Snow in Buenos Aires: Was it Global Warming?
by Paula Alvarado, Buenos Aires on 07.16.07
(Picture: snow falls over the obelisk, in the center of Buenos Aires. From Clarin.) The last anniversary of Argentine independence, July 9th, came with a surprise: for the first time in almost 90 years, snow fell in Buenos Aires and the city’s suburbs. While mostly everybody was thrilled with the spectacle, we (and few media) wondered about how dangerous the phenomenon could be. Fortunately, local specialists explained this was an isolated phenomenon, but warned about the consequences of a changing climate. Argentine meteorologist Osvaldo Canziani, president of one of the sections in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), explained to Clarin newspaper, “warming can produce cooling, but in this case it is not global warming the cause of this storm”. The specialist continued: “In September 1951 I worked in the international airport and we had a similar problem, of more intensity though it did not snow: a polar air mass from Antarctica invades the South of South America....
“This is an anomaly, as usually cold air comes from the Pacific and not the Antarctica, and in this case, it happened while in Buenos Aires there was enough cloudiness and the floor temperature was cold enough (0 degrees at 3pm) to produce the spectacle”.
According to Canziani, this spectacle is of a winter colder than the usual ones, but not a cyclic phenomenon as “the Antarctica is a closed system that only opens itself sporadically”.
“It does not have to do with climate change, though climate change could have cooperated somehow by increasing humidity”.
Finally, the meteorologist said “we are though in the middle of a changing climate, and we’ll have to see more attention coming from the government to these issues”.
Mario Nuñez, director of the Investigation Center for Sea and Atmosphere of the national university, wrote in a column in the country’s biggest newspaper, “this is already one of the coldest and raw winters of our history. The snow was a product of an Antarctic air mass that did not find resistance in its advance over the continent. That, and the humidity conditions, caused the snow”.
“We can’t attribute the snow to global warming. More than that, we can speak about ‘extreme phenomena’ that happen more often. Some examples are the droughts, flooding or the snow at unusual places that accompany the global warming process”.
Besides that, the scientist did not hesitate also in bringing the theme to the table: “we are registering a climate change process in the planet. Right now we have values that escape the average of the last 30 years”. ::Osvaldo Canziani at Clarin (in Spanish, our quotes are from the radio interview) ::Mario Nuñez column.
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....and global warming denialists will try to use this as evidence that the planet isn't warming. (There was snow in Vegas a couple years ago, and LA!)
Of course, it can be evidence of global warming, because it could be a side effect of some heat transfer. Feel the back of your fridge. It's hot. Does that mean the inside of the fridge is hot? No. The back of the fridge is hotter because the inside of the fridge is colder. Heat transfers always do this.
Rob, I do not think Mr. Canziani, who worked in the IPCC report about the consequences of Global Warming in Latin America, is a 'denialist'.
In fact, he does say warming can produce cooling and says GW may have contributed with the increase in humidity, but he does not attribute the snow itself to GW.
Of course if I find more information that says the contrary I'll post it and update this.
Thanks for commenting.
There's ice caps at the bottom of Argentina. Not surprising that snow could carry all the way to Buenos Aires. Not really a sign of global warming in this case.
Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth actually does mention the paradox that warming leads to more snowfall because of increased precipitation in the atmospehere.
what we are experiencing, debatable or not, is more appropriately referred to as "global climate change"
Please, repeat after me:
Weather is not climate.
Weather is not climate.
Single weather events cannot be attributed to global warming, or other climatic change. Large statistically valid amounts of weather events can be turned into climate. Until you get that, your opponents, whether or not they have valid claims, can still easily dismiss you.
Was it global warming when it snowed in Buenos Aires 90 years ago?
If warming can produce cooling, can cooling produce warming?
You cannot rule out global warming (GW) yet. Although signs are indicative of a weather phenomena, if we see this events cycle period decrease, such as happening another few times in the next decade, then GW could well be attributed to this cause.
If we don't see this occur for another 50 years or so, then we could conclude their is no connection to GW
To decrease our impact on the planet, we must legalize cannabis. It is uneducated and unethical decisions of restricting a natural non-GE plant that is part of the natural carbon cycle that have created the dangerous world we now live in. May the race start correcting its mistakes together.
Dean,
Climate can affect weather. For example Surface Sea Temperatures can be elevated that 'bit extra' through the effects of C02 induced climate change. Such temperatures can increase the intensity of cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons.
That is just one example of how it can occur.
I am well aware that global warming induced sea temperatures increase the average rate of evaporation and latent heat production in hurricanes.
My point is that weather is a highly variable thing, and you can't say a single event is caused by a climate change. You can't. Just look at Chicago's yearly precipitation and call even a single year's rainfall amount anomalous.
Snowed in Baghdad today, first time in living memory. Maybe its time to rethink this global Warming bullshit.