Global Warming In Vermont
By Paul Homewood
It’s nearly June in Vermont, and mid afternoon temperatures have reached a heady 43F. And if you go up the hill, you had better take your skis.
The norm for May is 66F.
http://www.vermont.com/weather/
Apparently this is what we can expect global warming to bring (along with mild Springs, and normal Springs).
Giro d’Italia – Stage 19 cancelled due to snow
By Paul Homewood
Heavy snow forced Giro d’Italia organisers to call off Friday’s mountainous stage 19 from Ponte di Legno to Val Martello.
Snow falls at the Tonale pass in northern Italy on Friday forcing the cancellation of the 19th stage of the fabled Giro d’Italia race
"Due to adverse weather conditions and, in particular, snow on the stage route in its entirety, stage 19…has been cancelled," race organisers RCS Sport said in a news release on Friday.
Poor weather had already led RCS to make changes to the stage-19 route on Thursday, cancelling two of the three major mountain climbs, the Gavia and Stelvio, but they had hoped to retain the final ascent to Val Martello.
However, major overnight snowfall, temperatures well below freezing on the major mountain passes and sleet falling in the region’s valleys early on Friday caused the entire stage to be cancelled, the first time that had happened since 1989.
Overall leader Vicenzo Nibali applauded the organisers’ decision, saying: "The conditions are really extreme and so I think they’ve made the right decision.
"They’d already altered the stage route but because of the weather conditions and the snow we can’t do the stage," said the Italian, speaking at his team hotel.
Racing will resume on Saturday, with a third straight mountainous stage finishing at Tre Cime di Lavaredo but all the climbs leading up to it will be cancelled because of the poor weather.
A snowplow works in Passo del Tonale after the cancellation of the 19th stage of the 96th Giro d’Italia.
Snow falls close to the start area of the 19th stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race.
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/giro-ditalia-two-major-climbs-cut-stage-19-191349894.html
Cost Of The UK’s Climate Change Act
By Paul Homewood
The UK Government introduced the Climate Change Act in 2008, which enshrined in law a commitment to ensure that the net UK carbon account for all six Kyoto greenhouse gases for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline.
The legislation contained a summary of the financial impact, which estimated annual costs of between £14.7bn and £18.3bn. The impact assessment also claimed that benefits would be greater. However, none of these “benefits” were directly related to the UK; instead they were simply calculated from the “Social Cost of Carbon”, or SCC, as originally devised by the Stern Review. This SCC is no more than a theoretical guess at the “avoided global damage cost of emissions”.
Furthermore, DECC have stated categorically to me that they cannot provide an estimate of any potential benefits to the UK.
And, as the impact assessment points out, if the rest of the world takes no action, all the costs would be borne by the UK, and the UK would receive no benefits from reciprocal action by other nations.
The Act, however, did not provide any detail on how the GHG emissions reduction would be achieved. This, instead, was left to a succession of Carbon Plans, each to last five years, with the first one beginning in 2008. These Plans start to fill in some of the detail.
Spring on track to be coldest for 30 years
By Paul Homewood
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/22631057
Early figures from the Met Office show spring (March, April and May) 2013 is on course to be the coldest in the UK since 1979.
Estimates of the mean temperature for the whole season have been made based on data from 1 March up to 15 May as well as an assumption of average conditions through to the end of this month. The final figures could therefore be different, depending on the temperatures we actually see up to the end of May.
The estimates suggest the mean UK temperature for spring will be around 6.1 °C, which would make it the 6th coldest spring in national records dating back to 1910 and the coldest since 1979 when the mean temperature was 6.0 °C.
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/spring-on-track-to-be-coldest-for-30-years/
Bill Nye Makes A Fool Of Himself Again
By Paul Homewood
It seems Bill Nye has been attempting to link the Oklahoma tornado with climate change. Interviewed by Piers “Moron” Morgan on Monday night he was asked:-
“As a scientist, when you hear about the size, scale, power, devastation of this tornado, what does it tell you about the ongoing debate about climate change?”
Nye replied that climate change had to be considered after a catastrophic weather event like the devastating tornado in Oklahoma. He also claimed 10 of the last 12 years are the “warmest years recorded.”
“Thunderstorms are driven by heat and a tornado is a super thunderstorm — result of a super thunderstorm. So you’ve got to figure that if there’s more heat driving the storm then there’s going to be more tornadoes. Now this is the kind of thing that is worth investigating,” he added.
Perhaps the Science Guy should have checked a few facts, before he made an idiot of himself again.
Oklahoma Tornado
By Paul Homewood
I have deliberately held off running this post for a day or two, partly because I felt it inappropriate to do so earlier, and also because I wanted to wait until the facts became clearer.
NWS have now officially declared the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma on Monday as an EF-5, the highest category, which is given when wind speeds are estimated to be over 200 mph. The current estimate for this tornado is 200-210 mph.
Latest estimates are that 24 people have died, although this figure may rise.
Electric Car Sales In The UK – 2012
By Paul Homewood
If the UK is to get anywhere near it targets for reducing CO2 emissions, it needs to do three things:-
- Totally revolutionise its structure for electricity supply.
- Decarbonise domestic heating.
- Replace conventional cars with electric ones.
We already know that the government is struggling to achieve the first two objectives, but what about transport? The Committee on Climate Change has called for 1.7m electric cars on the road by 2020.
And DECC’s Fourth Carbon Budget, published in 2011, is based on a target for 50% of new car sales to be electric, during the budget period of 2023-27.
So how is progress going?
According to the Department for Transport, only 2198 electric cars were sold last year, despite a £5000 government bribe. This figure includes all electric variants, such as plug-in hybrids, not just pure electric models, such as the Leaf.
This figure is a minute 0.1% of the total figure of 2,044,609 new car registrations last year.
It has been evident for a long while that the “experts”, who put together these plans and legislation at DECC, have been living in their own little fantasy world. But surely it is evident, even to them now, that they need to come down from their ivory tower, and join the rest of us in the real world.
The Soviets learnt the hard way that bureaucratic, centralised state planning does not work. How much more damage will be inflicted on our economy before our commissars learn the same lesson?
By Paul Homewood
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/ncdc-releases-april-2013-global-climate-report
NOAA’s global temperature numbers are out for April. At 0.52C above the 20thC average, they are the third coldest April this century.
Perhaps of even greater significance is the fact that ENSO conditions for the last few months have been neutral. This is in contrast to April last year, when La Nina conditions were just beginning to fizzle out, and the two previous colder April’s of 2006 & 2008, when La Nina conditions existed.
Current temperatures are also lower than least year’s average of 0.58C.
Warmists in a Tizzy
This worrying news, about the planet getting colder, is understandably getting warmists into a frenzy.
One, apparently called Andrew Freeman, is so concerned that he wheeled out the tired old cliche:-
https://twitter.com/afreedma/status/336501047956758528
Now, if global temperatures suddenly crashed back to 20thC levels, I suggest we would all be mightily worried, even Mr Freedman!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Gamecock
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec/records
I posted yesterday about the State Climate Records that NOAA keep. These are the official state records for highest temperatures, precipitation and so on. As such, a great deal of care goes into ensuring that the observations are meteorologically sound and that “the observing platform meets or exceeds instrument and siting standards set forth by the WMO, OFCM, and NOAA”.
Since 1996, only two state maximum temperature records have been set or equalled – Fort Pierre in South Dakota in 2006, and Columbia in South Carolina last year. The latter record of 113F was measured there at the University of South Carolina, but as a reader pointed out, things are not quite that simple.
Reader Gamecock knows the place well and describes it:-
“The SC record is garbage. It is in the city of Columbia, a sure UHI candidate. The station itself is 20 meters from a parking lot, and less than 20 meters from a stone rail bed. There used to be some vegetation around it, too. At best, a CRN Class 3 station. Not one you’d use to set your state record. Unless you were hungry for a record in the hottest year on record!”
State Maximum Temperature All-Time Records
By Paul Homewood
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec/records
As I mentioned in my last post, NOAA keep track of climatological records for each state. The procedure is a very tightly controlled one, as they describe.
The State Climate Extremes Committee (SCEC) was created in 2006 in response to the need for proper and comprehensive evaluation of meteorological observations which may have tied or exceeded existing statewide all–time record values. Beyond their intrinsic human interest factor, climatic extremes are an important component of a location’s climatology, used for, among other things, quality controlling meteorological observations, setting engineering limits, and helping authorities to develop climate related safety plans.
While similar in function to the National Climate Extremes Committee, the SCEC is an ad hoc committee established to evaluate the climatological records of individual states. When a potential record meteorological value has been observed, it will be brought to the attention of the local National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Office or the state’s State Climatologist. If, after reviewing the observation, the WFO or State Climatologist feels it is legitimate, they will convene the SCEC for a review and vote on the value.
It is worth looking at the maximum temperature records more closely. Including ties, there are 83 records, and the graph below shows the distribution by decade of when they were set.
