Britain’s Warm, But Unremarkable Summer

Jimmy, you will hear a lot more when the next climate jamboree begins in Stockholm. I guess they will now say that global warming not only causes extreme weather but also boring weather.

I live in the “micro-climate” of southern Hampshire , the Solent. Our summers until 2006 were pretty much predictable, warm May , unstable and often humid June, warm-to-hot July, variable August and a warm and sunny September. In our area this was much more reliable and warmer than many other parts of the UK. In amongst that were often periods of low pressure for a few days and considerable rain but on average very nice summers….. THEN….. 2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012 …. six summers nothing like any in my lifetime here, colder, wetter and far less sunny. 2013 was much more like the norm before that run of 6 strange summers. So for us here in the South it just felt like summers as they should be…. Other micro-climates in this part of the world ( south Devon, Cherbourg penisular ( France ) and the channel islands ) have experienced much the same.

It has been a largely pleasant spring and summer in the SE with just enough rain to keep the crops happy. I’m growing tomatoes and peppers and chillies outside but may have to take them indoors before all are ripend.
I do have a feeling (rather than a thought) that these highs are going to persist through the winter and bring in cold airs from the North and East ushering in a colder than average winter much like last year and heralding the collapse in global temperatures I have been expecting for years.

1826 was a corker by all accounts – widespread drought, half of the West Riding or Yorkshire burning, and, in Scotland, heat and thunderstorms. From the Times, June 11, 1826: “The heat still continues excessive, the thermometer has for some time been above 80 in the shade, and during the past week has sometimes been even so high as 86.” That’s for Inverness!

Agree completely with Johnny old boy. I live just outside London so only 80-90 miles apart but identical summers. Was so nice just to have some warm sunshine, nothing exceptional but after the last few years it was great.

“…All in all, I suppose you could say it has been just another British summer!”
Yep – certainly felt that way to me (living in Bedfordshire, UK). We had a some very nice warm weather through most of July/August, but looking out the window this morning I see September is an unsurprising grey, rainy affair (rained for most of this past weekend, too). I certainly feel that despite the BBC’s increasingly desperate attempts to paint the weather (any weather) as ‘unusual’ or ‘record breaking’ the actual experience of it feels anything but to the vast majority of the UK population.
Our British summers have always been a bit schizophrenic; a few days of very weather here, followed by a day of torrential thunderstorms there, etc, It’s not ‘unusual’ and it’s certainly not ‘extreme’ – despite the BBC’s repeated attempts to report it as such. Still, no doubt the CAGW Propaganda Wing of the BBC Department (aka The Met Office) is busy preparing the script in advance of autumnal floods – and, of course, as ‘evidence’ of that all-important ‘weather weirding’ they all seem so enthusiastic about.
Jokers, all. They really should find something better to do with their time (and our money).

If we are supposed to be experiencing global warming, how can places so close to each other (the UK is not that large) have anomalies of +1.5 to 2.0 at one location and -0.5 to 0.5 in another?

Also remember the AGW folks told us to expect more drought in the UK yet 2012 was the wettest since 1910. Just how many times are these people allowed to get it wrong and continue to be rewarded with faster and more expensive GIGO computers?

After last summer’s atrocious weather, this year has seen a return to the sort of summer we wish for and remember. In the 60s, I spent most of the summer lying around an outdoor pool, sandwiches in my duffle bag and my drink sunk to the bottom of the pool to keep cool and would cycle home in time for supper with fingers and toes like shrivelled prunes from so much swimming. I don’t remember many wet or cold days. Last summer, I don’t recall wearing anything less than a t-shirt and jumper and my vegetables were a disaster. We had a fabulous week at the end of March and a bit more in May, but that was it. Dire. So this year has been a welcome change (and my onions are huge).

I was a believer in global warming about 10 years ago, with just the slightest niggle of doubt in my mind – if temperatures are 0.8°C higher than 100 years ago, how accurate were thermometers back then? My understanding was that only recently have thermometers been reliably accurate to within 0.5°C… and, how can we verify the accuracy of the readings from 100 years ago? Anyhoo, I let that ride. Then I saw Al Gore’s infamous film, and was hooked; we were bad, bad people. I then set about (albeit rather half-heartedly) trying to find how I could have some effect upon humanity’s nastiness. As this required research, I (internet) researched. The first question was “How does CO2, a minor gas in the system, have such a dramatic effect upon the atmosphere’s temperature?” I asked this question on various sites, pro- and anti-, and was surprised by the response. NONE of them could give a satisfactory answer, the anti- sites gave rather poor explanations, but were dismissive; the pro- sites almost immediately became nasty – in some cases, very, very nasty, with advice to self-harm and suicide, as well as the usual ad hom remarks, especially when I questioned their response: “Because it does!”. Obviously, these folk were desperate to get me on-side – NOT! The conclusions I came to were that the alarmist sites do not tolerate anyone who is not totally “on message”. This made me suspicious, so I continued researching, to reach the sort of conclusions that most people on this site agree with – the whole AGW story is a SCAM! The recent UK summers merely reinforced my opinions.