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Thread: Not sure how much longer they will be able to keep crunching in the UK |
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David Autumns
Ace Cruncher UK Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Post Count: 11062 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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So here we are again the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the Summer in the Southern
----------------------------------------Today, for us standing the right way up ;-) , it is the shortest "day" of the year i.e. the least Sunlight. You would think this would be the coldest time of the year in the NH but we have the hotwater bottle lag of our Oceans. In the UK our winter really get's started in February. Although you wouldn't think so if you looked out of the window today, yep it's snowing...again! It's on account of the fact that the World is tilted over at an angle of ~23.5 degrees as we whizz around the Sun The effect is best demonstrated here http://www.daylightmap.com/ Anything above the wiggly line remains in darkness throughout the day. Anything below it daylight for the full day. These extremities are known as the Arctic and Antarctic Circles as measured on the solstice In 3 Months time the lines will be vertical wth everyone having 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night. In 6 Months time the wide end of the daylight will be the other way around. For us in the Northern Hemisphere the Sun begins to return from today... ...We just have to get through this unusually harsh Winter to Spring  Dave  |
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David Autumns
Ace Cruncher UK Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Post Count: 11062 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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If you are lucky with the clouds and in the right spot on the World there is a Lunar Eclispe tonight
----------------------------------------http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-...10/17dec_solsticeeclipse/ Dave |
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David Autumns
Ace Cruncher UK Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Post Count: 11062 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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get the feelng I might be a tad too late with this announcement
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nanoprobe
Master Cruncher Classified Joined: Aug 29, 2008 Post Count: 2998 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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get the feelng I might be a tad too late with this announcement Just a little.  The full coverage was around 3:00 AM EST. It was quite a sight. On a footnote, I heard someone say on the tube last night that this was the first full lunar eclipse on the winter solstice in this part of the world since 1633. 
In 1969 I took an oath to defend and protect the U S Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and Domestic. There was no expiration date.
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sk..
Master Cruncher http://s17.rimg.info/ccb5d62bd3e856cc0d1df9b0ee2f7f6a.gif Joined: Mar 22, 2007 Post Count: 2324 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Recently I had to drive to an airport. There was freezing fog; visibility was extremely poor (10m), and the gritters sort of gritted one lane. If they had any sense they would have used snow ploughs first. Overtaking the frozen lorry spray was a random journey into the unknown. Warm, undiluted green windscreen wash froze to the windscreen and cars randomly left the motorway for less climatic excursions. While this is en mass reported as a cold spell Europe, in my wee country yesterday was the coldest day on record (literally the coldest temperature ever recorded since the 1600's).
----------------------------------------Checked today's weather forecast on several web sites before venturing out; highest -2deg, lowest -8deg, feels like temperature varied from -12 to -13deg C, and present temperature stated -3deg C. It certainly did not feel like -3, so when I slipped back home I took a thermometer outside. Two minutes later and it said -8deg C. The supposedly live weather feed was out by -5deg C on several sites. Perhaps they were displaying seasonally adjusted figures ;p Whatever is causing the global weather change (the power of the sun, or too many cows & cars), it looks like the UK will be the exception. The rest of the world might become like hell, but the UK will get a special place in the great scheme of things to come, here it will freeze over first. "the most alarming way in which temperatures in Britain could fall significantly is through a decline in the warm Atlantic current that maintains our mild climate. Although our weather depends on turbulent events in the atmosphere, these are shaped – in the long term – by the oceans, whose currents transport vast amounts of heat around the planet. Ancient records show that if these slowed or stopped, temperatures could drop by up to 10C within decades. For six years, a team at Southampton University has been using instruments, strung across the Atlantic from the Bahamas to north Africa, to monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. This is the massive system of currents, including the Gulf Stream, that carries a mind-boggling 1.3 petawatts of heat – that's 1,300,000,000,000,000 watts – northwards in its warm upper waters. The Gulf Stream relies on the fact that as the water loses its heat in the north Atlantic, it cools, sinks and flows back to the south. The fear has been that, as the planet warms, melting Arctic ice will weaken these currents, plunging Europe into the cooler" - Roger Highfield [Edit 2 times, last edit by skgiven at Dec 21, 2010 10:35:32 PM] |
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David Autumns
Ace Cruncher UK Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Post Count: 11062 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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skgiven you have been watching too much of "The Day after Tomorrow"
----------------------------------------A work of fiction  Our current cold winters are in part caused by a weakened Sun not shining as powerfully around the equator which in turn doesn't bring as many of those watts further North on the Gulf Stream Soon you will be able to see the average temperature at our latitude and yep it's running at -6C compared to the UK's -3.5C (Normally 4.8C in December) even today we are warmed by the Gulf Stream. The minimum on our latitude being -39C compared with the UK's -13C so we are lucky along with Scandinavia to be able to have a reasonable lifestyle so far North, an equal distance South puts you at the tip of Patagonia! With today's update on the CET only 1676 and 1890 have experienced a colder December in the last 352 years in the UK and the outlook for the rest of the Month is shaping up to be more of the same so we might break a 120 or 334 year old temperature record which brings me to this old chestnut From 1999 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990604081638.htm Warm Winters Result From Greenhouse Effect, Columbia Scientists Find, Using NASA Model "Despite appearing as part of a natural climate oscillation, the large increases in wintertime surface temperatures over the continents may therefore be attributable in large part to human activities," So what are the large decreases attributable to?  Ever think they might have accused the wrong party? The current Central England Temperature (CET) anomaly wrt 1961-1990 for the year to date (with not that many days left to go) is minus 0.49C. December 2010 is currently running 5.2C below normal and no it's not just affecting Walla Walla or Wagga Wagga as I am sure all too many of you are aware skgiven you might like this news from today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11867162 which includes this beautiful picture  Dave |
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David Autumns
Ace Cruncher UK Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Post Count: 11062 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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This is funny
----------------------------------------http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12056634 right where they intend to bury our nuclear waste http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-11863658 Genius As ever [Edit 1 times, last edit by David Autumns at Dec 22, 2010 12:00:51 AM] |
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sk..
Master Cruncher http://s17.rimg.info/ccb5d62bd3e856cc0d1df9b0ee2f7f6a.gif Joined: Mar 22, 2007 Post Count: 2324 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Clearly the blame lies firmly on the long grey skewer; put a thing of that magnitude through any world and you’re going to have consequences. Just look as South America (the America’s).
Yeah, apparently it's not just cold up north, it's shakey too. How do you feel about living above a nuclear dump? What's than then, in it, eh? Good policy, catch them off guard and then ask. [ot]Vince Cable must be from Oz, or was that Rupert[/ot]? |
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nanoprobe
Master Cruncher Classified Joined: Aug 29, 2008 Post Count: 2998 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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The Gulf Stream relies on the fact that as the water loses its heat in the north Atlantic, it cools, sinks and flows back to the south. Close but no cigar. As the warm Gulf Stream flows north the warmer surface water evaporates which helps keep Europe warmer in the winter than places like Eastern Russia, which is on the same latitude. It sinks because the evaporation makes it more saline, therefore denser, not because it's cooler.
In 1969 I took an oath to defend and protect the U S Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and Domestic. There was no expiration date.
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sk..
Master Cruncher http://s17.rimg.info/ccb5d62bd3e856cc0d1df9b0ee2f7f6a.gif Joined: Mar 22, 2007 Post Count: 2324 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Evaporation is a cooling method; fridges are based on this principle. So you are both correct - the water evaporates (releasing energy), becomes more saline (as the salt remains), sinks due to the saline density difference between the warmer water and the cooler (deeper) water and cools down when it mixes with the colder & lighter water.
----------------------------------------If there is not enough (volume) warm water then it sinks before it reaches the UK shores, and the surrounding sea temperature drops. This in turn reduces the local (UK) temperatures over the long run (years). The evaporation increases air temperature, so we get warmer air. This is less likely to change; the water would need to evaporate very early and sink very rapidly (long before it gets anywhere near the UK) to not reach the UK. Presently the wind is bringing colder air to the UK. While you could however argue that the evaporation occurred earlier this year due to a reduction of warm water, the air was cooler by the time it reached the UK, and this allowed more colder northern weather than usual, at this stage we are talking about weather; we are a very long way from global warming. Global warming -> alters the gulf stream -> changes global weather patterns -> causes local changes in weather. Todays weather forcast by the BBC, "mostly fine and dry". -3 to -6 at 15:00. Fine on a Ski slope. Apparently the BBC think that 6" of snow means it's dry! Hmmm, I wander what snow is made of? You can only dumb down the news and weather to the point where it becomes obviously wrong. [Edit 1 times, last edit by skgiven at Dec 22, 2010 11:18:05 AM] |
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