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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Paul: You titled this post “Trend To Colder Winters Continues in UK”. Unfortunately, Figure 1 shows no trend in either direction. You can’t even say that the last five years have been colder than average for the last half-century or whole century: One of the years was warmer and two years were approximately the century average. We clearly aren’t seeing the “dangerous” warming anticipated by alarmists, but that doesn’t mean that we should exaggerate the importance of normal fluctuations in the weather.
Consider calculating the standard deviation of your data and putting lines on either side of mean. One standard deviation each way covers about 2/3 of the years. The temperature is above and below 1.6 standard deviations about once a decade; and 2 standard deviations about once every two decades. If the Met Office had color coded their map in terms of standard deviations, we could tell how unusual this year’s winter was.
Jeff Alberts is absolutely correct, a mere five winter of unusually cold temperatures is just weather…
Now if it was a Cat 1 hurricane hitting the most densely populated area on earth, during the highest tide of the year, coming up a sound that just happens to magnify it’s storm surge, then it would be Climate.
Gareth the problem for us sceptics is trying to pin down these slippery eels. What they used to repeatedly say about UK winters to be warmer is clear from here.
Take a look at our friends at the Met Office also. It is completely at loggerheads with your statement.
Jeff Alberts is absolutely correct, a mere five winters of unusually cold temperatures throughout most of Europe is just weather…
Now if it was a Cat 1 hurricane hitting the most densely populated area on earth, during the highest tide of the year, coming up a sound that just happens to magnify it’s storm surge, then it would be Climate.
I note the AMO record for the century was about 1936, the pesky USA record hot year that has proven so difficult to erase by the GISS CAGW revisionist team. Also, 2010 was 1.5C avg for the winter, a record in the hundred year series.
It’s just British weather! Get use to it. My eldest son was born on the 20th May 1968 in south London (Kings College Hosital). It snowed on and off for the week of his birth, lay on the ground and froze.We could have done with the urban heat effect then. The roads and pavements(sidewalks) weretreacherous. Will it happen again this year. Who knows!
Gareth Phillips
Gareth
You talk as if these cold winters are unprecedented. They are not, they have happened many times before, as recently as the 1960’s and 70’s. They were caused then by natural factors then.
Where is your evidence that they are not now?
Well as a $25,000.00 solar pannel deal will not apply here I suppose we can fall back on another out dated failed system of the Jimmy Carter time, just every one there on the island go to COSCO and buy wool sweaters and wool socks from the maxist supporting COSCO owner I’m sure he will sell at a volume discount on this too.Then he will have more money to donate to Obama’s Democrat Party and get a lunch with Richard Windsor himself and a nice little dog lick on the nose too.
.
There is a cost to all of this – a big cost. For nearly ten years in the UK, major airports, rail managers and local councils were unable to invest in new slow clearing equipment, because they would have been accused of wasting money, and laughed out of office by these ‘scientists’. Why should anyone invest in snow clearing equipment, when temperatures were going to rise by 7 degrees (BBC and Met Office) and snow would never happen again (Prof Vitner from the CRU)?
The result was Heathrow closing last year, the rail system grinding to a halt, and thousands of roads not being cleared. So how much money did UK PLC loose because of this? About £20 billion, I would say. That is how much these ‘scientists’ owe to industry and to us. Will they pay up?
.
Stephen Richards says:
March 24, 2013 at 9:59 am
But they’d lose so many tax oportunities if they did so.
Joe, if there is one thing our thieving politicians are good at it is finding things to tax. As we say in france. Vous ne vous inquiétez pas. Don’t you worry yourself.
———————————————————————————————————————
True enough, Stephen, but they don’t get presented with many that you can’t argue with without being an enemy of every life-form on the planet!
Mr. SanityP, March 24 at 10:32
You must not have the password to the afterhours club, members only ya know.
Now if it gets to the point that some one needs to go to the front lines and behind to defend liberty then you will get your new approved draft notice never doubt that.
.
It is not just the UK and Central Europe hit by the bad weather. In the Ukraine, a state of emegency has been declared, after a meter of snow fell and temperatures plummeted – the situation across the region is dire.
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-emergency-snowfall-yanukovich-716
I am out of touch with the MSM as I am ‘away’ – but tell, me, has this news got onto the BIased Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) at all? Or are they still operating as the propaganda wing of the USSR’s Pravda?
It is about time that the BBC was put out of its misery. If I was in charge, I would send in the boys from Hereford.
.
Time for a laughter break chaps and chappesses.
Paul, I was born in one of the coldest, 1947, my parents moved house during one in the 50s, I rode bike through the ones in the 60s and drove a car through the 70s.
That is the trouble with people who refuse to look at today’s weather in the light of history.
They should spend a few days over at Steve Goddard’s site looking at all those old newspaper clippings which totally debunk all the modern “Unprecedented” weather stories put out by Climatologists, Greenies, the Met Office, the BBC and the rest of the MSM.
@William Howard Astley
Many thanks fort your detailed response and references, Gareth
A small polemic, so please excuse me.
The proponents and theorticans of AGW have a theory that increased CO2 in the atmosphere will result in increased temperatures for the atmoshpere of the Earth. They tell us that the planet is getting hotter. This is not substaniated by tempeature records or by personal obsevation ( it is very cold here in the UK). It brings to mind Galileos’ quote * Yet it moves”. In this situation of AGW ” Yet it gets colder”.This is dismissed as weather.
Another quote by Ernest Rutherford is ” If your experiment needs statistics you ought to have done a better experiment.”
Emprical science is that you have a theory. You then undertake a repeatable experiment and observe if the data substantiates that theory. You do not change the data to get the result you want. If the data holds true then the theory may be correct. If the data does not match the theoretical prediction then the theory is wrong.
Correaltion is not causation. Temperatures did increase from 1940 to until 1998. Human population and industrial growth increased. That is a theory. The predcitions based on that theory have failed to materialise.
In my humble opinion the greatest damage that AGW theory will cause is the the loss of faith in science and its’ role in human society. We lack edcuated communicators of the ilk of Bronowski or Patrick Moore to explain in meaningful terms science as it is relevant to the layperson. Instead we get the sound bites of Al Gore.
Where are the students who will question and think afresh the prevailing vews of their professors such as in Gottingen during nuclear research?
If the answer is money then the accountants of this world have done more to damage to science then the blinkered political and theological idelogies of the past four thousand years.
I see. A knew club is forming and only the anointed are invited.
Gareth Phillips,
Please can you show me the correlation between these severe winters in the UK and Arctic ice? If Arctic ice was low as now in September then you have made a great point for the sceptics.
1620-21: Frost fair held on the Thames
1635: Severe winter, Thames froze over
1648-49: Thames froze over
1657-58: Beginning a period of long lying snow, lasting from December through until March!
1662-67: 3 of 5 winters in this period were described as cold, with severe frosts. Skating was launched on the Thames, for the pleasure of King Charles 2nd.
1664-65: Reputedly the coldest day ever in England, with a severe frost lasting about 2 months.
1708-09: Severe winter, the frost lasted for over 3 months! Temperatures plummeted to -18c. Thames froze in London, once again! Severe winter by CET values (1.2c).
1742: Ice in the Thames, very cold once again.
1765-66: Severe winter, cold persisted from early on (November) until February.
1775-76: Severe winter. From early January to early February much of the UK and Europe was very cold. The Thames froze. Stormy February followed.
1783-86: Two succesive severe winters. The Thames froze completely in both, almost continuous frost lasted from early to late winter. Snow remained for as long as 4 months.
1798-99: Severe frost lasted from late December to early January in London and the South. Heavy snowfalls were recorded, especially in North Eastern Scotland, where transport was dislocated for quite some time.
1811: A late start for severe winters in the 1800s, but January of 1811 saw the Thames freeze, once again!
1819-20: Severe winter. -23c was recorded at Tunbridge Wells, although no details of exposure are evident.
1822-23: Severe winter, ice on the Thames by late December. February 8th saw a great snowstorm in Northern England. People had to tunnel through the snow.
1826: Ice on the Thames.
1829-30: Severe winter. Continuous frost from the 23rd to 31st December, 12th to 19th January, and 31st January to 6th February. Ice on the Thames from late December to late January.
25th December 1836, roads impassable, snow depths reached a staggering 5-15 feet in many places, and most astonishingly, drifts of 20-50 feet!!!!!!!!!
1875-76: Amazingly snowy winter for the UK
1885-1886: Snow fell in October, November, December, January, February, March, April and May!
1946-47: One of the snowiest winters to date, probably the worst since 1814
1962-63: A famous winter.Very cold. Mid November saw snow in the South West.
1978-79: The last really severe, snowy winter, for now anyway,
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=winter-history;sess=
Horse says:
March 24, 2013 at 3:25 am
I haven’t checked but I’m told that UK records show that snow is more common at Easter than at Christmas. I do remember being snowed in for a week at my parents farm during the last week of April in about 1980. It’s only weather.
I recall well the second week in March 1979 being snowed in in Sheffield, about 18″-24″ of snow with a 4′ drift at the end of the street. I was due to drive over the Pennines to Manchester airport a couple of days later but the M62 was blocked (for the first time I believe) so I had to catch a train to London instead.
gareth phillips- The NCAR, in 1974, said that the Massive amounts of ice at the north pole, were the reason for extreme weather and cold winters. Now, you want us to believe that the lack of ice at the north pole, is responsible for extreme weather and cold winters?
Which time was it called correctly?
SanityP,
The emails are being redacted now. They will be out shortly.
Gareth Phillips
Gareth
You talk as if these cold winters are unprecedented. They are not, they have happened many times before, as recently as the 1960′s and 70′s. They were caused then by natural factors then.
Where is your evidence that they are not now?
Hi Paul, you are correct that these cold winters are not unprecedented, but what is different now is that we have cold wet summers and cold winters. This is different to the winters of the 60s when we did have some very cold winters, but reasonable summers. The current cold spell is lasting longer and is more constant throughout the seasons.
\
” As the sea ice decreases, the immediate atmospheric response is for a local warming of the lower Arctic atmosphere by the relatively warm Arctic Ocean (e.g. Kumar et al., 2010). However, there is also evidence that depleted sea ice alters atmospheric circulation patterns outside the Arctic, throughout the following months and into winter. This appears to result in high pressure over the Arctic and low pressure over the mid-latitudes which in turn is balanced by more easterly winds. While other factors are also involved in determining winter climate, this raises the risk of anomalously cold conditions over Eurasia (Wu and Zhang, 2010; Petoukhov and Semenov, 2010)”
It may well be that this is only one small factor and other variables far outweigh it, but I don’t think it can be ignored or dismissed. It’s worth reviewing Rick Wermes global ice comparison to note the difference in Eurasian snow cover over the last five years. There is a significant increase. This will impact on albedo and weather patterns. It would be useful to see other explanations for this increase with any references. ( By the way, if such discussion makes anyone angry, please troll somewhere else or take up Rugby, this is an interesting debate, cheers G)
Due to the current state of public poverty, brought on by vested interests and theft from the public purse, all prison cells for those convicted in the great global warming fraud, will be unheated.
Gareth
Hi Paul, you are correct that these cold winters are not unprecedented, but what is different now is that we have cold wet summers and cold winters. This is different to the winters of the 60s when we did have some very cold winters, but reasonable summers. The current cold spell is lasting longer and is more constant throughout the seasons.
Actually, Gareth, Met Office figures show cooler summers in the UK in the 60’s, although they were also drier.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly
Trust no one.
Only known and proven facts stand alone as truth.
Selfcenorship is in fact worse than the C.I.A. type and causes more distrust than ever.
“Redaction” Elite now it is.
The “redactors” pass judgment on themselfs.
This is how the elite and the msm lied John F. Kerry’s true history away so that he could now prance around a elite ok trairor for more of his expertise of back stabing.