Record Year-to-Date Temperatures in the US

[tacoman25]

Yeah, the cold and snow has been very impressive for spring. It's just that the magnitude

and aerial coverage of the cold in recent years can't compare to the warmth. That's

not to say that we haven't set new records for cold on a state or regional basis. This

spring cold was somewhat similar to the 12/10 cold the SE experienced in that the records

were mostly focused regionally. The warmth last March covered a greater area and

was of a higher order than the cold was this spring. 

 

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Right. But again, look at my previous post. The historic nature of this spring isn't just the cold...it's the combination of prolonged cold, lots of records, and tons of snowfall records. Try to find a more wintry spring on record - there are very few, if any.

[ORH_wxman]

We have been discussing the increase in record snowstorms in recent years in other threads as well. Remember, the season

started off with a hurricane which brought a late October snows to the Appalachians followed by another out of season snow

in NYC a week later in early November. It has been ideal conditions for big snows with strong to record blocking

and increasing atmospheric moisture content and precip records.

 

I highly doubt early and late season snow events can be attributed in a meaningful way to global warming if that is what you were implying. Natural variability is very powerful and explains most fluke events we get.

 

As for increased large winter storms, again, there's a lot of issues to be ironed out on those attribution claims such as actually attributing the blocking to AGW first, and then using homogeneous snowfall records which unfortauntely is a problem still. Its certainly possible that there's meaningful attribution there, but there also doesn't have to be either.  

 

 

 

 

As for this thread...I agree with most of MN_Transplant's post. The cold isn't nearly as impressive as the 2012 warmth, but tacoman is right that the snowfall/snowpack has definitely been historic this spring.

[tacoman25]

We have been discussing the increase in record snowstorms in recent years in other threads as well. Remember, the season

started off with a hurricane which brought a late October snows to the Appalachians followed by another out of season snow

in NYC a week later in early November. It has been ideal conditions for big snows with strong to record blocking

and increasing atmospheric moisture content and precip records.

 

Explain it however you want, but my point was just that the nature of this spring has been historically wintry. As Will alluded above, the spring snow pack alone in the U.S. has been historic, not to mention all of the individual events and records.

[GaWx]

We have been discussing the increase in record snowstorms in recent years in other threads as well. Remember, the season

started off with a hurricane which brought a late October snows to the Appalachians followed by another out of season snow

in NYC a week later in early November. It has been ideal conditions for big snows with strong to record blocking

and increasing atmospheric moisture content and precip records.

 If AGW causes a net increase in snowstorms overall, might that be a way for the planet to negate at least some of the warming due to increased albedo? Maybe this is a natural self-correcting mechanism to prevent runaway global warming through negative feedback. I recall reading something similar regarding the Antarctic.

 

 Opinions anyone?

[Jonger]

We have been discussing the increase in record snowstorms in recent years in other threads as well. Remember, the season

started off with a hurricane which brought a late October snows to the Appalachians followed by another out of season snow

in NYC a week later in early November. It has been ideal conditions for big snows with strong to record blocking

and increasing atmospheric moisture content and precip records.

 If AGW causes a net increase in snowstorms overall, might that be a way for the planet to negate at least some of the warming due to increased albedo? Maybe this is a natural self-correcting mechanism to prevent runaway global warming through negative feedback. I recall reading something similar regarding the Antarctic.

 

 Opinions anyone?

There is no way to verify that more snowstorms are taking place, but there definitely is an increase in people trying to attribute the rise.

[tacoman25]

The upcoming study says that extreme snowstorms are increasing. 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/02/18/climate-contradiction-less-snow-more-blizzards/1927893/

 

And several other recent papers link reduced sea ice to more snow and cold.

 

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/17/1114910109.full.pdf

 

http://marine.rutgers.edu/%7Efrancis/pres/Tang_pub_ERL_1748-9326_8_1_014036.pdf

 

The pattern this year followed another new paper which discussed extreme cold building

over Eurasia during the winter. This Siberian cold was drawn into the Arctic during February

followed by the very cold flow into North America this spring when all the records

for snow and cold  occurred.

 

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044044/pdf/1748-9326_7_4_044044.pdf

 

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I think an important point is that even if these papers are correct in (at least partially) attributing these storms and cold blocking patterns to man-made climate change, a lot of what we are seeing is after-the-fact explanations. It's not like all of this was expected or predicted, at least not for the most part. Which just goes to show, there are a lot of unpredictable things about our climate system, whether the factors be man-made or not.