Climategate

[mwyalchen]

How many of them are relying on the same fudged set of data or a set derived from that set? Which ones didn't rely on the extremely flawed, closed source computer modeling software?

Sounds to me like you've been listening to biased accounts of the emails.

None of the other models depend on the software you're referring to. Indeed, the bit that's been picked up by the deniers was never used - the "very artificial correction" comment refers to a modelling method which the researcher decided didn't work; so he "commented it out" - marked it to be ignored by the computer - and the "very artificial" comment was as much as anything a warning not to reactivate it.

As for the "fudged" set of data, if you're referring to the tree-ring data, the "fudge" was to use twenty years of real, measured temperature data at the end of the sequence, instead of the tree ring data which was diverging for reasons which still haven't been established. The motive was that to get good long-term climate data (as opposed to short-term weather data) you have to smooth over periods of 30 years or so. Replacing the problem data with measured figures made it possible to produce 30-year averages for the years before the tree-ring data diverged, rather than throwing out twenty years of apparently good data. However, my reading suggests that missing out this tree ring sequence completely doesn't make much difference to the overall result; and even if you throw out the tree-ring data entirely, there's still the ice-core data, and the recent measured temperature record.

I'll say it again: take a look at http://www.realclimate.org if you want to see what's really going on here.

[Fiacharrey]

The only way for an average person like myself, who doesn't have time to get a degree in climatology and study thousands of research articles, to form an opinion and act accordingly, is to go by an opinion of others one can trust. The sources I trust are all skeptical of global warming. Some of them are noted climatologists. Some are not. Some of those sources can be suspected of unfair bias, but not all of them.

As Bill Whittle aptly points out, it is up to the global warming proponents to make the case, since it is they who are seeking to persuade us to a dramatic and extremely costly course of action. They have failed to persuade me. The video of his I linked to earlier sums up my take on it adequately, so I won't restate it here.

I am willing to be persuaded, of course. I don't have any vested interest in "denial" any more than anyone else does: that is, that the proposed changes would mean not only a dramatic decrease in standard of living, but also of basic freedom as we hand over our soverignty to a global governing body. So, I think the burden is a strong one.

[Merlyn]

Hummmmm.....
I read the realclimate page... pirates and all. The one thing that stands out with all the data, is that data isn't enough.
As we plunge into the coldest winter in sixty years, the little tad of .06 of one degree just isn't summing up to the odds.
I would like to see a real predictor here, but I don't from any of the data I see....

But as a Druid I will mention some tree lore.
This summer, as it ended and into the fall, I took note of the trees, in particular the white pines. The tall pine is always a quick responder to the climate with many signs. This year as fall came in, the pine cones were in abundance, but not just all over the place, open. They were ready to seed, which is rare. Normally they require a cycle, and this was it. I mentioned to many of my friends that a true cold winter was about to hit us, but few listened, expecting another warm and wet winter. Many if not all failed to get ready.
Now that we have been plunged into the longest and most steady cold winter in recent times, no firewood was cut or ready, snow plows all had to be refit, (some in my own shop) and as I prepare for another winter assault this weekend, I see more signs.

Tree rings are nice for a history lesson.
However trees themselves (live ones) are a better indicator..

But of course science is not about to be interested in the ways of a Druid..

I am however, and well prepared.

Cheers!
Merlyn /|\

[mwyalchen]

Merlyn, I'm glad to hear that tree lore is still a good guide to predicting the following winter. What I don't understand is why you think the cold winter you're experiencing (and gleefully posting pictures of - yes, nice pics, I agree) has anything much to say about overall global warming. Year by year, weather is very variable; global warming is a matter of long-term trends. Other people have already addressed this earlier in the thread; I return to it because you are still making the same points.

As for your 0.06 figure - what exactly is it? When you first brought it up, it was 0.06% (of something you didn't specify); now it's turned into 0.06 degrees. Not the same thing at all - so what are you really talking about?

[Merlyn]

Global warming and climate change have become a mixed bag of data.
Yes, we have a normal trend over the last 30 years of a normal climate change. This normal climate change has now reversed into the natural cycle of cooling, and has been for the past couple of years, the ocean currents have shifted (eliminating the drama of hurricanes in our gulf).
This normal shift is not simple, and involves several intermixing cycles, but the result can baffle those who point to data.

Global warming is the science of trying to extract all the interweaving contributors to climate change and example a warming trend based on human use of carbon based fuels. The result is .06 of one degree warmer. That's it.

Yes, the natural climate change has resulted in melting of the glaciers, as example. And as the ocean currents shift, so do the air currents related to them.
Some glaciers melt and others grow because the cold and warm currents change. The ocean is a much more prominent factor than the atmosphere.
Further, the geography of the earth brings a series of changes based on other interweaving cycles of change.

The scientists "predicted" that the rise in hurricanes would continue, become a devastating escalation this past year in the US gulf based on their global warming data. However because of the already changing ocean currents, that did not happen and will not. Many things predicted by global warming bell ringers has not happened.

The truth of the small increase is real, however, and can have effect.
But the affect pales in comparison to the climate changes which are happening with no respect to human use of carbon based fuels.
The dead tree that shows the climate change, is now dead. Great history lesson as well as the ice layers.
However they do not predict change, cannot show the ocean currents, have no idea what the sun is doing and are far from a good indicator.
Live trees however, can. Migration of the birds also example the earth climate change.

Global warming is a farce in many respects by how it was presented.
Due to this everything the science has tried to do is in question.

Now I just cannot trust humans about this, no druid would.
I am looking to real messages all around me. And they are not in any book made from dead trees, not on CNN or FOX and definitely not from a scam artist trying to make a case for carbon tax.

That's why.
I am personally committed to stop polluting.
Mostly because I know I am going to do it.
As for Al Gore... (only if embarrassed into it etc.) and others like him, fudge data, fuzzy tax math and Obama and his money printing press and the scams I know come from the UK, I am not even going to waste my time thinking any of that will ever produce even .000000000000000001 degree of difference.


Merlyn

[mwyalchen]

Global warming is the science of trying to extract all the interweaving contributors to climate change and example a warming trend based on human use of carbon based fuels. The result is .06 of one degree warmer. That's it.

So, where do you get this from? Temperature records show a global rise of around 0.7 degrees over the last 100 years, while solar irradiance was reducing over this period. So it seems to me that your figure is way too low.

[Merlyn]

Ok I'll use your number .7 of one degree! in 100 years
(That is what global warming "boils down to")(My number was for the last 40 or so years)
Still, not the apocalypse yet considering it took 100 years to not even reach 1 degree in change.
Admittedly my personal ecological efforts will amount to perhaps .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 degree, and only for the short span of my life, but it is a positive that will happen

The normal climate change that occurs naturally is more like a 10 to 20 degree range.
Is anyone doing anything to prepare? Do those in Copenhagen even consider that? With the coming change one degree isn't going to matter much

Weather.jpg (106.5 KiB) Viewed 924 times

Here we can see the averages and extremes of normal climate change for my given temperate zone for the coming week and month of January.
We are now in the cooler side of average so to speak. I do remember hitting the high extremes back in the 80s and 90s, but that is over and we have been dropping into the cooler temps and are now in the average areas of climate temps.

Stay warm
http://www.youtube.com/user/jibjab#p/c/ ... KYe1KiwywE and happy new year (we need one )
Merlyn

[mwyalchen]

Again, I really don't see the relevance of your daily temperatures graphic.

I think I've tracked down your 0.06 figure, though. It's the annual trend in the HAD/CRUT data between 1998 and 2009. As such, the figure is not 0.06 degrees total change, it's 0.06 degrees over the interval of eleven years - so, very much in line with the observed change over the past 100 years.

If you think this is small, though, you're kidding yourself. Sure, variations in weather - again, not climate! - can be 20 or 30 degrees over a year. What we're talking about here, though, is a small but significant increase in the mean temperature on which these changes are centered. Sure, 0.7 degrees so far, or 0.06 degrees over a particular decade, seem pretty small. But rather than just saying that because they look small, they can't matter, I prefer to consider two other things. First, that climatologists, ecologists, and so on, are saying that these changes do matter - and that these "small" changes will accumulate to something catastrophic. And second, direct observation. The ice caps are much diminshed; ranges of plant and animal populations are changing; extreme weather incidents are becoming more frequent (and, yes, that includes your recent snowfall - one of the global warming predictions is increased precipitation.)

0.06 degrees over a decade is well in line with the IPCC predictions, and, small as it seems, is actually a frighteningly high figure.

[Merlyn]

I think we are approaching the ability to see much more, for the first time. 100 years ago we just didn't have satellites, computers and all we have now. I see it as a kind of future shock, and naturally we want to blame ourselves.

I remember the 80s and the way winter just never was what it had been before. It has since been a 30 year cycle. And really I had missed the snow, winter and all.
But I am not alarmed, or worried. Now I am going to miss the warm winters, riding my bike until January and all. (that of course is just "weather" eh?)
I am storing my bike now and over the last couple of years. I had not done so for 20 years.
What will all the scientists say if we see a rapid drop on global temperature? How would they explain it? It is already happening.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8299079.stm
Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.
In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans
Prof Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University as saying the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.
The oceans have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), he added.
He said in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.
“The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling,” Prof Easterbrook was quoted as saying.
So I see the change and scientists discribe that what I see is real that we are headed into another 30 year cooling cycle.
And not surprisingly;
Mr Corbyn is due to put forward his view that solar charged particles “impact us far more than is currently accepted” to the international scientific community at a conference in London later this month. He said climate change was a “weapon of mass taxation.” “All the political parties want to use climate change as an excuse to raise taxes," he added. "Also it is a tactic for the Western powers to control the world energy supply.”

Merlyn

[mwyalchen]

Your BBC link does not include the Josh Willis quote, which seems to come from a longer article here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=88520025

Your source misses out the next few paragraphs, which very much run against the Easterbrook quote that you continue with. Willis's interpretation is as follows:

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."

and the conclusion to the article

It's also possible that some of the heat has gone even deeper into the ocean, he says. Or it's possible that scientists need to correct for some other feature of the planet they don't know about. It's an exciting time, though, with all this new data about global sea temperature, sea level and other features of climate.

"I suspect that we'll able to put this together with a little bit more perspective and further analysis," Trenberth says. "But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."

Trenberth and Willis agree that a few mild years have no effect on the long-term trend of global warming. But they say there are still things to learn about how our planet copes with the heat.

To put this into perspective, you'll find graphs for the Argo measurements here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling.htm Note that longterm the increase in ocean heat content is very clear.

As for Easterbrook, he is not a reputable source. See here for a thorough demolition of this claim: http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2008/1 ... l-cooling/

And Corbyn is a well-known contrarian, who has refused to explain the methods or reasoning by which he reaches his conclusion about solar particles. His scientific credibility can be assessed by noting his claim (contrary to all known physics) that CO2 has no effect on climate.

[DJ Droood]

A built in "pressure valve" that *will* help cut our emissions drastically will be the coming oil price shock, which will make people drive way less, all over the world. If we look back a little over a year, oil was over $130 a barrel. That helped push us over the brink into recession. As the economy crashed, folks stopped driving as much. http://ecomodder.com/blog/gas-prices-ta ... his-march/ Oil saw a huge decrease in demand, and the price "crashed" to about $40. (still double what it was in 2000, which is telling, considering the depth of the recession). As the recovery picks up steam, so will the price of oil. By this time next year, oil will be back over $100/barrel...a year after that, it will be closer to $200. The economy will crash again, oil will go down for awhile, there will be a slight ""recovery" and the process will start again, bumpier and harder and higher each time. 10 years from now, people *will not* be driving C02 emitting cars, at least not like they are today. Globalization is over folks...it was like a fun, wild party, and there is hangover and guilt and a mess to clean up, but it is done. Will this help reverse climate change? Hope so...

Here's a good news/bad news book I got for Xmas that explains everything:

"Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller"
by Jeff Rubin

For more than 20 years, Jeff Rubin has been known as one of Canada’s top economists, and a major voice for the energy sector. In Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, Rubin uses that background to project what our world will look like in the near future, as oil reserves dwindle and global economies suffer. This book is not aimed at economists and money managers, though. It speaks directly to the average reader, and should serve as a dire warning of the severe consequences of oil dependency in our everyday lives. With its central argument that a combination of rapidly dwindling oil supply and ever-increasing oil dependence will cause a continuing cycle of worsening recessions and depressions, this book projects a bleak future. As transportation and environmental costs increase due to high oil prices and carbon regulation, Rubin argues, international trade will dry up and the age of globalization will end. The resulting fallout will force governments and businesses to create and support localized economies, and eschew international trade and transport. In the tradition of writers like George Monbiot and Sir Nicholas Stern, Rubin presents some difficult truths that readers may find intimidating. Dense with statistics pointing to the inevitable collapse of the world as we know it, this book may not be an encouraging read. Unlike Monbiot and Stern, who put forth a plan to slow the collapse, Rubin’s focus remains squarely on preparing readers for the kind of world that is coming, rather than trying to slow that inevitable outcome. In a world where consumption in developed countries shows little sign of slowing and oil usage is skyrocketing, we need someone with Rubin’s background to predict what the likely results will be. Rubin’s perspective clearly falls more into the realm of futurism than economics, but because he excels at taking complex economic data and applying them to the everyday lives of his readers, this book functions successfully as both explanation and warning. Rubin is sure to incite controversy with some of the central ideas in this book, but given that the world he envisions seems increasingly likely to materialize, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller could turn out to be the exactly the book that readers are looking for, or that they need.

http://www.amazon.ca/Your-World-About-W ... 0307357511

[Merlyn]

Good book DJ Droood.
Some real situations are about to hit home.
They hit my home about 20 years ago. I stopped commuting, localized, changed my career and all thanks to out-sourcing. My old trade skill job disappeared long ago.
Seeing the coming of this time clearly in my income, I had no choice. I watch now as the entire world sees this for the first time. Welcome to the club!

Out-sourcing relies on trade and that requires shipping everything. That is going to change as the free ride ends.
One of our biggest problems now is how people have lost the trade skills. Also the preoccupation with virtual games and such do nothing for our kids who would rather play an x-box than actually learn any trade.

I can understand the graphs mwyalchen,
But they can be made to show any number of things. What I see in the real mundane world now, is colder and colder. Much colder.
In 1990 the average temperatures were so warm that winter had all but completely stopped producing snow, with January and February temperatures in the 50s and 60s.
Now the winters are going back to a very real and cold cycle. Last summer had no real hot days, as they had been.

If CO2 held heat, we would all use it in our insulated windows. It simply does not. Remember all the theories about Ozone? We are on a skin covered liquid planet full of very hot stuff! I think more simply, and those in Copenhagen would have done well to do the same. CO2 is bad pollution. But when we breach the pollution issue we then bring in the alternatives they hope to exploit.
Pollution being a real issue, and not abstracted by conflicting views it might have gotten better press, moved us to do something.

Climategate is just that. Sadly the real ways to stop the problem are not popular with the big money and global exploiters in the world. For the moment our earth will cool, things will have to change and people need to get the reality check. Heating homes will go back the problem it was, and very expensive. Trotting across the ocean with all kinds of outsourced goods will become more expensive and impractical. Cheap junk made in sweat shops will be less and less appealing as people rise up and refuse no pay for long hours.
Banks have already found that printing money and playing games with it will come around. Though our national debt is growing, it is still less than many others.

Meanwhile I will watch, shaking my head, and finish the job by going solar.
I am already geothermal. And yes I do fully understand superheat values.
Just clean the air, that is simple enough for me.
However it isn't enough for the rest of the world, and it has become easy to point fingers, make broad claims and not take responsibility.
The real truth about how CO2 melts glaciers brings the truth back home, in a real big way.
I'll post this comprehensive set of essays here as well, because getting people to believe the problem is most of the task.
http://novascience.wordpress.com/catego ... s-melting/
Drinking water, and ice melt are directly linked in some places. And those places are not where the fingers are pointed.
Some of the problem is natural, some of it man made, and some does migrate from one place to another.
The trouble seems most when the understanding is in question.
If scientists cannot make it clear, in real terms, then the argument fails.
Why and how do glaciers melt? And what direct impacts, factors and such are results and responsible?
What exactly must be done?
These essays are perhaps the best I have seen. And stopping pollution, directing energy resource, making progress all needs to be very comprehensive to each and every one of us.
More real answers need to be made in layman's terms, and the responsibility must be taken by each and every person on earth. Political taxing isn't going to do it. No one trusts a politician is why. For this all to work requires taking advantage of the vast and amazing interconnected communication we have. Only then will this problem be directly addressed.



Merlyn

[Kernos]

Perhaps, Drood (you got a hangover?), but that may not be long term. Some interesting developments are happening in converting the world to entirely renewable sources of energy: Wind, Water and Solar (WWS). It could be done now, with proper leadership and political will. We did it in WW2, for the interstate system, to send men to the moon...

A summary is here: http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?f ... D75EC6B0D5

A year ago former vice president Al Gore threw down a gauntlet: to repower America with 100 percent carbon-free electricity within 10 years. As the two of us started to evaluate the feasibility of such a change, we took on an even larger challenge: to determine how 100 percent of the world's energy, for all purposes, could be supplied by wind, water and solar resources, by as early as 2030. Our plan is presented here...

References:

Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies in S. Pacala and R. Socolow Science, Vol. 305, pp. 968-972; 2004.

Going Completely Renewable: Is it Possible (Let Alone Desirable)? by BK Sovacool and C. Watts in The Electricity Journal, Vol 22, No. 4, pp 94-111; 2009.

Review of Solutions to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Security, MX Jacobson in Energy and Environmental Science Vol 2, pp. 148-173; 2009

The Technical, Geographical, and Economic Feasibility for Solar Energy to Supply Ebergy needs of the US, V Fthenakis, et al. in Energy Policy Wol. 37, pp 387-399; 2009

[DJ Droood]

Perhaps, Drood (you got a hangover?), but that may not be long term. Some interesting developments are happening in converting the world to entirely renewable sources of energy: Wind, Water and Solar (WWS). It could be done now, with proper leadership and political will. We did it in WW2, for the interstate system, to send men to the moon...

I am hopeful...market forces are unstoppable, and when it becomes economically unfeasible to continue on the present path, individuals, entrepreneurs and governments will do (and are doing) what needs to be done to switch over to that which works...and makes money.

Here is my cynicism...even if large numbers of us in North American do the "right" thing, cutting our emissions until it hurts, etc., I don't think it will make a lick of difference to the environment...it will just allow India and China to have a bit more oil to burn for a bit longer. I'm pretty sure they won't be buying into the guilt-tripping hippy sub-culture and lay down their gas cans en masse in solidarity.

Sky rocketing oil prices will be the force that makes us (individuals/governments) come up with solutions and modify our lifestyles, fast. For those that start now, it will seem less of a nasty transition, but we will all end up in the same place, Hummer drivers and dumpster divers alike.

Oh, and the moon landing was faked by Stanley Kubrick.

[Merlyn]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleash ... d-bat.html
http://www.mnforsustain.org/windpower_s ... _part1.htm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=5300507

Wind farms have been a hot topic around here.
Some obstacles are even environmental.

http://www.wvhighlands.org/VoiceText%20 ... %20P18.pdf

Mostly like the highway system, much work has to be done to get something like this done.

We can still push, hope and work and it may happen.

Merlyn

[mwyalchen]

Merlyn, you're already doing more than most to live well on this planet; and you're dead right about pollution.

And those glacier articles are excellent. I do note that all but one of them attributes large parts of the glacier retreat to global warming; but I think you're quite right when you say "stopping pollution, directing energy resource, making progress all needs to be very comprehensive to each and every one of us."

On present-day cooling, though: although the predictions I trust say otherwise, only time will tell if you're right that we are entering a period of cooling; but (despite your wish to concentrate on the unknowns) the basic science of atmospheric CO2 says that even if there is a short-term cold spell it isn't going to last long if we carry on with present CO2 emission levels.

And unfortunately, the sort of common-sense reasoning you're employing doesn't work too well on this stuff. When you say "If CO2 held heat, we would all use it in our insulated windows. It simply does not" your analogy is not good; the point is not that CO2 "holds" heat - it is that CO2 both absorbs and re-emits heat - and that some of that re-emission is downwards, thus slowing heat loss via the atmosphere. CO2 absorption really is not in question - it has been established, through very simple lab experiments, for more than 100 years, and the detail of exactly how energy is absorbed at different frequencies has been studied in great detail.

If you're actually interested in this, there's a good non-mathematical explanation here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... -argument/ and a more mathematical exposition here: http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Saturation.html Both of these are directed at one of the common current denier arguments (about CO2 saturation); but that may also show you how little some of the deniers know about what they're putting around.

But, to be honest, I'm getting tired of this conversation, because my impression is that you prefer to believe that everything is way too uncertain, even if that means relying on the arguments of people who have been very thoroughly discredited.

As I said, though, everything you say you're doing about going solar etc. is very sound! I wish I were currently in a position to do as much; and it's good to know that other people (like you) are managing it.

[Guardian]

But, to be honest, I'm getting tired of this conversation, because my impression is that you prefer to believe that everything is way too uncertain, even if that means relying on the arguments of people who have been very thoroughly discredited.

As I said, though, everything you say you're doing about going solar etc. is very sound! I wish I were currently in a position to do as much; and it's good to know that other people (like you) are managing it.

Agreed on all counts.

Do what you can with what you have and hope for the best, the rest might as well be speculation and guesswork.

[Merlyn]

Hi mwyalchen,
The Druid and the scientist will have a lot of common ground, but some different views, admittedly.
Climategate has however brought to light something that is personally empowering.
All those rich, powerful and influential people got just about nothing done!
We often feel powerless by comparison to people like that. What little I do, personally now feels like a giant step by comparison to climategate.

I am glad you liked those essays and the work which took a lot of personal sacrifice. Sitting in front of a computer and making graphs of data isn't nearly as hard. I think we do really need to understand the various ways CO2 is affecting the climate and why. Because it is more complex, it takes a fairly well aimed effort to stop. Just as some may feel that burning wood is carbon neutral, it creates soot, which very directly causes glaciers to melt.

Burning of the rain forest is one clear example of misunderstandings.
Superheat values of geothermal is so simple, but very few even know what I am speaking of.
I think this debate abut CO2 is much the same. I would bet if we asked how much someone like Pres. Obama really knows about all of this we would be alarmingly disappointed...

Merlyn

[Merlyn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8440594.stm
Global warming may have taken a holiday eh?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/weather/01/0 ... index.html
Records are being broken all over the place.

my impression is that you prefer to believe that everything is way too uncertain

Not really, I am certain it is freakin COLD as ever!
Even colder than ever really. The living pine trees shed pine cones like crazy, all over the place. They make good fire starters.
I believe them more than any scientific graph. Call me a druid, but, that prediction has been spot on so far.

Bright blessings from the pine

[mwyalchen]

Still on this one, are we?

Try this:

Although it may be hard to believe, many parts of the northern hemisphere are considerably warmer than usual at the moment. Alaska and much of northern Canada is unseasonably warm for instance, with temperatures 5C to 10C warmer than expected. That still leaves the air a biting –30C (–22F) or so though. Hardly a barbecue winter.

North Africa and the Mediterranean basin are warmer than average also, by up to 10C. Elsewhere, such as across northern Europe, temperatures are coming in 5C or so colder than average. It may be called a freak cold snap, but it's actually a fairly routine distribution of winter weather, the Met Office insists.

The reason? Something called the warm-ocean cold-land phenomenon. Cold places are kept cold because there is little wind. Warm places are kept warm because of local winds coming off the warmer sea.

Like most weather systems, the cause can be traced to blocks of high air pressure, which tend to dictate wind direction.

"High pressure blocks act like heavy rocks in a stream, in the way that water has to flow around them," a Met Office spokesman explained.

Such a stubborn block across eastern Europe and Siberia has halted the prevailing westerly wind across Britain, which usually brings soggy warm air from the Atlantic. Instead, what wind there is comes down from the frozen north. With it come the freezing conditions that have seen temperatures in parts of Scotland plunge. Temperatures across many regions have failed to climb above zero during the day, while the mercury at the Met Office's Eskdalemuir observatory in Dumfries and Galloway hit –14C on Sunday, the coldest since December 1995.

The offending high pressure block seems in no hurry to move on. "There is no wind round there for thousands of miles," the spokesman said, which means the Arctic conditions over the UK look set to continue well into next week. When the weather does break, it could bring renewed chaos.

"It all depends how quickly the warmer and wetter air comes back from the west. If it charges in and meets the cold surface air then we could have 3ft of snow or we could be skating across freezing rain."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/0 ... ld-weather

I'm sitting by my window looking at thick snowdrifts - the snow in England has come earlier and thicker this year than for many years. And this says absolutely nothing about global warming.