By Paul Homewood
According to the Sun,
Britain’s winters are getting colder because of melting Arctic ice, the Government’s forecaster said yesterday.
Met Office chief scientist Julia Slingo said climate change was “loading the dice” towards freezing, drier weather — and called publicly for the first time for an urgent investigation.
Prof Slingo said: “If you look at the way our weather patterns have behaved over the past four or five years, we’re beginning to think that there is something happening.
“Our climate is being disrupted by the warming of the Arctic that we have observed very dramatically since 2007.
“We should pull together the best scientists to see how we can detect the influence of the Arctic on the jet stream, and on weather around the world.”
So just how cold have Britain’s winters become? Well, according to the Central England Temperature series, not very! The winter just gone ranks an unremarkable 187th coldest in the 354 years since the index started in 1660. Figure 1 shows just how unremarkable it has been. The 2012/13 winter finished at 3.83C, a fraction above the mean over the whole record of 3.72C.
Figure 1
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Slingo also talks about the 5 year trend, so let’s look at that as well.
Figure 2
There has certainly been a sharp drop away from the abnormally mild winters between 1998 and 2008, but this only takes us back to the sort of winters that were prevalent during most of the last century, and still much warmer than the 19thC. The current 5-year average is 3.6C, exactly the same as the average temperature from 1980-89. And from 1960-69, the average was, you’ve guessed it, also exactly 3.6C.
Previous Predictions For Milder Winters
So why is Slingo so concerned? To understand this, we need to look back at all of the predictions, made in recent years by the Met Office and others, of warmer, wetter winters.
These, of course, were based on the handful of milder winters around the turn of the century. There are too many to list, but here’s a few examples:-
1) In 2006, Met Office meteorologist Wayne Elliott told the BBC
“It is consistent with the climate change message. It is exactly what we expect winters to be like – warmer and wetter”
2) In 2011, Slingo signed off the Met’s “Climate: observations, projections and impacts” Report that had this to say about the extreme cold in December 2010
It is considerably warmer than the winter of 1962/63, which is the coldest since 1900 in the CRUTEM3 dataset. In the absence of human influences, the season lies near the central sector of the temperature distribution and would therefore be an average season.
3) Myles Allen told the Telegraph in 2009
“Even though this is quite a cold winter by recent standards it is still perfectly consistent with predictions for global warming. If it wasn’t for global warming this cold snap would happen much more regularly. What is interesting is that we are now surprised by this kind of weather. I doubt we would have been in the 1950s because it was much more common. “
4) DEFRA’s Climate Change Risk Assessment Report, issued last year, states
“In the UK, we currently expect a shift towards generally wetter winters…..and an increase in winter rainfall volumes of between 3% and 70%.
5) In December 2010, Slingo , talking about the cold weather, told the Independent,
“Global warming is continuing and we know that from the global trends. There will, of course, be large local and regional variations from year to year. So this event that we’re currently experiencing is not unprecedented.”, adding “A final complication is that a regular pattern of natural climate change over the North Atlantic, called the multi-decadal oscillation, may be about to enter a cooler phase, just as it did in the 1960s, when Britain also experienced colder-than-normal winters.”
6) And the Met’s own private briefing for the Environment Agency last summer admitted
If low levels of Arctic sea ice were found to be affecting the track of the jet stream, for example, this could be seen as linked to the warming of our climate – but this is currently an unknown.
7) And in 2010, Slingo presented a “Briefing on the likelihood of severe winter weather over the next 20-30 years “to Sir John Beddington, which concluded
a) Prolonged snowfall and low temperatures, comparable with conditions seen during November and December 2010 are within the range of natural climate variability observed over the past 50 years.
b) The latest available regional climate projections for the UK (UKCP09) indicate a reducing likelihood of severe winters in future, due to the long-term warming climate. Natural climate variability implies that severe events remain possible but with reduced likelihood.
And we won’t even have to mention David Viner’s famous “Snow is a thing of the past”.
Backtracking
It is understandably embarrassing for the Met Office to see so many of their predictions blowing up in their faces. But, instead of simply accepting that they were wrong in misinterpreting a few years of data in the way they did, they are desperately searching for a way to pin the blame for a return to normal winters on global warming.
It is hard to see just how much credibility they have left when it comes to predicting climate, or even understanding past climate. As their Chief Scientist, Julia Slingo must surely accept overall responsibility for this sorry state of affairs.
According to the Met Office Accounts for 2011/12, Slingo was paid a salary of £135000 – £140000, with an additional bonus of £25000 – £30000. This is a cost that can no longer be justified.
She should go now.
“It is hard to see just how much credibility they have left when it comes to predicting climate, or even understanding past climate.”
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Credibility = Zero
Understanding = Zero
The basic implication in her statementa is that the near term changes are driven by CO2 but past analogous changes, which we can all clearly see with our own eyes with plots provided in this post, were not driven by CO2.
Could you be any more illogical or unscientific ?
Or do you think we are so uneducated & unintelligent that we can’t see the obvious?
In either case, this is just plain pathetic !
For that salary, I’d be happy to replace Julia and say, “Global warming caused the cold winter”. I believe I could keep myself from laughing as I said it–maybe not.
What does a “chief scientist” get a 30k bonus for? Showing up on time, counting on both hands? Perhaps it is based on some Wall Streetesque logarithm of performance based on how many suckers you can bamboozle.
There is so much money involved in this scam that Im very doubtful that the North Pole information is even true.. Their little playground where the only witnesses are the Inuit (promised huge sums of money to help them deal with the warming)..
Everybody involved has their hand in the cookie jar..
albertalad says:
Is there any wonder why the UK had become irrelevant since Maggie Thacher?
Well since you can’t even spell here name I guess you were not following UK politics that closely at the time. Let be bring you up to speed.
She sold off all our national assets to foreign investors. Massive assets like British Telecom were sold off at half price. Gas was sold. The mines were shut, Making our biggest natural resource unexploitable in the future. (Once the galleries are no longer maintained they can never be reopened).
She shut down the country’s manufacturing base and instead made the economy reliant on the financial services sector that she deregulated. Unemployment rose from 1 million when she came to power to 4 million when we (belatedly) threw her out.
The deregulation of the banks resulted in the current mess where we just about doubled our national debt in ONE year with bank bail outs.
The current round of “austerity” that is destroying public services and creating even more unemployment and putting the economy in an ever deepening spiral, is now apparently necessary to reduce the huge debt we incurred underwriting irresponsible , deregulated banks.
Britain now imports most of its energy including coal and gas from abroad, with little manufacturing base to pay for any of it.
So it is no wonder that Britain is becoming irrelevant since Thatcher . She ripped the arse out of the country and sowed the seeds of the decay that now characterises a once great country.
BTW, she also was instrumental in starting the CO2 scam as one of her top ministers: Leon Britten stated in the “The Great Global Warming Swindle” . She opened the Met Office Hadley Climate Research Centre, where the above mentioned Ms Sling-ya-hook is currently chief climate propagandist.
But of course , no one likes to speak ill of the dead , so instead calling her a bitch like we did when she was alive, we’ll laud her a great patriot and bury her at St Paul’s with full honours.
The winter of 62/63, we lived in a new house, and with a roaring fire in the living room there was 1/2 of ice on the windows…was that global warming?
The winter of 62/63, we lived in a new house, and with a roaring fire in the living room there was 1/2 of ice on the windows…was that global warming?
She’s a twit.
There are a lot of good people in the Met Office whose work is being undermined by idiotic comments from people like her which have just undermined the Met office and turned it into a laughing stock.
There has certainly been a sharp drop away from the abnormally mild winters between 1998 and 2008
I’d say between 1988 and 2008, not 1998 and 2008.
In 1988 the NAO went into a multi year positive mode which now is fading: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/JFM_season_nao_index.shtml
The 1988 temperature step is visible in a lot of European temperature series.
Jay says: There is so much money involved in this scam that Im very doubtful that the North Pole information is even true.
Well actually it may well be. It was just as relevant in the 80s and 90s when it prevented the cold whether from coming down as far and caused warmer conditions. Except that when it warms, it’s (implicitly human) “global warming” and when it cools you just have to realise it’s the jet stream.
Like when it warms, it’s absolutely NOTHING to do with the sun because the variations are so minuscule it’s irrelevant. But when it cools (oops, I meant pauses) it because of unusually quiet sun.
Indeed, how is it possible that a meteorologist discusses this issue without even mentioning NAO. If there is one thing you always need to make clients or the public aware of is that multidecadal fluctuations are a normal phenomenon which you need to be prepared for.
Stephen Richards says:
April 12, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Manfred says:
April 12, 2013 at 1:09 pm
None of those links is real science. Just speculation. Read carefully
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No, that is peer reviewed science. I linked to press publications, because they are paywalled.
You will find dozens of additional links from Alex Rawls at wattsupwitthtat. And dozens more at http://www.diekaltesonne.de/.
My favorite is still Bond et al 2001, a classic, with perfect correlation of solar influence with ALL up and down moves in temperature over 11000 years.
http://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/bond-et-al-2001.gif
Seriously sick of the lies now. She is an ideologically driven but.
When are these people going to go? (from their jobs)
The Met Office is only able to “now cast” . Even Slingo has alluded to theit ability to forecast is based on probabilities, suggesting inadvertently maybe that one would do better going to one’ s local bookmaker. UK politicians need to wake up to the fact the Met Office is less than useless and using taxpayers money to fund them is simply an utter waste of money.
Mike Haseler
There are a lot of good people in the Met Office whose work is being undermined by idiotic comments from people like her which have just undermined the Met office and turned it into a laughing stock.
That’s a good point, Mike.
I have had personal experience of the same situation with NOAA. Many true scientists there are totally upfront and give you real data. Yet the upper echelons seem to be more preoccupied with spin and distortion.
Great summary Paul. Thanks.
“Joe Public says:
April 12, 2013 at 12:50 pm
Maybe she’s just angling for an even-bigger computer.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1185629/Met-office-unveils-UKs-powerful-supercomputer-admits-weather-forecasts-WRONG.html”
I say give Slingo and the Met a Trash-80 (TRS-80) complete with tape unit
(and a couple of audio cassettes….see if they can tell the difference [the data say….oops])
and give the supercomputer(s) to folks who can actually do something useful with them!
The only thing coming out of their models is trash, anyway…wait, maybe the
TRS-80’s too good for them…
Wasn’t it the Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank who said we “want to load the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing .” And, by the way, it was his Massachusetts colleague who was cosponsor of the Waxman/Markey carbon cap & trade scheme.
Now we’ve got this:
‘Met Office chief scientist Julia Slingo said climate change was “loading the dice” towards freezing, drier weather — and called publicly for the first time for an urgent investigation’
I dunno. But anytime I hear anybody affiliated with government use the term, ‘load the dice’ I think of them gambling with our money. And, at that roulette table they don’t have to win, break-even, or even so much as be practical or stay sober. And, remember, it’s not their’s, it’s our money. And, then, in public they use gambling terms referring to cheating. Now think about that and have a good night’s sleep.
The Met Office morphed from being a weather forecasting bureau into being a propaganda generator for CAGW. Its success in this was shown by the passage of the UK’s Climate Change Act.
The “science” (essentially unvalidated computer models, so far as I can see) is there to impress and give authority to its pronouncements (“It was produced by one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers and correctly predicts the past weather so we can have confidence it it”).
First of all Margaret Thatcher did not rip the arse out of Britain…she rebuilt it and we had an amazing recovery that lasted until Laour took over a budget surplus in 1997and plunged us into debt. As regards our winter climate Ms Sligo should consult a solar physicist…you might get a few clues Julia…what a muppet.
The MET Office needs to change its name to: “Massive Fail Office.” These people are beyond the pale. Don’t they realize that they lost ALL credibility years ago? The only people who believe their dribble are the hard core Alarmists, Warmists and bloodsuckers on the payroll. So when the earth cools naturally it is Global Warming causing Global Cooling. It goes like this, Global Cooling, Global Warming, Climate Change, Global Weirding. All caused by a tiny percentage of man released CO2. Whats next? “Global Cooling” of course. Idiots, do they really believe that we are going to forget Global Warming. I NEVER let other people talk about Climate Change, I remind them all the time that is it called AGW. Better still CAGW. All hell freezes over when I mention the beneficial effects of CO2.
Here are some previous predictions of milder winters from the Met Office, the IPCC, scientists and the Warmist media. Here is a sample from the 60 quotes.
Climate fail. What I want to know is what would they say if we returned to milder, less snowy winters??? i am becoming dazed and confused. 🙁
My conlsusion is the benefits of a slightly warmer world through natural variation, that has occurred since the Little Ice Age, coupled with a small amount of warming from greenhouse gases, has been of a net overall benefit, when compared with the psychological and social damage that this warming has caused to the bureacracy who want to blame it all on human activtities, and their misguided social policies.
Even though the bureaucrats fret, we are still ahead on the overall human benefit scale, so it’s not too bad.
I think I have it figured out. Entirely from news clippings, not models or data. We’re caught in a cyclical phenomenon:
1970’s; Catastrophic Ice Age coming! We’re all gonna die!
1990’s; Catastrophic Warming coming! We’re all gonna die!
2010’s; Catastrophic Normal coming! We’re all gonna die!
Now there’s a couple of odd things about these cyclical predictions. First, they are 50% correct. We’re all gonna die (eventually). Second, the order seems messed up. I would have thought cold/normal/hot rather than cold/hot/normal. But many a climate scientist has made a fool of themselves by attaching a linear trend to cyclical phenomenon, so I’m not going to make that mistake. I’ll not predict the next phase of the cycle until more data has been gathered. I’ve no idea if the next phase will be warm or cold. We could have two normals in succession I suppose, but that seems remote.