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.
Last gasp extremist nonsense attempt at talking up the effects of co2 from a woman who knows her days in her overpaid job are numbered as the sun shows every sign of going into a minimum of some sort.
She pronounces this despite the fact that no climate change model, ie co2 based model predicted the current 16 year temperature standstill, and certainly none predict a decrease in temperatures which is looking ever more likely.
The Met Office projection for the next few years is a decline in temperatures, based on a model which includes a greater proportion of solar effects and less co2, yet despite this Slingo refuses to acknowledge the solar aspect and sticks to her religious global warming co2 mantra.
Slingo is here attempting to mislead the general public by incorrectly attributing the expected trend towards colder European temperatures by blaming it on climate change (global warming) and hence co2 increase when in fact even her own scientists now attribute this to the apparent decline in solar activity / magnetism.
She should follow Hanson’s example and go now.
Paul Homewood should clearly give up these pieces as he is being misleading as no one at the Met Office is responsible like evah! Clearly the good people at the Met Office are not to blame and as a probalistic forecast is probably wrong.
Clearly if the tax payers of the UK were milked a little more vigorously then the Met Office would have a new improved computer thingy which they can get wrong answers much quicker. l
That Paul Homewood is trying to deny extra level special funding for the Met Office is not important. What is important is that Paul Homewood would deny them a new computer which will work out their World Leading Wrong Solutions much faster (and need further upgrades, or so the salivating IT guy told me) as well as telling us it`s worse than we thought
Can we afford to take such a risk when Computer says No?
/sarc
Going to the site and reading the article it says:
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.
The only part in quotation there is the “loading the dice”. Looks like a case of her being verbaled.
And, if you look at actual quotes attributed to her…
“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.”
…it’s clear she appears not even to have mentioned global warming or making statements of panic. Her comments seem very measured. Something happening…worth investigating. Goodness gracious, how outlandish of her!
Hardly worthy of the vitriolic, hate-filled and abusive attacks made on her here.
She is owed an apology.
TheInquirer, I, and the rest of the British public are owed an apology for all the money that has been conned out of us in taxes, to pay to fill the troughs of the warmists, who still are not being honest with us and treat us as if we are stupid!
TheInquirer:
I am writing to ask a sincere and genuine question.
Are you in any way related to, associated with, or known to Ms Slingo and/or UK Met Office?
The reason I ask is because I am at a loss to understand why you choose to defend that which needs to be attacked.
People have died as a result of policies promoted by Ms Slingo and UK Met Office.
UK energy policy is severely distorted with resulting costs imposed on British Subjects. And those distortions threaten failure of energy supply – especially adequate electricity generation – for the UK.
Those policies are based on demonstrable falsehoods which are proclaimed by Ms Slingo and UK Met Office.
From behind the shield of anonymity, you are complaining at expressions of contempt, disdain and dislike of Ms Slingo and UK Met Office.
Why?
Richard
LevelGaze (April 12, 2013 at 8:31 pm)
I’m surprised to see only one other post calling you out on this. You may well be right about back radiation (I can’t say) but your supporting argument is a howler:
Indeed. (My emphasis).
@ur momisugly TheInquirer.
Slingo talks of climate change. This phrase was brought into being by the Met Office as a replacement for the phrase ‘global warming’.
When used by the Met Office and other co2 protagonists, ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ are one and the same.
By the way, it would appear that there aren’t many German Scientists who agree with the view that a warmer Arctic causes a colder European winter.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/04/12/hans-von-storch-fact-that-the-explanation-came-afterwards-is-just-more-reason-for-doubt/
No defence of Slingo is possible. She should ‘sling her hook’ or go find a broom stick and see if she can make that fly, as that would need the same sort of magic that it would take for a warmer Arctic to produce a colder, drier, snowier Europe.
And yes there is something happening, the Sun is entering an unusual state never before witnessed by modern science and one not seen since the 1800s and perhaps even going back to the 1600s.
We really do need an urgent investigation into how these people still have a job given their near zero accuracy work. The real problem is their work is only peer reviewed but it really needs to have to be tested against a wider information base. The works of literature of the earlier periods tell us this era is no different to many before the industrial revolution and also engineers trained in pattern recognition have always maintained that Fourier analysis shows no significant deviation of the basic structure of the temperature signature. The met office and UEA do not seem also to have to justify the fact their theories violate the principles of thermodynamics with large deviations over a small area being caused by small ones that are global. We still do not get mainstream coverage that the science is so flaky it has been proven it needed to corrupt the BBC to present it as credible.
The decline in Arctic ice extent did not start in any significant way until about 1980. UK winters started to get colder about 2007 , some 27 years later . The winters actually warmed from 1980 to about 2007 . There were at least 10 comparable cold periods before 1980 similar to the recent 5 cold winters that Prof. Slingo claims are due to lack of Arctic Ice . The logic just is not there. They are falsely trying every conceivable way to tie all weather events back to global warming and the logic is now approaching the ridiculous level especially coming from a chief climate advisor . The people of Uk deserve better .
@ur momisugly TheInquirer
you missed the other relevent part of my post
“Old people are dying in these cold winter spells, has she no shame”
As has been pointed out how can the summer melt of the Arctic influence the winters in the UK.
In winter the ice grows back to its extended range ,there is no lack of sea ice area in winter!!
you sure you still want to call her a scientist??
Keitho,
“The deregulation of the banks, particularly with regard to mortgages was the brain child of W J Clinton.”
Good point. I left Clinton out lest it seems like I am writing from a partisan bias.
Dear Mr Homewood great article as I was typing one of the auto suggests for your name was homework which of course you clearly have done:-)
The MET office is institutionally alarmist and not fit for purpose and their Chief Scientific Officer should sling her hook.
If you look at the DEC/JAN/ FEB/MARCH Arctic ice extent http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/ you will note that the latest 2012/2013, the Arctic ice extent is up where it was about 9 years ago. Look at all the charts . Yet the winter/ spring in UK was much colder .The colder weather was due to a combination of sudden warming of the stratosphere [ SSW], a steady negative AO and some blocking of the jet stream . Nothing to do with global warming. The long term cooling will be due to cooling global SST and low solar activity which affects our oceans and then our oceans in lagged timing affect our atmosphere.
Some of the commenters here have said things like “why doesn’t someone bring these people to task?” or “how long are they going to get away with their lies before something is done?”. Well I recently found out about this English law, and if some of the more knowledgable people who frequent this site got together and compiled real evidence for their case, then they could make a formal complaint to the police. The law applies to public servants and can be read here – http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/misconduct_in_public_office/
I would think “misconduct” could be proved against some of those promoting warmist/ climate change propaganda (CG1, CG2?). Public servants seem to have this attitude that they are personally untouchable, and even if an action was unsuccessful it would certainly give them a scare.
I am at present preparing evidence for such an action against local government officers who knew that someone had supplied them with false information (which carried a crminal penalty) but ignored this and carried on processing as though nothing was wrong. A separate complaint is being submitted against the actual wrongdoer. It is actually a politician who is submitting these formal complaints, so they are not all bad people!
Take note of that website and publicise it when appropriate. Don’t let public servants treat us with contempt!
Lucy Skywalker,
“… and that Graeff deserves the Nobel Prize for his almost-completely-unknown work… ”
Graeff’s results are intriguing, although temperature differences were pretty small. This would be directly due to the small magnitude of Earth’s gravity.
It got me thinking to a way of getting larger temperature gradientss – higher gravity. According to Einsteins GR, the effects of gravity and acceleration are interchangeable – it would be impossible to carry out any experiment that would give different results for physical laws in an accelerating system as opposed to in a gravitational field.
Therefore, why not put the apparatus in a low speed centrifuge, something that would generate maybe 20 to 50g. If the effect is real, relativity predicts that the temperature gradient would still be observed, and, thanks to the higher g values, much larger and easier to measure.
“Inquirer” is right. Senility seems to be setting in, for which she can’t be blamed. Honestly, can one get any less scientific in saying “something is happening”?
Vince Causey says: April 13, 2013 at 7:43 am
…why not put the apparatus in a low speed centrifuge…
If you are really interested, you need to contact Graeff or at least read up my articles at Tallbloke’s blog. I’ve directed you to the last instalment which is the only one with back links to all instalments.
Short answer is, the Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube makes use of Graeff’s principle applied to rotation quite usably, but not at all measurably. Graeff’s experiments measure very tiny quantities that only become clearly visible above “noise” by using longterm static experiments and very nifty statistics. He’s a lifetime engineer and knows how to milk evidence for what it’s worth, and design appropriate experiments on a shoestring. Introducing movement is a whole new ballgame of difficulties. That doesn’t mean he is blind to this dimension. Indeed, a Chinese professor tried to validate Graeff’s theory this way… but forgot some serious practical difficulties I forget what exactly.
As one ages, one becomes more sensitive to cold. As I have aged, I find that warmer clothing just suits me better. It appears Ms. Slingo may be aging as well, and rather than attribute feeling chilled to her age, she has determined instead that it is climate. As a warmists, she must somehow reconcile this feeling of chill with her warmist convictions.
This is the type of myopia that afflicts many people. They remember that 40 years ago, it was not cold enough or hot enough to bother them much, but now it is, so the climate must have changed. And on this misperception, they advocate we return to the stone age.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306154/Bi-adieu-Bordeaux-Global-warming-wipe-worlds-best-vineyards-2050.html#ixzz2PzPUifdN
“Experts have warned production in the world’s best wine regions could fall by two thirds because of climate change. ” article includes maps
Note: the “experts” used 17 different models and assumed 2 different climate temperature futures for 2050 – sounds like guessing to me 🙁
She ain’t getting an apology from me for calling her a climate science whore, because that’s what she is. She makes the choice.
To help TheInquirer with his most recent comment, I too also noticed the lack of any reference to “anthropogenic” and/or “CO2” (did I miss it?). Perhaps their lawyers have weighed in on this so they will have an out and be able to say they were talking about natural climate change. The difference between readers of this blog and the general taxpaying dupes, is that we understand the subtleties of this Goebbels-speak.
Surely this idea is easily falsifiable by superimposing a chart of Feb/Mar temperatures with a chart of Arctic ice extent. Is there any correlation? I doubt it.
And what of the winters of ’62 and ’63, which were the coldest Feb/Mar periods this century. Did they have low Arctic ice levels??
Talk about grasping at straws. The Met Office would do better if they ditched their new supercomputer** and bought a few fronds of seaweed.
.
** This supercomputer was bought with Global Warming Scam funds. You see – fraud does pay, when you are in government departments……
.
Prof Slingo said:”……. we’re beginning to think that there is something happening.
“Our climate is being disrupted ……….
“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.”
This looks like another scientific study with predetemined conclusions . This is wrong
I think if Prof. Slingo were to say instead and these are my words, she might get some support.
” We have detected that the global climate is not behaving as we predicted for the last 10 years and is actaully cooling. As a result, serious harm is being caused to the general public ., We should pull together all scientists with key climate knowlege and review the wrong scientific assumptions that were made about global warming and its causes and predict more realistically future global climate not what it might be at the end of next century but during the next decade so as to be helpful to our fellow citizens in the immediate future .
Uh, LevelGaze –
Saturn and Titan are twice as far from the Sun as Jupiter and Ganymede, not closer. This would seem to contradict your statements here.
TheInquirer says:
April 13, 2013 at 4:44 am
I think everyone has answered your comment but just so I can feel so much better, don’t be so stupid. A scientist says ‘something is happening’. WUWT ? The arctic is melting ‘ where , Has she looked at the data recently or in the past. Thearctic freezes over in winter, evry winter since god knows when. With reports of huge amounts of lost ice in the ’30, ’40s did we have 4 bitter / record winters in 5 NO!!! idiot. Like her you have lost the ability to reason.
Tha’s better. I feel alright now. I can remove the straightjacket.
I think most commenters here have missed the point behind Slingo’s remarks. She is simply banging the drum. She really doesn’t care one jot about being shown to be inaccurate, or inconsistent, or any of the other criticisms levelled at her. She really doesn’t give a damn. That’s not what she’s there for. She is pulling an obscene amount of money to spout. That’s all. Spout. Doesn’t matter what she spouts. She is The Head Weather Person, and therefore her words carry an almost ex cathedra-like weight. Don’t forget we are still very much a feudal society here, and authority figures are granted a truly disturbing amount of deference for their utterances, howsoever inane. And she knows this, and those who put her there know this.
She couldn’t give a stuff about how other people’s lives are ruined by the onerous charges placed upon them as a direct consequence of the guff she spouts. She’s well off, and will stay that way as long as she does as she is told. So she does. Credibility is for little people.
That’s all.