How exceptional is this year within the UK?

[chilly milly]

What is really exceptional is that this has happened so soon....in my lifetime. I expect we all expected this to happen sometime, but not necessarily now. In the seventies you would never have expected to see anything like this and although thats 20 years ago its an extremely short space of time in the grand scheme of things. Whos to say what is round the corner. I'd like to think I'll be pushing up the daisies before any serious repercussions were felt, but now I'm not so sure.

[Snowly does it]

What is really exceptional is that this has happened so soon....in my lifetime. I expect we all expected this to happen sometime, but not necessarily now. In the seventies you would never have expected to see anything like this and although thats 20 years ago its an extremely short space of time in the grand scheme of things. Whos to say what is round the corner. I'd like to think I'll be pushing up the daisies before any serious repercussions were felt, but now I'm not so sure.

I think as far as that goes Milly, we will have to see what the next few years bring. I just hope that if we get something say around 10 next year, the foot doesn't come off the brakes re climate change. Having said that, it would be nice if they stopped making documentaries about it and started acting on it, actually applied the brake to start with.

[Slinky]

i have not gone through this entire thread due to the fact i have to work for a living and also juggle a life around this weather obsession of mine. However having glanced through some of the posts i find it surprisingly depressing to see a lot of people chucking the phrase GW about without obviously having the faintest idea what they are blithering on about. If your going to argue about the science of GW then please a little research might be in order, though judging from some it looks like they have not even "Googled" the subject!

I blame the media.

Sorry for the rant fokes........

[Stu_London]

Stu ... I'm not sure I follow the logic of that in terms of the actual facts. If the last 6 months beat any previous 6 month period by nearly 0.6C (an astonishing amount) then that has transcended calendar month quirks. A whole load of records fell within that as well of course. We will wait and see if the year comes in as one of the warmest on record, but at least half of this year is entirely without parallel.

The last six months have been rather exceptional granted. My comments were based on the year as a whole and the uncanny knack that the higher spells of temperature tended to co-incide with calender months

[pottyprof]

http://www.winejoe.com/wineroad/wrlittleiceage.htm

before columbus it was warmer than it is today..... now there's something interesting and before records...

Is this year exceptional?? Probably in this cooler climate...

[Stu_London]

i have not gone through this entire thread due to the fact i have to work for a living and also juggle a life around this weather obsession of mine. However having glanced through some of the posts i find it surprisingly depressing to see a lot of people chucking the phrase GW about without obviously having the faintest idea what they are blithering on about. If your going to argue about the science of GW then please a little research might be in order, though judging from some it looks like they have not even "Googled" the subject!

I blame the media.

Sorry for the rant fokes........

Possibly the best post I have ever read on Net.weather

[Dawlish]

i have not gone through this entire thread due to the fact i have to work for a living and also juggle a life around this weather obsession of mine. However having glanced through some of the posts i find it surprisingly depressing to see a lot of people chucking the phrase GW about without obviously having the faintest idea what they are blithering on about. If your going to argue about the science of GW then please a little research might be in order, though judging from some it looks like they have not even "Googled" the subject!

I blame the media.

Sorry for the rant fokes........

There are, however, more people on here that know a lot more about GW than most hacks will get to know in a lifetime and they are on both sides of the AGW and anti AGW divide, which makes posting on here about GW, an excellent learning experience, as well as a pleasure. It would be hard to name a single person, on netweather, that "chucks GW about without obviously having the faintest idea what they are blithering on about". I think everybody knows the basics. The whole point of posting on a site like this is that you post to an audience of far more knowledgeable people, about weather and climate, than you would find down the pub.

Paul

[Stratos Ferric]

The last six months have been rather exceptional granted. My comments were based on the year as a whole and the uncanny knack that the higher spells of temperature tended to co-incide with calender months

Stu, mathematically, you could carve the last six months up any way you like, it would still be just as warm. The average is the total degrees C days divided by the number of days. What makes it abnormally warm is not the carve up, but the total cumulative degrees C.

As an example, say I ran a shop and you ran a shop, and over the 5 day week I took £2000 and you took £1000. It matters not what the difference was on any given day, on average I took twice as much as you.

In the same way, if the last six months have been, say, 1.5c above par, that's 1.5C x 180 days, or 270 cumulative C more than normal. Yes, you could argue that it could be spread over six months or just one (though that would be beyond implausible), and that there might even be cold months in there as well, but however you carve it, overall, the cumulative warmth would still be record breaking.

Possibly the best post I have ever read on Net.weather

You've not read many posts then, or else you're not very selective.

How someone can post in close conjunction "I've not read much of this thread" and then go on to make a sweeping generalisation which does not in my view (as one who HAS read it all, despite being equally busy) match much of what has been written is beyond me, then again, perhaps it is only ignoraqnce that allows the comment to be made. I think if we're going to make sweeping criticisms we should at least make sure we've done those criticised the honour of having read what they've written first.

[Stratos Ferric]

Possibly the best post I have ever read on Net.weather

Actually, I recant slightly some of what I just said because I have now noticed a rant on a previous page which I think it would possible to argue deserves to attract the sort of criticism made by Slinky.

However, and I keep saying it, quite how some of the content is proper to this thread I do not know. Just like I do not know how it's possible on the one hand for someone to claim to know where, say, Greenland and Norway are, then post a chart showing SST anomalies indicating warm water off Norway, and yet previously have made a claim that there was cold water off Norway.

[Stratos Ferric]

OFF TOPIC -

Needlesstosay, the explanation for the Mpemba Effect doesn't carry over outside laboratory. For one, in laboratory faster cooling is achieved by the water container's effect on the surrounding air and frost. Second, warm sea water is more dense, with salt, not less dense.

In hot water the molecules are more active and further apart. So long as the temperature of the freezer remains constant the cold will find it easier to penetrate into the liquid - and once it's there, so long as the temperature remains constant (fed by electricity) - there will be faster cooling.

That's my theory, anyway. Actually, I don't know what my answer suggests re: real world conditins. Who knows.

Have you studied any physics ever? Just wandering, because the notion of "cold penetrating into the warm" is a novel interpretation which rather takes the pop-physics of hopecasting and reverses it into molecular physics. You've also opened my eyes to something I didn't realise as well by pointing out that some physics applies in the lab, but not in the wider world.

I think as well that you could have substantially shortened your second last sentence to telling effect my friend. Ask OON what I mean if you don't get me.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

a chart showing SST anomalies indicating warm water off Norway, and yet previously have made a claim that there was cold water off Norway.

NOAA Chart from 14 October (previously linked)

A - Kara Sea, warm. This area is now covered in ice following cold conditions in October.

B - Norway/Finland/Russia Cold

C - Norway Cold

You've also opened my eyes to something I didn't realise as well by pointing out that some physics applies in the lab, but not in the wider world.

Sorry - I forgot. Hot water gets as far north as Norway because it sails there in hermetically sealed ice cream tubs. How did I also forget about the massive white door that separates the Arctic from the rest of the world's oceans... just like the laboratory!

Added fresh water might help explain why Autumn is traditionally the fastest period for ice growth but does not explain the amount of ice and where that extra ice is. In Autumn 2006 the multi-year NH average was again reached after what many have called an exceptional summer for UK.

Maybe this is an "outlier" like this March?

My puny intellect is not getting your theory, anyway. If fresh water was as claimed the ice line would not have retreated. Let's say Arctic ice now forms at -1C (17ppt) instead of -2C (35ppt) due to the bigger summer melt. Ice now forms in temperatures +1C warmer. Atmospheric GW is 0.5C. Therefore...

I'm not getting it.

High SSTs may be the cause of Arctic ice drawback.

[pottyprof]

NOAA Chart from 14 October (previously linked)

A - Kara Sea, warm. This area is now covered in ice following cold conditions in October.

B - Norway/Finland/Russia Cold

C - Norway Cold

Sorry - I forgot. Hot water gets as far north as Norway because it sails there in hermetically sealed ice cream tubs. How did I also forget about the massive white door that separates the Arctic from the rest of the world's oceans... just like the laboratory!

Added fresh water might help explain why Autumn is traditionally the fastest period for ice growth but does not explain the amount of ice and where that extra ice is. In Autumn 2006 the multi-year NH average was again reached after what many have called an exceptional summer for UK.

Maybe this is an "outlier" like this March?

My puny intellect is not getting your theory, anyway. If fresh water was as claimed the ice line would not have retreated. Let's say Arctic ice now forms at -1C (17ppt) instead of -2C (35ppt) due to the bigger summer melt. Ice now forms in temperatures +1C warmer. Atmospheric GW is 0.5C. Therefore...

I'm not getting it.

High SSTs may be the cause of Arctic ice drawback.

Yes yes yes... the ice.. we can see.. its a big solid thing that sits at the top of the planet in winter and there IS more of it than this time last year to add ever so slightly to the earths wobble in a variety of different ways.................

so how exceptional is this year within the uk?? *coffs*

[summer blizzard]

http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?showtopic=33299

Could people post information about sea ice and sea surface temperatures into here please, as it does not really belong in this thread.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Sorry, for getting this thread off track. My intention was to put UK in a global context so that we have a better idea what "exceptional" means. I think that's done now.

[paul tall]

Does anybody know why Greenland is called Greenland?

Because when it was discovered by the Vikings over 1,000 years ago it was green and warm. Today, even in the warmest parts of Greenland in the height of summer you'll be lucky to see temperatures rise much above 15º, and that is with global warming.

We have only been measuring temperatures for 300 years but how do we know that when the CET series started that we weren't starting off at a cold point.

There is lot of evidence beyond 300 years that suggests the Earth lunges from warm to cold....."greenland", vines in Newfoundland in the 9th century etc etc. There is substantial evidence to suggest that there have been many times in history that were warmer than today.....before we started measuring temperatures.

Undisputably the climate is warming up (again) in the last 15 years or so, some of it may be man made, but it will also cool off again, I'm sure of it.

There are many scientists and Meteorolgists that dispute the whole GW thing and they have difficulty getting their work published, some have even recieved death threats. Global warming has become a religion that you are not allowed to question. Politicians are involved, agendas are involved, spin is involved.

In the 50's and 60's we were warned that another ice age was imminent, because those decades were showing cooling......the last 15 years have been warmer. Really, so what?

If we are another degree warmer in 15 years, and yet another degree warmer in 30 years, then we have a problem. Somehow I don't think this is going to transpire.

[pottyprof]

Does anybody know why Greenland is called Greenland?

Because when it was discovered by the Vikings over 1,000 years ago it was green and warm. Today, even in the warmest parts of Greenland in the height of summer you'll be lucky to see temperatures rise much above 15º, and that is with global warming.

We have only been measuring temperatures for 300 years but how do we know that when the CET series started that we weren't starting off at a cold point.

There is lot of evidence beyond 300 years that suggests the Earth lunges from warm to cold....."greenland", vines in Newfoundland in the 9th century etc etc. There is substantial evidence to suggest that there have been many times in history that were warmer than today.....before we started measuring temperatures.

Undisputably the climate is warming up (again) in the last 15 years or so, some of it may be man made, but it will also cool off again, I'm sure of it.

There are many scientists and Meteorolgists that dispute the whole GW thing and they have difficulty getting their work published, some have even recieved death threats. Global warming has become a religion that you are not allowed to question. Politicians are involved, agendas are involved, spin is involved.

In the 50's and 60's we were warned that another ice age was imminent, because those decades were showing cooling......the last 15 years have been warmer. Really, so what?

If we are another degree warmer in 15 years, and yet another degree warmer in 30 years, then we have a problem. Somehow I don't think this is going to transpire.

So Paul.. what you are saying then is this year in the UK is not exceptional in this cooler climate that we currently enjoy??

[osmposm]

Does anybody know why Greenland is called Greenland?

Because when it was discovered by the Vikings over 1,000 years ago it was green and warm.....

No, it wasn't really....but, Paul, I think this really belongs in one of the many threads in "Environment Change". There you will find extensive discussions on this and your other points, and links to - for example - http://illconsidered.blogspot.com where a number of your assertions are dealt with in some detail.

[paul tall]

No, it wasn't really....but, Paul, I think this really belongs in one of the many threads in "Environment Change". There you will find extensive discussions on this and your other points, and links to - for example - http://illconsidered.blogspot.com where a number of your assertions are dealt with in some detail.

Well thats what I was told off my history teacher at school. Why was it called Greenland then?

So Paul.. what you are saying then is this year in the UK is not exceptional in this cooler climate that we currently enjoy??

No I'm not saying that at all.

I agree that the weather, July especially is unprecedented in the 300 years worth of data that we have. I agree that the last 15 years or so have seen considerable warming to the mean, especially the 61-90 average, which is the Met Offices favourite comparison (funnily enough because it was a cold set of figures and backs their point the best).

But like I say, we don't really know whether this is natural or not, we don't know if man made just how man made it is.

[osmposm]

Well thats what I was told off my history teacher at school. Why was it called Greenland then?

Basically, a good sales pitch from the banished Eric the Red - 95% of Greenland is, and has been for 100K years, an icecap. The inhabitable coastal areas may - possibly - have been a trifle warmer than now, and since they hadn't been deforested they must have looked greenER in the 7 months of the year when they weren't covered in snow. And it's certainly true that the place had become even less green by the time it was abandoned in the 15th Century. For more, try the link I gave you; or if you don't want to have to look for it amongst the many subjects discussed, go straight to: http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/03/...o-be-green.html

[Stratos Ferric]

Well thats what I was told off my history teacher at school. Why was it called Greenland then?

Well done PP and others for managing the thread back on topic.

PT - the version I heard re naming was that there was actually some confusion between Iceland and Greenland, with each somehow getting the other's name. It sounds slightly implausible, but stranger things have happened.

Sorry, for getting this thread off track. My intention was to put UK in a global context so that we have a better idea what "exceptional" means. I think that's done now.

You may think it's "done", but so far as I recall you have never actually, amongst all the blather about ice and cold water and the location of Norway and remarkably unremarkable polar ice build-up, stated whether you agree with the original hypothesis.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

You may think it's "done", but so far as I recall you have never actually, amongst all the blather about ice and cold water and the location of Norway and remarkably unremarkable polar ice build-up, stated whether you agree with the original hypothesis.

Calling March an "outlier" - a March that really happened - is a strange way to build a hypothesis and then confine that hypothesis to UK.

*****************************

OFF TOPIC -

PT - the version I heard re naming was that there was actually some confusion between Iceland and Greenland, with each somehow getting the other's name. It sounds slightly implausible, but stranger things have happened.

Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland. It is unlikely therefore that there is any confusion of names.

Firstly, Greenland is just a part of a single region and as such can not be assumed to represent any kind of global climate shift.

- A Few Things Ill Considered

95% of Greenland is, and has been for 100K years, an icecap.

Did you make that figure up? The actual figure is 81%. Uncapped Greenland covers a land area larger than Germany. They didn't have planes to see the vast swathes of ice. The name "Greenland" may be both clever PR, honest mistake, and result of extra vegetation once there.

/OFF TOPIC

*****************************

[osmposm]

Did you make that figure up? The actual figure is 81%. Uncapped Greenland covers a land area larger than Germany. They didn't have planes to see the vast swathes of ice. The name "Greenland" may be both clever PR, honest mistake, and result of extra vegetation once there.

I'm sure you're right, AFT, I unwisely just quoted somebody else who seems to have......but I REALLY think we should try - all of us - to avoid these digressions, however entertaining. What about a sticky thread called "Off-topic bearpit" that contains nothing but tangential arguments from other threads?

[Stratos Ferric]

Calling March an "outlier" - a March that really happened - is a strange way to build a hypothesis and then confine that hypothesis to UK.

*****************************

...

AFF,

Just WHAT is your problem? I thought a stupid dog with a bone was hard work...That argument is a bit like saying to Chelsea "aah, but you didn't win the European Champions' League" when assessing how they performed in England last season. They didn't, but it's simply not pertinent to the frame of reference offered. I daresay you used to sit A levels and instead of answering the question posed answered the one you wanted to.

The title of the thread IS CLEAR, and the terms of the discussion are clear. March, as I have demonstrated several times over is THE exceptional month this year when each month is compared to antecedents, and in any case when the months are compared to each other: in that sense it is indisputably an outlier, unless you want to explain why it is not. No amount of cold water, be it off Iceland, Greenland or Finland is going to change that. There still isn't any cold water off Norway to add weight to that.

AND, by the way, you still haven't answered any of the challenges sent your way regarding your assertion that the rebound in ice is remarkable. Two of us have clearly demonstrated that in a summer that was broadly as warm as last year at the pole, the ice retreated no further than last year, and is currently - en masse - no further advanced than last year; you're redefining remarkable there. At least I was always clear about the sense in which I was calling this year remarkable IN THE UK.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

AFF,

Just WHAT is your problem? I thought a stupid dog with a bone was hard work...That argument is a bit like saying to Chelsea "aah, but you didn't win the European Champions' League" when assessing how they performed in England last season. They didn't, but it's simply not pertinent to the frame of reference offered. I daresay you used to sit A levels and instead of answering the question posed answered the one you wanted to.

My problem is how you swept March under a conceptual carpet - you want to call March's CET an "outlier" simply because it was very cold in what was later a hot year.

The question is, was it the summer warmth that was remarkable, or the fact that given this warmth winter managed to be comparatively cool.

... this hypothesis is so dense it warps space and time. March was exceptional and it did actually happen and when it happened the summer and autumn had yet to register CETs.

The title of the thread IS CLEAR, and the terms of the discussion are clear. March, as I have demonstrated several times over is THE exceptional month this year when each month is compared to antecedents, and in any case when the months are compared to each other: in that sense it is indisputably an outlier, unless you want to explain why it is not.

You try to make March's CET look like a strange data anomaly - inexplicable because it is far from the rest of the pack. March's is not inexplicable; it happened at the end of a more NAO -ve winter. The effect was that there was snow in April in South of England and spring was delayed in comparison to recent years. Very exceptional, yes, an outlier, no.

I'm sorry to say, it might be winter that's the anomaly in the christmas pudding.

- again, from your first post. Is this a claim about UK or the globe? I hope you don't write A-Level questions!

No amount of cold water, be it off Iceland, Greenland or Finland is going to change that. There still isn't any cold water off Norway to add weight to that.

There was in the NOAA charts I linked/pictured.

AND, by the way, you still haven't answered any of the challenges sent your way regarding your assertion that the rebound in ice is remarkable. Two of us have clearly demonstrated that in a summer that was broadly as warm as last year at the pole, the ice retreated no further than last year, and is currently - en masse - no further advanced than last year; you're redefining remarkable there. At least I was always clear about the sense in which I was calling this year remarkable IN THE UK.

It's remarkable given the hot summer and Autumn in the UK, and suggests if it is similar to last winter then last winter was not "an anomaly" - but of course I don't even get a half-mark, let alone a gold star, for saying this...

[Stratos Ferric]

My problem is how you swept March under a conceptual carpet - you want to call March's CET an "outlier" simply because it was very cold in what was later a hot year.

But March wasn't very cold. It was only about 1C below normal. Cool, or slightly cold, but not very cold.

...

this hypothesis is so dense it warps space and time. March was exceptional and it did actually happen and when it happened the summer and autumn had yet to register CETs.

You try to make March's CET look like a strange data anomaly - inexplicable because it is far from the rest of the pack. March's is not inexplicable; it happened at the end of a more NAO -ve winter. The effect was that there was snow in April in South of England and spring was delayed in comparison to recent years. Very exceptional, yes, an outlier, no.

March was NOT exceptional. I the all time ranking it was around 219th as I recall. I.e. in the middle third of all time, mid table, around average. Certainly NOT exceptional for its cold. I said it was an outlier, and explained precisely why based on relative ranking.

again, from your first post. Is this a claim about UK or the globe? I hope you don't write A-Level questions!

You have to admit you're now taking the mick. I think we have repeated several times that the entire thread is about the UK. I have enjoyed and been amused by your rather loose approach to global geography - but as my first degree is in precisely this subject excuse me if I guard the faith a little; wen I last looked the UK was not a polar landmass, nor is it anywhere near any substantial ice pack, nor has it been for a long time.

There was in the NOAA charts I linked/pictured.

Though there was an awful lot more warm water much nearer.

It's remarkable given the hot summer and Autumn in the UK, and suggests if it is similar to last winter then last winter was not "an anomaly" - but of course I don't even get a half-mark, let alone a gold star, for saying this...

But it isn't remarkable. The charts suggest it is all normal. Had there been a huge meltdown at the pole this summer fair enough, but so far as I recall it was as warm up there as it has been in recent years. Do you have any data to suggest that the pole experienced the excessive warmth that the UK did, other than what I am having to take as your own presumption at present? And in any case, did this cause the ice to retreat to a lower extent than normal. It's "no", "no" and "no" however you cut it.

....

Yes March did happen, but to suggest, as you seem to be doing, that we can only assess a moment in the context of what preceded it, and not what followed, is quite simply stupid. Does that apply to, say, drugs tests? Does it apply to asessing the accuracy of a weather forecast? Asessment of any event needs to be made based on both precedents and antecedents. Yes, March came at the end of a cold spell, BUT - and you obviously aren't looking at ANY of the data I've posted - and you're certainly not providing any FACTS of your own - March was the coldest month this year in relative terms. You seem to be arguing that overall March was normal, and that at least five of the other months in the year are outliers (actually, you're both arguing normal and exceptional at the same time, which is not unusual so far - quite how you arrive at this I do not know: it was slightly cooler than average - in the middle third; in a year that has registered two hottest ever months, and one third hottest, I am at a loss to understand how even a village idiot could arrive at this conclusion). Against a frame of reference drawn up in the 1960s this might hold water, but in the christmas pudding it does not. I cannot see what point you're making - or trying feebly to make - about "warping space and time".

Analysis of the RANK of each month shows that nowadays the majority of months are in the warm half. Statistically, if we weren't warming, this sequence would be so unlikely as to be impossible. Clearly we are warming, and as we do so months as relatively cold as March will become increasingly infrequent. Hence my final musings. You don't have to agree, but you aren't putting up any compelling argument to the contrary I'm afraid other than a sense of not wanting to accept or believe in the likely consequences IF the current warming continues.

You keep coming back to the UK and ice at the pole. The last time I checked we were, as I suggested previously, well over 1000 nm from any ice. AND you're still not explaining just what is remarkable about the change in sea ice this year which appears to me to be normal. Are you perhaps assuming that the pole this year was much warmer than last year? Do you have any facts? So far you are a factual equivalent of the Gobi Desert - rather cold and barren.

All you are doing is repeating the same old mantra, you're not actually progressing the argument or discussion here. You're not responding to the challenges presented other than in rhetorical and opinionated fashion. I'm all for argument and debate, but we'll make better progress if you can actually provide rational argument for your position, data and / or other evidence.

FOOTNOTE:

Actually, stupid of me, I've just noticed the piccies on your avatar and signature. Now I understand. It's not that you can't understand, it's that you don't want.