Did They Have Global Warming In 1929 As Well, Julia?
By Paul Homewood
Before anybody gets too carried away by claims of record rainfall and biblical floods, they should perhaps take a look back at the winter of 1929/30.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/datasets
Both for the UK as a whole and in England, total precipitation over the three months was much higher than this winter. In England, it amounted to 33% extra.
Also the monthly rainfalls in November and December 1929 were both higher than last month’s. Clearly there is nothing unprecedented about recent weather.
The Met Office monthly reports make for instructive reading.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/monthly-weather-report
The British Rainfall annual publication, issued by the Met Office, adds some other relevant information for 1929/30.
- Although exceptionally wet in that winter, there had been a remarkable run of wet years, probably dating back to 1907.
- In terms of annual rainfall, 1924, 1927 and 1928 had been even wetter.
- As the map shows, the southern half of the country was worst affected, over the six winter months of October to March. (This is a similar picture to the recent pattern, except that the worst rainfall now is slightly more to the south east, rather than south west.)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/british-rainfall
Perhaps it is time that Dame Julia studied a bit of history, instead of moronically trying to blame everything on global warming.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
As a result of that series of wet winters, harvests all over Europe were poor, resulting in high food prices which in part led to the depression of the 1930’s. Interesting to note, though, that, despite those wet winters, flooding was not as bad as the recent spate. Do you suppose someone will put two and two together and point out that there was a lot less concrete and a lot more trees back then?!
I’ve just watched in amazement as an expert from Redding university explained how the floods were caused by the pacific and a drought in California and the tropics had changed the position of the jet-stream.
George Monbiot doesn’t seem to have got the memo – here he is, speaking on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show, yesterday, about the floods:
“We’ve had record amounts of rainfall – the Met Office has consistently predicted, over the years, that more global heating would cause more rainfall in the winter, and this is exactly what we’re seeing. The record amounts of rainfall are on top of all the silly things that we’ve been doing in this country – which I agree with you [responding to an earlier point by Daniel Johnson, editor of Standpoint magazine], you know, some of them are completely daft. But you put those things together, and you’ve got a real problem. And what this shows, this gives us an insight – a flash of vision – as to the sort of thing we’re going to get an awful lot more often, as climate breakdown really kicks in.”
January is 14th. wettest month in England since 1910
You could not call January’s rainfall “unprecedented”
1. 179.0mm. 1914 Dec.
2. 174.5mm. 1929 Nov.
3. 170.8mm. 2009 Nov.
4. 170.5mm. 1912 Aug.
5. 169.3mm. 1918 Sep.
6. 167.8mm. 1951 Nov.
7. 168.4mm. 1915 Dec.
8. 168.4mm. 1940 Nov.
9. 165.5mm. 1929 Dec.
10. 164.8mm. 2000 Oct.
11. 164.5mm. 1960 Oct.
12. 160.2mm. 1934 Dec.
13. 160.1mm. 1911 Dec.
14. 158.2mm. 2014 Jan.
Of the above top 14 rainy months:-
9 months were in 1910-1945
2 months were in 1946-1980
3 months were in 1981-2014
I don’t think that word means what Julia thinks it does.
Hello Paul
I had the same idea myself when I kept hearing about the weather getting wetter.
Attached is a quick spreadsheet I knocked up showing the trend is nothing special.
Regards,
Garry
skilful.com skilled.org wipo.org.uk woolwichsucks.co.uk
Just a year ago …. drought threat….
http://www.landscapelife.co.uk/magazine/climate-threats-to-uk-forests-set-out-in-national-risk-assessment.html
Did the Somerset levels flood in October 1903 with 8.49 inches of rain? Then again in August 1912, when 7.59 inches were recorded?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_and_Wales_Precipitation#Wettest
To use solar energy to dry clothes. Instead of a dryer in the washing machine. Another way to reduce global warming.
In the light of the documentary evidence above (most excellently hunted down btw), it would be interesting to see what weather prevailed in the US over the same period. Was it similar to weather we are seeing in the US at the moment?
It looks as if the most of the Central US was exceptionally cold, but the East Coast was around normal.
So, not totally dissimilar.
http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/map/cag/#app=cdo
What an excellent resource! Easy to use too. Thanks for that.
Just going to do January from random years and compare the pictures. Not very scientific, but gives you a feel.
I noticed on your home page a comment by someone about the revisionist nature of some of the old US temperature data. How true might this be?
Thanks for the reply
There’s some posts here to get your teeth into re Temp adj.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/tag/temperature-adjustments/