RedShift

Currently; Temp: 2.2C Dew Point: -0.1C Windchill: 1.5C Pressure: 972 mBar Wind: 1.63 m/s from SW. Overcast, very light drizzle, no overnight precipitation.

Currently; Temp: 1.2C Dew Point: -2.1C Wind-chill: -0.4C Windspeed: 1.4 m/s from NW RH 78.9% Pressure 997 mBar 7/8 low cloud cover but no showers Snowed for ~30 mins at 02:00 this morning giving a covering of 0.00005 microns...

Near Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, at my workplace; Temperature (°C) Highest daily maximum: 13.3C (14th) Lowest daily maximum: -0.2C (30th) Average daily maximum: 8.4C Highest daily minimum: 11.2C (14th) Lowest daily minimum: -5.4C (30th) Average daily minimum: 3.4C Mean daily temperature: 5.9C Number of air frosts: 5 Number of ice days: 1 (30th) Total rainfall: 77.6mm Wettest day: 21.2mm (14th) Rain days: 23

James Hansen, NASA scientist, will be beaming into your living room laptops from the Palace of Westminster, Wednesday, in a climatic debate with the UK Government. The 45 trillion dollar question : is 80% safe ? Will Carbon cuts in the region of 80% save the world from Climate Change meltdown and fry-up ? Top NASA scientist James Hansen and researcher Tim Helweg-Larsen of the Public Interest Research Centre go head-to-head with Professor John Beddington and Professor Robert Watson, both Chief Scientific Advisers to the UK Government. It's going be one humdinger of a debate. Watch it LIVE from the Palace of Westminster. Kick off is Wednesday 26th November 2008 at 2.30pm http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/VideoPla...?meetingId=2908

I really hesitate to reply to this and add to the entire off-topicness - but, Roger, would you care to tell that to the families who have lost sons/daughters/brothers/sisters fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq? Your right-wing, christian fundamentalist dogma is beyond a joke. Could you explain what a 'multicultural zoo' is ? Your entire rant tonight leaves me feeling disappointed that your weather predictions are taken seriously here. You are clearly bitter towards the scientific community for some past rejection, could you tell us why? Your resentment is oozing from every word you type.

Currently; Temp: 5.3C (Wind-chill 2.9C) Dew Point: -1.8C Wind direction: NNW Wind speed: 3.71 m/s gusts to 6.7 m/s 5/8 cloud cover - no rain since early morning Pressure: 1013 mB Feeling raw Yesterday: Mean temp: 3.3C

Currently 8.8C (windchill 5.8C) Dewpoint 3.0 Wind WSW gusting at 7.75 m/s 7/8 Mid level cloudcover Dry

Welcome Toby, Since the early-Twentieth Century, the mean temperature of the Earth’s near surface and oceans has been increasing (by about 0.75C). In most sensible quarters the temperature is projected to continue rising. That is what global warming is – it does exactly what it says on the tin. What is the difference between global warming and climate change? This is actually a good question, but it requires (as do many aspects of global warming) an understanding of the timescales involved. A very important point is that global warming does not mean that every year, or every two or every three or four years will be warmer than the last. What is does mean is that the Earth’s surface temperature will, on average, continue to rise. It does not mean that there will never be a cold winter in the UK again – but that warm periods will be warmer and cold periods less so. Climate change, again, means simply that the climate (i.e. the ‘average weather’) will, over a long(er) period of time, change – be it warmer, cooler, drier, wetter, windier. Key point, again, is timescales. Climate change, as far as I understand it, can operate on longer timescales. Things that drive climate change can include; Milankovitch cycles (i.e. the orbit and motion of the Earth round the Sun), plate tectonics, long-term changes in ocean circulation – the list is endless really. Now – the question is have humans altered the Earth’s climate. For me the term global warming refers to the recent climate change we have experienced for the last ~100 years, and it does seem highly likely that our output of greenhouse gases has had, at the very least, a significant impact. What proof is there? Well – we have measured the temperature, and the mean temperature has risen. This does not mean that everywhere on Earth the temperature has risen by the same amount at the same rate – in some places it has risen more, some less. Anthropogenic gas concentrations have been measured, and are increasing. The thermal effects of greenhouse gases have been understood since the nineteenth century, and crucially, there is no other reasonable ‘non-human’ explanation which accounts for the entire observed rise. For sure natural cooling factors have come into play, but the overall trend is upwards. Why the 50 year ahead predictions? Well I guess because we want to try and infer what the climate will be doing in the future…makes sense doesn’t it? Anyway, I have rambled on for too long. Just be wary of the rhetoric you see on here. Various posters will repeat certain key words (e.g. hoax, taxes, Gore, Hansen, cooling, cycles, natural) over and over in the hope of appealing to the audience and winning the debate. Try and understand the science behind this issue, and remember that scientists are not always the best communicators; they revel in, and are comfortable with margins of error and uncertainties - non-scientists aren’t. As Churchill once spoke... ‘These professional intellectuals who revel in decimals and polysyllables…’

Sorry SB but I can’t let this go… First, Stephen Hawking, never ever claimed that black holes ‘do not leak’. He, along with some Soviet scientists, developed the idea of Hawking radiation in the 1970s, where black holes do indeed emit radiation and lose mass. The discussion you are referring to is the Thorne-Hawking-Preskill bet. This was not about the ‘leakiness’ of black holes themselves, but of the ‘leakiness’ of information from a black hole. Say if you fell into a black hole, you would add to its mass but eventually be emitted through Hawking radiation. The question was...would a black hole remember that it was you (or what was left of you) it was now radiating? Turned out that Hawking was wrong – information cannot be lost by a black hole, it will remember (and he gave Preskill a baseball encyclopedia). Second, to call Hawking’s thoughts ‘wrong in very fundamental ways’ beggars belief. This was/is cutting edge astrophysics which I would seriously doubt anyone in this forum could comment on meaningfully. This is how science works at such a theoretical level, there is always more than one answer to a problem. Hawking was, for a few years, wrong…but what is wrong with being wrong sometimes? Hawking has earned the right to be wrong. The process worked, he is now publishing papers on information loss in black holes. If parts of climate science thoughts are shown to be wrong and have to be reworked as new data arrive...so what? This shows that science is flexible enough to adapt. Peer review will, ultimately, root out poor thinking. Publishing e-books won't.

I have no idea what the weather has been doing in Blighty for the last few weeks - nor what it will do in CET land, but as I sit in a very warm Cypriot internet cafe my guess is 8.9 please

07.5 please

Noggin, I continue to be at a loss to understand the reasoning behind point 7) if you take a look at this... As for point 8, North Atlantic SSTAs are still up, have a look in the Free Data centre if you don't believe me. And, as one of the lucky contingent of Scots, there seems to be a view that all of Scotland has been a frozen wasteland, home to many a happy polar bear, this winter. The ski centres have done well, yes, but much of the rest of the country has seen the odd snowy day but not much else. January temperatures currently running between +0.2 and +0.8 above normal for the various regions (courtesy of http://www.climate-uk.com/page2.html © Philip Eden). To answer your question, no.

04.9C

A tiny part of the world i know, but despite much chitter-chatter on here about CET cooldowns, it's going to take a cold December for Scotland not to record its warmest year on record (i.e. Areal series, since 1914) http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/ser...cs/scottemp.txt Warmest year on record was erm...last year at 8.26, which is 1.06 above 71-00 mean and 1.29 above 61-90 mean. After 11 months this time last year we were at 94.2 cumulative degrees, after 11 months this year we are at 94.8 cumulative degrees, but this December certainly colder than last December, will be interesting to see.

Redshift 06.1c, 153

Is there a quote of the year competition here on NW? If not there should be. Since when has copying and pasting from Ken Rong been deemed 'erudite'?

I think a special mention here should go to Thomas Midgley Jr., In 1921 he discovered that adding lead (or tetra-ethyl lead) to gasoline prevented knocking, then he discovered dichlorodifluoromethane, a CFC, which was used in household refrigerants. So not only did he pollute the air with lead he also helped make huge holes in the ozone layer.

Wrong time of the year I know but I came across this topic at a first-aid training course the other day. Since 1994 the UK government has adopted the Australian model of sun protection policy i.e. avoid direct exposure to sunshine between 11-00am and 3-00 pm, cover up and avoid tanning. Whilst the benefits of this policy should reduce skin cancer, does it ignore the benefits of vitamin D? This vitamin is obtained through some foods, but ~90% of it is obtained from sunlight. One third to a half of children in the UK has vitamin D deficiency, which can be linked to the increasing level of diseases such as diabetes type I and II, obesity and high blood pressure. ‘There is no such thing as a healthy tan’ says the government policy, but is there? Should (sensible) sun-bathing be promoted? Link here Sunlight robbery

Things here are just getting very silly now...slaps on the back for whitexmas copy and pasting vast tracts from Rong Ken's website, is this the best we can come up with?

It’s almost correct. I would argue that the main driver of ice ages is plate tectonics. There have been four, maybe five ice ages that we know of in the Earth’s history. We are currently in one. It seems that when the continents are in a position to block the oceans carrying heat from the equator to the poles you get an ice age. Presently we have a large landmass over the South Pole and an almost land-locked ocean basin over the North Pole. India colliding with Asia also helped, it threw up a huge amount of rock (i.e. the Himalayas) to be weathered by weakly acidic rainwater. It also started the monsoon with intensified this effect. Rock weathering draws down CO2 from the atmosphere. Milankovitch cycles will cause a regular pattern of glacials and interglacials…(though there is still some debate about their precise timing)…but they also work in an ice-free world too. The geological record is full of cycles which probably correspond to Milankovitch Cycles. Two of the largest volcanic events of recent history (and I use the word ‘recent’ in a geological context) are the K-T boundary Deccan Traps and the Permian-Triassic Siberian flood basalts…mass extinctions maybe, ice ages no.

For you mere mortals out there... (from www.Nature.com/nature) I have just had a quick glance at the paper…it appears to be saying: 1) With more CO2, plants stomata will open less and reduce transpiration (i.e. the evaporation of excess water from plants); 2) There will be more water at ground surface; 3) Double CO2 levels and this effect will increase by ~6%; 4) Future droughts may not be quite so severe, but the paper does say ‘However, reduced precipitation is not completely negated by physiological forcing, so some regions may still experience increased drought.’; 5) Rather than only radiative forcing, greenhouse gases can influence climate in other ways. I have read no criticism of, or disagreement with, the IPCC, only a suggestion that the UNFCCC should consider point 5). Daily Mail....pah!

New Scientist is a magazine, not a journal. It does not publish original research as say, Science or Nature does, it just reports on what other journals are publishing. After many of their articles they will give the 'journal reference' of a particular topic. Go to the New Scientist website and you will be met with links to 'subscribe to magazine'.

Roger, please tell us you were in a playful mood when you wrote this reply. Palaeontological and biological evidence does indeed suggest that the hominids evolved from other primates, but not the primates we see around us today…we share common ancestors. Why should other primates ‘develop’ human characteristics? They have done very well in the game of life without them. Human role models? Are you suggesting that evolution occurs because species want it to happen? Other primates ‘stay’ as other primates because they are well suited to their current environment, and hence are successful in reproducing…only when some major environmental change comes into play will natural selection act on the raw material of genetic mutations and over time changes will occur. Individuals do not ‘evolve’, populations ‘evolve’. I will leave this to Mark Twain… ‘Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world’s age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man’s share of that age, and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.’. A common misconception… surveys published in Nature (1997) report ~4 out of 10 Scientists believe in a god. Source: Larson, J.E. and Witham, L. Scientists still keeping the faith. Nature, 386, 435-436 Absolutely no reason why you can’t believe in a god, indeed one of the recent palaeontological heavyweights, Stephen Jay Gould was deeply religious. And I personally know several geological researchers who are religious. What evolutionary research? Perhaps you could share with us? For the life of me I just cannot see why so many people, both here, judging by past threads, and in the public at large, cast so much doubt on Darwin’s ideas. What he was looking for were patterns, not mechanisms, the structure of the DNA molecule was but a twinkle in Darwin’s eye. ‘It’s just a theory’ I have seen and heard too many times. Just a theory? Well yes, but one that has stood the test of time, and has support in the fossil record…go see mammal-like reptiles (or therapsids) and lower jaw bones, go see theropods to birds, go see the transitions in the human fossils record. Evolution, like gravity, is both fact and theory, we know it happens, but we’re not 100% sure how it happens. Darwin’s natural selection ideas were/are a brilliant piece of scientific thought. I think people who struggle with it do so because i) the vast time-scales involved and ii) evolution through natural selection is undirected, there is no grand plan, or design involved. For me it is real, not because of the perfections of natural forms, but quite the opposite, because of the imperfections. Why is a Kiwi’s egg so large? Why do humans suffer backache, hernias? Why do bats fly? Why do porpoises swim? Why do the bones in my arm have the same structure as those of bats and porpoises? If there is a designer involved…he/she is not very good. PP – That requires either a long and detailed reply or a very short one, as, with the greatest of respect, that statement makes me bewildered, confused…but most of all very sad. A dangerous ideology? You are confusing Darwin’s work with ‘Social Darwinism’. Darwin was concerned with populations, Social Darwinism, developed by Herbert Spencer (and others) tries to apply natural selection to competition between individuals and into the realm of society and economics - or that horrible phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ (coined by Herbert Spencer, not Charles Darwin). Social Darwinism's only relationship to Darwin is the name. And yes, you and I are here because ancestral hominids were very well adapted to our environment, we have adapted as a social species and interaction/cooperation with other individuals increases our chances of survival and reproduction (eg childcare, hunting, ganging up on predators) Same thing can be seen in chimps, ants, big cats. Cooperation and symbiosis can be an evolutionary force, not at all inconsistent with Darwin’s ideas. Perhaps you have PP, and apologies if you have, but sometimes I wonder how many people have actually read The Origin of Species

Whoaaa - good work Devonian! Posts like that cut through alot of the 'which side are you on?' nonsense on here. The debate on climate change isn't (or shouldn't be) about 'isms' or 'ists' - but rather how to cut our GHG emissions. It really is that simple.

Update... Blizzard and 'Blizzard like' and 'almost blizzard like' conditions reported from the northwest, Derbyshire and the midlands. Few seem to involve any lying snow. Rampometer needle still strangely quiet over Peterborough. ABINGDON ALERT!!! 2 veering to 3 Abingdons reported from Bristol.