BBC reported: Coldest December since 1981 (BBC, January 3, 2010)
It is still showing up in Google, but changes are afoot, odd that a headline like that can’t stand on its own:
And google news:
The URL for the story in the image above is:
but note the number of the story in the URL 8438408 now now goes to a different title, presto change-o!
Icy conditions lead to closure of Giant’s Causeway
Same URL:
h/t to Popular Technology
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What happened to the Monckton article? That is the one I (and at least one other, see the 5th and 6th comment from the beginning) commented, but now the article is gone and our comments have been appended to this article instead. Strange!
QUOTE
Pingo (08:40:26) :
“I feel sorry for those souls left up on Tan Hill for 4 days as there was no way out due to the cold and snow.”
Yep, me too.
Must be hell trapped in a pub for 4 days …. especially if they run out of anything to drink. 😉
(Actually it could be quite serious being trapped up there but I would hope the pub was at least somewhat prepared since they must get similar situations more regularly than most UK pubs. And I could not resist the potential snarky humour …! Sorry.)
/QUOTE
I have an eternal desire to get up to that pub, I do like a good English pub and that sounds like one of the best with sheep and goats allowed free roam throughout. Highest one in England as well, but requires exceptional patience to get there on public transport (I don’t drive).
If I was trapped there for 4 days then I think I would be eternally grateful, especially if I ought to be at work!
Hey, looks like these guys back in 2002 may have been on to something:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=22759
“Climate models constructed here at Texas A&M University were used to analyze ocean surface temperature records in the tropical Pacific since 1950. The results suggest that as much as one-half of all global surface warming since the 1970’s may be part of natural variation as distinct from the result of greenhouse gases,”
That reminds me of the NASA study that was featured here on WUWT (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/07/noaa-paper-north-american-2008-cooling-attributed-to-natural-causes/ <-sorry, I don't know the html tag to turn to text) a few weeks ago stating that natural variability had overpowered the warming. How much did it contribute to the warming? If it wasn't in cooling mode, it had to have been in warming mode. It is possible it was neutral, but doubtful that it would remain so for the entire time prior to the 'natural variability' in the study on WUWT.
Bratcher and Giese report that now conditions in the tropical Pacific are similar to those prior to the 1976 climate shift, except with the opposite sign. If conditions develop in a similar way, then the tropical Pacific could cool back to pre-1976 conditions.
Seems that they are correct from what we are seeing so far. I wonder how this bodes for the climate models. If they got the correct warming from the wrong forcings, then absolutely they are not correct and should not be trusted to make policy decisions.
Neo (08:08:36) :
It’s amazing how these temperature records go back to the time of Newsweek’s “Global Cooling” piece.
It won’t be too much longer, when the MSM realises that it has no wind in it’s sail. They will suddenly ‘rediscover’ the Global Cooling scare and trumpet it from their parapets.
The Florida citrus crop will get under threat soon.
It galls me that the Weather Channel can say that temperatures 15 to 25 degrees below normal are no big deal during the winter , but temps a few degrees above the average in summer are a sure sign of impending doom . BTW , St Simons Is , GA saw a new record low this am .
@AdderW
The IPCC keys into greenie westerner’s sensitivity to “victims”. The world’s poor are “victims” to the west’s ruthless corporations. That’s the IPCC’s public relations strategy.
Glenn (09:32:25) :
“Isn’t the real question as to whether the temps fall into the range of AGW models?”
No climate models predicted the flat to declining temperatures occurring over most of the past decade. Every one of them predicted rising temps.
The BBC is the para-military wing of Greenpeace.
.
You guys are way too negative. This glass is not half-empty; this glass is half full. We have a breakthrough here! The BBC is, for the first time in my recent memory, using the word “cold” instead of various shades of “warm”. In the past, this event would have been described as “The 28th warmest December in the past 28 years.”
CH
>>f it turns out to be warm in July, they will trumptet
>>something like “Warmest July since 2004″
I like it when they come out with “warmest year since last year”.
.
It’s all “expected” and “consistent with models”.
snowmaneasy 7:50
The BBC Weather Centre is staffed by the Met Office.
More and more the BBC seems to be taking on an uncanny resemblence to George Orwell’s ”Ministry of Truth”.
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
Reports of very cold temps and heavy snow all over: North America, Europe, China, and now Russia (both in Moscow and the Russian Far East). Somehow paintings of Napoleon’s disasterous 1812 retreat from Moscow come to mind. . . .
China is getting whacked. Deep snow in Beijing. When we have a “snow day” in U.S. how many are affected? Several thousand when a metro district shuts down?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/04/beijing-south-korea-record-snow
For a satellite animation of weather over the East Asia:
http://www.hko.gov.hk/wxinfo/intersat/satpic_s.shtml?pv_mode=playback
Wait for all the images to download to see movement of cloud masses.
Beijing is about 39 degrees N.
Shanghai about 31N.
AdderW (09:03:51) :
The Guardian:
Climate change scepticism will increase hardship for world’s poor: IPCC chief
Somehow I am reminded of that proposed future New York Times headline:
World to be destroyed tomorrow!
Minorities and poor will be hardest hit!
Oh, this bit from the article is a keeper.
Pachauri said action from President Obama would be needed on top of Senate legislation. “The passage of legislation in that country [the US] will have to be supplemented with several initiatives to be put in place by the executive branch of the government,” Pachauri said.
So what Congress (not just the Senate) decides for us will not be enough, it will take some Imperial Decrees from High Lord Obama to save the planet? Wonderful understanding of American democracy there, Pachauri. Or are you simply stating this cannot be handled by democracy period?
Dave Worley (10:08:48) : That´s right…but with fashion models instead!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8439087.stm
Freezing temperatures are “Here to stay”
rbateman (09:51:23) :
The Florida citrus crop will get under threat soon.
Too late.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-02/u-s-east-coast-faces-deep-freeze-florida-oranges-threatened.html
Smokey (10:02:36) :
No climate models predicted the flat to declining temperatures occurring over most of the past decade. Every one of them predicted rising temps.
Which is why they had to hide the decline. Thier models could only forecast apocalyptic warming if the past had been flat as a Hockey Stick Handle pancake.
What they cannot hide is the flat temps which have turned into a full-fledged downward plunge. Such is the nature of climate.
The bottom fell out of the warming bubble.
Somebody needs to keep an eye on sea-levels. The bigger ships need extra draft, and it wouldn’t take a whole lot to drag bottom in the Suez and Panama. I’m willing to bet those who should be paying attention have been caught looking.
JonesII (09:00:16) :
Last “hot spot” on the south pacific, dwindling…the last WATTS from a cooling sea.
In your sst map you can see two interesting pecularities ,The cool spot east of NZ at coordinates 180 w 44s which is a substantive plankton bloom,and the “hot spot > centering around easter island of which some describe as the optically clearest waters on the planet,due to an absence of doc ,
eh Morel et al 2007
Optical measurements within both the visible and near ultraviolet (UV) parts of the spectrum (305–750 nm) were recently made in hyperoligotrophic waters in the South Pacific gyre (near Easter Island). The diffuse attenuation coefficients for downward irradiance, Kd(l), and the irradiance reflectances, R(l), as derived from
hyperspectral (downward and upward) irradiance measurements, exhibit very uncommon values that reflect the exceptional clarity of this huge water body. The Kd(l) values observed in the UV domain are even below the absorption coefficients found in current literature for pure water. The R(l) values (beneath the surface) exhibit a maximum as high as 13% around 390 nm. From these apparent optical properties, the absorption and backscattering coefficients can be inferred by inversion and compared to those of (optically) pure seawater. The total absorption coefficient (atot) exhibits a flat minimum (, 0.007 m21) around 410–420 nm, about twice that of pure water. At 310 nm, atot may be as low as 0.045 m21, i.e., half the value generally accepted for pure water. The particulate absorption is low compared to those of yellow substance and water and represents only ,15% of atot
in the 305–420-nm domain. The backscattering coefficient is totally dominated by that of water molecules in the UV domain. Because direct laboratory determinations of pure water absorption in the UV domain are still scarce and contradictory, we determine a tentative upper bound limit for this elusive coefficient as it results from in situ measurements.
In the introduction
: Indeed, laboratory measurements of pure water absorption, particularly
in the violet and ultraviolet (UV) part of the spectrum are scarce and contradictory. Somehow paradoxically, it seems that natural waters, in certain conditions (those of
extreme oligotrophy), may be purer than those prepared in a laboratory, despite enormous cautions to avoid trace organic impurities.
“kadaka (10:11:50) :
AdderW (09:03:51) :
The Guardian:
Climate change scepticism will increase hardship for world’s poor: IPCC chief”
Pachauri is an Indian; India has a lot of poor people. Pachauri is one of them (when we look at the average income). Climate scepticism creates hardships for Pachauri – makes it harder for him to get away with the clever steel works closures in the UK and re-opening in India. No carbon credit windfalls for Pachauri –> more hardship for India.
The logic is clear. Actually, it’s a beautifully twisted Alice-In-Wonderland logic.
You’ve got to hand it to the Met Office for demonstrating tremendous FAITH in the face of so much cold disappointment for the seasonal Winter forecast. Still holding out for a forecast of 55 percent chance of mild or warmer weather for the Winter of 2009/10 and 45 percent chance of colder weather, the Met Office faces the record temperatures in Scotland and England with a cold and steely determination. Snowed in their offices as train schedules are delayed and canceled, the hardworking staff use their work breaks in spirited discussions about the prospective trip time and maximum load weight of laden swallows launched from the roof of the Met Office and into the blustery storm towards distant France.
Meanwhile, the staff at CRU are engaged in a lighthearted scrum for dibs on Phil Jones’ office and computers….
It’s a Happy New Year, indeed.
Last “hot spot” on the south pacific, dwindling…the last WATTS from a cooling sea.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
[REPLY – Yikes! Look at that cooling spot spreading west off Peru! So much for El Nino! ~ Evan]
As you see, dear Evan, it is neither El nino nor la nina, both took vacations. If el nino then those cold waters along SA would be NOAA red in color, if la Nina, the Nino 3+4 region would be blue, then what is it?…
We are having the beginning of a Maunder like minimum but this time with satellites to watch it.
“No Climate Model Predicted flat or declining temps over the last decade”
Hansen Scenario ‘C’ did…of course we didn’t do half the stuff we were supposed to have to do to get to Scenario ‘C’….namely a dramatic decrease in CO2 emissions.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/Hansen06_fig2.jpg
I know I have post this already in the post talking the new records, but seems no one notice … so repost here … admin can delete this one if see fit.
Although snow is common in the Northern China, but this time it is spectacular. Maximum 8 inches of snow is recorded in Beijing in the last day or so, with Beijing hittng a temperature unseen since 1977.
Lately the Siberian Express has stationed in NE Asia, so I expect Northern China, Korea and Japan be the worst in the whole East Asia Monsoon Area. ( foreget the minimum temp in 60 years or 12 inches snow, it happens in the hill of Beijing … )
To my knowledge, El Nino have almost always bring warmer-than-normal winters to most of East Asia Monsoon Area, take Hong Kong as an example, the two exceptions since 1960 are 1982-1983 ( thanks to valcanoes eruptions ) and 1976-1977 winters. It would be really interesting to see this winter becoming such an exception.
January is usually the coldest month in East Asia Monsoon Area and I do not yet see an end to the current cold spell. However ECMWF do indicate that the cold air mass will somewhat shift westward in the second half of the month, bring some relieve to NorthEast China, Korea and Japan, at the expense of Southern China and may be Northern Vietnam, Central China will be cold anyway in both case…
I suppose Russian Far East is also in the East Asia Monsoon Area but I am not familiar with that place, so would not comment things happening there.