A January 31 editorial in The Pueblo Chieftain echoed a misleading conservative talking point to suggest that record snowfall in Anchorage, Alaska, cast doubt on global warming.

After noting that “Anchorage [Alaska] already has gotten more snow -- more than 74 inches so far -- than the 68 inches it normally receives during an entire winter,” the Chieftain stated, “This comes at a time when some 500 scientists and officials convened in Paris this week for editing of a long-awaited report on how fast the world is warming, how serious it is -- and how much is the fault of humans. One normally thinks of plenty of snow in Alaska during the winter, so when the natives there start complaining, one has to wonder, what IS all this about global warming?”

As Colorado Media Matters has pointed out (here, here, and here), other media personalities have cited Colorado's recent record early snow accumulation and colder-than-average temperatures to question simplistically the evidence of climate change. For example, Jon Caldara, host of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Jon Caldara Show and president of the conservative Independence Institute, jokingly dismissed the topic of global warming by saying, “It is hard to talk global warming when I can't get my car out of my garage,” during his December 21 broadcast.

Pointing to sporadic inclement weather in one area of the United States as “evidence” that disproves global warming is a common, inaccurate conservative talking point. As Media Matters for America noted, conservative radio host William Bennett mockingly claimed that “half the people in the country” will “have to fight through snowstorms to watch” screenings of the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

However, as a USA Today article noted, “Global warming is shorthand for 'climate change,' and the term is correct if you realize that it's referring to the average temperature of the Earth over the years; not to the temperatures at particular times and places.” The article further reported that climate change “can lead to more snow piling up in places such as Antarctica and Greenland, and it can even include some parts of the Earth growing colder.”

Additionally, in a January 19 interview on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation segment titled “Can Climate Change Explain Odd Weather?” Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research noted that as one effect of global warming, “you can get more snow”:

IRA FLATOW [host]: You guys hardly ever get snow in Boulder anyhow. I mean, Denver gets really dumped on, doesn't it?

TRENBERTH: Well, we get over a hundred inches a year, but it doesn't hang around much, and usually it peaks in November, and also in March and April are our really snowy times of year. And, of course, there's a saying: It's too cold to snow. And that's normally the case in December and January. But this time we have really been dumped on. At my place we got over 60 inches of snow in December. And one of the indications, then, is that in order to get that amount of snow, it's got to be warmer than normal so that the atmosphere can hold enough moisture.

FLATOW: Well, is that -- does that not speak for evidence of global warming, then?

TRENBERTH: That's one of the -- that's one of the ironical things that people don't understand, I find, about global warming, is that, ironically, you can get more snow as a consequence, in part, of global warming. And so that may be a little bit of a factor there. And of course at the same time, there was -- there was record-breaking heat on the East Coast. And so that was a key part of -- certainly a part of the winter that's been going on so far. And as you mentioned, it's -- there's been a dearth of snow in Europe and relatively mild conditions.

As a press release from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center noted regarding its preliminary 2006 report, “Following the warmest year on record for the globe in 2005, the annual global temperature for 2006 is expected to be sixth warmest since recordkeeping began in 1880.” The report also concluded that “the 2006 annual average temperature for the contiguous United States (based on preliminary data) will likely be 2°F (1.1°C) above the 20th Century mean, which would make 2006 the third warmest year on record.”

From the editorial “Warming?” in the January 31 edition of The Pueblo Chieftain:

Anchorage already has gotten more snow -- more than 74 inches so far -- than the 68 inches it normally receives during an entire winter. And there are still four months of snowy weather ahead.

City crews have had to cut channels through the streets, leaving walls of snow on either side. Drivers can't see around corners at city intersections.

This comes at a time when some 500 scientists and officials convened in Paris this week for editing of a long-awaited report on how fast the world is warming, how serious it is -- and how much is the fault of humans.

One normally thinks of plenty of snow in Alaska during the winter, so when the natives there start complaining, one has to wonder, what IS all this about global warming?