Schneefan here reports that the Alps are seeing heavy snowfall down to 1800 meters elevation: live-video.
And if there’s a sure sign that fall is arriving in Europe, it is that the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak, is forecasting snow for the next 7 consecutive days:
Source: www.wetteronline.de/wetter/zugspitze
Some may be asking what remains ahead for Europe over the next few months: Can we expect more warm summerlike weather, or should we expect a chilly fall?
Looking at the NOAA CFSv2 weather model for the coming 3 months, signs point to a colder than normal season (click to enlarge).
Meteociel/CFS projection made on August 30th, temperature deviation from the mean at 850 hPa (approx. 1500m) in Europe for fall 2017. Source: www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php.
Frigid winter?
The projection for the coming European 2017/2018 winter for now looks frigid:
Meteociel/CFS made on August 30th, temperature deviation from the mean at 850 hPa (approx. 1500m) in Europe for winter 2017/18. Source: www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php.
What’s behind the frigid forecast? Schneefan explains:
At the end of August in Eastern Siberia there was an unusual snowfall, which led to widespread power outages and the enactment of a state of emergency.
Early snowfall in Siberia often indicates a higher likelihood of harsher European winters. Do keep in mind, however, that seasonal forecasts are fraught with much uncertainty.
Another factor that bodes ill is that solar activity has since entered into a quiet phase. Studies have shown that European winters tend to be harsher during periods of low solar activity.
Arctic sea ice “death spiral” dies
Arctic sea ice area is currently at the mean of the past decade or so. This means that Arctic sea ice has pretty much stabilized at a low level and does not show signs of shrinking further over the mid-term. The once claimed Arctic sea ice “death spiral” has lost its life.
Greenland snow and ice mass “embarrassment”
Joe Bastardi at the latest Weatherbell Analytics Saturday Summary also looks at the situation in Greenland, which has not been getting any mention from the global warming weather-ambulance-chasing alarmists lately.
Top: The total daily contribution to the surface mass balance from the entire ice sheet (blue line, Gt/day). Bottom: The accumulated surface mass balance from September 1st to now (blue line, Gt) and the season 2011-12 (red) which had very high summer melt in Greenland. Source: DMI here.
In his video, the 40-year veteran meteorologist says Greenland snow and ice mass balance is “way, way, way above normal” and that it is the “climate story nobody is talking about it because it’s an embarrassment given what was being said two years ago, really“.
Solar minimum – another inconvenient/embarrassing term you don’t hear much about either.
[…] Greenland “Embarrassment” To Climate Warmists …Cold Autumn/Frigid Winter Projected For Europe […]
The current problem with trying to forecast North Atlantic/Arctic regional weather currently is with an active hurricane season happening now (and for probably a month or more) this area will, in probability, be hit by the dying remains of these tropical storms. When this happens the weather models are at a loss to sensibly predict the medium range weather effects, as these storms can perturb so much of the atmosphere, thus adding much chaos to the ‘normal range’ of uncertainly.
That said currently MSM is very quiet about the increases in ice and snow up there. Indeed Pen Hadow’s unmitigated failure to sail the NW passage has been regaled as a success by some of the more scurrilous parts of the MSM. (see https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/pen-hadow-gives-up-blocked-by-sea-ice/ )
Pierre,
I recall (?) you once mentioned a personal color-issue.
Both your charts have a line-symbol for 2017-2018 — it is blue.
These may be Joe’s charts but seem wrong to me.
We do not yet have a 2017-2018 ice-year that begins in September.
Chart 1 seems to be for 2016 – 2017, not into 2018.
The interesting line in the 2nd chart is the one at the top for the 2016 (Sept) to 2017 (Aug) — it is gray.
Trying to be helpful, but maybe I need more sleep.
I guess the charts start and end at Astronomical Autumn (Sept. 23rd this year). For some reason DMI has their legend wrong. For months the 2017-18 line was blue and now it is the color of the 2016-17 line though it is actually the 2017-18. Not just here but at the source:
http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
Somebody at DMI is falling down on the job.
Thanks RAH.
Perhaps Mikkeller’s had a sale of brews.
Good Article.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-greenland-ice-sheet-2017
Despite the increase in Greenland SMB there are still plenty of the alarmist minions out there denying it’s significance. The most important significance is of course what Joe points out. It is exactly the opposite of what the alarmists predicted would happen. It contradicts their claims. And Arctic sea ice isn’t cooperating with their claims either. It is still there and it will be until a period comes when temperatures during the summer months are sustained above the 40+ mean because warmer than average temps during the winter which are still well below freezing won’t do it. And to add insult to injury the Antarctic ice sheet SMB has been growing also.
If skeptics behaved like alarmists…
Headline: Greenland Gains A Staggering 544 Billion Tonnes Of Ice In 2016-’17 – 32.5% Above The Long-Term Average And 5th Highest Mass Gain On Record!
———————————————————-
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-greenland-ice-sheet-2017
“For the 2016-17 SMB year, which ended yesterday, the ice sheet had gained 544bn tonnes of ice, compared to an average for 1981-2010 of 368bn tonnes.”
“The SMB for 2016-17 is the fifth highest in the 37-year record.”
It’s as if you stopped reading right after the paragraph you quote here …
The text continues:
Greenland didn’t gain 544 billion tonnes of ice.
Do you believe Greenland did not gain mass in 2016-’17?
Once calving is taken into consideration, Greenland lost ice mass.
“If climate changes, the surface mass balance may change such that it no longer matches the calving and the ice sheet can start to gain or lose mass. This is important to keep track of, since such a mass loss will lead to global sea level rise. As mentioned, satellites measuring the ice sheet mass have observed a loss of around 200 Gt/year over the last decade.”
https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
That isn’t what the Arctic report card will show come December (when it’s released). The loss was just -6 Gt in 2013-’14, which means it was effectively in balance that year. This year’s net change will be well into the positives. The “-200 Gt/year” you cite is heavily skewed by the average losses of -367 Gt/year between 2008-2012. Since 2012, the losses have averaged about -100 Gt/year (when including this year’s expected positive balance once the Report Card is released), meaning that there has been a dramatic deceleration in ice losses since 2012. This is likely to continue now that Greenland’s cooling trend has taken hold and the AO/NAO are in their cooling phases.
https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Greenland-Ice-Sheet-Mass-Balance-Loss-Deceleration-2.jpg
1992-2002
The apparent effects of the Mr. Pinatubo eruption on the Greenland ice sheet melt extent
“Abstract. The indirect climatological effects of major volcanic
eruptions can be of great importance because of the complex
feedbacks that exist in the global climate system. One such effectis the melt area reduction on the Greenland ice sheet. Using passive microwave satellite data for the period 1979-1995, the melt conditions of the ice sheet before and after the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruptions are examined. Statistical tests indicate that an observed drop following the eruptions has a 97% to 99% probability of being outside the limits of undisturbed variability. Furthermore, this anomaly diminishes as the time from the eruption increases. These characteristics, in conjunction with an observed increasing melt trend prior to the eruptions indicate that Mt. Pinatubo has had a significant effect on the melt conditions, and consequently the energy balance characteristics of the Greenland ice sheet”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/97GL01706/pdf
So to review, the reason why the Arctic cooled by 1.5 C from the 1940s to the 1990s was because of the US government’s failure to curb particulate emissions until the 1970s. After the American pollution was stopped with US governmental policy, the Arctic was able to warm again. Then, the reason why Greenland gained ice between 1992 and 2002 was because of a volcanic eruption in 1992.
So would the solution to keeping the Arctic from warming then be to rescind the US environmental laws so that the Arctic climate might cool again and gain more mass? If not, why not? And why do you think it is that the US can control Arctic temperatures with its policies?
According to some new papers, Greenland has contributed just 1.5 cm to sea level rise since 1901, with 0.39 of a cm in contribution between 1993-2010, and ZERO contribution (i.e., no SMB gains or losses) for the entire 60-year period between 1940 and 2000.
How is it that you are convinced that CO2 emissions from humans are the problem that needs to be rectified if (a) particulates and aerosols are capable of controlling warming and cooling in the Arctic, and (b) the total anthropogenic effect on the GIS’s contribution to sea level rise has been just 0.39 of a cm in the 70 years since 1940? Why is 0.39 of a cm of sea level rise contribution from the GIS worrisome to you?
So once again we have an alarmist that seems to believe that calving is a nearly instant reaction to snowfall in the accumulation zone. Never mind it generally takes years and sometimes a century or more for most of the snow to first change to névé and firn and then be compressed by the weight of subsequent build up to become part of the ice sheet.
Glaciers are far from perfect solids, they can be elastermeric in nature. They can compress and then stretch and other times crack and break depending on the conditions. Their flow is determined by many factors including friction, temperatures, topography and geology. But to hear these alarmists that are alarmed that there was an increase in the Greenland ice sheet SMB one would thing that the instant a snowflake falls in the accumulation zone a snow flake must fall into the ocean at the terminus.
It doesn’t matter at what time the additional ice mass calves/melts. You guys are wrongly interpreting the SMB graphs as if the ice mass of Greenland would be actually increasing. Without the lost ice mass during that period you can’t tell whether the ice mass increased or decreased.
From 1992 to 2002, the Greenland ice sheet gained mass. Can you explain why that occurred, SebastianH, since human CO2 emissions exploded during that time?
–
http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/icesat/publications/IGS/mass_changes_2005.pdf
“Changes in ice mass are estimated from elevation changes derived from 10.5 years (Greenland) [1992-2002] … of satellite radar altimetry data from the European Remote-sensingSatellites ERS-1 and -2. The Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins (–42 ± 2 Gt/yr–1 below the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA)) and growing inland (+53 ± 2 Gt/yr–1 above the ELA) witha small overall mass gain (+11 ± 3 Gt/yr..)
–
Also, the warming period for the Greenland ice sheet lasted from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. It’s been flat to cooling since then. The early 20th century warming was more substantial for Greenland than it was during the most recent warm period. Can you explain why this happened considering the more recent Greenland climate had about 100 ppm more CO2 concentration? And what was the mechanism that caused the more substantial 1919-1933 warming?
–
http://polarmet.osu.edu/PolarMet/PMGFulldocs/box_yang_jc_2009.pdf
“The annual whole ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming.”
Kenneth, please explain this graph to us:
http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/files/2014/05/GrnToday_Fig7_16May.png
It’s a graph of the Greenland Ice Sheet that begins with a period of time when the Greenland Ice Sheet gains surface mass (1961-1990) and then ends in 2013, when the SMB losses were the most pronounced since the 1930s. Had you used a longer-term record of SMB, it would look like this (notice that the 1961-’90 period has a much higher SMB, which is why I assume you chose to start in those years):
https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Holocene-Cooling-Greenland-Ice-Sheet-Surface-Mass-Balance-Fettweis-08.jpg
Fettweis et al., 2008 “The rate of warming in 1920– 1930 is the most spectacular as pointed out by Chylek et al. (2006). Finally, Greenland climate was colder around 1920 and, in the 1970s and 1980s. The temperature minimum (resp. maximum) seems to have occurred in 1992 after the Mont Pinatubo eruption (resp. in 1931). The warm summers of recent years (1998, 2003, 2005), associated with large melt extent areas (Fettweis et al., 2007), seem to be less warm than these of the 1930s, as also pointed out by Hanna et al. (2007).”
“The absolute minimum [surface mass balance] occurred around 1930 with a SMB anomaly near −300 km3 yr−1 . Secondary (minor) SMB minima appear to have occurred in 1950 and 1960, equalling the surface mass loss rates of the last few years (1998, 2003, 2006). … After the 1990s, the GrIS SMB decreases slowly to reach the negative anomalies of the last few years, although the summers of the 2000s were not exceptional compared to 70 yr ago”
And do you now get the difference between SMB as you are using it and net SMB?
What, exactly, is the distinction between what you’ve fabricated that I thought about the SMB and what you now apparently think I “get” that you are disingenuously trying to assert here, SebastianH? Nothing has changed about what I thought or wrote. I have no idea what your fabricated position is that you are falsely attributing to me.
Why was the surface mass balance as low or lower in the 1930s compared to today? Why did the SMB gain ice during the 1961-1990 baseline period…since CO2 emissions exploded during that time? Why did you start your SMB graph in 1960 instead of, say, 1920? Were you trying to hide the oscillation and lack of net SMB change in the last 90 years?
The DMI Arctic Temperature graph is based on a 44 year mean.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
As for the Carbon Brief article I give then a thumbs up for acknowledging the changes in the SMB of the Greenland Ice sheet that occurred this year but IMHO GRACE data for measuring ice mass is worse than useless.
Tony Heller’s graphic on the loss/gain at the Arctic is interesting and inconvenient view for the climate unrealists such as Al Gore…
https://i0.wp.com/realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Image709_shadow.png
And don’t forget all this fits so well with your other recent post https://notrickszone.com/2017/07/12/swiss-daily-record-cold-july-in-greenland-alarmists-struggling-to-explain-as-arctic-island-cools/
A post where the climate unrealists had no argument to offer, or at least extremely weak ones.
It will probably be the same here. Alarmist can not fight the reality of the cooling that has affected Greenland.
Another comment in the spam???
Meanwhile down in Australia, even the “raw” data is almost certainly being corrupted by the recording practices.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2017/09/two-decades-temperature-data-australia-not-fit-purpose/
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2017/03/01/how-temperature-is-measured-in-australia-part-1/
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2017/03/21/how-temperature-is-measured-in-australia-part-2/
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/09/bom-scandal-one-second-records-in-australia-how-noise-creates-history-and-a-warming-trend/
Looks like the ski season will start early on the Zugspitze.
http://www.onthesnow.com/oberbayern/zugspitze/webcams.html
And that mountain is a baby compared to many others in the Alps.
Have climbed and skied that mountain several times but the one I remember most vividly was in 87-88 when we got caught above the tree line in the worst storm to hit Bavaria in 10 years. We got caught between the emergency hutte below and the facilities at the top in total white out conditions so we spent the night on the side of the mountain. It was a very long night.
Snow down to 2000m on the Kitzsteinhorn, Austria.
This is good early season news- We have a ski chalet in Kaprun.
We will be going over soon- by air.
Do we give a stuff about our CO2 footprint?
Of course not- it is meaningless.