IPCC 2007 Forecasts For Warm European Winters Are Completely Wrong

IPCC Forecasts For Warm Winters Are Completely Wrong
By Matti Vooro

The headline on recent news clipping reads Toll from Europe Freeze tops 220, see here and here. Reading news clips about the current weather in Europe and Asia and then comparing that to what IPCC said in its 2007 report about what Europeans should expect for future winter weather is as if the IPCC was predicting the climate for another planet.

Fig. 1: European winter temperature deviations from the 1961 – 1990 base for the years 1998-2010. Blue = Europe winter temp, black line = linear trend.

The latest death count is over 300 now. You just cannot be this far off in your forecasts and claim that this is based on any credible climate science supported by most climate scientists. If it is supported by most climate scientists, then we have serious science credibility problems here for Europe.

Here is what the IPCC predicted earlier (emphasis added):

Assessments of projected climate change for Europe:

Annual mean temperatures in Europe are likely to increase more than the global mean. The warming in northern Europe is likely to be largest in winter and that in the Mediterranean area largest in summer. The lowest winter temperatures are likely to increase more than average winter temperature in northern Europe, and the highest summer temperatures are likely to increase more than average summer temperature in southern and central Europe.

Annual precipitation is very likely to increase in most of northern Europe and decrease in most of the Mediterranean area. In central Europe, precipitation is likely to increase in winter but decrease in summer. Extremes of daily
precipitation are very likely to increase in northern Europe. The annual number of precipitation days is very likely to decrease in the Mediterranean area. The risk of summer drought is likely to increase in central Europe and in the Mediterranean area.

Confidence in future changes in windiness is relatively low, but it seems more likely than not that there will be an increase in average and extreme wind speeds in northern Europe.

The duration of the snow season is very likely to shorten in all of Europe, and snow depth is likely to decrease in at least most of Europe.”

This is now the fourth of such cold winters for Europe depending on the individual country.  Europe’s and Berlin‘s winter temperatures show a linear decline since 1998 (See Figure 1) and more seriously with very cold winters since after 2007 and 2008, See the two charts at the bottom of this article.

Other scientists have noted that Northern Europe and Asia have had cooling winters since 1988 or for two decades now as noted below. So this is not just a new development but that the cooling has been coming now for a decade or more. So how could IPCC be so wrong only a few years ago?

A recent technical paper called Arctic warming, increasing snow cover and widespread boreal winter cooling, Judah L Cohen1 et al:

Record cold snaps and heavy snowfall events across the United States, Europe and East Asia garnered much public attention during the winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11 (Blunden et al 2011, Cohen et al2010). Cohen et al (2009) argued that the occurrence of more severe NH winter weather is a two-decade-long trend starting around 1988.”

So it is heartening to read just recently in the news that some German mainstream media have finally seen the light and have exposed the IPCC science as being flawed and no longer credible for planning our future and are beginning to ask the type of questions that should have been asked all along. It is unfortunate that hundreds of people had to die before we start doing proper planning for the colder winters that may lie ahead.

Figure 2: Berlin mean winter temperatures 1998 – 2011.