You're not alone. It's been colder than average in this area.
In the first few days of the month, average high temperatures in Seattle have been almost 6 degrees below the normal highs in the upper 60s, said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Daily temperatures have averaged less than 53 degrees, which is a far cry from the normal average of 61 in June.
Snow in the passes
The weather is so weird, forecasters were even expecting up to 2 feet of snow in the higher elevations of the Olympics and North Cascades Friday night. Up to 3 inches of snow was forecast for mountain passes above 3,500 feet, like Stevens Pass, Burg said. That also included Chinook, Washington Pass and roads to Paradise and Hurricane Ridge. The snowfall was supposed to taper off over the weekend.
It's been colder than average in most of the United States.
And, it's been colder than average in most of the world.
It would be a mistake to make too much of this cold weather. (To see why, check the graph in the last link, and note the hot spike in 1998. Many made too much of that event.) It would also be a mistake to ignore this cold weather, especially if you believe Al Gore.
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
(As usual when I discuss global warming, I suggest that you read my disclaimer, if you have not already done so.)
Posted by Jim Miller at June 08, 2008 09:57 AM | Email ThisTo the Gorebots out there:
You are but a transitional figure in this earths life span. You and your actions will not even warrant a blip on the monitor of the earth's EKG. It's a blow to your psyche I know, but it's living in a little place I like to call "reality".
No, but I'm certain the leftists will begin taxing you for "ice credits".
Posted by: saltherring on June 8, 2008 12:33 PMSince January 2007 the average global temperature had dropped 0.77 deg C (nearly 1.4 deg F). The drop in world temperatures appears to be related to shifts in ocean currents and a lack of solar activity, but these processes are supposed to have very little effect of climate according the Al Gore and his socialist greenie minions.
Eventually the media will have to begin to report this, but for now they seem to all be in denial. As crops begin to fail due to late frosts perhaps we'll hear more.
Wonder what impact a frost-kill will have on world food prices?
Oh, and by the way, this is what happened at the end of the last warm period in history. Crop failure followed by famine and plague.
Posted by: deadwood on June 8, 2008 01:44 PMIf Gore had won in 2001 he most certainly would have claimed credit for the current cooling.
Heck, we now have Obama claiming he will stop the seas from rising. These guys amaze me.
Posted by: deadwood on June 8, 2008 01:47 PMIt's just like the media-induced credit/blame given the president for the economy, which was debunked in an op-ed by Alex Alben recently linked to here, where he wrote "The hubris of presidential candidates who promise to fix the American economy if they are elected to the White House summons the image of legendary King Canute, who believed he had the power to hold back the advancing sea."
Sometimes one has to wonder how far we've really advanced from our ancestors who invoked witches & shamans to explain things. They had their shamans & witches; we've got our news media.
Posted by: russell garrard on June 8, 2008 05:28 PMBarack has only been nominated 2 days and the planet is cooling. Imagine what will happen when he is elected King.
Posted by: Andy on June 8, 2008 06:14 PMEven the slightest change in solar irradiance can and does have a dramatic impact on Earth's climate. And the only thing that can mitigate that change is a heat trapping effect of large sections of the oceans.
If an when there is simultaneously a drop in total solar irradiance (directly correlated to low sun spot activity as far back as the 1600s) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation which moves the warm water away from the Pacific Coast of North America and more out to the north central Pacific Ocean, then there has historically been cooling for North America.
Guess what folks, that historical pattern matches exactly the pattern where are seeing in empirical evidence right now, and for the last few years.
It does not matter what Al Gore and his consensus models predict if they don't match the empirical observed data as time passes. And they don't match. Al Gore and the modelers claimed we should be experiencing drastic warming right now, and we are not, but instead seeing cooling.
Al Gore is a charlatan. Anthropogenic Global Warming is provably a hoax. Empirical conditions will continue for a few more years until even the Democrat aligned MSM can no longer deny the obvious mismatch. At that point Al Gore and gang will finally be dismissed. Enjoy the entertainment, because this is what is happening. Computer models don't mean jack if they are given wrong inputs.
Do you trust thousands of years of empirical evidence with strong correlations to solar cycles, or do you trust a politician with a lot of investments in green businesses and a penchant for statist control schemes like Carbon Cap and Trade? Al Gore has been at this act since the late 1980s. Too bad the Sun did not get the memo.
The answer is simple. I will happily bet my house with whoever would like to bet, that Global Warming and drastic sea levels rises will not come to pass as predicted by Al Gore and his band of sycophants.
And why won't Al Gore debate anyone on this topic? Because he knows he is wrong. He knows that the evidence is mounting against him. And he knows that peer review for the IPCC has consisted of like minded scientists rubber stamping each other's work. Al Gore knows the gig is up, and that's why he is resorting to Ad campaigns that polls show are having zero effect.
And it all also comes at precisely the time when a long standing lack of energy policy has caused us to all suddenly feel the rising costs of years of green lobby stagnation efforts towards a realistic future. And the public is not buying the BS.
Go get a box or two of popcorn, its just getting fun to watch now.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 8, 2008 07:27 PMDidn't you know that a consensus of 2,500 of world's most qualified scientists told us only one year ago that we will have a 1 foot rise in sea level and that temperature will rise by 4.5 deg F by the year 2100?
Shame on you, trying to fool us with your contrarian "empirical" data. Every qualified scientist knows that models are the only way to measure climate and data are only valuable when "adjusted" to fit the models.
And next you will tell about those 32,000 unqualified scientists who think the other 2,500 qualified ones are wrong. Come on, do you think all of us qualified, right thinking, environmentally conscious, ethically green Algorians are stupid?
Posted by: deadwood on June 8, 2008 07:54 PMStay tuned. They can't blame Bush forever. It may take a while, but eventually the truth will be clear. There's no hiding from the economic reality that less supply creates higher prices. And the higher the prices go, the more even your coworkers will start to flail for any solution, even if that means voting for a conservative. Blue collar guys like gasoline powered toys.
And eventually everyone will connect the dots that 40 years of environmental obstructionism has led to the state we are in now. Like clockwork the dwindling supplies of winter formulation gasoline drive up the prices every year around Memorial Day. And then like clockwork, prices fall with the fall and the return of the winter formulations, which are less scarce.
Long lines and gas rationing didn't work out so well for Carter.
Time is always on the side of the rational.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 8, 2008 10:03 PMNOAA forecasters say La Nina is showing signs of weakening as temperatures in the ocean should be back to neutral status starting about now through July.… However, La Nina conditions have some momentum behind them and still exist, which is likely why we're staring out the window at a continued cool and wet start to June, just like May, April and the last half of March was.
lemme tell ya. that was hard to find. i had to google "why is it cold in seattle?" and click twice. virtually hidden.
First of all, 80 and 90 degree days are normal for some part of the summers in New York. I have often missed that kind of searing heat during my 20 year residence in the PNW.
But also when I look at the actual temperatures across the East Coast, I see a big, blood red map -- but temperatures in the 80s and 90s! In other words perfectly normal.
For my parents' zip code, we see that while it's well above average for the month, it's also 5 degrees lower than the highest.
Actuals 91°F
Averages 75°F
Records 96°F (1999)
http://www.weather.com/weather/pastweather/11420?from=36hr_topnav_undeclared
Posted by: John Bailo on June 9, 2008 08:08 AMwhen you're drinking poison at low levels, it can take some time for you to show the pain. much like the brain damage from lead paint exposure doesn't show up clearly until way after it's time to have fixed the problem.
we tend to look for verification of truth very directly. very immediate. even more than we used to be, because of televisionn, we used to have at least a seasonal or annual grasp of stuff, when farming was our livelihood. but our heads are just really not wired to handle something like a long slow earthquake that makes things unreliable. does not compute! environment must be stable! or we must leave to find another that works better!
and we can't really leave anymore so, we make up reasons that staying is ok, remaining the same is ok.
but a climate model prediction of "possible weather volatility" can be read so many different ways. for confirmation, our brains want that to be readable in our immediate surroundings. if the weather's going to be somewhat unpredictable, we want nature to lay it out obvious, so we can realign our community values around the clear new environmental situation, but we're not going to get that.
i think of it as sometimes like the moon landing. very few of us went to the moon. more than half of us now were born after the last moonwalk (before michael jackson, har har). but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. similarly, if we can't see the full extent of the current problem, and can't imagine the potential damage of the future problem, there's an inclination to say, "it's not a problem," in the same way that many say, "we didn't go to the moon" or whatever. they didn't experience it personally; it's not real. that's just not a safe approach in a world with so many people in it.
you have to watch your risks like crazy with there being so many of us because they can balloon out of control before we even know they're there. it doesn't take many people, in absolute numbers, to create a crisis for the entire population. terrorism's a great example of this. the number of people involved is tiny but the effect is dramatic and horrible.
similarly, overfishing only involves a few thousand fishing boats that you wouldn't even notice unless you were looking for them. but then -- suddenly -- millions of people are hungry. we're a long way now from subsistence.
concerning al gore, who's just one person in our billions, i think there are very few people in the world today who are doing more to save energy and reduce or improve fossil fuel use. his net impact is probably bigger than a million people's carbon footprint, combined. so how he achieves that is sort of up to him. that's paraphrasing amory lovins, the efficiency guru of gurus. he figured out that virtually every time he travelled to consult on reducing energy waste at a company, the project advice he gave offset his entire lifetime's energy use. and he did this several times a year. so you have to keep that kind of thing in perspective.
Consider that there is no state right to drive a vehicle:
"Citing the need to fight global change, it was announced today that Mayor Nickels has banned non-hybrid private vehicles on city streets by Executive Order. 'I had no other choice after that smoke spewing 1962 Cadillac flattened a Prius last week. We have to protect our planet from global warming, the safety of our air and our Priuses from huge Cadillacs! Also, the reduction in traffic accidents will reduce health costs and save children! We'll be sure to add more buses.'
The mayor of San Francisco could not be reached for comment. Sources indicate the mayor was extremely upset that Seattle didn't wait for San Francisco to do it first, like they usually do.
The actions they do favor often turn out to be actions they would favor for other reasons, as well. For example, most of those who worry about global warming would want us to switch to mass transit, whether or not global warming is a problem. (Mass transit does less for the environment than many think, especially in most of the United States, where the population is so spread out.)
Al Gore once said that it didn't really matter if Global Warming was happening or not, because it would cause us to do the things we ought to be doing, anyway. You're right, I think, with your observation.
Having followed Amory Lovins since the late '70s (yes, Virginia, history didn't start two years ago) I know he's been preaching sustainable, small is beautiful, anti-industrial revolution bicycle granola pap for around 30 years. I've noticed that there's only one kind of energy usage that's ok, and it's not what you're using now...it's something that will cost more, be available in 'perhaps' 10 or 15 years, and cause you (and society) to reorder your existence in such a way that will, by coincidence, conform with the vision they wish upon you. Coincidence, or coercive elitism? You decide.
Al Gore and Amory Lovins jet around the world, preaching material sacrifice and energy conservation. Investment in a wiser energy future, or coercive elitism? You decide.
Posted by: Das Baron Von Zippee on June 10, 2008 10:22 AMit's a fool that doesn't take savings where they come, in the course of making money.
lovins advises the oil industry, the coal industry, the electric utilities. they listen. they save. they profit.
that must kill you guys, that the business world is leaving your red-baiting crap behind, but it is, and what's more, CEOs are taking global warming seriously; insurance companies and investors are demanding it; wow, like a knife to the gut.
you can make money on wind power now. you can put a turbine on your farm, in your yard. put a solar panel on your house. sell the electricity to the grid. make money.
you can buy an efficient car, save gas money. insulate your house, save heating oil money and air conditioning money. they pay for themselves.
or you can win your little arguments in your little corners of the internet, defending web pages from communism.
sad.
Posted by: hapa on June 10, 2008 11:32 AM