Julian, you state that the overall anomaly was +0.31 against the 1961 to 1990 average. What was the anomaly versus the 1971 to 2000 average?

Comment:

Dear Paul, Many thanks for asking the question and sorry it has taken me a while to get back to you. To work out the anomaly of 2008's temperatures from the 1971-2000 average meant checking a few details with the Hadley Centre because of course it is not usual to refer to an absolute temperature average for the Earth for any time period and the anomalies of individual years from 1961 to 1990 did not quite come out as zero. However, it seems that 2008 was 0.223C above the 1971-2000 average, so it was still a warmish year globally.

Best regards Julian

Thank you for your comments. They are certainly interested but alas predicated on a belief of the importance of the MWP. About 10 years ago I compiled a literature review of the MWP for a major publisher - at that time there just was not sufficient evidence of a global warming at that time. If we always believe our past understanding of a subject to be perfect, we will never enhance our understanding of the past - or indeed of anything. As Iain Stewart said in his informative BBC Two series 'Earth: The Climate Wars' last Sunday, there are many other studies now that support the crucial point, that we are now warmer than we were in the MWP. I'm still inclined to prefer proxy sources such as ice core and pollen evidence rather than anecdotal evidence of human activity. The existence of vineyards in Yorkshire is not proof of anything climatic - merely cultural. Even if it was warmer then, how will this make life easier for us in the C21st? We are making new demands on our environment - you cannot make the comparison, I'm afraid.

You make some interesting points about the worth or otherwise of the financial cost of adaptation to reducing our emissions. I agree that this looks like a big 'ask', but this maybe is a topic for a future posting. Some concern is understandable, but this should not be used as a means of justifying a particular view of past climates, comforting though that may be! Let's consider one topic at a time.

Leaving out the Medieval Warm Period is quite a bit error you have to agree? I've read many studies that have indicated that temperatures were atleast similar, if not more to what they are today, and i dont think they had Coal Powered Stations, and BMW's in those days!

My main gripe with cimate change is that, yes its happening, but its happened before and the human race has lived through many massive changes in climate, from warm periods to ice ages. We just need to adapt carefully to the challenges that come. However, at the moment, the worlds governments seem to want to destroy people's lives through using Climate Change as an excuse to tax us more. If we are not careful, rash climate change policies like reducing carbon emissions by 80% will destroy many economies around the globe, leading to more starvation and death. So yes, at this rate climate change will destroy us, but it wont be from a category 10 hurricane or anything, it'll be from poor government policy leading to the starvation of millions of people.

Anyway, even if the UK does hit its targets by 2050, China will make up for those reductions in something like a week. Is it really that important to ruin people's lives when its not going to make a difference at all?

I think there are many more important issues in the world today than climate change, world hunger and deeper political tensions between certain countries need to be concentrated on, rather than moaning that a series of natural disaster will come along one day and kill us all.

Tell me, can you tell me one natural hazard that has occured that was 100% caused by climate change? No I didnt think so.

To conclude, i do believe in climate change, i just don't think its that big an issue, and millions of people starving around the world sounds much more important to me as a problem that needs to be solved. Its also a little more realistic than solving climate change, we cannot control nature.

Hi Julian, an interesting article - sounds like more reduction in observation quality by the Met Office at the expense of automation. Can you tell me if the Met Office have any further plans to address this problem - perhaps on a station by station scale by deriving improved adjustment coefficients? Do you also know if the original Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorders are still being used alongside the new radiations sensors at any of the stations in order to at least try and build up a better understanding of the month by month and place to place differences between the recording methods? Given that we have a record at some stations that extends back as far as 1870, the Met Office appear to be showing little respect for the methodical and extensive records acquired by observers up to ~10 years ago, or indeed the usefulness of the dataset that has been measured in a consistent way for so long.

To Dave from London:

I'm not sure that anybody was "promising" dry, hot summers! Nor even necessarily forecasting them, and certainly not in the short time frame, in climatological terms, that we have experienced thus far.