There’s an extraordinary admission about solar activity and cold winters in the UK from the Met Office in an article in FT Magazine.
It is as if the blinders have been removed.
The relevant passage is below from the much larger article.
“We now believe that [the solar cycle] accounts for 50 per cent of the variability from year to year,” says Scaife. With solar physicists predicting a long-term reduction in the intensity of the solar cycle – and possibly its complete disappearance for a few decades, as happened during the so-called Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 – this could be an ominous signal for icy winters ahead, despite global warming.
Read the article – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/35145bee-9d38-11e0-997d-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1RacNghPj
h/t to WUWT reader “Lord Beaverbrook”
Thanks for sharing this with us – at least I can see how my money is wasted now. There are some real corkers in the article. So they don’t have just one inaccurate model, they have 3!! And then take bits from each to make up a forecast – hmmm remind you of anything? At least they admit that their models are crap at predicting our winter weather. But is the best bit at the end? 82% of people trust the Met Office!!! I’d rather rely on pine cones, frogs croaking and cows sitting down myself.
Prof Malberg puts the sun at 80% !!!
Prof. Malberg: Wind power plants cannot be justified by the climate issue. I examined in detail what drives the climate and I looked at all the available data, from Europe, from USA, from Japan – all data were evaluated, and naturally the global data. It clearly shows that the climate is dominated by the sun, and then on top of that by the oceans, and then a little bit by the CO2 effect. I would estimate it has a magnitude of 10%, for Co2, and not more. More than 80% of the climate change is driven by the sun. That means relative to natural climate change, the influence by CO2 is very small, and so it does not justify any action for climate protection, where wind parks are built in order to save CO2. Sure you can do it, but it won’t have any impact on our climate, at least no real impact.
Professor Dr. Horst Malberg is the former director of the Meteorological Institute at the Free University of Berlin and a member of the EIKE Committee.
Full link here
http://notrickszone.com/2011/07/08/prof-horst-mahlberg-climate-change-at-most-10-because-of-co2-dominated-by-the-sun/
I loved this quote from the FT article:
Rob Varley, operations director: “Our trust scores are about 82%, which is phenomenal for any organisation. I find it heart-warming that, when it comes to the crunch, people trust the Met Office.”
I’d love to know who they surveyed, maybe the staff and students at UEA? 8- )
I read the Met statement as saying that man-made global warming is continuing but admitting that natural factors over-power the effects of CO2. This in itself is a major realignment of the Met’s position and at least demonstrates a return to some form of scientific rigour. That is a big step. Meanwhile, the Met disagrees with the EU over the short term forecasting of the present low pressure complex dominating western Europe to the tune of a difference of 300 miles by Sunday. It’ll be interesting to see who’s got it right.
But hang on I thought the debate was over. GCM projections have told us all we need to know. Professor Karoly and the ABC have assured us that it’s the evil humans?
From FT Magazine’s June 24, 2011 article; “So, will it rain tomorrow? by Clive Cookson”
“Third, scientists at the Met Office and elsewhere are beginning to understand the effect of the 11-year solar cycle on climate. When sunspots and other solar activity are at a minimum, the effect is similar to that of El Niño: more easterly winds and cold winter weather for Britain.”
I was struck by the comment that Met Office scientists are “…beginning to understand the effect of the 11-year solar cycle on climate”. Maybe just an inadaquately detailed passage by Cookson, but I thought any single 11-year span of forcings/feedbacks was not enough time to reliably resolve affects on climate. And how is it that they are just now beginning to understand the solar-cycle/Britain weather correlation??
Speculatively speaking, maybe the Met Office is now laying public-domain groundwork for a position that supports a much larger role of solar activity on regional/global wealther/climate (no matter what, always plan a path for a quick exit).
UK winters temperature follows the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) which is the surface atmospheric pressure differential between the Azores and Iceland .
However current science understanding is:
Until now, it is not clear which are the mechanisms driving NAO.
There are clear indications that this may not be the case, and there is an natural cause for it as described here .
I have compared CET winters for 3 ’30 year’ periods, end of the Maunder min, at the height of solar activity and the latest 30 years. It is clear that Maunder min had 4 out of 30, during the peak of sunspots 2 out of 30 exceptionally cold winters, and none during the last 30 years while the solar activity was on a decline. Note that the coldest winter on record was in 1963 during the strongest sunspot cycle ever SC19.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/30yCET.htm
I do not think this marks the St Paul’s Damascus Moment in the UK Met. Office. He mentions global warming at the end.
I am always surprised that otherwise intelligent people such as Met Office staff appear to be obliged to qualify quite rational statements about the possibility of cooling with contradictory and irrational caveats such as ‘despite global warming’. Are they telling us that the earth cools and warms simultaneously?
“We now believe that [the solar cycle] accounts for 50 per cent of the variability from year to year,” says Scaife
Does this mean that they are accepting that half of the recent warming is due to solar? If so, if you add in PDO etc then there is very little left for CO2.
Rather than giving up the Faith, I’d say they’re hedging their bets, but it’s a very sensible hedge. We’re at a high (or highly adjusted) temperature plateau, and the 30 year half cycle is past due to turn down, plus all the solar indicators are showing a lack of steam. The Met Office can’t take too many more bad misses on its calls.
Scaife; wonder if he received permission to say that. 50% variability? Wow!
@Stephen Fisher Richards and @Stonyground
You misunderstand. These people have not lost their faith in AGW – that is a given that they can never let go of they are convinced whatever happens there is an ‘underlying warming trend’ that may only occasionally be hidden by some natural variation.
So to quote someone on another board: “Even as they watch the Mississippi glacier calving ice into the Gulf of Mexico they will be saying “When this ice melts it’s going to get really warm!”
Eyes wide open, minds still shut.
It takes real scientists to produce the information from which we now have enough understanding of our current Ice Age to see the pattern on the graphs for ourselves, scientists or not. The only debatable point is, when?
If they’re hoping that making a statement showing themselves in agreement with the best minds around looking at the real trends will give the Met some credibility in its other pronouncements, then only among the uneducated about the AGW corruption of science and the gullible still clinging on to the lies despite all the evidence to this.
Yeah, I love the “despite global warming” bit, they just can’t let go can they?
Their creditability rests on the phrase, “icy winters ahead, despite global warming.” Don’t they understand this?
In 2009 they said global warming would resume after 2010 with about half of the years to 2015 likely to be warmer globally than the current warmest year on record.
How can they keep a straight face when they continue to support AGW
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2009/global-warming
Global warming set to continue
14 September 2009
Global warming continues to pose a real threat that should not be ignored – a claim reinforced in a new study by scientists, reported in a supplement of the August issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. This is despite very small global temperature rises over the last 10 years.
Met Office Hadley Centre scientists investigated how often decades with a neutral trend in global mean temperature occurred in computer modelled climate change simulations. They found that despite continued increases in greenhouse gas concentrations, a single-decade hiatus in warming occurs relatively often.
Jeff Knight, the article’s lead author, explained: “We found about one in every eight decades has near-zero or negative global temperature trends in simulations which would otherwise be warm at expected present-day rates. Given that we have seen fairly consistent global warming since the 1970s, these odds suggest the observed slowdown was due to occur.”
But why do these anomalies occur at all, whether in climate models or in reality? The answer lies in something called ‘internal climate variability’ – the capacity for slow natural variations in the oceans to temporarily modify climate. Computer models used to make climate predictions reproduce this intrinsic character of our climate because they successfully represent many of the necessary fundamental climate processes.
One such internal fluctuation over the last decade could have been enough to mask the expected global temperature rise. However, the Met Office’s decadal forecast predicts renewed warming after 2010 with about half of the years to 2015 likely to be warmer globally than the current warmest year on record.
Commenting on the new study, Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice at the Met Office said: “Decades like 1999-2008 occur quite frequently in our climate change simulations, but the underlying trend of increasing temperature remains. We cannot be complacent. Indeed, other signals of climate change are increasing as fast, or even faster than ever due to the combined effects of global warming and natural variability – the rapid loss of summer Arctic sea ice is one such example. Early action to reduce the extent and impacts of climate change remains vital.”
BBC: The Met Office added that global warming had prevented this winter from being even colder.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7921230.stm
Stonyground @ur momisugly July 9, 2011 at 12:36 am
The standard response to your conundrum is as follows:-
“Colder winters in Britain are offset by warmer winters in Greenland.”
What I love about this is the attempt to equate Britain, a group of verdant islands from 50 to 60 degrees North on the eastern margin of the Atlantic Ocean, with Greenland an ice bound Arctic island from 59 to 84 degrees North on the eastern margin of the North American Continent.
Try and work out how many differences there are between these two locations. If the Northern Hemisphere winter weather patterns change so that moist mild Atlantic air, that used to flow across Britain in December, now flows north into Greenland, then this air mass will experience (amongst other things) a shorter daylight time with a lower sun elevation. This allows for greater nighttime radiative cooling to space than occurred at Britain’s lower latitude.
As a keen golfer and motor cyclist, I follow our local forecasts closely. They always get them right but the timing is usually off by 6-8 hours or more!
Julia Slingo suggested the same computers are used for short term forecasts and ‘climate’ estimates with the in-built CO2 bias. Not surprising things have barely improved over 30 years.
50% is a good start.
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. – Winston Churchill.
Stonyground,
No, the effect of significantly lower (or higher) solar activity will be different across regions and seasons. The UK, the subject of the article, is in a region that seems particularly sensitive to solar changes.
This Shindell et al. paper (2001) presents the issue quite well:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Shindell_etal_1.pdf
This sounds like a drunk telling an enabling family member that drinking too much is not good and that he is working on cutting way back. Sounds good, but he does not really mean it.
The MET is full of people who have a religious belief in cAGW, and they are not going to change. They can not change: as the belief is religious in nature besides being how they make their living. They are embarrassed by that fellow with his tiny lap-top computer beating the hell out of them these last two or three years on weather predictions. As far as I know, most of Briton is aware that Piers Corbyn has out prognosticated the MET to the extent that the MET looks like a collection of dunces.
I think this admission is tentative and will be withdrawn as soon as “warming starts it inevitable climb” again.
stephen richards says:
July 9, 2011 at 12:32 am
“Don’t you just love the phrase “inspite of global warming”. It’s the old global warming-cooling mantra again”
stephen: almost the same wording that I was going to use!
Met Office: ‘OK folks, in spite of AGW roaring ahead, you’re probably going to be freezing your nuts off for the next half century’
That’s pretty well covered all the bases!
The problem with the Maunder Minimum is that it has only happened once since regular solar observation started. It could be coincidental that the mini ice age occurred during it, the real test will be if sunspot activity is again minimal for a similar period and weather conditions are repeated.
As I understand it, the Met Office’s long term forecasts are wrong because global warming is a factor which is included in all forecasts. Why don’t they produce two forecasts, one factoring in global warming and one that does not and see which is the most accurate? Would this be possible retrospectively to see if long term forecasts for last winter and spring would have been more accurate had the baseline temperatures been a few tenths of a degree lower?