Monday, December 24, 2007
Snow everywhere, and nary a reference to climate change
I am in Durango, Colorado right now, and look forward to skiing today. Durango is in the far south of Colorado, and in our experience often has not had much snow by late December. Not this year, though. Both Durango and Teluride have already had many feet up on the mountain. Even in town there is snow everywhere.
The same is apparently true in Vermont. The New York Times is running a story today about the snow on the ski mountains there, which has apparently been the best for some time ("The old-timers who have seen it all have far and away said this is the best December they remember.”).
And the same is true in Europe, where the ski season has gotten off to an early start.
Not surprisingly, none of these stories mention anything about global climate change. That makes sense, since one cannot judge what is happening to the climate over the long term by the weather in a single winter. This is even true when there are apparent trends. In Burlington, Veermont, for instance, three of the last four Decembers have had above-average snowfall, a fact which the New York Times saw fit to relate, but not comment upon:
Ski resorts are hoping that the strong start will give resorts enough momentum and a firm foundation of snow to last them through the winter.
To understand the difference, consider recent snow totals posted in Burlington, Vt. It has received 34 inches of snow so far in December, compared with 10 inches during that month in 2006, 18.4 inches in 2005 and 22.8 inches in 2004. The average for the month is 15.7 inches.
The thing is, the media reacts quite differently to anecdotal lack of snow. Last December saw unusually light snowfall in the northern hemisphere ski resorts. Then, the media did not attribute it to bad luck, but climate change. Link. Link. Link. Link. Of course, a lot of that news was driven by the United Nations beating the climate change tom-toms simultaneously with the snow drought, but that says something as well: The climate change activists there and elsewhere have not been talking about a snow shortage this year, because the northern ski resorts from the Rockies to the Swiss Alps are covered in the stuff.
It is clear that local observer bias plays a huge role in the popular perception whether or not exacerbated by the press. In the United States, climate change has -- so far -- produced generally favorable results, at least as far as humans are concerned. I argued in March that Americans are less concerned about climate change than Europeans because we like it, at least in its local manifestation. Our winters have warmed, but our summers have not, which effects have made Americans more comfortable. Europe's summers have gotten much hotter, and that has made Europeans much less comfortable. Oil industry propaganda has nothing to do with it.
People react very strongly to what they see. Note, for example, this article about the impact of the "backyard effect" winter tourism. It turns out that the depth of the snow on the mountains of New England is less relevant to the resort business than the snow on the streets of Boston and New York. People see snow out the window and think "let's go skiing." Chances are, journalists -- who are people, too -- react the same way. Piles of snow on West 43rd for a couple of winters in a row would have a better chance of changing the tone of the press coverage then four good months of skiing in Vermont.
1 Comments:
By 
Kinuachdrach, at
Mon Dec 24, 01:48:00 PM:
You didn't get the memo. Global warming means it gets warmer. It also means it gets colder. Or Drier. Or wetter.
Hence the alarmist switch from Anthropogenic Global Warming to Global Climate Change -- even though the postulated CO2 mechanism links only to warming.
Really, let's all just get over the nonsense that is being peddled by neo-Stalinists and their grant-dependent useful idiots in the scientific community.
Weather is highly variable. Think of that as "noise". Climate is a long-term issue (also known to have been continuously variable throughout geological history). Think of that as "signal".
Now, scientifically, how would one distingish signal from noise in an environment of sparse, unreliable data?
