Climate Catastrophe Cancelled

[Thundery wintry showers]

I think it goes back to what Stratos Ferric usually says in these situations: one instance, or a small timescale, doesn't represent a trend; what matters is the overall baseline trend, which has been upward.

[John Cox]

I think it goes back to what Stratos Ferric usually says in these situations: one instance, or a small timescale, doesn't represent a trend; what matters is the overall baseline trend, which has been upward.

Hi TWS,

I think this may well be the start of a downward trend.

Edited June 7, 2006 by John Cox

[Dawlish]

Hi TWS,

I think this may well be the start of a downward trend.

Why John?

Paul

[The PIT]

Well the facts we know are that the Planet goes through natural warming and cooling cycles. True or not True??

Co2 isn't the biggest greenhouse gas out there. True or not True.

At present we are more likely to be in a cycle of natural warming after the little ice age. On top of this man may have a added a small percentage on top of this due to pollution and removal of some pollution items. Also Urban island City effect is also having an effect providing a distortion to recorded figures.

Too be honest I can see how any Scientist can say with 100% certanty one way or the other. All I know is reducing pollutants is a good idea anyway.

[Shiny_Bottom_1]

Personally, I have a new view on the global temp rise.

First, I would like to believe that perhaps, we are in a natural cycle of warming. This has been proven in the past, but whether we are or not, i'm not 100% (just my belief).

However, I also believe that we are polluting our atmosphere with CO2 etc, and this is in fact increasing the speed of which the globe warms up.

The one question is for me, what causes these natural cycles?

Does the earth warm up to an approx max, then begin a cool down (then vice versa), therefore bringing a consistant cycle of warmer and colder climates?

If so, perhaps we are just accelerating the time taken to reach this max, before the globe kicks in to a cool down again?

If not, how hot will the Earth get? Will it just keep rising?

Basically, I believe that we as humans are increasing the Earths temp (or at least contributing to it), but we are 100% responsible for the rate at which it is increasing.

However, there is alot of unknown territory that we have no data for, no scientific proof of, therefore we do have some heresay (no, not the group) of what is going to happen.

However, using my theory, reducing the amount of pollutants is surely only a good thing. If we are in a natural wamring cycle, the reduction of pollutants will at least reduce the acceleration of the increase.

[John Cox]

Why John?

Paul

Because the synoptics have changed over the last 18 months, the atlantic has quietened considerably over this period too and we here in Dublin had the coldest winter for 5 years.

These three facts make we believe that we “may’ be seeing the start of a downward trend. I may be wrong but time will tell.

[West is Best]

This last winter felt colder with even less wind chill. So I keep the faith that the winters are now getting colder. Ask anyone on the near continent how last winter was.

And in North America John? Global warming is, or is not, a global phenomenon and North America experienced a very warm winter. January was the warmest ever recorded: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2576.htm

Yoiu might be surprised to know that globally this was the 8th warmest winter on record http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/resear...feb/global.html

The breakdowns are interesting: during boreal winter, temperatures were above average across Iceland, Scandinavia, India, southeast Asia and much of North America. Cooler than average temperatures were observed in Russia, Eastern Europe, and along the western coast of Australia. So it's too sweeping to say that it was cold in Europe - Scandinavia was above average, and parts of western Europe were average. Here's a great anomaly chart for the whole world for December - February 2005/6:

As the NOAA say, it was the 8th warmest winter on record globally.

You could argue actually, as Stratos Ferric has done, that far from backing your cause this winter suggests the opposite, namely that even given the right synoptics we couldn't get properly below average.

Edited June 8, 2006 by West is Best

[drgl]

Because the synoptics have changed over the last 18 months, the atlantic has quietened considerably over this period too and we here in Dublin had the coldest winter for 5 years.

These three facts make we believe that we “may’ be seeing the start of a downward trend. I may be wrong but time will tell.

yep-only time will tell. It has to start somewhere! The winters of the 90's here were mostly wet and windy, since around 2000 the snow/cold has been slowly returning-the last two years have been VERY different to the previous 10. You can post facts and figures to contradict anyones experience-lets just wait & see. If i'm wrong i'll eat humble pie and admit it was a blip-it takes 10-15 years to discover that though so stick around! Personaly i think a lot of these scientists will be admitting they got it VERY wrong in the next 20 years.....

[John Cox]

yep-only time will tell.Personaly i think a lot of these scientists will be admitting they got it VERY wrong in the next 20 years.....

Thats exactly my feeling.

[West is Best]

Thats exactly my feeling.

'Feelings' and 'faith' though John ... two words used by those putting forward the cool-down idea, and not a lot of fact, that's the problem. I'm not against hunches and hopes, but the hard facts just don't back up the idea, at least not yet. That NOAA link is really very good - they're an excellent site and you can't really argue with it I don't think. Far from evidence of a new trend it was globally the 8th warmest winter on record. For any cool-down to be evidenced we will need to see loads more fact. For myself, and the majority, it's the other extreme we're worried about - the baseline continues to warm up.

Edited June 8, 2006 by West is Best

[John Cox]

You could argue actually, as Stratos Ferric has done, that far from backing your cause this winter suggests the opposite, namely that even given the right synoptics we couldn't get properly below average.

Hi Richard,

A very good post and well researched, much appreciated.

But as drql says "You can post facts and figures to contradict anyones experience-lets just wait & see".

It could go either way but my many years of weather watching make me believe that we will see a continued downward trend.

We could talk about it "till the cows come home" and we would both still have a different view so for today I am going to leave this debate to others or I will be sacked for not doing any work.

Have a great day and enjoy the heat and talk again when I get temped by some post.

[West is Best]

We could talk about it "till the cows come home" and we would both still have a different view so for today I am going to leave this debate to others or I will be sacked for not doing any work.

Have a great day and enjoy the heat and talk again when I get temped by some post.

Hi John - you too! You're right of course - we can bounce these things back and forth.

Being more or less self-employed I'm being very tempted by net-weather - but I too must do some work!

Blimey it's hot this morning!! Enjoy it!

Richard

[drgl]

Hi John - you too! You're right of course - we can bounce these things back and forth.

Being more or less self-employed I'm being very tempted by net-weather - but I too must do some work!

Blimey it's hot this morning!! Enjoy it!

Richard

I guess this is the thread of the self employed!! I really must do some work too!

[Thundery wintry showers]

I think, though, that the end of ChrisL's post is the most obvious conclusion to arrive at.

There are certainly ways that pollution could be reduced without significantly compromising our day-to-day lives, e.g. more energy-efficient homes, development of cleaner and more locally-generated energy, more scope for people to work from home, people living closer to their workplaces, less need for businesses to transport things over large distances etc.

Unfortunately, there are three main barriers to this- politics, the tendency for our world to revolve around short-term profits, and a general "I'm Alright Jack" attitude. Nonetheless I certainly see things like the above as the best way forward- even if humans aren't contributing to climate change.

[Dawlish]

It could go either way but my many years of weather watching make me believe that we will see a continued downward trend.

Just a small point John. We cannot see a "continued" downward trend as we are not actually in a downward trend.....unless a trend is made up of one occurence! We are in a warming trend John, on a UK scale, or a global scale. Talk of being in a cooling trend is just not correct.

Paul

[John Cox]

Just a small point John. We cannot see a "continued" downward trend as we are not actually in a downward trend.....unless a trend is made up of one occurence! We are in a warming trend John, on a UK scale, or a global scale. Talk of being in a cooling trend is just not correct.

Paul

Hi Paul,

We had a good flow of cold eastarlies in the winters of 04/05 and 05/06, We had not synoptics like this for quite a few years.

This indicates a downward trend compared to previous years.

Edited June 8, 2006 by John Cox

[Dawlish]

Thats exactly my feeling.

With the greatest of respect - feelings have never made good science. I feel it in my bones that England will win the World Cup, but I fear that my feelings are being clouded by my hopes!

Paul

[John Cox]

With the greatest of respect - feelings have never made good science. I feel it in my bones that England will win the World Cup, but I fear that my feelings are being clouded by my hopes!

Paul

I probably should have said thats "exactly my belief"

With regards to England winning the World Cup.... Why not :lol:

[drgl]

I think, though, that the end of ChrisL's post is the most obvious conclusion to arrive at.

There are certainly ways that pollution could be reduced without significantly compromising our day-to-day lives, e.g. more energy-efficient homes, development of cleaner and more locally-generated energy, more scope for people to work from home, people living closer to their workplaces, less need for businesses to transport things over large distances etc.

Unfortunately, there are three main barriers to this- politics, the tendency for our world to revolve around short-term profits, and a general "I'm Alright Jack" attitude. Nonetheless I certainly see things like the above as the best way forward- even if humans aren't contributing to climate change.

Humans are too lazy to put rubbish in the bins(easier to throw it out of the car window) they are too lazy to take trolleys back @ super markets(easier to just dump it where you parked) It saddens me how society has gone. I fear there is no hope to kerb emissions with the general mentality that is out there.

[johnholmes]

Humans are too lazy to put rubbish in the bins(easier to throw it out of the car window) they are too lazy to take trolleys back @ super markets(easier to just dump it where you parked) It saddens me how society has gone. I fear there is no hope to kerb emissions with the general mentality that is out there.

I largely agree with your post and the 8/8/06 one you had a quote about.

John

[Snowly does it]

Humans are too lazy to put rubbish in the bins(easier to throw it out of the car window) they are too lazy to take trolleys back @ super markets(easier to just dump it where you parked) It saddens me how society has gone. I fear there is no hope to kerb emissions with the general mentality that is out there.

Well said.

Whether it is water shortages or general global warming or indeed anything, Joe Public is 'concerned but fatigued', add to that the sheer inconvenience of something good for humanity hitting the purse strings and bob's your banana - no inconvenience please, we're British.

There is so much that could be done so easily to ameliorate emissions and water issues by each and every one of us (and yes, I do my part as far as I am able to) but I am afraid its the minority that do and the majority that do not.

They indeed do shoot horses, don't they.

Whether or not GW is a wholly man made issue or whether we are merely the extra weight tipping the scale is hardly the issue sometimes. Not constantly abusing the planet has to be a good thing regardless. Then we can all be safe and secure and content and have cracking good arguments about the weather without unnatural interference and scientific point and counterpoint.

[derrylynne]

Humans are too lazy to put rubbish in the bins(easier to throw it out of the car window) they are too lazy to take trolleys back @ super markets(easier to just dump it where you parked) It saddens me how society has gone. I fear there is no hope to kerb emissions with the general mentality that is out there.

Well said. Sums it up well. If people can't be bothered to take their rubbish home they won't give a toss about anything or anyone but themselves....

[Dawlish]

Hi Paul,

We had a good flow of cold eastarlies in the winters of 04/05 and 05/06, We had not synoptics like this for quite a few years.

This indicates a downward trend compared to previous years.

Hi John,

The Easterlies of 04/05 produced a significantly warmer winter than average where every single month had above average temperatures (this also included November '04 and April '05 too!). The Easterlies of last winter produced a slightly cooler than average winter.

I think that still leaves you with a 1 year trend. The winter of 04/05 was hardly a part of a warming trend!

What these two winters show is that, even with Easterly laced (not dominated) synoptics, that should produce cold weather, the present-day winter climate of the UK is too warm, for even Easterly situations to produce really cold weather. I think this: had exactly the same conditions happened in, say, the 1960s, or 1970s, we would have had winters with significant cold. This last winter, especially, is testament to how much our winter climate has changed.

Don't you think, John, that such situations, as we saw this winter, should have produced colder conditions than they actually did?

Paul

Edited June 9, 2006 by Dawlish

[Guest Mike W]

I toally agree with you on that Dawlish, the syntoptics we have had especailly for last winter would have given us at least 2 months with a CET below 3 or even at least 1 month below 2 possibly February, but it didn't. The problem mainly stems from the fact that more radiation was reflected back into space in the old days compared to now and it also dampened the increase in CO2, all of which we don't have now to help us in producing winters like 81/82 or 78/79 for example or on the other end summers as cool as say 77, 78 or 87. But that's the price we pay for cleaner air I guess. As I have said before, for this reason I really think weather events as mentioned will happen again, certainly in the forseeable future, theirs nothing their to get CET's low enough, take 83 July may have been 19.5 and the summer was hot but look at the balancing act that you get with 83, i.e May: 10.3, Feb 1.7, April 6.5, you just didn't get that balancing act with 2003 or 95 really with only December sticking out as a notable cold month.

Edited June 9, 2006 by Mike W

[Dawlish]

I toally agree with you on that Dawlish, the syntoptics we have had especailly for last winter would have given us at least 2 months with a CET below 3 or even at least 1 month below 2 possibly February, but it didn't. The problem mainly stems from the fact that more radiation was reflected back into space in the old days compared to now and it also dampened the increase in CO2, all of which we don't have now to help us in producing winters like 81/82 or 78/79 for example or on the other end summers as cool as say 77, 78 or 87. But that's the price we pay for cleaner air I guess. As I have said before, for this reason I really think weather events as mentioned will happen again, certainly in the forseeable future, theirs nothing their to get CET's low enough, take 83 July may have been 19.5 and the summer was hot but look at the balancing act that you get with 83, i.e May: 10.3, Feb 1.7, April 6.5, you just didn't get that balancing act with 2003 or 95 really with only December sticking out as a notable cold month.

Good point about the decrease in albedo Mike. More snow and ice does give a positive feedback loop to colder weather (increased snow and ice = greater albedo = more reflection = lower temperatures and so on). An increased albedo therefore makes it less likely that we will get lower temperatures. This is something that some agencies, including metcheck, take into account when giving their winter forecast: more snow and ice over N.Europe in October, may indicate a colder winter to come. I say "may" as the link is very far from proven. It is experimental, as is the cool arctic SSTs in early summer/negative NAO/colder winter link. Even the Met Office still describes this as experimental.

I'm sure that the synoptics of this last winter would have produced a colder winter in the 1960s/70s, than it did in 2005/6.

Paul

Edited June 9, 2006 by Dawlish