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Britain Faces A Mini Ice Age


stewfox

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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft

In the news again today (front page) of the Dailiy Express and mention on BBC News so 70% certain although not seen it in the Dailiy Mail so can't be 100% certain.

It keeps coming can't be smoke without fire ??

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/276516

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Posted
  • Location: Hobart, Tasmania
  • Location: Hobart, Tasmania

I am really fascinated by this ice age obsession, based on assumptions that what happened over 2 consecutive winters is somehow indicative of set long term trend.

The media will beat up these stories for all they are worth. They get people talking and they boost circulation figures.

It is also good publicity for the likes of Exacta weather and James Madden.

If it does'nt come true, there is no follow up explanation, the story fades away, such is the populations short attention span and fix for sensationalism.

And front page too...cor blimey! That is weird.

We get the same BS in our media too, usually sourced from dodgy private sector organisations looking to plug their services.

Edited by Styx
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Posted
  • Location: Twyford, Berkshire (5 miles east of Reading)
  • Weather Preferences: Hot and Sunny or Cold and snowy
  • Location: Twyford, Berkshire (5 miles east of Reading)

Happens EVERY year! same stories every April as well about how crazy hot it's going to be every summer.

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Posted
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Anything but mild south-westeries in winter
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl

Will be interesting to see what the Met Office have to say about this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15199065

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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft

I am really fascinated by this ice age obsession, based on assumptions that what happened over 2 consecutive winters is somehow indicative of set long term trend.

The media will beat up these stories for all they are worth. They get people talking and they boost circulation figures.

It is also good publicity for the likes of Exacta weather and James Madden.

If it does'nt come true, there is no follow up explanation, the story fades away, such is the populations short attention span and fix for sensationalism.

And front page too...cor blimey! That is weird.

We get the same BS in our media too, usually sourced from dodgy private sector organisations looking to plug their services.

The BBC discussing know doubt as they are talking about cold weather payments etc and energy companies etc

The background is here

http://ktwop.wordpress.com/

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Posted
  • Location: HANDSWORTH BIRMINGHAM B21. 130MASL. 427FT.
  • Weather Preferences: WINTERS WITH HEAVY DISRUPTIVE SNOWFALL AVRAGE SPRING HOT SUMMERS.
  • Location: HANDSWORTH BIRMINGHAM B21. 130MASL. 427FT.

Well guys i'm not a weather exbirt infact i'm learning alot from u guys as i've always been intrested in the weather. How ever there's got to be something there for the papers even the met office r hinting about this ice age and harsh winters. As the saying goes there's no smoke with out fire.

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Posted
  • Location: Isle of Lewis
  • Weather Preferences: Sun in summer, snow in winter, wind in Autumn and rainbows in the spring!
  • Location: Isle of Lewis

Sensationalist stuff from the Daily Express. Considering that although we had a great cold period for 6 weeks... the rest of the winter was in fact realtively dry and mild.

Mild winters dont sell news papers..... cold winters do! Whether you read them or for lightinmg the fire! lol

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Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam

Its in the Times as well.

Talks about a link between low solar activity and cold winters.

Adam Scaife of the Hadley Centre "Although it doesn't explain all our cold winters, this is a potentially large effect, about half the size of typical differences between one winter and the next"

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Posted
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks

If only IF only folk would read or actually quote the exact article!

But then that would take all the fun out of sensational headlines would'nt it?

Shame the Met O have not issued the full version so that we might all read the full article and not bits chosen by those who run the Daily tripe sections of the press. It is available to read the full article in Nature IF you pay for it-I wonder if the media did that or just jumped on the ice age bit which of course refers to what happened in the past NOT the future

hey ho things will never change with the media I am afraid.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

Aye, just another load of media-selling twaddle. I've lost count of the number of times newspapers have pedalled this hyped-up nonsense...

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Posted
  • Location: coppull near chorley lancashire. and the pier head liverpool
  • Location: coppull near chorley lancashire. and the pier head liverpool

iv never seen so many shops selling snow shovels and other winter related products so early as i have this year also the fire service i work for has really learned from the last couple of bad winters and have been making plans and getting ready for the possibility of a severe winter for some time now.

it may just be media hype but at a time when services are cutting back and not spending money then in my mind there must be some truth in these stories,and its not just my service all the emergency services are preparing themselves.

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Posted
  • Location: Redhill, Surrey
  • Weather Preferences: Southerly tracking LPs, heavy snow. Also 25c and calm
  • Location: Redhill, Surrey

There is no way the Met Office would advocate an upcoming ice age. They are a pro human induced global warming outfit and would argue that CO2 from human activity would prevent any such cold outlook. Even though they have been caught 'cold' by recent winters. Ice age...I don't know....global temps and winters of middle 20th century....at least.

BFTP

Edited by BLAST FROM THE PAST
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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

It'd be my guess that the MetO has too much genuine knowledge of the global climate, to go and make far-reaching claims like that, BFTP? We can all guess what would happen if the did - and then got it wrong...And, anyway, where is the evidence suggesting that a mini (whatever that really means) Ice-Age is imminent? It's still warmer that the 1960s!

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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District. 290 mts a.s.l.
  • Weather Preferences: Anything extreme
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District. 290 mts a.s.l.

There was a piece of Radio 4 this morning about this which, to be honest, I only part heard.

The jist of it was that recent research from the Met' Office indicated that variations in solar energy output, connected to the 11 year sunspot cycle, had a disproportionate effect, relative to the earth as a whole, on the winter weather in NW Europe.

Periods of low solar energy were more likely to result in cold winters in NW Europe and vice versa, and as the current period is one of particularly low solar energy we should expect an increased frequency of cold winters.

To be honest I thought this was already known, or was it just suspected?

I'm going to try and find the full story as put out by the Met' Office before I pass judgement.

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Posted
  • Location: Crowborough, East Sussex 180mASL
  • Location: Crowborough, East Sussex 180mASL

The senstaionalised media-hype system is set up like dominoes: one tip-off and the whole set topples in line.

The WMO ENSO status update at the begining of September http://www.wmo.int/p...ate_latest.html stated that last winters La Nina conditions had dissipated by May 2011 with a return to a more neutral ENSO state with pockets of La Nina persistence particuarly wrt to atmospheric conditions.

In recent weeks however, the indications are favoured for either continued neutral ENSO or a return to a weak La Nina state. This conclusion seems is borne out by slightly below average SST's and at deeper levels around the eastern-central tropical pacific region.

That was at the end of August/early September. Since then the Australian BoM prduced a summary http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/ stating that the cooling trend has continued consistent with a return to La Nina conditions and backed up by atmospheric indicators with the SOI reaching +8 (threshold for La Nina).

Consensus is that if La Nina does form, then it will be weaker than the last event. All this to say the probability of a colder winter for the UK is present if La Nina develops. The critical factor is that a colder winter is not guaranteed, just that the probability ofr one is raised somewhat and even this is a grossly over simplified assumption as La Nina is not the only influence on a cold UK winter by far.

Once bitten, twice shy the UK authorities will not want to be caught with pants down again and hence the directives to 'be prepared'.

Taking that into context with todays report on solar UV fluctuations (NASA SORCE mission) pointing to a connection between that and global weather patterns and the mention of the Maunder Minimimum is enough for the media sniffs to put 2+2 together and get eleventy twelve.

The sensationalism kicks into overdrive because as some one earlier said: warm winters do not sell copy.

ffO.

Edited by full_frontal_occlusion
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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft

Aye, just another load of media-selling twaddle. I've lost count of the number of times newspapers have pedalled this hyped-up nonsense...

The Times is not renound for pedling twaddle

.http://thegwpf.org/the-climate-record/4062-met-office-u-turn-europe-may-be-facing-return-of-little-ice-age.html

Maybe the press have got 2+2 and come up with 7

Obvioulsy the original article has been taken out of context but...

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Posted
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks
  • Location: just south of Doncaster, Sth Yorks

Just wondered how the Express thing ties in with this...

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-15199065

very little Alan, at least the above quote does give a better view of what the paper, only available if you pay to Nature, actually 'appears' to be about. As I've posted elsewhere, most of the research was about PAST climate. What the papers picked up on was the comment that the activity on the sun does APPEAR to have some link to climate over SOME parts of the world. They then take 2+2 and make it very much more than 4. But then its what anyone with a modicum of common sense know some of the media does with any quote/paper. Sensationalise it =sells copies-print accurately=boring!

Edited by johnholmes
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Posted
  • Location: Kings Norton, West Midlands
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Kings Norton, West Midlands

All that the last few cold winters in the UK have shown is that, as with every other year to some degree or other, the distribution of warm/cold weather synoptics has varied around, at times giving us cold winters while Canada, Russia and Greenland had unusually mild ones, and at times giving us mild winters while other places had much colder ones.

Overall, globally winters have been getting milder and that trend will continue. None of this has much to do with solar radiation levels, unlike in the "little ice age" which saw suppressed winter temperatures globally.

Can you predict the future?

Edited by Paul Carter
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Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam

All that the last few cold winters in the UK have shown is that, as with every other year to some degree or other, the distribution of warm/cold weather synoptics has varied around, at times giving us cold winters while Canada, Russia and Greenland had unusually mild ones, and at times giving us mild winters while other places had much colder ones.

How does that tie in with period 1987-2008 though? There was a distinct lack of cold winters in that period, so there wasn't really a varied distribution of warm/cold synoptics, was there?

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Posted
  • Location: Jarrow 28m asl
  • Location: Jarrow 28m asl

And here we have the Pro Global Warming take on the story...

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/10/the-daily-express-and-the-ice-age-that-starts-in-weeks#.TpLaeSH1vP8.twitter

The warning coincides with research from the Met Office suggesting Europe could be facing a return of the "little ice age" that gripped Britain 300 years ago, causing decades of bitter winters. The prediction, to be published in Nature, is based on observations showing a slight fall in the sun's emissions of ultraviolet radiation, which over a long period may trigger mini ice ages in Europe.

This is incorrect. The paper says nothing about little ice ages, and makes no 'predictions' about long term trends in either European or global climate. Rather, it discusses how changes in the 11-year cycle of the sun's power may have an effect on winter temperatures in North Europe and the US.

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Posted
  • Location: .Hackenthorpe south east Sheffield
  • Weather Preferences: winter.
  • Location: .Hackenthorpe south east Sheffield

any one who wants to know about up comeing mini ice age should search its a cycle its a cycle its a cycle, fasanating listing you will have adiferant view after listning to this

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Posted
  • Location: Abbeymead ,Glos Member Since: July 16, 2003
  • Weather Preferences: Hot and thundery or Cold and snowy.
  • Location: Abbeymead ,Glos Member Since: July 16, 2003

The media hype is a little annoying however you cannot deny that the last two years ( esp from a South westerners Point of view ) has been cold.

Current expectations are that this year will be colder. ( Just follow the northern hem ice thread to see this )

Obliviously theres a lot more to it, However it is looking like another record breaker for the UK this year..

Lets wait and see.

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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft

Overall, globally winters have been getting milder and that trend will continue. None of this has much to do with solar radiation levels, unlike in the "little ice age" which saw suppressed winter temperatures globally.

Most of the evidence suggests the little ice age wasn't global and had no define period, globally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

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