No, global warming did NOT cause the storms, says one of the Met Office’s most senior experts
One of the Met Office’s most senior experts yesterday made a dramatic intervention in the climate change debate by insisting there is no link between the storms that have battered Britain and global warming.
Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said the storms have been driven by the jet stream – the high-speed current of air that girdles the globe – which has been ‘stuck’ further south than usual.
Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge.’
His statement carries particular significance because he is an internationally acknowledged expert on climate computer models and forecasts, and his university post is jointly funded by the Met Office.
Prof Collins is also a senior adviser – a ‘co-ordinating lead author’ – for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His statement appears to contradict Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo.
Last weekend, she said ‘all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play’ in the storms.
Prof Collins made clear that he believes it is likely global warming could lead to higher rainfall totals, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water. But he said this has nothing to do with the storm conveyor belt.
He said that when the IPCC was compiling its Fifth Assessment Report on climate change last year, it discussed whether warming might affect the jet stream. But, he went on, ‘there was very low confidence that climate change has any effect on the jet stream getting stuck’. In the end, the possibility was not even mentioned in the report.
h/t to “Jabba the Cat”
Related:
Somerset Floods – February Update
UK flooding, Met Office, and all that – a map from 878AD tells us more than Slingo
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John Finn says:
February 16, 2014 at 2:22 am
An increased GHE results in a warmer arctic which reduces the temperature gradient between the air masses either side of the Jet stream. This should, according to the ‘experts’, cause the Jet to become more “sluggish and “wavier”. The opposite of what has been experienced this winter.
>>>
Times like these we maybe need justthefacts to post … just the facts.
The poor jetstream(s) seem to be such a convenient catch-all safety-net for bad theory, bad model, bad policy and bad economy which increasingly looks like a bedraggled variation on the theme of “Wag the Dog”.
AlecM says:
February 16, 2014 at 1:54 am
“don’t ever misquote me again.”
Because It would be wrong of me to point out what you actually said “Slingo is a lightweight, parachuted in for being a female”
My remark is level headed.
Well said Prof Collins.
richardscourtney says:
February 16, 2014 at 2:07 am
“I have collated all your contributions to this thread so your collected wisdom, erudition and wit are clear for all to see.”
And what was your final conclusion?
“Sparks, your faecal fixation adds nothing of value to the discussion.”
It’s the ole bullshit detector going off!
Where you caught in the cross fire? aw.. I’ll my condolences, fuken puwssy!
richardscourtney
Just to be clear,
I’ll send my condolences, [snip]
[Snip]
Christopher Booker has an excellent piece on this in today’s printed Sunday telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10639819/UK-weather-its-not-as-weird-as-our-warmists-claim.html
The Telegraph also printed an excellent letter which pointed out that the recent IPCC report made it clear there is no evidence to link extreme weather with climate change.
Perhaps Ed Davey, Miliband, Clegg, Cameron and all the other climate change idiots who are damaging our country should have taken the trouble to actually read the Summary for Policy Makers.
Chris
Kevin Trenberth’s corrupted null works its mischief.
=================
We always seem to forget big organisations and governments are made up of individuals, each with differing thoughts and opinions. It’s always nice to know people are thinking
Just a thought.
I thought that Sparks may realise.
That Bullpuckey smears the slinger as well as the recipient.
Sparks:
My only post in this thread was here.
It began saying
It then quoted in full each of your posts in this thread at that time before concluding
Clearly, that ‘touched a nerve’ because you responded with three posts at
February 16, 2014 at 2:23 am
February 16, 2014 at 2:57 am
February 16, 2014 at 3:17 am
Those responses contained obscenities but no rational content.
So, I repeat that if you want to foul a nest then go somewhere else and preferably foul your own nest, not WUWT.
Richard
RMetS is not the Met Office.
Just saying.
Bill Church says:
February 16, 2014 at 2:01 am
“Prof Collins made clear that he believes it is likely global warming could lead to higher rainfall totals, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water.
I think everybody accepts that! However, rainfall is not directly dependent on how much water vapour exists in a air mass – it is dependent on temperature difference. In convective weather (cumulus type) the amount of rain depends on the temperature difference between rising warm humid air and the environmental lapse rate. If one could wave a magic wand and increase global temperature – then, surely, both the rising air and the environmental lapse rate would be similarly increased and the difference would be the same (very, very broadly speaking).
Frontal weather systems give rise to precipitation when warm, moist air mixes with colder air – if both warm and the cold air have their temperatures increased by a given amount, then the difference remains similar.
What have I missed?”
You have missed that it takes warmer than normal conditions in the winter to increase the rainfall, and cooler conditions in summer to increase the rainfall. Which is why the UK is trending to cooler drier winters and cooler wetter summers in the UK in recent years as temperatures have generally been falling. This winter is an exception to that trend, outliers are to be expected.
High annual England rainfall totals are more likely in a colder year that a warmer year:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/download.html
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/tcet.dat
I think what I am looking at though is an AMO signal, more visible is Scotland than England:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/17/Rainfall/England.gif
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/17/Rainfall/Scotland.gif
Clovis Marcus says:
February 16, 2014 at 6:14 am
RMetS is not the Met Office.
I think you’ll find a very close synergy!
I have been giving some thought to Dame Slingo’s ideas that a warming atmosphere (AKA climate change) has been causing the flooding problems we have been experiencing in the UK recently.
If you look at different air masses (warm/cold) and the transitions between them, the warmest air mass does not produce the heaviest rainfall. The area between a warm front and a cold front is the warm air mass and does hold more water, but any precipitation in this area is predominately in the form of drizzle. Preceding the warm front, when warmer air over-rides the cooler air mass produces heavier precipitation. But the heaviest precipitation occurs on/near a cold front when the warm moist air is forced upward.
Therefore, Dame Slingo has got her basic meteorological knickers in a bit of a twist, it is the colder air forcing up the warmer moist air which causes the heavier precipitation. The flooding must therefore be caused by global cooling.
Yes, I sensed the same. I wouldn’t expect anything too heroic or disruptive to the herd from Professor Collins. The world waits for a few good men, to stand up, and put an end to these very dangerous AGW based policies and action. Until new leaders emerge, civilization will march to false drummers and their agenda driven doom. Alas. GK
Anthony and/or Mods: Please take a look at the relentless stream of foul insults posted by Sparks and delete them. A partial list can be found here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/15/flood-fight-at-the-met-office/#comment-1569212
Chris Wright says:
February 16, 2014 at 3:57 am
Christopher Booker has an excellent piece on this in today’s printed Sunday telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10639819/UK-weather-its-not-as-weird-as-our-warmists-claim.html
>>>
Yikes, that link’s content was brutal, and brutally apt. What else can you do but point-out how foolish people have been to listen to the experts, the digitally and statistically blinded, leading the anthropocentric blinded, and now both are in the ditch.
I feel slightly more for people and businesses who valued and used the advice to plan their investments, outdoor activities and projects on the presumption that such people in the official positions of guru adviser actually has some circumspection about the scope of natural-variability ranges.
Hope they make good use of this valuable lesson.
The fact is we’ve never even seen what earth can really do. The sedimentary record is plenty clear on that. Met-offices everywhere have just taught people to expect a certain range of variability, but 110 to 150 years of instrumental record is woefully inadequate to define what earth’s natural range is. The earth-science records are very clear about the current meteorological record being a teensy-weensy bit unrealistic and unrepresentative of natural variability ranges. Yet experts in that still delight to fluff-us with tales of near future times.
I’ll call this hubris what it is, an insidious lingering effect of anthropomorphism.
Everyone seems to have assumed that just went away, and it did receded quite a lot, but it sure did not go away. If it had gone away would we be so surprised to find ourselves whimpering in the foetal position when ever earth occasionally in some small way shows who runs the show, and who’s just got an anthropomorphic-related attitude problem with mundane upheavals, and natural-variability, and reality in general?
“Oh no! Humans must be the cause, because were so powerful and smart!”
Yeah … that’ll be it … sure … but can this be the reason why space aliens are a bit stand-off-ish with us?
No one likes anthrops.
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but the peace dividend from ending the war on co2 may be what saves the world from economic collapse.
If the Solar Physicists are correct then the AGW will be seen for what it is…..a scam. Somewhere along the line reality has to set in and Prof Collins is moving to the middle ground.
Unmentionable says:
February 16, 2014 at 7:07 am
“I’ll call this hubris what it is, an insidious lingering effect of anthropomorphism.”
JoNova points out another glaring example of their hubris and Groupthink-
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/02/climate-scientists-say-extreme-summers-must-be-due-to-co2-we-cant-think-of-anything-else/
while some lament what the Moi Generation and their hubris have done to science and the scientific method, echoing the warning of Eisenhower-
http://www.slattsnews.observationdeck.org/?p=7905
(do read Paltridge’s full article in the Quadrant link)
goldminor says:
February 15, 2014 at 10:41 pm
_Jim says:
February 15, 2014 at 9:44 pm
Gail Combs says February 15, 2014 at 7:21 pm
AHHHhhh,
A brake in the ranks ..
—————————————-
A dyslexic keyboard, perhaps.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No, the result of John Dewey and his (self-snip) reading/writing experiments I was in one of the ‘Progressive Education’ experimental reading classes from first through fourth grade. I can read very fast but I can not read out loud or spell worth crap. I am terrible at learning other languages too.
Please note that by the time I entered fifth grade I was a full year behind when we moved to a normal school system in another town. Robin has a lot more info on the trashing of the education system.
So he’s been nobbled already then? This is a tweet from Collins, just now. “Together with the Met Office I’ll be putting out a statement tomorrow clarifying the statements in the Mail on Sunday article.”
“Last weekend, she said ‘all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play’ in the storms.”
You know, there IS a scenario where 0 = All…
ishtarsgate , the ‘sinner’ will be made to repent in public for ‘mistake ‘
As a little reminder about what happens to those that step out of line on ‘the cause ‘