Most of the country suffered the coldest September in 14 years, forecasters revealed.
In its monthly summary Met Eireann said the temperature never rose above 20 Celsius anywhere – the first such occurrence in more than 30 years.
Average monthly air temperatures were around half a degree below normal at some southern weather stations and it was the coolest September since 1994 almost everywhere. Forecasters said they were unable to predict the weather over the winter months but the Met Office in Britain claimed temperatures are likely to be above normal over much of Europe, although not as mild as last year.The summer washout seeped into the first half of September, with Dublin stations recording their usual monthly level of rainfall within the first six days.
This also brought the stations’ annual totals for 2008 above the amount normally recorded in a full year. Dublin Airport’s downpour of 43.5mm on the 5th was its highest level for September since the station opened in 1941, while torrential rain on September 9 and 10 caused widespread flooding, especially in the south and west.
UK met office weather stations?
http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/surface/station_lists/midas_stations.html
If you travel north on the M5 between Bristol and Birmingham there are at least 3 of what appear to be
http://www.campbellsci.co.uk/index.cfm?id=1058
on the left in the trees. I’m not planning to stop and check them out, but I’m sure they’re automatic weather stations.
John-X (08:53:28) :
“I’m not at all convinced of that………………“…These are all characteristics of the global circulation trying to return to a La-Nina base state…””
First thanks for the link, very interesting discussion. I think the crucial word here is ‘trying’. Looking at the Pacific last year compared to this year shows a less defined system so I stand by the prediction of a neutral ENSO this winter.
John Finn (09:34:14) :
“They weren’t always there. The point I’m making is that Urban Heat is only really a factor during weather extremes. ”
I see where you are going now but remember that in 1976 there were a lot less roads and buildings and it was a hotter summer in the UK than 2006.
“I think you’re looking at the short-term variation rather than the multi-decadal shifts such as those which took place in the early 1940s and mid 1970s. That’s a bit like looking at this years temps and deciding that warming has ended and cooling has now taken over. ”
I can’t see where you’re heading with this, the PDO is a multi-decadal shift, I was explaining the misnomer of ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ PDO.
“I’m not convinced CO2 is a major climate driver but I need a lot more time than I’ve got at the moment to explain why.”
Whenever you’re ready!
All this stuff…but I for one still haven’t forgotten the actual words of the Met Office on what climate change means for the UK: “Hotter, drier summers, and wetter winters”. By the Met Office’s own figures we’ve had exactly the opposite http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Monthly/EWP_seasonal1.gif And they have just said that this winter is going to be drier than last year!
MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT QUALIFIES AS A SMALL SITE CHANGE.
That’s when you replace a Stevenson Screen with an MMTS and put it within 10′ of the house.
Mary Hinge (11:14:03) :
“I think the crucial word here is ‘trying’.”
The crucial word here is ‘global.’
“Looking at the Pacific last year compared to this year shows a less defined system so I stand by the prediction of a neutral ENSO this winter.”
As the page’s author, Ed Berry (the NWS SOO) cautions,
“…Overall, there are many similarities to the SST patterns compared to a year ago.
“This in itself demonstrates the scientific incompleteness of just using Nino 3.4 to define not only ENSO, but the impacts of global tropical SSTs onto the atmospheric circulation…”
Do the GCMs predict the same?
John-X (11:35:06) :
Time will tell but the ‘similar patterns’ are very different in their intensities compared to last year.
“John Finn:
“I’m no great fan of the UK met office, but their assessment of the summer temps was spot on. In the context of the last 30 years, 2008 was pretty much an average summer. If you look further back it was a warmer than average summer. For example only 2 years in the 1960s were warmer, i.e. 1967 and 1969.”
However, if you go EVEN further back, you will see that between 1931 and 1960, the following years had a warmer summer CET than 2008:
1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1952, 1955, 1957 and 1959;
and the following years had exactly the same summer CET as 2008:
1930, 1936, 1939, 1953 and 1960
Only 8 years were cooler, and 2 of those were cooler by just 0.1C
If you take the 2007/8 average summer CET of 15.3, there was no pair of consecutive years at all between 1932 and 1945 which had such a low average, and this would have extended to 1953 were it not for 1945/6 (combined average 15.2)
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/ssn_HadCET_mean.txt
If you go WAY back, you will find that there have been 141 summers with a warmer CET than 2008, and 176 summers with a warmer CET than 2007.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/ssn_HadCET_mean_sort.txt
We’ve now got a four-month period (and counting) that is cooler than the 1931-1960 average
1931-60 Jun-Sep average: 15.13C
2008 Jun-Sep average: 14.95C
(Mar-Apr 08 was also cooler than the 1931-60 average; however, May was exceptionally warm……though not quite as warm as May 1947…….)
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/data/download.html
…………….And that’s all before we start discussing the evolution of CET measurements, and urban heat effects………….
Here in the Buffalo area, it seems we had a couple weeks of real summer the first half of June; thereafter, it’s been rather ‘normal’, which means it’s been pretty much around the average for the past 30 years or so. Which means, since there’s nothing special about it, they’ll compare it to the 120 year record in order to get some sort of warming report. Doubtless, no matter how cold the next few decades become, it’ll still be reported on as warming.
RE: Paul Green (00:34:37) :
Completely grim summer o’er yonder in Glasgow as well, and down in Liverpool, from what I’ve been told. Even down in the South, they have been complaining although they did get at least some “normal summer weather.” But up in the North, it was definitely a case of minimal to no summer, as you can attest.
RE: Glenn Rowe (08:14:54) :
A recently witnessed vanity license plate, in a suburb of San Francisco:
“DNDUNTD”
🙂
Of course, the car also had the obligatory small Cross of St. Andrew bumper sticker as well. You Dundee folk have your agents deployed far and wide!
Jeff Alberts (12:50:49) : “.. I stand by the prediction of a neutral ENSO this winter…Do the GCMs predict the same?”
There’s a good ENSO summary, updated fortnightly, at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
“Given current conditions and trends in the equatorial Pacific there is now little potential for an El Niño event to occur in 2008. Historically, ENSO conditions tend to persist through spring, suggesting a switch to La Niña conditions is also unlikely. This is supported by climate model forecasts, which show neutral conditions are likely to remain until the end of the year. The positive Indian Ocean Dipole is following its normal cycle of decay in the spring and is expected to decline further and remain neutral over the coming months by most models.”
There’s a lot more info on the page, and useful links.
——-
Just a minor point re UHI which doesn’t seem to have been picked up in the discussion to date : I think the point about weather station siting isn’t so much that a weather station over-reads if it’s near a structure, because it will over-read by about the same amount each year thus not contribute to trend. I think the main point is that as structures get nearer to weather stations over time, as the ‘urbs’ are developed, that does add to trend.
Chris (13:41:45) : produced a number of stats
Chris
Load the CET data into Excel (or similar). Calculate the JJA (June, July August) averages for the following periods; 1901-2000, 1951-2000 & 1971-2000.
Note the averages for each period – then note the figures for 2008.
In terms of temperature, 2008 was as near to average as you can get.
If UHI was a major factor Aldegrove (Belfast airport) would show more warming than Armagh. It doesn’t.
“I’m not convinced CO2 is a major climate driver but I need a lot more time than I’ve got at the moment to explain why.”
Whenever you’re ready!
I’m sure I’m going to regret this but here goes. Let’s start by finding some common ground. What do you think caused the warming between ~1915 and ~1945? Note that the warming, according to GISS, in this period was ~0.15 deg/decade, i.e. pretty similar to the posst ~1975 warming.
Heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada this weekend
“Winter Storm Warning
“…STRONG EARLY SEASON WINTER STORM TO AFFECT THE SIERRA HIGH
COUNTRY…
“A STRONG EARLY SEASON PACIFIC FRONTAL SYSTEM WILL PUSH INTO
CENTRAL CALIFORNIA LATE TONIGHT. THIS FRONT WILL BRING THE FIRST
SNOW OF THE SEASON TO THE HIGH COUNTRY OF THE SIERRA WITH THE
GREATEST THREAT OF HEAVY SNOW OCCURRING FROM KINGS CANYON TO
YOSEMITE PARK.
“TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS UP TO FOOT OVER THE HIGH
COUNTRY ARE LIKELY BY SATURDAY EVENING…WITH WITH AROUND
6 INCHES OF SNOW ACCUMULATION AT THE 8000 FOOT LEVEL.
ACCUMULATING SNOW COULD FALL AS LOW AS 7000 FEET ON SATURDAY.
“…WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE SIERRA NEVADA
FROM YOSEMITE TO KINGS CANYON FROM 11 PM THIS EVENING TO 11 PM PDT
SATURDAY…”
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/hnx/
In fact, there’s rather a lot of wintry weather around the west
http://www.weather.gov/
northern California, NE Nevada, a lot of Utah, western Colorado…
and several frost advisories and freeze warnings farther east.
Just sayin’ – so far – global warmin’ ain’t prevented the onset of seasonably cold conditions
Pardon me, I said seasonable, National Weather Service says UNseasonable…
..PACIFIC STORM WILL AFFECT THE REGION THROUGH SATURDAY…
AN UNSEASONABLY STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM SPREAD PRECIPITATION ACROSS THE INTERIOR OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ON FRIDAY…AND IT IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE TONIGHT…AND THEN TURN SHOWERY ON SATURDAY.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sto
SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAS VEGAS NV
…A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN OUR WEATHER WILL OCCUR THIS WEEKEND…
THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT STORM SYSTEM COMING INLAND FROM THE NORTHEAST PACIFIC WILL BRING A TEMPORARY END TO OUR DRY AND WARM FALL WEATHER THIS WEEKEND.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/vef/
Not sure how that’s unseasonable, since the “normal” weather for the PNW in the fall is wet and cool… The warm and mild weather has been unseasonable.
Re: SteveSadlov (15:33:19) :
Heh – good one. I have to confess however that although I’ve lived in Dundee for nearly 25 years, I’m actually a Canadian (from Vancouver originally). Even after 25 years I still have a Canadian accent and I still need subtitles to understand the locals…
John Finn. I bet my shares Mary Hinge doesn’t answer!
“John Finn (17:28:53) :
Load the CET data into Excel (or similar). Calculate the JJA (June, July August) averages for the following periods; 1901-2000, 1951-2000 & 1971-2000.
Note the averages for each period – then note the figures for 2008.
In terms of temperature, 2008 was as near to average as you can get.”
Yes, but what I’m disputing is the logic that goes along the lines of:
summer 2008 may have been cold for the last few years, but it was average for the few decades, above the 1971-2000 average, well above the 1961-90 average, therefore even a “cold summer” is much warmer than half a century ago, therefore (unspoken implication) more evidence for global warming.
So I guess if you’re saying summer 08 is average for the past century, we’re in agreement 🙂
“If UHI was a major factor Aldegrove (Belfast airport) would show more warming than Armagh. It doesn’t.”
I would second what Egrey says:
“Just a minor point re UHI which doesn’t seem to have been picked up in the discussion to date : I think the point about weather station siting isn’t so much that a weather station over-reads if it’s near a structure, because it will over-read by about the same amount each year thus not contribute to trend. I think the main point is that as structures get nearer to weather stations over time, as the ‘urbs’ are developed, that does add to trend.”
In my view, urban heat effects (I prefer not to call it UHI since you don’t need a large urban “island” to produce very significant micro effects) are too complicated to be reduced to anecdotes like the one you mention. There is no real dispute, as a far as I can see, as to whether Urban heat effects/UHI are real and significant. The dispute regards the extent to which they are allowed for in the overall records (and here, the CET in particular).
If you look at Fig 6 of
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/ParkerHorton_CET_IJOC_2005.pdf
(Tmax and Tmin anomalies for CET stations since 1960)
you will see that the Tmax trend is flat for most of the stations, and the Tmin trend (the one likely to be affected most by UH effects) is of the order of +0.3C, except for Rothamsted (another complicated issue…..)
But it’s quite a jump from that to the full 1C rise you see at
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/
between the 1900-85 period and the past decade.
Another thing which bothers me intuitively about the overall hadcet graph is how uniform the last few years have been. The decadal average has (apparently) been the best part of a degree warmer than the 1940s/1950s, yet the variation has been so minimal that only one year (2006) has significantly eclipsed the warmest years of the earlier period. I know the +ve AMO will have played a major role in this, but I’m sure UH effects play a role too. Unfortunately, it’s too complicated and I’m too lacking in time to get very far beyond my intuitions. I’ll just finish by saying that my local Birmingham station even shows a cooling from the 1940s to the present – unfortunately the graph isn’t available online as far as I can tell. (Might see what I can do on this front?)
Btw I don’t want to get caught up in polarised implications of “no global warming” vs “global warming is already running away with itself”. For me the question is HOW MUCH increases in CO2 affect temperature (i.e. given that a doubling of CO2 ought to increase global temperature by 1C, other things being equal, how much do feedbacks from water vapour and clouds increase this figure – if at all?).
This is where the accuracy of surface data is critical. If people are taking from the raw data a global temperature increase of 0.7C (say) since the 1940s when the real figure should be 0.3C (say), then this represents the difference between evidence of greenhouse gases already having a noticeable effect, and evidence that global temperatures are still within the bounds of natural variation (and CO2 with negative/neutral rather than positive feedbacks).
Local effects, in both time and space, have no real weight behind them, so why the blog post ?
Regards
Andy
Re comments and discussions on UHI effect (or lack thereoff at Aldergrove (Belfast International Airport) vs Armagh rural station, I wondered about the location of the sensors at the former.
Aldergrove is a rural airport, although now busy and built up around it; it is also a few miles from the UK’s largest lake (Lough Neagh) which can affect local temperatures. This is just my personal curiosity – no criticism of the set up intended. The Met Office’s latitude and longitude (not reported to the nearest second) for the Aldergrove observations default to a building and the resolution of the aerial photo isn;t sufficient to look around for instrumentation:
http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocation.php?lat=54.65&lon=-6.216667&setLatLon=Set (you will need to zoom in and switch to satellite view)
Information on Armagh, including photos and information on the sensors can be found at: http://climate.arm.ac.uk/aws2/aws2.html
Actually, on refection, UHI in Ireland is probably minimised by the fact we get so much windy weather. Extremes of hot or cold are generally only associated with settled weather under a strong anticyclone – generally rare and short-lived, even compared to England which is that bit closer to European continental air masses.
Anthony, is wind something you have considered at surface stations? Interesting to see UHI effect (or lack of) in coastal vs inland stations, maritime vs continental, or perhaps you’ve covered that in the past. Would a subset of maritime stations be interesting? Fewer extremes?
Chris (01:59:20) :
Re UHI
Chris
UHI exists. I know from personal experience , as do many others, that UHI exists. In July 2006 we went to a country pub for a family meal. For most of the evening we sat outside. But round about 10 o’clock it was cool enough for some of the group to go back inside. When we returned home (back to a city in the CET region) – a distance of only about 5 miles – it was like a sauna.