>A LIFETIME OF GLOBAL WARMING

snow covered fields south of Glasgow from the air, February 2009

Was 08-09’s Coldest Winter in Over A Decade for UK a fluke, a reaction to lowered solar activity or something greater ahead?

Have winters become wetter and windier and is snow and cold becoming rarer to eventually become a thing of the past in the British Isles?

The 2008-09 winter for the United Kingdom was the coldest December through February period in over a decade, it was the coldest winter season in 13 years. The first 10 days of Decembver 2008 brought the coldest period in over 30 years. February started cold and brought the heaviest snowfall in 18 years all but crippling the city of London and bringing bitter cold not seen across the south of England in years. Benson, Oxfordshire dropped to -11.8C whilst salt water froze along beaches. Aviemore, a known coldest spot in the Scottish Highlands hit -18C for the coldest since 2003. With many areas experiencing days with snow cover and sunshine by day and stars by night, we saw day after day of below freezing temperatures, dangerous ice that brought very dangerous road conditions, especially across rural areas, national road salt supplies were running out or had ran out and supplies had to be shipped in from Belgium and other European countries. It was a winter England had not seen since the late 90s for much of the UK, the only places that have seen these conditions is highland Scotland and high elevated terrain, but overall it’s been mild and more often than not, warm, wet and windy.

Since the turn of the millenium I can say that 2008-09 was the coldest winter since 1995-96 or 1996-97 despite experiencing coldest actual temperatures since then in 2000-01 and 2002-03 but those winters overall warmer overall.

I have noticed that since moving to Scotland from Northern Ireland in 1990 it’s become harder to see snow fall from the sky and remain on the ground for longer than a couple of days, reason being, when it snows, warm Atlantic air is never far behind and any high pressure system that brings sunshine is often more of a maritime origin than polar or Arctic, meaning the sunshine often melts the snow and a return to bare ground brings mild nights. A select few winters in my 26 years on this earth has brought severe winters of snow and cold but thought few and far between I have witnessed some noteworthy Cold Spells, During my younger days living in coastal Fife which can be bitterly cold when an East Wind blows in from Siberia which happened a few times during a selection of colder winters between 1994-1996. Although perhaps not a winter-long episode, I do remember heavy snowfalls and some very cold nights under Arctic high pressure that plunged nights below -10C and brought high pitch crunching and squeeking under your feet when walking on the frozen snow cover. I recall the kind of cold that really cut you to the bone and was painful when breathing in the air.

The worst cold period I can remember was December 1995 when we took my grandparents back to Glasgow’s Central Station where they were to get the train back to the ferry at Stranraer on Scotland’s southwest coast. The drive between Fife and Glasgow was roughly 1 hour and 15 mins, but snow cover and strong Arctic high pressure overhead brought very cold days, likely no warmer than -5C and nights that hit -18C as early as 7-8pm. When getting to Glasgow, we had realised that the trains diesel had froze up in the trains and there was no way they were going home to Northern Ireland that night. Extreme cold like that was certainly up to now, a once in a lifetime and indeed those were the coldest temperatures recorded for the city of Glasgow where a low of -20C was reported under perfect conditions of snow cover and a very cold air mass in place.

With a warm Atlantic Ocean the past 25 or so years and a high solar cycle, winters across the world have become weak and wimpy bringing less snowfall and warmer temperatures as well as increasing ice melt of the Arctic throughout my boyhood and up until Sept 2007 certainly when the maximum ice loss of the current warming episode peaked. The period between the late 1950s to late 1970s brought tremendous snows and extreme cold, cold never experienced in the modern age, then suddenly those winters became a thing of the past. Myself, like many others have lived our entire, albeit relatively short lives in a warmer world to that of our parents and grand parents. Their lives likely began when the last warm episode was just ending. Despite the bitter cold that followed a countrywide snowfall in the final days of December, 1995 which brought that reading of -20C to Glasgow and with that same cold spell that pushed the thermometer so low that it matched the all-time British record of -27C at Braemar in the Highlands, we did not experience the year-after-year pounding of snow and cold like our parents and grand parents did in the 1940s (1947 was the snowiest winter on record for the British Isles), 50s, 60s (1962-63 was the coldest on record) and 70s. The years in which were classified by many as real winters.

I remember 2000-2001 which brought a Christmas to Boxing day period of heavy snow across Northern Ireland, Ireland and the entire British Isles, then followed by a large Siberian Anticyclone which brought brilliant clear skies and sunshine glistening over deep snow covered fields which supported a shivering “high” to Altnaharra in Sutherland, Scotland to -8C and nights that dropped to between -15C and -20C within the cold hollows of the Scottish Highland glens (valleys), even in urban areas of the Scottish central Belt between Glasgow and Edinburgh we saw clear skies, snow cover and a pool of Arctic origin air that bought temperatures towards -18C. During my visit to my grand parents house in southeast Northern Ireland, snow lay 6 inches deep and overnight lows that bottomed out around -15C, same for the city of Belfast.

2002-2003 also saw snowfall but also frosts that thickened and expanded across the country even without snow as a strong Arctic high plunged nights once again towards frigid levels in towns and cities.

Since 2002-03 and up until the Winter of 2008-09 winters have been warm and wetter than normal with a persistent flow off the Atlantic. A warmer Atlantic has likely intensified Atlantic low pressures, deepening them more so than normal as they approach the UK, we witnessed over these warm to very warm winters alsomost continuous wind and rain swept across the country from the Atlantic, damaging gales became tiring as they kicked up huge seas, brought distruption to power and the national transport system.

2006-07 was a bad year for constant wind and rain. It seemed gales did not want to stop roaring across the country with blinding rains. New Years Eve of 2006 brought hurricane force winds of between 80-100 mph across the country.

I have witnessed many great gales in my life time with the first storm being the worst in my lifetime back in October 1987 when I was 4 and lived in central London. The Great Storm of 87 brought 90-100 mph winds roaring through London and the south of England, the destruction was remarkable and devastating. The late 90s and early 2000s supported remarkably frequent gales, many of them damaging. These were years when winters could hardly be called winters for the snow and cold aspect.

Why have winters been so warm during my lifetime?