February CET

[reef]

Errrrm, unless you think that language never signifies that which it denotes this comes as close as you'll get ...

To be fair to SF though, in that paragraph he doesnt specifically say a sub-3C month is impossible, but rather its extremely unlikely to happen. He's also spot on the money when talking about how cold isnt as prolonged and potent as it used to be.

This takes us into climate change issues. I'm increasingly satisfied that this is no blip. That the CET shows a cooling trend, that the last 10 months have shown this to be accelerating, and that this winter is part of a trend, not a blip, seems to me to be becoming more and more evidential. The most one can say is that it's a trend which will iron itself out in time, but to dismiss it as a mere blip in the light of preceding evidence seems to me to border on the disengenuous. Incidentally, this winter synoptically connects to the preceding summer in terms of the jetstream pattern: in both cases the polar jet has been much further south than that to which we have been accustomed in the past 15 years. I would be fascinated to hear SF's comments on that point, because I can recall agreeing with him some winters back that this was one of the key factors to screw up cold winter prospects for the UK during those long mild years.

Tonight's model outputs suggest to me that sub-3C is very much 'on'

There were similar mutterings at the end of April 2006 when the 12 month running mean hit 10.03C. It was the lowest it had been since 2001 and some people were certain it heralded a new trend. What actually happened though, was we quickly shot up to the highest value ever, peaking at 11.63C exactly a year later.

In reality, you could only so far really call the current downward trend a mere correction to the excessive warmth that occured a year or so before. Bare in mind we only passed the low point reached in April 2006 at the end of December 2008:

The graph there includes January at 3.2C (estimated). As you can see, while we're lower than any point after March 1997, all it shows at the moment is that we're still half a degree or so milder than then, as like now, there was a sharp rise followed by an equally sharp drop. For a notable drop suggesting a cooldown, we need to be looking at a trough as least as deep as the 1997, followed by any further high points being less than perhaps 10.50C. The main reason for this is that even in a static climate, you'll always get large variations either side of the mean.

So at present, it merely is a blip. It would have to continue for a long time before we can even suggest it might be cooling or indeed, even remaining static.

[acbrixton]

Very interesting post back Andrew.

Just to check on your figure there: 1995/6 winter is 'beaten' by a 2.2C month this month. 1985/6 is 'beaten' by 1.8C.

I'm not sure 1985/6 is a worthwhile comparison in a way because it was really comprised of one cold spell from mid Jan to end of Feb. The -1.1C Feb figure is freakishly cold but bone dry, and such a big contrast with that December at a whopping 6.3C.

At the end of the day though, beating a winter is slightly arbitrary in some ways. I'm more interested to see if this sub 3C February can be done away with once and for all.

Richard thanks and apologies re the correction to my arithmetic!

So we may 'beat' not just one but two of the 'benchmarks' of the 'even larger teapot' [i.e. a sub 3c month and 1995/6]. I agree with what you say about 1985/6; Charlotte's post pointing out that we may record all 3 months below the 1961-1990 mean interested me and indicates a consistently cold winter.

regards

A

[Snowly does it]

Richard thanks and apologies re the correction to my arithmetic!

So we may 'beat' not just one but two of the 'benchmarks' of the 'even larger teapot' [i.e. a sub 3c month and 1995/6]. I agree with what you say about 1985/6; Charlotte's post pointing out that we may record all 3 months below the 1961-1990 mean interested me and indicates a consistently cold winter.

regards

A

in addition, and to add weight to the 'consistent cold' argument, if we do get under the 61-90 for February, it will be the first time since 1978-79 that all 3 winter months have been below 4 degrees - didn't happen at any stage in the 80s (mainly due to relatively mild Decembers) or 90s or of course this century thus far.

It happened 3 times in the 60s as well, but it is relatively rare

[Stratos Ferric]

...This takes us into climate change issues. I'm increasingly satisfied that this is no blip. That the CET shows a cooling trend, that the last 10 months have shown this to be accelerating, and that this winter is part of a trend, not a blip, seems to me to be becoming more and more evidential. The most one can say is that it's a trend which will iron itself out in time, but to dismiss it as a mere blip in the light of preceding evidence seems to me to border on the disengenuous. Incidentally, this winter synoptically connects to the preceding summer in terms of the jetstream pattern: in both cases the polar jet has been much further south than that to which we have been accustomed in the past 15 years. I would be fascinated to hear SF's comments on that point, because I can recall agreeing with him some winters back that this was one of the key factors to screw up cold winter prospects for the UK during those long mild years.

Tonight's model outputs suggest to me that sub-3C is very much 'on'

WiB, sub 3C this month looking all but a cert now. Mathematically we could easily still breach 3C, but it's certainly going to take a major synoptic shift now for that to happen.

Is this month / winter a one-off, or the start of a cooling trend? Too soon to tell, though all of Reef's points are well made, and I may have to dust off the analysis started a year or so ago when Noggin / Jethro started to moot global cooling. I've certainly been very surprised by the persistence of the cold this winter, though with one caveat that I think nobody noticed, at least not that I've seen.

This being a Hale winter we might reasonably have expected cold. I was going to respond later in the "how does this winter stack" thread, but I'll post this here now.

Hale_winters.ppt

So, by any standards this winter is cold, though far from exceptionally. By recent standards it IS exceptional. I guess one could choose to take this one of two ways. It certainly breaches a floor that I had suspected had probably passed us by, but does it represent that such events are now as commonplace as once they were, or is it an outlier? Only time will tell, though I would remain very surprised indeed if we were to see anything even as remotely cold as this next year.

Any treatise that talks about warming is never going to be welcome here on N-W, particularly with the cold fans; and alas, it would seem, any treatise from me whatsoever is unwelcome in the eyes of a few. There are one or two on here who might do well, in my considered opinion, to mug up on words mistakenly attributed to Voltaire.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

[Roger J Smith]

Would I be further ahead or behind if I changed my guess to -1 today?

Just kidding, but that's about what I would expect from the turn in the models recently. It seems that the Atlantic is trying to wake up but is pressing the snooze button each time.

Wouldn't it be a riot if the month was colder than 1947? I suppose if it had more clear skies, it could be, because 1947 was cloudy with snow almost all the time from what I've read about it. And other Febs that tried to go sub-zero ran into that same issue. This time, you could imagine snow cover AND clear skies on frequent occasions.

I think my 4.9 C might verify in a rowboat off Valentia maybe on its way to the K2 buoy.

[kold weather]

Indeed given the synoptics and pressure expected to remain higher over the pole region, in truth with this being the case we should keep quite low temps at least till the 16-18th of Feb and then we are down to the last 10 days, which would need a decent correction even to get above 3C.

[West is Best]

What an excellent post Stratos. Your open-mindedness to the possibility that this might be an indication of something more serious is heartening. I took a look at the longer term graphs the other day and was surprised at how big a dip this now looks. Indeed, were it not for the GW argument, one could argue that the period of the 1990's was the blip - the outlier. Too early to tell though. It's too big an outlier to be a blip ( pace Reef) unless one has the belief that there is a different driver which will send it upwards (i.e. GW). What I'd suggest is that to describe it as a 'blip' now requires something more than the mere statistics show i.e. it requires an extranaeous belief system in place with which to read the current graphs, something that means one is doing so in other than an objective fashion.

Interesting times.

Edited February 10, 2009 by West is Best

[VillagePlank]

I've got to say guys that this one has got me betwixt and between ....

Firstly, it's "only" the CET; that it might be affected one way or the other by GW seems to me, to be neither here nor there. Surely GW is a measure of the average of everywhere and not some arbitrary region of England? It is conceivable that England might be in a area that might be expected to cool, it might be expected to warm, or, indeed, it might be expected to fluctuate wildly increasing both the floors and ceilings of temperature bounds. Who's to know, really?

Secondly, as some of you may know, I am rather a "believer" in hysteresis (see Leaky Integrator thread) so a cool spell, perhaps lasting for up to another 5 years or so is expected, as an arbitrary lag in heat transport latency runs out after the excessive warming of the 1990's. I must, of course, be up front and honest, in that, as far as I know, hysteresis, whilst a recognised phenomena in climatology, has virtually no support from anybody else as a modelling technique.

As WiB says, and, surely, SF intimates; very interesting times ahead, indeed

Edited February 10, 2009 by VillagePlank

[gmoran]

To be fair to SF though, in that paragraph he doesnt specifically say a sub-3C month is impossible, but rather its extremely unlikely to happen. He's also spot on the money when talking about how cold isnt as prolonged and potent as it used to be.

There were similar mutterings at the end of April 2006 when the 12 month running mean hit 10.03C. It was the lowest it had been since 2001 and some people were certain it heralded a new trend. What actually happened though, was we quickly shot up to the highest value ever, peaking at 11.63C exactly a year later.

In reality, you could only so far really call the current downward trend a mere correction to the excessive warmth that occured a year or so before. Bare in mind we only passed the low point reached in April 2006 at the end of December 2008:

The graph there includes January at 3.2C (estimated). As you can see, while we're lower than any point after March 1997, all it shows at the moment is that we're still half a degree or so milder than then, as like now, there was a sharp rise followed by an equally sharp drop. For a notable drop suggesting a cooldown, we need to be looking at a trough as least as deep as the 1997, followed by any further high points being less than perhaps 10.50C. The main reason for this is that even in a static climate, you'll always get large variations either side of the mean.

So at present, it merely is a blip. It would have to continue for a long time before we can even suggest it might be cooling or indeed, even remaining static.

The graph is very interesting: the trend looks slight, and given the large amount of variability I'd guess not particularly significant. What is the trend, what's the standard deviation, and do any of the data points breach the 95% confidence intervals? It is obvious that British weather patterns have changed significantly since the 1960s, but annual mean averages and rolling 12 month averages will probably hide some of the information.

[gmoran]

Firstly, it's "only" the CET; that it might be affected one way or the other by GW seems to me, to be neither here nor there. Surely GW is a measure of the average of everywhere and not some arbitrary region of England? It is conceivable that England might be in a area that might be expected to cool, it might be expected to warm, or, indeed, it might be expected to fluctuate wildly increasing both the floors and ceilings of temperature bounds. Who's to know, really?

In my reply to Reef I mentioned that averages hide details. What you are posting here is somewhat related: what should we expect the CET to do under GW; what is the significance of global mean averages? I understand that one of the areas climate modelers are keen to improve is the regional performance of GCM's! How meaningful are GCM projections of GMST, if regional projections are known to be weaker?

At any rate, the point raised is a good one, CET can go up or down, and have no significance to GW whatsoever; the UK must be a poor marker for GW being an island in the north east of the Atlantic ocean.

[noggin]

Is this month / winter a one-off, or the start of a cooling trend? Too soon to tell, though all of Reef's points are well made, and I may have to dust off the analysis started a year or so ago when Noggin / Jethro started to moot global cooling. I've certainly been very surprised by the persistence of the cold this winter, though with one caveat that I think nobody noticed, at least not that I've seen.

Hi, Stratos, would you like to visit the climate change area and see post number 729 (link below), which links to an article published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics? The article is entitled "Forecasting the parameters of sunspot cycle 24 and beyond." It is by C de Jager and S Duhau. It is, of course, way over my head, except for the conclusion, which I understand! Cold is a-coming. Do have a read if you get the chance.....I am pleased to be able to link to an article published in a scientific journal!

http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?s...4&start=714

[Weather-history]

All 3 winter months are going to have well below average 1st-10th periods

Dec: 1st - 10th 1.8 -3.7

Jan: 1st - 10th -0.7 -4.9

Feb: 1st - 9th 0.6 -3.4

If you combine these periods together

That 29 day period CET : 0.6 -4.0

So at least a third of winter 2008-09 has been very cold.

[Stu_London]

Hadley up to 0.5C to the 9th

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html

Unusually running slightly below the Manley figure (0.6C) at the same point.

Using the GFS 06z output I would anticipate a figure of about 1.2C by the 17th, which is the end of the high resolution output - into FI and a figure of 1.5C by the 25th would be achieved if that data proved correct.

Nothing can be certain only a third of the way into the month, however the chances of not being below average (both 61-90 and 71-00) look pretty remote right now.

Sub 3C looks more likely than not

Sub 2C - I still favour something slightly above this mark

Coldest winter - since the 85-86 (2.2C or below) - a reasonable chance.

Predictions can go badly wrong at this stage, but if I had to pick a half degree range it would be 1.9C-2.4C

Edited February 10, 2009 by Stu_London

[asdasd]

the UK must be a poor marker for GW being an island in the north east of the Atlantic ocean.

Probably. On the other hand a warming of 0.5 C should manifest itself globally to the extent that is the average UK temp should be now 10C not 9.5C, as it was during1960-1990 . In these cases an actual CET of 9.2 would be a definite outlier. Quite a few standard deviations below average - the same likelihood as a 8.7 between 1960-1990.

most of the warming last year was in Jan and Feb, May was another outlier - the three of them making up most of the 0.5 per month anomaly on average.

Since Jan and Feb are already cold, a hot summer would be needed to compensate this year. That said we often seem to have hot summers after cold winters ( I say, anecdotally). I understand there were certain weather patterns this year, but so too are there weather patterns last year ( the damned Atlantic). Is that predicted in GW, that the Atlantic takes over in Winter, in general, but not always?

Edited February 10, 2009 by asdasd

[Duncan McAlister]

Probably. On the other hand a warming of 0.5 C should manifest itself globally to the extent that is the average UK temp should be now 10C not 9.5C, as it was during1960-1990 . In these cases an actual CET of 9.2 would be a definite outlier. Quite a few standard deviations below average - the same likelihood as a 8.7 between 1960-1990.

most of the warming last year was in Jan and Feb, May was another outlier - the three of them making up most of the 0.5 per month anomaly on average.

Since Jan and Feb are already cold, a hot summer would be needed to compensate this year. That said we often seem to have hot summers after cold winters ( I say, anecdotally). I understand there were certain weather patterns this year, but so too are there weather patterns last year ( the damned Atlantic). Is that predicted in GW, that the Atlantic takes over in Winter, in general, but not always?

A cold winter and hot summer sounds tempting but the difference will probably be made up by a mild autumn with 15C nights in October and other such rubbish

[Weather-history]

That said we often seem to have hot summers after cold winters ( I say, anecdotally).

The evidence doesn't support the notion at least not with winters that are sub 2C for the CET

[kold weather]

Models suggesting a slow but steady moderation of temps from the 15-17th onwards though much depends on where any high pressure cell ends up, if we can get it over the UK or close then we may be able to keep lower temps but we will have to see.

[Duncan McAlister]

From one extreme to the other - after a few days of showing sub-1C possibilities, the GFS 12z now looking like an above-3C month is back on the cards, maybe the UKMO too if it continued to FI The ECM would probably keep things below that because of the HP.

[West is Best]

From one extreme to the other - after a few days of showing sub-1C possibilities, the GFS 12z now looking like an above-3C month is back on the cards, maybe the UKMO too if it continued to FI :o The ECM would probably keep things below that because of the HP.

Not so fast tiger. The GFS operational was a massive mild outlier.

ECM is quite exceptional.

Edited February 10, 2009 by West is Best

[Snowly does it]

The 12z GFS, whilst a big mild outlier would return us at about 3.6 or 3.7 by the 26th - round about the 61-90 average.

A few frosty nights after the 14th should see us comfortably under that figure unless a persistent SW pattern can make itself felt.

It should be 2.5 to 3 from here at a guess and potentially on the downside of that if the pattern I expect emerges

[Kentish Man]

Latest update from Climate UK.

CET: (Feb 1-10): 0.7°C (-3.3 degC)

E&W Rain: (Feb 1-10): 44.0mm (187 per cent)

E&W Sun: (Feb 1-10): 21.9hr ( 92 per cent)

© Philip Eden

The main change is a big increase in rainfall totals following Mondays deluge.

[Roger J Smith]

The GEM is even colder than the ECM ... which is not encouraging for it to be cold, if you follow my drift.

Personally, I could live with a torch for two weeks, and I'll bet 99% of your neighbours could too.

[Stu_London]

Big jump on Hadley to 0.8C, although in line with what I expected.

Much milder signals on the models now must make sub 2C remote and sub 3C may even be odds against.

[Crazy Weather Guy]

I've always wondered why people are so keen to keep average monthly temps down (as now). It seems that they'd prefer cold (but snowless) weather to mild weather, mainly because it reduces the CET figure. But why?

One theory I have is that everyone knows (whether they want to admit it or now) that modern winters are becoming much milder (overall). People therefore hold onto the hope that present and future temps will fall, thus justifying either their skepticism in their minds (if they are GW skeptics, which seems quite common) or being a sign of a short-term cyclical change in UK weather patterns.

Personally, I can see our climate/winters warming regardless. Of course, there will always be room for anomalies (like this year). I personally wouldn't mind a return to mild.

[Roger J Smith]

Then you want the gardening forum, this is a cold lovers' forum, no doubt about it. Snow, even better.

I'm surprised I'm about the only one here who emigrated to Canada, it's the easiest cure for this unfulfilled desire, move to Barrie, Ontario, and you'll see all the cold and snow you could ever imagine in one winter, then get the hell out of there.