By Paul Homewood
From YAHOO News:
The UK is on course to experience the warmest and one of the wettest years since records began more than a century ago – sparking fears that future droughts and flash floods could cost lives.
New figures published by the Met Office show the period from January to October this year has been the warmest since records began in 1910 while it has also been the second wettest.
Unless November and December are extremely cold, 2014 will enter the record books as the hottest ever.
Experts say the increase is the result of climate change and warn that it could place a burden on the NHS as Britons struggling to cope with predicted heatwaves end up in hospital.
Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the elderly and those with health problems are particularly at risk and could end up dying in the heat.
He warned that as Britain warms up it will also grow wetter – raising the spectre of flash floods with could cost lives and cause billions of pounds of damage to households and businesses.
Only a paid propagandist for global warming could warn us of droughts, after such a wet spell!
As for Yahoo, I am not sure why a “warning” needs to be issued. Either way, both they and Ward miss the point totally. There have been no heatwaves; on the contrary it has been a very pleasant summer, ranking 15th warmest since 1910.
When the statistics come in later this month, we are likely to see premature winter deaths much lower than last year. Meanwhile, a mild winter has enabled everybody to save on energy costs.
But the biggest news story of the lot has been the fantastic news that agricultural yields and output have hit record highs, thanks to the mild, wet winter, early spring and sunny summer.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/05/hot-dry-weather-cereal-harvest-british-farmers
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/14/ideal-weather-brings-bumper-uk-apple-harvest
DEFRA have now published full, provisional statistics for this year’s harvest.
And they comment:
Wheat yields now stand at record high levels, recovering from low levels last year (cold spring) and 2012 (cold,damp summer).
All of this is excellent news for farmers, the nation and families who will benefit from lower prices.
Of course, none of this has the slightest to do with “climate change”. With three of the last four years being the coldest since 1996 in the UK, this year’s warm weather has been just that – weather.
No month this year has been the warmest on record. It is simply that nine out of ten months this year have been above average. As the Met Office say,
“Things like climate change you look at over a long period of time because we look at trends. So we can’t say it is warmer than other years because of climate change. It could just be natural variation”
But with the Met Office projecting milder, wetter winters and sunny, dry summers, it seems clear that climate change will bring significant benefits to the UK. Not that you will hear any of this from the “expert” Bob Ward!
Yep, lots of wheat on the market.
Lower prices, though.
Can’t win.
Yes I thought the same thing, not good for the famer but on the other hand good for the consumer, especially those of lower income. Climate is no exception to a basic rule of nature; if something is winning, something is losing.
Supply and demand in action.
TIme to make wheat beer… “Win-win” 😉
And the excess apples can go to Apple Jack / Apple Cider…
Not even with Russian wheat under the snow??
Ideal weather plus an increase in CO2 for good growth.
Yes, don’t forget the CO2!
Coming soon after a nice warm year with added metabolism !!
Coming soon after a nice warm year with added metabolism !!
Bad year for pumpkins though. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/21/pumpkin-crisis-halloween-farmers-warn-uk
It’s worse than we thought. Children won’t know what pumpkins are.
Hahahahahahahahahahah……..good un…..
Yes, those inconvenient little truths just keeping up! As to the Wet Office predictions, their record over the last 10 years has been abysmal!
They are getting good at telling us what already happened… “Looking back, the climate did this… ” and then they make a mistake and go on again making a prediction… when will they ever learn.
A steady rise in UK wheat yields from the 1950s to 1990s, as would be expected from technological advances. Why the flat line since the mid-1990s? Could it be that more extreme weather has been offsetting technology gains?
More likely that supply is meeting demand if you believe in the concept of commodities.
Oilseed rape was a great earner for farmers in the UK due to EU subsidies in the late 80’s and 90’s. Where there were fields of wheat were replaced with fields of yellow oilseed.
No.
Mostly the malign hand of the EU CAP telling farmers how much they could grow. Much offsetting and alternative cropping in those years. It’s the sort of centralised planning your Democrats would love.
The big increase in the line between 1950 – 1980 was exceptional impact of the green revolution breeding improvements (short straw, better grain to straw ratio) and increased use of nitrogen fertilizer (lots of spare nitrates left over from explosives manufacturing). Since 1980 or so, wheat has been ticking along with maybe 0.5% yield increase per hectare each year, but most of this is lost in the variation due to weather and agricultural polices which have a big effect on what land farmers use for wheat.
Environmental regulations on nitrate run-off and set-aside have affected what farmers grow (and how they grow it). This means that you grow the most profitable crops on the best land and wheat has sometimes been planted on poor land which does not give the same yield. Remember these are average yields over the whole country – the best wheat yields are well over 10-11 T/Ha now, but the average is hovering around 8.
“A steady rise in UK wheat yields from the 1950s to 1990s, as would be expected from technological advances”
Technological advances do not occur just because you want them to. Some give the farmer a greater profit without a bigger yield and a lot of development is geared towards that because we are headed to a limit determined by nutrients.
Here in Australia we had wheat production increase and area cultivated follow each other closely until the early 80s. There was then more efficient use of land until the drought of 8 years ago (which have always happened). because of better dry-land farming. That’s something that the UK could borrow if it ever needed.
http://grdc.com.au/Research-and-Development/GRDC-Update-Papers/2011/09/~/media/7F34937DA71048CCAF961A69F2497D7B.gif?w=491&h=324
Barry mate, we don’t have extreme weather in the UK, just lots of weather,mild rain and cold rain.
Bob Ward appears to be the problem here not the Met Office – Bob and others spinning Met Office data…
From the Yahoo article
“However, the Met Office cautioned against drawing too much from the figures – and stressed that the year is not finished yet.
A spokeswoman said: “If we have an incredibly cold November and December, then it could end up being a mediocre year.
“The reason we have records for set periods, for example monthly and annually, is so they can be quantified against each other year on year, otherwise anyone could make up a theory and anyone could come to a conclusion.
“Things like climate change you look at over a long period of time because we look at trends.
“So we can’t say it is warmer than other years because of climate change. It could just be natural variation.”
———————-
I don’t have any problem with the Met Office statement here…
Do you have any sort of problem with the Met?
The quality of their tenors just isn’t what it used to be…
Yes, they need to keep the taxpayer teat wet. The RSS and UAH satelite figures show no chance of the hottest year.
The Met Office’s outlook to the end of 2014
https://metofficenews.wordpress.com/tag/met-office-seasonal-forecast/
I have a problem with them which is their pure guess work even with a super computer:
As we’ve discussed previously, the outlook assesses the likelihood of five different scenarios for both temperature and rainfall for the whole of the UK for the whole three months, based on the most probable prevailing weather patterns.
It’s a bit like the science-equivalent of factoring the odds on a horse race and like any horse race, it’s always possible the favourite won’t win.
Our latest three-month outlook suggests an increased risk of milder and wetter than average conditions for the period Oct-Nov-Dec based on our seasonal forecasts and those from other leading centres around the world.
However, there are still substantial probabilities that average or opposite (ie cool and/or dry) conditions may occur. This is because there are many competing factors that determine what our weather will be like in the coming months.
The outlook also highlights an increased risk of unsettled weather relative to what is usual for the time of year, but – again – there are still reasonable chances of other scenarios.
The increased risk of more unsettled than average conditions does not mean the late autumn and early winter will necessarily be like that of last year.
Complete fortune telling and we give this lot of Charlatans a fortune every year, my seaweed in the garage is better then their 3 day forecast.
Barry Woods
November 7, 2014 at 9:59 am
=====
Barry Woods, sorry – but I have lived through the Met. Office’s various – and varied ‘longer term’ predictions over the last ten – say – years.
May I suggest that these are taken wit a pinch of salt.
Either they have been reasonably specific – ‘barbecue summer’, say, when we paddled in rice paddies – or no evidence this will be a harsh winter – so ruling out perhaps ten per cent of the likely outcomes. and being proved wrongish – depending on your definition of ‘harsh’.
For example, we had snow lying throughout December in 2010, in London. Granted, by 31 December, it was small sheltered piles [in CR5].
Weather.
Accept.
Adjust.
Auto
So…….warm and wet is good….Who knew !!
Oh, I don’t know…
Everybody?
Nice weather. We’re doomed.
I got just two apples on my tree this year – I’ve had 5 boxes full in previous years. So it goes.
Same here in western central France. We had a cold and wet period during the apple blossom time. Three old trees that produced more than 250 kg of fruit (=106 ltrs of juice): this year 15. That is 15 apples, not 15 kg.
Me Too. Late frost at just the wrong time. That’s why they call Nature a Mother. Living in east Kent, The Frms shops have got some really lovely apples in now.
This is truly grim news. I just don’t see how it can get much worse. I’m sure we’re all going to die.
There is always the possibility that “future droughts and flash floods could cost lives” What’s different?
Now famines, they could cost lives too. But this warm spell has led to bumper crops?
Yeah, it was an awesome year in the UK.
“the period from mid-December 2013 to mid-February 2014 saw at least 12 major winter storms, and, when considered overall, this was the stormiest period of weather the UK has experienced for at least 20 years.
Strong winds and huge waves made conditions extremely dangerous around exposed coastlines – particularly in the south and west, and caused widespread transport disruption. There were major flooding problems, with the Somerset Levels continuing to be inundated with floodwaters from the New Year period. Severe flooding also occurred along sections of the River Thames.”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/2014-janwind
It’s weather, get used to it.
Just like bitterly cold winters that come along every few years.
BTW – there is no evidence at all that the wet winter had anything to do with slightly higher temperatures. We have had plenty of wet, stormy winters back in colder decades.
The wettest of the lot was in 1929/30, much wetter than this year. Nobody blamed that on global warming.
Not true. The England & Wales rainfall for Winter 2013/14 was easily the wettest in the 248 winters on record, with 455.5 mm. The next wettest was 1914/15 with 423 mm.
Admittedly you can find wetter 3-month periods, but only by including months from Autumn, which is not really a fair comparison.
Dec to Feb has no more significance climatologically than Nov to Jan (except for one less day).
Flash, the Levels and Thames flooding were exacerbated by catastrophic man made housing development and CO2 induced failure to follow centuries old dredging practices, respectively.
Er the other way round, but you know what I mean!
Just last year we had this bit of devastating news.
The elderly in the UK will tell you that it’s the cold their more worried about.
You really can’t scare a lot of people in the UK with talk of hot weather. I lived there for many years and people are generally happiest happiest weatherwise when it’s hot. When it’s cold in winter or cool and wet in summer people are generally miserable – weatherwise. That’s why their scare stories of heat in the UK will always fail to alarm but a handful of people.
sometimes it gets so hot in the UK that one can actually stand outside comfortably. In summer, in the afternoon, if there isn’t much of a breeze.
and skies are clear.
Only when the Sun tells us “Phew what a scorcher”…
Then we can go outside.
If it’s not sunny, I heard somewhere that you can get a tan from standing in the English rain… from some guy named Eggman.
Ferd, that’s complete exaggeration
Correction: I meant….
“The elderly in the UK will tell you that it’s the cold they’re more worried about.”
But that’s not the way the UK government spins it. All hospitals have to have a “Heatwave Plan”. None have to have a “Blizzard Plan”. The only government panic for hospitals over the winter is because of the public holidays over Christmas and New Year. Hospitals cope because it’s the same pattern of holidays each year (and coping is what hospitals do).
The UK politicians are toying with the idea of a death tax. So coupled with a string of cold winters, they will be able to pay off the national debt in no time.
I have just bought a shroud with pockets, to spoil their nefarious plan in my case.
As Paul points out no month has been exceptional. No heatwaves or records it’s just that most months have been warmer than normal and several months have been much warmer than normal with the exception of a cold August.
However, far from agw we can lay the blame squarely at the weather we have had. Winds from the south at times, other times from the west. Some periods when the weather was settled for long periods and others when it changed relatively quickly.
Can any of this be attributed to mans effect on climate?
The current weather pales into insignificance when compared to the transition period I am presently researching, from 1190ad to 1380 or so.
The storms and rain were truly prodigious at times and makes our current climate seem very benign
Tonyb
Some are here Tony.
Great storms of the Little Ice Age
Storminess Of The Little Ice Age
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/storminess-of-the-little-ice-age/
Looking forward to your work on that period of truly extreme, inclement weather, even before the depths of the LIA set in. We are indeed lucky to live in such pleasant times.
And yes, the LIA is a meaningful term, although its precise start & end may never be agreed upon. Its three or four depths at solar minima however are clear in the global paleoclimatic record. Its coldest years & decades probably simply could not happen now, during the Modern Warm Period.
Frequent winds from the south over the UK are indicative of depression moving further south than normal. Ie being pushed south by colder weather to the north. This arctic melt / area back to normal.
“Projecting milder, wetter winters and sunny, dry summers,”
Oh the humanity!
Moreover the amount of land used for agriculture, worldwide, has declined since 1998. Not bad for an ever increasing population.
I downloaded the data “cetml1659on.dat” from MetOffice and calculated the annual running mean. The maximum of 11,6 °C was in the period May 2006-April 2007. In the period Nov 2013-Oct 2014 the average temperature is 10,8 °C. I think the probability to top the maximum within the last 2 months is small.
Yes, you’re right that the highest 12-month running mean won’t be exceeded in the next 2 months. However, the highest CET for a calendar year (10.82 C in 2006) could be surpassed. It needs an average anomaly of only 0.6 deg C for the remainder of the year. Even if the rest of the year is slightly colder than average, the second warmest year of the 350-year series (2011, 10.70 deg C) is under threat.
The anomaly to date (9th November) this year is 1.47 degrees, with every month except August more than 1 degree above average. Ironically, that is the one month when more people are on holiday, and would have noticed the weather more than at other times of the year.
As one or two others have ponted out, the high average temperaures this year are the result of a complete absence of cold spells, rather than any extreme heat. As far as I remember, the highest temperture recorded anywhere in the UK this year wes just over 90 F (about 32.3 C), though I don’t have the details to hand. This is somewhat lower than the average “hottest day of the year”.
I’m just waiting for Dr. David Viner to settle the matter and proclaim, “in 10 years, children just won’t know what cold weather is.”
You should read what Viner said about the Scottish ski industry 10 years ago.
>>>>>>> Roll forward exactly 10 years into the future……
Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty:
Macb 2,3,5
CET daily max & min temperatures for the last two years
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-dMm.gif
I was in London at the end of Jul, early Aug. It just touched 90F the first day. Some organization(s) was handing out free bottles of water in the underground entrances, warning people to be cautious of the heat. In DC, it if hits upper 90’s, there would be a warning on the weather news, but definitely no free bottles of water.
Oh yeah, it was sunny too. I wonder why they were not warning the English people to watch for sun burn? along with free sun screen?
Your point is well taken. I would add temperature is relative to how we adapt to temperature. You talk to anyone in Florida about 90F being dangerous and oppressive and they would laugh like you had lost your marbles. In New England where there is a wide band of temperatures over the year, 65F in the height of summer feels cold, 65F in the depths of Winter feels hot. It is all to say humans can and do quickly adapt to temperature. What feels cold or hot is only relative to what we have adpated to.
As far as sun screen, maybe the English always carry their umbrellas with them which are good for sun or rain. Very practical those English.
In the tropics it is not unusual to find local fishermen wearing balaclavas, gloves, and insulated jackets in winter. winter temps being 90F+.
1000s of brits adapt to 90°F and above every year. They all bundle off to spain and florida.
Spouse is still getting used to Florida. “Winter” is here, and last night while shopping at WallyWorld she noticed that both bathing suits and jackets were on sale… Bathing suits for the tourists, jackets for the locals… after all, it had gotten down to a high of 70 F (GASP!) and the locals were wearking coats and hats…. Snow Birds (especially those from Canada) were in shorts and headed for the pool…. It’s just hard not to laugh out loud 😉
Oh, and last Summer she was teaching a class of English as a Second Language to Brazilian exchange students. They would shivver in class and try to nudge the thermometer up to 80 ish F while the spouse, newly arrived from ‘cold’ California would keep it at 72 F (the “normal” for N. America in summer). The Brazilians were constantly complaining about the cold anytime the temps were below 80+ F to 90 F something.
Threatening ANYONE with temps rising to 90 F / 32 C is just stupid. It is threatening them with a free lifetime of vacation wonderland temperatures… Heck, I’m most happy betweek 30 C and 40 C…. At 50 C it starts to be a bit much… so when that hot in Arizona, we’d hit the pool… ( 122 F. We were vacationing there when it hit 125 F once and the airport was shut down due to the tarmac melting in the sun… talk about UHI on black asphalt…)
E.M.Smith, I have a similar story about my trip to Atlanta in 1997. The large public thermometers were showing 119.9 degrees, which I took to mean a higher temp that was undisplayable. It was too hot to have the top down on our rental convertible. My friend’s shoes melted right off his feet walking across a parking lot.
I loved it. I swear I was born too far north, to me a good 120 degree day is a great day. My larger friends were not impressed and spent most of their days huddled around A/C units. I’ll never forget that first moment walking out of the air conditioned Atlanta airport, where the outside air was a tangible thing, that you could actually touch and interact with before stepping into it.
It only got to 69 F in Daytona Beach, Florida today and the wind was blowing some. It was darn cold for all us local types. I much, much prefer it in the lower 90s. (fahrenheit)
I never believed in the “CO2 will cause warming” scare — but I wanted to believe. I really did. I would love to see the planet warm 2 to 5 degrees F. I would love to see CO2 at 1200 ppm. But it ain’t going to happen.
I have lost fourteen umbrellas in my life. I gave up and quit carrying an umbrella in wet weather.
Where I live, a high of 90° at that time of year would be very nice.
I maybe mistaken but I last recall that the London underground carriages are not yet air conditioned. Maybe some are not. That may explain the bottles of water. When I used the London Undergound over a decade ago trains would sometimes stop for several minutes between stations. The temperature would start to rise dangerously – such temps would be illegal for transporting animals other than humans. No joke. 🙂
A/C carriages are in the pipeline.
http://www.citymetric.com/transport/driverless-air-conditioned-and-shiny-london-underground-unveils-its-new-trains-374
July was lovely but August was grim. Over the holiday weekend it was so hot I had to turn the central heating on 😉
There were of course LOTS of TV talking heads adverts warning about using sun screen.
Good news cannot be allowed to stand.
Warmest in 100 years is equivalent to hottest ever?
According the block head who wrote this, the whole entire and complete history of climate just started 100 years ago. To sound even more rediculous the writer is stating a mild, rainy summer is simply awful, a terrible thing, since it predicts paralyzing heat and extreme flooding in the future. Maybe this person should be given crayons to write with to better fit the maturity of the article.
Don’t use the word “warm”. Use the term “less cold”, because UK will still be freaking cold in winter despite CO2 levels and emissions. Very damp and very cold winds. Frosts will (have) occurred and will knacker plants now and often in blossom time.
Saving on energy use simply leaves you cold, damp and miserable…drying clothes is still a problem in this so called modern age.
Nothing within the climate is settled at all…thankfully!