Colorado snowpack is significantly below average so far

Science Chic wrote:
[snip]

In western North America, snowpack has declined in recent decades, and further losses are projected through the 21st century. Here, we evaluate the uniqueness of recent declines using snowpack reconstructions from 66 tree-ring chronologies in key runoff-generating areas of the Colorado, Columbia, and Missouri River drainages. Over the past millennium, late 20th century snowpack reductions are almost unprecedented in magnitude across the northern Rocky Mountains and in their north-south synchrony across the cordillera. Both the snowpack declines and their synchrony result from unparalleled springtime warming that is due to positive reinforcement of the anthropogenic warming by decadal variability.

And from the "man behind the curtain" department... another grand pronouncement from the University of East Anglia...

Climate expert Dr David Viner, who until recently worked at Britain’s world-renowned Climatic Research Unit at the 'famed' University of East Anglia, in 2000 in the Independent made the expert prediction that snow would soon become a “rare and exciting event”.

“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

When asked again a few days ago if he still stuck by his prediction he said Yes". ‘We’ve had three weeks of relatively cold weather, and that doesn’t change anything. ‘This winter is just a little cooler than average, and I still think that snow will become an increasingly rare event.’

Following last years 'coldest and snowiest winter for decades', and the forcast of much more severe weather yet to come, I wonder what planet these so-called experts are on. I think Dr. Viner must have his head firmly in the snow.

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forum ... -snow.html

And anyone with a little Google-fu can find the longer and more detailed article by Dr. David Viner... (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)

Martin Ent Inc wrote: We have been here probably longer than anyone on this board and there have always been those that see the end, or the bottom of the glass. We have seen dry times and wet. Where we live it is pretty hard for our wells to run dry. (best water in PC)
And for some reason the Great Spirit has always seen us through. Hell it ain't even spring yet.

Last year we had the OMG its so dry we are gonna burn down, then what,,, a wet spring and summer.

Never panic till the horseman is in your living room.

agree. I have been here since the early 70's and seen everything from 20 feet deep snow to south park without snow in January and but things can totally change in the next month.

:thumbsup:

It's the newbies and the news media that hype things up.

Martin Ent Inc wrote: :thumbsup:

It's the newbies and the news media that hype things up.

Exactly. I remember one winter where we never had to plow the road in, we were hearing horror stories about a summer of fire and it turned out to be the wettest summer ever. Our hay was chest high.

Maybe we should all move somewhere else. Maybe Atlantis will re-appear from the depths of the oceans. If the cave men kept better data maybe we could have saved the planet before Y2K came.

We were given dominion over the world but not climate. Do we believe that climate is better related to our solar system than our own insignificant existance on one planet? Does the earth not rotate on its own axis, and around the sun, and within a solar system that in of itself also rotates and travels in the universe. Don't all of these contribute more to our climate and not what we can ONLY collect assuming our analysis and gathering of data is correct? How many trees have died over the millenium and rotted only to rob us of data that we simply can never retrieve.

Not trying to start an argument, but we are too worried about matters that simply don't matter (Matthew 6:26). If used for discussion great but to develop rules, laws and how we need to conform I call BS....

Science Chic wrote: Do you guys understand that you are talking about weather, not climate? You are basing your opinions on your own short experiences - the paper I cited draws it's conclusions from tree growth (quantitative data) over thousands of miles of territory (not just here in CO), and over a period of 1,000 years (not just the last 20-40)? I understand that our brains give greater weight to that which we experience viscerally, first-hand, and that we have trouble wrapping our brains around elapsed centuries, and finally that memories are imperfect and subjective...but, really? You can so easily dismiss objective data about drought conditions because your short lifetimes are more important and reliable??

And women get accused of being more illogical and irrational...<smacks head>

Do you chic's understand that my quote above by Dr. David Viner is talking about CLIMATE CHANGE... he was talking about CLIMATE CHANGE when he "made the expert prediction that snow would soon become a “rare and exciting event”." "Dr David Viner, Programme Leader Climate Change, British Council, UK" Why don't you use a little of your self-proclaimed "science chic" status and do a little research yourself into Dr. David Viner. It's no wonder women get accused of being more illogical and irrational...<smacks head>

Colorado's climate seems to have a remarkable way of "making up for lost time". If it isn't going to snow sufficiently this winter due to La Nina, then let's hope and pray for another one of those rainy Aprils and Mays followed by significant summer monsoons.

Science Chic wrote: Do you guys understand that you are talking about weather, not climate? You are basing your opinions on your own short experiences - the paper I cited draws it's conclusions from tree growth (quantitative data) over thousands of miles of territory (not just here in CO), and over a period of 1,000 years (not just the last 20-40)? I understand that our brains give greater weight to that which we experience viscerally, first-hand, and that we have trouble wrapping our brains around elapsed centuries, and finally that memories are imperfect and subjective...but, really? You can so easily dismiss objective data about drought conditions because your short lifetimes are more important and reliable??

And women get accused of being more illogical and irrational...<smacks head>

Consider this. Remember the old bromide, everyone likes to talk about the weather, but no one does anything about it. And even the countries most on board with Kyoto aren't even close to making their goals despite a continued stagnating European economy and trillions spent on alternative energy development. Imagine if the world economy does recover? There will be zero chance of holding to the promised carbon reductions.

So the snowfall totals may be at historic lows but there is nothing we can do about it but clean up our own plots of burnable material.

Whew!! Looks like we are out of the woods for this coming year with the massive 2.5" snowfall yesterday.

Guess I should have started this topic in the campfire or weather section. Is it too late to move it there? In no way did I intend for this to be a discussion on global anything. This is local information on the current weather trend not climate. Some of you can get soo defensive about a little thing like low snowpack. That may be why the words Colorado and SO FAR are the freakin thread title! Yes, we could get some massive dumps this spring and I hope we do. I was not trying to sound like some alarmist. I am just into local watershed information and try to pass it on. Drop me a PM if you want to know what type of bugs and fish we have in our local streams or what ones are currently listed as impaired by the state and EPA.

Martin Ent Inc wrote: It's the newbies and the news media that hype things up.

Not trying to hype anything, just providing information and a link. Maybe instead of jumping to the global warming rants we could discuss what to do and how to prepare for the very dry years (like Freds comment on clearing plots :thumbsup: ) when we see them coming intead of the typical (useless IMO) arguements?

The Liberals GOP Twin wrote: typical junk science...

One does not need to look up NOAA data or be any type of scientist to recognize a lack of precipitation. The guy in the article I linked to has 28 years monitoring snowpack at the same locations so I put some weight in his opinions and included his quote. I monitor a local watershed (from Summit Lake to Bear Creek Lake) and have observed the changes over the years. Changes in snowpack, seasonal runoff patterns, aquatic life and in-stream water quality tell a lot about the current and expected conditions.