The preliminary numbers for August’s weather are coming in from some countries. For western Europe the picture is becoming clear: August was cold and wet, with strong notes of winter.
Germany: 1.5°C cooler than normal, snow
Germany’s Deutsche Wetterdienst (German Weather Service) reports that August in Germany, at a mean temperature of 16.0°C, was 0.5°C colder than the mean of the international 1961-1990 reference period. Compared to the 1981-2010 reference period, August 2014 was 1.5°C colder than normal. It was Germany’s coldest August in 8 years. The summerlike temperatures at the start of the month faded as the month progressed and the weather turned autumn-like, especially the last third of the month. The result in total was a cooler, wetter and less sunny August.
The Deutsche Wetterdienst (DWD) collects and evaluates data from 2000 measurement stations scattered across the country. On August 24 it even snowed 4 cm on Germany’s highest peak Zugspitze (Read here).
Overall the data show that Germany’s annual mean temperatures have been dropping over the last 17 years (a period, some scientists say, that is necessary before one can speak of a climate trend):
Germany’s mean annual temperature plot over the last 17 years. Source: EIKE
As Germany cools, one has to ask how much longer the DWD intends to keep misleading the public with its logo at its website, which depicts an accelerating warming. When asked about the reality-remote logo, the DWD said they would consider the matter when it revamps its website in the future. They didn’t seem too concerned about possibly misleading the public (also read here).
Also Germany’s long-term summertime precipitation trends show absolute normalcy, see Grafik 4 at EIKE.
Austria: “1.1 °C colder than climatological mean”
Austria’s national ZAMG weather service also is reporting a cold and dark August: 19% less sunshine, the 14th least sunny August since sunshine measurements started in 1884. In Austria it also was much cooler than normal, posting an anomaly of -1.1°C.
Like Germany, Austria also saw its coldest August since 2006. Austria also had forecasts of snow already in mid August.
UK: “…one of the chilliest in decades”!
Not only Central Europe saw a cold August, but so did the United Kingdom. Once again the once-predicted global warming-caused barbecue summers remain elusive.
The UK Met Office here announced that the UK’s mean August temperature came in at 13.8°C , or 1.1°C below the long-term average. That would make it the coolest August since 1993. Also the UK’s Daily Mail writes of an August charcterised by forecaasts of snow that included warnings of the “coldest August spell in a century“.
The Weather Channel (TWC) earlier this month was calling August in Great Britain and Europe “one of the chilliest in decades“.
Also even last winter’s snow refused to melt. The online SCOTSMAN writes (my emphasis):
RECORD numbers of snow patches have remained on Scottish mountains this year despite warm summer temperatures and the impact of global warming, a new survey has revealed.
The annual study, carried out every August by a team of volunteers and published by the Royal Meteorological Society, showed nearly 300 remnants of last winter’s snowfall have failed to melt.
This is the highest number since a Scottish national snow survey began seven years ago, and a dramatic increase on the 24 to 81 patches recorded in previous seasons.”
PS: Trying to verify the exact date of these photos: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/9183200/Winter-weather-returns-as-snow-falls-in-Scotland-and-northern-England.html?frame=2184383
A very good post Pierre, thanks. I’ll use it in my private presentations.
So let’s ignore all the government science.
I can say, this has been the coldest summer since the 197oies in my personal experience, and at the same time it’s the first beginning Grand Solar Minimum that I experience – and we’re not even in the depths of it – the current cycle has its weak maximum at the moment.
All the government scientists look the other way; not one of them sees the consequences of what will come next. We are without guidance and our taxpayer money is wasted.
We need to replace the government.
You didn’t mention the possible start to the formation of a glacier on Ben Nevis in Scotland http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-28885119
This would be an almost incredible (and worrying) development
There’s that word again “chilly”. All mets must have been told to say it instead of “cold, or rather cold”.
UK met off :”warmest 7 months ever recorded”.
Here, in Centre-west France, it has, by anecdote, been the coldest in 50yrs!
“. . . 17 years (a period, some scientists say, that is necessary before one can speak of a climate trend)”
This needs an explanation or attribution. When the “pause” was about 15 years there appeared statements (I seem to recall) that simulation runs of climate models did produce stretches of 15 years without warming. Therefore, a pause of longer than 15 years would be needed to indicate that the models were missing something or that there was, indeed, a change in trend. Apparently there were no 16 or 17 year no-warming simulations. Different reasoning, namely 30 years for some cycles is argued for, implies that half that – 15 years – should show in the data with an inflection point. If that doesn’t happen, then a new trend might be in the works.
In any case, the “17 years” seems to come from someone trying to move the bar higher while the vaulter is in full stride.
It was Ben Santer who came up with the 17 years.
Santer and 16 others – if I counted correctly.
Note the 17 authors and 17 years. Coincidence? From the abstract:
“Because of the pronounced effect of interannual noise on decadal trends, a multi-model ensemble of anthropogenically-forced simulations displays many 10-year periods with little warming. A single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011JD016263/abstract
As I said: Apparently there were no 16 or 17 year no-warming simulations.
It’s about the number of simulations. The expression ‘many 10-year periods’ is meaningless without that number. With millions of AGW simulations you will also get 20-year periods without warming. We should talk about the relative frequency, which is also the Type II error rate here. From 15 to 17 years only means a smaller error rate, e.g. from 5 to 1 percent for example. That is just a simple decision but nobody seems to talk about error rates as if there is more behind these numbers.
“With millions of AGW simulations you will also get 20-year periods without warming.”
Not necessarily. The climate models are simulations of a chaotic system. You don’t know the length distribution of no warming intervals before you test for it (which equals to “run the models”).
Kudos, Pierre.
The Swiss Meteo Office will publish its summary of the climate for the summer season next month – July was colder and wetter than normal, in any case – and August was no better.
O/T: offshore wind in N. Germany:
http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/oldenburg_ostfriesland/Stoerung-legt-Windpark-BARD-1-weiter-lahm,windpark354.html
Any updates?
Kurt in Switzerland
Meteo Schweiz Summer 2014 Report is out:
http://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/web/de/klima/klima_heute/saisonflash/bulletin2014JJA.Par.0001.DownloadFile.tmp/klimabulletinsommer2014.pdf
Summary: colder, cloudier and wetter than usual; in fact, cold & wet records were set for the past 20+ years in some places. Overall, temperatures were about half a degree to a degree Celsius below the 1981-2010 norm.
We’re still not back to the climate of the 1960s, though.
I heard that Scandinavia (esp. N. Scandinavia) had a warm summer. Any info?
Kurt in Switzerland
This UK was warmer than average this past summer.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/2014/summer
So maybe we got their weather and they got ours.
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And this is how glaciations start – increase of winter snow surviving summer.
Another report about glaciers appearing in Scotland.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/24/surpise-glaciers-appearing-in-scotland/