Many years of cold winters lie ahead - The Irish Times - Tue, Nov 30, 2010

Prof Lockwood, who is also based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in Oxfordshire, has shown that historically when sunspot activity is low, the jet stream changes direction to bring on the freezing weather.

The sun is currently very quiet, having recently passed through the “solar minimum”, the low point in an 11-year solar cycle that peaks at the “solar maximum”.

This will lead to more cold spells in the next few months and years, he believes.

“November is a pretty good predictor of what December through February is going to be like,” he said.

Yet while stockpiling of road grit may have to continue for the next few years, these conditions did not mean that climate change was over, Prof Lockwood warned.

“The big thing people need to appreciate is the weather they experience on a local or a regional scale is not the same thing as global temperatures,” he said.

“Our colder winters mean almost nothing in terms of global averages. That is why climate change is a better term than global warming.”