Bishop Hill Met Office on the cold in March
Apr 21, 2013 Climate: MetOffice The Met Office has issued a news release on the reasons for the cold March, together with a more detailed technical explanation for climate and weather geeks. While Lord Hunt's "cold caused by melting Arctic" line is repeated, other possible causes are explained in full as is the existence of precedents for this kind of weather. A balanced briefing from the Met Office? Whatever next?
Whilst the cold March 2013 weather is certainly unusual, it is not unprecedented or outside the expected natural variability of our climate. There is particularly heightened interest in the role of the Arctic on the UK's weather, given rapid changes in Arctic sea ice, and on the likely changes we may observe given future decline. It is worth re-emphasising, however, that while changes in the Arctic are consistent with predisposing the climate system to cold weather in northern Europe, this is only one possible driver among several potential factors which could account for the cold March weather. What we have still to understand is the degree to which our changing climate may alter the likelihood and intensity of extreme events. With the rapidly changing Arctic, this is now high on the research agenda.
Reader Comments (47)
On my read through the link given above, there seemed to be no mention of GCMs, and certainly no leaning on them for guidance. Have the computer print-outs from such models now turned from tablets of stone into just so much waste-paper?
The Met Office report you link to recognises the complexity of the climate system, and is giving weight to phenomena not well-captured by GCMs and all their ad-hoc parameterisations. Will this help more people realise that to lean on such pampered, would-be heuristic models is foolish, and that they have possibly been not just a political tool but an almighty distraction from proper science?
As pointed out by several posters, March sea ice extent was pretty average wasn't it and higher than recent years.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
"Whilst the cold March 2013 weather is certainly unusual, it is not unprecedented or outside the expected natural variability of our climate." But then cold weather never is unprecedented./pawk.
If declining levels of Arctic ice are the prime suspect, then surely those levels must also be neither unprecedented or outside the expected natural variability? No wonder the Met O is increasing the intensity of the search for other causes when by their own logic the Arctic Ice argument fails.
However, arctic sea ice has coverage been ver 'normal' this march, and reching levels simliar to (even some days exceeding) what we saw in 1989. How can perfectly normal sea ice over the stretch of the winter cause colder than usual march UK-weather?
Beacause the that weather 'remembers' the low summe ice extent in september? Is that what they are peddling now?
Just askin'
Off topic but please folks, take a stroll down Loony Street with Will Hutton over at The Grauniad.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/21/carbon-problems-financial-crisis-hutton
Clearly he's a bit cheesed off that the (entirely bogus) carbon trading market is the blink of an eye from complete oblivion.
The article probably deserves a thread on here all its own. It's that 'good'.
I thought that all that money that UKCIP has been spending meant that we knew exactly what weather we would be getting down to 25km squares. Fortunes have been spent by local authorities on adapting to the new weather that "climate change" is bringing - all those milder wetter winters and warmer drier summers. Surely all those £billions spent and all those "climate change" officers employed haven't been a waste of money, have they?
I guess the next step for them would be something like;
"While a hot August was unusual it is certainly not unprecedented nor outside the expected range of natural veriability".
Mailman
That text sounds at least as good as theirs:
There is particularly heightened interest in the role of the sun on the UK's weather, given rapid changes in number of sun spots, and on the likely changes we may observe given future decline. It is worth re-emphasising, however, that while changes in the sun are consistent with predisposing the climate system to cold weather in northern Europe, this is only one possible driver among several potential factors which could account for the cold March weather. What we have still to understand is the degree to which our changing climate may alter the likelihood and intensity of extreme events. With the rapidly changing sun, this is now high on the research agenda.
"As is ever the case, the conditions that led to a cold March are linked to a number of different and often inter-related factors. This can also be said of the cold winter of 2010/11, the UK drought in 2010/12 and extreme summer rainfall in 2012. This makes it difficult to definitively attribute a particular 'event' to one simple explanation, which can make communicating the science drivers more complicated and nuanced than some audiences may wish. On the other hand, this simply reflects the richness and complexity of our climate system, which drives the weather that we experience on a daily basis.
Whilst the cold March 2013 weather is certainly unusual, it is not unprecedented or outside the expected natural variability of our climate. There is particularly heightened interest in the role of the Arctic on the UK's weather, given rapid changes in Arctic sea ice, and on the likely changes we may observe given future decline. It is worth re-emphasising, however, that while changes in the Arctic are consistent with predisposing the climate system to cold weather in northern Europe, this is only one possible driver among several potential factors which could account for the cold March weather. What we have still to understand is the degree to which our changing climate may alter the likelihood and intensity of extreme events. With the rapidly changing Arctic, this is now high on the research agenda."
TRANSLATION:
"We are buggered if we know why it's been so cold"
I have long experience of one local authority that boasted that it was the biggest employer in its area and most of its councillors were incapable of understanding how this could conceivably be a bad thing.
Suggestions that it sucked in people's money without adding in any way to their ability to earn that money and that it would be far better if the biggest employer were a manufacturer (or even MacDonalds!) was far too complicated for their little brains.
So on that basis I suppose climate change has been a godsend to many LAs and presumably a lot of people who would otherwise have had to get a proper job.
Whether you define it as waste or not, well ...
Translation:
"We need a bigger computer"
'given future decline.'
And what happens if and when- as some of us expect- summer ice begins to increase again?
When Lord Hunt was merely Dr Julian *unt I attended several seminars by him. They were among the worst I have ever been at. They oozed incompetence, self-indulgence and a warm personal self-regard. Has he changed?
I believe you'll all find that the cooling because of the sea ice is a result of the summer sea ice melt mixing with the Atlantic and causing it to cool . What we may be seeing in this, natural by the way, equivocation is those scientists at the Met Office who want to be scientists and not proof providers to the warmist cause, whether they support it or not, resuming the natural caution scientists should have when assigining causation. This could be a result of the growing awareness outside of the climate science community that there is something wrong with the hypothesis of CAGW, giving these folks the opportunity to return to their natural ways without fear of ruining their careers.
"It is worth re-emphasising, however, that while changes in the Arctic are consistent with predisposing the climate system to cold weather in northern Europe..."
Weasel words. If you read it again, you'll see it means absolutely nothing. I'm not even sure if it's grammatically correct. Consistent? Surely a more correct word would be coincident? The Met is clearly at pains to avoid throwing in the words "the theory of (predisposing...)" which would actually render the sentence grammatically correct, even if still weasely and not supported by any historical observations.
Follow the theory through. Global Warming causes Arctic ice-melt, which in turn (somehow) causes a colder Europe. And so it follows that Global Cooling would lead to increased Arctic ice and a warmer Europe.
Yeah, that makes sense. After all, Europe was positively boiling during the Little Ice Age, wasn't it.
' changes in the Arctic are consistent with predisposing the climate system to cold weather in northern Europe'
Translation.
'Slingo has been talking out of her a*se and we haven't really got a clue. The seaweed on our windowsill doesn't help either. Maybe it was just f***ing cold.......'
The AGW scare-o-fest is falling apart day-by-day....
Rising atmospheric CO2 content, flatlining temperatures. No mention of a quiet sun but then they ignore the sun and believe the Trenberth AR4 graphic which is the basis for the GHE theory so relied on for forecasts. The fact that that graphic is wrong seems not to count for much, the fact that that graphic violates the laws of thermodynamics is not believed so the UKMO lopes along in the same old fashion making the same mistakes from which it fails to learn a jot.
Pity, if used to be quite a good organization before politication took over science.
To be fair they do mention the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation and the southerly track of the jetstream over Europe, but they don't include the reducing amount of the greenhouse gas water vapour in the atmosphere see
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/jan/29/drop-in-warming-linked-to-water-vapour-decrease
That's the same water vapour that is meant to provide a positive feedback as a result of the rise in anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. There is much that is not understood.
I feel sure that they require substantially greater resources (plus expenses) in order to further the science of climatolgy.
"It is informative to consider whether there are similarities in the global climate system in 1962 (Figure 6) to this year’s situation (Figure 3). Comparison with the equivalent figures for 2013 shows a remarkable resemblance. The hemispheric pattern of the surface air temperature anomalies is almost identical, as is the hemispheric pattern of mean sea level pressure anomalies. Again the negative phase of the NAO dominated the Euro-Atlantic sector in 1962, with the same southwards shift in the jet stream taking the weather systems into southern Europe and the Mediterranean."
Projecting J. Slingo's 1962/2013 comparison above, England seem set to win the next football world cup or maybe climatologists begin warning of the impending ice age.
We need a bigger computer.
In a few words: Weather is not climate, and both are regional, not global. What IS global is the "global mean surface temperature" (in quotes, because I am not sure climate scientists are measuring that correctly), but that GMST is just a part of the stage upon which weather and climate play their active and recurring parts.
For Climate, All the World's a Stage, and
Changes In Arctic and Antarctic Ice Area Do Not Affect the Global Mean Temperature
I would like to think that the influence Richard Betts can be detected here. To the extent that this is a change in the tenor of MO output I think we can all take some of the credit for encouraging Richard to prevail on his colleagues to push back on the alarmism. Or not.
As we have all acknowledged the retreat will not be achieved overnight. Inch by inch, as someone said.
On my read through the link given above, there seemed to be no mention of GCMs
John it is certain that the "predisposed to cold winters" is a GCM outcome. We can almost certainly assume that is nonsense. It may well work for climate models but the very severe winters of the 50's and 60's in europe were at a time of large arctic extent.
The UK Met off are going to keep their global warming funding going for as long as they can. They know that they will have to revert to the old 10 people in a shack if they can't. Despicable people.
The last redoubt of the CAGW argument is the presumed reduction of OLR by the widening CO2 ~15 µm IR band due to self-absorption. This argument is countered by experiment - OLR has been increasing, and theory.
Clouds selectively transform CO2 IR from the clear atmosphere into the atmospheric window and water vapour bands > LTE. As for the models, Hansen used increasing RH in the upper atmosphere to make his positive feedback claims and experiment shows the reverse, negative feedback. I leave it to others to suggest whether this amounted to scientific fraud or scientific license.
A change is in the air - and it isn't a climatic one.
When there is a good correlation between physical phenomena A and B and the existence of a delay is obscure or disputed, it is not immediately obvious if A must be said to cause B, or if B causes A, or if an unknown phenomenon C leads to both A and B.
As more is learned about the Sun, new correlations are seen and more of the natural climate variations can be identified. There will also be less and less manoeuvre room for any adverse effect of CO2 in the atmosphere, real or apparent. When there is a good correlation between climate phenomena on Earth and measured Solar properties, most of which admittedly were unsuspected until very recently, some theoretically possible causal links which have been proposed to exist between Earth-based phenomena can be discounted at once, as long as it is agreed that what happens on Earth does not somehow affect the behaviour of the Sun. Then, the only conclusion must be that the Sun affects the Earth’s climate and that it is by far the dominant cause of all global climate change.
In logic this is a reasonable argument, but some real phenomena defy logic. Does science cause politics or is it the other way round or is there an unknown external factor?
____
If it turns out, as seems very likely, that practically all the temperature increase attributed to man made CO2 is instead adequately explained by Solar variation, either directly or indirectly, it follows that reliable very long term climate prediction will be impossible. They will maintain that the theory was plausible and that they cannot be expected take the blame for not knowing what nobody knew. The BBC will explain that of course all science evolves, even settled science.
They will all have to revert to weather prediction and they will probably be restricted to much shorter term forecasts. On the other hand the newly updated programs might need to know more about space weather, which will give them an excuse to apply for funding to pay for dedicated observation satellites. The narrative will not change until the cosmo-climatological hierarchy can secure an alternative source of funds. There will be no admission that the CO2 story was wrong. They will say that CO2 warming is real but that they are now compelled to devote greater effort to accounting for even more important causes of climate disruption.
Julia Slingo wuz ere, hence a load of fatuous tosh, coming round and arriving at the salient point - that, "we don't know".
Subtext, "we need a bigger computer!"
@Athelstan: 'Julia Slingo wuz ere' Don't blame her and her ilk. She is a cloud specialist but doesn't realise that that Sagan's physics is wrong, easy to prove just by looking at a few clouds. They accepted the physics was settled when it isn't, and that goes back to Tyndall. And then we have Houghton's mistakes, and he set up the whole caboodle.
The Arctic sea ice (lack of) might have caused our cold March meme is embarrassingly lame. As others have pointed out, the area of ice was pretty close to the 30 year average in March - and in January and February as well.
The area was similar in March 2012 and we didn't have a COLD March then, just a dry one that was going to lead to a drought ridden Summer.
A few months back Kate Humble fronted a series called Orbit: Earth's Extraordinary Journey with a physicist Dr Helen Czersk as side-kick . It was reasonably balanced (AGWise) until the last programme when Kate Humble stood on the edge of the sea ice off Eastern Greenland and accompanied by an animation of the sea ice area shrinking "over the last 25 years" told viewers that it was lower in area than before. This was March 2012 and we know the area was actually close to the 30 year mean.
Since the lowest "melt" area in the Arctic Summer appears to have been 2007, it is just another example of Climate Science ignoring the data and try to keep their eyes focussed on the "settled" science. It is similar to the way in which it has taken them 7 years to finally admit that temperature has flatlined, since sceptics started pointing it out.
"... are consistent with" is an extremely weak argument.
If I come home after work and find a banana skin on my kitchen floor, then that is totally consistent with a gorilla having escaped from the zoo this morning and now hiding out under my bed.
Quite consistent of course (but not terribly likely).
son of mulder - absolutely right. Their main problem is that the GCMs forecast an established, stable positive phase for the NAO and thus their advice to governments at all levels of increasingly mild and wet Northern Hemisphere (NH) winters to come.
To now say that AGW theory is consistent with increasingly cold NH winters (whether it is right or not) and a negative phase of the NAO, stretches creditability a bit far. After all one of the accurate facets of model output has been a warming Arctic, so if they can't get the NAO right in the first decade.........................................
But retireddave when it comes to the chaotic path of the jetstream the GCM's can't predict how its medium to long term pattern of behaviour will change hence the GCM's can't reasonably predict changing weather patterns in Europe. The best they could do is weather forecasting based on observations of where the jetstream and high/low pressure areas and fronts are and short term predictions of how that will move, a few days before any change in weather is noticed.
I agree with David : weaselwords: "rapid changes in the Arctic" involved in a cool March, well, well. The lack of intelligence is dripping out of their (Metoffice) super-computing environments.
No-one has commented on the phase ' our changing climate'.
IS the climate changing ? Are we all agreeing that our climate is changing ? Is this a 'consensus' and are the facts 'settled' ?
If the 'cold March 2013 weather is certainly unusual, it is not unprecedented or outside the expected natural variability of our climate', then how can the Met Office refer to 'our changing climate' ?
The Met Office is incapable of publishing anything without lacing every paragraph with alarmist references.
These serve as a constant reminder that the Met Office gave up science long ago to concentrate on spreading fear about computer generated warming.
Below is what the Met Office actually said about the hypothesis that March 2013 weather has been influenced by last fall's arctic ice melt (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/i/2/March2013.pdf).
Preliminary and ongoing research at the Met Office Hadley Centre is providing increasing
evidence that the loss and thinning of Arctic sea ice predisposes the winter and spring
atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic and Europe to negative NAO regimes, as was
experienced at the start of this spring.
There have been some suggestions that the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice, especially during
summer, is responsible for this year’s cold spring. It is argued8 that amplification of global
warming over the Arctic is reducing the equator to pole temperature gradient, thereby
weakening the strength of the mid-latitude jet streams. In turn this may lead to slower
progression of upper-level waves and would cause associated weather patterns in mid-
latitudes to be more persistent, potentially leading to an increased probability of extreme
weather events that result from prolonged conditions, such as drought, flooding, cold spells,
and heat waves.
This hypothesis remains contentious9, however, and there is little evidence from the
comparison between the cold spring of 1962 and this year that the Arctic has been a
contributory factor in terms of the hypothesis proposed above. Figure 13 shows the mid-
troposphere temperature anomalies for 1962 and 2013; over the Arctic they are almost
identical and reflect the negative NAO pattern. It is hard to argue that Arctic amplification had
changed the equator to pole temperature in a systematic way to affect the circulation this
spring.
Apr 21, 2013 at 10:55 AM | geronimo
+1
Interesting comment from a BBC Met off forecaster tonight. Something along the lines of ' higher humidity means the temps will be higher'. So they know that water vapour and not CO² raises ground level temps.
I would like to think that the influence Richard Betts can be detected here
And you would almost certainly be wrong. His job (climate impacts) relies totally on the continuation of GCMs and their predictions, sorry, projections.
" it is not unprecedented or outside the expected natural variability of our climate."
9th coldest March since 1772 in HADCET.
Year March
1785 1.2
1883 1.9
1845 2.0
1786 2.1
1789 2.1
1837 2.3
1784 2.7
1892 2.7
2013 2.7
1962 2.8
And 6.5C colder than the warmest.
1957 9.2
They seem to be saying they think it's sea ice, they just need to manufacture research to back it up.
Thank you cheshirered, for the link. With such soothsayers as the commenters, the global warming argument has to be won, hands down:
Do these people even believe themselves, let alone expect us to believe them? I gave up with them soon after that last comment, before I lost the will to live.
What I find interesting is the range of mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere temperatures. If you look at the regional distribution map and follow the 50N latitude you can see variations of more than 10C between the warmest and coldest areas. This is for February, which was less extreme than March. A comparison with a similar map from the 1970s would be illuminating.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/monitoring/climate/surface-temperature
What's with this obsession with Arctic sea ice..? According to all the satellite viewings on the Sea Ice Page on Wattsupwiththat, which have NO opinion or axe to grind, Arctic sea ice extent looks boringly normal to me...
Clearly I'm not seeing them from a Met Office perspective - OR, we're not supposed to have access to such unbiased data...
Either way, the 'reasons' given remind me of the joke about the one-armed economist, who was therefore unable to say: 'But on the other hand...'
What an evasive statement by the Department of 'I'm sorry; we haven't a clue'. No mention of the Arctic Oscillation being strongly negative from 6 February to 9 April. No mention of an extensive Siberian high steering the jetstream over Europe. Only a vague reference to 'rapid changes' in Arctic sea ice which, as far as I can tell, rapidly changes every year from a lot to a little.
If the UK is getting colder why are we spending 3-4 billion a year to "cool" the rest of the planet ?