19th January - Today's News: Week of Storms Starts in California
A little more on the recent snow in Australia as towns record their first ever summer snowfall - 15c! Those poor Aussies .......! (Mind, it reached 9.6c here yesterday (warmest day since 10th December) and they're predicting snow for tomorrow .... which may mean a bit of sleetiness in Evesham. At best.) Meanwhile, in Queensland, Brisbane hits hottest day of 2010. So they're not all freezing!
UN Body to review Himalayan glacier forecast - though I still wonder why no-one questioned such an improbable (nay, impossible) prediction in the first place? And why the furore now, when the BBC ran the same story at the beginning of December? Anyway, looks very much to me like a typo from the original (non peer reviewed) report that no-one bothered to check ...... doesn't change the science. Bit embarassing for the IPCC though. And glacial retreat in the Himalaya may well be mainly due to other anthropogenic factors, especially black soot and the Asian brown cloud (see, for example, this recent NASA led study and this news story from 2007). Also worth noting this study which suggests warming is leading to increased snowfall, reducing the rate of glacial retreat. It's complictaed. And it's most definitely not all about CO2 and temperature! But unfortunately things like this tend to concentrate on the is there/isn't there carbon-emission derived global warming, rather than the wider range of interacting anthropogenic factors. People become disillusioned with the IPCC and their AGW predictions and thus assume humans aren't affecting the climate ...... in the same way that if a dead person was found not to have been strangled we ignore the stab wounds and bullet hole in the head and assume he wasn't murdered......
And just because the glaciers won't vanish in our lifetimes doesn't mean we shouldn't cease the activities which - currently, and based on all available information - are adversely affecting them. Unless we don't want any glaciers? Ironic though that it's the people most affected by glacial retreat and subsequent reduction in summer melt run-off who are the ones likely to be most contributing to their retreat. But I guess to blame devleoping nations ofr their problems is no longer 'politically correct'? Though this does indicate an obvious way forward - help those nations reduce their pollution and in so doing safeguard their water supply. Simple?
(Reminds me of the Inuit, embracing dirty, polluting, diesel engines and generators and then blaming the 'west' for causing carbon emission derived global warming ..... )
Flash floods in Egypt and Israel kill 7
In California, week-long storm gets started with trees falling, power lines down, by no major incidents - and more rain threatens California today. And it seems these storms just a warm-up; major rain, wind ahead. A wild and wet week to come then!
In China, deadly waves of cold continue to hit Xinjiang
Ever wished you could fire the Met Office? - I know many people do, mainly because they believe what the media tell them and don't actually bother to find out what the MetO actually say ..... Anyway, this is a good, sober, piece, as you'd expect from Philip Eden. And I like this final comment:
UN Body to review Himalayan glacier forecast - though I still wonder why no-one questioned such an improbable (nay, impossible) prediction in the first place? And why the furore now, when the BBC ran the same story at the beginning of December? Anyway, looks very much to me like a typo from the original (non peer reviewed) report that no-one bothered to check ...... doesn't change the science. Bit embarassing for the IPCC though. And glacial retreat in the Himalaya may well be mainly due to other anthropogenic factors, especially black soot and the Asian brown cloud (see, for example, this recent NASA led study and this news story from 2007). Also worth noting this study which suggests warming is leading to increased snowfall, reducing the rate of glacial retreat. It's complictaed. And it's most definitely not all about CO2 and temperature! But unfortunately things like this tend to concentrate on the is there/isn't there carbon-emission derived global warming, rather than the wider range of interacting anthropogenic factors. People become disillusioned with the IPCC and their AGW predictions and thus assume humans aren't affecting the climate ...... in the same way that if a dead person was found not to have been strangled we ignore the stab wounds and bullet hole in the head and assume he wasn't murdered......
And just because the glaciers won't vanish in our lifetimes doesn't mean we shouldn't cease the activities which - currently, and based on all available information - are adversely affecting them. Unless we don't want any glaciers? Ironic though that it's the people most affected by glacial retreat and subsequent reduction in summer melt run-off who are the ones likely to be most contributing to their retreat. But I guess to blame devleoping nations ofr their problems is no longer 'politically correct'? Though this does indicate an obvious way forward - help those nations reduce their pollution and in so doing safeguard their water supply. Simple?
(Reminds me of the Inuit, embracing dirty, polluting, diesel engines and generators and then blaming the 'west' for causing carbon emission derived global warming ..... )
Flash floods in Egypt and Israel kill 7
In California, week-long storm gets started with trees falling, power lines down, by no major incidents - and more rain threatens California today. And it seems these storms just a warm-up; major rain, wind ahead. A wild and wet week to come then!
In China, deadly waves of cold continue to hit Xinjiang
Ever wished you could fire the Met Office? - I know many people do, mainly because they believe what the media tell them and don't actually bother to find out what the MetO actually say ..... Anyway, this is a good, sober, piece, as you'd expect from Philip Eden. And I like this final comment:
What would be interesting is how quickly and how forcibly the new supplier would try to persuade the BBC that weather presentations should be more serious, more scientific and presented by a team that comprised only trained meteorologists.Exactly what I think. Indeed, maybe the MetO should turn the tables and say that they will only continue to prove forecasts for the BBC is the BBC provides them with an adequate time slot so that they can provide what we all want - a proper forecast, not a 30 second soundbite that leads only to public disillusionment when it proves not entirely accurate for their own back garden.
Assuming the Met Office retains its contract, this is exactly how I would like it to exert its authority. I'm not holding my breath, though.
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