Over on the EU Referendum, Richard North points out the absurdity of media coverage on the arrival of spring. We’ve seen this before, for example at the Union of Concerned Scientists, they have this essay:
Early Warning Signs of Global Warming: Spring Comes Earlier
Even the daffodils are confused, though in that article the writer cites weather, not climate.
Here’s what North has noted about the confusion of the press:
Almost exactly three weeks ago, the press release queen, Louise Gray, was prattling about early springs as a result of global warming.
Fortunately for her, her kindly employer has spared her blushes, not requiring her to write the piece today, which tells us: “For those celebrating St David Day on Monday, there will be a noticeable absence of daffodils as the country’s growers say the cold snap has left their crops a month behind schedule.”
Britain’s “Arctic winter”, incidentally, was officially declared the coldest in 30 years “as parts of the country were lashed by gale force winds and torrential downpours.”
Strangely enough, almost exactly a year to the day, little Louise was writing under the headline, “Latest spring bloom at Kew for 20 years” – the strap reading: “After a succession of early spring blooms, flowers came out later this year than for 20 years because of the recent cold snap.”
Read the rest here at the EU Referendum
True. I’ve seen one measly bunch of half open daffodils, the snowdrops are still the big thing in the UK and they are a month late. The blackthorn is not in bloom in the hedgerows, and it is still bloody cold. The north of England and Scotland had substantial snow last week.
We have this popular TV programme called “Springwatch” and “Autumnwatch”. Not sure when this year’s Springwatch is about to start but one of the things they study is the phenological signs of first bumblebee, first ladybird (=ladybug) etc. across the UK. It will be interesting to see what data they collect this year. The 2010 website does not seem to be up and running yet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/springwatch/
This essay is full of old, semi-scientific “news”!
There’s a great deal of scientific literature that demonstrates an “a progressively earlier spring by about 2.3 to 5.2 days/decade in the last 30 years in response to recent climate warming.” (IPCC FAR, WG2, chapter 1, sections 1.3.5.1 “Changes in phenology”):
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch1s1-3-5-1.html
Table 1.8 “Changes in the timing of spring events” is particularly interesting reading.
Well I don’t know about where he has been, but usually in Califonia, it is summertime by the time March comes around. The fruit trees usually all have done their blossom thing in Early february.
Well not this year; there’s nothing greening or blossoming here in the south bay; I’m still raking leaves, and berries from the liquid amber tree on my front lawn.
I don’t know what sort of trees they grow in heaven, But I can tell you that the streets of Hell, are lined with Liquid Amber trees. Also the streets of Sunnyvale. Another one of those; ” Hi I’m from the Government; and I’m here to help you !” projects.
For US readers, St. David is the Welsh patron saint and daffodils are our national flower (and the leak). For several years as we all know spring has been early and March 1st ,St David’s day, has been full of daffodils- not this year, only green shoots visible.
PS another great post from W.E.
I’ve never seen any archeaologist not claiming that Neolithic henge monuments were developed so that early farmers knew when to plant their crops. It’s always seemed more likely, to me at least, that they knew enough to plant their barley when the hawthorn [may]) blossom was out (or whatever).
Here in Leicestershire there is a old saying “ne’re cast a clout [item of clothing] til may is out”. I guess this originally referred to the above blossom, but is is now thought to refer to the month of May.
At what temp does sping start?.
Ah, yes, April is the cruelest month.
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Louise Gray typifies the eviron-mentalists. No matter what ridiculous prediction they make and are found wanting, it does not deter or embarass them, they just butter up again with another idiotic statement or repeat the one that just failed.
Graph or line chart needed:
The increase of Antarctic sea ice is blamed on the Ozone Hole. However it is said the Ozone Hole is shrinking.
I can find a graph of the extent of the sea ice http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png
but I cannot find an up to date graph or chart showing the extent of the Ozone Hole. (not the CFC concentrations)
The Ozone Hole graphs end in 2005.
The current graphs show the years on top of each other instead of consecutively. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/polar/gif_files/ozone_hole_plot.png
Someone needs to make a graph going back in time as far as possible, showing the extent of the Ozone Hole and the extent of the Antarctic sea ice together to see if there is a relationship between the two as claimed.
Will someone here please plot this graph? I am not a scientist but I am seeking the truth in all these conflicting claims and these graphs are the most convincing.
Robert Smith
Wheaton Ill
CET spring 1660-2009 shows a trend of 0.270C /century
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET4.htm
As a soccer player and coach, it has become painfully clear in recent years that spring is coming later and later – with many games snowed out, and pleasant spring weather nearly non-existent. The same problem in the autumn with winter arriving earlier.
Richard North ended his peice with the words “The warmists have lost their grip on the “fear button”. They have been deprived of the one and only tool which could enable them to force through their agenda. The rest, like daffodils in spring, is only a matter of time.”
The truth is actually simpler. There never was a “fear button”, the alarmists only thought there was. They have been absurdly banging a big red button which is not even connected.
The reason is this. The public have little fear of natural events, and even less fear of hypothetical possible futures that might happen after they’ve died, any more than people fret over the much more frightening picture of old Sol becoming a red giant.
There is only so much fear that people can be aroused to feel, and this has always been aroused by occurrences much closer to home. At the closest level is the fear of actual attack by known individuals – persecution, blackmail or bullying. Beyond that are real economic fears; unemployment, credit destruction, years of “austerity programs.”
The “fear button” is perhaps more accurately a “guilt button.” And that’s all there ever was. Although people won’t be aroused to fear, they are much more easily aroused to guilt. However, after the disgraceful emotional blackmail tactics used by developing nations at Copenhagen, I would say the guilt trip has run its course.
As for the purported early arrival of spring…at least in North America…
White, M.A., K.M. de Beurs, K. Didan, D.W. Inouye, A.D. Richardson, O.P. Jensen, J. O’Keefe, G. Zhang, R.R. Nemani, W.J.D. van Leeuwen, J.F. Brown, A. de Wit, M. Schaepman, X. Lin, M. Dettinger, A. Bailey, J. Kimball, M.D. Schwartz, D.D. Baldocchi, J.T. Lee, W.K. Lauenroth. Intercomparison, interpretation, and assessment of spring phenology in North America estimated from remote sensing for 1982 to 2006. Global Change Biology (in press).
We found no evidence for time trends in spring arrival from ground- or model-based data; using an ensemble estimate from two methods that were more closely related to ground observations than other methods, SOS trends could be detected for only 12% of North America and were divided between trends towards both earlier and later spring.
My emphasis.
Phil Jones is currently being interrogated by MPs about his role in the Climategate Scandal. Unbelievably the first I heard about it was on the BBC. Graham Stringer MP (Manchester) was giving him a right grilling and Jones looked very ill and sickened by his role in the scandal IMO. I dread to think what his mental state is after he has been exposed as committing 20+ years of non-science.
Sorry for OT;
This sad story in the Daily Mail (UK) is very disturbing and shows how much the warming charlatans need to answer for.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1254619/Baby-girl-survives-shot-chest-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0gw4V50ru
Temps 3-6 degrees below average (44F on 3/11) forecast for Cleveland through the next 10 days. I’ve got daffs breaking soil nearly yearlong – sometimes under 2′ of snow, for weeks! They’ve done that for at least 40 years. You see, once they get warmed by the sun on any day they poke up and then just try to get them to dive back under! Oh, and it might snow here in May, too. In those years I suppose, just to be an alarmist, I should really fret over Global Warming.
We had one daffodil open yesterday, Sunday 28 February, here in Milford Haven.
Today has been warm, +9C, sunny and no wind. The local global cooling fan has not turned all day. I guess Spring has arrived.
RichieP (08:30:59) :
It’s St. David’s Day today, the Welsh national saint’s day. We of the Cymru wear daffodils to celebrate – though I personally prefer the leek alternative, a symbol which you can eat and which, at need, can also be used as a weapon against the English (qv Shakespeare’s Henry V). The absence of the daffs is very noticeable and unusual, even here in extreme southern Britain (Sussex), though they are now starting to poke their greenery up a bit and should be out in a week or so I assume. A small matter forsooth, but how will farmers and agriculture fare as a result of this winter and the possibly non-barbecue summer? Is there anyone here who can enlighten me on this?
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But hey, if the warmistas are right you’ll soon be raising grapes as far north as York.
Repeat a LIE, loud enough…long enough…eventually most people will believe it is the truth.
Source – Unknown…
If Spring keeps coming 11 days early, in about 33 years time it will be right back on schedule. However I think Spring is tricky, like Easter which is always early, or late, but never on time.
If Spring is arriving early, is it finishing early, or on time? If the former, are the other seasons moving up and may we look forward to Summer at Christmas?
How will this affect my birthday – will that start coming early too?
“So many questions; so little time,” said the March Hare.
“Quite right,” said Alice.
What do you mean a cold snap, it is a bloody cold long winter here in the UK.
We’ve had snapdragons bloom year round here in the high deserts of CA. One baby daffodil sprouted last week.
Nothing out of the ordinary for flowers. I will note that we’re JUST now seeing trees start to bud. Kinda late for this area by a few weeks.
It has been warm this winter here in Portland Oregon thanks to El Nino. Our daffodils have been blooming for the past two weeks. I can’t say the same for our family members in Minnesota!
I’d wager the reports of earlier spring come from urban/suburban areas. A good measure of UHI effects, which indeed could lengthen growing seasons by weeks.
Indication of anything other than local UHI effects, tho, it is not.