Tag Archives: NOAA

The United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

David Rose’s Climatic Alternative Facts and Deceptions

Temperature, , , , , , , , ,

For some relevant background to this weekend’s dose of “Alternative Facts” from David Rose in the Mail on Sunday you may wish to peruse this article in our sister journal “Alternative Facts Wetware™“:

How Trump Won

From the conclusions to that article on Donald Trump’s rise to power:

Reflecting on the implications of this analysis for the specifics of this election, we can see that many Trump voters knew full well that their man was a reprobate, that they deplored his crudities and that they saw him as a risky choice. And yet in a world where the system is seen to be against “us” and where things appear to be driven in the wrong direction by “them,” the really irrational thing to do is to vote for the conventional candidate who represents sticking with that system.

Getting back to this morning’s batch of post truth alternative facts from the poison pen of David Rose, the latest porky pie fresh off the Mail’s production line is entitled:

“How can we trust global warming scientists if they keep twisting the truth”

It is of course Mr. Rose who is “twisting the truth” yet again. His opening salvo:

They were duped – and so were we. That was the conclusion of last week’s damning revelation that world leaders signed the Paris Agreement on climate change under the sway of unverified and questionable data.

A landmark scientific paper –the one that caused a sensation by claiming there has been NO slowdown in global warming since 2000 – was critically flawed. And thanks to the bravery of a whistleblower, we now know that for a fact.

Mr. Rose wouldn’t recognise “a fact” if it hit him in the back of the head at a million miles an hour. The “landmark scientific paper” in question isn’t “critically flawed” anywhere but in the fertile imagination of David Rose and the other “Merchants of Doubt”. Take a look at the facts:

Zeke-Temp-Comp

Zeke-MetOffice2017

As predicted yesterday, I’m off down to the local paper shop. I wonder if there’s an associated editorial this week too? I’ll be back in a bit with more. As David Rose so eloquently put it this morning:

We cannot allow such a vital issue for our future to be mired in half truths and deceptions.

 

[Edit – February 12th PM]

My pocket is now £1.70 lighter in exchange for the following information:

MoS-Error-1

It seems that is what passes for “due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology” in MailSpeak? Here’s the actual facts once again:

Gavin-Rose-Correct

I don’t see an accurate graph in Mr. Rose’s profuse apology. I see no mention of “World leaders not duped, Mail readers conned again”. Do you?

 

[Edit – February 15th]

This will come as no shock to seasoned Lamar Smith watchers. The U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee have issued another news release:

“Committee Probes Allegations of Politicization of NOAA Study”

By now you can probably guess what it says:

Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today sent a letter to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Acting Administrator Benjamin Friedman requesting information on the Karl study following reports the study ignored NOAA standards, was rushed to publication, and was not free from political bias.

“Allegations of politicization of government funded scientific research cannot be ignored. The Committee has a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight in instances of alleged fraud, abuse, and misconduct especially where the government’s scientific integrity is called into question. Dr. Bates’ revelations raise additional questions as to whether the science at NOAA is objective and free from political interference. In light of this new information, the Committee requests the below information to better understand the depth and scope of internal debate at NOAA related to the Karl study,” the letter states.

Today’s letter requests documents and communications related to the release of the Karl study, the datasets used in the Karl study, concerns raised about datasets used in the Karl study, and the scientific integrity of the study. The committee also requested a briefing on the independent experts NOAA is engaging with to review this matter.

The letter can be found here.

The news release continues to describe the alleged “background”, but I think we’re all pretty familiar with that by now? The letter itself is addressed to Benjamin Friedman, NOAA’s acting administrator. It demands to see a big pile of documents “related to the Karl study”. It will come a no surprise whatsoever to our regular readers that it references the leading actors in the David & Judy show!

An Open Letter to the Managing Editor of the Mail on Sunday

Satire, , , ,

Thank you for your email. Unless I’ve completely misunderstood you’re directing me to this page?

http://www.readerseditor.dmgmedia.co.uk/?publication=www.mailonsunday.co.uk/readerseditor

If that’s the case then it doesn’t actually answer my repeated question, which included the word “amicably”. See below.

I’d be most grateful if you could confirm that my interpretation of your email is correct. In any event I shall give IPSO a call on Monday to see what they suggest.

I think I’ll head to the newsagents first thing tomorrow morning, to make sure I grab a copy of the MoS before it sells out. What “Shock News” might be next I wonder?

“New NOAA Whistleblower says Ice Age Imminent!”

Please feel free to plagiarise that one if you so desire.

Best wishes,

Jim Hunt

Beta Testing Snow White’s Alternative Fact Detector

Satire, , , , , , , ,

As part of our ongoing alternative facts research program we flipped the switch on the first beta test version of Snow White’s Alternative Facts Wetware™ (#AFW™ for short) AF detection subsystem early on Saturday morning (UTC). We were astonished when the needle literally flew past the end stops later that morning. Initially we suspected a bug must have sneaked in via one of Snow’s unprotected ear canals. However when she rather reluctantly ran her exhaustive diagnostic routines they revealed that her mission was in actual fact absolutely nominal.

What happened next therefore came as no surprise whatsoever:

 

For those of you unfamiliar with some of Planet Earth’s leading alternate facts exponents perhaps we should explain at this juncture that we tweeted Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (amongst numerous other local, national and international politicians) long before ex Prof. Judith Curry “blew the whistle” with the aid of John J Bates and then Congressman Lamar Smith proudly published the House Science Committee’s “#NOAAGate press release”.

2017-02-06_0100-NOAAGate-FAQ

Here’s a close up of the graphic graphic we sent the pols, which emerged from our prior “debate” with Nigel, who changed the subject without addressing the issue and then turned strangely silent:

SMOS-20170201

We cannot help but wonder what comment Messrs Smith and Rohrabacher might wish to make at this juncture. What do you make of all this Nigel?

Alternative Facts About the Arctic in 2017

Thickness, , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday I found myself in conversation with Nigel and “Steve” on Twitter about NOAA’s recent report on Arctic temperatures and the seemingly unrelated topic of Russian icebreakers. Apparently Nigel has been perusing “Steve’s” recent railing against NOAA’s “Red Hot Arctic” in 2016 on his “Deplorable Client Science” blog. Here’s how my conversation with Nigel went:

 

It appears that Nigel believes that an image like this:

JohannMahmastal

is far more relevant than an image like this:

SMOS-20170201

when it comes to determining the thickness of “the ice up in the north of Russia”!

Then of course there was my “conversation” with “Steve” after he butted in on my “debate” with Nigel. It went like this:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/826924807124025345

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/826926389152583682

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/826930170439274501

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/826937934171480064

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/826940688734494721

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/826944199840903169

Followed the next morning by:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/827120539764457472

Just like Nigel, “Steve” still hasn’t got around to commenting on my map of Arctic sea thickness or explaining the significance of 2 Russian icebreakers NOT stuck in the East Siberian Sea.

[Edit – February 3rd 2017]

Some more pertinent facts, courtesy of CryoSat-2:

Cryosat_ESS_20170131

I’ve just submitted this article to a brand new learned journal. The Journal of Alternative Facts:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/827458574515318784

According to their article guidelines self references are highly desirable, so I figured I should add some.

 

[Edit – February 4th 2017]

Nigel still refuses to provide any more “evidence” about the Russian icebreakers allegedly “stuck in ice”, whilst “Steve” continues to ignore me:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/827807996331843584

The Journal of Alternative Facts article guidelines insist on peer review by politicians, so I’ve invited a few local, national and international politicians to comment on my draft paper:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/827823720609746944

 

[Edit – References]

White, S. (2016a) – The 11th Key Science Moment of 2016

White, S. (2016b) – Post-Truth Global and Arctic Temperatures

White, S. (2015) – Why It’s So Hard to Convince Pseudo-Skeptics

Please feel free to add your peer reviews in the space provided for that purpose below.

NASA Researches Storm Frank in the Arctic

Area, , , , , , ,

Regular readers may recall that as 2016 began we pondered how “Storm Frank” might have affected the Arctic. Now NASA have published some research into that very topic, entitled ” The Impact of the Extreme Winter 2015/16 Arctic Cyclone on the Barents–Kara Seas”. The paper itself is paywalled, but according to an associated article on the NASA web site:

A large cyclone that crossed the Arctic in December 2015 brought so much heat and humidity to this otherwise frigid and dry environment that it thinned and shrunk the sea ice cover during a time of the year when the ice should have been growing thicker and stronger.

The cyclone formed on Dec. 28, 2015, in the middle of the North Atlantic, and traveled to the United Kingdom and Iceland before entering the Arctic on Dec. 30, lingering in the area for several days. During the height of the storm, the mean air temperatures in the Kara and Barents seas region, north of Russia and Norway, were 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) warmer than what the average had been for this time of the year since 2003.

The extremely warm and humid air mass associated with the cyclone caused an amount of energy equivalent to the power used in one year by half a million American homes to be transferred from the atmosphere to the surface of the sea ice in the Kara-Barents region. As a result, the area’s sea ice thinned by almost 4 inches (10 centimeters) on average.

At the same time, the storm winds pushed the edges of the sea ice north, compacting the ice pack.

Here’s a video with commentary by Linette Boisvert, lead author of the paper:

From the commentary:

As a result of this cyclone, the concentration of the sea ice in the Barents and Kara Seas decreased by ten percent, and the sea ice edge moved northward. The loss in sea ice area during this time was equivalent to the size of Florida. Sea ice extent stayed low throughout the month of January with large parts of the Barents and Kara Seas remaining unseasonably ice-free, which probably helped contribute to a record low Arctic sea ice maximum.

Somewhat earlier than last year another strong cyclone has been having a similar effect on the Arctic over the last week. A cyclone entered the Central Arctic via the Fram Strait, reaching a minimum central pressure of 954 hPa on November 14th:

fram-2016-11-14-1800

Here is the Wavewatch III wave height forecast for November 15th 2016:

significant_height_of_combined_w-in-multi_2-glo_30m-20161113_00049

and here is NOAA’s temperature anomaly reanalysis for November 16th 2016:

noaatempanomaly-20161116

As a consequence of the strong winds, huge waves and 20 degrees Celsius temperature anomaly across much of the Arctic, sea ice area has been falling during a period when it is usually increasing rapidly:

uh-arctic-area-2016-11-19

Summer 2016 Surface Melt Takes Off

Melt, , , , , , , , , , , ,

June has arrived, and according to the Great White Con Arctic sea ice calendar that means the summer surface melting season has started. Once July arrives bottom melt should have started in earnest too, but for now let’s stick to the surface. Here’s the Climate Reanalyzer map of Arctic surface air temperatures at 06:00 UTC this morning:

CCI-T2-2016-06-04-0600

Green areas are above 0 degrees Celsius, and bear in mind that the melting point of sea ice is at around -1.8 degrees Celsius. The red areas near the East Siberian Sea coast are 25-30 degrees Celsius. Given those sort of temperatures you might well think that some snow and/or ice in that area would be melting, and you would be correct! Here is the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s current map of Arctic surface melting:

AM2SI20160603A_SIT_NP

The assorted shades of blue/grey show the areas where surface melting is already underway. Whilst this melting is taking place you may possibly read in some quarters of the cryodenialosphere that “There is almost no melting going on in the Arctic“. The authors of such nonsense evidently don’t know their proverbial Arctic arse from their elbow.

Here’s how today’s surface melting in the East Siberian Sea looks from space:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the East Siberian Sea on June 4th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the East Siberian Sea on June 4th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

Meanwhile over on the other side of the Arctic, here’s yesterday’s surface melting on “Amundsen’s Route” through the Northwest Passage:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Northwest Passage on June 3rd 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite
NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Northwest Passage on June 3rd 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite

By way of further illustration of the fact that Arctic sea ice is and has been melting, here is a graph of the current area of sea ice in the all important central area of the Arctic Basin, courtesy of “Wipneus” at Arctische Pinguin:

basin-area-20160603

The areas included are the Central Arctic Basin, plus the Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian and Laptev Seas. The above zero temperatures are forecast to spread across the Central Arctic Basin early next week, whereupon it will be very interesting to discover what happens to the snow around the single ice mass balance buoy currently transmitting near real time data. Here is the current temperature profile for the sea ice underneath IMB buoy 2015F:

2016-06-02_2015F

The current conditions there are summarised this morning as:

Pos: 82.00 N, 147.45 W
Air Temp: -3.74 C
Air Pres: 1007.42 mb
Snow depth: 21 cm
Ice thickness: 202 cm

Normally by now there would also be a number of webcams beaming back pictures from across the sea ice in the Arctic Basin. However according to NOAA:

Due to funding constraints, it was not possible to deploy new Web Cams in Spring 2016, but deployments in Spring 2017 are planned.

Three of the camera carrying O-Buoys also seem to have failed over the winter, which leaves us with only O-Buoy 14 to reveal the forthcoming melt to us:

O-Buoy 14 image from June 2nd 2016
O-Buoy 14 image from June 2nd 2016

O-Buoy 14 is currently colocated with Ice Tethered Profiler 89, the yellow object in the foreground, at 77.49° N, 153.92° W, to the north of the Beaufort Sea. ITP 89 measures the temperature and salinity of the water beneath the sea ice and revealed this the last time it managed to take a measurement, a month or so ago:

itp89-20160604

If you examine the extreme right hand edge of the charts carefully you will no doubt note that the water underneath the ice has recently become both warmer and saltier.

Watch this space!

[Edit – June 5th 2016]

The latest JAXA/ADS map shows that the area of sea ice undergoing surface melting has increased since yesterday, particularly over the Chukchi Sea:

AM2SI20160604A_SIT_NP

The recent clouds over the Beaufort Sea cleared yesterday. Here’s a close up view of the open water between the big floes from the Suomi satellite:

Beaufort-Floes-Suomi-20160604

For a more distant perspective see our Summer 2016 image archive.

It’s not simply the surface that’s melting either. Here’s the latest “high resolution” AMSR2 sea ice area graph for the Pacific side of the Arctic:

2016-06-04-Pacific-AMSR2-Area

Wind Waves in the Beaufort Sea in April 2016

Waves, , , , , , , , ,

As regular readers will be aware we have been following the progress of the Great Arctic Anticyclone of 2016 for the last 3 weeks or so and the generation of increasingly large waves in the Beaufort Sea in August and September for the last 3 years or so. Today we combine the two to bring you news of anomalously large waves in the Beaufort Sea earlier this week. In actual fact any sort of waves in the Beaufort Sea at this time of year would be anomalous, since normally the Beaufort is still covered in sea ice in April!

Firstly a bit of background information. In the continuing absence of the DMSP F-17 satellite data used by the NSIDC for their Arctic sea ice metrics, here’s a close up look at Arctische Pinguin’s current Beaufort Sea ice area data:

2016-04-28-Beaufort-AMSR2-Area

Now here’s NOAA’s WaveWatch III “hindcast” of the winds over the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016:

WaveWatch III wind hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016
WaveWatch III wind hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016

Notice the continuing easterly winds from the persistent high pressure system centred to the north of the Beaufort Sea. Next here’s the resultant wind wave height:

WaveWatch III wave height hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016
WaveWatch III wave height hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016

and the associated wind wave period:

WaveWatch III wave period hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016
WaveWatch III wave period hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016

Wind waves with a height of around 1.5 meters and a period of 6 seconds wouldn’t tempt me to go out on a surfing expedition, but they would certainly be enough to interfere with the sea ice formation process, as you can see from this “pseudo-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on April 26th from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

Unfortunately the Jason 2 and recently launched Jason 3 satellites don’t measure wave heights in bodies of water as far north as the Beaufort Sea, so we’ll have to content ourselves with the modelled data from WaveWatch III. However here’s a brief video explaining how Jason 3 measurements are now used to assist WaveWatch forecasts further south:

Whilst Jason 3 won’t be watching waves in the Arctic Ocean it looks as though the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 3A satellite will be providing wave height data for the Beaufort Sea in the not too distant future:

S3A_Wave_height_20160304

It also looks as though CryoSat-2 is already potentially providing such data, but as far as I can ascertain it’s not available in handy gridded format in the same way that the CS2 near real time ice thickness data is.

2015 Really Is “The Warmest Year in Modern Record”!

Temperature, , , , , , , , ,

Our regular reader(s) may recall that this time last year we took umbrage at an article by David Rose in the Mail on Sunday about the joint NASA/NOAA press briefing outlining their findings about global surface temperatures in 2014.

We’ve been discussing Mr. Rose’s recent misleading “Tweets” about the Arctic with him:

As a consequence we also found ourselves in conversation with Gavin Schmidt of NASA about this year’s NASA/NOAA press briefing about global surface temperatures in 2015, which takes place on January 20th. Pencil it into your diary:

Climate experts from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will discuss the release of new data on 2015 global temperatures, and the most important weather and climate events of the year, during a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EST Wednesday, Jan. 20.

The teleconference panelists are:

Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York
Thomas R. Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina, and chair of the Subcommittee on Global Change Research for the U.S. Global Change Research Program in Washington

Media can participate in the teleconference by calling 888-790-1804 (toll-free in the United States and Canada) or 415-228-4885 (international) and use the passcode “climate.”

Audio of the briefing, as well as supporting graphics, will stream live.

Whilst we wait with bated breath for the NASA/NOAA announcement, here’s how the Gavin, David & Snow show has been going over on Twitter:

 

You will note from the exchange on Twitter that the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project are one of the organisations that have already declared 2015 “The Warmest Year in the Modern Record”, which brings me to the Arctic connection. Tamino explains over at “Open Mind”, in an article entitled “Hottest Year On Record“:

When it comes to global temperature over land and sea, Berkeley produces two versions, different in the way they treat areas covered with sea ice. Version 1 uses air temperature estimates for sea-ice covered regions, version 2 uses ocean temperature estimates.

and quotes BEST as follows:

For most of the ocean, sea-surface temperatures are similar to near-surface air temperatures; however, air temperatures above sea ice can differ substantially from the water below the sea ice. The air temperature version of this average shows larger changes in the recent period, in part this is because water temperature changes are limited by the freezing point of ocean water. We believe that the use of air temperatures above sea ice provides a more natural means of describing changes in Earth’s surface temperature.

As Tamino puts it:

Let’s not keep you in suspense any longer. Here are annual averages through 2015 (which is now complete) according to version 1:

2015-berk1

Here it is according to version 2:

2015-berk2

Any way you look at it, 2015 is the hottest. Any way you look at it, there was no “pause” in global temperature.

[Edit – 17:30 UTC on January 20th 2016]

The joint NASA/NOAA media briefing on 2015 global average surface temperatures has just finished. The recording of the event is due to go online “in 2 hours” or so from:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/advisories/011516-advisory-noaa-nasa-to-announce-official-analyses-of-2015-global-temperature-climate-conditions.html

You can get a good flavour things by taking a look at the second half of the Twitter “Storify” above. This one sums things up:

Whilst we all wait for the recording to emerge, you can download the slides for the briefing from:

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/noaa_nasa_global_analysis_2015.pdf

and here’s a video summary NASA have released:

Note too that the UK Met Office released their numbers this afternoon also. Here’s how they look:

and here’s the Met Office’s video in which Peter Stott explains their conclusion that:

2015 – Warmest year on record globally

I waited patiently in the NASA/NOAA queue to ask some Arctic related questions, but never received the call. I’ll let you know when I receive the promised answers by email.

R/V Lance Encounters Another Energetic Wave Event in the Arctic

Waves, , , , , , ,

Today’s title is inspired by a recent paper in the AGU’s Geophysical Research Letters, entitled “In situ measurements of an energetic wave event in the Arctic marginal ice zone“, by Collins, Rogers, Marchenko and Babanin. According to Collins et al. in the abstract:

R/V Lance serendipitously encountered an energetic wave event around 77°N, 26°E on 2 May 2010. Onboard GPS records, interpreted as the surface wave signal, show the largest waves recorded in the Arctic region with ice cover. Comparing the measurements with a spectral wave model indicated three phases of interaction:

  1. wave blocking by ice
  2. strong attenuation of wave energy and fracturing of ice by wave forcing, and
  3. uninhibited propagation of the peak waves and an extension of allowed waves to higher frequencies (above the peak)

Wave properties during fracturing of ice cover indicated increased groupiness. Wave-ice interaction presented binary behavior: there was zero transmission in unbroken ice and total transmission in fractured ice. The fractured ice front traveled at some fraction of the wave group speed. Findings do not motivate new dissipation schemes for wave models, though they do indicate the need for two-way, wave-ice coupling.

There’s a lot of equations and similarly technical stuff in the body of the paper which is nevertheless well worth a read even if you’re not a techie, as are the articles in the long list of references at the end. However, there aren’t any “swell forecasts” of the sort we like to put in our discussions of “waves-in-ice“, so firstly let’s fix that. Here’s some visualisations from NOAA’s WaveWatch III reanalysis for 18:00 on May 2nd 2010:

Significant_height_of_combined_w in multi_1.ao_30m.hs.201005

Primary_wave_mean_period_surface in multi_1.ao_30m.tp.201005

which reveal a swell with a significant height of 6 meters and a period of 11 seconds in the open ocean south of Hopen Island and Svalbard. Collins et al. concluded that:

Our results suggest that accurate wave prediction would have required coupling with an ice model which resolved scales of hours and kilometers. Implementation at such scales will no doubt be a future challenge. These are the largest known waves recorded in the Arctic with substantial ice cover present, and we expect the measurement of large-wave events to occur more frequently in the future due to the fetch wave-ice fetch feedback loop.

Now comes news that the R/V Lance has been subject to another “waves-in-ice” event, although this time it was north of Svalbard. First of all here’s a video showing an earlier stage of the Lance’s 2015 Arctic program:

Next the latest serendipitous encounter for the Lance. According to the Twitter feed of the Oceanography & Sea Ice department of the Norwegian Polar Institute on June 22nd 2015:

The sea ice floe with the N-ICE2015 research camp broke

at which time the Lance was located in the marginal ice zone northwest of Svalbard:

RVLance-20150622

Now some further information (and more pictures!) has emerged via the Twitter feed of Harvey Goodwin, who says that:

When a light swell comes in the 5km sea ice floe we’d been working on broke into pieces not more than 30m [across] in an hour:

Equipment rescue[d] after sea ice breakup. Some cables cut but no equipment lost!

The WaveWatch III reanalysis for June 2015 isn’t available yet. We’ll bring you that information once it is, but for now here’s a couple of quick snapshots from the Magic Seaweed surf forecasting site:

NAtlanticWaves-20150622-1800

NAtlanticPeriod-20150622-1800

They suggest that a smaller but longer period swell was responsible for the ice break up this time around, compared to 2010. I wonder if it will take another 5 years for this latest event to be more fully documented in the scientific literature?

Alaska May Snow Cover At Record Low Levels

Snow, , , , , , , , , ,

“Steven Goddard” is evidently magically turning into “Snow White’s” muse. His latest fairy tale addresses her second favourite subject after Arctic sea ice, which is of course northern hemisphere snow cover. The article is entitled “October-March Snow Cover At Record High Levels“, and proudly proclaims that:

Fifteen years ago, climate experts said that snow is a thing of the past. Since then, Northern Hemisphere snow cover has soared to record levels.

unRealSnow-20150607

Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab

What this tells us is that cold air is intruding further south during the snow season. It also tells us that Tom Karl at NOAA is lying about global temperatures.

Snow White and I innocently followed Steve’s link, then clicked on the “Rankings” link on the left hand side, where we discovered this:

Selection_474

not to mention this:

Selection_473

Feeling confident that all the Real Scientists would be interested in the latest data hot off the presses from the Snow Lab we showed them this picture:

maysnowmap2015

and enquired?

What does that tell us?

The initial response from “gator69”?

The fact that you refer to “normal” in climate or weather tells us that you have zero understanding of either.

When will you work to help the starving millions by confronting alarmists, and assist in diverting money to where it is desperately needed right now?

Since “Real Scientists” are apparently aghast at anomaly maps, here are the current absolute values from Rutgers:

RutgersSnow-20150607

Just in case you are wondering what all this has to do with Snow White’s favourite subject of all, here’s the current Topaz 4 map of Arctic sea ice snow cover:

Topaz4Snow-20150607

and here is the current northern hemisphere temperature forecast for Tuesday morning from the “Climate Reanalyzer”

CCIT2-20150607+51

Snow White and I cannot help but wonder what effect temperatures above zero across virtually the entire Arctic Ocean will have on the snow cover that currently remains. We also cannot help but wonder whether 2015 Arctic sea ice extent will suddenly start tracking 1995 or 2006 as a consequence.

We also wondered what Tom Karl et al. of NOAA have been saying about the Arctic, and discovered this:

Since the IPCC report, new analyses have revealed that incomplete coverage over the Arctic has led to an underestimate of recent (since 1997) warming in the Hadley Centre/Climate Research Unit data used in the IPCC report. These analyses have surmised that incomplete Arctic coverage also affects the trends from our analysis as reported by IPCC.

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s the Topaz 4 snow depth forecast for June 16th 2015:

Topaz4Snow-20150616

Thanks to “Nightvid Cole” and “Vergent” at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum for bringing that view of things to our attention.