Chris,
1.The point is that the case for climate change is about lines of
evidence. The best evidence for this change comes from measurements (
basis for environmental science !) and these measurements show it that is
the warming in the ocean and not the atmosphere, where all the heat is
going. The ocean is storing about 80% of the greenhouse warming, the rest
is being used to melt Greenland and the glaciers.
As an example if the extra heat stored in the Atlantic ocean in the last
7 years were released ( we measured this ) into the Atmosphere above the
Atlantic Ocean, the temperature would increase by roughly 9 deg C.
2. The other line of evidence comes from the Global surface temperature
record which the Hadley Centre have measured from 1860 to present and
shown a warming of at least 0.6 C.
3. What is happening in the UK is one very small piece of that record and
records like the Central England record show large variability from
1660's to the present, and the warm autumn it could be argued is part of
that variability.
4. My initial belief the anthropogenic induced warming
(anthropocene) came from work I did and published in the scientific
literature in late 1970's, and the proof has come from HADLEY CENTRE
models, together with Greenland melting and Ocean Warming.
5. This needs to explained carefully. Any one event ( autumn warming) is
not proof of global warming ! Climate change is about changes in
statistical distributions ( mean, variance etc) !
6. It is all in Houghton's book on Global Warming.
7. My actions in talking to the public are governed by my science and my
personal beliefs and I think it is extremely to separate out those two
out.
I would like to continue this debate !
Neil
Neil
Neil
(and anyone else who is interested)
I take your point about not attributing
any one event to climate change, and I note the geographically limited
extent of the 1 degree phenomenon George highlighted in his original
email. But then again the same sort of discussions about 'is this climate
change or not' were held in response to the 2003 heatwave, and such
discussions helped delay meaningful responses to this issue. At some
point objectivity and lofty intellectual detachment from realities on the
ground runs its course, becomes part of the problem rather than the
solution (see Ulrich Beck on risk and society for more on this topic). I
think that that point has been passed and it is time to call a spade a
spade and begin responding accordingly.
Best
Chris
----- Original Message -----
- From: Neil Wells
- To:
[log in to unmask]
- Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 9:11 AM
- Subject: Re: UK AUTUMN HOTTEST ON RECORD BY LONG STRETCH
- Hi,
- I am very interested in the recent discussion regarding the warm
autumn. It is true it was the warmest since records began in
Central England since 17th Century. However, caution has to be
applied. Why ? Because the previous warmest autumn was 1730 and 1731 (
yes they do cluster ) which was during the Little Ice Age in Europe...and
it was followed by 1740 one of the coldest years on record. Like they say
one swallow doesn't make a summer, therefore I record season does imply
climate change. Its a common mistake !
- However, I do accept that it is part of the evidence that the climate
is changing, and that the evidence comes from the ocean in sea surface
temperature and heat storage. ( See our paper in Geophysical Research
Letters last week ).
- Neil
- I have been worrying about this for a while
- just what my own sense experiences of the world are telling me about
the current weather. Never have the wintry images of Christmas seemed so
at odds with reality on the ground.
-
- This reinforces the idea that the only
problem with current climate models is their failure to predict the
rapidity of change. But still barely a murmur in media land, except for a
few clothes retailers bemoaning a drop in profits due to slow uptake of
their winter fashions.
-
- How worried should one be? When is it okay
to start panicking?
-
- Chris
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: George Marshall
- To:
[log in to unmask]
- Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2006 11:42 AM
- Subject: UK AUTUMN HOTTEST ON RECORD BY LONG STRETCH
Dear all
- below is the official Met office anouncement. I take from it three
very worrying facts:
- a) Autumn 2006 has been the warmest ever recorded in the UK. We can
assume that it is also the hottest autumn for a very very long time.
- b) For England it is a full ONE DEGREE hotter than the previoous
highest record. One degree is a great deal in climate terms, especially
given that this should be at the outer extremes of improbability. It is
like someone running a mile in 2 minutes.
- c) the previous hottest autums was last year. This means that in one
year the English autumn has gone one full degree higher than the
previously hottest autumn ever recorded.
- I find the rapidity and especially the scale of these differences
extremely disturbing.
- Yours
- George
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]--> News
release
Warmest autumn on record -
confirmed
- 1 December 2006
- The Met Office confirms that the autumn 2006 has been
the warmest in the last 347 years across central parts of the
UK.
- Central England Temperature records dating back to 1659
are the longest instrumental temperature records in the world, and autumn
2006 has been warmer than any equivalent autumn since then. The
provisional mean temperature this year was 12.6 °C. The previous highest
figure for the equivalent period was 11.8 °C, recorded in 1730 and
1731.
- The provisional UK-wide mean temperature for autumn was
11.3 °C, beating the previous record set in 2001 of 10.5 °C, in a
temperature series that began in 1914.
- Details of the UK figures
- 2006 mean autumn temperature
- Previous record
- Year of previous record
- UK
- 11.3
- 10.5
- 2001
- England
- 12.4
- 11.3
- 2005
- Northern Ireland
- 10.8
- 10.7
- 2001
- Scotland
- 9.8
- 9.2
- 2001
- Wales
- 11.4
- 10.9
- 1959
--
- George Marshall,
- Executive Director,
- Climate Outreach Information Network,
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