The Met Office Explains How Climate Change Will Affect Our Gardens

[Solar Cycles]

Is it saying those high or 'Extreme' temps will occur alot more often? Actually that would make more sense, if they were averages then there would be some serious problems.

I'll like to take a wager that they don't happen more often!

[Interitus]

The Met are not being AGW alarmists, they merely reflect the overwhelming consensus of opinion within the climatology science community.

It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

With specific regards to gardens and plants grown, the speculated rise in temperatures are not going to be a major problem in most cases judging by areas which have such temperature ranges now.

There may be a few species which don't perform as well without their required winter chilling periods but this would be more than outnumbered by the number of 'new' species that would grow reliably, as opposed to just about surviving possibly with protection (I've grown so called exotic plants for a few years so have a little insight here).

However, the biggest question as I see it is not the temperatures but the water. The temperatures will not be a problem if irrigation is available, but with drier summers coupled with our forecast population explosion means that the gardens probably won't get a look in.

[Methuselah]

In 1973, I thought I'd bung a poinsettia in my garden in Milton Keynes; I was amazed when, not only did it survive, it produced lovely red leaves (bracts?) the following summer. Now though, I could probably do the same thing here! :o

[❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️]

I'm gonna get some air conditioning and charge the camera up for the 2050 heat and thunderstorms. 'Citing.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

I agree, John. I sometimes wonder if I'm watching the same clips as some of the other members. Why can we not just report things as they are, without all the pro-this or anti-that rhetorical drivel?

On the whole, John, I thought Peter Gibb's piece was quite fair and well presented. Like all of us however, he probably won't be 100% correct...

Well despite what John might think I have watched and digested it. My comment remains the same.

I must admit I'd like to go and have a go at the 2050 forecast....peter gibbs won't like it when I talk of temps in summer averaging more in hig teens with winter temps regularly well below zero

BFTP

[Methuselah]

Well despite what John might think I have watched and digested it. My comment remains the same.

I must admit I'd like to go and have a go at the 2050 forecast....peter gibbs won't like it when I talk of temps in summer averaging more in hig teens with winter temps regularly well below zero

BFTP

I'll be 93 by then!

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

I'll be 93 by then!

I won't be far behind!!!

BFTP

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

The Met are not being AGW alarmists, they merely reflect the overwhelming consensus of opinion within the climatology science community.

It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

With specific regards to gardens and plants grown, the speculated rise in temperatures are not going to be a major problem in most cases judging by areas which have such temperature ranges now.

There may be a few species which don't perform as well without their required winter chilling periods but this would be more than outnumbered by the number of 'new' species that would grow reliably, as opposed to just about surviving possibly with protection (I've grown so called exotic plants for a few years so have a little insight here).

However, the biggest question as I see it is not the temperatures but the water. The temperatures will not be a problem if irrigation is available, but with drier summers coupled with our forecast population explosion means that the gardens probably won't get a look in.

Nope - they reflect a body of opinion that is presenting a hypothesis as a fact.

The entire subject of this thread is entirely hypothetical indeed. There are a range of other solutions beyond the AGW remit of the METO and IPCC etc that suggest a range of OTHER solutions which do not follow the same direction.

Why not have a hypothetical debate about planning what to do with our gardens etc in decades to come about those as well??

[laserguy]

I'll be 93 by then!

I'll be worm food - and missing out on all that horrible AGW. Shucks.

[Interitus]

Nope - they reflect a body of opinion that is presenting a hypothesis as a fact.

The entire subject of this thread is entirely hypothetical indeed. There are a range of other solutions beyond the AGW remit of the METO and IPCC etc that suggest a range of OTHER solutions which do not follow the same direction.

Why not have a hypothetical debate about planning what to do with our gardens etc in decades to come about those as well??

I provide evidence from a scientific journal which you refute with gut feeling and inference. Of course it is hypothetical but amongst those researching the subject it represents at present an educated best guess.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

I provide evidence from a scientific journal which you refute with gut feeling and inference. Of course it is hypothetical but amongst those researching the subject it represents at present an educated best guess.

No...an educated guess...not BEST.

BFTP

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

I provide evidence from a scientific journal which you refute with gut feeling and inference. Of course it is hypothetical but amongst those researching the subject it represents at present an educated best guess.

Er - if it is hypothetical, as you admit - then how can I be just basing what I say on gut feeling when all I have done is make a truthful observation??

In terms of the science I believe I will make any refutation I wish - if it is ok with you?

[osmposm]

.....When it comes to gardening and how plants will cope, well, there's soooo much hoohaa around, it's getting beyond belief.

Firstly this Mediterranean thing, it's a bit of a misnomer to begin with; Lavender and Rosemary for example, what many would consider archetypal cottage garden plants - they're not native, they're Mediterranean. We've been growing them for years and years, long before climate change became an issue. Sometimes they die, when they do it's invariably due to winter water logging of the soil; it's not how much rain we get, it's whether or not it can drain away, Mediterranean soils are stonier and thus more free draining than our loam or clay based ones.

Tender plants surviving our winters....some like Osteospurnums do over-winter quite successfully, they're classified as tender, not frost hardy. This classification has less to do with fact and more to do with assumption, they were introduced from South Africa and it was assumed they would be tender - when you're advising large commercial nurseries with oodles of money invested in growing the things, you err on the side of caution. It turns out they're not as tender as once thought, is this because we've warmed? No, it's because they were wrongly classified in the first place.

Other tender bedding plants, say Busy Lizzies for example, can we expect them to over-winter? No, not now, not in 2050 either. That's not because I have a crystal ball and can categorically say what the climate will be, it's because due to our position in the world, we cannot guarantee a totally frost free existence. Less frosts, perhaps, warmer winters, perhaps but not frost free. It matters not a jot whether we only get one sharp frost in a winter, they will still turn to mush over night. Put two cucumbers in the freezer, one over night and the other for a fortnight, they'll be equally mushy.

For all those who are concerned about gardens of the future and how their prized plants will cope, I'd offer one thought for consideration. Very, very few of the plants we consider to be English garden plants actually originate from these shores. Tulips -Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan. Roses - Asia, Europe, North America and Northwest Africa. Magnolias - China and Japan Horse Chestnuts, the good old conker tree - Eastern Europe. The list goes on and on, Mr. Tredescant was a very busy man, his passion for importing from around the world was followed by many.

If plants are so susceptible to changes in environment and climate as the recent publicity would have us all believe, then our gardens would bear no resemblance to what we consider a typical English garden should look like.

Sermon over, yours truly, frustrated professional gardener of long standing.

A lot of sense there, Jethro.

I take slight issue with your history of Osteospermums (I think you mean them), though. Some species are much hardier than others, with further variations in hardiness amongst different cultivars - some probably hybrids - of the various species. As far as I know there's been no wholesale re-assessment of the genera's hardiness - it's just that the big trade nurseries now only bother with the newer, hardier varieties. Things are further complicated since they have only been called 'Osteospermum' in the last twenty years or so - before that they were part of a bigger genus called 'Dimorphotheca' that is now reserved for the annual forms which are indeed half-hardy at best. I have some older (70s-80s) gardening books where they are still under the old name, and even then the different forms were given varying assessments of hardiness. So lots of room for confusion about what might survive an English winter, coupled with the immense variability of what an English winter is. 'Twas ever thus, of course (though hard cold is rarer and shorter-lived these days) - I have a book that describes in some detail the mature, hardy plants the author lost in 1981-2, and Gilbert White recorded similar losses of old, very tough shrubs and trees one winter of the 1770s or 80s. I'll be surprised if that happens again in my lifetime, but there will always be years when you lose things and years when you don't - and as you say soil drainage is at least as important as temperature.

But the central point is absolutely right, and previous talk of a 'Mediterranean' climate for the UK was premature, to say the least - and most probably balderdash. Actually, I believe the "assumed tenderness" story is absolutely true of another plant - the Camellia, which in the 18th Century was grown only in heated greenhouses, so exotic was it thought........until one day, the story goes, a storm destroyed someone's conservatory, and their precious collection unexpectedly flourished.

As to the video, I'm afraid that I completely agree with the complaints that a 'typical' summer day's forecast today was unreasonably (and unclearly) contrasted with an unusually warm summer's day forecast for 2050 - with a similarly strange comparison between a 'typical' winter night now....and, as JO7 says, um...what exactly? It was neither, as far as I can tell, the predicted norm for a 2050 winter night, nor an unusually mild one either. The Met office page John linked us to suggests increases in the range of 2 - 3 degrees, summer and winter, for the average hottest/coldest temps. Peter Gibbs' video 'forecast' clearly implied (for an average viewer) a far bigger jump - though oddly he also said the average temp increase expected by then was just one and a half degrees "or so". I am very, very disappointed that they came up with the video in that form - it was at best confusing, and at worst deliberately tweaking things to make a point. Sorry, MetOffice, that was an own goal for me - the sort of thing that leaves me wondering if those who complain about unreasonable bias haven't a point. B)

Edited July 18, 2009 by osmposm

[Thundery wintry showers]

Having watched the presentation in full, I thought it was excellent until he got into the "2050 scenarios", and then quickly went pear shaped, for the reasons given in Osmposm's last paragraph.

I also didn't like the "FACT- Humans are causing it". My stance on it falls somewhere between those Interitus and North Sea Snow Convection. It is only hypothetical, but we can talk in terms of probabilities, and the probability is that humans are having at least some impact on the climate and that the most obvious one is a warming one. It is like the idea that if I run out into the road repeatedly without checking for cars I will be hit and seriously injured- it's a hypothesis, but the probabilities are such that to call such actions "foolish" would be a gross understatement. But the "humans are causing it" is still well short of the "fact" category as of 2009.

There is a strong consensus view on climate change among climate scientists, that's for certain. But often when you have consensus, you tend to get peer pressure to follow the consensus, and thus dissenting voices tend to get sucked in over time. I think a lot of scientists are more sceptical than they make themselves out to be- for example take Mike Hulme's piece after he finished his post at UEA.

Overall a disappointment, they would IMHO have been far better off presenting the "low", "medium" and "high" scenarios in brief and giving general comments on how those would affect our gardens.

[Interitus]

Er - if it is hypothetical, as you admit - then how can I be just basing what I say on gut feeling when all I have done is make a truthful observation??

In terms of the science I believe I will make any refutation I wish - if it is ok with you?

It's hypothetical in as much as that it cannot be proven but can be disproven - which of course it hasn't.

It is your perception that "they [Meto] represent a body of opinion that is presenting a hypothesis as a fact"

The Met are however in line with the vast majority of climate scientists, as substantiated by TWS (albeit with qualification).

In terms of science - provide evidence that any credible climatology scientist claims that the theory and predictions equate to facts and I will concede you have a point, else my assertion would appear to be the more accurate depiction.

Any so called "body of opinion that is presenting a hypothesis as a fact" may be an artifact of media presentation, GW scaremongerers, public understanding, or just perception but it is not representative of the scientific community.

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

It's hypothetical in as much as that it cannot be proven but can be disproven - which of course it hasn't.

It is your perception that "they [Meto] represent a body of opinion that is presenting a hypothesis as a fact"

The Met are however in line with the vast majority of climate scientists, as substantiated by TWS (albeit with qualification).

In terms of science - provide evidence that any credible climatology scientist claims that the theory and predictions equate to facts and I will concede you have a point, else my assertion would appear to be the more accurate depiction.

Any so called "body of opinion that is presenting a hypothesis as a fact" may be an artifact of media presentation, GW scaremongerers, public understanding, or just perception but it is not representative of the scientific community.

Which scientists does one find credible and which doos one not? The Met Office like the IPCC etc are not bullet proof, such as you might imply. Just because they have a current consensus doesn't automatically mean they are right. And when they try and portray science which is incomplete and hypothetical, based on uncertain feedbacks, then that is plenty for someone like me, if I so choose, to be sceptical of in terms of their assumed outcomes. By dint of being uncertain - then that doesn't preclude other outcomes outside of AGW. You are incorrect in suggesting that impressions of hypothesis passing as fact is simply a protest from the average jo-public or any other average 'also ran', sections of the media who are sceptical of AGW.

It is actually the case, that there is disingenuity in the way that the whole science is being presented - AGW bias, half truths and all. There are feedbacks in the science that are very uncertain and punched with holes in the whole process - until these are much better resolved and better researched to encompas ALL potential feedbacks then nothing can be passed of as 'fact'. It remains hypothesis or at best theory. I need, at present, no further 'evidence' than that. Try reading the other threads on here and you get a sample of which feedbacks these are - and they are not all anthropromorphic in nature by any means.And theone's that are presented as anthropromorphic have plenty of snags attached.

I don't frankly give a jot about assumed law of probablities and a supposed mass movement regarding AGW - I could equally suggest that is an artifact that simply represents your own and others beliefs in AGW Although you are of course entitled to those beliefs.

Given time, more research will unfold (hopefully), and with potential negative solar feedbacks in the offing - which are currently being treated with too much a liberal sprinkling of salt and complacency by organisations like the IPCC and METO then there is plenty of time for the script to change and the assumed weight of scientific opinion that you assuage to, to shift.

Ever heard about tortoises that win races? Climate change is a long term phenomenon. IPCC has made model projections that run to eighty years or more, based on incomplete science. On that basis, any assumed scientific consensus (which is debateable anyway) has plenty of time to change. Although a wider and less narrowly focussed remit within the research budget is badly needed. As I said in the genral discussion thread yesterday, lets leave ourselves enough time to deal with the unforseen and not narrowly focus on the apparently forseeable (AGW) which is far from as set in stone as you might wish to believe. Irrespective of apparent 'consensus'

Basically 'so what?' is my reply.

[Methuselah]

Very interesting post, T. What do you mean by 'negative solar feedbacks' - should they materialize?

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

I think I covered all that quite exhaustedly yesterday a few times in the other thread. No need to elaborate/repeat further. What what I have said here is just the same as I have said umpteen times.

So nothing new at all really - it all tends to go round and round in circles.

Tamara