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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It’s been nearly 200 years since the UK had consistently snowy winters. For a big snow event persistent high pressure located in Northern Scandanavia advects polar and sub-artic air across the North Sea. This is a pretty strong fetch with gale force winds picking up copious amounts of “warmer” moist sea air, which in turn is forced upslope as it hits the east coast line of the UK. A mixture of speed convergence and mechanical lifting and very cold air aloft create intesne snow showers that move westward. This is the exact same thing that occurs in the Great Lakes Snow Belt of the US. Before this episode is over, the UK could get between 1 and 2 feet of snow (with plenty of drifting). The frigid air of course is cold enough to freeze the Thames and shallow creeks and ponds. This regime of snowy winters is well recorded in both paintings and literature of the past.
Luckily for the UK, it has a maritime climate, and these surges of frigid polar air masses do not last that long. I believe the prevalence of “white winters” in the UK died off with the passing of the Dalton Minimum.
They never give up do they. Send them off to Oz and have them give the MET a brain. You are resuming the weather patterns that existed after the last AMO peak. Lots of cold and snow comes in from the east. Those who do not learn the mistakes made in history repeat them.
grow crops in Greenland
Not sure about grapes in Britain. That’s rather far north, and even with moderated temps due to the North Sea, too much cloud cover, I’d think. Grapes like full sun and warm days.
But as to Greenland, I think the very name was actually cooked up by the Vikings as a slick sales gimmick to attract other settlers. It was always cold and never green so far as I’ve been able to find.
Pamela Gray (00:42:55) :
No, the plural of weather IS IN FACT CLIMATE.
And as to the Knicker twisting; I think this is all in good fun. Your side has been making asinine statements for long enough now that some of them are proving to be false.
Your side has made it’s bed, now is the time to contemplate lying in it.
Another prime example was Mann’s office in Manhatten; should be underwater by now, according to his predictions ( I think I’m getting that right, be sure to let me know if I’ve got the man or the location wrong). Of course the scaremongering works, for a while. But the best part is when it becomes common knowledge that it is in fact only for effect.
Your side’s credibility fades by the day. Soon the science will catch up and prove you for the charlatans you’ve become. The good news is that at that time, the science will reinvest itself, and useful knowledge will thereby be obtained.
‘Spence_uk’, thanks for those kind words.
I’m in upland Devon, but we don’t get the same weather as you in London, where it has, by all accounts, been as you report. What I say about our winter so far is what has happened: quite a bit of frost so far, very little snow.
As to winter 09/10 being as cold as summer 06 was warm, time will tell.
Have we ever figured out what the difference between “partly cloudy” and “partly sunny” is? My favorite forcast is “50% chance of rain”.
Keep in mind that when a weatherperson gives a forecast for bad weather and it doesn’t happen, nobody cares. When the are wrong the other way, the person becomes a bum. Isn’t it time for the bumation of the Met Office?
Did’nt Ancient British Warriors, sometimes wear nothing more than woad? As far north as Scotland, too? ….Obviously, much hardier than todays warriors then. Unconcerned about the need for protection in combat too? Could it be, there was some advantage, in it? ….When its blooming hot?
How would it feel, day to day, for the prognosticators who have bet reputations on AGW? Seems you’d be in a blue funk more often than not.
The best supercomputer ever made rests on the shoulders of men, this is so because it is connected to a fantastic cosmic web, any other external devices are but childish toys.
Wakeupmuggy
I agree but then I would because I can still do that with my neighbours. I live in a largish farming community in SW France where the average age is probably well into the 60’s. They have a wonderfully fresh way of viewing all this global warming rubbish. ” I’ve seen it all before”, or “its for tax purposes only” or “what do they know, I make my living with the weather”.
I have to say that there is a little interpretation here because french doesn’t translate readily to english particularly the local dialects.
tpf – that pretty graphic of snow days in the Uk for 61-90 vs 71-00 is, while pretty, spectacularly useless.
The terrible winter of 63 distorts the difference between the 2 pics so much as to make any long term comparison impossible – in the south, we probably had a much snow in 63 as we did in the next 20 years! I remember it, we had snowdrifts in the garden from when it started (Xmas) till March…
Now if the pics showed say 65-95 vs 75-05, they would be much more likely to show something interesting
What the UK Met Office does with their predictions sounds a lot like the stochastic estimates I used to run that compared different mining projects–you could get an idea of the comparable merit between two or more projects, but you could not ascertain with any degree of accuracy what a particular project would actually do for return-on-investment (ROI), net present value (NPV), or total profit.
So it isn’t surprising their forecasts are off (all computer models require certain assumptions and if those doing the assuming have a particular agenda, you’ll see that reflected in the results–every time.)
He is in meltdown. Meltdown Mann is also there. One of the tactics is to spread more intensive forecasts for 2020 and 2050. we can’t refute them.
Yeah, but that would be that there rotten snow and ice;-)
“Bob Kutz (06:35:36) :
[..]Your side’s credibility fades by the day.”
Bob i think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Pamela is one of the most knowledgeable persons round here – i sure as hell can’t follow her arguments about jet streams and the atlantic oscillation…
TonyB, did you notice the major difference between the “Little Ice Age Thermometers – Manhatten readings and very strange ones foe the UK?
The October 2008 snowfall was remarkable, not least for the delicious irony of its fallingon London while Parliament was debating the Climate Change Bill.
That was, however, far from the most significant snowfall last winter. On February 1st 2009 six inches of snow fell on London overnight – the heaviest snowfall for 18 years.
crosspatch (01:25:58) :
It is just the same old refrain “we’re all gonna dieeee!!!” which of course is absolutely correct.
The only problem is that the people making the “forecasts” think that they can clearly see the future, they can’t, eventually it will whack them upside the head and then they’ll understand.
Re DirkH If you want to know how to use weasel words in a forecast, this post from an hour ago can help you:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/updates-to-model-data-comparisons/comment-page-2/
Look at their ever-widening “confidence interval” in the graph! Now these are the prophets!
If you read the text you will find the following lines.
“We can break it down a little more clearly. The trend in the annual mean HadCRUT3v data from 1998-2009 (assuming the year-to-date is a good estimate of the eventual value) is 0.06+/-0.14 ºC/dec (note this is positive!)”.
Is it me but I thought 0.06 +/-0.14 gives a range of -0.08 to +0.2 in other words no positive trend !
“The degree of one’s emotion varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts — the less you know the hotter you get.”
~Bertrand Russell
A word to the not-so-wise…
@Peter Hearnden
OK, so your perspective is say, 50 to 10,000 years in the future.
My next question is, what should the Victorians have done differently?
And what should pre-agricultural man have done differently?
We are taking a 50 to 10,000 year perspective, long term climate trends that will, and have, affected the climate, and what man should do, and should have done, on those time scales.
Peter Hearnden (00:45:04) :
I think Dr Viner and the article is (like all the science) broadly right.
BROADLY right?
30 years of consistently missed predictions from alarmists say otherwise. One gets better science from fortune tellers. How many decades has Vanatu been “about to” disappear under the waves? In 2008 Dr. Hansen predicted a 75 meter rise “within decades”.
When our country could drown
Yet according to satellites there hasn’t been a sea rise since 2005, and before that sea rise was proceeding at the same rate it has since the mid 19th century (New York Harbor measurements)… about 3.2 cm/yr or so.
Even if the Earth reverted to an iceball, with glaciers encasing the equator, alarmists would continue to shout that we’re all “about to” die of heat stroke. No evidence is sufficient to shake their irrational faith.
Until CRU and the Met Office begin to consistently evince such scientific traits as transparency, replicability, falsifiability, and independent verification, they’ll be scorned by those who value truth over being one of the herd.
2009 is not a year on which University of East Anglia shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one Elizabeth II, it has turned out to be their Annus Horribilis.
@ur momisugly Wakefield Tolbert
Try this link re plants in Greenland
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a794412628&db=all
and this one
http://www.nabohome.org/publications/fieldreports/Greenland2008Field%20ReportKS05-23-09.pdf
Does anyone know of a site presenting the recent snowcover for Europe. There is a few for NA but the one I went to last year for Europe seems to be gone.