Winter Weather

[art600]

Ashley
I wish people could discuss without the polarisation that occurs.

I don't think either of us will live long enough to see if it can be proven conclusively that man is responsible.  Scientists were forced to modify their arguments as they could not match the facts, and are likely to have to change again.

Better that we all concentrated on using less energy - saves money and conserves the planet's resources.  This is surely without argument - unless you are a power supply company that would see profits drop

[Gerry Webster]

I'm not trying to have a go at you personally Art, but to me climate change denial in the face of so much evidence is wilful ignorance. 

I agree.

[ashley]

Ashley
I wish people could discuss without the polarisation that occurs.

I'm certainly with you there Art.

I don't think either of us will live long enough to see if it can be proven conclusively that man is responsible.  Scientists were forced to modify their arguments as they could not match the facts, and are likely to have to change again.

Unfortunately we passed that point some time ago.  The latest IPCC report indicates that climate change now underway is mainly due to increase in atmospheric CO₂ since the pre-industrial era (taken as before 1750), i.e. due to man's activities. 

Science can never prove anything of course, only fail to disprove it.  Our knowledge advances as we take into account new information and continually re-evaluate previous interpretations.  Therefore as the evidence accumulates and is tested more and more stringently, our confidence grows that climate change is real and mainly caused by our activities.   

Better that we all concentrated on using less energy - saves money and conserves the planet's resources.  This is surely without argument - unless you are a power supply company that would see profits drop

Agreed again

[Gerry Webster]

Climate change is certainly caused by our activities according to Henley on Thames councillor David Silvester  who blames recent storms and floods on an act of God after the Government decided to legalise gay marriage:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-councillor-blames-floods-on-gay-marriage-9069245.html

[ashley]

... specific events ... can't be attributed to man-made global warming without doing research (which requires funding and political commitment).

Not quite the political commitment I had in mind but I suppose he's saving taxpayers from having to pay for attribution research

[David Nicholson]

Climate change is certainly caused by our activities according to Henley on Thames councillor David Silvester  who blames recent storms and floods on an act of God after the Government decided to legalise gay marriage:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-councillor-blames-floods-on-gay-marriage-9069245.html

    Could anyone (in their right mind of course!) vote for an idiot like that?

Took us three hours today to travel 25 miles. Flooded roads, drowned engines and fools driving like idiots!

[Gerry Webster]

  Could anyone (in their right mind of course!) vote for an idiot like that?.........

Evidently they can in Henley.

[David Nicholson]

 

[Robert]

47th consecutive days without measurable rainfall during the rainy season -  a new record for Northern California!

No chilling hours either! So many plants are confused.

I spend most of my time watering. My tears bring more moisture than the sky.

So much for the nonlinear behavior of the weather.

Robert

[mark smyth]

Still no winter here in N Ireland. Only a few mornings where warm water had to be used to melt frost on the car windows. No days of snowdrops lying flat. 11c here today but very wet

[Maggi Young]

47th consecutive days without measurable rainfall during the rainy season -  a new record for Northern California!

No chilling hours either! So many plants are confused.

I spend most of my time watering. My tears bring more moisture than the sky.

So much for the nonlinear behavior of the weather.

Robert

47 days is quite a drought - How much longer will you have enough stored water to water with, Robert?

[Robert]

47 days is quite a drought - How much longer will you have enough stored water to water with, Robert?

This is very difficult to know right now. Our irrigation district has additional water storage very high in the mountains. The water districts at the low elevations that service the Sacramento Valley are nearly out of water with the summer "dry season" still  5 months away. There are millions of acres of farm land in the valley that will get no irrigation water this season. There are several million residents of the greater Sacramento area that may not have any water by August, maybe sooner. It is a very grim situation for many areas in California.

The question for us that live here in the mountains is, will we have to share our water? Our water in storage would last about 2-4 weeks if sent down the mountain to the Sacramento area. Our population and agricultural acreage is relatively small. Very difficult choices may need to be made.

We might be okay. We can fallow our row crops and direct our water to our orchard and ornamentals. In addition, the carbon content of our soil is extremely high (carbon=water) so it retains moisture in a good way.

I will keep you (all) posted. At some point I'm sure this will become world news like the Rim Fire that burned parts of Yosemite National Park. Maybe there should be more on this too as the Rim Fire burned prime habitat for many interesting plants such as Erythronium taylori.

Today's high temperature in Sacramento was 79 F a record high for the month of January. The old record was 74 F.

I'll sign off for now.

[Yann]

What a storm we got here, gales at 82mph! While we were eating in a restaurant, strong wind blow against a glass/alu structure that bends.
We didn't have time to finish the diner, the restaurant was evacuated.

Back to home i checked the METAR of the nearest airport and saw that south of Uk and Belgium were also in the tempest.

Crazy winter.

[Robert]

What a storm we got here, gales at 82mph! While we were eating in a restaurant, strong wind blow against a glass/alu structure that bends.
We didn't have time to finish the diner, the restaurant was evacuated.

Back to home i checked the METAR of the nearest airport and saw that south of Uk and Belgium were also in the tempest.

Crazy winter.

I wonder how many of us are having crazy weather?

We are in our 3rd year of drought. This is not unusual. What is unusual is that this season we have less than 10% of our normal rain for the season. In addition, almost every day is a record breaking high temperature, including a record all time high for the month of January.

In relation to the past 110,000 years, the last 8,000 have been relatively kind to us.

[Yann]

It seems that almost 2/3 of planet is currently having a winter/summer out the average range (temperature or rain).