Comparisons With 1940 & 1965
By Paul Homewood
Storms Desmond, Eva and Frank certainly brought an awful lot of rain to some parts of the country last month. But what is just as remarkable is how small an area was affected by them, something borne out by the daily data from the England & Wales Precipitation Series.
As this data is only available from 1931, we cannot make comparisons with some of the wettest months on record, such as Dec 1876, Dec 1914 or Nov 1852. But we can compare with Nov 1940, the 3rd wettest November, and Dec 1965, 8th wettest. Both months recorded much more rainfall than last month.
Met Office’s ‘wettest ever’ claim fails again – Booker
By Paul Homewood
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/12091298/Met-Offices-wettest-ever-claim-fails-again.html
From the Telegraph:
We are all aware that parts of the country, including the north of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, have lately been hit, at huge cost, by abnormal amounts of rain.
But as soon as the Met Office rushed to proclaim that 230mm of rain (9in) had made it “the wettest December on record” (and the “wettest calendar month”) – predictably echoed by the BBC and the Prime Minister – we knew it might be wise to examine the small print behind its claims.
We know how eager these people are to seize on any “extreme weather event” as a sign of unprecedented “climate change”, as they did when the Met Office trumpeted on July 1 that it had been “the hottest July day evah”, solely on the basis, it turned out, of a fleeting temperature spike probably caused by an airliner passing its temperature gauge near a runway at Heathrow.
Sure enough, the Met Office’s longest rainfall record, covering England and Wales (thus including two of the areas most affected) showed, with its 145.1mm (5.7in), that December ranked as only the 20th wettest since 1766. Even Northern Ireland didn’t break its own record from 1919 – so only Scotland’s 351mm (14in) was unprecedented. But if the Met Office had more honestly reported merely that it had been the wettest December recorded in Scotland, this would scarcely have provided the BBC and Mr Cameron with the headlines they were after.
According to the Met Office’s own data, last December in England and Wales was way behind the 193.9mm (7.6in) recorded in 1876; while the wettest calendar month was October 1903 with 218.1mm (8.6in). As for the other impression the Met Office likes to give, that extreme rainfall is becoming more frequent, graphs meticulously plotted from Met Office data by Paul Homewood on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat website show no evidence at all for this, either for December or more generally.
Just as shameless last week was the Environment Agency’s boast of all the measures it has taken to avert any repetition of the disastrous floods that covered a large area of Somerset in 2014. It has dredged the main drainage river, installed many new pumps, reactivated others, and seen the setting up of a new Somerset Rivers Authority to organise the cleaning of ditches by local drainage boards.
What the agency didn’t admit was that all this marked a complete reversal of the “ultra-green” policy it followed in the years before 2014, which deliberately misused various EU directives and made flooding inevitable, supposedly in the interests of wildlife (much of it then wiped out when the inevitable happened).
And this policy U-turn would never have taken place but for the decisive intervention of the former environment secretary Owen Paterson who, after talking to local engineers and other practical experts, called a halt to what he terms the “green-plating” of EU directives, and came up with detailed plans to avert such a disaster happening again. Dredging and all, these included every point on which the agency is now trying to take credit.
Dumbing Down At The Telegraph
By Paul Homewood
The process of dumbing down continues at the Telegraph!
For some reason, Philip Eden has been dropped from the Sunday Telegraph for the last few weeks, and been replaced with someone called Peter Stanford, who seems to have little in the way of qualifications for the job of reporting the weather.
So, instead of getting serious reporting of events and their context in the longer history of climate, we end up with a load of lightweight, inaccurate drivel.
If we take his latest piece last Sunday, we get claims that Storm Frank was somehow stronger than the 1987 Hurricane (which was not one anyway). I really don’t know where he gets his “120 mph winds” from, but the highest recorded, according to Accuweather, was 85 mph on the Hebridean island of South Uist, something that is not uncommon in those exposed parts.
It is ironic that they chose a picture of some waves at Porthcawl, on the South Wales coast to illustrate the “fearsome” storm. Just along the coast at Bristol, the local rag warned:
Yes – 26mph!
Frank certainly brought an awful lot of rain, but to put it into the same category as the 1987 Storm is simply ludicrous. Even the Met Office could not be bothered to publish wind speed data on their blog, as they had done with Abigail and the rest.
Then we get the insinuation that these storms have something to do with global warming, for which there is not a shred of evidence. Indeed, winter storms such as these should be happening less frequently in a warming world, as temperature differentials between the Arctic and lower latitudes reduce, something Philip Eden might have told them.
As we know, the wettest December in England & Wales was in 1876. We have no Met Office reports for that month, but we do for December 1914, which ranks second:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/library/archive-hidden-treasures/monthly-weather-report-1910s
Amongst the gales mentioned, top wind speeds of 91mph, 78mph and 81mph were recorded on the 4th, 12th and 28th. There is no mention of anything from the Hebrides, which suggests they were not recorded there.
The three storms last month, Desmond, Eva and Frank, were certainly no worse than those in 1914.
It turns out that December 1915 was little better, being the fourth wettest December on record.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/library/archive-hidden-treasures/monthly-weather-report-1910s
Perhaps the most telling comment was this:
Force 8 is categorised as a “Gale” on the Beaufort Scale, with sustained winds of 40 to 46mph. We may recall that “Storm” Barney never got above Force 8. The idea that we could have twenty days of Storm Barneys and worse would send our dopey reporters into apoplexy!
Heaven knows what Julia would make of it, particularly after the cold, dry month that preceded it.
One more comment stands out:
A “Whole Gale”, also known as a “Strong Gale” has sustained winds of 47 to 54mph, and must have been some storm to last for 51 hours.
Perhaps Peter Stanford needs a history lesson?
How Does El Nino Affect UK Weather?
By Paul Homewood
There has been a lot of talk about the effect that El Nino is having on UK weather.
The general view seems to be that it has at the very least spiced up the wet and stormy weather in the last month, but that it would also lead to a much colder spell towards the end of the winter.
This is what the Met Office’s 3-month outlook currently says:
However, if we go back to the 1997/8 El Nino, we find no such thing:
First, December 1997: both temperatures and rainfall were pretty much normal.
And January 1998? Again, nothing out of the ordinary at all.
When we get to February 1998, we find that, rather than being cold, it is actually the warmest month on record since 1910, with rainfall pretty average.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/datasets
Our understanding of the effects of El Nino is so poor, and experience of major events so limited, that we in reality have very little idea what the effect on UK weather will be. But the experience of 1997/8 certainly suggests that it is certainly not as straightforward as pretended.
Jet Stream Changes Bringing In Much Colder Weather
By Paul Homewood
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/north-atlantic-ssts-dropping-sharply/
Back on 29th December, I ran the animation of the forecast jet stream from netweather.tv. These showed the jet stream, moving much further south from the end of December position, that had persistently brought strong winds and a mild, moist airflow up from the south west. It was this pattern that had brought so much rainfall to the north west of the country.
The forecast position as at 8th January (above) has proved remarkably accurate, compared with the current situation:
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream
The only real difference is that the flow has not moved quite as far south as predicted. Nevertheless, the country is in a much colder, showery airflow, except for the north east of Scotland, which has borne the brunt of the rainfall.
The correlation of jet stream with the low pressure systems parked to the west of the UK is clear.
The forecast is for the kink in the jet stream to wiggle its way east, bringing much colder air down from the north next week. By next Friday, we look to be in for some very cold and windy weather!
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream
I expect the Met Office will blame it on El Nino, and tell us they warned about it all the time. Mere mortals will probably say it is just weather!
2015 Was Not Unusually Wet
By Paul Homewood
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/monthly/HadEWP_monthly_qc.txt
Contrary to various misleading claims, last year was not “one of the wettest” on record. In fact it only ranked 84th wettest since 1766, according to the England & Wales Precipitation Series, with 969mm, only marginally above the average of 918mm.
As the 10-Year average shows, there have been wetter periods than the last 10 years in the past. The wettest such period was 1874-83. The 1770’s and 1920’s were also exceptionally wet.
The Met Office often likes to claim that most of the wettest years have occurred in the last decade or two, but again the facts show this not to be true:
China Raise Stakes In The Spratly Islands
By Paul Homewood
The Spratly Islands have been an increasing source of territorial dispute between China and its neighbours around the South China Sea, notably Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The islands are no more than an uninhabited collection of reefs, but in the last few years China has been busy building man made islands there, including three military runways..
Construction at Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the south China Sea by China
Chinese land reclamation operations at Fiery Cross reef in the South China Sea
This move is the latest escalation in the dispute.
I don’t think China wants them for their tourist potential, as they are only a couple of feet above sea level, and experts tell us they will drown in a few years time.
Which can only leave the abundant deposits of gas and oil!
Meanwhile other “experts”, such as Mark Carney and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, assure us that oil reserves are stranded assets, and that China is going to save us all from global warming by building loads of wind turbines.
Perhaps they might care to tell us why China is going to such lengths occupy the Spratlys?
EU To Investigate Biomass Subsidies For Drax
By Paul Homewood
Whoops!!
Hot on the heels of an EU investigation into subsidies for Hinkley Point, comes one into biomass subsidies for Drax, as the Telegraph report:
Drax’s hopes of securing lucrative subsidies for its biomass conservion have suffered a setback after the European Commission launched a full state aid investigation over concerns the payments may be too generous.
The Yorkshire-based power plant is in the process of switching from burning coal to biomass, and was awarded a £1.7bn Government subsidy contract in April 2014 for the third of its six units – subject to state aid approval.
The contract would see Drax paid a fixed price of £105 for every megawatt-hour (MWh) of biomass-fired power the unit generated until 2027 – well over double the current market price.
Drax shares fell 5pc on Tuesday after the European Commission said it was concerned that the rate of return from the subsidies "could be higher than the parties estimate and could lead to overcompensation".
It was also concerned that the "considerable" volume of wood pellets the unit would burn each year – about 2.4 million tonnes, mostly imported from United States and South America – would be so great as to "significantly distort competition in the biomass market".
It said it had "opened an in-depth investigation to assess whether the United Kingdom’s plans to support the conversion of part of the Drax coal power plant to operate on biomass are in line with EU state aid rules".
Drax has already largely converted the unit in question, which now runs on about 85pc biomass. This enables it to qualify for lesser subsidies, estimated to be about £80-£85/MWh, through another scheme called the Renewables Obligation.
The significantly more lucrative subsidy contract that is currently under EC scrutiny would require 100pc conversion.
Drax shares had been boosted last month when another biomass conversion project at Lynemouth got the green light from the EC for a comparable subsidy contract.
But Drax had cautioned at the time that its project had "different underlying technical and economic assumptions".
The EC said it believed that "estimates of the plant’s economic performance may be too conservative".
Combined with its fears over market distortion, it said it was "concerned that on balance the measure’s negative effects on competition could outweigh its positive effect on achieving EU 2020 targets for renewable energy".
Drax said the opening of the investigation was "in line with expectations".
A spokesman added: “We welcome this announcement as the next step towards the full conversion of our third generating unit from coal to sustainable biomass.
"A positive outcome will result in half our power station running on biomass. This will improve the security of UK electricity supply and, in saving more than 12 million tonnes of carbon per year, play a critical role in helping the UK meet its climate change targets.
“We will continue to work hard to complete this State Aid clearance process as quickly as possible and make the case for converting the remainder of our power station.”
John Musk, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets said he believed that "the additional scale and greater thermal efficiency at Drax" meant it was always likely to get a lower subsidy price than Lynemouth.
He said that "the returns at £105/MWh were always too high". This had now been "brought into even more stark contrast" because earnings through the alternative subsidy option, the Renewables Obligation, had been reduced to around £80-£85/MWh as a result of falling wholesale power prices and other Government changes.
A similar in-depth state aid investigation was held into the proposed Hinkley Point nuclear plant. It was eventually approved, but with changes imposed by the EC to try to lessen the risk of the subsidies being too high.
2015 Only 3rd Warmest Year According To Satellites
By Paul Homewood
Satellite temperature data is now in for December, and confirms, as expected, that 2015 was not the warmest on record, but only third warmest since 1979, well below both 1998 and 2010.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
Indeed, despite the strongest El Nino conditions last year since 1998, temperatures have barely exceeded 2005.
The temperature standstill since 1998 is still evident from the purple trend lines on the monthly anomaly graphs below.
There is always a lag before higher SST’s affect the atmosphere, usually between three and six months, but as strong El Nino conditions have existed since last April, it is unlikely monthly temperatures will go much higher in coming months. This assumes, of course, that El Nino does not re-strengthen.
I’m sticking my neck out now, but given the current consensus on El Nino, I would expect 2016 to finish slightly higher than last year, at around 0.40C for RSS, and 0.30C for UAH. This would still leave both well below 1998 and 2010.
If I am right, this would be quite remarkable, given that the current El Nino is so much stronger than in 2009/10.
The Met Office & The Civil Service Code
By Paul Homewood
h/t Anonomeuse
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2016/december-records
The Met Office has claimed that December 2015 was the wettest month since records began in 1910. As we know, they have records dating back to 1766 which totally demolish this claim.
Of course, the Met Office statement has this footnote, which covers its back.
However, there is something called the Civil Service Code, which states:
How “truthful and open” is it to make no mention at all of the longer running rainfall series for England & Wales, which confirms that the wettest December was in 1876, and the wettest calendar month was October 1903?
These facts are clearly an embarrassment to Julia Slingo and her colleagues, who have been determined to convince us that global warming is leading to more extremely wet weather. But “integrity” means putting aside such personal interests and providing both government and public with all of the information, and not just the bits that suit them.
