doing needs to take a crack at it—cause they could very well be right.

Regardless, with respect to the current weather, global warming plays no part at all. It might in the future, but you can only claim "climate change" if the global climate right now is outside of natural boundary conditions. If the climate has ever looked as it does now in the past, then this winter is still NORMAL. Climate change won't be "responsible" until we're outside of any norms due to it—which is a long way off. I recently read a editorial by a climate change guy (very much a mainstream, pro-AGW guy) where he berated climate scientists who blame current weather (Katrina, etc) on "climate change" because it makes them look like idiots. He realizes that they are trying to create a climate (political) to mitigate real climate change, but thinks lying is not the way to do it.

So this is just weather. 100 years from now it might well be "climate change" causing it, but it's well within normal limits right now.

Well...since no-one else is going to say it, I'll say it first.

"Houston, we gotta problem..."

There.

Now, down to the matter at hand.

Winters in the UK seem a bit less snowy than I remember, although my current location next to the sea may have a lot to do with that, but I do remember snow that was about three or four foot deep in our front garden once and an icicle about a foot or two long dangling from the gutter over our front door like the Sword of Damocles! (admittedly this was back when I lived in Northern Kent) :haha:
The climate is changing, I think that that is universally recognised, however the cause of it is still debatable, is it a part of a cycle that occurs naturally every few thousands of years? Is it a natural cycle that has been exacerbated by man? Or is it all mans fault for pollution? Or perhaps is it all three? Either which way, we will have to adapt or we will die, because it's not going away, the genie is not being put back into the bottle, it's here, it's probably not going to get any better, so we'll have to deal with it one way or the other.

3d snow day here. Kids cant even play well in the snow, it's -5 out (and really windy into the bargain).

No, I just do not mistake "weather" with "climate".

For this weekend the weather prediction here says heavy winds and temperatures up to +13°C. Two weeks ago some parts of Germany had temperatures of up to +19°C. Both examples, by nation-wide standards of the past decades, is not only untypical, but is 10-20°C too warm fore this time of the year. In February, we should have occasional snow and sub-zero temps. On the other hand we have had an unusually early winter last years, with very heavy snow, and several weeks too early.

So what?

Regarding snow in Noth America and the typhoon in Austrlia, there are weather cycles that last for years, and that casue the phenomeneons of El Nino and La Nina. These cycles last for years. In how far global temeprature chnages effect both cycles,. is not understood in all detail, but that there is a link: that is not understood to be certain.

There is more landmasses on the Northern half of Earth than on the southern, and there is more water in the South than in the North. The equator line serves as a separator for the rotation direction of some atmospheric processes. Water stores heat for longer, than land, land sees more drasticv and rapic chnages in temperarure exchnage with the air. This is one of the reasons why both hemispheres produce different temperature symptoms if the overall general temperature of the globe is climbing. Also, the oceanic current and by that: the saturation of the air with moisture, is different, and the different thermals in the Northern hemisphere, due to the more share of land, also distribute this moisture differently than in the southern hemisphere.

There are paradoxical effects, yes, but that means not they cannot be explained, it just means that they are the opposite of what at first glance is expected. Also, inner dynamics of climate chnages and weather phenomenens can reach treshold levels at which the symptoms shown so far reverse into their opposite again.

It is a very complex issue, that'Sw hy you cna read about the forming of weather and lcimate in so different sources likle oceanography, astronomy, geology, ecology, physics, geography, even history related research. All these branches add important info and perspectives to the explanation of how climate functions, and how weather is formed. you cannot get the full picture if you leave out even just one.

It is also a very interesting field, I must say, right because it is so diverse. I touched it again quite intensely during my astronomy course this autumn and winter.

P.S. I forgot two very prominent symptoms for global warming: the accelerating thawing of the permafrost soils in Northern Russia, plus the increasing methane levels in the oceans (indicating that the frozen methane on the ocean'S grounds is thawing, too - and that means that even the water in the deep sea is warming slightly). And a biologic indicator for the oceans changing their ph-levels andf temperatures: the decline of many fishes in increasingly huge areas, and the growing plague of jellyfish, seing exotic species showing up in untypical waters in huge numbers, and a general growth of jellyfish plagues in all oceans.

you can't really predict anything on the basis of one winter. While Europe and the U.S have been getting hammered, up here in Quebec, the snowfall has been milder than usual. I have about a foot of snow on my front lawn. At this time last year, it was around 2 1/2-3 feet.

SNOW
 

WHAT IS THAT :haha: SCOTTSDALE AZ

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...0201136576.jpg

Massachusetts Snowpocalypse Baby sez: C'mon, Texas... grow a pair! :O:

:har:

Quarter inch you say? Ice you say :haha: -5!

Bahaha, I need to walk through about 2 and a half feet of snow to get to my bus/metro station if they don't plow the sidewalks at night. After they've plowed I now need to deal with ice and this crap called slush. And -5? How about - 33.

And I STILL sleep with my window open :O:

All I can say is get some chains and wrap 'em around your tires :).

Cheers from the North

Krauter