Timini Cricket

To quote the authors of the Lloyds report : "This report shows that climate trends can be hidden unless the data is analysed at an appropriate granularity." They then go on to show how easily data may be plausibly obfuscated to provide a slant on the climate to their own organization's advantage. Lloyds are kind enough to publish their Spreadsheet from which some of these statistics are derived here. (Sadly, they do not archive their entire or raw data.) Of the "Extreme Rainfall" events analysed, 7/10 occurred within the 20-year period 1958 -1979, and the remaining 3/10 occurred in the 10 years between 1992 and 2003. Their "granular analysis" approach does not seem to take into account the random clumping in time such events seem to possess. (It is also not pointed out that all these events occur from June to September (isolated thunderstorms, perhaps?), yet much is made in the paper of the analysis of seasonal and annual rainfall statistics.) The researchers could have made their case so much more convincing if they had chosen the period 1909 - 1957, with zero extreme rainfall events over 45mm, and contrasted that with the 48 years from 1958 - 2006 with ten extreme rainfall events! Infinity percent over 96 years is so much more convincing that just 900% over 92! The next 48 years may perhaps see Lloyds moving from their EC3 City address to somewhere less flood-prone, such as NW3, Hampstead? Not on the basis of this study. All in all this pamphlet shows what Lloyds stockholders will want to hear, that more can (and will) be "justifiably" charged for premiums depending on the effects of severe weather, whatever the actual current trends show. This is exactly what may be expected from a financial institution with vested interests, but it is not a valid piece of scientific analysis. Ain't statistics marvellous? Day . Month . Year .. Amount (mm) 12 ... 7 ... 1908 ... 51.3 ..... (not within analysis period) 5 .... 9 ... 1958 ... 55.9 ..... (in 1915-1960 analysis data) 3 .... 9 ... 1965 ... 79.0 ..... (in 1961-2006 analysis data) 14 ... 9 ... 1968 ... 97.5 .......... " 15 ... 9 ... 1968 ... 47.0 .......... " 7 .... 8 ... 1970 ... 45.5 .......... " 20 ... 9 ... 1973 ... 48.8 .......... " 31 ... 7 ... 1978 ... 48.8 .......... " 9 .... 6 ... 1992 ... 78.5 .......... " 10 ... 8 ... 1994 ... 58.5 .......... " 2 .... 9 ... 2002 ... 49.0 .......... "

Possibly the snow that fell on the channel and North Sea did cool the SSTs a little in the short term, but the scale change certainly makes it look dramatic. Certainly a lot of precipitation just missed the south coast travelling westwards. It's an interesting website though, Spawney, but where did you obtain the animation - I can't find it? Some charts from the same site: The SST anomaly for this area shows a definite downward trend over the last few years, and we have already beaten the low set earlier this year: As does the heat content time series: It's a very short time series, but the spring heat content has been steadily decreasing over the past 3 seasons. Autumn heat content held up until last year, but this year is decreasing too. is this a sign of things to come?

I don't get any ads here, and very few anywhere else. Some ads out there can provide unwanted gifts, even without you clicking on them. I am not in any way saying that Netweather ad links are harmful, but there are many unscrupulous malware ads about.There is a site named Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File. Note the "related utilities" section for some easy to use options. You can inspect your own hosts file at %WINDIR%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (hosts is a textfile without extension that will open in notepad), if you have XP or later and at ./etc/hosts on a linux system (usually the same unix location on Mac OS X, but it is more complicated to edit it, I am told.) (you could also copy C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts to a new tab in your browser, using your browser as a textfile reader) The hosts file act like a local proxy server. If a website directs your browser to visit an advert link, the host file directs that link to your loopback address (localhost, 127.0.0.1), which of course is not usually* a website with content. So it sends back a blank, which the browser ignores. The worst that can happen is a "site not found" message in the placemarker for the ad. There is also the possibility that the occasional link to a googleads etc., site that you want to visit is blocked, but you can delete or "comment out" that entry in your hosts file. Blocking ads with a hosts file speeds you up, since the local lookup of the hosts file is almost instant, it is much quicker to load webpages that do not have to gather images from all over the internet to fill those ads. Older systems with small amounts of memory (WinME, Win9x, Win2k) can be slowed up by large (500kb) hosts files, but this is unlikely in modern systems. *you could run a rudimentary website on your local system and use hosts to redirect all sites to its address - it could just say "blocked!"

No-one doubts the UHI phenomenon is real and measurable. If the satellites record the whole land surface temperatures, they presumably record the UHI increased temperatures too (how could they exclude them?). If in agreement with surface measurements, those surface data must, by inference, be UHI contaminated too, despite the homogenisation etc.

Why not? Near the middle of a more or less flat, huge (never known less than about 3m sq Km) icefield with meltwater ponds at the triple point of water, elevation just above sealevel, constant illumination from a low sun, with low amounts of annual precipitation, what would a trained meteorologist calculate the mean, max, and min range of variation of surface air temperatures there to be?

"Gotten" is not an "americanism", it's an obsolete, anachronistic pre-Mayflower anglicism, which modern english evolved away from centuries ago. Had you forgotten? :blink:

[tongue-in-cheek] Hemlock. It is the "cow parsley" with spotted stems. Do not attempt to feed it to the children, since they will reject it as being an attempt to get non-junk-food into their delicate systems! Instead, buy a pack of dry mung beans and indicate that the hollow stems of the Apiaceae will make excellent peashooters! Go to the £1 shop and buy a pack of craft knives (£1) and carefully instruct your children in the safe use thereof. Blunt them if necessary. Warn the children that the spotted stem members of the Apiaceae family are not to be used under any circumstances!!!" Tell them to blow, not suck!!! As well as peashooters, whistles, flutes and didgeridoos (if giant hogweed is endemic in your area) are possible alternatives. Limit activity to weekends wherever possible, since the poisons unit at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene is only open weekdays 9-5, and your local A&E will know nothing of plant toxicology. Following these handy tips can limit the summer holiday contact, annoyance and frustration time with your children to a few minutes per day, as you visit them in hospital. If they are good and obedient children, you may have to train them to be weeding (or harvesting) your garden of beansprouts until the first frosts. By all means kiss them goodnight, but be wary of them kissing you back.[/tongue-in-cheek]

Thanks to the parents of one of our visiting English language Students, I have a lovely little book which may interest readers here: Known and little-known Volcanoes of the Massif Central Photos  Francis Debaisieux, Design Mireille Debaisieux, Text Noel Graveline ISBN 978-2-913381-13-1 en anglais reimprime en avril 2007. The last eruptions in France occurred only 7,000 years ago, and the region could become active again. The majority of  recent eruptions in France were brief, and dormancy, rather than extinction is presumed. The book shows some wonderful scenery, maars, prismatic basaltic columns, pyroclastic rings, craters, grottoes, cinder cones, ice caves, volcanic caps etc., from the Auverne in the Massif Central down to the Bas-Languedoc region near the Mediterranean. The book features classic images of cathedrals, abbeys and châteaux sitting precariously atop volcanic necks, nestling within descriptions of their geological origins and significance, as well as many of the beautiful natural volcanic features of central France. Ask your Library for a copy!

I saw Donovan Leitch play to a packed refectory hall at Leeds Uni in (IMMSMC) 1973 - a few large cushions scattered on stage, an acoustic guitar, and two microphones, one for the mouth and harmonica, the other for the guitar. The presence of the man was unbelievable. I had gone to Leeds in the shadow of "the Who live at ...." Rod Stewart, The Rolling Stones and Bob Marley... We had seen bands like Jethro Tull doing "Thick as a Brick", Lindisfarne with "Fog on the Tyne" , even Osibisa,( before it became a Linux distrro, didn't it ...) Donovan was the man that night. Who could start a concert with " The lock upon my garden gate's a snail that's what it is..." and get a standing ovation, segue into a ditty about affection for underage teenage girls, and send us tearful with simple little love songs, and keep our rapt attention for the best part of two hours. He did. Best value for money act I ever saw.

Just watched the ISS, led by the Progress 38 spacecraft go directly overhead (West Sussex coast). The ISS was brighter than Venus at a magnitude of about -4, so it wouldhave been easily visible, even in London. According to Heavens Above, the next pass starts in the west at Midnight 30:17, blinking out as it hits the earths shadow just to the WSW of me. Here's tomorrows today's passes. DateMagStartsMax. altitudeEndsTimeAlt.Az.TimeAlt.Az.TimeAlt.Az. 3 Jul-3.6 00:03:37 10WNW 00:06:3058SSW00:07:0745SSE 3 Jul-3.6 22:54:47 10WNW 22:57:4386NNE23:00:2612ESE 4 Jul-2.0 00:30:17 10W 00:31:5923WSW00:31:5923WSW 4 Jul-3.3 21:45:55 10W 21:48:5068N21:51:4510E 4 Jul-3.5 23:21:17 10W 23:24:0953SSW23:25:2129SE

Apart from sincere greetings for Laserguy's happy birthday, if Michael Jackson was still alive, what would he look like today, or more importantly, in 10 year's time? I think this is an important question. Take, for example, Elvis. Many sightings of Elvis have been reported since his death. None of these reports suggest that the King continued to suffer the bloat - post mortem - that troubled him in his last few years when he was still shuffling this mortal coil! If anything, Elvis was rehabilitated in death! Thankfully he chose not to continue his singing career. Unlike Jim Reeves. Nobody has reported seeing Michael Jackson since his demise! Why not? Is it that he has still continued to morph away from the chubby little afro-haired kid we all loved into some uber-pale unnosed skinny phantom with red-rimmed, bulging eyes? Or is it that out of the corner of our eyes, there is this smart and svelte, slim, medium-dark skinned handsome chap moonwalking just outside of our visual range? Me, I have audible remembrances of dead artists - the Penguin Cafe Orchestra figures strongly, unfortunately - if it's not "Telephone and Rubber Band" (or "Perpetuum Mobile" (which is the same, but for a few notes)), it's "Music for a found Harmonium" (which is the same but for the order of a few of the notes). Sadly, I hear them everywhere. Fortunately, I never see Elvis or MJ, nor hear them, neither.

An account of the previous eruption of Ejafjallajokull in 1821. (Note the spelling of Katla as "Kolla" - "ll" in icelandic is pronounced "dl" or "tl" - hence the pronunciation of Ejafjallajokull, which we also got wrong in 1822, is something like Eya fiat la yokhut.) http://books.google.com/books?id=mbE-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PR3&lpg=PR3&dq=Account+of+the+Eruption+of+the+Old+Volcano+of+Eyafjeld+Jokkul+in+Iceland&source=bl&ots=h7Hyoc9r5q&sig=kyGC03i6Te_mIpr-RxJulLiQiIQ&hl=en&ei=YSvxS7b7CY7b-Qbxw-jMCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CDQQ6AEwCQ XXVI. Account of the Eruption of the Old Volcano of Eyafjeld Jokkul in Iceland, in December 1821. THE remarkable fall of the barometer which took place almost simultaneously throughout all Europe, on the 25th of December 1821, and which in some cases was accompanied with an agitation of the magnetic needle, induced many persons to conjecture that some tremendous convulsion of nature must have visited some part of the globe. This conjecture has at last been verified by a volcanic eruption of the old volcano of Eyafjeld Jokkul, which has been in a quiet state since the year 1612. This mountain, otherwise called Cape Hecla, is about 5666 feet in height. It is nearly equidistant from Kolla and Hecla, and is the southermost of the chain where the dreadful eruption broke out about the middle of the last century. On the 19th December 1821, the eruption began. The crater was formed at the distance of five miles from the minister's house at Holt, and discharged itself through the thick mass of ice that enveloped it, and which is seldom melted. The ice was dispersed in every direction, and a mass, 18 feet high and 60 feet in circumference, fell towards the north. A number of stones, of different sizes, rolled down the mountain, accompanied with a noise like thunder; and this was immediately followed by a discharge of an enormous and lofty column of flame, which illuminated the whole country, and allowed the people at Holt to read as perfectly within their houses at night as if it had been day. Ashes, stones, gravel, and heavy melted masses of rock, some of which weighed about 60 Ib. were thrown up, and one of these last was found at the distance of five miles from the crater. On the day immediately following the eruption, a great quantity of the fine greyish-white powder of pumice * was discharged, and carried about by the wind so as to fall like snow, and cover the adjacent country. It penetrated into the houses through every opening. It exhaled a disagreeable smell of sulphur, brought on affections in the eyes, and occasioned diseases among the sheep in Vester Eyafjeld and Oster Landoe. On the 25th of December, a violent storm raged from the south, and by the united action of the wind and the rain, the fields were cleared of the sulphureous dust which had covered them. On the 26th and 27th of December, there was a heavy storm from the north-east, and the barometer, which had been gradually falling since the 18th December #, when it was 29.16, had reached, on the 26th December, its lowest point at 28.49. It is a curious fact, however, that on the 8th of February the barometer fell to 27.25, a time when no earthquake was felt, and no apparent change had taken place in the eruption. On the 18th of February, the barometer, which had been at 29.42 on the 11th, fell to 27.72. So late as the 23d of February, the Eyafjeld Jokkul emitted smoke greatly resembling the steam of boiling water; and some persons were of opinion that the mountain had decreased, and was lower near the crater, as it evidently appeared to be when viewed in a direction from north to south. It is stated that the water in the rivers that flow from the Jokkul and the surrounding mountains, had been considerably enlarged during the first day's eruption. A constant rumbling noise was heard in the vicinity of the volcano, attended occasionally by a dreadful crash, as if the immense masses of stones and ice were on the eve of being precipitated down the mountain. Other two volcanoes to the east, in the mountains of Kolla and Oraefa Jokkul, are said to have broken out, but no certain information has been received on the subject. The vessel which brought the account of the volcanic eruption to Copenhagen, left Iceland on the 7th of March; and it is reported that the sailors when at sea, again saw a violent fire in the direction of the volcano. * This powder had a sulphureous taste, and burned when thrown into the fire. # The observations on the barometer were made at Naes near Reikavig, by Dr Thorsteinson. A statement of it for October, January, and February, will be found in the Ann. of Phil, for June.

Visual charts and images of ash extent Norway Met Inst SNAP Model for predicting Ash Fallout and spread http://www.yr.no/verkart/1.7103434 Meteosat Ash interactive animation http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/IPPS/html/MSG/RGB/ASH/ICELAND/ Charts of SO2 and aerosols Belgian SACS SO2 data and Alerts http://sacs.aeronomie.be/index.php NOAA NESDIS SO2 http://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/OMI/OMISO2/iceland.html#End Aircraft movements over European airspace http://www.flightradar24.com/ http://www.radarvirtuel.com/

http://api.met.no/we..._type=image/gif The board will not allow me to post the live animated gif above direct from the Norway Meteorology Institute, but it certainly looks as if the UK could have some airport closures.