mike Meehan
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Posts posted by mike Meehan
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Thanks for you replies - as a basic philosphy, my glass is normally half full, rather than half empty.
Thinking about it futther led me to wonder also whether gravity has a speed - I'm not talking of the normal 32 feet per sec per sec which we have here.
The best way I can describe imy question is. 'imagine a hypethical case where say a star suddenly materialises at a mid point between our soar system proxima centura. Would the effect of this star's gravity be felt immediately by our solar system, or would it take time for the gravity to travel and if so would the speed depend on this star's mass?'
It is obviously impossible for such a star to materialise this way but I am just using this as an example to illustrate my question.
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This evening Prof Brian Cox gave a talk on atoms on beeb 2 at 10pm and mainly the electrons within them - not sure if I got it right totally but my understaning of what he said was that all the electrons throughout the universe were interconnected and that no one electron can be exactly the same as another.
To demonstrate his point he rubbed a fairly large diamond so that its temperature would rise and in so doing said that there would be some change in the electrons and that this change would echo throughout the universe and would affect other electrons where necessary whereever they are and I had the impression that this was instantaneous to ensure that no two electrons are exactly the same.
Now if this were to be the case I find it absolutely staggering since I always thought the the speed of light was the limiting factor on all sorts of communication and travel.
However if this were to be the case I am wondering whether it would be possible to modify certain electrons to such an extent that we could use them to carry communication anywhere in the universe in an instant.
It is not altogether without precedent because our TV's, computers, radar screens etc work by projecting electrons onto a screen - I don't know too much about it and it all means dealing with the strange world of quantam mechanics but I just wonder whether it may be possible for some future boffin to come up with a way of getting electrons to do our bidding in this manner.
Or did I misunderstand the whole concept.
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With regards the crop circle enthusiasts, I believe that some research is being made into the way that the wearing of anoraks affects the brain - it is well known that the wearing of these garments has the effect of diminishing one's critical facitities and making one highly credulous. The 'anorak brigade' are the most fervent supporters in believing that the crop circles are formed during the night by little green men from outer space, so scientists are trying to establish exactly how this happens.
In fact they are most commonly formed after the local pub has closd in the evening when some of the local lads get together some basic utensils to flatten the corn into wierd and wonderful shapes.
Sometimes this is done with the co-operation of the farmer, so that he can charge the credulous £2 a head to come onto his land to take a closer look and some may even hire out anoraks for an extra fee.
It is also possible for these to be formed naturally by a wind vortex near the ground in certain weather conditions.
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Just imagine that instead of walking on the surface of this place we were deep ocean creatures and our known universe would consist mostly of darkness, cold and the general conditions which prevail at the bottom of the sea with perhaps an odd view of a hyperthermal vent with very hot temperatures, then just every so often a ship sinks to the bottom which is quite unlike anything we have ever seen and every so often you might have a mate who is gathered up in a trawl net but these are no more than hints to say that something other than the deep ocean depths exist.
Yet if you were able to come to the surface and even leave it so you could fly around the world you would see a mulitude of different life on this planet and in fact you would enter a different dimension - not only that you would see the multitudes of stars, planets and galaxies etc.
So just as the deep sea creature have no knowlege really of things out of its sphere, neither do we of the vastness of space and the universe - as in the sinking ships and the trawl nets we just get hints from time to time of something more out there and from these hints work out out something which may be there but our knowledge is so incomplete that we can only work out the minutest fraction of what there is to know.
The different theories relating to other universes, other dimensions, superior beings or a god cannot be proved but neither can they be disproved - I believe we have to keep our minds open to all possibilities in order that we can remain alert enough to investigate them.
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GW - it fits in very nicely with a topic I started, 'Noah's Ark and All That' - http://forum.netweat...k-and-all-that/
A program by Joanna Lumley on Noah's Ark started off my thoughts - Flood legends are worldwide and this led me to think of the possibility that the increased levels were caused by the melting of ice from the last ice age (I have it in my mind that the sea levels were raised by some 150 metres overall) - during her program references were made to other civilisations that were some 12000 years old, so it could take the date of organised settled living much further back.
Because cities and towns were mostly constructed at or near sea level the remaining ruins are likely to be submerged beneath our current sea, making evidence of their original existance more difficult to find, though there is no reason why they should not have built at higher levels as well.
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Since I am now into 'extra time', so I do not expect any significant changes in the rest of my lifetime - as it is, it seems that the extra heat in the system does lead to more extreme weather but I do wish that that damned jet stream would find somewhere else to for its summer holidays other than the UK - I keep telling it that Iceland is very nice
At the same time for average temperatures, rainfall and sunshine records to remain average, there must be some balancing from time to time, so I am expecting that we should get some good summers in the next few years - Roll on the Azores and the Euro Highs
- If this does not happen it would indicate that we are entering a different stage. -
Split the posts above out from the Norwegian study thread as they weren't really related and may be an interesting thread in their own right - does the debate, science and those involved in climate change have a pr problem?
Has political and subsequent media involvement got in the way of the work that scientists and researchers are doing - do people hear rhetoric (on both sides of the debate) and instantly link studies and independent research with that when the two are unrelated?
How can we get to have a proper debate when phrases such as doom mongering being common whenever a 'pro' climate change study is released, we also hear regular accusations of climate change being hyped up to make it easier for govts to raise taxes and so on. On the other side, accusations of research being funded by oil co's with a vested interest in showing climate change isn't as bad as other studies may suggest often come up (among other things). These are just a couple of examples, as on both sides there are plenty of factors which get in the way of reasoned and considered debate and tend to blind people from the facts and information being presented.
Whoever's to blame though, the ongoing challenge, along with research surely has to be about how organisations working in this area differentiate themselves from the negative pr which surrounds the subject?
The ideal situation is that it should be a straightforward search for the truth of the matter - unfortunately whoever is providing the wherewithall for such research is bound to colour opinions and affect the results. There are too many vested interests in this subject.
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This certainly appears to be more realistic - the date from which the calculations have been based is 1750 and at that time it has to be remembered Europe and North America were in the midst of the Little Ice Age at the time, though the jury still seems to be out on whether this was a global cooling or just restricted to the Northern Hemipshere, and that part of the warming until 2000 could have been the natural 're-warming' cycle after the Little Ice Age.
It is now well known that there have been fluctuations in the Earth's climate for as far as we have been able to get evidence from examining ice cores, sediment deposits, the examination of tree rings and other methods which have indicated a past record of climate which appears to be generally accepted.
Whilst man made activites are adding more CO2 to the atmosphere it appears that some of this is being taken up by such things as the absorption of more CO2 by plants and the worlds' oceans.
So things are not as bad as we were first led to believe - however having said that, it is not a time for complacency because there is no denying even by the sceptics that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that continued release of this gas into the atmosphere would eventually put us in the realms where it could create a serious problem.
Unfortunately the supporters of man made global warming appear to have overstated their case either by design or accident leading on governments to leap on this subject as a means of raising extra taxes which many of us can ill afford and have given this subject a bad name amongst many of the populace - a case of crying wolf.
I believe that what this does mean is that we still have to continue to develop methods of generating renewable energy but is should give us more time to develop systems which are more efficient and less of a burden in taxes and running costs to Mr & Mrs Joe Public and at the same time make efforts to reverse the current de-forestation and reverse this trend on a worlsd scale because our vegetation is vital in re-absorbing the CO2 we put into the atmophere.
I've mentioned the idea a couple of times before of using photovoltaic panels in such areas as the Sahara desert in order to power desalination plants, thereby creating an ever increasing fertile region through irrigation. Of course this will be subject to the increasing influence of Al Qaeda in that region deciding whether such a project would be the will of Allah. Though the increased vegetation would help take out some of this CO2 and as the area under cultivation increases it would create its own mini climate in the area.
In any case I am hopeful that such organisations won't be there forever.
However, with increasing populations we really need to make more agricultural land available and also increasing populations will lead to more CO2 being discharged as their living standards rise and they are able to afford more CO2 producing items such as manufacturing, transport and heating.
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I'm afraid you're going to be out of luck.
The predicted cold spell mid February has now been dowengraded and no mention of it at all on any of the further outlook models.
I think winter is all but over if the current models are to be believed.
That was the SSW that was.
Roll on 2013/14.
Perhaps looking at a brief cold spell about 08.02.2013 with a greenie high and a scandi low bringing us into a N to NNE air stream
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I had 4" of snow here which for south east london is good so I'm happy. Having lived in SE London since '62 I've seen a lot of winters and as gas is so high now I'm pleased to see just a little snow with out it going on and on these days.
Those that hark back to times of heavier snow have either not experienced them before or have more money than me to spend heating my home.
Oh yes I did and I still love 'em
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Overall disappointing
for Watford, most of our days were in +values and some of the nights as well - we did get a bit of drifting snow early on and I suppose the net depth before yesterday was some 5 to 7 cms - it was mostly cloudy with only two frosts of any note, the first -2.8C and the other -4.8C.Didn't get any snow at all from last nights event - it rained here
I'd like to make a request that the next time we get something like a scandy high set up for the near continental temps to be a bit colder, say about -8C max for Amsterdam - this would allow for a bit of warming of the air across the North Sea but still reaching us comfortably sub zero
. In addition if would like dry air with low dew points but still able to get the best out of the low wending its way up the channel with a deposit of say 25 cms of powdery snow drifting nicely in an easterly wind to be followed by lovely clear skies and sunshine - I'm not really asking for much - am I? -
Thanks - I haven't seen snow like that for yonks - it reminds of when we got stuck over Lincolnshire Wolds when I were't lad - see my blog.
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Speaking for Watford, the overall impression of the winter to date is 'gloomy' - we had a fairly cold first half of December, then mild until after the first week of Jan, when we experienced the first real snows of the winter but here during this cold spell we retained cloud cover for most of the time, most of the days and some nights recovered to plus values so as a result we had few hard frosts, the coldest being a -2.8 and a -4.8C, but overall very little sunshine and currently it is still cloudy with a temp of +2c.
I must say I was a little suprised yesterday afternoon and evening to receive further snow in the form of showers which were not forecasted for our area, however it did not amount to much, only about a cm since the temperature was in positive values, though it could have been 2 to 4 cms had it been colder.
There is a difference between what I would like to see happen and what is likely to happen - my wish list is for another fortnight of cold but with powdery snow, ice days with blue skies, to be followed by a pleasant warming into spring.
The likelihood is that we will get stuck in the mildish westerlies for probably the next 3 weeks after this weekend being followed by another coldish spell which could either come by northerlies which do not normally give great amounts of snow unless we get a polar low bumping into us, or, which is preferable an easterly.
At the moment we still have a continental high which appears to be making tracks east in the near future. Continental temperatures are falling just at the moment but whether this will be enough to encourage it to grow and spread westwards, I am not quite sure. The more likely, I think is for the greeny high to build a little with lows over Scandy introducing the northerlies I mentioned.
Following on from that I would expect variable weather with the mild westerlies alternating with the cold northerlies carrying us through to the end of April interspersed with the influence of a high giving us some settled weather for a few days at a time.
In some ways an unusual winter for us, yes, above average snow but not really the low temperatures I associate with such a cold spell, though they have occurred in other parts of the country.
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I can't see April being as wet as last year's April!
Easter is at the end of March this year, a possible white Easter? Easter colder than the Christmas period of 2012?
Get the feeling we might see a notable wintry spell during the spring.
Easter very often is colder than Christmas and we very often get 'daffy snow' in the spring - it might be interesting to make a comparison table
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By the time we have got through the next 5 weeks I will be happy to see warmth, blue skies and sunshine with light evenings - the only redeeming of feature of winter for me is the exitement of a good fall of powdery snow followed by clear blue skies and sunshine otherwise you can keep the cold damp grey short days.
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I just picked this out, not as a starter to another long conversation about climate change but to demonstrate how you have to look through "you said this and it wasn’t right so that proves you are lying" Two and a half years ago certain rather well known sceptics stated that we would cease seeing record Arctic summer ice melt, not only that, but we were on the road to a long term recovery. When 2008 and 2009 proved to be not quite as bad as 2007, this was also held by many sceptics on NW as evidence that a recovery was under way. Now for the sake of this thread I'm not calling it either way, but my point is this, the only way to judge climate change is long term and by taking in all the information, not on very short term hard to prove possible blips.
In terms of “are our winters changingâ€, the above is why I would be loath at this stage to link them to climate change, now it’s possible that there is a link but without all the evidence its way to early to call, beside which I would argue that there has not been a massive change, as I said in my earlier post, take a way one December and our winter months look decidedly ordinary with standard cold spells that would fit in to any in my lifetime or in the last 100 years, years when arctic sea ice extent was much higher than it has been of late.
To come back to climate change for a moment, it’s funny how both sides of the debate will try to claim the slightly colder winters in the last few years as their own, the Pros as evidence that climate is changing for the worse and the anti's as evidence that things are not as bad as the pro's make out, this is why real evidence not opinions is so important and I'm not sure that either side is providing hard proof at this point of time.
My whole point is that at the moment I don't believe that there is really sufficient evidence to conclusively prove or deny global warming one way or the other is man made to the extent that is being claimed by some quarters per se, apart from the fact that we do know that co2 is a greenhouse and that the continued pumping of this out into the atmosphere is bound to have some warming effect but it appears to me that the case for global warming in some quarters has been overstated.
Greenland was called 'Greenland' circa 1000 + years ago by the Vikings, who called it that name because the coastal areas actually were green, at least in the summer, to encourage settlers there.
Settlers did go with their livestock and seeds and were able to sustain a living through the growing of crops and sufficient fodder to keep themselves and their animals going through the winter months. They were fine until the onset of the 'Little Ice Age' when cooling meant that such cultivation was no longer possible and the settlers starved to death in some cases, or if they were lucky managed to get away but either way the settlements were no longer able to sustain that life style.
This is just one example and from sediments and tree rings etc the experts were able to deduce that at that time the climate was as warm as we have had it this last few years and this was in a time when the burning of fossil fuels on the planet was virtually nil.
Throughout history we have had extreme weather events but the difference between then and now appears to be from the experts that some of the events we have had lately are occuring more frequently but the same records were not being kept in the past as they are now and are more of an anecdotal manner, though archeologists have been able to determine that some communities had abandoned there habitats in the Americas through continued droughts.
In the 1970's some climate scientists were predicting a global cooling and it was suggested that we would be getting colder winters but this never came to fruition in that way.
I am not an expert but have something of an enquiring mind and not always ready to accept what I am being told at face value without checking.
It may be that the 1970's scientists were right but the global cooling is being counteracted by global warming, which may be an explanation for what appears to be disturbed weather patterns of today - I don't know and I do not believe that anyone else does at this stage either - more research is needed before we can know for sure. All I can say is that to take up an entrenched position on one side or the other and to 'cherry pick' differing aspects to support their view is wrong and that in all probablity the truth of the matter lies somewhere in between the two camps.
As more knowlege is gained through continued research the time may come when it might be possible to settle this debate but until then I would suggest it advisable to maintain an open mind amenable but questioning to all the differing views.
I agree that it would be wrong to place too much emphasis on 'blips' which may turn out to be part of the natural cycle - my position in this thread remains that we do not know what is causing our apparent variations of weather - it may be as a result of extra energy in the atmosphere which could be connected with global warming, or they could be as a result of normal variations which have occurred throughout recorded history but in order to learn more this does need to be treated as an open subject.
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What I mean Mike is that there are the for’s and against’s but there appears to be no undecided’s, I’ve certainly seen no evidence of them posting, I guess they could be lurking, perhaps put off posting by the polarisations of opinions.
WE,
I get the impression that it is only those who have an opinion one way or the other will decide to post - for myself I would feel reluctant to post on a subject I cannot express an opinion about - in other words I suspect there is probably a silent majority - I suppose this could be resolved through checking those who have actually posted on the subject against the total number of members, though this is likely to take a lot of trawling through previous posts unless the controllers have devised a method of collecting these stats automatically.
Personally I doubt that the undecideds are being put off by the polorisations of opinions.
For myself I started off as a believer, taking in Al Gores film hook line and sinker but after researching previous fluctuations in climate I am of the belief that a lot of the warming is due to natural cycles but by the same token I realise that the CO2 is likely to have an affect and would eventually lead to an increase in man made warming. But on the other hand certain people in estimating the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas have brought their cause into discredit and I can also see reasons for governments to back this global warming and use it as an excuse to pile on extra taxes.
For my part I try to do what I can personally do within reason to limit the output from our household by using solar power and a heat pump on our house in France, together with insulating as much as possible within reason and now starting a similar project for our UK house.
Of course you could say that by not travelling to and from these houses I would save that much more energy but we need to keep a balance and life is also for living.
I'm just lucky that I managed to get in a position to do these things and at the same time note the change in the winters in the south of France, where the incidents of snowfall appear to be increasing.
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Surely you can look at this as being a bad thing. If the block puts up more of a fight, surely all it is doing is delaying the inevitable. It could also prevent the canadian vortex moving east towards scandinavia and therefore preventing any Greenland High so I may be wrong here but im sure that would only be delaying the inevitable and potentially wasting a week of winter. GEFS 12z, quite a few members have amplified flow post 240 with most having a mid atlantic ridge. Lets see what GFS 18z does in FI.
Don't worry about wasting a week of winter Brady, without a doubt we will get it back in the spring - such is our climate
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Haven't seen any snow at Watford this evening - the radar appears to be telling porkies again.
Still +2C - at this rate our snow will be melted before the thaw comes
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Um, are our winters changing is the topic...
Could we stick to the script a little more tightly please?
But Ian, Climate Change may be the reason for our winters changing.
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Problem is Mike that I’m not sure anyone on NW has an undecided view on climate change and any moderator either has to hold no view on the subject, or be able to suppress that view so as to be fair to both sides, although I can think of one who does a good job, no surprise it’s a she not a he.
A different subject and another dangerous one to mention, but I agree about Europe.
WE,
I'm not sure what you mean by ' anyone on NW has an undecided view on climate change' - if you mean the forecasting staff you are probably right but if you mean the members of the forum I would expect them to be divided between 'for', 'against' and undecided. Each of these groups could probably learn further from being exposed to varying points of view.
In order to advance and learn we should not necessarily accept something somebody says just because they said it but we should think about it and if we disagree or don't understand we should say so, possibly further explanations wioll help us to understand further.
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The problem is that any discussion on climate change just goes round and round, this is because views on this subject have now become so entrenched that neither side is interested in the other side’s arguments, facts, figures, information or evidence, and they will mask their indifference by saying it’s not compelling enough or any one of a dozen other excuses, it has in short become like religion. Not only that but it has become as I stated earlier, an either or debate, polarised with no attempt to even consider that valid arguments might make by either side or that a common ground can be found. It’s no wonder the moderating team would rather it wasn't discussed, of course that in turn makes it very difficult to have discussions on many weather related areas, as climate change, natural man made or a combination of the two, obviously has an impact on our weather.
I get your point but wouldn't it be better, say for the undecided to be acquainted of both sides of the argument, that way if they are able to see the two sides it may help them to get to a more balanced view. Global warming or possible climate change makes such an impact on our lives today and the way climate changes affects our weather and I would suggest that it is an important part of the forum and that to proscribe this section is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I can understand that the mods, who I suspect do this work entirely on a volunteer basis, get a little bit pee'ed off with the intransigent ones on both sides amongst us; perhaps the problem could be overcome by enlarging the moderating team to cater for the extra workload which this causes. whilst at the same time insisting that the normal rules of courtesy continue to be applied.
To put it another way - I get so annoyed with the anti European rhetoric in the current mass media which does little promote any pro European views and as a result I would have little faith in a referendum, which in my view could end up with the UK shooting itself in the foot, so I can also understand others who feel they do not get a fair crack of the whip.
- If this does not happen it would indicate that we are entering a different stage.
for Watford, most of our days were in +values and some of the nights as well - we did get a bit of drifting snow early on and I suppose the net depth before yesterday was some 5 to 7 cms - it was mostly cloudy with only two frosts of any note, the first -2.8C and the other -4.8C.
. In addition if would like dry air with low dew points but still able to get the best out of the low wending its way up the channel with a deposit of say 25 cms of powdery snow drifting nicely in an easterly wind to be followed by lovely clear skies and sunshine - I'm not really asking for much - am I? 
Car park skull 'was that of King Richard III' say experts
in Space, Science & nature
Posted
How about interning him in Lancaster - chuckle chuckle