Excerpt:
In 2003, Putin amazed scientists when he speculated that a global warming by “two or three degrees” could be a good thing for Russia as its people would no longer need fur coats.
A press conference hosted by the RIA Novosti state news agency ahead of Cancun provided some indication of official attitudes. Called “Climate Change: myth or reality?” it gave a platform to a leading climate sceptic academic.
“Climate is a concept that has existed as long as the Earth exists… several hundred million years ago the temperature was 10-13 degrees higher than now,” said Yury Israel, director of the Institute of Global Climate and Environment at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“What is happening now is not some kind of unusual special case,” he said, adding that life flourished on Earth at the time of dinosaurs.
Full story here
h/t to WUWT reader Jorge Kafkazar
It’s going to take more than two or three degrees to get rid of the need for fur coats in Russia.
Molodtsi.
From an earlier WUWT comment by oakwood who read a comment by Trofim on the Guardian’s website regarding historical Russian temps:
1298: There was a wholesale death of animals. In the same year there was a drought, and the woods and peat bogs burnt.
1364: Halfway through summer there was a complete smoke haze, the heat was dreadful, the forests, bogs and earth were burning, rivers dried up. The same thing happened the following year . . .
1431: following a blotting out of the sky, and pillars of fire, there was a drought – “the earth and the bogs smouldered, there was no clear sky for 6 weeks, nobody saw the sun, fishes, animals and birds died of the smoke.
1735: Empress Anna wrote to General Ushakov: “Andrei Ivanovich, here in St Petersburg it is so smoky that one cannot open the windows, and all because, just like last year, the forests are burning. We are surprised that no-one has thought about how to stem the fires, which are burning for the second year in a row”.
1831: Summer was unbearably hot, and as a consequence of numerous fires in the forests, there was a constant haze of smoke in the air, through which the sun appeared a red hot ball; the smell of burning was so strong, that it was difficult to breathe.
The years of 1839-1841 were known as the “hungry years”. In the spring of 1840, the spring sowings of corn disappeared in many places. From midway through April until the end of August not a drop of rain fell. From the beginning of summer the fields were covered with a dirty grey film of dust. All the plants wilted, dying from the heat and lack of water. It was extraordinarily hot and close, even though the sun, being covered in haze, shone very weakly through the haze of smoke. Here and there in various regions of Russia the forests and peat bogs were burning (the firest had begun already in 1839). there was a reddish haze, partially covering the sun, and there were dark, menacing clouds on the horizon. There was a choking stench of smoke which penetrated everywhere, even into houses where the windows remained closed.
1868: the weather was murderous. It rained once during the summer. There was a drought. The sun, like a red hot cinder, glowed through the clouds of smoke from the peat bogs. Near Peterhoff the forests and peat workings burnt, and troops dug trenches and flooded the subterranean fire. It was 40 centigrade in the open, and 28 in the shade.
1868: a prolonged drought in the northern regions was accompanied by devastating fires in various regions. Apart from the cities and villages affected by this catastrophe, the forests, peat workings and dried-up marshes were burning. In St Petersburg region smoke filled the city and its outlying districts for several weeks.
1875: While in western europe there is continual rain and they complain about the cold summer, here in Russia there is a terrible drought. In southern Russia all the cereal and fruit crops have died, and around St Petersburg the forest fires are such that in the city itself, especially in the evening, there is a thick haze of smoke and a smell of burning. Yesterday, the burning woods and peat bogs threatened the ammunitiion stores of the artillery range and even Okhtensk gunpowder factory.
1885: (in a letter from Peter Tchaikovsky, composer): I’m writing to you at three oclock in the afternoon in such darkness, you would think it was nine oclock at night. For several days, the horizon has been enveloped in a smoke haze, arising, they say, from fires in the forest and peat bogs. Visibility is diminishing by the day, and I’m starting to fear that we might even die of suffocation.
1917 (diary of Aleksandr Blok, poet): There is a smell of burning, as it seems, all around the city peat bogs, undergrowth and trees are burning. And no-one can extinguish it. That will be done only by rain and the winter. Yellowish-brown clouds of smoke envelope the villages, wide swaithes of undergrowth are burning, and God sends no rain, and what wheat there is in the fields is burning.
Well, Russia doesn’t need to embrace alarmism, it already has a totalitarian system; certain factions in the West seem desperate to catch up and see AGW alarmism as an ideal vehicle for achieving similar totalitarian results.
“Well, Russia doesn’t need to embrace alarmism, it already has a totalitarian system”
-It also doesn’t need anything to stand between the oligarchs and their oil.
If there is a country that knows what cold is it’s Russia. I think that’s why they are good
Spacers….
scott ramsdell says: (November 27, 2010 at 7:50 pm) From an earlier WUWT comment by oakwood…
Well worth repeating, Scott. Thanks.
scott ramsdell says: Wrote
November 27, 2010 at 7:50 pm
(Russian fire history lesson) Thanks.
It seems to me, with modern man’s fire fighting capabilities, have we not altered the earth’s climate by extinguishing fires in the modern age? It would be nice to see a good scientific study on this issue.
I still don’t understand why the “harryreadme.txt” file is being ignored.
That document shows total corrupted data was used for history.
Climategate emails say original data was deleted.
Am I wrong?
If CO2 increase follows higher temps by 800 years or so…
could our current increased CO2 be caused by the MWP?
Russians have far too many “real world” problems than worrying bout a little warming. If anything, most Russians would prefer a little warming.
Russia steadfastly denied that Y2K was going to be an issue. I heard a Russian computer scientist interviewed on the radio back then who said that Y2K was a crisis manufactured by American computer consultants to create windfall profits. Then they immediately interviewed an American computer expert who said nudge, nudge, wink, wink, “We all know what those Russians are like- not very sophisticated, etc.” Y2K turned out to be a big scam where the public were bilked out of billions and in countries like Russia, where the did virtually nothing, nothing happened. The swine flu H1N1 “pandemic” last year was another scam where the public were separated from billions of dollars and in countries like Poland, where they did nothing, nothing happened. The subprime mortgage scam, of course separated the public from trillions of dollars. I long for the old days when entrepreneurs gathered together a band of bullies, smashed people on the head, took their crops and then declared themselves rulers forever. At least working people back then didn’t have to put up with the constant fear mongering that we live with. Anyway, if the Russian politicians still say no to AGW, I say maybe its because they are still bashing their citizenry over head to separate them from their earnings. When they learn the modern techniques of profiteering, look for them to embrace AGW, H1N1 and the heartbreak of psoriasis.
“Despite hellish summer, Russia says “nyet” to AGW”
Despite two ice-laden winters U.S., government officials say “yes” to AGW. What happened to the “weather is not climate” argument of the AGW crowd where Russia is concerned? If its hotter than average, it’s AGW. If it’s colder than average, it’s “manmade climate disruption”.
Someone should explain to U.S. officials that “average” is a derivation of a series of numbers that seldom, in and of themselves, hit “average”.
Mike Restin says: (November 27, 2010 at 9:37 pm) I still don’t understand why the “harryreadme.txt” file is being ignored.
I don’t either, Mike.
Check “Is it in their Nature to lie?” — The Devil’s Knife agrees with us wholeheartedly.
We had also the hottest summer in record in Finland. However, the previous record was from 1914… when the wind blows persistently from the southeast in July, Finland will enjoy record warmth, global warming or not.
http://ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/weather/climate_4.html#4
Horror summer? At last a little bit warm. Something that the rest of world enjoys every year.
Global warming is not harmful. Sahara is getting greener. Russia and Greenland are areas where humans do not live because it is no cold.
Russians has the right to be selfish like Americans. They have oil and natural gas. There is no reason to abandon these.
The Russians have a long history of warming dreamings. In the 1950s they had this massive engineering project on the table which was to ‘reverse’ the north flowing rivers. This was primarily for irrigation purposes, but the depriving of the arctic ocean of fresh water might make it ice-free. And and ice-free arctic would have significant climate feedback and allow farming much further north. Anyway, with the 40s and 50s warming, there had already been talk among scientists that the Arctic might soon be ice free regardless – and that this was climatic-wise a fairly normal condition…and unquestionably most favourable.
Then in 1956 these Yanks (Ewing and Donn) came up with the idea that an ice-free arctic was what actually triggered Ice Ages. Their theory was pretty far fetched but it was resillient in the political climite of the West – and it made the Ruskies’ scheme look pretty stupid. The Ice Age story was picked up and spun out in the USA press and Ice Age scare continued to ebb and flowed through the late 50s to the 1970s.
Western scientists opposed the Russian scheme and it became a bit of a cold war thing, but the up side of this interest was that Western scientists started to show an interest in Russian research. At the height of the cold war, from the late 1960s, Russian science was translated and published, including a secular global temperature graphs which were the authority in the USA until 1981 the new standard was born of James Hansen’s pen.
Moscow forecast for Mon 29th Max -11 C. The average maximum for December is -3.5 C. The outlook is for it to get even colder over the next few days.
http://worldweather.wmo.int/107/c00206.htm
Well it may have been warm in Russia last summer, but here in the UK we have had the coldest November temperatures since records began.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11855579
Mike Restin says:
November 27, 2010 at 9:37 pm
I still don’t understand why the “harryreadme.txt” file is being ignored.
Totally agree… it was the killer blow for me…
So I guess it must have been translated into Russian and Chinese…
Roger Carr says:
November 27, 2010 at 10:16 pm
The Devil’s Knife agrees with us wholeheartedly.
Thank you the link… wonderful article… and their use of the Anglo-Saxon word beginning with F expresses my outrage… especially as that is what the AGWers are trying to do to everyone else.
Jarmo says:
November 27, 2010 at 10:36 pm
We had also the hottest summer in record in Finland. However, the previous record was from 1914… when the wind blows persistently from the southeast in July, Finland will enjoy record warmth, global warming or not.
Helsinki-Vantaa forecast for Mon 29th Max -16 C. The average maximum for December is -0.8 C. The outlook is for it to get even colder over the next few days.
http://worldweather.wmo.int/061/c00168.htm
Reality check: summer temperatures in Central Russia grid
http://i56.tinypic.com/2w4zg44.jpg
July was really warmest evah, but June/August were not warmer than in the past. Overall trend: zero.
Reason: atmospheric blocking
Connection with CO2: none.
It looks like the iron curtain alive and well, and acting like a firewall-protecting Russia from the avalanche of socially-engineered pseudo-science, MSM propaganda and political PR bombarding the West. It seems that in Russia, we can at least hear from scientists and journalists that haven’t been bought and paid for, and are therefore impartial. (Imagine the ‘settled science’ furore that would have come from the USA, had they have experienced similar conditions.)
I say keep up the info from Russia, they seem to be a beacon of sanity.
The Russians have just emerged from 80 years of a stupid debilitating dogma called communism, based on the rantings of Marx, Lenin, Stalin etc.
Not surprisingly, they don’t want another 80 years of another stupid debilitating dogma called AGW, based on the rantings of Mann, Jones, Briffa etc.
Michael says:
November 27, 2010 at 9:17 pm
It seems to me, with modern man’s fire fighting capabilities, have we not altered the earth’s climate by extinguishing fires in the modern age? It would be nice to see a good scientific study on this issue.
That is a fantastic observation! I’ve often said that the apparent rise around 1970 in global temperature just happens to coincide with the advent of clean air acts around the world, but it never occurred to me that we may actually be using fossil-fuel powered fire engines to reduce atmospheric pollution levels beyond the “natural” level pre-fire-engine technology fire-planes, etc.
Fortunately, nature being nature, you can reduce the number of fires for a while, but sooner or later the critical level of burnable brushwood makes it virtually impossible to contain any fire and eventually the whole backlog of burnable material goes up in one go – evening out the score!
Anthony, Isn’t it fun that the Met Office brought out they’re ‘warmest year ever’ just before the deep freeze hits Britain, once again – -17 in some parts, though the good old Met wants only to say ‘officially’ -10? Of course the year isn’t quite over but whats that to the prospect of another junket in Cancun?!
The average Russian citizen has a well developed BS detector – this is a consequence of being lied to by authoritative “experts” for decades…
These warmists are amateurs by comparison.
The UK Met office have just announced that 2010 has been the hottest year on record. My first reaction to this given the UK’s cold winter and spring, followed by a patchy summer and now snow in November was ‘They have got to be joking, who on earth do they think they are trying to kid’. On reflection, the happenings in other parts of the world are far more important in this context than my back yard but didn’t the parts of the US experience record low temperatures last winter?
Couldn’t help but notice the following :
“Although Medvedev has indicated his concern at climate change, scepticism in academic circles remains due to Putin’s position, since Russian science depends on government funding, Chuprov told AFP.”
It’s OK for western climate scientists to be beholden to government largesse but it’s dishonest when the Russians do it. Greenpeace hypocrite.
Russia will look out for their own interests, much like every other country. Were what is being predicted come to pass and the Arctic warms 4-6 degrees, Russia and Canada are the big winners. Why in the world would they want to stop something that would make much more of their land useful?
A gentleman from Russia’s Greenpeace writes:
…. Although Medvedev has indicated his concern at climate change, scepticism in academic circles remains due to Putin’s position, since Russian science depends on government funding, Chuprov told AFP….
Seems that the Russin scientists do value their governmental grants…. Were they funded by EU or US research agencies then they might take another stance :)…
But Mr. Chuprov again – unconsciously probably – explained the reason for “the consensus”. Since he sees the world this way then it strongly indicates how Greenpeace plays it worldwide – pressuring politics over (willful) “science” :).
Anthony,
I thought you might like this
Heatwave warning for 2070
http://www.connexionfrance.com/Paris-same-climate-Seville-in-2070-12303-view-article.html
rg
@RG
Late prof. Marcel Leroux has explained the processes leading to heat waves and flash floods. In fact, he has analysed the Paris heatr wave of 2003, and flash floods in South of France.
His conclusion was that the mechanism has more to do with atmospheric circulation originating in polar areas, having nothing to do with average temperature. And he describes this circulation as one having quite complex vertical structure. He commented that climate models cannot account for it. And even meteo models do not capture this. I do not recall that th meteorologists were able to predict when the heat wave in Moscow area would terminate, neither how long the rain in Pakistan would continue. And the physics behind these events were qualitatively explained by prof. Leroux.
It is a bit sad that someone can offer prediction of some phenomena while not possessing a good physical model explaining it.
But Cancun is on the horizon 🙂
Anthony – Record cold in UK at the moment!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11855579
Stonyground,
The Met Office haven’t said that this year is the warmest on record, they’ve said so far it appears to be. The year hasn’t ended yet and this late November and December has to be accounted for. My suspicion is that, anticipating a very cold winter (even they can do that!), they wanted to get the word out before, especially before Cancun. As far as I am concerned, the Met Office press section has little to no dignity when it comes to being straight.
Stonyground says:
November 28, 2010 at 1:21 am
“The UK Met office have just announced that 2010 has been the hottest year on record. My first reaction to this given the UK’s cold winter and spring, followed by a patchy summer and now snow in November was ‘They have got to be joking, who on earth do they think they are trying to kid’.”
Yeah!it’s truly unbelievable!!
With
“1,000 Records Broken: May Cold and Snow
May 11, 2010; 1:04 PM ET
UPDATE 5/12: The number of low + low max records has increased with yesterday’s data, to 384 (156) + 540 (46) = 924 (202), not including ties, where () indicates Eastern U.S. only. Even more impressive, >>>19 monthly snowfall records were set (in other words those stations had never seen a snowier May), and >>>190 daily snowfall records were set. And it’s snowing again, heavily in the West this week. In Fort Collins, Colorado, this has helped to add to the >>>3rd snowiest winter.”
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/weathermatrix/story/31417/may-cold-and-snow-from-west-to-east.asp
Temperature plummets to record low
Record low temperature for November in Northern Ireland
The lowest recorded temperature in Northern Ireland for November has been recorded overnight on Sunday 28th Nov 2010.
In Wales, the temperature plummeted to -17.3c.
The models predicted this.
http://www.u.tv/News/Temperature-plummets-to-record-low/05c45a94-f8df-4744-9eaa-991da9b200c4
AGW Obituary.
“Copenhagen was not a political breakdown. It was an intellectual breakdown so astonishing that future generations will marvel at our blind credulity. Copenhagen was a classic case of the emperor with no clothes.”
Margaret Wente.
…-
“Can environmentalism be saved from itself?”
“Maybe it was just a bad dream.”
“Just a year ago, 15,000 of the world’s leaders, diplomats, and UN officials were gearing up to descend on Copenhagen to forge a global treaty that would save the planet. The world’s media delivered massive coverage. Important newspapers printed urgent front-page calls for action, and a popular new U.S. President waded in to put his reputation on the line. The climate talks opened with a video showing a little girl’s nightmare encounter with drought, storms, eruptions, floods and other man-made climate disasters. “Please help the world,” she pleads.”
“Mercifully, nobody will pay attention to the climate conference at Cancun next week, where a much-reduced group of delegates will go through the motions. The delusional dream of global action to combat climate change is dead. Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme is dead. Chicago’s carbon-trading market is dead. The European Union’s supposed reduction in carbon emissions has been exposed as a giant fraud. (The EU is actually responsible for 40 per cent more CO2 today than it was in 1990, if you count the goods and services it consumed as opposed to the ones that it produced.) Public interest in climate change has plunged, and the media have radically reduced their climate coverage.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/can-environmentalism-be-saved-from-itself/article1815408/
scott ramsdell says:
November 27, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Thanks Scott.
We, in the UK, had another symptom of ACD this week, record low November:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11855579
Exactly, Barry Day, there just is no cogency in the Met Office’s assertions. It isn’t just anecdote that last year we had, all over the Northern hemisphere (where, of course, most of the measurements are taken) that last year was one of the coldest winters measured and, probably, this year will be worse. How many of our elders have to die of hypothermia before this global warming nonsense is knocked on it’s head
maybe stationary planetary waves are responsible. It looks like a warm crest of the wave, mostly located over western europe, tends to relocate over eastern one, thus making w.e. colder and e.e. warmer. at least, here we had record-hot november, with temperatures at times soaring into 20C daytime (15C average), while avg. norm is around +5 max and ~0 min or something.
Claude Harvey says:
November 27, 2010 at 10:09 pm
“What happened to the “weather is not climate” argument of the AGW crowd where Russia is concerned? ”
The “Weather is not climate” argument goes out the window when it comes time to renew/increase the government-sponsored Climate Ca$h budgets, and you need some good press releases to bolster your climate research programs. NASA/NOAA are already writing their “HOTTEST YEAR” press releases as we speak. It will be interesting to see what their salary/benefits increases will be for 2011…
Russians are like Canadians. We freeze our butts all winter long and have all to gain, nothing to lose, from global warming. There has never been a world climate solidarity before, why should there be one now?
OK if we are going to use the logic of Russia has had it’s hottest summer temperatures ever and this proves AGW, how about the news that Wales had it’s COLDEST temperatures ever yesterday!
Methinks folks really haven’t got the idea of weather and climate, or stable and cyclical or backside and elbow.
From the article:
Therein lies the problem. We rightfully complain when the scientists reach the conclusion that AGW is real only because it is required to reach such a conclusion to continue to earn a living. Do we complain when the opposite is true? Do we complain when the scientists reach the conclusion that AGW is bogus only because it is required to reach such a conclusion to continue earn a living? We should. Only until the science and research grants are not dependent on the outcome can their results of such studies be fully trusted. Of course, even scientists are people, and being people many can easily be corrupted.
Do not think for a second that Russia is smart and liberated. The main difference between the Russia of today and the Russia in the USSR is now a select people are rich and state sponsored atheism is no longer practiced. Russia still is envious of western Europe and by extension the US. Why did Vladimir Putin have a fit when the US wanted to build an anti-ICBM shield in Poland? Because Putin wanted Poland to be under Russia’s sphere of influence, not the US’s. There are many cases against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights. Russia is as close to be an oligarchy without actually being one as you can possibly get. If the weather was not a factor, I would never choose to live in Russia because it is still repressive and more corrupt than ever. We should not commend Russians, we should pity them.
Germany is headed for -8 deg C on Wednesday, with some cold spots (on hilltops and the likes) forecast to reach -20 deg. Monday will bring 10cm (4 inches) of snow. About 10 degrees C colder than usual for this time of year, for what it’s worth.
Here in the UK we have been setting record lows for the month.
Minus 18.5 in Wales, minus 9.5 in Northern Ireland and here in the middle of the urban heat island that is Cambridge, I measured minus 7.2. An independent (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/weather/) automated weather station in Cambridge measured minus 7.6.
Yet the Met Office forecast for the UK suggested minus 3 or 4 degrees for the UK. In fact for the last few days it has consistently underestimated the night time lows and overestimated the daytime highs.
This is either sheer incompetance on their part, or cover for Vicky Pope’s (Head of Met. Office) latest gaffe that this will be “the warmest year on record” and that “this by supported by various lines of evidence such as milder winters”.
Maybe they understand the perturbing effects of massive volcanic aerosols from a large eruption in Iceland, heh. A lot more than our famous climate scientists do.
And not a mention from the Met office or BBC about how the Atlantic Jet Stream is behaving or the AMO or how bloody cold it’s actually going to get over the next week. I wonder just how many folk are going to die because the Met office/BBC are hell bent on doom mongering about warming but are not saving lives by pointing out the dangers of the cold? The question has to be asked, will the Warmists have blood on their hands because they have perverted the reporting of the weather due to their intransigence over AGW?
Tim says:
November 28, 2010 at 12:22 am
“I say keep up the info from Russia, they seem to be a beacon of sanity.”
I’ve started watching RT after seeing a YouTube posting of them reporting some demonstrations here in the UK which didn’t get a mention on any of our own media.
Funny how 25 years ago the “Western” broadcasters were beaming high power shortwave broadcasts INTO the Soviet bloc countries, as their media was state controlled….
Let me understand, Central Russia has a one in a hundred year temperature high, in a hundred years, and that is proof of AGW? Seems to me proof that the weather is normal.
Back to the same picture as July, warmer in Russia, colder in Pakistan and west Europe:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/wctan3.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/wctan6.gif
Lets put it into context as some parts of Russia had cooler than average conditions. This probably explains the circumstances although there is the inevitable punch line
“Jeff Knight, a climate variability scientist at the UK Met Office, attributed the situation in Moscow to a number of factors, among them greenhouse gas concentrations, which are steadily rising.
The recent El Nino, a climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean and affects weather around the world, and local weather patterns in Russia may have also contributed to this summer’s abnormal conditions.
“The Russian heatwave is related to a persistent pattern of circulation drawing air from the south and east (the very warm steppes),” said Dr Knight.
“Circulation anomalies tend to create warm and cool anomalies: while it has been very hot in western Russia, it has been cooler than average in adjacent parts of Siberia that lie on the other side of the high pressure system where Arctic air is being drawn southwards.
“Some long-term records have been broken – for example the highest daily temperature in Moscow. We expect more extreme high temperatures as the climate changes. This means that when weather fluctuations promote high temperatures… there is more likelihood of records being broken.”
tonyb
Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg, Russia, predicts that a new “Little Ice Age” could begin in just four years. http://www.glebedigital.co.uk/blog/?p=608
Antony, why did my post on UK temperatures and the Met. Office disappear?
Fab pdf on how a weak polar vortex has identifiable stages and can be used to predict cold weather events geographically:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/824263/Kolstad2010.pdf
And right now, the vortex is just about in need of CPR:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.shtml
From the gist of the paper, Russia appears to be in the center sites of this event every time it happens. And CO2 has nothing to do with it. No wonder there is a growing backlash against consensus. The “consensus scientists” forgot to consider that fact that Russia can see the Arctic from their house!
Anthony,
You must be a part of a vast subterranean natural gas-funded climate change disinformation campaign network that fuels Cuccinellis’s efforts against Michael Mann.
Don’t you realize that the Tea Party is a vast orchestrated capitalist assault engineereed against the state sponsorship tendencies of the current government by the capitalist Russian natural gas fossil-fuel companies?
🙂
If a Russian says it won’t happen, believe them. If there’s anyone on this planet who knows anything about cold weather and climate, it’s a Russian.
The dear old Guardian newspaper must require ALL journalists in it’s employ to make a nod to Globull Warming in EVERY story, no matter how irrelevant to that story. Eddie Butler, a writer on the sport of Rugby Union (not a literary genius, by the way), remarked in a story about the game, apropos Scotland’s winter weather, wrote that even that country ‘couldn’t guarantee disgusting weather, particularly in this age of global warming’.
Sorry, Antony, I have now found it.
Mike Restin says:
November 27, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Well, you’re certainly wrong to bring this up given the title of this post has nothing to do with Climategate.
You made no comments at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/20/climategate-still-the-issue/ which mentions Harry in the post itself and in five subsequent comments. Please read that post and make comments there, backed up by quotes from the readme file and other sources.
Ah, I see you did post at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/16/the-jones-rehabilitation/#comment-530619 . “Where did it go?” I think the main answer is it added to the knowledge of people looking at HADCRUT data trying to understand some of the odd things in it.
It may be that errors affect few enough observations in small enough ways so that results are not made much worse. Steven Mosher at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/07/a-lazy-rainy-metadata-sunday/#comment-525148 concludes that “The harry file is meaningless …. In the end those errors get fixed and you find out that even with errors the answer comes out generally the same.” From some of the multi-year programming and porting projects I’ve worked on, engineering Email and journals focus on what’s wrong and all but ignores what’s right. That’s one reason why knowledgable high-tech salesmen don’t want engineers talking to customers – we’ll talk about current work and future plans and forget to talk about how the existing product can help the customer.
What makes you say Harry’s readme is being ignored? Don’t answer here, answer at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/20/climategate-still-the-issue/
“The UK Met office have just announced that 2010 has been the hottest year on record.”
This does not apply to Uk .
A below normal year for Central England to the end of October.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
I found in garbage container 5 hand-written diaries of Kostroma wheat mercant Chumakov, beginning from 1881. He had a habit to describe in great detail all wheather events, wheat prices, Volga navigation conditions, from which his business greatly depended. I published this as a book. The year 1882 is described here, too, and all wheather patterns of that year closely repeat what we have seen in Central Russia this year: extremely high July temperature, peat bogs and forest fires, severe drought that ruined crops across all Central Russia and South, no rain for 2 month and so on. Volga river became so shallow that wheat barges could not navigate up from Nizhniy Novgorod, and there was a famine in central provinces. CO2 levels were these times still pre-industrial, so it is impossible to connects this atmospheric pattern – a blocking anti-cyclon – with CO2.
Michael, the Russians all but stripped their own first responders bare over decades of budget crunching and forestry services for their whole country is less than that of the Province of Saskatchewan.
The offset for record dry in parts of Russia was the exact opposite happening in Western Canada who in many parts saw record shattering rainfall. Now we’re looking at November being the coldest one in decades and a forecast for an even colder December through February. We were so counting on AGW…
Say what you will about the russians, but you will find objective discussions on RT news broadcasts regarding climate change that simply can’t be found on the BBC, CNN, CBC, or ABC (oz).
Sergey
Do you still have your book? Is it in Russian? It would be interesting to link to it from my site here where I collect historic records.
Tonyb
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
The fact that heating fuel availability is no longer linked to reported temperature should raise the average winter temperatures by at least 3-4 degrees C. Until I see a 5 degree rise I think I am safe to assume they have had no rise.
In addition an average increase of even the rediculous projected 6 degrees C across Russia would still be massively beneficial. Anyone who can convince themselves that warming kills more than cold in Russia is not rational.
Russians are like those of us who live in northern Wisconsin, they have difficulty being frightened by the idea of a warmer climate. I’ll believe warming is a problem when I see the suburbs around Phoenix emptying out because they are all moving to Houghten.
Clarrisa;
“-It [Russia] also doesn’t need anything to stand between the oligarchs and their oil.
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Ooh… Evil oil, It has absolutely no beneficial qualities aside from enabling mobility and prosperity for the human race. On the other hand the AGW crowd is offering nothing but a deleterious burden on mankind with no demonstrable benefit to anyone except the “oligarchs” of AGW like Algore and Goldman Sachs.
Unprecedented. In the 1878 onwards CET max record, today has a good shot at being the coldest November day ever. That record shows 4 sub-zero November days: 2 in 1890, 1 in 1904, 1 in 1993. But the lowest was -0.5 degC. Today in Pershore, a member of CET’s set of stations, the max was -3.5. Possibly some of the other stations will be warmer (I mean less cold), but surely a new record is very much on the cards. I wouldn’t rule out an unprecedented 3 negative November days in a row, either.
Rich.
Mike Haseler says:
November 28, 2010 at 1:09 am
Michael says:
November 27, 2010 at 9:17 pm
It seems to me, with modern man’s fire fighting capabilities, have we not altered the earth’s climate by extinguishing fires in the modern age? It would be nice to see a good scientific study on this issue.
That is a fantastic observation! I’ve often said that the apparent rise around 1970 in global temperature just happens to coincide with the advent of clean air acts around the world, but it never occurred to me that we may actually be using fossil-fuel powered fire engines to reduce atmospheric pollution levels beyond the “natural” level pre-fire-engine technology fire-planes, etc.
Fortunately, nature being nature, you can reduce the number of fires for a while, but sooner or later the critical level of burnable brushwood makes it virtually impossible to contain any fire and eventually the whole backlog of burnable material goes up in one go – evening out the score!
—————–
Actually, environmentalist initiatives to protect so-called ‘old growth forests’ have probably significantly overcome any reduction in forest fires via modern fire-fighting technologies. By stopping the practice of clear-cutting followed by tree-planting, and leaving the forests in a natural state, environmental initiatives have led to an increased amount of underbrush and naturally felled lumber that acts like tinder to fire, whether naturally started or started by pyromaniacs or human carelessness. The number and size of serious forest fires per decade has increased since the methods formerly espoused by scientific forestry managers were rejected and abandoned in the late 1970s and 1980s. Therefore, environmentalism may have indirectly caused an increase in the atmospheric byproducts of combustion than otherwise would have been the case. This gets a fun treatment in Edward Tenner’s Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences .
To Tonyb: Yes, the book is in Russian. Here is the link:
http://www.books.ru/shop/books/426613
matt v. says:
November 28, 2010 at 9:26 am
A below normal year for Central England to the end of October.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
Possibly heading for the first below normal year since 1996 in the UK.
Sergey
Thanks. So if its in Russian I could claim it says anything then couldn’t I 🙂
Do you intend to publish in English?
tonyb
But on Friday the Huffington Post (Johann Hari) said the Russian heat wave was proof of global warming (and Obama has said skeptics should read HuffPo).
I responded on HuffPo with this link: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/Russia2010.htm which documents the atmospheric blocking (1972 had a similar event when temperatures were cooler).
There’s always fires on earth. Smokey the Bear can handle these:
“Mike Restin says:
November 27, 2010 at 9:48 pm
If CO2 increase follows higher temps by 800 years or so…
could our current increased CO2 be caused by the MWP?”
I know I’ve seen it explained and probably here, but can’t they supposedly account for the age of CO2 by the isotope distribution and doesn”t that prettty much put the increase on us as consumers of “fossil fuels.”
Maybe somebody could point us the right direction.
If the dust bowl of the 1930’s had occurred today just think how wild the warming crowd would be. In the face of such evidence it would probably be criminal to question global warming. Short periods of extreme weather don’t prove anything.
i can guess why they are skeptical. At least after watching this picture over siberia:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/arcisoTTPPWW.gif
Russians are no less liars than Americans. If they are telling the truth in this particular case, it’s only because Putin finds the truth to be more politically convenient (his power depends on oil and gas sales, after all).
Follow the money. Modern scientists say whatever those who pay them want them to say. In the battle of dollars vs. facts dollars always win.
Russians like to repeat what Stalin allegedly once declared:
“Facts are stubborn things. So much worse for the facts, then!”
Alexander, the situation in Russia is very different from what you suppose. Russian scientists can say everything they want, the government just does not pay any attention. Russian bureaucracy would not give a rat ass to what population thinks or says, scientists will get their miserable salaries quite independently of what they do or say. There is no such thing as commonly accepted ideology in Russia, no politcorrectness, no multi-culti, no nothing. Environmentalism does not exist here too. Expert opinion makes no difference to government policy, you can just as well have a lovely discussion with a stone wall.
Sergey,
Having spent the better half of my life in the Soviet Union, I won’t bet a penny on the slightest possibility of a scientist expressing his or her truly independent opinion anywhere in Russia (there may be exceptions to the rule but they are always few and far between).
Russian government may not pay much attention to the scientists these days but scientists themselves are very finely tuned to the preferences of those who can fire or imprison them any time (as they did imprison several scientists already for demonstrating an overly independent behavior).
You state that “there is no such thing as commonly accepted ideology in Russia.”
A dubious statement. In the same sense, there never was a “commonly accepted ideology” in the Soviet Union, either. Nobody among the scientists “accepted” Soviet slogans or propaganda at their face value. But habitual cowardice, corruption, and subservience made scientists say whatever authorities required. These habits did not evaporate, suddenly and miraculously, as soon as the USSR ceased to exist.
The only commonly accepted ideology in Russia always was, and continues to be, the servitude.
Perhaps this is why: “In the Russian capital, Moscow, temperatures dropped to -23.6C, the lowest on record for 1 December since 1931.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11885495