Massive winter storm Jonas is bringing blizzard or near-blizzard conditions to much of the mid-Atlantic and the northeastern states this weekend. Early Saturday morning common snowfall rates were two inches per hour, with three inches per hour being seen in the New York City area. Roads across the entire region are quickly becoming impassable and the storm could pose a life-threatening situation to anyone caught off guard.
As the mammoth front blasts nearly the entire east coast, will global-warming alarmists take note of what are simply natural weather and climate fluctuations, or will it be business as usual — blaming man for climate change?
Saturday morning a blizzard warning was put into effect for more than 33 million people from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Connecticut, down through New York City, Washington D.C., and Virginia. At an amazing 28 inches, Terra Alta, West Virginia, was already deeply covered Saturday morning, as the snow was reaching out into other southern states such as Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee as well. Snow has also been reported in Alabama and coastal South Carolina.
Sustained winds in Delaware have peaked at 59 mph, with gusts to 85 mph at Assateague Island, Virginia and 73 mph in Lewes, Delaware. The combination of snow and strong winds is expected to lead to power outages, and major flooding is forecast for coastal cities throughout New Jersey and Delaware at high-tide times. Moderate flooding is expected in coastal cities all the way from as far north as New England to the southern reaches in North Carolina.
Thundersnow, a thunderstorm wherein snow is the primary precipitation, is likely to be experienced as strong wind gusts and the above-stated 2-3 inch per/hour snowfalls pound the Chesapeake Bay area and the Delmarva peninsula in Delaware.
The massive blizzard has hit the U.S. east coast at a time when global warming is being shouted from the rooftops. Mirroring a religious fervor, mainstream media outlets are spinning tales of melting polar ice caps that will leave whatever earth not covered by the rising the ocean levels completely scorched. If one’s only source of news were the main stream media and incessant “climate-change” soundbites from politicians, one might be tempted to believe the science has been settled on the issue. However, as The New American has pointed out time and again, there is no global warming problem.
For example, in his article “Hiding the Hiatus: Global Warming on Pause,” The New American’s Senior Editor William F. Jasper notes that the satellite data shows that there has been no detectable global warming for the last 225 months — almost 19 years. This data, Jasper explains, is based on “lower troposphere temperature records for 99 percent of the globe, obtained from highly accurate microwave sounding instruments aboard a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather satellites.”
The satellite readings, which have been available since the late 1970s, are more reliable than the surface temperature readings, which are by no means recorded everywhere on the planet’s surface and are also subject to the urban-heat effect. Yet the surface temperature record does not show a global-warming problem either, though the readings have been adjusted upward, ostensbily to take into account areas where readings are not available, as explained in this article by Jasper, “Fudging the Global Temperature Record.”
Prior to the era of modern weather stations, the temperature record was less reliable than in recent times. In The New American article “2015: The Climate Record That Wasn’t,” Charles Scaliger observes:
Of course, no one has any idea what average world temperatures were in the pre-Industrial Age, since there were no satellites or modern weather facilities to monitor such data. The evidence seems to suggest that global temperatures fluctuated widely — between the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age that followed, for example — but such matters are of small concern to climate-change zealots who are so frequently wrong but never in doubt. The Medieval Warm Period allowed the Vikings to settle in Greenland and grow a wide variety of crops. But with the arrival of the global-cooling cycle known as the Little Ice Age, most European settlements in Greenland were abandoned, though many of their churches and dwelling places stand to this day.
Yet such facts do not stop global-warming alarmists from falsely claiming that the temperature record shows that the Earth is hotter than ever.
In another article for The New American, Rebecca Terrell profiled multiple scientists who have discredited the global warming alarmism. The very existence of these climate realists and many others — who have been ignored or lambasted by the mainstream media for failing to toe the party line — exposes the lie that there is a scientific “consensus” in favor of the alarmism.
As the massive blizzard pounds the entire east coast, maybe enough snow will fall on Washington, D.C., to cause the White House, politicians, political pundits, and media outlets to take note. Planetary temperatures have fluctuated and always will. Right now it is bitterly cold and people would do well to stay indoors. Maybe while home waiting for Jonas to pass, a good way for people to use the time might be for them to write letters to their congressmen encouraging them to ignore the pseudo-science behind the climate alarmism.
Photo: AP Images
