While England basks in a winter wonderland, with more on the way, and bookmakers are now slashing odds on a white Christmas (The Times reports “The odds on a White Christmas fell to match the lowest price ever offered at 6/4 today”.), it seems like a good time to review the Met Office forecast for the coming year.
The Met Office is forecasting 2010 to be the warmest year ever, due to El Nino. The moderate El Nino we have now appears to be weakening, with additional weakening in the next few months.
The Met Office did the same kind of forecast in 2007, right before the temperature dropped more than 1C. The UAH (Channel5 LT) temperature has dropped this past week and is the closest to the 20 year average it has been in six months. With these factors in play, has the Met Office has made a serious blunder with their current high visibility forecast? Is it a repeat of the now famously wrong Met Office BBQ summer forecast?
See the 2007 Met Office forecast here:
4 January 2007
2007 – forecast to be the warmest year yet
2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998, say climate-change experts at the Met Office.
Each January the Met Office, in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, issues a forecast of the global surface temperature for the coming year. The forecast takes into account known contributing factors, such as solar effects, El Niño, greenhouse gases concentrations and other multi-decadal influences. 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 °C.
See the 2009 (for 2010) forecast here:
Climate could warm to record levels in 2010
10 December 2009
A combination of man-made global warming and a moderate warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as El Niño, means it is very likely that 2010 will be a warmer year globally than 2009.
Recently released figures confirm that 2009 is expected to be the fifth-warmest year in the instrumental record that dates back to 1850.
The latest forecast from our climate scientists, shows the global temperature is forecast to be almost 0.6 °C above the 1961–90 long-term average. This means that it is more likely than not that 2010 will be the warmest year in the instrumental record, beating the previous record year which was 1998.
Here are some video’s from England that give some idea of the snowstorm:
Manfred 10:23:43
I love it how they use the term “very likely”.
You’re forgetting the famous British penchant for overstatement. When they say “very likely” they mean “not a snowball’s chance in hell”.
OK I made that overstatement bit up. But think that they were using the British Understatement!!!
“Fred Oliver (10:17:47) :
John F. Hultquist (09:55:08)
“BTW – what ever happened to the Catlin Arctic Survey?”
Their busy getting their brass balls reattached!”
________________________________________________________________________
Here is their home site: http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/
From “Environment” page: http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/environment
“It is a stark reality that Arctic sea ice could disappear in the summer sometime between 2013 and 2040. Regardless of exactly when the summer ice will disappear, the downward trend is clear, and shrinking ice cover will change almost everything in the Arctic, and will also be felt globally.”
Looks like they support AGW theory.
In my judgment there are 5 reasons why the European winter temperature will not be above average or milder than last year as the Met Office predicts:
1] Ocean SST’s [including the Atlantic] are declining and ocean heat content rise has leveled off and is dropping
2] AMO has peaked and is likely to go negative or cool by January 2010. It is currently at 0.121
3] WINTER NAO is headed for more negative periods like the 1960’s to 1980’s where 17 out 30 winters had negative NAO. In the 1960’s, 8 out of 10 winters had a negative NAO [This December 2009 cold spell has a negative NAO of around -2]
4] PDO is heading for 30 year cool cycle and went negative/cool]-0.4] again Nov 2009
5] The current moderate El Nino will be less warming than predicted due to the cool PDO in the Pacific. During the last cool period for Europe [1961 -1990], only three El Ninos raised European winter temperatures. Six had no effect
Buy long johns.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/latestfromtheice
Latest Update
SURVEY DATA SUPPORTS RAPID ICE LOSS – LARGELY OPEN ARCTIC SEAS IN SUMMER WITHIN TEN YEARS
New data, released today (15.10.09) by the Catlin Arctic Survey and WWF, provides further evidence that the Arctic Ocean sea ice is thinning, supporting the emerging thinking that the Ocean will be largely ice-free during summer within a decade.
The Catlin Arctic Survey, completed earlier this year, provides the latest ice thickness record, drawn from the only survey capturing surface measurements conducted during winter and spring 2009.
[please post link and perhaps an excerpt, not entire article as I have illustrated here, or your posts may be simply deleted. ~ ctm]
A few key quotes from Copenhagen
The politicians:
YVO DE BOER, CLIMATE CHIEF The mountain goes on and on, it seems.
XIE ZHENHUA, HEAD OF CHINA’S DELEGATION After negotiations both sides have managed to preserve their bottom line.
GORDON BROWN, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER
We have made a start.
SERGIO SERRA, BRAZIL’S CLIMATE CHANGE AMBASSADOR
It is not a failure… if we agree to meet again and deal with the issues that are still pending.
The greens
NNIMMO BASSEY, CHAIR OF FRIENDS OF THE EARTH INTERNATIONAL
…rich countries have condemned millions of the world’s poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates.
JOHN SAUVEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GREENPEACE UK
The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport.
Sounds like a roaring success then!
Just Me (10:47:20) :
>Mann gets an OpEd piece in WashPost
[Quote from W.P.]The National Academy of Sciences reviewed this work [= MBH 98] in 2006 in a study reported by this newspaper [“Past Few Decades Warmest on Record, Study Confirms,” news story, June 23, 2006]. Members of the peer-review panel said that they “saw nothing that spoke . . . of any manipulation” and that the study was “an honest attempt to construct a data analysis procedure.” [Unquote]
This is of course HIS view. I know there is another view, which states that the Review Panel concluded NEGATIVELY on this issue.
I have been wondering for years which view is correct. Could anyone in the know please tell me the reality?
Thanks in advance.
Reply: Read the short version of the report yourself. ~ ctm
I sit here listening to the doom- laden tones of the the BBC special one, David Shucks’man.
He tells us that any scientist would be less than happy because we’re all doomed. Aww, shucks man, and which scientists are you citing to back up you claims. The ones who’ve been squeezed out for years because their integrity disqualifies them from pecking at the pork or are you talking about your discredited chums who’ve disreputed the third oldest profession science by using tactics that would discredit the oldest profession of all.
Hope that your retirement plan is bullet-proof ‘cos your logic is cr*p!
ian – napier was surely a great choice for the met office!
Management of the Met Office
Chairman of the Board: Robert Napier
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/board/
2007: World Wildlife Fund: Tribute to retired CEO, Robert Napier
It was on Robert’s watch that climate change became widely accepted as the important issue it is today. He was one of the first to recognise this, understanding the delicate relationship between species and their surroundings. And thanks to his experience in business, he saw industry as an opportunity rather than a threat and found a way to develop ethical partnerships that brought not just financial benefits but changes in working practices and attitudes, too.
Robert understood that humanity’s footprint on the planet demanded a global approach and he worked hard within the WWF international network to leverage the power and experience of the whole organisation.
http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/about_us/annual_review_2008/annual_review_archive/annual_review_2007/chairman
Copenhagen is over. The Met Office will change or fade away someday. The jihad to replace the current world order with the dream of Utopian Perfection is not over. The search and fight for the truth continues on every front.
matt v. (16:43:35) :
As witness to the 1969 El Nino ,1972 and 1976/77 Ninos all had nasty winters here in the Pac NW. in ’69 there was two feet or so of snow dumped in January in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. That shut things down big time…
BREAKING NEWS – 3 EUROSTAR TRAINS BREAKDOWN IN THE CHUNNEL DUE TO THE EXTREME COLD
(HOW WARM IS MY GLOBE)
I see that all the U.S. political critters from Obama to Pelosi have made a rush to their planes to get home before the monster storm shuts down D.C. No, they didn’t have a sudden flash of common sense — they did so after their military plane drivers told ’em to haul their butts out of Denmark or they’d be stuck there for several days.
As to the monumental agreement, here’s my version of the no spin zone — the Copenhagen agreement is an agreement to disagree.
And here in Buffalo we’ll be enjoying the spectacle of all that coastal snow. So far this entire season we’ve had a total of 16″ of snow (all in December – a snowless October & November). And D.C. could get over 20″ from this one storm. Sweet.
A few weeks ago the BBC broadcast that outcome as >80% likely.
Gent was being interviewed who’s speciality is Game Theory. When ask about the circus he laughed and said it will fail, giving the reasons why, already been simulated.
“Eurostar trains stuck in tunnel due to cold weather”
“It’s snowing in northern France. It’s very, very cold. The weather conditions are very, very bad.
“There’s a difference in temperature between outside the tunnel and inside. And that’s why it causes technical problems.”
Hundreds of passengers are stuck. But the news is not all bad.
Most of the passengers are warmists.
Reply: This is a slippery slope which could lead eventually to the posting of …..lawyer jokes. Time to stop it now. ~ ctm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8421875.stm
Leftists in retreat.
Here is the real news:
O = Bush.
“*Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush.””
…-
“Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure
Deal thrashed out at talks condemned as climate change scepticism in action”
“Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, was scathing: “This deal will definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and small island states. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It’s nothing short of climate change scepticism in action.
“It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama* has eliminated any difference between him and Bush.””
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-deal
H/T:
“Hopenchangen: The Family Photo
Wisely, Steven Harper heads for the bathroom*.
And because it’s not fair to beat up on the left during their darkest hour…. a pity link.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/012933.html#comments
I’m right now watching a press conference direct from Copenhagen (on the local SVT24 channel) with EU’s José Manuel Barroso and Fredrik Reinfeldt (Swedish Prime Minister, chairing EU this half year). It sounds like a swan song. Negotiations seems to have more or less broken down. I missed the beginning of it, but the reporters use words like “disaster”, “disappointment” etc in their questions. (But I wouldn’t call a Copenhagen fiasco much of a disaster…)
More later, probably.
–Ahrvid
Anthony, you and McIntyre have accumulated enough clout to start organizing a few serious protests around the globe. We need some leadership in this area. The greenies seem to get all the press and they must be stopped before they destroy us all.
Even as America and Europe freezes, Al Gore, the American Poet Laureate pens his Apocalyptic Climate Change Poem- Death by Global Warming:
One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun
Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
Neptune’s bones dissolve
Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly
Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning’s celebration
Unknown creatures
Take their leave, unmourned
Horsemen ready their stirrups
Where is that “floating continent” that is “soon” to disappear in the September “midnight sun”?
Is he referring to Antarctica? True you could call it a floating continent as much of it would be underwater if all the ice melts. But the midnight sun in September is in the Arctic, not the antarctic.
Could it be that he has got his facts slightly mixed up yet again?
Al Gore should be reminded of that old adage “Its better to keep your mouth shut and let people believe you’re a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.”
For the past three to four days snow has been attacking Japan:
http://www.jma.go.jp/jp/bosaijoho/radar.html#a_top
Clicking the orange arrow on the left bottom gives past 3-hour changes at 10-minute intervals, and you can see the northwesterly wind, typical for wintertime Japan, brings snow over the Japan sea. Please enjoy folks.
That should be “Its better to keep your mouth shut and let people suspect you’re a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Have been trying to find out more about what the EU leaders said (I missed the beginning of it). It seems they have reached a not legally binding weak deal, which will be voted upon Saturday “in plenum” (at the conference).
I say, the weaker, the better. Greenpeace says they are angry, and that’s a good sign.
–Ahrvid
If Antarctica were “soon” to disappear in the “midnight sun” of September, (should that be just midnight or a different month?), it would be a real tragedy.
Thousands of penguins would be drowned and all 200 climate researchers, who would have no time to flee the suddenness of the event.
I would never, NEVER compliment 0bama that much.
Never.
However, that makes it sound like, as in a dozen other things, zero is learning that hey, maybe ol’ Dubya wasn’t as dim as the dems pretended he was.
Anyway, floating continent of ice sounds like the arctic ice cap. And for all the Canadians, mmmm… Ice Cap… Timmies…