LONDON (Reuters) – Next year is set to be one of the top-five warmest on record, British climate scientists said on Tuesday.
The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 0.4 degrees celsius above the long-term average, despite the continued cooling of huge areas of the Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Nina.
That would make it the warmest year since 2005, according to researchers at the Met Office, who say there is also a growing probability of record temperatures after next year.
Currently the warmest year on record is 1998, which saw average temperatures of 14.52 degrees celsius – well above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 14 degrees celsius.
Warm weather that year was strongly influenced by El Nino, an abnormal warming of surface ocean waters in the eastern tropical Pacific.
Theories abound as to what triggers the mechanisms that cause an El Nino or La Nina event but scientists agree that they are playing an increasingly important role in global weather patterns.
The strength of the prevailing trade winds that blow from east to west across the equatorial Pacific is thought to be an important factor.
“Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Nino develops,” said Professor Chris Folland at the Met Office Hadley Center. “Phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina have a significant influence on global surface temperature.”
Professor Phil Jones, director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, said global warming had not gone away despite the fact that 2009, like the year just gone, would not break records.
“What matters is the underlying rate of warming,” he said.
He noted the average temperature over 2001-2007 was 14.44 degrees celsius, 0.21 degrees celsius warmer than corresponding values for 1991-2000.
(Reporting by Christina Fincher; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
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Those in the US may like to know, if they do not already, that the Met Office in the UK is part of the government – Ministry of Defence in fact.
I have a friend in the Met office who says they are ‘not encouraged to deviate from the party line’
Hardly the place for independent scientific comment then.
nell in the UK
What matters is… thinking up a new reason why AGW is right.
Usually when a couple of friends are arguing drunkedly over a few beers, the guy who keeps inventing new reasons every time he gets proven wrong, eventually he just gets laughed at.
The last resort is “more CO2 means more warming”, er…. “I mean underlying warming”. We know this because it happens in a large and complex system where we can’t actually observe and quantify the process directly.
“Jos (01:23:21) :
This can become very, very funny.
According to the latest NOAA ENSO status report we’re back into a La Nina, which, according to NCEP ensemble forecasts, is expected to last through at least the first half of 2009. And once an El Nino or La Nina is established, it can be predicted months ahead with quite good skill. La Nina automatically means cooler temperatures, hence it seems unlikely that 2009 will be very warm …”
This should drive the Anti-La Nina troll nuts…
JimB
Like Bob Ueker said about Michael Jordan’s attempt to play MLB:
“Keep swinging – eventually the ball will hit the bat!”
I want to join Jos in his opinion that ENSO oscillations seem to be somewhat predictable for a few months and the current strengthening La Nina conditions – as described by the graphs Jos linked – suggest that 2009 won’t be too warm, and possibly as cool as 2008 or even cooler.
If the La Nina is followed by a strong El Nino in the second half of the year, the conclusion could change. But with the cool PDO phase, it is not terribly likely that there will be too many strong El Ninos in the near future.
And looks like Britain will be in the freezer another week.
http://www.wetter24.de/de/home/wetter/profikarten/gfs_popup/archiv/WEurope/t2m/2008123106/nothumb/on/0/ch/15acac2477.html
Its worth remembering that they control the data which they refuse to publish and which they need only modify by 0.1 to 0.2 °C to be correct.
Be careful, because unless this year is exceptionally cold, and that is highly unlikely, they may well ensure that the global temperature remains high. There are huge sums of money resting on it and honesty is not a trait yet shown by Jones et al.
One question. Does El Nino produce heat or is it only a redistribution of heat ? If it produce heat, I agree a El Nino year is a hot year ; but if it doesn’t, I do not understand why satellites or surface stations record an additional heat ! Bias in measurement ?
There was a comment on Sep 9th by John M in a post on this blog titled
UK’s Met Office blows another summer forecast
which assessed the Met Office record of temperature prediction since 1999. The figures were
year….mean forecast …actual
1999 …….0.38 …………0.33
2000……..0.41………0.32-0.33
2001……..0.47………0.42-0.44
2002……..0.47………….0.49
2003……..0.55………….0.45
2004……..0.50………….0.44
2005……..0.51………….0.48
2006…0.45(0.37?)…….0.42
2007……..0.54………….0.40
2008……..0.37………….0.28
IN 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2007 the Met Office made failed predictions that the next year would be either the hottest or the second hottest on record.
Note that the Met Office routinely claims that their predictions are vindicated, because the error ranges around each prediction covers the actual temp. However, there is obviously a systematic bias.
They overpredicted temperatures eight or nine times out of ten.
The accumulated error over 10 years is around +0.6 degrees. This doesn’t sound like much, but curiously, this figure is similar to (slightly greater than) the catastrophe scenarios from the computer models (up to 4.5 degrees per century).
Considering their track record, a prediction that next year will only be 5th hottest is very unambitious. Considering that 100 years of gradual warming knocks most years before 1998 out of the running, such a prediction is equivalent to an admission that there has been little or no warming for the last decade.
Earlier this year the UKs annual Plain English Campaign awarded the “Golden Bull” award to the UK Met Office for this gem. In their view saying “We’re not sure.” would have covered it. 🙂
“Seasonal forecasts indicate how slowly-varying large-scale climate influences make particular seasonal conditions more likely than others. Random, unpredictable factors (‘chaos’) also partly determine year-to-year variations, and these will sometimes override large-scale influences. Such uncertainty makes a probabilistic format, as used here, advisable for seasonal forecasts,” it read.
Over the previous seven years, the Met Office forecast of annual global temperature has proved remarkably accurate, with a mean forecast error size of just 0.06
I just love the way they manage to hype up the accuracy of their forecasts. An error of 0.06 doesn’t sound much until you realise that Hadley global temperatures have only varied by ~0.1 in the last 8 years. Most of us could have done considerably better by guessing. Taking the average of the previous 2 years as the next year’s forecast, since 2001, would more than halve their mean error.
Note how the Met Office and GISS and NOAA never mentioned El Nino when temps were going higher in the late-90s and up to 2006 when there was more El Ninos than normal.
One medium-sized La Nina in 2007-08 and the prospects of another one and suddenly the ENSO is important.
My analysis shows the ENSO has a very predictable impact on global temperatures but it is not as big as thought.
The ENSO itself only produces a maximum +/-0.2C on global temps, +/-0.4C on tropics temperatures, +/-0.2C on northern hemisphere temps and just +/-0.02C on southern hemisphere temps.
The effect is lagged 3 months after the ENSO event or, let’s say, the La Nina trends this December will affect global temperatures in March 09. If the current La Nina continues developing, it will be a little cooler than average throughout the summer at least.
If the AMO and southern atlantic SSTs continue trending down as they have been, 2009 will be the coldest year since 1996 or even the mid-1980s.
That would put a really big dent in the temperature trend charts which will be very hard for the warmers to explain. They will have to come up with new (10 year moving average?) charts.
Stephen Richards:”Be careful, because unless this year is exceptionally cold, and that is highly unlikely, they may well ensure that the global temperature remains high. There are huge sums of money resting on it and honesty is not a trait yet shown by Jones et al.”
And there, ladies and gentlemen, is where man made global warming really comes from. Perhaps we should change it to man made up global warming.
The Met Office is not known ror the accuracy of its short term forecasts (although it has been getting better since it so lamentably failed to spot the Great Storm of October 1987 only a few hours before it occurred) let alone its medium and long term forecasts.
The University of East Anglia is not one of the top twenty universities in the UK and remember that we have far fewer universities per head of population than does the US. We have about five or six world class universities, another half dozen “runners up” and perhaps another eight or so from which a degree is considered respectable. I do not believe that the University of East Anglia would be considered in any of these classes. No wonder they had to latch on to a popular cause in order to get funding. Please be kind to Professor Jones.
Forecasting weather in the UK?
Easy.
‘It’ll be the same as today’ – gets about 50%.
Or – ‘It’ll be different to today’ – also scores about 50%.
Couple of rules of thumb: 980 mb – gales [Bf8+]; 960 mb – storms [Bf 10+]; 940 mb – probably Bf 12 or ‘that which no canvas can withstand’!
Enjoy the site.
Happy New Year to you all, whatever your politics, from a very parky London!
“They are backing away from AGW.”
They have been for a few years now. “Climate Change” is the winter spin on GW.
Especially since the temperatures have not scaled in time with their predictions and with people digging into their “facts” rounded disproving them from Science 101 and upwards. So they needed something closer in name to still give them ‘power’ over their established ‘believers’ (Green Party Terrorists). “Climate Change” is a none seasonal name, so they can use it all year around.
But like others say it’s just the UN’s attempt to force a global govt on other nations. But what it clearly is, is an economic attack by EU country’s who have lost political & economic power over the last 100 years.
braddles (04:50:00) :
Nice of you to notice. 🙂
But topical to this and a couple of other recent threads, including a discussion about archiving on the Pielke/Times thread, one of the reasons I was able to come up with that summary was that the Met office was posting very nice annual summaries, which included a one year forward prediction and a summary of the previous year. Unfortunately, they have either moved these annual reports or removed them entirely.
Here is an example, which I was able to resurrect from the Wayback Machine (www.archive.org).
Wayback link.
If you click on the original link (below) directly, it now just takes you to some generic Met page.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/seasonal/global/pdf/global_temp_2004.pdf
Giving the benefit of the doubt, can anyone tell me where the Met has moved these historical predictions?
“Few discoveries are more irritating than those which expose the pedigree of ideas.” Lord Acton.
Tom in wonderfully warm Florida: Is it money or power? Or both?
Oh yea, “The man with the gold rules.”
I have noticed that most of the people who leave comments on this website don’t make proclamations. Most use evidence to prove that our climate system is extremely dynamic and not understood completely, while opining about trends dicovered from history that have been vetted by science. These are smart people. The others, well, they have been educated beyond their intelligence level.
When history proves the Met, et allia, wrong again, what will the next crisis be that will be used to gain power and money?
Thanks,
No, Barak Obama said that now that he is elected, the sea levels will fall, temperatures will normalise, the skies will clear, and all will be well with the world. He said it, therefore it is true. The met can kiss Dear Learer’s but they need to get in line.
AEGeneral
“Yeah, and the Lions will win the Super Bowl next year. And I’ve got a computer model that proves it.”
My computer model “proved” that the Lions would be 16 and 0 this year and that they would win the Super Bowl. Must have had a bad line or two of code.
Would you provide me with your code. I will average the outputs of the models and undoubtedly arrive at the correct result.
Let’s see. We have a la nina, meaning a cooler Pacific Ocean. A deep solar minimum, meaning less radiation from the sun. Maybe the MET folks have factored in some form of geothermal release that no one else was aware of. No wait, that would be volcanic wouldn’t it? And that would cause even more cooling. I hope they clue us in soon. I wait with baited breath as I must increase the layers I wear to play winter golf in Georgia this year.
I’d just like to mention that it’s very cold in Sussex! Central heating broke down yesterday and it has been 1-2C all day outside. Unusually, this has been with cloud cover – the previous few days were clear and down to -7 or -8 overnight and slightly above freezing during the day if you were in the sun, as you might expect. We have had frost in parts of the woods we walk the dogs in for almost a week now. Now we are overcast and just above freezing point day and night. 10c in the kitchen at the moment. Reminds me of the 1974 energy crisis. Got dressed under the duvet this morning, something I haven’t done since I was a kid.
Luckily, the pub is almost certainly warm. The missus, kid, 2 dogs and 4 cats wish everybody a splendid new year.
P.S. Any chance of a summer in England at all next year?
I’d challenge anyone anywhere to forecast weather a WEEK ahead with any consistent accuracy.
Gems : “El Nino, an abnormal warming of surface ocean waters in the eastern tropical Pacific,” and ” El Nino or La Nina event but scientists agree that they are playing an increasingly important role in global weather patterns.”
First, I’m not sure why these kinds of comments should ever be applied to naturally occuring phenomena – re “abnormal”. Finally, my oceanograhy courses taken pre-Hensen, clearly showed a significant and historical impact on climate by these currents. I grow really tired of the absoute ignorance in reporting such as this.
The Met Office couldn’t forecast their way out of a paper bag: they have a computer model saying it has 2.8871352 exits, all in the fifth dimension.
In October I saved each 5-day forecast and checked, not for accuracy, but the number of the 4 overlapping days that were changed each successive day. I am too lazy to do the sums, but the answer is in the range 2.5 to 3