UK NEWS
WEATHER: HOTTEST JANUARY EVER SAY CLIMATE EXPERTS
The snow that blanketed Britain last month
By Donna Bowater
CLIMATE scientists yesterday stunned Britons suffering the coldest winter for 30 years by claiming last month was the hottest January the world has ever seen.
The remarkable claim, based on global satellite data, follows Arctic temperatures that brought snow, ice and travel chaos to millions in the UK.
At the height of the big freeze, the entire country was blanketed in snow. But Australian weather expert Professor Neville Nicholls, of Monash University in Melbourne, said yesterday: “January, according to satellite data, was the hottest January we’ve ever seen.
“Last November was the hottest November we’ve ever seen. November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen.” Veteran climatologist Professor Nicholls was speaking at an online climate change briefing, added: “It’s not warming the same everywhere but it is really quite challenging to find places that haven’t warmed in the past 50 years.”
His extraordinary claims came after the World Meteorological Organisation revealed 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade since records began in 1850.
But UK forecaster Jonathan Powell, of Positive Weather Solutions, said: “If it is the case and it is borne out that January was the hottest on record, it is still no marker towards climate change.
“It’s all part of a cyclical issue and nothing should be read too deeply into that.
“It’s been the coldest for 30 years in Britain but we predicted that and climate change always tends t o throw up anomalies. It’s all in line with predictions and I won’t be sold on climate change at all. The data is either faulty or manufactured to make it look like it shouldn’t.”
The Met Office yesterday revealed it would re-examine 150 years of world temperature records to restore faith in its data in the wake of a number of high-profile blunders dubbed “climategate”.
Scientists advancing claims of man-made climate change were humiliated when emails emerged suggesting researchers at the University of East Anglia had been selective with weather data.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also wrongly claimed the Himalayan glaciers could melt away in 25 years. Most scientists have said it will take 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.
Following the embarrassing revelations, the Daily Express published a dossier of 100 reasons why the rise in world temperatures is natural and not caused by man.
The report, by the European Foundation, dismissed suggestions that raised levels of carbon dioxide would bring difficulties, saying it would encourage crop yields and support food production.
Now the Met Office has pledged to go back as far as 1850 to check its statistics.
Yesterday the IPCC and the University of East Anglia were also preparing to defend their research.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, flew to Bali to try to convince the UN to back the troubled organisation. Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband urged Dr Pachauri to make sure no future mistakes were made.
He said: “There have been mistakes made, clearly. It’s important that those mistakes are looked at.
“I’ve written to Dr Pachauri to emphasise our support but also our wish that they look at their procedures to try to eliminate these sorts of errors. But the overall picture is very clear, which is that climate change is happening, it is real, it is man-made.”
In the Commons, Ann Winterton, Tory MP for Congleton, asked: “Will the Government change its mind about the huge subsidies to land-based wind farms, which are not only ineffective but also despoil the countryside?”
Mr Miliband replied bluntly: “No, we won’t.”
The University of East Anglia submitted its evidence to Parliament’s science and technology committee yesterday, denying it had altered climate change statistics.
It said evidence that the university’s Climate Research Unit had hidden data showing a decline in temperature was “richly misinterpreted and quoted out of context”.
But the university said it would review the climate science produced by the unit.
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ANTHONY-
01.03.10, 4:17am
I'm sick with flu- will continue with you in a day or two.
• Posted by: BarnabyHardlyWorking • Report Comment
IN RESPONSE TO BARNABY - CORRECTION
28.02.10, 9:55am
Should read ......
Not really, I stated that as you pump more CO2 into a system its ability to warm is DECREASED but it still does warm.
• Posted by: AntonyW • Report Comment
IN RESPONSE TO BARNABY
28.02.10, 8:52am
Barnarby
Not really, I stated that as you pump more CO2 into a system its ability to warm is increased but it still does warm.
Regarding water vapour, remember it does not by itself create warming. You cannot take a 'stable' system and increase water vapour to create warming. If you increased water vapour without any other changes it would rain out in less than a week (it has a very low residency where as CO2 is 100- 1000 years depending on which bit of research you want to go with with week). To increase water vapour you must increase the temperature, so a small increase in temp results in more water vapour which results in more warming.
So whilst water vapour helps make it warmer, its used in calculating warming, it doesn't cause warming so its not a 'climate forcing'.
Pre industrial levels of CO2 were 280ppm and together with the other GHG's and after reaching equilibrium forces the Earth's temp from -18 degrees C to 14 degrees C (on ave). That's an increase of 32 degrees C
We are told if we let CO2 levels rise to 450ppm then we should bet on seeing the ave temp rise another 2 degrees C. (it could be less but it is more likely to be more – we won't know until we try it. What an exciting little experiment).
So the first 280ppm results in a 32 degrees rise.
The next 170ppm results iin a 2 degrees rise.
Of course warming doesn't just increase the water vapour, it also melt ice caps, messes with the thermohaline circulation, can release methane from permafrost etc..... Nobody really knows when these things will happen but if temperatures keep rising THEY WILL at some point and the more the rise the more likley the chance. At our current rate of burning fossil fuels we should (most likely) see a 4 degrees rise although it could be more.
If you look at this whole warming thing like a gambling game with varying degrees of chance then you get a difference perspective on the value of this debate.
It like saying you have an X% change of loosing N gambling chips but for a Y% surcharge I can reduce the risk down to Z% chance of a loss of M chips.
The question is who's percentages do you believe and is the surcharge worth the reduction.
As for English wine you should try it http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/may/26/drink.foodanddrink
• Posted by: AntonyW • Report Comment
TO ANTHONY
28.02.10, 2:53am
You said, "in fact as CO2 increases the temperature increase is logarithmic but not upwards – e.g. the more CO2 you add the LESS powerful its temperature effect."
So let me get this straight: the more CO2 I add to the atmosphere, the less per unit influence it has on the temperature. And the decline in that influence is logrithmic? Well, that suggests to me that we should look elsewhere for the cause(s) of global warming. Already, there's 25 x more water vapor than CO2. The CO2 that is there is more than 95% naturally occurring and now you say that as levels increase, per unit impact actually decreases.
Not all CO2 that goes into the atmosphere stays in the atmosphere. If it did, then I would fully understand all the fuss. But Nature has a way of cleansing herself. Your telling me that as levels increase the influence decreases only strenghtens my arguement. To bestow such importance on one small variable with decreasing influence seems wrong at worst and incomplete at best. Tell me where I'm wrong.
I had no idea there was a robust wine industry in England!
• Posted by: BarnabyHardlyWorking • Report Comment
IN RESPONSE TO BARNABY - STRAW AND CAMELS
27.02.10, 10:45pm
Welcome back Barnarby.
A pleasure to debate with you also.
You asked “You seem to be saying that that last little bit of CO2 introduced by humans is enough to have a disproportionate influence on a system that would otherwise be in equilibrium. Is that right?”
Well sort of, the system is in equilibrium until one adds more CO2 or Solar Radiance etc....and then the temperature needs to change until it reaches equilibrium again.
But its not disproportionate, in fact as CO2 increases the temperature increase is logarithmic but not upwards – e.g. the more CO2 you add the LESS powerful its temperature effect.
So no, not like the straw on a camels back in that sense, however there are secondary effects that are like that. For example melting of ice sheets is a very big deal because that has an effect on the albedo (the amount of sunlight reflected back to space before it has a chance to turn into warming long wave radiation).
You also mentioned Vineyards to someone else.
So are Vineyards a good proxy for temperature? Well not on their own they are not really.
The ups and downs of wine growing have as much to do with other factors like Benedictine monks who grew it for religious purposes, decline due to black death, changing preferences for beer and access to imported wine.
Even if we were to ignore the fact that there are other reasons apart from temperature for growing wine lets look at the facts. The doomsday book in 1087 actually shows 46 vineyards (not 25 as you suggest) in southern England with none of them north of a line from Cambridgeshire to Gloucestershire.
AND NOW – there currently there are 400 plus vineyards in the UK and they go as far as Yorkshire (hat tip to RealClimate).
• Posted by: AntonyW • Report Comment
NOTTM46152
27.02.10, 9:42pm
Nott-
There WERE warmer periods. The Doomsday Book of the late 11th century mentions over 25 vineyards in England. The temperature HAD to be warmer to grow grapes. Also, there were Viking settlements in Greenland at roughly the same time. This is the Medieval Warming Period, all well before industrialization.
I won't dispute your 280 ppm pre-ind vs 388 now. You assume that that increase is human caused. The numerous websites I've read consistently give the range of human caused CO2 as 5% or less of the total.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas Scroll down and read the sentence at footnote #23.
• Posted by: BarnabyHardlyWorking • Report Comment
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