By Paul Homewood
The GWPF have now published my latest report on UK climate trends:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The UK Parliament declared a climate emergency earlier this year. And they are not the only ones. It is estimated that half of the UK’s principal local authorities have done the same.
Meanwhile the Committee on Climate Change claim that extreme weather events are increasing, and the head of the Environment Agency has stated that global warming is driving both more extreme weather and hotter drier summers.
But where is the evidence for any of this? After all, it should be obvious by now, if there really was such an emergency.
Using the recently published UK Met Office “State of the UK Climate 2018”, along with other Met Office data, this paper examines UK climatic trends and assesses the truth of climate emergency claims.
The analysis finds that:
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There was a step up in temperatures between the 1980s and early 2000s, since when temperatures have stabilised. This increase is closely associated with a rise in sea surface temperatures around the same time, itself connected to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a natural cycle, which is currently in its warm phase.
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The temperature data provides no evidence that temperatures will resume their upward trend in the foreseeable future.
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Seasonal temperatures follow a similar pattern.
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In particular, summer temperatures have still not exceeded those of 1976, despite last year’s long heatwave.
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Based on the Central England Temperature series (CET) daily temperatures, the heatwaves of 1975 and 1976 were much more intense than anything since, including last summer, with daily temperatures peaking at higher levels and for longer. For instance, in 1975 and 1976, there were four and nine days respectively with temperatures over 30C. By contrast, last summer there was only one.
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Whilst daily temperature extremes are not rising at the top end of the scale, extremely cold days have become much less common. In short, UK temperatures have become less extreme, contrary to common belief.
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Although the UK Met Office claimed that last summer in the UK tied with 1976 as the hottest on record, the well respected CET tells a different story. In fact, it shows the summer of 2018 as only 5th warmest, not even as hot as 1826. This casts doubt on the Met Office’s UK gridded temperature network, which provides its official climate data, but which relies on many UHI affected sites, such as Heathrow.
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Although there has been a clearly increasing trend in UK precipitation since the 1970s, this is largely due to increasing totals in Scotland. In the rest of the UK, there appear to be little in the way of long term changes.
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The long running England & Wales Precipitation series (EWP), which begins in 1766, offers a longer perspective, and shows that the higher levels of rainfall experienced in the last two decades are not unprecedented.
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Seasonal analysis of the EWP shows little trends in winter or summer rainfall since 1900, nor for that matter spring or autumn. This runs counter to regular claims of “wetter winters” and “drier summers”.
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Analysis of EWP also provides no evidence that rainfall is becoming more extreme, whether on a decadal, monthly or daily basis. There is, however, evidence that extremely dry years have become less common.
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Sea levels have been rising at around 1.4mm a year, after correcting for vertical land movement. Recent rates of sea level rise are similar to those in the first half of the 20thC. There is no evidence that sea level has been accelerating.
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There is little long term data for storms, but limited data from the UK Met Office indicates that storms have not become more frequent or stronger in the last five decades.
In short, although it is slightly warmer than it used to be, the UK climate has actually changed very little. In particular, there is no evidence that weather has become more extreme.
Heatwaves have not become more severe, nor droughts. Rainfall data offers no evidence that floods have become worse either.
Neither is there any evidence from past trends that the climate will become significantly hotter, wetter or drier. Nor that sea level rise will accelerate.
Widespread claims that we are now living through a climate emergency or breakdown are just so much hot air.
The full report is here.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
September 27, 2019 at 05:00AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 