GWPF | 7 March 2015
UK Winter Rainfall Back To Normal
A year ago, we were told that the wet winter was due to climate change. Apparently the climate has changed again, because this rainfall is pretty much back to average this winter. The consensus of Dr Slingo [the Met Office Chief Scientist] and her pals is that “climate change” will lead to wetter winters. (This is except when we get a cold, dry one, which is then blamed on the melting Arctic). The reality is that none of them have a clue what the next month will bring, never mind the next century. –Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 6 March 2015
1) UK Winter Precipitation – As Unpredictable As Ever – Not A Lot Of People Know That, 6 March 2015
2) David Cameron ‘Suspects’ UK Floods Linked To Climate Change
BBC News, 8 January 2015
3) Met Office: Evidence ‘Suggests Climate Change Is Worsening UK Winter’
Climate News Network, 9 February 2014
4) Andrew Montford: Why The Met Office Has Hung its Chief Scientist Out To Dry – The Spectator 18 February 2014
The floods affecting large parts of the country are probably connected to climate change, David Cameron has said. The prime minister told MPs that there were more “abnormal” weather events occurring and he “suspected” they were linked to global temperature changes. —BBC News, 8 January 2015
The British Government’s main climate science adviser, the UK Met Office, says the present exceptionally wet and stormy winter “could be a manifestation of climate change.” Its chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo, said there was no evidence to counter what the basic science says will happen as the world warms – that heavy, fierce downpours of rain will occur more often. “Nobody has come forward to counter the basic premise that if you have a warmer world you are going to get more intense heavy rain rates” –Alex Kirby, Climate News Network, 9 February 2014
Last week the Met Office and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology issued an admirable joint report on the floods and their possible connection to climate change, concluding that it is not possible to make such a link. ‘As yet’, it said, ‘there is no definitive answer on the possible contribution of climate change to the recent storminess, rainfall amounts and the consequent flooding’. In many ways this was not much of a surprise, since only the wild activist fringe among the climate science community have tended to try to make the link in the past. –Andrew Montford, The Spectator 18 February 2014
1) UK Winter Precipitation – As Unpredictable As Ever
Not A Lot Of People Know That, 6 March 2015
Paul Homewood
A year ago, we were told that the wet winter was due to climate change. Apparently the climate has changed again, because this rainfall is pretty much back to average this winter.
Of the last ten years, five have been below the long term average, 1900 to 2015, and five above, rather indicating that British weather continues to do what it always has done.
The consensus of Dr Slingo [the Met Office Chief Scientist] and her pals is that “climate change” will lead to wetter winters. (This is except when we get a cold, dry one, which is then blamed on the melting Arctic).
The reality is that none of them have a clue what the next month will bring, never mind the next century.
2) David Cameron ‘Suspects’ UK Floods Linked To Climate Change
BBC News, 8 January 2015
The floods affecting large parts of the country are probably connected to climate change, David Cameron has said.
The prime minister told MPs that there were more “abnormal” weather events occurring and he “suspected” they were linked to global temperature changes.
Several senior Conservatives, including former Chancellor Lord Lawson, are professed “climate change sceptics”.
Whatever the reason for the recent weather, Mr Cameron said it made sense to invest in the UK’s flood defences.
The government has insisted it is spending more on flood defence than its predecessor but critics say budget cuts in recent year have affected planning, maintenance and the capacity to respond to incidents.
Shortly after taking office in 2010, Mr Cameron pledged to lead the “greenest government ever” but critics have accused ministers of rowing back on a range of commitments in the face of business and political concerns.
Some Tory MP and peers, Lord Lawson being the most prominent, have cast doubt on scientific theories on climate change which argue that human activity is predominately responsible for recent rises in global temperatures.
Labour has suggested Mr Paterson, who became environment secretary in 2012, is sympathetic to their views, claiming this may have influenced decisions on flood budgets – claims described as “nonsense” by government sources.
Speaking on the BBC’s Any Questions programme in June, Mr Paterson said “the climate’s been going up and down” for centuries and pointed out that the earth’s surface temperature “has not changed in the last 17 years”.
“The real question, that everyone is trying to address is: Is this influenced by man-made activity in recent years?”
“There is almost certainly bound to be some influence by man-made activity but we have just got to be rational and make sure the measures we take to counter it do not actually cause more damage,” he said.
3) Met Office: Evidence ‘Suggests Climate Change Is Worsening UK Winter’
Climate News Network, 9 February 2014
Alex Kirby
Scientists at the UK Met Office say all the evidence supports the theory that the exceptionally wet and stormy winter affecting much of Britain is caused at least in part by climate change.
LONDON, 9 February – The British Government’s main climate science adviser, the UK Met Office, says the present exceptionally wet and stormy winter “could be a manifestation of climate change.”
Its chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo, says the variable UK climate means there is “no definitive answer” to what is producing this winter weather, with the “most exceptional period of rainfall in 248 years”. But “all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change”.
She said there was no evidence to counter what the basic science says will happen as the world warms – that heavy, fierce downpours of rain will occur more often.
“Nobody has come forward to counter the basic premise that if you have a warmer world you are going to get more intense heavy rain rates”
Dame Julia told BBC Radio: “We know that warmer air holds more water…As scientists we always go back to the evidence base. I always challenge the climate sceptics to provide me with the same level of scientific integrity of the evidence base. I can’t see it.
“Nobody has come forward to counter the basic premise that if you have a warmer world you are going to get more intense heavy rain rates…as we’re beginning to detect now over the UK.”
4) Andrew Montford: Why The Met Office Has Hung its Chief Scientist Out To Dry
The Spectator 18 February 2014
Last week the Met Office and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology issued an admirable joint report on the floods and their possible connection to climate change, concluding that it is not possible to make such a link. ‘As yet’, it said, ‘there is no definitive answer on the possible contribution of climate change to the recent storminess, rainfall amounts and the consequent flooding’. In many ways this was not much of a surprise, since only the wild activist fringe among the climate science community have tended to try to make the link in the past.
Taking such a level-headed view, the Met Office report represented a valuable opportunity to bring some calm to an increasingly frenzied debate over the flooding. However, unfortunately for everyone, the good work was all undone by the Met Office’s own chief scientist, Professor Dame Julia Slingo. Newly ennobled in the New Year’s honours list, Slingo seems to have found the temptation to put a global warming spin on everything that crosses her desk too much, and she blurted out to journalists the extraordinary claim that ‘all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change’.
Her position was undoubtedly a big problem for the Met Office, directly contradicting her own organisation’s report and the views of the scientific mainstream. It was therefore perhaps inevitable that these differences would be picked up in the media. Over the weekend, the Mail on Sunday reported a senior climatologist, Professor Mat Collins of Exeter University, as saying that:-
‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge.’
As the newspaper pointed out, there was an obvious discrepancy with what Slingo was telling the press.
On the grapevine I hear that climate scientists are privately furious with Slingo; their profession has had a rough ride in recent years and efforts to restore its battered reputation are not to be cheaply squandered. The signs are that climatologists have hung Slingo out to dry. Last night, Collins and the Met Office issued a much-anticipated response to the Mail on Sunday article. This made a great deal of global warming having increased the water content of the atmosphere, leading to increased rainfall, a surprising point given that as recently as 2012 Slingo had told Parliament that global warming was ‘loading the dice’ in favour of cold, dry winters.
It also made a strong sales pitch about the potential of climate models to predict increases in storminess in future. But it was what it did not say that was most significant. For while it artfully implied that the Mail on Sunday had got things wrong, in fact it went on to show only that the original report was consistent with Collins’ mainstream views. Regarding Slingo’s outlandish claims about ‘all the evidence’ supporting a link between the floods and global warming, there was only an ominous silence.
