Saturday 19 October 2019

Great Britain's temperature gradient

From here:



We see that the south coast of England (ignoring the Southampton-Portsmouth urban heat island) is on average 2C warmer than Glasgow or Edinburgh in summer, that's a distance of about 400 miles. Both are at sea level.

We are told that the average global temperature has increased by about 1C over the last 140 years.

To put that in perspective, a 1C increase is like moving about 200 miles further south. Divide that by 140 years; that's about a mile and a half per year.

13 comments:

Curmudgeon said...

Always knew that the Severn Valley was particularly balmy :-)

Mark Wadsworth said...

PC, it is, isn't it? Any idea why?

Physiocrat said...

Botanic gardens at Oxford, Edinburgh and Kew have been keeping records for over 300 years. Records were also kept by other observers, notably the famous Gilbert White of Selborne in Hampshire. These give a long series of dates when plants have come into leaf and flowers. Records of grain harvests and prices can be traced back to the Middle Ages, and there is also ample climatic evidence available to be deduced from inspection of ancient timber. Pollen deposits provide information almost to the time when the last Ice Age ended.

This ought to reveal significant long term climatic trends, but are there any? I do not recall the climate change activists quoting any of this data, which ought to provide solid evidence one way or the other.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Ph, of course there is no historic long term trend. The Alarmists do not claim that.

What they claim is that everything was stable and lovely for tens of thousands of years and temperatures started shooting up a few decades ago and will accelerate in future unless....

Tim Almond said...

One of my problems with the whole global warming thing is that if this is really the case, why hasn't fine wine location moved much in a few hundred years? There's a significant premium between wines based on geography. The southern part of the Medoc is considered to have the best climate. But if the climate has changed, why hasn't that? Why wasn't it Madiran, 120 miles south 100 years ago? Why is it still the same place as 30 years ago rather than the northern part of the Medoc 30 miles away?

Curmudgeon said...

@MW - I suppose it's just because it's low-lying and sheltered by the Welsh mountains. But the Three Counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire include the lushest countryside in Britain. Ideal for growing cider apples :-)

Bayard said...

"there is also ample climatic evidence available to be deduced from inspection of ancient timber"

Wasn't the original "hockey stick" graph (that conveniently omitted the Mediaeval Warm Period) based on a few ancient trees?

TS, it's not just climate, it's also the soil, very much the soil in fact.

Mark Wadsworth said...

TS, for sure, but get with the narrative.

1. Global temperatures have been stable and optimal since the end of the last Ice Age.

2. Global warming proper only started a few decades ago (funnily enough, shortly after the idea gained traction, you see what you look for).

3. It takes a decade or two to grow the vines to maturity where they produce enough grapes to make it worthwhile. You're the expert, is it faster or slower than this?

4. Therefore, farmers in e.g. northern Madoc haven't had time to adjust yet.

Mark Wadsworth said...

C, God bless them Welsh mountains. They don't do a very good job of protecting that area from the rain though. There's a precipitation map on the same link. I ended up in Essex, which is just as warm, and the driest area of all, so win-win.

B, it was based on what they were looking for. See also Dark Matter.

Bayard said...

Mark, it was indeed. My complaint to the Alarmists is that climate "science" is not science, as it does not use the scientific method of trying to disprove the theory. All climate "scientists" do is cherry pick the statistics to support their theory. This has been so right from the very beginning.
It is significant that Michael Mann (he of Mann-made Global Warming) would rather lose an expensive libel case than produce the raw data behind his theory of AGW.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, excellent point. I hadn't thought of it like that.

Physiocrat said...

Wine was produced in England in Roman and Medieval times. Champagne growers have been complaining about the recent changes weather, though and are looking to Sussex and Wiltshire as alternatives. I am agnostic on climate change, even more agnostic on the suggestion that it is due to human activity and sceptical about carbon dioxide. Deforestation is a more likely cause. And subsidised uneconomic agriculture which prevents natural regeneration.

Dinero said...

Mark W , the original post good point well illustrated.