Translation via the GWPF
Speculation Alert: “New Little Ice Age Cannot Be Ruled Out”
Wednesday, 15 December 2010 09:16 Rickmer Flor, wetter.info
It is already clear: the average temperatures in Germany this year (8.1 degrees Celsius) were 0.2 degrees below the long term measured average of 8.3 degrees. “I fear we will end up still significantly lower by the end of the year”, said Globig. The long-term average is actually the average of all German stations from 1961 to 1990.
Coldest December in 100 years
In Berlin, there was an absolute cold record in early December, “For 100 years it had not been as cold as in the first decade of December,” said Globig. This also applied to other regions. But why is it so cold just now? Might it have anything to do with climate change? “I’m very sceptical”, replied Globig. A few years ago when we had a period of mild winters many climate scientists warned that winter sport in Germany’s low mountain ranges would soon no longer be possible anymore because of global warming. “Now they are saying: the cold winters are a consequence of global warming – a questionable implication,” according to Globig.
“Unbelievable amounts of snow” in Berlin (AW note: 800 flights grounded in EU)
Globig appeals to our long-term memory – and recalls a prolonged period of extremely cold and snowy winter in the 1960s and 1970s. Half a meter of snow fell in Berlin in early March 1970, in Potsdam even 70 centimetres. “From today’s perspective, these amounts were unbelievable.”
Then followed a period of milder years, and, probably the impression spread that there will be no more real winters in Germany”, said Globig. “That was a misjudgment.” People became careless, and as a result the authorities run out of grit in a very short time last winter and this year the airport operators lacked de-icing fluid for airplanes. In the Berlin the S-Bahn traffic came to a halt because of the cold and the high-speed trains did not run either. “Our modern, high-tech world was completely overwhelmed with the winter situation” said Globig.
Even the last winter was extremely hard
Many had succumbed to the delusion that the usually mild winters of the past ten years would continue. But already the winter 2009/2010 – with its long periods of frost and snow well into spring – was an eye-opening event for many. “This eye-opening experience could be even bigger this year,” predicts Globig.
Globig sees two main causes for the significant cooling: First, the cyclical changes in the big air currents over the Atlantic, and second, the variations in solar activity.
“Everyone has heard about the high over the Azores and the low over Iceland,” said Globig. The most important question for weather forecasts for many years was: “What are the air pressure differences between the two regions, how stormy will it be – and how much mild air is being shovelled sequentially from the Atlantic to Europe?”
“Both pressure areas do not exist right now,” explains Globig. On the contrary, over the Azores there is lower air pressure and a high over Iceland. “The weather over the Atlantic is upside down,” said Globig. Now cold air from the polar region has lots of space to flow to Europe – and that is what is happening.
“Normal” fluctuations with large currents
“These changes in the so-called ‘Atlantic Oscillation’ are totally normal – just hard to predict in detail,” explains Globig. The storm “Kyrill” in 2007 was the peak of the flow activity from the Atlantic to Europe. “Since then it has grown quiet over the sea,” the meteorologist said. The lows over the Atlantic have become weaker and weaker.
This effect has taken place in previous years, but at irregular intervals. Science does not yet know much about it, says Globig, „but here lies the key to a better understanding of the seasons”.
The low temperatures could very well go on a few years, maybe decades. Even more icy cold could be possible. „It has happened before, and can be explained with natural climate variability,” said Globig. We could even be at the beginning of a Little Ice Age, “the probability is at least given.”
This is also supported by the current development of solar activity. Solar activity has passed the zenith of a nearly 200 years continuing phase of high activity and will decline in coming decades. Around the years 2040/2050, scientists expect a new so-called solar minimum, with very little supply of solar energy into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Spread of the Arctic ice?
“I think it is even conceivable that the Arctic ice spreads significantly in the years to come,” said Globig. The impact of solar activity on climate has been criminally underestimated for a long time.
The last two weeks have been the coldest in England since the second-to-last solar minimum, many hundreds of years ago. “What actually will happen depends on the next five to ten years,” believes Globig. But one thing now appears to be very likely for the weather expert, “We will have to abandon some climate forecasts. “
Wetter T-Online, 14 December 2010 (translation by Philipp Mueller)
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Tom in Florida says:
December 18, 2010 at 7:33 pm
I have noticed that R. Gates has been spewing out this “40% increase in CO2″ lately as if that was something significant. The 40% increase is just 1.12 molecules of CO2 per 10,000 molecules of all the rest of the stuff. But I guess “40% increase” sounds a whole lot nastier.
______
CO2 has not been this high in at least 800,000 years, and geologically speaking, it has spiked to its current level virtually instantly (very much like a volcanic eruption) if you consider that normally it takes tens of thousands of years for CO2 to move the way it has in a few hundred years. Now, I never thought that 40% sounds scary ( or not scary) but I think it is the most accurate way of looking at the spike in CO2 in the past few hundred years. Think about it this way, a 40% rise from the normal level of CO2 in your body, while not a lot in actual raw numbers, gets very close to causing
respiratory acidosis (not a good condition to be in). So looking at percentages is usually better for looking at the onset of potential effects. Here’s another example, suppose I buy a stock for $1.00 a share and it goes to $1.40 and I’ve made a 40% profit. That 40% tells me more than simply saying it went up 4o cents a share, because if my Google stock goes up from $350.00 to $350.40, that’s not too impressive. Precentages are almost always better for indicating trends and dynamics– and if the 40% rise in CO2 in the troposphere in a few hundred years (which is the fact of the matter) sounds “scary” than pershaps that should tell you something, for certainly if the CO2 level of your blood increased 40% in a short period and was continuing to rise, you could be on the verge of something very scary indeed.
It’s just so funny to see R.Gates and LazyTeen going ever so much off the rails into “out of touch with reality” land trying desperately to find a way to hang on to their beliefs.
Then you can just look out the window all over the world and see way out of the ordinary and even record ever cold and snow events….
Then look back at the “Warmistas” shivering as they talk about how warm it is… somewhere else, maybe, or it ought to be… or the computer says it is (just ignore that snow…)
Such a stellar example of Cognitive Dissonance.
Guys, here’s a bit of friendly advice:
It’s a really really bad idea to tell someone who’s freezing and up to their eyeballs in snow that it’s really a “warm snow”. Just sounds like “Crazy talk”. Wait for the snow to melt, then tell them it wasn’t all that bad. They’ll be feeling warmer then and will not want to admit to having been so non-macho as to think a bit of snow was cold.
Oh, and when folks have things like, oh, I don’t know, maybe “records” and “local news papers” that show it really IS unusual to have 100 year snow events in the tropics and snow on the door step of Summer in Australia and Argentina and Brazil and… Don’t try to tell folks that it’s just business as usual. It just makes your credibility hit the dumper and folks think you are just making stuff up with no contact to reality. You’d have better luck with that old standby “it’s just a weather event and weather can have extremes”. Yeah, it’s almost as lame, but at least it sounds plausible.
Look, I know it’s tough being on the losing side of Mother Nature. Heck, AlGore getting snowed under in Copenhagen, then a constant string of record cold days in Cancun. Now “record ever” cold and snow popping up in all corners of the world. And when you are a bit hypothermic, well, the brain starts to do funny things. So tell you what… why don’t you go get a nice hot cocoa or coffee, thaw out a little, turn the furnace up a notch (we won’t tell anyone) and think about a different approach. Maybe pointing out that the Gulf Stream is slowed a lot (and blame it on melt water diluting the salinity. The physics is right, even if we don’t actually have the melt water. Most newbies wont know that and you’ll sound much more ‘in touch’) or saying that it’s because we’ve overshot to the hot side and now the system is “ringing” (yeah, complete BS, but it sounds good as folks are familiar with other oscillators ringing).
But this saying “it’s not really cold” and “It’s normal to have snow in Miami in December” kind of stuff, well, it just sounds like crazy talk…
It really would be more interesting if you tightened up your game a notch or two. Honest.
I find all this amusing because if you read AR4 and the associated science carefully enough, you start to see the difference between what the science says, and what the various political spins that come out of it SAY the science says. Once you get passed that you have an AHA! moment. Everyone has been asking, where is the warming when it has been right where the science said it should be, and now we’ve got cooling, right where the science says it should be.
The science says that during a warming trend, most of the warming happens in the coldest parts of the planet, during the coldest times of the year, and during the coldest part of the day (night). So the screaming meamies holler about warming and everyone expects the equatorial regions to burst into flame at high noon. But year after year its about the same because that’s the hottest part of the planet and the hottest part of the day, and so it changes the LEAST. So little you can hardly measure it. Sure, at night, in winter, at the arctic circle, it is -32 instead of -40. Anyone who noticed the change, ain’t complaining, and that includes the polar bears.
But now we gots us a cooling cycle. What does that mean for high noon at the equator. Not much. Almost zippo, can’t even measure it. But colder areas, in winter…that’s where most of the change will be, and all those people who kinda didn’t mind milder winters, particularly when summer highs didn’t seem to be much higher anyway, are not quite so quiet when the frost starts covering the windows.
Hansen and buds can adjust all they want, but the science says summer highs don’t change much, the variability will be in winter lows. Even the polar bears are OK with higher winter lows. But when those winter lows start heading downward… People notice, they complain… and if you are watching polar bear populations over time…they are gonna be pretty unhappy too.
An update on those Australian major city temperatures.
6:30PM (daylight saving) Sydney time.
Sydney 18C
Adelaide 17C
Brisbane 17C
Melbourne 11C
Eduardo Ferreyra says:
December 18, 2010 at 11:00 am
There has been a snowstorm in Río Gallegos
Do you have a link, please?
Manfred says:
December 18, 2010 at 12:32 pm
what is the efficiency of all these solar cells buried under snow and ice ?
lol
snowing in australian snowy mountains 19/12/2010 in the summer how is that for climate or is it weather
E.M.Smith says:
December 18, 2010 at 10:36 pm
And when you are a bit hypothermic, well, the brain starts to do funny things
lol, 🙂
tobyglyn says:
December 18, 2010 at 11:30 pm
An update on those Australian major city temperatures.
You have a link, please?
Hi Anthony, Sorry for this late post, but yesterday (18th Dec), “our” time, it was my 65th birthday and I was too busy shifting 12″ of powdery snow off my drive in order to let my 2 Jack Russell dogs out for a pee. I know that 12″ of snow in 6 hours is a snip for Inuits, Canutes and other North Americans, but for us here on the NW coast of England it is apocalyptic! The last time snow levels approached this figure, I had just reached my first birthday, so I’ll let your other expert climate bloggers work out what year that winter was. Yours Aye, Bob.
Hi Anthony,
just for the image credit: the photo has been taken in Zurich, Switzerland.
MeteoSwiss is pretending a warming of +0.2 °C compared to the long time average 1961-1990, the climatological standard normal of the WMO.
http://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/web/de/klima/klima_heute/jahresflash/flash2010.html
Nuname
Is R.Gates one percent figure accurate? If I look at the wikipedia entry on solar variation, there is only about 0.1 percent variation over the 11 year solar cycle.
“Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
December 18, 2010 at 11:57 pm
You have a link, please?”
Sorry not a simple link for all, it’s from my OSX dashboard weather widget but I that is served up by weather.com and having a look at Melbourne by itself we see that it is now just under 9C.
http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Melbourne+Australia+ASXX0075
Whatever happened to wattsupwiththat’s Facebook page?
As I read the blog I haven’t been thinking of the blog for a loooong time, and when I looked after it, there had been no postings since July?
One should be able to share articles like this at Facebook.
The winter of 2008/09 was a little too cold as well, so that’s the third consecutive outstanding cold and snowy winter here in Germay.
I am German. Here in Schwerin, the capital of the north-eastern german state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, we are whitnessing minus 11 degrees Centigrade at NOON today.
Yes – we are freezing our butts off, actually. And yes, this winter truly resembles those of my childhood during the 60’s: Long, cold, harsh and with bucket-loads of snow.
Hey, Michael Mann: I want my AGW back!
The loss of mild winters will be amply compensated by the loss (or at least reduction) of politically correct left wing agenda dressed up as climate religion. We can dress to compensate for lower temperatures, I personally use my bike all 12 months of the year (in Sweden), but what clothes will protect us from insanity and the rampant self-flagellation which is becoming the norm in absurdistan which we used to think of as the west.
R. Gates December 18 2010 11:44 am
What has happened in the past 2 winters to open the freezer door is that we’ve seen a shift in atmospheric pressure that has spanned both the last El Nino and La Nino cycles of ENSO..ie. ….. Some scientists are blaming lower sea ice for this, but I have a feeling it is more complicated that that (but still likely related to AGW),..
CO2 The Mighty Molecule! Not only can his Defies Gravity powers kick in by staying up in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years, now with his Mighty Muscles he can move whole pressure systems around, probably with only one finger.
In which direction should we all breathe out in co-ordinated unison to change this weather and bring back global warming?
kramer
December 18 2020 11:49 am
Have no fear, Hansen is here-> http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html
He can dust off his orginal rant against coal production resulting in a new ice age and say ‘I told you so’, business as usual.
This is actually a private company doing forecasts, it is in direct competition with the ‘official’ national weather service.
An interesting note: the company’s boss, M. Kachelmann, sits in a German court for allegedly raping his ex girl friend… not e that this sounds horribly similar to other high profile, uncomfortable people you may have heard of 😉
Murray Grainger Dec 18 2:31
BBC News just reported the coldest day in Northern Ireland since records began.
Maybe now the time for the Beeb to spread the warning from Cornish Tradition, ‘When white they turn the fox and the hare, beware..’
Amino Acids in Meteorites
Here you go.
Canberra area (Have had to switch on the ducted heating today!)
http://reg.bom.gov.au/act/observations/canberra.shtml
Melbourne area
http://www.bom.gov.au/vic/observations/melbourne.shtml
Sydney area
http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/observations/sydney.shtml
Adelaide area
http://reg.bom.gov.au/sa/observations/adelaide.shtml
Perth area
http://www.bom.gov.au/wa/observations/perth.shtml
Brisbane area
http://reg.bom.gov.au/qld/observations/brisbane.shtml
Darwin area
http://www.bom.gov.au/nt/observations/darwin.shtml
Hobart area
http://www.bom.gov.au/tas/observations/hobart.shtml
Antarctica – Australian Stations
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDT60802.shtml
Amino Acids in Meteorites
O/T But here’s something just for you.
“An international team of scientists studying remnants of an asteroid that crashed into the Nubian Desert in October 2008 discovered it contained at least 10 different types of meteorites. Some of them contained chemicals that form the building blocks of life on Earth, and those chemicals were spread through all parts of the asteroid by collisions.”
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2010/10-120AR.html
Anthony,
I screwed up big time and acted like an idiot. Dr Peiser did nothing wrong. I completely misunderstood the situation and shot off before thinking.
My humble apologies,
P Gosselin
Manfred says:
December 18, 2010 at 9:34 pm
“Patent application:
A solar cell with an auto window type heating wire inserted and connected to the power grid.
When snow or ice covered, the heating device melts the cover at the small cost of coal or nuclear generated electricity. The additional power produced by the solar cell – though it may be less than the electricity used for melting – may still be expensively sold with an overall proft.”
You can simply heat up a solar cell by applying a voltage – it works like a diode and warms. This way you can melt the snow, and when it’s gone, use the panel as a generator again. Similar to how you can use the generator in a Wind Turbine as a motor.
And this is actually done in some industrial scale solar farms in order to maximize output.
But i also found a patent about a solar panel with an extra heater. Maybe this is more efficient – but it would also be more expensive so i don’t know whether it’s economic.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2010/0236608.html