Jim wrote:

> pretty. :-)  Rumor has it that we are going to have a very snowy
> December that will help but supposedly the rest of the winter is going
> to suck.  If scientists are correct about what's happening with the
> globe in the upcoming years then even eastern areas heavily dependent
> on snowmaking may not survive.  Can anyone imagine prime mid-winter
> conditions being like what's at Killington right now?  Scary thought.
>  Jim

This all goes into the FWIW category.... it is a scary thought
indeed, but there're other schools of thought regarding some of
Jim's points... there are indications that the NAO (North Atlantic
Oscillation, for lack of better terms, Atlantic equivalent of the
ENSO/La Nina cycle) is going to have a negative tilt this year and
may have a negative tilt for a good long while.... these negative tilts
are VERY favorable to lotsa snow in the Northeast. (suggest a look
at http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/Library/1103/ for a deeper
understanding -- Dr. D. is pen name of intellicast chief
meterorolgist Dr. Joseph D'Aleo.

One of my local meteorologist buds, by the way, is just finishing up
his doctorate in global climatology.. his thesis, based on extensive
study of ice core samples on the Greenland ice sheets, is that
we're actually overdue for the start of a mini-ice age.  Scratched my
head about this four years ago when he told me that we were in a
five year period which would signal the changeover... predicted then
that winter weather in New England would be wildly variable and
pretty frustrating for ski resort operators during that period.
Obviously, too soon to tell if he's right or not, but he had that four
year thing pretty well nailed... on recent query, he allowed as how if
global warming was in fact a result of human activity all it was
doing was forestalling the inevitable.

FWIW, in a private correspondence regarding last winter's weather,
Dr. D'Aleo told me:

 "In addition, the eastern tropical Pacific was especially slow to
cool. It really didn't drop and stay below normal until this spring.
Now it is cold. And so is the atmosphere. The global mean 500mb
temperatures are near the coldest since satellite measurements
began in 1979."

It's that last that I find intriguing with regard to global warming
theory...

Time to go split wood?

skip

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