THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 136, July 25, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CALIFORNIA SNOWFALL UNCHANGED OVER PAST CENTURY
By Dennis T. Avery
CALIFORNIA SNOWFALL OVER NEARLY THE PAST CENTURY, RECENT GLOBAL TEMPERATURE-TAKING, & THE LONGEST
SUNSPOT MINIMUM IN A CENTURY -- WHAT THE RELEVANT DATA TELLS US: NO EVIDENCE TO INDICATE
IMPENDING CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE; NO EVIDENCE OF MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING; THE EARTH NOW IN A
COOLING PERIOD; "MAINSTREAM" SCIENTISTS BLUNDERING TOWARD THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION & GOVERNMENT
GRANT MONEY.
FULL STORY:
California’s southern Sierra snowfall has not changed over the past century, according to John Christy, a native
Californian and atmospheric researcher who’s now in charge of the global temperature-measuring satellites. Christy
reconstructed snowfall records at Huntington Lake, California, from 1916–2009. The station’s data since 1972 had
been missing, but Christy found two nearby stations had very high correlations with Huntington Lake. That allowed
him to assess southern Sierra snowfall over nearly the past century.
The station’s annual snowfall averaged 624 centimeters per year, with a non-significant trend of +0.5 cm per decade.
He found similar positive, but insignificant trends, for Spring snowfall, annual stream flow, and precipitation. Nor did
he find any trend in the published regional temperatures.
Where’s the evidence of man-made global warming?
James Goodridge, then California State Climatologist, published way back in 1992 that California’s big-population
counties had a strong warming trend, medium-sized counties had a much slower increase, and rural stations almost no
temperature rise at all. Meanwhile, the number of reporting stations has fallen from 6000 in 1970 to 2000 today, with
mostly the rural stations dropped.
Concrete, car exhausts, and air conditioners have all increased over the last 40 years. Thermometers are increasingly at
sewage treatment plants that generate their own heat. The problem isn’t so much Los Angeles, which has been a big
city for more than 100 years, but the smaller urban regions that have expanded rapidly. How big is the Urban Heat Bias
now? Prominent warming skeptic Fred Singer asks whether the earth is warming only at airports.
NASA recently made a critical adjustment in mean temperature record, after famed whistle-blower Steve McIntyre
discovered an error. The adjustment lowered temperatures since 2000 by 0.15 degree Celsius per year. NASA told the
media that the change was “not significant.” But, by that standard, the U.S. warming over the past 77 years hasn’t
been “significant” either.
The earth is simply not getting the radical warming forecast 20 years ago by computer modelers such as NASA’s
James Hansen. The earth has had no warming since 1998, and temperatures began actually falling in 2007. The longest
sunspot minimum in a century is now forecasting colder weather, and the Pacific — our largest heat sink — has
shifted into a 30-year cold phase.
Recently, global temperature-taking has been obfuscated by a strong El Nino that warmed the past 12 months. Now
we’re apparently entering a La Nina, which will drop Pacific temperatures below their longterm mean until next year. It
may be several years before we can be sure whether a longer-term Pacific cooling phase has resumed.
In the meantime, President Obama is demanding that we immediately take out “climate insurance,” by blocking new
power plants and paying fabulous costs for poor-mileage corn ethanol. Harvard says it may take $7-per-gallon gas to
meet the President’s goal of cutting transport greenhouse emissions by 14 percent. Britain’s new government has just
blocked the new third runway at Heathrow Airport, to stop “binge flying.”
We’ve known for centuries about the Roman Warming, the cold Dark Ages, the Medieval Warming, and the Little Ice
Age. Are we now getting man-made warming — or just recovering from the Little Ice Age? John Christy says our
climate is still dominated by natural factors. He says clouds are the key factor. He says the evidence shows the planet
responding to heat impulses by producing more clouds, which allow more solar heat to warm it up. And vice versa.
Have our “mainstream” scientists blundered toward the government grant money?
SOURCES:
J. Christy and J. Hnilo; “Changes in the Snowfall of the Southern Sierra Nevada of California since 1916.” Energy and
Environment, Vol. 21; 2010.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., is an environmental economist. He was
formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable
Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years. Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or send
him email at cgfi@hughes.net
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