The UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) is a government funded organization with the following scientifically neutral mission statement on their home page “The UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) helps organisations to adapt to inevitable climate change. While it’s essential to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of past emissions will continue to be felt for decades.“
Claim: Summers will continue to get hotter and drier…
- Evidence: Total summer precipitation has decreased in most parts of the UK, typically by between 10 and 40% since 1961.
According to the UK Met Office, the summer of 2007 was the wettest summer on record. Summer, 2008 was the wettest on record in Northern Ireland, and broke many local rainfall records in England. The last hot day in London (30C or 86F) was on July 27, 2006. London is normally one of the UK’s warmest locations in summer, and it has been 915 days since London has seen any “hot” weather.
Claim: Winters will continue to get milder and wetter…
- Evidence: Average winter temperature for all regions of the UK has risen by up to 0.7 °C since 1914..
The Met office reported last month: “Temperatures from the Met Office have revealed that the UK has had the coldest start to winter in over 30 years.”
Claim: Some weather extremes will become more common, others less common…
- Evidence: The average duration of summer heatwaves has increased in all regions of the UK by between 4 and 16 days since 1961.
- Evidence: The average duration of winter cold snaps has decreased in all regions of the UK by between 6 and 12 days since 1961.
- Evidence: There has been a trend towards heavier winter precipitation for most parts of the UK since 1961.
As mentioned above, there have been no hot days in the UK for nearly three years. The current winter has been one of the coldest and driest in recent memory.
Claim: Sea level will continue to rise…
- Evidence: Global average sea level rose by between 10 and 20 cm during the twentieth century.
- Evidence: The temperature of UK coastal waters has increased by between 0.2 and 0.6 °C per decade since 1985.
Regarding their discussion of UK sea temperatures since 1985, there hasn’t been much glacial activity in the UK over the last 25 years and it is unlikely that UK ice sheet melt is adding much to sea level. Their reported UK SST changes are more likely due to ocean circulation patterns like the AMO. Current SST anomaly maps show ocean temperatures around the UK near or below normal. And according to the University Of Colorado, global sea level has scarcely risen since 2005.
AW, excellent “quote of the day” from the CFP:
Decades ago Tolstoi provided another explanation for failing to acknowledge the growing evidence. “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
Somebody once said that contrast is the fundamental element of perception.
Hyperbole born of modeled “data” juxtaposed to observed data (i.e. reality) is very interesting, even useful. It also provides entertainment in the form of the defenders trying to justify their hyperbolic claims in the face of reality. Kind of like “the sky is falling” and “the end is near.”
I hope we can see more articles like Goddard’s post today.
An informative post Steven, but I find the following quote.
“One might think that taxpayer funded organisations like UKCIP would be required to keep their public statements a bit more up to date and accurate.”
somewhat naive.
The government is habitually misinforming the populace with its propaganda!
DaveE.
There it goes again: Warmer summertime brings drier weather. That is wrong: a warmer climate warms the oceans and increases evaporation, increased evaporation more clouds, more rain, more CO2 dissolution in rain water, which in turn form carbonates on soil. We all learned at the school, when kids, the “water cycle”, now the´”climate changers” have changed it all around.
Ah yes, nice picture of the appropriately named ‘Waterside’ in Stratford upon Avon Anthony. I was there. Wellingtons (Galoshes) were mandatory. Failing that evolve webbed feet. Parts of town were cut off for over two days.
It was pretty miserable there in 2008 so my friends locally tell me.
According to the latest UAH temps (http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps), January seems to have bumped up quite a bit over 2008’s January (and ’08 December), despite lower temperatures over much of the US.
Certainly doesn’t follow a “cooling” trend. If the El Nino effect is indeed petering out are we in for a warmer ’09 than ’08?
Andrew, I think you have a typo where you say that evidence shows that precip has DECREASED since 1961. Perhaps?
Whoops, I meant la nina. Apologies, crossed synapses.
Regarding their discussion of UK sea temperatures since 1985, there hasn’t been much glacial activity in the UK over the last 25 years and it is unlikely that UK ice sheet melt is adding much to sea level.
~snip~ the UK is still experiencing isostatic rebound from the last glaciation. This is an extremely slow process, the NW of Scotland is rising and the SE of England is sinking. Any search on the subject will produce many hits such as the following:
“The Thames is a tidal river, and London is vulnerable to flooding.[9] The threat has increased over time due to a slow but continuous rise in high water level by the slow ’tilting’ of Britain (up in the north and down in the south) caused by post-glacial rebound. In 1974, a decade of work began on the construction of the Thames Barrier across the Thames at Woolwich to deal with this threat, but a more substantial barrier further downstream may be necessary in the near future.”
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/London
OT, maybe On topic…
Just from watching the news today banners at the bottom of the news reports (CNN and CTV)
– cold weather across Canada….again
– 30 dead in mexico from cold
– ice from Texas to Tennessee
– ships trapped by ice in St Lawrence river
– 20 dead in avalanches across Europe/Asia
Look at this from a sociological point of view. Currently predictions that exaggerate beyond the data get media attention which is a favorable feedback. If there were lawsuits based on losses from failed predictions, the feedback would be unfavorable. To stop the hype there have to be more costs than benefits to the predictors of future weather/climate. Until such time, we’re going to bombarded by ever more ridiculous claims because incentives lean so strongly in that direction. Unfortunately, the public just relegates the failed predictions to the same bin they put the annual psychic predictions in while the policy-makers do their mischief below the level of public attention.
It is a wonder sometimes how we survive our collective foolishness.
I stayed at a hotel adjacent to the Thames in Oxford shortly after the flood, which was reported to have had the worst of the flooding. Pub crawls were more like pub swims that week.
A friend in South Wiltshire owns a Norman mill house along a river, which survived the flooding without damage. Perhaps the government in the 12th century had a better understanding of rainfall patterns than the current crew?
I don’t remember seeing anything about global warming in the Magna Carta.
I have no faith in the Met Office.
Only last week I travelled up from the South of England so that I would be home before the expected blizzards on Sunday.
Not a single snow flake!
Ah well, I should know better by now, but I still fall for it.
The Met Office and the University of Exeter “advance climate science together”.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/exeteruniversity/
Clearly the University attracts the brightest students.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7852553.stm
There is always next year.
“One might think that taxpayer funded organisations like UKCIP would be required to keep their public statements a bit more up to date and accurate.”
The thing is our glorious leader likes the idea of “green taxes” mainly because it includes the second word, his favourite of all, he couldn’t really give a stuff about the first.
So publicly funded organisations can say what they like if it gets the suckers to pay more tax.
But we have to be thankful, if Al Gore hadn’t invented global warming it would be bloody freezing out there ;¬)
……..and another publicly funded organisation spinning things.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=147
The UK is awash (excuse the pun) with tax-payer funded NGOs cashing in on the climate change (man-made global warming as was) business.
That is because of all the CO2 in the air is changing the environment. I saw this movie with Al Gore in it and he said we are all doomed, so it must be. He is smart, he did invent the Internet.
Yes I am being sarcastic.
I never get tired of posting this…
We, in the UK, were told that global warming would mean “hotter, drier summers and wetter winters”. WRONG!
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Monthly/EWP_seasonal1.gif
We have had the exact opposite. A colleague of mine is currently trying to get the Met Office to admit that they have got this completely wrong. He is also trying to get this http://www.metoffice.gov.uk:80/climatechange/guide/bigpicture/fact2.html removed, as from the CRU’s very own figures, the global temperature isn’t “continuing to rise”. So far, they won’t respond to his emails (which they are usually good at).
The fact is that the Met Office have an agenda to push the idea of global warming. They will even lie to do it, and when they’re wrong, they won’t acknowledge it. “Hotter, drier summers” my rear end!
I’m confused.
20cm in this Century sea rise? That’s 8″ for Americans.
That’s quite a bit, how come we’re not actually noticing it? Seriously.
8″ should cause massive erosion in places, and flooding of river delta’s, and… 8″ times 70% of the world surface? Where did all this water come from!
Something here doesn’t make sense. 20mm, perhaps 2 mm? did we lose some decimal places in translation?
OT
ST LAWRENCE RIVER FROZEN!
Here in Germany, I’ve heard today on the news on German Radio that the St. Lawrence River in Quebec is frozen over and that some ferries are now trapped in the ice and that ice breakers cannot reach them to rescue the passengers. Ice is too thick! The news report says this is unusual for this time of the year.
I haven’t been able to find any such reports in the US or Canadian news.
Can the Canadian bloggers confirm this?
“Additionally, there has been little change in sea level rise rates over the last 100 years.”
Evidently, but the graph labeled ‘Recent Sea Level Change’ also shows that the rate was close to zero 1880-1908, so there was a change in the rate just 100 years ago.
Fred (09:20:16) :
Something here doesn’t make sense. 20mm, perhaps 2 mm? did we lose some decimal places in translation?
The satellite altimetry gives 3.3 mm/yr, which would be 33 cm/century. No decimals lost. One could argue that 3.3 mm/yr is bigger than the 2 mm/yr the graph would suggest sice 1910, so the rate of change is now 50% higher than average over the past 100 years, so there has been a significant increase lately.
It amazes me that people seem to equate warmer weather with dryer weather when the opposite is true. There was extreme desertification going on in the 1960’s and 1970’s and the Sahara was expanding. When temperatures warmed in the 1970’s the Sahara began to shrink.
From an essay by Monckton: “The cost and futility of trading hot air”
“The news report says this is unusual for this time of the year. ”
That is pretty funny. At what time of year does ice *usually* form on the river?
This is intended as a lighthearted, ‘ridiculae’ kind of piece, yes? Thus a decreasing precipitation trend since 1961 is nullified by one wet summer in England and another in NI. A 95 year rising temperature trend is obviated by a cold snap …
And the arbritrary definition of a ‘hot day in London’ is actually equal to the hottest on record, indicating there were no hot days before then either, [incidentally 2006 was the warmest ever year in the Hadley Central England dataset ‘proving’ that temperatures have been falling for a whole two years in direct opposition to the climate predictions of those muppets at the so-called Met Office.
The Greenwich Met Office station was closed in 2004, however neither it nor the Oxford, Cambridge or Eastbourne stations have ever even got close to a TMax of 30C. Look at the 10 year (or longer) trends however, and they are all positive…
Here’s a German report of the FROZEN ST. LAWRENCE.
————–
Ottawa (dpa) – Two ferries with hundreds of passengers on board are trapped in ice in the St. Lawrence River in Eastern Canada. According to Canadian media reports.
On board the CTMA Vacancier alone there are 300 passengers. Also the Georges-Alexandre-Lebel of the COGÉMA Company is trapped in ice near the port town of Matane. The General Director of COGÉMA said to the french speaking newspaper Le Soleil: “It’s been a long time since there’s been such thick ice this early in the year. This normally occurs in February and in March”, said Andre Landry. The «Terry Fox» ice breaker is attempting to reach the trapped vesels but has been unsuccessful up to now.
————–
Where are the North American reports?
Since last weekend, a 5 sq. km. area of ice has been blocking the port of Matane, writes the Le Soleil.
Good ol Google!!
Ferries trapped in the St. Lawrence!
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-soleil/dossiers/traversee-de-la-gaspesie/200901/26/01-821137-bouchon-de-5-km2-sur-le-fleuve-des-fondeurs-aux-premieres-loges-du-tango.php
Send Gore, or that Pugh idiot to rescue them.
Re Steve Berry (09:19:44) :
I too am trying to get a response from the Met Office to a list of questions I emailed them, but so far to no avail.
Pierre Gosselin
yess indeed a cruise ship is stuck.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090127/frozen_ship_090127/20090127?hub=Canada
Photo caption of the above link reads in English:
“The Terry Fox ice breaker (left) has struggled to try to free the CTMA Vacancier from the grips of the ice.”
(Le brise-glace Terry Fox (à gauche) a lutté hier pour tenter d’extirper le CTMA Vacancier des griffes des glaces.)
Anthony,
today this photo gallery of Oimjakon has been posted by an Italian newspaper:
http://www.repubblica.it/2006/12/gallerie/ambiente/citta-fredda/1.html
There is a picture of the meteorological field and the Stevenson Screen.
Just click on the photo or “successivo” to see all the photos.
Enjoy.
I’m afraid Steven’s guest post tries to counter climate change trends by citing weather events as evidence. That is just what the audience here expects.
But, I’m far from convinced by Steven’s views, just as the odd hot, dry, day didn’t convince me the last UK summer was hot and dry. A summer is about more than the odd day, and climate is about more than the odd year.
Re John Philip (09:44:23) :
Yout comment is a joke yes? UKCIP is basing its claims for future weather (climate) on supposed evidence since (arbitrarily) 1914, 1961, 1985 and during the 20th century. So we can extrapolate from various times in the past and that’s all we do to forecast the future? Is that scientific or what?
What a joke. I don’t know where you live, but in the UK the weather (climate) is so unpredictable that past performance is no guide to future performance.
Pierre, I saw the same thing here in Texas, they said a Cruise ship, Ferry, and Cargo ship were all stuck.
John Philip, 10 year trend for global temperature is barely upward, but more or less balancing than upward. If 2009 is cool like 2008 or more so, then the 10 year will be downward, and you will tell us to look at a 20 year. If the next 10 years are cooler, you will tell us to look at a century. Never mind that we were coming out of the little ice age. Oh I am sorry, I forgot that Al Gore removed the little ice age from the “hockey stick”, along with any warm period over the last 1000 years or more.
My problem isn’t with ‘Is there global warming’. My problem is that me driving a V6 and having Air Conditioning is ‘setting the global thermostat’. Anymore than the Romans and their automobiles caused the mid-evil warm period.
Pierre Gosselin (09:47:26):
Check out
(If I’ve got the html right this time!)
This covers the ice and shipping in the St. Lawrence River.
Objective science is alive and well in the Alaskan outpost of governor Palin.
By greenhouse-gas, I assume they are really referring to atmospheric-gas.
————————————————————-
Observed Climate Change and the Negligible Global Effect of Greenhouse-gas Emission Limits in the State of Alaska
January 2009
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Alaska_Climate_Change.pdf
Alaska Scientists Reject UN’s Global Warming Hypothesis
At least 141 Alaska scientists have petitioned the US government that the UN’s human caused global warming hypothesis is “without scientific validity and that government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth.”
“It amazes me that people seem to equate warmer weather with dryer weather when the opposite is true”
Crosspatch, it all does depends. For the UK, a persistent high pressure cell centered over Scandanavia could bring both warm and cold air. During the summer, the temps could soar to near 100F; but, in the winter they could also plunge to -15F. The operative word here is dry. Continental air heats and cools much faster maritime air. In the peiod of a negative NAO, the polar jetstream is pushed far to the south of Europe and into N.Africa. The northern Sahara would enjoy abudndent winter rainfall (snow in the higher elevations) while Northern Europe remains cold and dry.
Something similar occurs in the US vis-a-vis ENSO. La Ninas usually mean the building of the famous 4-Corners high pressure cell. Much of the rockies would remain cold/dry under these circumstances. El Nino events normally bring on wet winter conditions out West and in the Southeast, while the Northern Plains remain dry.
I do agree with you that warmer global temps do not necessairily mean predictable rainfall patterns. One of the worst draughts to hit North America in a 1000 years occured during the coldest decades of the LIA. One of the hottest, driest summers in London history occured during the coldest decade of the LIA (1660-1670)
Pay more in taxes to the government, so government scientists can fake the data and pretend to control the weather. The perfect scam. Who would have thought government scientists have a vested interest in the outcome.
The one mystery left — How does magic tax beans change the climate?
Ice in the St Lawrence
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090127/frozen_ship_090127/20090127?hub=TopStories
In the Artic, not so much
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
This video is hillariouslypathetic but true about environmentalists… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi1LU45Nip0
and it fits well with this story!!!
John Philip (09:44:23) :
“The Greenwich Met Office station was closed in 2004, however neither it nor the Oxford, Cambridge or Eastbourne stations have ever even got close to a TMax of 30C. ”
Eastbourne station?
http://www.eastbourne.gov.uk/environment/weather/weather-stations/station/
I am surprised that it did not set English records.
Set in the middle of an island, a traffic island.
All those cars and nice hot tar.
Check out 50° 45.746, – 0° 17.015 in Google Earth
Is this one of England’s’ best weather stations?
I’m not sure what happened to my comment… it did not show up when I submitted it… so here it is again.
This video is hillariouslypathetic but true about environmentalists… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi1LU45Nip0
and it fits well with this story!!!
John Philip,
you mentioned the Central England temperature data. I downloaded the temperature data from:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
There is a clear, very linear trend from 1659 to 2008 which I calculated to be +0.26 degree C/100 years. I deducted the trend from the temperature data. This trend seems to be natural increase in temperature as the temperature is rising well before man made CO2 emissions started. After deducting the 1659-2008 linear trend I see only noise, no evidence of sudden global warming. The year 2006 temperature does not differ from 1733 temperature.
After seeing this data I changed my mind about global warming. Everybody should make this simple Excel exercise. At least it shows that man made CO2 emissions have had no effect on Central England temperatures.
Meanwhile. We now have the reason Steig (Mann) et al 2009 came out with that temperature
drivelstudy of the Antarctic. It was all a setup for a “cute animal” endangered by global warming story by the BBC.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7851276.stm
North summer it’s Polar Bears and South Summer it’s Penguins. There we have it. All year round environmental catastrophe.
Just imagine the earth´s atmosphere as a solution in a beaker (of course we are at the bottom)…clouds would float over like an hydroxide of something (really HOH, hydrogen hydroxide). What would it be pH in this strange and peculiar solution?, of course the same as in any solution.Then, what if we increase the pH?…water (hydrogen hydroxide, again) would precipitate to the bottom of the beaker (rain?). What if we decrease pH?, then hydroxide would disappear, “clouds” would dissolve in the solution. Then, in this beaker, what would be, for us, living at the bottom, temperature? ph?
Ray (10:30:42), You Tube dumped the video quickly; it is no longer available (10:47).
Gary, “To stop the hype there have to be more costs than benefits to the predictors of future weather/climate.” You only mention law suits which are expensive and require honest judges. Another possibility might be an organization of organizations/web sites/individuals who calculate the costs of AGW/Climate Change/Climate Disruption/Mitigation from an agreed-upon beginning date in tax payer dollars per country from government programs (including naming names and salaries of those involved in relevant agencies), tax incentives, new regulations, new fees, higher taxes. This data also should include the names of individuals, organizations, corporations who are profitting from the above — with salaries and grants, as much as can be known.
This information might be valuable to voters and these truths might give some significant pain to those who are bent on robbing our societies in the guise of saving the earth.
If the salary of a professor of environmental/climate science, plus the grants of which he/she is in charge, plus stipends for serving on boards, consultancies, etc., is published on the web, the public might begin to be able to do an evaluation of what science they are getting for their money. At the very least, they would be made aware of the boodles of dollars and many other currencies/wealth are being misspent.
I am most pleased with the voluntary WUWT and am delighted to continue my “subscription”. Keep the delightfully stimulating and informative articles with links and comments coming. I haven’t had so much fun “reading” and “investigating” in a respectful format in years.
Imagine if this had been a single polar bear “trapped” on ice in the middle of water somewhere. Pictures would have been beamed all over the world – victims of wreckless manmade CO2 emisions.
But alas, it’s only 300 of a despicable species, who will eventually be rescued by the wretched species’ own technology in the form of an ice breaker, powered by diesel fuel.
JP,
More evidence that Colder is bad, Warmer is good. Ok, probably shouldn’t have said it like that LOL.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_glacial_max.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/present_interglacial.html
pyromancer76 (11:05:35) :
Ray (10:30:42), You Tube dumped the video quickly; it is no longer available (10:47).
Works OK for me… Penn and Teller and water – right?
John Philip, your Tmaxes are monthly means. Goddards are daily temperature maximums. There are lots of hot days (>30C) before 2006 – but none after. I’m giving you just two examples.
This one from 1996 (first year of the referenced websites record): 32C
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/EGLL/1996/8/13/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
Or this one from 2003: 37C!
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/EGLL/2003/8/10/DailyHistory.html
crosspatch
The company running one of the boats says this normally does not happen until February or March. He said it’s unusual in January.
Jari (10:33:21) :
“After seeing this data I changed my mind about global warming. Everybody should make this simple Excel exercise. At least it shows that man made CO2 emissions have had no effect on Central England temperatures.”
There is significant UHI effect on the CET. It is the most densely populated part of the UK
Again I would like to volunteer for the surfacestations.org survey of the UK. Contact by my email, which you have. I live in the North East between Hartlepool & Sunderland.
DaveE.
The Met office likes to play up the post 1850 temperatures for reasons that are demonstrated here. The first link goes to the unadjusted and unsmoothed raw data for Hadley CET from 1660. It gives a rather different picture to when the scale starts at 1850 which seems to show relentless warming. Bear in mind that much of the earlier period was firmly in the LIA yet parts of it were still remarkably similar to today.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/man_vs_nature.jpg
The warming in our climate-which is in any case very limited-has come about through warmer winters which raises the overall mean average, even though much of the rest of the year remains the same or is cooling (Warmer summers?: We wish!) . Ironically however the warming is fairly limited in extent and it is more a matter of the extremely cold winters having disappeared since 1962/3. However our three warmest winters to this day remain 1733 1868 and 1833
This is an analysis of what has happened through the duration of this temperature record.
January
Generally past years are cooler than the 1990’s which was just 0.10C warmer than 1730’s and 1920’s
Overall the monthly figures are dragged right down by the very cold little ice age which covers most of the period from the 1660’s to around 1880
February
As above with 1730 cooler by .10 1860 by .2 1870 by .3 and 1920 by .2
March
As above but 1730 cooler by .6 1920 by .8 and 1930 by .9 i.e. one of the greatest changes in any month (other than winter Dec-February inc)
April
1990s cooler than 1940 by 0.7 1860 by .3 and 1730 by .2 otherwise broadly similar
May. 1990s cooler than 1660 by 0.3 same as 1720 and 1730 cooler than 1800 by 0.3 same as 1820 and 1830 cooler than 1830 by .10 and 1910 by .3 otherwise broadly the same
June
1990 same as 1980 1970 and 1960
Cooler than 1960 by .4 1950 by .2 1940 by .3 1930 by .4 1890 by .4 1870 by .1 1860 by .1 1850 by .3 1840 by .3 1830 by .6 1820 by.4 1800 by .2 1790 by .2 1780 by .8 1770 by .7 1760 by .1 1750 by .4 same as 1740 cooler than 1730 by .7 1720 by .9 1710 by .3 same as 1700 and 1680 cooler than 1670 by .3 and 1660 by .3
Overall June has become a much cooler month
July 1990 cooler than 1730 by .4 1750 by .5 1760 by .4 1770 by .4 1780 by .4 1790 by .4 1800 by .4 1870 by .5 1930 by .4
Overall July has become a rather cooler month
August
1990 was cooler than 1930 by .3 1770 by .5 and 1700 by .3
Overall August has become a little warmer.
September
1990s cooler than 1720 and 1730 by .2 and 1740 by .1 It was the same as 1930 and cooler than 1940 by .2
Overall there was little difference
October
1990 cooler than 1960 by .4 and .4 warmer than 1900 1850 1830 1820 1730 1660
Overall October has become a little warmer
November
1990s cooler than 1970 by .2
Overall this month has become distinctly milder
December
1990 cooler than 1980 by .5 1970 by .6 1950 by .2 1940 by .1 1860 by .1 1820 by .3 1730 by .3
The month has become a little milder
Temperatures have fluctuated considerably throughout the period with months often changing their ‘traditional’ characteristics.
Generally modern winter months have become milder than the winters of the little ice age period (not surprising!) which brought the overall averages for the year sharply down. November has also become distinctly milder and March much milder (indicating perhops that old style winters were longer Nov-March) July has become rather cooler whilst June is distinctly cooler, other months show limited difference either way.
The early 1700’s were remarkably similar to the current period but the warmth was over a more extended period and came from a lower base. In this respect average temperatures have barely changed in nearly 300 years from pre industrial times. Many other periods have been fairly close in warmth to the modern era but again the little ice age winters knocked the annual averages down somewhat. The 1820’s 1900’s 1920’s and 1930’s were also notably warm.
As for sea levels, much of the UK did not come under the glaciers and consequently suffers little isostatic reaction. The expected rises in the height of the Thames estuary which would affect the Thames barrier were greatly scaled down following a conference of the great and the good from around the world late last year at Exeter University-which has considerable ties with the Hadley centre/Met office nearby. I did post the link to the study which I will dig out if anyone is interested.
Not surprisngly nothing very much is happening with our sea levels at all-accepting obvious areas of erosion. Newlyn has one of the longest records and is the mean that others are calculated from, it is also the nearest to me being around 50 miles up the coast, so consequently perhaps I can be excused for cherry picking this record. The levels are the same as in 1915.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/resids/170-161.gif
Areas such as the uplands of nearby Dartmoor have become notably milder in recent winters and seem to be reflecting the milder and wetter characteristcs seen in some periods of the 1700’s and 1800’s.
Incidentally the blue line at the bottom of the first link to Hadley CET is man made cumulative co2 and the green dots represent readings from Ernst Beck of co2 levels.
TonyB
Jari 10.33.21
I see that you had posted the raw data that I showed in my chart in 11.42.13
THe resultant graph is repeated here in jpeg and Excel form so people can manipulate (perhaps the wrong word!) the data
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/man_vs_nature.jpg
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/man_vs_nature.xls
TonyB
Look at what “scientists” and “journalists” do when they get their hands on complicated model projections with no idea of the errors involved:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7851276.stm
So in the real world Antartica has added ice, but because in the Nintendo world it is losing ice, they are predicting 95% drop in Emporer Penguin population in 100 years.
I can’t believe how poor science and journalism have gotten.
John Philip. No, you are very wrong, my friend. The “decreasing precipitation trend” is nullified by massive amounts of summer rain since 1996 http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Monthly/EWP_seasonal1.gif Please be so kind as to check before you comment in future.
Yes, the video is still working ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi1LU45Nip0 )… and it is Penn and Teller about banning water and most importantly how the environmentalists are in fact followers more than anything.
Aren’t most of the predictions found in the BBC article either “by 2040” or “by the end of the century”? So what can you tell by a year or two. I think I read somewhere that global temperature could keep tracking flat for 30 years without breaking the upward trend from the little ice age (AGW or natural).
Personally, the evidence of Vikings settling Greenland and Roman vineyards in the UK followed by the freezing of the Thames is enough evidence for me that the earth has been this warm before (with no warming runaway) and a lot colder and nobody really knows why.
Let the developed countries collect a reasonable carbon tax to be used for energy source innovation research and development (we really are going to run out at some point) and to help developing countries use the cleanest and cheapest hydrocarbon energy sources. If we did this “by 2040” or “by the end of the century” who knows what amazing progress could be made.
By the way, back in the olden days of smog and air pollution, who would have thought that CO2 would be considered the most dangerous chemical coming out of the smokestack or tailpipe.
I’m looking for Gore to warn on Wednsday of another “tipping point” approaching in 20 years.
TonyB
Very interesting stuff, especially the sea level rise. I cherry-picked the data close to my home, for Santa Barbara, California. Something seems amiss.
The graph (see below) has a linear rising trend (that is NOAA’s line, not mine) but the old eyeball shows a decrease recently, and likely no up or down trend at all. Hmmmm…
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9411340
I wonder how many other points around the world have a bogus trend line that feeds into the *official results*, but nobody bothered to check it out?
Here’s some comic relief deserving of some coverage:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/577920
Roger
From the NOAA site you can check out such diverse places as Helsinki and others on the baltic coast plus others worldwide where the evidence for global sea level rises looks thin-it comes mostly from highly inaccurate satellites not sea level gauges.
TonyB
Catastrophic global warming doesn’t stop the Russians from getting around: click
Environmentalists exploit emotionalism and ignorance.
The Penn and Teller YouTube is still available. For the scientific research data on Dihydrogen Monoxide visit: http://www.dhmo.org/
———————————————————–
Among the many commonly-sited DHMO-related environmental impacts are: DHMO contributes to global warming and the “Greenhouse Effect”, and is one of the so-called “greenhouse gases.”
————————————————————-
Time To Ban H2O
Penn & Teller showcase the hypocrisy of environmentalists by having them sign a petition to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide…..commonly referred to as water.
Smokey, why are the kids in the bus all wearing 3D glasses?
Regarding the sea level… as we all know, the level of the sea is greatly influenced by, yes you guessed right, the tide. But we also know that the tide is not all the same in every places. The tide minimum and maximum depends on the local geography and so there are places where they have huge tides and some other places where they always are minimal. The other factor in the size of the tides are of course the position of the moon and sun. Lately we went through the moon closest perigee and during January where the earth is closest to the sun (at this point in time anyway). Those two conditions must have produced very important tides.
According to NASA and NOAA… “A perigee Moon brings with it extra-high “perigean tides,” but this is nothing to worry about, according to NOAA. In most places, lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters only a few centimeters (an inch or so) higher than usual. Local geography can amplify the effect to about 15 centimeters (six inches)–not exactly a great flood.”
If we take all the other factors affecting the amount of liquid water in the oceans, I still have reserves as to how exactly they can say how much the oceans are rising.
Roger Sowell (12:11:44) :
The mean sea level trend is 1.25 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence
interval of +/- 1.82 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from
1973 to 2006 which is equivalent to a change of 0.41 feet in 100 years.
This is what gets my goat: skewed axis, improper significant figures, and usage of alarming #’s, etc for the maximum effect. Would it hurt them to write that as “about 5 inches”, or “less than 5 inches”. Doesn’t sound as bad as OMG .41 feet.
I was just looking at the tides for the Bay of Fundy and as usual, NASA is wrong about the “in” difference. At Fundy we are talking about many meters difference between Perigee and Apogee.
Early last year I somehow stumbled upon Wattsupwiththat web site. I’ve introduced my global warming neighbor to the site recently and I may have saved him. At least he’s starting to see the light at the end of the next ice age.
I look at spaceweather.com for the daily sunspot no count. I learn more daily from wattsupwiththat.com than reading the local news.
Thank You
Rob
REPLY: Glad to help. The conversion rate here continues to grow. Anthony
off topic, but is this another SC23 sunspot?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/1024/latest.jpg
There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence regarding a cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but as I noted above the UAH temperatures don’t back that – we’re close to the warmest January of the decade (lagging slighly behind 07 I believe via eyeshot).
I really want to reconcile these two facts and to believe that we are indeed cooling slowly or at least not warming as frightfully as many have posited. I would have thought we’d be closer to the 08 levels, or preferrably even a bit lower, if this indeed were a winter that pointed to cooling.
Can anyone help me? It would provide some comfort to me and I would greatly appreciate it.
How on Earth can you have a 95% confidence interval when the confidence is less than the margin of error?? One could just as easily say there is no sea level rise at all, or that it’s negative.
OT,possibly,but a salutary lesson in human behaviour that may illustrate the power of illogic over observation.
About 15 years ago I had dealings with a local manufacturing company. Essentially, they made two types of product.
Type A (60% of production) – was ‘high-tech’ and profitable
Type B (40% of production) – was ‘low-tech’ and loss-making
Not unreasonably, it was decided to phase out type B manufacturing. A period of six months was allotted to carry this out.
Shortly after this decision was made, the order books for the two products switched places. Sixty percent of demand was now for the loss-making type B. Panic ensued and emergency meetings became the order of the day.
Then someone noticed a strange thing. Profits were actually increasing- the bottom line had improved. At first this made no sense. We’re selling more loss-makers and less profit-makers than before – we should be worse off!
The solution to this conundrum turned out to be simple. The overhead for each type of product had, because of the method of cost-accounting employed, been applied equally to both. In fact the, seemingly loss-making, ‘low-tech’ product had been subsidising its more glamorous sibling!
I’d love to report that this analysis led to changes in the way that costs were calculated but I can’t.
The type B product was phased out, as planned, and ten years ago the site that the company occupied was bulldozed over!
The data contradicted their accumulated, learned methodologies but, in the end they persevered with their ‘acquired professionalism’ – and perished!
Cognitive dissonance anyone?
The tipping point keeps getting pushed back along with the solar minimum. By the way, I slipped and fell on some global warming yesterday so I am home today with a severely bruised hand, beer, and some kind of pain pill. You’ll know when the pain pill kicks in because my good right hand will start to tuyype lijke thcsi.
Jeff,
Those stats are not mine. I think Tim got the italics in the wrong place. Happens to me, too!
Still, I also noticed those stats and felt they were odd. I had statistics a long time ago (back in the 70’s) so it is pretty foggy. But I think that when the +/- is greater than the trend, it means cow plop.
Or as we cowboys would say, somebody’s got their spurs tangled in their stirrups. Or maybe they are trying to be a team player on the AGW team.
When the Great Cooling begins, those AGW letters will stand for *Al Got Whupped*.
Pamela
I suspect you bought the wrong shoes after all and went for the pretty red ones instead of ther sturdy non slip boots.
TonyB
Once again we have to odd comment about weather not being climate, a season not being a trend, etc.
So answer me this why is 2007 Arctic Ice Extent pointed to repeatedly by AGW proponents? It was one year, actually one season. It has been used to create the Al Gore Ice Free North pole extranaganza we experienced all of 2008. So why is this one year so special to the AGW crowd but a decade of weather is not?
Cake and eating it too.
Pamela, rest the hand, but don’t take in too much beer; it’s loaded with dihydrogen monoxide. 🙂
@Pamela
Oh, honey! Watch the synergy comn’ out of that drug combo.
You’re sure it’s just a bruise? No global warming-induced fractures?
John:
Maybe the Souther Hemisphere is much warmer than usual. So the average is higher. Or maybe the anecdotal evidence is for land only in the NH but SST is greater than normal. We would need to see the distribution of temp anomalies on a map to figure this all out.
I usually look forward to new posts on WUWT. This is a disappointment. While using anecdotes to poke fun at the warministas, I would hope that we would have something more then anecdotes in a post like this that is a comment on a set of identified trends. The anecdotes are fine, but they should be placed in the context of the appropriate graph showing the recent rolling over of the favorite warminista trends. A little (ok, maybe a lot) more work, but infinitely more useful.
John: One other thing. The UAH temps are for 3000 ft in altitude.
John: Where did you get UAH temperatures for January 2009? I thought they produced monthly maps, not available until 10 days or so into the following month.
Pamela Gray:
Nice!
I grabbed the temps from here:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
You can draw graphs based on several altitudes, including near surface that are only 1-2 days delayed. That coupled with the slowdown in ice growth (Again, eyeballed) has me worried that the cooling may have slowed/stopped.
I definitely think the uptick is due to southern warmth – australia and south america both have had above average heat.
my curiosity is what it means for the hope for cooling / moderated warmth on a global scale if we jump back up to warmer temperatures. if we are in a period of extreme seasons (cold up north, hot down south) and an overall uptrend in temps, that’s not a good sign, no?
thanks for any more responses. i do greatly appreciate it.
John (14:05:43) :
Sorry, can’t help you. All I can suggest is you watch the data. If you want comforting reinforcement, suggest you become pro-AGW and go hang out at Deltoid, Tamino, or RC.
For what it’s worth, only the last 2/3 of January is rivaling 2007 on Channel 5. The first third was similar to December, and even Jan 2008. By guess is that it will close around where Jan 2006 was, at least as far as the satellite data is concerned.
Still warm, but no indication of a “runaway”.
That coupled with the slowdown in ice growth (Again, eyeballed) has me worried that the cooling may have slowed/stopped.
…or never actually started.
We probably are and if a major El Nino develops later this year, which is looking more probable, quite a bit warmer.
Here’s another site to look at for monthly anomalies as they develop.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_30a.rnl.html
A little hard to estimate the acutals, since the legend is so coarse and there is so much white space. From where I’m sitting and shivering, looks like they’ve got eastern US a little too normal. Accuweather tells me that we’ve been 1.6 C below average for the last 30 days, but the base periods may not be the same.
Johns (various), I can confirm a glorious 2009 summer in the SH in northern NZ, one of the best for some time. Our holiday house has been fully rented out.
Roll on GW, preferably irreversably!
The UAH January anomaly should come in at around 0.2 – 0.25, similar to November.
Can anyone explain why so many scientists disagree with AGW if there is a consensus???
Here are just a few of the scientists who disagree with Al Gore:
http://www.hootervillegazette.com/GlobalWarming.html
Dash, consensus has nothing to do with science. Science is never settled, religion always is.
RayFOMR said: “The data contradicted their accumulated, learned methodologies but, in the end they persevered with their ‘acquired professionalism’ – and perished!
“Cognitive dissonance anyone?”
How about “The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness”? [A.N. Whitehead]
Pamela Gray (14:21:08) : By the way, I slipped and fell on some global warming yesterday so I am home today with a severely bruised hand, beer, and
Oh No! Bruised BEER! How horrible!!! Better get some new to replace it!
Jeff Alberts (14:12:39) :
How on Earth can you have a 95% confidence interval when the confidence is less than the margin of error?? One could just as easily say there is no sea level rise at all, or that it’s negative.
I read the statistics as saying ~”We have near certainty, 95%, that we have no clue at all what the direction of change will be, but it will certainly be less than 1.82mm/yr and likely close to 1.25mm/yr; unless it isn’t.”
Paul Schnurr (12:10:34) :
Let the developed countries collect a reasonable carbon tax to be used for energy source innovation research and development (we really are going to run out at some point)
Unless you put numbers on this, you have a fundamental error coming at you. “At some point” is about 50 years for oil to become significantly constrained and about 100 years for it to be mostly ‘run out’. For coal it is 250-400 years to ‘run out’ (but really it could be longer. “Resources” depend on price and as things get pricier more is worth producing so the “resource” increases. Yes, the accounting for resources does work that way.) Natural gas is unclear at somewhere between 80 years and several hundred depending on assumptions about ocean sources.
For nuclear energy from land based Uranium, we run out in about 10,000 years. If we use Thorium too, this becomes about 30,000 years. A technology has been demonstrated to work that extracts Uranium from sea water at about $150/lb (cost effective for power production) and the amount needed to power the whole planet is less than erodes into the ocean each year from rocks. We run out of energy when we run out of planet…
Not to mention wind, at about 9 cents /kWhr last I looked. Solar, where the latest thin film anouncement was 5 cents Real Soon Now and about 10 cents /kWhr in production. Tar sands and oil shales that are about 200+ years worth, but again no one is sure because it hasn’t been needed so they largely have not looked; other than the tar sands in Canada that are in production. Oh yes, and trash to motor fuels are in early production too. I don’t think we will ever run out of trash and yard waste…
All of these are proven, existing, in production products with the exception of the 5 cent solar and U from sea water. Those two are demonstrated but not in production.
So: What year do you think these resources will become inadequate? What research and development do you think we need for that day? How much tax is ‘reasonable’ to support that research? What makes the present level of research inadequate?
John (14:05:43) :
There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence regarding a cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but as I noted above the UAH temperatures don’t back that […] I really want to reconcile these two facts and to believe that we are indeed cooling slowly or at least not warming as frightfully as many have posited. […] Can anyone help me? It would provide some comfort to me and I would greatly appreciate it.
The basic problem is the methodology that says it is warmer is broken. In several ways. Much of this site is about exposing them. It’s a long list and I can’t do it justice here, but I can give a couple of ‘highlights’.
The first fundamental problem is that temperature is not heat. The heat can be leaving the planet for a while without the temperature showing it very much (for example: Infrared could take heat to space from water at 32 F / 0 C as it freezes. The heat would be gone, and the water turned to ice, but no temperature change is observed.) This is why reports of record snow and ice are important. They show heat loss to somewhere even if no temperature change is noticed.
The second, and most basic, is that the world has no one temperature. It is a polite fiction (or perhaps, an impolite one…) that has no meaning. It does move around and sort of seems to say things, but so does a mechanical fortune teller at the carnival. But it sounds good. And it tells lies.
So what’s wrong with it? First, you take the daily high and low at one place and average them together. Has nothing really changed if yesterday it was 10 and 40 and today it is -5 and 55 ?? Is 10 and 30 really the same as 20 20 ? To find a real warming trend you ought to look at the trend of the highs and the lows separately. They you could tell warming, cooling, and wider range apart. Now we can’t, in the average of hi/lo.
Something similar happens when you average together days in a month to get the monthly average. is 10 8 10 12 10 really the same as 20 15 14 6 -5 ? Averages over time ‘lag’ the trend, they hide if for 1/2 the averaging window. A yearly average hides any trend shorter than 1/2 year.
But then it goes further: We take all these somewhat muddled meaning averages of averages and we average them together over the whole planet. OK… So if it’s hotter in the Sahara today did that really make the ships frozen in the St. Lawrence un-stuck? That is what the average would say…
“Averages hide more than they reveal. -emsmith” *Yes, quoting myself 😉
So we have a planet at an inflection point. It is shifting from warming to cooling. It will take a couple of years to suck out the excess heat from the last 30 years of warming out of the oceans. (Weather is cyclical in about 30 year cycles. I agree with Pamela that 30 years is not climate.)
At this point, the warm parts are still warm (they spent the last 30 years soaking up heat, it takes a while to get it out). But the cold parts started getting cold, sometimes with a vengeance: those are the news stories.
Look at the jet stream. On the north side it is bitterly cold. That’s the new phase starting to settle in. Look on the south side. That’s the persistent warm pool that will spend several years cooling. Average them together and not much happened; but look at them separately and the warm side is not advancing into new territory, where the cold side is. Alaska, Canada, etc.
Now take a place like New York City or San Francisco. Sometimes the jet steam brings warm air from southern oceans, sometimes cold from Canada. Average them together and ‘nothing happened’. Keep them un-averaged and it’s exceptionally cold when you are under the cold air mass. (And still relatively warm when under the warm air mass.) Now you can see the dynamic of a shift in a 30 year periodicity to the cold side.
It will just take a while for the lava lamp blobs of hot air headed north and the blobs of cold air headed south to redistribute the heat enough for the averages to start dropping in the warm areas. Give it about a year to start showing up in the averages of averages of averages… Or just look at the cold trend on the cold side of the jet stream, look at the quiet sun, and look at the PDO flip. They tell you what is coming soon to a weather station near you…
Sea levels? I trust the Dutch on this one as their prognostications are ‘peer reviewed’ by the North Sea on a daily basis ie they get it wrong and they drown. Just Google the KNMI, the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute, which ‘agrees that until now no extra rising has been recorded’ or Professor Han Vrijling of Delft Technical University, who is also sceptical of AGW. This whole scam is collapsing like a Ponzi scheme.
I live near the south coast of England. Although hardly scientific, these are my impressions of the weather over the last few years:
The last really hot weather was about six years ago.
We have had snow for the last five or six winters (I don’t think we had any snow at all for quite a few years previously).
The last two summers were cold (on occasion I actually put the central heating on and I frequently wore a sweater – in the summer!)
We’ve had a bitterly cold early winter. In early January I had a frozen pipe, probably the first time over the last thirty years.
My general impression is that the warming that we have enjoyed for so long in England has not only come to a halt, but may be going into reverse.
I can’t help thinking that maybe – just maybe – our children and our children’s children will envy us because we had the fortune to live on a warming Earth. When I hear Obama talking about the ‘spectre of a warming world’ I almost despair. But there is hope. Opinion polls show that most ordinary people in the UK and US don’t believe in this nonsense.
Chris
Pierre Gosselin: “Imagine if this had been a single polar bear “trapped” on ice in the middle of water somewhere. Pictures would have been beamed all over the world – victims of wreckless manmade CO2 emisions. But alas, it’s only 300 of a despicable species, who will eventually be rescued by the wretched species’ own technology in the form of an ice breaker, powered by diesel fuel.”
And on that note, a quick quiz: knowing what we know about the BBC, which story do you think they would be more likely to run with, on their news website? Hundreds of real people trapped in icebound ferries in Canada? Or a fake polar bear being towed along the Thames?
Think very carefully… Click here for the answer.
Extract: “The UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) helps organisations to adapt to inevitable climate change.”
Yeah. Joseph was doing the same for Pharaoh. He warned him to expect seven fat years, to be immediately followed by seven lean years. Pharaoh anticipated UKCIP by very many centuries when he heeded Joseph’s warning, and built and stocked silos, thus averted national calamity in Egypt. I guess climate change remains as inevitable now as it was then.
Steven Goddard (18:15:44) :
Maybe time for folks to put in their forecasts!
I’m guessing 0.3 – 0.35.
For comparison (All UAH January anomalies):
2002 0.398
2003 0.481
2004 0.378
2005 0.488
2006 0.368
2007 0.594
2008 -0.046
After a 10 days of being drowned by Atlantic storms the Met Office now predicts a return to cold weather in the UK with another blocking Scandinavian high pressure – so we get frozen again.
Still they forecast that this winter was going to be warmer and drier due to Global warming so they must be right
enough said :o(
Although Steven is a great researcher and has done some wonderful analysis over the years, I was disappointed by this post. The UKCIP is talking about long-term trends whereas Steven tried to refute their claims using data for the last 2 or 3 years.
Even though I don’t believe in AGM, I didn’t find Steven’s analysis to be a very persuasive presentation of our case. Needless to say, 2-3 does not make a trend.In fact, 2-3 years is more akin to anecdotal evidence or can be easily dismissed as noise in the data. We’ll need to do better than this to convince the public.
One avenue worth exploring is to dig up the predictions made by the IPCC or other climate “experts” over the last decade and see if their projections have come to pass. This would enable a serious questioning of the validity of their models.But we’d need a long enough time period to assess these projections (no less than 10 years, in my opinion) unless someone has made a bold short-term prediction than can be evaluated with less data (e.g. Al Gore’s ridiculous prediction that the Arctic would be ice-free within 5 years).
Every time the poor old sea wall supporting the railway line at Dawlish in Devon, England, nearly every winter, at least for about 10 years before they finally found the money to do something about it, (it was limited maintenance that caused it to fail) the BBC would trot out some so-called climate expert from either Exeter or Plymouth Universities, & they would say something along the lines of “Well this is what we will have to expect more of as Climate Changes occurs, wetter warmer winters, & hotter drier summers!” The problem is that I can recall the former, but not so many of the latter! I am fed up with it all, especially the lies & deceit from taxpayer funded organisations across the land. It is disgraceful! Nothing changes much, does it!
Some sanity in the UK
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/4365681/Recycling-could-be-adding-to-global-warming.html
John M,
Good idea. I’m going to raise my UAH estimate a little and narrow the range. Slightly higher than November. 0.27-0.29
steven G,
You would have had to have spent the last two summers in the UK to appreciate the humour behind the hot, dry summer forecasts.
It has been nearly three years since the UK had a hot day. By contrast, there was a three week period of hot weather in 2003 which became the poster child of global warming in Europe.
“Cold weather isn’t climate, but hot weather is.”
John Philip
D-, I’m afraid, for research. “Hot”, as fas as I know, is 30C. The last day that temp was reached in London was July 27, 2006. That was also the record temp FOR THAT DAY. It only takes a couple of clicks to find 35 for early August in the heatwave of 2003. You’ve misread the facts.
Please try to remember: weather is not the same thing as climate. This seems to me the “mistake” (if it is a mistake) that government weather/climate agencies make. They cannot tell us what is going to happen next week let alone in 50 years but they pretend they can.
And talk of a 95-year warming trend is plain stupid. 20th century temperature rose and fell on roughly a 30-year cycle. If that trend continues we are due a downturn.
Alan The Brit
My house actually looks over the Dawlish to Teignmouth sea wall you describe. I unearthed a report censuring Brunel as he built the railway line to the wrong alignment making it subject to closure by storms which was causing substantial costs to the railway co.
The report was dated around 1860, ten years after the line opened! The sea level hasnt moved an inch since as can be seen by the harbour Brunel had built at the time to take the goods needed for the lines construction.
Do you live close by?
tonyB
Brits. This is (I think) where the “hotter, drier summers…” comment came from http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/about/index.htm – under ‘What climate change means for us’.
Fail!
Nihil Curu De Ista Stulta Superstitione.
Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimiam Eruditionis Habes.
Steven Goddard (07:50:24) :
John M,
Good idea. I’m going to raise my UAH estimate a little and narrow the range. Slightly higher than November. 0.27-0.29
I’m going slightly lower, i.e. 0.23-0.25
Because of a cold and wet summer in 2008, England lost half of its wheat crop. Because of very early rain, sleet and snow, N Dak farmers managed to harvest only 23% of their row crops, same 2008. I will take the heat, as I prefer to eat.
Re: UAH estimates
To those who have provided estimates. Have you just made an ‘intelligent’ guess – or do you have a method of calculation which you think works.
Just interested.
John Finn (02:04:52) :
For my estimate, I looked at a variety of channels (mostly, Channel 4, 5, and ChLT) and compared this month to previous Januarys for a handful of previous years. The Java graphing window allows you to do this. For no particular reason, I gave a slightly heavier “gut feel” weighting to Channel 5 (14,400 ft).
(Just so we’re on the same page, this is the site.)
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Then, I stuck my finger in the air, turned around three times, and screamed like a chicken. I’d describe it in more detail, but I view the method as my own personal property, and WUWT doesn’t have an archiving or disclosure requirement for custom algorithms.:)
You will really love this one
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7858104.stm
“Another cold snap is heading for the UK, as forecasters warn of the chilliest winter for 13 years.”
John M
Then, I stuck my finger in the air, turned around three times, and screamed like a chicken. I’d describe it in more detail, but I view the method as my own personal property, and WUWT doesn’t have an archiving or disclosure requirement for custom algorithms.:)
Ok – seems pretty similar to my own model. I was wondering if anyone had any ‘inside knowledge’ but it seems not. I di, though read this on Roy Spencer’s blog the other day
Use the drop-down menu to pick “ch5″ (AMSU channel 5) which is the channel John Christy and I use to monitor mid-tropospheric temperatures.
The link is here:-
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/daily-monitoring-of-global-average-temperatures/
Ch5 temperatures seem to be relatively cooler than Ch4 and ChLT which may explain why my estimates are lower than yours (and SteveG’s).
Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimiam Eruditionis Habes.
or… I use Google…
Gaudeamus Igitur
Sorry, that’s all the Latin I remember that’s not from Life of Brian…
Well…
I don’t want to brag….
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
The graphs hows +0.31 for Jan.