Al Gore Probably Blames Winter Weather on Global Warming

Check out the following.......I would love to get Joe and Al together.........
This winter is on track to become the coldest for the nation as a whole since the late 70s. According to AccuWeather.com Chief Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi, three or four out of the next five winters could be just as cold, if not colder.
He is worried that next winter, for example, will be colder than this one.
While there are many different factors that are playing into Bastardi's forecast, one of the primary drivers is La Niña and the trends that have been observed in winters that follow the onset of a La Niña.
According to Bastardi, studies over the past 100 years or so show that after the first winter following the onset of a La Niña, the next several winters thereafter tend to be colder than normal in the U.S.
He says the first winter during a La Niña tends to be warm. The next winter that follows is usually less warm, and the winter after that is usually cold.
"There's a natural tendency for that to happen because of the large-scale factors," Bastardi commented. "What's interesting about what we're seeing here is that [the current La Niña] is starting so cold."
He adds, "If the past predicts the future, then the first year La Niña is warmer than the combination of the following two."
He said that with the exception of the winters of 1916-1917 and 1917-1918, the first year of every moderate or stronger La Niña available for study has featured a warmer-than-normal winter from the Plains eastward. This winter, it has been colder than normal.
Taking a look at one of the exceptions, the La Niña winter of 1916-1917, colder-than-normal conditions were observed across the northern part of the Plains and East (not the South). Bastardi said that never before have colder-than-normal conditions been observed across the South during a first-year La Niña winter, as has been the case this winter.
If this winter, which has been colder than normal across the eastern two-thirds of the country, is historically supposed to be the warmest of the next three winters for the U.S., according to Bastardi, we have some frigid times ahead.
Bastardi thinks that not only will the next few winters be colder than normal for much of the U.S., but that the long-term climate will turn colder over the next 20 to 30 years.
"What's interesting about what we're seeing here is that [the current La Niña] is starting so cold," said Bastardi, "and it's coinciding with bigger things that are pushing the overall weather patterns and climate in the Northern Hemisphere and, in fact, globally over the next 20 to 30 years that we have not really dealt with, nor can we really quantify."
"That ties into a lot of this arguing over climate change," he added.
Bastardi has pointed out that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which is a pattern of Pacific climate variability that shifts phases usually about every 20 to 30 years, has shifted into a "cold" or "negative" phase.
Over the past 30 years or so, according to Bastardi, the PDO has been "warm" or "positive."
This change to a cold PDO over the next 20 to 30 years, he says, will cause La Niñas to be stronger and longer than El Niños. Bastardi adds that when El Niños do kick in, if they try to come on strong like they did last year, they will get "beaten back" pretty quickly.
"When you have a cold PDO and lots of La Niñas, when El Niños do come on, you generally tend to have cold, snowy weather patterns across the U.S.," Bastardi said. "That's what we saw in the 1960s and 1970s."