I suppose a direct answer to your question would be that the Met Office climate model originally predicted a 1 in 7 chance of a colder than average winter, and the forecast model predicted a reasonable likelihood of a prolonged very cold spell about 10-15 days ahead.

More generally, probably the more advanced climate models will periodically demonstrate the blocking state that resulted in the cold weather we have observed. And when global temperatures are on average 3C higher in about 50-100 years time, that will hardly put a dent in the -17C observed in Devon earlier this month when the same weather phenomenon comes around again.

Your claim that a single winter in one part of the world disproves global warming just proves why politicians with a "please Mail/Express readers" agenda before an election should just keep their mouths shut.

However fed of the current government I am, its idiotic comments like this that make me unable to switch to a Tory party that is more interested in making headlines than actually looking at real issues (you really have modelled your party on New Labour!!).

Reply: Your rudeness matches your ignorance. If you read what I said, I at no stage argued that one bad winter disproves the proposition that the earth may be warming up. You appear unable to consider and answer serious questions about both the trend and the cause of the trend of world climate. It would also be a courtesy if you could master my name.

Just come across this site:

//www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm

To claim a *regional* weather event provides proof for the non-existence of *global* warming makes you sound a lot stupider than I thought you were.

Kind regards,
Tim

Reply: try reading what I write – what you have said is in your imagination. Why are you so rattled?

Actually, this cold weather DOES fit a possible model concordant with global warming, in which the UK and Western Europe have considerably harder winters due to diversion of the Gulf Stream.

However, there are some things we now know, as the result of research, beyond reasonable doubt. One is that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere (as we are doing) increases the average global temperature. This is basic physics, going back to the 19th century, and has nothing to do with climate models.

The other is that average global temperature is increasing. Not year on year, because of short-term variability, but decade on decade, and the last decade is the hottest ever measured with instruments and on overwhelming evidence the hottest that humans have ever experienced.

To continually repeat the clearly false mantra that 'the science is settled' is thoughtless; real science is never settled, always open to question and review, this is how we progress.

What is most worrying about the 'settled science of AGW' is how its proponents brook no argument and don't hesitate to attack and insult any other view (just look at these posts). This is not how science is done and simply demonstrates how unsure of their position the AGW community feels.

Me thinks they protest too much – or something like that.

I think your question about climate change is a good one, in my opinion. It addresses what is known about variability in the climate models – and goes beyond temperature averages. It certainly made me think, and I blogged about it here .. http://tinyurl.com/yl3pcdr

They operate over different time and distance scales because the causal factors do so. For example, weather is largely due to masses of air of different temperatures sloshing around in the atmosphere. Climate is controlled by the radiation balance of the earth and the factors that influence it (solar input, greenhouse gases, albedo and so on). The different scales enable us to separate out these factors, rather as a radio can separate out broadcasts at different frequencies.

You can imagine an analogy by thinking of standing on a harbour wall, watching the water level going up and down on the wall. Over a period of seconds the level goes up and down because of wave motions, which have typical lengths of a few metres. But if you stand there for hours, you observe that superimposed on the wave variations is another motion of the water level, called the tides.

The actual local variation of the level from waves may (on a stormy day) be much greater than the variation due to the tides, but that does not stop us being able to identify two completely different processes: the waves due to such local factors as the wind, which are unpredictable, and the tides which are controlled globally and are highly predictable – the times will likely be given on a poster in the harbour.