To all of those who took part in this discussion. A very BIG thanks to you.
It is great to have everyone's input and I was impressed with John Hall's
comments when he pointed out what the late Professor Lamb said in his book
"Climate History and the Modern World".
I must add that in Lamb's book, "Climate Present Past and Future", of
which I have a copy, though I couldn't lay my hands on it right away, as it
is
about 20 years ago when last I read it - I remember him mentioning " The
Little
Ice Age".
The whole point of me bringing up this topic of winters is that I wanted
a discussion on this as I have got a bit bored and fed up with some people
in the run up to every winter expecting a winter like 1963 or 1947.
I am impressed with the knowledge and depth of argument that came over.
Few of us can match Philip Eden who has access to some amazing information.
What really comes out which did surprise me in a lot of ways that the
much over hyped global warming argument (greenhouse effect) is quite rightly
not as much to
blame as some might think. The climate maybe warming, yes that's true. But
any warming
it is all well and truly within the bounds of nature. Indeed when more
detailed scientific analysis is applied, normal warming processes are a
great
deal more intense than anything we have experienced yet so far.
I was involved with the global warming argument in the late 1980s when I
was on the side of the global warming brigade (greenhouse effect etc) - so I
am well qualified to pass judgment on this, and a
top scientist put a dammed great flea in my ear in no uncertain terms,
telling me off for
joining the media bandwagon. I did not know what he meant for a long time,
but I did ultimately though.
True that maybe a bit harsh to refer to the environmental fraternity as
a "nutter brigade", but I was on the receiving end of a lot more abuse than
that at one time. Having said all that though I have no intention of using
bad language whatsoever on this newsgroup and what is so nice is about this
newsgroup is that no-one else seems to either.
It is important for all views to be discussed openly and politely,
whatever those views happen to be
I think the greenhouse effect argument has had too much attention given
to it.
The media are a fair bit to blame here, as the media love just a bit too
often a
bit of hysteria and they take it too far. When this happens ideals clash
against hard scientific facts
and when this happens the debate gets distorted, and the truth when some
is proven gets covered up and ignored entirely. I'll give a good example
of one such.
For example tree ring analysis found striking similarities between 20th
century increases in global temperature and the Medieval Warm Period, which
was a period lasting from around 1300 AD to 1600 AD which saw similar
increases in temperature.
Although this is not used on its own as a denial of greenhouse warming
because other examples exist such as the immense warming in the interglacial
period which I have mentioned before, however, it does show that there are
processes within the Earth's
natural climate system that produce large changes that might be viewed as
comparable to what we have seen in the 20th century.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's climate models ignore this
Medieval Warm Period. Their models simply compare current temperatures to
those of the immediately preceding pre-industrial societies. It is almost as
if the Medieval Warm Period simply never happened as far as the IPCC is
concerned, which makes it a great deal easier to claim the current warming
trend is completely unprecedented and, therefore, must be due to
human-induced changes in the climate.
These distortions on arguments are not new but it is just one of many
examples where politics gets in the way of rational thinking. This is a
grubby element of politics.
Only last year the global warming fraternity had a massive
challenge to their argument last winter when Eastern Siberia, Northern
China and Mongolia had their coldest winter in over 70 years with
temperatures of -60C and below which killed masses of sheep. Of course if we
had our coldest winter in over 70 years that would eclipse 1963 and cheer up
the cold weather fans and unfortunately kill off a few old people as well,
which is perhaps not particularly desirable.
If the Russian Far East can have a cold weather like that above then we
can. That then kills off the argument that we have seen the last of cold
winters. That reinforces a lot of what Philip Eden says and one or two
others of you as well.
If as has been suggested that we are going to see a repeat of the
Medieval Warm Period then we are in for some much warmer weather than what
we have experienced so far. This will disappoint the snow lovers
understandably but warm weather has a lot of advantages. Indeed it has been
suggested that global warming and I am referring to it in the sense that
this a normal package of nature which we will get regardless, has many
advantages. We will use less heating in winter. We will not suffer from the
cold. We don't need to worry so much about car accidents in the ice and
breaking our legs on icy pavements so much. In mild winter weather one can
walk up the street in a thick pullover only, instead of having to wear
hefty coats as well. The old
will not die in cold spells and in higher latitudes where all the worlds
land is, more land then can be used for producing food, so no-one will go
hungry.
Poor old Malthus will be proved wrong yet again as food production will
carry on irrespective of increases in human population.
True, that one may miss the snow and ice. In some ways you can't beat a
nice tang of a -10C with frost on the trees and a nice crunch when you walk
up the road. I am being philosophical now because I loved the snow and ice,
though I am getting used to all this mild stuff now. I used to live in a
much warmer climate than this and yes I got used to day after day of 32C
plus in summer. Winter was 13C to 16C in the day.
It would be a bit drastic to expect this in Britain in the next 50 years
but, whatever happens it seems that we may get yet a lot more mild winter
weather.
Look at it this way though, we had 45 years without a CET below 0C at
one point (1895 to 1940) as someone
pointed out to me. We are still a long way off that, so for cold lovers
there
may still be hope

Regards, Gavin.
--
************************************************** **************************
************************************************** *
Gavin Staples.

website updated regularly
www.gavinstaples.com

Currently writing book titled: Contemporary Societies East and West. The
introduction of this is on my homepage.


Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up. ~ Jesse Jackson.

All outgoing emails are checked for viruses by Norton Internet Securities
2003.

************************************************** **************************
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On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 11:02:15 -0000, Gavin Staples wrote in

snip
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's climate models ignore this
Medieval Warm Period. Their models simply compare current temperatures to
those of the immediately preceding pre-industrial societies. It is almost as
if the Medieval Warm Period simply never happened as far as the IPCC is
concerned, which makes it a great deal easier to claim the current warming
trend is completely unprecedented and, therefore, must be due to
human-induced changes in the climate.
snip

I think you are doing the IPCC a disservice here, Gavin. Up to the 1996
report it did figure, but there has been a re-think on just how widespread
it was in global terms.

The following extract is taken from:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

quote
Initial research on the MWP was largely done in Europe, where the
phenomenon was most obvious, and it was assumed that this period was
global. However, more recently this view has been revised, and the 2001
IPCC report says: "...current evidence does not support globally
synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and
the conventional terms of 'Little Ice Age' and 'Medieval Warm Period'
appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or
global mean temperature changes in past centuries."
endquote

I haven't gone to the 2001 IPCC report (though it is available online), but
would be sure there are references to it along those lines.

--
Mike Coleraine posted to uk.sci.weather 30/11/2003 12:37:43 UTC
My aurora images here http://www.mtullett.plus.com/29a-oct and
http://www.mtullett.plus.com/20-nov/

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 12:37:43 +0000, Mike Tullett wrote in

snip
I haven't gone to the 2001 IPCC report (though it is available online), but
would be sure there are references to it along those lines.

And here it is:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/070.htm


--
Mike Coleraine posted to uk.sci.weather 30/11/2003 12:44:27 UTC
My aurora images here http://www.mtullett.plus.com/29a-oct and
http://www.mtullett.plus.com/20-nov/