Germany’s Winter Temperature Trend In A Nosedive…Now Falling 6°C Per Century!

LatifGermany’s version of David Viner is Prof. Mojib Latif (photo left) of the IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, and the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences.

Back in the year 2000, after Viner had gotten widespread publicity for his comments, Latif got in on the media act and told Spiegel just days later: “Winters with hard frost and lots of snow like those we saw 20 years ago will no longer be seen at our latitudes.”

Now, 13 years later, we see just the opposite is happening. Germany has now had 5 relatively harsh winters in a row (2012-13 incl.). And if that trend continues, things could get a lot worse. The trend of colder winters is also confirmed by a new study of the Swiss Alps, which I reported on 2 days ago.

Temperatures_Germany_Winter_30 years Kowatsch

Germany DJF winter temperature in a nosedive over the last 13 years. Chart based on data from the German Weather Service (DWD). Chart by Josef Kowatsch.

The polynomial curve in the chart above peaked at about the year 1999. Since Latif opened his mouth, temperatures have plummeted, falling more than 1°C.  Of course critics will point out that 13 years are not enough to establish a long-term trend. That’s true – to some extent. Strangely, that criticism would be absent had the trend gone the other way. In fact just a single snowstorm is now claimed as global warming evidence nowadays.

Let’s look at Germany’s winter linear temperature trend (DJF) for the last 25 years:

Temperature Germany 25 years

Germany’s winter temperatures over the last 25 years are dropping at a rate of 6°C per century! Chart source: Josef Kowatsch, based on DWD data.

Like the Swiss Alps, and the rest of the planet, a clear cooling trend is plain to see. Latif needs to modify his prediction of 13 years ago to: “Winters with hard frost and lots of snow like those we saw 20 years ago will happen more often at our latitudes.”

Next is a chart showing Germany’s temperature since 1890. In this chart Kowatsch has added in the UHI effect.

Temperature Germany 120 years with UHI correction_Kowatsch

Germany’s 100-year winter temperature trends with and without UHI. Chart source: Josef Kowatsch.

The above chart shows the DWD annual temperature with trend line, which clearly shows a warming trend of about 1°C per century. But when the UHI effect is taken into account, we see there has not been any warming at all over the last 120 years. The polynomial curve oscillates about the 8°C line. Indeed German temperatures today are at the same level as 1980, and even slightly lower than 100 years ago.

True Germany is just a spot on the globe, and conclusions on global trends cannot be made from its data. But the trend in Germany agrees with the recent measured global trends and those in Central Europe.

One final note: Latif made his 2000 prediction on April 1st. How many millions of fools fell for it?

Mojib Latif photo credit, above: Björn Láczay from Moosburg, Germany. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

 

5 responses to “Germany’s Winter Temperature Trend In A Nosedive…Now Falling 6°C Per Century!”

  1. Walter Schneider
  2. Edward.

    Interesting stuff PG, I think that Germany ties in pretty closely and more or less correlates to what we can see happening here in the UK.

    http://www.climate4you.com/images/CentralEnglandTempSince1659.gif

  3. Harry Dale Huffman

    “6°C per century”

    …and 10°C per night, to introduce a little realism. Scientists (bad climate scientists, like Gavin Schmidt) say only 5°C separates an interglacial period from a full-blown ice age–“Temperatures below freezing tonight; world to end–film at 11”. I wish everybody would just admit that 25 years does not a long-term trend make.

    1. DirkH

      Temperatures fluctuate between extremes. Day/Night; Summer/Winter.
      A slight change in the width of the high phase would lead to an increasing average (Pulse Width Modulation & lowpass filter) – without an actual change in the extreme values.

      The whole yammering about Global Warming or Cooling, take your pick, is entirely futile AS LONG AS we don’t plunge headlong into a glaciation. Which is the other stable mode of our climate system.

      But unlikely to happen for the next few thousand years for orbital mechanics reasons.

    2. mwhite

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