No it’s not a time warp photo of Dicken’s time, it’s from the NASA MODIS satellite imager this week. This is like one of those “spot the cow in this photo” images, looking for the UK in a sea of white.
It must be having quite an impact in the UK. According to UK resident and WUWT commenter “borderer”:
Every single newspaper in the UK has published the following satellite image of the UK today – it shows the entire country in glowing white – snow and ice now appears the entire British Isles from John O’ Groats at the Northern tip of Scotland – to Landsend in Cornwall.
Despite this – and we are now in our 25th day of sub zero temperatures – the MET Office put up a spokesman on Newsnight last evening claiming that their forecast for a ‘very mild winter’ had ‘only been a probability!!
In other news, the Met Head gets paid extra even for botched forecasting. Remember the “BBQ summer” forecast?
“Mr. Hirst, you predicted a barbeque summer for 2009 – we don’t remember that – and a mild winter for this winter, which hasn’t happened. Why did you get a massive performance related bonus?“
h/t to Kate at SDA
How about a satellite photo of Europe.
I’m sure a good part of Europe is white too. In Germany we’ve had snow everywhere and we’re getting more the entire weekend.
M. Simon
That aint Jesus! It’s al Gore.
His Alaska exhibit been moved to England…er, I mean the UK!
Just heard david cameron[a possible future prime minister] criticising the government about the dwindling supplies of road salt…,,’we can expect many such unusual events in the future’ ..obviously alluding to ‘climate change’..they just don’t get it do they?
In Germany, many municipalities have run out of road salt
“Peter Hearnden”,
–Amazing what a few days of cold weather does to all those people who have denied the reality of decades of warming. Cold weather equal climate change, warm weather equals deny it….–
No, what this cold weather does is put paid to those fools who claimed – like you did – that individual weather events were evidence or supportive of manmade climate change.
I hope your hogs are doing well in this weather, I do like my pork. Make sure they don’t get buried yes?
My understanding of this cold weather is that it is caused by the jet stream moving to lower latitudes and causing “blocking”. Warmer tropical air can’t get in and polar air can’t get out. This leads to an interesting dynamic.
The warmer air masses must continue to get warmer and the colder masses will continue to cool. This will lead to a greater and greater temperature gradient. At some point the blocking must end, and the extra energy will be unleashed. All this warmer moist air will break over the polar masses, spilling gargantuan amounts of snow.
Is this a real possiblility or am I misunderstanding weather? Any meterologists care to comment?
If this is true…
The American “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg has some crackerjack ideas for letting the pay of business execs, brokers, etc, be a more honest expression of their performance. One of those was… well, pay-for-performance. If these guys’ forecasts are going to influence or help set expensive policy-making, let their pay be retroactive. If they make two-year prognostications, let their pay be served up in 2012. If they want to make decade-long predictions (and hit the mark) they should get the big bucks – in 2020.
Stock options in lieu of big bonuses can keep private CEOs and CFOs focused on honest and defensible work instead of family vacations in Bimini, and they are only redeemable in the distant future when the company makes a profit. Why can’t some kind of similar system of restraints be applied to government workers?
At what point does global “weather” anomalies become “climate”?
It would seem to me that consecutive cold/severe winters (2007, 2008, 2009 now) across the world is climate. No?
JohnH (09:44:53) :
Oldseadog (09:51:44) :
So, was there a moderation lag and you didn’t see my correction just below that post?
Say, can you help me on a small matter? With my mixed heritage on my father’s side, I was told I have both Scottish and Irish ancestors But that was Welsh Irish, which is important. What was my father talking about?
Last time we had snow like this was at the end of our last Labour government, but please remember correlation does not equal causation.
Local weather report from a bit to the left of London was an overnight low of -5C, so not that bad. Or wouldn’t have been if a 9″ water main hadn’t burst, denying me my nice hot shower and coffee. Fortunately, I’d planned ahead and had a case of beer global warming outside and had a pleasent day helping the neighbour’s kids build snowpeople.
Roads still not good, partly due to drivers not being used to them and councils not gritting them. Ploughing many UK side roads is probably somewhat hampered by council’s love of ‘traffic calming’ by sticking speed humps in roads, no doubt sponsored by suspension manufacturers. After the last lot of snow a couple of weeks back, also expecting lots of surface damage to the roads.
But all is not lost, we’ve also just announced a massive expansion in off-shore windfarms, which will cost more than nuclear plants and be a lot less reliable. Looking on the bright side, not long to go till the UK* is under new management.
*Yes, I know, Scotland and Wales have semi-independence, but if Scotland had only pushed harder, you could’ve had your MP’s back.
This concludes the test to see if Ireland, Wales, and Scotland were listening.
(I saw that John Mitchell, an “AGW scientist” since the 80s, is chief scientist at Met Office and works with moddeling at Hadley.)
When people get a taste of real cold, they will beg for warming.
If you haven’t seen it already
“Global warming is happening, even if it doesn’t feel like it”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-is-happening-even-if-it-doesnt-feel-like-it-1858998.html
Wales is a fictional country.
Oh My God!
It’s COLD in January inthe Northern hemisphere.
Shock- horror! Stop the presses!
Working on a contract in Winnipeg myself, I can report that Windchill driven -41C is a lot colder feeling than just -40C straight.
It’s nice to see the locals take in stride though. (“When you go outside to smoke your cigarette, make sure that your drink has enough alchohol, it’s embarassing when it freezes.”)
As to Brits and weather – we all realize that you can’t plan for EVERY extreme, but it’s amazing how the weeniest bit of prep, like a bag of sand in the trunk and shovel can make your life less miserable. Ditto things like buckling RR tracks in the heat – GUYS – this is 150 y.o. technology, pay attention already, that’s a solved problem that costs basically nothing to plan and account for at build time.
Here in Anchorage Alaska, it has been our normal winter so far. There is only so much cold air to go around, so when it is very cold up here, it is reasonable in the Lower 48. When it is very cold down south, it is decent up here. That works well until it gets to be February when the analogy breaks down and it is cold everywhere. Our cold air tends to come in from either Siberia or over the pole. It will build in a high over the state for 1-3 weeks at a time.
Those that aren’t used to snow and ice can also use cat litter to improve traction on steps, sidewalks and driveways. While it doesn’t melt the ice like salt will do, it does provide traction and tends to be a bit easier on the lawns and gardens afterwards. Stay warm –
K. Bray (08:44:13) :
I see “Puff the Magic Dragon” talking to “Winnie the Poo” with a bow tie on his head.
Could be Deputy Dawg riding away from them cotton pickin’ bandits from Copenhagen on a squealing pig.
On the day we had this mind numbing stupidity from the Met Offfice (‘freezing is really warming’…) and fellow travellers in the warmist denial movement, we have an announcement from the government about 1000’s of new wind turbines and a cost of at least £100 bn.
I was the hills of Central Wales the other day with the temperature at -10C with huge demand for power on the grid. Not one of the 100 wind turbines at the neaby Llnadinam Windfarm was working. No wind, therefore, no Power. A month ago there were huge storm force gales and again few turbines working – too much wind, therefore, no power???
The Andrew Neil interview, for me, turned this into a shooting war. Up until this I had just seen the MO as a bunch of deluded clowns but once he started with every trick from the slimy politician handbook I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“If you go back you will find that we predicted, in fact, the levelling off of the global temperatures”
That would be while heading for our Mediterranean climate would it John?
(Fifty days to save the world Gordon?)
Exactly how long ago did Paul Hudson find himself a the centre of a very nasty [s snip]storm for asking “whatever happened to Global warming”?
I am getting real tired of these clowns. As one fantasy outcome is exposed another ten take it’s place. All well within our “ensemble” of possible outcomes.
If I went to the race track and placed a bet to win on every horse in a particular race do I really have a system? Even where 20 horses in 21 horse race don’t move, I still get to claim victory.
The truth is that a child tossing a coin has had better predictive “skill” than the MO. Unless of course it is already snowing at which point they may tell is that it mightcontinue. While the rest of the staff get busy re-writing history.
You can see the problem. Politicians want numbers and certainty, modellers give them that. Well, we can say with 80% confidence that at least one of the horses will win the race. What is truly frightening is that they then chain disparate “models” together with the same air of confidence.
Climate model outcome matrix X financial model outcome matrix = ?.. not “skill” and that is for sure.
The “movement” look like roaches scurrying for cover as the lights come on. It is long past time that a political leader in the UK grew a spine and said enough is enough. Congratulations John Hirst, I had thought that the MO, BBC and the sustainable green agenda could just be passed off as deluded clowns. You are actually just as dangerous to mankind as any weapon.
I’m now firmly with Gerald Warner .. That is the answer: Zero Tolerance of “Green” agendas.
Alexander (08:55:46) :
I was interested to read this morning that the Ministry of Defence has just cancelled 25% of the Met Office’s budget without comment.
Just canceled? As in addition to the 25% cut in June? See
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/28/uks-met-office-loses-25-of-its-funding/
(Note two 25% cuts add up to 37.5%. After the first, 75% remains, 75% of that is 9/16th, and that’s 62.5% remaining.)
Or is this just another example that WUWT is the place to hear things before they’re just news?
Weather: The results of abnormally cold local temperatures
Climate: The results of abnormally warm local temperatures
Once you accept these two definitions the Guardian climate reporting starts to make sense.
Met Office Levelling off.
Mati Milstein
for National Geographic News
August 9, 2007
Warming due to climate change will level off in the coming years, researchers predict based on a new climate model. But then temperatures will kick back up and continue rising into the early 2010s, producing record highs.
In fact, about half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998, the hottest year on record, scientists say.
The new model, created by researchers at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, is the first to predict such specific fluctuations in global climate.
Doug Smith, a scientist at the Met Office and co-author of a paper on the new model, warns that the initial leveling-off should not be seen as countering previous predictions about global temperature increases.
Oh, and one last definition:
Abnormal: any deviation from same time last year.
… his “massive performance related bonus” is stashed in the East Anglian saddle bag at the back. Dag Nabit!