Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 18/06/2013
Event: Sir Brian Hoskins: "...we're tossing ideas around and seeing what we need to look at further"
People:
Justin Webb: When the Met Office decides that the weather is so weird that they have to have a meeting about it, how worried should we all be? The meeting takes place today, and the Met Office is rather playing it down - part of a series, etc., etc. But are they panicking behind the scenes? Have we lost the warm, temperate predictability that's part of the character of our island home? In a moment, we're going to hear from one of the organisers of that meeting, but first, from the Mendips in Somerset, here's Jon Kay.
[Sounds of birdsong.]
Jon Kay: This field would normally be full of people by this time of year, filling their punnets with bright red juicy strawberries. Instead, I'm the only person here. And the strawberries that are growing are still tiny and pale green.
Jean Phippen: These are a good three weeks behind what we would expect.
Jon Kay: Jean Phippen has run this pick-your-own business in Somerset for nearly 40 years, and Chosen Hill Farm always used to be a buzz of activity by now.
Jean Phippen: We haven't got enough fruit here, at the moment, to open, so...
Jon Kay: Jean says it's not just this summer that's forcing her to consider the future of the business, but the last few years of unpredictable weather.
Jean Phippen: We get extreme winds, we get extreme wet, we get extreme cold. We don't mind a bit of wet, we don't mind a bit of sun. We want an average season.
* * *
George Chisholm: You can see all the ground floor has been reinstated - everything from electrics to central heating.
Jon Kay: In the nearby village of Chew Magna, George Chisholm and his wife Muriel have finally moved back into their home. Until last year it had never flooded, but in the autumn, it happened four times.
George Chisholm: The level of the water was about two feet.
Jon Kay: George has questions he would like to ask today's Met Office meeting.
George Chisholm: How often might this kind of flood happen, you know? We talk about once in 40 years, once in 20 years. Really, how frequently can we expect it to happen?
[Sound of objects rattling.]
Jon Kay: More stock deliveries, at a garden centre down the road. Optimistic, perhaps, given the leaden skies above. Only a month ago, there was snow in some parts of the West Country, and customers here seem confused.
Female customer: Well, I've had my heating on a couple of times this week, so... It's quite cold, isn't it, really. You know, a few years ago, they were saying to gardeners: "Oh, prepare for drought" - desert plants and all the rest of it. My husband and I were laughing, earlier on, whether it's our childhood memories that summer was longer, more sunny, or whether it's the actual truth, and I think the bottom line is it has changed.
Justin Webb: Hmm. Jon Kay's report, there, from Somerset. Professor Sir Brian Hoskins is Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, he's also Professor of Meteorology at Reading University, helped organise the meeting today. He's on the line - good morning, Sir Brian.
Brian Hoskins: Good morning.
Justin Webb: Now, things have changed - just to follow up on that last point. There is something odd, isn't there, about the weather - what, looking back over ten years?
Brian Hoskins: Yes, I think the last ten years has produced some pretty interesting weather for scientists to look at, and some of it's not been very nice for those who have had to feel what's happened. So yes, it has been a bit strange in the last few years.
Justin Webb: And your theories about why?
Brian Hoskins: Quite honestly, we don't know. I mean, there's various contenders. Is it just chance? You can always get a number of sixes rolled in a row, and this could be a number of sixes rolled in a row. Or maybe there's some underlying cause, and perhaps the biggest contender for that is the reduction in sea ice in the Arctic.
Justin Webb: Which would do what?
Brian Hoskins: Well, we don't really know, and that's what today's meeting is about, really. It's the sort of thing we often do, where we have meetings to try and understand what's happening in the weather or in the season. But there's - with the run of seasons we've had here, then we thought we'd try and get this together a bit and see if there is something like this sea ice - which we don't understand, really, how that would influence our weather, but that's what the meeting is about, is to try and see what research we need to do, to see whether that is a cause, or is it something to do with the ocean temperatures? So today we're tossing ideas around and seeing what we need to look at further.
Justin Webb: And what a lot of people would like you to come out and say, at the end of it, is: "Look - the climate is changing, the climate, not just the weather, the climate is changing and we think Man is, at least, partially responsible for that."
Brian Hoskins: Well, I don't think you're going to hear that at the end of today. And if we found that the sea ice reduction in the Arctic was one of the major causes, then of course that is strongly influenced by what we're doing, with putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But if we find it's a pattern of sea-surface temperatures that comes and goes, then we may just find this is random, but we hope we could get more ability to predict, even if it's just random.
Justin Webb: You say "if we find..." I mean, are you going to come out with conclusions, at the end of this?
Brian Hoskins: I don't think at the end of today you're going to hear us saying, with trumpets: "We've found the cause, and our summers are always going to be like this in future." I think it's going to be perhaps a bit dull for you, but we're going to come up with ideas for research programme, over the next few years.
Justin Webb: Well, we'll have you back, in those next few years. We do confuse weather and climate, don't we.
Brian Hoskins: Well, there's a sort of continuum from weather to climate, so if the climate warms, then you can expect more heatwaves in the summer. So there's always an interaction between weather and climate - they aren't totally separate.
Justin Webb: Mmm. Because in America, though, particularly after hurricanes, recently, people have been talking much more about climate change. I mean, is that a reasonable thing to do, to look at the weather and say: "Yes, this is telling us something about the climate, we should listen, we should look"?
Brian Hoskins: Well, we should always look, and we have that at the back of our minds, but we don't go into this saying: "Let's see if there's proof that this is climate change." We go into it trying to understand what's going on, and if we can see some of the linkages and if it turns out, in the end, that changing climate is involved, then that's what we'll find. But we're looking to see what's there.
Justin Webb: Sir Brian Hoskins, thank you very much.
John Humphrys: Right, so let's forget the climate, have some weather. Peter?
Peter Gibbs: Well, as they say, John, climate's what you expect but weather is what you get. So today what we'll get is quite a mixture, actually...