I’m truly sorry about the title, but nothing else really describes the ridiculousness of the pronouncement by the White House aide John Podesta over these two satellite images in a maddeningly idiotic story from the Washington Post.


> The satellite images viewed by President Obama before a meeting with eight Western governors were stark, showing how snowpack in California’s mountains had shrunk by 86 percent in a single year. > > “It was a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ moment,” recalled White House counselor John D. Podesta, one of two aides who briefed the president that February day. Obama mentioned the images several times as he warned the governors that political leaders had no choice but to cope with global warming’s impact. > > After years of putting other policy priorities first – and dismaying many liberal allies in the process – Obama is now getting into the weeds on climate change and considers it one of the key components of his legacy, according to aides and advisers.

Gasp! 86% change in a single year. More proof positive that ‘global warming’ is accelerating. /sarc

So tell me, oh geniuses, what will you show the President after the looming El Niño kicks in later this year, and California has a wetter than normal year during the winter of 2014/15 and the snow pack goes up to something like 146% of normal? What then? Blame that on global warming and call it another “Houston we have a problem” moment when we get flooding in California like in 1997/1998 after that big EL Niño changed the weather pattern in a single year to drench the state?

The lack of snowpack in 2014 is all about ENSO and resulting jet stream patterns, something well known for years.

Pattern shifts related to ENSO make California winters highly variable. For example, compare the snowpack change from 1880 to 1881 in the graph below from the Sierra Snow Lab and note some of the other low years highlighted in yellow.

Snowfall and snowpack data from the CSSL archive dating from 1878 to 1945, and from 1952 to 1957, were measured and supplied by the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. Snowpack and snowfall measurements were taken at Summit Station from 1878 through 1927, and at Norden from 1927 on. From 1879 to 1897, and 1901, the maximum snowpack depth was estimated. Current CSSL methodology mandates that new snow is measured twice a day, at 0800 and 1600 Pacific Standard Time. The depth of the new snow is probed with a rule at the four corners of a snow board. [The snow board is piece of plastic-covered plywood, .25m2 in area.] The four depths are recorded and averaged, the board is then cleaned off and replaced on the snowpack surface.

[Ref: Randall S. Osterhuber, Climatic Summary of Donner Summit, California, Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, October 1993]

Will these geniuses in the White House say global warming reached back through time to 1881 to cause this? How about 1977, was that “global warming” too? But let’s indulge them, let’s say it is ALL caused by ‘global warming’. What will they do about it? Tax it? Issue a presidential order? Make emitting CO2 a crime?

Like Nature cares what they think or do. Idiots.

> “Some people are weatherwise, but most people are otherwise.” –Benjamin Franklin

Anthony Watts is a former television meteorologist who now operates the most viewed website on climate change and global warming in the world at wattsupwiththat.com.