Eaarth

[Arragonis]

Yeah

Originally Posted by NASA

The extreme warmth in Northeast Canada is undoubtedly related to the fact that Hudson Bay was practically ice free. In the past, including the GISS base period 1951-1980, Hudson Bay was largely ice-covered in November.

Except

How would he know what the SST anomalies are in the Hudson Bay or in Baffin Bay? They aren’t represented by GISS data. GISS deletes SST anomaly data in areas where there’s seasonal sea ice and extends land surface data (with its greater variability and higher trends) out over the oceans and those bays.

The great thing about the internet is that there are lots of people who look at this stuff in some detail. Again and again.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

Originally Posted by euromodder

Over in Europe, 2010 is looking to be the coldest year since 1996.

Right, it is not consistent in that a warmer overall average doesn't mean that it is warmer everywhere. North America actually had a cooler year.

Unfortunately, the warming isn’t even across the globe:

This year above-normal temperatures were recorded in most parts of the continents. Only North America (United States and Canada) experienced conditions that were cooler than average. Given the current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to have the warmest year on record.

[Actually, NOAA says "The average annual temperature for the contiguous United States is projected to be above normal." It was the third coolest October for the contiguous 48 states.]

Think of this as "global weirdness" -- the added heat energy and added water vapor means, along with all of the various and sundry "echos" of these, means that unusual is the new norm.

And, for the record, WMO does not just rely on the Hadley/CRU data:

This press release was issued in collaboration with the Hadley Centre of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office; the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom; the National Climatic Data Center, National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service, and the National Weather Service under NOAA; and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States. Other contributors are the NMHSs of Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Japan, Morocco, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and Uruguay. The African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD, Niamey), the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the Centro Internacional para la Investigación del Fenómeno de El Niño (CIIFEN, Guayaquil, Ecuador), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC, Nairobi, Kenya), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Drought Monitoring Centre (SADC DMC, Gabarone, Botswana) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) also contributed.

Global Surface Temperature Trend : Result from three Global datasets: NOAA (NCDC Dataset) , NASA (GISS dataset) and combined Hadley Center and Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (UK) (HadCRUT3 dataset)

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Right, it is not consistent in that a warmer overall average doesn't mean that it is warmer everywhere. North America actually had a cooler year.

It is the 3rd consecutive colder year after the 2006-2007 highs.
It could be the start of a downwards trend as 2010 is well below the 1997- 2009 variations.
2011-2012 will tell us more.

The warmer spell has to end someday.

[Arragonis]

Out of interest, "wamest on record".

What record ?

We only have reliable records back to 1850 - when the mercury thermometer was invented - which is the end of the LIA.

Of course its going to be warmer...

[NeilBlanchard]

Well, we have had a fair number of volcanic eruptions recently...

Also, there were freaky cold winters in the mid 19th century due to enormous volcanic eruptions in Southeast Asia and other places. One is the year the Thames froze, and the year that Frankenstein was written. Another is the staggering winter that is the subject of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "The Long Winter"; of her family's near starvation and near freezing in De Smet, South Dakota.

Some interesting reading on "The Little Ice Age" (which was not an official ice age):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Causes

[Arragonis]

Live thread live...

BBC News - Gulf Stream 'is not slowing down'

The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.

Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.

A slow-down - dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow - is projected by some models of climate change.

Looks like the snow I'm having - again, its back - is just weather.

[NeilBlanchard]

6 months worth of rain in California in less than a week.

2" / hour rains in California, causing landslides,
Landslides are likely because of huge wild fires,
Huge wild fires are common because of droughts,
Droughts are happening because the snow pack is shrinking,
Snow packs are shrinking because of lots of heat: both in the summer AND because it is warm enough to rain in the winter *instead* of snowing...

Hmmm...

[Arragonis]

Is there evidence that fires are unusually more frequent than they were before ? When I visited California a couple of years back we saw exhibitions about the forest parks which included histories and memorials to fire fighters from the 1920s and 1930s to the present day.

In this evidence of course you would have to factor out the encroaching nature of cities, tourism and leisure - all those intrepid wilderness types camping out deeper and deeper into the forests in increasing numbers.

[NeilBlanchard]

Yes, just ask any firefighter. The fires are more common, bigger, and the fire "season" is much longer.

The landscape is the proof, and the landslides, and the shrinking snow pack, too.

That and California and the entire southwest of the USA will run out of water. Lake Meade (behind the Hoover Dam) will go too low to supply water very soon.

[Arragonis]

From Wikipedia

Lake Mead's water level has three times fallen below the drought level (1125 feet above sea level).[4] From 1953 to 1956, the water level fell from 1,200 to 1,085 feet (370 to 331 m). From 1963 to 1965, the water level fell from 1,205 to 1,090 feet (367 to 330 m). Since 2000 through 2008, the water level has dropped from 1215 to 1095. In 2009 the water level rose slightly, but only due to cool winter temperature and rainfall.

In June of 2010, the lake was at 39 percent of its capacity,[5] and on October 17, 2010, it reached 1,083 ft (330 m), setting a new record low.[6] Arrangements are underway to pipe water from elsewhere in Nevada by 2011, but since the primary raw water intake at Lake Mead could become inoperable as soon as 2010 based on current drought and user projections, Las Vegas could suffer crippling water shortages in the interim.[7] Lake Mead draws a majority of its water from snow melt in the Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah Rocky Mountains. Since 2000 the water level has been dropping at a fairly steady rate due to less than average snowfall. As a result, marinas and boat launch ramps have either needed to be moved to another part of the lake or have closed down completely. The Las Vegas Bay Marina and the Lake Mead Marinas were relocated a few years ago to Hemenway Harbor. Overton Marina has been closed due to low levels in the northern part of the Overton Arm. Government Wash, Las Vegas Bay, and Pearce Ferry boat launch ramps have also been closed. The marinas that remain open include Las Vegas Boat Harbor and Lake Mead Marina all sharing Hemenway Harbor/Horsepower Cove, Callville Bay Marina, Echo Bay Marina, and Temple Bar Marina, along with the Boulder Launch Area (former location of the Lake Mead Marina) and the South Cove launch ramp.[8]

Changing rainfall patterns, natural climate variability, high levels of evaporation, reduced snow melt runoff, and current water use patterns are putting pressure on water management resources at Lake Mead as the population depending on it for water and the Hoover Dam for electricity booms. A 2008 paper in Water Resources Research states that at current usage allocation and projected climate trends, there is a 50% chance that live storage in lakes Mead and Powell will be gone by 2021, and that the reservoir could drop below minimum power pool elevation of 1,050 feet (320 m) as early as 2017.[9][10][11] But, Terry Fulp, manager of the federal bureau office for the lower Colorado, disagreed with the paper, saying that global climate models were not sensitive or refined enough to forecast such effects.

So maybe its natual cycles, maybe its usage from a growing population, maybe its something not fully understood. And hasn't there just been a massive dose of rain in that area from a storm whcih stretched across a large part of the Pacific ?