Guest post by Steven Goddard
Photo Credit : BBC News
Last April, I wrote an article titled Global Warming and “The Early Spring” which highlighted one of the favorite AGW myths, that CO2 is making winter warmer and spring arrive earlier. Here is the 2010 UK update.
In 2005, the BBC wrote this article :
Wildlife winces at early spring. A survey involving 65,000 wildlife sightings suggests that frogs and bumblebees are among the hardest hit. “Climate change is not something that is happening a million miles away – it is going on in our own back gardens,” said nature presenter Bill Oddie.
Here is one from Global Change Biology :
Early spring in Europe matches recent climate warming August 25, 2006 Conclusive proof that spring is arriving earlier across Europe than it did 30 years ago is published today in the journal Global Change Biology.
Real Climate wrote about it last year :
Breaking the silence about Spring. Early Spring has the potential to be immensely influential, a real turning point in the popular appreciation of climate change impacts among laypersons and scientists alike. Read it.
England – Earlier first flowering date. One of the most comprehensive studies of plant species in Britain revealed that the average first flowering date of 385 British plant species has advanced by 4.5 days during the past decade compared with the previous four decades: 16% of species flowered significantly earlier in the 1990s than previously, with an average advancement of 15 days in a decade. These data reveal the strongest biological signal yet of climatic change. Flowering is especially sensitive to the temperature in the previous month, and spring-flowering species are most responsive (Fitter and Fitter, 2002).
From The Daily Mail
Riot of colour: As spring comes earlier and earlier each year, such species as hawthorn and hornbeam will cut off more and more light to the bluebell which will cause it to decline disastrously
* So how is that warm winter/early spring theory doing in 2010?
From The Guardian
Severe winter delays bluebell season National Trust predicts three-week wait for nature’s blue carpets
Usually from about now they spring up in the far south-west then spread like a Mexican wave across Britain. But the National Trust says today that nature-lovers could have to wait until the end of the month before carpets of English bluebells begin to appear in woodlands. The charity believes that after the coldest winter for more than 30 years the English bluebell season is likely to be up to three weeks late. The plants depend on warm ground temperatures and the prolonged frosts will have impacted upon their ability to grow.
From The Guardian
Small is fatal for our songbirds in Britain’s great winter freeze. A survey by the public in Britain’s gardens reveals the toll on wildlife caused by weeks of Arctic conditions
Few people may have been wanting more evidence of the ferocity of recent weather. Nevertheless they got one from an unexpected source last week: the Big Garden Birdwatch. Organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), it involved members of the public reporting bird sightings in their gardens over the last weekend in January. More than half a million responses were received and a count showed precisely how this year’s winter – the coldest in 30 years – has taken a toll of the nation’s small songbirds, such as the goldcrest and the coal tit.
From The Guardian
Spring about to ‘explode’ in Britain, conservationists say Experts believe release of pent-up energy after such a long, hard winter could produce the most spectacular spring in years
From The BBC
Why is it going to be a stunning spring? I’s been the longest and coldest winter in years, but the pay-off will be a spectacular spring, conservationists say
Conclusion : An early spring is climate, but apparently a late spring is just weather. When can we expect retractions from The Guardian, BBC and Real Climate?
>>pwl (01:52:43) :
>>“… experts believe release of pent-up energy …”
>>Pent up energy? Eh? Where is it pent up? What kind of energy?
>>Heat energy? Cold energy? Electricity? Where is it stored?
>>What are they talking about?
Carbon-based chemical energy in plants, I presume. Normally, spring blossoms over a couple of months, this season it is all going to happen together in a couple of weeks.
.
Tom W (1:11:40) I beg to differ…Weather On Line 25C…Weatherunderground
24C …We have three numbers already 2 days after…Halifax Int AP that is…
Different thermometers?? The 1930’s were not just hot, also 10 of the US state
cold records still stand, I think…versus heat records: 25! And where do all
UHIs go…This energy just doesn’t disappear ??? Or???
A few more winters like those we’ve just experienced and they can resurrect and update this piece:
Newsweek, April 28, 1975:
Meanwhile, from AP, comes this latest scare of the day (see http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100405/ap_on_sc/us_northeast_flooding_climate )
To balance out all this hype, here’s what we’ve seen this winter in Buffalo — a short snow season that saw measurable snowfall only from 1 Dec 2009 to 28 February 2010, a rare event indeed. Guess we sent all our snow to D.C., Baltimore, & Philly, since we received nearly two feet less snow than normal.
CET spring temperatures 1660-2009
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET4.htm
“Pent up energy? Eh? Where is it pent up? What kind of energy? Heat energy? Cold energy? Electricity? Where is it stored? What are they talking about?”
That will be Gaia energy.
I have a tai chi video which talks of how you “feel” lighter and “feel” energized; both of which are true. But then it throws in energy-mass equivalence!
Staffan Lindström (02:55:43) PS. I just checked Environment Canada : Halifax
March EXTREME MAXIMUM : 19980331 +25,6C… April DITO: 20040430: +26,3C
Yes, Tom W … THANKS for the cherry jam…DS.
Climate change is coming. At least, political climate change.
Sooner the better too. Perhaps a new government lead by a different party will get off the AGW bandwagon and take a realistic look at the science.
What kind of papers would you expect to find in a journal called Global Change Biology? Lets look at its webpage: http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=1354-1013
Wow…peer reviewed. With that name I wonder if they accept papers showing ecosystems not being affected by anthropogenic global warming, or being affected positively.
Waiting for a Climate Change or a Global Warming Journal, but I don’t want to search it, I am afraid of founding it.
Anyway, the bluebell should be in Al Gore’s coat of arms, damned if the spring comes earlier, damned if it comes late. Either way is man’s fault, you can’t be wrong. Better than Nostradamus.
Ralph: Interesting graph. Do you have data for the last 10 years?
Unfortunately no. Here’s the data:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1278929/tj_jaat.XLS
C = melting day from the end of year
And here
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/trends-in-the-ice-breaking-date-in-the-tornio-river-finland
is amazingly stupid conclusions that changes are due greenhouse gases. Simple spline smoothing shows, that changes are mostly driven by solar activity. This would be worth more detailed analysis for those familiar with suitable methods.
Here’s the headline:
“Global Warming causes the coldest winter for more than 30 years”
There is a weather saying in Britain “Cast ne’er a clout ’til May is out” that is commonly taken to mean “Don’t shed any Winter clothing until the end of May”, but I recently heard another, perhaps wiser, meaning.
Hawthorn is also called the May Tree (as in “Queen of the May) so an entreaty that you cannot be sure of warm weather until the May tree is blossoming makes more sense. Love that weather lore.
““Climate change is not something that is happening a million miles away – it is going on in our own back gardens,” said nature presenter Bill Oddie.”
——————-
Reply:
Yeah, well, I’m now sitting in 4 inches of “Early Spring” and more is coming down as I write this. I expect the storm will deposit another 3 to 5 inches before it heads east, which it is doing at a very slow pace.
Happy SPRING!
Now, where did I put that snow shovel?
Spring – the time of warming days from winter and lengthening day length towards the summer solstice. Biological processes in nearly all organisms (at least those that live on the surface of this earth) are driven by photoperiodism – the precise measure of the number of hours of light versus that of darkness. Nearly all species of plants and animals use photoperiodism to maximise their reproductive output (and hence genetic capital) in the evolutionary process. To get ahead of the game, use photoperiodism as the clue for ‘good times ahead’ to drive the reproductive effort to produce offspring just when the maximum level of a food source will be available to the parent to feed the offspring. Do this by using the clue of lengthening day length to time your reproductive effort to maximise the survival of your offspring for future generations. But the genetics of photoperiodism is not necessarily temperature compensated, so a lengthening photoperiod combined with an ‘unusual’ increase in temperature can drive the reproductive effort to occur earlier than normal based on lengthening day length alone. However, this can increase your reproductive output for that (and other) seasons – meaning that you are potentially the big evolutionary winner and will inherit the earth. Such is Darwinism. It is beneficial that you breed earlier as most animals/plants will not breed that much longer as they eventually enter a photorefractory state and stop breeding – and this is not temperature compensated so the reproductive effort is terminated by a critical day length (for example late spring or summer) to allow the adult to recoup its energy requirements to survive the next bout of winter (or energy limitation) to allow it to breed in the next season (basically it is all about life long reproductive output). OK, the point is, that an earlier warmer spring means that the majority of spring breeders are benefited in evolutionary terms, not penalised. In short, bring it on for earlier warmer springs – it is the long harsh winters and late springs that will do you and your offspring in, but in the meantime you have potentially left sufficient more offspring behind to be ahead of your competitors. During periods of early springs (whatever the cause) results in major long term evolutionary impacts that take advantage – i.e. the early bird catches the worm. OK, this is pretty way-of-the-mark for the typical meteorological thread of this group but life is all about evolution and (at least in temperate climes) early springs mean good things for your reproductive output (talking non-homids here) and ones long term ‘genetic’ survival.
More signs of global warming! :o(
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Bill Oddie used to be funny. Now he’s just the “poster boy” for Top Gear speeding in Japan.
Springtime better be careful or Greenpeace will send it a threat.
@ur momisugly Tom W (01:11:40)
If we “cherry-pick” enough regions of the earth then we eventually approach a global data set, right? Okay, my contribution to the cherry basket are Russia and Siberia:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1260132/Russian-weatherman-strikes-blow-climate-change-lobby-announcing-winter-Siberia-coldest-record.html
“‘The winter of 2009-10 was one of the most severe in European part of Russia for more than 30 years, and in Siberia it was perhaps the record breaking coldest ever,’ said Dr Alexander Frolov, head of state meteorological service Rosgidromet.”
“Mr Frolov also offered bad news for Russians hoping for a speedy respite from the long winter.
‘We can officially say that beginning of the spring in Russia is postponed for another seven to 10 days,’ he warned.”
“Climate change adherents say the planet is warming due to man-made factors but Russian expert Professor Arkady Tishkov said yesterday that Siberia and the world are in fact getting colder.
‘From a scientific point of view, talk about increasing average temperatures on earth of several degrees are absurd,’ he said.
‘Of course we can’t say that global warming is a myth and falsification. In many regions of planet the temperature is higher than expected because of human impact.
‘But the climate system of the planet is changing according to different cycles – from several years to thousand of years.
‘From the scientific point of view, in terms of large scale climate cycles, we are in a period of cooling.”
Jimbo (04:29:27) : More signs of global warming!
Apparently Jimbo thinks
the UK = the globe.
I expect those who know it occupies less than 1/10th of 1 % of the surface of the Earth may find that difficult to swallow.
The Met Office have just announced that March was half a degree C warmer than ‘normal’. In fact, March was half a degree cooler than an average of the past 10 years – which is more ‘normal’ than a baseline. February was cooler, January was cooler, 2009 was cooler, and 2008 was cooler.
Staffan Lindström (02:55:43) PS. I just checked Environment Canada : Halifax
March EXTREME MAXIMUM : 19980331 +25,6C… April DITO: 20040430: +26,3C
Yes, Tom W … THANKS for the cherry jam…DS.
The Halifax record I cited (from the CBC) was for a particular day, 23C on April 4, 2010. The record you cite was the extreme for the entire month which occurred on April 30, 1980. It is no surprise that the former is less than the latter. What is surprising perhaps is that the April 4, 2010 temperature came within a couple of degrees of breaking the record for the entire month….even though it is early in the month.
With the record cold AO affecting the record cold winter weather in Europe and Asia, I went back to see how the negative AO affected the weather for the following spring and summer.
AO 1950-2009 [60 years]
Number of winters DEC, JAN, FEB AO all negative , 18 or 30%
Of the 18 all negative AO winter, 11 or 61% went negative to March as well[Indication of a cool spring?]
Of the 18 all negative AO winter, 13 or 72 % had negative months into the spring and summer [Indication of cool year?]
Regionally, UK and Europe could have a cool spring, summer and the year if historical patterns repeat. I notice that a negative AO although much less negative is still continuing into April as in the past.
I like this website for its content, but some of the articles are written in a very poor way. Why not raise the standatd a bit?
E.g. each article should have an abstract/summary which can be read quickly to get the main point of what the article is saying. Many of them just seem to ramble on and some require two reads before we can see what the point really is.
Another great element would be to have some proof reading and editing (I mean grammer and suggestions to the writer as to bits that appear to ramble/need rearrangement because to point gets lost) etc…
I am sure there are many here who would be willing to commit some time to that process.
Vukcevic[02:58:06]
Your graph well illustrates how spring tempertaures dropped during past 20-30 year cool climate cycles[ see 1900-1920’s and again 1960-1980’s]. Sign of things to come ?
CO2 News:
New King Coal: Spring comes early out there*.
…-
“Australian Port Congestion Gives Clues To A Staggering Surge In Demand From Japan, Korea, And China
Despite recent infrastructure expansions, Australian ports have been clobbered by an enormous rebound in demand for coal from Korea, Japan, and most notably… China.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2487503/posts
(*H/T Yogi B.)
And the baby seals are struggling! (this year in the Gulf of St Lawrence):
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/confusion-at-the-faz-weather-is-climate/