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?
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Tom W (11:57:12) :
Jimbo (11:39:05) : If you think linking to one article means you have ‘won’ the debate then you must be pretty new to WUWT.
I fear you are right. Scientific arguments seem to have little impact here.
___________________________________
Oh I don’t know some people have come in here with lots of ideas with data to back them up and have made rather strong impressions.
Science is not about beliefs and opinions, it’s about ideas and data, concepts about correlations that have substantive mechanisms as their inner working that can be verified and when applied actually generate forecasts that DO WORK!
Have you brought any of those with you today?
We can’t help it if you refuse to look at them, and instead rely on inaccurate alarmist claptrap…
CodeTech (12:21:30) : We can’t help it if you refuse to look at them, and instead rely on inaccurate alarmist claptrap…
Speaking of claptrap it is typical of climate discombobulators* to make vague unsubstantiated claims about ‘alarmist claptrap’ without ever even identifying it.
*Since won’t allow me to use the ‘d’ word even though they can freely use the ‘a’ word, this will have to do.
I love the fact the birds and the bluebells are doomed if spring comes 5 days earlier, and there doomed when its late! They cant win poor things!!!
Its like they believe the climate has never changed in the UK before and all the plants and birds are sensitive to a few tenths of a degree change – they need to get out into the real world!
Oh I don’t know some people have come in here with lots of ideas with data to back them up and have made rather strong impressions.
Really? Tell me about it. All I’ve seen is a lot of Gore bashing, unsubstantiated claims and cherry-picking.
Tom W,
In 2003, Europe had a couple of hot weeks and practically every news outlet in the world cited it as proof of global warming. It was widely described as “what we can expect during summers in the future” due to CO2 and global warming.
Sadly, I went to the beach in Christchurch (Dorset) a day or two before the heat wave that summer, and nearly froze. I keep hoping for some global warming as promised, but it never seems to happen.
So you english men are not going to have your “Estro” season this year. Kind of a “delayed love affaire” ☺
♪♪♪Oh my love searching for
I really need you
I really want you baby
I need you and I want you baby
Spring love – come back to me
I gotta have you baby ♪♪♪
“Have you brought any of those with you today?”
Let me bring you this.
Only this week, the president of the Royal Society of London Martin Rees on a visit to Australia told us once more that mainstream science is in agreement; climate is changing, it’s due to us and we need to worry. But why is this attitude, confirmed by leaders of academies and researchers in the field, so much disputed by so-called sceptics? Let me take you to a symposium set up by the American Association for the Advancement of Science especially to illuminate this quandary with facts. Five speakers, and the first is Riley Dunlap from Oklahoma State University, on science books.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2859986.htm
Urederra (03:21:28) :
“Waiting for a Climate Change or a Global Warming Journal, but I don’t want to search it, I am afraid of founding it.”
You sure as **** would:
Asia-Pacific Journal of Climate Change
Climatic Change
Climate Change Business Journal
Energy, economics and climate change.
Global climate change digest.
International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management
International Journal of Global Warming (IJGW)
Journal of Climatic Change
Journal of Water and Climate Change
Nature Climate Change
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
And I’m sure the list is far from complete. It’s getting pretty crowded on the gravy train….
Steve Goddard (10:00:18) :
It is one year of late blooming. There have been more years of early blooming. The trend is towards earlier although late can still happen. All you are doing is pointing out variation around a long-term trend, which to me, seems irrelevant and pointless.
Disprove the long-term trend towards earlier or this is a useless exercise.
Tom W (11:24:16) :
Bill Tuttle (10:46:27) :
The odds however favour small error. Without additional evidence it would be foolish to assume otherwise
“considering there was only random sampling of both the air and water temps in random locations which *didn’t* include Antarctica,”
Read this and get back to me
[hadobs.metoffice.com/crutem3/HadCRUT3_accepted.pdf]
Okay, I read it and I’m back.
From para 3.1, referencing marine and land area measurements:
“An uncertainty has been estimated for the correction”
“the uncertainty estimates cannot be definitive”
“where there are known sources of uncertainty, estimates of the size of those uncertainties have been made”
“there may be different sources of uncertainty as yet unquantified”
“the aim of weighting by area was to place more weight on the more reliable [land area] data source”
“in poorly observed areas [outside of the shipping lanes and] like the Southern Ocean, the [measuring and sampling] error is much larger”
So, the answer to my question, “How do you determine the *actual* temperature of an entire hemisphere when you don’t have the assets to measure it?” is, “You can’t determine the *actual* temperature — you can only take your best guess.”
And I actually *did* learn quite a bit about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into *gathering* data — thanks for the link!
Tom W (11:24:16) :
No matter what links you supply, the fact is that there was not a single permanent weather station in Antarctica before 1957. You never wondered why all the illustrations in that paper you linked to applied to 1969?
Digsby (04:45:25) :
But the GISS extrapolations showed Siberia to be many, many degrees above normal. WUWT???
AndrewP (14:07:05) :
Winter in the UK was coldest since 1963, and coldest in northern Scotland on record. Last winter was coldest in 13 years.
“Long-term trend” is often defined as climate types as “go back far enough to catch the upswing, but not far enough to catch the last downswing.”
Like in Greenland, where many climate scientists believe that time began in 1980, because the earlier years don’t work with CAGW theory.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=431042500000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
@Thomas J. Arnold
You say:
> But in some people’s small minds, a mild winter is a harbinger of greater and more serious consequences and put a few mild winters together and bingo! Man-made Global Warming.
And then segue neatly into:
> 2009 was quite cold, 2010 was even more so and I find that spring seems to be finding it’s old rhythm quite nicely and we will have bluebells in May as we did in the past~ no panic!
Do you honestly not see the irony?
See, Tom, this is claptrap. Once more, an appeal to authority.
Mainstream science is NOT in agreement. That’s an outright lie. But you seem to believe it.
Climate is NOT changing or even varying outside of previously seen norms. That’s an outright lie. But you seem to believe it.
It’s not due to us, because it’s not happening. We don’t need to worry because nothing out of the ordinary is happening.
But that won’t work, will it Tom? Because in your head that simply makes me a “denier” and you can safely ignore me. Isn’t that right? Because your Martin Rees is an “authority”, and you are appealing to authority. A valid debating tactic, if you don’t actually care about science or finding out the truth about something… if your only goal is to debate and mock those who disagree with your findings.
But the majority of regulars here on WUWT are definitely interested in finding out the truth about things, are very interested in the SCIENCE as opposed to the politics. So your feeble reply is valueless.
But do, please, try again. You are, unintentionally I’m sure, entertaining in your own way.
Spring is building up a massive explosion because of all the pent up energy of the cold weather delay? Gimme a break! Speaking as a Canadian who’s seem many a long cold spring, there is no sudden jump out of the starting gate. It simply warms up and the normal course of events take place.
tty (14:15:03) : No matter what links you supply, the fact is that there was not a single permanent weather station in Antarctica before 1957.
Which is why there are larger error bars over land earlier on (fig. 12). Had you read the paper you would have learned that the error is not fatal however since it is less than the observed warming signal. This is because
a) Antarctica represents only about 5% of the area of the Southern Hemisphere and
b) 80% of the southern hemisphere is ocean (vs 60% in the northern hemisphere)
The lack of observations in the southern hemisphere is therefore partially compensated by the fact that the surface air temperatures has a much smaller spatial and temporal variability over the ocean than over land and is therefore easier to estimate.
You never wondered why all the illustrations in that paper you linked to applied to 1969?
Actually Figs 10 through 17 go back to the mid to late 1800’s. Astonishing how often climate discombobulators mess up simple facts. If I didn’t know better I think it was deliberate.
My SIL and some family members took an early vacation on the Scottish coast.
She left after 2 days because of the cold, snow and rain.
CodeTech (15:21:57) :Mainstream science is NOT in agreement.
Nonsense. EVERY national science academy has issued a statement on global warming and none deny the influence of humans. The same is true of every related professional society.
The usual climate discombobulator argument:
They begin by claiming there is no consensus and when that is shown to be false they retreat to the claim that consensus is irrelevant.
Tom W (13:48:57)
the usual sententious nonsense. we can safely ignore climate prognostications from the Royal Society, or any other official institution that decrees an edict as a tablet of stone thrown from above. Thanks anyway. Lets stick to the data and variables across the entire range of climatology – herein lies the paradox – which no scientific institution, nay individual can fathom. The task is more complex than playing 200 games of chess simulataneously and winning them all blindfolded.
P Wilson (17:27:01) : “the usual sententious nonsense. we can safely ignore climate prognostications from the Royal Society, or any other official institution that decrees an edict as a tablet of stone thrown from above. ”
Far be it from me to infringe on you democratic right to ignore science or wear a loincloth.
FACT: In 1997 the “World Scientists Call For Action” petition called global warming “one of the most serious threats to the planet” and urged immediate action to control greenhouse gases. It was signed by many of the world’s most distinguished scientists, including the majority of living Nobel laureates.
Tom W (16:17:34) :
The UK Met Office has botched one long term forecast after another – always on the high side – and no one takes them seriously any more – not even The Guardian. But they do argue the consensus viewpoint, which should make you happy.
When scientific organisations issue statements of consensus that fly in the face of observational evidence, all they do is destroy their own credibility.