From the Institute of Physics
More than 1 in 10 chance of colder UK winters
As the Sun enters a period of low solar activity over the next 50 years, new research has calculated the probability of unusually cold winter temperatures occurring in the UK.
Last year, the same group of researchers, from the University of Reading, linked colder winters in Europe to low solar activity and predicted that the Sun is moving into a particularly low period of activity, meaning the UK will experience more cold winters in the future – potentially similar to those experienced in the Maunder minimum at the end of the 17th century.
The new research, published today, Tuesday 5 July 2011, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, supports recent suggestions that sunspot activity is waning, and goes further, using the behaviour of the Sun over the last 9300 years to predict the probabilities of future solar changes.
Over the next 50 years, the researchers show that the probability of the Sun returning to Maunder minimum conditions is about 10 per cent, raising the chances that the average winter temperature will fall below 2.5 oC to around 1 in 7, assuming all other factors, including man-made effects and El Niño, remain constant.
Put in context, the average UK winter temperature for the last 20 years has been 5.04 oC, however the last three winters have averaged 3.50 °C, 2.53 °C and 3.13 °C, with 2009/10 being the 14th coldest in the last 160 years.
The increased probability of colder winters could hold great value for national infrastructure planning by government organisations who have struggled to adapt to the extreme weather conditions experienced in the UK over the past two years.
It is stressed, however, that these results do not have any implications for global climate change, which is concerned with average temperatures for all parts of the world and all times of year. The reported changes only apply in winter and are regional – for example, when the winter is colder in Europe it tends to be warmer in Greenland so that there is almost no effect on the global mean.
These studies obtained the average temperatures between December and February for the past 352 years from the Central England Temperature (CET) data series – the world’s longest instrumental temperature record, maintained by the UK Met Office, extending back to 1659.
This data set was combined with records of the Sun’s activity obtained through the analysis of ‘cosmogenic isotopes’, which are specific types of carbon and beryllium that are known to be influenced by the Sun.
The magnetic field of the Sun protects the Earth from galactic cosmic rays, which, as they hit the Earth’s atmosphere, generate the cosmogenic isotopes which are then deposited in tree trunks and ice sheets. These cosmogenic isotopes can be collected and dated providing a unique insight into the Sun’s variability on timescales ranging from years to millennia.
Data from the cosmogenic isotopes suggests that we are currently coming to the end of a grand solar maximum – a period of intense activity in the Sun – and will therefore experience lower solar activity conditions in future,.
Many researchers have argued that temperature changes attributed to the Sun are, in reality, just caused by the internal variability of the climate system; however, the authors have used this 352-year temperature record to show that there is some, albeit small, predictive skill to be gained from solar activity despite it being just one of a number of factors that influence UK weather.
One mechanism that suggests a link between the Sun and recent cold winters is ‘blocking’. Low solar activity causes extensive anticyclones that persist for several weeks in the Atlantic Ocean, causing the warm westerly winds to be replaced by cold, continental north-easterly winds. Depending on the position of the anticyclone, this can also lead to clear skies at night causing the land to cool even further.
Lead author Professor Mike Lockwood said, “Our results show that over the next fifty years there is a 10 per cent chance that temperatures will return to Maunder minimum levels. Describing the Maunder minimum as a ‘little ice age’ is somewhat misleading however.
“Cold winters were indeed more common during the Maunder minimum but there were also some very warm ones between them, summers were not colder, and the drop in average temperatures was not nearly as great, nor as global, as during a real ice age.”
From Tuesday 5 July (when the link goes active) this journal paper can be found at http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/3/034004
h/t to reader “a jones”
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7:1, huh? I’ll take those odds. If a bought-and-paid-for warmist scientist admits of any natural variability involvement, it’s sure to dominate.
here in australia we are having a very cold winter as at the 5/07/2011 we are having a blizard in our snowy mountain area 36cm in of snow in 24 hour very cold in eastern australian heavy snow is forcast for 3 more days this is a major dump all skiers are very happy
Cold winters coupled with “London could be flooded within 100 years as melting Arctic ice causes sea levels to rise by up to 900cm (3ft), a new study shows.” means it is time to buy shares in ice-skate suppliers.
Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/868174-melting-arctic-ice-to-flood-london-in-100-years-if-global-warming-continues#ixzz1RDGMCJwi
Nice to think that the decommissioning of really essential Nuclear and Coal Powered stations and the massive increase in on and offshore wind power [both virtually useless as either frozen and/or static during winter months and summer highs] we Brits will have to be wearing our thermals continuously from about November to April whilst paying through the nose for our subsidised “Renewable” power. Add the cost of gas powered back up generators when the wind is too strong or non existent and one wonders if Cameron and his cronies have any idea what they are doing to our country.
This Government is pathetic and should be encouraging Thorium Power generation and cancelling ALL wind power monetary Black Holes.
‘It is stressed, however, that these results do not have any implications for global climate change, which is concerned with average temperatures for all parts of the world and all times of year. The reported changes only apply in winter and are regional – for example, when the winter is colder in Europe it tends to be warmer in Greenland so that there is almost no effect on the global mean.’
Some dodgy logic here- durely low solar activity would have a global effect
S. Young
IOW, our climate has not really changed a bit… a warmer season here, a cooler season there, influenced by the sun over decades.
This GLOBAL climate change is a crock!
Nothing that a new tax can’t remedy.
Seriously, is it not the case that given all the complexities on planet earth there is just no chance that the warminsts have anything more to offer than a reasonably based speculation about what might or might not happen?
Why is so much attemtion being paid to this esoteric science?
The Bear pulls on an extra jumper. It is focking freezing, here in Sydney.
Actually I think that should be “ the people of the UK are experiencing colder winters” as opposed to “can expect to” It been ruddy freezing here for the last couple of years.
Simple Solar links:
For graphs of the current spot count oberservations, Planetary A and
solar flux indices:
http://www.solen.info/solar/
For last month’s (June ’11) official international spot count:
http://sidc.oma.be/products/ri_hemispheric/
…and the Daily Solar Data reports from NOAA:
http://www.swpc/noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/DSD.txt
How does (lower) solar activity selectively lower temperatures at one geographic location while simultaneously increasing temperatures at another location in the same hemisphere? Is that really what happened at the time of the Maunder Minimum?
But my the warmers are mischievous imps! With another cold winter coming up, they are giving themselves an out by saying it is a one in seven probability. With three cold winters in a row already, what is they chance of having four cold winters in a row when the chance of having one is one in seven?
Do I understand this correctly?
Solar activity affects the UK but not the rest of the globe?
Is that really likely?
Really and truely?
Cherry picking as an art form?
Great Britain does not produce cold in winter nor heat in summer. To have cold winters the cold has to come from the north. To have hot summers the heat has to come from the south. If cold escapes from the north warm air must flow in from the south.
So I predict less sea ice on the North Pole if Britain gets colder in winter.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
“the average UK winter temperature for the last 20 years has been 5.04 oC, however the last three winters have averaged 3.50 °C, 2.53 °C and 3.13 °C, with 2009/10 being the 14th coldest in the last 160 years.”
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
“for example, when the winter is colder in Europe it tends to be warmer in Greenland so that there is almost no effect on the global mean.”
“One mechanism that suggests a link between the Sun and recent cold winters is ‘blocking’. Low solar activity causes extensive anticyclones that persist for several weeks in the Atlantic Ocean, causing the warm westerly winds to be replaced by cold, continental north-easterly winds. Depending on the position of the anticyclone, this can also lead to clear skies at night causing the land to cool even further.”
The same thing is going on on the South Pole. Less sea ice formation and more cold air in South America Australia and New Zealand
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/extreme/gfs/current/nhdt.html
Time to burn more carbon….
There is one critical component not mentioned in the abstract above: If the Sun has any effect on climate (highly suspected), there is no way for Earth to feed back to the Sun to counteract. The effects that Svensmark is studying, should they turn out to be measurable and cumulative, would affect Earth semi-globally. Semi-globally because the GCR’s strike Earth predominately from the mid latitudes to maximum at the Poles of Earth.
Point: There is nothing the climate of Earth can do to alter what radiates into Earth, save albedo, and if those levels are altered by the Sun and Galaxy, the Earth must change. Ergo, under those circumstances, Man has but one choice: Adapt.
Time alone will tell what the Max and Min parameters of such a system are.
Alarmists need not apply to the following:
As for Ice Age conditions, one or more of a series of Maunder Minimums would be the 1st clues of the downturn into the next one. Subsequent recoveries out of Little Ice Ages would fall short repeatedly, which would be the final clues. Millenia are required. A quick glance at the slight downturn from the Holocene Max hints that the 1st clues have already taken place. Are we already sliding, though slowly and steadily? One of the Interglacials (out of the last 8) sported a double hump, and an extra 10,000 years to turn over onto itself. Are we lucky, or are we whistling in the wind?
There is a Palestinian named researcher
Samer tarawa
Link between the Eastern Mediterranean cooling and high solar activity
Unlike Europe
Very cool this study
Increase of solar activity means cooling the Eastern Mediterranean such as Palestine and Jordan ..
Low solar activity means cooling Europe
http://www.palweather.ps/?page=details&newsID=654&cat=3
Surprise, surprise
University of Reading people are regular visitors to my websites during since 1998
IP Address……….134.225.100.180 [Label IP Address]
Country……….United Kingdom
Region ………. Reading
City………. Reading
ISP………. The University Of Reading, Uk
Hi Reading Uni .
Anyone likes to identify him/her -self in person ?
Can we look forward to 1940s style winters?
But Huhne will continue on his mad-cap course of covering this once scepter’d isle with his favourite bird mincers, not one of which will generate any electricity when the stillness of a snowy night descends on us here in the UK.
Just as Michael Jankowski says of the Kaufmann article:
It reminds me of the disclaimers scientists had to make to appease the theologians in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Unfortunately, this research was headed by Professor Mike Lockwood, who is firmly in the warmist camp and therefore is unable or unwilling to apply an objective judgement as to the true mechanisms surrounding the sun’s increasingly quiescent state.
He goes half way in recognising the cosmic ray variability as a function of the sun’s activity in so far as this is a necessary part of his analysis via cosmogenic isotopes, but fails to mention the increasingly probable Svenmark cosmic ray interaction with clouds theory even as a possible mechanism. Instead he trumpets the official paradigm, which he has endorsed with his own research, that the sun’s activity was beginning to wane at the same time as temperatures were increasing between 1980 and 2000. He makes no account of the fact that we were in a strongly positive PDO, or that the temperature record was heavily contaminated by UHI, or of any inertia in the system. His only contribution to a mechanism this time is that the reduced activity of the sun can cause anticyclonic blocking, which can give us very cold winters. He fails to mention that the same process, when it results in blocked heat waves, such as the Russian heat wave last year is inevitably claimed to be caused by AGW by the likes of Hansen and others.
When these “scientists” can admit that they have little idea what the mechanisms are and begin to apply the same standard of criticism to their own pet theories rather than slavishly reinforcing the official party line, then I will be happy to recognise them as scientists.
And USA winters
Global warming can have a profound and negative impact on our outdoor recreation opportunities and businesses,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.). “We are already seeing decreases in the amount of snowpack in certain western areas of the United States. These decreases in snowpack and in the length of the snow season can directly impact activities like skiing and snowmobiling, which are key aspects of outdoor winter recreation.”
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/barbara-boxer-warned-of-short-ski-seasons/
Nice to see Prof Mike “yo-yo” Lockwood taking an active role in studying the Sun & it’s potential effects upon the Earth! How quaint that he now suggests that the Earth’s climate could cool (only in Britain – so far), yet he told reporters a little while ago that we shouldn’t expect to see any cooling due to reduced Solar activity, as we would have done so by now. Now, let me boringly reitierate the UNIPCC/SPM,THE world’s leading climate authority, in my own words, “We don’t really know what effect element ‘A’ (Sun), has on element ‘B’ (Earth’s Climate), but we know for absolute certainanty that element ‘C’ (manmade CO2) over powers it! Makes perfect senes to me, NOT! Remind me not to take any long-term financial investment advice from them, or Lehman Brothers for that matter! Oh I forgot, they went bust within two years of producing a couple of investment reports about Climate Change in 2100!!!!! Dear Mr Disney, I would very much like to make a fantasy film all about………………………………………………………..!