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
Regarding the debate over whether the Met Office predicted a flattening of temperatures. Another Gem of evidence from the BBC website itself, December 2003:
It’s our old friend Dr Jones! (but not the one with the whip….) speaking on behalf of the Meto / Hadley:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3325033.stm
“Heat high for 2003 but no record”
and I quote from the end:
“Professor Jones told BBC News Online: “October was about 2 C below normal in the UK, and although November was warmer than average it was not enough to compensate. The unusual aspect of this year for me was the summer heat in Europe, with nights in Italy which didn’t dip below 25 C. I won’t be going to Italy in August again. But we can expect nights like that here some time soon, though not as regular events. Globally, I expect the five years from 2006 to 2010 will be about a tenth of a degree warmer than 2001 to 2005.”
The prediction was that 2006-2010 would be 0.1C Warmer than 2001-2005. I’ve already done the calculation:
2001-2005 is 0.445C
2006-2009 is 0.394C
(All data from Hadley Series)
So, with ONE year to go we are currently -0.05C Cooler over the two periods. to get a FLAT temperature 2010 would need to be 0.65C – that indeed would be a new Hadley Yearly record temperature – and they have predicted this ;-|
Just to say for Dr Jones 0.1C prediction to come off, 2010 would need to be +1.15C………. LOL.
In reality they’ll be lucky to pull off a Flat Trend, most probably a Cooling over the decade.
Another man from the Met on BBC newsnight
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/newsnight
The MetOffices on Fri 27 Nov 2009 gave us “For northern Europe, including the UK, there is a 20% chance of a colder winter, a 30% chance of an average winter and a 50% chance of a milder winter”
Appart from allowing the Met to cover all their bases I don not see the point of using percentages for these seasonal forecasts.
Yertiz – I remember a comment from my long ago days living in Scotland – “every Scot who has left Scotland to live in England has raised the average IQ of both coiuntries.”
I stopped taking any notice of Met Office forecasts a long time ago. Ever since they became part of the AGW scam their reports have had to follow the political agenda as dictated by our appalling government, who have ignored Climategate as if it never happened. Today, the news reports that another £billion pounds worth of windmills are to be built offshore. The BBC reporter breathlessly tells us that they will supply 12million homes but there is no mention of what happens when the wind stops blowing.
Global Warming Perspective….
Imagine a 50 gallon sealed glass atmospheric container in your lab.
Inject it with a few more parts per million of co2, a miniscule amount.
It is physically impossible for those few molecules to catalytically influence a degree or two of temperature increase with sunlight.
The obvious source of any temperature change has to be the sun. We’d be a cold stone without it. Someday the sun will consume the earth. That will be a natural progression toward warming, so get used to it… not our fault…
Test the co2 theory with a vacuum chamber in the sun with variable co2 and see what you get… prove it….
This co2 idea is similar to those perpetual motion devices that claim to generate more power than is put into them. Bogus Alert !
If you buy the co2 trick, I also have a bridge to sell you….
Meanwhile, I’m going to take a nice hot bath, in my nice warm home, after my nice warm lunch… leaving my carbon footprints to settle in the snow….
How can you tell a climate scientist is lying? His lips are moving!
Sammy Wilson recounts a conversation with a man from the MetOffice during a climate chnge conference in the Channel Islands.
http://www.kane-tv.com/wa/sammywilson.html
“Do you use the same model for those short term predictions as you do for the long term predictions?
Yes we do.
Well if you can’t get it right 5 months ahead how do you hpe to get it right 50 years ahead?”
Apparently it’s easier to predict 50 years ahead than it is to predict 5 months ahead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The UK Local authorities are running out of salt and grit, in august they all met to decide at what level salt and grit stocks should be for this winter, they decided on 6 days, that decision was obviousely based predominantly on the advice from the Met office that this winter would be mild.
RSS MSU 12-2009: +0.24 °C. Rank: 7/31
Warmest December in this series was in 2003.
Average last 12 months: 0.26 °C
Barry Foster (09:48:30) : “Dodgy Geezer is correct. In the summer we can get some scorching days which has buckled rail lines and melted tarmac. Being right off the Atlantic we can also get strong winds. To be able to cope with anything would require massive investment…”
Massive investment will no longer be an option once Ali Pachauri and the 144 Thieves have looted the UK treasury to fund military action all across the Third World.
Alexej Buergin (10:03:03) : “…I find it amusing that in sports England always have the Red Cross ready at hand when they play a tough opponent.”
That’s for fans injured in the melee that accompanies the event.
Brits burning books to say warm.
Warning!! Do not switch to electric heat.
It cranks out at a 3.6% of capacity.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
If you bought a car that could go 100 miles per hour but you couldn’t go over 4 miles per hour? What would you do?
That is the result out of wind farms. 3.5% of rated output.
That translates to needing 30 times as many windmills as they promise you need.
Veronica (08:31:33) : You wrote: “…the reversal-in-direction-of-the-gulf-stream thing … Should I be worried? … ”
I’ve not actually seen this ‘warmist’ comment before and would like to know how this is supposed to work. I am not worried about it – just curious.
As the poles heat up and the tropics cool (global warming doncha know) the gulf stream will reverse warming all in its path. Just as it does now only in reverse. This will cause great ecological disasters because only fish that can swim backwards efficiently (not a common trait) can survive.
And due to a lack of food seals will die and thus polar bears will become extinct. Kittens and puppies will be affected as well.
Cryosphere satellite pics seem to have been adjusted to hide the snow cover of most of land areas, except in the “compare daily sea ice” pics. Any theories as to why?
I met with my local councillor today and he was bemoaning the Met Office October and November forecast of a mild winter. He said he wasn’t sure they would utilise the Mets foreasts anymore for planning their Salt/Grit supplies but wasn’t sure what else to do.
More reality disconnect:
Anyone else notice the background on the video??? That is London, or somewhere in England, right? Where’s the snow?
Mike D. (08:29:50) :
Nothing to see here, move along. Warmer is cooler, white is black, up is down.
Obviously, the current spell of extreme CAGW warm-cool is a denialist plot. I blame the Republicans. If only we had more windmills.
We have one windmill near our village (Kirklington, Nottinghamshire, UK), it has not moved for weeks.
Yes…there is the face of an old man with long white beard and wind-swept hair hovering over Ireland.
And now we have the ever-more ridiculous Ed Miliband assuring us that we shall be able to get all the power ‘every house in Britain needs’ from the thousands of off-shore wind turbines that he plans to erect in the North Sea.
I have to ask, how can a man (Miliband), who gives all the appearance of an educated and intelligent man (they don’t always go together), come to the conclusion that tens of thousands of horrendously expensive wind turbines are going to get this country out of debt and, furthermore, keep the lights on.
I even heard some spokesman for Scottish environment (on the news two nights ago) say that he can’t wait for the time when fossil-fueled and nuclear power will be switched off in Scotland! Well, they’re welcome to go back to the Dark Ages.
We live in strange times!
Most of Northern Ireland roads are just black ice. They were for the Christmas period, especially in estates and the country. I think they are expecting some snow though.
On a related note, my dad was on BBC NI the other day being asked his opinion about the lack of gritting streets. During the Christmas period I managed to put my point across about the whole AGW thing. It was basically this (apologies if you have read this point from me before)
“Okay, put all the natural variations, sun, El Niño and that aside, AGW is based on more CO2 means more forcing, as in a warmer surface. So you would think that someone has tested to see if re-emitted IR radiation by CO2 with realistic atmospheric components caused a surface to reach a certain temperature above the one without re-emission. And that adding more CO2 increases the temperature. They may even have modelled it. Now what if I told you nobody has reported that? All they have done is use basic physics of absorption-emission and assumed it would cause a surface to heat up. Yes, they haven’t EVEN TESTED IT. You can’t go and look up a data set to show you how it’s been characterised…”
We talked a bit more. He told me today that he can’t watch the BBC now when they talk about climate change. The first thing in his head is well how do you know that increasing CO2 caused an increase in the temperature of the Earth? He also suggested I get some money and test CO2 forcing myself with my colleagues (I’m a physicist but I build space engines for living). I am thinking about it. Use some NaCl glass for a start. Get a big solar sim for a heat source.
I’m also glad that my dad has a bit more understanding about how bloody hard science is to do
Wow…What a picture!
How long will the whole of Britain be covered in snow?
Link to today’s Edmonton Sun piece posted by Kevin @ur momisugly 09:15:55 is well worth the trip.
Key snippet:
”Edmonton was the coldest place in North America yesterday morning and the second chilliest in the world.
The Edmonton International Airport saw a record low of -46.1 C and -58.4 C with the windchill, outfreezing even the Arctic.”
-46.1 C is -51 F !!
IIRC in the last 55 years here in northern ND we had -50 F or better only 2-3 times. People who live in warmer climates have NO IDEA how cold that feels when you are outside in it; and how most powered machinery (especially including cars) don’t function unless they are kept warm.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6931584/Met-Office-chief-receives-25-pc-pay-rise.html
I watched this on John Hirst yesterday. John was recruited to the Met Office 2 years ago from Big Oil ICI. Of course now the greenie weenies adore him. Why did he get such a fat bonus last year and waste so much money?
Fat cats R US???
Merrick, yes it is but it is also intimidation of opponents in sport normally associated with cricket. Australian players are notorious sledgers especially against Englishmen but all nations seem to do it. Wikipedia gives the complete history.
I would imagine that there is a lot of both types of sledging going on in the UK, Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales at the moment like:
“Hey Mr Hirst, don’t stick your finger out of the window, you will get frostbite”, “Interested in coming around to my place for a barbecue Mr Hirst?”, “I do wish we could chat longer Mr Hirst but I’m having an old friend for dinner,” “Tell us Mr Hirst, is this the first once in thousand year event?” etc etc.
Traciatim – this is a very poor response by the Met. Note that the time frame is one week, vs one month of cold temps. That is 4 : 1, a larger statistical difference than the 3 : 1 ratio that the very same Met officials complain about when we point out that it hasn’t warmed for a decade vs the Climate Science standard of thirty years. Plus, if it’s only the fifth warmest year, that’s a 50 / 50 split, which does mean that the climate for now is not warming.
The “drought” is not due to lack of rainfall. It is due to judges sitting on benches ruling that water can not be stored or pumped from one location to another. So we will need to get much more rainfall than “normal” in order to get a “normal” amount that can be distributed to towns and farmers. Entire regions of farming have been shut down due to these rulings by people who are not elected and have “lifetime” terms.