Iceberg

Not really 12Z, but I am a bit slow atm. Meto alot less progressive than GFS even at day 3. Meto equals much more of a snow event, so still plenty of time for the 12Z GFS to turn round.

To my eye there looks to have been a breakaway of older shelf ice, that's pretty much been attached to the rest of the shelf though thick sea ice.

Finaly got through it all last night. Considering the conservative nature of the IPCC it's very significant the effects they think have already occured due to AGW. Warmer nights and colder days Warming and more frequent hot days Warm spells and heat waves increasing in frequency More Heavy precip events More droughts More intense hurricanes Increases in See level. Also Temps at the top of permafrost layer in the artic circle have incease since the 1980's by 3C and the area covered by seasonal permafrost has decreaed by 7% and upto 15% in the spring. Also this before the real heat and postive feedbacks kick in, also with the negative effects of aerosols. The final thing that really surprised me was the increased melt of the greenland icesheet. 1961-2003 rate of sea level rise (m per century) was only 0.05, this increased 400% to 0.21 between 1993 and 2003 and has increase again by 250% between 2003 (the latest figure in the AR4) and 2006. Greenland is indeed a key problem. In many ways it would be nice to have a yearly paper updating some of these figures. The IPCC report does provide the peak oil scenario by proxy. through the B series a switch from fossil fuels to more technological advanced activities. Hence the B scenario's are lower in CO2 input. To be fair Peak Oil has some support, but they would end up with 100 different Series if they were to take everything into account.

11.01 but only becuase of an average spring.

Indeed I think the Hadley recently stated that 30% of the warming will be attributable to Methane over the 100 years.

IPCC has always been conservative in the past and no doubt will be in the future. A likely increase in temps of 3C is not good news, and that's assuming we do something about it. Will read through it now. Matt

To tie in with this thread the number of people that have started to accept AGW in the last 6 months is huge and i think 2007 will be the year that the weather finally convinces a majority of the population that's it a real and present issue. To the list you can add the fact that 80% of months in the last 10 years have been above normal and that the 10 warmest years on record have all occured in the last 15 years globally, a one way street I am afraid that is only going to get more traffic.

Thanks P3 Not really, I had one about isostatic recovered due to the icemelt, but brushed it off as a small effect over 000's of years. Also one about how can melting icesheets can raise sea level's, I explained the artic wouldn't but the south pole's icesheets are a bit different. TBH the presentation was only ment to last an hour, but due to my presentation over running I didn't really have time for many questions. I also played a copy of AIT the day before and after to get people interested and aware. Mildly pleased.....

Just to say thanks for your help, the presentation went very well, (44 slides and nearly 30mb in size). I've even been asked to present it at other locations (London, Manchester), the feedback from the people that came to it was also very encouraging, most people seem to be more aware, have greater acceptance and more will to do something than 5 years ago, where a similar presentation would have been laughed at as alarmist and complete boll**ks

Thanks for the link Peter I'll have a look. I am afraid I really can make a prediction for the weather in 10 years time warmer, maybe much warmer. The next EL NINO like 98 will really convince people of the problem. Anymore info on the Ross Ice Sheet ?.

Thanks. TWS, that's the approach I am hopefully going to be taking. The title of the presentation will be "The death of fluffy bunny/feel better environmentalism and where we go from here" Unfortunately alot of people have the idea that recycling christmas cards etc makes a difference, I am afraid it doesn't it's basically a sop to middle england to make them feel better. They can do these token things and still live there over inflated life styles. A better approach would be to not send christmas cards in the first place. I agree you have to explain that CO2 will continue to rise and will stablisize at 2020 level at best more likely 2040 levels and we have to live at that level. BTW I will also be including some sneak previews into the 2007 IPCC report.

Firstly Thanks to everyone for your thoughts it's all appreciated. The target audience is not changable as they are the people I work with. The myths I 'll be exploding are from both sides pro's and anti and are by and large taken even further by the media. David King is a culprit and are the oil lobby groups. The Primary aim of the presentation is to raise awareness the secondary aim is to try and get some people (even 1) to change something about there life style. There will be a dose of my own personal opinion (I am warning people before hand that my language might be emotive and a little blue at times), not sure how well this will go down with the senior execs though !. Those are good links P3 and Extreme i'll certainly be having a look. My biggest problem with leaving up to the media is that they invariably get it wrong or take one side or the other. My thoughts run to. Warming the Audience up getting them involved a bit. A brief touch on the science and the role of the IPCC. Potential effects on themselves. How can they can help themselves (saving money etc), how they can help the world (if they feel they have a moral responsbility.) A good example of this is moving to a renewable energy tarriff for your electricity, it costs a bit more but it takes almost no effort and gives you a feel good feeling. I though I'd do a pre and post virbal questionaire. Do they believe that there lifestyle is causing CC at the expence of other less fortunate...? And Do they do anything about it.? Do thye know enough.?. Anybody that hasn't learnt anything in the presentation wil be forced to stay behind afterwards for further Cheers Matt

Thanks for all your reply's so far, I'll answer any questions a bit later today. Cheers Matt

As part of Environment week (22 Jan) I am going to be doing a presentation where I work on GW and how best to combat it. The audience is around 100 middle aged weathyish IT consultants, most of whom leave a very large carbon foot print. They Fly to much, drive 4X4's or posh cars and basically don't include the environment in any of there thoughts. TBH they are the very people who have to change there ways IF the UK is to try and cut it's CO2 emissions. But the question is What's the best way of convincing these people to do something ?. and how should I go about doing it ?. I am going to try and explode some of the myths around AGW and CC, probably use some of the google flood maps on here to show how there place of work and homes will be directly effected etc. But I don't think this will be enough. I'd also be interested in hearing about the pro's and anti's so I can come up with some ideas and also possible responses to some of the more difficult questions. i.e why should a small country like us do anything if China India etc are going to go there merry way ?. Any help would be very appreciated. This will also take my mind of the crappy models atm. Cheers Matt Swift

A good example would be life expectance. If you take the 30 year average life expectance for someone living in India it might 55, however it certainly wouldn't be expectional for someone to live to 70 as this is now only slightly above the norm of 65. The same could be said for Russia but in reverse where the 30 year average is 60 but the norm now is around 50. So somebody dying at 48 is again far from exceptional. The yearly CET's show that we will have the warmest year on record, which sounds hugely significant but looking at the last 10 years it's only following the normal trend. I agree SF with pretty much everthing you've said. Words like exceptional, important etc are all very subjective.

Just to stick up for snowmaiden a bit. I think the point she's trying to make is that very warm months almost seem to be the norm now. A month with a +1.5 CET in 96 or 84-88 would have been exceptional. However Decembers warm anom is not really on a par with July or Novembers of this year, the fact that's it's the warmest for 10 years etc, is a statisical quirk and not really surprising. I know it's not the yearly CET thread but nearly record warmth is now the norm so an exceptional or surprising CET would have to be outside of this new norm. Nobody has ever said that it's not an above average CET, but surprising ? or exceptional ? I think not and people's expectations for Jan would seem to back this up. 1997 10.52 1998 10.24 1999 10.63 2000 10.29 2001 9.94 2002 10.64 2003 10.53 2004 10.53 2005 10.48 2006 10.76 Matt

My entry hope it's not to late. 251206 - Inverness - 3 300107 - Norwich - 3 060207 - Dover - 2 040207 - Dundee - 2 010307 - Derby - 2 110207 - Portsmouth - 2 180207 - Reading - 2 100107 - Peterborough - 2 080107 - King's Lynn - 2 Matt

Sam, I am not a journo,honestly So we can call it a minor one, a weak one etc but not a mini one.?. That seems bizarre to me, but we can call a small car a mini or a small heatwave a mini etc. At the end of the day surely what's important is that the paper gives the right impression to the public. I've argued this many times, more people probably die drowning in a Bath than through a Tornado in the UK. You can't acurately forecast Tornado's in the UK and certainly not there intensity. So why bother IMO. Mini means small, compared to what most of the public thinks a tornado looks like, most of the Tornado's in the country are "mini". As I say why should a Tornado be any different.? Matt Swift

To add to my previous post. 1. Most people don't undertand the wind scale, and wouldn't know what a Force 5 wind was. Why on earth do we think they will understand the F scale. 2. Most people will never see a Tornado in there life, nor will it ever effect them, some people can't een be bothered to learn what an APR is. Do we really expect a newpaper to give a 2 or 3 paragraph explaining about tornado's every time they mention them. 3. We use words such as mini all the time in weather, i.e "mini heatwave", exactly the same arguments could be used, it's either a heatwave or it's not. Or how about when we said it's a bit windy outside. etc etc

I voted Yes, it's pure intellectural snobery to suggest otherwise, If somebody wants to call something mini to explain it more accurately or give the public a better impression why not.! You can have a mini car crash i.e you smash wing mirrors or something. As to educating the public, the public simply just don't care and why is it the job of a newspaper to educate ?.

Better and quicker IMO. Agree the precip radar is a bit iffy, but the forecasts section is a huge improvement. Probably one of the best gov sites to be honest.

I think I'd like to up mine to 4.7, you're probably looking at an average of 7.5 or so for the first two weeks. So a sensible person would go for 5 or 6.

Alot going on today, but looking at recent velocities around the NAD, it seems pretty fast flowing, anyone like to volunteer how this will effect the weather in NW europe. The NAD is clearly viewable on this chart but seems very large around as it passes Scandy. Matt

Somewhere between 4.2 and 4.7 so I'll go for 4.4 slightly below average.

Let's tackle these sensibly then, although I don't know why. 1. It is imminent !. How can you be on a weather board but fail to notice the month by month record CET's or record high global temps. Climate scientists are saying that we are driving down a hill without proper brakes hence we won't stop so of course it will be worse in 10 20 30 years time. 2 Weather models of today are not the data inputs used by GCM's, GFS etc are for synoptic forecasting not global trend analysis. hence you don't use GFS to predict ENSO events in 6 months time. 3 not even worth answering, ice fields on the equator ? but you refuse to believe AGW um............