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It's certainly very early this winter, but freezing of the Gulf of Bothnia (the northernmost arm of the Baltic) is perfectly normal, in fact during January and February it usually happens. Here are images for the 'normal' ice situation on the 1st & 21st of January: Last winter things were pretty much in line with normal, and the whole of the Gulf was frozen by mid-late February 2010.Here's the situation on the 4th & 25th January 2010: You're quite right, though, that some recent years have been late, or haven't frozen significantly at all. Here's how it was on 24th Jan 2009: This year, by contrast, we're about a month ahead of the game. Here's the image for today (3rd Jan 2011); as you can see, in the Gulf it's about what you'd expect towards the end of January (and has been for a while now): Last year there was a lot of talk about the whole Baltic freezing, though in reality things were merely back to normal. There's certainly time this year, but things will need to get a great deal colder for there to be the remotest chance of that - it's always been very rare. You can follow progress on this excellent website: http://www.itameriportaali.fi/en/itamerinyt/en_GB/jaatilanne/#middle . Images are updated about once a week. And from there this link http://www.itameriportaali.fi/html/icef/icemap_c.pdf gives fascinatingly detailed colour maps of ice for the whole Baltic, updated every day.

Noggin, you now know someone who has one, absolutely loves it, and has NOT had problems - me! Entirely reliable, much neater and quieter, easy to control temp, faster to ignite and heat up, no blowing-out pilot light unlike previous cast-iron Potterton...which also began to leak between the sections within 6 years - dismantled and re-sealed at great expense, then started leaking again three years later when scrapped. New condenser boiler installed March 2006. Since when my gas consumption has dropped from circa 1030-1080 cu ft to around 730-790 cu ft per annum - a reduction of about 28%. When the old cast iron boiler was new and a bit more efficient I was using about 950-1020, so a fairer comparison is about 23% more efficient. Get one yourself, and be amazed at your gas bills - I believe I was saving about £280 a year before the latest price rise. Yes, watch where the condensate drain goes to avoid blockage by freezing - whatever the plumber and/or the regs say, it should go somewhere warm...mine never goes outside at all, it drops into an internal waste pipe. The only other problem is that the laundry/utility room where it sits is now very cold, because the waste heat from the old boiler used to warm it up like a rad - in fact the system was designed with that assumption. Don't believe everything - actually don't believe anything - the Daily Wail says. I'm surprised you know lots of people with them who have all had problems - that is not the experience of people I know, especially once you knock out the (minor) freezing condensate problem. With that single exception, I'm not aware of a higher level of issues with them than with older designs. But it's true mine is not yet 5 years old.

Um, yes....amazingly there are actually still people and businesses who do their best to clear snow from their own frontage/car park, instead of waiting for the council to do it and complaining if they don't! A mad idea emerged from some insurance company plonker a year or two ago - and gained unwarranted credence thanks to certain newspapers and the internet - that you risked being sued if you did so. When somebody actually bothered to investigate they discovered it was almost complete rubbish - as far as I know there is no recorded instance of anyone even having taken proceedings against anyone for this, let alone of such a legal action being successful. Read this for reassurance: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8443745.stm . Basically the risk is entirely theoretical, and in reality you are quite safe, unless you acted in a way that was either obviously malicious - say, deliberately making a pile of the snow in front of your neighbour's entrance, or pouring hot water on the paving, and polishing it when it freezes - or majorly careless - like starting to clear it, but stopping and leaving a shovel sticking out of it into the pathway. Even then it would take someone to have an accident, to be so angry that they decide to take out an action against you, and to succeed in proving something that is very hard to be certain of. Despite this, certain H&S experts are still trotting it out: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6958131/Health-and-safety-experts-warn-dont-clear-icy-pavements-you-could-get-sued.html . It's not surprising, though, with misleading statements like this from government: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3453039.stm . On your own property, incidentally - though not on the public pavement - there is probably a greater risk of being sued for not clearing the snow. But anywhere and anyhow the risk is negligible - I'm glad your spa (SPAR? Health Spa??) just did the right thing. And there is a certain, mad pleasure in watching piles of cleared snow slowly shrink long after the main snowfall has gone - in April 1881 there was still cleared snow from the great blizzard in January lying on open spaces in London!

I'm surprised to find that you are (I think) implying that the planet's surface warming in the 20th Century, and especially in the last 30 years, is a myth caused by poorly-sited instruments. I think most serious sceptic energy has moved on to arguing about why it's warmed rather than if, and whether the warming is likely to continue, to flatline, or even to reverse in the not-too-distant future? I'm not sure, too, that this subject is really "in the news" - has there been new information on it published recently? It is quite interesting, though - even if I don't believe the effects are significant enough to alter the basic reality of the direction that temperatures have moved. Perhaps it should have a thread of its own? We've certainly discussed it on here before at some length, but not for some years, I think.

Prediction (correct or not) is a rather different issue to measurement and publication of real data, isn't it, Prof? You can be good at one, and terrible at the other easily enough. VP, I suppose a Cro-Magnum must be a sort of Hollywood super-macho-man - Tom Selleck meets Russell Crowe or something? :winky: . I agree with your point, mind you.

Yes, the Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea). Widespread and common; very much a native, and of long standing - unlike, say, its similar, smaller relation the all-white Little Egret, which has turned from a rare visitor to a locally common resident in the last twenty years or so. As MKS says, the frozen water elsewhere may have tempted it into you garden. It eats fish, amphibians (especially frogs), small mammals, worms, large insects - in fact anything living it can stab or grab with its long, sharp bill. Mainly fish for preference, though.

The bit in italics is not really true - there is no such offence, though a police officer might (quite rightly) consider it driving without due care & attention (or something similar). A large shelf of solid snow sliding off on to your windscreen (if you're braking), or on to a following car (if driving fast) can and does cause real problems, as many have found recently. There is no evidence that the police are particularly targeting this, however, - the rumour of a specific offence derives from a text of uncertain origin that has been doing the rounds. But you're absolutely right that it is a significant safety issue, and the thoughtful, considerate and non-lazy driver should always clear any large amount off before setting off.

Well, it won't be a one-liner, and certainly not a rant...but I certainly would not wish to be in the shoes of the Chief Scientific Adviser, and still less the Transport Secretary . I hope the CSA will at least have the humility to admit - as many here, including myself, need to do - that even if our position on probable future global temperature movements is unchanged, our assumptions about our local variations were entirely wrong - despite two decades of what it seemed reasonable to believe was good evidence. The truthful answer will be the very one that Mr Hammond will least want to hear - that we just do not know. It may be that this is just a natural cycle that is overwhelming the overall warmth. Or it may not. These cold winters, historically-speaking, have a tendency to come in batches: it may be that this batch will soon be over. Or not. It may even be that Arctic ice changes (or other aspects of Climate Change) have actually caused or contributed to the cold. Or it may not. Anybody who thinks they know the answers would seem to be gravely mistaken, and I hope the CSA will not have the audacity to pretend that (?)he does. It was depressing to read Dr Liz Bentley of the Met Office in an interview in the 'gardens' section of the Guardian a couple of weeks ago. After the cold had begun Novemember/early Dec, she was still confidently making foolishly confident statements and even forecasts: "Long-range seasonal forecasts suggest a slightly lower than average temperatures, but nothing extreme. It looks like being drier than than average, too, with plenty of settled conditions...". And on gardening: "We can now grow a range of plants we wouldn't have been able to grow before. I'm growing palms and ferns that I wouldn't have thought to try 15 years ago." Hmmmm.....there are going to be a few dead palms out there come spring, I fear. And many other half-hardy plants will have come a cropper this winter - including a few planted by me. Assuming he gets an honest opinion, Mr Hammond may wonder why we have a CSA at all. In this situation I might well agree with him.

Pete, I think nature - and especially a bird such as a redwing, fieldfare, waxwing, etc - is more likely to be reactive than predictive. I entirely agree that the redwings' presence in unusually large numbers is a result of harsh weather in Scandinavia....but unless their evolutionary survival instincts have gone seriously wrong, they would be heading here because the weather's likely to be less harsh, and their food supply more available. I imagine that their genes tell them to move south & west when times are hard in winter (as they always do to some extent). My guess is that if they find it's not getting warmer, and the ground is still frozen and snow-covered, the big flocks will head even further south & west to Devon & Cornwall, and even across to France. So perhaps that's the sign we should be looking for - a big, but temporary explosion in numbers, followed by the disappearance of most of them again! Bird-feeders like myself will of course ensure that some can and will remain - especially in the milder urban areas. I always get a few every winter - usually a smallish group of six or twelve, though they seldom stay long. I love them! Ossie

Sorry, but that's not really right. The main part of the Baltic very rarely freezes away from the edges and islands, and there's little ice there yet, it's far too early in the season - the surface temp over much of it is still above +6C. If you're referring only to the northernmost section, the Gulf of Bothnia, then that will freeze in due course (as it generally does). But it's a long way off that as yet (though ahead of normal), and certainly not "nearly frozen" - a large part is still above +3C. For the up-to-date situation see here http://www.itameriportaali.fi/html/icef/icemap_c.pdf (updated 15 Dec) and here http://www.itameriportaali.fi/en/itamerinyt/en_GB/jaatilanne/#middle (updated 13 Dec)

Keith, I have asked you this before - you didn't reply - and I ask you now again. Please, please try not to cut and paste large sections of writing by other people without making it clear that is what you are doing. We are interested in what you have to say, not what Neil Hamilton said in the Daily Express: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/217018/Green-hysteria-means-we-face-a-bleak-future . Either make it clear you are quoting somebody else, or else post a link to it with your thoughts and comments. You are, in any case, shooting yourself in the foot with that one. The Daily Express does not command a great deal of respect on here; and I was unaware that Neil Hamilton had expertise in anything much other than demanding cash to ask questions & table motions in the House of Commons, suing people, losing safe parliamentary seats and being a professional media buffoon. Certainly he demonstrates his complete ignorance of both climatology and meteorology by making two major statements that are untrue: (1) The IPCC did not, as far as I am aware, ever predict that sea levels could rise 13ft by 2100. It is complicated, because of exactly what is included in their estimates and what is not, but the range predicted in 2007 by them up to (effectively) 2095 was basically 0.18m - 0.59m, plus another possible (but wildly uncertain) 10 or 20cm from something unmodellable called "ice dynamics". If you want to read more, try this http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/ ; but it is complicated. Very simplistically, though, the IPCC 2007 worst-case scenario was for a rise of 59cm (the main stuff) + 20cm (unknown ice dynamics) = 79cm....to which we add another + 5cm for the final 5yrs to 2100. Grand Total 84cm. 84cm is 33 inches, or 1.37 ft. Not 13 ft. (Their bottom estimate was even more difficult to quantify, but it's about 18 or 19 cm...or maybe 28 or 29cm to 2100. That's just 7 to 11 inches.) Do you think it's worth listening to (and repeating) a man who either lies, or else doesn't know the difference between 13ft and 1.3 ft? (2) The Met Office did not predict a milder than average winter five weeks ago - publicly, anyway - for the simple reason that they have not issued a long-range forecast for this winter at all. Various journalists looked at probability maps on the website - working tools, work-in-progress if you like, with a warning above that reads "Raw data are displayed for use by international meteorological centres. This does not constitute a seasonal forecast for a given location" - and made their own imagined forecasts based on what they saw there. The maps did indeed show higher probability for a warmer scenario (mainly 40-80%) than for an average (up to 20-40%) or colder one (up to 20%) for the winter overall. So....firstly, the Met Office did not have enough confidence in these raw tools to turn them into a forecast - they've tried that before, and now clearly acknowledge that the variability of their success in the last few years means they cannot sensibly be used to make one currently. Secondly, even if you do insist on using the figures in precisely the way they ask you not to, you have percentages, not predictions. If I said to you, I think there's a 40% or 60% chance of something, would you think that means I'm predicting it? And thirdly, I've no idea what the rest of winter's going to do, and I'm damned sure Neil Hamilton doesn't either. Once again, do you think it's worth listening to (and repeating) a man who isn't interested in what the Met Office actually did say, because what they didn't say makes a much better story for his Express readers to huff and puff about?

I just find it interesting that you accept without any further enquiry that SS knows what he is talking about in one area (which you just happen to agree with), but question his expertise in another area where you know he is wrong. If he is capable of saying something that is mistaken on one subject - presumably having not bothered, rather unscientifically, to check his facts before posting - then presumably he is equally capable of being mistaken in another? To help us assess precisely that, a couple of days ago I asked him - in as polite, friendly and agenda-free a way as I could - if he would tell us what the scientific area is, exactly, where he is "a working research scientist, well up in top names in my field" (we know it is not climate science). I hope we'll hear back soon: without knowing the answer it is difficult to weigh the value of his opinion on the "Climate Change Industry". Does he genuinely have 'inside knowledge', or is it effectively just a layman's opinion like (presumably) yours?

Paul, I'm puzzled that at 12.21 p.m. yesterday you were enthusiastically accepting without question SS's authority as a scientist on how things are in the world of climate science, while at 12.58 p.m. over in the Climates of History thread you were robustly rubbishing his knowledge of desert temperature ranges (see ). Does he, or does he not, do you think, know whereof he speaks? If not, the strength of your argument about the dominance of the "Climate Change Industry" is, I fear, somewhat diminished. Surely you wouldn't be guilty of confirmation bias, would you? :winky:

I entirely agree - notwithstanding all the undoubted problems that exist with regard to confirmation bias et al. It continues to be my belief that the vast majority of scientists working in the field do so with the intention - and, in the main, the practice - of seeking scientific truth.

Post deleted by author - on reflection, not a useful (or fair) contribution to the debate.

What's your current field, SS? How big a change would that be?

Keith, when I wrote that a day or two ago I knew that some of your post was copied; however I now realize that the whole thing - every single word of it bar the first two words - was lifted from elsewhere. Even the link to heavy snow in Greece that I thought was current in fact dates to Feb 2008 - my mistake, the temperature in Athens at the moment is +23C. It's impossible to know exactly where you copied the piece from, because in early 2008, when it first appeared, it was immediately cut and pasted so widely in blogs and forums that there are countless versions of it out there - a google search for an exact quote of two long, consecutive sentences produced no less than 16,600 hits !! The original seems to be this Feb 2008 blog by Michael Asher in Daily Tech: http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm . How I wish I had looked earlier - I spent two hours of my life reading, researching and refuting "your" post, under the impression that your views were worthy of some respect. I doubt that you'll even have read my post - you certainly haven't replied. A sad lesson for all of us on here, perhaps: do the google search first, and then decide if respect is due. I'm sorry if anyone thinks I am being too harsh, but I am really quite angry.

Keith, I have looked carefully at your claims, and followed all the links you give looking for your evidence - either anectodatal or scientifically factual - to support your hypothesis that "Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded". But we have a few problems: (1) "Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history". This article relates to snow in Baghdad in January 2008. And it was said by the journalist, after talking to a handful of people, to be "the first time in memory" - which is a rather different thing, I hope you'd agree. (2) "North America has the most snowcover in 50 years". This seems to be an out-of-date link, and no article appears when you go there. (3) "Record cold in Minnesota...". This article dates from February 2008 (again). (4) ...and in Australia... Another non-functioning/out-of-date link. (5) ...and in Greece... Ah , good - an article about heavy snow and low temps in Greece at the moment. The only trouble is, nowhere does it mention that it is "record cold", or even that it is particularly unusual. Indeed this quote suggests that the authorities have relevant experience, and are well-equipped to deal with such adverse weather: "The state machine kicked into action immediately on Saturday at the outset of the storm, working round-the-clock to keep highways and central streets snow-free, and remained on alert on Monday." You write, "The list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure"....um, the list hasn't really started, alas, and not one bit of evidence to be found so far. Now on to the bit where you say that "(anecdotal) evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact". You continue "All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously." There is then a link to a piece in wattsupwiththat. Unfortunately that article dates from January 2008 (yet again), and there has been a lot of world temperature data water under the bridge since then. You then compound your failure to read the date on the article by stating "The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years." It is once again a pity that you didn't actually read what you've linked to, or you would have seen this statement by the (very honorable) Anthony Watts: UPDATE AND CAVEAT: The website DailyTech has an article citing this blog entry as a reference, and their story got picked up by the Drudge report, resulting in a wide distribution. In the DailyTech article there is a paragraph: “Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.†I wish to state for the record, that this statement is not mine: “–a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years†There has been no “erasureâ€. This is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected, but it does not “erase†anything. I suggested a correction to DailyTech and they have graciously complied. Having got thus far, you may understand why I haven't even bothered to follow your last link to the Daily Tech. Please show some respect for us here, Keith. Cutting and pasting chunks of stuff from other sources without checking what they say, whether they are relevant, and whether the links still work is an awful waste of everybody's time. Like Jethro, I feel you are in danger of giving serious and considered climate change scepticism a bad name.

Um, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm certainly not jumping down anyone's throat, relax - I'm just making friendly comments in a friendly conversation. To disagree with someone's view is permitted, surely? And here's another friendly, non-jumping sort of comment (no capitals, either, which is usually considered shouting): As I understand it, wintry showers consist of sleet and/or soft hail and/or snow, the exact nature of it uncertain in advance, and probably mixed with rain - i.e. you don't have to have snow in the mix for it to be a "wintry shower", sleet/hail will do. Some places have had this in the last day or two. On an easterly wind - don't much care about its origin, it's been pretty chilly. The Met Office suggests there may be more of the same to come a little way ahead. Seems reasonable to me.

But I think they said "wintry showers", which is a very different kettle of fish to "snow" - and perfectly likely, surely, even with things not that cold to the east? EDIT: Ah, John, I see you've beaten me to it!

Thanks, as always, Firefly. Your hypothesis about the unexpectedly poor survival rate makes very good sense to me. That Glenshee photo is a peach - though I'm not sure I'd like to be standing next to a huge 4m deep shelf of unstable snow like that for too long!

Thanks for that MM, very interesting. I think in recent years Madrid often gets more snow than London does, surprisingly - though we had a good fall in February 2009 in the southern part of the city, 20 cm here (about 8km south-west of the centre). The last time we had anything as big as that was February 1991, and we also had good falls in 1981-2, 1985, 1986 and 1987. In the 1960s & 70s the higher ground in the north-east - Hampstead, for example - often used to get good snow when here in the south we only had sleet (or even rain), but that hasn't happened so much in the last twenty years. I hope we both have some fun this winter!

Yes, I rather agree. His "popular" metaphors and analogies - clearly deriving from his many years forecasting in the States - seem forced, the whole thing delivered in a hurried, sometimes almost manic way. Before somebody takes offence on his behalf, I have no issues whatsoever with him or any others in the team as meterologists; I am talking simply of my personal take on how they choose to communicate with the audience, and how successful that choice is. Rob McElwie, by contrast (to my taste again) conveys in the same timespan more information, more detail (not to mention those delicious hints at what he thinks may be to come later!), and does so with a twinkle in his eye, and in a relaxed, far more understated way, full of gentle - and very literate - British-style humour. I'm often amazed to find how much he has crammed into his short spot without seeming for a second rushed or under pressure. As an academic in the excellent Guardian article linked to http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/16/bbc-weathermen-being-moved-off-screen by Paul says, "McElwee's forecasts are little masterpieces of concision and wry wit and complicity with the viewer." He is quite simply, for my money, the thinking man/woman's forecaster. This is a poor, and odd decision by the Met Office - I suspect the BBC would not have made the same one. As others have said, I'm not really sure what team leadership skills (assuming that really is the issue) have to do with the ability to communicate with the public. Perhaps in a civil service context he is perceived as having become too much of an individual - a little cocky or "starry", even - not a "team player". But as has been observed, the ability to know and do the science, and yet please the public (some of them, anyway!) is a rare skill; to do so in an effective way in the short timespan alotted for forecasts is even tougher. Inevitably egos will surface in those who are good at it. But I think - if it is the real reason - that they should show a greater appreciation and tolerance of the "big", charismatic personalities who do it best, provided always that they can and do still get the meteorology right. Our screens will be far the poorer for his loss.

Why would our climate become similar to Iceland's - even assuming all wind direction/oceanic influences were evened out? Great Britain lies between about 50 and 58 1/2oN. Iceland lies between around 64 and 66oN, and the Arctic Circle passes through its northern tip. The southernmost part of Iceland is over 400 miles north of the most northerly part of Great Britain. Or maybe you mean that our climate in a theoretical future without the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Drift could become similar to Iceland's today with the Gulf Stream/NAD? Yes, I suppose that's perhaps the order of possible change - coastal, southern Reykjavík's mid-winter mean temp range is around -3C/+2C (Iceland is also warmed by the NAD), while Aberdeen's winter mean range is about 0C/+6C. Iceland can be warmer than parts of GB in summer, but not very often. Reykjavík's high-summer mean maximum is around 13C - even Aberdeen is well above that, with a summer mean maximum of 18C. The trouble with all these attempted scenarios is that, NAD or no NAD, we are at the eastern edge of a large ocean that will always be warmer in winter than the continental landmass. And even if there were to be hypothetical changes to the Jet Stream, I cannot see the prevailing winds altering that fundamentally. At these latitudes of ours they are basically westerly all over the world - a result of the earth's rotation - and westerly winds blowing over the milder ocean will most probably continue to bring us milder air, albeit with (possibly) less modification. The place to look at for comparisons, therefore, would still appear to be British Columbia at similar latitudes on the west coast of Canada. PS I had always understood that the NAD was largely a wind-driven surface current. Is it really very likely that it will grind to a halt?

Had you read my post carefully you would see that I did gently imply that G-W may indeed suffer, like all of us, from 'confirmation bias'. That is what leads, almost inevitably, to cherry-picking - a fault (as you rightly point out) that is shared by many posters of many persuasions. I have been reading this forum carefully for many years, thank you, and have almost certainly read more of G-W's posts than you have. I used to post a bit myself, too, but ceased to do so when personal attacks became too common. All I was attempting to do was defend him from the suggestion that he was either ignorant of ice thickness data, or a liar. He is neither. For all his rhetoric and, yes, bias, a quick check of his many posts would reveal a remarkably high proportion of specific data drawn attention to, often with supporting links (cherry-picked or not). You and CJWRC may disagree with his interpretation of the data he finds, but there seems no doubt whatever that (1) he looks strenuously for it on an almost continuous basis, and (2) he strongly and honestly believes in the conclusions he draws from it.