The Winter That Wasn't; Bad things are bound to start happening..........

a reply to: ReadLeader

Pretty common in Texas, some winters are a mini ice age, some don't even exist, personally I couldn't give a hoot, cold weather messes with my Harley time! For real though, good post and good read S&F!

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: rickymouse

Yes! We had storms in our area this winter, but the all went either south or north. If they went south, they were ice. If they went north, it was big snow.

But we barely got any precip here - a little snow, some ice.

So it's not like it wasn't cold, but we didn't have the nasty deep freezes of the past few winters at all. We didn't even have to pull out the electric blanket.

The warmest winter we have had in about five years, the last two were really cold. The thing is that the price of heating oil was the cheapest we had in five years. Why couldn't it be cheap when it was really cold. I have been using the furnace more this year, the cost of the oil is within our budget so I am saving the wood for our cookstove for the future.

a reply to: ReadLeader

And just a few years ago, in my part of the world (Cincinnati), we had a polar vortex bringing prolonged freezing temperatures and wind chills in the -30 degrees Fahrenheit.

The simple, honest answer is this: Yes, we are rebounding (still) from the Little Ice Age, so a gradual rise (which is what we're seeing) is expected and natural. The El Nino--a complex semi-cyclical weather phenomenon whose driving forces are only understood at a relatively basic level--is currently here, and the climate is reacting normally to that.

Some El Ninos are worse than others--some you can barely even tell are happening if it weren't for scientists telling us that they were. But there are also La Ninas that help offset some of the effects of the El Ninos, although La Ninas are less frequent (which makes sense in a world that is gradually warming). Again, this is all natural.

There are those who go all alarmist and say that the unusually warm water that leads to El Nino events is cause solely/mainly by mankind (the AGW-theory ideology), but then that ignores the fact that this unusually warm water in the ocean--the precursor to El Nino events--has been reported since the 1600s by sailors navigating the equatorial waters of the Pacific in late fall and early winter.

My point being that you often have to take claims of man causing these things with a grain of salt and then take it upon yourself to review the entire picture--and I've only represented a small slice of that. Then put the puzzle together and see what you come up with.

And rest assured about the poor little polar bear--their numbers are on the rise, regardless of what alarmist articles may imply.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: ReadLeader

And just a few years ago, in my part of the world (Cincinnati), we had a polar vortex bringing prolonged freezing temperatures and wind chills in the -30 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's funny how that stuff if quickly forgotten. I'm in NC and a few years ago we had the Polar Vortexs every few weeks. This winter was really nice. I was under the impression that "climate" was more than just local weather. Speaking of winters that didn't happen, tell that to those from Vermont in 2015 winter. It was all bikinis and bar-b-q's.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I've seen people frantically mashing on a keyboard that the blame should fall on the other side of the fence.

'global warming is a natural process or it's all just a scheme to get financial backing' lets look at those bogus notions. Why would any scholar worth his of her salt jeopardize their credibility, years of research and the future of humanity on bogus claims? Yet the Pay per Petroleums come up with their own findings that all too conveniently come up with their own facts and figures. Has BP ever dug up Ice core samples? If so then where are the results?

Facts and figures cannot be bought unless they are bought by those who have the money.

a reply to: ReadLeader

Here in the northeast we had a very mild winter. Except for one major snowstorm and one ten day cold snap (which wasn't unbearable), we came through unscathed. As I've been telling friends and family, I feel are going to pay i.e. a very hot and humid summer.

Let's see all the disasters sure to happen we've had from the left since the 70s...

Ice age

Over population

Famine

Peak Oil

Hole in Ozone

Global Warming

Now we are at "climate change"...

Always find it funny the solution to all these problems is always the same. Taxing everyone to death and bringing down the standard of living in the US to the rest of the world. Poverty for all... unless of course you are one of the chosen liberal elites.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

why would anyone advocate a scheme that could possibly starve millions upon millions of people?

Ask an environmentalist about DDT. 3 million a year die in africa from malaria since it was banned. DDT saved 100's of millions of lives in the 20th century before it was banned.

originally posted by: jellyrev
a reply to: Thecakeisalie

why would anyone advocate a scheme that could possibly starve millions upon millions of people?

Ask an environmentalist about DDT. 3 million a year die in africa from malaria since it was banned. DDT saved 100's of millions of lives in the 20th century before it was banned.

Didn't you know? Eagles are more important than Africans.

originally posted by: ketsuko
Eh, we had one of those before. It was warmish all winter; then it was hot all summer. Then the winter after that was brutal with tons of snow.

It's called weather. It changes. This year, we had a strong El Nino, so it should be expected.

The last time the average temperature was this high was about 56 million years ago.

NOAA

The average temperature has risen faster in the last decade. This is not 'just the weather'.

ask anyone whos actually been around for a couple decades and they will tell you its always been like this. i moved to cali in 97 and saw snow. it just freaking happens sometimes. weather is weird. the climate is basically unpredictable.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

My point being that you often have to take claims of man causing these things with a grain of salt and then take it upon yourself to review the entire picture--and I've only represented a small slice of that. Then put the puzzle together and see what you come up with.

Well I'll take that grain of salt and say that the increasing rise of Co2 levels could correlate to the increasing number of internal combustion engines.

When we hear of weather records being broken, those records go back a century or more and do you know what else was growing in popularity as century ago? The internal combustion engine.

a reply to: reldra

Is that before or after the NOAA massaged the data?

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
Well I'll take that grain of salt and say that the increasing rise of Co2 levels could correlate to the increasing number of internal combustion engines.

When we hear of weather records being broken, those records go back a century or more and do you know what else was growing in popularity as century ago? The internal combustion engine.

And you know what was lacking a century ago? Accurate measurements of global temperatures.

You can blame it on the internal combustion engine, the burning of coal, deforestation, sprawling urban developments--blame whatever you want, but it doesn't negate the fact that what the OP is discussing is a natural semi-cyclical event that has been going on probably for thousands of years, if not longer, but certainly for centuries longer than the ICE has been around.

a reply to: network dude

Yeah, it's always forgotten about, because what they focus on is overall global temperature, and that doesn't always reflect localized weather patterns or localized trends.

But, you know, we are now living in a globalized world, so who cares if my neck of the woods gets plenty of rainfall and the ground is oversaturated if the Middle East is experiencing record droughts.

[sarc]
Can't argue with that logic.
[/sarc]

I believe climate change is real. I've been around for a few decades myself, and I've seen some bizarre weather changes over the years.

Climate scientists believe that these strange weather changes are related to global warming brought on by anthropogenic CO2 release. I'm still not completely convinced that anthropogenic influences are the only major forcing factors in climate change. However, I do acknowledge that human Carbon Dioxide emissions are part of the problem.

I think one thing to remember is that climate change is expressed as more than just unusually warm weather. Earth's climate is a complex system. When unusually warm temperatures combine with the typical randomness of weather systems, the result is a steadily increasingly unstable climate.

Having said that, I don't believe cap and trade and other greenhouse gas control efforts will be successful. Even if we were able to get global buy-in to these efforts, I think it is too late. Not to mention that I'm sure there are other factors in play of which we care currently unaware.

The only thing we can really do is to prepare to adapt to these changes as they occur.

-dex

originally posted by: ReadLeader
a reply to: ketsuko

My concern are those dang bugs, ticks, etc. We need a good week of below freezing to kill all the pests

We have actually seen mosquitoes all winter; we saw monarchs in January; the robins are as fat as pigeons in February and it seems like all of the creatures are discombobulated.


Thanks for posting Ket!

I hate to be the bubble burster but a freeze hurts none of those pests. I live in a zone 2/3, we get below zero temps every year, for days at a time, below freezing for weeks at a time. We have the same problem with pests as those without freezing climate temps. Those pests are invincible I tell ya! INVINCIBLE. Our mosquitos are huge and fearless. I built a deck and I'm putting a roof on with a fan so I can keep them at bay while enjoying the outside. The mosquitos will drive you insane. I absolutely HATE them. Our tics are controlled with chickens.

Sure they trucked snow in for the Iditarod--but it was not trucks, it was train cars from Fairbanks. The thing is none of it was used because it was so full of junk (tree parts, gravel, dirt, etc) it was deemed unsafe for the dogs!

And as things always go up here in Smarch we got a couple of inches of snow last night! In 2000 (or so) we got 28 inches of snow in Anchorage on St. Patrick's Day! So you can point to the fact that there is low snow cover here in AK but trying to hype a story with "facts" does not prove the point (at least not to me because I live here. Yeah, low snow years suck when you want to play outdoors but they come and go).

And it is a little known fact there Norm that every dog sled race that starts downtown has snow trucked in. They start spreading it out on Thursday night or Friday night causing all kinds of traffic problems. On Sunday afternoon it is all removed. Two days ago the street where all that snow was plowed out for the dogs to run on was bone dry.

Just wanted to point out the unnecessary use of hype in the article. All the article had to state was near freezing temps at the North Pole in January (to me that is more impressive than "they had to truck snow in...")

ReadLeader, thanks for the conversation starter! Even if I don't buy the hype it should be topic of discussion.

originally posted by: ReadLeader
a reply to: ketsuko
My concern are those dang bugs, ticks, etc. We need a good week of below freezing to kill all the pests

There are ticks migrating north as the temperature stays warm in northern states. This will definitely be problem not just for people but wildlife.

Symbionts, which are transmitted from the mother when eggs are laid, are typically found in the ovaries or the gut, while pathogens, which are transmitted during feeding, are found in the salivary glands," Rynkiewicz said. "But in some of our other research, we've found symbionts in ticks' salivary glands, meaning they could potentially be transmitted through bites.

"Whenever you're introducing a new microorganism into a new system, such as a human, you've got the potential to create new pathogens, even when they're previously considered harmless, depending on adaptability."

Source: University of Indiana Bloomington Long-term study on ticks reveals shifting migration patterns, disease risks

Prediction that there are going news stories about this (ticks) throughout the summer.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

I've spent my entire life in this region. That's longer than your 23 years. The weather here is the same beast it's always been. There have been years like this before - 2 at least to my recollection, one of them back when I was 5 or 6 and one about three or four years ago (maybe, I lose track of it exactly).

Nothing about this year has been alarming or out of bounds of what I recall from other years. And nothing has been swinging more drastically than at other times, but I live in a region where a popular saying is "If you don't like the weather, wait 30 seconds."

The old farmers who really know the land aren't worried at all that things are out of line, just maybe lining up to be hot and dry this summer.