Last year Harry Bryden published a paper* in the journal Nature which indicated that there had been a 30 percent decline in the northward flow of warm water in the Atlantic Ocean. This was interpreted by many as another sign of climate change with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Also known as the ‘Atlantic Conveyor Belt’, this warm, north flowing current was made famous in the movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ where global warming, in particular the melting of polar ice caps, resulted in the ‘Atlantic conveyor’ stopping and North America freezing over.
Professor Bryden is part of an international monitoring program known as the Rapid Climate Change (RAPID) Program and since the Nature paper, they have collected some more data. This new data was discussed late last month with a meeting of scientists in Birmingham.
According to a new article** in the journal Science by Richard Kerr, 95 percent of the scientists at the Birmingham meeting concluded that there has been NO significant change in the overall flow of the North Atlantic conveyor and that the 30 percent finding was somewhat premature.
Importantly, more intensive monitoring has shown that variations in flow within as single year can be “as large as the changes seen from one snapshot to the next during the past few decades”.
This now appears to be the problem with Bryden’s findings as published by Nature: that is the initial findings was misleading because it just compared a 2004 snapshot with four earlier instantaneous surveys (snapshots) back to 1957.
But the popular press hasn’t caught on.
According to The Guardian, reporting on the Birmingham meeting: “Scientists have uncovered more evidence for a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Britain its relatively balmy climate by dragging warm water northwards from the tropics. The slowdown, which climate modellers have predicted will follow global warming, has been confirmed by the most detailed study yet of ocean flow in the Atlantic.”
Gavin over at Real Climate, apparently attended the Birmingham meeting and at his blog asks how could the Guardian have got it so wwrong: “The Guardian story, which started scientists have uncovered more evidence for a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Britain its relatively balmy climate was in complete opposition to the actual evidence presented … how could the reporting be so wrong?”
Well, if you read the report on the meeting at BBC News, it appears Professor Bryden is not part of the ’95 percent consensus’. He is still saying it is slowing, just revised down his estimate from 30 percent to 10 percent: “We concluded that there was some evidence of a small decrease but not as big as we reported in the Nature paper last year ….But we have had a decrease… in the order of 10% of the overturning circulation in the past 25 years.”
Maybe if the BBC reporter had asked Professor Bryden what the slowing has been over the past 50 years, he would have reply, not significant, no slowing? But instead the reporter let the Professor pick a 25 year interval?
—————————————-
* Bryden, H.L., et al., 2005. Slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at 25ºN. Nature, 438, 655-657.
** Kerr, R. A., 2006. False Alarm: Atlantic Conveyor Belt Hasn’t Slowed Down After All, Science, 314, 1064, doi: 10.1126/science.314.5802.1064a
Thanks to Paul Biggs for sending in the link to the article by Richard Kerr and also comment that: “it is time that the Gulf Stream slow down, used by climate alarmists, was finally laid to rest. It has long been known that the Gulf Stream is primarily driven by westerley winds and the earth’s rotation.”
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Nicely illustrates why you should get your scientific information from peer-reviewed scientific journals rather than newspaper op-eds, be they left- or right-leaning. Now, if only denialists would start publishing a little more.
Last I heard our own Luke was a champion of this atlantic slowdown stuff but of late he has been giving the Real Climate critique as evidence of it’s impartiality.
And tell me, Nexus 6, this seems an awful lot like a reference to one of your “peer reviewed journals”, wouldn’t you say?
“Bryden, H.L., et al., 2005. Slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at 25ºN. Nature, 438, 655-657.”
And one is bound to ask, how come none of Bryden’s cronies (oops, peers) didn’t pick up the fact that he was cherry picking?
Actually Ian I emailed the story to Jen when it came out with a “should we believe it” tag.
RC have been bearish on the whole business in two articles as there isn’t enough data available.
As usual Ian is intellectually lazy and hasn’t read up on what’s happening, preferring to but the boot in on instinct.
The Guardian story is actually about a period where the conveyor reputedly “stopped”. But who knows maybe an eddy of something.
As the more data has come in and the analysis expanded obviously the whole system is more variable than we think.
Bryden still thinks he has a slowing – who knows. Need more data IHMO.
Kerr himself is a thermohaline researcher.
As RC said “The big story should have been the phenomenal effort that has gone into exploring this important issue, the much improved context for previous measurements and a welcome reassessment of the significance of previous results.”
“We concluded that there was some evidence of a small decrease but not as big as we reported in the Nature paper last year ….But we have had a decrease… in the order of 10% of the overturning circulation in the past 25 years.” – Professor Bryden
Sorry Jen but you do not have a story. Professor
Bryden has not stated that the current is NOT slowing down.
Climate change is not going to dump a glacier or a desert in your back garden tomorrow if it did we really would be up sh*t creek.
Is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowing down?
By Petr Chylek, Space and Remote Sensing Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
The Atlantic Ocean circulation across the latitude of 25oN has been used as a benchmark for characterizing the mass and heat transport from tropics to the northern latitudes. The upper portion of this transport includes the Gulf Stream that is responsible for the moderate climate of Europe. A weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and of the Gulf Stream might have unpleasant consequences for European climate (1, 2).
Ganachaud and Wunsch (3) using hydrographic data collected during the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) investigated the heat and mass transport in world oceans including the transport across the Atlantic 25oN latitude. The conclusion 3 made in the year 2000 was that there was no statistically significant change in mass transports over the past 30 years.
In recent analysis (with added new 2004 measurement) Bryden et al. (4) concluded that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has slowed by about 30% between 1957 and 2004. This inspired the speculation that the anthropogenic increase of carbon dioxide may be responsible for the weakening of heat transport from the tropics and that such an effect has been now detected (5). Thus the pleasant climate of Europe may be in danger. Bryden et al. (4) were apparently not aware of the Ganachaud and Wunsch (3) results and so no comments on the discrepancy between the previous (3) and the current (4) results were required.
We wish to point out that the conclusion of a 30% decrease of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation does not follow from the presented data (4) and that it is based on an incorrect treatment of errors of the measurements.
The estimated rms error of the measurements in the upper transport layer according to Ganachaud 6 and Bryden et al.4 is about +/-6 Sverdrups (1Sv=10^6m^3s^-1). According to data presented by Bryden et al. (4) the 1957 transport in layer shallower than 1000m is 22.9 +/-6 Sv compared to the transport of 14.8 +/-6 Sv in 2004. Consequently the difference in the mass transport between 1957 and 2004 is 8.1 +/-12 Sv and not 8.1 +/-6 Sv as incorrectly stated by Bryden et al. (4). In other words, the mass transport was somewhere between 16.9 and 28.9 Sv in 1957 and between 8.8 and 20.8 Sv in 2004, which is consistent with no change at all. Thus the observed change is well within the uncertainty of the measurement and not “uncomfortably close” as stated by Bryden et al. (4). Although Bryden et al. (4) do not discuss explicitly the statistical significance of their results, an incorrect treatment of errors suggested that the results were statistically significant. The correct conclusion from the presented data (Bryden et al.4) is that no statistically significant change in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at 25oN between the years of 1957 and 2004 has been detected. This conclusion is in agreement with the earlier analysis of Ganachaud and Wunsch (3).
References
1. Schiermeier, Q. Gulf Stream probed for early warnings of system failure. Nature 427, 769 (2004).
2. Wunsch, C. Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and Earth turns. Nature 428, 601 (2004).
3. Ganachaud, A. & Wunsch, C. Improved estimates of global ocean circulatiom, heat transport and mixing from hydrographic data. Nature 408, 453-457 (2000).
4. Bryden, H., Longworth, H. & Cunningham, S. Slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at 25oN. Nature 438, 655-657(2005).
5. Quadfasel, D. Atlantic Ocean trends. Nature 438, doi:10.1038/438565a (2005).
6. Ganachaud, A. Error Budget of Inverse Box Models: The North Atlantic. J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 20, 1641-1655 (2003).
(Paper written December 9, 2005 but not accepted for publication in “Nature”, the journal which published the erroneous Bryden paper)
Also, 2 papers in Geophysical Research Letters. The first article is by Christopher Meinen and two associates at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami. They measured the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) from September 2004 through September 2005 using a line of inverted echo sounders, bottom pressure sensors, and a deep current meter east of Abaco Island, Bahamas, at 26.5° N. Their “picket fence” allowed them to measure the transport of water in millions of cubic meters per second (Sv) over that time period. Meinen et al. concluded in their last sentence “The 1-year-mean southward transport of 39 Sv is statistically indistinguishable from the 40 Sv estimate obtained at the same location by current meter mooring arrays in the late 1980s and early 1990s.” There was no evidence whatsoever of any 30 percent reduction in the strength of the thermohaline circulation.
German scientist Friedrich Schott along with three other countrymen also published a paper on this issue in Geophysical Research Letters. They measured the Deep Western Boundary Current east of the Grand Banks over the period 1999–2005 by moored current-meter stations and shipboard current profiling sections. They compared their observations with the data collected in the same area in 1993-1995. They conclude that “Although the water mass characteristics show interannual to decadal variations at
those locations,” “there is no sign of any MOC ‘slowdown’ trend over the past decade, contrary to some recent suggestions [Bryden et al., 2005].”
No media coverage for the 2 GRL papers. Unfounded scares make better headlines.
References
Meinen, C. S., M. O. Baringer, and S. L. Garzoli, 2006. Variability in Deep Western Boundary Current transports: Preliminary results from 26.5° N in the Atlantic. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L17610, doi:10.1029/2006GL026965.
Schott, F. A., J. Fischer, M. Dengler, and R. Zantopp, 2006. Variability of the Deep Western Boundary Current east of the Grand Banks. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L21S07, doi:10.1029/2006GL026563.
Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe’s mild winters?
Authors: R. Seager; D.S. Battisti; J. Yin; N. Gordon; N. Naik; A.C. Clement; M.A. Cane
Source: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Volume 128, Number 586, October 2002 Part B, pp. 2563-2586(24)
Publisher: Royal Meteorological Society
Abstract:
Is the transport of heat northward by the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift, and its subsequent release into the midlatitude westerlies, the reason why Europe’s winters are so much milder than those of eastern North America and other places at the same latitude? Here, it is shown that the principal cause of this temperature difference is advection by the mean winds. South-westerlies bring warm maritime air into Europe and north-westerlies bring frigid continental air into north-eastern North America. Further, analysis of the ocean surface heat budget shows that the majority of the heat released during winter from the ocean to the atmosphere is accounted for by the seasonal release of heat previously absorbed and not by ocean heat-flux convergence. Therefore, the existence of the winter temperature contrast between western Europe and eastern North America does not require a dynamical ocean. Two experiments with an atmospheric general-circulation model coupled to an ocean mixed layer confirm this conclusion. The difference in winter temperatures across the North Atlantic, and the difference between western Europe and western North America, is essentially the same in these models whether or not the movement of heat by the ocean is accounted for. In an additional experiment with no mountains, the flow across the ocean is more zonal, western Europe is cooled, the trough east of the Rockies is weakened and the cold of north-eastern North America is ameliorated. In all experiments the west coast of Europe is warmer than the west coast of North America at the same latitude whether or not ocean heat transport is accounted for. In summary the deviations from zonal symmetry of winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere are fundamentally caused by the atmospheric circulation interacting with the oceanic mixed layer.
So don’t worry about us Brits being frozen by a scare – just stop thrashing our cricket ‘team!’
BTW – how many D-O events were man-made?
Maybe the winds changed direction?
Amazing how much global coverage this news can generate, even Bloomberg are running updates on the Ashes – it could be bigger then Bodyline.
Nexus6
Climate deniers do try get published but you seem to have no idea how political the scientific publishing area is – probably because not having any experience in that area you look at it with rose coloured glasses. Institutionalised science is big money – $billions of dollars of it, all stolen from the taxpayers one might add.
I suggest you have a good study of Climate Audit and see the evidence for the difficulty getting contrarian papers published.
It is one principal reason the New Concepts in Global Tectonics Group was set up – as a forum for papers which are refused publication in the mainstream science journals.
As a climate sceptic I do not read any of the media, left or right for my information – I instead use my own scientific abilities to sort the chaff from the wheat.
(Right wing media – interesting concept).
Hi Paul,
Thats more like it, some proper science for a change.
Couple of questions:
Why did Nature turn the study down, it certainly looks interesting?
You appear to be saying that wind is the sole forcing on ocean currents, is this the case and if so what affects wind? Since the surface temperature of the planet (land and ocean) appears to be involved, how do you seperate which is the primary forcing and if you cannot, how do you extrapolate forecasts of climate variation?
Louis – the contrarian stuff doesn’t get published as it’s poorly argued bilge.
Just remember it was the conventional system itself that said Bryden isn’t correct. No contrarians needed thanks.
We should remember why the thermohaline is being studied in the first place – paleographic evidence of major climate reorganisations in short time scales.
A short primer for anyone interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard-Oeschger_events
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/revealed-secrets-of-abrupt-climate-shifts/
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/074.htm
Lamna – Science and Nature are the weekly high impact journals that many would like their papers to be published in – they can’t accept everything they are sent due to limitations on space. That said, Nature does seem to have an editorial perspective as the normally alarmist climate modeller James Annan discovered:
Another week, another rejection (without review) from Nature. This was an attempted comment on Hegerl et al , which can be found here . The points we were trying to make will not come as a surprise to anyone who has read my previous comments such as the comment on Frame et al which we are still waiting to hear anything about, after a full 2 months at GRL. Basically, there are two main reasons why Hegerl et al’s “pdf” is not actually a valid probabilistic estimate of climate sensitivity at all. Firstly, they ignore much of the data that bears on the matter (and which indicates a highest likelihood of a value of about 3C), and secondly by starting off with a prior that assigns very high probability to high sensitivity and ignoring most of the evidence to the contrary, they ensure that the result also has a high probability of high sensitivity – albeit far lower than their prior did. Of course these…limitations…are prevalent in much of the literature.
Nature’s excuse this time? Editor Nicki Stevens wrote:
we have regretfully decided that publication of this comment as a Brief
Communication Arising is not justified, as the concerns you have raised
apply more generally to a widespread methodological approach, and not solely
to the Hegerl et al. paper
Yes, you read that right. Because everyone else has been doing much the same thing, they aren’t interested in ensuring that the stuff they publish is valid. Really, there seems little answer to this beyond picking our jaws off the floor and keeping it in mind when we read future Nature papers. (FWIW, it was also Nicki Stevens who told us that our GRL manuscript didn’t provide enough of an “advance in significantly constraining climate sensitivity relative to prior estimates”.)
Meanwhile, we have people like Gavin Schmidt quite prepared to openly dismiss the bulk of peer-reviewed literature in this area with such comments as “Basically no one really believes that those really high sensitivities are possible,” and “even Hegerl’s top limit is too high” . Not that I’m criticising him for that – quite the reverse, but the fact that there is such a credibility gap between what has appeared in the literature, and what at least some responsible and reputable scientists think, should surely be seen as rather worrying by all who are interested in ensuring that the scientific process works as intended. It is quite clear that (unless our arguments are wholly invalid, and so far no-one has suggested why they should be) none of the published “pdfs” actually provide any credible support for the belief that S is greater than 6C even at as little as the 5% level (for example), but according to Nature, as long as everyone keeps on getting this wrong together, they aren’t interested in correcting the mistaken (and alarmist) impression that they have helped to foster. We feel like the boy who tells the emperor that he has no clothes, except that we are not even being allowed to say it, at least not anywhere that it will be seen.
Is there a consesnsus that ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ is a crap film?
Hi Luke,
One thing that has always puzzled me is that if the cooling of the planet produces an Ice Age where increasing albedo reflects more solar energy back into space how does the planet get out of an Ice Age (which would appear on the surface to be self perpetuating)? Either a radical change in solar energy is indicated by this theory or that in fact very small increments can have a dramatic effect one way or the other, this would seem to be more likely based on the quite short (in geological time frame) periods of inter glacial warming long before an anthropogenic forcing was detected?
Day After Tomorrow – your typical B grade fictional disaster flick. Not factual. Wouldn’t regard as an all-time classic.
Lamna – conventional theory suggests that solar insolation changes from an orbital shift.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
Then when the warming gets moving the biosphere kicks in some CO2 production and you get a greenhouse boost, until the orbital patterns again make it cold.
Hi Luke,
The Milankovitch Theory sounds quite persuasive, how much geological / astronomical data ties it in with known dates for historical Ice Ages to put some ‘flesh on the bones’ as it were?
The problem with the mini-ice age/conveyer collapse theory is that the claimed cause, greenland ice melt is unsustainable in both the literal and ecological sense.
That is, as soon as a cooling even began to kick in, the greenland ice would stop melting and the thermohaline circulation would resume. End of scare.
And how refreshing to see Luke open his posts with the usual insults. I wonder how long it will take for him to figure out that one of the main reasons people make the shift from uncommitted observers to confirmed GW sceptics is the fleshcrawling behaviour of GW proponents.
The similarity between this and the modus operandi of outright spivs on the make is just too close to be a coincidence.
And when it does sink in, Luke, best tell Al Gore, who was, after all, understudy to the guy that “did not have sex with that woman, miss Lewinsky”.
But keep trying on the attempt at presenting RC as one of the upholders of scientific rigour. There must be someone out there that will take you seriously.
Ian – what I would like you to consider is the paleo evidence of major historical disruptions to climate with benthic evidence of reduced flows. So don’t be distracted about Greenland melting and what AGW proponents may or may not be saying. That’s contemporary politics.
Do we well understand the thermohaline system? No – not really. From my refs cited above there are past episodes where very interesting rapid climate shifts have occurred. Hence our interest in understanding these phenomena.
Incidentally note most of the people cited in these sober papers are people we have never heard of – not the AGW superstars and gliterati.
And on RC – would you not concede they have quality referenced science based posts in the main. They also disagree with AGW positions that are incorrect or too loose. The comments are also most critical on occasion and the ongoing debate is often re-joined by the authors. Far from a 100% ra-ra cheer squad.
Look – no insults.
Lamna – check here for paleo evidence of Milankovitch mechanisms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
If you go to http://scholar.google.com/ and enter Milankovitch climate – you will get a considerable number of papers.
sorry – Milankovitch evidence
I was taught about the Milankovitch Cycle and its likely effect on climate when I was at university, and that was probably back in the Little Ice Age, or even the Medieval Warm Period. Did Milankovitch publish in Nature? Are there now anti-contrarian contrarians?
Ian, I did not say that all assertions behind papers in peer-reviewed journals are automatically correct. Quite obviously that isn’t the case. However, due to the peer-review process such papers are likely to have an evidence-backed, logical basis (particularly in high impact-factor journals, and yes, I know there are exceptions). In contrast, op-eds are more likely to be rehashed bits-and-pieces that have been either intentionally or unintentionally distorted by the author’s or media company’s ideological viewpoint.
Louis, I’m a published scientist – sorry to disappoint you. Probably only because I ‘stole’ tax-payer dollars though.
Paul, Annan’s comment have been rewritten as a paper and accepted in another journal (check his blog for info).
Davey – if you read the wiki – there’s an “alternative” hypothesis listed.
If you also read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milutin_Milankovi%C4%87
You’ll see he published in books and his work actually built on the previous work of James Croll.
Interesting Milankovitch’s work was not initially accepted so there is hope for Louis yet.
Given Milan was Serbian he would have right at home on this Bosnian of blogs.
OK you lot – get back to the thermohaline and your Heinrich events!?
Just tendering this interesting discussion from Eli Rabett on the probability of abrupt climate change. Make your own interpretations.
From: http://rabett.blogspot.com/
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Where did Stern get that: Rapid climate change
“As Arnell notes, almost all modeling considers collapse of the thermohaline circulation as improbable although a slowdown may occur. Arnell points to two modeling studies which hold that collapse has a significant probability, one by Schlesinginger, et al (Yohe being one of the al) and the other by Challenor, et al. , both from the conference on Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. The third strand in Arnell’s argument is a survey of experts where the panel was all over the place (mostly at the exits), but whose results were spread all over the spectrum. Both of the modelling papers were very careful to say that the models they used were too simple, and that the results could be overturned by more detailed calcuations.
So where does that leave us who know it all? Well, probably at the point where we begin to think that those who know there is no risk of catastrophic climate change don’t know it all, but not convinced. A Scotch verdict (not proven) is probably the right judgement, but this is of no real help right now. A better question might be how much insurance should we take out.”
Refs cited:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/8A3/7A/stern_review_supporting_technical_material_arnell_231006.pdf
http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/rapid/sci/pdf/challenor2006.pdf
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:d2-ae50B5TwJ:www.uea.ac.uk/env/people/adgerwn/RiskAnalysis2005.pdf+Eliciting+information+from+experts+on+the+likelihood+of+rapid+climate+change.&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3
ALSO you’ll note James Annan sceptical on the Nature paper last year.
julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/12/thermohaline-circulation-switch-off.html
Has Bryden been dumped because his initial findings contradict warming forecasts, or because his data is too thin to support any hypothesis?
RC claim that Brydens findings contradict actual land surface temperatures but RC do not explain the cause of this warming or allow that more than one event can happen at any time. Perhaps Bryden is right and RC is wrong to judge Bryden so.
Far too much opinion based on too few facts.
“Dumped” is a bit too harsh. More disagreed with and sent back to the bench. I’m reading that Bryden went on early data – more data from the array shows that the whole system is more variable than was first thought. RC were initially sceptical as they would have assumed to see a cooling in the UK from the slowdown. James Annan (link above) said the same thing last year. Annan also says the error estimate on the data too close to the size of the trend. And their suspicions have now been confirmed in the main. Although Bryden still doggedly sticking to having a small trend.
Reporting of Bryden’s findings are OK. Interpretation shows observation didn’t agree with expectations. There has been considerable modelling of how the Atlantic circulation affects climate. More data shows he just had noise. The press picked it up but the science mainstream was bearish and unconvinced. The pace of change proposed by Bryden was way outside of anything modelled.
RC said the real story is the establishment of the array – great stuff. Its long term funding is not assured past 2008 which is a concern.
The thermohaline needs study as the links above on Heinrich and Dansgaard-Oeschger events show low flow events and abrupt climate change. We clearly need good baseline data on this important circulation.
I find no conspiracy or winging it by RC or James Annan – simply healthy scientific scepticism at work. And a call for multiple lines of evidence.
After the first study was presented RC said “that the estimated decline in ocean circulation should have produced a perceptible decline in surface temperatures, but that no such dip had yet been measured…”
The first study only noted a change in flow and said that it was a trend and not random variability.
For your info, there is currently a heatwave in Scandinavia with almost unprecedent warm weather…and the sea temperature has increased with about 2 or 3 degrees Celsius.
Kerr said in link above
“A closer look at the Atlantic Ocean’s currents has confirmed what many oceanographers suspected all along: There’s no sign that the ocean’s heat-laden “conveyor” is slowing. The lag reported late last year was a mere flicker in a system prone to natural slowdowns and speedups. ”
So all Bryden had was some noise. More data has shown it was just noise in the system.
Ann – must be a bad case of AGW – run for the hills. 🙂
Nexus 6 – I know that Annan and Hargreaves was quite rightly published elsewhere, giving a maximum climate sensitivity to CO2 of 3C. That’s not the point being made.
Luke – I’m familiar with semi-anonymous Eli Rabett and his views.
Luke,
Thanks for the Milankovitch info – I had seen it before, but it was worth another visit. I don’t pretend to know much about climate. I suspect that, like the ecological literature, there is often Much Ado About Nothing. I went to school in England (and other places), not far from Selborne in Hampshire. You may know of Gilbert White’s ‘The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne’ (1788). He noted heavy rain in one year, and some very cold weather. I suspect that now the book would be called ‘Biodiversity Conservation Concerns based on the Ecobiophysicochemical Parameters of the Biodiversity and Historical Milieu Surrounding a Small Human Settlement in a Temperate Mesic Climatological Zone Subject to Intense Meteorological Pluvial Events connected with Anthropogenic Global Temperature Elevation and changes in the Extant Endemic Biodiversity’. Tony Blair, or Sir David King, or Al Gore, would make a speech about it. I am sure you will agree.
Yes Luke AGW at work!