It was amusing to see that the most viewed item on the Independent’s website yesterday was the article “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past” from 2000.
Similar claims have been made by the BBC, of course. In February 2007 the BBC World Service’s One Planet devoted an episode to warmer winters. Here’s the presenter, BBC science correspondent Richard Hollingham, giving us his conclusion :
Richard Hollingham: Those of us who grew up with very cold winters, who tell our children that winter’s not what it used to be, we’re right aren’t we?
Brenda Ekwurzel (Climate Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists): Yes. Absolutely. It has changed.
Hollingham: Sitting here at the BBC, leafing through my old photos, I can’t help feeling nostalgic for proper winters. This year we had just one day of snow in southern Britain. Mind you it still brought the roads, railways and airports to a standstill and shut the schools, but as most people in London, Moscow, Washington, Beijing or Oslo will testify, a cold crisp winter’s day with snow on the ground is infinitely preferable to the mild damp miserable winters many of us are having to get used to. It seems the winters of our youth are unlikely to return.
And here’s the BBC’s ‘Ethical Man’ Justin Rowlatt writing on the Newsnight blog in January 2007:
Do you remember snow? It’s that cold wet stuff you used to trudge through in the olden days.
I was reminded of the stuff – not by the weather of course – but as I looked through some super-8 footage of my family that my dad shot. It’s been collecting dust at my parent’s house for years. I dug it out because we were looking for images to use in the Ethical Man series.
I built the snowman with my sisters in January 1968. The shots of us sledging are from January 1971. It is beginning to look like my kids will be lucky to ever build a snowman in our garden.
Or how about this on the BBC Weather website from 2004:
There haven’t been to [sic] many cold winters recently in the UK and the number of days with snow cover are becoming fewer too. It’s getting harder and harder to make a snowman in Southern England! Many young children living here are still waiting to see their first white Christmas. If global warming predictions from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre are correct they may never live to see it.
Oh, won’t somebody please think of the children?
Snow – a thing of the past. Just imagine, if the powers that be had believed all this there might be chaos right now.
[Previously – BBC reports the demise of the ski industry.]
There seems to be some intro/retrospection at last in the highly insulated world (doubtless installed on expenses) of politics… and even the P-EU… at least some sections…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100069125/george-monbiot-colder-winters-are-caused-by-you-guessed-it-global-warming/
Is it possible that, despite what settled scientists and BBC press release retyping enviro ‘experts’ have claimed, various facially-egg adorned pols and bonus-grasping quangocrats are now reaping what they sowed when they decided targets, ticked boxes and wishful-thinking would triumph over solid science, engineering reality and public scepticism over blown claim after blown claim.
Heaven help them when a few of these political and media ‘leaders’ have a quick gander out the window and not a computer screen prediction, and notice that some of those growing population-serving wind turbines are not turning, and are hence unlikely to run the Xmas tree lights much less the Nissan Leafs parked under 1′ of snow in the not so affordably housed eco-towns only an ungritted motorway ride from where people actually work.
We seem to be in an era of delusion ‘at the top’ where happy-clappy notions of what ‘should’ be happening are still being shoved out by propaganda machines over the clear evidence of one’s own experience and eyes.
I’m staying at home and taking the kids sledding. Like my Dad did with me when this happened last time. Snow… in winter. The very thing.
If this weather is all so bloody consistent with global warming, why was no-one expecting it?
As I commented in the general thread we need to be on alert. The BBC have been trying to play down the recent cold winters this morning with plenty of left wing losers from Universities.
So one mong on Radio 5 claimed that the current winter is a one off (really?) and that the planet is actually getting warmer (no your fiddled statistics say it’s getting warmer) and that the UK only represents a tiny fraction of the planets surface and we are not significant.
Um… haven’t the USA been having some pretty cold weather as well (and not just this year) not to mention most of Europe as well.
Funny thing was he then used the heatwave in Russia as an example of climate change, so breaking his own rule that a one off event isn’t an indication of anything.
The lefties are floundering, not a single one of them ever predicted this and theri silly obsession with CO2 is hiding the truth, they don’t understand how the climate works.
I think it was actually Professor Mong of the LSE Climate Change Dept (so no pecuniary interest to declare there then). The scene was set by that renowned polymath Dame Nikki who introduced Prof Mong by seeking confirmation that people scoffing about “global warming” were falling into the trap of confusing weather & climate. Surprisingly Prof Mong agreed & consequently the Dame was effusive in his Seasons Greetings at the end of the propaganda piece. Open minds all round
The Beeb seem to be pushing the meme that this is an “exceptional” winter presumably so that it can be thought off as a one off or even worse due to that bogeyman climate change. They tried the same trick last year.
From what I can see here (Northern England) what we are having is a classic 1970s winter I remember from my childhood. In my mind it just confirms what I presume most people think that the weather changes in cycles we just don’t understand yet. We went through a cycle of warm winters in the 90’s and now we are seeing the other half of the cycle. Nothing special of course unless you have a religious belief in AGW.
They interviewed David King this morning, and , after giving a potted, layman’s description of the NAO, and what causes it (and the cold weather) – he made a point of “not wishing to be political” whilst being rather political. He also thought that we should have Europe-wide effective “climate modelling”, and that then everything would be alright – we’d be able to forecast these events well in advance, but he failed to mention that it was virtually impossible to model a chaotic, non-linear system like the climate. He laboured the idea that there were “hot summers” too, especially in the early 60’s – I don’t remember particularly “hot” summers in the early 60’s, does anyone else?
BUT – “Global Warming” and “Man-Made Climate Change” and “CO2” were NOT mentioned. Surprise, surprise!!
I seem to remember one of our coldest winters being in 1963 I think, bloody global warming!
And of course the mini ice age we had just a few hundrred years ago, you know when the Thames froze over, I blame all those 4X4 drivers.
I have also noticed the recent development that these ‘extreme events’ are caused by global warming aka climate change. Funny how we weren’t warned of that in 2007
The thing is AGW is a religion and like all religion’s it defies logic and can mean whatever you want it to mean.
It’s pointless having an argument with the eco loons. It’s the same as having an argument with any religious nutcases.