Cold winters

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Colin Miles
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Yesterday the Sun was spotless again and is still not out of the very long Solar minimum which was supposed to have finished by the end of 2008. So maybe the link below needs to be taken seriously and we need to be prepared for many more winters like this. No point in sowing Broad Beans or Peas. Even my leeks look very sad.

http://www.350resources.org.uk/2010/04/ ... d-winters/

Not to mention this from Nasa, posted 17th Dec.

http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2010/1 ... ng-effect/
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Elle's Garden
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Fascinating reading. Thanks Colin.
Kind regards,

Elle
madasafish
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Thanks Colin.
Fascinating.

The Met Office said we would milder and warmer winters. Previous studies claimed that sun activity had no effect on climate..

Prepare for a gradual change in scientific thinking is what the paers say to me: current thinking appears to be wrong...
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lizzie
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I just think all these changes are part of the earths natural cycle of warming and cooling and just need to be adapted to. My partner has bought me spikes so I can be safer on the ice, cos a fall could be catestrophic for me. I keep the cupboards and freezer stocked in case I cant get out and plenty of thermals on.
Lots of love

Lizzie
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John Walker
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@Colin Miles
Your first link is an interesting read, but the main message seems to be summed up by:

But they added that the phenomenon only affected a limited region and would not
alter the overall global warming trend.

Your second link is to a report that deliberately distorts the findings of the NASA paper in Geophysical Research Letters, so it has no credibility. It has in fact been cut and pasted throughout the blogosphere as some kind of 'proof' that global warming isn't as bad as was previously thought. It uses figures which are completely wrong (especially the spurious figure of 1.64C) and wrongly attributes the 'findings' to NASA scientists.

If the global warming problem had been disproved, why hasn't this been headline news across the globe?

For a full and forensic explanation of why (with an excellent YouTube explanation):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/b ... mate-myths

The lesson here is that myths are created much faster than they can be debunked.

Curiously, the report at TucsonCitizen.com also includes this from the author of the piece:

...there is no physical evidence that human carbon dioxide emissions have a significant effect on global temperature.

Funnily enough, basic physics tells us that the opposite is in fact the case and is well understood.
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richard p
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and common sense tells us if the sun throws a wobbly we all die whatever the scientists tell us.
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alan refail
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...or is it all the result of an evil conspiracy?

Are We Entering An Engineered Ice Age?

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/318/944/ ... e_Age.html
Colin Miles
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John - you are indeed correct that about the distortion regarding the Nasa quote and, as you say, the other did say that comment about not affecting the overall trend. However, with the Sun just completing 4 spotless days in what is still an extremely long Solar minimum, the doubts that many have regarding the science behind global warming will continue to increase. It will be interesting to see how warm this year is. The complexity we are dealing with and the time-scales involved are simply enormous. I have been both a weather watcher and a computer programmer for more than 50 years - I have written my own weather program - and wouldn't lay much weight behind either the weather data - the earth is very large and yes, cities have grown and heated up thereby reducing the number of temperature points - and rubbish in, rubbish out is always true of computer programs.

It is human nature to see patterns and trends. Unfortunately they are not always there.
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John Walker
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@Colin Miles

Yes, a quick check would have determined whether the second link you gave actually had any credibility.

It will be interesting to see how warm this year is.

Well the answer (based on global temperature records) is that globally 2010 is on track to be the warmest on record. We will have to wait until early 2011 for the final analysis.

A more distilled summary is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... view-vidal

With a much more technical one here (which notes that this coincides with 'the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century'):

http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/10/n ... r-minimum/

It is human nature to see patterns and trends. Unfortunately they are not always there.

A curious comment. How would we know what any patterns and trends are unless we can see, record and measure them? Surely we humans can use our intelligence to spot patterns and trends, understand them and respond accordingly?
Colin Miles
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John - the estimates for 2010 did not include Nov and Dec, which account for 16% of the figures. Since then even the Met office have backtracked.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Global Warming, the media PR of people at the Met Office and the CRU have been such as to alienate many. The Guardian, as you well know, is basically pro, so for the benefit of other readers I suggest they may like to read the following link.

http://thegwpf.org/

As Paul Hudson comments, Dec 2010 is currently on track to be the 3rd coldest winter since records began in 1659, though with predictions of a milder end to the month it is likely to be only the 7th. But since that was written the milder end has kept on receding, so we shall see.

But obviously one winter isn't a trend, anymore than 30 years is a trend in terms of climate, or the years since 1998 when the warming seems to have stopped or even reversed.

And to watch the Sun

http://spaceweather.com/
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peter
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The comment is not the least "curious", it is a factual comment on the subconcious workings of the human mind.

Pilots have flown planes into the ground by (for example) percieving a bank to the left and correcting to the right when the plane was in level flight to start with. This has been due to various reasons; disorientation or faulty instruments being known causes, in each case the pilot believed a single source of information and ignored others, thus spotting a non-existent trend.

People take a set of prejudices with them to any matter, hence the term "an objective view" where the analysis of data is based solely on the data.

In looking at a large amount of data over a long time period the choice of data and period can produce vastly different outcomes, even with a rigorously objective analysis.

At work if I analyse call volumes to our help desk I see a decline, but only if I restrict myself to this years data, if I include the last three years then there is no decline.
If I exclude some types of call because "I know" that they vary during the year then I can see an increase over the year.
Hence I can "see a trend that isn't there" by changing the data to exclude the values that disprove my theory.

In climate change arguments this seems to be one of the key reasons for various parties to be so convinced of their (opposing) viewpoints.
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Colin Miles
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Thank you Peter. And just to add to why I am sceptical about so much of the data. I have a weather station and am in the process of setting up another one for the National Botanic Garden of Wales (as soon as the weather will permit!!). The latter instrument is a Davis Vantage Pro - generally reckoned to be the best. The sensor accuracy they claim is +/- 1F over the range from 0 to 110F. In reality I think it is much better than that and graphs of accuracy do indicate errors of as little as .4F over the mid-range. But you try reading a normal max/min thermometer to better than 1F. And then there is the instrument siting - I can't begin to describe the difficulties that this poses. As for the satellite readings, the physical drift of the satellite led to readings at the 'wrong' time, which didn't help. Neither have the statements by various Met Office and CRU people regarding the likelihood of having bad winters.

And just to cheer everyone up, the winter of 62/63 didn't begin until Boxing Day - and hardly any snow at all in Swansea unlike this winter. And that of 47 was quite mild up until Jan 22nd - I remember watching lumps of ice falling off next doors roof in Cheltenham.

Happy Christmas everyone.
madasafish
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I know the earth is warming.

But the climate warmists who have been shrill and unequivocal about the effects of global warming .. and who keep telling us winters will be mild and wet ... have zero credibility.

That includes the UK's Met Office whose six month forecasts have been 180 degrees wrong. Think exactly the opposite of what they say.

None of that means we should not iinsulate, save energy etc. That makes sense.

But until I see airports being closed for good, airfuel taxed like road fuel and politicians not flying to global warming conferences, I conclude that the advocates of climate change are hypocrites. And often wrong.
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glallotments
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And not to forget politicians flying back to the UK just to cast a vote and then hopping back on a plane to fly back to the conference in Mexico. Wonder why they don't make use of video conferencing more - less travel - less fuel used etc.

Garden shows have for a few years been advocating changing the design of our gardens and growing drought and heat tolerant plants. Wonder how many 'new' gardens have survived during the last couple of years?
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Elle's Garden
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madasafish wrote:None of that means we should not iinsulate, save energy etc. That makes sense.

But until I see airports being closed for good, airfuel taxed like road fuel and politicians not flying to global warming conferences, I conclude that the advocates of climate change are hypocrites. And often wrong.


Very well said!
Kind regards,

Elle
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