Who Knew? Climate Change, Global Warming Brings Colder Winter

As Gateway Pundit points out in at least a dozen instances all around the globe, it's really, really cold--just about everywhere. Take a look at the Arctic ice caps:

NEW evidence has cast doubt on claims that the world’s ice-caps are melting, it emerged last night.

Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature.

It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming.

But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back.

Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels.

Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year.

The data flies in the face of many current thinkers and will be seized on by climate change sceptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.

A photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg has become one of the most enduring images in the campaign against climate change.

It was used by former US Vice President Al Gore during his Inconvenient Truth lectures about mankind’s impact on the world. But scientists say the northern hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades.

They add that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966.

Arctic ice cover has not only recovered, but it is thicker as well.

Whoops!

Ben DeGrow has more, and cautions against falling into the global warming/climate change fearmongering trap that brings things like Bill Ritter's "climate change plan".

After all, the scientists can't be wrong.

Roger Fraley has an update on the Antarctic ice sheet, which apparently is doing quite well.

Winter Forecasts Wrong For Second Year Admit "Experts"

Blaming the failure of their predictions to match what actually has transpired on--wait for it--"global change":

Dry-winter forecasts were flat wrong this year for much of Colorado and the Southwest, and weather experts say they're struggling to understand why the snow just keeps falling.

Some forecasters blame climate change, and others point to the simple vicissitudes of weather. Regardless, almost everyone called for a dry-to-normal winter in Colorado and the Southwest — but today, the state's mountains are piled so thick with snow that state reservoirs could fill and floods could be widespread this spring.

"The polar jet stream has been on steroids. We don't understand this. It's pushing our limits, and it's humbling," said Klaus Wolter, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Whoops! So climate and weather conditions are 1) more difficult to predict, and 2) humans still haven't figured out a precise way of measuring or modeling the extremely complex systems that produce the droughts, floods, storms, etc. that we face each year.

Shocker.

Apparently, even historically predictable occurrences like El Niño and La Niña can still show a potentially wide range of variability in terms of outcome, as they did this year:

Wolter and NOAA both forecast a drier-than-average winter in most of Colorado. AccuWeather Inc. did the same, citing similar reasons: A La Niña weather system of cool, equatorial Pacific water had set up in the tropics last fall.

Generally, La Niña years bring dry and warm weather to Colorado in the fall and spring, and variable winters tend to be close to average.

La Niña winters have almost always brought droughtlike conditions to the Southwest, as the jet stream ferries storms farther north.

So, what the devil is causing the weather forecasters and climate "experts" to miss their predictions with an alarming rate? Why, "global change", of course!

Wolter said he's troubled that his and other long-range forecasts have been off two years in a row now.

Last year, experts predicted a wet year from Southern California across to Arizona and southern Colorado, because of an El Niño weather system of warmer Pacific water.

Instead, drought worsened in the Southwest, capped by a huge fire season in Southern California.

"So we have two years in a row here where the atmosphere does not behave as we expect," Wolter said. "Maybe global changes are pulling the rug out from underneath us. We may not know the answer for 10 years, . . . but one pet answer is that you should get more variability with global change."

This winter's forecasts were accurate in some areas of the country, Wolter and Reeves said: The Pacific Northwest has been slammed with precipitation, as predicted, and, even with snow expected overnight and today in Denver, it has been relatively dry along Colorado's Front Range.

You see, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.

"Global change" is Wolter's "pet answer". Take that one to your boss--"Sorry, sir, it's that damned global change!"


Just some of the tons of "global change" that have fallen on Colorado this winter

Eating Meat Causes Global Warming; Al Gore In Denver Oct. 2

“You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist.”

Two quick thoughts: first, Al Gore will be in Denver October 2, and given his past record, we should anticipate significant cold weather-related phenomena from the "Al Gore effect"; second, to think that there are actually people to the left of Al Gore boggles the mind:

EVER since “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore has been the darling of environmentalists, but that movie hardly endeared him to the animal rights folks. According to them, the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined.

The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions, but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with curbing greenhouse gases.
. . .
When that report came out, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other groups expected their environmental counterparts to immediately hop on the “Go Veggie!” bandwagon, but that did not happen. “Environmentalists are still pointing their fingers at Hummers and S.U.V.’s when they should be pointing at the dinner plate,” said Matt A. Prescott, manager of vegan campaigns for PETA.

It figures that PETA would latch it's own agenda onto the current vogue of global warming hysteria in order to build visibility. Moonbats protesting moonbats--should be fun!

So the animal rights groups are mobilizing on their own. PETA is outfitting a Hummer with a driver in a chicken suit and a vinyl banner proclaiming meat as the top cause of global warming. It will send the vehicle to the start of the climate forum the White House is sponsoring in Washington on Sept. 27, “and to headquarters of environmental groups, if they don’t start shaping up,” Mr. Prescott warned.

He said that PETA had written to more than 700 environmental groups, asking them to promote vegetarianism, and that it would soon distribute leaflets that highlight the impact of eating meat on global warming.

“You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist,” said Mr. Prescott, whose group also plans to send billboard-toting trucks to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver when Mr. Gore lectures there on Oct. 2. The billboards will feature a cartoon image of Mr. Gore eating a drumstick next to the tagline: “Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat Is the No. 1 Cause of Global Warming.”

Wanna meat meet Al Gore? Here is the info: