Richard North from the EU Referendum writes of a curious juxtaposition of forecasts, then and now. I thought it worth sharing here since it highlights the chutzpah with which CRU botched their forecast in March of 2000. At least they didn’t claim that UK snowfall was in a “death spiral”.
From The Independent on 20 March 2000 we got the headline: “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
Then, from the Telegraph online today we get: “Snow and ice to hit Britain at New Year.”
The mercury is set to drop to 28°F (-3°C) in most of England and Wales on Thursday night, New Year’s Eve, and 17°F (-8°C) in Scotland, with widespread snow showers also predicted. New Year’s Day will also be chilly, with the northern half of Britain’s struggling to get above freezing during the day, while London will do well to reach 39°F (4°C)
The forecast follows a spell of snow, sleet and ice which has gripped Britain for more than a week but relented in most parts over recent days.
It is so good to see in The Independent that the CRU is living up to its justly acquired reputation for accuracy.
I’ll also point out that this “very rare and exciting event” happened in London last year also.
Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate – first October Snow in over 70 years
Above: London 10/29/2008
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photon without a Higgs (07:46:53
You cannot grow grapes in the UK and crops in Greenland now because it is colder on earth now than it was in those times.
1. There are currently over 400 commercial vineyards in the UK. This is almost certainly more than during the MWP. There are 45 vineyards recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book.
2. Crops grown on Greenland include potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower and radishes.
LarryOldTimer,
I never thought of it before, but yes, climate is a local phenomena – every region is defined by its own unique climate. So how did we let the warmists sell us the “global climate” idea?
Ok, K.
Taking the bait here and waiting for something that will in all probability reveal Climate Wizard to be (Well, the NC is more ideology than science) somehat less scientific than Mr. Wizard, but not being able to pin exactly what’s going on here:
“50%: This map shows the temperature change projected by the middle model. That is, half of the models project a greater amount of change, and half of the models project less change as compared to the 1961-1990 baseline average.”
What is the basis of the 61-90 baseline, and is this verified elsewhere?
When I was a tiny in the UK in the mid 1960s we got snowy winters. When I was a student in the mid 1980s we got snowy winters. Then there seemed to be little or no snow in the south of England for about 15 years. Now we have heavy snow all the way down to the south coast (not the Aspen of England either) and we has 7.5 inches of snow in the Chilterns in Oxfordshire, that started on December 18th and is still visible on 29th. I know it is anecdotal but that’s climate, not weather. What was common became rare and is now more common again.
“The Day The Earth Stood Still” is some kind of classic for people who like to fear everything possible, especially anything Nuclear, but they don’t seem to notice some very distinct contrary things “Mr. Carpenter” said, which I just happened to hear “Mr. Carpenter” say a day ago as I passed by a tv:
When he was asked by a reporter if he was fearful concerning the [his] Spaceship, he said, ~”I’m only fearful when I hear people substitute fear for reason.”* As I recall it, he had also mentioned early on that Nuclear energy could be harnessed for good. That might even be how he got to Earth.
I’m also very doubtful when all I hear from Climate Science is the substitution of “begging the question” – simply presuming the validity that which is to be proved – for experimental and even theoretical proof. That along with the inveterate Disasterizing they do, and all of the other very special things with characterize “Climate Science”.
*The reporter quickly moved on to someone else, hoping for more a emotional response.
Predictions: Based purely on media accounts and the Hansen/Gore alarmism that fuels them, that the next decade or two will see cooling due to the well-known (?) media cycle.
In the late 1800s, the late 30s, early 40s, and since 1980 or so the alarmist media (and the “scientists” who speak to them) warned of global warming. In the early 1900s and again in the 70s the same people were warning of ice ages. We’re due for “global cooling” side of that cycle.
Of course it’s probably just coincidence that the media cycle is closely tied to the 60-70 year cycles in the climate system…
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/FireandIce.pdf
Vincent (10:28:21) :
“Have you or Mr Herdsman tried emailing Piers Corbyn and asking nicely?”
And what if he replies: “Why should I release my forecasts to you when you just want to find something wrong with them?”
What if you give it a go and find out?
piers@weatheraction.com
John Finn (10:30:08) :
1. There are currently over 400 commercial vineyards in the UK.
Amazing. It’s gone up another 50 in the last hour.
What are their latitudes? Where is the most northerly? Do you think that might be more relevant to the debate than the number?
Wow!
Circular minds can’t comprehend cyclical variations in weather but interpret it in the broad language of climatic global warming.
Surprising.
For your edification. There is a difference between climate and weather. But I won’t trouble you with the details. You may get a brain freeze.
I believe that the tendency for humans to see “trends” in climate arises from the modern way of viewing time itself.
Before the industrial revolution, time was perceived as cyclical. Seasons cycled and each year was much the same as every previous year in a lifetime, and the future would not be different from the present. Perhaps, our ancestors were also aware of shifts in climate also having a cyclical nature. However, concepts shifted after the industrial revolution, because that was a revolution in the perception of the sequence of events we call time. Not simply because adherents were enslaved to the clock, but because there became a tangible awareness that the present was different from the past and the future would be different too.
By the twentieth century, the concept of cyclical time was forgotten and replaced with the linear temporal concept known as “progress.” The passage of time could be viewed as a trend towards greater technological prowess and ensuing prosperity. Having long forgotten to think in “cyclical” time, every minor trend in the nascent science of climatology was observed and extraplolated into the future. It is no coincidence that the sudden cooling of the sixties and seventies were extrapolated into a newley emerging down trend. But the warming of the eighties and nineties has not changed this way of thinking at all – it has simply been reversed into a warming trend that has also been extrapolated into the future.
There seems no end to this fallacy of reasoning. I have no doubt that if the cooling continues for long enough, the new tipping will result in a reassessment back to the original trend. How much cooling is required to cause this flip in trend projection is impossible to say. Given the amount of vested interest and momentum in AGW, I would guess quite a lot. It would have to probably be cooler than the sixties. Then we will be back in “new ice age” scares.
It will never end because of the inability to think in cyclical time.
John Finn (10:30:08) :
1. There are currently over 400 commercial vineyards in the UK. This is almost certainly more than during the MWP. There are 45 vineyards recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book.
The NUMBER of vineyards in the UK today vs the MWP is not of significance in reference to climate. The number of vineyards is related to market size, population, market size based on population, etc.
More significant is that fact that during the MWP vineyards existed toward the north in Yorkshire. It has only been recently that vineyards could once again survive in the northern areas of the UK.
Ryedale Vineyards are the most northern … not far outside of York. They were not planted until 2006.
Just ftr, whoever said that is wrong:
Galen Haugh (07:33:10) :
A 4 month timeframe for a descent into an Ice Age suggests that there are no internal forcings, only a sigma of internal variations.
Phil. (09:24:50) :
David Corcoran (07:15:08) :
In 2008 Dr. Hansen predicted a 75 meter rise “within decades”.
That’s actually a lie, I can’t give you the benefit of the doubt of being mistaken since you actually linked to the reference which contradicts your statement!
Hmm… let’s look at that article again, shall we?
“In email correspondence with IRIN this week, Hansen said if atmospheric CO2 concentrations were not kept below at least 350 parts per million (ppm) the results could be disastrous. The current level of atmospheric CO2 is 385ppm, and could exceed 450ppm, which the world is heading for “within decades, barring prompt policy changes”.
…
“If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice – that’s a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster; a guaranteed disaster,” he told the Guardian newspaper in the UK earlier this year. ”
Let’s see, Dr. Hansen said we could exceed 450 ppm in decades, and that will cause a sea rise of 75 metres. Sure he used modifiers like “probably” and “could”, but it’s still an alarmist prediction made to stampede the public.
And this prediction contradicts the IPCC: “Hansen’s projection was in sharp contrast to the most recent forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the global sea level would rise by between 18cm and 59cm by 2100, depending on a range of greenhouse gas emission scenarios. ”
If there’s a lie here, it’s not mine.
Clarification to my J.Peden (11:06:19) post:
second blockquote = Pamela Gray (08:11:02) :
Weather is what you get today. AGW is a political entity that has used science in corrupt ways to push their agenda. = end blockquote
Blockquotes don’t always work like I think they do.
We know from archeological evidence that the Romans did grow grapes as far north as Hadrian’s wall, we have found traces of their vineyards, the pips in the rubbish heaps and the like: as well as some written references.
Today you cannot grow grapes in England further north than about 200 miles south of Hadrian’s wall. Given that, very roughly, in England mean temperatures decline by about 1 degree K per 100 miles north it does suggest the RWP was rather warmer than today.
The decline in viniculture after the Romans left might be due to the fall in temperatures in the CDA but also perhaps due to the fact that the new settlers didn’t drink wine, they preferred beer.
Certainly despite the MWP the Normans never seem to have been interested in re-establishing the vineyards. But then they chiefly drank cider and introduced large apple orchards.
There are many similar kinds of evidence across North Western Europe, for example the altitude at which grapes were grown and indeed settlements established and abandoned over various periods of the history of the last two millenia.
Except for written records we know less about the Viking Greenland settlements for the simple reason that most of them are still buried in the permafrost: which we know because we can now detect them if not easily excavate them.
Certainly from what we can learn when the Vikings settled it Greenland was really a green and pleasant land along the coastal strip with a climate well suited to Viking agriculture. How far they penetrated into the Arctic ocean is the stuff of legend rather than record. But it is interesting just how long the idea of the Northwest passage persisted both in Scandinavia and Britain.
Kindest Regards
Allan M (10:27:42) :
Wow. That’s a good one.
Grapes are now grown in the south and midlands of England, and they are lucky to get more than 2 good years out of 5, which is why they are now talking loudly about making sparkling wine, from more acidic grapes.
There are a number of vineyards in Yorkshire. Wine produced in the MWP was of poor quality. Current vineyards are successful, profit making concerns.
The Romans grew grapes up to Hadrian’s Wall (and without modern varieties) –VINDOLANDA.
The Romans attempted to grow grapes. You can grow grapes in lots of places. Whether you’d choose the English/Scottish border by choice is another matter. But most Roman wine was imported.
We are due for the change to the Media Cooling Cycle which has the lagtime coefficient directly proportional to the severity index of the present Climate Reversal.
One has only to pick up a newspaper of the times to get a glimpse of the atmosphere surrounding an Ice Age scare. I can almost guarantee you that they will do no better of a job of keeping thier wits about them as they did the last Merry-Gore-round.
Peter, I’m glad we can agree on some things 🙂
But, I think he’s actually only talking about December’s, not snowfall as a whole?
Indeed. I thought I’d mentioned that, but re-reading my post I didn’t. But a couple of observations:
1. Even if AGW was “clever” enough to prevent snow in Jan and Feb whilst allowing it in December (c’mon, seriously?), this still means snow would not become a “rare event” in the UK as Dr Viner suggests.
2. The average number of snowy days in December 1990-1999 exceeds the quoted figure from Dr Viner for the entire years 1988-1995. Even though these are December figures only, Dr Viner has cherry picked blatantly, and that without such cherry picking, no such evidence of disappearing snowfall is found.
3. And yes, I am well aware that both sides of this debate cherry pick. That does not excuse it on any one occasion, this included.
4. How many bust predictions has the met office now made? Three Indian summers (missing), disappearing snow (all too evident)? Got any example of mid term predictions (3 months+) that have actually gone right recently? Would it be fair to say a chimp could do better?
BTW I don’t think much of Piers Corbyn’s methods either, but the reason he gets more hits than the met office is that when you introduce a bias (i.e. a slavish belief in AGW), you perform worse than random chance. By matching random chance, Piers Corbyn manages to outshine the met office repeatedly.
Only seven white Christmases in UK since 1900.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/3933091/Dreaming-of-a-white-Christmas-Blame-the-nostalgia-of-Charles-Dickens-snowy-childhood.html
7th December 1662 Samuel Pepys, and this was during a period we call the Little Ice Age
—————————
It is amazing how people over the generations when a severe winter spell strikes it is seen as what was of years ago, as though they happened frequently back then.
Here’s a Times editorial on this.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/zloty/times91a.jpg
P Gosselin (01:44:11) :
In the aftermath of Climategate, the CRU is one institute that has been rendered a complete laughing stock by a few sophomoric “scientists”.
And if Joe Bastardi is right, then the CRU is going to once again look incompetent.
http://www.accuweather.com/world-bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=accuweather
CRU: Clueless Research Unit
Sounds more to me like CRU: Clueless Radicals Unhinged
Another observation from the 2000 article was that “We don’t really have wolves in Europe any more”. Just two years later, wolves crossed the Polish border going west for the first time in a very long time (centuries, really) and have expanded their German range ever since.
Ignorant prognostication knows no bounds.
John Finn (10:30:08) :
Unfortunately none of the vegetables you mention were cultivated in the Middle Ages (I think rhubarbs would grow on Greenland too, it does very well on Iceland).
They norse did grow flax, corn spurrey and angelica in Greenland in addition to barley.
As a matter of fact they do grow Barley on Greenland today, but despite an additional thousand years of plant breeding it won’t ripen under current conditions, so it is only used as green fodder for cattle.
John Finn (11:15:57) :
Allan M (10:27:42) :
Grapes are now widely grown in the UK, about 350 commercial vineyards I believe. The Domesday Book in 1085 recorded about 40. It appears to be you who is trying to rewrite history.
John, I believe the population of England in Roman times drank mainly Ale/mead and there were less of them than today, in 1085 40 vineyards per head of population was considerable compared to today.
Spence,
Tone noted 🙂
I think the way UK Decembers are behaving is interesting. We’ve had ‘white’ Christmases on Dartmoor several times in recent years. I sometimes wonder if winter cold gets started and then tends to be swept away come January by the slight extra warmth in the atmosphere/Atlantic/global circulation and that if the globe warm but the Atlantic has a pause what will happen. But, you don’t believe any of that anthro stuff so I’ll leave it…
I don’t think Dr Viner is cherrypicking. He spoke about trends, he might well have said more that was not quoted, I think he may very well yet be right. But, exceptions don’t make good trend busters.
We don’t know yet if the Met O have their winter forecast wrong.
Piers Corbyn. I watched the vid higher up. I’ve watched/read other forecasts of his. He never names a specific date for a weather event, but a spread of two,three, four or more days. He doubles/triples/quadruples his chance of ‘success’ when he gives such a spread of dates. Besides, pick four days of December the chance of a US mid west snowstorm must be quite high, and (looking at charts on 18th of December) you could have guessed a European cold spell with some chance of being right. In a way it’s amazing he’s not ‘right’ more….
Oh, and <i. some AGW isn’t a bias but a scientific reality. The real question (for another thread, and I’m really not about spending much time here – this blog really doesn’t welcome views like mine, debate with us and talk of IPCC’s and the rest, so people like me recognise that and these days tend to stay away) is it’s how much it is ‘fedback’.