With all of the publicity surrounding snow storms hitting the northeastern United States, University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer decided to weigh in on the subject on his blog. Climate alarmists are claiming that the snowstorms are the result of human induced climate change (formerly known as global warming). Dr. Spencer responds stating (in part):

It has become axiomatic (and fashionable) that any change we see in nature is caused by global warming climate change.

Global warming was going to make snow a thing of the past. Until someone looked out the window and decided global warming causes more snow.

The epic Buffalo, NY storm this week was still in progress when that opportunistic organization Climate Central announced that more lake effect snow could be expected with global warming.

SIGHHH.

Except that the Great Lakes were unusually cold this year, after near record cold last winter. Then, an even more unusual cold blast of air that started over eastern Siberia made it’s way to the U.S. and the cooler lake waters were not enough to depress the lake effect snow machine: over 6 feet of snow has fallen south and east of downtown Buffalo this week.

So, in what universe does a cold winter, a cool summer, cold lake water, and an unusually cold fall air mass result from global warming?

Not in our universe.

You can read the rest of his commentary here.

The snowstorms are the result of a process called lake effect that happens around the Great Lakes during the early winter. What happens is that when the weather cools, the Great Lake water retains some of the warmth from summer. When very cold air blows across the lakes, the warm water briefly warms the bottom part of the wind. Because the water is warmer than the air above it the water warms the air. The air then blows off the lake and over colder land in which the land is cooler than the water because the lake retains heat more than the land. The air loses heat to the colder land and the water vapor precipitates out as now. This can only happen in late fall or early winter because it is the only time of year that the air is colder than the water. By January, the Great Lakes are frozen so they cannot be a source of water vapor.

Anyone who lives on the downwind side of the Great Lakes knows this. It happens every fall and there is nothing unusual about it. This was just a more profound episode of the event since, as Dr. Spencer points out, this episode involved unusually cold air blowing over unusually cold water. In short, the snow storms in cities like Buffalo are the result of weather, not man made global warming climate change.