Earth Observatory image showing the extraordinary cold in Europe earlier this month.
Richard Black, environment correspondent for BBC News, has a story explaining that the cold, snowy winters faced by Europe in recent years are … wait for it … the result of global warming. Specifically, the peer-reviewed article that Black draws upon lays the cold and snow at the feet of decreasing Arctic sea ice:
The progressive shrinking of Arctic sea ice is bringing colder, snowier winters to the UK and other areas of Europe, North America and China, a study shows.
As global temperatures have risen, the area of Arctic Ocean covered by ice in summer and autumn has been falling.
Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a US/China-based team show this affects the jet stream and brings cold, snowy weather.
Whether conditions will get colder still as ice melts further is unclear.
Indeed. Let me say a few things, on the other hand, that are clear:
1. This “science” did not precede the events that it attempts to explain.
2. All mainstream climatologists predicted warmer, less snowy winters for mid latitudes, as the planet progressively warmed.
3. When your side of a debate predicts A and B happens, and then says B resulted from the same causes we were using to predict A and therefore we were right all along, people should think long and hard before accepting the word of such “scientists.”
4. Abdussamatov and other solar researchers predicted a return of European cold and snow before it happened. For my money, using computer models to explain a phenomenon that’s already taken place when you predicted the exact opposite beforehand doesn’t cut the mustard. But that’s just me.
I think we all understand now, on a deeper level, that increased snow and cold and decreased snow and cold are both horrifying products of out-of-control global warming.
What will Richard Black and the narrative-spinning scientists he relies upon say, I wonder, as the fruit of the solar slowdown increase still more? That the Arctic sea ice increasing again, as it likely will, is the fruit of warming elsewhere? Only time will tell. In the meantime, don’t sell your coat.
Talking About the Weather 
This is an example of the lunacy of the global warming fanatic. Only in a complete denial world can the widespread FORECASTED fall of global temps by our side be then used to verify the opposite. There is no way this excuse for a reporter has even looked at the real signal, the change in the PDO and the amazing fall in the mid tropospheric temps, EXACTLY AT THE LEVEL THE IPCC FORECASTED THE OPPOSITE. It is much easier for sudden cooling to occur than continued warming, and words can not describe the lunacy of people saying up is down. No wonder Europe has gone through the upheaval it has over the centuries with the kind of people that spread things like this. MADNESS
Just got back from a carbon-intensive trip to Aspen.
My cab driver (heading in to town) informed me that Aspen recently changed zones on the USDA Hardiness map due to…climate change. And that the snow just isn’t staying around anymore. And that (wait for it) ski towns will “become the slums of the 21st century.” TRY to imagine how hard I was biting my tongue–it was a short ride, and frankly not worth any effort.
All was fine until seeing an ad on the chairlift safety bar for an organization called ProtectOurWinters.org. I looked them up and found that their mission statement is as follows: “POW’s mission is to unite and actively engage the global snow sports community to lead the fight against climate change.”
I give them points for the clever acronym (POW)…and suspect that this may all be a front to help unite young snow athletes spend more time together for better, ahem, “dating”.
I noticed that the snow was…just as I’d always remembered it. And that the scenery hadn’t changed. What had changed was that the locals have been brainwashed into an apocalyptic, guilt-ridden psychoses that was frankly disgusting and more than a little disturbing. Maybe they like it because it give them something to ‘escape’ with a little Rocky Mountain High (puff puff).
I suspect they don’t complain when the ‘good’ celebrities land their private jets there.
One mid-west newspaper (no link, sorry) trumpeted the fact that their town had gotten “ten degrees warmer” because it now fell into a higher USDA “band”. It didn’t occur to the writer (though perhaps it did, warmistas and their supporters are often “economical with the truth”) that an increase of a fraction of a degree could warrant that move.
BTW I’ve linked to your weighty tome concerning outer garments in a hark back post “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is”, with a reminder that “Prediction is very difficult, especially when it involves the future”.