While some other bloggers and journalists insist that recent winter snows are proof of global warming effects, they miss the fact that models have been predicting less snow in the norther hemisphere. See this 2005 peer reviewed paper:

It says exactly the opposite of what some are saying now. – Anthony

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Guest post by Steven Goddard

A 2005 Columbia University study titled “WILL CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECT SNOW COVER OVER NORTH AMERICA?” ran nine climate models used by the IPCC, and all nine predicted that North American winter snow cover would decline significantly, starting in about 1990.

In this study, current and future decadal trends in winter North American SCE (NA-SCE) are investigated, using nine general circulation models (GCMs) of the global atmosphere-ocean system participating in the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC-AR4)…

all nine models exhibit a clear and statistically significant decreasing trend in 21st century NA-SCE

Some of the models predicted a significant decline in winter snow cover between 1990 and 2010.

Climate Model predictions of Snow Cover Decline

As we know, winter snow cover has actually increased about 5% since it bottomed in 1989, and is now close to a record maximum.

Below is another interesting graph. It shows the number of top 100 snow extent weeks by decade. I took the top 100 weekly snow extents (out of 2227) from the Rutgers record and sorted them by decade. The past decade has been at least as snowy as the 1970s.

The past decade has had the most weeks in the top 100 since 1966.

NASA Earth Observatory Images

Above are images from NASA showing snow extent from 2001 to 2004. Below is an image from 2010, showing snow cover in all 48 states.

NOAA Image – February 12, 2010

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UPDATE: Here is a new graph of north American winter trend produced by Steve at the request of commenters:

So far, the climate models have the wrong polarity on their predictions of winter snow cover changes.

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