Frost on July 11

Palousitics contributor Mattwi finally sent along these pictures of his car on the morning of July 11, 2008.


As you can see, the temperature in Colton that morning was 33 degrees Fahrenheit.


The official low temperature at Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport was 35 degrees, a record low for July 11. The following morning saw record lows as well. The Whitman County Gazette reported that the 33 degrees temperature at the airport was the lowest ever for July 12. The Gazette reported that crops and gradens were damaged by the unprecedented late freeze.

The ravages of global warming continue on the Palouse.

Global Cooling: It's Natural

There can be no doubt that the planet has been cooling lately, Nobel prizes and Academy Awards notwithstanding.

And now, even some of those vaunted authorities have started to take notice.

A number of influential people in Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam say the planet is now entering a 30-year cooling period, the second half of a normal cycle driven by cyclical changes in the sun's output and currents in the Pacific Ocean. Their theory leaves true believers in carbon catastrophe livid.

And this great closing paragraph:

So does the climate computer have a real audience, or is it really just another bag lady muttering away to herself in a lonely corner of the intellectual park? That the computer is heard in Hollywood, Stockholm, Brussels and even some parts of Washington is quite beside the point--they have far less global power and influence than they vainly imagine. Vinod Dar is right: "Contingency planning should entail strategic responses to a warming globe, a cooling globe and a globe whose climate reverberates with laughter at human hubris."

Of course, Democrats haven't figured it out. Nancy Pelosi is trying to save the planet by starving the US of energy.

[T]he wave of change her party has ridden could come crashing down. The pressures facing the nation — troubled financial markets, falling housing prices and rising energy and food costs — are genuinely historic. The next president will inherit a projected deficit of close to $500 billion, and Democrats admit privately that they were caught off guard by the spike in gasoline prices and the hardship it has imposed on middle-income and working-class voters.

With fewer than 20 legislative days before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the entire appropriations process has largely ground to a halt because of the ham-handed fighting that followed Republican attempts to lift the moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration. And after promising fairness and open debate, Pelosi has resorted to hard-nosed parliamentary devices that effectively bar any chance for Republicans to offer policy alternatives.

“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she says impatiently when questioned. “I will not have this debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy.”

Screw The Polar Bears, Drill Here, Drill Now

Elitist opinion treats anthropogenic global warming skeptics as the moral equivalent of Nazi holocaust deniers and the intellectual equivalent of flat Earth adherents. All of the computer models, all of the newspaper editorial boards, all of the Hollywood stars, the Democratic Party leadership, both major party presidential candidates, the Weather Channel and the infallible United Nations all agree – burning fossil fuels will warm the Earth, melt the glaciers, flood coastal cities and cause kidney stones. In fact, just this last Wednesday, I received a letter from that noted atmospheric scientist, Leonardo DiCaprio, warning me that cute little polar bear cubs would die screaming in anguish as their melting snow dens collapse.

Global warming seems to have everything going for it, except for warming. Ten years ago the news that 1998 was the warmest ever recorded made headlines. What has not made headlines is that, ever since, the Earth has been cooling and today its temperature is about the same as it was a century ago. This data was verified by thousands of buoys scattered around the world’s oceans to measure water temperatures at depths down to several thousand feet. These buoys confirmed what your bones already know, that the Earth is growing colder.

Have you seen that in the headlines? I haven’t. I don’t watch television news, but I doubt that any of the networks have mentioned it. Even Shepard Smith, host of the supposedly conservative Fox News recently expressed his incredulity that anyone could doubt global warming: “It’s hard to believe this, but there are people watching us right now, and I’ll get e-mails from hundreds of them, who don’t think we have anything to do with this [global warming]. They refuse to believe it. They believe that what’s happening is they want to try to tax us on our carbon eventually, and that this is all a conspiracy to get us. ”

It strikes me as curious that computer models predicting global warming qualify as news, while the actual fact of global cooling is not news. Those of us who place more faith in data than theory are the fools. And of course, computer predictions of global warming are the primary reason why we are not permitted to develop any new oil in this country. Instead we are told that we have to pursue whimsical solutions like wind and solar power, even though any reasonable evaluation of data or computer models prove conclusively that both are losers. Meanwhile, nuclear remains a taboo. And so, we are paying more than four dollars per gallon to drive our cars. And much of the money we spend on that fuel ends up in the hands of America’s most venomous enemies.

All the while, we remain the only nation in the world that chooses to leave undeveloped all the fuel we would need to wean ourselves from imports. Tens of billions of barrels of easily recovered oil are sitting in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and along our coasts. According to the Institute for Energy Research, our shale oil deposits hold at least 8 times as much petroleum as the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Recently, a few timid Republicans rose up on their hind legs and called for more domestic oil and gas development. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Luna) denounced this as a “hoax.” For decades now, Democrats have insisted that new oil development would take a few years before it bore fruit. But, immediately after President George Bush announced that he was rescinding the executive order banning oil exploration along US coastlines, oil prices dropped by $10 per barrel each of the next two days and another $5 on the third day. Natural gas prices have fallen even faster and farther.

That was quite a different reaction than Ms. Pelosi gained when she threatened to sue OPEC for not pumping enough and pushed through legislation barring the government from purchasing oil for the National Strategic Reserve, the only solutions that her party has authored.

Republicans need to stop seeking the approval of the mainstream media. The MSM will publish stories about how global warming will increase the incidence of kidney stones (as they did this week) or repeat the rantings of a crank who hoaxed them into reporting that global warming was causing stronger earthquakes.

If Republicans get aggressive about energy policy, they’ll not only be doing right by America, they’ll win the November election. If not, they deserve a place in the rubbish can of history.

Global Warming Story of the Day

Chilly spring delays strawberries, other local produce; The calendar may say summer, but it's still spring to crops confused by this year's unusually cold temperatures and rainy weather

And yet the Governor of Washington wants our farmers to grow food to burn as gas to reduce "global warming."

Global Warming Quote of the Day

Greg Koch, a forecaster at the National Weather Service in Spokane, said Pullman received 1.5 inches of snow [on June 10], which is the latest snowfall on record dating back to 1940, when weather records were first kept. It also was the first time measurable snowfall was recorded in the month of June.

-"'Crazy' snowfall causes problems in Pullman," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, June 11, 2008

Headed Over to Western Washington This Weekend?

Might want to carry chains.

Summer starts in two weeks.

From the National Weather Service:

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
430 AM PDT FRI JUN 6 2008

WAZ513-518-519-062230-
OLYMPICS-WEST SLOPES NORTHERN CASCADES AND PASSES- WEST SLOPES CENTRAL CASCADES AND PASSES- 430 AM PDT FRI JUN 6 2008

...A STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL BRING SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL TO THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE CASCADES AND OLYMPICS TODAY..

RAIN AND SNOW WILL INCREASE OVER THE MOUNTAINS OF WESTERN WASHINGTON THIS MORNING...BECOMING HEAVY AT TIMES THROUGH THE DAY. THE MAIN SNOW LEVEL WILL HOVER NEAR 3500 FEET BUT TEMPERATURES WILL BE MARGINAL FOR ACCUMULATING SNOW BETWEEN 4000 AND 5500 FEET. THE HEAVIEST PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED LATER THIS MORNING AND AFTERNOON WHEN UP TO 3 INCHES OF SNOW COULD FALL AT THE HIGHER PASSES. ABOVE 5500 FEET...COLDER TEMPERATURES WILL ALLOW ALL THE FALLING SNOW TO STICK WITH UP TO 2 FEET EXPECTED BY THIS EVENING. THIS WILL RESULT IN A HAZARD FOR MOUNTAINEERING AND TRAVEL IN THE HIGH BACKCOUNTRY WITH POOR VISIBILITY...WINDY CONDITIONS...COLD TEMPERATURES...AND THE POSSIBILITY OF RENEWED AVALANCHE ACTIVITY.

PEOPLE DRIVING OVER THE HIGHER HIGHWAYS INCLUDING STEVENS PASS..CHINOOK PASS...WASHINGTON PASS...THE ROAD TO PARADISE...AND THE ROAD TO HURRICANE RIDGE...WILL LIKELY ENCOUNTER SNOW...POOR VISIBILITY...AND SOME WIND. HOWEVER ACCUMULATIONS ON THE ROADS WILLGENERALLY BE THREE INCHES OR LESS.

An Inconvenient Truth: Global Temperatures Continue To Plummet

Global warming anyone?

Confirming what many of us have already noted from the anecdotal evidence coming in of a much cooler than normal May, such as late spring snows as far south as Arizona, extended skiing in Colorado, and delays in snow cover melting in many parts of the northern hemisphere, the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) published their satellite derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008.

It is significantly colder globally, colder even than the significant drop to -0.046°C seen in January 2008.

The global ∆T from April to May 2008 was -.195°C

Meanwhile, John McCain continues to support a radical power and tax grab plan that is supposed to protect us from global warming.

Wake Up and Schuss the Powder

From today's Seattle Times:

The last time Seattle-area residents contended with snow this late in the season was more than three decades ago, when Seattle-Tacoma International Airport reported snow on April 17, 1972, said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

[...]

"We've had powdery snow practically the whole season," said Duncan Howat, general manager at Mount Baker. "This is a great end for what's already been a record season for us."

[...]

Years ago, Mount Baker used to operate well into May — and even went until July 4 once during the 1970s, Howat said. But now its season concludes in late April, ending this year on April 27.

Eastern Washington will also be faced with snowy conditions this weekend.

It's interesting to note that the last time we had a winter this bad was in the Seventies. It was almost 33 years ago exactly, April 28, 1975, that Newsweek ran a story titled "The Cooling World."

Notice the graph in the Newsweek article of average temperature change from 1880 to 1970. It's a classic sine wave. Since then, the average temperature change swung back up again, peaking in 1998. It has remained stable since then, declining slightly. Could we be at the beginning of another downturn in temperature like in the Seventies? Who knows? The weather and climate are constantly changing. The only thing that is consistent is man's alarm and overreaction at the various trends.


One thing that does not exhibit sinusoid behavior is the amount of global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fules. It is steadily increasing. The level of atmospheric CO2 is now nearly twice that in the Seventies. But we still have a winter like this one? I'm skeptical that one climatological phenomenon (La Nina) could override all that CO2 if that truly was causing the planet to warm so dramatically.

In Case You Were Wondering

That snow yesterday pushed this winter up higher on the all-time snowiest list. From the National Weather Service:

AS OF 1 AM SUNDAY APRIL 6TH...THE WINTER SNOWFALL TOTAL FOR SPOKANE WAS 89.4 INCHES. THIS TOTAL IS THE SECOND SNOWIEST ON RECORD. RECORDS HAVE BEEN KEPT FOR SPOKANE SINCE 1893.

Not many people alive have seen a winter this snowy, as the last one was in 1949-50. Of course, the NWS was quick to point out:

2007-2008 SEASON NOT YET COMPLETE. MORE SNOW IS POSSIBLE.

Winter 2007-08: Fifth Snowiest Ever

All the snowy weather over the past few days has pushed the winter of 2007-08 to fifth place on the all-time snowfall list for Spokane, with a seasonal total of 82.4 inches.

Here's how this winter stacks up:

93.5" 1949-50
89.0" 1974-75
87.3" 1992-93
83.2" 1955-56
82.4" 2007-08

We were only one or two good storms away from 2007-08 being the snowiest winter ever in the Inland Northwest.

The Earth Has Stopped Warming. Or, Where Has All The Heat Gone? Long Time Passing.

Two Australian biologists have spoken aloud what global warming alarmists would prefer that no one noticed - the earth is cooling.

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

Of course, data is needed, and there's plenty. 3000 buoys around the world have discovered no evidence of global warming in the Earth's oceans and direct measurements of tropospheric temperatures have shown that the earth is cooling.

I suppose that someday, we'll be laughing ironically at Al Gore's Nobel Prize the same way we snicker at Yasir Arafat's.

Cracking the Case of the "Missing Heat"

I blogged about an NPR story yesterday that said scientists were surprised that 3,000 deep sea robots had not found any evidence of oceanic warming since 2003.

They shouldn't have been surprised. Below is a plot of actual monthly temperatures and the trends from the Hadley global data set (HADCRUT3v) and University of Alabama satellite derived lower tropospheric temperatures covering the same period as the robots measured ocean heat content. Like the robots they show a downtrend (cooling).
This during a time when atmospheric CO2 has been rising. Below is a plot of global temperatures from February 1998 to February 2008 from satellite (UAH MSU lower troposphere) (blue) and land and ocean variance adjusted surface (Hadley CRU T3v) (rose) plotted with Scripps monthly CO2 from Mauna Loa in Hawaii(green).


As you can see, the temperature has fallen since 1998 while CO2 has been steadily rising.

Dr. Roger Pielke, Senior Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado, has some comments on his blog about the NPR story:

This is denial of the obvious. The observed absence of heat accumulation (of Joules) in the upper ocean (and in the troposphere) for the last four years means that there has been NO global warming in these climate metrics during this time period. It is unknown whether this is a short term aberration but, regardless, it is clear that the IPCC models have failed to skillfully predict this absence of warming. That should have been the conclusion stated at the end of the NPR story.

If this is the case, why are we rushing into economy-crushing measures to stop man-made global warming that may or may not even exist?

Klaatu Barada Nikto Globala Warmingo

"I'm sorry Al, I can't do that." I'm predicting an oceanwalk by the Goracle to shut down H.A.L. The robots MUST be malfunctioning if they don't show the global warming that a "CONSENSUS" of scientists say is happening.

According to National Public Radio:

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."

HELLLLOOOOO???? Earth to Willis. Perhaps that means THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING!!! It is religion that ignores contrary data, not science. In science, if the data contradicts your hypothesis, you modify the hypothesis.

This is a must-read story that shows how little we really know about the climate of this planet. Far too little to say that we are warming, cooling, or anything else with any certainty.

HT: Right Mind

Global Warming Fear Mongers: Oh, H-E-Double Hockey Sticks!

Michael Asher at Daily Tech reports that temperature monitors are reporting widescale global cooling. In fact, the drop in worldwide temperatures over the last 12 months has wiped out a century of warming.

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

Won't it be deliciously ironic if the only thing that saves us from the ravages of a new Ice Age are the people driving their big-ass SUVs while eating Quarter Pounders on the way to the sprawl-malls to buy their cheap Chinese crap? God does have a sense of humor.