Past Weather Performance No Guarantee of Future Results

Elliot Abrams is the Senior Meteorologist at Accuweather, and has this to say about the above normal winter we are having:


Is this winter

El Nino winters are often warmer than average from the northern Plains to the North and Middle Atlantic Coast, but not in the Southeast. But the early winter warmth this season included the Southeast. The Ohio Valley is often drier than average during an El Nino, but so far this season amounts have been close to and some places above average. In El Nino years the Pacific coast often gets above average rainfall, but so far this winter Southern California has not shared this. The problem: each El Nino is a bit different from others. The two warmest years recently were 1998 and 2006. The current El Nino is weaker than the one present in the 1997-98 winter.

In the last few decades an estimated 7% of the Arctic sea ice has melted. Climate research has suggested that enhanced global warming would show up first in the Polar Regions. The recent melting is consistent with that. An argument against El Nino being the main cause of recent warmth is this: it would have been just as warm in prior El Ninos (and El Ninos have been tracked for centuries) as in the last two. In other words, the recent warmth is consistent with global warming, and El Ninos probably increased the effect in places where it has been warm so far this winter.

Some of the global warming can be attributed to urbanization. The growth of urban heat islands would, by itself, cause worldwide temperatures to warm. But the warming is also consistent with increased greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases prevent as much heat from radiating away from the atmosphere as would otherwise be the case. This means that the greatest warming would show up in nighttime temperature trends, and that has been the case. However, there has also been less volcanic activity recently. The eruption of Pinatubo in 1991 was followed by a couple of years of global cooling.

Superimposed on all of this are natural cycles. Some winters are colder and snowier than others naturally; some are warmer and less snowy. Global warming would be expected to make the warmer winters slightly warmer than otherwise, and the coldest winters a little less cold. New York City just came through four consecutive winters with at least 40 inches of snow, something that had never happened before. Global warming has been slowly progressing the whole time, so something else must be causing the near total lack of snow so far this winter.

The simplest reason for why winter has been so warm recently is this: The coldest air has been confined to the Polar Region. The same strong jet stream that sent powerful storms into the Pacific Northwest, buckled to cause the blizzards in the eastern Rockies, and then proceeded to the East Coast, had no access to cold air. As each storm moved northeastward in the Eastern States, it tapped warm air from over the Gulf of Mexico, and this warmth then brought Atlanta weather to New York. The result: persistently above average temperatures in the East. Such a pattern would make it warm in the East without global warming or El Ninos. The jet stream pattern is changing now, so as they say on Wall Street: past weather performance is no guarantee of future results. You may lose warmth. There is no Federal insurance.


Did you catch the part about New York City? It has been blessed with more snow in the last decade than recorded previously. Global Warming?

Abrams doesn`t seem to think so.

(Hat tip-the Federalist Patriot)