Guest essay by Eric Worrall
IPCC Lead Author Professor Myles Allen, who just last year in 2014 stated that alarmism is unhelpful, appears to have changed his mind – his new position is that “normal weather is now a thing of the past”.
According to The Telegraph;
Global warming: normal weather is a ‘thing of the past’, claims scientist
Oxford University’s Professor Myles Allen said we have ‘changed the odds’ on weather conditions, with wetter and warmer winters now more likely.
Normal weather is now a “thing of the past”, a leading climate change scientist has said, after storms and heavy rain caused devastating floods in parts of Britain.
December was record-breaking in both warmth and rainfall, according to the Met Office, with temperatures closer to those expected in April and May. For some parts of the UK, it was also the wettest December since records began in 1910.
Professor Myles Allen, leader of the Climate Research Programme at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute said: “Normal weather is actually a bit of a thing of the past.
“Here in Oxford we maintain the world’s longest daily weather record, we just beat the previous record by a whopping two and a half degrees and that record was set back in 1852.
This rather alarmist claim is a sharp contrast from Professor Allen’s more conciliatory statements in 2014.
NGOs have at times been alarmist over climate change … but the IPCC has been very clear and measured throughout. I think alarmism on any issue is unhelpful.
Read more: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/04/ipcc-lead-author-prof-myles-allen-alarmism-is-unhelpful/
Why has Professor Myles suddenly decided to be “unhelpful”? As noted previously by WUWT, the severity of the floods in Britain has likely been exacerbated by poor river management. If the British Government had maintained a sensible level of river dredging, the flood waters would have drained more efficiently, and the rivers might not have burst their banks.
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It’s the Red Queen solution: Normal is whatever I say it is.
Ah! Charlie! Simultaneous thoughts – is it normal?
thank goodness normal weather is a thing of the past –
Outlook 2016: Bumper crops set to keep grain prices down …
http://www.fwi.co.uk/…/outlook-2016-bumper-crops-set-to-keep-grain-prices-...
31 Dec 2015 – The market has spent the past few seasons being only one crop away from a problem, but the bumper yields of 2015 mean that buffer is now …
2013, the 4th-warmest year on record (according to NOAA), brought a record grain harvest. 2014 was even hotter (NOAA) and the word wide grain harvest even better (International Grain Council). 2015 was likely to be the most-hottest year ever (WMO) and climate-change took its toll: The amount of grain harvested shrunk and and the year was a dismal second best ever.
Where, oh where, shall that lead us?
“Oxford University’s Professor Myles Allen said we have ‘changed the odds’ on weather conditions, with wetter and warmer winters now more likely”
Global warming has doubled risk of harsh winters in Eurasia …
http://www.theguardian.com › Environment › Climate change
Global warming ‘will make our winters colder’ | Climate …
http://www.independent.co.uk › Environment › Climate Change
27 Oct 2014 – Britain can expect twice as many severe winters as usual over the … idea that global warming could lead to colder weather in some parts of the …
You visited this page on 05/01/16.
Is global warming causing COLDER winters? – Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/Is-global-warming-causing-COLDER-winters-M...
Britain faces FREEZING winters as slump in solar activity …
http://www.express.co.uk › News › Nature
Gulf Stream: Global warming weakening UK climate system …
http://www.express.co.uk › News › Nature
24 Mar 2015 – GLOBAL warning is weakening the UK climate system and may result in COLDER winters across Europe, according to a new study.
Normal refers to the lack of significant deviation from the average. So what are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Standard deviations for weather?
Regards
Climate Heretic
1st deviation: fine and sunny.
2nd deviation: cloudy and windy.
3rd deviation: rain.
The scientific way to say this is, I think, “there is a new norm for the weather” or “the weather has changed” because ‘normal’ is the prevailing conditions at any time.
The former is not nearly alarming enough for popular consumption.
The latter is refutable.
The wording is pure propaganda, saying nothing substantial and intended to cause alarm.
Us denialists need the equivalent of a Lew to take apart the semantic jiggery pokery that is going on.
I was born in Sydney in 1949. After the big wet of 1950 and then the NSW deluge of ’56, the weather was definitely no longer normal according to 1930s-raised adults (the continent’s driest known decade). Apparently it was the H-bomb and Sptutnik what did it.
It’s true that we don’t live in our grandparents’ climate. What they don’t tell you is that our grandparents didn’t live in their grandparents’ climate.
Methinks Prof Myles Allen is a Post Science Modernist, as many other academics appear to be, where words mean just what they choose them to mean — neither more nor less, so they can never be proved wrong. (apologies to Lewis Carroll 😉 )
Since words are merely symbols that are used to communicate among people isn’t it odd that folks of Allen’s ilk use words to mean only what they want them to mean? Doesn’t that mean that Allen’s words aren’t, in fact, meaningless?
Very true. While words are malleable to a degree and may have multiple meanings, they are all clearly and precisely described in the dictionary. We have enough words in our language that have changed dramatically just in my lifetime.
What we write today will be incomprehensible to readers 500 years from now. And what Prof Myles Allen writes now is already incomprehensible (and more than silly).
I checked our UK weather the last time the Met Office got worried and used control charts, perhaps not the best statistical tool, however it does suggest our weather isn’t that different to how it’s always been. See my wordpress site. I’ve just watched a programmme on TV about our 2015 weather with people saying they’ve never seen anything like it. In my 69 years I’ve seen a lot like it and a lot more. Memories are not very reliable. Paul busts some of the Met office myths quite often, see his latest, Met Office’s ‘wettest ever’ claim fails again
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/
thanks for your site
The weather station in Oxford which recorded this spike in temperature for “one day” is presumably this one at the Oxford School of Georgraphy and the Environment (which is where Myles Allen works). It’s poorly sited and has been famously photographed with a marqee heater close to it.
https://suddenoaklifeorg.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/global-warming-in-oxford/
Obvious follow-up question, what is “normal” weather? Please define “normal” weather, and identify time periods and locations where this “normal” weather occurred. The fact that these people call themselves “scientists” is astounding, and the world will pay a huge price for following these false
profits“scientists.Climatism is now part of post-truth discourse, part of the decline of objective realism.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/12/26/post-truth-climatism/
Alas, poor Normal Weather. May ye rest in peace. I remember the days, back before the internets, and before teevee stations discovered weather could be lucrative, before every single zephyr and raindrop from the far sides of the planet were breathlessly and excitedly reported on, before every storm was given a name and a personality, like rock stars. Whippersnappers wouldn’t remember, but there was a time when millionaires didn’t build mansions in places prone to effects from wind and water, then complained about getting their feet wet and submerging the croquet court. People were heartier then, more stout and sturdy. If it rained, they simply wore their raincoats and Wellies (a type of boot, I hear). They didn’t moan and groan and cry about how awful it was, and that “this has never happened before”. You see, back then, they read things called “books”, and actually talked to people, strange as that sounds, especially older folks who would remember that yes, little ones, bad, or unusual weather has happened before. In fact, it was to be expected.
But this is a brave new world. Weather is Big, and now that Ma Nature has refused to oblige the Climate wankers by not warming for over 18 years, they have simply latched onto Weather, hoping people won’t notice.
So I guess our grandkids won’t know what ‘normal’ weather is?
Oops, I got a bit carried away and used a British slang word which was bad (didn’t think it was that bad, though). Sorry mods. Hope it can still go through.
An easily refuted claim. Ask Myles Allen to define “normal weather.” He has a limited number of possible responses as follows:
1) Provide a very generalized definition that fits just about everything. At which point he can’t point to any current weather that isn’t “normal.”
2) Provide a very specific definition that fits a very small subset of the current weather. Thus proving him wrong in his claim because “normal weather” does continue to exist.
3) Provide a non-answer (i.e. gibberish).
4) Ignore the request for his definition of “normal weather” and continue in his efforts for funding.
I’ll say number 4 is the most likely.
Prof Allen: “‘changed the odds’ on weather conditions, with wetter and warmer winters now more likely.”
Julia Slingo (UKMO): “I’m going to take a pass on this, Myles! The last time we bet on this horse -you remember ‘children won’t know what snow is’ and followed by ‘BBQ summers’ we had five of the coldest winters since the LIA followed by summer rain, rain and then more rain. Then we finally switched over to a prediction of bitter cold winters and got warm wet weather instead. As you now know, we don’t do predictions anymore. We just study ways to change the data to be what we want it to be.”
+10
Professor Allen has just demonstrated why AGW is actually “Anthropomorphic”, not “Anthropogenic”.
“Anthropomorphic” is a human trait such as when people see dragons in the clouds, the face of a mighty god on the side of a mountain, see ominous patterns in the entrails of an animal, and other things that border on or cross over into the irrational and superstitious.
That Prof. Allen is clearly caving in to peer pressure (at best) is rather pathetic on his part.
The concept of “normal weather” is, like that of “climate change”: nearly completely subjective and flexible in that it can mean whatever one wants.
Slight correction if I may, to an otherwise astute comment-
Anthropogenic=something caused by humans, originating from
Anthropomorphic=assigning HUMAN qualities to things that are not human themselves
So, I’d have to view the clouds, the mountain, the animal entrails etc in a way in which I gave them HUMAN characteristics, not the characteristics of a dragon, God, or ominous patterns.
Does that make sense?
The author Robert A. Heinlein once wrote, “Climate is what you expect – weather is what you get.”
Summers are warm. How warm? Historically, it wiggles a lot year-to-year…and it’s called “weather”.
Winters are cold. How cold? Historically, it wiggles a lot year-to-year … and it’s called “weather”.
“The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.” – GC
I might steal that one 🙂
What if I prefer my people abnormal?
Join the club Aphan. I enjoy the company of people with a bit of character; some might prefer the term eccentric, (or abnormal)!
I feel so sorry for this Prof Allen .
He observes that there is something abnormal or at least different about the current weather and the way weather systems work , but instead of looking for some new and unsuspected mechanism (to which , if correct, he could attach his name , think “Roosby waves” , “Van Allen belts” , “Heaviside layers” for example) he runs for protection to the rest of the scientific herd and peers fearfully out at the exciting, amazing , complicated world around him.
My working life was with chemists and materials scientists , for whom novelty , innovation , the opportunity to do something no one else had ever thought of or made was the very breath of life .
Climateers seem to be made differently , always huddling in a safe consensus.
Sad.
There is so much to be explored and they are the ones with the funding and the toys with which to do it.
”
mikewaite
January 10, 2016 at 6:29 am
I feel so sorry for this Prof Allen .
He observes that there is something abnormal or at least different about the current weather…
“
Well, except we don’t have proof that the weather anywhere isn’t the same as it has been there before, meaning to suggest it is abnormal is difficult to determine. Whether the weather is “different” or not is easy: just hang around somewhere, and when the weather isn’t the way it was when you first got there, proclaim it is “different”! You may get a near 100% certainty on that.
/grin
What a prize ignorant mountebank. If you were interested in going to a top University in order to get a quality education – not to become part of an elite set – and read a statement like that from a supposed professor you would think again. You would think ‘oh great, I’m going to get a thorough left wing indoctrination and wherever science or history or whatever gets it the way of that, out of the window it goes. You’d be better off at your local madrassa.
“IPCC Lead Author Professor Myles Allen,…”
Wait, is he “A” lead author or “THE” lead author?
Either way, it would not be, uh, normal to follow his lead, IMHO.
I wonder if we have a list somewhere of these absurd statements?
“Climate Change is happening now.”
“Normal weather is a thing of the past.”
“Global Warming is happening world-wide.”
Etc., etc., etc.
He wouldn’t be looking for more public money would he?
Is the bear Catholic?
He wouldn’t be chasing more grant money by any chance?
Does the Pope poop in the woods?
Not if there’s a protestant bear nearby.