The longer range forecast models are getting more accurate

Another aspect of this heatwave was how well and early forecast models started picking up on it.

This is a typical tweet from over 2 weeks ago, albeit picking up on the more extreme runs.

I didn’t join in as frankly I didn’t believe it could happen. https://t.co/RHFc0dPF1e

— Dave Throup (@DaveThroup) July 19, 2022

Forecast a week ago vs actual outcome. Insanely accurate predication of what was about to unfold. #WeatherForecast #ClimateChangehttps://t.co/E3KdoeJXZw pic.twitter.com/l0HY1n7rVN

— khaustein.bsky.social 🌍 (@khaustein) July 19, 2022

Models predicting another heatwave soon

40°C in the UK once again appearing in more than one GEFS forecast for early August 😵‍💫 Recall this is not something which had been seen in medium-range forecasts until June 30th this year. But, it is possible that this model's hot & dry bias is exaggerating the true potential. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/bTOEn13lW2

— Dr Simon Lee (@SimonLeeWx) July 21, 2022

The 7day forecasts were so accurate due to the blocking large high pressure hence the uncertainty was radically reduced in the calcs.

There is much more uncertainty about next months’ GFES forecast. Don’t forget that ensemble models are just that, they are a collection of different models with varying weight factors assigned to individual contributions. Some of the members of the ensemble will be extreme views but the ensemble is chosen to get a more balanced distribution/perspective. You can select one of the extreme ensemble members and make it appear like it’s representative of all and then portray that as the forecast. We might get 40C next month, we might not

Interesting visualisation of the temperature increase of the last 150 years

To anyone who says "it's just summer"… here's NASA's climate spiral👇 pic.twitter.com/xdQzXvsqPD

— Best for Britain (@BestForBritain) July 18, 2022

Proof, if needed, that these ‘wildfires’ are caused by wilful human stupidity and negligence, and those responsible should be tracked down and fined heavily to try to pay for the damage they’ve caused, and the effort that emergency teams have had to put in unnecessarily to try to control the fires. 🤬

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-62277575

We had a warning here in China about thawing Arctic glaciers and potentially failing dams.

I live in the SW, but I hope they don’t build estates in the potentially affected areas like they do here. I have been above a number of dams locally and seen entire communities/villages in front of the dams if they fail, and larger, more modern communities further down the valleys.

Another wildfire, human attribution. 🙄

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-62277575

I have been above a number of dams locally and seen entire communities/villages in front of the dams if they fail, and larger, more modern communities further down the valleys.

Crikey. Still not learning?

1975 Banqiao Dam Failure

around 5 million homes lost
anything up to quarter million deaths

the dam was designed to survive a once-in-1000-years flood (300 mm of rainfall per day) but a once-in-2000-years flood occurred

Another wildfire, human attribution. 🙄

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-62277575

I was out on the gravel bike on Tuesday night (it was still 28 degrees even at 9pm!) and rode up along the back road from Hope to Yorkshire Bridge and encountered the full response to that fire. Narrow road, difficult and steep trails to get up to the summit. It was still burning the next day and they had to get a helicopter in to drop water on it. It wasn’t a raging fire but it was burning steadily.

And then I got to the far end of the res and there was a group of about 6 lads with a barbecue – it was actually a proper “off the ground” one and it was on a gravel turning circle far away from the bushes but even so. They were literally line of sight to a wildfire and they’re there frying up burgers. 🙄

Return Periods (1 in 100 years flood ,1 in 2000years rainfall event) are I think best understood as estimated measurements of magnitudes of unusual events.. not of the frequencies of those events. In any case with many if not most weather events they are now effectively irrelevant – as they are based on statistical tests of past events that took place in a climate that we just don’t have any more.

I don’t think anyone should be using or quoting return periods to media/public these days.

The UK national drought group is meeting tomorrow.

Come August, a drought may be declared for large expanses of England apart from the north-west. Depends on rainfall in coming days and weeks.

Last drought was in 2018, triggering hosepipe bans and other measures.

— Adam Vaughan (@adamvaughan_uk) July 25, 2022

@gwaelod – I partially agree.

They need more explanation as a statistical tool but some new models are climate conditioned by time horizon and RCP scenario. Therefore some of them can present hypothetical RPs given a future climatic state. They will show you that a 2015 1-in-100yr event could be a 1-in-75 year event in 2035 under RCP4.5 etc. etc.

They have their uses but as it is so complicated it’s hard to be concise and explain to a lay person what it all means. Climate Change and its impacts, be that physical or transition risks, are just like Covid in that we really need good scientific communicators to step up and explain it in a way that we at least feel we understand it.

Time for a USA style system of fire bans in some areas drought conditions?

Looks like it was penned by the Propane And Propane Accessories Marketing Board, IMO

Two interesting articles on the BBC today.

First one about the weather presenters being abused by morons (very similar to the idiotic STR comments)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62323048

Second one about how 40°C is due to manmade climate change

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62335975

depressing…. we’re heading straight back to ‘we’ve all had enough of experts’ territory.

Next step. Because of the warnings given and people being sensible, we will not see the numbers of excess deaths that worst case scenario predictions cautioned against. Which will be used as ‘evidence’ that we overreacted.

Good to know Spain’s PM is being constructive – he’s suggested that men should stop wearing ties during the heatwave over there to…save energy!
He thinks this will reduce demand on AC units and so lower electricity usage.
Yep, you read that correctly.

depressing…. we’re heading straight back to ‘we’ve all had enough of experts’ territory.

One of the comments in the above link claims this is another “fake emergency” by the nanny state to “tell us what to do”.

Whilst it is clearly an idiotic comment it is also a very prevalent one, for that I hold governments and politicians hugely responsible.

All these comments and attitudes have their roots in the campaigns over decades by the fossil fuel companies.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/18/the-forgotten-oil-ads-that-told-us-climate-change-was-nothing?utm_source=digg

Politicians have comprehensively failed (apart from a few lefty politicians who are dismissed by the media) to point out to the wider public that maximum profits was/is the driving motive to the fossil fuel companies disinformation campaigns.

We live in a society where maximizing profits (with little concern of the human costs that this might entail) is celebrated, so it is much harder for a counterattack from that angle.

But really what would have stopped the fossil fuel companies disinformation campaigns in their tracks would have been nationalisation. Ultimately responsible to the people they would not have had the motivation to mount campaigns against the common good of society.

Society’s energy needs in private hands makes no sense imo, the idea that such a vital industry can operate both in the interests of the producers and the consumers is illogical, there is always going to be conflict of interest.

ernie, I suggest you read about the Global Climate Coalition and E Bruce Harrison – unless you already know about their activities.

3 years ago I was at an Australia Infrastructure briefing and they said then that they’d changed their profile for design from 1 in 100 years to 1 in 7 years. So from a 1% chance of a stated event to a 14% chance – it’s a significant hike in the risk profile and one that I suspect will begin to be adopted in other countries.
I’m currently doing a lot of work in Singapore and their design requirements for things like crest levels and water run off especially things like gutters being banned due to the massive rise in Dengue Fever are quite eye opening for a Brit.

and those responsible should be tracked down and fined heavily to try to pay for the damage they’ve caused, and the effort that emergency teams have had to put in unnecessarily to try to control the fires.

Guy here (Sweden) got caught 3 or 4 years ago.
Fined about £175-200000 IIRC.

They also dish out fines for starting fires when there is a ban in place. Starts at about £1800-2000.

Grim reading

Grim indeed.

Time for a USA style system of fire bans in some areas drought conditions?

Standard practice in Australia. And the ban periods seem to be increasing (unsurprisingly).

We also have fire condition indicators on the side of roads. They’ve added a level ‘catastrophic’ since the big fires in 2019/20 (i think that’s when they did it)

I have an app that alerts me to fires within set radii of my home and workplace so I can keep an eye on things when the conditions are of concern. There are regular hazard reduction burns and a certain amount of ecological ‘patchwork’ burning goes on to maintain the environment. But sometimes things go tits up and they get out of control.

I’m lying in bed in the middle of incest Country
Suffolk sweating my mammaries off.

Locals saying that they can’t remember the last time it rained. Well, we had a few drops today but not enough to wet the ground.

They said that some of the fires are started by tractors/combines hitting a piece of flint.

When was the last time it rained?

Crazy.

There was some rain over the last few days round South Wales but nowhere near enough to do anything more than create a few small puddles. It all evaporated within minutes of stopping and everything is still bone dry so no change on fire risk or ground water levels. This weekend is meant to be a roaster too so I very much doubt the plants are going to stop turning yellow any time soon, even the trees are dropping their leaves like it’s autumn!

But everyone will be pouring on to the beaches and burning themselves so it’s all good, just a brilliant summer.

It’s the opposite to last summer round here. Last year it rained so much that some local woods were in muddier in August than a very wet winter. Loving this summer so far for riding.

We’re in North Wales, it’s cold and has rained a fair bit. This happened during the last big heatwave too, we managed to seek out one of the few places in the UK that was cold and wet.

they’d changed their profile for design from 1 in 100 years to 1 in 7 years. So from a 1% chance of a stated event to a 14% chance – it’s a significant hike in the risk profile

That doesn’t sound right. Infrastructure design is based on the statistical return period of the design events; a 1 in 7 year event is less severe than a 1 in 100 event. What would be more likely is that the 1 in 100 year event the existing infrastructure was designed for is now happening 1 in 7 years. If they are changing the design event the should be going for longer return period, like 1 in 1000 years, but statistical prediction isn’t really valid when the pattern is changing. It’s better to stick with the 1 in 100 but add a margin, so if the 1 in 100 year temperature is 50ºC, add 5ºC and design for 55ºC.

even the trees are dropping their leaves like it’s autumn

Yeah was weird

Went for a ride last night at Woburn and lots of fallen leaves !

Piddled it down on Tuesday then it’s raining again now, in Manchester.

Yep, seeing a lot of fallen leaves here in central England too.

Went for a ride a couple of days ago and nearly ended up taking an unplanned sit down in them – dry leaves on dusty trails do not make for grippy conditions!

depressing…. we’re heading straight back to ‘we’ve all had enough of experts’ territory.

Been a feature of political debate for a while now

Populism is telling people there are no hard choices, only cakeism

The number of seemingly intelligent people on the pro brexit/ COVID denying/antivax climate change denying axis seems to be growing

Truss has been using it in her leadership pitch to the membership – promising to block new solar farms & rip up the ‘orthodoxy’

Holding the opposite view to the MSM & The experts is a badge of honour

correlation is not necessarily causation, but

https://news.sky.com/story/did-nearly-900-people-die-due-to-the-july-heatwave-12679711

Trees will drop their leaves as a stress response to drought conditions. It reduces transpiration.

Cardiff seems pretty cool to where I am in SE. Was at my folks yesterday on the bay and quite pleasant compared to home! Guess it’s a good time to be living by the sea.

Yeah, until that sea swamps you and your house and you have to find somewhere else to live and good luck with your climate-denying platitudes then.