Despite warming trend, Europe can expect several frosty winters – as solar activity drops to minimum

Northwest Europe can expect a couple of winters with relatively frosty conditions, as one key driver of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is set to favour blockades of westerlies, allowing periods dominated by a supply of cold and relatively dry … Continue reading

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 34: ‘Sahel greening’ unlikely to benefit African biodiversity

The below graph comes from a new global temperature trend study that compares different established datasets for land and ocean temperature. The results emphasize an often-overlooked phenomenon: geographically ‘skewed warming’ – leading to planet-wide precipitation shifts. Possible effects not only … Continue reading

Extreme heat wave Australia adds new colour to weather chart – forecast up to 54 degrees Celsius!

As red tones cannot get much darker when you approach black, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology had to resort to introducing new colours on their weather forecast maps for next week, when inland temperatures in South Australia can locally reach … Continue reading

Rising thunderstorm clouds increase warming

As a regular you will be well aware that some clouds cool the climate and other clouds warm. Determining the exact balance of the cloud-climate feedback will help decrease uncertainty margins for 21st century warming forecasts. Unfortunately it’s a complicated … Continue reading

Grand Solar Minima do bring cooling to Europe Holocene record shows

But now it’s not dry and icy five-month winters, but wet and windy springs instead. Or would you say these combine?

Graph of the day: weather extremes are on the rise

weather extremes graphWhy write a full news story when a single graph tells you everything: ‘unprecedented records in monthly mean temperature’ between 1900-2000 for 17 weather stations across the globe.

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Arctic warming cold winter hypothesis loses one year

And it also loses a study, but then it gains two… We’ll just admit a small prejudice. Are gut feelings allowed in science?

Russian heat wave 2010: extreme weather or within new normal climate?

One could focus on the rise in average temperatures and wonder to what extent this will increase the chance of weather extremes. One can of course also walk the opposite route: take a witnessed extreme – and examine if that … Continue reading

Some weather extremes simply lie beyond Gaussian distribution

When assessing the climate system it doesn’t hurt to include some geography to your statistical assumptions. After all, without mountains, oceans and coastlines there would be no weather, just one boring climatic average – and therefore no ground to create … Continue reading