Winter 2012-2013 Weather Forecast: will Arctic Sea Ice Cover play a Role?

Arctic Sea Ice: a new record Minimum?

As anticipated, although a couple of weeks ahead of the projected date, we have this week been notified that satellite data show Arctic sea ice to be at its lowest extent since such measurements began to be taken in 1979. The melt season does not normally finish until the middle of September, so it is likely that this cover will shrink still further over the coming fortnight to three weeks, surpassing by far the previous record minimum observed in the summer season of 2007. Then, some were claiming that the Arctic Ocean could be completely ice free by the summer of 2013, but the failure of the summer melt to replicate the conditions of 2007 – until this summer that is – caused most scientists to revert to more cautious estimates of a complete annual melt at some point in the 2030s to 2040s. These observations and claims have created not only headlines, but also a degree or two of heated controversy, with these measurements being used in the political arena by a variety of advocacy groups and individuals with their own particular axes to grind, whether these be anti-Western anti-modernist Greens, or oil industry lobbyists and ‘sceptics’. This is unfortunate, for neither seeks to use the science in a dispassionate way, instead focusing upon cherry picking data that best fit their respective narratives.

It is against this backdrop that some are trumpeting these measurements as being consonant with the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, whereas others are rubbishing the data and claiming either that such conditions are not historically unusual, or that we simply lack reliable data for comparative purposes. Whilst true that satellite measurements are of only recent provenance, earlier records from submarines and surface ships are available, providing a good indication as to the extent and thickness of the Arctic sea ice back into the 1950s. These confirm not only that the ice has decreased markedly in extent since then, but also in thickness, with some estimates suggesting that the summer sea ice has lost two thirds of its volume over the period in question. The first of the graphics below shows the extent of ice at the time of writing, together with the line indicating the 30-year average for this time of year. Below that, is a map showing August sea ice recorded in 1938, which clearly indicates its much greater extent compared to today. Earlier than this, we have a rather indistinct idea of what constituted the normal limits of the ice, but a research project is currently underway, analysing thousands of observations recorded in the logs of nineteenth-century whaling vessels in order to gain a better understanding of the climatological norm during that period.

What is beyond dispute, is the fact that sea ice has a high albedo, whereas open ocean does not: snow-covered sea ice with small water gaps between the floes typically reflects approximately 85% of the solar radiation that strikes it, whereas open ocean reflects only circa 3%. The unusually high loss of Arctic sea ice this year will therefore have significant implications for the amount of solar energy absorbed by the Arctic Ocean.

Warming or a ‘New Little Ice Age’?

Piers Corbyn is at present the most well known advocate of the ‘New Little Ice Age’ (NLIA) hypothesis, with him repeatedly claiming that owing to a lull in solar radiative output akin to the Dalton or Maunder minimums, we, at least in the UK and north-western Europe, are about to experience decades of cold winters and cool summers. This, he claims, is associated with shifts in the jet stream occasioned by solar changes, the explanatory mechanism of which he has declined to submit to peer review, ostensibly for commercial reasons. If indeed it is the case that reduced solar output is associated with cooling in these areas of the globe – as seems to be suggested by historical records – then it seems odd that the ice of the northern hemisphere should today be at such a low extent. After all, the onset of the Little Ice Age was not associated with reduced ice extent, but a significant increase. The Greenland Norse for example lost contact with Europe as shipping lanes were cut by ice, presaging a gloomy extinction for the Scandinavian colony, whose marginal agriculture was unable to support the lives of its inhabitants who gradually fell victim to starvation and the arrival of the Inuit. Although some people mistakenly think that “Greenland” was named as such because it truly was “green” before the Little Ice Age, this is factually incorrect, the name having been bestowed upon the vast icy island by Eric the Red, in a bid to tempt colonists from Iceland and elsewhere in Scandinavia to venture westwards, and settle in his new colony. Iceland itself, although far more clement, found that its entire coastline was icebound during a number of winters as recently as the Eighteenth Century; in 1695, much of the coast was still surrounded by ice in July. If we are entering a new Little Ice Age as Corbyn claims, it seems distinctly odd that this passage into a new climatological regime should be accompanied by a widespread retreat of ice in the Arctic and the Alps.  

This is the sixth successive wetter than average summer across the UK.  For the NLIA advocates, this pattern could be significant, for looking back in history, Brian Fagan details a similar succession of exceptionally wet summers that presaged the end of the Mediaeval Warm Period (WWP) in Northern Europe in his book The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History (Basic Books, 2000, New York). Starting seven weeks after Easter 1315, "the deluge" continued through May, June, July and August, with almost constant rain; to compound matters, both August and September were cold. The harvest failed to ripen, and much of the wheat, rye and hay that the population and its livestock was dependent upon, was lost. Fagan notes that the spring rains of 1316 led to the serious disruption of the "sowing of oats, barley and spelt. The harvest failed again and the rains continued." (p. 38). The year 1316 witnessed widespread famine across Northern Europe, with the cereal crop being the worst of the Middle Ages. A bitterly cold winter followed in 1317-1318, only to be succeeded by another wet summer with the upshot being more famine and an eruption of "religious fervour." During that harsh winter there had not been enough fodder to sustain livestock, with the consequence that many animals perished. Not until 1322 did this pattern of terrible summers come to an end across the region, yielding instead:

to unpredictable, often wild weather, marked by warm and very dry summers in the late 1320s and 1330s and by a notable increase in storminess and wind strengths in the English Channel and North Sea. The moist, mild westerlies that had nourished Europe throughout the Medieval Warm Period turned rapidly on and off . . . . The Little Ice Age had begun. (p. 44).

Could we be about to witness such a switch, or are the parellels nothing more than coincidence against a very different climatic backdrop? Fagan's observations raise some interesting questions.

Reduced Sea Ice: Cold Winters for the UK?

Putting aside disputes over the genesis of recent low levels of Arctic sea ice, there have been some interesting suggestions that the retreat of ice in this part of the world, together with its associated warming, is having a significant impact upon climate, specifically, the position of the jet stream in the northern hemisphere. One theory contends that the reduced contrast in temperature between the northern polar region and the tropics arising from a warming Arctic results in a weaker and slower moving more southerly jet stream, which has a tendency to get stuck in a particular position for long periods of time; hence, our second wettest summer on record preceded by an exceptionally wet spring (discounting March of course). Elsewhere, such as in parts of the US and Russia, this pattern has led to exceptional heat and drought, rather than to rain and subdued temperatures.

What this “sticking” of the jet stream implies for the coming winter is unclear, but if such a pattern should continue, rather than experiencing the normal run of mild Westerlies, the British Isles could once again experience something akin to the exceptional incursion of bitterly cold polar maritime air witnessed in late November and much of December 2010. This marked the beginning of the second consecutive unusually cold winter for the UK, although last year provided us with a break from this pattern. What will we see in 2012-2013? Whether the unusual disposition of the jet stream happens to be linked to reduced sea ice, ongoing low solar radiative output or a combination of both factors, will be a moot point amongst climatologists for some time yet.

Last year, The Daily Express latched onto a winter forecast by James Madden, claiming that once again we would experience a bitterly cold winter, which of course, we did not. Piers Corbyn too made similar predictions relating to exceptional cold during the early part of the winter season that proved to be wildly inaccurate. Neither independent forecasters, to the best of my knowledge, have yet released their outlook for the winter of 2012-2013, but they will do soon enough, and it will be interesting to see how much credence papers such as the Express place upon their forecasts. Journalists, when it suits them, seem to have incredibly short memories, and have thus probably forgotten the major gaffes made by Madden and Corbyn in 2011. Is anyone capable of producing an accurate long-range forecast? At this stage in the development of meteorology, probably not. Is it worth a flutter on a white Christmas at the bookies? It probably is, from the perspective of William Hill, Betfred, etc. 

UPDATE: True to form, The Daily Express did indeed publish yet another story on 17 November this year claiming that we are about to experience the 'coldest winter in 100 years'. Really? Hmm. I may not be able to forecast the weather with any accuracy, but the content of the Daily Express is rather easier to predict. By the very end of November, the Daily Mail, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph had all jumped on this same bandwagon, with none of them providing any evidence in support of their 'coldest winter for 100 years' claim. Although the beginning of December proved to be cooler than average, it was far from exceptional, and the much vaunted 'Beast from the East' turned out to be little more than a mouse bringing a touch of frost here and there as well as the odd flurry of snow. It was feeble stuff which swiftly yielded to the depressingly familiar weather pattern that has bedevilled the UK since April 2012: wet westerlies.Piers Corbyn finally revealed his thoughts on the matter in, of all publications, The Daily Express, on 10 January 2013.     

Met Office Forecast: April 2012 “drier than average”

The Met Office is quite right to state that the limits of accurate weather forecasting tend to stretch no further than five days into the future, yet it does still produce three-monthly forecasts that are not widely publicised. That its most recent one was not drawn to the public’s attention is just as well, for its 3-month outlook issued on 23 March stated the following:

‘The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April May June as a whole, and also favours April being the driest of the 3 months.’

If April is to be the driest of the three, then keep your boats and inflatables at the ready, for as of 25 April an article on the Met Office site stated that the month to date had been the 9^th wettest April recorded in the UK, with the wettest being in 1910. Yet more heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow, so in some areas at least (it is already the case in Sheffield) a new record is likely to be set.

Meanwhile, the ice prophet Piers Corbyn has this week followed up on his dire prognostications regarding the forthcoming “coldest May in 100 years” for central and eastern Britain and parts of western Europe, stating that:

‘Solar Climate Change is happening now. The Sun is entering a ‘muddled’ magnetic state. ‘Little Ice Age (Maunder-Dalton) circulation patterns are emerging and more rapid world cooling is taking over.’

Corbyn ‘clarified’ his remarks further stating: 

“The Sun’s magnetic field is getting into a muddle as one half of it changes out of step with the other and this muddled behaviour is likely to become very marked in MAY.”

With dire warnings such as these, Corbyn had better hope that this gamble pays off, and does not once again leave him with egg on his face. Irrespective of his forecasts and statements regarding global cooling, the sea level continues to rise and the volume of ice on the planet continues to decrease. Meanwhile, science attempts to grapple with understanding the complexities of the climate system, and the Met Office to produce accurate forecasts beyond the current five-day limit. Corbyn may be right to emphasise that solar influences are not accorded sufficient weight in weather and climate forecasting, but he is wrong to believe that he possesses the key to long-term forecasting, for his past failures show that he does not. However, what would be interesting would be for an analysis to be carried out of his forecasts versus those of the Met Office over the past decade to ascertain which proved to be more accurate. 

May 2012 Forecast: Coldest for 100 Years (according to Piers Corbyn)

If you were to believe an announcement made on 17 April by Piers Corbyn, you would certainly be taking note of the old saying "ne'er cast a clout til May is out", for the unorthodox weather forecaster has recently made the dire pronouncement that "The coldest or near coldest May for 100 years" will shortly befall central and eastern England. His gloomy prognostications state that there will be "a record run of bitter Northerly winds. Snow at times especially on high ground in NE/East. Spring put in reverse." 

Corbyn's rather awkward and admonitory style of writing almost brings to mind a Nostradamus quatrain, and his forecasts could well be founded upon methods just as spurious. The contrarian weather forecaster has many devotees who swear by the accuracy of his predictions, and who also in equal measure tend to rubbish conventional forecasts produced by the Met Office. Corbyn is an astrophysicist who has for a number of years made a living through the sale of his forecasts which are said to be based upon his unique (but methodologically unexplained) "solar-lunar" method. Although Corbyn often provides very precise dates for his forecasts, the nature of the meteorological phenomena predicted tends not to be quantified, with the general descriptive language used by Corbyn thereby being not only inexact, but providing a useful get out clause should his forecasts prove to be wrong. His fans remember when his forecasts (roughly) coincide with conditions, and conveniently forget the many times when they do not. He is certainly an effective publicist, for both The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail have published pieces on his "coldest May" forecast, but have refrained from linking this to a rebuttal of mainstream climate science, although the comments sections show that their readers have not been coy about voicing such a sentiment.

In October and early November 2011 Corbyn made dire predictions relating to what he claimed would be another exceptionally cold winter in Britain, but this never materialised, with Corbyn blaming an unexpected "solar filament" for throwing his forecast off kilter. In England the winter of 2011-2012 proved to be warmer than average. So, with him having once again stuck his neck out with respect to our weather next month, it will be interesting to see what transpires. For the sake of British fruit growers, let's hope that his latest forecast turns out to be nothing more than (please forgive the inappropriate expression) hot air. Lord Summerisle would not be pleased were his crops to be blasted by chill May winds. Whatever happens, May will probably fail to live up to our expectations in one way or another, leading to grumbling about cold, drought, heat, rain, hail or wind. What can be predicted for certainty is that the British obsession with the weather will continue, and that advocates of climate change and its opponents will employ the perfectly natural variability in our weather as evidence for or against their respective positions. 

May Blossom

The Politics of Climate Science: Energy Security versus Globalism

Our consciousness is bounded by our temporal horizons which, owing to the relatively brief span of an individual’s existence, are not long: circa 80 years for inhabitants of the developed nations. For many therefore, the concerns that preoccupy them are of an exigent nature and leave little time for deep reflection: the demands of work and family, and the need to maintain a healthy social life. These lead to a focus upon the short and medium term measured in days, weeks, months and years.

Few think beyond these parameters, for they are either too busy, or temperamentally disinclined to reflection. Significantly, this observation applies also to the bulk of our politicians, whose actions are predominantly conditioned by their desire to generate positive headlines in the short term, and to secure re-election in accordance with the rhythm of the electoral cycle in the medium term. Anything more than five years hence is thus not considered to be of paramount importance in the mind of the career politician.

Some people, owing to an interest in history, are able to think in somewhat longer timescales, of centuries and, in some cases, millennia. However, these temporal points of reference still constitute little more than the blink of an eye if we look at Earth’s deep history; at its geological record. Looking at the question of time through the eyes of the evolutionary biologist, the geologist and the cosmologist gives us a true understanding of the resilience of life on our planet, and an awareness of the vast fluctuations in average surface temperatures and atmospheric composition that put today’s agonising over hypothesised anthropogenic global warming into perspective. Whether or not the burning of fossil fuels contributed significantly to the small measured increase in global average temperatures during the closing decades of the Twentieth Century is very much a moot point, for climate models have not panned out as expected.

Climate science is the child of meteorology, and although the parent has made clear strides towards greater accuracy in recent decades, forecasting the weather remains highly uncertain beyond four to five days in the future. Climate modelling is thus in its infancy, and having no other analogues of the Earth to observe, modellers have been compelled to fall back upon computer simulations from which to draw their inferences. Elsewhere in the Solar System, the two other terrestrial planets possessed of substantial atmospheres – Venus and Mars – function as poor comparators for the Earth for a host or reasons. Neither possesses a hydrological cycle, and the atmospheres of each are comprised predominantly of carbon dioxide, unlike the Earth, where nitrogen predominates and oxygen makes its vital contribution to sustaining life. Moreover, whereas the atmosphere of Venus is far denser than Earth’s, with its pressure being some 93 times higher at the planetary surface, that of Mars is far more rarefied, being less than one hundredth that of the Earth. Venus alas is not Earth’s tropical twin as hypothesised in the 1950s, but an infernal place with a surface scorched beneath a crushing atmosphere rich in sulphuric acid at temperatures of 467ºC, whereas Mars is a frigid highly oxidising environment beset by seasonal hemispheric dust storms, where the protection of a spacesuit would be required to walk upon its surface because of the low atmospheric pressure.

In the distant past, the Earth’s temperatures have varied widely, with some palaeoclimatologists subscribing to the ‘Snowball Earth’ hypothesis, in which it is claimed that most if not all of the globe was temporarily bound in ice, whereas at other times the poles once having experienced temperatures now associated with the Tropics. The average global temperature is currently 15ºC, yet in the past it has been 8-10°C higher and life survived. We currently live in an interglacial period, and the eccentricity in our planetary orbit and axial tilt means that another ice age will at some point be inevitable, and in geological terms, this should not be a long time in coming. Milanković cycles will ensure that ice one day spreads to lower latitudes and sea levels drop. Having thus set the scene, let us now return to the contemporary furore surrounding ‘climate change’.

'Deniers' versus 'Warmists': Climate Science Controversy

Many people feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and crave immutable truths even where they do not exist; such individuals are predisposed towards ‘faith’ rather than reason. In the debate concerning ‘climate change’ or, more accurately, the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis (CAGW), one can discern two broad mutually antagonistic camps, which label their foes in the following derogatory fashion: ‘deniers’, for those who oppose, and ‘warmists’ for those who support the CAGW hypothesis. What doesn’t help the science is the fact that the debate has become intensely politicised, with anti-Western globalists who control the governments of the Western nations backing the ‘warmist’ side of the argument, and the oil industry supporting the ‘deniers’.

Public trust in the scientific community initially received a significant dent with the release of the ‘Climategate’ emails, and this week, further emails have led to what has been dubbed ‘Climategate II’, with James Delingpole of the Daily Telegraph publishing a sample of these on his blog. One particularly damning email is reproduced below.

2495; Humphrey/DEFRA:

I can’t overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their story. They want the story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.

Evidently, the sentiment expressed in this message cannot be adjudged to have been either neutral or objective in tone, as we would expect from a natural scientist. We may unfortunately have been long accustomed to such overtly politicised attitudes within the misnamed social ‘sciences’, but to see this creeping into the natural sciences is deeply worrying, for it risks undermining public confidence in science in general. When looking at these messages, it must be remembered that they express not any flaw in the scientific method, but a flaw in the characters of individual scientists who have chosen to place their favoured political causes ahead of objectivity.

Given that the coming week witnesses the Durban Climate Change Summit, the timing of ‘Climategate II’ is unlikely to have been coincidental. Just as there are identifiable lobby groups which wish to push forward a global ‘development’ agenda that involves the deindustrialisation of the West and the transfer of wealth to non-Western states, so too are there lobbyists acting on behalf of the oil sector which sees the ‘decarbonisation’ agenda as inimical to its interests. Irrespective of the furore that this public debate may generate in the West, China will continue to plough on with its economic development by increasing its electricity generating capacity, often employing coal-fired power stations. For the West to deindustrialise whilst China, India and others continue their race for growth based upon hydrocarbon fuels is folly, for unless a real alternative to these fuels is found in the UK and other countries now averse to generating carbon dioxide, all this policy will do is hasten the economic decline of those countries that see themselves as pursuing an ‘ethical’ energy policy.

The wisdom of choking off economic growth through ratcheting up the price of non-renewables in the UK is further called into question by revised estimates of projected temperature increases released by the IPCC this week. The BBC reports that:

The new models predict that given a doubling in CO2 levels from pre-industrial levels, the Earth's surface temperatures will rise by 1.7C to 2.6C (3.1F to 4.7F).

That is a much tighter range than the one produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2007 report, which suggested a rise of between 2.0C to 4.5C.

The new analysis also reduces the expected rise in average surface temperatures to just over 2C, from 3C.

Securing national energy Supplies
Even if one accepts the findings of these revised projections, it would make sense for the UK to place energy security at the top of its policy agenda and to reopen many of our abandoned coalmines with a view to achieving this. In the 1980s it was estimated that we possessed circa 300 years worth of coal reserves beneath our feet; moreover, diesel can be synthetically produced from coal if need be, thereby providing an alternative to oil imports; for new coal-burning plants, we could use emergent carbon capture technologies. Ultimately however, we do need to find new power sources, so research must continue apace into nuclear fusion and hydrogen as a fuel.

Revitalising our domestic energy sector would generate tens of thousands of new jobs bringing wealth back to areas of our country that have been blighted since the pit closures, creating spin-off employment in the heavy-machinery supply chain and in other businesses required to support the sector. Prosperity could thereby be restored to areas of long-term unemployment and deprivation, creating a virtuous circle of development. It would also help us to choke off the flow of capital to Middle Eastern states such as Saudi Arabia that use their money to spread Salafist Islam in our country and others. Without oil, these theocratic rentier states would count for next to nothing politically, and their malign global influence would collapse into insignificance.

Piers Corbyn: the Ice Prophet?
Returning to the question of the forecasting of climate and weather, one man who has received considerable approbation amongst CAGW sceptics has been Piers Corbyn, who has appeared in the House of Lords in an effort to persuade peers that the assumptions of mainstream climate science are deeply flawed. His forecasting places great store upon solar and lunar factors and their interaction with other elements of the climate system, and his advocates claim that he is far more reliable in his forecasting than the Met Office. As Corbyn’s full forecasts are only made available to subscribers, and his ‘hits’ are remembered whilst his ‘misses’ are generally forgotten, it is not easy to ascertain if the claims with respect to his ability to accurately forecast months in advance stack up in his favour. However, his presentation to the House of Lords delivered on 26 October 2011, part of which is reproduced in the video below, made some startling claims with respect to this year’s winter weather in Britain. In his winter weather forecast for 2011-2012, he claims that it will be “exceptionally cold” in Britain from 27 November to 28 December, with “huge snowfalls at times” around 2 December and 14-15 December, with the cold being brought in by Arctic or North-easterly winds.

Today is 26 November and there is no sign of Corbyn’s prediction coming to pass. It is still pretty mild for this time of year, and other forecasters are, if anything, forecasting milder rather than colder than average conditions over the coming weeks. Nonetheless, as of 25 November Corbyn remained bullish, stating that although the freezing blast had been “postponed”, it was still coming, and that his latest prognostications would be revealed at midday on 29 November.

Whatever happens this winter or in the years ahead, one thing remains clear: climate and weather are intensely complex systems which we have yet to fully understand. ‘Climate change’, whatever the facts of the matter, is a politically charged term that is being used to achieve political ends which are not necessarily in our best interests. That said, finding alternatives to foreign oil should remain at the forefront of our policy agenda, with a view to securing energy security and prosperity for our people and our country. 

 

UK Winter Forecast 2011-2012: Blowing Hot and Cold

At this time of year there are few stories more beloved of the British press than the anticipated character of the coming winter and, closer to the time, the prospects of a white Christmas or otherwise. Thus, the Daily Express excitably pounced upon a forecast by Exacta Weather yesterday morning to run the headline ‘-20C To Hit Britain’. That this headline should come hard upon the heels of our admittedly very welcome late September and early October warmth is rather predictable, for after all, journalists appreciate the sensationalist effect afforded by contrast.

Headlines such as this one are on the stocks and ready to roll at key times of the year, and include such hardy perennials as ‘Britain colder than North Pole!’; ‘Drought could see standpipes on the streets’; ‘Wettest summer since Noah’s Flood’; ‘Spring comes early as flowers bloom in November’. Journalists are, on the whole, sensationalist and unscientific, unable to differentiate between the two basic concepts of weather and climate: weather of course being the actual meteorological conditions that we experience day-to-day and hour-to-hour, and climate being average weather measured over decades or longer. Averages naturally mask much natural variability, and if our weather were always to be concordant with our climatic averages, we would live in a very strange physical universe indeed.

Meteorology has made great strides in its forecasting ability, and weather forecasts for the coming four to five days are now far more accurate than they were only a couple of decades ago, but long-range forecasting is still in its infancy. The Earth, after all, is an extremely complex system with a wide mix of variables – solar radiative output, ocean currents, jet streams, albedo, volcanism and many others – playing a role in shaping the weather and climate. To predict this winter’s weather for the British Isles will therefore be difficult, and to predict climate fifty years hence still more so.

So, where did the Express find its story? The source turns out to be a website called Exacta Weather which the paper quoted as follows:

James Madden, long-range forecaster for Exacta Weather, said: “I expect the most frequent and heavy snowfalls to occur across many parts of the UK during November, December, and January.

There could also be frequent and significant snow across northern regions and Scotland throughout this winter.

“I also expect November, December, January,and Feb­ruary to feature largely below average temperatures across many partsof the UK. It is likely that temperature and snowfall records will be broken,”he said.

What does this tell us? The only surprises contained within the above speculation pertain to significant snow in November, which is reasonably unusual, and to the claims that records will be broken. How does Exacta Weather, or, more accurately, how does James Madden (because ExactaWeather is a one-man outfit – where’s Bill Froggatt when you need him?) arrive at his forecast? Does it differ from that provided by other forecasters? Well, no others have publicly made their predictions about the coming British winter available, but Netweather last month issued temperature charts for November and December (reproduced below) which although showing colder than average conditions, do not anticipate anything as dramatic as we experienced at the end of November and into December last year. 

On 12th October Netweather issued updates to its forecasts for November and December, whilst also giving a tentative look at January. Compared to the charts shown above, the forecaster has revised its temperature estimates upwards for the first two months, anticipating them to be normal or marginally below normal across the British Isles. As for January, as can be seen from the image below, it is predicting that the month will be significantly warmer than average. However, its forecaster Stewart Rampling speculated later in the month that February 2012 was likely to be the coldest month of the season for Britain, witnessing significantly below average temperatures.

Whilst not going so far as to divulge its long-range forecast for this winter, the BBC has picked up on a story relating to the Met Office, in which it admits that it is re-evaluating its approach to forecasting in line with recent discoveries relating to the role of solar ultraviolet radiation. Its output has been found to vary much more greatly than anticipated, and a reduced sunspot count which is associated with lower ultraviolet  emission tends to have an impact upon the jet stream in the northern hemisphere, disrupting the prevailing westerly airflow over northwestern Europe, making the likelihood of cold winters greater. The current sunspot cycle - the 24th to have been recorded in detail - is supposed to be approaching its maximum within the next two years, but the preceding sunspot minimum has been prolonged and exceptionally quiet, and the coming maximum is expected to be weak as can be seen in the graph below (for more details and the latest updates, visit the SolarHam website).

Many people claim that independent weather forecaster Piers Corbyn is particularly accurate and reliable, and as can be seen in the following video recorded at the end of October 2011, Corbyn sticks his neck out by making some very specific claims. In his forecast for Britain he asserts that we will experience extreme cold between 27 November and 28 December, but he is uncertain as to whether this will be as intense or even colder than last year. Last year the exceptional spell of cold weather arrived promptly from the Arctic on 24 November, and most of the country then experienced near-permanent sub-zero temperatures with only a couple of brief breaks until Boxing Day. Is Corbyn any more reliable than a soothsayer? Is he little more than a meteorological Nostradamus? In the end, his predictions did not come to pass.

This brings me on to an issue that generates a great deal of heat but little dispassionate analysis: ‘global warming’, or ‘climate change’ as it is now typically termed. Few other issues seem to arouse so much grandstanding by advocates for or against the set of phenomena said to characterise this anthropogenic (or not) process, with many members of the public, journalists and policy makers being incapable of the most rudimentary distinction between weather and climate outlined earlier in this piece. A hot end to September and beginning of October in England is no more indicative of a shift in climate than the cold late November and December were last year. To take either as evidence of a fundamental warming or cooling is to confuse weather with climate, but it is a mistake that journalists are eager to embrace. By way of an example, the Sunday Times has today run a story today claiming that 'Europe could be facing a return of the "little ice age"'. Even if this were to be the case, you need to bear in mind that this period was not uniformly cold, and did witness many hot summers and mild winters as well as the more characteristic bitter conditions that the label implies.

It is of the utmost importance not to confuse journalism or, more importantly, politics with natural science. That is to say, scientific methodology should not be mistakenly attacked for advocating a particular course of action when it does no such thing, for it is lobby groups, politicians and big business that warp the tentative findings of climate science and then demand that we adopt certain policies and strategies; all three attempt to use the science as a pretext for advancing their own pre-existent agendas. Thus, in the UK for example, our mainstream politicians have adopted ‘climate change’ as a pretext for hiking up domestic energy and fuel prices (thereby bringing in more tax revenue), for the offshoring of industry to non-European nations and increasing overseas aid whilst cutting all other budgets. The oil industry on the other hand funds ‘anti-warmist’ propaganda in order to safeguard its business interests, and much of what we read either for or against any particular changes in climate will most likely have been refracted through these competing interests. The science often gets lost in the mix.

The essence of science is scepticism: science seeks to falsify its own models to arrive at a better understanding of natural phenomena. Thus, if models suggesting that the anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide has a catastrophic impact upon the global climate system prove to be false, then they will be ditched. If not, they will be retained. One excellent blog on weather and climate which I think adheres to objective and rational standards and will be sure to comment upon forecasts for the coming winter belongs to Look North weatherman Paul Hudson. Indeed, Hudson has written a post entitled 'Met Office wakes up to solar influence on climate' in which he welcomes this acknowledgement as a much-needed corrective to the organisation's previous neglect of this factor. If you have an interest in these matters, Hudson's blog is well worth a visit, even if the comments section does tend to degenerate into a slugging match between advocates and opponents of global warming, irrespective of the topic being tackled. 

What is crystal clear to me however, is that whatever the causation underpinning any observed shifts in climate, we in the UK and elsewhere in Europe need to find alternative energy supplies to imported oil, for its consumption generates vast wealth for our enemies: the Islamic petro-states. Oil wealth funds the propagation of Salafism through the mosques, madrassas and Islamic schools that have sprouted across Europe. Without oil wealth, countries such as Saudi Arabia would simply implode. Choke our foes of money, and our ideological war on our home turf becomes easier to win.

The real environmental crisis is a symptom not of ‘climate change’, but of unrestrained population growth. This growth is not a European problem, insofar as it is not a problem created by native European peoples and their descendants living in Australasia and the Americas, but a predominantly African and Asian problem. It is however a European problem insofar as we are being overwhelmed by a demographic invasion from Africa and Asia, and it is time that we put a stop to this. This growth in population, abetted by various religious fundamentalisms but most strongly by Islam, will be sure to bring untold misery and conflict in its wake. We live in a finite world with finite resources. Untrammelled population growth will bring death, famine, war and plague. These four however will not presage a transition into paradise, but a descent into a worldly hell. It somehow puts the forecast of a colder than average winter into perspective.