Breaking news! December can still be cold and snowy over parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Don’t look to the American media for much information about European weather; it’s about as foreign as driving on the wrong side of the road. But, in Britain, Italy, and the rest of Europe, the past several weeks have seen “the Arctic refrigerator door” swing wide-open. Here are some example headlines:
Arctic freeze to last another month as AA warns of ‘worst driving conditions imaginable’ for Christmas getaways: Mail Online: “With temperatures expected to fall to -15c (5f), the Met Office said this is ‘almost certain’ to become the coldest December since records began in 1910.”
Europe travel mayhem as arctic freeze strikes again: AFP: “In Italy, rare snowfall disrupted the tourist destinations of Pisa and Florence, forced both airports to close and severely disrupted traffic and the region’s rail network.”
Thankfully, Dr. James Hansen has this figured out: Europe is one-half Rossby wavelength downstream from a partially frozen Hudson Bay, which causes Europe to become colder, or something: from NASA’s government funded blog:
Back to the cold air in Europe: is it possible that reduced Arctic sea ice is affecting weather patterns? Because Hudson Bay (and Baffin Bay, west of Greenland) are at significantly lower latitudes than most of the Arctic Ocean, global warming may cause them to remain ice free into early winter after the Arctic Ocean has become frozen insulating the atmosphere from the ocean. The fixed location of the Hudson-Baffin heat source could plausibly affect weather patterns, in a deterministic way — Europe being half a Rossby wavelength downstream, thus producing a cold European anomaly in the trans-Atlantic seesaw. Several ideas about possible effects of the loss of Arctic sea ice on weather patterns are discussed in papers referenced by Overland, Wang and Walsh.
However, we note in our Reviews of Geophysics paper that the few years just prior to 2009-2010, with low Arctic sea ice, did not produce cold winters in Europe. The cold winter of 2009-2010 was associated with the most extreme Arctic Oscillation in the period of record. Figure 3, from our paper, shows that 7 of the last 10 European winters were warmer than the 1951-1980 average winter, and 10 of the past 10 summers were warmer than climatology. The average warming of European winters is at least as large as the average warming of summers, but it is less noticeable because of the much greater variability in winter.
This is the trap that statistical/data manipulators like Hansen have fallen into: in the past, they would freely say: “of course you cannot attribute one weather event to global warming, but the likelihood of that event has become higher because it’s the extremes that are going to increase the most”, or something like that. Now, there is no pretense to equivocate about what the atmosphere is doing: weather has become climate, and necessarily so for the continued narrative of global warming alarmism. The trap is that they do not understand the underlying meteorology or climatology from basic dynamics — instead giving hand-wavy explanations with some citations thrown in from their colleagues.
To adequately attribute an ongoing weather/short-term climate event to AGW, considerable data analysis and time must be invested into researching many different avenues. It is a disservice to those interested in climate variability for senior scientists to supply hand-wavy, reflexive out-of-their-behinds explanations to the media to further their obvious political agenda. This actually goes for both sides of the climate aisle.
In the meantime, Europe continues to enjoy the effects of global warming or the Arctic Oscillation or the North Atlantic Oscillation, or something. It’s hubris and arrogance to think you have the Winter of 2010-2011 all summed up before it even starts.
/quote
it’s about as foreign as driving on the wrong side of the road.
/end quote
sorry – it’s you lot that drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road; we drive on the right side – on the left. Just little something left over from the French revolution. 🙂
[it’s a friday funny]
Very nice post.
Speaking for The Netherlands, summer has been very warm indeed, for about three weeks. Winter has been very cold and snowy now for more than three weeks. And so has last winter; I last wiped my garden path free from snow eight months ago, in March, and started to do again so three weeks ago.
Thanks Ryan but I’m frustrated about the continued government funded insanity. It makes you feel like you are fighting for the lemmings to think, and we all know lemmings don’t think.
“With temperatures expected to fall to -15c (5f), the Met Office said this is ‘almost certain’ to become the coldest December since records began in 1910.”
Surely they were recording temperatures prior to 1910, weren’t they?
What’s the frozen wind turbine count in Britain now?
The December 17 TELEGRAPH in UKreported
After three successive bad winters, Mr Hammond has also asked John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, to examine whether Britain’s transport planning should assume that this weather pattern will continue over the next 20 years.
They are finally starting to see the light. Global cooling has been real for some time now.
Hansen is “half a Rossby wave off” alright… we figured that one a while ago… LOL
i have just walked home from a sniffter with a friend, involving 2 miles over the top of the Surrey Downs. Not only is it very cold out there, but today’s snow has fallen on top of the snow from 10 days ago to make paths and roads very dangerous. I asked my old mum about this. She said the last time it was this bad was in ’47, but that was after Christmas. She says that snow on top of ice on top of snow before Christmas has not happened in her lifetime, and is fairly certain not that of her mother either – which takes us back to the 1890s. I know anecdote is not evidence, and up here on the Downs things are different to down there in the lowlands, but even so……
“Just little something left over from the French revolution. :-)”
H’mm. Thought it something to do with right-handed jousters of old.
We are at -4.0C (provisional, to the 16th) which is warmer than Dec 1890
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/tcet.dat
and it looks like we are in for some warmer westerlies from the 20th/21st
http://www.stormsurfing.com/cgi/display_alt.cgi?a=natla_250
The BBC news this evening said that Northern Ireland is experiencing its worst snowfall for 25 years.
Peter@dtm: And I bet you still wear your swords on the left and draw them with your right hands. Which is where that left/right/right of way thing came from, didn’t it?
From one of the articles linked:
“Thousands of rural homes could be left without heating this winter as the worsening weather hits deliveries of oil.
Even if they get the oil they need to heat their homes and cook, many will have to cut back on how much they use because the price of the fuel has almost doubled in a month.
***
Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: ‘Many older people have told us they would rather turn the heating off than risk a bill they can’t afford. Plummeting temperatures will once again spell misery, ill health and in some cases even death.’”
That is just terribly sad. I will save my usual snark re: How’s that alternative energy workin’ out for ya? for another time. How in the hell have my ancestors come to this? Tons of coal, but the oldest and the poorest freeze to death. Good lord, I hope we don’t end up in the same sorry state.
Just an in comment thought: this usage of the 1951-1980 base period, what is with this? While the average yearly temperature anomaly may not matter, the monthly distribution of anomalies between different base periods will change. The average January during 1951-1980 compared to July may be different than the similar value calculated from 1971-2000 or 1979-2008, etc.
Alas, it’s best for your numbers if you use the lowest point in your graph for linear trend analysis…
” since records began in 1910.”
Oh noes! Don’t say the MET have lost the CET as well!
Hansen has the difficult logical task of acknowledging that AGW is over and the planet is starting to cool, cooling climate change. The AGW conundrum is after years of stating the debate concerning the science is over, GCR increased and the planet starts to cool. What are you going to believe what I am telling you or your own eyes?
What is Hansen’s explanation for the large regions of blue on this map?
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.12.16.2010.gif
Frozen fountains in Rome: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12022394
Historically, driving on the left has been the “correct” approach, as determined by cart tracks leading towards (light tracks) and away from (heavy tracks) a Roman-era quarry.
It is believed that as most cart drivers were right-handed, they used the dominant right arm to whip oncoming animals out of the way, as well as errant drivers!
Global warming (and consequent evaporation of the oceans) will inevitably increase precipitation of moisture from the atmosphere, which means more snow, sleet, hail, rain, continental coldliness, and teenage pregnancies. What don’t you Deniers understand about this simple fact?
Headlines tomorrow “Ahhh yes but this is exactly what we expected based on our models, and it is entirely consistent with CAGW.”
Here in Germany, it looks like the modern trains have been designed with a positive AO in mind… in other words, lots of failures. High speed trains need to go slower; trees fall on overhead lines, leaving electric locos stranded, in one case leading to a panic after the dark train cooled down and the driver refused to open doors to prevent people from running around on the tracks… People could be rescued, though, with no injuries reported. Point heating failures galore.
Even a green politician said “Trees have no business standing next to a railway line”, lo and behold – do they try to appear like reasonable people now? You don’t have that often here…
Here’s something for Doug Keenan, too.
Wenzhou China had a rare snowfall and temps dipped to 25 degrees.
Average December CET anoamly to December 16 was o.6C [-4.3 C below norm] The expected cold for the next month will bring this down significantly by year end .The nearest historical past December anomalies were
1981 0.3 C
1890 -0.8C
“It is a disservice to those interested in climate variability for senior scientists to supply hand-wavy, reflexive out-of-their-behinds explanations to the media to further their obvious political agenda. This actually goes for both sides of the climate aisle.”
Well said!
The biggest problem as I see it, is that everybody forgets that we have been observing weather and keeping records for precisely 1% of the current inter-glacial period. Just because we haven’t observed a particular set of weather conditions before, DOES NOT MEAN IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. Nobody seems to get this, especially on the warmist side.
Instead, they link weather conditions “which have never happened before” with something else that has never happened before- anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
In short, they are putting 2 and 2 together, and coming up with 736.
Any science which bases its’ conclusions on data from 1% of the relevant time scale is bad science. The fact that we remain in ignorance of the other 99% cannot be used as an excuse.
The GISS 51-80 baseline is still there because they don’t want to change. According to the WMO as each decade became complete the baseline was suppose to advance one decade with it, Hadley/CRU did that when 1990 became complete. They went from 51-80 to 61-90 but they didn’t want to switch to 71-2000 as was shown in one of the Climategate emails because of four reasons:
1. They caught flack when changing from 51-80.
2. Graph Impressions for the impressionable would reduce the perceived warming.
3. They didn’t want to have to go back and rework all their old stuff.
4. 2010 was just around the corner and the satellite datasets would finally have a 30 year baseline so why not wait until then.
Hopefully after the end of this year all of the datasets will go to the 81-2010 baseline and cut out some of the Graphmanship that goes on (Dr. Spencer has already stated they will be going to that baseline in the new year).
TomRude says:
December 17, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Are you sure it’s half a wavelength off? Seems like he’s less out of phase than orthogonal to reality. 😉
PaulH says:
Surely they were recording temperatures prior to 1910, weren’t they?
Cherry picking time again.
Evidently they’re freezing their arses off. And doing half Rossbies on the ice. Which is like a double Brodie here.
Let me restate my previous post.
The monthly mean Central England temperature up to December 16 ,2010 was 0.6 C. The anomaly from the norm was -4.3 C.The expected cold for the next month will bring this mean temperature of 0.6 C down significantly by year end .
The nearest previous Central England temperatures for the entire month of December were:
1981 0.3C
1890 -0.8 C
-15c oh no! [:)] That’s a warm day in Edmonton in the 1970’s when I was growing up there! Once or thrice it even got to -44c without wind chills… although it’d be -30c or so up to -20c… or so…
it sure is nice to have a sunny -20c to -15c day after weeks of -30c I can tell you… I remember as kid wearing t-shirts outside in the -20c sunshine and throwing snow balls for a couple of hours after a -35c period… it was almost like a cool spring morning… the snow was moist from heating up and made excellent packing into hand sized missiles… there wasn’t any breeze that day though… nor any clouds…
Oh and -30c with wind chill factors is about -40c with a small breeze and much worse with any serious wind… (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windchill_chart.GIF) so you have to be prepared… it’s not just the cold static temperature that matters it’s also the wind chill factors and nobody seems to ever mention that in all these climate discussions… but they taught us about it as kids at school while living in the cold doldrums of Edmonton Winters! I guess they didn’t want us freezing to death in the play ground or on the way to or from school…
“Wind chill (often popularly called the wind chill factor) is the felt air temperature on exposed skin due to wind. It measures the effect of wind on air temperature. The wind chill temperature is usually lower than the air temperature, since the air temperature is usually lower than the human body temperature. In contrast, humidity on the skin can result in a higher felt air temperature, and the heat index is used instead.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_chill
“Q. Why is wind chill not always indicated in the current conditions or in the forecast?
A. Wind chill is indicated in current conditions only when the temperature is 0°C or lower, with a wind speed of 2 km/h or more. In general, wind chill is mentioned in a forecast only if it is expected to be significant, that is to say, if wind chill is expected to be -25 or colder, with a forecast wind speed greater than 10 km/h.”
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/mainmenu/faq_e.html#weather2b
In the UK we are constantly inundated with the hottest this and the warmest that etc.
But why has the UK in the shape of CET has become disconnected from the rest of the planet?
The UK CET shows a distinct decade long cooling trend:-
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/graphs/HadCET_graph_ylybars_uptodate.gif
Last years annual seasonal mean CET was completed at the end of November and we have to go back 23 years to 1987 to find a cooler annual mean.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/ssn_HadCET_mean.txt
This is not about a few cold winters, back in 2006 the CET was hailed as an indicator of Global Doom:-
“The hottest year since 1659 spells global doom”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1536852/The-hottest-year-since-1659-spells-global-doom.html
Last years “growing season” April to October” was 0.6c cooler than 2009 and some 1.6c cooler than 2006.
I wonder why CET is no longer an indicator of global temperatures?
Or maybe is it that the UK is now on Brussels temperature?
Coldest December in Sweden for 135 years
Apparently, it’s not been this cold in Sweden, in December since the 1860’s.
Aren’t these folks embarrassed that they haven’t been able to predict anything over the past several decades? No prospective explanations have worked out for them. Yet they insist to use their 20/20 hindsight and bloviate as to what they are currently observing, and somehow no matter what’s going on in the present weather, it’s due to AGW. Truely unbelievable. In Pharma, you have to predict X and actually get X or no drug approval. No explanations and no approval. End of discussion. But in climate “science” you can just make it up as you go along. It’s actually quite annoying to those of us that actually do real science.
OT, but to clear up a few misconceptions
Left hand drive arose in America due to the Conestoga Waggon, this had the braking lever on the left side of the front driving seat, consequently, as what passed for roads then were developed, the practice of driving with the driver controlling both horses and brakes sitting on the left side of the waggon , as the drivers needed to see what was coming at them, driving with the centre of the road to the left of the driver became the norm.
Once motorised vehicles became more common, this same concept and design was carried over.
http://library.thinkquest.org/6400/wagon.htm
There are more websites discussing this, but all eventually track back to the Conestoga Waggon, and the its wide spread use prior to motorised vehicles.
Excuse my spelling in places, I learnt English English.
Just heard on Melbourne Australia news that snow is expected down to 1200m on Monday. I say thank God for global warming or it would be really cold.
Science sometimes says – I don’t know. Religion always knows the answer – god did it. It seems that their god is global warming. It sure is not science.
Apparently, China is also experiencing unusually cold weather and high snowfall. Saw a UTube on the havoc it is causing, apparently because it is unprecedented in modern times.
I bet, it will still be the warmest year on record.
Apparently, China is also experiencing unusually cold and snowy weather.
mod, please edit out the superfluous “the” in the last sentence ty
And why can’t we have a preview button????????????????????
REPLY: It stays, and for the 100 th time, wordpress.com hosted blogs can’t have a preview function, because they don’t allow plugins, and preview is not part of the base set of features. I can’t argue with FREE HOSTING, so live with it. I’m bolding this so that other people might see it and stop asking. – A
Walter Cronanty says:
December 17, 2010 at 4:43 pm
From one of the articles linked:
“Thousands of rural homes could be left without heating this winter as the worsening weather hits deliveries of oil.
Even if they get the oil they need to heat their homes and cook, many will have to cut back on how much they use because the price of the fuel has almost doubled in a month.
***
Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: ‘Many older people have told us they would rather turn the heating off than risk a bill they can’t afford. Plummeting temperatures will once again spell misery, ill health and in some cases even death.’”
That is just terribly sad. I will save my usual snark re: How’s that alternative energy workin’ out for ya? for another time. How in the hell have my ancestors come to this? Tons of coal, but the oldest and the poorest freeze to death. Good lord, I hope we don’t end up in the same sorry state.
————————————————————————————-
I thought advanced societies did better than this….
….our governments should be taken out and beat
Walter, this is truly sad and upsetting
Where I live in the UK (near Cambridge), we’ve only had a light dusting of snow so far this winter, and it’s only around -5C. The worst thing I’ve had to deal with is ice on the inside of my car windscreen :p.
Still, if there are any meteorologists present, I would be interested to know why East Anglia seems to have avoided the bad weather, when all areas around it have taken such a beating.
“With temperatures expected to fall to -15c (5f), the Met Office said this is ‘almost certain’ to become the coldest December since records began in 1910.”
notice how they did not say
“With temperatures expected to fall to -15c (5f), the Met Office said this is ‘almost certain’ to become the coldest December on record”
contrast this with how they regularly make statements about second, third etc. “warmest year on record”
The Met Office spokespersons are so transparently propagandists that Pravda would be proud.
There appears to be a reluctance to discuss cold weather events in the general media. What could be causing the sudden cold weather events? When does weather become cooling climate change?
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=rare_deep_freeze_prompts_cha_171210?ref=ccbox_weather_category2
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=snow_and_ice_in_germany_lead_171210
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=cold_weather_grips_italy_171210
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=cold_snap_grips_cuba_with_ne_161210?ref=ccbox_homepage_topstories
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=cold_front_moves_into_spain_161210
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101217/ap_on_re_eu/eu_europe_weather
Comments from an old Yorkshire git, if you will permit. Weather rather than climate, I fear, and no scientist, just an energy economist.
We always used to say that snow before Christmas meant no snow afterwards, and that is from my Dad, born 1914. After the 1920s and 1930s he was shocked by 1947, and again by 62/63. Last year was different with serious snow before and after for the first time that I can remember. A bit like Rupert Matthews’ Mum above.
One commenter mentions 1981. 1981 December was cold (I crashed my car and could have died, so I remember) but from Christmas it was springlike. I bet this year will be the same, despite the solar coolists and the CO2 warmists.
BUT, in my business travels this autumn everyone from Africa to the Caribbean to North America (not the warm Eastern bit) has commented on the cold. Very unscientific, of course. My Latin American colleagues have been struggling with colder weather for 3 years now.
I am happy to believe in CO2 global warming for now, but I know that the economics of mitigation are utterly stupid (I hope you are reading this, Mr Huhne). If the science is stupid as well (Herr Gerlach seems to think so and he is at a good university), then we will have to follow the students and go for civil disobedience. Just think what high energy prices (for wind and solar) is doing to my 3 ageing aunts.
Come on the UK opposition – Labour, Trades Unions and the anti-poverty lobbyists – lets have some action on behalf of the oppressed. Down with feed-in tariffs.
Looks like Mann and Jones had everything right – those tree ring proxies do predict a sharp temperature decline about now after all. If only Mike and Phil hadn’t hidden that part of the graph – they might have picked up another Nobel each.
Frozen fountains in Rome: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12022394
Kaboom says:
December 17, 2010 at 4:58 pm
“Historically, driving on the left has been the “correct” approach, as determined by cart tracks leading towards (light tracks) and away from (heavy tracks) a Roman-era quarry.”
If you are a team-sport athlete, you will recognize that right handers move best to their left and left handers move best to their right. By move best, I mean that peripheral vision is best and movement is quicker, faster, and stronger. Of course, this might be irrelevant to driving.
Meanwhile, as Britain freezes, Jim Hansen tries to make sure it freezes even more by cutting off its coal supply…
My area of Ohio is pretty cold also. I dumped a bucket of water onto the pavement Saturday night and watched it freeze in about 4 minutes. It was pretty cool, no pun intended. I doubt we are on pace for any records, but it has been consistently below freezing. Night time lows have been hovering around 15F(-9.4C) to as low as 6F(-14.4C). The highs have been around 25F(-3.9C), so I feel pretty strongly we will have a white Christmas. See how I converted to Celsius? Taking a page from the alarmist playbook there. 😉
Snow is a thing of the past. Especially in Britannia. Just like parts of N.Y. are underwater. Just like a myriad of other wild assertions made by the people that are demanding that we trust them.
There is, indeed, a trend to make of this. Like the name of a frequent poster here, it is incumbent upon us to “hold their feet to the fire.”
jheath says:
December 17, 2010 at 6:12 pm
“Come on the UK opposition – Labour, Trades Unions and the anti-poverty lobbyists – lets have some action on behalf of the oppressed. Down with feed-in tariffs.”
Didn’t Brown introduce the feed-in tariff for solar when he was still in office? IIRC it started on April 1st, and he was prime minister until May. Ok, he got replaced with one of the Milibands as boss of Labour, right? Hmm… that doesn’t look like much help for the oppressed to me…
There’s a purposeful engendering disquiet becoming in the UK. Not because of the recent succession of hard winters – older folks amongst others remember the snowfalls of the 40’s thro’ the 70’s – but on how our (separate) governments have consistently refused to address the question since of affordable and sustainable energy. Now it is put to us the saving graces of renewable technologies and nuclear.
What is starkly apparent is not just future delivery of immediate energy requirement, but future energy security.
Well, it’s not news, Scotland – there’re proven 200+ years of reserves of coal awaiting centrally, too – just as soon as EU alignment and self-styled carbon capture gets the treatment – and not by Royal Order.
Poor Hansen: Being American he is probably infused with neo-pragmatism which for anyone who has read Rorty you soon realizes leads to either nihilism or sollipcism. Faced with such a bleak future Hansen has drifted off into a world of narcissism. His entire thesis is predicated on the assumption that this man made cooling … er I mean man made global warming … oops I now mean man made global cooling … can be solved by some great social engineering program. If Hansen is capable of influencing climate I would have thought he would have taken a day and skipped over to Louisianna and fixed up the mess caused by Katrena.
“global warming may cause them to remain ice free into early winter after the Arctic Ocean has become frozen insulating the atmosphere from the ocean”. What caught my attention was “insulating the atmosphere from the ocean”. Shouldn’t that be…. insulating the ocean from the atmosphere? When the air is colder than the water it is the water that cools. I have believed for a long time that on an annual basis open water contributes more to global cooling than to global warming.
Sorry, it made me chuckle……..”I can’t argue with FREE HOSTING, so live with it. I’m bolding this”…….so I can try not living with the other part of free. (passerby that wonders why there isn’t a preview.)
Sorry A, you’re stuck with it! Although, it should be seen as a good annoyance. When asked, it is obvious that they’ve never seen the explanation before, which = a good thing.
Is an extended period of negative Arctic Oscillation characterized by comparative warming of the Arctic north, and cooling south of 75 degrees, such as we have seen the past two years, the critical climate phase needed to allow inception of major Northern Hemisphere ice age events? To date, to my knowledge, there has been no satisfactory demonstrable mechanism reported in the literature which allows the prerequisite combination of temperature and precipitation to initiate these events.
The keys to glaciations include both temperature and precipitation. In particular, there must be enough snow in the high latitude continental regions to allow it to accumulate year over year. If it is too cold, precipitation is limited. If it is too warm, it melts. If one looks at maps of the negative Arctic Oscillation, one sees relative warming in the Arctic which will allow for greater humidity – snowfall, accompanied by greater cold in the adjacent continental masses where it must accumulate and over-summer.
As the Earth should be nearing the end of the Holocene, and moving toward the next major ice age, could the current climate/weather phase be similar to that which occurred at the initiation of previous continental glaciations? This is just a reflection, any comments?
This is a GREAT thread. It really helps to inform people of the news about current continental weather patterns. It would be good to see postings from as many people in as many different countries as possible reporting their local conditions (warm or cool!). This is EXACTY to sort of conglomerate weather news the AGW alarmists don’t want you to see.
Dave Beach says:
December 17, 2010 at 6:56 pm
…………..
As the Earth should be nearing the end of the Holocene, and moving toward the next major ice age, could the current climate/weather phase be similar to that which occurred at the initiation of previous continental glaciations? This is just a reflection, any comments?
=====================================================
I think its a bit of a stretch and not worth bothering about. When speaking of ice ages and Holocene or any other comparable period, I think it important to keep time in proper perspective. I’m more concerned about seeing the temps of the 60s and 70s return than I am about the glaciation of present day Russia and Canada. The way I see it, trends are over played. If one looks for a trend, they should look for a trend of cycles, not linear trends. A circle of circles, if you will. Sine waves are fun, but they always leave me wanting. Sorry, but you asked for comments. 🙂
Don’t look to the American media for much information about European weather
But they couldn’t stop talking about Russia.
Who can believe 2010 hottest year ever?
Record cold in China as well
Many other parts of China were also suffering from record cold temperatures Wednesday.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/record-cold-hits-china/
pwl @ December 17, 2010 at 5:24 pm:
Oh and -30c with wind chill factors is about -40c with a small breeze and much worse with any serious wind…
pwl, you touch on one of my favorite peeves, mistakes about wind chills. I send a note yearly to the local CBC station in the hopes that they will stop saying things like “the wind chill drove the temperature down to minus 20” and the like. Of course the wind chill has zero effect on the temperature. A thermometer will read the same in wind or calm. The wind chill is properly a , so the wind will cause air of a given temperature to cool an object (like a face or hand) faster than still air. But the ultimate temperature will still be the same.
I could pick fault with the Wikipedia definition of wind chill, but I’ll end the pedantry here!
IanM
It does appear there is record cold is across the entire Northern Hemisphere. It is global. It is not ‘localized’. Global warmers cannot claim this is ‘weather’ as they always do when record cold happens.
Warming ended in 1998.
In reply to David Beach, Dec. 17th at 6:56 pm.
As the Earth should be nearing the end of the Holocene, and moving toward the next major ice age, could the current climate/weather phase be similar to that which occurred at the initiation of previous continental glaciations? This is just a reflection, any comments?
“The past interglacials (there was been roughly 22 glacial/interglacial cycles) lasted roughly 10,000 years and all ended abruptly. It appears there is a forcing function that ends the interglacial periods. (Contrary to urban legend climate is stable, not a random walk. It appears Lindzen’s hypothesis that planetary cloud cover functions as an iris to resist change is correct.)
It has been known for some time that there are cosmogenic isotope changes at the same time as these sudden abrupt cooling events. As cosmogenic isotope changes are caused by a change to the solar magnetic cycle, it seems clear the sun is causing the abrupt changes. There is not agreement as to how specifically the sun is causing the cooling.”
As most are Solar cycle 24 appears to be an abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle.
http://www.probeinternational.org/Livingston-penn-2010.pdf
“Figure 2 shows the computed magnetic PDF for the sunspots in cycles 24 and 25, using a linear decrease of the magnetic field of 65 Gauss per year and a duration of 11 years for each cycle. This is meant to represent an upper limit, and the magnetic change corresponds to the most steeply sloped line in Figure 1. We can see that the PDFs for Cycle 24 and Cycle 25 vary dramatically from that observed in Cycle 23. If we assume that the appearance time of sunspots during each cycle is similar, we can use the total number of spots in each cycle to compute the maximum activity level of that cycle, using the fact that Cycle 23 showed a peak smoothed sunspot number (SSN) of 130. The linear decrease of 65 Gauss per year predicts that Cycle 24 will peak with a smoothed SSN of 66, and Cycle 25 will peak with a smoothed SSN of 7. Using a value of 50 Gauss per year suggests a smoothed SSN of 87 for Cycle 24 and 20 for Cycle 25.”
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~peter/Resources/Holocene.vs.Stage5e.html
“Abrupt climate change Holocene
– The Holocene was punctuated by irregular 1500±500 year cooling events which have correlatives in the North Atlantic (deMenocal et al., 2000; Bond et al., 1997).
– When compared to the Holocene sequence at Site 658C, the results suggest we are overdue for an abrupt transition to cooler climates, however orbital configurations These results are consistent with other high-resolution records of the Last Interglacial from the North Atlantic and support the view large-scale climatic reorganizations can be achieved within centuries.”
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
“Until a few decades ago it was generally thought that all large-scale global and regional climate changes occurred gradually over a timescale of many centuries or millennia, scarcely perceptible during a human lifetime. The tendency of climate to change relatively suddenly has been one of the most suprising outcomes of the study of earth history, specifically the last 150,000 years (e.g., Taylor et al., 1993). Some and possibly most large climate changes (involving, for example, a regional change in mean annual temperature of several degrees celsius) occurred at most on a timescale of a few centuries, sometimes decades, and perhaps even just a few years.”
“According to the marine records, the Eemian interglacial ended with a rapid cooling event about 110,000 years ago (e.g., Imbrie et al., 1984; Martinson et al., 1987), which also shows up in ice cores and pollen records from across Eurasia. From a relatively high resolution core in the North Atlantic. Adkins et al. (1997) suggested that the final cooling event took less than 400 years, and it might have been much more rapid.”
“Following the end of the Eemian, a large number of other sudden changes and short-term warm and cold alternations have been recognized; apparently many or all of these occurred on a global or at least a regional scale (Fig.3; Ice core record). The most extreme of these fluctuations are the warm interstadials and the cold Heinrich events. These are most prominent in the ice-core record of Greenland, deep-sea cores from the North Atlantic, and in the pollen records of Europe and North America, suggesting that they were most intense in the North Atlantic region (e.g., Bond et al., 1992; 1993).”
The travesty of CAGW scare mongering is warming is beneficial and cooling is truly scary and we should have been spending billions in planning and preparing for the cooling eventuality and how to adapt and survive !!!
Robinson said: December 17, 2010 at 5:53 pm
[]
quote
Still, if there are any meteorologists present, I would be interested to know why East Anglia seems to have avoided the bad weather, when all areas around it have taken such a beating.
unquote
IANAM (!) but I can answer this. You’re too far inland. The snow showers are building over the sea, drifting onto land and dumping their load, then fizzling out before they get near you — they need the warm sea underneath to trigger the vertical development. We’ve not had more than a fraction of an inch this week because the big cumulus clouds are staying out over the North Sea — you could see them yesterday afternoon from fifty miles away — driven by a westerly.
Unstable to sea temps, stable to land temps.
Once things get really cooled down and a warm front comes through you will get your wish. I’m sitting here checking the forecast for the south coast — I’m meant to be there today but I doubt it the way things look.
Weather, not climate. Strange, though, how it feels like it did thirty-two years ago yesterday when we moved into our little cottage and the bedroom was colder than the fridge.
JF
A sad illustration of natural selection: I’ve seen a couple of hedgehogs out foraging during the recent warmish spell (well, it thawed a bit). The trend to later breeding is being selected out.
I live in south eastern Australia and the local weather ground station has recorded Sept, Oct and Nov at around -0.5 below the long term average. December is currently at -3.5 below the long term average.
My prediction is that Solar cycle 24 should peak in mid 2012 at around 60. Solar cycle 25 will be of similar amplitude, based on the 10th harmonic. This is one reason why NASA GISS needs to cook the books to show “continual warming”, to dispell any theory that solar activity might have something to do with global temperatures.
Almost a year ago, I predicted this nonsense in a widely-linked post called “Noise”.
Okay, I’m still trying to parse what Hansen said. Maybe I’m particularly dim (I studied English Literature in University, though most of my friends were in the sciences) but I just can’t make any sense of it. I think I understand what a Rosby Wavelength is but the “Trans-atlantic Seasaw”? Did he just make that up?
Does anyone understand what he’s trying to say?
In the UK Chris Huhne, our ‘energy’ minister, in an attempt to avoid subsidising nuclear and renewable energy, plans to tax energy from fossil fuels so much that nuclear and renewables will seem cheap! A third of our power stations are due to go out of service in the next 5 years so nuclear and renewables will be the only options as replacements!
This should wipe out our remaining industry, or have the jobs exported to India or China. It is unlikely the replacement power will be created in time so blackouts look to be on the cards, which should cause the City of London jobs to move to saner climes.
The UK could end up like Iceland or Zimbabwe – I suspect the climate of Iceland with the inflation of Zimbabwe!
It is irritating that the civil servants in charge of energy have no idea of the carbon footprint of using renewables [with standby generators]. The label of ‘renewable’ seems adequate reason to spend 100 billion pounds plus on wind and solar, both dependant on rare earths and so will need to be imported from China. In winter here the sun don’t shine [at least not for very long] and the wind don’t blow!
Even more irritating is the shale gas revolution which has reduced the price radically, and probably the lowest carbon footprint is to use gas fired plants as combined heat and power [district heating using the waste hot water] which can be 80% efficient.
Of course it could just be a subtle way to reduce the costs of looking after the elderly and the unemployed as hypothermia takes its’ toll!
http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-news/2065-green-madness-electricity-bills-to-double-by-2030.html
PS. ALL the main political parties are absolute believers in AGW, no opposition at all.
PPS. Have you ever been in an unpleasant situation where you realise ‘This is REAL – this is REALLY HAPPENING’!
Just curious. Anyone in the UK or Europe having any difficulty getting coal (if they’re lucky enough to have a coal heater or stove)? Any danger to people from current Green Laws making it hard/expensive to burn coal (or peat) in this weather?
nice post..
I was wrong global warming will be measured in feet rather than inches this year.
Very strange how our hyper alarmist media are reporting the snow and cold, suddenly its weather again, if they do not ignore it. An example was coverage of South America’s winter this year.Like the CRU emails it never happened according to CBC.
CET vs NAO:
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/NAO_CETw-copy-2.gif
current NAO:
http://ioc3.unesco.org/oopc/state_of_the_ocean/atm/nao.php
Get used to it UK. It looks like 1940 all over again if you are lucky. Thirty to forty more years of this. Property in Spain is really inexpensive right now.
Meanwhile, in California, a normally La Nina “dry” winter is turning awfully wet and stormy as subtropical moisture plows into the state.
Upwards of 15 FEET of snow predicted in the Sierra above 7,000 feet between now and the middle of next week.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Check out DMI. It’s only slightly above average for 80th parallel and above. So much for all that warm air rushing into the Arctic.
From Joe Bastardi:
FRIDAY MIDDAY:
FOOD FOR THOUGHT FROM MY COLUMN ON THE PRO SITE:
A reminder, you can sign up for free 30-day trials of this site, which I blog on in a much more extensive manner. I thought I would share this excerpt with you, reflections on the global nature of the cold…
“…The point is it takes a heck of a lot to have what we have had. One thing that was not present, though, was the Euro cold in those years to the degree we have it now. London is over 8 below normal, and will finish at over 6 below normal for December, as the coming week will take temperatures down so the rally at the end will only bring it to -6. Last year, London was -2.4, ’05 was -.8, ’00 was PLUS 2, and 1995 was -3.4.
Using a population-weighted approximation finds the high likelihood that the combination of the eastern U.S. and northwestern European major population areas of the world and energy consumers are having their coldest start to winter since 1989, which of course was heavily U.S. weighted.
So it’s not local, especially when one considers what is going into the Far East and world’s most populated nation, China. Whether low solar or volcanic activity have anything to do with it is debatable, but what is not debatable is that CO2 has nothing to do with it, since the argument four years ago was that these were not going to happen anymore (recall the Academy Award Winning Al Gore movie saying that, along with the hurricane idea), and yet now that both turn the other way, many of the people on that side of the argument are claiming it’s because of the very argument that they used to say it would not happen. They now have cloaked it under climate change, or disruption, which gives them carte blanche to claim anything as right.
Deception in the first degree, as we see the chill caused by the lack of degrees in the temperatures.
So why would one trust people that are doing this, to the temperature adjustments they are making to claim it’s still warming?
I have seen this behavior before… on playgrounds from bullies. It’s strange, but a lot of the high-powered intellectual types, if you go back through their records, were not exactly the leaders of the pack in their high school and college athletic careers. It makes one wonder, and a smart, young psychology major that wants a PhD dissertation should do this, if the lion’s share of the people who are academically and scientifically trying to use bully tactics to push this down peoples’ throats were the victims of physical bullying at a younger age themselves, or at the least, are making up for some lack of physical accomplishment at a younger age with this… sort of like the movie “Revenge of the Nerds.” I was not in any way, shape, or form and alpha male type on the playground; in fact, the wrestling through college and continuing training I do now is to make up for that lack of physical prowess with a physical challenge… and then apply the work ethic needed to overcome that to what I do have a talent in. However, one does not say, well now I can lord a power I may have over those that don’t. And while I may be guilty of over analysis, some of this just seems like a grab for power from a group that may have had the lack of it in younger days.
But again, this little bit of insight may all be nonsense. I do think that if a young psychology major went down the line and perhaps looked at high school and college athletic backgrounds, of who stands where, they may have an interesting dissertation on seeing that people that competed at higher levels physically, where they had to deal with harsh realities of overcoming physical challenges and the work needed to get results there, have a very different viewpoint on this issue now. Again, as one who sees it from both sides, this agw agenda has a bully mentality to me, something that I saw on playgrounds as a kid.”
You know inside of all of us is a desire to be something bigger than what we know as a given. It’s called reaching beyond one’s grasp. It’s just that you don’t step on someone and trample their chances. When you do, for instance, the economic hardship that can be caused by limiting energy will trample dreams in other places. Imagine if Africa, for instance, had more air conditioning… how much better off people would be? Why shouldn’t they have a chance to advance to levels of comfort that would make things easier to continue to grow? A bully wants to stop those from having what he or she has, and you see it all the time on the playgrounds. It’s interesting to note, that the very system that has allowed these people to progress to levels where they wield the power that they do, funded all these studies, led to all these think tanks, taxed people to be able to allow governments to give them their grants, is the one that they will paralyze by their stance. And by doing so, will eliminate the chance that if there is another, simpler answer, it will come out in time. Very interesting, just like the bully on the playground, once in possession of the ball, not willing to share it. And if he is allowed to do so, the bully will continue to be a bully.
I may have just handed someone a PhD dissertation idea… Merry Christmas!
Ciao for now.
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=accuweather
James Sexton says:
December 17, 2010 at 7:19 pm “I think its a bit of a stretch and not worth bothering about. When speaking of ice ages and Holocene or any other comparable period, I think it important to keep time in proper perspective. I’m more concerned about seeing the temps of the 60s and 70s return than I am about the glaciation of present day Russia and Canada. The way I see it, trends are over played. If one looks for a trend, they should look for a trend of cycles, not linear trends. A circle of circles, if you will. Sine waves are fun, but they always leave me wanting. Sorry, but you asked for comments. 🙂
No problem, there is current time and then there is geologic time. It has not snowed in Miami or on Grand Bahama since the 70’s. Maybe it will again in the next 20-30 years. I would like to purchase ocean front property on the edge of Great Bahama Bank before it is too developed.
William December 17, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Thanks, no doubt about glacials ending abruptly. However, it is their initiation which remains poorly understood. Isotope records, both ice and sediment, indicate rapid change from glacial to interglacial events. However, what is known of the change from interglacial to glacial? What combination of geographical and environmental conditions lead to and allowed for the development of glacial events? A period of extended negative Arctic Oscillation would appear to hold promise.
Regards.
I for one think the Europeans need to suck it up and get with the program. It is called winter and during the winter it gets cold. You know, water freezes and it snows instead of rains and you need to put on a coat and mittens. Your ancestors knew all about it. Has anyone been to an art museum lately. My advice, come to Alberta in January and visit Edmonton for a week or two. Learn what winter is all about, stop your wining and learn to enjoy life. We can teach you have to drive in the snow and keep your roads clear in the process.
MDJackson says:
December 17, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Okay, I’m still trying to parse what Hansen said. Maybe I’m particularly dim (I studied English Literature in University, though most of my friends were in the sciences) but I just can’t make any sense of it. I think I understand what a Rosby Wavelength is but the “Trans-atlantic Seasaw”? Did he just make that up?
Does anyone understand what he’s trying to say?
======================================================
Sort of, he’s doing his usual double talk dance. (I really think the 6 week PhD is something many have done. I’m gonna buy into the next time it comes across my e-mail.)
See-saw, or teeter-toter, if you will. I don’t know if he just made it up or not, but in many cases, one can see a warm-here, cool-there action. This is a product of a sine wave that is prevalent around the world. I’ve never attached a name to it, nor do I know what its properly called. However, it would be incredulous of me to believe Jim and I are the only ones to observe this. It is always there, but it always moves in two(maybe 3?) dimensions. The waves stretch and/or deepen, only to return. The movements are random to me, but probably not to others.
Jeremy says: Pravda?
I think this fine fellow (Baghdad Ali) is a good comparison:
http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/
Peter S says: posts of local weather?
I just checked the nearest forecast and local station. That is Ellensburg, WA, USA. The forecast from about 5PM is for a nighttime low of -5° C. It is now 10PM and it is -7° C. I think they are expecting clouds but so far they have not arrived. Temperature is still dropping.
MDJackson says: Does anyone understand what he’s trying to say?
No. That is what Ryan must have been thinking as he wrote : It is a disservice to those interested in climate variability for senior scientists to supply hand-wavy, reflexive out-of-their-behinds explanations . . .
evanmjones says:
December 17, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Check out DMI.
You have a link?
[REPLY – Just go to Reference Pages/Sea Ice on the top line of this blog. It’s one of the graphs. It’s a permanent feature; you can check it out anytime. ~ Evan]
I wrote to my MP in October about the uselessness of wind turbines and the dodgy science underpinning their introduction. More recently I pointed out to him that there are no votes to be had from power cuts in bitterly cold weather. There has been no response: all rather disturbing as he allegedly studied mathematics at University and should therefore be able to recognise climatologists’ statistical sleight of hand. I am afraid that our curent crop of MPs have no more scientific nouse than the previous lot. Perhaps being buried under a foot of snow will bring about their enlightenment.
Just an update;
Below are some of my latest thoughts on what is driving the weather and climate.
All of the universe affects the rest of it, it all sits in a bowl of gravitational and magnetically driven mass of ions and regular atoms, that respond to the basic physics detailing the “normal rules or laws”. To think that there are voltages or ions that move with out magnetic fields attached violates first principals. The magnetically permeable inductive components of planetary bodies are susceptible to Ohms laws, and power equations apply to the full spectrum of from DC to most energetic particle seen.
So we should be able to figure forces at work when planets have synod conjunctions, by determining the shifts of flux of the magnetic fields, with the shifting density and speed of the solar wind. When the Ulysses satellite was on polar orbit of the sun “they were amazed that the patterns usually seen in the solar wind were still there, but also much stronger than they expected by several orders of magnitude.” To me this means that the main crux of magnetic connections between the planets is in the normal distribution of concentrations at the poles/apexes of lab magnets and the large sweeping fields are weakest along the circumference, neutral current sheet, or equatorial regions, and also not only flowing with the neutral sheet of the solar wind but focus concentrations down onto the poles of the planets, as evidenced by the polar Auroral displays from the much larger loops further off of the ecliptic plane.
The galactic magnet fields are also influenced by basic rules of action as well, which leads me to the conclusion that the interactions of the composite system from the rotation of the Galaxy, and the declinational movement of the solar system in that larger frame of reference, as well as the density waves that propagate around driving the spiral arm flux variances give rise to the longer cyclic term climatology of the Earth. Some have been found, other underlying cycles that as yet we do not have their specific drivers identified. (back to this point later)
The heliopause seems to have auroral knotted bands (recently spotted ribbons of ion activity) on its leading side as it progresses through the interstellar gases and dust clouds, the solar system passes through in its travels. I think that this is due to the conductance of the galactic fields into or through the heliopause, coupling through the polar regions of the sun and planets, at near equilibrium, or the balance felt as steering currents in the slow transition of the orbital slowing and swaying of the solar system as it winds its way through the gravitational and radiation gauntlet, shoved around ever so slowly by the rest of the individual stars.
So then as a result the makeup of the planetary interaction periods have become some what stable, and have formed harmonic coupled interactions between themselves, and the non-random long term slower periods. Not much is said about the tilt of the magnetic poles, of most of the planets and the sun from their spin axes. I think even this has something to add about long term climate effects. In the common hospital use of MRI scanners, the magnetic induction pulses are used to flip atomic spin axes in line with the dense fields momentarily formed with pulse current on, and watching the return to ambient spin axes when current goes off. (back to this point later) If people have learned to control the effects would not they also occur in nature if they are so predictable? If you apply the calculations with the right power increase needed to satisfy the balance of the equation, the same effects should occur with reference to stars and planets.
If all of the planets and the sun are running along, in near balance with changes in outlying fluxes upon the solar system, disruptions in the periodic patterns should be minimal, with much greater stability being found in the harmonic patterns in the interactions between the planets of the solar system, as a result milder climate with less wild extremes would dominate at times of stability.
Currently the magnetic poles of the sun are running ~12 degrees off of its vertical axes of rotation, with a period of rotation of 27.32 days, as a result the Earth and Moon themselves move above and below the ecliptic plane alternately, while the system barycenter scribes a smooth ellipse responding to the gravitational and tidal tugs of the outer planets as we pass them almost every 12 months plus a few days. The resultant periodic 27.32 day flux of the polarity of the solar wind as it passes the Earth creates and drives the declinational swings North and South in the two bodies, as a giant pulsed oscillator circuit, dampened by the tidal drag of the fluidity of the various parts of the Earth, small solid core, outer liquid core, fluid mantel, and fragmented floating crust, that is itself creeping along tectonically in response to the dance of the combination of the additions of the other planetary tidal, gravitational, and electromagnetic induction fluxes that keep the inner fluids warm.
The further off of vertical, and/or the stronger the total magnetic flux of the sun’s magnetic poles, the more energy available to be driven into the lunar declinational cycle balanced by the tidal dampening into the Earth, hence the greater the solar magnetic impulse input the greater the resultant tectonic turmoil, the more extreme the weather and climate. The weaker the magnetic fields of the sun relative to the near DC fields of the galactic background levels, and the more vertical the magnetic fields of the sun the less energy gets driven into the lunar declinational movement and resultant tidal dampening energy into the Earth.
As the spin axes and magnetic axes of the sun approach straight on alignment, the whole declinational drive component of the Moon orbital dynamic decreases, to maybe as little as a degrees either side of the ecliptic plane, changing to a more synergistic combination of the solar and lunar tidal effects at an angle of 23.5 +/_.5 referenced to the equator, keeping the atmospheric global circulation in the kind of high turbulence blocking pattern, sort of weather we have been having the past two years and the next two as well. When continued past the normal length of time (about 3 years on the down and up side) in the 18.6 year variation of the mechanism of transport of equatorial heat towards the poles, stalled in the most active section of atmospheric lunar tidal effects, coupled in sync to the solar tides as well, the long term trend then becomes a constant la nina, and an ice age sets in.
Just as in MRI scanning the initial pulsed spin flip is nearly instantaneous, and does not seem to affect the covalent bonds the atoms are part of, so maybe the solar magnetic orientation to polar axes of rotation, flip is hardly noticeable over 100 years or less, just as the wandering of the Earth’s magnetic field pole positions are hardly noticed by the public. The ongoing dampening of the tidal movement of the lunar declinational extent at culmination would regulate the dropping rate due to actual amount of tidal dampening load transferred to the Earth. As the declination off of the ecliptic plane drive energy lessens and becomes slowly coupled out by tidal inter action, and the Lunar orbital diameter expanded to compensate slightly. This would explain the rapid onset of ice ages, and then the re-flip to off axes solar magnetic polar alignment, renew the declinational driver system again and cause the pulsation type exit usually seen from ice ages.
The short term inter ice age, realistic application of these ideas is in the much more recent history (due to short instrument records) of the past three to five maybe (Ulric Lyons says 10 cycles works best because it = the 178.8 year Landschmidt(sp) cycle period.) Can be assembled in composite maps that use the 6558 day period of 240 declinational periods that shows analog synchronization of the inner planet harmonic effects on the weather, from just the past three cycles as seen on the daily maps here.
http://www.aerology.com/national.aspx
The problem left is that the outer planet have a set of harmonics of their own that induce the 178.8 years envelope on the 18.6 year mn cycle pattern that have in turn a finer 27.32 day oscillation imposed, so the complete long period of compounded modulation is as Ulric Lyons suggests 178.8 years long as Landschimdt (sp) was on about with the effects of the outer planetary returns driving the solar sunspot cycles due to SS Barycenter displacement due to Uranus Neptune synod conjunctions. The available data base gets extremely thin out 178.8 year ago. Due to data limitations, I have so far stayed with just the last three cycles of 6558 days or ~18.3 years.
On April 20th of 1993 we had the most recent synod conjunction of Neptune and Uranus, which the Earth passed on July 12th of 1993, presenting as an epic precipitation surge globally with heavy rains through the summer and massive flooding of several river system around the world. It is my contention that the increase in magnetic couplings through the polar magnetic field connections induces a homopolar generator charge increase at these times and a quick global discharge just after synod conjunction. The results of these increases in pole to equator charge increases drives positive ions off of the sea surface along the ITCZ, where by mutual static repulsion of the condensation nuclei inhibits cloud formation and precipitation, and at the same time allows more SW radiation to reach the tropical sea and land surfaces promoting rapid warming driving ENSO extremes, with the rapid precipitation that results on the global discharge side, post synod conjunction, also leaving clearer skies for additional warming after the flooding subsides.
The lunar declination phase of the 18.6 year mn cycle was in an increasing through 23.5 degree culmination angle at the same time, being in phase with the temperature increases. By early 2005 the declinational angle at culminations was at its peak extreme, and the distance between Uranus and Neptune was separating again to about 29 days apart August 8th of 2005 for synod of Earth and Neptune and September 1st of 2005 for synod conjunction of Earth and Uranus. The Southeast gulf coast was ravaged by Katrina and Rita as a direct result of these influences. Combining with the 27.32 day period lunar declinational tides culminations they rode in on, to produce the storm intensity that resulted.
As the outer planets Neptune and Uranus continued to separate and the declinational angle shifted past peak angle at culmination the resultant peak warming period shifted further into the late Summer and now is in the Fall in 2010. The reason I think the last season 2010 was so active but not as powerful in ACE production as 2005 was due to the addition of Jupiter in Synod conjunction on April 3rd in 2005 kicking things off, and on the 21st of September 2010 with Uranus on the same day, creating a late fast finish in 2010. But having a half hearted start of a season in 2010 as a result of the difference.
Over all the whole period of the close Neptune and Uranus synods in the mid to late summer allowed the extra clearing of clouds and resultant heating the last 15 years of the SST and ENSO intensity periods, CO2 just was in the air along for the ride. This is all part of the 60 year patterns in the weather cycles, and can be explained as such. Now that the outer planet synod conjunctions of the Earth with Neptune and Uranus are moving into the fall and early winter, we can expect them to produce the increased snowfall events and cold polar blasts being seen in both hemispheres.
With the investigation of these methods of predicting the extreme effects of the weather patterns they produce, long range forecasts for both weather and climate will become possible. I am betting my life saving and the rest of the creative efforts of my life time on it.
^ This new stuff I have been keeping to myself mostly, the rest of the inner planet and lunar interactions is posted to my research blog side of the http://www.aerology.com site.
Just a coffee induced ramble here pick at it some just a compressed un referenced set of thoughts I’ve had lately.
Richard Holle, still expanding and organizing better……
Driving on the left hand of the road is a carry over from the past when a horse rider would ride on the left so as to keep free the right swordhand to wack assailants. The reason the French drive on the left is sheer bloody mindedness because the British use the left; the French and the British hate each other beyond description. One wonders how many horse-riders in old France were done over by assailants on their left because of attitude.
After the snowstorm in Nopenhagen and the Can-cool spell!
Durban better order heatstoves and snow showels for the next UN meeting.If there is a god I think hes trying to pass a message trough! ?
Here in Oz, our alpine areas are not high compared to other parts of the globe. Barely 2000 metres.
Forecasts for Sunday and Monday are for snow in the alpine areas of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. Remember we are in summer.
It’s not unusual for Tassie to get sprinklings of snow in alpine areas in December, I recall snow and sleet when hiking there in 1976. But snow in NSW and Victoria in December is unusual.
Yes this is weather, but why is the weather so unusual? Probably because of regime change in the 30yr cycles. It sure feels like the regime of the 60’s and 70’s, I just hope it’s not the same as the 1890’s.
To put this coldest snowy winter ever into perspective we have to recall previous finding of this primitive branch of a settled science:
The Independent, back in March 2000
“Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”:
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.
David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes – or eventually “feel” virtual cold.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
The BBC in December 2006: Concern over Europe ‘snow crisis’:
Climate change
Many believe global warming is to blame for the lack of snow.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that many low-level resorts could soon be unviable and predicted warmer temperatures in the future.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6185345.stm
I usually understand what Joe says.
Baa Humbug says:
December 17, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Forecasts for Sunday and Monday are for snow in the alpine areas of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. Remember we are in summer.
It’s not unusual for Tassie to get sprinklings of snow in alpine areas in December, I recall snow and sleet when hiking there in 1976. But snow in NSW and Victoria in December is unusual.
======================================
Wow.
Evidence of global cooling….no doubt.
But wait….awaiting the warministas who will try and steal the thunder and claim that this is also due to AGW.
When will their illogic end?
Total, complete, abject INSANITY.
FOOLS! [Yeah I am talking to YOU Vicky Pope and YOU James Hansen]
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Hi Anthony,
The Germany is also suffering from heavy snow chaos:
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20101217-31869.html
Hansen is really disqualifying himself here. In European winters this century there was a turnaround three years ago from a series of warm winters to winters becoming slowly colder every year. Three years ago it was for the first time virtually possible to langlauf over the snow from my country (Netherlands) to the pacific ocean whilst staying on the same latitude. Last year exceptional snow started in Mid Europe in December while the warmth in the Baffin/Hudson area started to build around January 2010. The warmth there is a result of the El Nino (thanks Bob Tisdale) strengthened by the arctic oscillation not the other way around
tallbloke says:
December 17, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Just up, looking at the article and reading with my morning coffee and though exactly the same thing!
So for pro-AGW events – the met office claims analysis of over 150 yrs (CET?) but for only anti-AGW ‘weather’ events, only data since 1910 – very strange?
This in the latest post from our alarmist friends at Real Climate. In other words, it’s official: colder temperatures prove AGW is real.
“In a more recent press-release, Vladimir Petoukhov and Vladimir Semenov, argue that Global Warming could cool down winter temperatures over Europe, and a reduced sea-ice extent could increase the chance of getting cold winters. Also they propose that cold winters are associated with the atmospheric circulation (see schematic below), and their press-release was based on a paper in Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR), which may seem to have a serendipitous timing with the cold spell over Europe during the last weeks. However, the original manuscript was submitted in november 2009 (before the statement made by James Overland) and accepted in May 2010. One could regard the paper more as a ‘prediction’ rather than an ‘explanation’.”
I thought that AGW meant that the warming would be most pronounced in the winter.
Simulation of recent northern winter climate trends by greenhouse-gas forcing
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v399/n6735/abs/399452a0.html
Now don’t anyone laugh. Compare my last comment to this:
and you can see why
It’s called moving the goalposts.
Hello, im french, and december is very cold, lot snow, it s – 4.5 degrés celsius for the moment.
We can explain this with anomalie of jet-stram and activity of sun very low. Jet stream is deflect on the south, on africa and provocs anomalies of high pressions on groenland and atlantic. december will be coldest for 1963 certainly…
Baa Humbug @ 11:06:
I remember there were blizzards up in Pretty Valley at Falls Creek (Victoria, Australia) a week before Christmas sometime in the early 90s. We had gone for a hike while on holiday and ended up trying to seek shelter inside a clump of snow gums and large rocks! I think it was in 1991.
One little point… the M22 motorway, mentioned in the photo caption, doesn’t pass near Ballymena, but the M2 does. The M22 goes from Antrim to Randalstown (so it does).
[So it’s not a great big road in Ballymena, haigh! ~jove, mod]
http://www.cbrd.co.uk/motorway/m2-ni
http://www.cbrd.co.uk/motorway/m22-ni
(There were 4 inches of snow in North Manchester last night, which fell on frozen ground, and it’s just started snowing again. Both the north-south motorways on the western side of the UK are currently blocked by jackknifed lorries.)
I had to have read up on Rossby waves a bit to get anything
from Dr. James Hansen’s statement quoted above. One rather
simple description of Rossby waves is at:
http://science.jrank.org/pages/64984/Rossby-wave-(long-wave).html
It’s my hope, Ryan Maue, and writers of similar overviews as this
will realize Jim Hansen hasn’t“fallen into a trap”.
The Rossby Wave blurb is yet another part of the big con Hansen
and “the team” have been running for years based on speculative
computer and lab modeling (Rossby waves applied to a very cold
Europe, in this instance) and what the Nasa funded site called
“global warming”.
Sadly for the “Team” explaining weather phenomena away
doesn’t make the actual weather behave they way “They”
say it should be…
trap that statistical/data manipulators like Hansen have fallen into:
jheath says:
December 17, 2010 at 6:12 pm
“Down with feed-in tariffs.”
—————————
I could not agree more. What economic sense is there in paying people 40 odd pence per kw/h when the retail price is 11p per kw/h? That’s right, there is none. And subsidising wind power developments because they are not economically viable without subsidies? All in the name of what? Saving the planet, creating a green, low-carbon economy? Give me a break! It’s ordinary tax-payers’ money being p*ssed up against the wall while people are losing their jobs, essential services are being cut and they can’t keep the roads open!
This insanity MUST stop. Huhne sits at the top of the hill of stupidity, but almost all of the mainstream politicians would do the same.
They need to be sent a very strong message urging them to desist from this madness. Of course some of it is mandated due to our EU membership, but there is an answer to that as well….
I’m sorry, but all of this – especially the EU lightbulb fascism, trying to tell me what I can and cannot do in my own home – makes me extremely angry.
I personally advocate an independent Scotland, outside the EU and UN, with the coal mines open again and tidal electricity generation and natural gas power plants and a central bank OWNED BY THE PEOPLE to issue it’s currency.
It’s about time smaller, like-minded nations clubbed together and told the globalists where to stick it. I’ll probably get flamed for my idealistic views, but that’s how I feel. Anyway, what’s so good about the status-quo? Austerity, perpetual war, social and economic meltdown, etc., etc.. Think about it. Does the future look good? No.
It seems that Hansen isn’t quite up to date when he thinks that the lack of ice in Hudson Bay causes cold winters in Europe. The (in)famous “Institute for Climate Impact Research” in Potsdam recently put out a study that shows that it is less ice in the Barents Sea that is causing these cold winters in Europe:
“Recent severe winters like last year’s or the one of 2005-06 do not conflict with the global warming picture, but rather supplement it.”
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/global-warming-could-cool-down-temperatures-in-winter
Just one small problem. The ice in the Barents Sea is pretty much normal:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.6.html
Snow? What snow? As that great philosopher, Homer Simpson, often says, “Let’s never talk of that again.”
Go here and have a laugh at the Polar Bear story, then look over on the right at the Most popular in Environment list and learn all about how “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.”
It will be interesting to see if/when someone quietly removes the sorry tale from the list.
and from the Met Office website:
Richard Holle says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:28 pm
179.05yrs, not 178.8. The one you describe (N+U) is 171.4yrs.
Could we call this the ‘Inconvenient Cold’?
“Cold snap drops Beijing’s temperature to 10-year low”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-12/15/c_13650475.htm
“Huddersfield on target for coldest winter since records began”
http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2010/12/11/huddersfield-on-target-for-coldest-winter-since-records-began-86081-27805954/
But don’t forget that this is the ‘hottest’ year on the record despite this year seeing snow in the Med, Brazil, millions of tropical fish dead in Bolivia, Argentina’s beaches whitened etc.
>>it’s about as foreign as driving on the wrong side of the road.
If you want to pass another horse rider, and keep your sword side (right side) towards the other rider (just in case), you must ride on the left of the road, with the other equine traffic on the right of you. That is why driving on the left was the original and logical choice.
Wrong-side driving evolved during the French Revolution, when the peasant classes were forced to walk on the opposite side of the road to the equine classes. So right side driving is for the serfs and knaves.
.
jheath says:
December 17, 2010 at 6:12 pm
I am happy to believe in CO2 global warming for now…
I suppose you’re happy to believe in the Father Christmas too (for now).
Look, science is not about what one believes. It is about what one can demonstrate with evidence and data (real data from observations, made available for public scrutiny). Leave belief to the faithful.
savethesharks says:
December 17, 2010 at 11:51 pm
Responding to
Baa Humbug says:
December 17, 2010 at 11:06 pm
.
I made no such claim. I claimed a regime change.
“Yes this is weather, but why is the weather so unusual?”
They have removed the comments some time ago. I wonder why? They will probably keep the page as it gives them much needed visitors as well as ridicule.
Two weeks ago the north and east of the uk got hit by snow, but here in norwich we got virtually no snow.
This week the north, west and today the south are getting tons of snow.
Here in norwich we have a light dusting.
So the whole country, apart from norwich seems to hav been hit.
I put it down to the CRU – its keeping us warm.
Ulric Lyons says:
December 18, 2010 at 2:32 am
Thanks for the correction, Ulric.
Many of the people commenting on this topic seem to think that the current cold spell is evidence against global warming. What they obviously do not understand is that there are two completely different types of global warming. There is normal global warming in which snow melts and there is paradoxical global warming in which temperatures plunge and you get heavy snowfalls.
Lay people can easily understand normal global warming but to understand paradoxical global warming you need to be a climate scientist. To explain the difference I will use Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, as an example.
Normal Global Warming
Global warming taking snow out of Snowdonia
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1546534/Global-warming-taking-snow-out-of-Snowdonia.html
“Wales’s highest mountain could lose all its snow in 15 years, say scientists at the University of Wales, Bangor. They have recorded a drop in snowfall of about a third in a decade.” Daily Telegraph, 24 March 2007.
Paradoxical Global Warming
‘Glaciers on Snowdon’ warning by climate expert
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/01/12/glaciers-on-snowdon-warning-91466-25576951/
“THIS winter’s prolonged cold spell could be a taste of things to come for Wales – with glaciers a possibility within 40 years. That’s the chilly message from a leading Welsh climate expert who has warned that global warming could paradoxically trigger a collapse in temperatures in western Europe. According to the expert, future Welsh winters could be similar to those in Iceland and southern Greenland now.” Western Mail, January 12 2010.
I am not sure what is happening on Snowdon at the moment but here in South Wales, just 10 miles from Cardiff, I am looking out at the deepest snow I remember seeing here since the late 1970s. Therefore Paradoxical Global Warming seems to be winning.
The lanes are are all blocked. A few weeks ago I brought my very old tobaggan down from the attic and put it in the garage. Unfortunately I do not know anybody who will lend me some huskies to pull it!
In case this global warming continues the British government should start planning for a new Little Ice Age!
Commons statement by energy minister.
Better by 2030 so grin and bear it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9293000/9293372.stm
In Canada as well.
Record breaking snows and flooded areas.
And “WINTER” has yet to start!
Someone above says it’s cold across North America. Now, I realize that Canada doesn’t count ( all that health cxare), but Nova Scotia is still mild. The damage from Monday’s tropical storm is being cleaned up in non freezing weather. Power and internet reconnected and flooded roads cleared. Forecasts say +/_ the frezzing mark until Xmas with rain now and again. So much for the Great White North.
November here was warm, probably not record warmth but December 2010 is above the warmest December ever recorded.
Hopefully, nights below freezing will save the trees that are budding. They can’t adapt to this new warm winter regime.
“Half a Rossby Wavelength” sounds like blaming the “starboard power coupling” to me. . .(Star Trek shout-out there)
Well, there’s winter, snow and cold as experienced by people – and there’s ‘winter’ as being planned for by local authorities. These rely on past experiences (yes, winters up to 2006/7 were mild here in South Wales, snow was a sensation, and more than 1n inch meant everything broke down) – and on the forecasts by the MET Office.
It is common knowledge that the Met Office has been pushing AGW, and has been forecasting ‘mild winters’. So the local authorities, strapped for cash, have been abandoning plans to cope with snow and ice, and ran out of gritting salts in January this year when the UK was covered in the white stuff.
Why this pre-Christmas snow and ice came as such a surprise, who knows …!
Yesterday, 10 inches of snow fell on Cardiff. There was no wind, there is none today and the sun is shining. It looks beautiful, and nobody in my neighbourhood has been using their cars so the snow hasn’t been compacted to ice.
We’ll have to wait and see if more snow will grace us. It will stay below freezing, so it looks as if we’re going to have the second White Christmas in a row …
Aaron Stonebeat@
The summer was short in the Netherlands, no heat waves no tropical days.
@richard Holle says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:28 pm
“To me this means that the main crux of magnetic connections between the planets is in the normal distribution of concentrations at the poles…”
Which is why connections with the Galactic field is stronger towards the Galactic poles rather than the Galactic equator.
Excellent article Ryan. I appreciate your contributations at WUWT.
Roy says:
December 18, 2010 at 3:13 am
Excellent post, Roy. I read the second link about “Paradoxical Global Warming” and came across this early in the article…
Environmentalists pounced on the warning as a sign of how vital it is that we reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
This is a microcosm of how global
warmingclimate disruption propaganda works.(1) The government and eco-zealot groups give climate scientist a big chunk of Climate Ca$h.
(2) Climate scientist produces a high profile CAGW report and the all important “press release”.
(3) Eco-zealot groups “pounce” on the press release as proof of global warming and that life as we know will end in two years unless we let the government control our lives.
(4) Government cites reports by the scientist and the eco-zealot groups that increases in global warming research budgets are necessary.
(5) Eco-zealot groups hold fund-raisers and rallies starring the now-famous climate scientist.
(6) Repeat (1) – (5).
Driving on the “Wrong Side” is freightening enough (especially in an American Car and no one in the right seat to tell you when somethings coming) but the thing that will leave an indellible mark on your immortal soul for the rest of your life and all eternity is the first multilane, rush hour, bumper-to-bumper, 100KPH “Round About”. If you live, it ranks up there with your first fish, your kiss, and your first.. you know.
Dr. James Hansen, when interviewed, gave members of the press the ‘Old Rossby wave-off‘ at which time the journalists when back to their organizations and spent the rest of the week spiking stories about record cold temperatures.
Jason “So the whole country, apart from norwich seems to hav been hit. I put it down to the CRU – its keeping us warm.”
Warm – are you kidding? Yes, UEA where Jones, Briffa, Hulme and the other CRU crowd hail from is in Norwich but BBC reports that it was -17.2 degC near Norwich last night (that’s 1 degF). Maybe escaped the snow, but not the big freeze.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12025538
That’s really cold for December round here. But of course, that’s weather, not climate.
Australia in Spring 2010:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/season/aus/summary.shtml
“Wettest spring on record for Australia.”
“Nationally-averaged maximum temperatures were 1.23ºC below normal for spring, making it Australia’s 4th coldest spring on record.”
“Nationally averaged minimum temperatures were near normal, with an anomaly of +0.15ºC.”
La Nina has been dumping more floods in the north and east of Australia in recent weeks so December is shaping up to be cool as well.
Roy says:
December 18, 2010 at 3:13 am
“Many of the people commenting on this topic seem to think that the current cold spell is evidence against global warming. What they obviously do not understand is that there are two completely different types of global warming.”
Yes, the Earth has warmed from 1670 until 2005, due to the Sun; not AGW. Now we have ” two completely different types of global warming”.
I agree there are two different types of global warming:
FUNDED and UNFUNDED
El calor provoca mas nieve ?????
omg
jajajajaja
entonces se contradicen
por que se ve que es un ciclo natural
MAS CALOR PROVOCA MAS NIEVE Y POR CONSECUENTE MAS FRIO
Jimbo: What’s being claimed is that we’re on track for the coldest December for the UK AS A WHOLE since records began. All regions of the UK have had severe cold and a good deal of snow.
1910 is the Met Office start date for records of “UK and regional gridded temperature and precipitation, monthly”, i.e. all regions of the whole of UK.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/about/archives.html
The Met Office state that “Data from every available observing station in the UK are used to create our best estimate of the ‘true’ average for the UK, its countries and regions.”
CET dataset goes back to 1659, yes, but is for Central England. Met Office state: “These series are representative of an area from the south Midlands to Lancashire.”
MDJackson says:
December 17, 2010 at 8:09 pm
“Okay, I’m still trying to parse what Hansen said. Maybe I’m particularly dim…… Did he just make that up?
Does anyone understand what he’s trying to say?”
No true scientist understands what he or the rest of the radical AGW crowd are talking about. It’s kind of like when I was a kid and my friend would make me play board games with him. He would make up the rules as he went along. So I played by the published rules and then he just made up his own as it suited him. Of course it made the game unwinable for me and it was frustrating if I took it seriously. I learned to enjoy his creative rule making so it was still fun for me. Not so with this AGW nonsense.
Related to sword position: I hate it when old b movies about the wild west show gun slingers with two, low on the hip, guns with grips pointing in the same direction on the gun belt. No, no, and no. Real right handed gunslingers either kept a derringer up high on the left chest in a cross draw position, or put the left hip revolver in a cross draw position.
jheath says, Come on the UK opposition – Labour, Trades Unions and the anti-poverty lobbyists – lets have some action on behalf of the oppressed. Down with feed-in tariffs.
Erm, some hope. I seem to recall that the Leader of the Opposition used to be Sec of State for Environment and Climate Change. He was the numpty who introduced feed-in tariffs.
What is it with our politicians in the UK? They ALL seem to believe in climate disruption or is it just that they are too scared to be little Johnny out of step, terrified that they would be shot down in flames if they dared query “the concensus”? It has been like that in the UK for some years among everyone but more and more people are now daring to poke their heads above the parapet.
What bothers me is that the politicians KNOW that we are about to experience major power interuptions in 2014/5 when we have to shut down a number of power stations in order to comply with EU emissions regulations, yet they still seem to think that renewables (wind and solar in particular) are going to fill that gap. If they continue in this vein, then come 2014/5 there are going to be riots and civil unrest when we demand to know what they have been doing with our economy. I’ve just realised it will be around the time of the next general election if things don’t go t*ts up before then, so it’ll be interesting to see how things pan out by then. I hope and pray that the government will see sense by then and stick two fingers up to the EU emissions/holier-than-thou commissariat.
All that doom and gloom aside, I have just got home from taking the dog our beating. Not many birds to put up, or they were too reluctant to fly, but the snow covered fields and woods have been stunningly beautiful. It’s nice to come home to a centrally-heated house, but am keeping a watchful eye on the oil in the tank and keeping the thermostat lower than normal, topping up the heat with logs in the fireplace. Roast pheasant for supper later but can’t dig up any leeks as the ground is frozen.
Riots ?
Excuse me: The police have just asked for student demonstrations to be banned ?
I think you’ll find that with the police asking for water cannon and “rubber-bullets” to be authorised a lot of demos will be rapidly cancelled.
As for the polos’…..do you really think they do not know of the problems fast approaching ?
The BIG problem is WHY they’re doing what they’re doing (not a lot) when they KNOW what they should be doing.
The easy answer is that, along with the rest of the EU, they know that they will have nothing to fear from elections soon…..after all, most of the EU legislation is by unelected ministers with no democratic accountability.
I’m off to buy a ten-pack of 100 watt bulbs…the real ones…then I’ll be able to see in this cold and have some extra warmth….the funny twirly ones take 20 minutes to warm-up….the bathroom one never quite manages it (-7.3C last night, and -1C now)
Electricity @ 10.86p/KWH
Gas @ 6.61p/KWH
Soon it will be economical to generate my own electricity using home gas, and maybe go to combined heat/power !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another comment regarding right versus left. My boyfriend got me a very cool 38 revolver with gun belt, I think for Christmas. He is 6′ tall and can’t even put his finger into the trigger guard to pull the trigger. And the grip looks like a peanut in the shell in his hand, so I think this gun sitting on his couch at his house is meant for me. I can only hope. He had me try it out Friday and it fit my hand beautifully. Plus it has a longer barrel. so there IS a chance in hell I can hit something with it. I didn’t try on the belt though I REALLY wanted too. It is a right handed belt. I hope the belt fits. He said it was way too small for him. But he has this skinny cowboy behind and I have a smallish but woman behind. So just in case, I’m not eating till Christmas.
I forgot to mention that it is snowing again and witch tit cold in NE Oregon, just so my above post is not off topic.
No more Beaujolais?! Enjoy life without it?!
Of Saturday’s six English Premier League games, four postponed due to weather.
Okay, now this is getting serious! 😎
@biddyb says:
December 18, 2010 at 6:31 am
“What bothers me is that the politicians KNOW that we are about to experience major power interuptions in 2014/5 when we have to shut down a number of power stations in order to comply with EU emissions regulations, yet they still seem to think that renewables (wind and solar in particular) are going to fill that gap. If they continue in this vein, then come 2014/5 there are going to be riots and civil unrest when we demand to know what they have been doing with our economy.”
That really bothers me too, knowing that there will be a string of hard N.H. winters from 2014 to the early 2020`s.
It happened the first time in my living memory, and I am quite old, that snow has fallen on the frozen soil along the Adriatic beach. Well, for the change really a snowy fairy tale!
Sounds very Sporty Pamela.
Here in NEw JErsey, we are running 15 degrees F below normal for three or four weeks now. Consistently . ( Daily ranging about 17-28 degrees F w/ “normal being about 24-43 )
So far it has only snowed a tiny bit, more in the air than on the ground.
The midwest, and northern counties are sucking up all that snow, for which I thank them .
Right now it is very similar to January 2010, except a few degrees warmer.
I expect January to be a real test .
In a warming world, over a 100 year period, the winters should be milder. More erratic weather in a warming world is just a way of keeping us from looking behind the curtain.
Last year’s winter was colder, this year’s winter is colder, if next year’s winter is colder, is this a trend or merely natural variation?
I can see the warmest winter in 100 years, but the coldest winter in 100 years in a warming world?
Your right, they have cried wolf too often about ordinary weather extremes and without proof. A danger in this is if they continue on this path a lot of money will have been spent on research designed to prove a point rather than to find out what the point is.
Do witches really have cold tits?
Thanks for the info. I found some info. here:
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/how-does-this-december-compare-with-the-past/
—————
The white stuff is currently raging down on the UK.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_warnings.html
LOL @ Pamela Gray
NW London: 10cm of even snow on the ground after 5 hours of serious blizzard. It was the best ‘red sky in the morning is the shepherd’s warning’ in years………
My prediction for the winter made in late summer/early autumn was 60% chance of hard/very hard winter, 30% normal, 10% warmer than average. I looked at various scientific parameters (oceanic, solar, snowfall in the Alps in July, August and September), how the squirrels and birds were behaving, the nature of the berry crops and the forecasts of Corbyn/Accuweather. The scientists would deride it (just as ‘lunar influences’ were derided 20 years ago and are now becoming mainstream), but I don’t really mind. For me, it’s a fun game.
2010 CET was colder in jan/Feb, warmer in the summer and colder again in Dec to date. Says we are in a short phase of ‘hotter summers, colder winters’ right now. The 1930s were a bit like that I believe………I don’t know about the 1940s…….
A smart young philology major has had a few things to say about the matter. In a nutsell:
“Ressentiment”
There is a strain of this nasty mentality in environmentalism (and in socialism) — a hatred of Western Civ. precisely because of its success, and a desire to pull it down to a slavish, cringing, guilt-ridden, self-abnegating, other-directed level–with the secondary purpose of usurping the commanding heights of civilization itself once that abdication has occurred.
This strain is the root cause of what’s rotten in the CACA Cult (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism). (The base tactics, overblown rhetoric, and anti-Westernism of its iconic proponents, such as David Suzuki and George Monbiot, is a diagnostic marker.) It’s only a minority faction, but it’s managed to make itself disproportionately influential.
Of course Western Civ. has often (usually?) been a blundering jackass, and sometimes worse, but the cure should be meliorative, not radical. Measured doses of socialism, globalism, and environmentalism are called for. But de-carbonization is a radical, kill-to-cure, ressentiment-driven measure.
Unfortunately, such radicalism can be very energizing, soul-satisfying and intimidating, as well as being a roundabout path to power. Hence its “hideous strength.”
Haven’t read the comments so apologize if this has already been stated:
from the Dr. James Hansen link
“Figure 1(a) shows January-November 2010 surface temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-80) in the preliminary Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis. This is the warmest January-November in the GISS analysis, which covers 131 years. However, it is only a few hundredths of a degree warmer than 2005, so it is possible that the final GISS results for the full year will find 2010 and 2005 to have the same temperature within the margin of error.”
Why would they choose to compare ˜10 months in 2010 to 1951-1980 (cooling period) when they have a “GISS analysis, which covers 131 years”?
As this thread has turned a little UKcentric…..
Could anyone tell me why central heating oil is only 37p per litre (when the sharks are not upping the price) when diesel is 124p per?
Is it fractionated close to derv?
See where I am going with this…..
One reason I ask is that I had a couple tyres fitted last week and took an interest in the heater in the workshop. It would appear that when a green directive from the EU insisted that garages, etc, pay to dispose of used engine oil an entrepreneur, as is their wont, decided he would save all the garages in the EU some cash and deliver a system for buring all that “waste” for heat. Nice.
Fat wallet for said company. Warm mechanics. Big plume of black smoke. What’s not to like?
Somerset. 5PM. -1C.
Pascvaks says:
December 18, 2010 at 5:34 am
Driving on the “Wrong Side” is freightening enough (especially in an American Car and no one in the right seat to tell you when somethings coming) but the thing that will leave an indellible mark on your immortal soul for the rest of your life and all eternity is the first multilane, rush hour, bumper-to-bumper, 100KPH “Round About”. If you live, it ranks up there with your first fish, your kiss, and your first.. you know.
100 KPH? That’s only 62 Mph! What’s so earth-moving about that? Can’t call that an “experience.” Don’t be such a wuss!
Here are a couple of videos that you may get a kick out of… No less accurate than the Global Warming Cheerleaders and a lot funnier.
Global Warming and Laughing Babies
Carbon Credits and Adultery Credits
Cheers,
Andrew
Open water in the Arctic does not seem to have saved Alaska from being very cold this month.
Extreme cold has formed in interior Alaska with this morning’s temperature reaching the chilly -60 F threshold at Fort Yukon, just N of the Arctic Circle. But at least the wind is calm!
Fairbanks has averaged -19 deg F (14 degrees below normal) over the first 17 days of December with each of the past 3 days reaching -40 F.
AGW Progress Report: The fear, the fear, from the left-socialists. They are sniffing something out.
What could that be? Here are clues:
“The conditions are likely to make this the coldest December on record, with a current average temperature of minus 0.7C, five degrees under the long-term average.”
“Louise Ellman, Labour chair of the Commons transport select committee, said it was no longer sufficient for ministers to brush away criticism by saying the severe conditions were exceptional.
“This is now the third bad winter in a row. We need to establish whether we think there may be a change of weather patterns and if so respond accordingly,” she said. “We should be able to respond to these events better.” Ellman said her committee would investigate what had gone wrong. “Clearly it is something we will have to look into.””
“UK snow: Britain in gridlock as big freeze brings Christmas travel misery
• Passengers angry as BA cancels all short-haul flights
• December set to be coldest on record, says Met Office”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/18/uk-snow-travel-disruption-christmas
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/015611.html
Piers Corbyn of Weather action ( http://www.weatheraction.com/ ) was on Sky News tonight forecasting that after a brief respite around New Year the UK will have lots more snow in January. He may or may not be right, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen this anti CAGW astrophysicist given such prominence on mainstream TV in the UK. Another sign of the times?
Expanding arctic ice has joined up with the west coast of Iceland – usually there is a gap of 100km or so:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_bm_extent_hires.png
Lets see how close it comes to northern Norway – normally a large gap here.
The hottest year and the hottest decade? I note the best proxy for the state of the climate – sea level- has fallen back to 20cm, first broached in 2002:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg
Anyone following how the world’s glaciers are doing these days. Also, with the cooling oceans volume shrinkage should eventually be reflected in sea level. Time to switch to a polynomial fit to the flattening sea level curve.
“…Europe being half a Rossby wavelength downstream…”
In one of my undergrad essays on the history and philosophy of science course , read and marked by only one person, my lecturer, I used a phrase, “only an epicycle away”, that got several question marks dotting around it. I was miffed. I was trying to explain how, in the world of geocentric universe, the growing discrepancy between the accumulated observational data on planetary movements and the predictions of the geocentric model of the universe was reconciled: by adding an epicycle to the model that was wrong fundamentally. The addition of epicycles made the old model so complicated that some astronomers, including Copernicus, began to have other ideas.
And now, many years later, James Hansen of CAGW fame uses a phrase that is almost identical and for real: “…Europe being half a Rossby wavelength downstream…” I guffawed reading that.
It seems the discrepancy between the observation and the model can this easily be dismissed. Aristotelian astronomers were “only an epicycle away,” too. And they got away with it for two thousand years.
@ Henry Galt
Central heating fuel is “rebated” fuel. Much lower applied tax.
Rebated fuel can be used for all non-road-fuel applications.
The penalties for using rebated fuels in road vehicles start at massive fines and impound of the vehicle and go up to imprisonment and total seizure of vehicle and load and sale of same.
Rebated fuels are chemically treated for detection purposes and also dye marked for visual detection. roadside checks involve taking a sample and testing for the chemical markers (the roadside checks also involve several other government agencies such as police, other arms of HMRC (revenue and customs) benefit agency (checking for fraudulent benefit claimants) VOSA (vehicle and operator services agency) DVLA (driver and vehicle licencing agency) (etc))
In all, if caught “running on red” (red dye) you are looking at a minimum of about £1000.00 fine and then you have to pay more to get the vehicle back.
Al good fun.
Richard Holle says: December 17, 2010 at 10:28 pm
… from another upcoming RealNobel status researcher? While I freely admit I could not slow down enough to understand the detail, I sniff high quality – and when I’ve had that feeling before, I think I’ve been right.
Heck, Richard, please spell that all out with pictures, a nice nice book that even kids can enjoy. Get Nigel Calder to ghostwrite and Marc Hendrickx to illustrate it.
Loadsa shiny white Global Warming here, decking all the tree branches. Certainly beats anything I’ve ever seen in December (60 years). I wrapped chains round my shoes to stop skidding, and tied them with rubber ties cut from old tyres. It works a treat.
Henry Galt, I’m in Somerset too. Email me if you see this.
Well 2010 will be remembered as the year with 2 winters in the UK for a long time.
thought last winter was bad, and we only mid way through December!! if it carry’s on like this for Jan,Feb i pity the next warmist scientist who raise’s his head and spouts off about global warming…..please let it be a member of the TEAM.
Looks like Somerset is becoming a skeptics county
Currently at just after 10pm here in sunny rural south somerset we have 8 inches of global warming and its -13c, better get the bbq and bikini out!
There is an interesting hypothesis that a warming Arctic (relative to mid-latitudes) is leading to weakened meridional thermal gradient, and consequently weakened average westerly flow, allowing more incursions of easterlies into western Europe, leading to more heatwaves in summer and more cold outbreaks in winter.
David Jones says:
December 18, 2010 at 9:51 am
Pascvaks says:
December 18, 2010 at 5:34 am
Driving on the “Wrong Side” is freightening enough (especially in an American Car and no one in the right seat to tell you when somethings coming) but the thing that will leave an indellible mark on your immortal soul for the rest of your life and all eternity is the first multilane, rush hour, bumper-to-bumper, 100KPH “Round About”. If you live, it ranks up there with your first fish, your kiss, and your first.. you know.
100 KPH? That’s only 62 Mph! What’s so earth-moving about that? Can’t call that an “experience.” Don’t be such a wuss!
Hear hear…
It does remind me of various American cop shows, where the commentator talks breathlessly about pursuits “sometimes up to 70 miles an hour” – in the UK, speed starts at 70mph.
Just as a nit-pick though, about the photo at the top of this – Northern Ireland is not part of Britain.
Pamela Gray says:
December 18, 2010 at 7:09 am
Another comment regarding right versus left. My boyfriend got me a very cool 38 revolver with gun belt, I think for Christmas. He is 6′ tall and can’t even put his finger into the trigger guard to pull the trigger. And the grip looks like a peanut in the shell in his hand, so I think this gun sitting on his couch at his house is meant for me. I can only hope. He had me try it out Friday and it fit my hand beautifully. Plus it has a longer barrel. so there IS a chance in hell I can hit something with it.
If you can’t hit the target, stand closer. It’s only our friendly climate scientists who when they can’t hit anything worth a damn with a 20 year prediction, lengthen it out to 100 years.
I didn’t try on the belt though I REALLY wanted too. It is a right handed belt. I hope the belt fits. He said it was way too small for him. But he has this skinny cowboy behind and I have a smallish but woman behind. So just in case, I’m not eating till Christmas.
Which would be ironic if it ends up being too large.
Pamela Gray says:
December 18, 2010 at 7:11 am
I forgot to mention that it is snowing again and witch tit cold in NE Oregon, just so my above post is not off topic.
I hope you warmed your hands beforehand – or she’ll complain.
Henry Galt “Could anyone tell me why central heating oil is only 37p per litre (when the sharks are not upping the price) when diesel is 124p per?”
Tax. Diesel fuel for motoring is actually sold by the oil companies to the retailers at 42p per litre. Duty is around 58p per litre. The retailer makes 5p per litre. Then there is VAT on the lot (yes, tax on the tax!), a whopping 17.5%, to go up to 20% in January. That gets you to nearly 124p per litre.
Yes folks, in UK the government gets over 76p per litre, over 60% of the price paid at the pump, and set to increase in January. For US readers the tax works out at equivalent to $4.46 per gallon, and we are paying the equivalent of $7.29 per gallon for motor fuel at the pumps.
Not content with that, the UK government additionally charges us ‘Vehicle Excise Duty’ (‘Road tax’) to use a motor vehicle. This is linked to the vehicle’s carbon emissions (CO2 in grams per kilometre) and is typically over £200 ($300) per year.
Well of course we are having more snow in the UK. The Met Office predicted a ‘mild winter’ didn’t they? For heaven’s sake predict blizzards next year, and save on my heating bills. And Al Gore: stay away.
There is an interesting hypothesis that a warming Arctic (relative to mid-latitudes) is leading to weakened meridional thermal gradient, and consequently weakened average westerly flow
That is incorrect in several aspects. The polar jet is weakened (negative AO), not average westerly jets. More fundamentally, a smaller latitudinal thermal gradient would lead to less latitudinal flow, not more.
My boyfriend got me a very cool 38 revolver with gun belt, I think for Christmas.”
Oh, dude! America is an entirely different planet.
This is remarkable. Another couple of UK winters like this and the AGW theory will be dead (In the minds of the average punter. No cure for believers).
Meanwhile, Sydney, Australia, currently 22c. That’s well on the cool side for the mid December.
I lived in England in 1999, 2000-2001 and 2004-2007
I witnessed snow all these years. to be more specific I lived in Cambridge, London and Bristol but I haven’t seen temperatures plummeting to as low as -15 and below.
Yes I think the cold pattern has started and may last for another 20 years or so.
Eric (skeptic), I think you misunderstood. The westerly strength is proportional to how much colder the higher latitudes are than mid-latitudes. The Arctic is not as cold, so the westerlies weaken, so easterly (cold in winter, hot in summer) perturbations become more frequent. This is NAO, not AO, I am talking about.
Baa Humbug says:
December 17, 2010
I made no such claim. I claimed a regime change.
==========================
Ummm. I never said you did.
Such observations were my own…thank you very much.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Pamela Gray says:
Real right handed gunslingers either kept a derringer up high on the left chest in a cross draw position, or put the left hip revolver in a cross draw position.
Yes but… It works really well for us ambidexters! ( Sadly, I sold my Ruger Single Action .357. If I was doing it again, I’d add a second one, both in handles back position. Never have found another as accurate and smooth.)
sHx says:
My boyfriend got me a very cool 38 revolver with gun belt, I think for Christmas.”
Oh, dude! America is an entirely different planet.
Most folks have no idea … 9-)
Nothin’ like buying a gun for your sweety to make a relationship “click”… And folks in The U.S.A. will cling to their traditions for a long long time..
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/willie/
2nd video down has a “4th of July with Willie Nelson” that has, um, er, some , ah, “loose” rednecks having a “Wiskey River” party in the audience. Sort of a ‘Woodstock with cowboy hats’ event. Some with a shortage of clothing, so don’t watch it if you are easily upset.
That is the real America. The “heartland”. Not the stuff you see on the nightly news. And it’s just a might more self reliant and “uppity” than some other places. IIRC, there’s a few more than 1 gun per person in the country. Especially in Texas. (Willie hangs out in Texas a lot. As does the wife’s side of the family. I like Texas… )
If those folks ever decide to just tell D.C. to go “stuff it”, well, nobody is going to argue with them about it. Well, not for long anyway…
I really do wonder at how so many European folks can be so much like farm animals. As long as they are fed and feel safe, they’re happy. Don’t really understand it, myself. In the country you know you are supposed to ride the horse, not be ridden… and you know that the “prime steer”, being fed rolled oats in the barn, is not a desired career path… as it ends badly. How folks in the UK can be this cold, with that much tax nonsense, and just put up with it. It’s beyond me.
It will be very intersting watching how this sorts itself out in the UK and the EU. There are going to be significant political stresses from the impacts of a decade of increasing cold.
Richard Holle says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:28 pm
“Just an update;
Below are some of my latest thoughts on what is driving the weather and climate…”
Simply brilliant Richard and gets to the crux of the matter of climate oscillation. I’ve printed it as a word document for further study.
Now we just need a better understanding of the physics involved and a dollop of deterministic chaos to help us understand why the patterns of weather regime never quite exactly repeat and it’s job done!
“E.M.Smith says:
December 19, 2010 at 12:57 am”
Oh Mr. Smith, it’s not only the UK and EU, like “Monkey see. Monkey do”, Australia and New Zealand follow the “lead” UK/EU sets.
In the UK, Aus and NZ, “we” gave our “right” to defend ourselves from the state many many years ago.
Every day Aussies wake up and wonder why their “rears” feel more and more sore. That’s because our “leaders” (That is the MSM) are preparing us for major tax hikes!
Pamela Gray says:
December 18, 2010 at 7:09 am
I would love to see your reaction if he had a working Howitzer on the front lawn!
Ref – David Jones says:
December 18, 2010 at 9:51 am
Pascvaks says:
December 18, 2010 at 5:34 am
“100 KPH? That’s only 62 Mph! What’s so earth-moving about that? Can’t call that an “experience.” Don’t be such a wuss!”
Ref – Z says:
December 18, 2010 at 3:27 pm
David Jones says:
December 18, 2010 at 9:51 am
Pascvaks says:
December 18, 2010 at 5:34 am
“Hear hear… It does remind me of various American cop shows, where the commentator talks breathlessly about pursuits “sometimes up to 70 miles an hour” – in the UK, speed starts at 70mph.
Youz guys are sooooo insensitive… snif… snif.. Have to say, your beer does have a way of steeling one’s nerves a tad. Loved every minute! It’s a beautiful country, with beautiful people, who speak a beautiful language I can almost understand.
Actually a fairly cold December. Maybe only six Decembers since 1910 will remain colder.
Chickens….Home…..Roost
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/12/chickens-home-roost.html
I live in Oxfordshie in the UK and have just spent the last hour digging my car out from 8 inches of global warming. At 8.ooam the temeprature was -14 degrees.
Now, I have absolutely no qualifications or experience to express any view on climate, climate versus weather or weather. However, as a result of article after article in the MSM over the last 20 years, the general public and our politicians had, understandably, bought into the AGW theory. Every unusual hot spell, every dry spell, every bit of extreme weather, has been touted as “evidence” of AGW and no one ever got visibility to put for ward an alternative view.
I just get the feeling now though that there are, almost imperceptibly, changes afoot.
The statement by Philip Hammond reported thus is quite interesting on many levels:
After three successive bad winters, Mr Hammond has also asked John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, to examine whether Britain’s transport planning should assume that this weather pattern will continue over the next 20 years.
You will all recall the statemant from some chap at the CRU UEA back in the early naughties saying something along the lines of “children in the UK wont know what snow looks like in a few years”.
Could it be that Mr Hammond is asking Mr Beddington publicly “What on earth is going on?”. Is he saying to Mr Beddington that you said this wouldn’t be happening now? Is he saying ” we have listened to you over the last 15 years and, as a result, we don’t have the means to keep transport and services going when we get prolonged cold spells – because you said it wouldn’t happen?
Headlines like “the coldest December since records began” simply do not fit with the propaganda we have been subject to.
Interesting times!
My brother was telling me all about the 2 foot of snow that appeared in Belfast last Thursday.
For myself I have just successfully returned (but not without drama) from Exeter (yes the home of the great Met Office) to Hampshire.
In Exeter it dumped about 6 inches last night which was enough that getting out of the place was a nightmare. Heavitree Road this morning was interesting.
Eau de Clutch Flambe at times.
But I was thinking, you know, the Met Office is down near the M5 junction which is always a bit clearer than the town because it’s on a busier and bigger road and not quite in the hills.
So maybe that’s what they were talking about when they said snow would be a thing of the past?
They meant that it would be easier to get into their building as it would be cleared.
E.M.Smith says:
December 19, 2010 at 12:57 am
I really do wonder at how so many European folks can be so much like farm animals. As long as they are fed and feel safe, they’re happy. Don’t really understand it, myself. In the country you know you are supposed to ride the horse, not be ridden… and you know that the “prime steer”, being fed rolled oats in the barn, is not a desired career path… as it ends badly.
It is a difference in emphasis. In Europe, the action that brings sense to Governments is called a strike. If you believe you can shoot through your Government’s stock of tanks and aircraft with a .38 pistol – you go right ahead. However in Europe, the entire army and airforce of a nation can be paralysed by people just not turning up for work.
Petroleum distillates are the oxygen of the armed forces, and they do not make themselves. It only takes less than a month for things to get twitchy.
How folks in the UK can be this cold, with that much tax nonsense, and just put up with it. It’s beyond me.
Public opinion takes a long time to change. When it does, it will take no prisoners.
It will be very intersting watching how this sorts itself out in the UK and the EU. There are going to be significant political stresses from the impacts of a decade of increasing cold.
Not at all. The financial crisis will hit first. The cold will be just another annoyance. That’s where the stress lies. It will be interesting to see what is left of the “modern” world once the dust settles on that. The year 1914 was once the “modern” world – can anyone even remember the countries and their flags?
That was less than a century ago. Still (just) in living memory.
Z says:
It is a difference in emphasis. In Europe, the action that brings sense to Governments is called a strike. If you believe you can shoot through your Government’s stock of tanks and aircraft with a .38 pistol – you go right ahead. However in Europe, the entire army and airforce of a nation can be paralysed by people just not turning up for work.
Well, we can do the same thing here. Every so often the truckers make a point or two by encircling the capitol or actually doing the speed limit on the freeway. It’s slightly effective.
I think the USSR is the model for the “modern revolution”. The folks driving the tanks just change sides and the guys making petrol deliverys pick which side to stop at.
BTW, you don’t use the .357 Mag (yeah, it’ll shoot a .38, but why bother?) on a tank. That’s just silly. You use the Russian technique. Shaft in the treads to stop it then petrol bombs to get it cooking. THEN you use the pistol … and primarily to enforce a diciplined passive exit from the vehicle rather than actually shooting anyone. They ARE someones brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters after all…
Done properly, nobody gets hurt at all. Done very very well, they change sides and bring their toys with them ala Russia.
Oh, and “ground fire” often does bring down aircraft. (but that starts to get outside the scope of this blog, so the topic probably ought to be dropped).
The bottom line is that nobody wants to take on a fully armed populace. Even with tanks and airplanes. It’s a losing game. The idea is to REMIND the politicians of that fact, not to actually get into a dust up…
So back at the UK. You’ve got your weather in a fit right now. You’ve got politicians that are not listening to reality. You’ve got an EU Overseer that’s not listening to (what to call them… “voters” isn’t quite right 😐 is it ‘subjects’ or are you still using that quaint word “citizens”…) but shouting stupid orders a lot. You think shutting down the bisquit delivery to the local tea shop is going to get their attention?
My expectation is that things will need to get a whole lot worse before anything gets much better. Unfortunately, with the tendency for a passive population to just sit there and take it until it can take it no more, that has “brittle failure” as the outcome. Two World Wars and a few dozen minor wars (Yugoslavia anyone?) argue for a tendency for things to “end badly” there, when that brittle failure happens.
So I’d rather be over here where I can always go out and pot a few ducks and pheasants if I get too hungry ’cause somebody or other is on strike. And where I can inform my local Sheriff (who WE elect) that if he needs a couple of extra deputies to keep the Feds in line, I’m available…
Sidebar: Oddity of American Law is that typically the County Sheriff is THE top dog law enforcement official in his county. Feds don’t like it, and try to ignore it, and sometimes push things too far. But in the end, The Sheriff is in charge. (If it hasn’t already been attacked in some area, I expect we’ll see this start to erode too as the drive to Central Authority runs…)
So in the UK and EU all I can see is folks gritting their teeth and taking it until it breaks, and badly. Here I can see folks ‘getting uppity’ and forcing change well before that fact. And by a combination of actions, starting at the ballot box. Oh, wait, we already started that… 😉 It is a much more gradualist and deformational failure of the established order. Basically, the early news of Uppity Folks breaking things tends to cause change to start sooner. And that avoids the need for a brittle failure option.
So in the UK, you will have a boat load of useless windmills during a time of extreme cold and with folks dying from the stupid decisions of the government. And you will fix this with holding your breath and refusing to eat your cookies?
No hoodwinking and twisting of words, and conjoured up excuses can disguise the fact that the weather is not warmer but cooler. Even in Australia this is so. Official thermometers should be taken away from heat retaining built up areas.
The real agenda is to create wealth for the elite and to prop up the bankrupt financial markets via a global tax on carbon dioxide gas emissions – which is a harmless inert essential gas. The scam originated in Britain with Margaret Thatcher on behalf of the elite she served, offering money for anyone who could come up with ideas to push it. In Australia, the chief pusher of the Global warming scam, is the ABC.
Its head, was not coincidentally, the head of the stock exchange. He represents the same elite and organisation, as did Margaret Thatcher and is a member of the globalising Mont Pelerin Society which is the driver of Globalisation. It set up the Institute for Economic affairs in London. and oversees similar think tanks in nations under the central banking system. The misnamed carbon tax is being pushed from Australia and the aim is for it to be a global tax in order not only to be a cash cow for the elite at the expense of the poor, but also to have control over industry to reduce population which relies on such for jobs and production.