‘Snowfalls Are Now Just a Thing of the Past’
That was the headline on this March 2000 story in England’s Independent:
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.
The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London’s last substantial snowfall was in February 1991.
Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community. Average temperatures in Britain were nearly 0.6°C higher in the Nineties than in 1960-90, and it is estimated that they will increase by 0.2C every decade over the coming century. Eight of the 10 hottest years on record occurred in the Nineties.
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.
Screencap here in case this 10-year old article quietly vanishes:
Meanwhile, now is the time when Tim Blair juxtaposes:
2007:
Campaigners, who want to draw attention to the impact of aviation on global warming, have been massing all week … The protesters want Heathrow’s expansion plans dropped and the growth of air travel halted.
2010:
Heathrow airport has closed its runway due to snow … Gatwick Airport has closed its runway until at least 3pm because of heavy snow
That’s a lot of decline to hide; in any case, it’s good to see the MSM’s history of projecting current trends infinitely into the future isn’t just reserved exclusively for equities and ideologies.
“Global warming: is there nothing it can’t do?”
Apparently, like a virus, it can’t live very long away from the bodies of its hosts.
But, don’t you deniers know that large cold snaps are part of the complex global warming phenomenon and provide further proof of same? Heh.
Aren’t you suspicious of an hypothesis (and all you have is an hypothesis) for which nothing can count as falsfiying it but everything can count as verifying it? Whatever your hypothesis is, it is not a scientific one.
If the alarmists were consistent, heat waves would be an indication of the coming ice age as the earth releases it’s last vestige of warmth into the atmosphere in time for April 1 celebrations.
Seems the AGW crowd are in the midst of changing their tactics. I had the dubvious pleasure of talking to a friend of my wife who
continually refured to me as a “Global Warming Mythologizer”, because I believe science should trump feelings. This fool
proceeded to ‘argue’ with me by sticking her hand in my face and calling me several names I shant repeat.
The arguement that made me laugh was when she claimed I didn’t know what I was talking about, and had no foundation for my
beliefs. After all she was a social worker and obviously knew more than someone who just received their Doctorate in Geography
and Earth Sciences. That’s when I laughed in her face and walked away, all the while she was yapping at my heals.
This just showed me that the Global Warming crowd have taken up this crusade as a matter of religious faith. AGW jihad may not
be too far behind. But then we’ve all seen the 10/10 video.
I had a similar talk with a female PoliSci major, who told me that conservatives were manipulating the data to hide the CW.
Intelligent, well-educated, strident fool, that one.
…and that’s why animals refur annually…because your wife’s friend refured to you continually…
According to the Washington Post the Artic ice caps have melted and the once herds of Penquins are non-existent. Oh, by the way, they wrote that 88 years ago. Like the defective gene found in liberals, the global warming scammers have continued their sick, twisted scare tactics to the mentally deranged public. Follow the money!
LMAO. In between, the Post was wringing their collective hands about the coming Ice Age.
Liberal stupidity – the worst kept secret in western society.
Jerome, liberals are stupid because liberalism makes them that way An otherwise intelligent person is rendered an imbecile because he must force himself to believe the most absurd notions like “poverty causes crime”, “poverty causes terrorism”, “big business is republican”, “men and women are the same”, and on and on.
And here I thought all along it was about power…
The more the climatofascists thrust their received ‘wisdom’ upon us, the unbelievers, the more the facts disprove their crackpot theories. Of course Global Warming can be all things to all men, if it gets warmer it’s GW and if it gets colder, well it’s GW and if the temperature remains the same it’s overwhelming proof of GW.
Is this what they call an inconvenient truth?
Lets hope they cling to this nonsense…next to “health reform” it’s the single biggest mistake the left has made in decades.
Snow definitely a thing of the past,the past hour,the past day,the past week,the past month and the past three winters. The only thing of the weather that should be consigned to the past is the Met office.
It obviously became imperative to readjust warnings to “Global Warming causes Global Cooling” when politicians realized that voters realized that “Warming” just wasn’t as frightening as “Cooling.”
They’re nothing if not flexible.
Off Topic…
BUT….let’s start a campaign to stop pop-up advertising at the bottom of Pajamas Media pages!.
We posters aren’t permitted to post advertising material in this space….let’s protest to Pajamas Media management to stop treating us as a captive audience.
Signed:
Charles Griffith.
I’m with Charlie on this!
PJM can place the advertising anywhere it wants as long as they keep up the flow of great articles.
We all have to make a living.
You guys want to make it a subscription service instead of free to us? I’d rather have the advertising than to have to pay to use the site.
What pop-up ads? I’ve never seen any ads here other than those on the sidebar.
Of course, I’m using Mozilla Firefox with the latest versions of AdBlockPlus and NoScript, too.
cheers
eon
I have pop-up blockers too and just recently started seeing the pop-up ads on Pajamas. It makes it harder to read the articles. Hope they don’t become a regular thing….:(
And also: “Average temperatures in Britain were nearly 0.6°C higher in the Nineties than in 1960-90,”
why is the 1960-90 average supposed to be the normal? Why shouldn’t the earth be as warm as it was during the height of the SUV driving Roman Empire, or the SUV driving age of the dinosaurs?
The earth heats and cools for many various reasons, none of which has any proven scientific basis based upon human endeavors.
It’s all a scam to take more money out of your wallet, and control your life.
“Why shouldn’t the earth be as warm as it was during the height of the SUV driving Roman Empire, or the SUV driving age of the dinosaurs?”
Ah, but you confuse common sense with liberal agenda…
And as for their “science”, how is it these fractional 1/10th of a degree per century increments be speculated on at all, without literally MILLIONS of datapoints, taken with extremly precise instruments,over vast periods of time?
Who was around 300, 500, 1000, 3000 thousand years ago, with IDENTICALlY ACCURATE INSTRUMENTS as todays, recording IDENICALLY PRECISE measurements, to compare ancient verses modern datasets? Answer: No one
Rocks, trees, tree rings, and core samples will only show GENERAL shifts over great periods of time, (which considering the sevearal ice ages before Man), is NORMAL for the planet with no influence from Man…There is no “point 1 degree in THAT year” level of precision in their ancient records.
Their false precision of past history is a joke. No responsible person who’s ever collected or sampled anything would say there is a “trend” of that small a degree, based on a few select tree rings fossils.
I could say that everyone on earth has the SAME SHOE SIZE….
And it would be true, if all I had to rely on was a YARDSTICK….
Everyones shoe size is, indeed, LESS THAN ONE YARD.
They do NOT have the precision in the “history” to apply todays data in any meaningful (read: honest) fashion.
You’re right. For example, tree rings show changes in growth through the years. However, are those changes solely due to temperature or could there be other factors such as rainfall that account for the differences?
Many scientists spend their careers trying to determine climatic changes over time. This is all well and good – we need to know these things. However, there are likely other things such as solar activity over time that are much harder to determine. Solar activity is far from constant and the degree it influences climate is poorly modeled, IMO. Without that, it’s difficult to impossible to accurately model the future climate. Likewise, recent articles have shown the uncertainty of how much cloud cover impacts temperature. How can anyone determine what cloud cover was like centuries ago?
Apparently, there is a climatologist who says we are actually in a mini ice age.
Anyone who studies climate knows that the public media is fixated on a single number to the exclusion of everything else. Some parts will get warmer, some parts will get colder. One thing is certain: Climate changes. We know that much. It is also probable that human activity figures in to this change.
The question for the ages is how much of the global climate change is caused by human activity, and how much could be reversed by human activities?
We don’t have enough information to act yet. Even if we did, the political will among all the countries in the world is not there. But that hasn’t stopped knee jerk reflexive responses from leftists the world over. Whatever the problem is, they think they have the answer. It involves massive transfers of wealth and it puts them in charge of telling the rest of us what we should do.
Yeah, if that were to be the outcome, why wouldn’t someone want to proclaim that the sky is falling?
Back in the Seventies, when they were worried about a “new Ice Age”, the cause was supposedly “greenhouse gases” and the cure was to junk technological society and go back to an agrarian socialist state operating at pre-Bronze Age levels.
Now, it’s “global warming”, and the cure being demanded is the same thing.
Under the laws of physics, it is logically impossible for two diametrically-opposed conditions to have identical causation. And if the same “solution” is being demanded in each case, you can be sure that the “solution” is the primary desideratum, and the “condition” is nothing but an excuse.
If the AGW crowd were serious about reducing “greenhouse gases”, they would be in favor of nuclear power, plus hydroelectric. Instead, they are determined to ban nuclear power, and as for hydro, they not only don’t want new dams, they are busy dismantling existing ones to “Make Rivers Wild Again”.
These are the actions of fanatics, not scientists.
AGW “advocates” specifically, and “environmentalists” generally, are fundamentally religious zealots who (1) worship “Holy Mother Gaia”, (2) hate humanity, and (3) dream of absolute power which they can use to oppress or even destroy (2) in the service of their own totalitarian/apocalyptic fantasies. To get there, they will (4) lie through their teeth whenever the opportunity presents itself.
It amazes me that the rest of humanity hasn’t figured this out yet, as it has been obvious for the last forty years.
clear ether
eon
“It is also probable that human activity figures in to this change.”
That is one hell of a statement. Got any proof at all? (And please, no using any data that has been adjusted by unknown amounts by CRU.)
The truth is, given the amount of unknowns and the poor quality and spotty data, we can’t say anything about climate change and man’s activities. It’s possible we will never be able to do so because we can’t collect the data required to do so. Thus the AGW supporters fall back on faith while claiming it is science.
What it’s really time to ask is: are liberals genetically delusional or is it an acquired trait? Nature or nuture?
And of course, the related question. Do they lie to live, or do they live to lie?
Clausewitz, we could all relate similar encounters with well meaning, but stubbornly ignorant liberals. Last spring, it was a dispute with my young nephew (and Democratic fund-raiser) who defended Obama’s tough treatment toward Israel. Apparently, he believed his two-year business degree and liberal talking points trumped my two degrees in International Politics and over 30 years of studying the region. More recently (after Thanksgiving dinner), it was a dispute over global warming with a 90-year old liberal who, when he could not answer my challenges, only grew more exasperated. Unused to being challenged, he of course questioned my sanity.
There’s no cure for stupid, and little hope of convincing a true believer.
The idea that sheer intellect trumps experience seems to be a trait particularly evident among liberals for some reason, one need only look at the fine arts and how intellectual concerns have overwhelmed craftsmanship which has been relegated to the realm of science fiction book covers and duck paintings to be made into stamps.
Liberals seem to love to dumb down the conversation so that everything is just a matter of opinion, a socialistic cultural relativism that acts as if perception is based on how well you can think and has nothing to do with experience. It used to be called “sheer arrogance”. In their world, experience is simply a metaphor for fossilization of thought.
Global warming seems to be now in some manner predicated on how cold it gets in a bewildering scenario where warming advocates have no possibility of being wrong. George Orwell apparently collapsed the Minneapolis Metrodome in a fit of pique.
Here’s some fun you can have this Christmas season should you have the unfortunate happenstance to encounter a rabid warmist. Ask him or her, if the Earth is indeed being warmed by man’s activities, then what should the temperature be?
There’s snow on the ground here this a.m. in sunny California.
Pretty much never snows in this neck of the woods…only it does now. Second year in a row.
I am uncertain if snow will cease to exist in the mid Atlantic states, but it is a certainty that our electric grid will collapse much sooner than any predicted climate change effects. Next month the EPA begins a process to shut down 70,000 MW of electric generation because the prime fuel is coal. There is no economical substitute for this massive curtailment of energy, coal powers over half of our grid. Without electricity, your furnace blower will not work, hence you will not have heat. Or computers. Or lights. Or refrigerated food.
Studies show that this anti-coal regulatory effort will lower your standard of living to about 1890, when indoor plumbing, and central heat were unknown or rare. America has already expelled our heavy industry to other lands due to the costs of production. But it is not technically feasible to import bulk, base loaded electricity.
We are at the push vs shove stage of the global warming conflict. It is no longer simply a parlor debating issue.
Indeed, if you have ever read Algore’s book “Earth in the Balance”, you would know that 1890 is a good year, in his estimation. One of his keen ideas for welfare: Every poor family gets a horse and a buggy!!
The only thing he never adequately described is where the inhabitants of Cabrini Green, in Chicago, are going to store their buggy, stable their horses, and how the animals will be fed … and, of course, who will pay for it.
And who gets to shovel all the horse droppings. How is Algore going to heat his new mansion in middle California? Maybe he can burn the furniture for heat… Oh wait, that would contribute to global warming.
By burning the horse drops. That is what they do in Tibet except that is is dried cow dungs. You quicly get used to the smell, really.
Thereby arousing the wrath of PETA and the ASPCA, who are dead-set against the “enslavement” of animals.
Anybody want to bet that we end up with people pulling those buggies?
clear ether
eon
I know that one of the largest sources of methane gasses (reputedly a contributor to global warming) is bovine flatulence (not a joke). Horses surely experience flatulence too…. so….?
I am in NY. It is freezing out, it has been freezing out since December 8.
Winter has yet to begin.
Where is this much needed global warming?
Uh, not to rub it in, but here in south Texas today we picked up 4 Congressional seats (while NY lost 2), we did not pay any state income tax on our pay, and it was about 80 degrees.
If you promise to vote GOP you can move down here.
Thanks for mentioning the EPA’s war on energy. My electric co-op sent a newsletter to members back when the House was debating cap and trade, letting us know what our electric bills would be if CO2 were taxed, capped, etc; they included a chart of costs/Khr depending on the type of power. I was shocked at the costs of green energy and nuclear power compared to coal..
We have been forewarned by Hoffmeister in “Why We Hate the Oil Companies”. Our power plants are getting old, and he predicts within 10 years the east coast will suffer massive blackouts,because of the long lead time between deciding to build a plant and producing power. Ditto for refineries with future long lines at gas stations. Most people have no idea where their electricity comes from or what the costs will be after the EPA finishes its war on coal, natural gas and oil.
After this “global warming” scam; hopefully this will make super skeptics of us all when the next scare campaign comes along.
I’m a fairly old guy. It’s amazing how many things I’ve been told to fear in my lifetime.
“If current trends continue” I will be forced to live through another two dozen impending global crises before I’m free of this world.
I’d fear that, but I just don’t care anymore.
Oh the dilemma. The progs on one hand lament the dying off of the cuddly Polar Bears due to global warming but they also have to deal with the fact that Manatees are dying because of global cooling. Global warming, global cooling, Global warming, global cooling, Polar Bears, manatees, Polar Bears, manatees, how is a prog. to cope?
What all the idiots forget to tell everyone, or take into account in their fumbling bumbling attempts to “prove” that global warming exists is that our star, the sun, is a 4% variable. And with the cycles of precesion of our axis of rotation, and taking into account the aphelion and perehelion of the Earths orbit in relation to our current seasons, They really have no idea of what is going to happen. Did you know that the northern hemisphere’s summer, now takes place when the Earth is at it’s farthest from the sun? The southern hemisphere’s seasons are moderated by all the water, but our northern hemisphere’s seasons are mainly moderated by that relationship between our seasons and our distance from the sun.
“but our northern hemisphere’s seasons are mainly moderated by that relationship between our seasons and our distance from the sun.”
You have already implied the correct point which is that it is our ANGLE of exposure to the sun, not our distance from the sun, which determines the seasons.
Angle and distance, as the orbit itself is not perfectly round. The distance to the sun varies slightly, growing progressivly closer for long periods of time (warming trends) and also shifting further away for a century or three (cooling trends)
Sometimes, we are (were) far enough away from the sun to have glaciers expand and cover large area, then as the earth moved closer to the sun for steadily longer periods, the ice receeded
Amazing, all this happened before I drove a car..go figure
We are riding a small speck of dust thrown off into space as a result of the Big Bang that is still spinning and spinning. Think of it! To me it is amazing that year after year we HAVE seasons and that the range of temperatures we experience century after century is within a relatively stable band.
Oh they have it thoroughly covered.
It’s climate “change” now, or didn’t you hear.
Global warming had a nice ominous ring to it, but it quickly became too restrictive and didn’t adequately account for the niggling details with snow, temperature and other whatnots that the deniers were fixating on.
yes, the fact that our star and our planet work on scales that our minds of mush can barely begin to comprehend is too much reality for the suckers of man-made “insert lie here”
Oddly, we think because of topographical issues (namely all that water in the southern hemisphere), it appears that July is the warmest month on earth on average, even though we’re close to aphelion in July.
IOW, we’re just a smidge warmer when we’re farther from the sun. Go figure.
It’s a crazy mixed up universe.
Just to keep things in perspective, please remember that there is just a 3% difference in our distance from the sun from aphelion to perihelion. That’s why the difference in the seasons is all but imperceptible at the equator. It’s the angle that counts.
“It’s the angle that counts.”
Unless you’re a Venusian, of course.
Axial tilt is kind of a non-issue there as far as atmospheric temperatures go, not that Venus has much of an axial tilt.
One good thing about being close to the sun and having a 96% co2 atmosphere…you’ll never need an overcoat.
Global Warming pushers, surprisingly since many of them are vegetarians, seem to forget part of the equation. There are twice as many people on the earth now than there were 60 years ago, consuming almost three times as much vegetation. Vegetation that requires three times as much carbon dioxide to grow. Fifty years ago corn farmers planted 12,000 plants per acre. Now they plant 32,000 or more. Pulp wood farms were non-existent, now farms exist that plant as many as 100 trees per acre just for paper production. If we cut carbon dioxide, what do they expect to eat in the future? BTW, oxygen levels are also up. They never seem to mention that.
Vegetabletarians also have a higher incidence of flatulence, which is no wonder, since they’re trying to eat like cows.
Since Vegetabletarians are trying to be cows, we should eat Vegetabletarians. Some of them, like Alicia Silverstone and Sarah McLaughlin would be delicious, but ones like Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson should be turned into dog food.
Speaking of flatulence (sorry) I once visited an elegant turn-of-the-century mansion that had a tube coming from the toilet chamber (ahem) which captured the methane gas therein. The tube was lit as a kind of “eternal flame” which illuminated the bathroom at no cost. Just saying.