Guest post by Paul Homewood
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomacts
Figures released by the Met Office show the UK mean temperature for the 2012/13 winter finishing at 3.31C. This is below the long term 1981-2010 average of 3.83C.
Figure 1
The winter ranked 43rd coldest since 1910, and continues the trend towards colder winters. In the last five years, only 2011/12 has been above the 1981-2010 average. The average over these five years has been 3.03C.
Interestingly, the average winter temperature for 1911-2013 stands at 3.52C, so by 20thC standards the last few years have been genuinely cold.
The mild winters between 1998 and 2008 increasingly look to be the exception rather than the rule, as Figure 2 shows clearly.
Figure 2
Rainfall
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomacts
After claims and counterclaims of floods and droughts, the winter has been remarkably normal in terms of rainfall.
Total rainfall amounted to 346.7mm, against the 1981-2010 baseline of 330.5mm, although there have been regional variations, with NW Scotland being notably dry.
Figure 3
Met Office Predictions
I am quick to criticise the Met when their 3-month outlooks are so far adrift, so I’ll give them credit this time for forecasting below normal temperatures. Their prediction for rainfall of slightly below normal was not far off the mark either.
I was drawn, however, to this statement in the precipitation outlook:-
“The risk of snowfall over the UK is related to the occurrence of cold winter weather. As probabilities favour for this year a colder season than last year’s, the risk of snowfall is enhanced.”
It appears nobody thought to tell them about the new theory that snow is caused by warm weather!
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/k/a/A3_plots-temp-DJF.pdf
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/i/A3_plots-precip-DJF.pdf
NW Europe
It seems it is not just the UK that has had a run of cold winters. NoTricksZone reports that Germany has had exactly the same run of 5 cold winters, and, as they point out, what applies to Germany usually applies to much of Central Europe.
What makes this situation even more remarkable is that we are still in the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, that began in the mid 1990’s (and, of course, coincided with the onset of milder winters till 2008).
As NOAA say
“The AMO has affected air temperatures and rainfall over much of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, North America and Europe.”
We might be in for a few more cold winters when the AMO turns around.
References
All data from the UK Met
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries
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60 yr cycles abound.
My only question for everyone here is this; is this related to a cooling/weakening Gulfstream and is the Gulfstream cooling or weakening?
I note on the temperature anomaly chart that all thermal gradations are in units of 0.5 C, EXCEPT the zero-centred range which is 1.0 C (-0.5 to +0.5 C). Why? This range represents half of Great Britain, and obviously conflates what could be a significant drop (up to -0.5 C) over most of the rest of Britain, with a rise (I’m guessing a much smaller area). Most of Britain could be covered with a <0 C anomaly, but instead it is made to look mostly neutral. What gives?
I am not enjoying the present very cold UK weather, hovering between 0C and +1C during the day and below freezing at night with a big windchill factor.
It has been so stormy for days now that the windmills have been shut down. Thousands of households have had their power cut off by the weather and power workers are trying to restore power. My electricity is still on although TV transmissions were cut for a while today and some stations are still off air many hours later.
I use coal to heat my home and people around here are lighting their fires more now (oil is so expensive)
It is so cloudy during the day – often raining, sleeting, hailing and/or snowing – that solar panels are useless and, of course, windmills are useless. If we depended on these for our power we would all be cut off totally!. In Britain we are heading for blackouts anyway due to the incompetence of the ruling elite.
I call “foul” on using Bright White for the zero, neutral temperature range on a map immediatly below a title with the word “Colder” in it.
Come on… use something with less saturation , a neutral shade of grey instead of the bright white of snow.
Mark says:
March 23, 2013 at 8:51 pm
“My only question for everyone here is this; is this related to a cooling/weakening Gulfstream and is the Gulfstream cooling or weakening?”
First, the current in the western Atlantic is usually written as “Gulf Stream” and the extension to the northeast is called the “North Atlantic Drift.”
Sea surface temperatures as shown on satellite images generally are not strongly connected across the full North Atlantic as shown in images such as this:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/95306main_fig_-2-Dm.jpg
Context here:
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/nad100_big.gif
The atmosphere has its own currents and these are what should be looked at to explain the cold in Europe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gulf Stream ‘is not slowing down’
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8589512.stm
No it’s just weather. Jumping on every little blip in either direction is idiotic.
Brits are nearing natural gas rationing according to the Daily Mail. They haven’t been building new power plants, and many coal plants are due to shutter to appease the E.U.
Could get interesting.
The Wintertemperatures (DJF) of the northern Hemisphere in the last 110 Years: http://www.dh7fb.de/nao/djf1.gif follow a long-time trend of about 0,1K/ decade and the residues: http://www.dh7fb.de/nao/djf2.gif could follow a 60-year periode. If you look at the OHC of the northern Atlantic ( 35N…60N; 60W-10W) http://climexp.knmi.nl/ps2pdf.cgi?file=data/inodc_heat700_-50–10E_35-60N_na.eps.gz there could be the reason for it: The global THC- variation.
I keep at least 3-years supply of logs in my stores. I’m finding I have to top up more and more each year that goes by. Fortunately for me I have a large area of politically correct and sustainable trees that need a regular hair-cut.
It could be just the start of something more significant – in the UK/Europe maybe – we’ll look back nostalgically and say “ah winter of 12-13, mmm it was so mild”.
This morning, March 24, here in Belgium the landscape is covered by a thick layer of snow. I never saw this so late in the year. Nevertheless, the British Met. Office promised us, a few years ago, that “snow will be something of the past”…
Here is an interesting perspective on British winters from Meccano Magazine February 1958.
Page 60:
Snowfall in Britain
… But today, however unseasonable the weather, we do not expect snow later than in May or before September.
This although perhaps a sad admission, is not too high a price to pay for having our worst bouts of winter confined to the period between December and March and frequently to only January or February.
There is also this from page 90 in the same edition:
There is another edition of the magazine in about 1960 that talks about 2 degree warming this century, but I can’t find it at the moment.
It is not the sort of thing you expect in a boys magazine.
I have lived for most of my life in the far south-west of England, at the end of Cornwall .(that’s the bit that looks like Italy sticking out into the Atlantic.) I can confirm the thrust of this article. At my age I can tell you that things are just returning to what we used to call “normal”. We’ve had floods in Newlyn and landslips in Looe and lack of maintenance is the problem, not strange weather.
Mike McMillan says:
“Brits are nearing natural gas rationing according to the Daily Mail. They haven’t been building new power plants, and many coal plants are due to shutter to appease the E.U.”
Yes, the “alarmed” eco-theologists manage to block the construction of a clean, modern coal powered plant at Kingnorth in Kent. At their trial for millions of pounds worth of criminal damage (painting four letters on a chimney stack) the judge found them not guitly because they actions were driven by beliefs legally equivalent to religious beliefs. Their defence had called upon high preist Hansen as a star witness.
Still I’m sure all the global warming a nice religous glow will prevent pensioners from dying of cold.
AMO peaked in about 2002. We are just about entering negative territory now. Expect increasing cold for the next 15 years and be thankful for any CO2 we are still allowed to emit.
“The AMO has affected air temperatures and rainfall over much of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, North America and Europe.”
The AMO is the key not only to the precipitation but to the temperature’s natural variability of the N. Hemisphere.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
The reasons for the AMOscillations is not entirely clear. Combination of the solar cycles with the Earth’s interior oscillations provides one of the avenues for the further research.
Frank: …there could be the reason for it: The global THC- variation.
What you mean it’s all caused by people smoking too much pot? At least that could explain some of the stuff getting presented as climate science. A lot of the key players seem to be aging hippies, anyway.
My Real Science comment: Iceagenow highlights the snowpocalypse like conditions in Belfast, and a good comment by eco-geek: At the opposite corner of the country, the far SE it is snowing this morning also and laying. Not a great deal but it is freezing also – a little lower than forecast temperatures and certainly for the coast here. The Met Office are forecasting the same for more of the same next week. The big question is: Will it snow in April?
This “Global Warming” is beginning to get a bit monotonous. Still the warmists have the temperature data to adjust upwards and tell us it is actually run-away warming and we need to close our power stations and cut down on our gas reserves – all of which is happening. Reserves are down to 36 hours. Hope the Met Office is wrong for next week.
There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap. This has also resulted in higher levels of snow cover in Eurasia with an associated effect of increased albedo. The longer term results of this are difficult to predict, but the weather over the last few years in the UK has certainly confirmed the idea. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/arctic-ice-melt-extreme-weather_n_1878833.html
Back in 2008 I began pointing out to everyone who would listen that from around 2000 I had noted that the late 20th century trend to increased jet stream zonality and poleward drifting had gone into reverse.
The trend has been consolidating ever since and appears to be affecting both hemispheres.
The net effect is more global cloudiness, less energy into the oceans and a slowly cooling climate system.
The only factor that changed at the right time was the level of solar activity as it began to fall from the peak of cycle 23.
At the same time (aroubd 2000) various other climate parameters also reversed trend as I have set out here and elsewhere.
In the UK it isn’t just winter temperatures that have changed. The summers have been noticeably cooler and wetter since 2006.
In fact, the entire northern hemisphere is cooling as per this data:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=10784
“More Visual Proof Of Global Cooling Since 2007”
I have previously described the means by which solar variations could have just such an effect.
Paul Homewood: “I am quick to criticise the Met when their 3-month outlooks are so far adrift, so I’ll give them credit this time for forecasting below normal temperatures. Their prediction for rainfall of slightly below normal was not far off the mark either.”
Excellent article Paul. Yes, the Met Office seems to have had a reality check sometime last year. Since they quietly switched over to a new computer model that predicts very little for the next five years instead of run-away warming, they are in with a chance of being in the right ball-park.
They use the same model for weather and climate, so the two go hand in hand.
It is notable that their ten year prediction got cut to five. Probalby because they did not want to show us what the model predicted for 2017-2022.
Information about Gulf Stream and Atlantic temperatures. This is at 1000 m:
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/ofs/viewer.shtml?-natl-temp-1000-small-rundate=latest
Note how warm surface water sink now to large depths in the Atlantic. Like gigantic Atlantic sinkholes, due to high salinity salinity http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/ofs/viewer.shtml?-natl-sal-1000-small-rundate=latest
That warm water was supposed with the help of the North Atlantic Drift heat Northern Europe. Not be the famous missing heat.
Extrapolation of the natural variability shows that that England’s (or more precisely Central England’s) temperatures are likely to take downward trend in the next 2-3 decades
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
Yes it is solar caused and quite a few articles have been written about the jetsream position and structure and solar effects thereof
Yeah in London its 1 degrees maximum today.
Look forward to cold weather next 20 years with the negative PDO (more infuential than the AMO). Met office might actually get around to do science instead of fantasy.