Metoffice winter weather forcast for Europe

This is the same government agenciy that insists that they know what the worlds climate will do upto 100 years from now.

Heres some of their bullhsit striaght from their site.


FACT1
Recent warming cannot be explained by the Sun or natural factors aloneThere are many factors which may contribute to climate change. Only when all of these factors are included do we get a satisfactory explanation of the magnitude and patterns of climate change over the last century.

Over the last 1,000 years most of the variability can probably be explained by cooling due to major volcanic eruptions and changes in solar heating.

In the 20th century the situation becomes more complicated. There is some evidence that increases in solar heating may have led to some warming early in the 20th century, but direct satellite measurements show no appreciable change in solar heating over the last three decades. Three major volcanic eruptions in 1963, 1982 and 1991 led to short periods of cooling. Throughout the century, CO2 increased steadily and has been shown to be responsible for most of the warming in the second half of the century.

As well as producing CO2, burning fossil fuels also produces small particles called aerosols which cool the climate by reflecting sunlight back into space. These have increased steadily in concentration over the 20th century, which has probably offset some of the warming we have seen.

Changes in solar activity do affect global temperatures, but research shows that, over the last 50 years, increased greenhouse gas concentrations have a much greater effect than changes in the Sun's energy.

MYTH 1
Drop in monthly global temperature means global warming has stoppedA significant drop in global average temperature in January 2008 led to speculation that the Earth was experiencing a period of sustained cooling. A brief look at the graph depicting January global average temperatures reveals large variability in our climate year-on-year, but with an underlying rise over the longer term almost certainly caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

There are a number of natural factors contributing to so-called interannual variability, the single most important being the El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO. In 2007-2008 the global climate was influenced by the cold phase of this oscillation, known as La Niña. The La Niña began to develop in early 2007, having a significant cooling effect on the global average temperature. Despite this, 2007 was one of the ten warmest years since global records began in 1850 with a temperature some 0.4 °C above average.

The La Niña strengthened further during early 2008 and became the strongest since 1988/89, significantly contributing to a lower January temperature in 2008, compared to recent years. In addition, global average temperature was influenced by very cold land temperatures in parts of the northern hemisphere and extensive snow cover.

January 2008 may have seem particularly cold compared to January 2007 - the warmest January on record and largely due to the warming phenomenon El Niño - but this merely demonstrates the year-to-year natural variations in our climate.

In future, while the trend in global temperatures is predicted to remain upwards, we will continue to see inherent variability of this kind.

FACT 2
The current climate change is not just part of a natural cycleEarth's climate is complex and influenced by many things, particularly changes in its orbit, volcanic eruptions, and changes in the energy emitted from the Sun. It is well known that the world has experienced warm or cold periods in the past without any interference from humans. The ice ages are good examples of global changes to the climate, and warm periods have seen grapes grown across much of Britain.

Over the several hundred thousand years covered by the ice core record, the temperature changes were primarily driven by changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Over this period, changes in temperature did drive changes in carbon dioxide (CO2). Since the Industrial Revolution (over the last 100 years), CO2 concentrations have increased by 30% due to human-induced emissions from fossil fuels.

The bottom line is that temperature and CO2 concentrations are linked. In recent ice ages, natural changes in the climate, such as those due to orbit changes, led to cooling of the climate system. This caused a fall in CO2 concentrations which weakened the greenhouse effect and amplified the cooling. Now the link between temperature and CO2 is working in the opposite direction. Human-induced increases in CO2 are driving the greenhouse effect and amplifying the recent warming.

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theres loads more utter bullshit like this on their website.

Umm... 'K...

Interpretation:

Basically we don't know shit but we get paid a lot so fuck you!