SnowBear

It's a bit of a catch 22, you need particles, or certain aerosols for clouds to form, once they do they reflect sunlight. Naturally this would occur by wildfires, volcano emissions etc. Around 1958 was the introduction of the Clean Air Act, before then warming was happening slowly, the CO2 warning being masked by smoke and ash from fossil fuels being burnt by humans. Once that Act was in force, the air began to clear of soot, ash etc, allowing more sunlight to reach the surface due to less clouds. Now, we have recently seen more pronounced heat domes, where clear skies heat the ground and move outwards. Additionally the surface of the sea has been more exposed to direct sunlight, warming the top layer. This is NOT to say we need to reverse the thoughts on Co2, it means we have found another key part of the chaotic system which we need to understand clearly if we are to in someway control our global climate. If we look at the hockey stick graph it markedly begins to rise around the 1940s and 1950s, two major events or changes occurred in those times, the advent of the jet engine, and the Clean Air Act.

I take it you actually read the article and also the peer reviewed study linked in it?

Well, it would certainly account for the seas becoming warmer, more sunlight heating the top layer over a few decades.

Revisiting this considering the reports of various heat domes across the globe. I note this study by Oxford last year and after the last post on this thread. Makes interesting reading. Expert Comment: Air pollution cools climate more than expected – WWW.OX.AC.UK Air pollutants kill around seven million people every year. Much of this pollution is tiny particles suspended in the air which, when inhaled, can cause people to... I can't find it now but I did read that a similar report came to the same conclusion on why heat and heatwaves were increasing in Southern Spain. To me it appears what we need to try and do is reduce CO2, but at the same time still allow certain particles to enter the atmosphere due to their cloud forming properties and increasing reflectivity. Additionally, much as many may decry, natural wildfires which have been part of the cycle of life and also part of the atmospheric system need to be left to burn out where possible, actively stopping them may have alternative results to what we currently assume?

Amber alert, currently 176. 6 nT

Thundery shower passing by Colchester to the south. Heavy rain, infrequent lightning and thunder.

Ping to forum server 15ms.

No problems here, kinda guessing more likely your ISP.

KP index 8 and totally overcast

Much of the problem in the UK is we went though a period of using concrete for roads especially housing estates, as the years went by instead of replacing the concrete panels as they wore out (which was about 50 years) they topped off with about 50mm tarmac. This doesn't last long as the two materials expand and contract at different rates and also as concrete is not as permeable as tarmac it can trap water underneath the top layer. During winter this water layer can freeze on really cold nights and shatter the tarmac leaving it crazed. Once this happens in a few short months it breaks up and leaves potholes due to heavier vehicles running over the tarmac and smashing the top surface even more due to hydraulic action. I also see many road ironworks now not reset properly, often left low after top dressing even if only an inch and again, heavy vehicles drop down into those indentations and hammer them down shattering the drain structure underneath. Saw a good one the other day though, a dropped drain near here, their repair? Fill it with tarmac, literally fill it, no drain now!

Cloud cleared here completely, nothing at the moment.

Too much cloud here at the moment.

Red alert on my app, aurora likely, possibly visible from anywhere in the UK.

We won't, and never will be able to provide enough electric on the grid to power all the vehicles currently on the road. ICE cars will eventually be phased out, or at the most become collectors/wealthy toys, oil will run out some time or become very expensive to produce, it is a finite commodity. In the future, whether that's 10, 20, 50 or 100 years from now, our forms of travel will change hugely, or perhaps more likely the distance we can travel, will be severely reduced due to fuel availability and cost. So in the future how can we expect to be able to travel around? Far more human powered vehicles such as bikes for local journeys with the return of local facilities. Schools will return to being for those children in the immediate area, more localised food stores, and maybe even the return of shops like butchers and grocers. The age of the commute to other towns will gradually disappear as it won't be affordable, for either the employee or employer, more local branches, and skilled staff being employed locally. For longer distance journeys you will either use a tram or perhaps an electric pool car which you hire to get to a train station, travel by train to your destination, then onward travel again by car or tram. Societal mindset right now says, "Oh no, I'm not doing that, I want my freedom, I want to do what I want", but I can see a time coming where you won't be able to unless you are extremely wealthy. There will be no choice. Electric cars themselves are not that efficient at the moment due to production cost (takes about 30 years of using green produced electric for them to become "green"), while we are using mixed energy sources they are in many ways just as bad as an ICE car. Regarding batteries, there is an interesting set of trials being done where you buy you car, but you subscribe to a battery supplier. The batteries fit a range of cars, think of AA batteries that fit all sorts of products. You would not need to wait for the car to charge, you would drive over a specially made platform, the spent battery is dropped down and replaced with a fully charged battery within minutes. The battery is always guaranteed to be good, and fully charged. As the battery is owned by the battery company they are responsible for disposal, or recycling the battery when it's at the end of its life cycle. Being as the rare earth metals can be reclaimed it means less needing to be mined. Hydrogen cars are out until we find the way to make green hydrogen all by renewable means, solar, wind etc and not produced using fossil fuels, (blue hydrogen). Whatever the solutions found in the next decade or so do not get away from the fact that I think in the longer term humans will have to get used to not travelling a where near as much as now.

Drone footage from Hatay, one small part of just one of the cities. Drone flies over streets of rubble in Hatay WWW.BBC.CO.UK New video shows the extent of the earthquake damage across the city in southern Turkey. Sadly I think the death toll from this is going to be huge...could be over 100,000 I think with so many residential blocks collapsed.

Just little note on one way to make a pretty strong password. Pick a word (preferably in a other language) or the name of a city, that you can easily remember and over 6 letters. Eg, helsinki Now split that word in two. Eg, hels inki Capitalise one or more letters Eg, helS inki Add a memorable date however you wish in between those two. Use any date form you wish, yyyy, dd/mm/yyyy, dd/mm/yy etc. (Not a big anniversary such as birth etc, something else but one that you remember) Eg, helS24575inki Add one or more non numeral/alphabet characters. Eg, helS24575%inki©$ Breaking a password down in this way makes it easier to remember, but follows the rules of having small case, capitals, numbers and special characters. How to remember? My chosen city is helsinki with a capital S, my date is as a percentage after the S, its all copyright, and makes dollars! Make it unique to you, and constructed in a way you will remember, it doesn't have to be the same format as above, can be a way you create. And no, it's not my password, don't bother trying

Thought some may be interested in this.. Photos taken of a lighthouse at St Joseph, Michigan now completely covered in ice. These were taken by Nates Dronography, please take a look at his page on Facebook for more fantastic photos and video. https://www.facebook.com/NatesDronography

Quite common in the US as its law to clear the sidewalk outside your property. This leads to many property owners clearing snow who probably medically shouldn't be such as heart disease sufferers etc.

I find this model flip flopping intriguing and I am left asking when do we have to accept that they are not able to handle patterns when they have shifted beyond a certain degree. Computer models will to a certain extent go by past events, what is the most likely outcome from a set of starting points similar to historical records. The last few years we have seen more anomalies than usual, we now see another playing out in the US with the winter storm there and the apparent forecast of a fairly quick change to warmer weather soon after. That plunging cold is forcing down into the warmer latitudes so the warmer air has to go somewhere, and I suspect what we are seeing is the outcome of that with this warmer period here. But, will it stay that way as short or as long as the models think it will? In a chaotic system, if parameters change even only slightly it can have big changes some time later and perhaps more diverse. To be honest, with what I can see I don't thank any model can be trusted beyond about 5 days as what we are seeing in our weather now isn't able to be computed as accurately as before. What do others think?

Colchester, still -5°c on my patio thermometer.

I don't like a hot house as I work outside mostly. So stat set to 17.5....heating has been off for a couple of hours now, its freezing hard outside but house is around 15.5 now, it may drop to 14 before the heating kicks in around 5.30am.

Not sure if any model is going to be worth much at the moment, not until we get some clearer idea of what that potential hurricane is going to do. Any that does come out to be good will be more luck than anything. Those who have seen the 5 day Graphical output on the NHC website will note the huge possible forward track, a small shift of a spinning top like system today could mean hundreds of miles difference at day 5. There is also a 50% chance of it forming a tropical system... Or 50% chance of it not and maybe just fading away. The models will struggle at the moment due to the large possibilities of that system. Patience is now needed, watch and wait... Something so common with hurricanes.

I've noticed this past week at the workshop that the air has changed quite a bit since last week. It has definitely a "cold" smell to it here. I expect a few may understand what I mean.

The BBC report today on Mauna Loa eruption. Mauna Loa: World's largest active volcano erupts in Hawaii WWW.BBC.CO.UK Residents have been placed on alert and were earlier warned about the risk of falling ash.

A bit of info after sea floor mapping of the Tonga volcano which erupted earlier this year. Interesting read. Tonga volcanic eruption reshaped Pacific seafloor WWW.BBC.CO.UK Prodigious volumes of rocky debris blanketed the ocean bottom in January's cataclysmic blast.