By Paul Homewood
The sharp rise in UK temperatures, which effectively began in the 1980’s, is widely known about, but, (and I may be wrong here), has never been satisfactorily explained. Indeed, I am not sure anybody from the Met Office, Hadley Centre, etc has ever seriously attempted to explain it.
Usually, whenever it is mentioned, it is brushed aside as “climate change”. I have always thought this to be nonsense, as, whatever our views of global warming theory, CO2 does not possess the magical properties that enable it to suddenly raise temperatures in such a way, thereafter followed by a decade long pause. Theory tells us that, as CO2 increases in the atmosphere, temperatures should rise gradually and steadily.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly
A few weeks ago, whilst checking something else, I became aware that around the same time that UK temperatures began to rise, sunshine hours also increased sharply, as the Met Office below shows. Indeed, not only did it rise, but it increased to levels well above anything seen since records start in 1929.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly
I naturally wondered whether there was a connection here, but was initially thrown as the largest increase in sunshine hours was during winter and spring, with little change in summer. This seemed counterintuitive, since we would normally associate bright, sunny winters with cold weather. At that stage, I filed it all away in my memory and went off to beat the wife instead.
However, in last week’s Sunday Telegraph, I came across this piece on December climate from Philip Eden, (as always, not available on line).
Now the jigsaw began to fit into place. The increase in sunshine hours, particularly during winter, was not caused by changing weather patterns but a reduction in air pollution. It is not unreasonable, then, to surmise that this increase in sunshine was, at least in part, responsible for the increase in temperatures we have seen.
As the graph below shows, there is pretty good correlation between sunshine and temperature.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/datasets
There is nothing very new in this argument, as air pollution has often been quoted as the reason for the decline in northern hemisphere temperatures during the 1960’s and 70’s. However, that logic misses the point that pollution has been a major factor since the mid 19thC. If it is true that a polluted atmosphere can depress temperatures, then these temperatures have been lower as a result for a century or more.
With a cleaner atmosphere now, temperatures have simply returned to the level they would have been at in the past.
This phenomenon of a sharp rise in late 20thC temperatures is not limited to Britain. We see the same effect across much of NW Europe, for instance France and Germany, as GISS show:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
Combined with the recovery of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, from its low point in the late 1970’s, how much has reduced air pollution, and therefore more sunshine, contributed to UK and European warming in the late 20thC?
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I doubt the pollution theory. For most of Europe, the change seems to be a step change in 1988. For Norway, the step change is seen most clearly as an increase in precipitation:
http://eklima.met.no/metno/trend/RRA_G0_0_1000_NO.jpg
(There’s been a jump in temperature as well, but the temperature has been more variable with the globally well-known warm period in the 30s clearly visible: http://eklima.met.no/metno/trend/TAMA_G0_0_1000_NO.jpg)
Something changed abruptly around 1988 in Europe, and I bet it had more to do with large scale weather patterns than with either CO2 or real pollution.
Yes a strong positive shift in the AO/NAO.
Large scale weather patterns (whatever you are alluding to) also have a cause!! They are not the cause itself.
Most definitely do they have a cause, Gary.
And step by step science is piercing the ignorance and misinformation that surrounds this study of climate but without, however, the help of RealClimate™ scientists.
lets see, what changed in Europe around 1988?
November 9, 1989
The Berlin Wall: The Fall of the Wall. On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin’s Communist Party announced a change in his city’s relations with the West.
Yes, Ferd.B.,
almost immediatly followed by radical dismantling the inefficient industries in the former DDR;
accompanied / following GB’s deindustrializion by M.Thatcher. Thus
sharp reducing cloud seeding aerosols + dust particles in the midst of central europe.
____
changing patterns of precipitation:
bigger cloud formations lasting till met by masses of ‘pollutants’ / disturbances –
dust from the sahara, vegetabil pollen in spring, high traffic pollutants during vacations in summer, atmospheric disturbances in autumn, temperature drops in winter, div. volcanic activities ….
____
tilting heavy rains, flood events, even landslides.
____
contributions to the folclory of ‘heavy wether events du to climate change’.
Regards – Hans
Read
cloud / condensation
seeding aerosols + dust
particles
Thanks – Hans
something else changed. there was a drastic reduction in the number of weather stations reporting after 1985.
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/sc1985.gif
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/sc2005.gif
http://climateaudit.org/2008/02/10/historical-station-distribution/
…could be the only meaningful climate change is at UBIs…eliminate readings from “outlying” areas that argue the UBI effect is only the urban growth effect where the only warming that is significant occurs.
(meant to type UHI, not UBI….oops)
What changes abruptly around 1988 was the widespread introduction of catalytic converters to Western Europe. They had been mandated on all new vehicles in the USA 10 years earlier and warming there started about 10 years earlier. The CCs reduced cloud seeding aerosols and hence sunshine increased.
And with the catalytic converter, guess what. No more pollution from carbon monoxide, everything to CO2.
There is always something!
Surely coincidental, but high temperatures seem to be reported now in places where OCO2 measured the lowest CO2.
I wonder if there are figures like those above for somewhere such as Ireland?
It is located in a similar part of the globe and lies to the west, the predominant winds would blow British pollution away from Ireland, to leave a relatively unspoilt, if not very sunny Ireland.
Would this increase in sunshine never happen, since it never went away in the first place?
Have you ever been to Ireland? There are two types of weather; 1) its raining and 2) its gonna rain soon. I know I have a house in County Mayo…but the weather is usually fast moving alright as the Atlantic systems flash past us heading toward (mostly) the UK.. Admittedly the east of Ireland requires slightly less employment of windscreen wipers….
An amusing sidebar to your Irish weather story. IN many places (this is one) the complaint is “If You do not like the weather, wait 10 minutes and it will change”. Yet where it does not, they seem to carp about it as well.
The old adage is true! Regardless of the weather.
Both countries are surrounded by water and recently surface waters have warmed, despite deeper waters cooling, so warmer sea temperatures could be to blame.
Did UHI and bad station siting been considered? Garbage in/out? How does this trend look if looking at “Good” stations only.
If I were a climate scientist I would surely not consider an increase in sunshine having any regional affect on temperature. It would obviously be the lack of cloudy weather (which we know cloudy weather is something everyone wants) due to global warming.
Yes that is correct, before there were less clouds there was more warming causing less clouds causing the original warming and the snake ate it’s tail and that is why I am glad I am not a climate scientist.
I remember the air pollution in Northern towns in the middle 50s. On some days it was unbreathable, I felt like I was choking. Places like Bolton and Bury, and of course Manchester were awful, even at 3pm in spring or autumn, it was like night. The problem was that all house heating was through coal fires, while all factories, and there were many of them, were driven by coal fired steam engines. All those chimneys belched out huge amounts of smoke. The towns were in narrow valleys, in the Pennines, which tended to trap the smoke, while the houses were small and closely packed in. Thrifty households, and factory managers, used the cheapest, high polluting coal; the better stuff went for export or for ships boilers. We (the U.K.) had a balance of payments surplus; but at what cost to the health of the working population? Most men did not reach pension age (65) while many women lived barely beyond it.
I remember that well as I lived in ‘The smoke’ – the slang name for London. Fogs were actually yellow smogs and often 10 ft or less visibility. The the stone of major monuments and buildings in London was eaten away by suphurous smokes. This acid eroson is sitll visible in the stone of old buildings in London.
But of course this was called ‘Global Dimming’ and as caused by apitalist burning of fossil fuels and the only way to prevent a new ice age was to heavily tax use of coal and oil reducing carbon particulates in the air, and acid rain. Strange that the same cure now is recommended for prevention of global warming 😉
My mother in law tells of Glasgow smog in the late 50s, early 60s. On one day in the late 50s it was so thick and impermeable all transport stopped. They walked home several miles from the city centre in zero visibility in groups. On arriving home they discovered the dirt of the smog had penetrated right through to their underwear, which was almost black.
Paul
The Met office is well aware of the increased sunshine and the possible effects on climate. I’ve discussed this in the past with David Parker
The number of hours of sunshine in winter is very small. Also, its noticeable how often that sunny winter days are the coldest days, not the warmest. Again, if a day is sunny the night will also likely be clear and cold.
Our warm winter days tend to come with the warm wet westerly winds we all learnt about in Geography at school. These conditions can persist for some time, including at night, and push up the temperatures due to cloud cover.
However, it is clear that wind direction changes over the years, with some decades having winds predominantly coming from other directions which might warm or cool our climate. The 1730’s are a case in point when the UK noticeably warmed up.
So climatic conditions-rather than co2- could definitely have something to do with our warmer weather. Whether it is winds, sun or cloud cover however remains to be seen.It would be interesting to see if those increased sunshine hours you mention led to clear cold nights or if the clouds rolled in and warmed the nights up.
tonyb
Also, its noticeable how often that sunny winter days are the coldest days, not the warmest.
==============
that is because clear skies are normally caused by cold, dry continental air, while cloudy skies are caused by warm, moist marine air.
pollution is different. it would mostly affect the continental, reducing sunlight reaching the ground, making cold temps even colder.
That’s what puzzled me, Tony.
Sunnier days in winter should be associated with colder weather, yet the opposite has occurred.
Paul
I think it just illustrates that we still haven’t got a handle on weather, despite the millions spent on it.
Personally, I think the jet stream plays a very big part in our climate but as our knowledge of it only dates to 1945 it’s influence on our evolving climate may remain sketchy.
Tonyb
Interesting- since the mid 19th century. Yet that was then the LIA ended. The more data we get, the more questions it poses.
And as far as “went off to beat the wife instead”, I bet she took you 2 out of 3.! LOL
Yet that was then the LIA ended.
=============
since we don’t know what caused the LIA, how can we say when/if it ended? For all we know the current temps are simply a continuation of the same process that gave rise to the LIA. We simply do not know and so far climate models and climate science have not addressed the problem.
Saying the LIA ended on such and such date doesn’t make it true, no matter how many people might believe it to be true. When did the LIA start and what caused it?
I was not trying to define an end date for the LIA, only repeating the generally accepted understanding of it. I have no data to show when it started or when it ended, just historical reports of when the temperatures started a general upward trend.
“went off to beat the wife instead” Given Mr. Homewoods track record of informative and well written posts I assume this phrase has a non-literal meaning. I may be the only one (40-ish male from Canada) but a little explanation would be appreciated.
British humor.
Or even British humour 🙂
Yea, their incessant use of useless ewes is the funniest.
j/k for you Brits.
‘Fraid not. The ‘ewes’ are essential. Otherwise it would be ‘hu-more’ (without the ‘u’) rather than the (correct!) ‘hu-mur’. Same applies to ‘colour’.
Mais bien sûr! Et le plus drôle est la façon dont ils pensent que ce est à eux, mais est strictement français
[But of course ! And the funny thing is the way they think it is theirs, but is strictly French .mod]
My money’s on ‘beat’ being synonymous with ‘pester’.
Perhaps a humourous allusion to the fallicious, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”
At chess.
Humour as in, “when did you stop beating your wife?”
Makes me think of the GISS chart (reproduced in Michael Crichton’s novel State of Fear) showing temperatures in Punta Arenas, Chile, where air pollution presumably isn’t a large factor:
http://postimg.org/image/phn7jq10d/
The chart re rain and temp is far less of a surprise than one might think. There is very strong evidence to show there has been a significant thinning of the Atlantic ITCZ our mass, thus increased SSTs due to increased insolation. Looking at the N Atlantic SST data (as opposed to some body else’s refinement) should show the NW Atlantic current being consistent with your rendition.
Worked in the geology department at Bedford College, London as lab tech in the early sixties and the smog could darken the day like an eclipse. Your nostrils were full of black snot and your white shirt collar, inside on your neck was black (I assure you I had a [cold] shower everyday!). Much of life in London was like living inside a frosted lightbulb. Traffic had its lights on in the day and still you couldn’t see vehicles until they were a few tens of yards away. Cycling in London was probably not very popular. I like Paul’s theory. Re timing, the air began to clear up with the growing availability of natural gas for heating (coal was used when I was there) and the real enviromental consciousness began at that time during the 70s and 80s. After mid 1970s, the platinum auto catalyst reduced CO2 emissions 90% and particulate matter reduction followed.
Yeah the timing is perfect for the rise, probably even the step change. Those above who argue weather patterns are the cause of cloudiness might rethink – pollution causes cloudiness, too, as well as reducing the optical depth of the atmosphere. Of course sunshine hours are a function of weather patterns, but, it seems to me that the unexplained change in weather patterns may also be partly a function of the very thick pollution of the times and their alleviation. Paul, do the correlations for other countries that (hopefully) have sunshine hour plots of long enough duration and put a paper together. I think there will be a dramatic fit in North America. Inco’s Sudbury smelter in the 70s was, IIRC, the single largest polluter in North America (at least). It was ordered to clean up and the company by the late 70s had reduced the sulphur, etc by 98%. The moonscape around Sudbury, which was thought to be an early training ground for future Moon landings, became green again. This probably changed the local climate and weather patterns noticeably.
For detractors, think about this: it is a heck of a better fit than CO2.
The foggy days ended around 1978. I remember it very well. We had incredibly thick fog in those days where you literally couldn’t see for more than a few metres (or yards, as it was then). My mates and I nearly drove into the back of a parked lorry (truck!) on a village road late at night. I also remember driving incredibly slow up a hill one evening. That was the thickest fog I had ever seen. Then they petered out! I haven’t seen a thick fog day since then in England. So something certainly changed around 1980. I have heard that fog in London (proper) is completely unknown now.
There can vast areas of fog around Montana, Dakotas, California valleys, Central Washington/Oregon Example: http://www.krtv.com/news/freezing-fog-advisory-extended-for-parts-of-north-central-montana/
In the late 1970s, one evening after work I was driving to home through SE London to Kent. Fog was so dense I could not see more than 5-6 yards ahead. For about a mile or so along the Old Kent Rd, my then girlfriend (now wife) had to walk few yards in front of the car.
Ditto from Oxford in 1964.
“After mid 1970s, the platinum auto catalyst reduced CO2 emissions 90%…”
Close. The catalytic converter reduced CO and increased CO2 emissions.
Cheers!
I have it for you re training moon astronauts – yes they did go to Sudbury but it was largely for the widely exposed geology of the ecological wasteland as a field course.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2876/did-astronauts-train-in-ecological-wastelands-on-earth-to-get-used-to-the-barren-moon
I don’t think a 5-year running average of sunshine hours has any meaning. It warms up on a sunny day at a specific location, and the next day is a new day. Curious spurious correlation, however.
Not spurious, Barry, but actual. This is your global warming and the data is real. Nothing like it can be presented for CO2. In fact, nothing at all can presented for CO2.
Sunshine hours are part and parcel of internal feedbacks in the same (or rather opposite) manner as the cloudiness is, and it is not an easy task to disentangle what drives all the feedbacks. What we know for certain, is that most if not all of the CET warming since mid 17th century is due to the rising winter temperatures.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MidSummer-MidWinter.htm
CET well correlates with the N. Hemispheres (R2=0.737) and the Global temperatures (R2=0.712), thus it is not (since 1880) exceptional.
I have made careful measurements in the Tropic and Subtropical Oceans and more sunshine warms the ocean and less sunshine cools the ocean. Who would have thought it?
It is always interesting how everyone jumps on a new suggestion and knocks it down in favor of their own pet theories. The truth is, that it probably is no one thing that has caused the “climate change” that we hear so much about, but a whole host of interacting actions that have created it. It’s not just CO2, it’s not just water vapor, it’s not just sunshine, it’s not just sunspots, it’s not just the Coriolis effect of thousands and thousands more toilets being flushed in the northern hemisphere, but every one of these actions MAY be part of the influences that has given rise to the warming – okay, probably not the toilet flushing. But it is sad that the first thing we see when someone suggest something different is that everyone jumps in and puts it down because it’s not what they believe. The truth is probably that there is NO ONE thing that defines climate change, but there are thousands of them instead, of which some may well be influenced by man, probably are. But to try to say it is CAUSED by any one of them is worse than stupid since there is just too much variability to hang on one element. Too bad “science” died, along with “common sense.”
Tom: Thanks for that. Could not have said it better myself. And that is the very reason the GCM’s don’t do well. Last night the weather forecast showed the jet stream over North America running south from Alaska, over the Rockies and across northern Florida before heading north again. We are getting good at seeing things as they are. Not so much as how they are going to be 10 days from now. The “Butterfly Effect” is real, but try to quantify it.
Well, off to go skiing with my kids and grand kids on the snow that my great grandchildren won’t know … 😉 ./sarc
The increase in sunlight is coincident with the introduction of compulsory smokeless fuels for domestic use, and the de-industrialisation of Britain in the 1980s onwards. Frankly, I am not surprised there has been an increase in sunlight.
However, it would be somewhat hypocritical for any Green lobby to complain about this. They were the ones campaigning for the closure of our polluting heavy industry (and sending it to China), so they can hardly complain if they have succeeded.
But on a global scale, the Green lobby has actually increased emissions. There were at least a few controls on emissions in the UK, but now these industries have relocated to China they can emit whatever they like. As usual, a Green fantasy policy has led to an increase in the destruction of the environment.
Ralph
Smokeless coal was introduced in the UK in the 1950s and mandated in the early 1960s. Too early to be the cause of the warming in the 1980s.
I think climate change has to approached on a global basis not regional.
From TOM below remark which is so correct.
The truth is, that it probably is no one thing that has caused the “climate change” that we hear so much about, but a whole host of interacting actions that have created it. It’s not just CO2, it’s not just water vapor, it’s not just sunshine, it’s not just sunspots, it’s not just the Coriolis
I would not claim to begin to really understand most of the principles governing our weather, but would not a reduction of particulates generated in (upwind) North America reduce the condensing of water vapour to form clouds crossing the Atlantic? Does vapour require a ‘nucleus’ particle to condense onto?
From a long past posting on soot levels in Greenland, I found some testing done by the Navy Weather Service. (sorry link now requres subscription)
I asked if reducing the soot levels could also lead to drought?
The problem was how to heat the droplets differentially. Dr. van Straten solved it with carbon black, which is a fluffy kind of soot whose intensely black particles, about 500.00 in diameter, accumulate radiant heat just like a blacktop road. When these particles are released in a cloud, she reasoned, the water droplets that capture one or more of them should grow warmer by absorbing sunlight, and should lose their moisture by evaporation to droplets that have stayed comparatively cool because they have captured no particles. Then the cool, fattened-up droplets should fall slowly through the cloud, growing gradually bigger by jostling small droplets and combining with them. Eventually they should grow big enough to fall from the cloud.
This system, worked out theoretically, worked like a charm in actual fact, the Navy announced last week. It was tested last July over the coast of Georgia. The usual tactic was to attach a package of 1-2 Ibs. of carbon black to a static line and toss it out of an airplane flying through the top of a cloud. When the slack snapped out of the line, the package broke open, releasing the carbon black. Seven clouds out of seven tested dissipated entirely in 2½ to 20 minutes.
When carbon black is released in moist, cloudless air the effect is opposite but no less magical. Its black particles catch sunlight and heat the air between them. The heated air rises, expands and grows colder. Some of its moisture condenses, and a new, white cloud appears in the sky. This system will not form clouds in dry air, but when the air is moist enough, it works almost every time. The official Navy attitude is that the action of carbon black is “an interesting effect” that will have to be studied a great deal more before it can be rated as a promising rainmaking agent.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,825527,00.html
Thanks for that DD.
So MAYBE we have the Yanks to thank for spreading a little sunshine over these gloomy islands.
About time we got some payback for giving them their independance! :-))
Paul,
This is a well known and researched fact, my memory is Reading University produced a paper on this a few years ago which basically concluded that some (30%) of the warming was due to increased sunshine hours, probably due to less pollution.
It also follows that looking at Met Office Climate Memorandum No 21(a spatial analysis of trends in the UK climate since 1914 using gridded datasets the record since 1910) that sunshine hours and max temperature correlate to a very high degree, (not surprising!) and that there are definite matching oscilliations.
However I did investigate further and as always the sunshine hours record is not homogeneous, different instruments and methods have been used to measure sunshine hours over the record period, so as always uncertainty intervenes.
In my view the statement made in Climate Memorandum No 21 that there is not an increasing Trend in the Temperature record till the 1980’s, indicates to me that perhaps the increasing temperature trend was only found when Scientific Consensus told us that such a trend must exist.
Studies have also shown that cloud albedo was reduced during this same interval, worldwide, resulting in more insolation. The cloud data sources show this reduced cloudiness quite clearly. Thus there are two independent processes which have increased insolation: reduced cloudiness worldwide, and reduced anthropogenic aerosols in the NH. CO2 based AGW is unsustainable and there was never any evidence for such, only _MODELS_.
Hello? Are you there?
If somebody wanted to investigate the situation in Ireland, Armagh has one of the longest weather records anywhere, going back to 1790, while the small town on Armagh has not changed to any great extent since that period.
Seemingly the data you seek on sunshine is available in Vol 10:
http://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/2bca5457886c9352197c0fe9b7122418
You might also like the short blogspot below, which ‘hits the nail on the head’:
http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2014/12/james-joyce-and-climate-change.html
The Armagh Observatory is downwind of Armagh Town. Up until the 1990s, coal and peat were the main domestic fuels there. Peat is even smokier than coal. N Ireland was only connected to the UK gas network in 1996.
Armagh shows the same 1980s warming as elsewhere in Europe. Indicating reductions in smoke from domestic fuel consumption wasn’t the cause of the 1980s warming at Armagh.
Always keep in mind the drastic changes wrought by the introduction of computer-controlled fuel injection into automobiles, which drastically reduced emissions, and which started large scale during the 1980s and was more or less complete for most of the vehicles on the road by 2000.
I remember the early eighties in the UK and I remember (and my wife agrees) that while walking in the sunshine in the summer then, that the sun felt hotter than back in the seventies. That memory was one of the things that made me challenge the anthropogenic CO2 argument and led me to a suspicion that the clean air acts had contributed to warming in the west. Yes we actually discussed it back then. It also led me to consider how the pollution has moved to the east (China/India) since then. That is bound to have caused a perturbation in the global climate system. China is certainly smoggier than it used to be and the UK is much less smoggier (smogless).
Are the warmist powers that be honestly able to discount this type of recollection and hypothesis as a contributor to how climatehas changed, say here and in China? I very much doubt it but would love someone to provide a logical, scientifically rigorous counter argument with a corresponding empirical experience.