It's Cold Out

Here in Ohio we are in the middle of yet another winter storm. Temperatures are running 20 degrees below normal. This is not just a local phenomena. The snow cover for the USA is the most in 50 years. Wisconsin which got very little snowfall the last few years set an all-time record. All of that Arctic ice melt that we heard so much about has reversed. The ice cover is back and thicker than normal. Australia apparently ended a long drought. Greece and Baghdad had snow.

So what does all of this mean? Probably nothing. There is La Nina event going on which is a Pacific cooling trend, the opposite of an El Nino.

The important thing is how this is being reported, or not reported. You can find science watchers remarking on it. Here is an example. Some conservative columnists have picked up on it.

What you don't find is any mention in the MSM. A bit over a year ago we had a warm Winter caused by an El Nino event. This was reported as a sign of things to come. NBC had the journalistic honesty to show someone saying that it was all because of the El Nino. The next weekday they had to retract it and show someone insisting that the warm spell was all global warming and a sign of future winters.

This shows how much the MSM has descended from reporting the news to being advocates. It is surely news that 2008 had the coldest January world-wide since 1984. If it had been in the top 10 warmest Januaries it would have been reported constantly.

Two problems are occurring. The first is that the weather isn't matching the script. It is supposed to keep getting noticeably warmer. When it does then it must be because of global warming and needs to be reported as such. When it doesn't then there is no story - or more accurately, the story cannot be run because it would make people doubt global warming.

The other problem is the abysmal ignorance that the MSM has about climate science. If the world has warmed around one degree in the last century then why would you expect to be able to see the difference from one year to the next or even one decade to the next. Even the six degrees that some models show for the next century would take careful measurement to confirm. The idea that you can look at any single weather event, especially one associated with a known phenomena, and say that it is global warming is ridiculous.

On the bright side, as long as the La Nina lasts we will be spared the endless stories about how global warming is happening now.

We might also have a comfortable summer.