The German DWD national weather service, once a model for meteorology and climate, has over the years taken on a more activist global warming role, with some even claiming that it too has joined the propaganda army of the man-made global warming movement.

Not surprisingly, the DWD management has been claiming in the press that the so-called Eisheilige (Ice Saints) have been getting less intense over the years and that they may wind up disappearing altogether. Because of global warming!

Often typical in mid May, a weather pattern involving a high located over the North Atlantic near Iceland feeds blasts of polar air across Europe. This happened last year on May 14, 2016 – see following chart:

The DWD Chairman has claimed that over all the previous years:

1) The “Ice saints” recently have been getting continuously warmer and that they will soon become the Hot Saints, which the press then gladly called the Sweating Saints, and

2) the Ice Saints have practically disappeared on account of climate warming.”

These claims of course aroused the suspicions of Kowatsch and Kämpfe, who decided to go back and look at the DWD’s own data. What they found is that the DWD had been misleading the media and the public with statements of warmer Ice Saints periods, and that in fact the very opposite has been occurring: the Ice Saints have been getting colder!

The following charts show the mean May 11-15 temperature for Potsdam, which is home of the notoriously alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), headed by global warming pope, Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber.

All four trend lines [in Figure 2] show that the Ice Saints have been getting colder since 1985, and not warmer. All four trend lines show that the statements from the DWD management are false. The Ice Saints in Germany are getting colder.

Kowatsch and Kämpfe also look at another DWD weather station, which has been in operation since 1996: Goldbach bei Bischofswerda. Here as well the Ice Saints have been getting steeply colder:

This makes it all the more puzzling that the DWD higher-ups would be using the terms “recently has been“, or “is currently” getting” when telling the public the Mid May frost periods are disappearing. Example here.

Kowatsch and Kämpfe write that this year the DWD spoekespeople should make major changes in the next press releases on the subject of mid May cold spells, suggesting: “The month of May is getting colder and the Ice Saints are getting even colder” and that he should add the remark: “The Ice Saints soon will be as cold as they were in the mid 20th century, some 60 years ago when scientists worried about a new ice age.”

Why are May cold snaps in Europe getting colder?

Kowatsch and Kämpfe suspect that solar activity may be a major factor in the may cooling, as it is known that it has an impact on large weather patterns over Europe. Solar activity has been dwindling over the past 2 decades. Another factor maybe the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which now appears to be coming down from its warm peak. CO2 obviously is having no effect at all.

Josef Kowatsch is an independent nature and climate researcher. Stefan Kämpfe is an agricultural engineer and also an independent nature and climate researcher.