osmposm

Newfoundland is not a good comparison for the reasons mentioned by Dev. We are at the eastern edge of a big ocean, Newfoundland is at the western edge. At these latitudes the prevailing winds are from the west - in our case coming to us over the warmer ocean (and the Atlantic will always be warmer than adjacent large landmasses in winter, with or without the North Atlantic Drift/Gulf Stream, though its cessation or diversion would certainly cool it down a bit). I'm no expert on Newfy weather, but I believe their winds are again generally from the west - in their case coming off a cold North American continent in winter (very cold if it's a north-westerly). A better comparison might be with the western coast of Canada. The geography is very different, and it's tricky finding equivalent lowland stations that aren't bang on the coast itself. But as far as I can judge, the winter temperatures in the relevant parts of British Columbia are colder, but not dramatically so - 1 to 3C, perhaps more in places. As you'd expect with a drop of a few degrees from British levels, average snowfall is noticeably higher than southern Britain, though. So if our part of the NAD were to fizzle out - and I'm far from convinced that it is has or will - the prognosis is not too awful. Somewhat cooler in summer, somewhat colder in winter. More snow.

CJWRC, you may or may not agree with G-W, you may or may not believe that he can be unconsciously selective (good old confirmation bias) in what he presents us with in his many, many (nearly 8,000 more than you) posts over the years. (How many have you actually read since you joined us in July?) But what I would suggest is that you would be unwise, unfair, and frankly insulting to believe that he has not looked at, in detail, a great deal more data on every possible aspect of ice coverage and thickness in the last few years than most people on here will do in their lifetimes - certainly me, and very possibly you too. So, please avoid the cheap (and inaccurate) shots. G-W may be many things you do not like, but ignorant - or, your only alternative, a liar - ain't two of them.

Oh, dear God, not that old chestnut again? Repeat after me: IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The name it was given when it was established by the UN twenty-odd years ago in 1988, and the name it still bears today. If there was over time any significant change in emphasis, it was in an attempt not to alienate those for whom the very words 'global warming' had become a red rag to a bull. The same is probably true of 'Global Climate Disruption' - a vain effort to give the phenomenon a more 'neutral' description that they hope might be agreeable to all. Fat chance! But yes, of course it is measurably happening, albeit with fluctuations within or over the top of it, as one would expect. Why it has been happening is another matter.

Are those like Climate Change bores? Must be a thread I've missed over in 'Climate And Environment'..... :winky:

Um, no. You were suggesting, I understood, that because the Met Office's long-range forecasts produced on behalf of the BBC had not been good, we should not believe the BBC News dept's reporting of research by some US oceanographers - in both cases it is merely telling us what two other organisations have said about two different things . I repeat that I cannot see any connection between the two - unless, of course, you feel that the BBC is so misguided and corrupt that it altered both the Met Office's forecasts AND the scientists' research to fit some higher agenda. On that basis we should mistrust BBC TV reports of snow chaos on the M4, surely?

I am at a loss to see what possible connection there is between a BBC news report of research findings on Gulf Stream flow rates published by a group of expert US oceanographers, and long-range forecasts provided in the past by the UK Met Office for BBC Weather. Perhaps you could explain?

God, I wish our postmen (or their managers) had the nouse to order some - after the heavyish SW London snowfall of Feb 2009 we had no postal deliveries at all for three days. As the manager defensively explained to me on the phone, the health and safety risk involved precluded any posties from being asked to go out until the snow had almost entirely gone from the pavement. The postmen were happy to concur with this entirely sensible decision.....on full pay, of course - Wandsworth is a notoriously militant delivery office. I wish I could give you some personal experience of them, but like you I have been looking indecisively at the various types available online ever since. These http://ezyshoes.co.uk/images/ezyshoes.pdf are relatively new, and seem to be designed for any surface, not just snow and ice; but I don't know how effective they are, and at £20 they're not cheap. Available here http://www.icegrips.co.uk/icegrips1.html and here http://www.blacktoe.co.uk/ice%20Grips/ezyshoes.htm (and also eBay) - but always the same £19.95 price & £3.50 delivery. Edit: here's a (French) video of them in use http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xegk7l_ezyshoes-surchaussure-ezy-shoes-ant_lifestyle . Apparently the cords have kevlar cores, extra grip coming from the metal linking rings - a technology deriving from high-tech snow tyres. When you take them off, they fold up and go in your pocket. Good luck! Ossie PS Blitzen, I love the idea of your foot having a soul!

Some confusion here - unsurprising since the Arctic Hare (L. arcticus) is closely related to the Mountain Hare (L. timidus), and is still considered by some authorities to be a subspecies of it (see http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/41274/0 ). To confuse matters still further, the name 'Arctic Hare' is sometimes used as an alternative name for the Mountain Hare. But Firefly is right in saying that it is only L. timidus (correctly the Mountain Hare) that is found in Scotland, and that it is also found elsewhere in the north of the British Isles - most notably a subspecies in N. Ireland. L. arcticus is only found in Canada & its islands north of the treeline, and in Greenland. Most populations of L. timidus are stable and often abundant, and they are found throughout the north of Eurasia from Britain to Scandinavia to Siberia, and also further south in the Alps. They do not appear to be endangered (or anywhere near it) in Scotland. The most important point, though, is that the presence or absence of snow is entirely irrelevant to their wellbeing, as they only have a white coat when there is snow present. They happily survive much of the year throughout their range with a brown or grey coat, and in Ireland - where they do not compete with the absent European Brown Hare (L. europaeus) - they largely live by choice at lower levels, and never acquire a white coat at all. I cannot speak with any knowledge of other fauna, or the rare arctic flora of the Cairngorms - a strange and tenuous hangover from the last ice age. I suspect that a bit of skiing on odd remaining snow patches is of very minor significance when compared with the issues of a warming climate (allegedly - don't want to argue!), and less consistent snow retention at high altitude. An interesting article here, though, from 2006: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/ecocatastrophe-the-cairngorms-426485.html . But on reflection, Adam, I think your point about possible benefits in leaving the summer snow patches alone - especially if they are becoming rarer and frailer - is worth considering and indeed researching.

Well, it is....but it's also (as I'm sure you know) one of many examples where the American usage/spelling is actually the older, more traditional English one - it is the British version that's changed to some new-fangled, corrupt thing that would have appalled your ancestors! A few other examples that spring to mind are the way we spell "programme", saying "ill" instead of "sick", and "autumn" for "fall". And would you object if I wrote the phrase "ill-gotten gains"? And if not, why not?!!!

Marcus, you sound like you should be writing for the Daily Mail . Why would anyone want to scare us unnecessarily? If you actually, um, read the posts before (and since) yours, and follow some of the links, you'll see that the situation in many areas is unusual, even exceptional, and has been for many months, not just a couple of weeks. This is not just a question of normal summer weather. We could of course make massive changes to the water infrastructure to cope with the very abnormal - but would you be happy to pay for that through your water rates and/or general taxation? As for August - maybe it'll turn out wet, maybe it won't. Probably wise to take care until we know.

SL09, you seem to have misunderstood Neil's second post, and/or not read his original one. "Most parts need the rain" was what he was suggesting that the forecasters should say. What they actually said was "We do need the rain", and that was a perfectly reasonable starting-point for his comment and this interesting thread. Oh, and words like "pathetic" and "stupid" are not friendly or helpful whatever the circumstances - even less so when you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick!

Um...you're obviously not a gardener with a water meter, Stephen - or a trout fisherman who likes to fish the upland, rain-dependent rivers of Wales & the West Country. I'm both. It's been too dry. EDIT: just seen your other post, sorry - I see you are a gardener. But cacti? That's cheating!

You're quite right, Essan. I'm sure many of you are aware of the famous Oxford Union debate of February 1933, when the motion "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country" was passed by 275 votes to 153. A nationwide furore followed, and the undergraduates of Oxford were accused of sending a dangerous message to Europe's dictators — that Englishmen were soft and would not fight. The proposer of the motion, Kenelm H. Digby, said after the debate: "I believe that the motion was representative neither of the majority of the undergraduates of Oxford nor of the youth of this country. I am certain if war broke out tomorrow the students of the university would flock to the recruiting office as their fathers and uncles did.". And so it proved: when World War Two broke out six-and-a-half years later, a recruiting board was organised at Oxford which invited undergraduates and resident postgraduates under 25 to enlist: nearly 90% of a possible 3,000 volunteered. Years later Digby observed: "It was just a debate. I don't know what all the fuss was about. Frank Hardie had asked me to propose the motion and I agreed. That's all there was to it."

YS, this is not a private conversation between you and SSS. Many others read your and others' posts, with interest and a desire to learn. Please, therefore, avoid such phrases as "I'll let you figure that one out for yourself" - if you think his statement is wrong, we would like to know why, and see your evidence. If you don't show us, we may tend not to believe you. Oh, and while I genuinely appreciate your willingness to correct yourself, it would be preferable if you checked before, not after making such forceful and contradictory assertions - otherwise some of us may begin to doubt what you say before we start reading it, not after!

Actually, you're all wrong in part - and you're all right in part. Everyone's so busy arguing they can't see that they agree with each other! Um....no, Pennine, Dev, Potty - 0.0003 is three parts per ten thousand, not per thousand**. But it is the same thing as three hundred parts per million (ppm), yes. Or if you like percentages, you can also call it 0.03%....which is (I assume) what you were getting at, Dev, though I think you were pretty confused. So YS, you were right all along in talking about 0.0003 to 0.0004 of the total atmosphere, and wrong to subsequently agree that you had been wrong before! You now tell us that although that statement was wrong, everything else was right.....hmmmm.....well, I'm not sure where that leaves us!? Time, I think, for a laugh about this: you'd all have failed 'O' Levels Maths in my day, and here you are expecting us to believe what you say about infinitely more complex climate change calculations. I think you're both rubbish at maths, and therefore probably at physics, too, and I shall be taking your learned and passionate pronouncements with a large pinch of salt from here on in! [**If you're still not clear: 0.3 = 3 parts per ten (or 3/10); 0.03 = 3 parts per hundred (or 3/100); 0.003 = 3 parts per thousand (or 3/1000); 0.0003 = 3 parts per ten thousand (or 3/10000). And 3 parts per 10,000 = 30 parts per 100,000 = 300 parts per 1,000,000)]

...and by coincidence a report just published concludes ".....for a while we will only see small changes in summer fasting season survival in Western Hudson Bay......[but] eventually mortality will dramatically increase when a certain threshold is passed; for example, while starvation mortality is currently negligible, up to one-half of the male population would starve if the fasting season in Western Hudson Bay was extended from currently four to about six months." See here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8700000/8700472.stm So, yes, the evolutionary process may well kick in, and if there are polar bears that have a little more adaptability in their primarily fat-eating biology they will survive.....and the survivors' fur colour may well change - in stoats, at least, this seems to be a relatively flexible gene (see here: http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/mammal-forums/48193-stoat-ermine-question.html ). But in essence I would suggest that IF - and I say "if" because I don't want to argue about that - in future there is much less arctic ice in the summer/autumn (or even less walkable-on ice in winter/spring), then polar bears with their specialized-for-ice biology and physiology will find life very hard. And if they survive at all, those that do so are likely to be progressively less and less "like polar bears", and more and more like their relatives the browns/grizzlies from whom they are thought to have split off some 150,000 years ago (there was also a specific and identifiable tooth change just 10 to 20,000 years ago). Should things subsequently cool down again, then presumably the reverse would happen - perhaps it has happened before, I have no idea, though the digestive specialization seems to be very tight and demanding, and must surely have taken a long time to emerge and solidify. Alternatively, if all the "old" polar bears had by then gone (or cross-bred with browns), a new brown bear ice adaption could evolve. Does any of this matter? Probably not in the wider scheme of things (though I'd miss them as they look now). And their disappearance would certainly be an incontravertible proof (as if more would then be needed!) of the great change in our northern ice-cap.

I'd have thought the polar bear's permanently white coat (and other changes from its cousin the Brown/Grizzly Bear) strongly suggests that it did evolve to live and hunt primarily on ice and snow, no? I am unable to see any other evolutionary advantage in the variation - indeed, it would be a distinct disadvantage for a predator on a non-white background. If the ice/snow was only seasonal, the fur would presumably have evolved to go white only in winter - like, for example, the arctic fox, arctic hare, ptarmigan and northern populations of stoat. For the same reason most arctic species of seal have evolved white natal fur - to camouflage the pups on the ice where they are born. Not really - their adaptations to life on the ice & in the sea mean that they are hopeless at land hunting (though they will eat human garbage, with sometimes fatal results). More importantly, their biology is very specialized, and actually needs large amounts of fat - specifically marine mammal blubber - and they cannot derive sufficient caloric intake from terrestrial food. If ice loss forces them ashore in late summer & autumn, they effectively starve, and live on their fat reserves from the spring-summer feast. As for size, some populations of their Brown Bear relations - in particular the Kodiak - are quite as big as they are, and with terrestrial skills (and more omnivorous biology) would certainly out-compete them.

The Little Ice Age and all that, I know, but this entry from the Woodford, Essex, Parish Register in 1698 is impressive; and the 11 days "lost" in the calendar change of 1752 means it wasn't any earlier in the year - in fact it was slightly later. Woodford was a bit outside London in those days, about 7 or 8 miles North East of the City. May 1698, incidentally, had the lowest CET mean in the whole record, at 8.5C (the daily figures, alas, don't go back that far); but perhaps surprisingly, April 1698 doesn't even make the top 100 for cold. It must have been an astonishingly late and unexpected burst of "winter returns" even for the period: Remarkable fall of snow on the 3d of May 1698. "Mr Henry Dawson, son of Madam Gertrude and Mr Richard Dawson, Gent. was baptized May the 3d: on which evening, before sunset, there was a great frost and snow, which covered the ground and houses; upon which I saw some snow remaining the next day, at noon, though it was a clear sunshining morning.—Peter Shelley, rector, 1698." From: 'Woodford', The Environs of London: volume 4: Counties of Herts, Essex & Kent (1796), pp. 273-287. (on http://www.british-history.ac.uk )

John, my only problem with that is that I often watch high-altitude contrails forming, and slowly expanding out to a thinner, but much wider strip.....and staying as a vaguely linear area of cloud as the airmass moves across the sky. In busy air-lanes they are joined and crossed by other trails, and so on. That is my frequent observation, a high-level patchwork of streaks of cloud. It doesn't always happen, sometimes the trails just disappear; but often they do not. I am not a meteorogist or scientist of any kind, and it may be that what I have observed (and what I, like '95, joyfully didn't observe during the flight ban) doesn't make scientific sense. But as I look up into the mainly blue sky now, I see that patchwork of streaky bits of hazy cloud that oddly (if they are natural) lie at various intersecting angles to each other. And I, too, suspect there is something in it.

It may well be in part a result of melting tundra....or it may not. And even the two tons exported in 1989 suggests it was not exactly rare even then, except as complete animals. This NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/world/europe/25iht-mammoth.4.11415717.html confidently supports your contention, but gives no source for the information. But it also discusses at least two other major reasons for the twentyfold increase in the trade since the late 80s - the huge boom in oil & gas exploration and construction, and the 1989 CITES ban on trade in elephant ivory (only ocasionally - and partially - lifted since then). The former would presumably have increased the potential supply with or without melted tundra; and the latter has bolstered the desirability, awareness - and price - of mammoth ivory, the only sort that can be imported legally into the USA, for example. A quick trawl through the many websites offering Russian ivory suggests that much of it is in fact excavated, by one means or another, from still-frozen tundra. The doubling in price reported by one site has clearly made it much more worthwhile to seek out; and there seems to be, in some places at least, am almost industrial extraction process going on. As one company says (by way of comparison with the rare North Sea tusk they were offering for sale): "Mammoth fossils in Russia, like most Pleistocene Russian fossils, are found in the ground in massive bone beds that extend for considerable distances. These fossils are blasted out of the tundra with water cannons and so many are found that woolly mammoth tusks are a commodity and sold by the pound....". I'm not saying you're wrong, GW, but I'd like to hear some good evidence. On the face of it, all the other factors involved make it very difficult to assess whether melting tundra is a significant part of the equation or not.

It may well be...or perhaps it may not, time will tell. Here's genuinely hoping. That is, indeed, a very impressive statistic - thanks for showing it to us, Kevin. However, the only problem (from a statistical point-of-view) with comparing other 11th Dec-10th March periods with this one is that you are in essence "cherry-picking" one particular period that happens to be have been an unusually cold (?the coldest) one this winter. I am not trying to nit-pick, and this is not in any way to deny the severity of those 90 days; but in order to make a true and fair comparison it would be necessary to examine the incidence of any 90/91-day period in other winters that equalled or exceeded it in severity. If you don't, you are implying that other winters should necessarily have their coldest periods also exactly coinciding with those dates. The same problem exists, of course, with the meteorological winter, Dec-Feb - a point that has rightly been made here before. The only difference is that the Dec-Feb 90/91-day period is essentially randomly chosen as a conveniently-described, approximate coldest period of winter - random, that is, with regard to the weather of any particular year. You could well argue that something like a-third-through December to a-third-through March would be a better fit for the coldest three months of the year.......but then it needs to be decided in advance rather than because it "best fits" the situation of one particular winter. And you could also still fall foul of possible shifts in the coldest time of the year.

I remember being amazed as a boy when reading of the guards at the Empire State Building in New York having a snowball fight on the observation deck while it rained on Fifth Avenue below - not as surprising as it first sounded, since the deck is nearly 370m (over 1200 ft) high. In cities - and certainly here in London - with the added effect of urban warmth, the difference can be very pronounced. When I was younger I often journeyed up to Hampstead Heath seeking both the height (100m+) and the lack of buildings that would often turn my sleet into good, settling snow there. Nearer to home, I have occasionally noticed much the same contrast while travelling a mile up the road and gaining just 35 metres in height.

From this fascinating and informative website http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/british_weather_in_april.htm a quote that may perhaps answer your question: April 1911 - The month started with an exceptional cold spell. There were some record low maxima - unusually at this time of year due to strong northerly and northeasterly rather than easterly winds, as Arctic air swept the country, giving snow in the east and south. It was -2C at Hampstead midday on the 5th; and a maximum of only +0.5 at Tunbridge Wells (Kent) on the same day. Many places in the SE and Midlands were beneath freezing all day on the 5th - this is the latest date on which a "day of frost" has happened. Even Totland Bay (Isle of Wight) saw maxima of only 1, 3 and 6C on the 5th, 6th, and 7th. The CET mean for the 5th was just above zero at +0.4C, and the CET max must logically have been above zero too. It is obviously much harder to achieve an extreme temp when averaged over the several different stations used to calculate the CET figure, than it is to get one at an individual station within the CET area.

No, those are the daily mean CET figures (halfway between max & min), which you can find here from 1772 onwards: http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetdl1772on.dat Not sure, but I think Guitarnutter may have meant actual true ice days in the CET area - i.e. a maximum of zero or below. I don't where to access that info, but it must surely be much earlier in the year. (The confusion is understandable, as others have used the phrase "CET ice day" to mean a daily average of zero or below....and been ticked off for it!). Mean-below-zero CET days in April are exceptionally rare - only three years out of 237 recorded them. There is actually an even later day with the CET mean below zero - 19th April 1772 is recorded at -0.2C. However, that is so much later (over two weeks) than any other instance - and lies (unlike the other ones) in such isolation between much milder days - that I'm afraid I have some doubts of its validity. By the way, it is also unlikely that the coldest part of the Little Ice Age recorded many either, as in the 17th & early 18th Centuries (before the calendar change of September 1752) the 1st April would have been at the same time of year as the 11th or 12th April is now. The same is true of all other dates, and may help explain why White Christmases became seen as a cultural norm - until 1752 the 25th December was effectively nearly a week into January, and that is statistically a snowier time of year. Edit: sorry, much of that is very off-topic, but perhaps forgivable until there is anything useful to say about the progress of March's CET!

Perhaps you'd like to start a poll on who's the more annoying, eh? This is the thread for discussions on CET measurements, and is on the whole blissfully free of petty Climate Change sniping. IMHO it would be nice to keep it that way.....a sentiment that is (I suspect) shared by many. P.S. I said the joke was tired, not me