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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The current BBC forecast marks a departure from the blando repetition of MET office CRU inspired gibberish, and ends with a franker than usual admission of uncertainty:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/10209
Published at 09:00 on 28th December
All times are GMT (Europe/London, GMT+0000)
(Next update at 09:00 on 4th Jan 2010)
Written by Rob McElwee
Summary
Cold with more snow.
This winter looks like going down as one of the more memorable “proper winters”. The wind this coming month is anywhere from southeasterly to northerly – all cold at this time of the year.
All parts of the UK can expect more snow at some time alongside below average daytime temperatures and hard night frosts.
Monday 28 December 2009 to Sunday 3 January 2010
Rain, wind, snow and ice.
A low pressure area in Biscay pumps moisture into the cold air over us now. The result is a significant snow risk. At the moment, the most likely areas to be affected are Wales and mid to north England midweek, then southeast Britain for the New Year.
At first, southern Britain will be mild, wet and windy – rain rather than snow. Northern Britain will remain cold, icy and at first fog-prone.
A little more snow is possible in Scotland and northeast England, especially on Wednesday and Thursday in the northeasterly wind.
Sunshine is in short supply with possible exception of northwest mainland Scotland.
Monday 4 January 2010 to Sunday 10 January 2010
Northerly wind all week.
Below average daytime temperatures, moderate to severe night frosts.
A reasonable breeze should prevent persistent fog and allow daytime sunshine; With the exception of those areas exposed to the windblown showers there should be above average sunshine.
The windblown showers are likely to all be of snow and concentrated in northern Scotland. You can also expect a fair few in eastern England, including East Anglia.
Monday 11 January 2010 to Sunday 24 January 2010
Cold east or southeasterly wind.
Temperatures will continue to be below average both day and night.
Snow and sleet showers will be concentrated in eastern England, especially the northeast.
Western Britain looks sunnier and drier than elsewhere because of the wind’s direction. Northern Ireland maintains its average.
Next week
In my memory, February has always brought the coldest and snowiest weather. My memory may be deceiving me but if not…
Monthly forecasting
The weather beyond about a week ahead stretches even the most experienced weather forecaster. Complex numerical weather forecast models from the Met Office and the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) are run many times for the month (and season) ahead to build up a picture of the likelihood of different weather types affecting the UK.
On this graph DJF are (dec.jan.feb) UK winter temperature (11year moving average)
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/CET.gif
Here is a weather forecast for the UK made on the 24th November for the month of December at http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=longrange;sess=
December
The first month of Winter is expected to see a continuation of the wet weather with rainfall totals widely forecast to be above the average for the time of year. Temperatures are also forecast to be above average in many parts, although with parts of the country will be closer to seasonal average.
How did it turn out? RUBBISH. More snow in December than we have had for years just about everywhere. A lot colder than average too.
Just imagine what would it have happened without Climate-Gate at Copenhagen. These CRU guys were in the lying business many years ago. Too many “tricks”…
Scouse Pete:
I have to say it’s never much fun to be attacked by someone sniping from the cover of anonymity. Someone who has clearly done some some (out of date actually) background on me because I’ve been open about who I am. My bad.
You could address what’s being debated you know…
Here is my prediction for this winter posted in another thread last August.
Spot on so far (and I called last winter correctly too) but let’s see what Jan & Feb bring:
Winter2009/2010 for UK
by Stephen Wilde » Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:58 am
I hate trying to predict because everything could change tomorrow but on the basis of the present setup here goes:
The jets are still well south of us and if that persists into autumn and winter then of course there will be greater influence from cold high pressure over Europe and Greenland.
The matter of precipitation amounts depends on where the main battleground is between cold and warm air. No two years are the same and last winter was unusual. The cold spells were very immobile. Large chunks of cold air were dumped on us for weeks at a time with little movement and relatively little snow despite a couple of notable falls.
For the coming winter I think that, instead, we will get more occasions when the battleground is over southern UK or northern France and Germany with more snow over wider areas than we have had for many years. However so much depends on day to day variability of the precise positions of all the weather systems that I realise I am a bit out on a limb there. Nevertheless I think it a higher likelihood than for many years past.
I’m also unsure what the balance will be between northerly and easterly flows which give very different weather types. The chance of a return to prolonged south westerlies is low but it could happen depending on the synoptic situation over USA.
Last winter also showed a change from the previous two winters when cold plunges over the USA distorted the jets and gave us persistent warm wet south westerlies so we did not then share in the general slow cooling trend.
I think that the overall global trend is still moving towards a colder regime but only slowly. The position of the jets in both hemispheres still indicates overall cooling. We seem to be getting increasing cold weather reports in winter in both hemispheres despite the current absence of a strong La Nina so the effect of the previous one seems to be persisting.
Meanwhile ENSO is less negative than it was but the anticipated EL Nino seems to be stuttering. I would say that overall the rate of cooling in the air will slow down a bit thanks to the extra energy flow into the air from the less negative ENSO but remember that if the sun is weak it will not fully replace the energy lost from ocean to air via the warmer SSTs so there remains a general background loss of energy for the system as a whole.
So, (gulp!) UK coming winter cooler than recently and likely to further reduce the warming trend of the 1975 to 2000 period. Not necessarily back down to the longer term average but well on the way with an outside chance of a memorable winter.
More snow than we have been used to but generally drier than average in the north and wetter than average in the south.
Stefan:
The best projections are (AIUI) that AGW will last for longer than centuries given that it’s likely that CO2 cons will take that long to return to equlibrium. See work by Dr David Archer for more.
Interestingly, I just did and published a calculation for Prague showing that 1.5 °C of warming would only lower the number of snowy days roughly by one quarter of the current number.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-would-15-c-of-warming-mean-in.html
After 100 years of hard work, the change would be barely noticeable. It would be even more undetectable at places which already have substantial amount of snowy days – just a few percent.
A further quote from the Independent article mentioned above: “Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. “We’re really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time,” he said.”
Leon Brozyna (02:27:50–that handy list missing science.
THAT was funny.
As to the main story at hand. 70 YEARS? A generation and one-half (give or take a few years) where snow has not hit in October? Wow.
And quotations about the end of snow in Britain (it just got turned back into Narnia) from none other than CRU?
Too good. Too good.
But isn’t the response that gooly-gee wilkers this is what is EXPECTED from a warmer world. More water vapor due to increased evaporation (and you get your heaviest snow near the freezing point of H20 due to how the weather patterns flow–i.e., snow in Antarctica is really rather rare) and you’ll get more snow?
Claude Harvey (00:35:25) :
Another funny….
It must have only snowed, what, three microns, then?
If we are to assume that weather forecasting is the ouput of computers and that the Met Office models used are clearly defective at short range, why on earth are we apparently accepting their long range outputs ? Even the Telegraph has a correspondent Geoffrey Lean who doesn’t seem to understand that point. The media have been thoroughly duped and should be ashamed of themselves.
gtrip (01:15:34) :
First question:
Each post is another chapter in a story.
Each chapter is mildly interesting, entertaining, and funny. (Personally,
I think it’s kind of low on the mild side, but at least they aren’t as
clueless as some commenters I reply to.)
Second question:
Everyone is waiting for the final chapter.
USENET denizens learned a long time ago that the best way to get responses is to post something not quite right or post “flamebait”. (My apologies to all for falling for the second, congratulations to all for resisting temptation so well. The Climategate poster thread at JoAnne Nova’s blog has been all but destroyed by a troll and respondents.)
Some of the best posts just don’t lend themselves to replies. I posted an account about the The Great Escape of The Martian Festival on sci.astro one April First (the subtitle is “A Pretty Realistic & Informative Look Focused On Olympic Leaps”) expecting to trigger an awesome dialog. It got one response. I did it again a year or two later. One response, but from a different fellow. No one noticed, or at least commented on, an error where I used Earth’s density to four places because I couldn’t find Deimos’ actual density.
Actually, your question is ambiguous – the number of comments is not a good measure of interest in a post, so indeed, Anthony can’t gauge interest by the lack of comments.
tallbloke (04:59:39) :
I’m from the North-East & I won’t see 50 again. 🙁
DaveE.
Funny thing in all of this: I don’t see the daily forecasts with percentages thrown in any more. Like we used to get with 10% rain, 50% rain, etc.
What I see most of the time now is flip-flopped 7-10 day forecasts.
If on Friday you see M-rain T-rain W-showers T-clear F-rain
on Saturday you will see M-showers T-clear W-clear T-clear F-clear
on Sunday you will see M-rain T-rain W-showers T-clear F-rain
Snowfall in the UK to become a “very rare and exciting event”?
Snowfall in the UK always was a rare event. Even when it’s common, it only happens during about three months of the year. And usually, in the south of the country, it only happens for a maximum of a few weeks. That’s ‘rare’ in my book – you don’t get snow in spring, autumn or summer….
And snow is always exciting for the children. So I can’t see that the Independent is wrong – on the other hand I can’t see that the Independent has said very much…
I live in the South of England, just outside London, and I can verify that Peter Hearnden is talking absolute rubbish.
So far this year, we’ve had snow and ice covering our pavements (our local council only clears the roads, not the pavements) for nearly 4 weeks (including the cold Jan/Feb 09 and Dec 09). This has certainly not been a “rare and exciting event” where I live.
But then, Hearnden is the type to big up (for example) the 2006 European heatwave but then dismiss the excepional cold we’ve had recently because it fits his preconceived (and quite unscientific) views.
UK days of snow averaged over 2 time periods
1961 to 1990
and
1971 to 2000
animated gif
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/9668/daysofsnowlyinguk.gif
The history of british winters 1616 to 2008
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=other;type=winthist;sess=
oldgifford (00:36:39) :
Whew! Your name scared me for a second. I thought it said oldgirlfriend. I braced for some old arguments to get started up. False alarm. 😉
If you look real quick, you’ll see that 49 states have widespread frost.
http://www.findlocalweather.com/weather_maps/temperature_north_america.html
“Ric Werme (05:33:55) :
gtrip (01:15:34) :
Why do you think that Anthony keeps posting G. P. Bear goes to Washington? Can he not tell by the lack of comments that nobody is interested?”
This begs the question why does climateprogress post anything at all?
kwik (03:56:14) :
Pierce Corbyn is interesting.
I agree and on the freeze frame of the youface interweb video he looks like the mad professor.
What more could anyone want from a weather forecaster?
Didn’t the Romans grow grapes for wine in the UK? Didn’t the Vikings grow crops in Greenland?
Huh, couldn’t have—it was colder back then than now.
/sarc off
“But then, Hearnden is the type to big up (for example) the 2006 European heatwave but then dismiss the excepional cold we’ve had recently because it fits his preconceived (and quite unscientific) views.”
You can find Hearnden (he sometimes posts as Devonian) at most of the places weather gets discussed. He is a rabid warmist, uniformly resorts to appeals to authority, and never admits when he is wrong. For a scam like AGW to succeed, you need a number of useful idiots like him to go around as evangelists.
We’ve been robbed of a most simple pleasure, talking about the weather.
The climate scientists and politicians have taken something basic to our human nature and poisoned it with their foolish predictions. What convinced people it’s possible to see into the future? Youth? Lack of real world experience? Not enough reading, too much internet? “You fool! This very night…”
Through the eons I’m sure weather has been the number one casual topic. We love it. It’s an ice breaker in every situation, something safe to discuss, and shared by all. It involves the elderly, who always have the most wonderful and strange weather stories to tell. Weather is one of the lovely mysteries of being human and living on earth.
Now the minute the topic comes up with a stranger, it’s an immediate political clue, an unsafe subject. Pandora’s Box. It’s risky, connected to politics, eco agendas, religion, money, all the things we generally don’t broach in polite company. How much meat you eat, where it comes from, your car, your light bulbs, water bottles, how many kids you have, all have some ominous “undertoad” of political affiliation and your belief or doubt about an unpredictable future. Poisonous yeast in the very dough of our lives.
Harder and harder even to say “hello”……as “how’s the weather?” naturally follows.
I hope someday we can sit on our porches with our neighbors and just talk about the weather, once again.