Is it time to relocate or learn how to construct an igloo?
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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| UK braced for big freeze |
| 2004-11-19 |
| Forecasters warned drivers to expect icy conditions, as snow fell and temperatures plunged across Britain. Winter's coming early this year. The first snows of the winter fell across parts of Wales, Derbyshire, East Anglia and Northamptonshire overnight, with temperatures in the Scottish Highlands expected to drop as far as minus 7C. Throughout the rest of the UK, temperatures are also predicted to be lower than average. Jeremy Plester, a PA WeatherCentre forecaster, said: "It's going to be extremely icy . Everyone is out salting the roads, but drivers will still have to be particularly careful on by-roads." He said the icy conditions would extend over the UK, with the exception of Cornwall. Forecasters earlier predicted overnight temperatures to be the coldest of the winter so far. In England the Highways Agency also issued a warning to drivers. A statement said: "The Highways Agency's gritters are on standby ready to treat England's motorways and other strategic roads. Maintenance teams will be gritting in advance of the cold weather, and will continue to treat motorways and other strategic roads throughout the cold snap. We are advising drivers to check for up-to-date information on weather and road conditions before they set off, and during their journey." |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #41 Is it time to relocate or learn how to construct an igloo? |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-11-19 9:53:26 PM |
| #40 There's no question whatsoever that humans impact the environment in which they live. This will be true so long as a single human exists on the planet. To me the proper question isn't, "How do we absolutely minimize our impact on the 'natural' environment?" but is instead more along the lines of, "Are we receiving a good return in exchange for our impact on the environment?" I'll submit that when viewed on the human equivalent of a geologic time scale the answer to that latter question is a resounding, "Yes!" Consider the advances in: life expectancy, leisure time, ease of subsistence, etc. over the past few centuries. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2004-11-19 8:57:56 PM |
| #39 Anyway , I expect to get ripped to bits , just finished 12 hours at work and couldnt put a logical arguement together if I tried tonight , head is almost on the keyboard . |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-19 7:21:14 PM |
| #38 I guess I'll stay in the minority here and firmly commit myself to the train of thought that we are screwing around with the planet and contributing to its shoddy state , I , for one dont particularly want to leave a legacy of this kind to my children . If people think that pumping crap into the atmosphere isnt doing damage then they are in a serious case of denial . And yes people can say ' ohh its happened in the past look at this data' but people can't say in the past we have had big industries like we have now , cars like now and a population like we have now . Imagine a scenario where you attacth a hose to your car , and stick it thro the window of your greenhouse , then go to the pub and come back . Think your tomatoe plants would survive ? I dont . This is basically what we are doing albeit in a slower way and less concentrated . I choose Los Angeles for an example . Over a period of eight years, researchers tracked 1,759 grade school children until their high school graduation (in 12 different Los Angeles communities) to see if they were negatively affected by the smog. The findings showed that in the dirtiest areas (San Bernardino and other regions close to freeways), 10 percent of the children developed "clinically significant" breathing problems. If this sort of crap is happening locally then something will happen on a larger scale . A case of a cancer spreading . People can argue that Los Angeles is in a bowl ' and gathers pollution , and it doesnt rain enough to clear the air , but the issue remains . As Sir Winston Churchill once said: "There are lies, damn lies and statistics" and both sides can manipulate them to suit their needs. Anyway I have drifted off the topic a bit , but all avenues lead to the same thing . |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-19 7:17:52 PM |
| #37 I'm still trying to figure out how our ancestors melted the ice sheets covering Europe and North America some 20,000 years ago Cold fusion experiments gone awry. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-19 3:25:54 PM |
| #36 I don't even play a weather modeller on the Internet,.. Ah, but did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-11-19 12:28:35 PM |
| #35 Why Global Warming is bullshit: 1. If the climate gets warmer - BAD. 2. If the climate gets colder - BAD. 3. The climate never has and never will remain steady. Let it get warm; I hate the cold. |
| Posted by: Crikey 2004-11-19 12:02:03 PM |
| #34 Wow, a lot of global warming crap for an article about a cold snap in the UK! I thought the most interesting thing about this article was that England will be gritting the roads. I would think it rather messy, we use salt, sand or mag chloride on the roads in the US. why would you use this? http://www.grits.com/discript.htm |
| Posted by: bitter pill 2004-11-19 11:29:00 AM |
| #33 LOL DB! Should a bop 'em with the flat of your sabre like sabre. Our Sun could fart and wipe out every living thing on the Daylight side of our planet. SPoD Do like I do, get down on your knees and pray! And I mean pray! Let it all go! If you feel like writhing go for it, it you can suddenly speak Strupeth Jalen let 'er rip! Then after the sweats are over retire to the O'club and have a Pigs foot. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-11-19 11:16:43 AM |
| #32 A few years ago a young Engineer asked what caused the Ice Age. I said "It got cold". Then he asked me what caused the ice age decline and I said "It warmed up". He hit me. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2004-11-19 11:06:09 AM |
| #31 For me, I'm still trying to figure out how our ancestors melted the ice sheets covering Europe and North America some 20,000 years ago, raising ocean levels 200 to 300 feet. Must have been all those heavy industrial sites and automobiles they had back then too. |
| Posted by: Don 2004-11-19 10:23:35 AM |
| #30 What Ptah said. A great many ground weather stations hav skewed numbers because they are in the middle of cities, or airports or other "heat islands." That's how you can get ground stations claiming increases in temperature when 20+ years of satellite data (measuring the air as a whole) shows basically no change. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2004-11-19 10:00:48 AM |
| #29 Don't dismiss AzCat's comment about "global warming" on Mars, and don't let anyone blow it off: the original models being used today that predict global warming were originally developed to explain the Martian climate. To me, the most obvious disproof of global warming is the satellite data on atmospheric temperature that comes from directly measuring its infared spectrum. during times of reported global temperature increase, the direct atmospheric temperature did not increase as much, if at all. The theory is that ground stations that used to be rural got suburbanized, then urbanized, as the cities near them grew and overran them. Its a known fact that cities are warmer than rural areas so there IS truth to the (true) assertion that "measured temperatures have gone up as industrial activity increased." Question is, is what you are REALLY measuring REALLY what you THINK you're measuring? |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-11-19 9:46:43 AM |
| #28 Its only a two day cool snap. BFD http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/03779.html |
| Posted by: mhw 2004-11-19 8:58:52 AM |
| #27 What astounds me is how little we know about the largest impactor on "warming." Our Sun could fart and wipe out every living thing on the Daylight side of our planet. At some point in Sols life it will wipe out our planet. One Volcano can alter the temp of the earth for several years. The Atlantic conveyor can and does shut down. The UK gets glaciers if it does. We live on an ice planet if you look at the historic trends. We adapt or we perish. All this "global warming" crap really goes against the historical record. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-11-19 8:34:39 AM |
| #26 Daly lived, that should have read. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2004-11-19 8:23:42 AM |
| #25 An excellent site is Still Waiting For Greenhouse. John Daly started it, but has passed on. I believe his family continues the page. Daly lives in Tanzania, and found a bench mark measuring average sea height on an island down there dating from the 1800s. He studied it and found that the sea level hasn't gone up at all. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2004-11-19 8:23:09 AM |
| #24 Wrote a paper on the subject in college about ~8 years ago. Something that struck me at the time was that the sources in "favor" of global warming tended to talk about models and possibilities, while those "against" it happened tended to discuss measurements and historical data trends. Just a generalization of course, but it seems to hold up most of the time when I read on the subject. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2004-11-19 8:18:00 AM |
| #23 Not all of it badnov, as Tom noted there are many good people in the field. There is so much lying about environmental 'science' that for me to accept the thesis that not all of environmental 'science' is junk science would be like me accepting what a known liar is telling me as the truth, except the stuff known to be lies. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-11-19 8:10:41 AM |
| #22 The first time i saw the graph of CO2 levels and global temps on one page (at AzCat's link) I knew this was conclusive proof the human induced global warming via elevated CO2 levels thesis was false. Not maybe, possibly, but absolute conclusive proof. In a casual relationship cause must preceed effect. There is a truly stunning amount of weaseling going on to get around temperature increases preceeding rising CO2 levels. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-11-19 8:09:21 AM |
| #21 Not all of it badnov, as Tom noted there are many good people in the field. We get so much junk science because that's what the system rewards and encourages. Most environmental research is funded by government grants and all things being equal the folks signing the checks are far more likely to award you a grant if your proposal calls for the study of a problem that you claim is likely to kill us all or destroy the planet. Layer on top of that motivation the fact that in academia where the lion's share of this research is conducted, the ability to produce grant money is directly proportional to a researcher's odds of being tenured. Hence the steady stream of dire predictions with which we're inundated, it's a self-perpetuating cycle. Couple the above with the sensationalist nature of the media and it's easy to see understand not only why we have a steady stream of dire predictions but why those are the only ones we hear about. "There is no global warming," or "Global warming is a natural not man-made phenomenon," are man-bites-dog stories, they have no appeal. "The world is about to be destroyed by automobiles, evil polluting corporations and Brazilian farmers," is, on the other hand, a story with great popular appeal and one that can be run every time a new practitioner of junk science propagates a new doctoral dissertation with a new faulty spin on the questionable data. Whenever I hear about global warming I think back to the public service announcements that used to run with the Saturday morning cartoons when I was a child. The crying Indian firmly convinced me that we'd have no oil by the year 2000, the entire planet would be covered with several inches of litter by the time I graduated from high school, and that we were headed into a new ice age which would reduce my adult life to a day-to-day stuggle for existence. These days I'm a skeptic. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2004-11-19 8:06:16 AM |
| #20 Well said, badanov. I believe that environmental science is often a subset of political science. There certainly seem to be a lot of environmental scientists who are weak in the chemistry and physics fields. In fairness though, I have met some environmental scientists in the corporate world who are quite capable -- but they're not the type that we are reading about in the MSM. That may be sorting -- the good ones get good technical jobs while the others get political jobs and chase headlines. |
| Posted by: Tom 2004-11-19 7:45:33 AM |
| #19 AzCat: Environmental science IS junk science. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-11-19 7:37:13 AM |
| #18 I'll get round to reading that AzCat , am at work atm ,and folk are asking for some reports that need polishing off . I'll post back this evening . |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-19 7:33:06 AM |
| #17 Junkscience.com is a must-read on global warming. If you read nothing else there be certain to at least scan their page on global mean temps. Once you've done that try their pop quiz and be sure to read the very informative answer. There's also good evidence that solar activity is having a dramatic impact on the environment ... of Mars. At least it seems safe to infer that solar activity is the culprit since Mars is lacking in industry, cars, planes, forests, oceans, and other environment-altering features. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2004-11-19 7:30:51 AM |
| #16 Indeed Bulldog , I'm as sceptical as you as regards those groups , and theres plenty of em over here . I , like you , try to reach an informed conclusion with the data that i glean from around the world and not listen to emotion and panic spreaders . I also have seen the model of melting ice cap and how it affects the gulf stream 'North Atlantic Conveyor' , but as usual results are inconclusive *shrug* hehe |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-19 7:30:09 AM |
| #15 Arse. Was me. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-11-19 7:16:09 AM |
| #14 Bulldog , I am only pointing out one of many variables which could and may influence global warming , all added together , it paints a glum picture which in the long run will only get worse . I appreciate that, MacNails, and I'm not saying that global warming can't be happening, (or even that colder temperatures for the UK may happen as a result of a global rise in temperature - I believe one model has the Greenland ice shelf melting and the resulting cold water runoff colliding with the warm Gulf Stream before it make it to our pampered island) - I just keep a sceptical attitude towards agenda-driven researchers and ecowarrior campaign groups, whose use of data is often selective and deceptive. It's interesting to note that with every unseasonably cold spell we hear nothing about climate change, and yet with every unseasonably warm spell, the media is full of it... |
| Posted by: Barbara Woodhouse 2004-11-19 7:15:15 AM |
| #13 taken from your quality report Ed (interesting read ) However, researchers at the MPS have shown that the Sun can be responsible for, at most, only a small part of the warming over the last 20-30 years. Bulldog , I am only pointing out one of many variables which could and may influence global warming , all added together , it paints a glum picture which in the long run will only get worse . Also no matter what anyone says the air we live and breathe is getting dirtier and more polluted , mainly caused by third world countries trying to get onto the first world ladder . I personally think us first world countries should look long and hard at the future and not hide the issues under the carpet , after all democracy is all about debate and freedom of choice , what we do with it is a different matter . Anyway , this is an interesting debate , and makes a nice change from the usual Jihadi nutcase 's |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-19 7:04:04 AM |
| #12 after 9/11 , there was a drastic decline in airflight round the world for a short period , this alone brought the overall average global temperature down by 1 degree celcius during that period . Draw your own conclusions , but this did happen . I'm not so sure, MacNails. All I've read about the 9/11 effect is that high and low day and night time temperatures fluctuated in the US by about 1.1 degC beyond normal for a few days after aircraft were grounded (see here and here). This was put down to the absence of high altitude vapour trails which actually reflect sunlight, but trap heat radiating from the earth's surface, and may play either way, or have no net role, in influencing global temperatures. If someone was being selective with their use of statistics, they could suggest that the grounding of aircraft had either raised temperatures (at night) or reduced temperatures (daytime)... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-11-19 6:49:04 AM |
| #11 The Sun is More Active Now than Over the Last 8000 Years An international team of scientists has reconstructed the Sun's activity over the last 11 millennia and forecasts decreased activity within a few decades. ... one needs to go back over 8,000 years in order to find a time when the Sun was, on average, as active as in the last 60 years. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-11-19 6:40:39 AM |
| #10 anyway , hippy mode off ! |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-19 6:35:17 AM |
| #9 Tbh , I'm a firm beleiver that global warming is happening , probably a cyclic event that happens every few thousand years , then it receeds , but I also think that there is a degree (excuse pun) of human involvement that is enhancing its progression . Like it or lump it , be in denial or not , something is happening to the globe and we , as protectors of it need to pay greater attention and spend funds investigating the matter further . One small example I can think of is , after 9/11 , there was a drastic decline in airflight round the world for a short period , this alone brought the overall average global temperature down by 1 degree celcius during that period . Draw your own conclusions , but this did happen . |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-19 6:33:56 AM |
| #8 Oh my, -7C. That's got to be like 20F. Cry my a river. Try being in the upper midwest in January or February. We all ready had a couple of nights like that in October |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2004-11-19 6:13:26 AM |
| #7 Overall warming is gradual -- but local differences can be quite sharp. Cities hold heat compared to countryside, moutains hold and release heat differently than the oceans and within the oceans, currents make a large difference as well. It is true that the Gulf Stream is cooler lately. The question is why that should be so? And the answer to that is pretty complicated. Or so I'm told by a friend whose expertise is weather modelling. I don't even play a weather modeller on the Internet, but he does have some claim to expertise in the area. |
| Posted by: rkb 2004-11-19 6:09:43 AM |
| #6 But BD, you live upwind from Chiraq. The people of Germany and Eastern Europe get all the hot air (and methane) they can tolerate. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-11-19 5:59:09 AM |
| #5 rkb with respect you are wrong re turbulence (except due to increased energy in the atmosphere but that will be a small fraction of 1%). Global warming (as predicted by Kyoto) is gradual. It will have no real affect on weather except to shift weather system patterns further North (and South in the southern hemisphere). North west Europe's weather is largely determined by the North Atlantic Conveyor (Gulf Stream). I've been reading reports for a year or more that it has sharply declined. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-11-19 5:50:05 AM |
| #4 Okay, guys -- I'm not convinced one way or the other about global warming claims. However, you cannot point to unusually cold winters in Britain as proof that it isn't happening. Because the atmosphere, the land and the seas don't warm (or cool) uniformly, one symptom of global warming (if it is happening) is precisely that there is great turbulence. The weather models do predict more extreme weather in places around the globe for decades if warming is indeed happening -- including more extreme cold sometimes. |
| Posted by: rkb 2004-11-19 5:32:26 AM |
| #3 Kyoto protocols work! |
| Posted by: gromgorru 2004-11-19 5:16:02 AM |
| #2 Snow in mid-november in England. Wow! Return of the Little Ice Age. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-11-19 5:04:34 AM |
| #1 Just about now would be a great time for the global warming doom-mongers to crank up their hot air emissions and thaw things a little. But do they? No. They go into hibernation. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-11-19 3:43:32 AM |