Colder winters could become the norm in Europe over the next 20 to 40 years, US-based forecaster Weather Services International said Tuesday.
“We have recently noticed a change in [weather] patterns back to what we had in the 1950s and 1960s in Europe... We’ve had three cold winters in a row in the UK,” WSI’s chief meteorologist Todd Crawford told Platts.
“We believe there is a strong likelihood that it’s going to hang around for the next 20 to 30 years.”
If true, the findings could have important implications for the European energy markets, where demand typically increases during winter because of higher heating and lighting requirements.
Peak electricity demand hit an all-time record in France at the beginning of December, and was near its historic record in the UK, amid temperatures that were more than 10 degrees Celsius below the seasonal norm.
Natural gas and gasoil demand also soared. Behind the freezing temperatures is the North Atlantic Oscillation, a climatic phenomenon that normally sends wind from western European countries to the east, keeping cold air from the Arctic at bay. But in December the current was flowing in the opposite direction, bringing cold Arctic air to western European regions and sending energy demand to fresh highs.
“During the last 30-40 years, the NAO was predominantly positive resulting in much warmer, wetter winters,” Crawford said. “Starting in 2008, however, the NAO has sharply reversed to a much more negative state and the result has been quite notable with three straight cold winters in the UK.”
Weak solar activity
WSI said the reversal in the NAO could be due to three factors: recent cyclical changes in North Atlantic ocean temperatures; climate change, which results in warmer Arctic air and sends cold air southward to Europe; and a “weak” solar cycle.
Crawford said all factors were potentially at play, but that reduced solar activity may turn out to the main culprit. “Our current solar cycle has been the quietest in at least 70 years, and there is some valid concern that there may be significant cooling going forward,” he said.
“We feel that the NAO has entered a cyclical negative phase, and will likely be predominantly negative for the next 20 to 40 years. This doesn’t mean every winter will have negative NAO, just most of them,” he added.
Talking to Platts Tuesday, UK national weather service the Met Office said: “There is a large amount of variability in the NAO... any long-term predictions of the NAO are speculative.” “That said, there are avenues of research being pursued to improve our understanding and ability to make such predictions in the future.”
Electricity traders said Tuesday the colder-than-usual temperatures seen last December were still being treated by market operators as an anomaly, and would unlikely result in higher prices next winter.
“That’s interesting... but you certainly wouldn’t trade off information like that,” a trader at a large UK utility said. “It is something that must be
considered going forward,” a second trader said. “But the problem in the past has been that many people state they are an authority on weather, and
actually distinguishing the good from the bad can be quite difficult.”
WSI is owned by NBC Universal and private equity companies Blackstone and Bain Capital.
© copyright Platts, 20 January 2011
