It seem airport operator BAA has realized that Global warming has really dumped on them the last two years and rather than be caught with their pants down again, they 3x increased their equipment and staff ready to clear snow.
From BBC: Heathrow airport triples snow clearance fleet
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15105627
Heathrow airport has tripled the number of snow clearance vehicles to tackle severe winter weather.
Operator BAA also has three times as many staff ready to clear snow compared with last year.
Thousands of passengers were left stranded at the airport as 4,000 flights were cancelled over five days for heavy snow before Christmas.
But BAA said it now has 185 snow clearance vehicles and has 468 staff per shift, compared to 117 last year.
The operator said it has invested £32.4m so far to tackle severe weather.
BAA had been criticised following last year’s disruptions and a report accused the operator of a breakdown in communication and lack of “preparedness” for the bad weather.
After the publication of the Winter Resilience Enquiry Report, BAA promised to invest £50m to avoid facing disruptions on a similar scale.
Announcing its “winter resilience programme”, the airports operator said it has introduced a new “reservist” role whereby up to 950 staff will be deployed to the terminals to help passengers during disruption.
h/t to WUWT reader “rg” in France
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Day late and a dollar short. Buy high and sell low. Waste gigantic amounts of money foolishly. That is the way we do it all nowadays! Unless the big volcano eruptions start up again, they are now very much overcapacity. The weather should get milder as we stand now. Until the next solar cycle ramp down when all heck breaks loose again. As long as the volcanoes remain subsided, which is not that predictable.
The 2010 CET winter average was well below normal. Only February and March 2011 were warm, easily swamped by December. I think the BBC article should have read ‘spring was incredibly warm’. Both extreme warmth and cold in the UK are generally caused by blocking highs – the same thing that caused the Moscow heatwave and the Pakistan floods. Are we seeing more of these?
Contrary to appearances there wasn’t a lot of snow in December. There was some snow that just didn’t melt because the tempertures were so low. Precipitation levels were below normal which was repeated into the spring which led to drought conditions. That damages the ‘warmer atmosphere could lead to more snow in some areas’ argument.
Sceptical,
A giant, flaming comet “could” at any moment come hurtling out of the sky and incinerate you, but it’s very unlikely and it would be foolish in the extreme to order your life as if it were going to happen.
In Britian snow will become a thing of the past. But until then, be prepared.
Kevin MacDonald says:
“Can you show me where AGW predicted…”
You still don’t get it, do you? AGW peddlers don’t make accurate predictions. But they sure makes a lot of them.
We might get a hint of climatic winter next week in Norcal, as a classic mid winter type Gulf of Alaska storm is prog’ed to move in, followed immediately by a second one. It will probably be a few more weeks before proper winter settles in here, but based on signs and the early onset of climatic autumn we’ve experienced, climatic winter will probably start at least a month early this year.
“The Met Office is an embarrassment. What ever happened with all that hoo-hah last year when the government blamed the Met Office for misleading them with a warm winter forecast while the Met insisted it had given them a forecast for cold….despite the fact that they also said they were no longer issuing long range forecasts at all (no doubt because they’d made asses of themselves one too many times)…”–pokerguy:
it’s worse than you thought, pokerguy. It was also revealed that the MetOff was selling different forecasts than they were publishing for the general public who paid their salaries. Can you say “conflict of interest?” I knew you could.
Can you show me where AGW predicted and end to cold by 2011? Strawman, or as you like to say, I call BS; It doesn’t, although it does predict increased precipitation which, when it is cold, falls as snow.
Sigh
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
and from the Met Office on last years snow bound UK showing when it snows the equivalent rainfall is less not more.
Precipitation (rain and snow) was well below average for the UK, recording just 38% of what is normally expected in December. This makes it the third driest December in the series that goes back to 1910.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/cold-dec
So where is your increased preciptitation ?
Simple fact is the last 3 winters in the UK were cold , this was not predicted by AGW modellers and cannot be linked to increased water in the atmosphere due to AGW. It was because it was cold.
SteveSadlov says:
September 29, 2011 at 7:36 pm
Our local NorCal meteorologist in Redding says we will get Mon/Tues/Wed with winds and snow leves or 6000/6000/5000 respectively, with heavy rain below that.
“Kevin MacDonald says:
September 29, 2011 at 5:54 pm”
So there must have been more warming between 1940 – 1975 for scientists to cliam an ice age was on its way. Yeah, figures! /sarc off
AGW predicted snow as a thing of the past. You don’t get hemsipheric cold/snowy winters because the Earth is getting progressively warmer. You get them when there is less incoming due to increased albedo and/or lowering SSTs. The sources have grown colder, therefore the winters grow colder.
AGW predicted the opposite, and the CO2 Easy Bake oven is not going to fill your ice cube tray.
30 million pound bet that cold winters are NOT a thing of the past!!!
Considering that the science is settled, why is Heathrow BAA behaving so stupidly?
will the CAGW Trolls please explain this irrational madness on the part of the BAA?
rbateman says:
AGW predicted the opposite, and the CO2 Easy Bake oven is not going to fill your ice cube tray.
=====================
CO2 Easy Bake oven. LOL Hahaha.
Nice.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Mr. Watts, my apologies if my comment came off as snark. This was not my intent. I thought the comment was pertinent to the blog post and comments.
I am confused by your response. Do you believe continued cold weather means there has been no global warming or is it just the anthropogenic part which continued cold weather calls into question or am I misinterpreting your response?
David Spurgeon 4:35 am
So winter is now November, December, January, February and March. Doesn’t leave much room for the rest of the seasons, does it?
Anyway, the first post was correct; there is nothing like carrying an umbrella to stop it from raining – warm winter here we come.
Adaptation is good.
Andrew30 says:
September 29, 2011 at 3:10 pm
On the other hand, if you are an AGW proponent. Reality sucks.
No doubt the Met will be forecasting a hot winter until someone hits ’em with a snowball….
Okay, clearly they got the airport covered, but what happens if the snow falls outside of it, onto the streets on the cities and towns where everyone lives? 🙂 My guess is that the poor civilians will play second fiddle for plowing equipment and supplies. Such are the consequences of political posturing in the media spotlight. That airport *will* be cleaned by golly.
ROTFLMAO! Jeez Kevin, you just told us explicitly that AGW began two years ago! Prior to that it wasn’t ready yet I guess. The CO2 levels were not sufficient or something. Well, not since the 1970’s when they must have been higher. Then, in the 1980’s and 1990’s, CO2 levels took some time off for a while and came back with a vengeance again two years ago! Perhaps instead you meant to say that ‘if it snows or if it doesn’t snow’ AGW covers it!
Oh what a tangled web you weave.
stevo says:
September 29, 2011 at 6:12 pm
The highest temperature recorded today at Heathrow was 28C. I believe that a temperature that high has never before been recorded there on this date before. It’s pretty funny that you think last winter’s weather is suddenly worth highlighting now.
Stevo, here in Newcastle it was 26 Celsius yesterday, we have had warm air from the Mediterranean moving north and covering the whole of the UK. This is predicted to continue until tomorrow or Sunday at the latest. An event like this does not mean that GW or AGW is occurring, it means that statistically such an event is likely to happen at some time. There is no more heat energy on the Earth, it just happens to be in a different place and only for a few days.
Last winter we had a colder than average winter, as we did for the preceding two winters, three white Christmases on the trot. Statistically this is far more significant, but it still doesn’t disprove GW or AGW. Where the warmists shoot themselves in the foot is by making glib predictions that snow in the UK is a thing of the past. BAA who make commercial decisions obviously do not believe that snow in the UK is a thing of the past.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/tstdaily_cet_mean12season.png
Last winter in Central England was bellow the LIA average, so far as the CET records covers. This summer as well.
Concerning the “warmer air holds more moisture” memo, how much more per that fraction of degree C increase? Twice? Triple? Quadruple? because this was the amount of snow experienced.
TinyCO2 says:
Both extreme warmth and cold in the UK are generally caused by blocking highs – the same thing that caused the Moscow heatwave and the Pakistan floods. Are we seeing more of these?
****************************
According to the NOAA report about the Russian heatwave – not.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/moscow2010/images/hovm_days_obs.jul-aug.jpg
“It is not known whether, or to what exent, greenhouse gas emissions may affect the frequency or intensity of blocking during summer. It is important to note that observations reveal no trend in a daily frequency of July blocking over the period since 1948, nor is there an appreciable trend in the absolute values of upper tropospheric summertime heights over western Russia for the period since 1900.”
***************************
Instead of that radiative pseudoscience, scientists should have a look on changes in air circulation related to NAO/AO/AMO which brings statistically more/less cold/warm air in certain region. Col winter in mid-latitudes = lot of cold air coming from the north, and the opposite.
@jay davis
You ask whether the global warming BS had influenced LHR in their snow removal preparedness.
Probably not. I’ve lived about 5 miles from the airport for the last 30 years, and we have had only four heavy and settling snowfalls that I can recall in that time…two of them in the last two years.
Our climate is very temperate and snow here is rare. But, unlike more continental places, the actual weather is pretty unpredictable (being on the eastern edge of a big big ocean brings lots of damp blowy weather – and being on the western edge of a big big continent sometimes brings very hot or very cold dry stuff..the conflict between the two makes the British weather ‘interesting’) .So I’m not surprised that they chose (conscioulsy or unconconsciouly) not to spend lots of money against a pretty low risk. Where they got caught was that Heathrow has got busier and busier and more complex as time has gone on, so the effects when it did happen were much worse.
FWIW we are now in the middle of a very unseasonable spell of hot and still weather …30C round here yesterday. And right on cue the local council (caught out just like the airport was last winter) dropped their sheet about ‘Preparing for winter’ through my door yesterday.
Which just goes to show that predicting weather and climate for UK is a mug’s game. The cynics might think that in the Met Office we employ a lot of mugs to do so…but I couldn’t possibly comment
The most likely reason for this investment is that Heathrow is facing increasing pressure from Frankfurt, Schiphol and Madrid for intercontinental stop-overs. So they’re pulling out all the stops to make sure they don’t get caught with their pants down in the winter.
If they had a captive market, quite frankly, they wouldn’t give a shit……….
This model outcome is representative of all the others that have been pushed down the throats of the British public.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/climateexperiment/whattheymean/theuk.shtml
Now that the models are failing a new set is required to predict the recent past and an apocolyptic future.