It's happening world-wide. The snow-starved Alps, now Aspen. Any doubt the lack of snow is telling us something?

Sure; let's ban the auto, natural gas & ration electricity use for the poor & lower middle class so rich kids can ski in Colorado. It never ends...

Sooo.........if we stop producing CO2 today we cannot stop GW. Hmmm.....something to think about. That may mean that THEY ARE WRONG?

Rose - that point about warming continuing is there because the CO2 emitted today will stay in the atmosphere 50-200 years.

Emiliano: I don't see where the article says anything about this being a low snow year at Aspen or anywhere else in Colorado. My sister lives in Estes Park and they have had a LOT of snow and very below average temperatures. DENVER'S CONSECUTIVE DAYS OF SNOW COVER ENDS...
....61 CONSECUTIVE DAYS FINISHES IN 2ND PLACE... That is from: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/bou/?n=consec_snowog So what is it you are referring to Emiliano?

I'm not referring to this particular ski season. But there has been a trend over the last years that shows less snow than usual.

And, a friend of mine living in Denver, CO says he used to have lots of "snow days" but admits these are becoming less frequent now.

Sorry, I was not referring to this Winter in particular, because I have no information to say something about it.

Emiliano;

First let me congratulate you on a civil response. That is quite unusual on these matters.

Now, here is mine: You ask, "Any doubt the lack of snow is telling us something?" The snow you are talking about, the second longest to stay on the ground (on record) in Denver? It could be telling you that things are getting colder, such as the "coming ice age" from the 70's. It might also be telling you that.....WEATHER CHANGES.

This lack of snow you are referring to takes 2 things: cold weather and water droplets falling from the sky. For all I know (and I've not looked into it, as you admit you've not looked into this year's weather in Colorado) the Euro alps are having stupendously colder than normal weather--it just hasn't snowed.

I should add that I'm not as ignorant as I imply. I keep an eye on Northern Europe and Russia and, let me tell you, it's been pretty bloody cold in those parts.

Emiliano:

Here is a quote from last year's Aspen Daily News; Mon 01/16/2006 09:00PM MST

City snowfall 31.1 inches above normal

After skiing through over a foot of fresh powder Monday, Klaus Obermeyer said this season ranks among the best he's seen since escaping Nazi Germany and immigrating here in 1947.

"The skiing has been absolutely outstanding," said Obermeyer, a ski-wear manufacturer and 1997 Colorado Ski Hall of Fame inductee who, at the age of 86, continues to carve his graceful turns in Warren Miller's famous ski movies. http://www.aspendailynews.com/archive_12556

Here is a report on the 2007 season which shows 90 to 130% totals as of Feb. 28 in northern and central Colorado. http://members.aol.com/crockeraf/seas07.htm

Are you certain that Aspen is "snow starved"? I think that the reality is that global warming is about as real as the "fact" that Aspen is "snow starved".

I cant see what the amount of snowfall has to do with warming.

Let me clarify. Snowfall is dealing with precipitation just as rain deals with precipitation. Less snowfall only means less precipitation unless potential snow turns into rain. Question for Laura. Are they getting more rainfall in Aspen?

If potential snow is falling as rain then you can start to link warming. However if its not then its just that there is less precipitation overall. The causes for this could be many and varied.

I thought I would look up Aspens temp history on GISS. Its doesn' exist. Does that mean there is no weather station? So the only staions on Giss that had a temp record to 2006 that seem close to Aspen is Dillon 1e and Steamboat Springs. Dillon 1e shows a bit of warming but is basically flat in the last 20 years. Steamboat Springs is basically flat for 60 years.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=4257246900&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425744210020&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1

Again, I did not say Aspen is snow-starved these days.

Rbnyc, I doubt the existance of such cold air over Russia. The thing is, it's been brutally cold recently over East Russia, with snow being measured in feet over there. But, most of the winter presented above-normal temperatures in most of Europe and Russia.

Similarly to what Denver experienced with a record snow cover, Moscow was 45 days in a row with temperatures well above normal. And Alan Reppert, on his blog on Europe's weather, has been highlighting these warm temps since the beginning of Winter. Moreover, I have been in Europe for the entire month of January, and experienced just one week of decent cold air. I was in Paris, and temps were in the mid 50's. I was in Belgium, and it was not cold. I was in the U.K., and although it did snow, it was quite a mild Winter over there. The Alps didn't get cold enough for some artificial snow till January came. Tokyo, Japan, did not get any snow but a trace this Winter.

Again, let me apologyse about Aspen. But what I mean is that less snow might be indicating less cold air.

Emiliano

Steve - There is a reporting station at the airport in Aspen. The identifier is ASE. I don't know how long records have been kept there. Dillon is much closer geographically than Steamboat, but Dillon is more than 2500 feet lower in elevation than ASE.

Most reporting stations no longer report snow. Several years ago, almost all reporting stations became fully automated. This was a bad thing for forecasters like me, because there were no longer snow reports in the observations, and if a station's snow melter got fouled up (as happens quite often), the liquid equivalent would not be accurately measured. Pretty tricky figuring out how much snow has fallen in a location when you don't even know how much liquid there has been.

I've never done much forecasting for central Colorado. I know a fair amount about the front range and that the heavy snows there in December were unusual - heavy, synoptic snow in the front range is favored in the fall and spring, while the winter tends to be very dry.

"The snow-starved Alps, now Aspen. Any doubt the lack of snow is telling us something?"

"Now Aspen" what? If you are not saying that Aspen is snow starved what ARE you saying and why is the word Aspen in the above sentence which you wrote?

I have no argument with your observations on the current temps in Europe, it is largely what I have observed, however, you seem only to notice the warm trends. Yes, Moscow was pretty warm earlier this winter while they were setting November cold records in the Yukon. Here in parts of the States we had really warm weather in January which then turned into near "coldest month" temps in February. I could see how you might be duped into believing this hokum since you are only looking at it from one angle.

Again, weather changes, the sky is not falling.

Emiliano said: "It's happening world-wide. The snow-starved Alps, now Aspen. Any doubt the lack of snow is telling us something?"

But what is it telling us? Again, the reoccuring assumption is that "global warming", i.e. AGW, is the culprit. Is it possible there are other forces at work in nature that we don't understand that could be causing this? For example, solar influences, cosmic backround radiation? There seems to be a lot of studies bubbling up that suggest there are other influences. Sorry, I don't have any cites handy, but one site that has been doing a lot of research is co2science.org. Well worth the time to page through as it does have some thought provoking content.

(I haven't quite got the hang of HTML tags in this blog yet...please bear with me.)

Giss definitely doesn't have Aspen on their list. I located the closest station data as Leadville which is about 2000 ft higher then Aspen. However the GISS data ends in 1979. So I still cant do any comparisons. I find it very strange that GISS doesn't have Aspen. Being a reasonable important centre for tourists and all.

One thing which also annoys me is trying to get data for Australian towns and cities. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology stopped giving data to GISS in the 1990's. But then you cant get the data from the ABM. Seems to be a state secret or something??? (Just Joking)