Solid evidence points to late, record ice-out on Lake Winnipesaukee

[VitaBene]

Rusty,

Without getting too political, that is why I go a little crazy when I see what we are mandated to do in the US re. pollution when our "competitors" do little!

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by VitaBene

Rusty,

Without getting too political, that is why I go a little crazy when I see what we are mandated to do in the US re. pollution when our "competitors" do little!

You picked up the reason I posted that picture...thank you!

We can't fart anymore without someone testing the air to make sure it passes the EPA's requirements.

[geordie]

You people really think that there's no such thing as global warming? So the fast that the average world temperatures have been rising for decades, that doesn't count because you get one cold winter? But at the same time you are going to be wondering why your food prices are up, the irrigation allowances in much of California have been set to 0 (ZERO) for this year, so most of the fields are bare this year. In 1997 I stood at Lake Louise in Alberta and looked at the glacier at the other end of the lake, but last year it was totally gone. Europe was slammed by super storms this winter, but that isn't because the weather systems are now more energetic? The thing is that all you need to do is wait and see. So far everything is turning out as I expected.

[Tired of Waiting]

Originally Posted by geordie

You people really think that there's no such thing as global warming? So the fast that the average world temperatures have been rising for decades, .

Guess they should have had fewer cars back when the earth was warmer than now, say about 1,100 BC.

Temp swings are normal. I'm not saying that man may not contribute a little to it but volcanos and the sun far out weigh anything man has or can do except atomic war winter.


ToW

[Cal]

Hurry up and melt

[Greene's Basin Girl]

Originally Posted by Cal

Hurry up and melt

That caption is so funny!

[Oregonrain]

The Weirs Cam is showing a reflection on the ice today. That's the first I've seen since I started watching the cam this winter.

[pcmc]

Originally Posted by Tired of Waiting

Guess they should have had fewer cars back when the earth was warmer than now, say about 1,100 BC.

Temp swings are normal. I'm not saying that man may not contribute a little to it but volcanos and the sun far out weigh anything man has or can do except atomic war winter.


ToW

Interesting chart, but are there really accurate records from 2200BC following the earths temperature??

[capewx]

Once said, and this is a true statement "Some are weatherwise but most our otherwise" Alot of the otherwise are on this board.

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by capewx

"Some are weatherwise but most [are] otherwise" A lot of the otherwise are on this board.

I believe the highest concentrations of the most dangerous "otherwise" can be found in Wash, DC; at the UN; and at the Weather Channel. People on this board can do no harm; the other concentrations aim to do the most harm possible.

[Tired of Waiting]

Originally Posted by capewx

Once said, and this is a true statement "Some are weatherwise but most our otherwise" Alot of the otherwise are on this board.

Thanks for your valued addition to the debate. I see you backed you position up with scientific data to support you hypothesis.

ToW

[Newbiesaukee]

I guess it is hoping too much to stay on topic, fascinating though the subject is. Particularly as the debate will resolve the issue of climate change on our Forum and the world is waiting.

[jrc]

Quick question, is there anything anybody on this forum could say to change your opinion on global warming? No, me either, so let's stick to ice out.

Please hurry!

[ushaggerb]

Originally Posted by jrc

Quick question, is there anything anybody on this forum could say to change your opinion on global warming? No, me either, so let's stick to ice out.

Please hurry!

I'm sitting in California. It was 87 on Wednesday. Sounds great to some. Just that, it's so bone dry out here, there are not-insignificant communities in this state that, if we don't get 4+ inches between now end end of May (doubtful), will be out of water. Have to be shipped in by tanker trucks. Now do some scary math. The Central California Valley, where a LOT of your fruit and vegetables come from, will be out of water in+/- 60 years. The only thing that will change that is if the sea levels rise high enough, as currently predicted by 2100, to flood the Central California Valley with salt water.

You guys are up to your eyeballs in cold, white fluffy stuff, but a LOT of the rest of the world is baked dry. Governments, institutions and corporations are already jocky-ing for positioning against water supply. Not suggesting there isn't noise in the data. But, in the southwest and west, the climate has changed, whether man-made or not, and what's left on or under the ground we're chewing threw so fast, it's going to get difficult.

[ITD]

Originally Posted by ushaggerb

I'm sitting in California. It was 87 on Wednesday. Sounds great to some. Just that, it's so bone dry out here, there are not-insignificant communities in this state that, if we don't get 4+ inches between now end end of May (doubtful), will be out of water. Have to be shipped in by tanker trucks. Now do some scary math. The Central California Valley, where a LOT of your fruit and vegetables come from, will be out of water in+/- 60 years. The only thing that will change that is if the sea levels rise high enough, as currently predicted by 2100, to flood the Central California Valley with salt water.

You guys are up to your eyeballs in cold, white fluffy stuff, but a LOT of the rest of the world is baked dry. Governments, institutions and corporations are already jocky-ing for positioning against water supply. Not suggesting there isn't noise in the data. But, in the southwest and west, the climate has changed, whether man-made or not, and what's left on or under the ground we're chewing threw so fast, it's going to get difficult.

California made decisions years ago to allow billions if not trillions of gallons of water to be diverted from agricultural and municipal use back to the rivers to help "endangered" fish like the darter fish. It hasn't worked out so well for the fish and now water is in short supply.

I don't come here to read or write this stuff, but since this topic continues on, I'll just point out, the designator for global warming has changed to global climate change. The models predicting rapid disastrous change have not panned out. The scientific community is certainly not settled on the predictions of the IPCC, which are alarmist. The climate has been changing for billions of years, the evidence that this is being caused by human fossil fuel use is dubious at best. The proposed solutions, some being implemented, are a financial and economic disaster, resulting in expensive energy, solving nothing and, as usual, disproportionally negatively affecting the most vulnerable among us, the elderly and poor.

California has gotten itself into a pickle to satisfy some environmentalists who value fish over people and whose predictions of how the fish will be saved have not panned out since this madness started 20 years ago.

[jeffk]

Originally Posted by ITD

... California has gotten itself into a pickle to satisfy some environmentalists who value fish over people and whose predictions of how the fish will be saved have not panned out since this madness started 20 years ago.

Also to mention that California has grown its population and water usage in defiance of a lack of sufficient and reliable water for many decades. They have tried to "manage" the issue but the reality is they have too many people and too much water demand for the water resources available. The projection of worse situation to come in the future is no surprise and doesn't need any "change" of climate to make it happen. California's water usage was unsustainable to begin with.

[MAXUM]

Originally Posted by jeffk

Also to mention that California has grown its population and water usage in defiance of a lack of sufficient and reliable water for many decades. They have tried to "manage" the issue but the reality is they have too many people and too much water demand for the water resources available. The projection of worse situation to come in the future is no surprise and doesn't need any "change" of climate to make it happen. California's water usage was unsustainable to begin with.

....AND the water is coming from a state that is having water shortages of it's own as well. Colorado's front range has exploded with population. Water management has been a big problem there for a long time.

But I'm sure we will soon be blaming the increase in population on "climate change" as well.

[ushaggerb]

Guys. You're missing the point. To you, out there where it's wintry cold, the climate doesn't look like it's changed. To the West, couldn't be clearer.

I'm not from California. Grew up on the Lake and call it home. California's a stupider state than you give it credit for

[geordie]

LA sucks the west coast dry, taking huge amounts of water from the Colorado river and even from northern California. But San Francisco is about as far from LA as Winnipesaukee is from Philadelphia PA. Water from Lake Shasta is poured in to the Sacramento river system and flows more than two hundred miles south to the Sacramento river delta, near Mountain Home it is pumped up to the start of the aquaduct which takes it near 400 miles south to San Bernadino. Shasta alone can contain 4.5 million acre feet of water.

Considering how little rain there is in the west it has always surprised me how much food is grown there and how wasteful it seems. But the reservoirs in the Sierras contain years worth of water.

Thinking CA is stupid and this doesn't affect you, now that would be stupid. Lot's of bad things happening in the world right now, politically and physically. If the west and the plains stop producing food... well you don't grow much in the North East, do you?

And the latest climate change news, even only looking at historical data, not modelling where we are going, says it's 99% certain that humans did this.
http://www.ibtimes.com/there-99-chan...ta-not-1570996

I really don't care what anyone believes, I am looking forward to seeing high tide closing the road the Newcastle from Portsmouth. The way to look at it is that we are watching a 100,000 ton train that has been pushed. Now that we can see it moving towards us our chances of stopping it are minimal. We are going to be run down. But believe what you like, it won't change anything.

[Tired of Waiting]

Originally Posted by pcmc

Interesting chart, but are there really accurate records from 2200BC following the earths temperature??

Yes there are.

In the polar ice cap cores. In the earths crust cores. To name a couple.

Sample cores tell a lot about what the climate was in history. Example, coal is formed from deposits that need tropical like climate to form. So the coal located in Canada comes from tropical forest that were there millions of years ago. How about dinosaurs? They needed warm climate to live and could not survive in Montana today but were there in the past.

So if you are asking did some weather person take the temp of the day and write it down in a book? The answer is no but the earth recorded its' own temperature history in the rocks, swamps, ice caps, etc.

ToW

[jeffk]

Originally Posted by geordie

You people really think that there's no such thing as global warming? So the fast that the average world temperatures have been rising for decades, that doesn't count because you get one cold winter? But at the same time you are going to be wondering why your food prices are up, the irrigation allowances in much of California have been set to 0 (ZERO) for this year, so most of the fields are bare this year. In 1997 I stood at Lake Louise in Alberta and looked at the glacier at the other end of the lake, but last year it was totally gone. Europe was slammed by super storms this winter, but that isn't because the weather systems are now more energetic? The thing is that all you need to do is wait and see. So far everything is turning out as I expected.

The global average temperature has not risen for 17 years. While I fully agree that one cold winter does not tell the tale of climate, neither does one hot summer.

Food prices are going up because we have been diverting our growing to producing ethanol instead of food. Of course, regional droughts and other severe WEATHER can produce shortages of commodities.

As to the California drought, the New York Times in March stated "At present, the scientific evidence does not support an argument that the drought there is appreciably linked to human-induced climate change." This is another weather event.

As to the frequency and strength of storms, the tornado and hurricane activity has reached decades low levels in the last few years. These changes are cyclic and people who theorize Global Warming have been forced to admit that there is no proven link between "warming" and hurricane frequency or intensity. To borrow your "one cold winter" example, one Sandy does not "increasing intensity of storms" make.

If everything is turning out "as expected", how come the models are completely unable to explain the pause in global temps? There has been speculation about the cause but NO proof. The models don't work. People that support warming theory have written emails to each other complaining that the models don't work.

Sorry to go off on this "tangent" but it really annoys me to hear speculation about climate change that is flat out unproven. I don't think this forum is the place for this debate but I didn't raise the point.

[geordie]

Originally Posted by jeffk

The global average temperature has not risen for 17 years. While I fully agree that one cold winter does not tell the tale of climate, neither does one hot summer.

It all depends how you look at it and whether you take in to account what you would expect due to the various cyclic weather effects.

What you are doing is called a straw man argument, there is a way of looking at some of the data that can be interpreted as showing that nothing is happening. But even the Koch brother's shill at Berkeley now gave up trying to argue that it wasn't happening and fell back to trying to prove it isn't caused by us.

http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators

But in the end it doesn't matter to me what you think. Plenty of people, especially in the US, would rather believe that there's no problem and it's certainly nothing to do with them. So it is very unlikely that anything will change. So wait and see. That's what people are doing anyway. The trick would be to find a way to make good money out of being right.

[fatlazyless]

....ok....so it's April 1st and there's still a little bit of ice and snow left outside.....thank goodness.....you know I was worried that it would all melt overnight!

[Tired of Waiting]

Originally Posted by geordie

It all depends how you look at it and whether you take in to account what you would expect due to the various cyclic weather effects.

What you are doing is called a straw man argument, there is a way of looking at some of the data that can be interpreted as showing that nothing is happening. But even the Koch brother's shill at Berkeley now gave up trying to argue that it wasn't happening and fell back to trying to prove it isn't caused by us.

http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators

But in the end it doesn't matter to me what you think. Plenty of people, especially in the US, would rather believe that there's no problem and it's certainly nothing to do with them. So it is very unlikely that anything will change. So wait and see. That's what people are doing anyway. The trick would be to find a way to make good money out of being right.

Why is it that the global warming folks always look at history of the "last few decades?" Sure temp has risen during that time, well except for the last few years when the temp has not risen?

If you want at look at global temperature history over time then look at history. Say the last few million years.

http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the...rature-swings/


Go here and pick out the chart that supports your theory. If you look closely you will see that most of the charts that support man made warming go back not much more that 40,000 years. However if you really want to debate cause and effect of warming pick the charts that go back 25 million years or more and see what the causes are.

https://www.google.com/search?q=glob...w=1280&bih=623

Global warming is not a settled science as Al Gore says it is. Far from it. There are way to many factors that are not understood and not taken into account in the models use to support man's affect on warming.

All we can do is to keep an open mind and continue the debate along with scientific analysis of ALL the factors that contribute to both warming and cooling of earths temperature.

ToW

[Steveo]

Originally Posted by jeffk

Food prices are going up because we have been diverting our growing to producing ethanol instead of food.

I love how ethanol was suppose to be the savior from fossil fuels. It does more to "pollute" the environment then anything. The use of fertilizers on poor land that was suppose to not be used. The run off of those fertilizers effecting water quality. The use of fossil fuels to produce the ethanol. Finally the CO2 that gets "dug up" in order to plant the corn.

Don't get me going on ethanol

[chipj29]

Originally Posted by Steveo

I love how ethanol was suppose to be the savior from fossil fuels. It does more to "pollute" the environment then anything. The use of fertilizers on poor land that was suppose to not be used. The run off of those fertilizers effecting water quality. The use of fossil fuels to produce the ethanol. Finally the CO2 that gets "dug up" in order to plant the corn.

Don't get me going on ethanol

Don't forget the part where it takes much more energy to produce ethanol.

[Fish-E]

I wonder what will happen with the Winni Derby if ice-out doesn't happen by then???? May 16,17,18th

[PaugusBayFireFighter]

Originally Posted by Fish-E

I wonder what will happen with the Winni Derby if ice-out doesn't happen by then???? May 16,17,18th

Stop wondering, it will be declared way before that.

[upthesaukee]

Originally Posted by PaugusBayFireFighter

Stop wondering, it will be declared way before that.

... There will be plenty of open water for fishing.

but I agree that ice out will be before then.

[Lakegeezer]

UNH released its study today on climate change in NH. Here is the link to the general announcement and here is the link to the study results for northern NH.

There are many interesting graphs that show the trends over the last 115 years and several model projections through the end of the century. I found the data on ice-out, rainfall and growing seasons interesting. It also showed that hot days are not getting hotter, but cold days aren't as cold as they were.

The report is refreshing, in that most of it is historical data. Future model projections come later in the report and recommendations are last. It isn't about what happened a million years ago, or will happen a million years from now, but what to watch for in our lifetime. They acknowledge model and scenario uncertainty, and have three pages addressing uncertainty, but feel they have a good handle on the short term scenarios.

Overall, a good read, because it is about our back yard.

[Orion]

Earlier ice outs could also easily be attributed to more development around these lakes. More impermeable surfaces within a half-mile of the lakes results in warmer warm-water runoff into the lakes. Removal of shade trees surrounding the lakes, increased use of circulators for docks, solar reflectivity of surrounding structures, etc., all could be contributors. Yes, that's man-made impact, but does not support the governments money grab for pollution tax.

[CanisLupusArctos]

Climate change.... Yes, something is happening. But what, and why? Our level of scientific discovery has gone faster thanks to technology in the past few years. As soon as we discover something, we discover something else. For example, we know of cycles we didn't know about a few years ago. It all affects the credibility of science voices who can't seem to say anything nowadays without new evidence saying something else. That's just a fact of life no one thinks much about. However, I think we can safely say we don't know everything. We do know this much:

1. The climate has always been changing, along with everything else on earth. Rapid changes have occurred before, with catastrophic results to life. Nothing on earth ever stays the same.

2. Climate change predictions come from computer models. This past winter some really great computer models failed to give us accurate forecasts for *tomorrow.* Yay, computer models...

3. By the rules of science, until something is proven 100%, it's still a theory that is open to *discovery* I say discovery in place of "discussion" because science doesn't care what our opinions are. Discussion produces laws of society but we don't have the authority to write scientific laws. They are what they are, before we even know about them, and all we can do is discover them. Pure science does not recognize, "proof beyond a reasonable doubt." American law does. Don't confuse American law with science.

4. Human psychology says we respond to the hand that feeds us, no matter what position of honor we're in. Therefore, it's important to consider the source(s) from which we take our information.

- All government agencies are paid by politicians who have the power to cut budgets or increase budgets.

- Private media outlets answer to advertisers and/or the big companies that own them.

- Public radio and TV get money from the government, the audience, or both. If it's "audience only," then we must consider the general views of whoever the audience is.

Humans have (in the past) made statistics and science support almost any personal view they ever wanted to promote. We humans have an inner desire to control one another. Before we accepted science, people were using religion to control one another. Now we have science in addition to religion; why wouldn't we use that in the same way? The main idea is, "I don't like how you think and act, and I love how I think and act, so I'm going to force you somehow to think and act how I think and act." It's human nature.

Your best bet for learning unbiased science is to take it upon yourself to understand the natural process for exactly what it IS, outside of whatever your opinions are. We think we need someone else to tell us, but we forget that at some point in history, someone had to learn it by discovery and observation. We have it in ourselves to do that, if we want to. Newton did. The Wright Brothers couldn't study "aeronautics engineering" in school, because no one had invented it yet. In order to invent the airplane they had to study birds and the flaws of previous man-flight attempts.

If you want to understand how air moves around the planet you can start by looking at smoke and steam flow, the next time you have a bonfire or boil water for pasta. Look at water flow in the lake, see how waves tumble objects around, and remind yourself that air is a fluid too. See how hot and cold air, dry air and steamy air interact and move around in your home. Get a home weather station, keep records, take notes, and occasionally review them to see "bigger pictures." Study the process for what it IS, and then look at unbiased, real-time information like satellite and radar imagery, etc. I might add that you can learn a lot about weather by studying fire. (Disclaimer: Do not light fires without the permission of your local fire department.)

I'm not saying that's all you'll need to learn, but if you trust other humans 100% to be your teachers without independently observing and learning, you're probably unknowingly accepting a few of their own statements of self-interest along the way. Even the most unbiased humans can still be wrong ("This ship is unsinkable," they said. "That volcano is dormant," they said.)

As for the idea of a record late iceout (this thread's topic,) I say it's possible, and it won't say much about climate change if it does, any more than the record early iceout of a couple years ago did.

That is because the lake ice requires conditions beyond "just temperature" in order to form or melt.

The ideal conditions for thick lake ice include:

1. Very dry air in fall, with clear nights. Cloudy days are helpful by shutting out sunlight, but the dry air is the most important.

2. Very cold November or December, with snow *until the lake is actually frozen.* Snow chills the water but insulates the ice once it has formed.

3. CALM conditions for actual ice formation. Wind has a history of delaying ice-in and mechanically forcing iceout.

4. Very cold with clear, calm nights, without much snow until the ice has thickened substantially.

5. Tons of snow from February onward. This insulates the ice from the rays of the sun which become more direct in February. The days become noticably longer in February, too.

6. Melting and refreezing of snowpack on the frozen lake adds thickness to the ice. It doesn't form a high quality layer but it still counts because it still has to thaw in spring.

7. Cold days in spring help keep the ice thick. This past month it even grew a little.

For early iceout, it helps if the lake ice doesn't have much snow on it. It also helps if there's a lot of wind to flex the ice pack constantly. Sunny days and cloudy nights from February onward help to weaken it.

Once there is open water, it warms up much faster if the air is humid than if it's dry. I've seen 90-degree days fail to raise the water temperature simply because the air was so dry at the time (west wind, fire weather warnings, no burning allowed... that kind of day.) A 70-degree day with a 65-degree dewpoint does a lot more to raise the water temp than a 90-degree day with a 32-degree dewpoint.

The two biggest factors in starting iceout, (by my observations) are sunlight and water level rise. Sunlight heats up the land and the rocks, which in turn melt the ice back away from themselves. Water level rise literally lifts the ice away from the shoreline by making the lake bigger than its icepack. Once the ice has lost its grip on the shores, it starts to melt faster.

Once it starts to melt, we need a lot of sun and wind to make it go quickly. Warm temperatures obviously play a role, but a record warm spring isn't going to melt thick lake ice in a hurry without help from wind and sun.

This winter we got most of the factors that produce and retain thick lake ice. We haven't had our usual wind, either. Usually at some point during the winter we hit 50 mph, or even 60 mph at this station. We've been no higher than 39 mph so far this year.

Unless we get a huge storm with 2-3 days of 40+ mph wind and gusts over 60, and more than a day or two of record warm temps, a May iceout is likely this year, and a record late iceout is possible.

[jeffk]

Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos

...
Unless we get a huge storm with 2-3 days of 40+ mph wind and gusts over 60, and more than a day or two of record warm temps, a May iceout is likely this year, and a record late iceout is possible.

Yup, the longer we go without some weather on the higher than normal end of the scale (winds, temperature), the more likely the record iceout is threatened.

Our temperatures in March were well below normal and recently have barely been average. However, given the right conditions, things can change VERY rapidly. Weather seems to have a way of balancing itself out over time. Low temps are eventually "balanced" by a run of higher temps. Long periods of calm and dry balance with stormy periods. Given the winter we have had, we might eventually see some warmer than usual periods but who knows and who knows when.

Thanks for your considered words on climate. Per Heraclitus: "Nothing endures but change.", which is certainly true for climate. I agree that we are FAR from knowing the full climate story and the prescription we are being sold to "fix" the climate is like leaches used for bloodletting over a century ago. We should continue to learn more and take reasonable steps to improve our impact on our environment, which, for the most part, we have already been doing.

[ITD]

Green guru James Lovelock:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/04/...lobal-warming/

[Fiddlin']

Someone needs to put out a search party for global warming. It's been missing for 17 years 8 months now: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/0...s/#more-107042