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| Cliff Harris |
The Russians are still predicting a new 'Little Ice Age'
One of our subscribers asked me this past week what the Russian scientists thought of the recent shocking developments in the global warming world in regards to the recent rapid cooling, one wide weather extreme to the other in short order.
Remember, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, all four international agencies responsible for monitoring and reporting global temperatures released data recently showing that the average temperature on this planet has decreased about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit in just the past year.
This sudden plunge in global temperatures has been the largest in recorded history using modern instrumentation, even greater than the cooling that resulted from the massive eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in June of 1991.
Most climatologists, including yours truly, blame the less active sun for the cooler conditions with record snows and bitterly cold temperatures throughout the Northern Hemisphere during this recently expired harsh winter of 2007-08 that refuses to end in North Idaho.
It's the opinion of Paul Berenson, Robert Felix and others that if this extremely quiet solar cycle doesn't become active soon, we may be in for an extended period of severe cold with advancing glaciers.
The last time sunspot activity was this low was around 1300 A.D. at the end of the so-called Medieval Climate Optimum period when global temperatures were at least 1.5 degrees higher than today, and the mighty Vikings were farming a verdant Greenland, the Earth suffered through an extended Little Ice Age, which lasted nearly six centuries through the late 1800s.
Getting back to our initial question as to what the Russian scientists think about this recent dramatic cooling -- it's an "I told you so" position. Remember, we featured their prediction in Gems nearly a year ago.
As Paul Berenson stated in his March 5 paper entitled, "Global Climate Change;"
"It's worth noting that members of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been predicting an impending breakout of a new Little Ice Age since early 2007."
Paul goes on to say, "global warming is good for Russia because it makes vast regions in the north fruitful for agriculture. Thus, the Russian government certainly does not welcome a report on sudden global cooling,"
Last, Paul points out, "we humans can take measures to reduce global warming, but there's little that we can do to stave off an ice age."
North Idaho wintry weather review and outlook
"Punxsutawney Phil" was right!
I'm writing this North Idaho weather update on one of the coldest and snowiest Good Friday mornings on record in the region. The moderate to heavy snow is actually covering the driveway at 10 a.m. as temperatures hover in the frigid 20s. Gusty northeast winds have put the wind chill factor at a wintry 11 degrees.
Old Man Winter apparently loves our Camelot as much as we do and refuses to leave. The "Spring Maidens" are dressed in heavy coats and scarves. They are still wearing boots. Nearly 7 inches of the white stuff remains in my backyard in the shaded areas. Even the hearty crocuses are cloaked in winter attire.
As I told Brian Walker on Thursday, the ladies on Easter Sunday will probably need a parka rather than a typical spring dress, sweater and Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it if they attend an early morning sunrise service, especially now that daylight-saving time has started so prematurely.
About the only person I know that likes all of this late-season snow is Nancy Beyer of Hayden Lake. She said last week that she's "eager to see the final seasonal snowfall total." (The season ends on June 30.)
With an additional six inches of snow in the 48-hour period ending late Friday morning, Hayden's seasonal snowfall was up to a record 152 inches, finally breaking the previous mark of 145.3 inches I measured on St. James Place in the harsh winter of 1992-93, when I had to have my roof shoveled off twice in late December and early- to mid-January.
We reached 144 inches of snow for the 2007-08 season in Coeur d'Alene by noon on Friday, March 21. That tops the previous record of 124.3 inches of snow some 93 winters ago in 1915-16 by 20 inches!
All-time record seasonal snowfalls have likewise been reported by our weather observers in the wintry corridor to the northwest of Coeur d'Alene from Rathdrum with more than 170 inches to a whopping 210 inches of the white stuff in the Priest Lake area, where the snow is still "waist deep" at the end of March. (Where's that dumb global warming when you need it?)
Well, believe it or not, folks, I still see much warmer weather arriving across the Inland Empire by early- to mid-April. I'll have all the details next week.
Happy Easter Monday.
