Europe's Warmest Winter in 700 Years
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles 
on 06.22.07
According to an article recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, the last fall/winter season was Europe's warmest in 700 years. In fact, the last time Europeans witnessed such unusually high temperatures was in 1289.
Jürg Luterbacher of the University of Bern, Switzerland, the study's lead investigator, mined temperature and climate records from across Europe that went back several hundred years to draw this conclusion. "People in churches, or doctors, wrote diaries, and usually they also included information about weather and climate. Climate historians can use and interpret this information and translate it into a temperature value," explained Luterbacher, who used these records to compare past and recent temperatures.
What is particularly unusual about the temperatures seen in the fall of 2006 and the winter of 2007 is not necessarily their values (though they were high), but the fact that one immediately followed the other, a sequential juxtaposition not seen since 1289.
While Luterbacher hypothesizes that the high temperatures experienced in 1289 were most likely the result of a large volcanic eruption, he and his colleagues attribute last year's warmer fall/winter season to the movement of warm air up from the Atlantic off the coast of North Africa.
Though they can't yet say with certainty whether such an unusual incident is due solely to global warming, they draw a direct comparison to a similar 2004 study that indicated that it was "very likely that human influence has at least doubled the risk" of extreme weather incidents such as the recent heat wave that killed 35,000 people in Europe.
Via ::Freak winter is Europe's warmest for 700 years (news website)
See also: ::Keep Winter Cool, ::The Upside of Global Warming?, ::Outsourcing Global Warming, ::Indian Ocean Shows Signs of Global Warming, ::Global Warming: "Three Times Faster than Worst Prediction"
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Avoid Evaporating Gas: Park in the Shade and Buy Gas When it's Cool
- Take it from a Beatle: Cut Your Carbon Footprint by Making Mondays Meat-Free
- 5 Ways Climate Change Will Affect Your Health, Plus How to Cope
- Feed 8 Friends for Under $100 with this Green Frugal Feast: Sustainable Fish Fry
- Forget Going Green Because It's the Right Thing to Do—Go Green to Make Your Neighbors Jealous
- Green Glossary: Meltwater
Yeah, and February 2007 was the coldest on record for most places in the United States.
RK,
Feb 2007 was so probably so cold (in North America) because of large amounts of temporarily cooled air caused by the melting of glacial ice moved south, just like when you open a fridge to get a beer. If 2007 was TRULY the coldest on record, the arctic ice cap would be expanding.
Enjoy your beer while it lasts.
The fact remains that in 1289 it was as warm? What was the reason for the warm winter then?
"and February 2007 was the coldest on record for most places in the United States."
You can have local cold records at the same time as GLOBAL warm records. Heck, you could have minus 100 in montreal for the whole year or an ice age in Europe, what matters is the global average.
"The fact remains that in 1289 it was as warm? What was the reason for the warm winter then?"
Did you read the post?
"While Luterbacher hypothesizes that the high temperatures experienced in 1289 were most likely the result of a large volcanic eruption, he and his colleagues attribute last year's warmer fall/winter season to the movement of warm air up from the Atlantic off the coast of North Africa. "
The Northeast is lucky this year. We're having some nice cool weather and rain, but a lot of the country is in the middle of a multi-year drought that seems to just get worse and worse. Last winter in the Northeast had practically no snow.
"While Luterbacher hypothesizes that the high temperatures experienced in 1289 were most likely the result of a large volcanic eruption, he and his colleagues attribute last year's warmer fall/winter season to the movement of warm air up from the Atlantic off the coast of North Africa. "
What?! The warmer weather wasn't due to fat capitalists driving SUVs? Blasphemy!