Newsbytes from Dr. Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation
Britain should brace itself for another freezing winter with the return of La Niña, a climate phenomenon known to disrupt global weather, ministers have warned. The warning coincides with research from the Met Office suggesting Europe could be facing a return of the “little ice age” that gripped Britain 300 years ago, causing decades of bitter winters. The prediction, to be published in Nature, is based on observations showing a slight fall in the sun’s emissions of ultraviolet radiation, which over a long period may trigger mini ice ages in Europe. –Jonathan Leake, The Sunday Times, 9 October 2011
BRITAIN is set to suffer a mini ice age that could last for decades and bring with it a series of bitterly cold winters. And it could all begin within weeks as experts said last night that the mercury may soon plunge below the record -20C endured last year. Latest evidence shows La Nina, linked to extreme winter weather in America and with a knock-on effect on Britain, is in force and will gradually strengthen as the year ends. It coincides with research from the Met Office indicating the nation could be facing a repeat of the “little ice age” that gripped the country 300 years ago, causing decades of harsh winters. –Laura Caroe, Daily Express, 10 October 2011
Some scientists predict that the Sun is heading for a long slump in solar activity known as a Grand Solar Minimum. If this happens, it is possible that Britain could return to conditions similar to those 350 years ago when sunspots vanished during “the Little Ice Age”, when ice fairs were often held on the frozen Thames in London. –Paul Simons, The Times, 10 October 2011
Investment in more winter equipment may not be economical given rarity of British snow, says RAC Foundation chairman. The row over the need for a multimillion-pound investment in snowploughs, de-icing equipment and salt stocks deepened this morning with the publication of a government-backed report using Met Office predictions that successive hard winters are rare. Quarmby said the Met Office remained convinced that the severe cold snap is a one-off phenomenon. “We cannot say this is an annual event,” he said. –Dan Milmo, The Guardian, 23 December 2010
The Met Office is working with academics to try and predict the likelihood of severe winters over the next 20-30 years. The work aims to help transport authorities understand the risks of further severe winters after the coldest December since records began in 1910. But the work was criticised this week by Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. “I would strongly advise not to rely on any 20-30 year winter forecasts,” he said. “The point is that nobody really understands the basic feedbacks and climate dynamics that drive annual winter variability, let alone that long in advance.” –Local Transport Today, 25 February 2011
In October 2009 the Met Office predicted a mild winter because of El Nino. Temperatures in December would be above average, they said. In reality December temperatures were a whopping 1.1 degrees below the recent average. In 2010, contributing to the Quarmby Report, the Met Office advised to assume that the chance of a severe winter in 2010–11 is no greater (or less) than the current general probability of 1 in 20. Boy, were they wrong! Mean temperatures over the UK were 5.0 °C below average during December and 0.3 °C below average in January. –-David Whitehouse, The Observatory, 10 October 2011
The fact is that nobody knows if the forthcoming winter will be severe or mild. The only wise advice that can be given is to plan as if 2011 is going to be like the previous three winters, and one doesn’t need multi-million pound computers to make it. –-David Whitehouse, The Observatory, 10 October 2011
Snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said. –The Independent, 20 March 2000
Green thinking represents a challenge to the status quo? That’s a laughable idea. From schools and universities to every corner of the Western political sphere, the climate-change outlook is the status quo. In fact, it’s the new conservatism. –Brendan O’Neil, The Australian, 8 October 2011
Not surprising.
Ask yourselves how many time times you have argued that 1200km is too far to extrapolate?
why? well you make that argument because you believe that it can cool in one place, while it warms in another.
Ask yourself how many times you have argued for more station coverage. Why? because it can cool in one place while it warms in another.
It cools in england by 2C
It warms in the arctic by 4C
on “average” which is all the models can really predict, you have ‘warming’.
locally, people never see the average.
cause the average is never an observed quantity.
The LIA was limited in geographical distribution. As was the MWP. Interesting problems that have nothing to do with global warming.
It will take another 10 (+/- 2) years of babbling about climate change due to Global Warming before they get around to selling climate change due to Global Cooling. There is a 20 year lag in the CO2 hypothesis, and they don’t care which way the ball bounces, as long as they can scare people to death.
Look for some really bizzare theories such as CO2 dry ice hail that froze the wooly mamoths, etc in place.
Perhaps a tipping point where man puts enough CO2 into the atmosphere that CO2 thunderstorms become the engines of an Ice Age plunge.
AGW due to Co2 as we know it.. is finished, and they know it too. “Ol soldiers never die they only fade away”. We are now in the intense fading away stage…By 2013 AGW will be a non-existent issue mark my words. Jones, Mann ect will be history, retired or jubilated LOL
This is grreat news, just think, no more extreme weather events, no more hurricanes or floods or droughts. AND the climate will remain constant.
This could also mean a reprieve for the 4.5 Billion people expected to die from globul warming by the end of this year. http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/01/08/01291.html
I wonder whether anyone has passed this news onto Maurice Strong yet?
I know AW or Gavin SChmidt probably would not want to answer this but I bet that by now there has been a pretty severe drop in interest (hits ect) in the whole climate issue on the part of skeptics as well as alarmists/believers, Some diehards will hang on LOL
Petition: Take seriously the risk of more extreme winters
Following a succession of cold winters and cool summers (like the notorious BBQ summer), we now have corroboration by the CERN physics institute of the work of Svensmark and others which clearly indicates a link between climate and solar activity. Other scientists suggest that the recent drop in solar activity may herald a new Maunder minimum which was a period of low solar activity, few sunspots and extremely cold weather. In light of this evidence, we ask the government to ensure it is prepared for a sustained period of extreme cold and ask it to urgently undertake research to understand the effects of solar activity.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/15656
@Peter H
“The truth is that these solar UV effects, if they turn out to be real, are regional and that cold in one place is more than cancelled out by warmth elsewhere. In the UK this year the Central England Temperature is running at around a top ten 1C above normal…”
Indeed, yet somehow we all survived its ravages to live another year.
CO2 drives weather, but in Britain it drives on the othe side of the road, so it causes cold instead of hot.
😛
I’m *very* suspicious about Peiser’s claims that Nature is publishing any such article warning of a return of the LIA. This doesn’t smell right. It would mark a complete reversal for Nature, and that’s just asking for too much, too soon,
The loop will now be closed—the infinite loop of possible outcomes that is.
PhilC
Strange that Joanna was so sure of herself on that radio interview. I sent her my suggestions as to how it could work some time ago but she has apparently not considered the possibilities that I raised.
She hasn’t yet responded to this either:
“Dear Joanna,
We corresponded by email last November concerning the above and my
interpretation of what appears to be going on in the atmosphere.
I wonder whether there is any new data since then, in particular as to
warming of the stratosphere whilst the sun remains relatively inactive as
compared to cycles 21 to 23.
I recall that the data then available was only up to 2005 and you pointed
out that the upper stratosphere was not warming significantly at that date.
However you had noted an unexpected increase in ozone above 45 km from 2004
to 2007 and I wonder whether that has continued and whether it has led to
any warming of the mesosphere.
The importance of such matters is that I can only envisage the atmospheric
changes necessary to explain the MWP, LIA and the current warm period on the
basis that the stratosphere cooled in the MWP and the late 20th century warm
period but warmed in the LIA.
The jets clearly move equatorward when the stratosphere warms yet they moved
equatorward during the LIA when the sun was less active.
That implies the reverse sign solar effect that you mentioned previously.
Best regards,
Stephen P R Wilde.”
I know what it is. It is PEAK WARMING!
Because of AGW we have clearly used up all of our available warmth and now are doomed to colder and colder winters.
just back from Royal Society lectures…….now this article….now so totally confused that I wouldn’t recognise an iceberg if one floated by my house in London (sea level rise), all I know is that I know nothing
Steven Mosher says:
“The LIA was limited in geographical distribution. As was the MWP.”
Thank you for your opinion. However, facts trump opinion in this instance. The lack of sunspots coincided with the LIA, and there are copious references to global warming during the MWP in both hemispheres. I don’t have time to re-post those citations, graphs and links right now, but maybe later today.
It has very little to do with the Gulf Stream. London is almost at the same latitude as Vancouver and has similar climate. even though Vancouver has a cold ocean current flowing past it.
lol. This has to be a joke… Surely.
Strick says:
October 10, 2011 at 11:36 am
“Stunning, simply stunning. The world turned upside down.”
Isn’t that what’s supposed likely to happen next Christmas, (2012), as it’s already so Top Heavy ?
“I caught the following link from Steve Goddard’s real-science site a while ago.”
Love the date, kramer. ;-p
Steven Mosher said:
“The LIA was limited in geographical distribution. As was the MWP. Interesting problems that have nothing to do with global warming.”
There is rapidly accumulating evidence that that is not so.
If changes in solar activity affect the atmosphere from the top down which is now admitted at some pretty high academic levels and in the public domain then it is inconceivable that the effects will be limited only to our little patch of the planet.
Solar changes have global effects if they have any effects at all.
We have observed poleward / zonal jets with a cooling stratosphere and active sun during the late 20th century.
We now observe more meridional / equatorward jets with a stratosphere no longer cooling and possibly warming with a quieter sun since 2000:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
“The evidence for the cooling trend in the stratosphere may need to be revisited.
This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been slightly warming
since 1996.”
As Joanna Haigh herself said previously:
“our findings raise the possibility that the effects of solar variability on temperature throughout the atmosphere may be contrary to current expectations”
from here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7316/full/nature09426.html
Certain questions need some serious reconsideration and behind it all lies the IPCC assertion that the sun had a minimal contribution to the late 20th century tropospheric warming.
The IPCC assessment of probabilities is no longer valid as to causation.
So we have the met saying that we are in a series of harsh winters and heading for a little ice age but on there long range prediction charts they have a higher probability of an above average winter.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/images/prob_ensemble/20111001/3up_20111001_temp2m_months35_europe_prob_public.png
I normally expect the opposite of what they say.
Well, there was a study in Nature Geoscience about solar ultraviolet irradiance and lowered temperatures. But there’s nothing in the article about a return to a Little Ice Age. It is about decadal forecasts linked to the solar cycle,
Time to cue Al Gore for a European speaking tour this winter …
But the work was criticised this week by Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. “I would strongly advise not to rely on any 20-30 year winter forecasts,” he said. “The point is that nobody really understands the basic feedbacks and climate dynamics that drive annual winter variability, let alone that long in advance.”
What? Some sober reflection on alarmist predictions from an AGW apparatchik?
Is it April 1 already?
Antoninus:
I bet that by now there has been a pretty severe drop in interest (hits ect) in the whole climate issue on the part of skeptics as well as alarmists/believers….
Would that it were true. Starting with the California legislature.
What makes us think its only going to be a ‘mini’, this impending ice age ?