It’s not like there haven’t been clues. Like for example as I pointed out the Arctic Oscillation has gone strongly negative.
The article says:
“The cold weather comes despite the Met Office’s long range forecast, published, in October, of a mild winter. That followed it’s earlier inaccurate prediction of a “barbecue summer”, which then saw heavy rainfall and the wettest July for almost 100 years.”
Excerpts:
Britain is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century with temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius, forecasters have warned.
They predicted no let up in the freezing snap until at least mid-January, with snow, ice and severe frosts dominating.
And the likelihood is that the second half of the month will be even colder.
Weather patterns were more like those in the late 1970s, experts said, while Met Office figures released on Monday are expected to show that the country is experiencing the coldest winter for up to 25 years.
On New Year’s Day 10 extreme weather warnings were in place, with heavy snow expected in northern England and Scotland.
Despite New Year celebrations passing off mostly unaffected by the weather, drivers in parts of the country, particularly areas of Northumberland, Cumbria and the Scottish Highlands, were warned not to travel unless absolutely necessary.
The continued freezing temperatures did not signal bad news for everyone however. CairnGorm Mountain said it has had its best Christmas holiday season in 14 years.
With heavy snow in the area, the resort said that over a four-day period following Christmas Day it has had more than 8,000 skiers and snowboarders using its runs – including 800 on New Year’s Eve.
h/t to David Corcoran
DirkH (09:52:54) :
“Ed Murphy (09:34:39) :
Manatee mortality more than doubles due to cold. This probably goes under reported too.”
I think that report concerns last winter. It is still too early to have figures for this winter. It will be interesting to see if the Manatee have been able to adapt in any way, for it suppose to get quite cold down there the next few weeks.
Last summer a young buck Manatee said -bleep- to Florida and headed way up to Cape Cod, where he ran into problems in water below 68F. There was a flurry of excitement in local papers, and I think they rescued the fellow and shipped him back south.
As I recall, a few papers suggested a Manatee showing up by Cape Cod was a proof of warming. (Waters were actually warmer than normal, for a while, off the Cape.) If those papers had bothered research at all they would have seen the old news about so many Manatees dying of cold in Florida during the winter of 08-09. It’s hard to blame that on “warming,” isn’t it!?
Hopefully Greenpeace and WWF don’t get involved, for they’ll probably want the Manatee arrested for being “deniers.”
Well, having just tuned in after hearing about your web site, I would like to leave a non scientific posting from Kingston Upon Hull England:
Second winter (this being2009) and, what a second winter it is turning out to be!
Last year was the first “proper winter” I can remember in my life (46 years old)cold and frosty. This Christmas has seen weeks of sub-zero tempretures and snow, unprecedented in my lifetime. I, having swallowed the global warming concensus for many years, am beginning to feel rather foolish now, not only because of two very cold winters, but also because of all the information against man made global warming that is finally beginning to get through at last.
I would like to welcome myself aboard the good ship reallity!
Well, the results for UK December 2009 temperature are in…
Coldest December for 13 years.
Perhaps this will encourage a few more currently stuck in the CAGW camp to have a re-think?
Carl Skinn (08:47:03) :
Welcome Carl. Don’t beat yourself up – most of us were taken for suckers by the “team”. Different folk, different time-scales.
For me it was being told not to “trust my instincts” that set off my BS radar. I spent many decades out in the “weather” and the climate was doing what it always did – change. I thought I would look at the evidence, to find that there was plenty showing warming and exactly none showing that CO2 did it.
The team lied, bullied and stole, then they hid.
We will never forget.
Carl Skinn (08:47:03) :
> I would like to welcome myself aboard the good ship reality!
Welcome to the flagship of the fleet.
Mal (18:39:28) “The problem is that there is no penalty for getting it wrong – they just say they need more money to buy a bigger, better computer, employ more researchers, etc.”
Everyone’s schooling is wrong – “Let X1, X2, X3, … ~ i.i.d…” – that’s where it all starts going wrong – with the untenable base-assumptions underpinning everything — algebraic hypnosis is the monkey wrench in the wheel of common sense.
You are quite correct that putting more people and resources on a job based on FLAWED assumptions will just produce more complex JUNK — ironically, it actually makes it easier for the crooks to hoodwink innocents.
now another UK main stream paper has now published a critical article about the met office. First thing I have read in that paper for years that does not blame immigrants.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240082/It-gigantic-supercomputer-1-500-staff-170m-year-budget-So-does-Met-Office-wrong.html
tallbloke (02:59:46) “-20C […] Yikes!”
It has to be -25C with wind & humidity before it bites (for anyone who is appropriately-dressed & mobile), but I’ll admit it becomes tricky keeping hands warm while sea-kayaking at that temperature. The cost of home-heating – well, that’s another matter… and let’s not get into the issue of winter road “safety” as city councils etc. have put AGW into their long-term budgeting plans — the cost for jeopardizing public safety with wishful economic thinking must be TERMINATION. There is a(n exponentially) growing epidemic of DELUSIONAL “It will be over tomorrow” syndrome in winter road “safety” “management”.
Christopher Polis (04:18:03) says:
Wow, what’s with the sexism at the BOM in Australia? Only ~20% of employees are female! (According to that document, anyway.)
Yes it is very interesting that the Daily Mail, the most influential middleweight and middle England paper, circulation about 2 million, has turned so abruptly against AGW and it’s political nature. Note its attack on the Met Office as in the link above repeated here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240082/It-gigantic-supercomputer-1-500-staff-170m-year-budget-So-does-Met-Office-wrong.html
Its once great rival the Daily Express has done so too, but has only about a third the circulation these days.
The downmarket Sun with the highest circulation. 3 million, has never been much interested but is clearly moving the same way even and its rival the Mirror has gone quite quiet on the subject. As has the Star.
Of the heavies with their relatively low circulations the Telegraph. 800,000, has always had space for anti AGW comment both in its columns and comment, under tis new editor the Times went resolutely green but again has suddenly fallen quiet on the subject, only the small circulation Guardian and Independant heavies ares till staunchly pro AGW.
It seems Grub Street is learning that in a recession greenery doesn’t pay especially if it has been done to death in the last few years with endless propaganda from the Gov’t.
The politicians are as usual well behind the curve insulated as the are from public opinion on the ground but I suspect that that will change.
I have seen a couple of major sea changes before in UK politics and it is starting to look that this may be one of them.
Kindest Regards
Now the cold has hit Asia according to newsdaily.com.
North Asia pummeled by icy snap
By Chris Buckley and Christine KimPosted 2010/01/04 at 2:54 am EST
BEIJING/SEOUL, Jan. 4, 2010 (Reuters) — Heavy snows and biting cold pummeled North Asia on Monday, with the unusually harsh winter weather snarling up transport across north China and South Korea but unlikely to deal any lasting economic damage.
Beijing began the working week after a blast of harsh cold and heavy snow blanketed the capital and surrounding cities over the weekend, paralyzing highways and forcing the cancellation of dozens of flights.
As the cold snap pressed east, swathes of the Korean peninsula were also hit by heavy snow on Monday, choking up the rush hour commute in Seoul, where the main domestic airport, Gimpo, canceled all domestic flights.
In China, there were no signs that the cold spell would trigger the weeks-long disruptions and power cuts that hit some parts of southern China in unusually icy weather in 2008.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre6030vf-us-weather-asia/
a jones (13:10:01) “It seems Grub Street is learning that in a recession greenery doesn’t pay especially if it has been done to death in the last few years with endless propaganda from the Gov’t.”
Nothing wrong with real greenery. Let’s not confuse climate alarmism with real environmentalism & real environmental problems.
I am quite happy not to be living in the UK right now. I recall the 1970’s cool period and although it was fun for me at that time, today, it would be a pain in the adz (Travel (I do know how to handle snow and ice on roads)/work/pain etc).
On the flipside downunder, it’s not been summer at all (Not even IMO and I am a PoME). Heat gone (Still humid tho…sticky), sun mostly gone, flies gone. What has happened to the Aussie summer? Gorebull warming affecting SH summer?
Last summer was hotter and humid too, but lack of flies as I noted lastime too, that is not a typical Aussie summer.
“Paul Vaughan (01:22:32) :
Nothing wrong with real greenery. Let’s not confuse climate alarmism with real environmentalism & real environmental problems.”
Shame most people just “see” the BS CA.
The Met’s “predictions” have been ridiculed since their 1987 “warning” (I was there) of a “bit of wind over night” in 1987. WOW! What a “bit of wind” that turned out to be.
I found my washing, and the washing of others in my garden. Concrete Roof tiles ripped off (Not the “flappy” things you have in the US) . I found many stout trees on my usual walk to work downed. Seven Oaks became One Oak. All due to a “bit of wind”. Hense Met Office predictions are, since then, have never met up with reality.
Sadly, what The Met predicts has no bearing on “weather”. It is a political organisation and has, and always has had, a political agenda, certainly since the mid-late 1980’s.
Weather? What’s that?
I can always tell the “weather” is humid, I mean like ~90+, my wife’s hair goes weired (I’ll get a slap for this comment).
Unfortuanetly, the telegraph seems to be selective in their comments section:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6924898/The-Met-Office-gives-us-the-warmist-weather.html
It’s only a debate if you are Allowed to have it..
I posted something this morning in the Telegraph comments section. It did not appear:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6924898/The-Met-Office-gives-us-the-warmist-weather.html
Someone called David Welch has been spinning it. I outed him before.
SO i posted the below just now.
If the Telegraph is going to allow professional spin media people to comment (without announcing who/what they are) please forgive this member of the public for being very annoyed.
When they have asked that person to identify there interests, and then NOT to have their comment published. It would appear that the Telegraph is now censoring facts?
David Welch, is apprently who I suggested he was: David Welch, Sport and Media Management.
Real people do notice this abject ‘spinning’ of climategate and it is commented on elsewhere. Trust in the main stream media is at an all time low. Let alone the BBC’s behaviour, tollatly biased and partial, in the AGW debate.
Please post my original comment….
The same character was outed on the other Booker thread, the greatest science scandal one. (AGW and climategate again)
The MetOff now see jan2010 as ‘extremely cold’. May warm fractionally later in the month.
a jones (13:10:01) :
“Yes it is very interesting that the Daily Mail, the most influential middleweight and middle England paper, circulation about 2 million, has turned so abruptly against AGW and it’s political nature.”
I’d hold off calling the Daily Mail skeptical just a bit longer.
The Daily Mail has this article up today:
‘Black Monday’ transport chaos for millions as Britain returns to work in the grip of the coldest winter for 30 years
By PAUL SIMS and SOPHIE FREEMAN
Last updated at 11:53 AM on 04th January 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1239908/Britains-big-freeze-hit-return-work-forecasters-issue-new-ice-alert-drivers.html
While the article does give a thorough once over on the weather, the third photo down shows a gal sniffing flowers. At first i thought it was a advert or something, but the caption below it reads, ‘Ray of sunshine: In Brixton, Devon, Jess Vosper admires the first daffodils of the year. The flowers bloomed in the winter sun while the rest of Britain endured freezing temperatures.’
Interestingly enough, I thought I would visit:
http://www.holiday-weather.com/brixton_devon_gb/index.html
And what did I find ?
0°c (32°f) and the 5 day forecast calls for freezing temperatures for the whole week. Last I looked, 0°c (32°f) is freezing temperatures.
So, while you might say that the Daily Mail has turned the corner on climate change, they still cater to the masses with slight of hand optics and misleading captions.
Global Cooling in 2009
David Alan
I live on the South Devon coast around 30 miles from Brixton Devon. In the interests of scientific research I have just been into the garden to look for signs of daffodils. Any Signs. Any signs whatsoever. The smallest hint.
There are no sign at all of any.
Whilst it has been generally milder here than many parts of the UK that is purely relative-it has been struggling up to 2/3 C during the day and down to -4C at night. Frosts are very unusual here because of the influence of the sea. I can only assume the sea must be very cold but I’ve no intention of repeating my research by examining the ocean temperatures.
Tonyb
I read an article in the Mail on Sunday, being very critical of the Metoffice with regards to its long (and short range) weather forcasts. It was also very very critical of its bias with regrd to the backing of man made global warming. One interesting foot note of the article was that:
The Metoffice (on December 1st 2009), Predicted, a very hot summer for 2010, matching that of the highest on record, and that it stood by this.
They do seem to be looking a bit silly now!
Patrick Davis (02:53:04) “Shame most people just “see” the BS CA.”
Agree. We need to change this one patient conversation at a time.
There is a bit of a non-debate on this site at the moment. I mean, all writers agree with each other. The same is a bit true of realclimate website. Where can I go to read through discussions of the science between people who are on opposite sides?
REPLY: [ There is still debate here, though it varies by thread. Also, the AGW Side seems to have abandoned the field for a little R&R after the collapse of Copenhagen and the ClimateGate Affair. But don’t worry, they always return. Until then, there are lots of articles with heavy pro / anti debate in the ‘by calendar’ listing. Just pick a date prior to ClimateGate. -mod ]
@TonyB (08:12:40)
I know this might sound ridiculous, but you should look up Jess Vosper and find out when that picture was taken, if she works for the Daily Mail and determine if those flowers had just been recently planted. I could almost bet you the answers you would find would be one that the Daily Mail would be ashamed of.
The article you linked to states, “2009 was another year of global cooling,” but the temperature chart they provided applies, I fear, only to the US, since it’s captioned, “National Climatic Data Center,” and since the global sources (GISS and the guys in the UK) are claiming the global temperature warmed.