The 1940s produced four extreme winters
Met-Office recognize only 1947

Post January 29, 2017 _ Comments OPEN

In a recent post the Met-Office asked its reader: “If you’re old enough to remember 1947, then you’ll almost certainly have the winter as one of your most vivid memories of the year. For meteorologists and climatologists, the winter of 1947 was a standout year for the UK…. “, accentuated also about two years ago in: “Severe Winters”.  Why not asking for other winters?

Actually the 1940s produced four extreme winters, during the first three war winters 1939/40 t0 1941/42 and 1946/47. Compare the corresponding temperature anomalies in the first winter 1939/40 with those in winter 1946/47 and the comparability is easily assessable.

Surprisingly the Met-Office shows little interest to investigate what generated the extraordinary winter. They came suddenly and totally unexpected. All winter in the decade before WWII had been the warmest since the end of the Little Ice Age. The sudden arrival of three extreme winters can be convincingly explained by naval war activities. More HERE-1.

Even the winter 1946/47 which was particularly pronounced in Western-Europe, in countries close to the North Sea and Atlantic, a connection the WWII is a strong option, as discussed HERE-2.

It is time that Met.-Office awakes, and does what it should have done since long, telling us, what triggered the severe winters in Europe in the 1940s.

Met-Office-2017: Winter 1947 brought a freeze to post-war Britain

Met-Office-2015:  Severe Winters

HERE-1: C. Winter 1939/40

HERE-2: Extreme winter of 1946/47 in Europe

Ignorant Windfarm Industry – Now Off Rhode Island

Posted January 24, 2017

“Now testing the waters: Wind power”, titles the NYT an article concerning the first US off shore wind farm about three miles off Rhode Island. The operating started in last December. Reading the article and the company’s environmental assessment, one can only wonder about the ignorance concerning the impact seem to be in place.

The four-legs steel installations cover a depth of about 80 feet (~25 meters). The water column is permanently in move, horizontal and vertical. The water column has a high verity of temperature and salinity. Each installed object cause a mixing and change of current direction; 24 hours a day. Warmer or colder water may reach the sea surface, that inevitable alter the air temperature.

Five off shore installations is not a big matter. Shocking should be the incompetence in ocean matters. There will be soon many more wind turbines installed.  There are approximately 2,500 wind turbines spinning in the ocean off the coast of Europe today. That is likely to have already a pronounced effect on the winters in Europe, particularly as far as the North Sea and Baltic Sea are concerned. More HERE and HERE. Whether the “Europeans warm their winters” could be fairly easily proven if science, public servants and companies would acknowledge that oceans-govern-climate, and care accordingly.

Furter Reading  in PDF:  Offshore Wind-Parks and Northern Europe’s Mild Winters: Contribution from Ships, Fishery, et cetera? in Journal of Shipping and Ocean Engineering 6 (2016) 46-56

James Hansen’s Blindness on Big Climatic Events

posted January 23, 2017 – Comments welcome

Massive Data Tampering Uncovered At NASA? The subject was recently discussed at NTZ (and illustrated with multiple graphs). With regard to two events they indicate simultaneously the same:  A steep rise in temperature after World War One (WWI), and a large temperature drop when World War Two commenced in late 1939; as shown in the graphic from 1981.

In 1981, James Hansen was the Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.  He was also the lead author of a seminal paper published in the prestigious journal Science entitled “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide“.  In the paper, Hansen and his colleagues reported a rapid warming in the Northern Hemisphere of between +0.8 and +1.0°C between the 1880s and 1940, which then cooled by ~0.5°C between 1940 and 1970.

Already the length of the first Period 1880 to 1940 Hansen and colleagues interpreted wrong, which should have been divided in two parts:
Phase A) 1880 to WWI indicate a modest cooling by 0.1°C; and
Phase B) From the end of WWI to 1939 showing a steep temperature rise of about 0,9°C.
In addition they should have shown interest in the fact that the temperature turnaround commenced together with World War II around late 1939.

How could NASA scientists miss the clears signs of a strong correlation between the two World Wars and major climatic shifts during the first half of the 20^th Century in 1981 (Further Reading ).  How could they remain beaten with blindness until today?

Discussed at NTZ

 Claiming “natural variability” indicates: Not understood!

posted January 15, 2017; Comment open

Talking about “natural variability” is a sign that the research issue is not understood. But climate science loves the term. So do Chantal Camenisch and her 32 colleagues in their recent paper (A) concerning a climate reconstruction from a multitude of natural and anthropogenic archives, which indicates that the 1430s were the coldest decade in north-western and central Europe in the 15th century.

Interesting is their conclusion that neither volcanic eruptions nor a reduction in solar forcing on temperature seasonality can explain these winters in the 1430s, although attached images  indicate that air temperatures and precipitation may have been strongly influenced by the Eastern Atlantic from Spain to Ireland and the North and Baltic Sea.  

Instead of admitting that they are unable to identify the cause, they say: “The climate models showed instead that these conditions were due to natural variations in the climate system, a combination of natural factors that occurred by chance and meant Europe had very cold winters and normal to warm summers”.

• Chantal Camenisch et al: The 1430s: a cold period of extraordinary internal climate variability during the early Spörer  minimum with social and economic impacts in north-western and central Europe;  Past, 12, 2107–2126, 2016, www.clim-past.net/12/2107/2016/; doi:10.5194/cp-12-2107-2016; FULL text in PDF (p.20): http://www.clim-past.net/12/2107/2016/cp-12-2107-2016.pdf
• Sea also previous post December 03, 2017:

Dinosaurs wiped out by … Darkness and Cold

Posted 14 Jan. 2017; h/T JoaNova

“To investigate the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs about sixty six million years ago, the scientists for the first time used a specific kind of computer simulation normally applied in different contexts, a climate model coupling atmosphere, ocean and sea ice”; says PIK. However little information is provided about data and possible role of the ocean,

Instead the only physical reference is according Julia Brugger from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and lead author of the study: “The big chill following the impact of the asteroid that formed the Chicxulub crater in Mexico is a turning point in Earth history.” [Publ. 13.Jan.2017] That is certainly too petty-minded view, when the global annual mean surface air temperature dropped by at least 26 degrees Celsius.

It is the common problem with PIK. They build on research showing that sulfur-bearing gases that evaporated from the violent asteroid impact on our planet’s surface were the main factor for blocking the sunlight and cooling down Earth. No word about the role of the oceans with an average temperatures as low as about 4°C. Ocean dimension matter, as well is their service to the atmosphere with regard to temperature, evaporation, humidity, wind and ice-cover. This is another annoying example by many scientists to disguise their fuddy-duddy research on “computer simulation”.

Reference: Julia Brugger, Georg Feulner, Stefan Petri. (2017) Baby, it’s cold outside: Climate model simulations of the effects of the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous. Geophysical Research Letters, 2016; DOI: 10.1002/2016GL072241

Ocean dimsenison matter: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/26/warming-by-less-upwelling-of-cold-ocean-water/

Too many miss the big picture – also Alan Carlin

Post 1st January 2017

Should AGW sceptics understand what they are talking about? Of course! Let’s have a look at the critical view of Alan Carlin expressed in a recent post (Dec.30,2016): “Why Climate Alarmists Have Missed the Big Picture”. He claims that “There is evidence that very minor changes in the incidence of sunlight on Earth can and have resulted in plunging Earth and all its living cargo into new ice ages”.  It is not the sun but the oceans, and Alan Carlin, as a sceptic for many years, should know it.

Back in 2009 Alan Carlin, an economist and senior analyst at the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency), became a sudden celebrity with the surfacing of a few e-mail messages that seemed to show that his contrarian views on global warming had been suppressed by his superiors (NYT). It seems he did not use his new influence well, but ignored further on the relevance of the oceans in climate matters, as outlined HERE, HERE & HERE.   

However, Alan Carlin rightly warns about the major climatic risk, namely “that Earth will plunge into a new ice age, with global temperatures ultimately reaching perhaps 6 to 8°C below current temperatures.” Presumably lower annual temperature of just 1-2°C, are enough for a serious threat, and the oceans are so cold that it can happen within a few months or years.

Alan Carlin (Dec.30, 2016)

DITTO: Tallbloke, 2017/01/01

NYT, 2009/September /25; “Behind the Furor Over a Climate Change Skeptic”