So much snow in the Northern Winter ski resorts staying open ’til summer

Remember when Dr David Viner famously said “Children wont know what snow is?”

To paraphrase Tony Heller: “Soon Children Wont Know What Science Is”.

Two weeks ago snow mass in the Northern Hemisphere hit “exceptional”. This graph below is from the Finnish Meteorological Institute and unlike other datasets includes both snow and ice. They don’t say if this is an all-time record (since 1982).

Look at that chart: Total Snow Mass for the Northern Hemisphere (excluding mountains)

[Science Daily] In the Northern Hemisphere the maximum seasonal snow cover occurs in March. “This year has been a year with an exceptionally large amount of snow, when examining the entire Northern Hemisphere. The variation from one year to another has been somewhat great, and especially in the most recent years the differences between winters have been very great,” says Kari Luojus, Senior Research Scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Credit: Image courtesy of Finnish Meteorological Institute

There are the usual we-still-believe weasel word caveats:

The weather fluctuates from one year to another and individual cold snaps in the Arctic area are not, as such, proof of the progression of climate change.

And lets not forget…individual hot snaps in the Arctic area are not, as such, proof of the progression of climate change either. Wouldn’t it be good if scientists reminded everyone?

97% of scientists are more certain than ever, but look out! We are about to be hit by the Climate Uncertainty Monster

“However, they [cold snaps] are a reminder of how climate uncertainty has increased and that we’ll have to get use (sic) to variations in the weather as the climate change proceeds,” Laaksonen observes.

And thus the scientists resort to Voodoo and post hoc excuse-making. Climate Uncertainty is the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for modelers. It legitimizes every departure from average as “proof” of their success.

What would it take to disprove them — Ten average years? Not even an ice age?

Unlike “hottest ever” press releases the researchers felt compelled to cherry pick some contrary indicators and remind us snow cover has been declining. This snowy year could absolutely *not* be part of a changing cycle.

Total amount of snow declines and snow starts to melt earlier

Lengthy series of observation times show that the total amount of snow in the Northern Hemisphere has declined in the spring period and that the melting of the snow has started earlier in the same period. Examination over a longer period (1980-2017) shows that the total amount of snow in all winter periods has decreased on average.

Also, the ice cover on the Arctic Ocean has grown thinner and the amount and expanse of perennial ice has decreased. …

Remember when skiing would end?

That was 2017

“The dream of skiing on Alpine snow is going to go away,” says Zorzanello. The loss of the beauty that once was the Alps is a just price for the damage wrought by humans—and might serve as a sufficient spur for us to begin to avoid doing more. — Jeffrey Kluger, undated, 2017 or later.

Scientists ran 300,000 years worth of climate change models at U.S. ski resorts

In just 70 years, the ski season will be markedly shorter, no matter what happens in the near future.

Subsequently, revenue from ticket sales alone will drop in the coming decades by hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. – June 20, 2017, Julie Brown

This is now:

American ski resorts to stay open until July following snowiest winter on record

It has officially been the wettest winter on record in the USA, meaning many of the country’s ski resorts have experienced the snowiest ski season in history.

Las Vegas got it’s first significant snowfall since records began in 1937. There was also record snow in Seattle, Sierra Nevada, and Minnesota and in Arizona.

UPDATE: See also the Colorado Snowpack record and the one in the Himalayas.



h/t Andrew V

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