From the Institute of Physics and the “children won’t know what snow is” department:
The likelihood of record-breaking warm years in England is set to substantially increase as a result of the human influence on the climate, new research suggests.
In a study published today, 1 May, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, an international team of researchers has shown that the chances of England experiencing a record-breaking warm year, such as the one seen in 2014, is at least 13 times more likely as a result of anthropogenic climate change.
This is according to climate model simulations and detailed analyses of the Central England Temperature (CET) record–the world’s longest instrumental temperature record dating back to 1659.
The results of the study showed that human activities have a large influence on extreme warm years in England, which the researchers claim is remarkable given England is such a small region of the world.
Lead author of the study Dr Andrew King, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of Melbourne, said: “When you look at average annual temperatures over larger regions of the world, such as the whole of Europe, there is a lower variability in temperatures from year to year compared with smaller areas.
“As a result of this low variability, it is easier to spot anomalies. This is why larger regions tend to produce stronger attribution statements, so it is remarkable that we get such a clear anthropogenic influence on temperatures in a relatively small area across central England.”
To arrive at their results, the researchers firstly used climate model simulations to calculate the likelihood of very warm years when there is just natural forcings on the climate and no human influence, and then when there is both natural forcings and human influence. The change in the likelihood of warm years due to human influences on the climate was then calculated.
The researchers then observed the CET and picked out the warmest years from the record since 1900. The warmest years were then plotted onto a graph which the researchers used to calculate the likelihood of warm years happening now and warms years happening 100 years ago.
The model-based method suggested at least a 13-fold increase (with 90% confidence) due to human influences on the climate, whilst the observation-based approach suggested at least a 22-fold increase in the probability of very warm years in the climate of today compared with the climate of a century ago (again with 90% confidence).
“Both of our approaches showed that there is a significant and substantial increase in the likelihood of very warm years occurring in central England,” Dr King Continued.
According to the CET, 2014 was the warmest year on record in central England. It has been reported that during the last 60 years there has been rapid warming in the CET in line with the anthropogenic influence on the climate, with the highest average annual temperature of 10.93 °C recorded in 2014.
The Central England Temperature (CET) series, which is the longest instrumental time series of temperature in the world, has monthly recordings of average temperatures dating back to 1659 and recordings of average daily temperatures dating back to 1772.
The CET is designed to represent the climate of the English Midlands, which is approximated by a triangular area enclosed by Lancashire in the north, Bristol in the south-west and London in the south-east. The CET has undergone thorough and extensive quality control, making it an ideal resource for studying long-term temperature trends across the region.
As to whether these results can be seen to be representative of areas outside of central England, Dr King said: “I would expect that other areas near the UK would produce similar results.
“For larger regions, stronger attribution statements can often be made. For example, we performed a similar attribution study for Europe as a whole and found a 35-fold increase in the likelihood of extremely warm years using model simulations.”
###
This research was undertaken with the assistance of resources from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), which is supported by the Australian Government.
From Friday 1 May, this paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/5/054002.
Full paper: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/5/054002/pdf/1748-9326_10_5_054002.pdf
2014 was the warmest year on record for central England? Really? The warmest on record? Jeez, what kind of data torturing did they have to do to get THAT result? The last few summers here have been remarkably cool, which I’ve been loving since I’m very fair skinned and don’t like the heat. Absolutely no way was last year a particularly hot summer.
” ….. clear anthropogenic influence …. ”
How do they know?
Link to relevent papers and research, please.
“How do they know?”
Don’t be silly, the article clearly states; “according to climate model simulations…“.
Yeah right. Even more remarkable with OCO-2 measurements over the same small region.
I believe that OCO is due to report its first year’s results in October, about the same time as the Paris Conference. Could be an exciting time!
Based on the physics and empirical evidence, I guess one could argue that an increase of CO2 from 280ppm to 400ppm has added about 0.2C of warming to planet.
Who the heck cares?…
By 2100, CO2 may add another 0.3C of CO2 induced warming for a total of around 0.5C since the end of Little Ice Age in 1850, which is a good thing. Moreover, the added CO2 will increase crop yields and forest growth 50% from the CO2 fertilization effect, which is fantastic!
Ocean levels have increased about 6 INCHES per century over the past 200 years, and if CO2 caused about 0.2C of added warming to date, CO2 may have helped increase sea levels by 1.5 INCHES over the last century….
Again, who the heck cares?
CAGW alarmists are stuck with hyping new global temp records, because warming trends have stopped dead for 18+ years. Alarmists’ claim last year was that, “there a 38% probability that 2014 was 3 one-hundredths of degree warmer that 2010″… Oh, the humanity….
Again, who the heck cares?
Given the that 2015 is an El Nino year, 2015 will likely be warmer than 2014 by a few hundredths of a degree C…
Again, who the heck cares?
Taxpayers are getting sick and tired of CAGW. It has become a joke.
One could, but one would be standing on very infirm ground. We just don’t know.
As a resident of these isles who looks at short term forecasts almost daily and notes the constant corrections in these predictions that only go out to about 3-5 days, I am seized with wonder. Of course these forecasts are not always wrong, from time to time a particular flow pattern sets in and the weather people get it right, but the weather here is subject to near constant shifts that make accurate forecasting beyond a few days or a week or two difficult. Yet once again we have researchers making confident claims about what is going to happen in future decades.
We already know that spreading urban development and other changes in land use results in local shifts in temperature. I can easily illustrate this by driving from the suburb where I live out into the country for a walk, this short five mile drive tends to see the temperature drop by 1-3 degrees C, it can be more in the winter. Yet despite the trend towards more urban sprawl the bulk of the land in Britain is still rural, which tends to imply that averaged temperatures are showing little overall deviation from historic norms.
What really annoys about this sort of reporting however is the idea that if some future rise happens, and this is not a guaranteed outcome, the result is going to be disastrous. Southern Britain during Roman times was known to have had a climate capable of vine production, while grape growing takes place today, it is not that widespread. The endless gloom and doom really is tedious.
Cherry picking. Why not use all the data?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2010/01/Centralenglandtemperature.-355×288.png
VerdeViewer,
What’s the source of that chart?
Three-tenths of a degree rise in 3 centuries isn’t very alarming.
dbstealy, the source is a work in progress. Current version is at http://verdeviews.com/climate . No user instructions yet, but hopefully not hard to figure out. Select ranges in drop-down boxes or by grabbing end points on a chart and dragging them. Start year for the chart can be selected in a drop down box or by clicking on a particular year. Data can be displayed as anomalies or absolutes. Moving the cursor over the chart displays temperatures on a thermometer. When you drill down to individual stations, you can display overall average, average high, average low, and extreme high/low temperatures. You can save a particular view, switch to another, and then toggle between them.
Inspired by a blog post at suyts space ( https://suyts.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/how-global-warming-looks-on-your-thermometer/ ), programming began last December as a simple Javascript exercise to animate temperature changes on a virtual thermometer. It evolved into something else.
Cherry picking…
Doesn’t it depend mainly on the Gulf Stream? I know my friends in Finland are thankful for the Gulf Stream, otherwise they would be like southern Greenland which is at the same latitude. All the countries like the UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark benefit from the warm waters of the Gulf Stream…
I didn’t read the whole paper, but do they mention the great influence of the Gulf Stream?
Having lived in southern UK during all the later half of the period covered by the graph, I have to say that I don’t recognise the ‘record-breaking warmth’ that is shown post 2000. In fact, there have been rather few heatwaves during that period. If the CET is faithful to the record, and for the moment I’ll assume it is, I think the large departures of the anomaly shown during those years are due to lack of really cold spells in the winter, which does gel a bit more with my experience. The last year, the ‘record breaking’ 2014 was actually notable for an absence of really hot weather, and the record was due to an admittedly remarkable spell in Jan-April and to some extent November-December also when Atlantic depressions ruled and low minima were almost completely missing. The UK lies at the edge of the Atlantic and Continental climate influence – our weather is famously changeable on nearly all timescales from hourly upwards – and is probably the last place you should choose when measuring climate trends.
” due to lack of really cold spells in the winter”
It was the same for the record “warm” year of 2012 in the US.
I think we need a better definition of “warmer for a period” than simply comparing the average temperatures, when the temperatures over the period have varied and distinct phases.
I mean, how does one even say one day is “warmer” than another day, the USCRN network has many days where the average is the same, but the profile of the days vary widely.
I honestly cant fathom the point of the paper besides to garner headlines. If co2 has the effect they believe then of course it is more likely to be warmer more often there. This doesn’t however give us a clearer understanding of co2 in any way, or validate any past work on it. It doesn;t explain why this factor we are told over powers all others isn’t currently doing that. Nope, it just says it will be warmer in the future if it warms. total waste of time. Well unless you just want headlines.
Yes the only thing of certainty in this paper is the tautology “IF it gets warmer, it will be warmer.”
Check out the weather forecasts for 2020, 2050 and 2090…….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/climateexperiment/whattheymean/theuk.shtml
90% confidence? Are they kidding me? They can’t do better than that after fiddling all the figures to fit.
How to lie with statistics. There is another way to analyse the same data. For example, if you download the CET data here
Monthly_HadCET_mean.txt, 1659 to date
…and have the facilities to plot the results, you will see that the temperature trend is slightly cooling this century ( confirming the pause even in Central England).
Also, iIf you look for ‘heat waves’ you will see that the hottest temperatures occurred last century. The year 1976 holds the record for June and July, and 1990 for August.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_record_breakers.html
So how are we going to test this theory “that the chances of England experiencing a record-breaking warm year is at least 13 times more likely as a result of anthropogenic climate change” (or any other cause for that matter).
It is impossible to test, verify or falsify this assertion without waiting for a few hundred years or so. Let’s say that there were just seven ‘heat waves’ last century. How many there actually were depends on how you want to define them, but 7 doesn’t seem many. That gives a historical rate of 7 heat waves per century. The prediction is that we should expect these 13 times more often. So in the next 100 years we should expect 91 of them to be record breakers. That is not going to happen, is it?
Granted English is not my native language, but never heard of ‘extreme warm’. Perhaps a more politically correct adjective to describe local consumer feelings towards UK Department of Energy & Climate Change, British gas et al.
http://www.blogcdn.com/money.aol.co.uk/media/2012/04/energygraph.jpg
But the UK domestic gas prices are still amongst the lowest in Europe, so, if you live somewhere else in Europe you are probably paying more.
The reason for the rise in recent years is that the government has heaped on a lot of environmental costs on to the energy bills. For example, subsidies for renewables, free insulation for households etc., all of which are added to the domestic gas price bill. In this way, they hope that these charges are ‘invisible’ or the energy suppliers get the blame.
Yes, but the climate change levy is only about £100. Let’s not forget that energy companies are selling energy to themselves, in some instances, then say that they have to charge more as the cost of the fuel has risen!
jaakkokateenkorva, electricity prices have also increased – but don’t forget that many homes in England’s attractive rural villages burn kerosene to heat their homes as there is no available gas supply. Counties like Rutland and Lincolnshire are good examples. Unlike gas, homeowners are saving a fortune right now.
In 2011, a top-up of 1,000 litres of heating oil cost £770 ($1,186).
In 2015, a top-up of 1,000 litres of heating oil cost £457 ($704).
It’s also ironic (and totally hypocritical) that the local councils who run the very same rural areas, allow planning permission for renewable energy monstrosities – yet won’t fight for securing a ‘clean’ gas supply to eradicate burning of kerosene in most of their villages.
As several people have already said the claim that “2014 was the warmest year on record in central England” will strike most people in England, apart from those earning a living as climate researchers, green activists, politicians and employees of the BBC and the Guardian, as pretty dubious.
If the claim is true then the temperature record will be due more to the mildness of the winter than the warmth of the summer. A few more mild winters like that and somebody would be claiming that “snow will soon be a thing of the past.” However some parts of Britain had quite a lot of snow earlier this year so we are unlikely to hear that claim again for a while.
Having grown up in Nottingham (middle of the Midlands) I know warmer weather there would be a wonderful thing. Hated the lukewarm summers and cold, grey, wet and miserable winters. I would rejoice for the Midlands if this study wasn’t just the latest in a long list of pseudo-science. I now live in Perth, Australia where summer is a real summer and winters are still cold enough, thank you very much!
The problem with a prediction of more warm events in England or any other region of the earth in the future, is the writers have no clue as to why the planet warmed in the last 150 years. A prediction requires some knowledge of the mechanisms and future changes to the forcing functions.
For some odd reason (the climate wars is the explanation), current climatologists are ignoring the fact that the planet has warmed and cooled cyclically in the past, with a periodicity of 1500 years, with a beat of plus or minus 500 years, correlating with solar changes.
For some odd reason the current climatologists are also ignoring the fact that sea ice in the Antarctic starting in 2012 is the greatest in recorded history for every month of the year and that there has suddenly been a recovery/increase in multi-year Arctic ice, correlating with an abrupt change to the solar cycle.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/440/1/012001/pdf/1742-6596_440_1_012001.pdf
“According to the CET, 2014 was the warmest year on record in central England”
Oh sorry, we forgot to plot in the fact that there has been no global warming across the World for 19 years.
I wonder how much grant money they received for coming up with such outrageously ridiculous results?.
And in the real world of actually living in England for most of 50 years:
1. I ‘barely knew what snow was’ from January 1971 until December 1979, there being but one snow ‘event’ one night in late April/early May in that period. I know this as the toboggan bought just after Christmas 1970 (when there was snow which melted just afterwards) was only used once during that period.
2. From 1979 to 1987 children certainly knew about snow and many knew about frozen rivers. Record cold in December 1981 allied to widespread snow cover meant that we all knew what a white Christmas was. Winters 1984/5 and 1985/6 saw extended cold periods with rivers freezing for up to 6 weeks in Cambridge.
3. Three highly mild winters from 1987/8 to 1989/90 (which were associated with huge high pressures from Russia to Spain driving all the Atlantic weather fronts over the UK) were not permanent features, with the winter 1990/91 seeing children once again experiencing snow and the autumn of 1992 in Scotland seeing unprecedented early snow over the higher mountain tops.
4. Just over a decade of ‘children won’t know what snow is’ then occurred.
5. In the past 7 years, we have seen winters more akin to the 1979 – 1987 period return.
So, in the past 50 years, the salient features have been blocks of colder, more snowy winters being interspersed with blocs of milder, snow-free winters.
There is no evidence that snowfall is scarcer in the 21st century than it was across the 1970s/1980s.
It’s just that grant funding for scientists requires them to say that there is.
I’m in Central England and my local weather station statistics say:
“In the first 4 months of 2015, mean temperatures have been exactly as expected (0.0C), rainfall 16% below normal & sunshine 27% higher.”
The weather obviously isn’t listening to the models.
‘This is according to climate model simulations’ GIGO in action and given their predicted power , they may has well use pine cones to tell if its going to rain .
‘ Central England Temperature (CET) record–the world’s longest instrumental temperature record dating back to 1659.’ which is no way can offer a degree of accuracy worth a dam for most of its history and therefore actual is what is unacceptable in most other sciences but celebrated in climate ‘science’ data whose quality is defined has being ‘better than nothing’
That’s right knr. Anders Celsius (1701-1744) was the first to perform and publish careful experiments aiming at the definition of an international temperature scale on scientific grounds.
Both range of coverage and degree of accuracy of weather measurements are massive problems for any one claiming to be able to show historic trends in this type of data . Its the very reason why there is a need for proxies ,such has ‘magic tree rings ‘ , to be used in the first place .
And its made a whole lot worse by claims of precision that is beyond the ability of the instruments used to take the measurement in the first place.
In the rush to promote ‘settled science’ great big slices of reality have simply been brushed aside.
They have to be right sometime abut a warm summer in the UK. We still haven’t received the “Barbeque summer” we were promised by the Met!
The reconstruction of European temperatures over the past 500 years by Luterbacher and colleagues supports the view that there has been net warming over the 20th century in this geographic area, as is shown in the statistical analysis of CET data by Zeke:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/303/5663/1499/F3.expansion.html
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/central-england-temperature/
Both the Luterbacher study and an analysis of the CET record show that such warming is largely confined to winter/spring months:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/CentralEnglandTempSince1659.gif
As such, this warming can only be a good thing, if it lasts, as combined with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide it will increase crop production and reduce winter heating costs – much needed against the lunacy of the UK renewable policy. Leaving aside the matter of the uncertainties in the temperature measurements of the late 20th century, when there was a switch to digital instruments at airports ( http://notrickszone.com/2015/01/13/weather-instrumentation-debacle-analysis-shows-0-9c-of-germanys-warming-may-be-due-to-transition-to-electronic-measurement/) , it is a step too far to claim that such warming is due to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide as other factors are clearly at play.
They include the facts that at the end of the 20th century solar activity (other than TSI) was at its highest level for several thousand years, and was particularly active during the period of warming claimed to be anthropogenic in origin; aerosol levels and cloud cover were lower, such that surface insolation increased; the impact of natural climate cycles linked to orbital changes and the Saros lunar cycle; and the increase in population that directly affects UHI effect that particularly distorts winter temperatures – changes in the sites contributing to CET since 1950 have also been affect by UHI .
Some links to these factors are:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2013-11-20T08:15:00-08:00&max-results=17
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=50837#.VFQNL2c4B59
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/06/new-paper-finds-significant-decrease-in.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/23/has-increased-sunshine-caused-uk-warming-in-the-late-20th-century/
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1306/1306.0451.pdf
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/short-rapid-warm-long-stable-cold/
Well l check their claims against some real weather.
Because since 1977 l have kept a record of the date of the first snowfall of the season for where l live in North Lincolnshire England.
The number of times in which month the first snowfall fell are as follows.
1980’s
Nov (4)
Dec (4)
Jan (2)
1990’s
Nov (4)
Dec (5)
Jan (1)
2000’s
Oct (1)
Nov (4)
Dec (2)
Jan (3)
There does not appear to be any clear warming trend to me. lf anything there has been a slight trend to towards the first snowfall turning up earlier in the season. Also in my area at least there has been no winter where snow has not fallen.
I have lived in the south (Hampshire) and south-west (Bristol) since 1968. My direct experience is that:
1) 1976 was by far the ‘hottest’ year, and 1975 was pretty hot too.
2) There was also a year in the mid-eighties when a trip to Scotland was spent sweating in shorts,
and someone died of heat exhaustion whilst walking up Ben Nevis, ’86, I think.
3) No summer since has come close for ‘heatwave’ type conditions, though they seem to be
predicted more or less every year.
4) Winters in the late sixties and early seventies were noticeably colder than recently (though
2011-12 were pretty chilly, I can tell ‘ee)..
5) Weather has always been difficult to predict here (it’s a small island in direct line of fire of
major wind and ocean currents.
6) Long term weather forecasting has not improved in that time (see recent Met Office
predictions).
7) Recent summers have been characterised by a warm April-June proving to be a ‘tease’,
as July (not last year) and August prove disappointing (and, generally, wet).
Definitely NOT the ‘hottest years Evah’.
8) There is a noticeable difference in temperature between my home in Bristol, and my
Mother’s house in semi-rural Hampshire, though they are at pretty much the same latitude.
I always have to remember jumpers when visiting!
9) Urbanisation and transport have exploded in that time, and population has risen (try driving
around Bristol these days).
10) Any time there’s an interesting celestial event it is pretty much guaranteed that it will cloud
over.
Any rational scientist would surely see UHI writ large in the CET figures, and also see that this ‘averaging’ and ‘anomaly’ approach to climate monitoring is likely flawed. They would never take such averages, and then extrapolate them to predict more extremes.
Or would they?
They should get out more.
In attacking fossil fuels, they forget, or don’t know what will be consequences.
Rain is the forgotten determinant of climate.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/here-comes-the-rain-again/