One year not enough to prove global warming

Corvallis Gazette-Times | March 9, 2008 | George Taylor

[PROCON]

It's been a weird year.

In the Northwest, we've had the snowiest winter in many years. Even with a relatively dry second half of February, the snowpack in the Willamette drainage is at 172 percent of normal.

Baghdad has had snow on several occasions. I read somewhere that snow there had not been reported there since 1916. My son-in-law, Matt Halverson, is stationed in Baghdad with the U.S. Marines and confirmed that they had indeed, received snow.

China has had severe blizzards; according to0 some reports, they flattened about 10 percent of the country's forests.

Subtropical northern Vietnam experienced a prolong cold spell in January that sent temperatures as low as 28 degrees-unusually cold for that location.

Austrailia and Argentina have had a very cold 12 months, causing a very poor wheat crop- a major reason why wheat prices now exceed $12 per bushel, more than three times higher than a year ago.

On the other hand: Stockholm, Sweden posted an average temperature of 36 degrees this winter (December throught February) thwe warmest winter since 1756.

In the Continental United States things were rather sedate, despite the tornadoes that struck the Southwest in January and the heavy snow. This winter ranked as the 54th coolest on record at 0.2 degrees above normal, according to preliminary figures released Thursday by the National Climate Data Center in Ashville, N.C. that put it about in the middle of the winters since 1895. but the winter was wet. It ranked as the 18th-wettest winter, dropping an average of 2.7 inches of moisture on the Country-just over half an inch above normal.

Do these statistics have anything to do with global warming? Or climate change?

In a word, no. A single year doesn't mean much when it comes to climate.

Recently I gave a presentation at a local highschool on climate and an Oregon State University colleague presented as well. He suggested that Hurricane Katrina and the Europeon heat waves of 2003 were "proof" that gflobal warming was occuring. But I don't think that's true at all. Single weather events, single seasons, even single years mean very little-anything can happen in such short time periods. Rather, it is necessary to look at longer-term trends before maliong such declarations.

On a weekly basis, natural variations in weather "are far greater" than any climate change signal," says Michael Halpert, deputy director of the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center. Winter temperatures in North Dakota can drop a low as 30 below zero or rise to 50 above. Against such strong temperature changes, "folks in North Dakota aren't going to see that it's a degree cplder" based on long term-trends in global average temperatures, he adds.

But average temperatures in North Dakota have been cold, just as they have been in Oregon. The reason: La Nina conditions in the Pacific and a very quiet sun. La Nina, characterized by cooler-than-average water in the tropical Pacific off the west coast of South America, generaly gives us our wettest, coolest and snowiest winters. Ditto for the rest of the northern tier of states. The cold winter in the northern U.S. is just what one expects from La Nina.

Meanwhile, the sun is at it's "solar minimum," with virtually no sunspots. This may be the reason for the strength of this year's La Nina and may be contributing to the cold year.

And another feature of La Nina years: a cool, wet spring. I hate to say that, now that you have endured a wet, cool winter and are probably hoping for a dry, warm spring.

But I just don't think it'll happen.

[PROCON]

No. It’s time for the cone of silence.

Not THE cone of silence?!

[Continental Soldier]

Thanks for your response. A sad thing to consider is that, as more real scientists abandon the public sector for the private sector, the impact on all of us will be very bad, indeed. When the only voices left are the ones crying out, “the sky is falling; the sky is falling!” we will be in real trouble.