Global Warming Blamed for ‘Extremely Cold Temperatures’ in Vineyards
By Paul Homewood
Breitbart highlights yet another hysterical attempt to blame global warming for everything:
Although it may seem paradoxical, a series of harsh winters that “killed” vineyards in western New York are being blamed on global warming.
Writing for WOSU, Angelica Morrison claims that grape growers in western New York state are “seeing the effects” of climate change as extreme temperatures are becoming “the new way of life.”
Although recent winters in the northeast have been quite warm, not long ago there were several bitterly cold seasons—all of which are supposedly the product of global warming.
“We’ve had a very mild winter [in 2016] so almost everything survived,” farmer Mike Jordan is quoted as saying. “But prior to that, the winter of 2014 to 2015, were extremely cold temperatures that I’ve never seen before.”
“And it killed a lot of vineyards that in the past we’ve had success with. We’ve done a lot of replanting and we try to choose varieties that can survive the winter,” he said.
Unfortunately, the facts don’t support the claim. According to NOAA data, which admittedly is heavily adjusted, recent winters have not been unusually cold at all in New York state.
The farmer claims that during the winter of 2014/15 there were extremely cold temperatures that I’ve never seen before.
This is palpable nonsense.
Of course, the farmer might be right, which would mean that NOAA’s adjustments are fraudulent junk!
We used to blame witches for all ills. Now we think we are more enlightened!
Trackbacks
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Our grandkids will look back on us and laugh that we could all be so gullible. Well, at least some of us.
People have always been vexed by the weather and probably always will be. What used to blamed on angry gods or evil spirits is now blamed on global warming.
I will note that global warming is WARMING. It does not account in any way for cooling. It’s based on re-radiation of LWR by CO2. That’s warming, as in increasing heat. IT’S PHYSICS, as the believers like to point out. There is nothing about MORE LWR escaping and cooling the planet. You could argue convection and so forth cause these extremes, but bottom line, you have to show where the extreme warming occurred to zero out the extreme cold. It is a zero sum game—that’s what the whole energy budget is about. Since the current budget shows excess heat, it WARMING.
2014 it was -20F for one week in November in Wyoming. It killed hundreds of trees due to going from 50F degrees prior to that time, to -20F virtually overnight and staying there for the week. It is possible that people remember 2014 as especially cold here due to that one week and all the dead trees. The rest of the winter was unremarkable.
Physics is not a reliable guide; facts are more trustworthy.
Isn’t physics facts if it’s not theoretical physics?
The physics is fine. Climate science … not so good. The climate models are dealing with a nonlinear, multi-dimensional system which includes both known and unknown chaotic events.
The Green House Gas theory, when applied to the open atmosphere, brings with it a NECESSARY condition: to be valid there must be a warmer region about 10k above the tropics. However, decades of radiosondes have not found that supposed hot spot. Alarmist “scientists” don’t broach that subject except on the rare occasions when one of their cult claims to have found it. Alas, their finding is cloaked in models and/or assumptions which conflict with the weather balloon data. Satellites also detect heat escaping into space whereas a greenhouse does not convect beyond its enclosure.
The computer models all ASSUME their GHG approach is valid so it supposedly follows that water vapor is the actual culprit, causing (via feedback) 2 to 3 times the temperature increase as supposedly brought on by increasing co2. Nobody really knows whether water vapor feedback is even positive. Without the hot spot, the feedback cannot be assumed, and it is only increasing co2 we have to address. But the physics is clear: co2 capability to influence global temperature diminishes rapidly as co2 increases. Co2 has already doubled 8 times, so has probably shot its wad. The difference between computer model temperature projections and measured temperatures continues to widen. If the models drop the feedback assumption their projections tend to match the actual data, which, while interesting, could be no more than a lucky coincidence.
There are other problems with alarmist credibility. The alarmists DENY (ironic?) that the Medieval Warming Period was global and likely warmer than now. Why this denial? Perhaps because their computer models cannot explain the MWP if it was global and as warm as now. They MUST have increasing co2 to explain increases in temperature. Co2 did not begin increasing until early to mid 1800s. The MWP was about 1,000 years earlier, and co2 had not increased for hundreds of thousands of years until the 1800s.
There is data from 6,000 boreholes which conclusively show that the MWP trend was global. The Mendenhall glacier (Alaska) recently exposed a 1,000 year old shattered forest, still in its original position. No trees have grown at that latitude anywhere near that site since. The Greenland Temperature study (gisp2) shows, among other things, that 1,000 years ago Greenland was warmer than today. Both Alaska and Greenland are distant from Europe (where alarmists admit the MWP was reflected) and also distant from each other. But it gets better. There are hundreds of peer-reviewed MWP studies, some performed before the climate issue became controversial, but were ignored, and many since, with confirming studies continuing to show up. All these studies are cataloged by co2science.org. A subset of these studies directly address temperature. Skeptical readers, if not already satisfied, should select MWP temperature studies (say a half dozen) each in a separate region and distant from the others and also distant from Europe, Greenland, and Alaska. You will find that each site shows temperatures during the MWP to be warmer than today.
Obama’s EPA leader confessed to congress that even if all nations met their emissions goal by 2030, the net impact on global temperature in 2100 would be a minuscule fraction of one degree. The cost for this supposed solution wold involve tens of TRILLIONS of dollars so would likely bring on an economic catastrophic (and whatever else that leads to) long before 2100. This rules out the prudent principal.
Our farm near Meadville, Crawford County, PA (south of Erie) was in the family from just after the Revolutionary War (deeds were for bounty land given to soldiers in payment for service) until the Army Corps of Engineers stole it from us in the 1960’s. In the front yard was a large white pine with a fork caused by the severe freeze and snowstorm of June 4, 1859. Known as “the great frost of 1859” newspaper accounts recorded that ice as thick as a half inch and 2-3 inches of snow occurred, killing all fruit buds and most of the grain crops. There was another, less severe, frost occurred a week later. Our family had stories of shortages and panic as no one knew how widespread it was. Flour was brought in by canal with a lot of hoarding and high prices. However, one merchant named Guinup sold his imported flour at regular prices and helped bring stability to the situation.
Also covered on WUWT https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/01/vineyard-killing-winters-blamed-on-global-warming/
You have to admire the propaganda and deceit. There is nothing good that man-made global warming can do and everything bad is caused by man-made global warming (according to the fraudsters).
For a decade I have driven through the vineyards along the I-90 NY toll road in western NY more than a dozen times a year and some years many dozens of times. I have yet to see vineyards or sections of vineyards dead. I have seen old plants being replaced.
To be fair your graph doesn’t prove your point – a few very cold days will kill vines, but the average for the month may not show that at all.
What I’m not following is how global warming caused a few cold winters in amongst a few warm winters, and presumably a few average winters?
It is one of the bizarre and obviously false things about AGW that it can cause something for a few days in a spot and then not cause it again in that spot for years, or even decades. And the “weather” at that spot can even reverse.
Some weather patterns may change as the Sun goes into ‘quiet mode’ but that’s nothing to do with trace gases in the atmosphere, human-caused or otherwise.
They are just blowing smoke to cause confusion, as usual.
There is always the possibility of laying the ground for lawsuit. Local farmers V, USG.
(lawsuit) National sport in The US.
We picked the wrong grape variety for this latitude and climate. It was fine for the last 30 years and now, because of (cooling) ‘climate change’ (AMO won’t get a mention in Court), our Vines are dead. We demand compensation!
No doubt ‘AGW/Climate change™’ will be blamed for the coming week’s big freeze throughout Europe — see http://www.gavsweathervids.com/ Yes it’s all modeled weather but he gives a fair interpretation of the probable pattern.
Or the snow in summer in Tasmania — http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-03/welcome-to-summer-in-tasmania-its-snowing-again/9221090