It's been heaven for downhill.

Best snow I can remember.
Tomorrow, partly sunny after 22 new inches in the past 24 hours, more now and tonight.

I'm there.

200 inch base within a couple days.

The downhill does look excellent.

Sunshine and pow on superbowl sunday sounds like a winner!

I thought the NW glaciers were supposedly all losing ice due to global "warming".

Could this be the start of the next cooling cycle?

Thanks
JK

Well, the thing about global warming isn't that everyplace gets warmer so much as the increased average temperatures – and the comcomitant increase in the energy within the whole system – mean that there will be more extremes in places they've never been seen before.

Massive hurricanes become more likely (not necessarily guaranteed, but more likely), droughts become nastier (think Atlanta this last year) and places like the Cascades can see snowfall unknown in recent memory. We can probably expect some nasty floods here in the valley later this coming spring.

I too have heard of the possiblilty that global warming may 'boomerang' into a new ice age. Don't know what the jury is saying on that. But The Big O this last week ran an article saying how some paleontologists (is that the right word for them) are suggesting that man's changes are so overwhelming that they have essentially ended the Holocene era, and inagurated a new era they're calling the "Anthropocene".

"I've never seen deeper snow up there, and it's still coming down hard."
--------

I have not been up there yet (skiing Bachelor), but have they fenced off Pucci yet?

I remember in the mid-to-late 70s they had high 200s to low 300s on the ground and had to line-off under the lift run, as well as get the cats to dig out parts of the lift line so that your skis didn't drag on the snow. (Not sure about the rumor about the skier who built a jump and jumped over the Pucci lift, but coulda happened). That was before the Palmer lift, and that summer they used metal detectors to try and locate the Poma lift for the summer ski teams.

"I thought the NW glaciers were supposedly all losing ice due to global "warming"."
-----

Didn't you get the memo? It is no longer "Global Warming".

Newly revised to "Climate Change". Even Gov Kulo got into the act. The new OSU State Climatologist (to replace that evil George Taylor) is called Director of Human Induced Climate Change Bozology (not sure if this is the exact title, but might be close).

Our Global Warming is spawned in the North Pacific and caused by volcanic activity that started in 1976.

Remember Mt. St Helens and the Ring of Fire?

Ask the Russians for the facts on deep water temps.

Watch for the warming trend mixed with heavy rain in a couple weeks that will flood everything and get about 78 to 102 hours of breathless news coverage.

Ask the Russians for the facts on deep water temps.

Heck, ask the US Navy. They had to be collecting all sorts of climatic data from every place they went on and under the seas.

Pop up under an Arctic ice sheet, grab a temperature and air check. Go about your business.

It sounds like you need to update/modify your "Miles run" sidebar feature.

Word to the wise - pay the extra money to lock up your skis. On a recent outing to Skibowl, my rental skis were jacked, along with two strangers' snow boards. This happened outside the warming hut 1/2 way up the hill, in a 5-10 minute time period.

So if it's too cold and snowy for a few weeks, that's anthropogenic cooling.

Until it warms up enough to start raining on Mt. Hood, and that's anthropogenic warming?

I think y'all are confusing weather and climate.

As the blueDogs imply, Dissent is patriotic unless you are talking global warming!

Right you are. We went to Little John for sledding, and it was almost too deep for the munchkins. Perfect temperature, no wind, tons of snow, but too deep (not enough people had packed it down). Great for crashing, though, on the tube. No pain, just a huge explosion of snow.
The woman suggested we just rent snowshoes next time and pull the kids on sleds.

Word to the wise

Sadly, don't leave anything valuable in your car, either. At the sno-park outside Teacup Lake the other day, we met a gal who had just had her laptop stolen out of her car there.

you need to update/modify your "Miles run"

"Miles run" does not include Nordic skiing. But I'd rather ski than run.

Mister Tee: I think y'all are confusing weather and climate.
JK: Actually that is what the gloom and doom alarmists are doing.

The latest revision to the best data available in the USA (the USHCN) shows that we have been cooling since 1998, which is tied with 1934 as the warmest year since the little age, 400 years ago. Hardly cause for the panic spread by the political class.

BTW, the North pole ice has recovered to above average.

thanks
JK

Abe wrote:
> Our Global Warming is spawned
> in the North Pacific and
> caused by volcanic activity
> that started in 1976.
>
> Remember Mt. St Helens and
> the Ring of Fire?

Completely wrong on several counts:

1) volcanoes cause cooling, not warming.
2) volcanic activity washes out of the atmosphere in about a year. Mt St Helens has absolutely no effect on today's climate.
3) Volcanic activity is dwarfed by the climate forcing of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

JK wrote:
> The latest revision to
> the best data available
> in the USA (the USHCN) shows
> that we have been cooling since
> 1998

US-only statistics are essentially irrelevant when talking about global climate change -- the US comprises only about 2% of the global land mass. So any conclusions about US-only temperatures say absolutely nothing about global climate change.

"US-only temperatures say absolutely nothing about global climate change."

Well OK and duh.

BUT, if US temps were rising since 1998 it would, of course, validate Global warming. :)

Skiing was great today. The snow is so deep at Meadows they had to plow away some of it, in places, to keep the chair riders from dragging their skis/boards.

Suppose the snow keeps coming as usual for say the next 10, 20 and 30 years?
Or 50 years?
At what point will it mean something about the Global Warming theory?

Howard: Suppose the snow keeps coming as usual for say the next 10, 20 and 30 years? Or 50 years? At what point will it mean something about the Global Warming theory?

Snow or no snow, if the ocean temperatures continue to rise, then GW is continuing onward. The simple reason for this is that the oceans are the principle resovoir of earth's releasible stored heat.

john rettig: Snow or no snow, if the ocean temperatures continue to rise, then GW is continuing onward. The simple reason for this is that the oceans are the principle resovoir of earth's releasible stored heat.
JK: Please tell us what the ocean temperatures have been doing lately compared to a few million years of history, not just since the little ice age. Please note that the surface temperature only measures a teeny-tiny amount of the water, since many oceans are miles deep so you should know the temperature that includes the depths, and keeping in the Al Gore tradition, only peer reviewed references please. (Also note that the IPCC summarys are not peer reviewed by scientists.)

Thanks
JK

Howard wrote:
> BUT, if US temps were rising
> since 1998 it would, of course,
> validate Global warming. :)

Not to anyone who truly understands, values, and follows science, it wouldn't.

JK wrote:
> Please tell us what the ocean
> temperatures have been doing
> lately compared to a few million
> years of history,

Ocean temperatures have fluctuated significantly in the last few million years, of course. As well they should have, seeing as the Earth has been through several Ice Ages in that time and well as numerous other monstrous climate forcings.

So what?

The question isn't how today's climate compares to that of a million years ago, it's what forcings are driving *today's* climate. And scientists have shown over the last 20 years that the observed climate cannot be accounted for by natural forcings only. Only when anthropogenic forcings are added is the real climate accounted for.

Also: it is, of course, complete understandable, thermodynamically, that the surface of the ocean should gain heat before the depths, and so should be warmer. That's just basic physics.

Also: The IPCC summaries are certainly peer-reviewed (by scientists on the IPCC committees), and in any case are derived from a collection of peer-reviewed studies.

John Rettig wrote:
> The simple reason for this is
> that the oceans are the
> principle resovoir of earth's releasible
> stored heat.

Wrong. The oceans are a heat *sink*, not a heat source. Heat flows spontaneously from hot bodies (the earth and atmosphere) to colder bodies (the ocean), not the other way around. This is known as the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

The oceans are not warming up our atmosphere. Our atmosphere is warming up the oceans.

Tony: Wrong. The oceans are a heat *sink*, not a heat source.

Agreed.

Heat flows spontaneously from hot bodies (the earth and atmosphere) to colder bodies (the ocean), not the other way around.

Wrong. Atmospheric heat can be absorbed or stored heat released from oceans, significantly impacting weather patterns.

This is known as the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Fortunately, I dodged this course in my (electrical) engineering education.

Tony, have you any sources where all of the earth's volcanic vents and otherwise have been mapped and heat released measured for all the areas under our oceans? I don't believe that is available from my readings. Earth's core could have some affect on earths warming or cooling because it wouldn't be a constant.

John Rettig wrote:
> Atmospheric heat can be absorbed
> or stored heat released from
> oceans, significantly impacting weather
> patterns.

Such "releases" are quite localized and temporary, and affect *weather*, not climate. Climate is a long-term thing, taking place on the order of decades. Weather takes place in the order of hours.

Sure, you can beat the 2nd law of thermodynamics for small times in small places, but you cannot beat it for (adiabatic) systems at large.

In my opinion, any educated person (even an EE :-) should know some thermodynamics.

> Tony, have you any sources
> where all of the earth's volcanic vents and > otherwise have been mapped and heat
> released measured for all the areas under
> our oceans?

Don't know, sorry.

Tony, if undersea earth core and volcanic activity isn't properly accounted as a contributor to climate change, then how can scientifically accurate climate change modeling be achieved? If Jacques Cousteau's undersea world is 90% not explored, it would seem this could be a major variable. Coupled with solar variations, earth tilt variations, and even variations in modeling, it seems that results could be far from accurate. I am not dispelling human contribution to global climate changes, but wondering if we have the right percentages.