From Euan Mearns’ Energy Matters:
http://euanmearns.com/the-death-of-sunspot-cycle-24-huge-snow-and-record-cold/
My friend Alex is in Chamonix in the shadow of Mont Blanc in the French Alps. He sent some very snowy pics and mentioned that it was fair dinging down. The most snow since 2010. Knowing that sunspot cycle 24 was well-advanced I did some checking and came across a web site called Weather to Ski that had some amazing pics of big snow. One picture in particular caught my attention. See inset and below the fold.
Figure 1 Huge snow depth in the Alps. It is possible that the snow depth here is influenced by the road, snow blowers piling snow up along the route, and also drifting snow getting trapped in the ravine. But still, 8m is a lot. A cross country skier would be confronted with enormous difficulty crossing this road.
It looks like the snow in this drift is ~ 8m deep. And this is in the valley, not in the high basins where the snow fields that feed the glaciers lie. Now it’s obviously far too early to begin to draw any conclusions. But IF we get a run of 3 or 4 winters that dump this much snow, it is not inconceivable for me to imagine Alpine glaciers once again beginning to advance. I’m totally unsure how long it takes for pressure in the glacier source to feed through to advance of the snout.
So what is going on? We’ve been told by climate scientists that snow would become a thing of the past. We’ve also been told that global warming might lead to more snow and less snow. And we’ve been told that warming might even lead to cooling. The competing theory to the CO2 greenhouse is that the Sun has a prominent role in modulating Earth’s climate that was so eloquently described by Phil Chapman in his post earlier this week. This theory simply observes a strong connection between a weak solar wind (that is expressed by low sunspot numbers) and cold, snowy winters in the N hemisphere. Uniquely, most of those who argue for a strong solar influence also acknowledge the overprint of anthropogenic CO2. The IPCC effectively sets the Sun to zero. The Sun is entering a grand solar minimum already christened the Eddy Minimum by the solar physics community.
In this post I want to take a tour of the Northern hemisphere this winter in pictures and headlines. The reader can decide if there is possibly any link between “the weather” and The Sun. Let me begin with a look at sunspot cycle 24 that is reaching a premature and feeble end.
Figure 2 It is a sobering thought for me that a decade has past since I first began to follow this data over on WattsUpWithThat where Anthony had a picture up of the spotless Sun for months on end. It is crucial to look at the baseline closely that in 2009 actually touched zero for months on end. This is not normal for the low point of the cycle. Figure 3 shows how cycle 24 was feeble compared with recent cycles. And it looks like it will have a duration of ~10 years (2009-2019) which as the low end of the normal range which is 9 to 14 years with mean of 11 years. Chart adapted from SIDC is dated 1 January 2018.
Figure 3 The big picture shows how cycle 24 (the last in the series) has been of similar low intensity to cycle 12 (~1880), cycle 14 (~1900) and cycle 16 (~1930). When you hear a headline that it has been the coldest or wettest for 100 years, it is worth pondering to reflect on the anaemic strength of the solar wind that helps shield Earth from galactic cosmic rays (GCRs).
Did anything unusual happen during the last minimum ~ 2009?
Figure 4 A famous image of near 100% snow cover in the UK during the winter of 2010/11. Image credit NASA sourced from UK Met office.
Big Snow in The Alps
All images and captions from Weather to Ski.
Figure 5 Huge snow depths in Les Menuires – 18 January 2018 – Photo: facebook.com/Les.Menuires
Figure 6 Incredible snow depths in Val Thorens – 22 January 2018 – Photo: facebook.com/ValThorens.resort
Figure 7 Staggering snowfalls across many Swiss resorts. This is Rosswald – 22 January 2018 – Photo: alpenweerman.nl
Glacier advance and retreat is a simple mass balance. If more snow falls regularly in winter than melts in summer then accumulation occurs and glaciers will eventually begin to advance and vice versa. Large winter snowfall is therefore a necessary prerequisite or alternatively cold summers with little melt. A big unknown is the extent to which “global warming” may accelerate summer melt that may actually inhibit glacier advance even with the right snow conditions.
Figure 8 The advance of the Rhone Glacier in 1856 threatened the village of Gletsch. Image from the excellent Paul Homewood.
Figure 9 Paul goes on to show these two interesting images, 1950 top and 2009 bottom. There is no doubt that over 100 years there has been a dramatic retreat since 1856 but that retreat began over 100 years ago! By 1870 it had retreated about half a mile, luckily for the people of Gletsch. The other key observation is that there is virtually no change from 1950 to 2009 and Paul observes that publication of the 1950 image appears to have been suppressed.
Record Cold in Siberia
ABC news reports on 22 Januray:
Winter in Siberia is usually spectacular and always very cold.
But this winter has been relentless. Week after week, temperatures have been dipping to 50 below zero. Siberians are accustomed to the cold, but they were completely unprepared for temperatures this low.
Not surprisingly, the hospital in the city of Irkutsk is overwhelmed. In just one week, the cold killed 17 people, and doctors amputated the limbs of at least 70 others who suffered severe frostbite. Pausing for just a short period of time could prove extremely dangerous — one man who stopped to fix his car had to have both his hands and feet amputated because of frostbite.
USA Today reports on 17 January:
Oymyakon, Russia — already considered the world’s coldest permanently inhabited town — sank to a mind-numbing 88 degrees below zero on Tuesday.
That’s even colder than the average temperature on Mars, which is 80 below zero, according to Space.com.
Amazingly, 88 below isn’t even the record low temperature in this remote, diamond-rich Russian region of Yakutia, a part of Siberia.
Figure 10 Image from USA today.
Minus 88.6˚F = -67˚C. CO2 freezes at -78.5˚C which is sometimes reached in Antarctica. I don’t recall any of the MSM reporting on this in the UK, but I’ve been too busy to watch the news. I think if 17 people had died from heat, the BBC would have been all over it.
The US Snow Bomb Cyclone
Deutsche Welle Early January:
1.6 meters of snow
People in Erie, Pennsylvania have seen a record snowfall over the past few days. Residents are still shoveling snow after a storm brought 34 inches (86 cm) on Christmas Day, smashing the Christmas snowfall record for the Great Lakes city of 8 inches, and also the daily record of 20 inches. 26.5 more inches fell on Tuesday. More than 65 inches in total fell on the city in just a few days.
And…
RECORD COLD AND SNOW HITS NORTHERN US
‘Icebox of the Nation’
While Erie saw the record snowfall, two Minnesota cities experienced record-breaking cold temperatures. The National Weather Service reported International Falls, the self-proclaimed Icebox of the Nation, plunged to -37 degrees fahrenheit (-38.8 celsius), breaking the old record of 32 below set in 1924. Hibbing, Minnesota, bottomed out at 28 below, breaking the old record of 27 below set in 1964.
Figure 11 Image from DW, originally picture alliance.
Figure 12 Image from DW, originally Reuters.
And the Express maybe gets it right Jan 5th 2018:
SHOCK WARNING: Bomb cyclone is beginning of a 100 year GLOBAL COOLING period
THE horrendous cold snap currently ravaging the east coast of the US could be the beginning of a century long global cooling period, according to experts.
The area, has been bombarded with freezing temperatures as low as -29C and up to 16 inches of snow in the last few weeks, thanks to Storm Grayson.
After claiming the lives of at least 11 people, the powerful bomb cyclone is only set to gain more strength in the coming days.
However, experts have warned this could be the beginning of something much bigger with one scientist stating this is the start of a 100-year long global cooling period.
David Dilley, CEO of Global Weather Oscillations, says that weather phenomenon La Nina and in fact global cooling, contradictory to global warming, is behind the massive cold snap.
Mr Dilley says that the world is “coming off” a 230-year global warming cycle and will now bring with it 100 years of global cooling, despite predictions from mainstream scientists.
Paris Flooding
The BBC Weather Site Reports 27 Jan:
Paris readies for floods as Seine surges higher
Weeks of rainfall have produced a relentless rise in the water level, which is expected to peak at around 6m (20ft) above normal.
Interestingly the BBC does link to..
When Paris was under water for two months
Which describes the 1910 floods that were just as bad if not worse than now.
Saying the city was coping, Mayor Anne Hidalgo suggested the flooding, coupled with recent summer heat waves, was “clearly a question of the town adapting to climate change”.
Flooding in 1910 was natural. In 2018 it’s down to climate change, which in the loose vernacular used means man-made climate change and CO2. At some point the BBC is going to have to admit to either being abjectly stupid or to deliberately misleading the public.
Figure 13 Image from the BBC.
Figure 14 Image from the BBC.
Figure 15 Image from the BBC.
Figure 16 Image from the Daily Telegraph reporting on the equally bad 2016 flood. The only news-worthy observation is that in 1910, solar activity was similar to today’s (Figure 3).
And that’s it, Sun or man-made global warming caused by CO2? You decide. I am very aware that the southern hemisphere has been experiencing the exact opposite with record high summer temperatures being set. But if you read my earlier post on The Cosmogenic Isotope Record and the Role of The Sun in Shaping Earth’s Climate you’ll find that I propose a model where solar forced climate change changes climate everywhere without necessarily having a big impact on global mean temperature. In comments I’d like to learn more about this hemispheric divide.
ENDS
I began noting that my friend Alex is in Chamonix. He is a keen photographer and takes some amazing pics which are for sale, see links below. So let me finish this photo tour of the Eddy Minimum with a couple of Alex’s amazing images.
Climate Collections 