Probably the first indications that an ice age has begun will be with a series of long winters – not necessarily the coldest – together with late springs and cool summers. The key factor will be that snow from one winter remains and does not melt before the next winter brings more snow. It will therefore be successions of long winters and cool summers which will allow for the sufficient accumulation of snow and the growth of the area under snow cover. Cold winters and heavy snowfall can surely help but it it is the accumulation of snow from one year to the next which will determine. Old snow will become ice. For negative feedbacks to be triggered the surface area covered by snow and ice must be sufficient that – say – the albedo of the northern hemisphere is altered such that the amount of solar radiation being reflected is itself increased and the surface area under snow/ice cover increases.
Not that I am suggesting that this years long winter is the start of an ice age. Weather is not climate. But ice advancing into the gardens of lakeside homes from Lake Mille Lacs is just another reminder of the power in water (whether in the waters of the tsunami in Japan or as in this ice moving onto land from a lake).
As for climate change worries, you can always figure out ways to keep cool, but getting out of the way of an advancing glacier is no easy task as this video shows. Watch this video of what happens in an “ice out” from the nearby lake Mille Lacs, you can actually watch the ice advance. In a matter of minutes the wind pushes the ice about 15 feet from the shore to the doors and windows of lakeside homes.
While this isn’t the same mechanism as ice-age type glaciation, it is fascinating to watch.
P Gosselin of NoTricksZone reports on this Article in the Voice of Russia a month ago – but which got little attention from the global warming orthodoxy and the politically correct media. Not that everything from Russia makes sense but in this case I think they are far closer to reality than most others. I think they pay sufficient attention to solar effects and the oceans and are not easily diverted by the fanciful demonisation of carbon dioxide:
Gosselin writes: The article writes that Russian scientists are predicting that “a little ice age will begin in 2014“. The article adds:
“They reject the claim of global warming and call it a marketing trick.”
When it comes to warming and the man-made CO2 greenhouse gas effect, the Voice of Russia writes that “Russian scientist Vladimir Bashkin is categorically in disagreement. He claims that the climatic changes are characterized by cycles and have nothing to do in any way with the activities of man.”
Together with his colleague Rauf Galiullin from the Institute for Fundamental Problems of Biology of the Russian Academy Of Science, he demonstrates that the current warming is a reverberation of the planet coming out of the ‘Little Ice Age’ and that in the near future, of course measured on geological timescales, we are at the threshold of an ice age.”
The Voice of Russia quotes Bashkin:
“The periods of a cooling and a warming follow each other at 30-40 year intervals. In Russia for example there was a warming in the 1930s, a time when seafaring at the Northern Sea Route was possible, then a cooling followed during the wartime years, and then warming followed in the 1970s, etc.. The current warming period ended at the end of the millennium.“
Note here that the Russian scientists confirm that the Arctic sea ice extent was also low in the 1930s. This tells us that nothing is really so unusual in the Arctic today.
The Voice of Russia then explains that the cooling is related to ”a change in solar activity” and that this “also has an impact on our climate“. Bashkin adds:
“The scientific research of the climate of the past geological epoch causes us to doubt the motives behind the demands of the IPCC. […] The greenhouse effect that is connected with the anthropogenic factor is about 4 or 5 percent of that from natural emissions. The eruption of a volcano produces more. A real contribution to the greenhouse effect is made by normal water vapor. Thank God nobody has gotten the idea that this too needs to be regulated.“
The Voice of Russia continues: “The world’s oceans contain 60 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere. When the temperature of the planet rises, it begins to be quickly released. This leads to an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, and not vice versa. A global warming that so many are talking about is not so much a scientific problem, rather it is much more a marketing trick. […] We do not have global warming ahead of us, rather we have global cooling, the Russian scientist claims. However, we do not need to fear the cooling because it will take place gradually and won’t be noticeable until the middle of the 21st century.”
The scientists add that part of the motive behind the “marketing trick” is to manipulate the market for fossil fuels.
That “global warming” is a religion I have no doubt. But we could be going through a Martin Luther or perhaps a Galileo Galilei moment for this religion as its foundations crumble. “Heretics” are gaining ground steadily as the high priests of the global warming religion continue to roar and bluster and threaten hell-fire and damnation.
The “religion” theme is succinctly put by Henry Payne in The Detroit News. Considering the soporific and addictive nature of the religion and its ability to induce a feeling of being superior I thought that being “an opiate of the upper middle class” was particularly apt.
Paris, France – From Anglicanism to Catholicism, Europe’s history is full of state-based religion. In secular 21st century Europe, the unofficial state religion is the GreenChurch. Environmentalism inspires a devout, pro-Kyoto devotion here quite different than the more skeptical American outlook.
But France’s strident green political and media voices are curiously silent this year. Perhaps it’s the bone-chilling spring.
Parisians used to leafy April vistas shiver past leafless trees on Paris’s beautiful, tree-lined parks. Temperatures are in the mid-40s, well below the 60s-normal. Average temperatures across the continent are, on average, 4-8 degrees below normal with March registering colder average temperatures than January. Snow fell in England, France, and Germany this spring- an unusual occurrence. The cold snap follows the frigid London Olympics last summer and over a decade of flat temperatures worldwide. Hardly the stuff of global warming. But the GreenChurch is firm in its doctrine – and the global warming high priests must be obeyed.
If Christianity was the opiate of the masses in centuries gone by, then global warming is the opiate of the upper middle class.
As such, politicians here have imposed draconian laws on their masses, from high gas taxes to high utility costs – a situation so extreme in Germany that the term “electric poverty” has become a common term. Unable to afford high energy costs imposed by government censor of sinful coal power, thousands have had their power shut off.
Here in Paris, French citizens suffer under $7.50 a gallon gas even as hey huddle at the pumps in winter overcoats. They pay their sin taxes, but, they may ask, to what end?
The stubborn high pressure and the late spring have given the highest level of ice coverage for this time of year in the Baltic Sea since records began in the 1960’s.
Svenska Dagbladet reports: The stubborn high pressure has set a new record late date of maximum ice extent. On 29 the March, 176,000 square kilometers of the Baltic Sea surface were covered by ice.
The previous record was on 25th March 2008 when 49,000 square kilometers was present.
BAY OF BOTHNIA IN THE ARCHIPELAGOS UP TO 80 CM FAST ICE. AT SEA OFF THE FAST ICE EDGE IN THE WE STERN AND NORTHERN PARTS, A 15 NAUTICAL MILES WIDE AREA WITH ALTERNATING 10 – 30 CM LEVEL ICE. JUST WEST OF FARSTUGRUNDEN AND IN THE BAY OF SKELLEFTEA THERE ARE LEADS WITH OPEN WATER. EAST OF THERE, NORTH OF THE LATITUDE THROUGH BJUROKLUBB, MOSTLY 30-70 CM VERY CL OSE DRIFT ICE WITH HEAVY RIDES AND CRACKS. RIDGES, DIFFICULT TO PASS OCCUR OFF RAAHE AND FURTHER NORTHWARDS PASSING NAHKIAINEN. SOUTH OF BJUROKLUBB THE DRIFT ICE IS 30-60 CM THICK WITH RIDGES AND CRACKS. OFF THE SWEDISH COAST MOSTLY THIN LEVEL ICE AND SINGLE HEAVY FLOES. …….
We changed to summer time last night. And when I rose at 0600 today – Easter Sunday – (5 am according to my body clock) it was all of -12°C outside!
SMHI defines spring in Sweden as the first day – after 15th February – of 7 continuous days with temperatures between 0 and 10 °C. The “normal” onset of Spring is as below:
Malmö: 22nd February
Stockholm: 16th March
Östersund: 11th April
Kiruna: 1st May
Admittedly I am at a latitude of 58.7057° N.
At 58.7 °N spring should have come around 12th March and we are going to be around 3 weeks late (at least).
There is much clearing and spring cleaning to be done but I am not the most enthusiastic gardener in the world. The sun is warm and we should get up to an air temperature of +5°C today. But I have no intention of digging through the remaining frozen snow or risk frostbite while clipping the bushes. I shall have another cup of coffee and wait for time and natural variation to do their work.
I could do with a bit of real global warming – and not that which comes from a mathematical model.
Complaining about the weather has reached epidemic proportions in northern Germany this “spring.” And with good reason. With Easter just around the corner, meteorologists are telling us this could end up being the coldest March in Berlin and its surroundings since records began in the 1880s. …… Meteorologists are keeping close tabs on thermometers to determine whether this March will go down as the coldest ever — since records began in the 1880s. And wiseacres on the streets of Berlin have not yet tired of noting that Easter promises to be colder than last Christmas.
This weekend’s great Easter getaway will be accompanied by some of the coldest March weather in decades, with temperatures in the UK set to drop to their lowest levels since 1962.
Met Office figures show that from 1 March to 26 March the UK mean temperature was 2.5C (36.5F) – three degrees below the long-term average.
This makes it the joint fourth coldest in the UK, in records going back to 1910. The coldest March in the UK was in 1962, at 1.9C (35.4F).
US temperatures are forecast to be far below normal for the rest of the month, so it is difficult to determine where March 2012 will end in the rankings. Possibly the coldest in 44 years.
Piers Corbyn is not the most popular figure in “scientific” circles and is probably detested among “main-stream” weather pundits. He just seems to get his forecasts right more often than conventional weather-men do, but he does not reveal his methods and this causes many to dismiss him as a lucky charlatan. They prefer to consider him an astrologer rather than a colourful but serious astrophysicist who might actually be considering the correct parameters. That he might also be making some money from his commercial weather forecasts is even more galling to some.
Weather Action: Our forecasts, which have independently proven peer-reviewed significant skill – unlike all others in the field – are based on our revolutionary Solar-Lunar-Action-Technique (SLAT) which is increasing in scope and skill as our researches advance.
But I like that he gives due importance to solar effects. And his track record in forecasting cannot be denied and I am inclined to take him rather seriously in spite of his use of horribly garish colours in his presentations. His results if not his methods are getting some attention in Parliament.
“MIA fingerprint now overwhelming” – astrophysicist
“March 10th 1947** was the day of the thaw ending the late snowy cold winter of 1947 in Britain & Europe and there was a giant sunspot group at the centre of the solar disc. This year, three magnetic (22yr) solar cycles later, solar activity has been generally very low and this day marked deep cold” – heralding more snow, on 12th , when snow-blizzards hit S/E England (Pic Folkstone) as WeatherAction forecasted in detail 25 days ahead (see map). “This is further evidence of the inevitable plunge – from now – into the new Mini-Ice Age we warned of some years ago”, said Piers Corbyn, astrophysicist of WeatherAction.com, March 10th. “The CO2 story is over. It has been pointing the world in the wrong direction for too long. The serious implications of the developing MIA to agriculture and the world economy through the next 25 to 35 years must be addressed.”
It is cold that kills not warmth. It is global cooling that will provide the greater challenge for humans – not global warming. But whether cooling or warming or both, humans will be better served by figuring out the best ways to adapt and not waste time and energy on trying to control the climate based on fanciful theories and religious beliefs about what causes climate change.
It’s the Sun, stupid!
Yesterday we had about -20°C, which is pretty cold but not unusual for this time of year. A friend in Australia was sweltering in +44°C -pretty hot but also not unusual. Another friend in Alberta had a normal winter day at about -25°C. Yesterday across the world humans were living and managing over temperatures ranging from about -50°C to about +49°C. Coping – quite successfully – with a temperature range caused by local weather of almost 100°C .
On Friday, Moscow was on a verge of traffic collapse as more than 10 inches of snow fell on the city, which is more than half of January’s average. Thousands of passengers were stranded overnight in the capital’s major airports, as several dozen flights were delayed. Muscovites woke up and found their cars, driveways and houses buried under a thick layer of snow, with city workers unable to get to smaller streets.
Moscow (Reuters / Sergei Karpukhin)
While the snowstorms have caused inconvenience for large population centers in western Russia, they have been life-threatening further east in the country. The polar circle city of Norilsk has been buried under 10 feet of snow – entire apartment blocks, markets, stores and offices were buried under snow overnight.
Banks of snow were as high as two people put together, reaching the second-story windows of some apartment buildings. Cars, stores, garages were blocked. Norilsk metropolitan workers were forced to dig passageways through the snow banks to create access between the outside world and the barricaded city. Meanwhile, icicles up to three feet in length have formed off the ledges of buildings, breaking at random and causing a lethal hazard for pedestrians below.
Greatest snowfall since 1992 sees Jerusalem municipality announce closure of schools, kindergartens; police shut Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway as snow predicted to persist until afternoon.
.. Elisha Peleg, an official in charge of emergencies with the Jerusalem Municipality, urged the city’s residents to remain at home and stay off the streets, telling Army Radio the area had overnight seen its greatest snowfall since 1992. He said 10 to 15 centimetres (4 to 6 inches) of snow had piled up in the city center and more than that in outlying areas. “The downtown area is bathed in white,” Peleg said.
“The elders of Jerusalem don’t remember such a snowstorm in years,” Peleg also said.
In spite of the urban heat effect and perhaps because of the religious fanaticism of the global warming pundits, every winter witnesses a significant death toll in Delhi and North India from bitterly cold weather conditions. Cold is the real killer not warmth. It is adaptation to cold which is more difficult and it is what is required.
Delhi schools to be closed till Jan 12 due to cold wave: indiatvnews.com
If instead of the Canute-like arrogance of following a pseudo-scientific religion in trying to arrest climate change, we focused on adapting and coping with the normal and real-life, variations of weather — where the magnitude of these variations in real time dwarf those of long-term climate change — we would all be better served. It is successfully adapting to the on-going vagaries of weather (during both warming and cooling climate cycles) that has produced the greatest advances in human history. Futile attempts to control what are natural climate cycles is just plain stupid.
Cold records in Delhi:The minimum temperature in Delhi has been recorded at 1.9 degrees Celsius, which is five degrees below normal. The maximum temperature is 12.8 degrees, which is eight degrees below normal. This is the lowest minimum for January in the past five years.
…. On Saturday also, the capital had got no respite from the bitter cold as the minimum temperature settled at 2.9 degrees Celsius – four notches below average. … On Wednesday, the city witnessed the coldest day in 44 years when the maximum plummeted to 9.8 degress Celsius.
Cold wave in North India: The entire North India on Saturday continued to remain in the grip of severe cold, which claimed 11 more lives in Uttar Pradesh, taking the death toll this winter to 140.
The k2p blog 