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.
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 @ur momisugly 10.86p/KWH
Gas @ur momisugly 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 @ur momisugly 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”?