by P. Gosselin, May 30, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

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1. Alaska’s fourth cold winter in a row

Alaska was once seen as a beacon of hope in the AGW coal mine: but after four cold winters in a row, culminating in a historically cold winter season in 2022-23, the Last Climate Frontier has certainly lost that status – the catastrophists will now have to look elsewhere to bolster their narrative.

According to NOAA’s data, and despite the agency’s official forecasts that consistently heralded “warmer than average” seasons, the last four winters in Alaska have shown a strong cooling trend. [emphasis, links added]

The Old Farmer’s Almanac is also off its rocker. It predicted a “much milder than normal winter” for 2022-23 with below-average snowfall. That was wrong on both fronts.

Historic snowfall totals of more than 250 cm fell across much of Alaska, and Anchorage set a new record for leftover snow that stayed on the ground well into April.

April was also a historically cold month across Alaska, with an average temperature of -8.7 degrees Celsius, which is 5.5 degrees Celsius below the multi-decadal norm, and the fourth coldest April in 99 years of NOAA records.

The snow has now continued into May, tumbling even more records.

2. More and more new cold records “Down Under”

Icy polar air masses continue to dominate large parts of Australia – most recently in the west. Moreover, a continent-wide cold air outbreak from Antarctica is expected in the second half of this week.

Australia is cooling, and the proof is in measurements: For the past six years, it has been colder than average Down Under, and the list of cities that have recorded the coldest seasons since records began is growing(such as Brisbane last winter).

May 2023 continues this cooling trend, with the lowest May temperatures on record already recorded in a number of locations early in the month – including Cooma, Omeo, Bombala, and Canberra.

In Sydney last Sunday, the lowest temperature recorded at the start of autumn in 85 years (since 1938) was 7.1°C.

Over the weekend, it was the west’s turn to freeze.

Large parts of Western Australia just experienced the coldest May morning in at least two decades. On both Sunday and Monday morning, the temperature in Broome, for example, dropped to 11.5 °C, the lowest autumn reading since 1999.

3. May snow in Europe – even in Spain

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by J. Mason, May 23, 2023 in SkepicalScience

At a glance

Earth’s surface, oceans and atmosphere are all warming due to our greenhouse gasemissions, but at different rates. Some places are also warming much faster than others: parts of the Arctic for example. That variability is partly because other phenomena act to offset or enhance warming at times. A good example are the effects of La Nina and El Nino, an irregular variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean that can influence temperatures and rainfall patterns right around the world.

El Nino causes even warmer years whereas La Nina tends to peg temperatures back to an extent. Thus 2016 – an El Nino year – was the warmest year on record, according to the USA-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but other recent years have not been far behind – 2020 and 2019 are in second and third place respectively. The worrying thing is that 2019 only saw a mild El Nino and 2020 was “neutral” – there were neither El Nino or La Nina conditions. And even with a La Nina featuring, 2021 and 2022were, respectively, still the seventh and sixth hottest years on record.

The year 1998 featured a massive El Nino and consequent temperature spike that was a strong outlier, well above the steady upward trend. That spike and the subsequent return to a more “normal” warming pattern led to claims in the popular media that global warming had “paused” or had even stopped. This was a typical misinformation tactic that, as usual, time has proved wrong. As things currently stand, the top ten warmest years have all been since 2010 and 1998 is nowhere to be seen any more. By modern standards, it simply wasn’t warm enough.

Please use this form to provide feedback about this new “at a glance” section. Read a more technical version via the link below!

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In case you’d like to explore more of our recently updated rebuttals, here are the links to all of them:

Myths with link to rebuttal	Short URLs
Ice age predicted in the 1970s	sks.to/1970s
It hasn’t warmed since 1998	sks.to/1998
Antarctica is gaining ice	sks.to/antarctica
CRU emails suggest conspiracy	sks.to/climategate
What evidence is there for the hockey stick	sks.to/hockey
CO2 lags temperature	sks.to/lag
Climate‘s changed before	sks.to/past
It’s the sun	sks.to/sun
Temperature records are unreliable	sks.to/temp
The greenhouse effect and the 2nd law of thermodynamics	sks.to/thermo
We’re heading into an ice age	sks.to/iceage
Positives and negatives of global warming	sks.to/impacts
Global cooling – Is global warming still happening?	sks.to/cooling