Guest post by Paul Homewood
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomacts
Figures released by the Met Office show the UK mean temperature for the 2012/13 winter finishing at 3.31C. This is below the long term 1981-2010 average of 3.83C.
Figure 1
The winter ranked 43rd coldest since 1910, and continues the trend towards colder winters. In the last five years, only 2011/12 has been above the 1981-2010 average. The average over these five years has been 3.03C.
Interestingly, the average winter temperature for 1911-2013 stands at 3.52C, so by 20thC standards the last few years have been genuinely cold.
The mild winters between 1998 and 2008 increasingly look to be the exception rather than the rule, as Figure 2 shows clearly.
Figure 2
Rainfall
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomacts
After claims and counterclaims of floods and droughts, the winter has been remarkably normal in terms of rainfall.
Total rainfall amounted to 346.7mm, against the 1981-2010 baseline of 330.5mm, although there have been regional variations, with NW Scotland being notably dry.
Figure 3
Met Office Predictions
I am quick to criticise the Met when their 3-month outlooks are so far adrift, so I’ll give them credit this time for forecasting below normal temperatures. Their prediction for rainfall of slightly below normal was not far off the mark either.
I was drawn, however, to this statement in the precipitation outlook:-
“The risk of snowfall over the UK is related to the occurrence of cold winter weather. As probabilities favour for this year a colder season than last year’s, the risk of snowfall is enhanced.”
It appears nobody thought to tell them about the new theory that snow is caused by warm weather!
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/k/a/A3_plots-temp-DJF.pdf
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/i/A3_plots-precip-DJF.pdf
NW Europe
It seems it is not just the UK that has had a run of cold winters. NoTricksZone reports that Germany has had exactly the same run of 5 cold winters, and, as they point out, what applies to Germany usually applies to much of Central Europe.
What makes this situation even more remarkable is that we are still in the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, that began in the mid 1990’s (and, of course, coincided with the onset of milder winters till 2008).
As NOAA say
“The AMO has affected air temperatures and rainfall over much of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, North America and Europe.”
We might be in for a few more cold winters when the AMO turns around.
References
All data from the UK Met
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries
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Interesting to compare the propaganda the Met Office were pushing out in 2009 in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks in their brochure “Warming, Climate Change – the facts”
and their massively exaggerated ‘hockey-stick’ type graph – see 6th slide down or page 04
http://people.virginia.edu/~rtg2t/future/gcc/UK.Met.quick_guide.pdf
with their recent ‘decadal’ forecast
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/major-change-in-uk-met-office-global-warming-forecast/
and one can’t help asking why they should omit the second five years from their ‘decadal’ forecast
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/ukmo-lowers-5-year-global-temperature-forecast-and-omits-the-second-5-years-of-the-decadal-forecast/
No hint of the flatlining shown in their later forecasts compared to the hype they pushed out in 2009 yet we’d already had more than a decade of flattened temps!!!
We might be in the warm phase of the AMO but we are in a cooling phase of solar activity. It is the sun not CO2!
There is no mention of the failure of the GHE theory that predicts warming with rising CO2 levels. They still rise but temperatures fall.
This also signals a failure of the UK energy (non)policies.
What we usually get is, Spring is getting earlier and earlier.
Not this year
John Peter, you write “I entirely agree with Mr Booker and I am at a loss to comprehend why our politicians cannot see the madness of what they are doing to our energy supplies”
The reason why UK politicians have been so stupid is, unfortunately, rather obvious. Politicians believe what their senior scientists tell them. Years ago, I tried to discuss CAGW with my MP, David McGuinty, here in Ottawa, Canada. He said, WTTE, “Why should I believe Jim Cripwell, when all the scientists in Environment Canada say the opposite”.
As long as the Royal Society and the chief Government scientist support the nonsense of CAGW, British politicians have little choice, and must believe them.
Iain C
I note on the temperature anomaly chart that all thermal gradations are in units of 0.5 C, EXCEPT the zero-centred range which is 1.0 C (-0.5 to +0.5 C)
That’s just the way the Met do it.
I suspect most, if not all of the country is below av. For instance Scotland finished 0.2C below.
The regional analysis is here. Every region is below.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/2013/winter/regional-values
I’m in Warwickshire and its currently -1C and snowing. My local weather station has this to say about the recent cold:
This is officially the coldest spell of March weather in Coventry since 1947, with a maximum temperature of just 0.2°C on Saturday. It will remain bitterly cold today in a strong east to north-easterly breeze with drifting in exposed places; expect maximum temperatures around -1°C – well below average (10.9°C) for the 24th March in Coventry over the past 30 years or so.
So its 11.9C below the average, where is all this warming they keep telling us we should have been getting? Coldest March for 66 years!
http://www.bablakeweather.co.uk/
tonyb says: March 24, 2013 at 3:19 am
……..
Hi Tony
me thinks that
Jet stream’s position is controlled by the atmospheric pressure over Iceland, which in turn is result of balancing in the warm Atlantic currents down-welling in the area
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/large/04.18.jpg
the Arctic ice extent could be a clue.
Down-welling north of Iceland appear to be directly influenced by North Icelandic Jet, a little known cold current flowing along the sea floor.
This area is geologically very active, so there is a strong possibility that the NIJ is affected (disrupted ?) by it. My data also shows that there is strong correlation between sunspot number and geological data in the area.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.htm
Those records show that we are back to 1960’s levels. One difference is that the solar and the Earth’s magnetic variability, currently applicable (15 yr delay) are still just about in phase (warm), while for the 1960’s were in counter phase (cold).
Total amount of warming or cooling is then a function of the strength of the appropriate solar cycle (see link ), but to complicate matters further there is an ‘oceanic’ 15 year delay, which Hansen and followers WRONGLY attribute to the CO2
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1974/4343.abstract
Mike McMillan says:
March 23, 2013 at 11:28 pm
Brits are nearing natural gas rationing according to the Daily Mail. They haven’t been building new power plants, and many coal plants are due to shutter to appease the E.U.
Could get interesting.
They actually closed a functioning coal fired power station at Didcot (South of Oxford) only this week, coincident with the news that they were running out of gas as the new private companies don’t like to tie up a lot of oversupply in storage so the UK has around 36 hours gas remaining – after all it is going to be warm with everyone growing grapes.
The cost of paying subsidies to inefficient windmills has led to energy poverty in UK as it has in Germany. It is being reported that deaths of old people in UK during February and March are now 5000 above the statistical norm. This is a raised anomaly that the ‘warm alarmists’ don’t want to talk about.
The statements “warmer temperatures mean more snow” and “colder temperatures mean more snow” are both correct. In Northern Ontario, where winter temperatures can fall to -40 deg C the former statement is true. In England where winter temperatures are above freezing the latter statement is true. Warmer and colder are relative and mean nothing until put into context.
@Mr.. Bratby, I live on an unkempt woodlot. Now I must beg the insurance company their requirements to suffer my woodburner. I was commanded to remove the traditional one. My less fortunate neighbors pay ~US$100 for a face cord of mixed soft wood.
Study N. N. Taleb to learn climate/energy Antifragility, and the downside of forecasting failures. We have two generations of robust engineering/technology that may soon discover the 80/20 Pareto Distribution of challenges.
Weather events that made it into the news?
That will be catastrophic man made climate disaster disruption mayhem death apocalypse armageddon!
“As the snow of the coldest March since 1963 continues to fall, we learn that we have barely 48 hours’ worth of stored gas left to keep us warm, and that the head of our second-largest electricity company, SSE, has warned that our generating capacity has fallen so low that we can expect power cuts to begin at any time. It seems the perfect storm is upon us”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9949571/Its-payback-time-for-our-insane-energy-policy.html
The UK has been “rationing” gas now for over a month.
Pressure drops and reductions in calorific efficiency of the gas means less heat for a given quantity burnt.
The largest coal generating plant in the UK, Drax, is converting to wood-chip burning to try to avoid the carbon taxes.
Subsidy is the name of the game. With the Gov both taxing and subsidising the plant at the same time.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290444/Madness-How-pay-billions-electricity-bills-Britains-biggest-power-station-switch-coal-wood-chips–wont-help-planet-jot.html
Stephen Rasey says:
March 23, 2013 at 9:21 pm
I call “foul” on using Bright White for the zero, neutral temperature range on a map immediatly below a title with the word “Colder” in it.
Come on… use something with less saturation , a neutral shade of grey instead of the bright white of snow.
——————————————————————————————————————-
No point calling foul here, try emailing your concerns to enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk seeing as that’s their map and their choice of colours.
AMSU’s Aqua channel 5 (600mb) is currently showing an ‘unprecedented’ in the satellite record for March, precipitous decline in global average temperature of >0.5degC (circa 3%) in just 8 days! Channels 6 (400mb) and 7 (250mb) echo similar if not quite as extreme & unusual declines.
Is the first recorded Super Tropospherical Cooling event? At this rate ‘Snowball Earth’ will be here before Easter…
Cooling is warming. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Gareth Philips says
There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap.
Henry says
You must be kidding me. Surely you do not believe that?
Before they started with the carbon dioxide nonsense, people looked at the planets to explain weather cycles, rightly or wrongly.
see here
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
to quote from the above paper:
“A Weather Cycle as observed in the Nile Flood cycle, Max rain followed by Min rain, appears discernible with
maximums at 1750, 1860, 1950 and minimums at 1670, 1800, 1900 and a minimum at 1990 predicted.
The range in meters between a plentiful flood and a drought flood seems minor in the numbers but real in consequence….
end quote
According to my table for maxima,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
I calculate the date where the sun decided to take a nap, as being around 1995.
and not 1990 as William Arnold predicted.This is looking at energy-in. I think earth reached its maximum output (means) a few years later, around 1998.
Anyway, look again at my best sine wave plot for my data
now see:
1900 minimum flooding – end of the warming
1950 maximum flooding – end of cooling
1995 minimum flooding – end of warming.
predicted 2035-2040 – maximum flooding – end of cooling.
Do you see the pertinent correlation with my sine wave?
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
Henry@Stephen Fisher
Do you see what is happening Stephen? Note the cooling of the arctic area around Anchorage in my tables quoted above. The Norwegian arctic has just been lucky because the Gulf stream has not yet cooled much but my data suggest the Gulf stream will start cooling down soon, for the next 2 to three decades, due to the global cooling, not only shown by my tables but also by others:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/plot/gistemp/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2013/trend
Clearly, there is a regime shift of energy-in every 40-50 years from warming to cooling and vice versa. There maybe delays in this shift due to a number of factors, e.g. due to earth’s own volcanic activity in the oceans, but generally speaking you will always find the 88 year wave back.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/#comment-273
So we are now in a cooling mode.
This results in a shift in cloud formation more southwards in the NH and more northwards in the SH. Hence the correlation with the flooding of the Nile to a maximum at the end of a cooling period.
Do you now agree with me on this?
Jim Cripwell says:
March 24, 2013 at 4:05 am
———————————————–
Don’t blame the scientists, whose paychecks are signed by the politicians. Don’t blame the politicians, who want to rule the world. In a democracy, you must blame the voters.
Gareth Phillips
There seems to be some pretty good correlation between colder winters with wetter summers and the drastic reduction in the Arctic ice cap
There was also good correlation between colder winters and growing ice cap during the 60’s and 70’s. And also good correlation between milder winters and reducing ice caps in the 90’s and 2000’s.
Correlation is not the same as proof.
Steve from Rockwood says:
March 24, 2013 at 5:03 am
The statements “warmer temperatures mean more snow” and “colder temperatures mean more snow” are both correct. In Northern Ontario, where winter temperatures can fall to -40 deg C the former statement is true. In England where winter temperatures are above freezing the latter statement is true. Warmer and colder are relative and mean nothing until put into context.
So the context is in UK they are saying that it is warming that is causing more snow.
They are also saying the same for alpine regions of Europe and the mid-Atlantic coast of the USA.
Previously, the quote from Viner pertained. That ‘children wouldn’t know what snow was’ – I cannot remember any warmists qualifying that statement or saying: “no no its the opposite“. Indeed alpine ski resorts were told to look for a new business model as they would be getting no snow. Now all of a sudden warmists are claiming that what they meant when they said: warming would cause no snow they actually meant warming would cause more snow. It is not only snow that has seen the predictions change, they are also claiming that warming is what has led to the 50 year record low temperatures in Europe and Asia.
The terms snake-oil and charlatan spring to mind.
What is going on at the Met Office? This is not like them at all. Predicting colder (and getting it right). Saying cold weather increases the chance of snow!!! Their recent Xmas eve graph showing downward adjusted temperature projection.
I don’t suppose it has anything to do with their former, chairman Robert Napier, (a Warmist zealot) stepping down in September 2012? He’s the very same man who pushed ‘climate change’ to the front of the WWF when he was its head.
Finally, while winters seem to be getting colder I want to hear from Dr. David Viner, former computer modeler at CRU, who said in 2000:
EJ says:
March 23, 2013 at 8:43 pm
60 yr cycles abound.
================
The first harmonic of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn
A New Way that Planets Can Affect the Sun
“This would cause stars like the Sun with appropriate planetary systems to burn somewhat more brightly and have shorter lifetimes than identical stars without planets.”
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11207-010-9628-y
A study in 2010 said the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation speeded up a little. 😉
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010GL042372
Maybe this explains the terrible winters in the UK before 1979. The Arctic must have been in a terrible state during the famous 1963 bitter winter.
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=winter-history;sess=
Alex
A swedish newspaper quoting the swedish metrology institute said colder winters was a result of global warming. I bet they would blame global warming if winters turned warmer too.
Too true, Alex.
The inconvenient truth though is that global temperatures during the NH winter have declined in the last 10 years, and this winter stand at just 0.1C above the 1981-2010 mean.
Could our cold winters actually be due to a cooling globe? Now there’s a revolutionary thought!
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/cold-winters-caused-bycold/