One of the joys of working in environment is the comments we get when it snows. Lower than average temperatures anywhere in the UK at any time are taken as proof positive that climate change isn't real. I can understand why people would like to dismiss the whole concept. If climate change is real and the effects on our children and grandchildren are as predicted then we all ought to do something about it. To make a real difference we are going to have to make large changes. It's so much easier if we can deny it. Unfortunately the science points to climate change being real and mostly our responsibility.
People tend to forget that there is a difference between weather and climate. Weather is what we get day to day. It is variable and difficult to predict accurately. Will it rain on 3rd July? We don't know in January. Climate is the big picture and is more predictable. We can be fairly sure that it will be warmer on 3rd July than it is today. In the UK our climate is temperate maritime which means it is generally mild and damp and subject to a lot of weather. Oscar Wilde said, 'Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.' In the UK it is one of the safest conversational subjects, suitable for all, especially at the moment when it is the second winter to be unusually cold following a prolonged run of mild winters. During last year's winter a taxi driver in Sheffield (font of all knowledge) commented that there was a whole generation of drivers who had little experience of driving on ice.
What we should remember is that weather is local and climate change is global. As you can see in NASA's temperature map below whilst November was unusually cold in the UK and northern Europe there are whole areas surrounding us that are very much warmer then normal. The other thing we might consider is that climate destabilisation can have a marked effect on our local weather.
I have been saying for quite some time now, in my entirely unscientific way, that continuing arctic ice melt can only result in strange weather. That huge amount of ice at the top of the world, covering the sea and reflecting sunlight must have a large effect on the weather we experience in the UK. The gardening book I am reading at the moment, 'The Resilient Gardener' puts it very nicely:
'Climatic changes cause irregularities in the patterns of ocean currents and winds. The local effects of those changes are huge compared with the few degrees cited as likely increases in average global climate in the next few decades. A change in wind patterns that brings Arctic inland air masses to you instead of mild ocean air will matter much more than a few degrees higher average global temperature.'
This may be what is happening at the moment. Arctic sea ice is lower than usual, as can be seen on the Arctic Sea Ice News website. Scientists are already at work looking at the potential effects of lower sea-ice. The Oslo Science Conference website, reporting Dr James Overland's comments summarised, 'a warmer Arctic climate is influencing the air pressure at the North Pole and shifting wind patterns on our planet. We can expect more cold and snowy winters in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America'. Recently Vladimir Petoukhov and Vladimir Semenov have issued a press release based on a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR) arguing that Global Warming could cool down winter temperatures over Europe, and a reduced sea-ice extent could increase the chance of getting cold winters.
Whenever I come across any climate related news I head straight for Real Climate, a blog about 'Climate science from climate scientists'. I have to concentrate really hard to remember my physics and occasionally do background reading to fully understand what they are talking about but it's worth the effort. They didn't let me down with these stories which are discussed in a recent blog posting. They critique the JGR paper and suggest that further work needs to be done before the link they describe is confirmed but conclude, 'It is nevertheless no contradiction between a global warming and cold winters in regions like Europe. Rather, recent analysis suggest that the global mean temperature is marching towards higher values, and Petoukhov and Semenov argue that the cold winter should be an expected consequence of a global warming.'
NB The temperature anomaly map is for November 2010, the most up-to-date at the time of writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment