In 2013, the Guardian ran with the story that the Arctic would be "ice-free by 2015" due to a catastrophic methane-induced warming "pulse" and a lack of snowfall and ice.
Ten years ago, the same rag claimed that Greenland was going to "collapse" within 10 years. And yet, according to NASA, its largest glacier, the Jacobshavn, has been growing for the past three years, and in Jan, 2020 the island actually set a new all-time record low temperature.
In 2008, the AP ran with the headline "we're toast," and reported that NASA scientists claim "the Arctic will be ice-free by 2018" due to rapid ablation and a lack of snowfall.
In 2000, the Independent wrote that scientists at the University of East Anglia are warning that "children won't know what snow is," as the white stuff "is starting to disappear from our lives."
And even way back in 1988, the AFP were scaring us into believing the Maldives would be "completely under water in 30 years" due to warming temperatures and a melting Arctic, with that apocalyptic date potentially arriving as early as 1992 "if drinking water supplies dry up."
Needless to say, the ambulance-chasing scientists involved in the above research were ALL left with egg on their faces — yet these so-called 'experts' have somehow retained their jobs, titles, credibility, and accolades; and, perhaps even more astonishingly, are actually behind some of the latest catastrophic predictions in today's ever-growing list of EOTW prophecies — prophecies just waiting for their expiration dates to uneventfully pass...
2019/2020 NORTHERN HEMISPHERE SNOW SEASON
But surely, if catastrophic global warming is indeed a thing, then this long-expected snow/ice-less trend should becoming far more apparent as the doomsday clock ticks ever closer to midnight...?
Well now...
...this year's Northern Hemisphere snowfall data, collated by those who know a thing or two about snow — the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) — reveals that the 2019/2020 season has become one of the snowiest NH Winters on record, joining the uptick witnessed over the past few years.
Looking at the FMI chart below, during some points of the season, the total snow mass across the Northern Hemisphere reached 3 standard deviations above the average, indicating highly unusual volumes of snow:
In addition, a number of early and late season Arctic outbreaks (particularly across North America, Northern Europe, and Russia) have also contributed to this seasons amazing totals — as we reported on just yesterday, for example, countries like Sweden are breaking all-time seasonal snowfall records this year (don't tell Greta).
In an email, the FMI confirms that this has indeed been "one of the snowiest winters on record" since books began in 1979, since the dawn of the satellite era.
The institute also points out that the 2017-2018 Winter was even more exceptional, and that the following Winter (2018-2019) was greater still, with only 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2001 recording higher masses at their seasonal peaks (3600 gigatons being the max).
So, if I'm reading the data right, as far as peak snow mass is concerned, 2018-2019 was the fifth snowiest Northern Hemisphere season of the past 41 years, with 2017-2018 the sixth, and this season, 2019-2020 preliminary looking like the seventh.
In addition, if you're looking at the overall mean March snow mass (perhaps a better climate barometer) then the year 2018 holds the record for the snowiest NH Winter, according to the FMI — that year saw a 3190 Gt mean March snow mass, putting it in the top spot in 41 years of record keeping, and some 330 Gt above the 1979-2018 average.
So much for snowfall soon becoming a thing of the past... the trend appears to be the exact opposite.
The cold times are returning in line with historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow.
Even NASA agrees, in part at least, with their forecast for this upcoming solar cycle (25) seeing it as "the weakest of the past 200 years," with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.
Couldn't be further from the truth...Where I live this is the first winter that it never has gone below -30C. Usually we get at least 2-3 night where it does go that low at night. We never got even close. It only went as far as -17C, and only did that twice.
Could have called our snow amount a bit above average...but that was hard to tell...because it got too warm a number of times including some rain days...so no significant amounts of snowed stayed around for much time.