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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Sparks, are you feeling OK? Mods, please control this person. He or she isn’t contributing anything but hurls fecal insults at fellow commenters. Once in a while might be warranted but over 80%!
Mr. Collins: ‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter.’
Ms. Slingo: ‘all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play’
“His statement appears to contradict [hers]“
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thats not what he’s saying on Twitter!
He saying he’s not contradicting her??
Fancy he been on the rug already and something beginning to pucker up!
to all the dyslexia commentators juts merember that “lysdexia lures….KO!”
Did anyone bother to apply some skepticism to this story?
Slingo’s comments appear here and here, including the elided quote the Mail cited. Had they published the full sentence and her more nuanced comments it would have ruined their fabricated controversy.
Collins said there is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the current pattern. Slingo said increased precipitation is consistent with global warming. Daily Mail pretends they’ve contradicted each other.
Perhaps someone can quote Slingo mentioning the jet stream in the articles linked above.
I love the breathless reporting of Collins “intervention,” as if he charged into the Daily Mail offices to make statements.
Unquestioning faith in tabloid articles. Skeptical much?
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/
>>>
“Scientists who can’t predict temperature trends, clouds, rain, or humidity, are telling us that greenhouse gases must have caused the extreme summer last year because, they don’t have a clue what else might have done it. …”
Ha, thanks for that observa. JoNova nails it.
The sad thing is humanity and the UN global body don’t even realize that we/they have a general anthropomorphism attitude-problem.
And it’s such an awkward word, try dropping that one at a party. Good room clearer.
We need a better conceptualization and word to capture why humanity is this ‘effed up over it’s place in the scheme of things and as a result keep knee-jerking to every sun shower.
Something similar occurs on TV marker and finance reports, were the dippy cute chick with the legs gives a few numbers and then explains it all away with some absolutely ridiculous shallow causative mechanism for today’s numbers and their trend. oh gad, please make it stop! lol 😀
So the dippy chief scientist at the met-office is just doing the very same thing each time there’s a heavy dew. 😛
Exciting times … we’re so lucky to see it.
barry:
I am writing to reject your spin and your implied slur of WUWT in your post at February 16, 2014 at 5:46 pm.
You write
The Daily Mail pretended nothing because they DID he contradict each other.
Slingo said the recent weather is an expectation of “climate change” (aka AGW).
Collins said the recent weather is not an effect of “climate change” (aka AGW).
The reasons they state for their incompatible conclusions are Collins’ observation concerning the jet stream and Slingo’s assertion concerning precipitation. Consideration of those conclusions may deduce suggest which – if either – of them is right, but their statements DO contradict each other.
They did contradict each other, and any attempt to spin that they did not is promulgation of a falsehood.
And you assert
The implied lack of skepticism by WUWT is untrue because it is based on the falsehood that there is not a clear contradiction of Collins by Slingo. Your implication is without merit, and your post implies that you also lack any merit.
Richard
Richard,
They were talking about two different things.
No he didn’t.
Matt Collins:
Collins was talking about the jet stream. Not other phenomena. Not weather in general.
Slingo didn’t mention the jet stream.
The Daily Mail elided quotes in order to recontextualize two different topics under one banner so a contradiction could be claimed. You have gone further. You have completely fabricated their comments. You distorted and generalized what they said to make them fit a context you prefer. And you did that because you were unable to quote them directly to substatiate your argument.
Can we find evidence of Slingo saying anything about the jet stream and global warming? Yes.
The Met Office report occassioning the press briefing says there is as yet no evidentiary link between global warming and changes to the jet stream pattern. Slingo was chief author on the report, which is why she headed the press briefing. There is no daylight between her position on the jet stream and Collins’. The Mail simply made that up.
AGW proponents have a problem with the jet stream.
It was originally proposed that with AGW all the climate zones including the jets would shift towards the poles.
During the late 20th century warming period they duly did at the rate of about half a mile a year by one account.
Then around 2000 I noted that the poleward drift had stopped and since then the drift appears to have been back towards the equator, though it is increased meridional loops in the jet stream that have been most apparent.
Meanwhile CO2 emissions continued to rise.
So they cannot admit any link between AGW and the average latitudinal position of the jet stream tracks without contradicting AGW theory.
Slingo tries to avoid the problem by saying that the recent ‘extreme’ (but hardly unprecedented) weather is an expectation of climate change but in doing so denies that the immediate cause of our recent storminess is a fast jet stream running across the UK in a more equatorward position than during the past late 20th century warming spell.
In reality, the proper expectation from human induced climate change would have been jets running even further north of Scotland than ever before. In that context she appears to be disingenuous.
Collins tries a different damage limitation strategy. He focuses on a ‘stuck’ jet stream thus ignoring its unusual vigour and southward latitudinal position.
Both of them are in denial but using different avoidance strategies.
The only plausible overarching hypothesis currently on the table is mine, here:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/new-climate-model/
and for the purposes of this thread the header graphic is all you need to look at.
barry:
In my post here I explained that Collins and Slingo contradict each other.
At February 17, 2014 at 4:14 am you attempt to obfuscate that saying to me
Yes, and that is why they contradict each other. Please read what I wrote: I have provided a link to help you to find it.
Richard
“They were talking about two different things.”
“Yes, and that is why they contradict each other.”
Illogical. The topics were not the same, therefore neither contradiction nor agreement is determinable.
The one topic they both mentioned to the press was rainfall under global warming, on which they agree.
Jimbo says:
February 16, 2014 at 12:03 pm
Sparks, are you feeling OK? Mods, please control this person. He or she isn’t contributing anything but hurls fecal insults at fellow commenters. Once in a while might be warranted but over 80%!
My intention was not to offend such sensitive souls such as your self, but to bluntly express the likeness between some fellow commentators comments to that of fecal matter, and although I do respect the wide variety of people here, their views and opinions, sometimes…
🙂
Stephen,
I’ve scanned the IPCC reports from 1990 to present, and there is mention of modeled storm tracks over N America shifting northward, and the southerly migration of mid-latitude jets (AR4). There is no mention of migration of other jets. Wherever IPCC discusses meridional wind changes, storm tracks and blocking, it is qualified that models do not provide sufficient resolution to make confident projections.
I do not know who proposed the jet streams would all shift polewards, but it is not repeated in IPCC documents. I wonder if you are referring to outlier papers and claiming some kind of concensus opinion.
Poleward migration of land surface climate zones is a concensus projection. You got that part right.
To be precise, he says that a warming world should hold more water vapour, therefore more rain.
He never denied it. Why make things up? But go ahead and quote him doing exactly that, please.
The Met Office report (Slingo was chief author) details the effect of the jet stream on the recent weather.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/1/2/Recent_Storms_Briefing_Final_SLR_20140211.pdf
They summarize:
“This period of weather has been part of major perturbations to the Pacific and North Atlantic jet streams driven, in part, by persistent rainfall over Indonesia and the tropical West Pacific. The North Atlantic jet stream has also been unusually strong; this can be linked to exceptional wind patterns in the stratosphere with a very intense polar vortex.”
Like the previous IPCC reports, this report does not definitively link global warming to changes in jet stream patterns, and like previous assessment reports, recommends improved modeling to get a better resolution on such issues.
Quite a context you are operating there. How about Collins was asked by a reporter if global warming was responsible for the current jet stream holding pattern and he simply said there is no science to back that up, which is the right answer, and consistent with present understanding?
The need to construct narratives where scientists are “intervening” against each other, contradicting, backtracking and damage-limiting, is something to witness. Novels could be written with such vigorous imagination.
barry says:
“To be precise, he says that a warming world should hold more water vapour, therefore more rain.”
But there is less precipitation globally because there is lower humidity globally — both relative humidityand specific humidity.
Global humidity has been declining for decades. The obvious conclusion: global warming may not even be happening. But if it is happening, how do you explain the global decline in humidity?
dbstealey,
Has humidity over the UK decreased?
Sparks,
How many times did I write “global”?
dbstealey says:
February 17, 2014 at 6:27 pm
Humidity is a feature of warming, condensation is when humidity condenses into the cooler and heavier form that falls from the sky as precipitation.
Whatever, Sparks.
dbstealey says:
February 17, 2014 at 6:50 pm
Sparks,
How many times did I write “global”?
I know.. it was an honest enquire tho.
*enquiry
OK, in that case…
I don’t understand your query. But I did look in my chart folder and found that there isn’t any discernable change in global precipitation, including snowfall.
My enquiry to barry was: if there is global warming — which would cause higher humidity — then why is global humidity falling?
Still waiting to hear back from barry on that one.
dbstealey says:
February 17, 2014 at 7:07 pm
I did notice that, excellent question.
dbstealy,
Then why did you present a graph of specific humidity in the lower stratosphere (300mb is about 14000 meters altitude)?
Stratosphere is cooling so of course specific humidity will reduce.
Here is a chart of trends in specific humidity from the ground all the way up to the lower stratosphere.
For most of the troposphere, including rainfall from the altitude of the recent storms over the UK, specific humidity has increased over time. That is no surprise in a warming world (or physics is wrong).
I don’t know the provenance of your other graph, what data or what portion of the sky it represents, but most people, including skeptics at Lucia’s place, agree that relative humidity has remained fairly constant globally, with different trends over specific regions.
That’s a useful question, Sparks. Regional climate projections of changes in the hydrological cycle see some places getting drier, others wetter. Over most of Europe, particularly in the North, projections are that rainfall will increase. Observations for Northern Europe are that rainfall has ncreased over the last century.
barry said:
“Then why did you present a graph of specific humidity in the lower stratosphere (300mb is about 14000 meters altitude)?”
Because that is the graph I had in my graph folder — as I explained above. And barry apparently didn’t notice that I posted a chart of all altitudes, not just the lower stratosphere.
The fabricated graph barry posted, unlike the one I linked to, has no provenance. So we can just assume the graph barry posted is an invention.
Also, let me point out that the “stratospheric cooling” meme was invented when the tropospheric “fingerprint of global warming” turned out to be flat wrong, just like all the other climate alarmist predictions.
The fact is that global humidity should be rising smartly — if global warming is happening as predicted. But it is not. So once again, the alarmist prediction is full of bogosity. Once the always-wrong alarmist crowd’s predictions are eliminated, what we are left with is simply natural climate variability, and nothing else.
Finally, barry says: “That’s a useful question, Sparks. Regional climate projections of changes in the hydrological cycle see some places getting drier, others wetter.”
Not useful at all, since it is only regional and we are discussing global. This is just one more example of moving the goal posts when the argument moves against the climate alarmist. In fact, local conditions are always changing. They always have, and they always will. A few thousand years ago the Sahara Desert was a savannah of rolling grassland. But see, it changed.
That happens everywhere, all the time. Thus, the ‘local change’ argument is NFG.
db,
the atmospheric humidity chart comes from a discussion at Lucia’s, and the source was NOAA.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/humidity-time-series-where-to-find/
What year was that? Exactly.
The topic is weather patterns over England, and whether Slingo and Collins disagree with each other.
barry:
I apologise that until now I have not replied to your post at February 17, 2014 at 5:33 pm.
Your post is untrue sophistry.
You had said
And I replied to that saying
Your post replies to that saying
NO! THEY DISAGREE!
I will use analogy to demonstrate your error of logic.
Two people discuss why the Sun rises in the morning. One says the Sun orbits the Earth so the Sun traverses the sky, but the other says the Earth is rotating so the Sun appears to traverse the sky. They are NOT agreeing merely because they both say the Sun rises in the morning. And they are NOT agreeing because their explanations talk about different things. Indeed, their explanations contradict each other.
Similarly, Slingo and Collins are fundamentally disagreeing: Collins specifically refutes Slingo’s assertion.
Concerning the storms supplied to the UK by the ‘stuck’ jet stream, Slingo had said
Collins has replied
Collins is specifically rejecting Slingo’s assertion that “all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play” and states that the matter is “outside our knowledge”.
So, does the Earth rotate or does the Sun orbit the Earth?
The disagreement between Collins and Slingo is as fundamental as that.
And your sophistry is irrelevant.
Richard