Note: UK atmospheric scientist John Kettley, is formerly of the Met Office and the Fluid Dynamics Department at the Bracknell headquarters.
JOHN KETTLEY: Awful August has delayed this year’s harvest but global warming is not to blame
Last updated at 3:21 AM on 24th August 2008
Atrocious: The terrible August weather has delayed the harvest but global warming is not to blame
Atrocious weather has seriously delayed the harvest this year – by now oil seed rape, barley and oats should already have been gathered.
The delay could mean either a loss in yield or drop in quality, with a subsequent fall in income for farmers for the second year running.
But this is not a symptom of so-called ‘global warming’.
These conditions are not unique and are more like the poor August weather Britain saw during the Twenties and Sixties.
It is more likely a stark reminder that the warming trend we recorded in the last part of the 20th Century has now stalled. Globally, 1998 remains the warmest of the last 150 years.
Of course, we have seen very hot months in the UK recently, but we should be under no illusion about global warming.
We are not suddenly about to be catapulted towards a Mediterranean climate. We are surrounded by water, with the vast Atlantic Ocean to our west, while the jet stream and gulf stream will forever influence our daily weather and long-term climate.
So, this year’s Sixties-style August has seen bad weather in many places.
Northern Ireland suffered particularly from serious flooding last weekend, but it has been the cumulative affect of cool, wet and dull conditions which has really hampered farmers’ progress.
For every loser there are always winners.
Lerwick in Shetland has largely stayed north of the rain-bearing jet stream and in the past week alone saw almost 40 hours of sunshine.
Further south, mainland Scotland was not so blessed, as storms brought 2in (50mm) of heavy rain to many places, including Edinburgh, on Wednesday and Thursday.
There will be more rain for the west of Scotland in the next few days, but at long last much of the country can look forward to a change in fortune.
Late August should see warm picnic weather – which I think will last through September, in line with recent years.
Philip_B (09:35:12) wrote: “In the Southern Hemisphere, and in particular Australia and New Zealand, this August will be the coldest in a long time, perhaps since records began. It might just push the media to a ‘tipping point’ and then the whole AGW house of cards comes down.”
Highly unlikely! The media, led by Reuters, the AP, NYT, Tribune Companies, and ABCNNBCBS, are part and parcel of the entire charade. In the final analysis, it’ll be the likes of the true (and honest) scientists, researchers, speakers, and yes – bloggers (like those on this site) – who take this fiasco down by spreading the truth about the miscreants using our mysterious climate in an attempt to fleece the world!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Speaking of harvest anecdotes, and wet Augusts, here in Mat-Su valley crops are late, and the hay is too wet to harvest. I talked to some farmers just down the road and they’ve only taken in about 800 bales of hay, when normally they’d have 10,000 by now. Sadly, they sell most of that hay for a large chunk of their annual income.
They told me they need at least three sunny days in a row to dry it. I haven’t seen more than a day and a half go by without rain this August.
Nice post, Al Gore just puked a bit on his solar water heater.
Philip_B:
Australia had its coldest June on record last year. It may have its coldest August on record this year. If Kevin Rudd Climatology doesn’t come crashing down after this month, the weather, no matter how cold, will ever kill it. Jack Koenig is right. People need to defeat AGW. Gaia owes us “nasty little apes”(quote from State of Fear) nothing, and She will not kill AGW in the Southern Hemisphere. Because as far as the IPCC and American and European media are concerned, the Southern Hemisphere doesn’t exist. The whole world exists in the Arctic.
McGrats (11:51:46) :
“…Highly unlikely! The media, led by Reuters, the AP, NYT, Tribune Companies, and ABCNNBCBS, are part and parcel of the entire charade.”
Very true!
Now they obviously have a bit of a problem on their hands, have had for a while.
If, as I and many others believe, their problem gets much worse this winter and next year, will it become impossible for them to go on spinning it, so they just quietly let the story die?
Do they “brass it out” and turn up the volume of the histrionics?
It seems to me that many have way too much invested to drop it, but does that apply to for-profit media as well? Will they be willing to go down with the sinking green ship?
And as we know, the 70’s global cooling scare morphed easily into the 1988-present global warming scam.
When “AGW” is clearly a dead issue, what will be manufactured to take its place?
“Will they be willing to go down with the sinking green ship?” John-X
Green or mean?
How can one be green,
and yet to plants be mean?
They simply cannot do
without a gas called CO2.
John-X, here in Canada the CBC is heavily invested in it; particularly apremier radiio science show called quark & quarks. The presenter huimself is personally committed to global warming.
He cannot let the story die as it will not die. And it is up to us to demand an accounting, by writing to these organizations and persuing the liars.
If the cooling keeps up to the point that it simply becomes undeniable, then it is possible that the media will just let it die, that is their normal M.O. But significant cooling for an extended stretch will hit agriculture and many parts of the world economy very hard, and will itself be big news. Impossible to ignore.
My prediction is that if it becomes impossible to ignore, then the media will not be able to stomach any responsibility for the AGW hysteria. Somebody will take a hit, and then once there’s blood in the water, the media sharks will turn on their current idols with a viciousness that will surprise everyone. We don’t know what will spark it, but IF we’re really in for a long, painful cooling spell, I don’t see the ‘warming’ story just going away. I think there will be revenge by those who will claim they’d been mislead or lied to about it or whatever.
There is extra media motive in the zillion-dollar carbon trading market. Does that go away quietly when it becomes obvious there’s never been any need for such a thing? Or will it go down in scandalous flames where everyone who ever made a penny off it is hauled before the front-page tribunals to account for their actions?
If I’m a media guy, all that would be too juicy to ignore, especially when you can reasonably claim you’d been duped by such credible authorities as a NASA chief scientist and a former vice president.
Heads on pikes, that’s my prediction.
ABCNNBCBS
very clever, I’d just like to add the Canadian copntingent:
ABCBCNNBCBS
“When “AGW” is clearly a dead issue, what will be manufactured to take its place?”
More Club of Rome bullcrap
Animal “rights”
The extreme dangers of genetic manipulation
Economic “equality”
…and the like
No shortage, you’ll see.
I think John Kettley’s voice can be added to those of David Bellamy and Alan Titchmarsh, who have provided a much-needed contrast here in the UK to the shrill, panic-stricken cries of the alarmists.
On the subject of ice cream, I’ll have two scoops of Ben & Jerry’s excellent Fossil Fuel. But not today – this August has not provided much ice-cream weather so far, and it has been struggling to get higher than twenty degrees here in London, of late.
Hopefully the Azores High will make an appearance towards the end of the month – I’ll have my ice cream then.
The AGW (or ACC) train is soon going to be de-railed due to ever decreasing world wide temperatures.
“When “AGW” is clearly a dead issue, what will be manufactured to take its place?”
The politicians are already trying to morph AGW into ACC (climate change), hence ANY change in climate from “normal” (ridiculous), will be man’s fault.
What they’ll do is blame it all on us. They’ll say that we pushed things too far, and it tipped things in the other direction. This is why they’ve changed the terminology from Global Warming to Global Climate Change. Anything, in any direction may be attributed to man, so we must send them money! Kind of reminds me of an old Hank Williams Jr song, speaking of televangialists… “they want you to send your money to the Lord but they give you their address.”
The attempt to morph AGW into ACC is not working very well – at least with the media, as they seem pretty well stuck on “Global Warming”. Besides people would need to forget nearly 20 years of constant propaganda.
I’m not sure though that this will mitigate the media’s share of blame when the people wake up. Then again, if things start warming again they won’t need to worry. The solar connection, after all, is just another unproven hypothesis.
You will always hear good sense from John Kettley, he’s a cricket man.
Anthony–did you see this?
http://www.quantcast.com/profile/traffic-compare?domain0=climatecrisis.net&domain1=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&domain2=&domain3=&domain4=
Anthony way above Gore
REPLY: Thanks Bob, I’m reminded of a phrase often uttered by the father, “Frank” from the TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond:
HOLY CRAP!
However…
http://www.quantcast.com/profile/traffic-compare?domain0=climatecrisis.net&domain1=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&domain2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wecansolveit.org%2F&domain3=&domain4=
We still have work to do.
Include stopglobalwarming.org and the picture doesn’t change much.
http://www.quantcast.com/profile/traffic-compare?domain0=climatecrisis.net&domain1=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&domain2=stopglobalwarming.org&domain3=&domain4=
Perhaps Anthony could take over that $300,000,000 advertising account AG set up to draw attention to AGW. Add a Watt’s Up flavor and traffic could soar there.
Nah – I like the current arrangement. At least we get our money’s worth from Anthony, and then some!
“We still have work to do.” Danny Vettoretti (17:00:55) :
I can’t see how anything but a long cold spell will turn the tide with the general public UNLESS the top AGW leaders have enough integrity to admit it when they are proven wrong. I hope they do because the stakes are very high. I would hate to have misleading the public on a crucial issue on my conscience. But the work Anthony and others do is invaluable in keeping the loyal opposition going.
Using AOL sometimes there is news on the climate – well AOL has found out about the Greenland glacier crack. As an add-on they have an 18 slide pictorial of “global warming” “”””facts”””””, mostly a rehash of earlier stories.
http://http%3a%2f%2fnews%2eaol%2ecom%2farticle%2fgreenland%2dglacier%2dshows%2dgiant%2dnew%2dcrack%2f144181%3ficid%3d200100125x1207814568x1200455047 Whew!
For those of you going on about the media, I have a short story. My college degree is in Radio and Television. A professor of mine, Burt Harrison, used to write and read a PBS (Precursor of NPR) show “Science in the News”. His prime source was the Reader’s Digest. Of course he had access to some good scientists at the University, and used them occasionally, but the prime resource was the Digest. His theory was the Digest was written for the average person, in prose that explained the technology simply so it needed little massaging to make it a radio script.
It wasn’t what bleeds leads, or even what was most outlandish, it was the science that interested Burt. If he trained any of the media types (and he did train Keith Jackson and knew Ed Morrow) that are spewing this drivel today, he is turning in his grave. Were he writing today, I think he would be presenting both sides of the issue in the fairest way he could. Damn, we could use the old codger! (he gave me an F once)
Mike
Robert Wood (13:42:29) wrote: “ABCNNBCBS very clever, I’d just like to add the Canadian copntingent: ABCBCNNBCBS”
Thanks, Robert, I’ll give that a permanent spot!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
If Global Warming doesn’t exist, than neither does ice cream. When are we going to address issues, rather than saying, “I’ll be dead by the time that happens,” or “It’s not my problem,” or “There is nothing I can do about it”?
The only thing that correlates is warm/cool multidecadal oceanic-atmospheric cycles.
Warming stopped when the last of them went positive in 2001. Now the PDO has begun its cooling phase (on schedule) and the AO is going cold (2 decades ahead of schedule). Temperatures are down severely over the last 18 months.
We just can’t do anything about that.
CO2 correlates quite poorly. Positive feedback loops appear to be simply not happening. Direct CO2 effect is minuscule unless amplified by positive feedback.
(And if all that is wrong, then don’t worry, global warming will take care of the ice cream.)
Make mine chocolate.
Many on this site are already going out of their way to save energy and resources, purely because it makes economic sense.
Not me. But my carbon footprint is so tiny that I actually “deserve” to live till age 59 according to that “pig-killing” test the Rev posted awhile back.
Not to worry UK and New Zealand, GRISS will take care of you. You will either be dropped from the mix or adjusted upward.
When I first started digging into the CO2 theory it was referred as CO2 induced global warming. At some point (2003maybe?) the CO2 induced was dropped and the new term was global warming was the mantra. But an unexpected event happened, oceans cooled, global temperature trend took a nose dive and, of course, GHG model missed there mark, we got the name “Climate Change”.