Brrrr. Snow in New Delhi this winter - High Probability?

This blog had been warning of one of the harshest la Nina induced winter for as long as six months now. The prediction apparently had been on track.

This winter, labeled by experts as the coldest over 100 years, it is all set to blow well into 2011. Much of the focus of this season’s brutal winter had been on Northern Hemisphere. North America, Europe, Russia and China has been hit hard for the third straight record-breaking winter season. Media headlines are now all abuzz about the siege of unprecedented blizzards and freezing temperatures, disrupting services of public transport and utilities; closure of major airports causing flight disruptions; loss of lives, in UK estimated at 300 per day (read here) while causing an endless backlog of crisis that municipalities will have difficulty managing for the foreseeable future.

So intense has been the global cooling this year, it deep froze even certain parts of the Southern Hemisphere in the middle of their summer. Snow has fallen in parts of Australia’s East Coast states New South Wales and Victoria, leaving ski resorts -  some of which are usually snow-free at this time of year - with dumps of up to four inches snow. 

India to Experience Worst Winter in Decades, Death tolls could be in Thousands!

Ann, a Russian diplomat’s 7 year daughter captured local media attention.  Prior to her first visit to India last week with her family, she excitedly painted an elephant in snow as her expectation of India! Little Ann wasn’t too wrong. India too is not immune to this cooling trend now enveloping the globe. We provide a round-up of cooling trends within the country:

Himachal Pradesh
 
Shimla, the hill station, known for the imperial grandeur of buildings that were once institutions of power when it was the summer capital of British India, has remained devoid of any prominent snow cover in recent times. Besides one mild spell of snow (8.2 cm) Jan 13, 2010, there was no snow at all in Shimla last winter. This year too there is hardly any snowfall so far. 

Shimla previously experienced snowfall on the last day of the year in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2002. However, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted that Shimla and other popular hill destinations of Himachal Pradesh are likely to witness mild to moderate spells of snow, adding to the New Year's Eve festivities.

The western disturbances are approaching and these are likely to bring snow in the high hills of the state, IMD director ManMohan Singh told the Indian Express. Western disturbances are storm systems originating from Caspian Sea and moving across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and are likely to be active from Dec 29 and expected to intensify by New Year's Eve. The higher reaches in Shimla,  Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti, Chamba, Kangra and Mandi districts and even Shimla's neighbouring hills like Kufri, Fagu and  Narkanda  are likely to get a fresh blanket of snow by then.

Manali, the popular tourist resort in Kullu valley, about 250 km from state capital Shimla, experienced its first spell of snow far back by Oct 22.  The Rohtang Pass (13,050 feet) located 51 km from Manali and Baralacha Pass (16,020 ft) similarly had heavy snowfall from last month onwards.  Meanwhile, a cold wave continued to grip the higher reaches of state with Keylong, headquarters of Lahaul and Spiti recording the lowest minimum temperature of minus 8.2 degrees Celsius. Kalpa in Kinnaur district saw a low of minus 2, while it was 0.9 at Bhuntar in Kullu district, 4.3 at Dharamsala in Kangra district and 3 degrees in Shimla town.

 Punjab & Haryana

Most parts of Punjab and Haryana are experiencing cold wave conditions with the mercury plunging below average by two to five notches in various cities, especially during mornings and late evenings. 

Haryana's Narnaul city was the coldest in the region. It shivered at a minimum temperature of one degree Celsius, which was five degrees below average. Ambala  too recorded a minimum temperature of 2.3 degrees - five notches below average - and Hisar registered 4.6 degrees, which was one degree below average. The union territory of Chandigarh recorded a minimum temperature of 5.4 degrees - one degree below average. In Punjab, Amritsar registered a minimum temperature of 2.5 degrees and Ludhiana recorded a minimum of 4.6 degrees.


Bihar & UP

Meanwhile residents of Patna city in India's eastern state of Bihar cozily wrapped themselves in many layers of sweaters and mufflers, to beat the cold wave. "We stay here on the pavement. We blaze grass to warm ourselves because we don't get wood easily, so we blaze grass to be warmed. And stay on the pavements," told Bihari Prasad, a pavement dweller in Patna to Hindustan Times.

In Uttar Pradesh, the dense fog continues to disrupt rail and road traffic. The long distance trains are running 6 to 24 hours’ delay resulting in cancellation of several trains. According to met office the night temperature is ranging between 3 to 9 degrees Celsius across the state. Bijnore recorded lowest minimum temperature of 2.4 degrees Celsius.

Jammu & Kashmir

Chilly winds and freezing temperatures also continued in the Kashmir Valley and the Ladakh region. Leh had a chilling minus 12.6 degrees Celsius; Srinagar with minus 4.2 Celsius saw thick fog while it reached minus 10.2 in Kargil town of Ladakh region. The temperature dipped to minus 4.2 in the ski resort of Gulmarg while it was minus 5.8 in the Pahalgam hill station. 

Leh that experienced a massive cloudburst disaster some months ago is the centre for rehabilitation programmes by many leading humanitarian agencies, including those like Oxfam who pursue high decibel global warming campaigns. Oxfam who are undertaking a shelter program has reportedly temporarily abandoned their efforts due to freezing conditions.

Una in Shivalik foothills shivered at 2.4 degrees Celsius while Palampur and Dharamsala recorded a low of 4 degrees and 4.5 degrees Celsius. Nahan recorded minimum night temperature of 6.4 degree C, five degrees below normal, while Keylong and Kalpa in tribal districts of Lahaul and Spiti and Kinnaur shivered at minus 8.2 degrees and minus 3.0 degrees Celsius, respectively.

Orissa

Intense cold wave continues in Orissa. The capital city of Bhubaneswar has broken the 10-year record. While the entire Phulbani district including the Daringibadi area has also broken the 9-year record in this season. While the state capital recorded a record low of 10.5 degree Celsius on Wednesday, Phulbani and Daringibadi recorded 3.4 and 1.5 degree Celsius respectively. 

The intense cold has also resulted in the death of several birds and aquatic animals. Sources in the local Met office said that most of the districts recorded temperature below 8 degree Celsius. The temperature recorded on Wednesday is as follows: Cuttack- 10.6, Jharsuguda-7.9, Sambalpur-6.1, Balangir-6.9, Sundargarh-6.4, Baripada-6.5, Bhawanipatna-7.6 and Koraput-7.5. The Met office also said that the intense cold wave condition would continue for the next 48 hours.

South India

All other regions in the country were experiencing significantly below average though not freezing temperatures yet. How far freezing weather can go south of the country during the next two months is indicated by Mysore in Karnataka where the mercury touched 9.8 degrees Celsius a couple of days back, the coldest December night for the city in 117 years. Bangalore went below 10 degrees on Christmas day. 

So will it Snow in New Delhi this winter? 

Last week, there was no let up in the cold conditions in New Delhi. The minimum temperature dropped further in the city to 4.7 degrees Celsius last Wednesday. This is in contrast to last year in December, were minimum temperatures touched only a low of 5.2 degrees during this month.

However, the all-time record for the lowest temperature December was registered in 1945, when it touched 1.1 degrees and that for January is -0.6 degrees recorded on January 16, 1935. In the recent past also near zero degree temperature (0.2 degree Celsius) was recorded on January 8, 2006. We reproduce extracts from a  blog report with a dateline Jan 08, 2006 that described New Delhi’s snow experience:

“The Indian capital Sunday saw its first winter frost in 70 years as a cold wave sweeping in from the frigid heights of the Himalayas killed more people in northern India overnight, officials said.The capital city of 14 million people ordered schools shut for three days beginning Monday as the mercury for the first time since 1935 plummeted to 0.2 degrees C (32.36 F) Sunday, leaving mounds of ice on cars parked in the open.

White-laced streets greeted early risers in New Delhi but any novelty value brought by the cold temperatures soon died as frost on power cables sparked partial power cuts across large swathes of the crowded city, the privately-run BSES utility provider said”

The Indian Met Dept has ruled out snow for New Delhi this winter season. With snow years a rare occurrence, the odds favour the IMD. This blog on the other hand gives it a 70% probability for snow in New Delhi during January-February.  Watch this space.

Hurrah! NDTV is finally grown up  

 

NDTV, one of India’s premier English new channels, is RK Pachauri, Chair of IPCC’s favourite channel. In fact this is the only channel Pachauri now gives media interview to after coming under media siege since the time IPCC’s report was exposed for a whole series of errors.  In fact the relationship between the two is seen by many as verging on an incestuous character. Pachauri was the showpiece of NDTV who displays their pseudo- green credentials each year by conducting a live 24 hour “Greenathon” programme that focussed mainly on global warming.  After the IPCC and Pachauri were discredited, the spotlight on Pachauri is greatly reduced and NDTV now fights shy to even mention climate change and the “Greenathon” programme is now has become totally core environment focussed.

Last month however, Pachauri attending the Climate Change meeting at Cancun flew down to New Delhi to make a brief appearance at NDTV’s Save the Tiger programme and then flew back to Cancun to attend its remaining sessions.  And this is the man who tells the world to give up flying to save the world from climate disaster.

But the surprise this year is that NDTV has started a campaign to raise funds to provide free blankets for the poor and the homeless to meet this winter cold. Last year, more than 1,500 people died due to the cold wave and this year’s expected harsher winter, can see the death toll spiraling in multiples of this figure so much so it threatens to emerge as a major disaster situation. Last year the Supreme Court had to direct both the Central and Delhi State governments to protect homeless deaths from the cold wave.

NDTV apparently has grown up. There are now openly acknowledging the dangers of global cooling. The surprise does not end there. NDTV blanket program is being delivered in partnership with two reputed NGOs including Indo-Global Social Service Society, an apex body of the Catholic Church. We know the scam is over when staunch global warmists start distributing blankets and hurray to that!

So far, only about 2,000 blankets have been raised. This is only a drop in the ocean in meeting the challenges the winter holds in the next two months. As a nation we need to do much more. Please support the NDTV  program or those by  any other NGOs to limit the death toll this winter that otherwise could  emerge as a major catastrophe in terms of  loss of lives.

 

“Global Warming” gets out of Control - Now creates “Global Cooling”

 


"Oh the weather outside frightful, But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow”

 

"Let it Snow", a popular song was written by lyricist Sammy Cahn and composer Jule Styne on July 1945 during one of the hottest months on record in the US state of California.

But the current situation is a little different. As one climate skeptic cynically commented “We are told the earth continues to get warmer, yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside.”  And as it does, we may logically conclude so much for global warming and the prediction of snow’s extinction.  This probably led Dr Tim Ball, a respected climatologist to comment in his blog “Nasty old Mother Nature causes the demise by going about her normal business. As the old advertisement said, it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature. The Northern Hemisphere winter is already proving once again that global warming is another undelivered government promise.”

But life apparently isn’t that straightforward.

 

Since 1998, the hottest year in recorded history, there is no statistically significant warming trend. And yet, none of the 24 models used by the IPCC view that as even possible.  Simply put, they are at odds with reality. So what do global warmists do? They precisely did what Albert Einstein warned about of science regressing into a religion whenever facts are changed to suit theory instead of the other way round.The result is, you guessed it - all this cooling is due to global warming! This led to Steven Goddard in his blog  to observe: 

“No matter what the weather did or does, climate scientists blame it on global warming. Every event in nature is now seen as a sign of global warming. If it weren’t for CO2, the weather would be different and somehow better.”

 Yet another skeptic blog was even more cynically graphic:

"As every newspaper reader outside of North Korea should know by now, a warmer world is expected to be a world perhaps with more snow, perhaps with less snow, perhaps with both; perhaps with more floods, perhaps with more droughts, perhaps with both; perhaps with more cold, perhaps with more heat, perhaps with both…

That covers more or less every possibility, apart from “no change at all”, hence it is similar to expecting at the roulette table any number between 0 and 14 and between 16 and 36, having seen “15″ come out several times in a row.

There is no need of peer-review or statistical analysis to do that. There is not even any need to model the roulette wheel and its pockets. And as any trip to the Casino can show, there is no reward at all in betting upon such an extremely-wide-ranging set of “projections”.

Steven Goddard in his blog  rips through the claim it is the melting Arctic Ice that is correlated with the Northern Hemisphere Snow Extent by providing this graph:

 

But lets assume for a moment that global warming causes global cooling. Then what if current conditions intensify any further in line with the cold intensification seen during the last 3 winter seasons?  Logically we should be heading for another Ice Age! And yet all the so-called solutions for combating climate change are confined to tackling global warming and none for global cooling. Just think about the disastrous impact of such a line of action should global cooling be round the corner, leave alone an Ice Age.

The prediction that global temperature will rise by 4 degree Celsius by end of this century was based on those provided by UK Climatic Research Unit (CRU), East Anglia working in tandem with UK’s Met Office. This is the third consecutive year the UK Met office failed to with their winter forecast - in all these three years they predicted a mild winter in line with the UK government’s warmist policy.  Christopher Booker writing in the Telegraph castigated the Met office for blotching up their predictions creating chaos due to unprecedented snow deluging the country:

“Despite two harsh winters in succession, these were “random events”, the chances of which, after our long previous run of mild winters, were only 20 to one. Similarly, they were told in the summer, the odds against a third such winter were still only 20 to one. So it might not be wise to spend billions of pounds preparing for another “random event”, when its likelihood was so small. Following this logic, if the odds against a hard winter two years ago were only 20 to one, it might have been thought that the odds against a third such “random event” were not 20 to one but 20 x 20 x 20, or 8,000 to one”

The fact is that many sceptic climatologists hit the bulls-eye in all these three years. One of the most legendary of them is Piers Corbyn, astro-physicist who runs Weather Action. Piers Corbyn (right in the photograph) and Joe Bastardi of Accuweather (left)  in the photograph) are among the best in the business of weather forecasting, though I tend to rate Corbyn topping the list. 

He is the bane of global warming alarmists. They call him names, send him threats, and don’t want his work to appear in academic publications. He also predicts the weather correctly about 85% of the time. And London’s city government isn’t the only organization that is listening to Corbyn rather than the official climate orthodoxy who has been wrong year after year. Here’s an extract from the Telegraph interview of Corbyn:

“Do you remember? They [The British Met Office and the Global Warming Orthodoxy] said it would be mild and damp, and between one degree and one and a half degrees warmer than average. Well, I am now 46 and that means I have seen more winters than most people on this planet, and I can tell you that this one is a corker.

Never mind the record low attained in Northern Ireland this weekend. I can’t remember a time when so much snow has lain so thickly on the ground, and we haven’t even reached Christmas. And this is the third tough winter in a row. Is it really true that no one saw this coming?

Actually, they did. Allow me to introduce readers to Piers Corbyn, meteorologist and brother of my old chum, bearded leftie MP Jeremy. Piers Corbyn works in an undistinguished office in Borough High Street. He has no telescope or supercomputer. Armed only with a laptop, huge quantities of publicly available data and a first-class degree in astrophysics, he gets it right again and again.

Back in November, when the Met Office was still doing its “mild winter” schtick, Corbyn said it would be the coldest for 100 years. Indeed, it was back in May that he first predicted a snowy December, and he put his own money on a white Christmas about a month before the Met Office made any such forecast. He said that the Met Office would be wrong about last year’s mythical “barbecue summer”, and he was vindicated. He was closer to the truth about last winter, too.

He seems to get it right about 85 per cent of the time and serious business people – notably in farming – are starting to invest in his forecasts. In the eyes of many punters, he puts the taxpayer-funded Met Office to shame. How on earth does he do it? He studies the Sun.

He looks at the flow of particles from the Sun, and how they interact with the upper atmosphere, especially air currents such as the jet stream, and he looks at how the Moon and other factors influence those streaming particles.

He takes a snapshot of what the Sun is doing at any given moment, and then he looks back at the record to see when it last did something similar. Then he checks what the weather was like on Earth at the time – and he makes a prophecy.

I have not a clue whether his methods are sound or not. But when so many of his forecasts seem to come true, and when he seems to be so consistently ahead of the Met Office, I feel I want to know more. Piers Corbyn believes that the last three winters could be the harbinger of a mini ice age that could be upon us by 2035, and that it could start to be colder than at any time in the last 200 years.”

I’m dreaming of a White Christmas: A Carol with Global Warmist Undertones

 “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas, just like the ones I use to know.”
  

 This had to be one of the most recognizable song lyrics out there during every Christmas season. I first got to know of “White Christmas” many, many years ago while growing up as a small boy in the streets of Singapore. Like many in the tropics,   I had absolutely no idea what a "White Christmas" was then, and even thought vaguely  it referred to Santa Claus white beard, but it did not stop me from singing that song made famous the world over by the crooning of the legendary Bing Crosby.

"White Christmas" was actually written in 1940 by an Irving Berlin for the 1942 movie "Holiday Inn" starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. Berlin was in fact a Jew who found writing a song about Christmas most challenging, not belonging to the Christian faith. He drew upon his experiences of his childhood holidays in New York and Los Angeles, including Christmas Trees erected by neighbors when he was a boy. Little did Berlin know that the song will become an old time favorite, even after 60 long years. 

Songs often reflect the times. As seen from the graph, the period 1915-45 was a period the globe experienced warming at a scale matching those seen during 1977-2000. In fact the warmest year for USA remains 1934 and then only 1998 according to NASA data. A snow covered Christmas Day was a rarity then and Berlin captured within its lyrics the nostalgia when snow was more common, perhaps explaining the sheer magnetism the song holds. 

The planet undergoes a warm-cool oscillation on an average, every 25-30 years, correlating highly with a climatic phenomenon called Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) as seen in the graph. Living almost in a quarter of a century within the same cycle will tend to prompt almost anybody to forget what it meant living in an opposite cycle. As was the case of Berlin in the 40s, it was also the same at turn of the millennium, wherein almost two decades of warming made most forget that a global cooling mode is next to come as part of earth’s natural climatic variability.  An article in the UK’s Independent newspaper with a dateline 20 March 2000 best illustrated this popular fallacy when it predicted snow will become extinct:

“Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren't going to know what snow is”

Dr David Viner was of course a global warmist scientist belonging to UK’s premier climatic centre; the very same institution who predicted that that end of this millennium will see the planet warm 4 degrees Celsius, if greenhouse gases are left unchecked. It is based on their prediction that each year delegates from 190 countries gather to negotiate a treaty to cutting emissions to save the world from such a catastrophic temperature rise, as it took place in Cancun a few weeks ago.

How wrong the Independent was; is illustrated by the fact that 2010-2011 would be the third consequent winter which snowed in the UK. It was also the third year the CRU got their winter forecast, as the latter predicted three consequent milder winters in line with their global warming worldview. Last year bookies in the UK lost lot of money when a White Christmas materialized and this year, they are taking no chances, they have already slashed heavily the odds for it. Piers Corbyn of Weather Action, undoubtedly one of the best weather forecasters in the world, if not the best, predicted  that this Christmas for  UK is heading for a snow storm worst in 100 years. The blog ClimateRealists covers Corbyn’s prediction for Europe & UK:

 “Britain will be buried by the worst blizzards in almost a century in the coming days - as 12 inches of snow and 60mph-plus winds create 6ft snowdrifts and cause transport chaos.”

Piers Corbyn predicts much of the same for much of the Northern Hemisphere. For US, he predicts:
 

"The Midwest has already had tremendous snow deluges around 10-12 December but 'You ain't seen nothing yet' compared with what is going to hit NE USA including New York State in the period 25-31st December. This is likely to be one of the most significant snowfall/blizzard periods in NE & East USA for decades"

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) says the probability of below normal minimum and maximum temperatures for the country is high at 60-80 per cent in the northwest plains of India. The other global centres also predict high probability of below normal temperatures this winter. "The probabilistic forecast of temperatures issued by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (IMD) also indicates a high probability of below normal temperatures during the three months period of December 2010 to February, 2011. The mean minimum and maximum temperature for the month of December is 8.2 degree Celsius and 23 degrees. For January, it is 7.3 degree Celsius and 21.1 degrees while for February, it is 10.1 degrees and 21.1 degrees respectively.

The Himalayan states froze one month earlier than usual and as they did winter cold spreads in India early too. People in Kashmir shivered with the minimum temperature in Srinagar on 12th December being minus 3.8 degrees Celsius while it was minus 15 and minus 10 in Leh and Kargil towns of Ladakh region respectively. Kashmiris have already started wearing the loose 'pherans' under which they keep their 'kangris' or low-fire earthen pot woven into a willow wicker basket. Winter also tightened its grip on Himachal Pradesh. Keylong was the coldest town at a minimum temperature of minus 5 degrees Celsius. State capital Shimla recorded a minimum of 3.8 degrees, a slight fall of mercury from the previous day.

Also feeling the chill were tourists in Rajasthan's only hill station of Mount Abu, where the mercury dipped to minus 1.5 degrees Celsius. 'The state is already experiencing two to three degrees below normal temperatures. The Southern states under the NE Monsoon effect have already been a below normal in temperatures for a couple of months now. Only northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were yet to feel the chill. But this could change by Christmas as the cold wave really begins in the country.

However, IMD forecast does not indicate the possibility of snowfall in Delhi. The all-time record for minimum temperature in Delhi for the month of December is 1.1 degree Celsius recorded on December 26, 1945 and that for January is -0.6 degrees recorded on January 16, 1935. In the recent past also near zero degree temperature (0.2 degree Celsius) was recorded on January 8, 2006. So would IMD be right as they were with their Monsoon forecast or end up with mud on their faces? Watch this space!

 

Cancun Climate "Deal": A Mirage of Progress

Not perfect, no treaty, not binding, fails to establish a firm date for negotiators to reach a conclusion on a new climate treaty, but a deal has been struck. The agreement says that developing countries will have to take "nationally appropriate actions" to curb their emissions by 2020. Hence, developing nations don't have to take targeted emission cuts like their developed counterparts. And the developed countries need not have any legally binding commitments.  A compromise to accommodate everyone (almost everyone, except for Bolvia)  ......The deal  made a grab for the lower hanging fruits and includes a Green Climate Fund that would give $133 billion a year in aid to poor nations by 2020, measures to protect tropical forests and ways to share clean energy technologies. These are sops to the developing countries for their part in the compromise. The only problem is that the details in operationalizing these measures are still not finalized.

If we listen to the spin of the UN and government delegates, even to our own Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Environment,  we might get the idea that a lot was accomplished and the world is truly well on the way toward solving the imaginary problem of global warming. Even observers from the environmental community applauded the outline, describing the compromise agreement as modest progress. "It puts us on a path so the process can keep MOVING FORWARD" said David Waskow, climate change program director for Oxfam America, adding that although "it's not everything we want, we're pleased."

How pleased David? Should Oxfam be pleased even when the US and BASIC (Brazil, India, China and South Africa) countries are pleased with the outcome? The BASIC countries were accused a year back at Copenhagen by the same environmentalists and Climate Justice movement, in which Oxfam was apart, for forging an evil axis with the US and torpedoing a comprehensive climate agreement. India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, the master strategist of BASIC countries,  called the present deal "a historic achievement" and noted that India had played a key role in crafting it. The United States, the only nation that didn't sign the Kyoto Agreement, rendering it useless, has always been one of the major stumbling block in reaching a comprehensive agreement on climate. U.S. negotiator Todd Stern said, "What we have now is a text that, while not perfect, is certainly a good basis for MOVING FORWARD." (Notice the similar line echoed by Oxfam)

What both Ramesh and Stern failed to mention was that the Cancun agreement basically cements and flesh out key elements of the Copenhagen Accord, the controversial deal brokered among President Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa in a closed door meeting last year. That should tell us something right there. And so if both US and BASIC are happy, rest assured, then nothing significant was accomplished. In fact the seeds of destruction of the climate hysteria has already been sown.

Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, "The big issues are still unaddressed". So desperate they were for a deal, Cancun papered over big and divisive issues such as  Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2 years. Japan, Canada and Russia wants to opt out but developing countries consider such a step a deal breaker in arriving at a comprehensive climate treaty in future.  Equally important issue is the bleak prospect of US ratifying any comprehensive climate treaty with the Republicans controlling the House of Representatives. To avoid a Kyoto type situation (sans the US), major players like India would stop ratifying any future treaty, unless and until the US first ratifies such a treaty. Rest assured, these type of issues will come back as a front burner issue next year in Durban, and it will be impossible to avoid it again

Meyer also said delegates have "bought themselves some time". That happens to be the common repetitive refrain of spin doctors at Cancun- The dream of a comprehensive international climate treaty has survived to live another day. But can it? It all depends what the global average temperature anomalies  would look like next year.

 

From the chart prepared by Roy Spencer, ex NASA, astrophysicist, for November, average global temperature anomaly stands at 0.38C. He notes in his blog:

"The tropical tropospheric temperature anomaly for November continued its cooling trend, finally falling below the 1979-1998 average…but the global anomaly is still falling slowly:+0.38 deg. C for October November, 2010. 2010 is now in a dead heat with 1998 for warmest year, with the following averages through November:

YR       MON    GLOBE      NH        SH      TROPICS
2010     11       0.381    0.513    0.249      -0.071

Notice at the end of November this year, the Tropics(Trop)  is already in negative territory, and the Southern Hemisphere (SH) demonstrating only moderately positive anomaly. It is really the Northern Hemisphere (NH) , accounting for the largest land mass in this planet, that is primarily responsible for keeping global average temperature anomaly at a relatively high level of 0.38C by commanding higher weightage and temperatures. However, this December, NH has been under a tight grip of harsh cold, in a winter described as the worst in the last 100 odd years. If NH too turns negative, then the global average temperature anomaly  should turn zero, if not negative for this month. This in turn means that not only 2010 will fail to be warmest year since 1998, but from now on, due to the strong La Nina effect, which is expected to last through the first quarter of 2012, the  year 2011 will be in contention to be one of the coldest in recorded history, with coming January and February to be extremely cold, as never before in recent years.With this winter, global climate would have firmly shifted into the global cooling mode for the next 25-30 years.

Nothing exceptional has changed in twelve months between Copenhagen and Cancun, in terms of political divide between developed and developing countries. So what explains the compromise at Cancun? Perhaps everyone knows that the global warming scam is over, the climate turning decisively against them. This perhaps explains why countries like Japan, Canada and Russia are now embolden to break ranks by threatening to ditch Kyoto Protocol. For developing countries, particularly the small island states, they too recognize that with the scam over, the possibility of large scale wealth transfer from North to South has become bleak, so they are prepared to grab the lower hanging fruits and be content. Perhaps David Waskow, climate change program director for Oxfam America, was not too wrong. The mood at Cancun could well have been "It's not everything we want, we're pleased"

Cancún hit by coldest ever December. Who says Gaia has no sense of humour?

For several years now, we sceptics have bemusedly eyed a phenomenon known as “The Gore Effect”, in veneration of Global Warming’s High Priest and US ex-Vice President, Al Gore.  It describes almost a seemingly causal relationship of temperature decrease whenever global warming or when a global warming event is held. The Gore Effect" has rather a long and uniquely entertaining history. In simple terms, it strikes the warmists whenever and wherever they gather as if Mother Nature herself is mocking their climate hysteria. There’s however no scientific proof that The Gore Effect is anything more than a humorous coincidence.

“You can’t fool Mother Nature,” said climate sceptic scientist and meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo. “We used to kid in forecasting that whenever we were very certain about a major forecast, it would wind up being so dead wrong that we’d be embarrassed. It certainly makes you think.”

Tracking The Gore Effect “doesn’t contribute much to the actual making of policy,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Republican spokeswoman Lisa Miller. But it “can be fun.”

Denmark has a maritime climate and milder winters than its Scandinavian neighbours. It hasn’t had a white Christmas for 14 years and only had seven last century. Yet, last year, temperatures fell as low as minus 8 Celsius forcing climate justice activists, who came to Copenhagen little prepared for such “climate, to rush to buy warm wear at exorbitant prices.  And as world leaders flew into Copenhagen to discuss a solution to global warming they faced freezing weather as a blizzard dumped 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow on the Danish capital.

Obama still managed to cobble a “feeble” agreement in Copenhagen which he is, of course, termed as “unprecedented.” Nancy Pelosi, the then Chair of the House of Representatives and the large US congressional delegation cut their trip short to beat the snow. Obama stayed a little bit longer, but even he ended up departing early. TV news channels captured him on tape rushing past a host of journalists to leave the snow-covered Copenhagen summit just in time to catch the East Coast blizzard. “Because of weather constraints in Washington, I am leaving before the final vote," the President said as an explanation that caused a burst of laughter for shivering flock of journalists covering the event.  Reports the New York Times “Obama landed at Andrews Air Force base at 1 a.m. Saturday and the encroaching weather led him to take a motorcade rather than the usual helicopter hop to the White House.” And by the time, he reached the snow deluged White House, he gained a much deeper understanding why it was called just that - the White House!

This is why we sceptics cannot but just love the Gore Effect. And while global warmists anxiously waited for a Global Climate Treaty, we on the other hand waited with bated breath for the Gore effect to play out. Cancún has a tropical climate, specifically a tropical wet and dry climate with little temperature differences between seasons, but pronounced rainy seasons. The city is warm year-round, and moderated by onshore trade winds, with an annual mean temperature of 27.1 °C (80.8 °F). This placed the odds stacked heavily against a Gore Effect strike Cancun. And yet, it didn’t fail us. For six consecutive days during the Cancun Meet, temperatures hit a 100 year low!

Dr. Roy Spencer, ex-NASA and well known astro-physicist who was in Cancun writes in his his blog:

“Today’s my first full day in Cancun at COP-16, and as I emerged from my hotel room I was greeted by a brisk, dry, cool Canadian breeze. It was 54 deg. F (12.2 C) in Cancun this morning — a record low for the date. (BTW, Cancun is nowhere near Canada).Al Gore is not supposed to be here…but it could be that the Gore Effect has announced his secret arrival. We will check into this”

Conservative Party Member of European Parliament (MEP), Roger Helmer writes in his blog:

“I’m here at the UN’s Cancun Climate Conference—or COP16 (Conference of the Parties) in the jargon.  The last two COPs in Poznan (2008) and Copenhagen (2009) were (ironically) characterized by exceptionally cold weather.  I can’t say that there’s December snow in Cancun, but locals tell me it’s exceptionally cool for the time of year.  But then again, that’s Climate Change for you!

This is the world’s travelling circus; the moveable feast; the great eco-love-in.  We have some 15,000 delegates (including me — I’m accredited for the EU which is a great irony since I am hugely sceptical of the EU as well as the myth of man-made climate change).  Of course 99% of the delegates are paid-up true believers in Al Gore’s Great Climate Myth, so everyone here agrees with each other, reinforcing their opinion that Al Gore’s view is the only sane view to have.  I take a profoundly different view though.”

The Cancun Meet started with an invocation to Mayan Goddess, Lxchtel. Doug Powers writing in a blog cheekily commented:

“One thing’s for certain: Lxchtel, the Mayan Moon Goddess to which the global warming summit people are praying, is not only wearing her insulated bra and heated underwear in Cancun this week, but she also has a helluva sense of humour”

Is Gaia, the Greek Goddess personifying Earth, often called Mother Earth, trying to tell global warmists something significant through the Gore Effect? Till recently, global warmists tried very hard not to take the hint. No more. Enter George Monbiot - author and columnist for the Guardian, and the recipient of a United Nations 500 award for environmental achievement. Among his bestsellers was  The Age of Consent: a Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State. Monbiot is often considered the Pope of the journalist community of the Global Warming world and arch rival of James Delingpole, in our own sceptic camp. Monbiot recently wrote in the Guardian a post entitled “Cancún climate change summit: Is God determined to prevent a deal?” :

“Every time anyone gets together to try to prevent global climate breakdown, He swaths the rich, densely habited parts of the world with snow and ice”

Monbiot is apparently greatly depressed by the worst winter in 100 years that hit the Northern Hemisphere that coincided with the Cancun meet. What he doesn’t realise is that plunging temperatures so far is just a foretaste of what is yet to come in January-March. So what can we expect from Monbiot in the months ahead? From depression to a complete nervous breakdown??


 

Cancun Speeds up the end of Climate Hysteria

The run-up to Cancun was no different to those of previous climate meets. The alarmist machine was busy overtime cranking out scenarios, reports, research and propaganda on the evils of a carbon-based economy. Their favourite had been the claim that 2010 ties with 1998 for the warmest year on recorded history - both super El Nino years. Why would they do that we may ask as it only confirms an absence of evidence that global warming is demonstrating an accelerating trend in the last 12 years. Christopher Booker jocularly commented:

“The prediction that global temperatures will rise by four degrees in 50 years comes from that same UK Met Office computer which five weeks ago was telling us we were about to enjoy a milder than average winter, after three years when it has consistently got every one of its winter and summer forecasts hopelessly wrong.

When Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s Head of Climate Change Advice, wanted to fly out from Gatwick to Cancun to tell them that 2010 is the hottest year on record, she was trapped by inches of the same global warming that her £33 million computer had failed to predict.”

However the most outlandish of these offerings during the run-up to Cancun had been that permafrost containing an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, being released at an accelerating rate as Arctic climates change. Alarmist claimed the release of methane could have a significant impact on the rate of climate change. This claim made despite arctic sea ice demonstrating no evidence of accelerated melt down and increase of atmospheric carbon likewise showing no runaway increase.

With United Nations climate negotiators believe facing an uphill battle to advance their goal of reducing emissions linked to global warming, it's no surprise that the woman steering the talks appealed to an ancient Mayan goddess Monday. The Cancun conference began with an invocation of goddess Lxchel. Yes you heard it right. Lxchel! As reported by the blog Newsbusters:

"Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Lxchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Lxchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also "the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you -- because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools?"

The low expectations of the Cancun UNFCC, COP 16 however misleads as it gives an impression that almost nothing will materialize as tangible outcomes. Invocation to Lxchel aside, judging from the first week proceedings, we climate sceptics are being forced to radically revise this faulty perception. With all humility we confess, we were wrong, so wrong. Never in our wildest imagination did we expect Cancun would set the ball rolling for the quicker end of this global warming scam.

Three developments in particular triggered our revision of perception. The most significant setback to climate alarmists was Japan’s refusal to extend their Kyoto commitments. The Guardian reported “The forthrightness of the statement took people by surprise, said one British official". Soon after Japan’s stunner came UN climate chief Christiana Figueres clarification that Japan is only one of three countries among the 36 signatories that's opposed to extending their emission targets under the pact. She announced the others being Canada and Russia! The flood gates are now open to dump Kyoto! If this is not the beginning of the end of this scam what is?

Back to low expectations, United Nations climate chief, Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica believes a single, definitive, all encompassing climate deal is unlikely in her lifetime. Similarly, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon sees no binding deal coming out this year. If the prognosis for Cancun is no legally binding climate pact possible, then Plan B was to continue Kyoto Protocol for developed countries and introduce a voluntary burden sharing for developing countries. The Kyoto Protocol had stipulated the different responsibilities and obligations for the developing and developed countries, mapped out different stages for the world to cope with climate changes and set common but differentiated responsibilities.

The US, the leading carbon emitter on per capita basis, is still a non-signatory to this treaty. India’s Environment Minister summed up this challenge when he said  before leaving for Mexico his mandate was to “play a bridge” between the US and the others. He said any climate deal without the US on board would not be worth it and exhorted America to improve its offer of a 14% emission reduction target by 2020. With the US a non-signatory to Kyoto and unlikely to do so future with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives, now combined with 3 developed countries deciding to walk out of the Protocol amount, means that Plan B also virtually goes up into flames. 

So Cancun is all about Plan C. These are attempts to gathering lower hanging fruits - mini-deals in transfer of new technology, a mechanism to monitor, verify and report emissions, setting up a climate fund amounting up to US$100 billion by 2020, a plan to reduce emissions in the world’s rain forests and a multitude of bilateral agreements on the sidelines. Seeking agreements here is like putting the cart before the horse as with Plan A & B taken out by events, there is simply no impetus for world leaders to reach agreement on Plan C. 

This brings us back to the other two major developments in Cancun. A block of developing countries accused Western delegates of being more interested in entertaining themselves in Cancun’s wonderful sunny beaches than in the on-going negotiations! This could well be negotiation tactics, but it does well be a lack of seriousness and urgency on the part of Western countries to seal up a deal at Cancun. 

The next development was as serious setback as it could be - Pachauri, Chair of UN-IPCC confessing that “There are huge gaps in the effort as far as scientific research is concerned”. If there are gaps in climate research, how valid are any way the UN-IPCC’s forecast that the world will see a more than 4C rise by the end of this millennium?  Given these doubts, why should western leaders be expected to show any urgency at all? We can now understand why they prefer the warm beach, particularly so when their countries are one foot under snow!

Besides, each of these mini outcomes under Plan C has significant obstacles in realizations. Solutions to a global climate fund is badly crippled by the contraction of carbon market by the closure of the Chicago Exchange on one hand and the economic problems faced by the US and Eurozone economies on the other hand. Besides, any agreement on transfer of new “green” energy technologies is badly hampered by the patent regime in most developed countries. This is an area which India places high importance. Being a net oil importer, the country recognizes that in future, for sheer economic reasons, it should switch to non-oil energy - so called renewable energy being one such option. This leaves agreement on forest with highest prospect of agreement among the targeted outcomes under Plan C.

The fact is that even with the existence of Kyoto Protocol, global availability of and demand for fossil fuels — oil, gas and coal — continues to climb and there isn’t a realistic outlook for future energy use that shows any signs that carbon-based energy sources are about to decline. The green energy bubble is bursting in Europe as nation after nation are slashing their subsidies to solar and wind projects, the touted alternatives to fossil fuels.  

An International Energy Agency (IEA) study indicates that carbon-based fuel use is going to increase in the future a significant way. Coal will soar as China increases its use to power its growth. A projected drop in coal-fired generation in the OECD countries is expected to be offset by big increases elsewhere, especially China, where 600 gigawatts of new capacity will exceed the current capacity of the U.S., European Union and Japan combined.

The main increase in fossil-fuel use will come from natural gas, especially shale gas, a new source of lower-carbon fuel that until two years ago did not exist as a viable fuel. Oil, meanwhile, is not running out of fashion. Despite all the talk of electric cars and green renewable, gasoline and diesel are likely to remain the main fuel for automobiles for decades, with electric cars capturing only a single-digit fraction of the market.

An expected the Cancun failure and extinction of Kyoto Protocol would give further impetus to these trends. This augurs well for countries like India who needs energy, and lots of it, to fulfill the economic dreams of our people. Fossil fuels remain the cheapest and most efficient energy source to lift our people out of poverty, particularly as we possess the fourth largest reserves in the world. Wind and solar energy technology have not attained the efficiencies to offer as substitutes while nuclear energy contain risks of accidents though offering big advantages otherwise.

This winter, predicted to the harshest in 100 years, would drive in the last nail in the global warming scam. After this the world will be firmly within the global cooling orbit for at least the next 25 years. With the scam over, the India government should remove the cess on coal impose earlier this year along with the subsidies for renewable energy products. We can expect in the coming years, the planned expansion of renewable energy capacity put on hold and only a few pilot projects undertaken to study their efficacy and R&D purposes. 

For NGOs, the end of the scam for many is an end of their number one revenue spinner. Christopher Booker sums it rather nicely “The global warming scare may have been fun for the children while it lasted. But the time has come for the joke to be declared well and truly over.” NGOs are however not expected to make a formal admission that their role in this scam is over. But it is only a matter of time their climate staff are given the pink slips, if at all it hasn’t happen already. Most of these redundant staff is unlikely to be re-assigned responsibilities as the scam taint has made them unemployable within the industry, as they become an embarrassment for both the organization and the entire sector. 

 
It is apparent that for a long, long time, NGO advocacy on any issue is not going to have a cutting edge as questions are expected to be frequently raised on their judgement of issues and competence in engaging in issues that based on science or technology. Lest we forget, is the image above. Such themes are commonly used by NGOs to raise funds and create awareness on the spectre of increasing hunger in the world. The same images will come back to haunt them. This would be the  true cost of the scam - their guilt of contributing to hunger, food riots and escalating food prices in the third world and diversion of scarce resources in the third world for solving an imaginary problem - global warming. At least, Al Gore had the humility to apologise for the promotion of bio-fuels. NGOs do not seem to have the same character and integrity as Gore demonstrated. They rather have this crime haunt their conscience.

As they discuss Global Warming in Cancun, Europe Shivers in the Coldest Winter in 100 years

Winter Dec to Feb inclusive in Britain and Europe will be exceptionally cold and snowy – like hell frozen over at times - with much of England, Germany, Benelux and N France suffering one of the coldest winters for over 100 years. It is expected that two of the three months Dec, Jan & Feb are likely to be in the three coldest for a 100 years (eg using Central England Temperatures).

This is Piers Corbyn, of Weather Action who accurately predicted Copenhagen would be deluged by snow during the Climate meet last year. This time, he predicts one of the harshest winters in recent times for whole of Europe. Read more here.

Meanwhile, Europe is getting a feel of what winter may look like this week. Temperatures dropped to as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius in some parts of Germany, while driving rain in Italy triggered the collapse of two Roman walls in Pompeii and flooding in Venice. Britain, shivering in the earliest widespread snowfalls of winter since 1993, was one of the countries worst affected with two of its major transport hubs scrapping all flights.

London's Gatwick Airport, Europe's eighth busiest passenger air hub, was shut until at least 0600 GMT on Thursday as staff worked to clear the two runways. Edinburgh Airport, Scotland's busiest, was also shut due to heavy snow showers. A spokeswoman for Gatwick said they had about 15 centimetres of snow to clear. 'We brought in extra people to try to clear the runway. We had a vast army of people. But as fast as they were clearing the snow, the quicker it settled again,' she said. Heavy snowfall also forced the closure of Geneva International Airport where around 100 stranded passengers had to spend the night in the terminal while 200 others were sheltered by the civil protection unit as hotels were fully booked. Around 60 flights at Frankfurt airport, Europe's third busiest, were cancelled as the number of takeoffs on one of the airport's runways had to be reduced because of high winds. On Tuesday almost 300 flights were scrapped. Snow and freezing temperatures also forced French aviation authorities to cancel 116 flights from Lyon airport.

There were similar widespread problems on the roads in large parts of western Europe. Part of the M25, the London orbital motorway, was shut while there were severe delays on the M1 and A1 main routes linking London with the north. In Scotland, the Forth Road Bridge connecting Edinburgh with the north was closed. In Italy, snowfalls disrupted traffic in city centres and on motorways in the northern Lombardy and Piedmont regions, while in Emilia-Romagna the Civil Protection Agency issued a bad weather warning until Wednesday evening. Snowdrifts and fallen trees also caused traffic problems in Germany as well as schools closures in parts of the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. The Bild daily said that it was the coldest December 1 in several hundred years, with temperatures as low as minus 18 deg C in some places. The mercury fell in even lower in parts of Scotland with an overnight low of minus 19.8 deg C recorded in Altnaharra in the Highlands.