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Essay by Eric Worrall
Record busting temperatures in Europe have given people a temporary reprieve from skyrocketing energy bills and the risk of blackouts.
European winter heatwave prompts calls for action on climate change
Record-high winter temperatures have swept across parts of Europe over the new year, prompting calls from activists for faster action on climate change while offering short-term respite to governments struggling with high gas prices.
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Hundreds of sites have seen temperature records smashed from Switzerland to Poland to Hungary, which registered its warmest Christmas Eve in Budapest and saw temperatures climb to 18.9 degrees Celsius on January 1.
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French tourist Joana Host said: “It’s like nice weather for biking but we know it’s like the planet is burning”.
“So we’re enjoying it but at the same time we’re scared,” she said.
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Short-term respite from Europe’s energy crisis
The unusually mild temperatures have offered some short-term relief to European governments that have struggled to secure scarce gas supplies and keep a lid on soaring prices after Russia slashed deliveries of the fuel to Europe.
European governments have said this energy crisis should hasten their shift from fossil fuels to clean energy — but in the short term, plummeting Russian fuel supplies have left them racing to secure extra gas from elsewhere.
Gas demand has fallen for heating in many countries due to the mild spell, helping to reduce prices.
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Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-05/europe-faces-record-breaking-hot-winter-heatwave/101828308
Just a few weeks ago much of Europe was enduring an Arctic blast.
Weather tracker: what is behind Europe’s cold spell?
Lauren Herdman (Metdesk)
Mon 12 Dec 2022 22.34 AEDT…
The current cold spell in Europe will persist this week as high pressure continues to stagnate over western Russia. The cold weather is linked to a weak, split polar vortex in the stratosphere, which allowed high pressure to build across Greenland last week. This in turn led to Arctic air flooding south across the UK on northerly winds. The polar vortex is due to strengthen, eventually helping to end the cold spell with low pressure to the west of the UK becoming dominant.
Much of western and central Europe, including the UK, will stay consistently around 5C below typical values for this time of year, with many places struggling to rise above freezing even during the daytime. Change is on the horizon, however, as low pressure systems begin to encroach into Europe towards the weekend. Latest forecasts show temperatures in western Europe returning to average by the start of next week, though in central and northern Europe extreme cold will persist a little longer. In contrast, Spain, which has experienced a record-breaking warm and dry autumn, will finally have some recognisably wintry temperatures.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2022/dec/12/weather-tracker-what-is-behind-europe-cold-spell
I’m glad our European friends are catching a break from unaffordable heating bills, but the season isn’t over yet. I have yet to see evidence of Western European Governments doing anything constructive to alleviate the risk of ongoing energy shortages.
Unusual but by no means unprecedented; having travelled to the western Alps since the mid/late 1980’s – mostly in February but on a couple of occasions in late March and April first week – we have seen in the Aravis mountains, the Vorarlberg and Schwarzwald variable winter wether including:
significant (=> 1 metre in a week) snow fall immediately pre trip;
significant (> 1 metre in a week) snow fall during trip;
minimal snow fall…during trip;
Spring in mid February after early snow in preceding November ;
Very high winds with and without snow;
Alleged threat of no snow below 2000m “in future” after several winters of poor snow record in late 1980’s/early 1990’s; then –
1998/99 winter immense snow fall – >4 metres in places – followed by high winds; remember Galtur? Other western alpine ski resorts also saw huge slab, “pyroclastic” type snow avalanches with multiple fatalities and devastating destruction of mountain facilities – look for the wooden crosses as memorials to those who lost their lives.
Take a look at the snow fall for Norway this winter; very low temperatures of = -20+ and it still snowed and is still doing so courtesy of the blocking weather system.
I think it is called weather, irrespective of the continuing waxing and waning of glaciers as as happened over millennia.
French tourist says nice weather but the planet is burning so we’re scared.
____________________________________________________________
The power of propaganda is what’s scary.
It’s the more powerful since they stopped teaching critical thinking in schools and universities.
We’ve been worried about this since 1968
In my view, a government is by definition charged with ensuring the health and well being of its citizens and with that in mind any normal government would be experimenting with fracking at the very least and opening up new finds in the North sea with some urgency.
But no. You must learn to do without. This is the new mission for politics from global down to local. How to de-develop* as the doomster in chief said we must is the problem they’re wrestling with and we are viewed as the idiot children who want machine-gun* energy.
Since Russia went tonto they had their chance to show just how wonderful wind and solar are and they failed miserably. But Europe is weird; it will use fossil fuels as long as it’s somebody else who’s getting their hands dirty – quite literally – see Qatar and Europarl.
So this highly unusual weather coming up from Africa has arguably done more to alleviate the cost of heating than any government seems prepared to do. Remember, the UK paid Belgium 5,000% of the going rate to avoid a blackout.
Mother nature is proving to be far more humanitarian than politicians, technocrats and climate sceantists ever could/might/may/possibly/likely etc.
* Paul Ehrlich, Anne Ehrlich, and Dr. John Holdren, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, 1970
That is especially lovely in light of what Sunak has been telling us recently
>>Because of the strikes presently ongoing, Sunak is propsosing to somehow penalise those workers providing ‘essential services’ if they fail to maintain some sort of ‘minimum standard of service’
(If they’re gonna be fined, sacked or demoted I dunno – likewise who or how this ‘minimum’ is defined)
But hang on, shouldn’t also apply to Government..
1/ Not least Boris Johnson for example, formulating Government policy at drunken parties, every Friday afternoon, in the kitchen/garden of #10 Downing Street, as he did.
If anyone else almost anywhere turned up drunk for work they’d be summarily sacked.
OK, Boris was sacked but not before he did immeasurable damage
2/ Shouldn’t “a minimum standard of science” have checked to ensure that heat energy always falls down thermal gradients and thus that Trapped Heat and the GHGE, as often/always explained, is complete garbage
“Sunak is propsosing to somehow penalise those workers providing ‘essential services’ if they fail to maintain some sort of ‘minimum standard of service’”
The right to strike is gradually, slowly being removed. I find it fascinating that XR et al can shutdown whatever they like and get a pat on the back from the judiciary for it. And a Postman, a Nurse, a Rail worker trying to make ends meet have no such support.
And Labour? Labour supports the Government’s decision to [add measure here].
Slavery is slavery, Being forced to work, regardless of the compensation, is slavery.
Doctors forced to perform procedures against their will, slavery.
Forcing bakers to make cakes is slavery. You know what I mean. And saying that they must do so because of “licensing” requirements is BS.
And liberals totally believe in Slavery
The Labia party?
Every Tory total fiasco, Zero Covid, Zero Carbon, Ruinable Energy, “Safe and Effective” Gene Poison, EVs, every single insane blunder met with “Sooner! Harder! Longer!” wails from the “Opposition”.
Governments, however, take a different view of their purpose. They must ‘save the world’ at regular intervals, make sure they and their friends become very wealthy, steal money from the people with taxes while failing to deliver any decent services, start wars in other countries that will make things worse for everyone, and ensure that their form of ‘democracy’ has no power so they can continue in office even if they have to take turns with the others, who will behave as they did.
Cold, hot, wet, dry, windy, calm – everything is “climate change.” We have entered the smoke-and-mirrors house of universal attribution. Instead, how about we just enjoy the good times and deal with the rest with reliable supplies of affordable energy?
Unusual for the Beeb in reporting this story, they ‘opened comments’
I pitched in several times.
1/ Comments, from The Very First One, turned into a slanging match against ‘deniers’ and how evil they were/are
I suggested that Auntie Beeb knew this would happen from previous times comments have been opened on similar issues and point-blank accused her of promoting propaganda also Rabble Rousing.
2/ In reply to someone, I told them that the GHGE was utter garbage and in violation of the 2nd Law
3/ I ventured why, in light of how the GHGE works, UK Government wasn’t enforcing the installation of icebergs in people’s houses. If a cold atmosphere can heat a warm Earth’s surface then surely icebergs would do that for your living room
4/ I suggested they/everyone look at a Google satellite image of the (heat) affected area where they’d see hundreds of thousands of acres of grey, orange/red/black but otherwise bare farmland soil. That that soil was/is bone dry – we know that because all Europe;s rivers dried up not so long ago. We know that because of the insane flash flood that hit NW Germany.
Thus, in conclusion that the dark coloured dry soil was heated by the sun to much higher temps than it would had it been forest or perennial grassland and it was thse things which set off the high temperatures.
Equally the recent cold spell. The dark ground would have huge emissivity compared to greenery/forest and the farmer-induced aridification meant no heat retention, either day/night or winter/summer
That is what is happening there and also everywhere else on this Earth where climate change is rampant
Really rather oddly and somewhat disconcerting, my comments were NOT removed.
“my comments were NOT removed”
Try the Guardian
I love being “evil”, would, taking on the BBC wokerati climate extremists, qualify me for the title Knievel?
To the best of my knowledge good and evil are religious concepts, not scientific ones. Applying such derogatory characteristics on others only serves to demonstrate that the individual is operating on a religious and emotional level only. He or she has little or no understanding of science or the science of climate change.
This isn’t really about the climate, is it.
Unfortunately, if you stated the GHE was in violation of the second law, you are incorrect and beclowned yourself to a large audience.
Let’s do a quick run-through. Heat transferred by radiation between two objects is proportional to Thot^4 minus Tcold^4 . The somewhat hard to envision (in your case) “back radiation” is the Tcold^4 part.
As far as Earth’s atmosphere goes, since the atmosphere is warmer than outer space, the Tcold^4 part results in less heat transfer to outer space than without the atmosphere. That’s the greenhouse effect. And a bit more water vapor and CO2 make the atmosphere slightly warmer when viewed at IR frequencies. Not much but a little, and 1/3 of a % is one degree C……and the heat always flows from hot to cold, definitely NOT in violation of the 2nd law. Got it ?
Thanks DMac, spot on. Who would remove comments that serve the propaganda by parodying and discrediting the climate realism case as being demonstrably unhinged?
You can be absolutely certain that Peta will not get it.
“climate realism case”….I like that and am going to steal it !
Would have thought is was the temperature difference between two objects which determined the rate of heat loss, not “back radiation” from the cooler object. For example, if you stand next to a large block of ice the radiation from the ice will not slow the rate of your cooling. Rather, because the ice is much cooler than you the rate of heat loss will be much faster.
If the temperature of the atmosphere increases the rate of heat loss to outer space will be greater. Unlike conduction and convection, radiation passes through a vacuum.
If greenhouse gases such as water vapour make surface temperatures warmer, why do the hot, dry deserts have higher day temperatures than humid (water vapour) places at the same latitude and altitude.
Phoenix (hot, dry) and Atlanta (humid) are on similar latitude and at similar altitude but the average maximum and minimum temperatures for every month are higher at Phoenix.
According to the Global Energy Budget, the surface receives around 160 W/m2 of radiation on average from the Sun and around 330 W/m2 in “back radiation” from the cooler atmosphere, ie the greenhouse effect heats the surface by twice as much as the Sun! How can the greenhouse gases create this additional energy without breaching the first law of thermodynamics?
I am genuinely surprised no one has posted temperature data going back hundreds of years showing similar highs in a European country long ago. Surely some such data exists? No?
I want to know how much warmer it is than the old record.
The say “record breaking” but they dont say by how much which makes me think it doesn’t amount to much.
Likewise the term “unprecedented”.
The say “record breaking” but they dont say by how much
They also never say how long the record is that they’re using. Even 100 years is only about 1% of the holocene.
Many tree stumps have been found first in the French Alps, then in other mountain ranges elsewhere in the world in high altitude places, much higher than the usual upper limit of the current mountain forests, under recent moraines of the Little Ice Age glaciers. A number of these tree stumps were C14 dated back to the medieval period around or before the end of the first millenary. The evidence was that a lot of the today’s existing glaciers had strongly reduced in size or even disappeared during the Medieval Climatic Optimum, thus clearly suggesting that the temperatures in these times were much warmer than those we are undergoing in 2022.
A record of 100°F at Greenwich in 1911 gets scrubbed because of non-standard measurements, while London’s hottest day is a 60 second measurement, that wouldn’t have been picked up by a mercury thermometer, next to a runway while two jets were taking off.
It’s very hard to compare data from previous centuries, even the 20th, with what happens now, but heat waves like this happened before and were described as an Indian Summer or similar rather than heatwave. Whether they were really a degree cooler or not is impossible to tell.
I’ll add another problem with comparing records. My old home town had a record cold minimum for August. It broke the old record by over a degree F (0.7°C). The three days before were 0.1°C above the old record. While two days in row with the same value is not that uncommon, three is very rare while 0.1 above the old record is about as unlikely as 4 in a row.
The cold record was barely reported while the 4 day average being shattered was ignored completely. In fact the, the 6 day average was cooler by degrees than in any other August since 1945, and from a cursory glance, cooler than any 6 day period for any month. Crickets. If the previous days were recorded properly, it would have been a cold wave that was more extreme than any heatwave that would be reported to death.
There have been similar issues reported with other stations Australia, so comparisons of cold and hot records is realty just evidence of activism destroying science.
The mercury in glass thermometer was only invented by Fahrenheit in 1714, and it took years to develop glass that was dimensionally stable in contact with mercury, plus consistent capillary manufacturing….By about 1775
, the Hudson’s Bay company was issuing ‘standard’ thermometers to their fur trading posts in Canada, records of which are in Canada’s national archives. However the traders and surveyors insisted on carrying these thermometers around to see how cold it was where they visited, so a trend in one place was not established…Peter Fiddler recorded temperatures of 50 F in Alberta winter, which would be unusually high today…but did he take the temperature on the shady side of his horse? In most places in the world, the thermometric record is considered reasonably good from about 1800 on, with enough stations to determine a trend since about 1850.
There’s plenty of time yet, winter of 1946-7 one of the two coldest since WW2,
The winter began with two periods of cold weather in December 1946 and January 1947, but the coldest period did not begin until 21 January 1947.
Then February was one the coldest on record. 20ft snow drifts in Scotland, Mrach 5th one of the worst blizzards of the 20th century. The thaw in mid-March saw flooding as rivers across the country burst their banks.
The weather I can cope with. It’s the nonstop propaganda…
Really! One lie after another, every time a weather event breaks out.
If the alarmists couldn’t attribute weather events to CO2, they would have nothing to talk about.
Well beavers in Alaska seem to be making hay while the sunshines,
Photos from space show 11,000 beavers are wreaking havoc on the Alaskan tundra as savagely as wildfire.Beavers are taking over the Alaskan tundra, completely transforming its waterways, and accelerating climate change in the Arctic.
The changes are so sudden and drastic that they’re clearly visible from space.
As the Arctic tundra warms, woody plants are growing along its rivers and streams, creating perfect habitats for beavers.
As the furry rodents move into these waterways, they make themselves at home by doing what they do best: chewing and carrying wood to build dams, and clogging rapid rivers and streams to make lush ponds.
I have to smile, it’s good news the Arctic Desert that is Tundra becoming more hospitible to wildlife who create “lush ponds” is wreaking havoc. More trees, more water, more beavers and do doubt many other species of flora and fauna
“ and accelerating climate change in the Arctic.”
The Beaver has to go.
Maybe they can be made into jaunty hats! Let’s send Climastrology church youth groups to find out.
Only in the Climate-Verse is good news represented as a catastrophe.
Local weather experienced a high near 60° Fahrenheit yesterday, a couple of weeks earlier the high was in the teens Fahrenheit.
It would take me a microsecond to decide which weather is BETTER, and it sure as shit isn’t the cold.
Ok, I don’t believe it, it’s not possible
That’s clearly a fake photo
Who the heck in the. Alps is drinking a Corona on the beach
What!? You’ve never done Christmas Break on the beach at Lake Geneva?
Not with a Corona in my hand
Do you want to know why the UK and much of Europe is experiencing warmer weather? Just look at the jet stream. It tells the tale. No CO2 required.
The UK and southern Europe are located currently on the warm side of the jet stream. When you are on the warm side, your temperatures moderate, and the jet stream prevents colder air from entering your region.
The jet streams, and where you are located in relation to them, are the key to understanding why the weather does what it does. It has nothing to do with CO2.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-2.17,30.49,264
Nah, that’s too logical !
According to Bill McGuire, Emeritus Prof of Geophysical & Climate Hazards, University College, London
“The most worrying thing about this……It is a small glimpse of a future that will see winter reduced to a couple of months of dreary, damp and mild weather with little in the way of frost, ice or snow” (Grauniad 3rd Jan)
I’m trembling at the thought right now
Good God, man! Do you not grasp the deadly implications of a protracted heat wave peaking as high as 19c?
The cause of this warmer weather is due to the Azores high extending across europe.
This set up leads to warm SW winds across much of europe, which combined with light winds and sunny days leads to this very warm weather. lt was a similar set up which caused the hot dry summer in southern europe last year.
So as long as this weather patterning remains in place it will lead to warmer then average temps over much of europe. But as you say its the weather that’s the cause not CO2.
Interesting site
I like this one too but it works better on laptop
https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/global-jetstream#2023/01/05/1800Z/jetstream/surface/level/overlay=jetstream/orthographic=-6.72,57.59,712
Ja. Ja. It is all because more CO2 is going in the air. I told you.
https://breadonthewater.co.za/2022/12/15/an-evaluation-of-the-greenhouse-effect-by-carbon-dioxide/
The tempearture today (5th Jan, 2023) in London is 14°C (from Google).
The temperature last year (5th Jan, 2022) in London was 4°C (from World Weather Info).
That’s a 10°C rise in 1 year! And that change is attributable to weather, not climate change.
Worst case climate change temperature rise is 2.5°C in 100 years – 0.025°C per year.
As we can handle that 10°C in 1 year we don’t even notice the 0.025°C that climate change contributes.
AGW is an academic question. In every sense.
Heatwave? Amazing what problems a cold Corona and a lime will solve.
Perhaps we should start praying to save the planet from burning? Ah, seems that they’re already doing that. Perhaps in another 100 years they’ll ask for it to be warmer again?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-odd-idUSTRE57539020090806
Does anyone else get the impression from watching the alarmist propaganda outlets that they are viewing an incredibly slow-motion tennis match!? Too hot, no, too cold; too wet, too dry!
“The unusually mild temperatures have offered some short-term relief to European governments that have struggled to secure scarce gas supplies…”
One would think that this alone makes the case that warmer is better.
As Count Floyd might have said “super, monster, extra scarrrrry”.
Many people are prone to see disaster in everything — can’t tell a blessing from a curse. Would they have preferred sky-rocketing deaths from extreme cold over Christmas?
As a dear departed friend used to say “you’d complain if they hanged you with a paper rope”
That’s “new rope.”
Presented without comment:
“It’s like nice weather for biking but we know it’s like the planet is burning”.
No, the planet isn’t burning since that in the same time more than one hundred people died from a very harsh cold wave during the second half of december.
According to the UAH satellite temperature records, the global warming has stalled since 2015.
This means that every heat wave somewhere in the world is balanced by a cold wave elsewhere. But people are stubborn: They only trust the TV’s propaganda while keeping their eyes fixed on their window’s thermometer.
File under “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth“
We have the 2022 December’s CET numbers (only 4 days into January)
Unusual or unprecedented, decide for yourself.
data: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/meantemp_monthly_totals.txt
p.s. click on the image for a clear view
French tourist Joana Host is a climate narcissist for basing global climate fears on local experience.
Schizophrenia.
Eric,
Although you claim that “ I have yet to see evidence of Western European Governments doing anything constructive to alleviate the risk of ongoing energy shortages.” that is
probably because you haven’t been looking. Wholesale gas prices are now below where they
they were in January 2022 prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So the market appears to be betting that there won’t be any significant risk of energy shortages this winter.
But what did European governments do to cause that? The market price reflects current supply and demand. Demand is down due to a temporary warm spell.
Heat wave? It is summer here in the Land of Oz and quite frankly I have been disappointed.
We had one single day in December where is got ‘HOT’. The night before was hot and uncomfortable and the day reached 40C… then a cool change came in about 5 that afternoon and it dropped back to pleasantly cool within an hour.
This week I was walking down one of our ‘restaurant’ streets in my area on way to the shops. They had the outdoor gas heater on for the footpath seating.
Yes, these are casual observations but our last Spring was cold and wet and so far this Summer has not been the typical scorcher we are used to.
So – using the reverse of their logic – we have heaters on in the height of our summer, ergo… ICE AGE COMETH!!!
Massive swings in winter temperature of 30-40 C in weeks due to weather variability (i.e. natural variation) and folks are being taught to fear a modest 1.3 or so degree C rise in global temperature over 150 years, half of which happened before human CO2 emissions could have played any significant role. We live in a world advised and governed by idiots.
I wuz told that climate change would make weather extremeier, not milder!
In the west of Russia, temperatures are up to 25 °C lower than normal for these days. Currently it is the largest temperature anomaly in the world.