Guest post by Left Outside

At some point in the late 1950s someone coined the term “Global Warming” when referring to Climate Change, and it has gained tractions since. Global Warming is catchy and easy to visualise, but it is infuriatingly easy for morons – and it is apt to call them morons – to use  any cold snap to pooh pooh the scientific consensus on global warming climate change.

I’ve already pointed out the nonsense of Douglas Carswell. Kindly, AngryMob directs me to the ignorant effluence spouting from Richard Littlejohn:

Ah, say the ‘experts’, there’s a difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’. They are forced to resort to semantics to sustain their insistence that the science is settled, even though they are all sitting there shivering like brass monkeys. They’d still cling to their belief in man-made warming if Hell froze over.

The idea that the difference between climate and weather is semantic would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing (Incidentally, if you want a “how to model climate in three easy steps” then please do look at Unity’s post here).

In response AngryMob treats us to the usual combination of ennui and anger that fills all those that have Littlejohn’s column for as long as he has:

So there you have it: the only difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ according to Littlejohn is semantic. I wish everything in life was as simple as Littlejohn makes out, but sadly things are a little more complex than that and the cold weather outside today says nothing about climate change or the climate in general.

However, rather than take issue with Littlejohn I thought I would try something a little more intellectually stimulating and draw attention to something else.

When AngryMob says “the cold weather outside today says nothing about climate change or the climate in general” he is wrong. Now I know this is out of shear frustration with Littlejohn, rather than his considered opinon, but it gives me a little chance to discuss the weather.

And as an Englishman, who wouldn’t leap at that chance?

The below graphic and paragraph are taken from Fish Out of Water on The Daily Kos (H/T Brad DeLong):

Daily Kos: Freak Current Takes Gulf Stream to Greenland: An unprecedented extreme in the northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation has driven a strong direct connecting current between the Gulf Stream and the West Greenland current. The unprecedented negativity of the “Arctic Oscillation” and the strong connection of the Gulf Stream with the Greenland current are exceptional events. More exceptional weather events are predicted with anthropogenic climate change, but this could be a natural variation of weather and currents.

Now all of that doesn’t really make much sense to anyone. The above graphic especially won’t make much sense unless you know how the Gulf Stream is meant to act. For that reason I have included the below graphic.

As you can see, something has gone quite drastically wrong with the North Atlantic.

In recent weeks the low pressure area which normally sits over Iceland has been replaced with a high pressure area. [1]

This means that the warm air we normally get from the Atlantic can’t get here to warm us, and has instead been replaced with altogether more cold air from the Arctic. This causes us to be bitterly cold; -22.3C cold.

But what is interesting is that this atmospheric disturbance has been sat there long enough to begin to shift the Gulf Stream.

This is a big deal as a lot of the reason that London (latitude 51°32′ N) has such a different climate to Moscow (latitude 55°45′ N), is that the Gulf Stream brings us so much warmth.

We really don’t want to fuck with it. The terror on our roads has illustrated exactly how well we cope with weather which is actually adverse rather than just inconvenient.

The high pressure area sitting over Iceland has caused both the change in the Gulf Stream and the change in our normally mild winters. This sort of exceptional weather event is predicted to happen ever more frequently as our climate changes.

So climate change and a general increase in global temperature, leading to a more chaotic weather system, will probably lead to these cold winters happening more and more often. So there you have it, the whole world gets warmer and Britain is destined for cold, frost and rain.

Is it just me or does this seem bloody typical?

[1] The high blood pressure caused by Iceland seems to be entirely coincidental.