Review: ‘The Year Britain Flooded’ (Channel 4)

Although this documentary admittedly contained some interesting and often alarming footage, it slotted neatly into a genre of sensationalist television that appears to have become more frequent in recent years related to extremes of weather. Many people did have their homes and livelihoods wrecked by the floods of 2012, which in the case of Hebden Bridge, came more than once, but the irritating over-dramatised inflexions of the narrator’s voice brought to mind a local radio presenter given free rein to make merry with a camera crew. The portentous music simply added to the irritation factor. If you were hoping for a piece of television that brought you any form of in-depth and dispassionate analysis, this was not the programme for you.

At one point, someone created ‘artificial floodwater’ by placing a number of foul items in a tank: muddy water, semi-decayed leaves, engine oil, antifreeze, human faeces and a dead rat: Blue Peter for ghoulish adults. Distinctly unpleasant, but at least it didn’t contain any Findus ‘beef’ lasagne.

In 2012 we may have witnessed the wettest summer for a century, but surely most people cannot have such short memories that they do not recall the almost equally appalling wet summers of 2007 and 2008? In fact, we’ve had a run of dreadful summers in recent years. As the programme went on, the only thing keeping me on tenterhooks was waiting for the moment that the narrator eventually attributed this weather to ‘climate change’. It didn’t quite come, although it was suggested via the comment that “flooding may become more frequent in the future”, and the observation that whereas the Thames Barrier was raised only four times in the 1980s, this rose to 35 times in the 1990s, and this century it has already gone up 86 times, with five closings in one week last December: “there are indications that flooding is getting worse” intoned the presenter. Alan Partridge’s inflexions were present, but the narration would have been far more entertaining and agreeable had it had been placed in the capable hands of the fictitious DJ.

One factor that the programme completely omitted to address was the fact that in recent decades an ever-greater expanse of land has been built over, and a disturbing trend has emerged in some areas for gardens to be paved over. All of this, unsurprisingly, has led to a greater rapidity of water runoff, with predictable consequences relating to the inability of sewers and watercourses to cope with the resultant surge in excess water. As the population has rocketed, not only has the problem of flooding become worse, but when we are not experiencing protracted periods of rainfall, drought warnings often seem to be close at hand, leading to the demand for ever-more reservoirs and higher water bills to pay for them: yet another ‘benefit’ of mass immigration and the attendant high birth rates amongst immigrant populations.

All in all, some 8,000 properties across England and Wales are reported to have been damaged by flooding in the past year, with the resultant cost exceeding £1 billion. Quite how much damage it has caused to agriculture was not touched upon, but the losses in low-lying areas such as the Somerset Levels must have been considerable. The Yorkshire seaside town of Whitby was particularly badly hit, with a terrace of cottages falling victim to demolition thanks to a landslide. As for the nearby landslip from the cliff-top St Mary’s Church resulting in the disinterment of mediaeval human remains in the resultant rubble, this will probably serve as grist to Whitby’s gothic mill.

The weather in 2012 was wretched and the water table across the country remains perilously high. We desperately need a break from the rains, but will we get it? As yet, no long-range weather forecasts for the spring of 2013 appear to have been issued, but owing to the general inaccuracy of such items (whether produced by the Met Office or independent weather prophets such as Piers Corbyn), this should come as no surprise.

St Mary's Church Whitby: another attraction for Whitby's Goth Weekend?

2012: The Year of the Slug (as predicted here!)

Getting back into a normal routine after a long break can sometimes be a little tricky owing to (please pardon the pun) a little sluggish inertia, particularly after the extended period of festive overindulgence. At the beginning of last July I wrote a brief piece on Britain’s perennial favourite topic – the weather – and in it opined that whereas I thought that September was likely to offer us the best prospect of a dry warm spell it could well turn out that the resident Chinese population might “change the designation of 2012 from ‘Year of the Dragon’ to ‘Year of the Slug’.” Unfortunately, my facetious weather ‘forecast’ for the remainder of 2012, with the exception of October, turned out to be reasonably accurate, discerning as it did much more wet weather to come. Indeed, by the end of December The Daily Mail used my very own designation for the year in its headline ‘Year of the slug: 2012 was a washout for gardeners but perfect for pests’.

The past year was, in domestic meteorological terms, the most miserable that I can recall, and few can be hoping for a repeat of the seemingly interminable deluges that have of late bedevilled us. Farmland, homes and businesses were flooded, holidays were ruined and little prospered other than the seemingly ubiquitous and quietly triumphant hordes of slugs, accompanied on occasion by squadrons of malicious mosquitoes. This week we learn that the poor weather has had a negative impact upon the nutritional content not only of our food crops, but also of the grass upon which our livestock have fed when our pastures have not lain inaccessible beneath water. As if this situation in itself was not bad enough, a story in today’s Daily Telegraph draws our attention to an unwelcome new resident that is finding our green and sodden land a highly appealing home: a five-inch long monster slug from Spain revelling in the Latin name of Arion vulgaris. This nasty pest apparently possesses a hefty appetite for carrion, and in Scandinavia, where it has also managed to establish itself of late, it is reported as having become a hazard to motorists owing to the prodigious quantities of slime that the slugs leave on the road when feasting upon roadkill.

Arion vulgaris thus joins the harlequin ladybird, the New Zealand flatworm and of course the grey squirrel as but the latest in a line of invasive species that have been displacing and replacing the native fauna (although admittedly few would own to feeling any particular affection for our domestic slugs). What with sudden oak death and ash dieback, the contemporary analogues of the Dutch elm disease of the 1970s, our natural environment, rather like our social one, is suffering from the ill consequences wrought by the mighty forces of globalisation, with genuine diversity being replaced by transnational homogenisation.

Will 2013 become a second ‘year of the slug’, or will we finally enjoy a respite from the rain? Given the saturated state of the country, it may perhaps become the year of the mosquito. Whatever the case, thus far we seem to have been experiencing a stereotypical British winter: miserably grey, damp and mild. A taste of chilly winter weather lies in the offing later this week, and possibly lasting for much of January, but will it really deliver upon its promise? The Met Office, as is oft its wont, is being equivocal, and Piers Corbyn won’t tell us that his predictions about the winter were ‘right’ until some time after the event when he can find some weather that tallies with a forecast that he had sold to his exclusive set of subscribers. Surely, 2013 must be better than 2012 meteorologically? We have not had a decent summer in over half a decade, so would it be too much to expect some fine weather for the summer of 2013?

Update
True to form, the day after this article was posted Piers Corbyn popped up in The Daily Express to warn about the coming cold spell: "WeatherAction expects snow amounts to be as bad or worse than the record-breaking December 2010." Renowned for its exuberant exaggeration of all portents of snow and chill and its cavalier disregard for facts, the Express also added:

It's the same weather pattern responsible for the bitter 2009-2010 winter, the coldest for 31 years when transport networks were crippled and planes grounded. Icy easterly winds will sweep across Britain with everywhere at risk of wintry showers from the weekend and "significant snowfall" over high ground in Wales and the North.

The statement above is simply incorrect. Glaringly so. One of the notable features of the exceptionally low temperatures in the first month of the remarkable winter of 2009-2010 was the fact that the month of extreme chill with which it began was ushered in by a front issuing from the Arctic North, not from the East. It was bitter northerlies which prevailed during the coldest first four to five weeks of that winter that began with a surge of Arctic air during the last week of November. This is why the eastern counties of Britain and areas such as the North York Moors were particularly badly hit by snow. Facts? Now, why would journalists wish to bother with such irksome details as facts? I await the Express's first heatwave headlines with bated breath (sometime in March or early April perhaps?). 

Arion Vulgaris: Spain's sluggish contribution to Britain's globalising fauna

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.     

September 2012 forecast: heatwave for England

How hard is it to produce a long-range weather forecast? Evidently, it is not easy, as the following forecast posted by the Met Office for April to June on 23 March this year illustrates (you may need to pinch yourself after reading it):

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.

As many of you will be aware, today the Met Office released its provisional rainfall figures for April-June, and rather than being drier than average, it has been the wettest 3-month period on record. Across the country double the average rainfall fell in June, making it the wettest for the UK as a whole, and the second wettest for England, where it was beaten by the disastrous year that seemed to have no summer - 2007.

It has been chilly too, with June proving to be the coolest since 1991. Whereas it has been an excellent few months for slugs and ducks, it has not been good for tourism at home. The miserable run of weather will doubtless have given a boost to travel firms selling a holiday in the sun, for it looks set to continue. On 20 June the Met Office issued a 3-month forecast for July-September 2012 which, to be frank, is worthless:

The probability that UK precipitation for July-August-September will fall into the driest of our five categories is around 20% whilst the probability that it will fall into the wettest of our five categories is also around 20% (the 1971-2000 climatological probability for each of these categories is 20%).

In other words, the Met Office is saying that there is a one in five chance that the amount of rainfall we receive will fall into one of five quintiles. Yes, that is true, but it does not constitute a forecast, being as it is a mere statement of raw probability. It tells us nothing, and as such is to all intents and purposes utterly useless. Given the embarrassingly wide of the mark Met Office long-range weather outlook and the fact that many seem to swear by the ‘accuracy’ of independent weather prophet Piers Corbyn despite his frequent gaffes (the winter of 2011-2012 was supposed to be another extremely cold one for us apparently, but as you will recall, it was warmer than average), I thought that I’d have a crack at forecasting myself and see if I can do any worse. If Corbyn can make a living out of it, why can’t I? As to my methodology, it is quite straightforward: a wild stab in the dark. Here follows the forecast for the rest of this summer and autumn (I take no responsibility for its accuracy, inaccuracy or sheer irrelevance, so make sure that you have some sunblock at the ready just in case my guesswork turns out to be somewhat wide of the mark).

July

Not overly good with plenty of rain. Slugs will continue to thrive and it will be at least slightly warmer than June as it couldn’t get any cooler. There will be marginally more sunshine for the same reason. A poor month for gardeners, a good month for mildew and a delight for extreme campers.
Update 5 July: Piers Corbyn's July forecast has gone live, and it looks like he agrees with me when it comes to anticipating a forthcoming paradise for slugs at home. Well done Piers! Good to see you catching up with my random weather forecasting approach. In his own inimitable style Corbyn predicts 'A July of dramatic contrasts and likely record-level extremes. "Off-scale" rain, thunder-floods, giant hail, gales and tornado damage likely in NW Europe.' Now, you could never accuse him of overdramatising or using tabloid language could you? For some reason, use of a term such as "thunder-floods" brings to mind Native American linguistic usage. Maybe Piers is part Cherokee, part Nostradamus?

August

Better than July and probably a little warmer and drier. Slugs will still be doing well, and half of what is in your vegetable garden will probably be stunted, rotten or both. Those potatoes that have survived will be massive. If you live in the South, you will have plenty of green tomatoes for making chutney. If you are a parent, your school-age children will by now have driven you half insane and bankrupted you through repeated demands to get involved in diverting activities that involve parting with large sums of cash.

September

The best month of the ‘summer’ with an extended dry spell and an unseasonable heatwave of at least a week in duration. If you’re planning a holiday in England, this will be the month during which to enjoy it. If you’ve booked yourself a trip overseas, you’ll be cursing yourself for having missed the good weather at home. Meanwhile, the national press suffers an outbreak of predictable headlines incorporating the word ‘scorcher’ and the phrase ‘warmer than’ many places which are known to be hot. New record low for Arctic sea ice reported.

October

Not a bad month. An Indian summer and dry overall. Warm. Piers Corbyn issues the first version of his winter forecast intimating that it will be “unusually cold” in line with his reissued prediction of an impending ice age. Details relating to “an exceptionally cold surge of Arctic air” will be made available to subscribers to his long-range forecasts for a very reasonable fee equivalent to a pensioner’s winter fuel payment. First forecasts of a white Christmas appear in the press, together with bookies' odds.

November

A wet, windy and generally mild return to slug heaven. Eric Olthwaite would be delighted. Given the surfeit of slugs this year, you will be left puzzling as to why hedgehog numbers are still declining.

Christmas

Mild, overcast and damp. The possibility of some sleet in the Scottish Highlands. By this point, the resident Chinese population has decided to change the designation of 2012 from 'Year of the Dragon' to 'Year of the Slug'.

Don't laugh, as you'll probably see this post being quoted by the Daily Express in months to come as a genuine long-term forecast. The following may also be of interest: Winter 2012-2013 Weather Forecast: will Arctic Sea Ice Cover play a Role?

2012: Year of the Slug?

Cairngorm Slopes enjoy late spring Snows

After two bumper winter seasons in 2009/2010 and 2010/2011, the Cairngorm Ski Resort experienced a poor 2011/2012, with the unseasonal warmth of March leading to an early closure of the slopes. However, a much colder April and an unusually chilly May have resulted in a late season bonanza, with skiers flocking to Aviemore to enjoy an unexpected late spring treat on the pistes. With the weekend outlook for the Cairngorms forecasting further light snow on Friday and wintry showers on Saturday, the resort can look forward to at least another good weekend of skiing. The cold weather should last until Monday or Tuesday next week, but thereafter the forecast becomes uncertain. There has however even been some speculation that the season could last until late June, but owing to the vagaries of the weather, not too much store should be set upon such an expectation.

Currently, five of Cairngorm’s eleven ski lifts are open, placing it in a far more fortunate position than Scotland’s other resorts, with only one lift apiece being open at Glencoe and Nevis whilst none are operating at Glenshee and Lecht. The Winterhighland site reported this evening that between four and five inches of snow have fallen at the resort since Wednesday morning, with ‘near blanket cover above 3000ft with extensive cover stretching down to around 2800ft’.

The Scottish skiing industry has always operated on the margins of viability, so the people of Aviemore for one must be glad of the miserable May weather which has given a boost to their local economy. Piers Corbyn claimed that this May stood an ‘80% chance’ of being the coldest in 100 years in parts of Britain, but whilst this month has thus far been much colder than average (with the CET currently tracking 1.53ºC below the 1971-2000 average at 9.77ºC), there is almost a fortnight to run, and as past experience has repeatedly shown, at this time of year we can experience frost one weekend and a heatwave the next.

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.