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Here in grand forks nd area....in april the bulldozers take to the parking lot piles and smashes them up and spreads them around to melt. Also there are designated city snow dumping places where city will on occasion take the piles of snow off of street corners for easier viewing. This in a place where avg snowfall runs 45 to 55 inches nov to march
Winnipeg doesn't use salt or heat to get rid of the snow, they let the summer temps do the work but this year there hasn't been extreme heat they usually get. Road maintenance guy said piles last into August but The 18 meter snow pile is more then the usual amount. They're bringing in bulldozers to break it up.
Imagine if it all of it doesn't melt and another 18 meters goes on the remaining?
As the Arctic warms twice as fast as the rest of the world, the declining temperature gradient between the Arctic and the equator will lead to more polar vortex cold spells, which some people will ignorantly claim disproves AGW, when in fact it's the opposite. It's a lot like opening a freezer door and claiming that the entire heat content of a house has dropped.
Science: "Don't be denied!" (from Neil Young's old song about Winnipeg)
Why can't the piles just be left, won't they melt by September?
At least here just south of Winnipeg in eastern ND/northwestern MN (we are about 150 mi south of the Peg).... ours are broken down where they are piled up.... just because to get rid of mold that grows on top of them....get rid of the trash/dirt that is blown into them. Snow mold in the spring does affect my son's allergies....old piles of snow that get that growth on top of them....yuck!
Add that in some winter wind events if farm fields have snow blown off, we often can get snirt events....combination of snow/dirt being blown. Frozen dirt/soil can be blown quite easily.
If by some chance it survives until the first snow (usually Sep/Oct in that part of the world), that would be an extremely interesting phenomenon, due to glaciation having its origin in next season's snow falling on top of last season's, thus advancing the permanent snow line; if the locale remains inside that line for many years the snow gradually turns into glacial ice.
Of course, this pile is artificial rather than natural as it would be if the permanent snow line actually extended that far south, but it's interesting to contemplate. Just think - if there were several cold and snowy years in that part of the world associated with a sharp centuries-long cooling the artificial piles could grow over the years, thus man would provide the nucleus for the next Laurentide Ice Sheet . It's the stuff good science fiction plots are made of .
As the Arctic warms twice as fast as the rest of the world, the declining temperature gradient between the Arctic and the equator will lead to more polar vortex cold spells, which some people will ignorantly claim disproves AGW, when in fact it's the opposite. It's a lot like opening a freezer door and claiming that the entire heat content of a house has dropped.
Science: "Don't be denied!" (from Neil Young's old song about Winnipeg)
And if the future produces less "polar vortex cold spells" it will still prove AGW right because no matter what the weather does, it proves AGW right. Gotta love a non-falsifiable hypothesis.
If by some chance it survives until the first snow (usually Sep/Oct in that part of the world), that would be an extremely interesting phenomenon, due to glaciation having its origin in next season's snow falling on top of last season's, thus advancing the permanent snow line; if the locale remains inside that line for many years the snow gradually turns into glacial ice.
Of course, this pile is artificial rather than natural as it would be if the permanent snow line actually extended that far south, but it's interesting to contemplate. Just think - if there were several cold and snowy years in that part of the world associated with a sharp centuries-long cooling the artificial piles could grow over the years, thus man would provide the nucleus for the next Laurentide Ice Sheet . It's the stuff good science fiction plots are made of .
I was thinking the same thing. Over the course of the next 100,000 years, Winnipeg will eventually revert back to glaciation. Although we'll all be gone by then, I wonder how northern cities will cope at that point. Will they build massive natural gas or solar powered melting machines at the borders of the cities? Will they allow the glaciers to penetrate the city and just move south to abandon said city? I guess we'll never know.
If you look at human nature, no doubt we will attemp to use technology to fight back glaciation. There maybe a network of non-glaciated areas, maybe the glaciers will be redirected to certain areas using technology we haven't developed as of yet. It will be interesting to see though.
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Just a polar vortex effect. No mystery.
. It's the stuff good science fiction plots are made of 
.
