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posted by martyb on Thursday March 07 2019, @03:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the global-warming-vs-local-cooling dept.

The largest of the great lakes in the United States, Lake Superior

Lake Superior’s ice coverage has greatly surpassed expectations this year.

Earlier in the season, forecasters predicted the lake would reach a little more than 50 percent ice coverage this winter. But as of Friday, Lake Superior was over 85 percent covered, far exceeding the prediction and the lake’s long-term average of 55 percent, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, or GLERL.

This year’s frigid conditions triggered the rapid expansion of the ice that exceeded predictions, said Jia Wang, a research ice climatologist and physical oceanographer at GLERL.

[...] Earlier this week, ice coverage increased about 10 percent within 12 hours, rising from around 75 percent at 2 p.m. Wednesday to nearly 85 percent by 2 a.m. Thursday.

[...] The last time the lake ice reached 100 percent coverage was 1996, which is the only time 100 percent coverage on Lake Superior has been noted since records started in 1973, according to GLERL data.

http://www.ironmountaindailynews.com/news/local-news/2019/03/lake-superior-ice-coverage-nears-90-percent-exceeding-predictions/

[Updated to fix title; changed "Exceeds 90 Percent" to be "Exceeds 85 Percent". --martyb]


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday March 07 2019, @03:38PM (34 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday March 07 2019, @03:38PM (#811151) Homepage
    Let's hope nobody tries to conflate that with global concepts, such as climate change.

    Number of days below -10C here this year: 0, way way way below expectation

    Number of days I've worn longjohns in the last 3 years: 0, way way way way way below expectation (I'm getting older, for pity's sake, I should be feeling it more.)

    There you go, a north-eastern european local weather story to complement the north-eastern american weather story.
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday March 07 2019, @03:47PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday March 07 2019, @03:47PM (#811157) Journal

    There have been a lot of AC-submitted "damn, the world is so cold" stories lately.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:45PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:45PM (#811274)

      Solar minimum. We're getting 0.1% less energy than usual.
      Correlates to my personal non-data perception of a colder and longer winter than usual (just when the furnace has been dead for a month, which is not an emergency in SoCal).

      Doesn't change the fact that this year will be in the top ten warmest years on record.

    • (Score: 2) by DavePolaschek on Friday March 08 2019, @02:19PM

      by DavePolaschek (6129) on Friday March 08 2019, @02:19PM (#811527) Homepage Journal

      There have been a lot of AC-submitted "damn, the world is so cold" stories lately.

      That's because we're all so very important and influencing our opinions is a surefire way to change the world.

      Somewhat related, I just noticed that the sarcasm tag is actually supported now. Doesn't render to anything, but...

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @03:55PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @03:55PM (#811159)

    Let's hope nobody tries to conflate that with global concepts, such as climate change.

    It is possible we will see every country/continent/region individually cooling while still having global warming:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox [wikipedia.org]

    So even though everyone feels colder, and locally (everywhere) it really is colder, the earth as a whole is still warming.

    • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:11PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:11PM (#811212)

      Oh crap we were totally wrong but now we can sell this as if we were right please send money

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:49PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:49PM (#811244)

        I have never seen a fund raiser for climate change research, but i have seen one for a stupid wall!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:06PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:06PM (#811353)

          Maybe one of those two things willa ctually do something useful.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 08 2019, @01:29AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 08 2019, @01:29AM (#811423) Journal

          I have never seen a fund raiser for climate change research

          OTOH, I see them all the time. But that may be due to adverse climate change in my locale. For example, here's a great example [procon.org] from 1988.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:24PM (1 child)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:24PM (#811224) Journal

      While that's a "this could explain it if it were the observation", it doesn't match actual observations, so it's not needed.

      What explains the reports is that people are more likely to want to tell others if they're unhappy. So the "freely submitted reports" is a strongly biased sample.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:21PM (#811264)

        Can you imagine the media trying to explain that scenario to people though?

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 08 2019, @01:31AM (9 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 08 2019, @01:31AM (#811425) Journal

      It is possible we will see every country/continent/region individually cooling while still having global warming:

      Because in that hypothetical situation, you would still have the three quarters of the Earth's surface covered by oceans. BUT if those oceans also show individual cooling, then you've run out of room for Simpson's paradox to apply. The whole is after all the sum of the parts.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @02:12AM (8 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @02:12AM (#811435)

        No, in Simpson paradox every subgroup can be cooling while still having an overall warming.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 08 2019, @04:24AM (7 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 08 2019, @04:24AM (#811455) Journal

          No, in Simpson paradox every subgroup can be cooling while still having an overall warming.

          No, that is not Simpson's paradox. For arithmetic means over such sets, like the temperature of regions of the Earth's surface, Simpson's paradox is that a proper subset, even a nearly complete one can mathematically have a very different mean than the whole due to far different values in the parts left out.

          But once you have everything counted, you have the whole. And Simpson's paradox no longer applies. For a math proof, suppose we have N components with fractional weight x_k (fraction of surface area in the case of calculating mean temperature of the surface of the Earth) and mean temperatures for each part is T_k, thus, the formula for the mean temperature of the whole is the sum of x_k*T_k, k=1 ... N (with sum of the x_k equal to 1). If each T_k is less than a temperature T, then the corresponding term of the average, x_k*T_k x_k*T. Thus, the average, sum of x_k*T_k (sum x_k)*T = 1*T = T. That is, if the temperature of every part is less than T, then so is the average temperature.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @04:51AM (6 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @04:51AM (#811462)

            That isn't what the data is like. You need to have a variable number of stations in each region for each year and calculate a trend for each, then the overall trend using all the stations at once.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 08 2019, @06:13AM (5 children)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 08 2019, @06:13AM (#811469) Journal

              You need to have a variable number of stations in each region for each year and calculate a trend for each, then the overall trend using all the stations at once.

              Which has nothing to do with Simpson's paradox.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @08:40AM (4 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @08:40AM (#811485)

                Sure it does, the final average isn't just the average of the regional averages.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 08 2019, @03:14PM (3 children)

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 08 2019, @03:14PM (#811539) Journal
                  Then it is not a average, final or otherwise. Words have meaning.
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @03:44PM (2 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @03:44PM (#811558)

                    I don't think you even looked at the simpson's paragraph page, it is all due to varying sample sizes.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @04:24PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @04:24PM (#811580)

                      Blame autocorrect: paragraph -> paradox

                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 08 2019, @05:03PM

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 08 2019, @05:03PM (#811591) Journal

                      I don't think you even looked at the simpson's paragraph page, it is all due to varying sample sizes.

                      The original assertion that all regions of the world can have cooling trends while the global temperature is warming is still wrong. The example given in the article was of grouping observations along the same parameter that the trends were determined along. That introduces observation bias. That bias doesn't exist when one groups temperature readings by spatial region and looks at temperatures in time. One no longer has the conditions leading to the spurious trend creation.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 07 2019, @04:21PM (12 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday March 07 2019, @04:21PM (#811178)

    Would be interesting if this sudden increase in greenhouse gasses leads to a "polar wobble" that effectively covers more of the surface in white, triggering a snowball earth scenario even with the higher greenhouse effect.

    To one's enemies: may you live in interesting times.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @04:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @04:31PM (#811183)

      You don't need a "polar wobble", just more clouds.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:35PM (2 children)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:35PM (#811232) Journal

      The thing is, it is predicted that the hot period will be followed (eventually) by a cold period. The instigator of the cold period will probably need to be something like a year with several volcanoes, or a large, but not huge, meteor impact or some such, but the hot period will warm the oceans causing lots of evaporation, so the air will be filled with water. Some external effect causing cooling will result in large snowfalls during winter, which will be reflective, keeping things cool, so things that cool quickly will cool, while the warm oceans keep filling the air with evaporated water, yielding increased snowfalls, and within a decade or two the glaciers will start marching South again.

      OTOH, this model is based around an only moderately warmer Earth. It would probably work with the 2C warmer than pre-industrial Earth, but I'm not sure it would continue to work with a 5C warmer Earth. And it assumes that the changes are slow enough that the ocean temperature can warm appropriately for the atmospheric temperature. And there are other possible feedback loops that could be broken. E.g., if the oceans warm too quickly (in local areas) the methyl cathlates could evaporate too quickly for the bacteria to eat the methane on it's way to the surface, and that would quickly produce more increased warming. (It's happened before, and the results weren't pleasant. OTOH, we might not be here if it weren't for the major extinction that that caused.)

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      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:02PM (1 child)

        by Immerman (3985) on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:02PM (#811250)

        "Eventually" is the key term.

        What a lot of people don't seem to understand, is that we're actually in a cold period now - and have been for the last 2.6 million years (around the time our species evolved into Homo Habilis). Not a full on glacial period, we're currently in an interglacial period, but still firmly in theEarth's "icehouse" state. And yes, so long as we remain here, we're due to return to a glacial period. We've been lucky - the last peak in our orbital Milankovitch cycle was unusually small, otherwise it likely would have triggered a glacial period Earth, instead we've got a few thousand more years until the next full-sized peak.

        The most severe risk with global warming is that there's a very real chance that global we could warm things up enough to trigger the runaway process to tip things out of the icehouse state, back to the "hothouse" state it was in when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. That does away with the icecaps and glacial periods entirely, but seems to involve far less stable climates than an interglacial period.

        More worryingly, even if we avoid the tipping point (and we're not sure exactly where it's at - we might be in little immediate danger, or we might already have crossed it) we're on track to warm the planet dramatically faster than normally happens - to accomplish in centuries what normally takes millenia. And in general, the faster the climate changes, the harder it is on the ecosystem. And by extension, the harder it is on us overpopulated humans that are already balancing tenuously on top of an ecosystem that can't sustainably provide enough biological resources to keep up with our demand.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:08PM (#811355)

          Unlike you I am far more worried about real threats not some maybe few thousand years form now. Real threats are, as always, the Communists, and the public's insistance on giving them fucking power.

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:39PM (5 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:39PM (#811273)

      I don't think it works that way. Here's why: When your polar cold zone shifts, the warmer temperate air shifts with it, melting away the ice that might have formed. Just because cold air moves doesn't mean warmer air stops moving, and the average global temperature right now is something like 65F, which means there's a lot more air over 32F than under 32F. This means that any albedo change doesn't last long enough to make a difference.

      For example, thanks to the recent weakening of the jet streams, I've been hit over the last few days with the edge of an arctic blast, enough to drop my temperatures into the 5-10F range at night and give me a bit of snow on the ground. That was Monday, and you're thinking "a ha, I just proved my case!" Except that today, it's above 32F, expected to get even warmer over the next few days, and that snow is going to be gone no later than Sunday.

      And that was true where I was during the more significant arctic blast that made national news back in January too: There were above-freezing temperatures for most of January so no snow on the ground before the arctic blast, 3 days of arctic blast, and then the following week had above-freezing days and nothing accumulated.

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      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:22PM (3 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:22PM (#811298)

        I don't think it works that way.

        I don't think that the world's foremost experts have more than a tenuous understanding of what's coming, and when it eventually does come - whatever it is - it will be a minority of experts who accidentally guessed correctly. (Kind of like Wall Street fund managers who "consistently beat the market, year after year," until they don't.

        As for the wobble, if it brings significant amounts of "white" significantly further south than "normal" that may be all it takes to start the next ice age. If your warm air shifts toward the poles end up being on the oceans instead of the land, that may just provide more moisture in the air with which to produce more snow...

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        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday March 07 2019, @08:23PM (2 children)

          by Thexalon (636) on Thursday March 07 2019, @08:23PM (#811327)

          I'll put this another way: Where I am, snow is a normal phenomenon, and has been for at least a century. We've gotten some arctic blasts, which can create some extra snow for a few days. But that's all, a few days, and this is in a region where snow cover used to be normal conditions from approximately November 1 through April 1.

          At least locally, your claim that global temperature increases lead to higher reflectivity are simply wrong and don't match anybody else's findings that I've been able to locate. And even if you were right about what happens at lower latitudes, which you aren't, that doesn't counteract the massively reduction in ice in the polar regions going on right now.

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          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 07 2019, @08:42PM (1 child)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday March 07 2019, @08:42PM (#811334)

            I believe I started off with "wouldn't it be interesting if..." by all appearances, yes, the supposition is false, but "wouldn't it be interesting if?"

            If, in 1985, I had predicted that 95%+ of the coral reefs in the Florida Keys would be dead and bleached due to global warming, that would have met with similar "well, obviously you are a f-ing alarmist uninformed idiot, all evidence to-date is to the contrary" push back from the locals.

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            • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by khallow on Friday March 08 2019, @01:33AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 08 2019, @01:33AM (#811427) Journal

              I believe I started off with "wouldn't it be interesting if..."

              Wouldn't it be interesting, if ... that were relevant?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:44PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:44PM (#811306)

        That warmth was the heat dome.

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:05PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:05PM (#811287) Journal

      Would be interesting if this sudden increase in greenhouse gasses leads to a "polar wobble" that effectively covers more of the surface in white, triggering a snowball earth scenario even with the higher greenhouse effect.

      Depends how high it goes.

      If it gets up to 1200 ppm, stratocumulus clouds start to dissolve. [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:47PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:47PM (#811311)

        Every retarded study simulating a flat earth with no diurnal cycle just becomes a fact to some people.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @12:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2019, @12:18AM (#811407)

    Number of days I've worn longjohns in the last 3 years: 0, way way way way way below expectation (I'm getting older, for pity's sake, I should be feeling it more.)

    Uh, maybe it's because you're FatPhil? Just sayin'