The summer of 1816 in the British Isles. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, UK

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1 The summer of 1816 in the British Isles Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, UK

2 Summary The European summer of 1816 should not really be referred to as The year without a summer as this term was coined for New England in that year (Harrington, 1992) In the long Central England Temperature (CET, from Gordon Manley) record back to 1659, the 1816 summer is only the third coldest and 1695 were colder! In the CET record, July 1816 was the coldest July. August was 20th coldest and June was 26th coldest European circulation reconstructions for July 1816 Long series across from the UK (CET, EWP, Gordon Castle and Edinburgh) Daily CET series Where was the 1816 summer exceptionally cold? Where wasn t it cold? Tree ring reconstructions for wider afield (if there is time) Conclusions Harrington, C.E. (Editor), 1992: The Year without a Summer? World Climate in Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, 576pp Briffa, K.R. and Jones, P.D., 1992: The Climate of Europe during the 1810s with special reference to In, The Year without a Summer? World Climate in 1816 (C.R. Harington Ed.), Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa,

3 Station series with long MSLP Records Jones, P.D., Wigley, T.M.L. and Briffa, K.R., 1987: Monthly mean pressure reconstructions for Europe (Back to 1780) and North America (to 1858), U.S. Dept. of Energy Carbon Dioxide Research Division, Technical Report TRO37, 99pp Principal Components Regression based reconstruction of monthly MSLP maps from station pressure, temperature and precipitation series. Years post 1836/1865 use more/only station MSLP series Locations (left)of the 4 continuous MSLP pressure series from 1780 to 1836 (Trondheim, Edinburgh, Paris and Milan) Long station monthly temperature (11) and precipitation (10) series that were also used in the reconstruction (small circles) Plus signs are the location of the reconstructed grid N, 30 W 40 E Would be improved with more long MSLP series developed since 1987 (e.g. London, Padua, Cadiz, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Uppsala)

4 Variance Explained in Verification Period The calibration period was and this was then verified using gridded pressure data (MSLP) for the period (1873 is the start of monthly hand drawn pressure charts) The PC regression technique was then used to reconstruct MSLP maps for each month separately for years The map here shows the variance explained for July for the period July is the poorest month of the year in these reconstructions. Winter months are always better.

5 Comparisons with Lamb and Johnson (1966) Lamb, HH and Johnson, AI, 1966: Secular Variations of the Atmospheric Circulation since Geophysical Memoirs No. 110, Met Office, HMSO, London This developed MSLP maps for Januarys and Julys from 1750 to ~1960. Undertaken by subjective contouring of station data plotted on maps Variance in common between Lamb and Johnson (1966) and Jones et al (1987) for Julys for 1780 to 1836 Again comparisons are much better for the Januaries. They are still reasonable for Julys, but not as good as the verification period in the previous slide

6 MSLP Reconstruction for July 1816 from Jones et al. (1987) Reconstruction for July 1816 as an anomaly from Implication from this is that there would have been anomalous cold and wet conditions centred on N, 10 W 30 E. Possibly warmer than normal in the eastern Mediterranean and NW Russia

7 MSLP Anomaly maps for Mid Season months in 1816 Comparison with the other mid season months in 1816 again as anomalies in hpa with respect to The MSLP anomalies much more unusual in July as anomalies of this size rarely occur in summer months

8 JJA in rd coldest, with 1695 and 1725 colder. JJA 1816 in a run of very cold summers in the 1810s second warmest JJA in the CET record. Only 1976 warmer

9 JJA 1816 was 23 rd wettest summer in the EWP series. JJA 1817 was wetter but 1829, 1879, 1912 and 2012 much wetter

10 Gordon Castle is near Fochabers in Moray. Early data published by Buchan (1880). Likely different site/screen from later record. Edinburgh/Leuchars is from Jones and Lister (2004, updated). Plotted as anomalies from as for CET Summer 1816 is cold, but nowhere near as extreme as for CET. Summer 1826 very warm (second warmest in CET). Also very warm in the few Scandinavian sites to get back this far Possible exposure issues in MJJAS before the introduction of Stevenson screens in the 1860s/1870s

11 Daily Central England Temperatures 1816 Cream range shows the 5/95th percentile ranges based on the period Note greater ranges in winter months Apart from a few days, all of JJA 1816 was below the average with some days the coldest for those dates since the series began in 1772 Despite 1816 being so cold, it was 1 C warmer than 1740! Daily CET only starts in 1772 Parker, D.E., Legg, T.P. and Folland, C.K., 1992: A new daily Central England Temperature Series, International Journal of Climatology 12,

12 2014 Warmest ever year for CET (10.95 C) Except for 1740, no year has had all 4 seasons exceptionally cold or exceptionally warm This plot shows a Singularity in the second half of February. Still there if you use other 30 year periods th coldest year for CET since the series began in 1659 (7.89 C) After 1816, only 1879 was colder. So all other colder years were before, including Coldest year was 1740, 1 C colder than 1816 The only warm spell in 1816 was in late April. A similarly timed warm spell also occurred in New England (Ed Cook, pers. Comm.). Late frosts after a warm start were an additional problem in 1816.

13 Synoptic maps for cold spells in Europe during winter and summer 1816 Slide from Juerg Luterbacher 28/29 Jan and 8/9 Feb July 1816 White numbers are the temperatures in absolute degrees Kelvin Brugnara et al. 2015: A collection of sub daily pressure and temperature observations for the early instrumental period with a focus on the year without a summer Climates of the Past 11,

14 Further Afield: Sites with temperature/precipitation data for 1816 and also the 1810s from Briffa/Jones (1992) Temperature Precipitation More than used in Jones et al. (1987) as they only need to have data for the 1810s and the modern base period Briffa/Jones (1992) in Harrington (1992)

15 Locations of the sites available in 1992 Precipitation not so widely measured at this time in eastern and northern Europe. A few more long series now available from Spain and France, and also as a result of the IMPROVE and EMULATE projects.

16 Where was the summer 1816 extremely cold/wet? Temperature anomalies from Pressure anomalies from Precipitation % anomalies from Central and Western Europe experienced the most anomalously cold conditions (especially the Alpine area) It was most anomalously wet during the 1816 summer over SE England and NE France

17 Where wasn t it that cold? Location JJA Temperature Anomaly July Anomaly from St Petersburg Tornedalen (Haparanda) Archangelsk But New England as anomalously cold as the Alps Blue Hill Obs. (Boston) Tornedalen reference Klingbjer, P. and A. Moberg (2003), A composite monthly temperature record from Tornedalen in northern Sweden, , Int. J. Climatol., 23, Other sites in World Weather Records St Petersburg also here Jones, P.D. and Lister, D.H., 2002: The daily temperature record for St. Petersburg, Climatic Change 53,

18 Going further back before Instrumental Series Effects at the surface after a major volcano are mostly evident in the summer months This is fortunate as the response of natural proxies is mostly manifest in summer Tree ring data, particularly maximum density (MXD) measurements, provide some of the most informative evidence of colder than normal summers in the past

19 Northern temperatures (inferred from tree-ring density network) and volcanic eruptions (Briffa et al., 1998) Briffa et al. (1998) Nature; Briffa et al. (2001) J. Geophys. Res. 19

20 Example climate reconstructions from tree-ring density 20

21 Tree ring based April September temperature anomalies (wrt ) From Juerg Luterbacher Briffa et al. 2002

22 Tree ring based Arctic summer temperature anomalies (wrt ) From Juerg Luertbacher Tingley and Huybers 2013: Arctic Temperature Extremes during the last 600 years. Nature 496,

23 Lowest MXD values almost all related to tropical explosive volcanoes the year before Highest MXD values never have above average values everywhere, but the opposite never happens everywhere for Low MXD years 23

24 Conclusions July 1816 had the most anomalously low pressure over Central Europe since 1780 Only the third coldest summer in the CET series Most anomalously cold summer in the Alpine region Very wet summer over much of Europe, especially over SE England, NE France and the Low Countries Summer 1816 cold over much of Europe and New England, but average or above normal across Northern Fennoscandia and NW Russia Summer of 1816 is the classic example of volcanic induced cooling, but based on MXD three summers were cooler in the 17th century Tree ring density data suggest the 1816 summer was near average in the western half of North America

25 25

26 Summer CET absolute temperature and anomalies (wrt ) From Juerg Luterbacher Summer 1816 within a series of cold summers in the 1810s (~2 C colder than 6190) Summer 1816 is the third coldest CET summer (1725 and 1695 were colder) Manley 1974, updated UK Met. Office

27 Summer England Wales precipitation totals and anomalies (wrt ) From Juerg Luterbacher Summer 1816 is the 23 rd wettest summer Wigley et al. 1984, updated UK Met. Office 2015

AIR TEMPERATURE IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC IN THE MID NINETEENTH CENTURY BASED ON DATA FROM EXPEDITIONS

PRACE GEOGRAFICZNE, zeszyt 107 Instytut Geografii UJ Kraków 2000 Rajmund Przybylak AIR TEMPERATURE IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC IN THE MID NINETEENTH CENTURY BASED ON DATA FROM EXPEDITIONS Abstract: The paper