Houston, We Have No Idea What We’re Talking About

by John Hinderaker in Climate
The Washington Post reports on the Obama administration’s latest effort to sow global warming panic:

The satellite images viewed by President Barack Obama before a meeting with eight Western governors were stark, showing how snowpack in California’s mountains had shrunk by 86 percent in a single year.
“It was a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ moment,” recalled White House counselor John Podesta, one of two aides who briefed the president that February day. Obama mentioned the images several times as he warned the governors that political leaders had no choice but to cope with global warming’s impact.

This is beyond stupid. Seriously: is there anyone in the United States of America foolish enough to think that an 86% variation in snow pack in a single year is due to global warming, rather than natural variation? Well, maybe. Barack Obama at least pretended to believe it. Here are the images that show the California snow pack in 2013 and 2014; click to enlarge:

Anthony Watts couldn’t stand it, and went off in epic fashion:

I’m truly sorry about the title [Ed.: "Houston, we have a dumbass problem"], but nothing else really describes the ridiculousness of the pronouncement by the White House aide John Podesta over these two satellite images in a maddeningly idiotic story from the Washington Post.
Gasp! 86% change in a single year. More proof positive that ‘global warming’ is accelerating. /sarc
So tell me, oh geniuses, what will you show the President after the looming El Niño kicks in later this year, and California has a wetter than normal year during the winter of 2014/15 and the snow pack goes up to something like 146% of normal? What then? Blame that on global warming and call it another “Houston we have a problem” moment when we get flooding in California like in 1997/1998 after that big EL Niño changed the weather pattern in a single year to drench the state?
The lack of snowpack in 2014 is all about ENSO and resulting jet stream patterns, something well known for years. …
Pattern shifts related to ENSO make California winters highly variable. For example, compare the snowpack change from 1880 to 1881 in the graph below from the Sierra Snow Lab and note some of the other low years highlighted in yellow. [Click to enlarge.]

Will these geniuses in the White House say global warming reached back through time to 1881 to cause this? How about 1977, was that “global warming” too? But let’s indulge them, let’s say it is ALL caused by ‘global warming’. What will they do about it? Tax it? Issue a presidential order? Make emitting CO2 a crime?
Like Nature cares what they think or do. Idiots.

Global warming alarmism is utterly devoid of anything that can reasonably be described as “science.”

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/houston-we-have-no-idea-what-were-talking-about.php