[Climate Change] Lake Erie up to 60% Covered in Ice

Dang, this is worse than I thought. We are not doing enough to promote global warming. Science has proven that man can cause the planet to warm. We are not doing enough to promote global warming to help these poor people suffering from these crazy low temperatures. Come on people, we need to emit more CO2 if we want to stop this crazy cold weather.

 

This is right up there with if we evolved from monkeys then why are there still monkeys. Good job, good effort.

 

Don't deny science!!! Man can cause this planet to warm. The planet is having crazy cold spells so we need to do more to warm the planet. Come on CW, do your part to save the planet.

 

Exhibit B.

 

Why are you denying science????? For the first time in history, we now know man can cause the planet to warm, which science has proven, yet we still have these crazy low temperatures. We have to save the planet!!! Do your part!!!

 

I'm not denying science, I'm pointing out how ignorant you are about how global warming causes climate change. Proceed with dumb!!!!

 

Meh... We'll probably eventually get in a huge world war and nuk the planet anyway so I'm not necessarily concerned about the climate at this point.

 

Picked up a book last time I was in Galveston. History of Galveston I think it was called. Written by a UT professor chronicling the settlement and early history of the town. Interesting read and very detailed.

I was surprised to read Galveston Bay froze over several times between about 1825 and like 1890. Accounts of people walking out on the bay on thick ice sheets from the long running Galveston newspaper. Pre industrial revolution. So yea....

 

Since October, SW Oregon is 4 degrees warmer than average; a general pattern that holds throughout the NW. In WA, OR, and NorCal we are seeing a sustained change to the jet stream for the second year in a row. Instead of slamming Pacific storms into the NW, the jet stream is going over the top of us, into Canada, and dropping back down into the eastern US. While this has happened before at times, it never lasted for significant period until last year. If you recall, the only cooler place on the globe during last year's record warmth was the eastern US. Looks to be the same dynamic this year, only more so.

Here in Oregon, we are seeing something never before seen. We have average precip yet because of the high temps, we end up with a record low snowpack (Crater Lake should have over ten feet of snow right now, but alas, they have less than three, and that is one of our better sites... Some are down to 5 % or so of average snowpack). This dynamic will increase the likelihood of fire and coupled with the hot and dry forecast for the summer, we could be in for it big time. All the models suggest this pattern will become the new norm over the next few decades. But hey, if it is cold where you live, no worries... Other than if we truly are developing a new jet stream pattern, you will continue to have sucky winters.

 

Role reversal: Why it's warm in Alaska but frigid in most of the U.S. right now
http://mashable.com/2014/11/11/extreme-cold-us-record-warms-artic/

....Thanks to an unusually contorted jet stream, the weather map looks as though the Arctic has picked up and temporarily relocated to the lower 48 states, leaving the actual Arctic unusually mild. Based on computer model projections, the Arctic may be a long houseguest, as the pattern is projected to last for at least a week and a half, and likely longer than that.

The weather pattern is leading to a classic episode of what climate scientists have labeled the "warm Arctic, cold continents" pattern, something that has been seen with increasing frequency in recent years. Studies have tied this particular pattern in part to rapid Arctic climate change as a result of manmade global warming, although this is still a subject of debate within the mainstream climate science community.....


Hot Alaska, Cold Georgia: How The Shifted Polar Vortex Turned Winter Upside-Down
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/08/3266731/hot-alaska-cold-georgia-polar-vortex/

...The polar vortex has been pulled south by an unusually extreme jet stream, which some scientists have suggested will happen more frequently in a warming world. This leaves the far north much warmer than normal....It wasn’t just Alaska. Greenland has been about 5°C warmer than normal in January....For people in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s easy to forget it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere, where many countries have seen extreme heat. Sao Paolo, Brazil is running out of water as it suffered through its hottest month on record in January. The extreme heat rolling through Australia has not just caused tennis tournaments to suspend outdoor play, but also led to a spike in heat-related deaths in Victoria....

 

You do realize that the planet overall can be warmer but certain parts will experience a colder winter, right?

No one said the warming trend was evenly distributed. Do you not think about things like that?

 

February temps: A Tale of Two Extremes.

 

It only matters if it's cold in continental US! Just like every other new story!
Lake Erie frozen! No one cares that Maldives are under water.

 

Nothing to see here...

Spoiler

 

I don't think anyone is claiming that the global warming is occurring at the same rate across the entire Earth. We are talking about averages which is implied that temperatures aren't increasing evenly across the Earth. That is why it is a mistake to look at weather events like snowstorms on the East coast or ice coverage on the Great Lakes in winter when what we are talking about is Global phenomenon and long scale trends. Further the increasing warm trend at the poles is what exactly a sign of climate change as the pieces you cite show the feedback mechanism work faster there than they do in other parts of the World.

 

It's mind boggling that he's bringing this up as some incredible insight after we've been trying to tell him that for the past few months.

 

To add since Cohete Rojo has cited the PDO as an argument against global warming. You're right that this process isn't that well understood but it does seem like the more that it is understood rather than a counter to the idea of global warming (the PDO's might be responsible for higher temps) it is mainly acting as a moderator for warming from human causes.

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/uk...-implicated-global-warmings-false-pause/46259

Natural cycle in Pacific Ocean implicated in global warming's 'false pause'

Friday, February 27, 2015, 09:30 GMT - Researchers may have found the culprit responsible for the recent 'slowdown' or 'pause' in the rise of global temperatures - a combination of long term cycles in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, known for having a big influence on northern hemisphere temperatures.

Over the past 15 years or so, global surface temperatures have been trending rather flat with time, this contrary to the fact that rising carbon dioxide emissions had been causing an alarming rise in global temperatures leading up to the new millennium. While it has been suggested by some that this so-called 'pause' shows that the warming evidenced since the mid-1800s was simply a natural process, which is now swinging back in the other direction, new research is showing that it is the pause that is due to natural variations, and the masked signal from human-caused warming could return with a vengeance once this cycle swings back the other way.

Which natural cycles are acting as this 'mask'? According to new research out of Penn State University, it's a combination of patterns in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans, known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation (PMO).

According to Penn State:

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) describes how North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures tend to oscillate with a periodicity of about 50 to 70 years. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) varies over a broader range of timescales. The researchers looked only at the portion of the PDO that was multidecadal - what they term the Pacific multidecadal oscillation (PMO).

As the AMO and PMO shift the patterns of ocean temperature back and forth in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the oscillations aren't synced up, but they do combine to produce an overall shift in northern hemisphere temperatures, known as the Northern Hemisphere Multidecadal Oscillation (NMO). The graph below gives an estimate of how the pattern fluctuates over time.

According to what Mann wrote on RealClimate.org:

"It is true that Earth's surface warmed a bit less than models predicted it to over the past decade-and-a-half or so. This doesn't mean that the models are flawed. Instead, it points to a discrepancy that likely arose from a combination of three main factors. These factors include the likely underestimation of the actual warming that has occurred, due to gaps in the observational data. Secondly, scientists have failed to include in model simulations some natural factors (low-level but persistent volcanic eruptions and a small dip in solar output) that had a slight cooling influence on Earth’s climate. Finally, there is the possibility that internal, natural oscillations in temperature may have masked some surface warming in recent decades, much as an outbreak of Arctic air can mask the seasonal warming of spring during a late season cold snap. One could call it a global warming 'speed bump'."

Mann's latest study, published in the journal Science with fellow researchers Byron A. Steinman, from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Sonya K. Miller from Penn State, looked at climate model runs along with real-world observations. The results of their research show how there's been very little contribution from the AMO in recent years, but a big shift into the 'cool' phase of the PMO is having a major impact on northern hemisphere temperatures.

Thus, the 'flattening' of global surface temperatures observed over the past 15 years or so is due to the artificial warming, from excess carbon dioxide emissions, being balanced by the cooling caused by the shift in the PMO.

This trend is even somewhat visible in the shorter-scale Pacific Decadal Oscillation, shown in the graph above. Several of the warmest years in the past two decades were during times when the PDO was more neutral or in its positive 'warm' phase. Even those short-term upticks allowed global temperatures to climb enough to rank those years into the top ten warmest years on record.

What could this mean for the future?

If the human-caused warming trend is largely being masked by this recent strong 'down-trend' in the PMO, an upswing in the oscillation would not only remove the mask, allowing the true warming trend to show through, but it could augment the trend to a dangerous extreme. We can hope for a possible down-swing in the AMO to offset this, but seeing as there's no reliable way to forecast these long-term trends, that would not be a very wise choice.

The wise choice would be to act, to lower carbon emissions and enact adaptations to the coming changes, while this 'speed bump' lasts.