Weather Mavens Honor Climate Maven - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com

For a long time there’s been a strong perception among those of us tracking research on human-caused global warming that meteorologists are more apt to doubt that humans could dangerously disrupt climate than the much smaller community of climatologists studying the overall climate system and what influences its patterns.

I’m sure some will say this was a decision made by a small committee of the organization’s leaders and doesn’t reflect the views of the A.M.S. membership. (Remember the intense debate that erupted when I wrote about official statements on climate change by various scientific groups? I had to close the comments off at 1,200.)

Record Low Temps Validate Growing Consensus Against Man-Made Global Warming

DALLAS (Jan. 13, 2009) - This winter's record low temperatures and snowfall are one more indicator that recent global warming is likely not a result of man-made activities but of the natural ebb and flow of temperatures, according to NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett.

"The rhetoric has been that human activities are causing the earth to warm, ice caps to melt, and hurricanes to get more destructive," Burnett said, "but the evidence increasingly shows that is not true."

Burnett noted, for example, that International Falls, Minnesota - the coldest location in the continental United States - just today set a new record low temperature of minus 40 degrees and snowfall records have recently been set in 63 U.S. locations.

US: Dried plum growers struggled with frosts, poor fruit set

Dried-plum grower Bruce Lindauer of Los Molinos was one of those unfortunate growers whose trees were hit by the April freeze. Lindauer said he thought he would be home free because freeze that late in April is mostly unheard of, but that wasn't the case in 2008.

"One ranch lost a third of its crop, another ranch lost half its crop and a third ranch lost about 80 percent of the crop," Lindauer said.

Bob Safford, field representative for Sunsweet Growers Inc. in Corning, said there was definitely impact from the late April freeze.

"I saw some orchards that didn't even produce a crop," Safford said. "It was kind of hit and miss. It wasn't overall, just in certain areas they had frost that was worse than other areas."