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
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.
I am in Hampshire, UK, and I am looking out the window at the settled snow. Yet we are listening to the BBC, quite happy to report the demolition of functioning coal fired power stations. The lunatics really have taken over the asylum.
“There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap”
Well the Arctic sea ice cap has been shrinking for over 30 years and for the first 20 years the jets became more zonal and the climate zones drifted poleward.
Only after 2000 did the process go into reverse whilst the Arctic ice continued to decrease.
No correlation at all. therefore.
I suspect a 10 to 15 year lag for Arctic ice amounts so expect it to increase again within the next few years.
It is really a great shame if the climate in northern Europe is tending towards cooler because we could do with a dose of real global warming here in the United Kingdom as is evident from Christopher Booker’s latest article in The Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9949571/Its-payback-time-for-our-insane-energy-policy.html
I entirely agree with Mr Booker and I am at a loss to comprehend why our politicians cannot see the madness of what they are doing to our energy supplies. I am looking into how I can install an emergency generator for when the lights go out.
In real time, 09:30 GMT , wind is contributing 12% of all UK production.
Of greater significance, and with impeccable timing, whilst the UK is virtually blanketed with snow, we’ve had to permanently shut down at least 3 of our coal fired power stations this week.
For the past few years we have been seeing reports of animals and insects moving north in the UK to get away from the heat in the south. i.e. York university research 2012!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2188002/Butterflies-birds-north-climate-warms-250-species-colonising-new-areas-previously-cool-them.html
I guess they all must have frozen to death by now.
In The Netherlands (just west of Germany) the winter anomaly was -0.1 °C compared to the last 30 years for dec/jan/feb.
It is March that is going to be very cold though. At the moment the March anomaly is -3.0 °C. March average temperature so far is below the 30 year average for February, and will even go below the 30 average for January. One might rightfully claim that winter has been extended by a month.
“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.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////
But hasn’t there been a recent trend by the warmists to tell us that warming causes increased snow fall?
Is this latest statement a recognition that increased snowfall is associated with cold conditions, not warming?
Jeff Alberts says:
March 23, 2013 at 10:35 pm
…it’s just weather. Jumping on every little blip in either direction is idiotic.
Well, this post (as I see it, anyway) is suggesting that this winter in not merely a “little blip” but is part of a trend. Are you saying that’s incorrect? That the several recent below-average winters in the UK and Europe are a “little blip?”
Last week, a large, perfectly servicable coal fired power station in Didcot, Berkshire, UK, and employing hundreds of people producing much needed power for out nation, was foced to close before its scheduled 2019 date bacause the EU had ruled that it had produced its allowance of output that had been laid down by the EU some years ago. Why on earth Cameron and his cohorts don’t put two fingres up to these stupid people in the name of simple common sense is quite beyond me.
The sooner we have politicians back in power that can apply their business experience to governing the country properly the better.
A swedish newspaper quoting the swedish metrology institute said colder winters was a result of global warming. I bet they would blame global warming if winters turned warmer too.
5000 extra people dead in UK so far this winter: http://alturl.com/npz34
UK energy supply on brink: http://alturl.com/5qhm9
Meanwhile, Earth Day! Let’s switch off all that evil energy! Weep, weep for that so fragile climate!
Somebody should be separated from their testicles for this.
Diane Sawyer the other night on World News had an intro to the show about the cold spring weather and the surprising reason why that would shock people. I turned to the History channel immediately. I figured it was going to be more of the “global warming causes cold, late spring”. Do they really forget that just a few months ago they were talking about how spring arrives earlier every year? What’s wrong with these people?
Looking at figure 1 … just about shows everything we need to know about the global warming scam. Cover up the last few years and it looks as if the recent values are rising. Look at the whole graph and it doesn’t look as if anything has changed.
Now that it is very clear they were wrong to “cry wolf” …
When will the Met Office apologise for their central part in causing the most costly scam in Human history?
Thank you for the NOAA link. I understand why you did not cite NOAA as a reference:
” Since the AMO switched to its warm phase around 1995, severe hurricanes have become much more frequent and this has led to a crisis in the insurance industry.” AND,
“Last updated 2007 Oct 02 16:28 (-0400)”
And the voters keep voting in those that put up those horrid windmills, dream of solar panels somehow working under snow and ice while they’re busily shuttering their coal generators, decomissioning without replacement their nuke generators and keeping the fracking gas underground. Just last week they warned about not being able to generate enough electricity to keep all except Prince Charles in the dark and cold. But not to worry, stacking the frozen dead along side the roadways is a small price to avoid that 180 F temp of 2310. And they can relearn the proper way to stack, just like they did in the bubonic plague years.
More on the effect of the UK winter continuing into into spring in the Mail at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298246/UKs-coldest-spring-1963-claims-5-000-lives-Pensioners-worst-affected–experts-say-final-toll-horrendous.html#
As the result of insane “green” energy policy the Mail says:
“An increase in fuel costs and the extended winter means that more people are going to suffer, and more will be unable to afford to eat and heat their homes. It’s a scary prospect.”
Greg: “What you mean it’s all caused by people smoking too much pot?” 😀 No, in this case the meaning of THC is . thermohaline current!
As a historical climatologist I would like to put some context into the current weather.
Firstly, having looked at thousands of weather observations back to the 10th Century, what stands out is that this current era (in Britain) has been a very benign climatic period. There were far more extremes in previous centuries, especially prior to the 18th century when winds, droughts, heat waves and snow made the present era seem very calm. What is particularly noticeable are the long and frequent episodes of torrential rain which caused famine, destroyed bridges mills and houses, and were on a different and more ferocious scale to today
Readers might like to look at the official Met office figures which gives Central England temperatures to 1772 (Google; Hadley CET 1772)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
As can be seen, temperatures in this country have been plummeting for over a decade and are currently very similar to the late 1980’s before the global warming scare. They are also very similar to those in the 1730’s which was a hiatus in the Little Ice Age. Global temperatures have been static or falling for 16 years.
We have a plan ‘A’ for global warming (a tiresome misnomer as one third of all temperature stations worldwide show cooling) I can’t predict what will happen in the future, other than to say the last few years weather patterns have some similarity to those in the past that presaged a genuinely extreme period of high winds, snow and rain so would suggest we need a plan ‘B’ to cater for cooling, which is currently more of a reality than warming.
Perhaps the most depressing thing is that IF the official belief in man made warming is correct (highly unlikely) we have just had the warmest decade ‘ever’ and our weather may now return to previous decades-often cold often wet often stormy. Form an orderly queue at the Australian visa office…
tonyb
When is Al Gore going to be hauled in front of the International Court in The Hague,
not as a war criminal but as a menace to the whole Human Race? (sorry it is late and I am angry that it seems like the people responsible for mess ups like this never get their just rewards.).
Vuk
There are similarities between the current position of the jet stream and its position at the start of various episodes of the Little Ice Age.
Is there any connection you are aware of between sunspots/magnetic activity and the position of the jet stream?
tonyb
Cold weather brings yet another hockey stick result over Europe
http://www.thegwpf.org/bitter-cold-grips-europe-march-coldest-100-years/
Yes we’re shivering here in UK. Not deep snow like Canada but it’s enough for us. And of course, the wonderful thing about PV panels is they don’t work when covered in snow, even if there was enough light for them. Coupled with light/no wind for the turbines, it looks like we’re reliant on those fossil fuels yet again :).
Yet the MET Office still promotes this kind of insane rubbish.
“ I stand by my comments of 4C or more global warming being possible by the end of this century, with local warming higher in some places, up to 15C in the Arctic an extreme but plausible case.”
(http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/people/richard-betts)
I haven’t checked but I’m told that UK records show that snow is more common at Easter than at Christmas. I do remember being snowed in for a week at my parents farm during the last week of April in about 1980. It’s only weather.
“what applies to Germany usually applies to much of Central Europe.”
It’s much worse:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=2&sat=4&sst=3&type=trends&mean_gen=1203&year1=2007&year2=2013&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
but it’s not remarkable, we are back to a more normal NAO/AO. Temp of NW Europe follows the NAO, the AMO follows the integral of the NAO.
Interesting to compare the propaganda the Met Office were pushing out in 2009 in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks in their brochure “Warming, Climate Change – the facts”
and their massively exaggerated ‘hockey-stick’ type graph – see 6th slide down or page 04
http://people.virginia.edu/~rtg2t/future/gcc/UK.Met.quick_guide.pdf
with their recent ‘decadal’ forecast
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/major-change-in-uk-met-office-global-warming-forecast/
and one can’t help asking why they should omit the second five years from their ‘decadal’ forecast
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/ukmo-lowers-5-year-global-temperature-forecast-and-omits-the-second-5-years-of-the-decadal-forecast/
No hint of the flatlining shown in their later forecasts compared to the hype they pushed out in 2009 yet we’d already had more than a decade of flattened temps!!!
We might be in the warm phase of the AMO but we are in a cooling phase of solar activity. It is the sun not CO2!
There is no mention of the failure of the GHE theory that predicts warming with rising CO2 levels. They still rise but temperatures fall.
This also signals a failure of the UK energy (non)policies.
What we usually get is, Spring is getting earlier and earlier.
Not this year
John Peter, you write “I entirely agree with Mr Booker and I am at a loss to comprehend why our politicians cannot see the madness of what they are doing to our energy supplies”
The reason why UK politicians have been so stupid is, unfortunately, rather obvious. Politicians believe what their senior scientists tell them. Years ago, I tried to discuss CAGW with my MP, David McGuinty, here in Ottawa, Canada. He said, WTTE, “Why should I believe Jim Cripwell, when all the scientists in Environment Canada say the opposite”.
As long as the Royal Society and the chief Government scientist support the nonsense of CAGW, British politicians have little choice, and must believe them.
Iain C
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)
That’s just the way the Met do it.
I suspect most, if not all of the country is below av. For instance Scotland finished 0.2C below.
The regional analysis is here. Every region is below.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/2013/winter/regional-values
I’m in Warwickshire and its currently -1C and snowing. My local weather station has this to say about the recent cold:
This is officially the coldest spell of March weather in Coventry since 1947, with a maximum temperature of just 0.2°C on Saturday. It will remain bitterly cold today in a strong east to north-easterly breeze with drifting in exposed places; expect maximum temperatures around -1°C – well below average (10.9°C) for the 24th March in Coventry over the past 30 years or so.
So its 11.9C below the average, where is all this warming they keep telling us we should have been getting? Coldest March for 66 years!
http://www.bablakeweather.co.uk/
tonyb says: March 24, 2013 at 3:19 am
……..
Hi Tony
me thinks that
Jet stream’s position is controlled by the atmospheric pressure over Iceland, which in turn is result of balancing in the warm Atlantic currents down-welling in the area
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/large/04.18.jpg
the Arctic ice extent could be a clue.
Down-welling north of Iceland appear to be directly influenced by North Icelandic Jet, a little known cold current flowing along the sea floor.
This area is geologically very active, so there is a strong possibility that the NIJ is affected (disrupted ?) by it. My data also shows that there is strong correlation between sunspot number and geological data in the area.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
Those records show that we are back to 1960’s levels. One difference is that the solar and the Earth’s magnetic variability, currently applicable (15 yr delay) are still just about in phase (warm), while for the 1960’s were in counter phase (cold).
Total amount of warming or cooling is then a function of the strength of the appropriate solar cycle (see link ), but to complicate matters further there is an ‘oceanic’ 15 year delay, which Hansen and followers WRONGLY attribute to the CO2
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1974/4343.abstract
Mike McMillan says:
March 23, 2013 at 11:28 pm
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.
They actually closed a functioning coal fired power station at Didcot (South of Oxford) only this week, coincident with the news that they were running out of gas as the new private companies don’t like to tie up a lot of oversupply in storage so the UK has around 36 hours gas remaining – after all it is going to be warm with everyone growing grapes.
The cost of paying subsidies to inefficient windmills has led to energy poverty in UK as it has in Germany. It is being reported that deaths of old people in UK during February and March are now 5000 above the statistical norm. This is a raised anomaly that the ‘warm alarmists’ don’t want to talk about.
The statements “warmer temperatures mean more snow” and “colder temperatures mean more snow” are both correct. In Northern Ontario, where winter temperatures can fall to -40 deg C the former statement is true. In England where winter temperatures are above freezing the latter statement is true. Warmer and colder are relative and mean nothing until put into context.
@Mr.. Bratby, I live on an unkempt woodlot. Now I must beg the insurance company their requirements to suffer my woodburner. I was commanded to remove the traditional one. My less fortunate neighbors pay ~US$100 for a face cord of mixed soft wood.
Study N. N. Taleb to learn climate/energy Antifragility, and the downside of forecasting failures. We have two generations of robust engineering/technology that may soon discover the 80/20 Pareto Distribution of challenges.
Weather events that made it into the news?
That will be catastrophic man made climate disaster disruption mayhem death apocalypse armageddon!
“As the snow of the coldest March since 1963 continues to fall, we learn that we have barely 48 hours’ worth of stored gas left to keep us warm, and that the head of our second-largest electricity company, SSE, has warned that our generating capacity has fallen so low that we can expect power cuts to begin at any time. It seems the perfect storm is upon us”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9949571/Its-payback-time-for-our-insane-energy-policy.html
The UK has been “rationing” gas now for over a month.
Pressure drops and reductions in calorific efficiency of the gas means less heat for a given quantity burnt.
The largest coal generating plant in the UK, Drax, is converting to wood-chip burning to try to avoid the carbon taxes.
Subsidy is the name of the game. With the Gov both taxing and subsidising the plant at the same time.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290444/Madness-How-pay-billions-electricity-bills-Britains-biggest-power-station-switch-coal-wood-chips–wont-help-planet-jot.html
Stephen Rasey says:
March 23, 2013 at 9:21 pm
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.
——————————————————————————————————————-
No point calling foul here, try emailing your concerns to enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk seeing as that’s their map and their choice of colours.
AMSU’s Aqua channel 5 (600mb) is currently showing an ‘unprecedented’ in the satellite record for March, precipitous decline in global average temperature of >0.5degC (circa 3%) in just 8 days! Channels 6 (400mb) and 7 (250mb) echo similar if not quite as extreme & unusual declines.
Is the first recorded Super Tropospherical Cooling event? At this rate ‘Snowball Earth’ will be here before Easter…
Cooling is warming. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Gareth Philips says
There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap.
Henry says
You must be kidding me. Surely you do not believe that?
Before they started with the carbon dioxide nonsense, people looked at the planets to explain weather cycles, rightly or wrongly.
see here
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
to quote from the above paper:
“A Weather Cycle as observed in the Nile Flood cycle, Max rain followed by Min rain, appears discernible with
maximums at 1750, 1860, 1950 and minimums at 1670, 1800, 1900 and a minimum at 1990 predicted.
The range in meters between a plentiful flood and a drought flood seems minor in the numbers but real in consequence….
end quote
According to my table for maxima,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
I calculate the date where the sun decided to take a nap, as being around 1995.
and not 1990 as William Arnold predicted.This is looking at energy-in. I think earth reached its maximum output (means) a few years later, around 1998.
Anyway, look again at my best sine wave plot for my data
now see:
1900 minimum flooding – end of the warming
1950 maximum flooding – end of cooling
1995 minimum flooding – end of warming.
predicted 2035-2040 – maximum flooding – end of cooling.
Do you see the pertinent correlation with my sine wave?
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
Henry@Stephen
Do you see what is happening Stephen? Note the cooling of the arctic area around Anchorage in my tables quoted above. The Norwegian arctic has just been lucky because the Gulf stream has not yet cooled much but my data suggest the Gulf stream will start cooling down soon, for the next 2 to three decades, due to the global cooling, not only shown by my tables but also by others:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend
Clearly, there is a regime shift of energy-in every 40-50 years from warming to cooling and vice versa. There maybe delays in this shift due to a number of factors, e.g. due to earth’s own volcanic activity in the oceans, but generally speaking you will always find the 88 year wave back.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/#comment-273
So we are now in a cooling mode.
This results in a shift in cloud formation more southwards in the NH and more northwards in the SH. Hence the correlation with the flooding of the Nile to a maximum at the end of a cooling period.
Do you now agree with me on this?
Jim Cripwell says:
March 24, 2013 at 4:05 am
———————————————–
Don’t blame the scientists, whose paychecks are signed by the politicians. Don’t blame the politicians, who want to rule the world. In a democracy, you must blame the voters.
Gareth Phillips
There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap
There was also good correlation between colder winters and growing ice cap during the 60’s and 70’s. And also good correlation between milder winters and reducing ice caps in the 90’s and 2000’s.
Correlation is not the same as proof.
Steve from Rockwood says:
March 24, 2013 at 5:03 am
The statements “warmer temperatures mean more snow” and “colder temperatures mean more snow” are both correct. In Northern Ontario, where winter temperatures can fall to -40 deg C the former statement is true. In England where winter temperatures are above freezing the latter statement is true. Warmer and colder are relative and mean nothing until put into context.
So the context is in UK they are saying that it is warming that is causing more snow.
They are also saying the same for alpine regions of Europe and the mid-Atlantic coast of the USA.
Previously, the quote from Viner pertained. That ‘children wouldn’t know what snow was’ – I cannot remember any warmists qualifying that statement or saying: “no no its the opposite“. Indeed alpine ski resorts were told to look for a new business model as they would be getting no snow. Now all of a sudden warmists are claiming that what they meant when they said: warming would cause no snow they actually meant warming would cause more snow. It is not only snow that has seen the predictions change, they are also claiming that warming is what has led to the 50 year record low temperatures in Europe and Asia.
The terms snake-oil and charlatan spring to mind.
What is going on at the Met Office? This is not like them at all. Predicting colder (and getting it right). Saying cold weather increases the chance of snow!!! Their recent Xmas eve graph showing downward adjusted temperature projection.
I don’t suppose it has anything to do with their former, chairman Robert Napier, (a Warmist zealot) stepping down in September 2012? He’s the very same man who pushed ‘climate change’ to the front of the WWF when he was its head.
Finally, while winters seem to be getting colder I want to hear from Dr. David Viner, former computer modeler at CRU, who said in 2000:
EJ says:
March 23, 2013 at 8:43 pm
60 yr cycles abound.
================
The first harmonic of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn
A New Way that Planets Can Affect the Sun
“This would cause stars like the Sun with appropriate planetary systems to burn somewhat more brightly and have shorter lifetimes than identical stars without planets.”
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11207-010-9628-y
A study in 2010 said the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation speeded up a little. 😉
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010GL042372
Maybe this explains the terrible winters in the UK before 1979. The Arctic must have been in a terrible state during the famous 1963 bitter winter.
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=winter-history;sess=
Alex
A swedish newspaper quoting the swedish metrology institute said colder winters was a result of global warming. I bet they would blame global warming if winters turned warmer too.
Too true, Alex.
The inconvenient truth though is that global temperatures during the NH winter have declined in the last 10 years, and this winter stand at just 0.1C above the 1981-2010 mean.
Could our cold winters actually be due to a cooling globe? Now there’s a revolutionary thought!
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/cold-winters-caused-bycold/
De Bilt (Netherlands) shows a decrease of winter temperatures (d-j-f) since 1988.
See http://klimaatgek.nl/wordpress/2013/03/01/wintertemperatuur-de-bilt/
Lineair trend during this period is -1.3 °C. The cpc nao-index (d-j-f) also shows a downward movement as graphics at the same site prove. De Bilt is within a stone’s throw from the UK.
R Taylor says:
March 24, 2013 at 6:40 am
In a democracy, you must blame the voters.
=============
The founding father’s of the US recognized that for democracy to succeed you need an “informed voter”.
Once a government is in power however, they quickly recognize that the informed voter is not in their long term interests and spend considerable amounts of time and money to ensure the voter is misinformed. Thus, except for term limits, you can almost never get rid of the incumbent.
Dementia?
R.Taylor, you write “Don’t blame the scientists, whose paychecks are signed by the politicians.”
I have no data, but I would,be very surprised indeed if ALL the Fellows of the Royal Society were paid by the Government.
Thank God for this colder weather. It is the life saver for spaghetti.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/11/1168955/-Climate-Change-The-End-of-Pasta
Paul Homewood says:
March 24, 2013 at 7:14 am
Could our cold winters actually be due to a cooling globe? Now there’s a revolutionary thought!
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/cold-winters-caused-bycold/
==========
thanks Paul…..spot on
Stephen Rasey @9:21 pm on the 23rd. Mar 2013:
In the same manner that ‘higher’ temperatures were depicted in Australia this year? Sarc/
The UK, the whole UK, is going to run out of gas? I’m assuming the unusually cold weather has not taken the Scots by surprise. Just the English then. Wot a shocka!
May I just point out that this entire winter, shopkeepers have been heating the outdoors all over the UK by leaving their doors wide open as well as heating sidewalk restaurants, all using gas. There’s no shortage of gas, just incredibly inefficient use of the stuff. And don’t get me started on the lack of proper insulation.
Come on everyone, it’s time to face scientific fact around here. The world is warming, globally, just not in the parts where any of you live.
There must be some remote island somewhere that’s getting seriously warm by now……
Phillip Bratby says:
March 24, 2013 at 3:14 am
“An increase in fuel costs and the extended winter means that more people are going to suffer, and more will be unable to afford to eat and heat their homes. It’s a scary prospect.”
===========
wouldn’t the best solution be to reduce the price of heating fuel and electricity? why are we doing everything we can to make these more expensive when modern life cannot exist without them? by all means make these as clean as possible so long as they are affordable. if you make them so expensive that no one can afford them, it makes no difference how clean they are.
why is this simple logic so hard for politicians to understand. nothing in life is perfect and if you try and make something perfect you cannot afford it. how much would it cost to build a car that never needed repairs and lasted forever? How about a TV or a pair of shoes that lasted forever? What would they cost? Even nature/god cannot build a perfect animal that emits no pollution or waste products. How is it we expect humans to be able to build things to a higher standard?
Couple of Warmists were in Hell, and one says to the other “do you suppose we might have been wrong”? Suddenly, Satan sails by on iceskates.
Here is how HadCet in March 2013 stacks up against all the other March(s) going back to 1659.
This is not supposed to be possible in a global warming world (keeping in mind volcanoes and the Little Ice Age in the record back to 1659).
http://s16.postimg.org/d2321czn9/Hadcet_March_Temps.png
The winter temperature anomaly for the Northern Hemisphere as measured by Hadcrut3gl shows a negative linear trend for 18 years since 1995.
The year 2012 was the 4th snowiest since 1967, the start of hemispheric snow extent records.
The winter temperature departures from 1961-1990 mean normal for land and sea regions of Europe have been flat or even slightly dropping for 22 year or since 1990
The winter temperatures for Central England (CET) have been slowly declining since 1988 or 26 years and very noticeably after 2008
Yes.
Trends as “x per century” never continue for a century. There are ups and downs.
Paul Homewood says:
March 24, 2013 at 6:40 am
Gareth Phillips
There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap
There was also good correlation between colder winters and growing ice cap during the 60′s and 70′s. And also good correlation between milder winters and reducing ice caps in the 90′s and 2000′s.
Correlation is not the same as proof.
Garethman
Quite right Paul, correlation does not prove causation, but you’d be a fool to ignore it. Smoking and cancer, sun and melanomas,poverty and ill health, they are all correlations with varying degrees of reliability. With ref to the size of the Arctic and the cold winters we have been experiencing, I don’t think the Arctic has been as small as this in modern times, and while the weather has varied and always will, it is only relatively recently we have had the ability to accurately assess the extent of the Arctic through satellite technology etc. I also suspect that the increase in Eurasian snow cover may alter the albedo and paradoxically cool things down in a fairly dramatic way.
Ian,
I could make an argument both ways as far as the way they chose their number scale.
It kind of makes sense to say that +/- 0.5 is normal and then show increments going out both directions. But you are right, it might mask even greater parts of the country below the average.
But if they do this the same way for when it is warmer, that is ok. It’s only if they make their color schemes a different way when it is above average to accentuate that it is warmer that it is a problem. It would be interesting to compare to a few years back when it was above average or to a recent warm summer and see if the same people are plotting things the same way or not.
I also agree with someone above that grey would be much better than white.
I’m reminded at times like this of Mike Lockwood suggesting the link between low solar activity and the blocking highs that give the UK the chills…
http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/28365/1/286_Lockwood_SurvGeophys2012.pdf
Peter Stroud says:
March 24, 2013 at 2:07 am
I am in Hampshire, UK, and I am looking out the window at the settled snow. Yet we are listening to the BBC, quite happy to report the demolition of functioning coal fired power stations. The lunatics really have taken over the asylum.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Correlations and Causation: Clearly the cooling in the UK is caused by the disassembly of the coal fired power plants. It is clear that they must have been spewing huge amounts of heat out of their steam stacks since it is now cooling. QED. But my cousins in Farnham are really happy to have a 300 year old house with a wood fireplace in every room so they can stay warm – seems the smell of wood smoke is becoming more common in the country … will it be enough to warm England back up? /sarc offf
Bill Illis says:
March 24, 2013 at 8:18 am
……………..
CET-March 1659 – 2013
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-March.htm
data from
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
Joe Bastardi at Weatherbell made an interesting point yesterday. In Europe, January’s avg temp was below normal. So, far in March, the Avg will be LOWER than that of a below normal January.
Can anybody cite when this may have happened before, or how many times it’s happened?
Interesting.
In reply to Gareth Phillips
Gareth Phillips says:
March 24, 2013 at 1:16 am
There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap.
William:
The extreme AGW paradigm pushers do not have a physical explanation as to why a reduction in arctic summer ice cover would result in reduction in cold winters in the US, Europe, Russia, and China.
It appears the planet has started to cool, due to the abrupt change in the solar magnetic cycle. It will be interesting to hear the imaginative stories the extreme AGW paradigm pushers create to explain a cooling planet. The cooling of the planet is not due to a reduction in summer Arctic sea ice.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
The Arctic sea ice will make a recovery. See record Antarctic sea ice and ocean surface temperature cooling in region of the South Atlantic geomagnetic field anomaly where the geomagnetic is reversing and the field strength has been reduced by 30%. Obvious a reduction in arctic sea ice cannot cause cooling in the southern hemisphere.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2013/anomnight.3.21.2013.gif
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleoclimatic record (Dansgaar-Oeschger cycle) that correlate with cosmogenic isotope changes which indicates the cycles of warming and cooling are caused by solar magnetic cycle changes.
The solar magnetic cycle changes and changes to the earth’s geomagnetic field modulate the amount of galactic cosmic rays (GCR, high speed protons) that strike the earth. The high speed protons create isotopes that are deposited on the ice sheets and in the sea floor sediments. The high speed protons create ions in the atmosphere which affects the amount of low level clouds (Directly proportional, i.e. More GCR more clouds. Low level clouds reflect sunlight off into space which cools the planet) and the amount of cirrus clouds (Indirectly proportional, i.e. More GCR less cirrus clouds. Cirrus clouds warm the planet by the greenhouse affect particularly in high latitude regions.)
The cause of the Dansgaar-Oeschger cycle is the sun and geomagnetic field changes.
Arctic Ice Melt Could Mean More Extreme Winters For U.S. And Europe (William: Please! The extreme AGW paradigm pushers are grasping at straws. If the planet cools the gig is up.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/arctic-ice-melt-extreme-weather_n_1878833.html
There are cycles of warming in the paleoclimatic record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard%E2%80%93Oeschger_event
Temperature proxy from four ice cores for the last 140,000 years, clearly indicating the greater magnitude of the D-O effect in the northern hemisphere … ….Dansgaard–Oeschger events (often abbreviated D–O events) are rapid climate fluctuations that occurred 25 times during the last glacial (William: and continuing into the interglacial) period. Some scientists (see below) claim that the events occur quasi-periodically with a recurrence time being a multiple of 1,470 years, but this is debated. The comparable climate cyclicity during the Holocene is referred to as Bond events.
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
Persistent Solar Influence on the North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene
Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Altantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output (William: The mechanism by which the sun changes planetary temperature is not solar output, TSI, but rather changes to the solar magnetic cycle. As shown below based on changes to cosmogenic isotopes the solar magnetic cycle was at its highest level in 8000 years at during the latter half of 20th century.) The evidence comes from close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantic’s “1500-year” cycle. … … A solar influence on climate of the magnitude and consistency implied by our evidence could not have been confined to the North Atlantic. Indeed, previous studies have tied increases in the C14 in tree rings, and hence reduced solar irradiance, to Holocene glacial advances in Scandinavia, expansions of the Holocene Polar Atmosphere circulation in Greenland; and abrupt cooling in the Netherlands about 2700 years ago…Well dated, high resolution measurements of O18 in stalagmite from Oman document five periods of reduced rainfall centered at times of strong solar minima at 6300, 7400, 8300, 9000, and 9500 years ago.”….
The following is a link to Palle’s earthshine paper that provides data to support a reduction in planetary albedo (due to less planetary cloud cover) 1994 to 2001, which Palle states is equivalent to a forcing of 7.5W/M^2, based on observations. The reduction in planetary cloud cover (as shown in Palle’s satellite paper) is at the specific latitudes and over the ocean as predicted by Tinsley. (The atmosphere over the ocean is ion poor as compared to the continents, as the continental crust is slightly radioactive. The solar wind bursts create a potential from ionosphere to earth’s surface at a specific latitudes.)
Earthshine paper.
http://solar.njit.edu/preprints/palle1266.pdf
“Our simulations suggest a surface average forcing at the top of the atmosphere, coming only from changes in the albedo from 1994/1995 to 1999/2001, of 2.7 +/-1.4 W/m2 (Palle et al., 2003), while observations give 7.5 +/-2.4 W/m2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1995) argues for a comparably sized 2.4 W/m2 increase in forcing, which is attributed to greenhouse gas forcing since 1850.”
Regarding the map categories mentioned by IainC (@8:54) and Paul Homewood (@4:13):
Automated cartography will have a default setting (or method) for presenting the shadings and boundaries of the categories. These may have been devised by the software company or established by the user when the mapping software is first installed. It might be a committee decision or a single individual. Then one feeds the data in and, presto, a map comes out. These things can be tweaked. One looks at the initial map and says something like “I want more or fewer categories.” Or, “I want reds and pinks rather than blues and greens.” Or, “I don’t want bright white, I want gray.”
Every decision of the tweaking type has to be justified – even if you don’t tweak after having done so the day before and just let the defaults have their say. The person (or persons) making maps on a daily basis do not want or need the grief. So feed the data in, and presto!
Mongolia, extreme cold.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8509143.stm
My solar based forecast for March has two intense cold signals happening during the first half of the month, and continuing for much of the month. Next winter has also has a cold shot of significant intensity and duration.
Tallbloke say what a lot of us in the UK feel.
But the time for niceties has passed. Britain’s people face a looming disaster of epic proportion. Britain’s political class needs to act swiftly to minimise the damage which cannot be wholly averted at this late stage. Successive governments have set the stage for the impending denouement, so this is not a partisan rant, but a cross-party appeal to common sense. People are dying by the thousand as a direct result of botched energy policy and we must act to save lives. Now.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/
Most significant climate factors during the last cool period in Europe and UK [winters only] 1962-1987 or 26 winters were:
Number of winters the winter temperatures as below normal [base line 1961-1990] :
UK CENTRAL ENGLAND 13 winters [50%]
EUROPE LAND AND SEA 17 winters [65%]
Number of winters where AMO was negative 22 or 84%
Number of winters AO was negative 21 or 80% dec/jan/feb]
Number of winters where PDO was negative 15 or 58 %
Number of winters NAO is negative 13 or 50 %
It would appear that during sustained cool spells [typically of 30 years plus long] in Europe more than half of the winters were colder than normal , the dominant climate factors were the presence of a negative AO and AMO and to a lesser degree negative NAO and neagtive PDO . The only factor missing currently is a neagtive AMO. It would appear that we at the start of another such a cool spell that may go to 2030/2040. Countries that are ignoring this fact and only planning for global warming will have a very difficult time in the decades ahead with significant shortage of energies incuding fosssil fuels to cope with the cold winters [ like Uk is already experiencing during the current winter] .
I remember when Spring arrived early. Ahhhh, those were the days.
While over in Germany we see more signs of early Spring.
But we must act now. I wonder whether plants are still moving uphill or downhill?
HenryP says:
March 24, 2013 at 6:28 am
Hi Henry.
I agree that the globe is currently in a solar induced cooling mode but is being bufferred for a while by ocean heat content from the active sun of the late 20th century and by the long lead time for solar effects to significantly alter ocean heat content.
It is just like turning around a huge oil tanker or container vessel.
I’m not currently in full agreement with you on all aspects but I don’t wish to point up those disagreements here.
My current approach is just to set out what I think is the real way the climate responds to forcing elements and then wait for events to support or rebut.
At the moment it is all supporting as far as I can see.
Kon Dealer says:
March 24, 2013 at 9:22 am
Tallbloke say what a lot of us in the UK feel.
But the time for niceties has passed. Britain’s people face a looming disaster of epic proportion. Britain’s political class needs to act swiftly to minimise the damage which cannot be wholly averted at this late stage. Successive governments have set the stage for the impending denouement, so this is not a partisan rant, but a cross-party appeal to common sense. People are dying by the thousand as a direct result of botched energy policy and we must act to save lives. Now.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Not sure how anyone could argue with that. Unfortunately we don’t seem to have any (even remotely) sceptical choice in UK politics that could ever form a government. Personally, I suspect that the first party to start re-evaluating their stance on this would be in with a substantial majority,
But they’d lose so many tax oportunities if they did so.
If you think energy prices are high in the UK you should have seen a report in Germany back in January, Things are so bad that people have started stealing wood from the forests to heat their homes thus releasing all that wonderful co2. Not to mention deforestation or is that de-branchification?
The Law of Unintended Consequences at your service.
JDN @7:49 am 24th Mar:
Open shop doors, with heat pouring out into the atmosphere, have infuriated me for years. When I’ve dared to mention the matter in shops I’ve just had baffled stares and assertions that they have been told to be ‘welcoming’ to their customers! Likewise the shops in Australia that air-condition the streets.
Instead of banning proper light-bulbs, the energy use of which is minimal compared with mass-heating or cooling, why not ban wide-open doors in every shop in every town and city? No, of course not, it’s the ordinary people who must be got at.
Ian W says:
March 24, 2013 at 6:45 am
—————————————-
The UK scientists predictions are out-of-phase with their observations.
Observation: The globe is warming.
Prediction: Snow will be a thing of the past (because winter temps will remain above freezing).
Observation: Lots of snow.
Prediction: Global warming will lead to greater snow fall (because there is more moisture in the air).
Observation: Colder temperatures and lot’s of snow.
Prediction: Global warming will lead to colder temperatures and more snow (because uh, well, uh)…
You can only be wrong three times before even your mother gives up on you.
cui bono says:
March 24, 2013 at 2:54 am
“5000 extra people dead . . .”
and,
Ian W says:
March 24, 2013 at 4:37 am
“ . . . 5000 above the statistical norm.”
Just a thought emerging from yesterday’s 95th birthday of a cousin:
She is somewhat exceptional but for those a bit younger, say those born about the time of WWII and after, medical care has been so much better and folks live longer than they were expected to when born. This is one of the issues facing the Social Security system in the USA. Still, it seems we all are going to die.
Are the “statistical norms” from which the current “excess deaths” are calculated appropriate to the task? I’m not saying they are not, I don’t know. It just seems that with many people living longer, at some point there are going to be a lot of old people dying without the weather (cold or hot, or wet or dry) being the culprit. If the “statistical norms” for death by age have not been properly adjusted (!?), what do we really know?
Gareth Phillips says:
March 24, 2013 at 1:16 am
That is simply bollocks and you are repeating the UK Met off excuse for them. They are just groping in the dark for some excuse to use. Don’t promulgate their crap. I hope you all vote for UKIP at the next election maybe then we will see idiots in the Met Off climate unit sacked and shut down and let them get back to studing the weather.
ferd berple says:
March 24, 2013 at 7:24 am
————————————————–
I have a simple test.
If a politician says “You deserve more”, I get suspicious.
If the politician continues “And someone else will pay”, I do my best to defeat that politician.
herkimer says:
March 24, 2013 at 9:23 am
Good post. Well thought through.
But they’d lose so many tax oportunities if they did so.
Joe, if there is one thing our thieving politicians are good at it is finding things to tax. As we say in france. Vous ne vous inquiétez pas. Don’t you worry yourself.
So I guess that the warmists have given up on their claim that snow will never be seen again in Britain?
Jim Cripwell says:
March 24, 2013 at 7:28 am
————————————————–
My impression is that the state is the only sponsor of science that has no evident payoff in the short-to-medium term. Politicians certainly sign the paychecks of all scientists at the Met Office and in the climate-science departments of all universities. Furthermore, I expect the scientists who remain on the sidelines recognize a fool’s argument when they see one.
It wasn’t just David Viner of UEA CRU that predicted the disappearance of snow.
Here’s our old friend Mojib Latif at the Leibnitz Institute for Oceanography predicting the demise of winter sports in the Alps.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/global-warming-threatens-famous-alps-resorts-for-many-alpine-ski-areas-nordic-walking-may-be-the-sport-of-the-future-a-342280.html
Mike (UK)
How odd,
http://www.bablakeweather.co.uk/
is also my local weather station:)
I can confirm,cold,damp and an inch or two of that stuff that children `will no longer recognise`
Cold winters … waffle, waffle. Cold winters … trend … waffle, waffle.
What ever happened to ClimateGate III ???
John F. Hultquist says:
March 24, 2013 at 9:55 am
cui bono says:
March 24, 2013 at 2:54 am
“5000 extra people dead . . .”
and,
Ian W says:
March 24, 2013 at 4:37 am
“ . . . 5000 above the statistical norm.”
==========
Just a thought emerging from yesterday’s 95th birthday of a cousin:
She is somewhat exceptional but for those a bit younger, say those born about the time of WWII and after, medical care has been so much better and folks live longer than they were expected to when born. This is one of the issues facing the Social Security system in the USA. Still, it seems we all are going to die.
Are the “statistical norms” from which the current “excess deaths” are calculated appropriate to the task? I’m not saying they are not, I don’t know. It just seems that with many people living longer, at some point there are going to be a lot of old people dying without the weather (cold or hot, or wet or dry) being the culprit. If the “statistical norms” for death by age have not been properly adjusted (!?), what do we really know?
John
From one of the articles:
UK’s coldest spring since 1963 claims 5,000 lives: Pensioners worst affected – and experts say final toll could be ‘horrendous’
2,000 extra deaths registered in just the first two weeks of March
And for February, 3,057 extra deaths registered in England and Wales
Campaigners warn weather could prove deadly for thousands more
About 2,000 extra deaths were registered in just the first two weeks of March compared with the average for the same period over the past five years.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298246/UKs-coldest-spring-1963-claims-5-000-lives-Pensioners-worst-affected–experts-say-final-toll-horrendous.html
So they are only looking back 5 years as a ‘normal’ which would answer your question
The actual number dying is significant. See
http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-winter-deaths-30000-big-freeze/
Jim Cripwell says: March 24, 2013 at 7:28 am
“R.Taylor, you write “Don’t blame the scientists, whose paychecks are signed by the politicians.”
I have no data, but I would,be very surprised indeed if ALL the Fellows of the Royal Society were paid by the Government.”
=============================================================
I think HMG subsidises the Royal Society to the tune of around £50 Million per year?
It would be naive to assume that they wouldn’t take an “interest” in who led the Society.
And it doesn’t need “ALL the Fellows”. (Many of whom are quite rational). It only needs those who call the shots. Pretty much like the comparable Institutions in the US, where hard line greenies have taken over the running of almost every one.
So far as the “scientists” are concerned, going back to Margaret Thatcher’s day, virtually every Scientific Advisor appointed by the Government has been recruited from the ranks of the hard line greenie alarmists. (Crispin Tickell was just the first and perhaps the most objectionable).
So they made absolutely sure that the “Scientific Advice” they received would suit their hubristic desire to be seen to be ‘saving the planet’ (and justify all manner of little stealth taxes and scams).
Lots of comment on here about the MET Office.
Who headed up the MET Office (appointed by the government, naturally) and what were his qualifications?
http://www.wwf.org.uk/wwf_articles.cfm?unewsid=1596
The recent ‘improvement’ noticed in comments above seems to have come after Napier collected his obscene index-linked pension and retired.
Excess winter deaths in the UK could hit 30,000 up from last year.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/24/294983/snow-deaths-in-uk-could-reach-30000/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9950731/Drawn-out-winter-may-have-caused-thousands-of-extra-deaths.html
“There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap”
That’s odd, because there was a time when people observed an excellent correlation between a reduction in the Arctic ice cap and warmer winters. I don’t have the references with me, but this was described very clearly by Scherhag in the mid-30’s in a paper (peer-reviewed, no less !) discussing the warming that was going on in places like Spitsbergen.
One word “Authority” The UK government has told it’s citizens that they have caused anthropogenic (Man Made) global warming, All government body’s such as the Met office, the BBC and every civil servant (uncivil wannabe ruler) are now in full swing promoting the Governments authority, there are government scientists to provide the science, government media to provide the propaganda and stifle debate and thousands of payed for meddling twits all profiting from telling you, that they own this planet and therefor own you. You are well and truly put in your place when you are freezing through another cold winter while being told not to heat your home, you are causing global warming. You are well and truly put in your place when you can not afford to heat your home due to aggressive carbon based utility bills. Pay more to use less. I have no respect for so-called climate scientists or this bread of political class elitist’s or their scumbag administrative servants. But my opinion is worthless, Authority!
“Dr Liz Bentley, of the Royal Meteorological Society, said the “blocking pattern” that has caused cold winters and springs in the UK recently has been blamed on climate change as melting Arctic ice could have caused the high pressure to move south – just north east of Britain.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9951052/Snow-to-continue-until-Easter-but-weather-pattern-may-also-bring-a-heatwave-Met-Office.html
So another warm = global warming, cold = climate change kid.
Here is what they said about disappearing winter snow and cold.
http://hauntingthelibrary.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/just-a-quick-reminder-of-what-they-said-about-cold-winters/
Now they say that the snow and cold is as a result of global warming. Liars and deceivers the lot of them.
Absolutely nothing is more insane than the UK’s energy policy. It is guaranteed to bring about
1. Sky high priced electricity costs.
2. Widespread brown outs and black outs in a few years time.
3. The probable collapse of the UK economy should there ever again be a major international crisis.
This is the real crime of those like Mann, Jones and Hansen – fooling goofy politicians, desperate to demonstrate their green credentials, into believing their unsubstantiated BS and who then vie with each other to see who can drive their countries economies into oblivion first.
In Asia, they just laugh at the ineptitude and stupidity of western politicians’ energy policies.
Paul: You titled this post “Trend To Colder Winters Continues in UK”. Unfortunately, Figure 1 shows no trend in either direction. You can’t even say that the last five years have been colder than average for the last half-century or whole century: One of the years was warmer and two years were approximately the century average. We clearly aren’t seeing the “dangerous” warming anticipated by alarmists, but that doesn’t mean that we should exaggerate the importance of normal fluctuations in the weather.
Consider calculating the standard deviation of your data and putting lines on either side of mean. One standard deviation each way covers about 2/3 of the years. The temperature is above and below 1.6 standard deviations about once a decade; and 2 standard deviations about once every two decades. If the Met Office had color coded their map in terms of standard deviations, we could tell how unusual this year’s winter was.
Jeff Alberts is absolutely correct, a mere five winter of unusually cold temperatures is just weather…
Now if it was a Cat 1 hurricane hitting the most densely populated area on earth, during the highest tide of the year, coming up a sound that just happens to magnify it’s storm surge, then it would be Climate.
Gareth the problem for us sceptics is trying to pin down these slippery eels. What they used to repeatedly say about UK winters to be warmer is clear from here.
Take a look at our friends at the Met Office also. It is completely at loggerheads with your statement.
Jeff Alberts is absolutely correct, a mere five winters of unusually cold temperatures throughout most of Europe is just weather…
Now if it was a Cat 1 hurricane hitting the most densely populated area on earth, during the highest tide of the year, coming up a sound that just happens to magnify it’s storm surge, then it would be Climate.
I note the AMO record for the century was about 1936, the pesky USA record hot year that has proven so difficult to erase by the GISS CAGW revisionist team. Also, 2010 was 1.5C avg for the winter, a record in the hundred year series.
It’s just British weather! Get use to it. My eldest son was born on the 20th May 1968 in south London (Kings College Hosital). It snowed on and off for the week of his birth, lay on the ground and froze.We could have done with the urban heat effect then. The roads and pavements(sidewalks) weretreacherous. Will it happen again this year. Who knows!
Gareth Phillips
Gareth
You talk as if these cold winters are unprecedented. They are not, they have happened many times before, as recently as the 1960’s and 70’s. They were caused then by natural factors then.
Where is your evidence that they are not now?
Well as a $25,000.00 solar pannel deal will not apply here I suppose we can fall back on another out dated failed system of the Jimmy Carter time, just every one there on the island go to COSCO and buy wool sweaters and wool socks from the maxist supporting COSCO owner I’m sure he will sell at a volume discount on this too.Then he will have more money to donate to Obama’s Democrat Party and get a lunch with Richard Windsor himself and a nice little dog lick on the nose too.
.
There is a cost to all of this – a big cost. For nearly ten years in the UK, major airports, rail managers and local councils were unable to invest in new slow clearing equipment, because they would have been accused of wasting money, and laughed out of office by these ‘scientists’. Why should anyone invest in snow clearing equipment, when temperatures were going to rise by 7 degrees (BBC and Met Office) and snow would never happen again (Prof Vitner from the CRU)?
The result was Heathrow closing last year, the rail system grinding to a halt, and thousands of roads not being cleared. So how much money did UK PLC loose because of this? About £20 billion, I would say. That is how much these ‘scientists’ owe to industry and to us. Will they pay up?
.
Stephen Richards says:
March 24, 2013 at 9:59 am
But they’d lose so many tax oportunities if they did so.
Joe, if there is one thing our thieving politicians are good at it is finding things to tax. As we say in france. Vous ne vous inquiétez pas. Don’t you worry yourself.
———————————————————————————————————————
True enough, Stephen, but they don’t get presented with many that you can’t argue with without being an enemy of every life-form on the planet!
Mr. SanityP, March 24 at 10:32
You must not have the password to the afterhours club, members only ya know.
Now if it gets to the point that some one needs to go to the front lines and behind to defend liberty then you will get your new approved draft notice never doubt that.
.
It is not just the UK and Central Europe hit by the bad weather. In the Ukraine, a state of emegency has been declared, after a meter of snow fell and temperatures plummeted – the situation across the region is dire.
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-emergency-snowfall-yanukovich-716
I am out of touch with the MSM as I am ‘away’ – but tell, me, has this news got onto the BIased Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) at all? Or are they still operating as the propaganda wing of the USSR’s Pravda?
It is about time that the BBC was put out of its misery. If I was in charge, I would send in the boys from Hereford.
.
Time for a laughter break chaps and chappesses.
Paul, I was born in one of the coldest, 1947, my parents moved house during one in the 50s, I rode bike through the ones in the 60s and drove a car through the 70s.
That is the trouble with people who refuse to look at today’s weather in the light of history.
They should spend a few days over at Steve Goddard’s site looking at all those old newspaper clippings which totally debunk all the modern “Unprecedented” weather stories put out by Climatologists, Greenies, the Met Office, the BBC and the rest of the MSM.
@William Howard Astley
Many thanks fort your detailed response and references, Gareth
A small polemic, so please excuse me.
The proponents and theorticans of AGW have a theory that increased CO2 in the atmosphere will result in increased temperatures for the atmoshpere of the Earth. They tell us that the planet is getting hotter. This is not substaniated by tempeature records or by personal obsevation ( it is very cold here in the UK). It brings to mind Galileos’ quote * Yet it moves”. In this situation of AGW ” Yet it gets colder”.This is dismissed as weather.
Another quote by Ernest Rutherford is ” If your experiment needs statistics you ought to have done a better experiment.”
Emprical science is that you have a theory. You then undertake a repeatable experiment and observe if the data substantiates that theory. You do not change the data to get the result you want. If the data holds true then the theory may be correct. If the data does not match the theoretical prediction then the theory is wrong.
Correaltion is not causation. Temperatures did increase from 1940 to until 1998. Human population and industrial growth increased. That is a theory. The predcitions based on that theory have failed to materialise.
In my humble opinion the greatest damage that AGW theory will cause is the the loss of faith in science and its’ role in human society. We lack edcuated communicators of the ilk of Bronowski or Patrick Moore to explain in meaningful terms science as it is relevant to the layperson. Instead we get the sound bites of Al Gore.
Where are the students who will question and think afresh the prevailing vews of their professors such as in Gottingen during nuclear research?
If the answer is money then the accountants of this world have done more to damage to science then the blinkered political and theological idelogies of the past four thousand years.
I see. A knew club is forming and only the anointed are invited.
Gareth Phillips,
Please can you show me the correlation between these severe winters in the UK and Arctic ice? If Arctic ice was low as now in September then you have made a great point for the sceptics.
1620-21: Frost fair held on the Thames
1635: Severe winter, Thames froze over
1648-49: Thames froze over
1657-58: Beginning a period of long lying snow, lasting from December through until March!
1662-67: 3 of 5 winters in this period were described as cold, with severe frosts. Skating was launched on the Thames, for the pleasure of King Charles 2nd.
1664-65: Reputedly the coldest day ever in England, with a severe frost lasting about 2 months.
1708-09: Severe winter, the frost lasted for over 3 months! Temperatures plummeted to -18c. Thames froze in London, once again! Severe winter by CET values (1.2c).
1742: Ice in the Thames, very cold once again.
1765-66: Severe winter, cold persisted from early on (November) until February.
1775-76: Severe winter. From early January to early February much of the UK and Europe was very cold. The Thames froze. Stormy February followed.
1783-86: Two succesive severe winters. The Thames froze completely in both, almost continuous frost lasted from early to late winter. Snow remained for as long as 4 months.
1798-99: Severe frost lasted from late December to early January in London and the South. Heavy snowfalls were recorded, especially in North Eastern Scotland, where transport was dislocated for quite some time.
1811: A late start for severe winters in the 1800s, but January of 1811 saw the Thames freeze, once again!
1819-20: Severe winter. -23c was recorded at Tunbridge Wells, although no details of exposure are evident.
1822-23: Severe winter, ice on the Thames by late December. February 8th saw a great snowstorm in Northern England. People had to tunnel through the snow.
1826: Ice on the Thames.
1829-30: Severe winter. Continuous frost from the 23rd to 31st December, 12th to 19th January, and 31st January to 6th February. Ice on the Thames from late December to late January.
25th December 1836, roads impassable, snow depths reached a staggering 5-15 feet in many places, and most astonishingly, drifts of 20-50 feet!!!!!!!!!
1875-76: Amazingly snowy winter for the UK
1885-1886: Snow fell in October, November, December, January, February, March, April and May!
1946-47: One of the snowiest winters to date, probably the worst since 1814
1962-63: A famous winter.Very cold. Mid November saw snow in the South West.
1978-79: The last really severe, snowy winter, for now anyway,
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=winter-history;sess=
Horse says:
March 24, 2013 at 3:25 am
I haven’t checked but I’m told that UK records show that snow is more common at Easter than at Christmas. I do remember being snowed in for a week at my parents farm during the last week of April in about 1980. It’s only weather.
I recall well the second week in March 1979 being snowed in in Sheffield, about 18″-24″ of snow with a 4′ drift at the end of the street. I was due to drive over the Pennines to Manchester airport a couple of days later but the M62 was blocked (for the first time I believe) so I had to catch a train to London instead.
gareth phillips- The NCAR, in 1974, said that the Massive amounts of ice at the north pole, were the reason for extreme weather and cold winters. Now, you want us to believe that the lack of ice at the north pole, is responsible for extreme weather and cold winters?
Which time was it called correctly?
SanityP,
The emails are being redacted now. They will be out shortly.
Gareth Phillips
Gareth
You talk as if these cold winters are unprecedented. They are not, they have happened many times before, as recently as the 1960′s and 70′s. They were caused then by natural factors then.
Where is your evidence that they are not now?
Hi Paul, you are correct that these cold winters are not unprecedented, but what is different now is that we have cold wet summers and cold winters. This is different to the winters of the 60s when we did have some very cold winters, but reasonable summers. The current cold spell is lasting longer and is more constant throughout the seasons.
\
” As the sea ice decreases, the immediate atmospheric response is for a local warming of the lower Arctic atmosphere by the relatively warm Arctic Ocean (e.g. Kumar et al., 2010). However, there is also evidence that depleted sea ice alters atmospheric circulation patterns outside the Arctic, throughout the following months and into winter. This appears to result in high pressure over the Arctic and low pressure over the mid-latitudes which in turn is balanced by more easterly winds. While other factors are also involved in determining winter climate, this raises the risk of anomalously cold conditions over Eurasia (Wu and Zhang, 2010; Petoukhov and Semenov, 2010)”
It may well be that this is only one small factor and other variables far outweigh it, but I don’t think it can be ignored or dismissed. It’s worth reviewing Rick Wermes global ice comparison to note the difference in Eurasian snow cover over the last five years. There is a significant increase. This will impact on albedo and weather patterns. It would be useful to see other explanations for this increase with any references. ( By the way, if such discussion makes anyone angry, please troll somewhere else or take up Rugby, this is an interesting debate, cheers G)
Due to the current state of public poverty, brought on by vested interests and theft from the public purse, all prison cells for those convicted in the great global warming fraud, will be unheated.
Gareth
Hi Paul, you are correct that these cold winters are not unprecedented, but what is different now is that we have cold wet summers and cold winters. This is different to the winters of the 60s when we did have some very cold winters, but reasonable summers. The current cold spell is lasting longer and is more constant throughout the seasons.
Actually, Gareth, Met Office figures show cooler summers in the UK in the 60’s, although they were also drier.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly
Trust no one.
Only known and proven facts stand alone as truth.
Selfcenorship is in fact worse than the C.I.A. type and causes more distrust than ever.
“Redaction” Elite now it is.
The “redactors” pass judgment on themselfs.
This is how the elite and the msm lied John F. Kerry’s true history away so that he could now prance around a elite ok trairor for more of his expertise of back stabing.
A C Osborn says:
“They should spend a few days over at Steve Goddard’s site looking at all those old newspaper clippings which totally debunk all the modern “Unprecedented” weather stories put out by Climatologists, Greenies, the Met Office, the BBC and the rest of the MSM.”
In reading that I heard ‘MSM’ as ‘miasma’.
“cui bono says:
March 24, 2013 at 2:54 am
5000 extra people dead in UK so far this winter. Meanwhile, Earth Day! Let’s switch off all that evil energy!”
Earth day in the UK will shortly be self-fulfilling as there won’t be any power to switch off.
What’s the point of the UK demolishing coal power plants when China and India are building about 1000 coal power plants and have over 10 times the population as the UK?
I love the ‘liz from the met office quote’ the weather presenters have all been saying, that the cause of our cold spell is that the same high that caused the warm weather last year has shifted north this year……..
Utter lunatics are running the uk government.
SanityP says:
March 24, 2013 at 1:22 pm
fobdangerclose says:
March 24, 2013 at 12:45 pm
I see. A knew club is forming and only the anointed are invited.
_____________
Why don’t you chill… you’ve been posting this sort of thing in more than one thread. You know full well what is happening, just like the rest of us.
True Paul, the Summers were cooler, but cool dry summers are a lot more reasonable than slightly warmer wet ones. But that’s subjective and I take your point.
Gareth Phillips says:
March 24, 2013 at 3:02 pm
“True Paul, the Summers were cooler, but cool dry summers are a lot more reasonable than slightly warmer wet ones…..”
—————————————————————–
Not if you want to feed people or is that an issue not deemed to be worthy of consideration?
William Astley says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/23/trend-to-colder-winters-continues-in-uk/#comment-1255710
Henry says
Your post was interesting. did you see mine?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/23/trend-to-colder-winters-continues-in-uk/#comment-1255622
I just don’t agree with you why the cooling is happening.
I have been able to correlate the dates that are specific to the end of cooling and end of warming with the start of decreasing – and increasing ozone, respectively. Not only O3 is created TOA by the e-UV but als HxOx and NOx which then subsequently back radiate more f-UV if there is more of and this means less heating for the oceans, in a cooling period such as now.
Gareth Phillips,
You have fallen into the correlation trap. This is why we are in this mess right now concerning co2. As you can now see the correlation has gone. Be careful about seeing correlations.
I remember the summer of 1976. It was a wonderful heatwave and I presume the Arcitc was near its maximum extent. Then in 1979 we had a terrible winter.
PS
The timescale you are talking about (less than 10 years) is the weather and not the climate (30 years of data). The same goes for the recent sharpish warming period which caused the massive alarm.
Paul Homewood – thanks for checking and crunching numbers.
You have got to laugh. It is the only thing you can do. We are faced with a group of people who stand to profit greatly from persuading the population that the planet is warming and that they are the cause of it, when in fact the planet has not warmed for 17 years and we are stuck in the snow! Yet they continue to insist the planet is warming.
Were I a cartoonist, I would draw a cartoon of Hansen and Gore holding placards warning against global warming… only they have been frozen solid by the freezing conditions.
The problem is that the UK is using celsius instead of fahrenheit. Fahrenheit has much larger and hence warmer numbers. Sorry, I forgot to refrain from inhaling.
Jimbo says:
March 24, 2013 at 3:49 pm
PS
The timescale you are talking about (less than 10 years) is the weather and not the climate (30 years of data). The same goes for the recent sharpish warming period which caused the massive alarm.
————————————————————————————————————————
Thats the bit I don’t understand the MSM failing to grasp:
15 – 20 years of warming = a confirmed man-made trend that we need to stop
15 – 20 years of no warming = too short to mean anything / natural variability
I can understand the politicians, and even the scientists, overlooking the flawed logic – they have too much invested for AGW to be wrong. But press reputations are made by questioning the orthodoxy – are there no ambitious journos or newspapers out there anymore?
When things get bad enough power-wise, there will be massive pushback from the public to re-open shuttered power plants and to hell with the EU and its mandates. This is very foreseeable. It is a sign of how arrogant and out of touch warmist crusaders are that they thought they would be no pushback from their plans to massively boost power prices and lower its availability. (Walter Russell Mead has made this point strongly.)
Ditto for the EU with its vain imagining that its paper manipulations and unwelcome regulations could keep the Euro afloat, and that there was no risk in the bonds of wobbly EU sovereigns, encouraging their country’s banks to lever-up.
Joe says:
March 24, 2013 at 4:16 pm
You are witnessing an Authoritarian view dominate over commonsense.
“Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority as well as the administration of said authority”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism
rogerknights says:
March 24, 2013 at 4:43 pm
When things get bad enough power-wise, there will be massive pushback from the public to re-open shuttered power plants and to hell with the EU and its mandates. This is very foreseeable. It is a sign of how arrogant and out of touch warmist crusaders are that they thought they would be no pushback from their plans to massively boost power prices and lower its availability. (Walter Russell Mead has made this point strongly.)
Ditto for the EU with its vain imagining that its paper manipulations and unwelcome regulations could keep the Euro afloat, and that there was no risk in the bonds of wobbly EU sovereigns, encouraging their country’s banks to lever-up.
Knowing the EU they have already mandated destruction of the old power plants to prevent them being reopened. I would not be at all surprised if as soon as the systems were switched off they had demolition/salvage teams move in for just this purpose.
Well spotted Joe. This entire batshit is weather observations.
I feel that it’s time we asked Warmists about what they see as a sign of global warming in the UK. Are colder winters a sign of global warming?
Are warmer winters a sign of global warming?
Are average winters a sign of global warming?
1979 saw maximum Arctic ice extent and a bloody cold and snowy UK winter.
2012 saw a low Arctic ice extent and a bloody cold and snowy UK winter.
Which of these is consistent or inconsistent with AGW theory of warming or not as you head towards the north pole?
Jimbo says:
March 24, 2013 at 5:09 pm
Well spotted Joe. This entire batshit is weather observations.
——————————————————————————————
Thanks, but doesn’t take much to spot that! And there’s more…
They say that the trend while the warming was happening was too steep to be natural variation. But, if that’s the “true” trend of AGW then, according to their own statements, natural variation is capable of creating a (negative) trend of much the same magnitude and duration to have cancelled that out and paused the warming since. The fact they may not understand the mechanisms fully doesn’t avoid that obvious conclusion.
Therefore, the warming trend was NOT too great (in magnitude or duration) to be natural.according to the believer’s own assertions 😉
@Joe, good point. I’d been thinking the same thing.
Does anyone know how many year of warming there had been when Hansen began proclaiming in the mid-late 80’s that the end of the world was nigh (and that the West Side Highway would soon be under water)?
OK, here is my final comment (for tonight). It is clear that they promised us milder winters. This has not occured. Now they say they actually have a model run that shows colder, snowy winters. Yet if we have milder winters again they will pull their nonsense back out and say they have a paper showing milder winters. THIS IS THE SIGN OF A SCAM. Be wise and don’t fall for it.
Several people have referenced Christopher Booker’s excellent article in the Sunday Telegraph. He has been warning of this energy crisis now upon us for almost twenty years now. It was all so predictable, but the politicians wouldn’t listen and neither would the voters. Instead, they call him a madman.
Some of the hundreds of comments under the piece are informative, including this one, regarding our power stations currently being closed to comply with EU diktats, by a practicing engineer (who posted several astute observations):
“Kingsnorth 2000MW closed Christmas.
Didcot A 2000MW closed this month.
Tilbury @900MW closes July.
Ironbridge 1000MW closes circa July.
Cockenzie 1200MW closed this month.
Total = 7.1GW out of 23 GW of coal plant
“All these plants have 10 – 20year life left in them but are closing primarily due to the European ‘Large Combustion Plant Directive’. Even if you passionately believe the tosh about AGW would any sane rationale person destroy the current energy infrastructure before the green energy alternative was built commissioned and proven. I retire from the industry in October, I hold a senior Engineering position and have over 35years working within generation. I am afraid an electricity shortage leading to supply interruptions is a mathematical certainty, see the following link you can watch it happen real time next winter, right up to the point your monitor goes dead”
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Well its almost April here in the UK, and 18 foot snow drifts herald Spring, with no let up at least until next month.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21914538
global warming comes in white, so next time those chuckle brothers at the MET issue warnings about Malaria outbreaks because of heatwaves, we can assume they’re just trying to humour us
JDN says:
March 24, 2013 at 7:49 am
“… And don’t get me started on the lack of proper insulation.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The UK government is living in cuckoo land with insulation.
The UK has very old housing stock. Approximately 60% of UK housing is pre war. Nearly all of this is single brick construction and cannot easily be insulated, eg., by way of cavity wall. Of course it is possible to build inside a second dry wall skin but that would take about 6.5 inches, and this could reduce room size by upto 13 inches depth and width depending upon room layout. This would create a practical problem since room sizes in UK houses is small. The loss of this dimension would mean that many double bedrooms would become single bedrooms. It would also require the house to be rewired unless plug sockets are to be recessed remaing in their original place and not brought out to the skin wall. Costs of conversion would be very expensive.
About 23% of UK housing is post 1980 and these houses are already well insulated.
The bottom line is that there is only about 17% of housing whose insulation could be significantly improved by better insulation.
Double glazing is not the wonder it is hyped to be. First not so much heat is lost through the windows. Second, people often open a window even when it is cold outside to get fresh air. Third, fitting double galzing to old houses often creates damp problems, at least unless air bricks are put in in each room. Putting air bricks in nullifies to quite a large extent the gains that double glazing would otherwise yied.
Of course loft insulation is the cheapest means of improving insulation. However, even savings in this regard are over-hyped. Many already have loft insulation. Those who do not probably have loft space full of rubbish, old carpets, rugs, old clothes, books, papers, cardboard boxes full of stuff and the like. All of this ‘rubbish’ provides reasonably effective loft insulation. Don’t forget that ‘tramps’ often sleep under cardboard boxes or even newspaper. On a snowy winters day it is rare to walk down a road and see roofs devoid of snow. So although many homes may not have the latest thermal loft insulation, practically, the homes are reasonable well insulated.
Marcos says:
March 24, 2013 at 5:38 pm
@Joe, good point. I’d been thinking the same thing.
Does anyone know how many year of warming there had been when Hansen began proclaiming in the mid-late 80′s that the end of the world was nigh…”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Yes. About the same length of time that the globe has no longer been warming! In fact arguably even a shorter period of time, say the 12 years of warming between about 1976 to 1988.
Funny that, about 12 years worth of data showing warming is proof of global warming by CO2, whereas 15 or 17 or even 22 years (depending upon data set) of no warming is not proof that CO2 has little or no effect on global temperatures.
R Taylor said:
“In a democracy, you must blame the voters.”
In the last UK election, most voters voted ‘none of the above’, but they got a government anyway. The election before, Labour ‘won’ with around 22% of the votes.
Where I used to live there, I could vote Labour and the Tories would win the seat, I could vote Lib-Dem and the Tories would win the seat, or I could vote Tory and the Tories would win the seat. Some choice.
Ian W said:
“Knowing the EU they have already mandated destruction of the old power plants to prevent them being reopened”
Knowing British governments, they’ve probably sold them to property developers to turn into ‘executive apartments’, as they did with most of the factories that closed over the last twenty years.
Dan Ronald says:
March 24, 2013 at 2:26 pm
What’s the point of the UK demolishing coal power plants when China and India are building about 1000 coal power plants and have over 10 times the population as the UK?
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You have cut straight to the chase.
If CO2 does not cause warming, then there is no point at all in the UK de-commissioning coal fired generators.
If CO2 does cause global warming, then the UK decommissioning a handful of coal powered generators does almost nothing at all on a global scale and is merely gesture politics.
No legitimate and respected government would engage in gesture politics when those gestures lead to some 20,000 to 30,000 needless premature deaths each year and/or which inflicts fuel poverty and stress on many millions (maybe 20 million) of its citizens. It is a particularly miserable experience shivering in one’s home because one cannot afford to properly heat the house and very stressful not being able to make ends meet. It also leads to more colds and general poor health which has a knock on effect on work; more sick days are taken off work to the prejudice of industry and the economy. The government should be thoroughly ashamed of itself.
Why is the UK so determined to freeze its own people by prematurely shutting down its coal fired power stations? It has just escaped catastrophe with the arrival of an LNG ship from Qatar. Why didn’t they turn this nasty fossil fuel shipment away and rely instead on wind power and solar? Only a disaster will wake people up.
Gareth Phillips says:
March 24, 2013 at 3:02 pm
“True Paul, the Summers were cooler, but cool dry summers are a lot more reasonable than slightly warmer wet ones…..”
—————————————————————–
Not if you want to feed people or is that an issue not deemed to be worthy of consideration?
Hi Green Sand, having worked in agricultural botany for some years I’m not sure that is true. Very wet summers are worse for agriculture than dry slightly cooler ones. Look at what happened to the price of veg in the UK after last summers wash out.
Jimbo, I am aware of the dangers of correlation, it’s been discussed further back in the thread. They are not causation, proof or whatever, but they can be strong evidence. To be honest in all aspects of science, especially medicine, correlation forms the vast majority of information informing health strategy and treatment. The earliest showing that locking a certain water pump checked the spread of typhoid fever was classic correlation. The Doctor who did it did not know why it worked or what the connection was, but it was a critical piece of evidence.
Gareth Phillips,
You need to address the long list of harsh winters pre-1979. We have had runs of cold, snowy winters pre-1979. This is where you need to show correlation too otherwise your current argument cannot hold much sway. I grant you the satellites over the Arctic came into operation in 1979, but even if I accept your argument then are you saying that the Arctic also had very low September extent prior to 1979? If natural climate variability can explain past cold, snowy winters then it can also explain the present run of winters? No?
Gareth Phillips,
A single period of observed correlation is not “strong evidence” but a pointer for further investigation. It’s tantamount to Pons and Fleischman doing their experiment and it could not be replicated by others. Correlation needs to be repeatedly observed over other timescales to get anywhere near to being “strong evidence”.
PS there was a run of mild winters in the UK pre-2008 and the Arctic was very low in mid-Septembers. The winter of 1979 was bad at a time when September extent was at its maximum on the satellite record. If I can’t see correlation in the past why should I accept it as evidence for the current cold and snow?
@EJ & Mark & Frank:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/why-weather-has-a-60-year-lunar-beat/
It’s closer to 55 years, but it varies some. There is also a 1500 – 1800 year cycle based on lunar tidal effects. The moon does not just go around once a month, it also shifts up and down and has other wobbles to it. That tends to pull the water more north or south, or to one ocean more than another. It also mixes more, or less, cold water to the surface.
In short, tides matter.
@gareth Phillips:
Repeat after me: “Correlation is not causality”…
Now, think on this, if you have a cycle of warming, then cooling and a lag time to melt and form ice, when does the largest ice melt arrive? Yes, that’s right, just after that flat top reversal toward cold. Now, what happens then? Here, let me help you: It gets COLDER and SNOWS a lot. The ice melt is only related in that it indicates the end of the warm cycle peak.
@John Peter:
Here in California, some years back, we had a Democratic Governor who played with our electricity pricing (for who knows what reason). Part of the result was Enron (as we were mandating out power companies to by power on the spot market and not contract for it long term). Another result was frequent brownouts & blackouts. During that time I got very good at coping with power outages and at one time had 2 generators. We eventually voted out Governor Grey “out” Davis… and I sold one of my generators….
What I found was that a nice, very quite (56 dB) Honda 1 kW that’s about the size of an airline carry on bag would power more lighting than the whole house needed, the refrigerator, and the entertainment / communications gear. (We have an efficient fridge). I ended up just having “prelaid” power cords (“drop cords”) in strategic places (like from the comm / entertainment center to behind the couch near the back door). I also put things like the TV / recorders / electronics on a small ‘computer UPS’ – uninterruptible power supply. In each room, one lamp was also put on a very small one. When the power would go out, we would just notice the main room light go out, and some soft ‘chirping’ from the UPS boxes. (Sometimes with the main light already off, only the ‘chirp’ would let us know). That saved a lot of resetting clocks as we had them on the same box as the lamp…
So then I’d give it about 5 minutes to come back on. If it didn’t, I’d go out the back door, start the Honda Generator, and unroll the drop cord from it to the ‘prelay’ behind the couch. At the other end, the UPS would be unplugged from the wall and plugged into the other end. Then the other cords stashed out of sight would be unrolled. One to the kitchen for the fridge. The other down the hall to the bedrooms for those lights. All up, about 2 minutes max to swap things over.
The only thing I’d change, for a cold place like the UK, is instead of having the cord in a partly cracked open door; I’d make a fitted bit of wood with a notch for the cord and close the door or window against that to keep the cold out.
The Honda runs about 8 hours on 0.9 L of fuel, IIRC. They also make a similar 2 kW if you have a larger Fridge 😉
During one long outage of most of a day, I used the 4 kW cheaper generator to run A/C and do the washer / dryer as well. It made so much noise it was abominable. Yes, we got the wash done, but it would not have been possible to sleep with it going. The Honda is hardly a murmur in the distance, even with the door open an inch…
So “enough preparation” can be just getting one of those little guys… I have the little dinky first one listed here:
http://hondagenerator.co.uk/pages/Honda_Portable.htm
but paid US prices… I have no relationship to Honda other than satisfied customer.
Paul,
Your comment “the winter has been remarkably normal in terms of rainfall.” misses an important point. You are referring to the quantity of rain received, however the Met Office map: Winter 2013 Rainfall Amount (% of 1981-2010 Average) tells an important story. This map shows that the distribution of the rainfall in the north of England and in particular the north of Scotland, is above average in the east and below average in the west.
Compare Aberdeen on the east coast of Scotland (>170% of Average) with the highland Ben Nevis area in the west (50 to 70 % of Average). Compare also the Northumberland coast of northern England (150 to 170 % ) with the Cumbrian Fells in the west (70 to 90 % of Average). The fact that in percentage terms the highland areas in the west are receiving less rain than normal, while low lying coastal areas in the east have an above average amounts tells us two things; The rain bearing winds are coming from the east and that the source of the moisture is locally derived from the nearby North Sea, (a similar but less pronounced east/ west effect can also be seen in Northern Ireland).
This pattern of rainfall distribution is clearly anomalous and the weather pattern that created it consists of persistent cold east winds coming from Scandinavia. The dramatic orographic effect on rainfall distribution as this airstream collects moisture from the North Sea, reaches the coast of Aberdeenshire and rises up to the Grampian Mountains in the west, is text book.
In the British Isles we know about winter rain, we have many colourful vernacular words to describe the numerous different types, so when someone tries to kid us that snow in winter is caused by warm air, we know that they are “agenda talking”.
For the record here is the NIC snow and sea ice distribution map of 24 March 2012 and here is the same map for 24 March 2013. Can anyone see the obvious sea-ice pattern difference in the Arctic that accounts for the warm March of 2012 in Britain and the cold March of 2013. No? Neither can I, Guys /SARC!!!
I am lost for words
“Government’s outgoing chief scientist says existing CO2 levels in the atmosphere will cause storms and droughts for next 25 years”
see here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2298719/Governments-outgoing-chief-scientist-says-existing-CO2-levels-atmosphere-cause-storms-droughts-25-years.html
The rest of the article is just as bad as the headline
oops further to last comment, the bbc is running with it also, so no surprise there then!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21357520
Gareth Phillips says:
“There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap.”
Generally a negative AO/NAO equates with less ice extent, but that does not mean the lack of ice is causing our colder weather.
Sir John Beddington recently said to the Daily Mail,
‘In a sense we have moved from the idea of global warming to the idea of climate change, and that is rather important – yes, indeed, temperatures are increasing but the thing that is going to happen is that we are going to see much more variability in our weather,’ he told BBC Breakfast.
It sounds like the chief scientist of UK does not even know or acknowledge that global climate has now been flat for 16 years and the global temperatures are actually declining during the last decade. One wonders if some of these scientific chiefs really live on this same planet when you read their comments.The temperatures are predicted to be flat or decling further for at least the next 5 years and possibly for the next 2-3 decades . He says there will be a world problem in the future . I agree, but not for the reasons he states . If we do have a problem, it is because of the bad advise that he and his colleages give the government about the non existing global warming and the pouring of badly needed funds into green energy subsidies which will do very little for the climate and which are really needed to buy extra fuel for winter heating in order to save lives during very cold periods like we just had . Uk and some parts of Eastern Europe now find themselves ill prepared for the colder climate that is already here.
Global climate is always changing and sometime it varies more . There was nothing new in predicting more variablity in our weather.
When I did Environmental Studies back in the early 1980s and a predicted new Ice age was what was expected, the lecturers said that in an Ice Age high pressure systems will persist and remain stationary. Last year in the UK the high pressure system was difficult to move leading to a drought in the early part of the year. Then we got persistent rain, because jet stream persistenly pushed wet weather over the country. This year the high pressure is not moving, bringing cold temperatures
I mentioned in an earlier post that the presence of negative AO wasone of the key climate factors during past cooler weather periods like 1962-1987 when 20 of 26 or 3 out every 4 winters had neagtive A0. A negative AO means more colder Arctic being pushed further south to Europe and North America as the westerlies become weaker. During the 1960’s every winter had neagtive AO. Currently or during the last 4 winters we have again had neagtive AO for 3 out of the last 4 winters and during this month it was as low as -5 to -6, This accounts for the much of the recent colder winters in Europe and Uk. During the 1990’s and 2000’s we had four during the entire decade . So to my simple mind we are starting to have negative AO levels and frequency comparable to past colder periods. Colder winters could be a reality of our future climate for the next 20-30 years and those that still only push global warming must have an ulterior motive to mislead the public .
“It sounds like the chief scientist of UK does not even know or acknowledge that global climate has now been flat for 16 years”
He used the word “unequivocal”. The last person to use the phrase was Tony Blair about WMD … weather of mass distraction.
I love how East Anglia has the coldest anomaly. Take that, you buggers at UEA!
The winters have been cold since the end of the last sun spot cycle in 2008!
It is remarkable that a Trend can be pulled from the weather records for UK, where the weather naturally varies from year to year, from decade to decade, from century to century. Such statistical acrobatics deserve applause.
It is even more remarkable that the Government Chief Scientific advisor can detect this trend, he can also predict the future. A remarkable man indeed. I believe his next job is at the “you have got to be f’ing kidding me agency” working on behalf of those unfortunate souls who haven’t looked out of the window lately.
This last election in the US more registered voters did not vote at all, than voted for either presidential candidate, did not want either side of a wooden nickel.
E.M.Smith says:
@gareth Phillips:
Repeat after me: “Correlation is not causality”…
Garethman says, er….. have you read the thread? It’s something I have repeated in numerous occasions. Repeat after me, read the thread before posting!
Correlation is not causation, however there is no proof for many things,the link between HIV and full blown Aids for instance is a correlation as upheld by various dodgy governments. But tell me, as a result of it being a correlation, would you risk it? The reality is that there are potentially various reasons for the cooling of the UK climate,from AOs, Ice melt, solar variation and many others. But just because the lack of direct causative relationships is not proven does not mean any one thing should be dismissed without good cause. It’s good to flag up evidence of additional factors, but bad science to dismiss potential evidence without due reason or rationale.
E.M.Smith says:
March 25, 2013 at 2:35 am
Not for the first time, I must challenge your opinion that it was the ouster of Grey Davis that stabilized California’s energy situation, or that GD was responsible for it, at all.
California’s energy crisis was caused and manipulated by outside interests, and not by Grey Davis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Davis
(My bold.)
Under Grey Davis, standardized test scores in California improved 5 years in a row, and that was the main reason he was ousted, IMO. Dumbing-down California was a major project, and has been wildly successful, which is why “being on the right side of issues alienated the electorate.” Things quickly got back on the downhill track under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the kind of phony hero they love in California.
You also said:
I’d say i’m amazed that an individual so clueless on his own his own industry can advise the government on policy and where it spends our taxes. Sadly i’m not. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry this morning on hearing him effectively claim co2 causes rain, the models have been accurate and papers such as from BEST back up the AGW theory. So here is a man that ignores the AMO, modelers claims of broken models, 15-18 years of no warming, and then tries to sell a paper that failed to pass peer review. Than god he’s retiring.
Sadly I doubt a change at the top will make the slightest bit of difference, it’s still the same boneheaded deaf government influenced by activists rather than one interested in empirical science and historical reference.
Neither am I amazed that HMGOV threw another snake oil salesman in front of TV screens and news shows to counter the other news items in the same broadcasts on 15 foot snow drifts and coldest March for over 40 years
Gareth Philips says
…..just because the lack of direct causative relationships is not proven does not mean any one thing should be dismissed without good cause…..
Henry says
there is a relationship, namely, with giga tons and gigatons of bi-carbonates being available in the oceans, dissolved in water, more heat causes more CO2:
(more) heat + HCO3- => (more) CO2 (g) + OH-
We know that water absorbs in the UV and IR regions and this is how most heat from the sun ends up on earth, “stored” in the oceans, so to speak.
To prove that the net effect of more CO2 in the air (also) causes warming, and not cooling, you have to come up with a balance sheet, as discussed here:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/08/11/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-aug-2011/
there is no such balance sheet and there is no evidence that the net effect of more CO2 is that of warming rather than that of cooling.
I noted that during the midst of the worst part of December 2010 winter storm, as the entire UK nation was freezing its butt off, the focus of the chief climate scientist was not on how to help the public with better information during the crisis, but was focused on global warming as Professor Slingo said to the Independent newspaper on December 21, 2010“The key message is that global warming continues.”
Now we have the chief science advisor Professor Sir John Beddington in the midst of possibly the worst March winter on record where the CET temperature for the month is running 2.3 C degrees colder and where global temperatures have been flat and more recently dropping for some 16 years and the only thing that he can exclaim is, “yes indeed temperatures are rising…”. Instead of pushing global warming, he should be offering the people sound advise and information in the midst of their crisis and apologize for the bad climate predictions which result in the country being ill prepared for the coming cooler climate..
No wonder UK finds itself with thousands of people dying prematurely because of the cold, with insufficient fuel to help its citizens just to survive and an economy which is loosing hundreds of millions of dollars every day because they are unprepared for the cold winters. I suppose if one pushes global warming on its citizens it could come back bite you sooner or later, because the science may be quite flawed and to base public policy for energy on this can be quite tragic.
The sooner the government drops this global warming nonsense and gets competent people for the climate branch , the sooner they can do proper climate based planning and start caring for their people, which is their prime responsibility.
It is very sad to watch the suicide of one of human history’s greatest countries. The need for another civil war is unfortunately obvious. Of course, with their guns taken away, they do not stand a chance.
As a newcomer to this site I am perplexed by the acronyms used eg AGW what does it mean and when did global warming become climate change?
You may find this useful . .
http://wattsupwiththat.com/resources/glossary/
Valerie Rawlinson says:March 27, 2013 at 7:34 am
As a newcomer to this site I am perplexed by the acronyms used eg AGW what does it mean and when did global warming become climate change?
Anthropogenic Global Warming lost its sheen when the warming stopped, it morphed into Climate Change and now, Extreme Weather Events. It appears the context is something along the line of: If what you expect doesn’t happen, reframe the expectation so that the original supposition is never negated. Also, check out the Resources link at the header, it may have acronyms.
Valerie Rawlinson
The attached reference will also give you some of the past history
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/03/Whitehouse-GT_Standstill.pdf
I agree with Steve Kehone’s comments and would add that the term “global warming” morphed into “climate change” , then to ” climate disruption” and currently to “extreme weather events “as the public clearly noted that none of the climate conditions described by these various terms were exclusively caused by man generated green house gases. Even the current term of “extreme weather events” is wrong because how could global warming cause the current extreme weather events when there has been no further global warming for some 16 years
Hi,
I was wondering where you got your information for your statement that the most recent winter was the 43rd coldest.
Thank you!
Nancy
The data is from the Met Office here.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/datasets