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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Well, it causes more snow in temperate regions (just to play the Devil’s advocate once again for shiggles).
The poles don’t really get that much snow. But usually what falls can stay for quite a while. It snows more in Columbia SC than at the South Pole.
That has not altered the climate. Because it can’t hang around long enough for much of an effect. However, I have HEARD that if you get really BLASTED with early snow in the year (as here in the USA where half the nation is buried at the moment) then yes an albedo effect is, well, in effect, and you supposedly get a feedback lag effect of cooler temps by the time February rolls around.
I remember times even in “Hotlanta” Georgia we’d get several inches of snow a couple of times a year. That does not happen anymore. But then as from the articles above when superimposed……
Wakefield Tolbert (06:35:34) :
It was much warmer in Greenland. A lot is known by studying their trash heaps and the dirt on the floors of abandoned houses. Originally they even had a few cows, but cooling switched them over to sheep and goats. I think I read that at the end they were more hunters, and spun caribou fur in with wool, in their yarn. Originally they could grow crops where it is impossible now. Towards the end their animals moved in with them, to keep the houses warmer.
One of the simplest proofs it was warmer lies in their graveyards. The graves were dug by hand. That soil is now permafrost, and you need a jackhammer to dent it.
By all means read about the Greenland Vikings. There are plenty of papers on line. They survived roughly 400 years in Greenland, and during that time they likely had far more children than Greenland could support. (And here we leave what you can prove, and enter the landscape of lore: The excess population may have headed into Hudson Bay and mingled with the Cree, or even headed further south.) (The Mandan tribe, along the shores of the Missouri River, was pretty much wiped out by small pox in the 1800’s, but apparently had many members with blue eyes.)
Grapes in England I know less about. However I recall Gavin over at Realclimate going on about how grapes are still gown in England, and how a few wineries still exist. Gavin concluded that this proves it is as warm in England now as in Roman times. What do you say to that?
Dearest Bob,
Climate is a combination of topographical parameters, GPS address, and proximity to large weather creating atmospheric systems (IE the jet stream and other such things). Weather patterns are the year to year, and decade to decade variations you get within your climate zone, which includes the extremes of your zone (it’s an agricultural term relating to planting zones and is a far older and data-backed understanding of climate than the current “climate change” thinking is). Weather is what you get today. AGW is a political entity that has used science in corrupt ways to push their agenda.
The idea that climate is an average of weather is not correct. If farmers were to use your definition of climate, they would end up in a soup line, along with you.
But all is forgiven you my son, hehehehehe.
Mack–meant to thank you also!
–W
I picked this up on an earlier thread and emailed the Independent for their comments on the last couple of UK winters.
Silence was the only reply. Presumably as one of Gordon Brown’s flatearthers my views are beneath contempt.
To give an example of why Dr Viner and Peter Hearnden are quite wrong about the science, here is a more thoughtful article published on UK snowfall by UK WeatherOnline:
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/feature/2006/12/05_pe.htm
These give decadal figures for UK snowfall back to 1890. And guess what? The “trend” that is discussed in the article in the Independent simply cannot be seen. From the article:
An examination of the snowfall statistics shows that the frequency of snow falling appears to be quite independent of mean monthly temperature.
Whoops! That pesky data getting in the way of a good story, again. Note how the article lists a decent amount of data, rather than cherry picking two points as Dr Viner did.
This is fascinating.
Because while there are some noteworthy ideological (which from our pals on the Far Left I think this is about an “ecosophy” metaphysics that hold Mamma Nature as sacrosant and anything beyond naked humans foraging for berries and tubers is evil to nature) defenses of RealClimate’s holdout on ClimateGate and “Hopenhagen” (real website, no bull) I’m getting the impression the CRU faux pas and follies are more serious than is generally admitted?
Elizabeth May claims to have read all some thousands of emails and says there’s nothing to see. As does Newsweek’s Sharon Begely. And FactCheck.org says it’s time to move on and there was nothing to see, and the El Tricko thing is just a colloquialism used to rightsize the data when you’re getting absurd feedback from bummed out thermometers, etc.
Peter Hearnden (05:00:07) :
Sprry, all I ask is for something better than assertion that Piers is the meteorological superman some here seem to think. I don’t see that as toooo much to ask?
Suggest you part with some cash to find out for yourself. You don’t seem like the sort of chap who would take our word for it if we provided an analysis, and we’re not going to hand over Piers’ forecasts for free. So if you wanna play, you gotta pay.
Call it research.
TonyB (07:43:14) :
A C Osborn (07:00:28) : Said
“TonyB, did you notice the major difference between the “Little Ice Age Thermometers – Manhatten readings and very strange ones foe the UK?”
I wrote an article on the Manhattan temperatures-what do you mean the ‘very strange ones for the UK?’
tonyb
The UK temperature readings have been averaged or adjusted in some way, there are about 1/10 the number of readings that Manhatten show.
What was your article on Manhatten?
I find it the most delicous of ironies that the very people who created the modern phrase of “Deniers” for those not believing in MMGW are now the loudest DENIERS of all.
Caleb. Thanks for the info.
My curiosity is this: What were the sea levels in those ages???!!
Greenland ice is mostly anchored to land. That’s the whole furrowed brow and fret if the whole thing melts; ya know, New Orleans and the Maldives will go underwater for good, as will NYC, and the Aussies will have to mount barbed wire and .50 cal machines gun nests to ward off uninvited guests from Malaysia and Indonesia when the low-lying areas go under as well. That sorta thing.
Jimbo, I for one am not sure, but I think Paul Ehrlich mentioned at least once that by the year 2000 we’d have to visit London or NYC by gondola rides.
Others say he dosen’t count, as he’s well….sort of a nut. He messed up quite a bit, from the price of oil to bauxite and on and on. He lost several bets with Julian Simon in this regard.
delicious of ironies even LOL
Urban heat island effect is significant an measurable. CO2 green house effect is not significant and measurable. Why isn’t the green movement, scientists and government doing something about urban heat island effect?
It is black top, air conditioners and lack of trees that is the problem. There I said it. It needed to be said.
While I’m at it, it is our beloved sun screen from tourists and motor boat oil that is killing the coral, not warming. There, now the sun screen makers will be after me too.
Concerning weather extremes as a function of temperature, cold periods = more storms, warm periods = less storms
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/12/27/winter-storms-update/#more-397
Wakefield Tolbert (06:35:34) : grow crops in Greenland…Not sure about grapes in Britain. … It was always cold and never green so far as I’ve been able to find. I was told in grade school, 50’s, that the Vikings confused Iceland and Greenland, the the peculiar naming. Not so, retreating glaciers in Greenland reveal large trees that grew, and it was colonized until roughly 1400. Tony B. has covered this fairly extensively here. And we have the tax records the Romans kept for the vineyards in GB. See Mack at 07:17.
Bob Kutz (06:35:36) :…Pamela Gray (00:42:55) : You don’t come here often, do you Bob? You obviously do not grasp the gist of Pamela, nor which side of the arguement she stands on.
DirkH (06:53:53) :
It’s beem my experience in reading her posts that she (Pamela Gray) is supportive of the AGW theory and it’s agenda.
To the point; this thread is about an article from the year 2000 in which a prominent scientist at CRU indicated that snow would become very rare in the UK. The headline of the article is something along the lines that snowfall in England is a thing of the past.
Her rebuttal to this thread is that individual weather events are not climate, and in fact a weather pattern observed over a period of years is only weather variability. Her statement is a direct contradiction of the articles tenants; that weather patterns have changed due to global warming, and there will therefor no longer be snowfall in the UK. According to her statement, global warming would result in little to no change to the weather in the UK, whether she intended to say that or not.
My observation is that weather, taken in the aggregate over a period of years, is in fact climate. If we cannot agree on that single point, the AGW crowd has gone completely off the tracks insane.
As to her credibility; she certainly is well read, but then I am certain that Phil Jones and Mike Mann are well read, but I don’t lend any credence to what they say.
They are paid to say it, and know too well they will no longer be paid if they say IT no longer holds. They’ve been on the path too long to recognize that it’s leading downhill rather than up.
My opinion; (Just so we understand each other); The climate is variable. It always has been. If we study it, we may eventually reach some sort of understanding of this chaotic system. That would be a monumental achievment for mankind. IF we continue to tilt at windmills, accept what is clearly faulty (if not outright fabricated) science, we (all of mankind) are likely to get blindsided by the next ice age, or a truely warming climate that we do not understand and therefor cannot react to properly.
Put another way; what if the climate IS warming at an alarming rate, but for reasons wholly unrelated to CO2? We will spend vast sums, destroy economies, further impoverish those who need the most developmental assistance, and have gained nothing. The notion that our climate is warming entirely or even largely due to CO2 is patently false, as demonstrated by numerous articles, some of which remain unpublished without explanation as in;http://brneurosci.org/co2.html,
and http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf, and has NEVER been proven to be true beyond simple correlation in the 20th century and some simple lab experiments involving small bottles filled with CO2 and a heat source. The computer models are hopeless, as the climategate data shows quite convincingly, and now we’re left with an agenda, rather than scientific pursuit.
Now, if Pamela wants to support such a theory, that is okay with me, but I’ll be damned if I don’t point out the self contradictions and inconsistencies that come from the statements she makes, and her side of the argument seems to live by.
Sorry to be so verbose, but your statement required a well thought out reply.
Cheers!
A C Osborn
There are daily mean average temperatures from 1660 for CET-they were complied by Gordon Manley back in the 1970’s from actual authenticated records. Various other UK locations also have long records. All long records have been homogenised to some extent or other.
There are various items that can be accessed from the articles section here;
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
Here is the article that included Manhattan
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/triplets-on-the-hudson-river/#comment-13064
Tonyb
Here’s another example of a “snow” prediction gone bad here in Canada. You may have heard that Vancouver (in the Colonies) is hosting the 2010 winter Olympics in February.
This 2006 snow prediction is pretty funny.
A University of Calgary researcher… doubts that Whistler will have natural snow for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics due to global warming.
See here:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2006/10/20/skihills-warming.html
But golly gee look what happened:
Snowiest month on record NOVEMBER 2009
See here:
http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/weather/snowreport/index.htm
And here:
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Whistler+Blackcomb+sets+November+snow+record/2290797/story.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3a+canwest%2fF259+(Vancouver+Sun+-+News+%2f+Vancouver
Needless to say the snow could indeed melt before the Olympics in a few weeks.
Climatology is shorthand for “Climate Scientology” I wonder if I’m the first to make this connection. Will google.
Caleb (08:10:51) : Wakefield Tolbert (06:35:34) : (And here we leave what you can prove, and enter the landscape of lore: The excess population may have headed into Hudson Bay and mingled with the Cree, or even headed further south.) (The Mandan tribe, along the shores of the Missouri River, was pretty much wiped out by small pox in the 1800’s, but apparently had many members with blue eyes.) Fascinating, Caleb, never occurred to me where they may have gone. Barry Fell, A prof. at Harvard, a while back, has a few books on stone inscriptions, of European origin in the US, of pre-1492 times. He contends the Vikings did extensive copper trading with natives in the Michigan area, supplying the key ingredient for the Bronze Age across the pond. IIRC, he documented inscriptions as far west as the Rockies.
Like the song:
“Remember?
The good old days…when days were warmer, grass was greener…”
“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”
One can grow grapes in many temperate climates. The key to the Medeval UK grape production was its quality. The vinters in the UK produced some of the highest quality wines in Western Europe during this period (10th to 13th Centuries). Thier wines were so good that the French barred thier importation. And as you said, high quality grapes need plenty of sun, and warm temps. One would think that the maritime climate of the UK would preclude this. All we can assume is that the UK enjoyed a period where summers were very hot and mostly dry. The winters were probably mild as well.
One last thing, anthropologists discovered that as far North as the Scottish Highlands as well as the higher elevations of Norway, cultivation of grain crops took place during the later decades of the MWP. This indicates that the warm mild climate was more than enough to compensate for the poor soil conditions.
Pingo: “…you need a number of useful idiots like him to go around as evangelists….” good to see you’re still discussing the science …
“Gavin concluded that this proves it is as warm in England now as in Roman times. What do you say to that?”
I simply consider the source.