Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

[jai mitchell]

Long-Range forecasts show that the anomalous low pressure system that formed near Hawaii and is moving up into the north pacific as a sub-tropical vortex will push significant amounts of moisture into the arctic around January 1st.

This is unusual as the system formed near the tropics and is  working to push tropical sst moisture into the arctic in a series of pulses that should produce a massive increase in the arctic vortex.

Here is the System today moving north from Hawaii.  http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/12/26/1800Z/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/equirectangular=-166.85,42.69,538

Here is the forecast prediction that shows a burst of low-altitude tropospheric moisture moving into the arctic.

http://weather.utah.edu/index.php?runcode=2014122712&t=gfs004&r=PA&d=TS

If it follows the previous patterns, then this will lead to a large increase in regional temperatures as shown at dmi

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

[Laurent]

2014 may be first year ever with no below-zero temps in Anchorage
http://www.adn.com/article/20141228/2014-may-be-first-year-ever-no-below-zero-temps-anchorage

[jai mitchell]

wrong way jet stream

[Sigmetnow]

Record high pressure over parts of the western US mean record low temperatures.

@BrianBledsoe: BreakingWeatherAlert...Denver [Colorado] touched -19 this evening making this the coldest December 30th since 1898 (-11).  Again...#stupidcold #cowx

[Sigmetnow]

Climate change gives Denmark its hottest year in record.  (From Dec 17, 2014)
http://www.thelocal.dk/20141217/climate-change-gives-denmark-its-hottest-year-on-record

[bluesky]

...and hottest year in France too, 1.2 C above average, previous record at 1.1C in 2011, hottest also for Spain, Uk, Belgium, Germany (1.4  C above)
http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites?articleId=20344090

Paris had only 2 days of frost in 2014 (new record, previous one was 5 days in 1974) versus 25 on average, Lyon 12 versus 50. Paris stayed 379 days without frost between 14th December 2013 and 28th December 2014, previous record in 1990 with 328 days.
In the South near the Mediterranean sea, there was 10 flooding events in autumn 2014,  another record of the so called "Cevenol events" triggered by exceptionally high sea surface temperature in the Mediteranean sea.... I am sure the list of record in 2014 should be rather long...

[bluesky]

...apologies, maybe it should in the other thread "mean Europe tempetature in 2014 maybe the highest since 1500" started by Wipneus. Just wonder if it is the highest since the holocene max 6000 years ago...

[Clare]

This last paragraph in this news article about the Asia Air plane crash caught my eye, I hadn't seen CC mentioned in official-type news reports in the past.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/64599154/AirAsia-flights-behaviour-on-the-edge-of-logic

"AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes said earlier this week he had "full confidence in my fleet and crew". Without giving details, he steered blame towards the weather, saying his airline would continue business as usual, but suggesting that climate change was making weather worse and flying riskier, particularly in the tropics."

[Csnavywx]

I've seen updraft and downdraft velocities easily exceed 40-50 m/s. Baseball to softball sized hail basically requires speeds in excess of that magnitude to develop.

In a tropical environment, where there is less dry air in the lower-to-middle troposphere, buoyancy driven processes are often more efficient due to less dry air entrainment into the updraft, but hail is often not seen at the surface due to the high freezing level and the hail growth zone (-10C to -30C) being located very far aloft and displaced from the zone of maximum ascent.

So, as for the 24kft/min reading on descent, it might not be as preposterous as it sounds, especially with a 50 or 60 m/s downdraft being exerted on the plane. The comment in the article about "being greater than terminal velocity" isn't necessarily true in this case. It might be true if we're comparing to clear air with little vertical motion, but in a thunderstorm downdraft your terminal velocity is essentially Tv(normal)+downdraft speed.

[Sigmetnow]

Montreal ice storm:

As of 4 p.m. ET on Sunday, more than 150,000 Hydro-Québec customers were without electricity on and around the island of Montreal after freezing rain encased southern Quebec in ice.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-s-icy-weather-continues-into-night-as-temperatures-plummet-1.2889257

You may recall the major Quebec ice storm of 1998, an anniversary just one day away.

[Sigmetnow]

Huge bushfire in South Australia.

"We have a fire which is extremely dangerous, and it is burning under extremely adverse conditions," South Australia's Country Fire Service chief Greg Nettleton said. "Residents in the Adelaide Hills are being confronted by a fire which hasn't been seen in the hills since the 1983 bushfires of Ash Wednesday."

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/3/australia-bushfireadelaide.html

[Sigmetnow]

The hottest year ever around the world – in pictures
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2014/dec/03/hottest-year-ever-around-world-in-pictures

[Sigmetnow]

Here we go:  The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has announced that 2014 was the hottest year in more than 120 years of record-keeping — by far.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/05/3607735/2014-hottest-year-by-far/

[Sigmetnow]

South Australia faces catastrophe from raging wildfires

With at least 26 houses lost to wildfire in the Adelaide Hills, record warmth across South Australia and temperatures in Perth hitting 44.4C, the real-world impacts of climate change are already being keenly felt in the opening days of 2015.

In Southern Australia, the Adelaide wildfires have been declared a “catastrophe” by the Insurance Council of Australia with more than 12,000 hectares destroyed.

http://tcktcktck.org/2015/01/south-australia-faces-catastrophe-raging-wildfires/65853

[Sigmetnow]

Billion dollar weather and climate disasters in the US in 2014.

In 2014, there were 8 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events included a drought event, a flooding event, 5 severe storm events, and a winter storm event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 53 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/

[Sigmetnow]

Series of North Atlantic "weatherbombs" unloads on Europe over the week.
http://mashable.com/2015/01/12/north-atlantic-storm-weatherbombs/

[Laurent]

Half of Malawi declared disaster zone after flooding
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/14/malawi-flooding-torrential-rain-mozambique

[Sigmetnow]

Heavy snow has crippled travel in Ireland and the northern U.K. ahead of a powerful North Atlantic storm.

Despite their northern location, Ireland and Northern Ireland are not entirely acclimated to snow, given the proximity to the warm North Atlantic current. The current, which originates in the tropics and extends from the Gulf Stream, helps to moderate the temperature in Ireland and the U.K., and often mitigates the formation of snow.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/01/14/heavy-snow-cripples-travel-in-northern-u-k-ireland-ahead-of-powerful-north-atlantic-storm/

[Sigmetnow]

Damage said to likely be ten times that of the previous worst flood in Malawi history.

In what is likely to be one of 2015's deadliest natural disasters, two weeks of heavy rains have hit the southeastern African nations of Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar, triggering rampaging floods that have killed at least 260 people and left 260,000 homeless....

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2898

[Jim Hunt]

As a SW England silver surfer this is of particular interest to me:

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/PICTURES-Porthleven-beach-stripped-sand-freak/story-25907959-detail/story.html

A popular Cornish beach has been stripped of all its sand overnight by a freak high tide for the first time in living memory. Porthleven is a favourite holiday spot for tourists visiting Cornwall and is famed for its pristine golden sands nestled below the quaint seaside town. But during the recent bad weather so much sand vanished that the once yellow shoreline is now dotted with jagged rocks covered in seaweed and algae.

An oceanographer from Porthleven, Alan Jorgensen, said that he has never seen the level of sand so low in all his years in the village.

Experts calculated that nearly a million tonnes of sand were lost off British beaches last year, with popular beaches in Newquay, Bude and Perranporth also left bare.

[johnm33]

Praa, [about a mile long] lost about 4ft overnight last winter, [and about 20ft of the car park] came back in late spring. Last sat. it was down 2ft again and the sand is much finer than it was, likely its washed up from Porthleven.

[Sigmetnow]

Are you ready for some blizzard, New England?
@wunderground: Dr. Masters says, "Potentially Historic Blizzard Taking Aim on New England" http://t.co/xEtmb1f3H0

[Sigmetnow]

Northeast U.S.: off-the-charts weather forecast (from the local National Weather Service office).
@GarySzatkowski: Another snow forecast map, showing totals across the region.  Includes tonight's clipper.  We maxed out the scale. http://t.co/1AwByN8zlg

[Sigmetnow]

Oops!  U.S. Nor'easter did not materialize because the system passed by further out to sea.  ECMWF, the Euro weather model -- having predicted a huge storm for several days beforehand -- will likely be knocked down a bit from the pedestal it was put on after the (very good) early call with Superstorm Sandy.  The fallout from all the "unnecessary" storm precautions will be big -- but as we've seen lately, the weather could just as easily been worse than expected.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/blizzard-15/blizzard-bust-nyc-worst-fears-fail-materialize-n294336

[Sigmetnow]

Which is not to say that New England is not getting hit hard by this system.  Heavy snow and flooding.
@NBCNews: Blackout: Power out on Nantucket, homes flooded http://t.co/J7fqfgmWTo #Blizzardof2015 http://t.co/Iy7V0crJim

@USATODAY: PHOTOS: #Snowmageddon2015 blankets the Northeast: http://t.co/qL3Sl8VwFd (Photo: Michael Dwyer, AP) http://t.co/cicG6CJvYh

[AbruptSLR]

The linked Smithsonian article says that climate change driven intensifications of the world's water cycle are contributing to the observed trend of fewer but stronger storms (such as the Nor'easter):

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/climate-change-altering-global-heat-engine-180954079/?no-ist

Extract: "Climate scientists have been warning for a while that as the planet heats up, storms will become fewer but stronger. This trend has been seen in a variety of historical data tracking wind speed, rain and snow over the past century or so. Now a team of researchers has figured out why, and the explanation is firmly rooted in atmospheric thermodynamics. Global warming is intensifying the world’s water cycle, and that drains energy from the air circulation that drives stormy weather, …"

[jai mitchell]

1/3

The strangest, massive, backward-moving low-pressure bomb in the north east pacific that has ever been witnessed.


image shown, Yesterday, 1/30 12:00 noon pacific time

[jai mitchell]

2/3

Same system moving backwards (toward the West and in opposition to the jet stream)  This system is functioning like a "cut-off" low, but it is a supermassive low pressure system that is dominating the region.   It is these types of systems that are wreaking havoc upon the arctic and are just another example of the total collapse of the polar cell, the expansion of the Hadley cell and the "Great Drying" of the pacific western United States.

[jai mitchell]

3/3

In a few days the blocking high pressure system off of the coast of California will cause multiple low pressure systems in the pacific to combine into a "super cell" low pressure gradient that stretches across most of the entire pacific ocean.

[AbruptSLR]

The attached image of an Earth surface Wind map for today shows the "super cell" in the North Pacific that jai discussed a couple of days ago:

[JimD]

This weather system being discussed has formed the 'atmospheric river' phenomenon and parts of the coast of northern CA and Oregon are expected to get 10+ inches of rain and maybe some places 15 inches.

Unfortunately it appears to be largely missing the Central Valley which is expected to only get 1-2 inches.

[ritter]

Jeff Master's blog on the event. I'm not sure why these atmospheric rivers are suddenly the media darling--they've been around forever and are not specifically climate change related, though will likely be influenced by them.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2909

[JimD]

Jeff Master's blog on the event. I'm not sure why these atmospheric rivers are suddenly the media darling--they've been around forever and are not specifically climate change related, though will likely be influenced by them.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2909

ritter

I think from the climatologist/serious weather forecaster perspective (ignoring that for the media the term sounds cool) it is our much better knowledge now of the paleo-weather record of the AR phenomenom.

Over the last 1000 years there have been 8 or 9 (I can't remember the exact number) massive AR events which hit the west coast.  4 very large ones and 4-5 smaller ones (smaller being gigantic by our standards of today).

The last event occurred in 1861 ( so the next is way overdue by statistical standards) and it was one of the small ones.  And the result of that event was that the Central Valley of California was turned in to a lake some 300 mi by 50 miles.  Early Sacramento was under water for 6 weeks.  Much of the LA basin was under water for months, all of the "dry" lake beds of California and Nevada were filled.  A couple of thousand people died.  And so on.

If such an event occurred today (and it is way overdue) (and the last one was not one of the big ones remember) it would completely eliminate an entire growing season in the Central Valley, completely destroy the farm infrastructure, cities, housing and transportation infrastructure for several millions of people.  It would likely kill tens of thousands.  It would throw the US into a serious economic tailspin.  In other words a natural disaster far beyond anything the US has ever experienced.

An almost Black Swan event, but only almost because we know this will happen again eventually.  Just like the big earthquake in SF/LA is coming.  It is just a matter of time.

[ritter]

Jeff Master's blog on the event. I'm not sure why these atmospheric rivers are suddenly the media darling--they've been around forever and are not specifically climate change related, though will likely be influenced by them.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2909

ritter

I think from the climatologist/serious weather forecaster perspective (ignoring that for the media the term sounds cool) it is our much better knowledge now of the paleo-weather record of the AR phenomenom.

Over the last 1000 years there have been 8 or 9 (I can't remember the exact number) massive AR events which hit the west coast.  4 very large ones and 4-5 smaller ones (smaller being gigantic by our standards of today).

The last event occurred in 1861 ( so the next is way overdue by statistical standards) and it was one of the small ones.  And the result of that event was that the Central Valley of California was turned in to a lake some 300 mi by 50 miles.  Early Sacramento was under water for 6 weeks.  Much of the LA basin was under water for months, all of the "dry" lake beds of California and Nevada were filled.  A couple of thousand people died.  And so on.

If such an event occurred today (and it is way overdue) (and the last one was not one of the big ones remember) it would completely eliminate an entire growing season in the Central Valley, completely destroy the farm infrastructure, cities, housing and transportation infrastructure for several millions of people.  It would likely kill tens of thousands.  It would throw the US into a serious economic tailspin.  In other words a natural disaster far beyond anything the US has ever experienced.

An almost Black Swan event, but only almost because we know this will happen again eventually.  Just like the big earthquake in SF/LA is coming.  It is just a matter of time.

Yes, Jim. We've got a team on it! The ARk Storm! http://meteora.ucsd.edu/cap/arkstorm.html

It would indeed be a tragic event. And, as you note, we're similarly overdue for a massive quake along the West Coast. I guess my point was just that it's not a new phenomenon and seems to get lumped in with climate change. There is some evidence that the outlier will increase in strength, but we expect that with most strong storm systems. There's simply more energy to fuel them.

[Jim Hunt]

Here in South West England we're rapidly moving from "anecdotal" to "scientific" evidence:

http://news.agu.org/press-release/huge-2014-british-storms-shook-cliffs-more-than-ever-previously-recorded/

Over January-February 2014, during the most energetic Atlantic storm period since at least 1950, with deep water significant wave heights of six to eight meters (20 to 26 feet), cliff-top ground motions showed vertical ground displacements in excess of 50 to 100 microns; an order of magnitude larger than observations made previously anywhere in the world.

Using seismometers on loan from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., Earlie and the team embedded the instruments seven meters (23 feet) from the cliff edge. Within two weeks, they were just five meters (16 feet) from the edge, such had been the rate of erosion.

[Sigmetnow]

@EricHolthaus: Boston snowplows have already travelled 2/3 of the way from Earth to the Moon this winter. Another foot of snow on the way.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/02/06/boston_snow_storm_another_foot_is_on_the_way_also_freezing_cold.html

[Sigmetnow]

Meanwhile, ski resorts in California and Oregon are closing due to lack of snow.
http://unofficialnetworks.com/2015/01/more-ski-resorts-close-due-to-lack-of-snow

[jbatteen]

Anyone else in North America getting the feeling spring is coming early this year?  I'm in southeastern Minnesota and I've noticed a few things that make me think winter's on its way out sooner rather than later.

#1: 60s have been back and forth in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota all winter long. The cold hasn't been able to persistently build very far south this winter. 70s have been in Kansas. We've had the jet stream wavering back and forth over top of us for most of winter bouncing us back and forth between warm and cool, rather than far to our south keeping is locked in cold air. As this pattern starts to move north with the seasons, we'll soon be solidly on the warm side of things.

#2. #1 is a direct effect of upper level pattern changes: the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge (RRR) over the west coast and the semi-persistent downstream east coast trough pattern has generally moved several hundred miles east, and even been prone to flattening out at times. This keeps us out of the direct path of Arctic outbreaks and more on the sidelines. The previous location of the setup had led to us being one of the coldest places in the world relative to average for about 2 years. It sucks in the winter but last summer was amazing. Statistically that's unlikely to last and I think we're seeing it break down with the pattern shift to the east.

#3: A generally positive trend in the Arctic Oscillation index so far this winter is predicted to continue by the CPC. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.shtml

#4. Maple trees are entering budswell several weeks early.

#5. A distinct increase in bird activity over the last two weeks. It's downright loud outside with birds around here at times. I've also heard but not seen for myself that the deer are especially active lately, but I cannot verify that.

#6. We can't keep a decent snowpack this winter and there's not much going on to our south or west either. http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/snow_model/images/full/National/nsm_depth/201502/nsm_depth_2015020905_National.jpg  It might keep snowing through spring but we've been on the border of snow and freezing rain all winter so again I think as soon as that border starts to shift north with the seasons we're going to be solidly on the warm side of it.

[wili]

Yes! I'm in Minneapolis and starting to see the same. Though we are do for another dip into the supzero temps, soon (barely).

http://www.wunderground.com/weather-forecast/zmw:55401.1.99999

[Sigmetnow]

Here's a Weather Underground blog on the current extreme rain and toastiness in the U.S. west and cold/snow storms in the east.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2913

[Sigmetnow]

Australia's scorching 2013 heat record was 'virtually impossible' without global warming.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/02/09/australias-scorching-2013-heat-record-was-virtually-impossible-without-global-warming/

[Sigmetnow]

Yellowstone Park Grizzlie Bears Waking Up Early Due To Mild Winter
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/11/3621733/yellowstone-grizzly-bears-rising-early-mild-winter/

[Sigmetnow]

Big change due to no snow:  Start of Alaska's famed Iditarod dog-sled race moved from Willow to Fairbanks, upper right. (Nome is upper left.)

Snowless Alaska forces Iditarod race change.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/02/11/iditarod-race-alaska-snow-fairbanks/23247145/

[jbatteen]

http://theconversation.com/air-pollution-from-europe-and-america-is-making-the-tropics-drier-37395

Air pollution pumped out by factories and power plants in Europe and North America has led to drier spells in the tropics, thousands of miles to the south. Scientists had long suspected this was the case and even had modelled the change in computer simulations, but now for the first time we have direct evidence – straight from a cave in Belize.
...
Precipitation in the tropics, including Belize, is governed by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) – a belt of monsoon rainfall encircling the Earth near the equator that migrates seasonally between the hemispheres. The relative temperature difference between the hemispheres plays a crucial role in controlling the position of the ITCZ and hence, rainfall distribution in the tropics.

What we found was a distinct drying trend in Belize since 1850 that coincides with a steady rise in industrial aerosol emissions in North America and Europe. This presents strong evidence that industrial sulfate emissions have shifted the position of the ITCZ through reflecting the Sun’s incoming radiation and therefore moderating warming in the northern hemisphere.
...
Our claims are backed up by the volcano record. Emissions from volcanoes are similar to those produced by burning fossils fuels – basically lots of sulphur – and we identified short-lived drier spells in the northern tropics following very large volcanic eruptions in the northern hemisphere, such as the Icelandic Laki eruption in 1783.

[JimD]

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=134130&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1

Monster hurricanes struck U.S. Northeast during prehistoric periods of ocean warming

Intense hurricanes possibly more powerful than any storms New England has experienced in recorded history frequently pounded the region during the first millennium, from the peak of the Roman Empire to the height of the Middle Ages, according to results of a new study..

Warmer sea surface temperatures

The intense prehistoric hurricanes were fueled in part by warmer sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean than have been the norm off the U.S. East Coast over the last few hundred years.

However, as ocean temperatures have slowly inched upward in recent decades, tropical North Atlantic sea surface temperatures have surpassed the warmth of prehistoric levels--and are expected to warm more over the next century as the climate heats up, Donnelly said.

"We hope this study broadens our sense of what is possible and what we should expect in a warmer climate," Donnelly said. "We may need to begin planning for a category 3 hurricane landfall every decade or so rather than every 100 or 200 years.

"The risk may be much greater than we anticipated."..

[Sigmetnow]

Boston is bracing for its third blizzard in as many weeks.  This one could be comparable to a Category 2 hurricane.

What is causing these storms?
Mother Nature's shock-and-awe campaign of snowstorms in New England has largely resulted from a stubborn weather pattern featuring a broad area of high pressure over the West, which has led to record warmth there, and a deep dip, or trough, in the jet stream across the eastern U.S.

Disturbances embedded in this jet stream, which is the high altitude river of air that blows from west to east across the Northern Hemisphere, steering and giving rise to storm systems in the process, have repeatedly led to the explosive development of low pressure areas at the surface off the coast of Long Island and Cape Cod.

These storms are powered by temperature differences across short distances, which meteorologists call baroclinic low pressure systems. Aiding in the rapid development process have been unusually mild sea surface temperatures off parts of the East Coast, although it's entirely likely the storms would have formed anyway, and been intense, even without those temperature anomalies.

The Gulf Stream current, which carries warm water off the East Coast and into the North Atlantic, has long been an ignition source — like a match thrown onto a gasoline spill — for northeastern winter storms in particular. This year has been no exception.

http://mashable.com/2015/02/13/boston-blizzard-category-2-hurricane/

[Sigmetnow]

@NWSBoston: Curious about what something akin to a thunderstorm would look like in the winter?  It would look like this snow band http://t.co/KYe3ZesboC

@EricHolthaus: Peak Winter: #thundersnow MT @jjabraham: There it is! #Lightning and #thundersnow being reported around Boston! http://t.co/MZ0ZtY94d1

[Sigmetnow]

Eastern U.S. is experiencing multiple outbreaks of frigid polar air.

@afreedma: From Feb. 16 to Feb. 21, about 103 million people in the lower 48 states will experience temps of 0 deg F [-18°C] or below
http://mashable.com/2015/02/15/arctic-blast-outdoes-polar-vortex/

[ritter]

We've enjoyed a nice 75*+ stretch of days here in the Northern Bay Area. Shorts and t-shirt weather for the three day weekend. It's really enjoyable until you start thinking about the why and realize you're watering your potted plants. In mid February. 

[Sigmetnow]

Squaw Valley has canceled a week of World Cup skicross and snowboardcross races in early March due to poor snow levels at the resort.
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/15061512-113/poor-snow-causes-squaw-valley-to-cancels-march-4-8-fis

Geo-engineering writ small?
Despite snow-making machines (when it's cold enough) and cloud seeding (when conditions are right),
Climate Change Could Decimate the American Ski Industry

The 2015 world ski championships concluded Sunday in Vail, Colorado, but climate change could put future championships in peril. Many athletes and resort owners fear what a warmer future holds for an industry that relies on consistent snow to attract winter sporting enthusiasts. And they're starting to call for political action.

Skiers in the Pacific Northwest are already feeling the heat. The Summit at Snoqualmie, near Seattle, closed its highest and last remaining open slope last week because of poor conditions. The situation there hues closely to what's happening all across the West.

"Based on a 60-year record, the total amount of snow that we've lost in the West varies anywhere from 15 to 60 percent," Noah Molotch, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, told VICE News.

Focusing on the skiing industry may seem quaint, or even elitist, compared with the need of protecting coastal cities from sea-level rise or the agricultural sector from drought. But winter sports recreation generates $67 billion annually for the US economy, propping up 900,000 jobs. Its collapse could kill entire local and regional economies across the West or in New England.

https://news.vice.com/article/climate-change-could-decimate-the-american-ski-industry