beng

I agree to some extent with Grey Wolf that we may see a sharp increase in the melt rate since there's a lot of ice in the Barents area that wasn't there the last few years and formed fairly late on. This may well melt very rapidly shortly - depending upon syntopics etc, which may produce a temporary large melt anomaly. Overally though I'd expect the ice minimum this year to be above 2008 due to the slow start to the melt this spring, and a longer lasting polar vortex this year - so probably disagree with him there. I think next winter may show an ice drop if we see el nino develop through the remainder of this year though.

Yep - if we'd had the sharp overnight frost forecast by the MO (yet another poor forecast IMO), then it might have been cold today. Spring sunshine feels quite warm here now in the conservatory - Daffs should be flowering shortly if this keeps up. Okay, okay - stop going on about it, it's not helping my mood today :o Seriouslly glad you've had some decent snow up there, just hope we do get a decent NE come the end of the week - with enough easterly component to get the snow showers inland (not just East Kent and Sussex)

2.2c for me.

If I'm reading those graphs correctly then this warming is centred very near Greenland. In recent years when we've had a warming, they've tended to be centred over the other side of the pole - so if this comes off it could get really interesting.

3.5c Hopefully I am going at least 3c too high. [o[:pp]]

4.5c for me.

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html If I'm reading those Euro graphics correctly, the subsurface cold anomaly in the atlantic maps to the surface cold anomaly to the SW of the UK which has been there for quite a while now. It's good though to see that this anomaly is supported at depth as it should mean it's got a good chance of persisting through the winter I would think. - EDIT - then again maybe not as I just noticed the subsurface anomaly chart is for the equator! Have you seen the SOI in the last few weeks - the next la nina might be by this winter if it continues. http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/Seasonal...30DaySOIValues/ :lol:

Fair enough - thought we had converted you for a minute.

Can you clarify this - when you say the sun changes a lot are you talking about variations in sunspot numbers/solar cycle lengths - or are you talking about TSI variations (which only vary very slightly in reality) - or do you mean the sun varies in some other way?

UGH! - better prepare the lifeboats if that's close to accurate GP!

http://meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=...ode=1&map=1 ECM backs this up and also slams another nasty hurricane into Miami 4 days later.

You're not being entirely accurate here. Records indicate warming from the mid 70s until 1998 - and then a plateau. It's possible (we'll never know) that temperatures would actually have plateaued earlier if Mt Pinutubo hadn't caused a significant cooling in the early 90s. So we have around 30 years of warming there (ignoring the volcanic eruption), all during the positive phase of the PDO and all during active solar cycles.

The climate models predict the jet will shift Northwards in Summer - as will the sub-tropical high pressure belts, so the UK should have warmer, drier summers, perhaps with intense thunderstorms thrown in. The previous 2 summers don't fit ths pattern, but they are only 2 summers and on their own are not enough to prove the climate models wrong.

It's probably worth adding that when cooling commenced in the 40s it took a while for arctic ice to respond, presumably because the thickness had been reduced over the previous 30 years.

1894/1895 was a severe winter across W Europe with a negative January CET. :lol:

Well looking at your graphs I'd say Enso has averaged out close to neutral over the last 10 years as has the PDO. If these signals are neutral over that timespan then it means there's no forcing on global temperature (averaged over the period) - however we should still have seen the AGW signal and hence a rise in global temperatures corresponding to the strength of that signal (this excludes any effect from solar forcing of course) - but that seems to be missing. I'm not arguing for no AGW, only that it seems to be rather small. If we see the PDO and Enso average 'negative' over the next 10 years and then leaving aside effects from AGW, then you'd expect the cooling to show itself.

Spot on with that question. I'll stir things up a bit more to see if we can get a response from the AGW proponents. For the sake of argument, if we say that CO2 forcing is very small, then what temperature response would we have expected over the previous 10 years given that the PDO peaked and stopped rising, and that solar activity was very slightly less than cycle 22? Funnily enough, the answer is pretty much exactly what the actual records show - a flat trend with a dip towards the end as solar minimum kicked in along with the PDO switch.

Well I did say I'd give my thoughts on the book and I've finally had time to read David's complete book - I'll admit I struggled getting my head around the lunar cycles - probably my tired brain after my day at work. I think what would help me is a 3D model - but not sure how you incorporate that into an ebook. Roger has already commented on the lunar cycles and is a lot better qualified to do so than me, but it's definitely well worth a read and it's obvious from what's in there that David is totally genuine in his work. Incidentally an el nino is not ruled out according to CPC - in their update yesterday: http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_...y/ensodisc.html If we have a brief and weak to moderate el nino, it will be interesting to see what impacts we see on global temperatures.

CET: 16.3c Rainfall:140% Unsettled month, but warm nights curtesy of the warm atlantic keeping the CET respectable. No real sustained hot spells unless we get another tropical system forcing a pattern change.

Sea temperatures in the far north pacific are below average - characteristic of negative PDO conditions - and it's those that I think may have some bearing on the melt rate of certain parts of the arctic icepack. Last year in early summer the water around Alaska was very warm relative to average, and some of that warm water no doubt entered the arctic itself following the initial melt back of the ice. There is a warm anomaly further South, again characteristic of the negative PDO. http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data...t.7.24.2008.gif I would agree that the current la nina has been enhanced - perhaps a combination of the PDO and the solar minimum.

I don't think they factored in the switch in the PDO - which has produced much colder waters around Alaska this summer and prevented the warm surge of energy into the arctic from the pacific that has been typical of the warm PDO phase. The reports of such a cool summer in Anchorage, Alaska reflect this switch too. Give it another 5-10 years and the Atlantic should also flip into the cold phase - at which point ice cover should begin to recover in the Barents sea. Incidentally 850hPa temperature in the arctic basin are now showing signs of dropping quickly according to the models - so I'd say the minimum in the basin itself is very close (maybe another 2 weeks of melt). Of course ice will continue to melt in a few of the outer reaches for some time after - but I think the minimum could be earlier this year than recent years - especially given the lower global temperatures.

Thanks Kevin. It's fascinating to read what was written back then - they really knew their subject when you think they had no satellites or computers to help them! I especially liked the bit about the warming of the Norwegian Sea leading to a greater chance of Scandinavian blocks. Perhaps we're about to see some 1940 style winters again. http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html Although maybe it's a chicken and Egg scenario.

This really doesn't stack up with the facts. The PDO signal has been positive for most of the last 10 years up until the middle of last year. The AMO is still very positive and there have not been any explosive volcanic eruptions of note since 1991 (excluding the one in Chile this year). If CO2 was really the driver, warming should have continued at a similar pace up until at least the middle of 2007 - the fact that it hasn't implies that something else must have been contributing to the warming between 1976 and 1998. If the PDO or solar influence had been driving the majority of the warming, then a flattening from around 98 seems feasible - solar because cycle 23 was weaker than cycle 22 and the PDO because the warm phase had reached a plateau and was no longer warming (or cooling until around 2007)

The PDO only really switched into the negative mode last year, the atlantic is still in the warm cycle. Any cooling or reduction in the rate of warming in the last 10 years prior to the middle of 2007 (when la nina and the negative PDO kicked in) is IMO down to a different factor. That's not to say that the PDO doesn't have an effect though. <_<

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IM...t.365.south.jpg Ice increasing once again relative to the average - will it continue or grind to another halt?