Guest post by Paul Homewood
According to the Met Office, UK has just had the second wettest year on record, just behind 2000. These claims, however, are based on records dating back to 1910. The Met Office also keep a rainfall series for England & Wales, which date back to 1766, and these cast a slightly different light on the matter.
(As Scotland and N Ireland have been drier than normal, the England & Wales portion becomes particularly relevant).
Figures 1 and 2 show the annual rainfall for this series, with 10 and 30 year running averages.
Figure 1
Figure 2
The following points stand out:-
1) The wettest year was 1872, when there was 1284mm, compared to 1244mm in 2012. It was also wetter in 1768. Clearly the impression given by the Met Office, that the rainfall last year, and in 2000, is somehow “unprecedented” is not true. One is entitled to wonder why they made it.
2) The 30 year trend would suggest that rainfall was lower for most of the 19thC, but that it has been relatively stable since.
3) Both on 10 and 30 year trends, there have been many years previously at the same level as now. The wettest spell was during the 1870’s and 80’s. The 1920’s were also comparatively wet.
4) Inter-annual variability, of the sort seen in the last two years, is not uncommon, for instance 1871-72.
Seasonal Variations
Figure 3
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/
The winter graph, of course, is for Dec 2011 – Feb 2012, but shows the trend in recent years to drier winters, (not withstanding December 2012, which was much wetter). In contrast, summer rainfall has been on an increasing trend. (Figures for Spring and Autumn seem not to offer much of a trend).
The change in Winter and Summer patterns is significant because they run counter to projections made in the UK government’s Climate Change Risk Assessment, presumably put together with the help of the best brains that the Met and CRU can offer, and which forecast much reduced summer, and much higher winter precipitation.
Either their models are hopelessly wrong, or the global warming, they are predicated on, has stopped.
North v South
As the map at the top indicates, Scotland has been relatively dry, suggesting that rain belts have shifted southwards, bringing some of the rain Scotland normally gets down to England. And, of course, it is no secret to Brits that the jet stream has been shifted south of its normal position for much of the year.
Rainfall in Scotland is much higher normally than in England. Scotland usually receives about 1600mm of rain each year, compared to 855mm for England. Last year, England’s total was 1123mm, so it can be seen that Scotland has still been, by far, the wetter of the two.
Julia Slingo has been quick to blame higher rainfall on warmer temperatures. But does Scotland receive more rain than England because it is warmer? Is it surrounded by warmer seas? Her argument simply does not hold water.
I mentioned the jet stream moving south, but it would be more accurate to describe it as a meridional pattern.
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/159/
Low pressure systems, that tend to move faster with a zonal flow, often become blocked with a meridional flow. for much of the year, the UK has been stuck in the “bulge” coming down from the north, at the same time, of course, as parts of the US has seen a block of high pressure.
It is pretty much par for the course, that many climatologists have been linking this phenomenon with the melting of Arctic ice. It is, however, worth bearing in mind that Hubert Lamb found exactly the same meridional jet flow in the 1960’s and early 70’s. In his volume, “Climate: Present, Past & Future”, he describes the effects of the changing climate at that time, when Arctic ice was expanding:-
…….much smaller changes over middle latitudes, where the most significant feature has been the very awkward type of variability from year to year, associated with the behaviour of blocking systems and meridional circulation patterns.
Examples of the consequences of these features include a number of serious items besides the extremes of cold and warmth, drought and flood associated with the occurrences of blocking in middle latitudes.
I cannot leave this North v South topic without highlighting what the Met Office themselves have projected. In 2011, they published a report called “Climate: Observations,projections and impacts”, which was written by a team led by a certain J Slingo. This report is absolutely clear:-
Europe shows a strong contrast in projected precipitation changes, with large decreases in the south and large increases in the north. The UK falls towards the northern region with generally increasing precipitation, with projected increases of up to 10%, though some southern parts of the UK may experience decreases of up to 5%. There is generally good agreement between ensemble members over the north of UK, but moderate agreement further south, indicating uncertainty in the position of the transition zone between increasing and decreasing precipitation over Europe.
While the exact demarcation line is not certain, they are sure that the North will be wetter, and the South drier. This is the opposite of what has happened in 2012.
It would appear that the Met have very little idea as to what will actually happen.
Extreme Rainfall
According to Slingo, “The trend towards more extreme rainfall events is one we are seeing around the world, in countries such as India and China, and now potentially here in the UK”. But is rainfall really becoming more extreme in the UK?
While UK rainfall was 15% higher than the 1981-2010 baseline, rain days were 10% higher, so two thirds of the extra rain can be attributed to more rain days, rather than “heavier” rainfall.
Nevertheless, average rainfall has increased from 7.4mm to 7.8mm per day, but this does not necessarily mean that individual days have become more extreme. For instance, swap a day, when you get a short shower, for a day when you get an inch of rain, and the average goes up. Yet an inch of rain is neither extreme nor unprecedented.
So to test these “extreme rainfall” claims, I have analysed daily rainfall records dating back to 1931 and provided by the Met, for Oxford, which lies in the very wet belt seen on the above map , in the south of England and to the west of London. Across this part of the country, rainfall last year was 31% above normal.
Figure 4
Figure 4 plots the days when rainfall exceeded 26.0mm, of which there have been 99 since 1931. The following points stand out:-
1) There appear to be more days in the lower band, up to 40mm, during the past decade.
2) During 2011 and 2012, only two days appear, at 37.0mm and 32.8mm. With 99 such days over 82 years, an average of one a year is exactly what you would expect!
3) Most significantly though, the really “extreme” days happened decades ago. The six wettest days were :-
| Date | mm |
| 10th July 1968 | 87.9 |
| 6th Sep 1951 | 84.8 |
| 22nd June 1960 | 81.3 |
| 27th June 1973 | 67.3 |
| 12th Aug 1957 | 56.1 |
| 6th Aug 1962 | 53.3 |
Figure 5
Figure 5 shows the average number of days above 26.0mm for each decade, and also for the last two years. It bears out the suggestion that there has been an increase in such days between 2001 and 2010, but that the last two years are back to normal.
Conclusions
This is the detailed sort of analysis that you won’t see from the Met Office. Instead, Slingo obsesses about global air temperatures and extreme rainfall events.
Slingo herself admits that more work needs to be done to predict long term trends. I would question, however, whether she is the right person to lead this work, if she cannot take off her blinkers.
After Note
I found a couple of pictures, drawn in 1872, of the floods at Windsor at that time. One was in January of that year and was published in the “The Graphic Magazine”. The second relates to the floods in December 1872/January 1873 and was published in the Illustrated London News on 4th January 1873.
Thursday and Friday 25th and 26th January 1872.
A view from the GWR railway viaduct towards Windsor, with the floodwater reaching the lower areas of the town.
The Floods of early January 1873 from The Round Tower
http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/windsorhistory/floods1875.html
Plus ca change!
References
1) All data on rainfall and raindays is from the Met Office.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/
2) Climate Averages
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/19812010/
3) The England & Wales precipitation series is also from the Met.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/
RobW says:
January 9, 2013 at 5:05 pm
“I don’t understand the problem . . .”
But you do seem to have a good understanding of the process:
http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/b/barefootboywithbootsonthe.shtml
Slingo’s been taking a pounding on WUWT lately. I would love to know what people at the Met think.
Looking at their map of rainfall changes, it’s hard to see what anyone would complain about.
The wettest parts of the U.K. -Scotland and especially the West of Scotland- which gets more rain than it needs (way more) has recently received less.
And the driest parts -the South (in general) and the East coast- which frequently declare ‘droughts’ and impose hosepipe bans, now gets more.
Incidentally, people sometimes wonder how a small country like the Britain managed to build and maintain such a large empire. It’s simple. You could pluck a regiment of rain-soaked Scotsmen and plonk them in any god-forsaken climate in the world. They might grumble about pay but rarely about the weather : )
That’s the rainiest drought in Britain which I have ever come across in my whole lifetime…
A fantastic piece – so clearly written and understandable for all. A real shame such clear, concise reporting of the actual historical facts will never find their way onto a single BBC news report – a pity, as the BBC seem to be currently engaged in all-out ‘extreme weather’ scare mongering and misinformation at every available opportunity; a truly unedifying sight and ample evidence (as if it were still somehow needed) of something very wrong within the editorial ranks of The Corporation. Thanks for this much-needed piece of rational, evidence-based reporting.
Generally liked it, but
“3) Both on 10 and 30 year trends, there have been many years previously at the same level as now. The wettest spell was during the 1870’s and 80’s. The 1920’s were also comparatively wet.”
Can you pick an individual year out of a smoothed trendline?
I have read a few interesting things, which may bring to bear some insights of complexity to the table:
1. In the extreme winter for the UK of 1947, the greatest snow event of the 20th century in this country, Holland, Northern France and parts of Germany was not matched in Southern Europe. There, if anything, things were much wetter and rather milder, as the atlantic fronts had tracked far further south, leaving a blocking pattern centred over Britain and the northern continent.
2. In that winter, the extreme northern tips of Norway and a small part of the north Russian coastline were far warmer than average.
3. A 1000+ page volume, piecing together reports of drought, heat, floods, crop failures, hard winters, frozen rivers etc etc contains such frequent reference to floods in England, Wales and Scotland over the period 0 AD – 1900 AD as to make the expression ‘unprecedented’ completely comical. The key question to ask is actually about the state of the rivers, how deep they were, how well dredged etc etc. In addition, regular reports of all the major European rivers freezing exist, pointing to last year’s great freeze up as nothing new or novel, merely contemporaneously rare.
4. In terms of Sudden Stratospheric Warming events, there is no evidence that any step changes have occurred since 1958. What can be said, however, is that one very large event in December 1998 (they are rare in December, but when they happen, expect things to happen) preceded world record snowfall on Mt Baker WA in 1998/99 season, as well as a record 30 day snowfall across much of Switzerland from 25th January to 25th February 1999 (data retrieved from http://www.slf.ch which compared that period to the slightly less snowy period of December/January 2011/12 12 months ago. Keen skiers will know of the avalanches triggered in 1999, the deaths which occurred and the TV coverage of frustrated war reporters which ensued). There doesn’t, a priori, appear to be any evidence linking GHGs to SSWs therefore, either in terms of frequency or in terms of intensity.
5. If you have lived in both Scotland and the South East (I have!), you will know that precipitation patterns in Scotland are radically affected by the direction in which the frontal system approaches the often mountainous terrain. If the approach is from the south with blocking cells to the north, the Southern Uplands and Argyll may get very heavy precipitation (snow in winter), whereas north of the Great Glen, no precipitation at all will occur. If fronts approach from the west or North West, the North West Highlands get the most precipitation. As the latter is more common in most years, the highest rainfall totals are to be found in the NW Highlands and on the mountainous Islands off the coast. This year is testament to what can happen if the prevailing patterns shift.
6. The tourist destination of Fort William miraculously seems to carry on with average rainfall of around 3 times that of the South East of England. To suggest to them that life would end with rainfall of 1200mm would have them sending you to the local psych ward……..
All in all, this whole nonsense from the MO is a ghastly piece of PC shenanigans which has wasted millions of taxpayers’ money. The outcome is only going to be in one direction and the brave ones dedicated to scientific truth must emerge financially stronger, politically more powerful and publicly more decorated than the snake oil salesfolk whose market is withering before their eyes…….
Climate is always evolving or changing. There have been rainfall records which were broken hundreds of years ago, a new record seems to crop up every 50 years or so, but when most of the new records as far as rainfall in the UK are concerned, are set in the last 12 years, does that change our view of what is happening with our climate? Yes. I agree, these things have happened before, but it is the rate of change with regard to rainfall in the UK that is of particular interest. A record rainfall once every decade or so is bearable, when it starts happening every year that’s a different matter.
” Einar Rønbeck Evensen says:
January 9, 2013 at 12:22 pm
didn’t they also have a state of drought while the floods were happening?”
Sort of, In the spring, they had drought and hosepipe bans and the Met office predicting more droughts to come, then the rains came and never stopped for the rest of the year.
If the met office medium and long term predictions were correct, beyond a range of chance, then there computer systems would have been worth the millions we British tax payers paid for them.
If the met office medium and long term predictions were correct, but only to degree equal with chance, then it could be argued that they needn’t have spent all that money and they could have tossed a coin instead.
But the clear fact is that the met office’s medium and long term predictions were wrong more often than chance, which proves that their models are wrong. We also know that their models are coded to include an assumption of man made global warming. That assumption is wrong. The model is wrong, we taxpayers should demand our money back!
Earlier I wrote :
” The UK met office have all the data which shows the position of the jet stream. I asked them the other day if they could publish this – they said thay had a few requests for this and that they are considering doing this and certainly will if there were enough requests for it.
I think it would be interesting to plot this against both precipitation and temperatures as I suspect some correlations might appear. If you think the data would be interesting then maybe you could email the Met Office (or call them if you are in the UK) and ask for the data.
[Reply: Got a contact link for the Met Office? — mod.]
In response to the request from a moderator, and hoping as many as possible will request the jet stream data from the met office :
Met Office website is : http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
email for enquries : enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk
Online Feedback form : http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/feedback
Telephone number (international) +44 1392 885680
Telephone number (UK) 01392 885680
Fax number +44 1392 885681
For the avoidance of doubt the Met Office is an arm of the UK government as an ‘executive agency’ – hence it’s .gov.uk web address. It describes itself thus:- “The Met Office is an Executive Agency of the United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.”
It’s Home Page descriptor is ” Weather and Climate Change – Met Office”.
The UK Department of Energy was renamed The Department for Energy and Climate Change as is staffed with politicians and civil servants who give every impression of being signed-up members of the climate change religion.
They are forecasting snow now!
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-snow-ice-and-subzero-1527009
Gareth Phillips:
Your entire post at January 10, 2013 at 12:46 am says
The only exceptional weather-related rate of change is the frequency of Met Office reversals of its assertions.
A few years of below average rain and the Met Office predicted droughts most years.
A few months of above average rain and the Met Office predicted floods most years.
Richard
Green Sand says:
January 9, 2013 at 3:34 pm
Fascinating, thanks, but you really do need to change the chart lines to Light and Dark Blue
……..
I am regular on the Putney bridge , but now compulsory ‘dark blue’ since my youngest use to be a member of one of the colleges female crews.
It is that ‘shifting south’ which is the key to all of this. I learned as a child that in winter the low pressure settled over Britain and the in summer the low settled over Iceland. Not so this last twelve months. The inclination of the Jet Stream has been such as to not re-site the low pressure with the resultant conditions. Earlier last year a weather scientist agonised that they knew little about the antics of the Jet Stream from which pronouncement one could conclude that the phenomena had scant input to any climate model. The Met. Office has perhaps the biggest computer system in Great Britain but it is the same old story of junk in and junk out. There is a quite a consensus of opinion in the British press today that the Met. Office is fast becoming a national joke and the origin of such an opinion must lie in the coercion of facts to suit the story, a thing totally contrary to the British scientific model.
The Met Office is a laughing stock – more serious than before, when we just took their weather forecasting with a pinch of salt! Nowadays, their incompetence extends to the AGW/global warming meme and in conjunction with CRU – they are losing credibility across the UK and the world. MetOffice and CRU = Disgrace
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2259942/The-crazy-climate-change-obsession-thats-Met-Office-menace.html
logicophilosophicus
Both on 10 and 30 year trends, there have been many years previously at the same level as now. The wettest spell was during the 1870’s and 80’s. The 1920’s were also comparatively wet.”
Can you pick an individual year out of a smoothed trendline?
Thanks. I was quoting the 10 yr trends during those years (and 30). So for instance,between 1880 and 1886, the 10 yr average ranged from 998mm to 1007mm. (i.e.the years 1871-80 through to 1877-86). Current 10 yr av is 940mm.
Another way of looking at it is that the av for 1872-86 was 1003mm.
If you need a history of extreme weather events in the British Isles, have a look at John Kington’s book ‘Climate and Weather’ (2010) published in the Collins New Naturalist Series Number 115. This book is exceptionally detailed and goes through the decades from 1 B.C to 2000 A.D. From 1310 A.D. the author computes corresponding pressure maps over the Atlantic and Western Europe.
This book is a good antidote to the cry that we are living in extreme weather times caused CAGW.
Where did you get daily data for Oxford? I can only find historical station data that is monthly summaries.
One of my main gripes with the way weather is reported on tv, especially on the BBC, is the way they will make a claim like ‘a month’s worth of rain fell in 24hours’. This creates the impression that something significant has happened, when in fact it might be perfectly normal for the rainfall of a particular month to come from just one storm system. When it comes to weather, it’s not just a depression that spins.
Rich
Where did you get daily data for Oxford? I can only find historical station data that is monthly summaries.
The Met emailed them to me. I also have similar files for Heathrow, Aberporth, Shawbury and Bradford for rain and temps (but not up to 2012).
I am more than happy to email them to anyone who wants to work on them. Just send me a message on
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/about/
Um, perhaps even less advanced. I know, the end of the world passed uneventfully, but the Maya Dresden Codex actually didn’t show the end of the world, it showed water pouring from the sky. As we’ve had a bunch more rain than we had during the hotter drier ’90s, I’d have to credit the “witch doctors” with rather more skill than the Met Doctors…
See the image:
http://www.crystalinks.com/dresdencodexlastpage.jpg
that I talk about (with some humor) here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/5-weeks-to-the-end-of-the-world/
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/dresden/dresdencodex.htm
It’s got to be a real “burn” when some ancient priests / witch doctors get the weather right and do it a few thousand years in advance using sticks and round stone wheels… They even have a more accurate calendar too, dang it all! 😉
“It would appear that the Met have very little idea as to what will actually happen.”
So, no change there….
Many thanks to Paul for an excellent summary. With all the recent reports of flooding even I was beginning to wonder if there has been an increasing trend in UK rainfall or rainfall variability. My own experience (not a million miles from Worthing) is that there has been plenty of rain this year, but nothing dramatic or unusual when compared to the fifty years I’ve lived here. And, as Paul points out, the rainfall records over the last few centuries shows a dramatic lack of long term trends. Over the long term, rainfall in the UK is remarkably stable. But, of course, for the Met Office that’s nowhere scary enough.
I think that the good folks at the Met Office, and many others, long ago abandoned science. As a result the Met Office seems to be an organisation totally dedicated to being wrong – at least for any forecasts more than 48 hours into the future.
I am fairly confident that science will eventually regain its integrity. But with the present crop of climate non-scientists at the MO, I’m not holding my breath….
Chris
Talking of the metoffice. They do a five day forecast on a Sunday evening for the coming week. I often try and take note of this due to playing football on Thursday evenings (soccer). This week, i decided to test out their forecast, as of last Sunday the Met Office models were showing westerlies across the uk with a band of rain due to be crossing the country today. Which i noted with depression at the time. No one likes playing sport outside in the wet right ?
Anyway as i look outside my office window now its about 0 clear blue and sunny.
Looking outside the window in the morning is more useful that the UK MetOffice. That or tomorrow will have the same weather as yesterday….
I find it very telling that Paul Homewood has sourced all this information from the Met Office’s own records.
Strange that, because it does not assume that ‘climate’ started about 1989, the trends (such as they are) are not nearly as scary as the likes of Julia Sligo would have us believe…
Love the drawings of the floods at Windsor in 1875 – are there any photos of the same area in December 2012..?
[“does it not” assume … ? Mod]