Met Office 'To Hold Emergency Meeting Over Increasingly Unusual UK Weather'

At last, some non denial from the Met. Hopefully this admission that the weather is odd and the possibility of altering the climate models will bring some truth to the matter.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk...

The Met Office is to hold an emergency meeting of experts to discuss the increasingly unusual weather in the UK, it has been reported.

It follows the coldest spring in more than 50 years, as well as droughts and floods in 2012 and the freezing winter of 2010.

Climate scientists and meteorologists will travel to the forecaster's headquarters in Exeter on Tuesday for the unprecedented meeting, the Guardian said.

Attendees are expected to debate whether the changing weather pattern in the UK, and in northern Europe, is because of climate change or simply variable weather.

A Met Office spokesman told the Guardian: "We have seen a run of unusual seasons in the UK and northern Europe, such as the cold winter of 2010, last year's wet weather and the cold spring this year.

"This may be nothing more than a run of natural variability, but there may be other factors impacting our weather ... there is emerging research which suggests there is a link between declining Arctic sea ice and European climate - but exactly how this process might work and how important it may be among a host of other factors remains unclear."

Experts will identify what further research is needed and discuss whether climate models need to be revised to take into account any recent changes to weather patterns

It comes after the National Farmers Union reported that wheat harvests are likely to be around 30% lower than last year as a result of the extreme weather.

Earlier this month the Met Office said below average temperatures throughout March, April and May made it the fifth coldest spring in national records dating back to 1910 and the coldest spring since 1962.

March was "exceptionally" cold, averaging 2.2 °C.

This is a good post today, but this all seems to have happened since Japan had the big nuclear accident 2 years ago, and I did read or hear that the planet earth has moved or tilted because of it, has anyone else got anything on that?

Finally!!!

The weather here has been stupid for a while now. 2 days ago it was boiling here and yesterday and today you need the heating on and a jacket outside and it's middle of June!!!

Annoyingly, they'll just waste time having tea and biscuits, add each other as friends on facebook and then go home saying, oh it's just the weather, it's meant to be stupid!

Good post OP!

The weather has been terrible for farmers this year. The farm local to me has lost a good 25% of its wheat crops. The heavy rains and snow have had a huge effect on the soil erosion. It has been obvious to see the effects.

I'm no weather expert, but the weather the last few years has been pretty bad. I don't remember the last BBQ summer we had.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


WWjnr

I'm in Ireland now and as you say the weather has been quite devastating to the farming community over here.... the main issue being sileage and feed for animals running into short supply because there was little grass / grazing as the cold temperatures kept new grass growth to a minimum. It was worst over in the west of Ireland where they were shipping over feed / hay etc from the UK and even central europe...!
Bizarre really when you think that Ireland is primarilary a farming nation and has been for many many years.

I too, like others think that there is a change occuring and I strongly believe that we as a species will have to adapt and be flexible to the forthcoming changing climate.

Regards

PDUK

PS - just read an excellent thread from a guy in the USA who has been photographing strange atmospheric anamolies.......... maybe linked perhaps...?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

How can anyone look at that and still scratch their heads wondering why our weather has gone wonky? What you are looking at there is the worst effected area on our planet of man made global warming. It's too late to do anything about it now. We will just have to live with consequences of a drastically changed climate, you can't say we weren't warned..

By 2020 that will all be blue. If you think our weather is getting weird now, wait till all that ice melts for the summer each year....

I have to admit it's been a bit off. Last year I had no fruit or veg grow, nothings coming through yet this year either.

Someone mentioned the Japan earthquake, whilst I can't see how the slight shift it caused would have affected things this much, it is since then things have gone a bit odd.

Since Fukushima, every music festival I have been to has been waterlogged, prior to that disaster, yes, you got the occasional rainy festival, but not every one, every year, and with so much rain.

Probably coincidence, but who knows really, the scientists certainly don't seem to.

reply to post by theabsolutetruth


UK is in an interesting position, as it is one of the places that could become colder due to climate change. Its all about the ocean currents that keep it warm now (despite its ridiculously high latitude) changing due to ocean warming.

reply to post by woogleuk

Last year I had no fruit or veg grow, nothings coming through yet this year either.

I'm doing better this year than I did last year which was a complete wash out.

Many local farmers here in the North East are struggling and predicting low yields yet again - which in turn means spiralling food prices.

Last year if I remember correctly it was blamed on the jet stream moving south, I'm sure I read somewhere that it has done so again this year.

There's a current thread on ATS about abnormal cold weather in Portugal.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'm not sure if it's just the natural short term ebb and flow of weather systems or if it's long term climate change for whatever reason but one thing seems certain to me, something is going on and it could have far reaching consequences for all of us.

About time they pulled their finger out, put aside their differences and work out exactly what is happening, why it's happening and what measures need to be taken.

Northern Europe will become more like Siberia in the next 10 years, cold, dry and windy in winter that extends into very cold springs, short summers and wet autumns. People will migrate south due to loss of sustenance and soaring energy costs.

Originally posted by woogleuk
I have to admit it's been a bit off. Last year I had no fruit or veg grow, nothings coming through yet this year either.

Someone mentioned the Japan earthquake, whilst I can't see how the slight shift it caused would have affected things this much, it is since then things have gone a bit odd.

Since Fukushima, every music festival I have been to has been waterlogged, prior to that disaster, yes, you got the occasional rainy festival, but not every one, every year, and with so much rain.

Probably coincidence, but who knows really, the scientists certainly don't seem to.

Back in the late 50's the atom bomb experiments were generally, certainly by my parents, sited as the reason the summers were so bad! (And probably the winters as well!)

But I remember the summers as glorious, well most of the time anyway, except visits to Devon, which always seemed to be wet.

So maybe memory plays tricks.

Would not Chernobyl have also had some effect, as Fukushima may have?

In my garden the grass seems to be growing as well as ever, the fruit tree blossom was good and I have fruit starting to grow, what is a problem is weeds and access.

Certainly the weather is changing, maybe it is just the planet getting older and things changing to suit. As someone said, we have to change rather than try to change the planet.

Originally posted by Alternative4u
This is a good post today, but this all seems to have happened since Japan had the big nuclear accident 2 years ago, and I did read or hear that the planet earth has moved or tilted because of it, has anyone else got anything on that?

Extremely warm already in So. Calif. and aside from the controversy over why and
ignoring the religious comments if they don't suit you. I think this
explains what we should look for pretty well. Sounded good to me anyway.
The vid is a year old but the info is good.

reply to post by Freeborn


Well that's the thing, it's the the coldest spring since 19xx.

How far back do records go? It could just be part of the natural cycle.

Last week was really hot over here on the north west, I have the sunburned arms to prove it....yet now I am sitting here with a fleece on as it has gone cold again.

If it was to do with the axis changing, surely it would be one or t'other?

As for the jet stream, as far as I remember it normally moves across the Atlantic, up and over inbetween the UK and Iceland. Last year and this year it seems to be moving over the Midlands and between the English channel and the North sea, makes you wonder what would cause such a dramatic shift.

Predictions of a future maximum's timing and strength are very difficult; predictions vary widely. The last solar maximum was in 2000. In 2006 NASA initially expected a solar maximum in 2010 or 2011, and thought that it could be the strongest since 1958.

However, more recent projections say the maximum should arrive in autumn of 2013 and be the smallest sunspot cycle since 1906

So...curiously (or not) the Solar cycle is usually on a recurring 11 year cycle. From Solar Minimum - Solar Maximum is around 11 years.

The current Solar Maximum (when the Sun is most active) was expected to occur in 2010 or 2011...it didn't...and still hasn't. It is expected by autumn this year.

And nobody has made the connection yet, in all of the 'met offices' around the planet, that a coldest spring since the early 1900's coincides very accurately with a low Solar activity during a period when it should be at it's most active?

It's the Sun folks, not man-made anything.

Why it is doing what it is, has nothing to do with humans or what they do on Earth.

reply to post by woogleuk


We had two weeks of relatively hot weather - got a great t-shirt tan from being in my allotment - it turned cold this week yet today it's back to being reasonably hot.

Typical British weather, and typical Brits being obsessed with it!
Just had a chat with my OU tutor and the first thing he asked me was 'what's the weather like up there'?

As for the jet stream, as far as I remember it normally moves across the Atlantic, up and over inbetween the UK and Iceland. Last year and this year it seems to be moving over the Midlands and between the English channel and the North sea, makes you wonder what would cause such a dramatic shift.

As far as I'm aware they are blaming it on excessive polar ice cap melt which alters, and may indeed turn off, the gulf stream.
The hot air evaporating from the gulf stream influences the jet stream - some thing like that.

ETA

But then again, we get explanations like that given by MysterX about a link with solar activity which sound at least as equally plausible.

reply to post by MysterX


No. The cold winter and spring in the N. Hemisphere is due to destabilization of the jetstream which was caused by the rapid warming of the Arctic. Solar cycles have a very small impact on Earths climate.

reply to post by Atzil321


Arctic Sea Ice has to factor somewhere, it is mentioned in the article, and hopefully cohesive research will provide more information on the bigger picture. I have read that the global sea temperature warming is increasing rapidly though most of it isn't a man made issue. I think as other posters are posting there are many factors, like sun cycles, possible Earth tilts, nuclear explosions as well as perhaps things that aren't being made public that could be having an effect on our atmosphere and sea temps.

It would seem obvious that the melting sea ice would affect the gulf and jet streams and perhaps vice versa, which in turn affects the UK, as the gulf stream is imperative for our relatively mild climate, sans that, long term we would have to consider a climate that is either unpredictable or predictably bleaker.

One can only imagine if the recent weather is a measure, just how bleak it will be in some years when there is no arctic ice. The very land and structures built in the UK weren't build bearing this in mind. Most houses are anything but weather savvy, most towns and cities built upon long established river banks and estuaries because of their live giving properties and previous reliance on for transport. The amount of low ground and reclaimed marshlands used for new and old villages and towns is vast and we can only presume that places prone to flooding after only a few days or weeks of heavy rain would be considered non viable. There are many more places that would flood if the weather extremes worsened.

Near here, in places in Wiltshire and Somerset, a lot of farmers have suffered because the land was parched, the soil baked hard for a while, the run off when the rains appeared made surface water run off cause flooding to lower areas as well as impenetrable earth so the water sat in pools on top of the baked earth and ruined any crops there, including grass for fodder, animals couldn't graze there and now the wheat harvest in many farms is 30% less, which impacts the farmers directly and the associated chains all the way to the consumer.

The freezing winters also have effects on the farming communities, on which a lot of people depend. A lot of the UK is uninhabited farmland.

A revised climate model might allow greater scope for allowing for possible unfavourable weather but it is the weather, and as we know weather isn't something easily controlled.

Governments would be well advised to consider altering town planning criteria, an incentive to weather proof already flood prone towns, even if it means controlling or re coursing rivers, creating artificial hills etc as well as weather proofing houses, and creating inland climate zones where food can safely grow, investing in vast areas of managed agriculture. As well as managing our free resources better, sea power, wind power, hydro power, geo thermal energy, and mass scale solar power.

Instead of giving elsewhere, the UK should invest in it's future survival.

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by MysterX

 

No. The cold winter and spring in the N. Hemisphere is due to destabilization of the jetstream which was caused by the rapid warming of the Arctic. Solar cycles have a very small impact on Earths climate.

Kali74

You are dead right...... The fluctuations of the Jet Stream have really caused the problems BUT the question is "what has caused the Jet Stream to fluctuate so much?"

Rgds
PDUK

Originally posted by PurpleDog UK

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by MysterX

 

No. The cold winter and spring in the N. Hemisphere is due to destabilization of the jetstream which was caused by the rapid warming of the Arctic. Solar cycles have a very small impact on Earths climate.

Kali74

You are dead right...... The fluctuations of the Jet Stream have really caused the problems BUT the question is "what has caused the Jet Stream to fluctuate so much?"

Rgds
PDUK

probably a combination of recent changes in space weather [includes sun] and geo-engineers playing god *COUGHING * I mean man-made "global warming"
our UK friends who are growing their own, would be wise to look into aquaponics as traditional outdoor farming, due to climate extremes, won't be cutting it much longer.

reply to post by PurpleDog UK


If you click the link to a thread I did, there's a video that explains just what is going on with the jetstream.
There's so many intricacies with climate and how warming is changing the climate we're evolved to survive, the rapid loss of arctic ice is going to prove to have a huge, deadly impact on humanity... if it had happened naturally like it's supposed to we'd have time to evolve and adapt, we've cheated ourselves out of that chance.