Doomsday global warming forecasts have been dead wrong

Many parts of Europe saw their coldest and snowiest Easter on record this past weekend. It was more like Christmas than Easter. Europeans would be forgiven for being confused by winter's unending icy grip on the continent this early spring season.

Britain had its coldest month of March since 1962 with its morning lows in London averaging a frigid 2.5 degrees Celsius (36.5 degrees Fahrenheit), a full three degrees below normal.

In Berlin, Good Friday saw a new round of snowfall and near-freezing temperatures. The city's popular lakeside beach opened for the season as planned, but there were no people in swimsuits, only heavy jackets. Some visitors built a huge snowman in the middle of the beach attaching this sign, "where is global warming?"

This freezing Easter season in Europe and parts of the U.S. continues to underscore our longstanding cycle of Wide Weather "EXTREMES." As I've said repeatedly, there is a natural variability to weather. It's a big factor in our long-range outlooks.

Early this past week, at the beginning of April, the northern U.S. and much of neighboring south-central Canada saw subzero morning low readings with afternoon highs in the February-like teens and 20s.

These regions, as of this April 4 writing, still had 2 to 5 feet of snow on the ground threatening a widespread flooding problem when the snow finally melts later this month into early May, especially along the Red River in eastern North Dakota and Manitoba.

No, folks, despite our delightful 70-degree-plus afternoon highs locally in North Idaho earlier this week, our world is NOT getting warmer.

The latest period of global warming peaked 15 years ago in 1998. We have leveled off at just plus-0.5 degrees above the 50-year normal average global temperature since 1960.

Climate scientists are currently revising their "doomsday outlooks" calling for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than 5 degrees by the middle of this century in 2050.

As Myles Allen, Oxford University's Professor of Geosystem Science said this past week, "the expected warming is likely to be significantly less than most climate scientists predicted in the late 1990s."

Here's what some other climate experts now say:

"Global surface temperatures have not risen in at least 15 years. The estimates for higher temperatures this century are unlikely, especially following a series of recent harsh winter seasons in the United Kingdom and much of Europe." - Piers Forster, Climate Change Professor at Leeds University.

Dr. David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation recently stated, "What we're currently seeing weatherwise changes everything. Global warming should no longer be the main determinant of economic or energy policies."

Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology now says:

"Climate models are running way too hot. The current flat trend in temperatures may persist for at least two more decades."

Our friend, Robert Felix, of www.iceagenow.info, reported early this past week:

"In the northern U.S., nearly all of Canada and half of Europe, there was more snow on the ground in early April than what would be normal in early January. Farm animals in Northern Ireland, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have been 'buried alive' by huge snowdrifts that refuse to melt."

Remember, in the 1970s, similarly harsh winters and rather chilly, short summer seasons led most climate scientists at that time four decades ago to call for "a potentially 'catastrophic' ice age by the year 2000." It didn't happen.

They were wrong then, they are wrong now.

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

While much of the country east of the Rockies shivered in unusually cold and wet weather conditions with record snows near the Canadian border, we enjoyed an absolutely fabulous Easter weekend and early April with clear skies and afternoon highs in the lower 70s. It was a near record 74 degrees on April 1 in Coeur d'Alene and Rathdrum. Post Falls reported 73 degrees as did Fernan Lake.

But, as of this Thursday, April 4 writing, a major weather change was beginning to push into the Inland Northwest. Much cooler and wetter conditions were expected by Friday and into early this week following nearly two weeks of dry weather. We actually need some precipitation. We were below normal in moisture during the first quarter of 2013, the exact 'opposite' type of weather from the same period in 2012 when we saw record rainfall.

Looking a bit farther down the meteorological highway, both Randy Mann and I continue to see a nicer spring season than the last couple of years across North Idaho and the rest of the Inland Empire.

A weak 'La Nada' sea-surface temperature event in the waters of the Pacific Ocean should give us a 'sun and shower' type weather pattern locally between now and mid June. Temperatures will likely range from below normal to slightly above normal. There will be times that early morning frosts will require us to cover those fragile plants and flowers in the backyard gardens. We might even see an April snow flurry or two, especially this next week, above 2,500 feet.

The really 'good news' weatherwise is that we're forecasting a warmer and drier than normal mid June through mid September summer season across our part of the country. I can't wait!

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com