Don't look above your toes

Former Prince of Darkness hack, now writing for advisers to Dick Cheney, young reporter Amanda Carey has penned a piece called Severe winter weather caused by global warming?:

As Colorado braces for epic snowfall, Great Britain literally comes to a halt because of record blizzards, and the whole northern hemisphere enters what is predicted to be an especially harsh winter, some climate change experts are blaming the cold spell on global warming.

Earlier this month, the website reportingclimatescience.com reported that warmer temperatures in the Arctic actually cause colder temperatures everywhere else.

"The Atlantic pressure system that controls the gateway that allows cold northern air to flow south into Europe has been stuck in the same 'open' position for a record 14 months, while the Arctic pressure system is amplifying the effect by driving even more cold air south," the website reported.

According to the theory, as cold air leaves the Arctic and the polar bears scramble to find the few remaining ice caps, that cold air hovers over Europe and the U.S. According to the report, the same phenomenon occurred in 1942, a phenomenon that, coincidentally, helped the Soviet Union repel the Nazi invasion.

Always good to bring Nazis into the story. That shows that the cold weather is God's work.

There follows some boring stuff about the North Atlantic Oscillation which is a weather system that determines where the boundary of cold and warm air lies, which varies from year to year (ie it oscillates).

In other words, the severity of the winter climate doesn't change, but the exact centre and boundaries of the winter patch varies.

Kind of like standing at the edge of the sea with the tide and waves sometimes washing across your toes; if you don't look up you will never see what is going on.

And when what is going on out there in reality is inconsistent with your rank ideology, call Myron Ebell to keep your mind focussed on the lies:

"They make this stuff up as they go along," said Myron Ebell, director of the Center of Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "If this theory is true, a necessary consequence is that there will be less severe winter storms because arctic air masses will not be as cold.

According to Ebell, if the Arctic was getting warmer, the air rushing south would also be warm. This would reduce the difference between the two meeting pressure systems, leading to less severe winter weather. This hasn’t happened.

I can't believe Ms Carey bothered to print that.

Is Myron Ebell saying that he will not accept that the North Pole has experienced dramatic warming until he can stand outside in a T-shirt, and not go: "Brrr, it's cold out here"? How much sea ice has got to melt?

That's really stupid.

Ms Carey also phoned up some dipstick know-nothing at the Cato institute for his comment on climate models not being all that accurate.

But here is a comment from an actual climate scientist from earlier this year about the accuracy of climate models:

"While the emerging impact of greenhouse gases is an important factor in the changing Arctic, what was not fully recognised until now is that a combination of an unusual warm period due to natural variability, loss of sea ice reflectivity, ocean heat storage and changing wind patterns working together has disrupted the memory and stability of the Arctic climate system, resulting in greater ice loss than earlier climate models predicted," says Dr Overland.

"The exceptional cold and snowy winter of 2009-2010 in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America is connected to unique physical processes in the Arctic," he says.

The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet. This is known as Arctic amplification - a much debated phenomenon at the IPY-OSC, where 2400 polar scientists have gathered to discuss the huge amount of research and new findings which are the direct result of the International Polar Year.

The changes are happening a great deal faster than the scientific community expected. Given the recent reduction of the area of multi-year sea ice and reduced ice thickness, it is unlikely that the Arctic can return to its previous condition.

"The changes are irreversible," says Dr Overland.

Does that scare you yet, Ms Carey?

No, it probably doesn't. All she's looking forward to is bleaching her hair blond and getting a job at Fox News Bubble in order to spew out lethal propaganda 24/7 fed to her by the likes of Myron Ebell.