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”
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Born in Limerick Ireland but I think I now understand why the Australians are so stupid
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0709/1224300361039.html
This statement comes from a position of great confidence that they won the war of perception and manipulation and all the major battles along the way. Like a confident dictator they can afford to give out a few benevolent statements here and there. The CO2 reduction religion is in full force. Stay tuned for the next puppet act.
As ever, the Met Office seems to have problems with the interface between data and words.
So, they are not willing to really admit that global warming will be overwhelmed, regardless of whether it is actually (trying) to happen or not. And, of course, they inuend that only winters will be affected by solar sleeping.
If there is no global warming, then there is no global cooling.
I don’t see why this is so remarkable, ” as if the blinders have been removed”. Everyone acknowledges that solar activity is a crucial ingredient in the warming process. The problem is that CO2 acts as an insulation blanket to trapping heat in the atmosphere and thereby warming the planet. The combined effect of increased solar activity and CO2 induced warming is affecting our climate in a negative and dangerous way. This is not a controversial statement at all, except to those who are denying the validity of the consensus scientific view.
“despite global warming.”
oops This what I meant to say
“despite global warming.” You just had to throw that in there.
Why? Could it be you fear a reduction in funding?
In spite of the natural warming of the last few decades. It’s a slow grind, but it’s a natural grind. Whatever contribution man is responsible for, it will not prevent nature from dragging the climate down.
It’s worse than trying to heat your house in winter with the front door removed.
Hugh Pepper: Gee I really don’t think you could have been paying attention at all if you think the alarmists have admitted all along that the sun has anything to do with warming.
When you look at the sunspot peaks, the early twentieth century warming should have been more marked than the late twentieth – the opposite of what the NASA GISS series shows, with Hadley showing them about equal. However, it does seem to accord with a temperature series from glaciers for last 400 years by Oerlermans 2005, referred to by Skeptical Science. If a proper test shows the closer correlation of temperature with sunspots from a secondary source, then it would tend to confirm the work done by Anthony Watts on temperature bias of measuring stations.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm
“Hugh Pepper says:
July 9, 2011 at 8:13 am
The problem is that CO2 acts as an insulation blanket to trapping heat in the atmosphere and thereby warming the planet.”
Trapping heat? Oh dear. *sigh*
h.oldeboom says:
July 9, 2011 at 5:13 am
I presume that the MET, as in the Netherlands the KNMI, is funded by the government and therefore a political organisation . In this vieuw it’s quite an earthquake that they now agree with 50% influence of solar activity on climate.
______
This post is a good example of the misunderstanding between:
1) What the quote from the Met Office actually said
and
2) The difference between weather and climate
The Met office was talking about short-term weather variations from year to year, and actually, if you read the fully article, you’ll see they were comparing the short-term weather effects from El Nino year to year to what might be caused by a quiet sun. The Met Office was not making a statement about the longer term climate effects of solar activity. The longer-term effects of increasingly larger amount of CO2 in the atmosphere are actually in direct contrast to the shorter-term changes in ENSO cycles and solar cycles. The anthropogenic caused increase in CO2 over the past few hundred years can be likened to a long-term volcano that continues to erupt, whereas solar cycles and ENSO cycles, are comparatively short-lived blips against the longer term climate canvas. But I suppose hope spring eternal among some of the skeptical crowd that suddenly the Met Office will drop talking about anthropogenic global warming at all.
John Finn says:
July 9, 2011 at 7:41 am
“I think here’s a tendency for both sides to build ‘strawman’ arguments and to misrepresent what the other is actually saying. I can’t ever recall the AGW side saying the sun doesn’t have an influence. In fact I think they’ve over-estimated the early 20th century solar influence.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but the IPCC reports are considered by the “consensus” to represent the distilled essence of the best AGW science. And is it not abundantly clear that the IPCC reports have summarily dismissed solar variability as inconsequential on the basis that the TSI variation was too small to influence climate change (ignoring other solar measures of activity).
“this could be an ominous signal for icy winters ahead, despite global warming”
Eyes wide open all right but the facts obviously still haven’t been adapted by the brain.
What we need is a clear statement from Met Office that they were wrong about the CO2 driven Global Warming causing their climate models not to represent reality.
I think it’s really important that those who have pushed the AGW scare for so many years are the ones to declare it WRONG and end the scare.
As long as such declaration is not available our political establishment will continue to poor money down the drain.
This is realy what they mean to say:
“as happened during the so-called Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 – this could be an ominous signal for icy winters ahead, despite the evils of capitalism, freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by the present classes”… global warming.
To all commenting:
Please be afraid! The Met Office is NEVER right.
New solar forecast….. susnspots galore, boiling oceans, oy, buy stock in sunscreen lotion
companies.
rbateman says:
July 9, 2011 at 8:22 am
In spite of the natural warming of the last few decades. It’s a slow grind, but it’s a natural grind. Whatever contribution man is responsible for, it will not prevent nature from dragging the climate down.
It’s worse than trying to heat your house in winter with the front door removed.
____
IF the sun enters into a Maunder or simply Dalton type minimum, it will be an excellent test for the power of 40% more CO2 now than the last time this drop in solar activity occurred. Of course, all things are never equal as CO2 and solar activity are not the only two variables in the equation. There are differences in aerosols, volcanic activity, methane levels, etc. Still, it will be interesting to watch.
My guess is, even with a Maunder type minimum we may get colder winters in Europe, (which is ironically also a predicted effect from diminished sea ice), but globally speaking, temps will continue to march upward such that, despite natural variations year to year, each succeeding decade in the period leading up to 2100 will be progressively warmer…i.e. the period of 2010 to 2019 will be warmer as a decade than the previously warmest decade of 2000 to 2009.
Hugh Pepper @8.13
“I don’t see why this is so remarkable”
Fair enough but let me add some unremarkable facts. Long term the sun is cooling and that may have some effect on sunspot activity and our climate but we don’t know what effect that has had because of an infinitesimal thermometer and recent satellite temp record. As you say CO2 can have some effect on trapping heat but increased cloud cover will counteract that effect whilst soot and urbanisation may trap rather than reradiate heat. Our miserably, pathetic temp record now shows flat for a decade and your conclusion is? Presumably the unremarkable consensus shared here and at the Met now. What is remarkable is how so many of the policies espoused by those who feel CO2 induced warming is so remarkable in all of this, have turned out so unremarkable in outcomes and yet so remarkable in cost, unless you think putting the world’s food in our tanks and knocking over rainforest for palm oil diesel and the like are unremarkable. Anything else you find unremarkable and want to add? Feel free because you are among unremarkable friends here.
It was amusing that the Met Office after each of the last three winters, which were far colder than their forecast, said it was just a 1 in 10 chance.
Three in a row of course is a 1 in a thousand chance.
Putting it another way : it suggests there is a 99.9% probability that their models were wrong!
Not that they would agree with this conclusion, as far as they are concerned it is reality that is wrong, and it will eventually fall in step with their fantasy world.
I note that the grid square they use is 25km on a side. For us Yanks, thats about 240sq miles. How many thunderstorms do you think you can hide in that area? Two or three small, one large, perhaps? At that grid resolution you could easily miss that weather. This isn’t a criticism of their effort, but an observation on the limitation of their tools. Like trying to do surgery with knitting needles. I wonder how long a run takes at 1.5km resolution? It wouldn’t be much good if the look-ahead was for 24hr and the run took 36!
The Daily Mail reported that the computer is capable of 1 Teraflop. If they feel comfortable with a grid of 25km at that speed, they would need an upgrade to 256 Teraflops to get down to a grid of ~1.6km. Computational needs go up as the square of the resolution increase. From 25km to 12.5km gets 4 grid cells, down to 6.25km is 16 grid cells, 3.125km is 64 grid cells, and 1.5625km is 256 grid cells (4*2^n) or just about 1 mile to a side. That’s a lot of upgrading!!!
Hugh Pepper says:
July 9, 2011 at 8:13 am
“Everyone acknowledges that solar activity is a crucial ingredient in the warming process.”
Yes, sceptics have been consistently claiming this very thing for the last decade and for years the alarmists of the CAGW orthodoxy claimed that this was wrong. CAGW theology was based on the notion that solar activity had nothing more than a minimal impact on GATs. Now it seems that this heresy and contradiction to CAGW theology is now widely accepted.
“The problem is that CO2 acts as an insulation blanket to trapping heat in the atmosphere and thereby warming the planet”
Atmospheric CO2 is a trace gas and makes up less than 0.040% of the entire atmosphere, to describe it as a blanket suggests a remarkably poor grasp of the physical properties of CO2, in no way could this harmless trace gas be considered a blanket. Now water vapour could well be described as a blanket, it is present in quantities big enough to act as an atmospheric blanket.
“The combined effect of increased solar activity and CO2 induced warming is affecting our climate in a negative and dangerous way.”
The present tiny natural and cyclic warming the planet has experienced has been a massive boon to humanity, there have been no “negative” or indeed “dangerous” symptoms at all and in fact this claim is based entirely upon flawed computer models of what more warming may do in some fabricated future planetary state. Its more accurate to suggest that gullible people have been fed CAGW propaganda and have soaked it up as the truth.
“This is not a controversial statement at all, except to those who are denying the validity of the consensus scientific view.”
Aaah, we are deniers if we challenge the CAGW doctrines are we? Throughout history the supposed consensus has been wrong, not just a few but times but always and constantly, in fact the only consistent rule of thumb is that if a theory becomes the ‘consensus’ position it is later invariably proven to be wrong. The history of the ‘consensus’ is an epic tale of stupidity, ignorance, laziness, comical lunacy, seat warming and prejudice whereas the history of scepticism has been a series of glorious triumphs in adversity, the battle against ingrained ignorance by brave and fearless individuals determined to fight the cause of scientific advancement.
I am proud to be a sceptic.
“Despite” CO2 being the worst pollutant in the history of mankind….
…..despite the Chinese top secret mission trying to warm things up so they can feed more people
If you buy into this, you might as well buy into it all………
Witch doctors, shaman, snake oil salesmen…..They have all been selling fear and doom and gloom since the beginning of time…………all you have to do is pay them the price and they’ll fix it
Life was a whole lot simpler when all we had to do was kill a chicken or throw a virgin in the fire…..
higley7 says:
July 9, 2011 at 8:10 am
So, they are not willing to really admit that global warming will be overwhelmed, regardless of whether it is actually (trying) to happen or not. And, of course, they inuend that only winters will be affected by solar sleeping.
____
Of course the Met Office would not admit that anthropogenic global warming will be “overwhelmed” by solar activity, because:
1) This was not the context of them talking about solar activity. Solar activity is being admitted to be a reason for short-term variations, not long term climate.
2) Several centuries of continually rising CO2 levels, to concentrations not seen in nearly a million years, is a far different kind of long-term forcing than we see from solar variations. We see the short-term solar cycle and ENSO cycle riding on top of the longer-term upward trend.
R. de Haan says:
July 9, 2011 at 8:46 am
“What we need is a clear statement from Met Office that they were wrong about the CO2 driven Global Warming…”
____
1. Define “we”.
2. Why would the Met Office admit to something that is not true?