<p>Increased snowfall in a year or for a few years is weather, not climate change.  Reports such as "this storm" or "this season" being cause by, proving or disproving global warming are all anecdotal and serve no purpose other than to fuel those who do not understand the concepts but want ammunition to fight for their point of view to claim global warming as fact or fraud.</p>

<p>Global climate change, either towards warming or cooling promotes weather extremes.  Warming will cause change.  Some places will become colder while on average temperatures will rise.  Droughts, in general will increase, while some places will flood.  Storms though in general are all expected to be stronger.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-20T19:20:01.270Z
Also, in some places (like the Sierra Nevada) the normal pattern seems to be to cycle between very dry spells like the last 5 years or so, and very wet/snowy ones like we seem to be having (so far) this year.  So the average is not what we normally get.
jamesqf
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-19T22:42:41.097Z
2017-01-19T22:42:41.097Z
dlb
<p>The article states snowmageddon 2010. 2010 was in the low phase of the 11 year sunspot cycle. 2016-7 were in the high phase and have been the hottest years on record. Snow is only precipitation, precipitation is expected to be less predictable and subject to more extremes of drought and high rainfall. If you want to learn more about that, read about global warming causing destabilized and extreme weather. </p>

<p>A better reason for snowmaggedon is this:
<a href="https://i.sstatic.net/cUxPf.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/cUxPf.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/cFQGy.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/cFQGy.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-15T00:23:31.120Z
97.5% of the total exchangeable carbon dioxide is in the oceans. Cold water absorbs carbon dioxide, warm water liberates it. Apart from water vapor, little of the other atmospheric gasses absorb much solar irradiation. At 0.04% of atmospheric content carbon dioxide does very little. The major determinant of atmospheric temperature below the thermocline is air pressure, which is likely why the Earth is currently so cold as to be covered in ice. Yes, we are in the Holocene, in an "interglacial" period, a relatively rare event, geologically peaking.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-21T09:30:18.197Z
We have 82 grams of CO2 on our head of which 22 grams is carbon, as shady as a 3 pieces of sushi nori algae paper, and it makes a massive difference to atmospheric absorption, of 0.9 degrees per 20 grams extra of carbon that you add to that tally. There is a philosophical theory "who cares about humanities current challenges, let's plan for bigger challenges like going to space, which are more significant"... If you are of that philosophy that's fine. A lot of people trust japanese and german scientists for their car atmospherics but don't trust them for the weather for convenience.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-21T09:49:25.513Z
we have 207 kg of air on the head at 15 PSI, of which 22g is carbon, that's 8 sheets of shushi nori algae paper of carbon. Because the USA has 20% of the world's oil production, of course the entire US culture and media is highly opposed to CO2 being a problem, just like the japanese were opposed to the risks of nuclear in an earthquake heavy region. is it wise?
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-21T14:30:50.853Z
2.07 to 6.21 kg of which (1 % to 3 %) is water vapor. Water vapor not only absorbs the same IR (and more) as carbon dioxide, but absorbs carbon dioxide itself such that when it rains the atmospheric CO2 drops markedly. Atmospheric pressure determines temperature below the thermocline, not the composition of that atmosphere. That is probably why the Earth is currently so cold, the atmosphere is likely thinner than when we evolved.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-25T16:19:37.627Z
The thermocline is a layer in the ocean, not the atmosphere. Rain removes less than 0.01% of CO2 every year... H20 does not dissolve water in 99.9 percent of time, only if it is in a liquid state, as 0.1% of airborne water is clouds, and even less contacts the ground...  H2O and CO2 absorb different parts of the IR spectrum. Carbon dioxide absorbs strongly in specific wavelengths (e.g., around 15 micrometers) where water vapor is less effective. CO₂ also plays a vital role in regulating Earth's temperature over long timescales, as water vapor levels are largely a feedback, not a forcing.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-25T17:45:47.450Z
I am talking about temperature gradient due to adiabatic conditions in the troposphere which is linear decreasing at approximately 1 degree Celsius per 100 meters altitude for the lowest 10 km or so of the atmosphere, i.e., most of it. https://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/lectures/node56.html As you will see in that link, water vapor reduces the temperature gradient, the only such gas to have any such effect. The both air and oceans have thermoclines, so do the atmospheres of Venus and Mars. CO2 removes almost none of the IR spectrum; it is a trace gas.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-25T18:37:55.170Z
BTW, the ocean temperature effect on CO2 concentration is to make a trough in Northern hemispheric winter despite the fact that that is also Southern hemispheric summer; those are the bumps in the CO2 curve above. The scaling is off as it looks like 11 bumps per 10 years. The effect would be rather more pronounced if it were plotted by actual ocean temperature without being a mixture of North+South ocean temperatures.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-09T09:21:28.997Z
Now the day length is not changing very fast at all, and so should the temperature... We are approaching the maximum where everything is very stable and the natural climate change 10% the rate that it was in Roman times. You are trying to promote an oil-dependent political rhetoric, not science. Actually the reverse is happening, the change was 10% as much in roman times as today, as evidenced by all sources, why is that? CO2 is a trace gas now? Which makes plants grow 175% faster? including trees and crops, because it's so abundant? hyper-reactive, isn't it.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-09T09:31:22.323Z
Not only that, in the stratosphere, 7-30 miles, H2O is at 10ppm, while CO2 is 420ppm... that is a trace gas? Also consider that water reflects the radiation as clouds by creating a lot of shade and CO2 doesn't. The global cloud cover averages around 67-68%. Only CO2 acts to absorb IR in the upper atmosphere, water does not.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-09T16:48:57.797Z
The herd of elephants in the room is that the current climate is too cold for human comfort, that any warming is welcome, that CO2 and temperature are low, that air pressure is likely reduced compared to eons ago, and that minor changes in climate happen periodically on the scale of hundreds of years, that weather models are not climate models, that the association between CO2 and anything is speculative; correlation is not causation, and that for climate one hundred years is a blip, that is, one cannot select a favored small time period, and take a valid correlation.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-09T16:52:02.727Z
https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/users/3315/bandybabboon
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-10T10:54:34.183Z
Then we can change sunny holiday resorts from Thailand to Yakustk, and trade a comfortable jacket for a flaming hula hoop. US Hurrican damage in 1990's was 110B, in 2010's it was 490B, 2024 hurricane season : 500B...  And higher emissions will give us 28 inches in our kid's lifetime, higher african migration pressures, conflicts over rivers, and CO2 related emissions make folk comfortable from cancer, breathing and cardio trouble, although for a nation producing 20% of global oil, and Isreal, CO2 is good.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-10T10:56:57.940Z
The news is in lalaland. We saw what happened when we helped Japan to develop good relations, I wonder what will happen if we foster combative sanction relations with a nation 20 times more powerful than Japan and an AI super-power, for global stability?
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-11T01:30:05.250Z
[baandybabboon](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/users/3315/bandybabboon) The Earth is too cold, if you don't believe me, try going outside in your birthday suit. Millions live at the Equator, there are no private dwellings within 1100 km of the poles. Your incitement to panic over nonsense reminds me of the story of "Chicken Little," who claimed that "The sky is falling." There is absolutely no substance to your claims.  I reiterate, the Earth is historically too cold, factually too cold, and any minor warming is welcome.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T18:37:34.053Z
So you don't care about the science actually, you want to geo-engineer a hotter climate by falsifying sciencem for continental weather that has no maritime temperature mediation. FACT: 80% of the global population want action about climate hange, only a small minority globally agree with you that the earth is too cold.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T18:42:55.150Z
Having thousands of dead fish floating listless and dead under my home in a heatwave and leaves falling from the oaks in August, Ash leaves drying and falling in springtime, migration crises from excess hot countries, I don't agree, like 80% of other humans. So tell an Australian, Mexican, Indian, that the world is too cold. What you just wrote is contrary to the wish of 80% of humans, and it's foolhardy, even the USA's entire south west aquifers are going fail, so you are the turkey-lurkey chicken-little here. besides ducky-daddles henny-penny is not even from the same story so think of kids.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T20:18:11.293Z
The lack of water West of the Mississippi is due to the Rocky Mountains blocking westerly moisture not climate change, that is and was just the climate. If the ocean gets warmer one can expect more, and not less moisture. Similarly, the Sahara desert used to fertile, before the monsoons stopped due to a drop in temperature. Hot water boils, the hotter the water, the more moisture is in the atmosphere, the greater the cloud cover. Cold does not mean better. For example, Antarctica is a desert as defined by low annual precipitation. Warmer, with more CO2 means fertile.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T20:31:13.313Z
People vote with their feet, they live where it is warm and moist, not where it is cold and dry. Look at a population map. You quote what peoples opinions are, try looking at the their behaviour for a change.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T22:15:21.263Z
The northern regions you want to raise by 2-10 degrees have only 3-4 hours of sunlight every day right now, i.e. oslo, scotland, calgary. to give a region like calgary a cozy temperature like california, we need 10 degrees global rise which is madness. Summer in France would be 55 degrees C. and we already have completely failed crops here with 80% of the corn dead in midsummer. Plus 98% of people that get an electric car never go back to petrol, what's not to like.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T22:39:32.550Z
I am in Saskatoon, which has roughly the same latitude as Calgary. Current daylight hours 7:47, temperature -20 Celsius. I don't know how you get 3-4 hours out of that. You presume that I want to raise the temperature by 2-10 degrees from weather models that do not model climate and trying to get me to take ownership of your daydreams. You have no good temperature records from 1850 to date. A thermometer surrounded by two houses in 1850 is now located in a city with 350,000 inhabitants in an [urban heat island effect (UHI)](https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.4847).
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T22:54:09.387Z
You cite storm damage amounts similarly without adjusting for increased population density. You attribute this short term questionable increase in temperature to CO2 concentrations without any proof. Climate is not 100 years, you would need 10000 years to begin to exclude extraneous "mini ice ages" or "mini heat waves." You panic over 1 mm sea levels and turn that into 100's of meters. Electric car sales are dismal. They don't work well in cold climates. They are not a panacea, and there is no problem to solve. Frankly, I don't see any substantive arguments from you.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T00:17:01.473Z
BTW, medical oxygen is often supplied with 5% carbon dioxide to prevent respiratory alkalosis. Carbon dioxide would be unlikely to cause symptoms at concentrations of 10,000 ppm or less. 420 ppm, current, is not problematic, and in the past concentrations were closer to 10,000 ppm. The average Earth temperature was thought to be at 42 degrees Celsius maximum Myr ago; there was no "run-away greenhouse effect" at that time. I am skeptical about the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melting in anything less than 10,000 years, and having ice sheets at all is unusual, 25%  over 540 Myr.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T09:36:06.320Z
Unfortunately, much as I would like to see the cold Earth warming up, I do not see good evidence of that happening to any significant degree because sulfur containing aerosols have a cooling effect just like on Venus. See the effect of [methanethiol](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq2465), which new analysis shows, "...fear over the planet’s health may be “greatly overestimated." The exaggerated attention to one trace gas, CO2, means that the others, at much higher concentrations, are ignored. Such cupidity.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T16:29:06.183Z
A great scientist, i am sure you can build a better car engine than german engineers like BMW single handed, seeing as you know more about global economic systems (chemical) than german chemists. You clearly live in a country with massive oil production like the USA or Russia, and are therefore barinwashed by the media there. Africa, India, Australia, and the USA are so very cold you are right well done!
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-13T16:52:38.880Z
With animals like tigers and pandas endangered in most countries, why not cause habitat disruption, sounds amusing? You can be concerned in your children's stability in 50 years than 540 million years ago, there were only lizards since 300Ma. Ice caps have existed for 100% of the time in the last 35 million years. if 35 million years is not enough of a long time for you, that's like being a flat earther. Are you from a petrol exporting nation? Yes lol... vested interests?
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-14T03:53:33.260Z
It does you little honor to project. For example, with tens of trillions of dollars being manipulated to back the climate crisis narrative for profit despite the truth that warm is better than cold, speculation about my scientific credentials, attributing habitat loss to what? weather rather than human population pressure? the linkage of irrelevant observations is singularly unconvincing. You really seem to believe in your *cause célèbre*. Science is the art of disproof of hypothesis. Yes, the last few Myr have been cold, we are in an interglacial period of the Holocene, it is cold.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-14T10:12:20.953Z
Quote from [24/12/13 NewsMax](https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/house-judiciary-committee-blackrock-asset-firms/2024/12/13/id/1191628/) "Last month, Republican attorneys general from 11 states sued BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, saying their climate activism reduced coal production and boosted energy prices. The firms collectively manage $26 trillion."
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-19T11:21:51.283Z
Let's move the tropical regions to us, let's not move ourselves. NewsMax? australian sunburns like MadMax! This thread reads like an radioactive American trying to get rid of the ice caps and move all the habitats of the planet around as fast fossil fuels will make that happen. CO2 isn't warming us and I don't care if it does because I want it HOTTT. It's a fringe view, just like flat earthers is a fringe view, feminists that want men balls should be in jars and this ideology of make it hot is also a fringe view.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-19T17:31:45.637Z
Our branch of the human race evolved in a small region of Africa bisected by the Equator some 300,000 years ago. We did not wear much in the way of clothing. The temperature at the Equator is currently 24 to 28 degrees Celsius year round. That is comfortable for humans, and not the 15 degrees average for the Earth as a whole. If you are not living in close proximity to the Equator, you are living in a fringe area for human habitation. Doom and gloom, panic over nothing why don't you? Maybe try dealing with the facts.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-23T19:09:42.637Z
Here is a suggestion. Go to https://www.degreedays.net/ and calculate degree days of heating for your desired temperature for heating and then for cooling. Using Saskatoon (my location) and 22 degrees Celsius (my current indoor temperature while wearing a sweater) since 2023-01-01 there have been 66 times more degree days of heating than cooling. If it were hotter, less energy would be spent heating. Cooling the Earth further seems counterproductive for my location. Do it for yours.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-26T16:53:41.813Z
You are in one of the coldest cities of the west in a heavy petrol exporting nation, and you can move to places with warm climates, rather than let them come to you. If we burn all the fossil fuels for 3000 years, then we won't have anything left when it really gets cold as the ice age sets in, it will all become carbonate rock. Plus, most of the temperate world will get malaria, dengue, nice mosquitos and other tropical invasives if folk decides to warm up the planet just at the peak interglacial. Ice man has ice baths at 0 degrees for 50 minutes. 22C air is  T-shirt weather.
bandybabboon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-27T03:23:30.930Z
Indeed, more people live in warmer climates than mine. What's yours like? What, for you, is the ratio of degree days of heating to cooling for your favored temperature? We are making slow progress. BTW, for me 22 degrees Celsius is sweater weather,  and I was not born with a T-shirt on either, I would prefer 24 degrees, but that's me. Look, it's cold, and if it were a bit warmer there would be more reflective cloud cover, so there is a self-regulating cap on climate on the high end. BTW, pollution with particulates lowers daytime temperatures, so a simplistic analysis is noncontributory.
Carl
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-27T03:40:09.483Z
Wood as a primary heat source ran out in the 1700's in Europe. Did the world end? So, where is this going? My guess would be the Thorium fuel cycle and small modular nuclear reactors in about 30-50 years from now. I don't know if fusion reactors will be cost effective until about 100 years from now, if then. We won't run out of coal for the next 400 years or more. Seeing the future clearly is predicated on understanding the present, and to start, people need heating more frequently than cooling, so if it actually does get warmer, less fuel will be needed for heating.
Carl
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-21T09:40:08.843Z
2017-01-21T09:47:54.637Z
2017-01-21T09:47:54.637Z
bandybabboon
<p>The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summarizes the state of scientific understanding of climate change every few years and at least as far back as 2002 has projected a range of changes in extreme weather.</p>

<p>In the IPCC report for 2002, the Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability summarized the existing scientific understanding in may areas, including "Climate Variability and Extreme Events":
"Most studies of climate change impacts have focused on changes in mean climate conditions. However, global climate change is likely to bring changes in climate variability and extreme events as well. This is relevant here because decisionmakers often consider hedging strategies to be prepared for the possibility of low-probability but high-consequence events -- a risk management framework.  Features of projected changes in extreme weather and climate events in the 21st century include more frequent heat waves, less frequent cold spells (barring so-called singular events), <strong>greater intensity of heavy rainfall events</strong>, more frequent midcontinental summer drought, greater intensity of tropical cyclones, and more intense El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events." -
<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/index.php?idp=61#1434" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Climate Variability and Extreme Events</a></p>

<p>The question is also addressed in section 2.5. "Projected Changes in Climate Extremes could have Major Consequences":</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The vulnerability of human societies and natural systems to climate
  extremes is demonstrated by the damage, hardship, and death caused by
  events such as droughts, floods, heat waves, avalanches, and
  windstorms. While there are uncertainties attached to estimates of
  such changes, <strong>some extreme events are projected to increase in
  frequency and/or severity during the 21st century</strong> due to changes in
  the mean and/or variability of climate, so it can be expected that the
  severity of their impacts will also increase in concert with global
  warming (see Figure SPM-2). Conversely, the frequency and magnitude of
  extreme low temperature events, such as cold spells, is projected to
  decrease in the future, with both positive and negative impacts.</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-17T22:47:06.150Z
2017-01-19T00:17:31.470Z
2017-01-19T00:17:31.470Z
jeffronicus
<p>Recently <a href="http://grist.org/article/leaping-blizzards-global-warming-produces-bigger-snowfalls/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">I read</a> that the current extreme snowfall in northern temperate climate is caused by the increased evaporation due to the global warming.</p>

<p>Had any scientist predicted these extremes before they've been observed?</p>

<p>I've found nothing about such predictions in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science#Scientists_increasingly_predict_warming.2C_1970s" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia article</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-17T18:11:06.953Z
extreme weather events are definitely part of the IPCC reports
f.thorpe
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-17T18:19:41.257Z
@farrenthorpe Thanks, you're right. Btw in the meantime I got the idea how to test if the first thing were scientists trying to explain the unexpected data or media spreading the non-accurate term "global warming": via the [Google NGram.](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=climate+change%2C+global+warming&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cclimate%20change%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cglobal%20warming%3B%2Cc0) Of course, it matches what you've written.
Probably
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-18T05:41:54.043Z
Err... What extreme snowfall is that?  Admittedly, we're actually having a decent winter hereabouts after several years of drought, but it's in no way abnormal.  Likewise for news I see from other temperate climate areas.
jamesqf
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-18T09:48:12.450Z
@jamesqf The same applies for the Central Europe where I live. But the news I quoted come from the data from the northern temperate climate area.
Probably
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-18T23:33:18.197Z
@Probably: Well, that link is looking just at the northeastern US - not even Canada! - which is hardly the entire northern temperate climate.  You also have to remember that it's a news article, and news isn't news unless it's somehow out of the ordinary.  Who'd look at an article that said "this is just a typical winter snowfall, folks"?
jamesqf
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-19T09:21:46.513Z
@jamesqf Also, the linked article is about [Jan 2014](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2014_North_American_cold_wave), right?
Deditos
<climate><climate-change><earth-observation><snow>
Had the climatologists predicted climate change as the deviations to both extremely cold and hot temperatures before?
Probably
# Had the climatologists predicted climate change as the deviations to both extremely cold and hot temperatures before?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-01-17)

Recently [I read](http://grist.org/article/leaping-blizzards-global-warming-produces-bigger-snowfalls/) that the current extreme snowfall in northern temperate climate is caused by the increased evaporation due to the global warming.

Had any scientist predicted these extremes before they've been observed?

I've found nothing about such predictions in the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science#Scientists_increasingly_predict_warming.2C_1970s).

**Tags:** climate, climate-change, earth-observation, snow

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: extreme weather events are definitely part of the IPCC reports  
> **username_0**: @farrenthorpe Thanks, you're right. Btw in the meantime I got the idea how to test if the first thing were scientists trying to explain the unexpected data or media spreading the non-accurate term "global warming": via the [Google NGram.](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=climate+change%2C+global+warming&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cclimate%20change%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cglobal%20warming%3B%2Cc0) Of course, it matches what you've written.  
> **username_2**: Err... What extreme snowfall is that?  Admittedly, we're actually having a decent winter hereabouts after several years of drought, but it's in no way abnormal.  Likewise for news I see from other temperate climate areas.  
> **username_0**: @username_2 The same applies for the Central Europe where I live. But the news I quoted come from the data from the northern temperate climate area.  
> **username_2**: @username_0: Well, that link is looking just at the northeastern US - not even Canada! - which is hardly the entire northern temperate climate.  You also have to remember that it's a news article, and news isn't news unless it's somehow out of the ordinary.  Who'd look at an article that said "this is just a typical winter snowfall, folks"?  
> **username_3**: @username_2 Also, the linked article is about [Jan 2014](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2014_North_American_cold_wave), right?  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_7 on 2017-01-17. Score: 4 | Accepted answer

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summarizes the state of scientific understanding of climate change every few years and at least as far back as 2002 has projected a range of changes in extreme weather.

In the IPCC report for 2002, the Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability summarized the existing scientific understanding in may areas, including "Climate Variability and Extreme Events":
"Most studies of climate change impacts have focused on changes in mean climate conditions. However, global climate change is likely to bring changes in climate variability and extreme events as well. This is relevant here because decisionmakers often consider hedging strategies to be prepared for the possibility of low-probability but high-consequence events -- a risk management framework. Features of projected changes in extreme weather and climate events in the 21st century include more frequent heat waves, less frequent cold spells (barring so-called singular events), **greater intensity of heavy rainfall events**, more frequent midcontinental summer drought, greater intensity of tropical cyclones, and more intense El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events." -
[Climate Variability and Extreme Events](https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/index.php?idp=61#1434)

The question is also addressed in section 2.5. "Projected Changes in Climate Extremes could have Major Consequences":

> The vulnerability of human societies and natural systems to climate
> extremes is demonstrated by the damage, hardship, and death caused by
> events such as droughts, floods, heat waves, avalanches, and
> windstorms. While there are uncertainties attached to estimates of
> such changes, **some extreme events are projected to increase in
> frequency and/or severity during the 21st century** due to changes in
> the mean and/or variability of climate, so it can be expected that the
> severity of their impacts will also increase in concert with global
> warming (see Figure SPM-2). Conversely, the frequency and magnitude of
> extreme low temperature events, such as cold spells, is projected to
> decrease in the future, with both positive and negative impacts.


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2017-01-19. Score: 1

Increased snowfall in a year or for a few years is weather, not climate change. Reports such as "this storm" or "this season" being cause by, proving or disproving global warming are all anecdotal and serve no purpose other than to fuel those who do not understand the concepts but want ammunition to fight for their point of view to claim global warming as fact or fraud.

Global climate change, either towards warming or cooling promotes weather extremes. Warming will cause change. Some places will become colder while on average temperatures will rise. Droughts, in general will increase, while some places will flood. Storms though in general are all expected to be stronger.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Also, in some places (like the Sierra Nevada) the normal pattern seems to be to cycle between very dry spells like the last 5 years or so, and very wet/snowy ones like we seem to be having (so far) this year.  So the average is not what we normally get.  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2017-01-21. Score: 0

The article states snowmageddon 2010. 2010 was in the low phase of the 11 year sunspot cycle. 2016-7 were in the high phase and have been the hottest years on record. Snow is only precipitation, precipitation is expected to be less predictable and subject to more extremes of drought and high rainfall. If you want to learn more about that, read about global warming causing destabilized and extreme weather.

A better reason for snowmaggedon is this:
[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/cUxPf.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/cUxPf.jpg)

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/cFQGy.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/cFQGy.png)

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: 97.5% of the total exchangeable carbon dioxide is in the oceans. Cold water absorbs carbon dioxide, warm water liberates it. Apart from water vapor, little of the other atmospheric gasses absorb much solar irradiation. At 0.04% of atmospheric content carbon dioxide does very little. The major determinant of atmospheric temperature below the thermocline is air pressure, which is likely why the Earth is currently so cold as to be covered in ice. Yes, we are in the Holocene, in an "interglacial" period, a relatively rare event, geologically peaking.  
> **username_5**: We have 82 grams of CO2 on our head of which 22 grams is carbon, as shady as a 3 pieces of sushi nori algae paper, and it makes a massive difference to atmospheric absorption, of 0.9 degrees per 20 grams extra of carbon that you add to that tally. There is a philosophical theory "who cares about humanities current challenges, let's plan for bigger challenges like going to space, which are more significant"... If you are of that philosophy that's fine. A lot of people trust japanese and german scientists for their car atmospherics but don't trust them for the weather for convenience.  
> **username_5**: we have 207 kg of air on the head at 15 PSI, of which 22g is carbon, that's 8 sheets of shushi nori algae paper of carbon. Because the USA has 20% of the world's oil production, of course the entire US culture and media is highly opposed to CO2 being a problem, just like the japanese were opposed to the risks of nuclear in an earthquake heavy region. is it wise?  
> **username_6**: 2.07 to 6.21 kg of which (1 % to 3 %) is water vapor. Water vapor not only absorbs the same IR (and more) as carbon dioxide, but absorbs carbon dioxide itself such that when it rains the atmospheric CO2 drops markedly. Atmospheric pressure determines temperature below the thermocline, not the composition of that atmosphere. That is username_0 why the Earth is currently so cold, the atmosphere is likely thinner than when we evolved.  
> **username_5**: The thermocline is a layer in the ocean, not the atmosphere. Rain removes less than 0.01% of CO2 every year... H20 does not dissolve water in 99.9 percent of time, only if it is in a liquid state, as 0.1% of airborne water is clouds, and even less contacts the ground...  H2O and CO2 absorb different parts of the IR spectrum. Carbon dioxide absorbs strongly in specific wavelengths (e.g., around 15 micrometers) where water vapor is less effective. CO₂ also plays a vital role in regulating Earth's temperature over long timescales, as water vapor levels are largely a feedback, not a forcing.  
> **username_6**: I am talking about temperature gradient due to adiabatic conditions in the troposphere which is linear decreasing at approximately 1 degree Celsius per 100 meters altitude for the lowest 10 km or so of the atmosphere, i.e., most of it. https://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/lectures/node56.html As you will see in that link, water vapor reduces the temperature gradient, the only such gas to have any such effect. The both air and oceans have thermoclines, so do the atmospheres of Venus and Mars. CO2 removes almost none of the IR spectrum; it is a trace gas.  
> **username_6**: BTW, the ocean temperature effect on CO2 concentration is to make a trough in Northern hemispheric winter despite the fact that that is also Southern hemispheric summer; those are the bumps in the CO2 curve above. The scaling is off as it looks like 11 bumps per 10 years. The effect would be rather more pronounced if it were plotted by actual ocean temperature without being a mixture of North+South ocean temperatures.  
> **username_5**: Now the day length is not changing very fast at all, and so should the temperature... We are approaching the maximum where everything is very stable and the natural climate change 10% the rate that it was in Roman times. You are trying to promote an oil-dependent political rhetoric, not science. Actually the reverse is happening, the change was 10% as much in roman times as today, as evidenced by all sources, why is that? CO2 is a trace gas now? Which makes plants grow 175% faster? including trees and crops, because it's so abundant? hyper-reactive, isn't it.  
> **username_5**: Not only that, in the stratosphere, 7-30 miles, H2O is at 10ppm, while CO2 is 420ppm... that is a trace gas? Also consider that water reflects the radiation as clouds by creating a lot of shade and CO2 doesn't. The global cloud cover averages around 67-68%. Only CO2 acts to absorb IR in the upper atmosphere, water does not.  
> **username_6**: The herd of elephants in the room is that the current climate is too cold for human comfort, that any warming is welcome, that CO2 and temperature are low, that air pressure is likely reduced compared to eons ago, and that minor changes in climate happen periodically on the scale of hundreds of years, that weather models are not climate models, that the association between CO2 and anything is speculative; correlation is not causation, and that for climate one hundred years is a blip, that is, one cannot select a favored small time period, and take a valid correlation.  
> **username_6**: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/users/3315/username_5  
> **username_5**: Then we can change sunny holiday resorts from Thailand to Yakustk, and trade a comfortable jacket for a flaming hula hoop. US Hurrican damage in 1990's was 110B, in 2010's it was 490B, 2024 hurricane season : 500B...  And higher emissions will give us 28 inches in our kid's lifetime, higher african migration pressures, conflicts over rivers, and CO2 related emissions make folk comfortable from cancer, breathing and cardio trouble, although for a nation producing 20% of global oil, and Isreal, CO2 is good.  
> **username_5**: The news is in lalaland. We saw what happened when we helped Japan to develop good relations, I wonder what will happen if we foster combative sanction relations with a nation 20 times more powerful than Japan and an AI super-power, for global stability?  
> **username_6**: [baandybabboon](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/users/3315/username_5) The Earth is too cold, if you don't believe me, try going outside in your birthday suit. Millions live at the Equator, there are no private dwellings within 1100 km of the poles. Your incitement to panic over nonsense reminds me of the story of "Chicken Little," who claimed that "The sky is falling." There is absolutely no substance to your claims.  I reiterate, the Earth is historically too cold, factually too cold, and any minor warming is welcome.  
> **username_5**: So you don't care about the science actually, you want to geo-engineer a hotter climate by falsifying sciencem for continental weather that has no maritime temperature mediation. FACT: 80% of the global population want action about climate hange, only a small minority globally agree with you that the earth is too cold.  
> **username_5**: Having thousands of dead fish floating listless and dead under my home in a heatwave and leaves falling from the oaks in August, Ash leaves drying and falling in springtime, migration crises from excess hot countries, I don't agree, like 80% of other humans. So tell an Australian, Mexican, Indian, that the world is too cold. What you just wrote is contrary to the wish of 80% of humans, and it's foolhardy, even the USA's entire south west aquifers are going fail, so you are the turkey-lurkey chicken-little here. besides ducky-daddles henny-penny is not even from the same story so think of kids.  
> **username_6**: The lack of water West of the Mississippi is due to the Rocky Mountains blocking westerly moisture not climate change, that is and was just the climate. If the ocean gets warmer one can expect more, and not less moisture. Similarly, the Sahara desert used to fertile, before the monsoons stopped due to a drop in temperature. Hot water boils, the hotter the water, the more moisture is in the atmosphere, the greater the cloud cover. Cold does not mean better. For example, Antarctica is a desert as defined by low annual precipitation. Warmer, with more CO2 means fertile.  
> **username_6**: People vote with their feet, they live where it is warm and moist, not where it is cold and dry. Look at a population map. You quote what peoples opinions are, try looking at the their behaviour for a change.  
> **username_5**: The northern regions you want to raise by 2-10 degrees have only 3-4 hours of sunlight every day right now, i.e. oslo, scotland, calgary. to give a region like calgary a cozy temperature like california, we need 10 degrees global rise which is madness. Summer in France would be 55 degrees C. and we already have completely failed crops here with 80% of the corn dead in midsummer. Plus 98% of people that get an electric car never go back to petrol, what's not to like.  
> **username_6**: I am in Saskatoon, which has roughly the same latitude as Calgary. Current daylight hours 7:47, temperature -20 Celsius. I don't know how you get 3-4 hours out of that. You presume that I want to raise the temperature by 2-10 degrees from weather models that do not model climate and trying to get me to take ownership of your daydreams. You have no good temperature records from 1850 to date. A thermometer surrounded by two houses in 1850 is now located in a city with 350,000 inhabitants in an [urban heat island effect (UHI)](https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.4847).  
> **username_6**: You cite storm damage amounts similarly without adjusting for increased population density. You attribute this short term questionable increase in temperature to CO2 concentrations without any proof. Climate is not 100 years, you would need 10000 years to begin to exclude extraneous "mini ice ages" or "mini heat waves." You panic over 1 mm sea levels and turn that into 100's of meters. Electric car sales are dismal. They don't work well in cold climates. They are not a panacea, and there is no problem to solve. Frankly, I don't see any substantive arguments from you.  
> **username_6**: BTW, medical oxygen is often supplied with 5% carbon dioxide to prevent respiratory alkalosis. Carbon dioxide would be unlikely to cause symptoms at concentrations of 10,000 ppm or less. 420 ppm, current, is not problematic, and in the past concentrations were closer to 10,000 ppm. The average Earth temperature was thought to be at 42 degrees Celsius maximum Myr ago; there was no "run-away greenhouse effect" at that time. I am skeptical about the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melting in anything less than 10,000 years, and having ice sheets at all is unusual, 25%  over 540 Myr.  
> **username_6**: Unfortunately, much as I would like to see the cold Earth warming up, I do not see good evidence of that happening to any significant degree because sulfur containing aerosols have a cooling effect just like on Venus. See the effect of [methanethiol](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq2465), which new analysis shows, "...fear over the planet’s health may be “greatly overestimated." The exaggerated attention to one trace gas, CO2, means that the others, at much higher concentrations, are ignored. Such cupidity.  
> **username_5**: A great scientist, i am sure you can build a better car engine than german engineers like BMW single handed, seeing as you know more about global economic systems (chemical) than german chemists. You clearly live in a country with massive oil production like the USA or Russia, and are therefore barinwashed by the media there. Africa, India, Australia, and the USA are so very cold you are right well done!  
> **username_5**: With animals like tigers and pandas endangered in most countries, why not cause habitat disruption, sounds amusing? You can be concerned in your children's stability in 50 years than 540 million years ago, there were only lizards since 300Ma. Ice caps have existed for 100% of the time in the last 35 million years. if 35 million years is not enough of a long time for you, that's like being a flat earther. Are you from a petrol exporting nation? Yes lol... vested interests?  
> **username_6**: It does you little honor to project. For example, with tens of trillions of dollars being manipulated to back the climate crisis narrative for profit despite the truth that warm is better than cold, speculation about my scientific credentials, attributing habitat loss to what? weather rather than human population pressure? the linkage of irrelevant observations is singularly unconvincing. You really seem to believe in your *cause célèbre*. Science is the art of disproof of hypothesis. Yes, the last few Myr have been cold, we are in an interglacial period of the Holocene, it is cold.  
> **username_6**: Quote from [24/12/13 NewsMax](https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/house-judiciary-committee-blackrock-asset-firms/2024/12/13/id/1191628/) "Last month, Republican attorneys general from 11 states sued BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, saying their climate activism reduced coal production and boosted energy prices. The firms collectively manage $26 trillion."  
> **username_5**: Let's move the tropical regions to us, let's not move ourselves. NewsMax? australian sunburns like MadMax! This thread reads like an radioactive American trying to get rid of the ice caps and move all the habitats of the planet around as fast fossil fuels will make that happen. CO2 isn't warming us and I don't care if it does because I want it HOTTT. It's a fringe view, just like flat earthers is a fringe view, feminists that want men balls should be in jars and this ideology of make it hot is also a fringe view.  
> **username_6**: Our branch of the human race evolved in a small region of Africa bisected by the Equator some 300,000 years ago. We did not wear much in the way of clothing. The temperature at the Equator is currently 24 to 28 degrees Celsius year round. That is comfortable for humans, and not the 15 degrees average for the Earth as a whole. If you are not living in close proximity to the Equator, you are living in a fringe area for human habitation. Doom and gloom, panic over nothing why don't you? Maybe try dealing with the facts.  
> **username_6**: Here is a suggestion. Go to https://www.degreedays.net/ and calculate degree days of heating for your desired temperature for heating and then for cooling. Using Saskatoon (my location) and 22 degrees Celsius (my current indoor temperature while wearing a sweater) since 2023-01-01 there have been 66 times more degree days of heating than cooling. If it were hotter, less energy would be spent heating. Cooling the Earth further seems counterproductive for my location. Do it for yours.  
> **username_5**: You are in one of the coldest cities of the west in a heavy petrol exporting nation, and you can move to places with warm climates, rather than let them come to you. If we burn all the fossil fuels for 3000 years, then we won't have anything left when it really gets cold as the ice age sets in, it will all become carbonate rock. Plus, most of the temperate world will get malaria, dengue, nice mosquitos and other tropical invasives if folk decides to warm up the planet just at the peak interglacial. Ice man has ice baths at 0 degrees for 50 minutes. 22C air is  T-shirt weather.  
> **username_6**: Indeed, more people live in warmer climates than mine. What's yours like? What, for you, is the ratio of degree days of heating to cooling for your favored temperature? We are making slow progress. BTW, for me 22 degrees Celsius is sweater weather,  and I was not born with a T-shirt on either, I would prefer 24 degrees, but that's me. Look, it's cold, and if it were a bit warmer there would be more reflective cloud cover, so there is a self-regulating cap on climate on the high end. BTW, pollution with particulates lowers daytime temperatures, so a simplistic analysis is noncontributory.  
> **username_6**: Wood as a primary heat source ran out in the 1700's in Europe. Did the world end? So, where is this going? My guess would be the Thorium fuel cycle and small modular nuclear reactors in about 30-50 years from now. I don't know if fusion reactors will be cost effective until about 100 years from now, if then. We won't run out of coal for the next 400 years or more. Seeing the future clearly is predicated on understanding the present, and to start, people need heating more frequently than cooling, so if it actually does get warmer, less fuel will be needed for heating.  

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