Polar Vortex 2014

I apologize in advance. This will be a long post because I expect it to be my last here. I'm coming out. It's been four years in the making and six months is too long to stay in the closet. I'm the artist formerly known as OHSnow, and previously known by multiple other names. I've been here since 2003-2005 period, and I've been consistently right - and banned for it. You deniers have been consistently wrong. I've watched as you guys have continually changed your positions as your original positions became more and more untenable. In the 1990s, the mantra was "it hasn't warmed." This was shown to be completely wrong. Fast forward, a few years. The argument became "it's warmed, but not that much" and/or "it's warmed, but it's natural" and/or some variation of the same. All wrong. Of course, at that time, the favorite line was "nobody is denying it's warming, it's just the cause that's unknown." This despite these same people arguing just that a few years prior. Go figure. I was here when Professor Mueller, of UC Berkeley, announced to the world that he had received funding from Koch Industries to commission an independent study of global temperature records. This new independent data set was going to use all available stations and would not employ the various methods of adjustments used by Hadley Centre, NASA GISS, and NOAA. The deniers were chomping at the bit for this to be released. You fully believed - incorrectly, I might add - that this new data set would disprove global warming (or at least find less warming). As an aside, this is quite ironic, considering you guys liked to say you weren't denying that it had warmed. Of course, BEST actually showed more warming (although, admittedly, it is only a land-based data set). And it did so without adjustments! Instead, they treated known discontinuities in the record as entirely new data, and identified unknown discontinuities by comparison to surrounding sites. But that hasn't stopped you deniers from continuing your moronic attacks against Dr. Hansen. I correctly predicted that BEST would confirm the accuracy of the surface temperature record. You deniers said it would not. You were WRONG! When Climate Gate occurred, instead of expressing concern over private e-mails being hacked in an attempt to disrupt important scientific research and embarrass hard-working professionals who are just trying to do their jobs, you deniers attacked the scientists! I correctly said it was no big deal - there is no widespread misconduct among climate scientists. This was mere subterfuge being employed by the Climate Denial Industry ("CDI"), attempting to stifle research by turning public opinion (which had gradually grown to accept climate change in the wake of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth and the reality that it was becoming blatantly obvious that the climate was changing). And it worked - and it's still working to some extent today. But I, I correctly identified this for what it was. An attempt to stifle the inconvenient truth that Al Gore shared with the world in 2006. That's right, I'm a fan of Al Gore. So you deniers can take your puerile, petulant Al Gore jokes, and shove them where the sun don't shine. I even authored a law review article calling attention to these McCarthy-esque tactics and unsettling attempts to stifle academic research. That's right, I'm an attorney. Shove it. I also correctly stated that the temperature adjustments everybody was so critical of were 100% necessary. In fact, I correctly stated that, if anything, the temperature needed adjusted further upwards in the United States. Years later, it has turned out I was prescient with these views. Ironically, espousing such views was a bannable offense back in the day. Everybody was just so enthralled with that mental midget, Anthony Watts, and his infamous Surface Station review. The CDI was in full force, grasping for whatever straw they could find. Of course, the whole premise was flawed from the beginning. But that didn't stop the CDI. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is some problem with the U.S. surface temperature network, that says nothing about the long-term trend. The reality is today's modern fan-aspirated temperature sensors in ASOS and MMTS installments are far superior to yesterday's whitewashed Stevenson screens. Of course, the change imparted a negative temperature bias into the records. Furthermore, there are various biases that are still unaccounted for in the temperature record. In the early days of the Signal Corps and Weather Bureau, it was common for these shelters to be mounted on rooftops in dense urban areas. Obviously, today, it is known that this is a major no-no. Regardless, the temperature record is independently corroborated by a host of natural changes - earlier leaf outs, shorter periods of ice cover on inland lakes, etc. Moreover, the U.S. is but 2% of the global surface. A lot has changed on this forum in the past four years. It used to be a haven for deniers, especially before Friv entered the scene. I was literally the only person carrying on a serious discussion about these issues prior to the historic Arctic ice melt of 2007, which got Friv and a few others interested in the topic. Unfortunately, like myself, many of these newcomers were victims of the long arm of a corrupt law - designed to stifle honest discourse, and only promote the quote-unquote lukewarmers. The reality is this: if you call yourself a lukewarmer, you're a denier. Lukewarmer is just a way to create a faux middle ground, but the goal is the same as the CDI. In fact, it's a new CDI tactic to legitimize the denial of climate science. Well, I got news for you so-called lukewarmers - if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig! Ironically, one of the biggest surprises was seeing ORH vehemently defend the temperature adjustments! Oh, you may be fooling some - but you ain't foolin' me, hun. When I defended temperature adjustments years and years ago, I was a "troll" or a "fool" or "nuts." Actually, I was prescient and 100% correct. It helps when you've got a high-IQ and can actually look at data, understand, and make sense of it. Unfortunately, too many people are incapable of this. Don't be fooled by ORH's schtick, he's a hardcore denier. The evidence is there for everyone to see. Just look up my post history. It's still there for anybody to see. In 2011, ORH was giving me sh*t about incorrectly projecting 2010 to be a record-breaking low arctic ice extent. Of course, it wasn't - but it was still the second lowest on record. Not a bad projection, all things considered. But that didn't stop your idol from harassing me. ORH didn't criticize the 70% of respondents who predicted that 2010 would be cooler than normal globally. Yes, 70% of respondents here believed 2010 would be cooler than normal! That's the type of forum this is. It's not here for real science. You won't find real science here. You'll find fantasy. Where magical technology will magically be invented to suck out all of the CO2 from the atmosphere. Let's just take a look at a sampling of posts from this era, shall we? Even skierinvermont, whom I have not always seen eye-to-eye on everything, defended me against ORH's attacks: And as I prophetically stated here, in 2011, one year prior to the record-breaking minima of 2012 (which I didn't get to observe from this forum, because I had been banned): And this is still true today. The ice is going, going, gone. I don't profess to know what the minima will be in September. But I know what it will be in September 2060. And that's all that matters. Whether it melts off entirely in 2025, 2030, 2040, or 2060 is immaterial, in the grand scheme of things. 25-30 years is a blink of an eye in a geologic sense. Not even a blink of an eye, really. Not a legitimate paper. Not a legitimate journal. Stupid. Yeah, the banhammer comes down hard for sure. Have to tow the line. Some things are more true than others. A denier is somebody who generations from now will not be perceived too kindly. I doubt it will matter much what the individual denier's motivations were/are. Today, we don't bother to understand what motivated supporters of Nazism. We universally deplore them. I suspect climate deniers will be a very deplorable bunch as well.

Just remember the words of the wise Arthur Schopenhauer: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." It's funny because the deniers over at WUWT used to misappropriate this phrase to their own sick purposes. But the reality is the truth will soon become self-evident. Actually, the reality is many ideas expressed here that are now widely accepted (besides from a few of the hardcore deniers) were just a few years ago ridiculed and/or violently opposed (to the point of being a "ban-able" offense). This forum has always been slow to accept the truth, but the truth will prevail one way or the other.

Very impressive start to the month... Warmest Mays on record Cleveland, OH 1. 1991, 66.8 2. 2015, 66.5 (through 5/11) 3. 1896, 65.8 4. 1944, 65.5 Akron/Canton, OH 1. 1991, 68.7 2. 2015, 68.6 (through 5/11) 3. 1896, 66.6 4. 2012, 66.5

Record breaking heat wave across northern Ohio today. Should see more records through the weekend. This has got to be the hottest May ever. I mean these temperatures are fairly common around Memorial Day, but the first full week of May? A little too warm IMO. ...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES ACROSS NORTHERN OHIO... AT 316 PM EDT (216 PM EST) THIS AFTERNOON, THE TEMPERATURE AT AKRON-CANTON REGIONAL AIRPORT REACHED 87 DEGREES. THIS TIES THE OLD RECORD HIGH OF 87 DEGREES LAST SET ON MAY 7 1936. AT 333 PM EDT (233 PM EST) THIS AFTERNOON, THE TEMPERATURE AT MANSFIELD LAHM MUNICIPAL AIRPORT REACHED 86 DEGREES. THIS TIES THE OLD RECORD HIGH OF 86 DEGREES PREVIOUSLY SET ON MAY 7 1926. AT 459 PM EDT (359 PM EST) THIS AFTERNOON, THE TEMPERATURE AT THE YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN MUNICIPAL AIRPORT REACHED 85 DEGREES. THIS TIES THE OLD RECORD HIGH OF 85 DEGREES PREVIOUSLY SET ON MAY 7 2000.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that we should expect the unexpected when it comes to future climate change. With the current climate regime and highly carbonized atmosphere, there should be no Arctic land ice and substantially less land ice at the South Pole. Sea levels should be from 20 to 40 feet higher than they are. However, because it takes so much time to melt off that much ice, sea levels are not that high. This is exposing a lot more land than would have ever been exposed during similar climate regimes. It's known that land warms more rapidly than the oceans, so I wonder if this excess land could contribute to a superheated atmosphere - with high temperatures never before experienced on this planet. I don't know how you can model the current climate. The changes occurring now are unprecedented in the history of the planet.

Well, I was looking at the BEST reconstruction, which is somewhat at odds with Hadley in the early years (generally shows it a bit colder).

I have to say I'm rather skeptical myself at the conclusion in Marcott et al. that 1900-1909 was cooler than 95% of all Holocene decades. It's at odds with the limited instrumental records we have (BEST) showing a gradual warming trend from the mid 1700s into the early 20th century. It's also at odds with our understanding of the Little Ice Age, which is believed to have lasted from around 1300 C.E. to 1850 C.E. It's known to a great deal of certainty from temperature records, historic observations, glacial melt that the turn of the 20th century was warmer than the several hundred preceding years. So this claim would basically say the LIA is the only time since the dawn of the Holocene, where temperatures were lower than the early 20th century average. Color me skeptical.

No, it isn't. You said, and I quote, "[Current global temperature is] nowhere near the levels seen during the Holocene climate optimum (yet)." The paper I linked to says the exact opposite.

I would trust Drs. Hansen and Sato over you. Source: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf

You missed the point of my post. I acknowledge the possibility that the models are wrong, but suggest it could be that they are underestimating future climate changes. It seems the range of ideas is always constrained on the "worst case" side by the models; yet, their are no similar constraints on the "best case" scenario. There maybe such a constraint in the scientific literature, but not in the popular debate.

Sorry, this is kind of off topic, but this is the banter thread. I sometimes wonder if we're not all victims of a false dichotomy on global warming. The only two viewpoints ever presented are the mainstream science POV and the denialist POV. The 1-2% lunatic fringe who say climate change isn't occurring is routinely trotted out to spew their disinformation. Yet, surely, on the converse, there must be at least 1-2% of scientists who reject the mainstream science - not because they deny global warming, but because they believe it's going to be much worse than the mainstream POV. This is hypothetical, because I can't even confirm that such a fringe view exists. It is simply never presented if it does exist. I guess that brings up the following questions: Why is it that the deniers always say the models are wrong? And, further, why is that a reason to defund the research? Models can be wrong, but that doesn't mean they can only be wrong in one direction. What if the models are underdoing future climate change? Shouldn't the shortcomings in the models be a reason to increase funding, not decrease it?

I don't know. Looking at the New York state graph you posted, it looks like there's been 1.5-2C of warming over the period of record. If this was strictly natural variation, you would assume the same exact weather patterns could occur but that it would have been 1.5-2C colder (just due to the overall warming trend). Imagine what the graph would look like if you took off another 1.5-2C. It would be a massive outlier way outside the bounds of anything else that's occurred. Even 2014 would be a huge outlier with that correction. Maybe possible but it would probably be like a 1 in 1000 year event.

It would appear there's essentially no heat flux coming from the lake, and the ice coverage is actually acting as a freezer now. The coldest temperatures today were right next to the lakeshore despite a north wind. Safe to say the lake effect snow season has officially come to an end.

Maybe not in Tamaqua. But it's raining here in SW PA.

Holy crap. A PNS in Ashtabula County is reporting -39, which would tie the all-time state record. Obviously, I can't vouch for its precision but still... The two closest PNS's are reporting -29 and -30, so it's definitely in the ballpark.