David Viner’s Blunder Saved For Posterity
By Paul Homewood
By special request, I am reposting the whole of that Independent article from March 2000, which has been conveniently disappeared from the Internet, but which can still be found on Wayback:
Britain’s winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.
Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.
The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London’s last substantial snowfall was in February 1991.
Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community. Average temperatures in Britain were nearly 0.6°C higher in the Nineties than in 1960-90, and it is estimated that they will increase by 0.2C every decade over the coming century. Eight of the 10 hottest years on record occurred in the Nineties.
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".
"Children just aren’t going to know what snow is," he said.
The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain’s biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. "It was a bit of a first," a spokesperson said.
Fen skating, once a popular sport on the fields of East Anglia, now takes place on indoor artificial rinks. Malcolm Robinson, of the Fenland Indoor Speed Skating Club in Peterborough, says they have not skated outside since 1997. "As a boy, I can remember being on ice most winters. Now it’s few and far between," he said.
Michael Jeacock, a Cambridgeshire local historian, added that a generation was growing up "without experiencing one of the greatest joys and privileges of living in this part of the world – open-air skating".
Warmer winters have significant environmental and economic implications, and a wide range of research indicates that pests and plant diseases, usually killed back by sharp frosts, are likely to flourish. But very little research has been done on the cultural implications of climate change – into the possibility, for example, that our notion of Christmas might have to shift.
Professor Jarich Oosten, an anthropologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, says that even if we no longer see snow, it will remain culturally important.
"We don’t really have wolves in Europe any more, but they are still an important part of our culture and everyone knows what they look like," he said.
David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes – or eventually "feel" virtual cold.
Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We’re really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said.
The chances are certainly now stacked against the sortof heavy snowfall in cities that inspired Impressionist painters, such as Sisley, and the 19th century poet laureate Robert Bridges, who wrote in "London Snow" of it, "stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying".
Not any more, it seems.
I am also adding my post from two years ago, which took a trip down memory lane and reminded us that snow was still a regular feature of British weather:
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
They disappeared it? par for the course, they got no shame.
“Average temperatures in Britain were nearly 0.6°C higher in the Nineties than in 1960-90”
One of the big cons they have used to full effect. 61-90 was one of the coldest periods in the 20th century, any comparison is guaranteed to produce a “warm” result. The general public (and “environmental reporters”) never realise they are not being given absolute temperatures, but anomalies compared to selected earlier periods.
The most blatant con in the report is the comparison between 1970-95 and 1988-95. Apart from both periods being too short for any meaningful comparison comparing a whole with one of its parts is dishonest in itself.
I noticed that disappearing too.
But I do add a comment about Dr David Viner to newspaper weather reports, every time it snows. Dr Viner needs the same recognition as weatherman Michelle Peche.
R
Meanwhile in the Tagesschau, a German news outlet posted one hour ago:
The fact that it’s snowing is not a counterargument for climate change – climate experts agree on that. Quite the opposite: Global warming could, in part, even create more snow.
They had this covered a long time ago:
“The Social Simulation of the Public Perception of Weather Events and their Effect upon the Development of Belief in Anthropogenic Climate Change” Dennis Bray and Simon Shackley, September 2004. Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
Some pertinent extracts:
“In this paper, we explore under what conditions belief in global warming or climate change, as identified and defined by experience, science and the media, can be maintained in the public’s perception.
To endorse policy change people must ‘believe’ that global warming will become a reality some time in the future.
Only the experience of positive temperature anomalies will be registered as indication of change if the issue is framed as global warming.
Both positive and negative temperature anomalies will be registered in experience as indication of change if the issue is framed as climate change.
We propose that in those countries where climate change has become the predominant popular term for the phenomenon, unseasonably cold temperatures, for example, are also interpreted to reflect climate change/global warming.”
It’s a nonsense claim. How is what used to be a “normal” winter proof of a change?
I am old enough to remember the winter of 1962/3 – it was memorable primarily because it was exceptional.
And do _I_ remember the 62-63 winter! I was in apprentice lodgings outside Manchester, and my room was an unheated attic. I used every blanket I could find to try to stop shivering so that I could sleep! On top of the freezing room, my transport to work was the pillion of a motor-scooter, hanging on like grim death while we wobbled through the snow drifts! At least work was warm, and I that month I wasn’t working in an ‘airy’ unheated aircraft hangar!
Sheesh! Even after all these years, I STILL shiver at the memories!
Very relevant as Cumbria struggles under a blanket of snow where apparently the MetOrifice was caught off-guard but then when their model says we should be having a tropical December is anyone surprised. I have to admit to being surprised by a quote in The Mail from a woman up there in Ambleside saying that it was the worst snow she had ever seen and she had been there over 50 years. ‘It is about a foot deep’ she said. Well when I lived on the North Downs I recall measuring a fall of 13 inches and I am pretty sure Cumbria gets more snow than Surrey so you have to wonder. Is it an example of what some people say where the least trustworthy person is an eye-witness?
People’s memories of such things are extremely poor and heavily coloured by what their current beliefs are.
I believe that I was bloody cold then!
“Snowpack levels across Europe overall are currently 161% of normal. Europe overall’s annual average snowfall total is 174cm.”
Maybe El Nino, maybe not as the “experts” can’t decide what the effects are. Which means it’s different each time.
It is just the Hadley cells moving to their ‘normal’ latitudes. The cells will move to a more meridional flow with 5 distinct Rossby waves, pushing warmer air further north, towards the UK. All because the Sun has been extremely active over the past few days.
Despite having providing what must be the world’s worst piece of climate advice, that snow is a thing of the past at the beginning of the 21st Century, David Viner seems to have been in continuous employment as a climate adviser for about the last twenty years. He was climate adviser to Natural England and the British Council, and since 2012, to the engineering firm firm Mott MacDonald. He also seems to get these climate adviser jobs by being ‘headhunted’ rather than applying for them.
https://www.vitae.ac.uk/researcher-careers/researcher-career-stories/what-do-research-staff-do-next-career-stories/david-viner
What an insight, DG! I recommend folks to read and savvy your link.
Bitd, 90s, as a Scottish Wildlife Trust employee, we’d HQ at Cramond House. To state is was ‘opulent interiorly’ would be an injustice. Quite what the assembled mandarinati did remains unknown …
Perhaps they could have head hunted Paul Ehrlich?
By a strange coincidence I was trying to find this very article last week. It is nowhere to be found online. Tap in the author, the headline or anything else and you won’t find it. Par for the course.
A resident of southern Germany, living in the same local area not far from the Alps for over 40 years, tells me the use of legally required snow chains for driving in winter-type conditions generally starts weeks later than it did in the 1980s, and minimum temps of -20C or so when even diesel can freeze are hardly seen any more.
But the real argument is or should be around the causes of weather trends, and whether they’re cyclical or not (or to what extent).
I hadn’t realised Viner was a UEA person!! Explains a lot!
Check out France meteo going on strike because of automated forecasts by Al Gore rithms that this week predicted a heatwave in freezing Strasbourg. Sums it up really.