[Geezer]

Geezer, I wrote some here when I first come, it's some years old but not worse than 2007 I guess? Check it up, it's all true. I tried to collect sources that people wouldn't call conspiratorial, like some do about real climate for example. Which is a joke as some of the best climate scientists in the world write there. And all trying desperately not to say anything drastic as they learnt that any extrapolation stepping over the scientific bounds will get the interests wanting us to keep consuming water on their watermills as we say in Sweden. I don't really care about you and me, but I feel sorry for our kids, and their kids.

Me too. But you can't fight politicians with politics. We need something much stronger than that.

[SeanB]

Just note that the New Zealand climate data unit has had to admit that the data they have shows no warming at all, after the data that they released showing warming, was shown to be falsely manipulated by other researchers who took the original data and reanalysed it.

Be very wary of any research where they admit that the original data is unavailable because it has been deleted or thrown away, as then you cannot check if there have been mistakes made, or if there has been poor analysis, or worse.

[yor_on]

Sean, it's no falsification, it's about adjusting temperatures to the altitude. I got very surprised reading you and tried to find out what you meant. No climate scientists wants another debate like the one with those Russian hackers, trying to frame East Anglia university.

First I thought it was new but then I realized it was from 2009. Had real trouble finding any sites, except global warming deniers, mentioning it. On their list it was very high though making it feel like it happened yesterday , even now, 2011.

At last I found this site having an article from 2010. NIWA v Cranks 4: Shoot out at the fantasy factory. the site is from New Zealand and even if if sensible That is actually thinking that NZ also have had a warming effect, like most of our globe, also gives you a lot of sources that you can follow directly. I first tried the 'other sites' as that was what came up, but they just sent you around to their 'peers' ? Never mind, check it up and see for yourself.
==

Really good sources too Sean. This guy made his homework. " I think the legal basis for the announced court action  against the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research is (to use a technical term) baloney. And I'm pretty sure the folks behind the claim know it too. First up, there's the small matter of who the claim technically is being brought by. It's in the name of "The New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust", which has only been in existence for a week. Now, the only reason I can think of to set up a charitable trust and then use it as a vehicle to run a court case is to avoid liability for costs should a court decide to award them against you when you lose. In other words, it's hardly a move that screams confidence (not to mention the small ethical matter of the claimants seeking to avoid any potential liability to the taxpayer for the money that will be spent in opposing their little piece of theatre).

Second, on Radio New Zealand this morning the claimant's spokesperson stated that the legal action was being funded and run by members of the "Climate Science Coalition", as one of its members (Barry Brill, actually its chair) is a lawyer. Putting to one side the proverb "he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client", the fact that the claimants are going up against the full legal resources of a Crown entity without bothering to engage the services of a specialist public lawyer indicates either supreme confidence in one's case or else a reluctance to waste good money on a hopeless cause."

It's kind of fun

[CliffordK]

And Clifford, what are you trying to prove?

For a while I've been trying to understand the Global Warming/Climate Change debate, in particularly with respect to CO₂. 

My conclusion is that some aspects match the CO₂ hypothesis, but many don't.  The critical nature of the problem seems to be less clear.

Anyway, the question that began this topic was essentially "Why was it so damn cold in Europe last December".  So, I've been waiting for the "global warming" reports for December to come out...  as well as trying to understand some of the local and global influences.

And...  to my surprise (in part)...  December actually had a lower Global temperature anomaly than previous months, although not enough to account for reports of it being the coldest month in over a century.   

And, obviously a few month long cooling trend isn't significant overall.

[Variola]

For a while I've been trying to understand the Global Warming/Climate Change debate, in particularly with respect to CO2. 

My conclusion is that some aspects match the CO2 hypothesis, but many don't.  The critical nature of the problem seems to be less clear.

That is pretty much where I am at too.
What irks me is the way it is dealt with, the 'green' measures levied on us to encourage us all to be green. Tax on cars, fuel duty, adverts on the carbon footprint and recyling etc etc. If I turned my standby button off, turned off all appliances, saved water and recycled everything that came into my house, it would make no difference. If every household in Britain did the same, it would barely make a dent in C02 output. Until the government grows some balls, and starts tackling industry we won't see a change. That is not just our government but all governments everywhere. 
Yet the onus is put on the individual. and the government see yet another way of squeezing money out of us. It pays lip service to climate change problem, whether it is caused by Co2, natural change, water vapour, or Geezer's uncontrollable flatulence.

Perhaps in instead of flying off for summits on global warming, the governments need to start preparing for unavoidable climate change.

[Geezer]

Hey! I'll have you know I run my car on the stuff.

I'm bit surprised to hear they still have industries in Britain. I thought they got rid of them already  []

[peppercorn]

What irks me is the way it is dealt with, the 'green' measures levied on us to encourage us all to be green. Tax on cars, fuel duty, adverts on the carbon footprint and recyling etc etc. If I turned my standby button off, turned off all appliances, saved water and recycled everything that came into my house, it would make no difference. If every household in Britain did the same, it would barely make a dent in C02 output.

But like it or not domestic CO2 emissions do contribute a thick wedge of all developed nations outputs.  I think some badly thought out campaigns (There was one about unplugging your phone charger a little while back! []) have given the impression that none of these things are worthwhile... I actually think (going back to the industry side of the equation) that manufactures of all electrical items should be forced to think up truly low-power designs - esp. stand-by (50mA on a TV should be quite possible).
The bit that truly irks me is that all the lovely tax revenue from motor-fuel disappears into the anonymous hole (or whole) that is the government exchequer - If people could see a direct link - say insulating older homes, etc - they'd be less bad feeling.  More windfall-taxes on the petrol companies wouldn't go amiss either!

I'm bit surprised to hear they still have industries in Britain. I thought they got rid of them already  []

They were 'phased out' in the 1980's I understand []
I think it was decided that it was far better to take the pulling-ourselves-by-our-our-own-bootstraps approach of defining gainful employment in terms of moving-money-around and leaving the dirty job of actually making stuff to others []

[yor_on]

Yep Variola, you're correct.
And it's about the distribution of wealth in the end.
And also of those now running faster and and faster to reach our western economy's 'golden age'.

I'm sure we could find an even distribution curve in most communities, from the stone age and up, when it comes to how wealth is distributed in a community. It's only recently we've started to discuss that curve. And what that curve tells us is that there will be relative few controlling a lot of the distribution. Even in the old communist system you had a similar curve although then based on raw political and military power, as they still seem to trust in. Did you know that most of the Russian power industry is mob controlled? Oil, gas, you name it.

What it creates is a sort of stability and inertia, a refusal to change. That the common citizen in a western community have it so good compared to an Indian citizen, materially that is, is that we have such an enormous surplus in our system/western community. That surplus build on getting the raw materials to us, and so we use poorer countries to feed our machine. If times would get tough again in Western Europe this economic wealth distribution curve still would be there as I sees it, but with the base of now well-feed although not 'rich' people finding themselves at an Indian level. That would create a lot of unease in all western society's I think, and the politicians know it.

Any idea building on people caring builds on education, but the 'education' people get to today is to get the dough, check their magazines and twitter/facebook accounts for the latest gossip, build a 'healthy' body on the gym, and get f*ng rich

I don't expect that to change

[yor_on]

And Clifford, what are you trying to prove?

For a while I've been trying to understand the Global Warming/Climate Change debate, in particularly with respect to CO₂. 

My conclusion is that some aspects match the CO₂ hypothesis, but many don't.  The critical nature of the problem seems to be less clear.

Anyway, the question that began this topic was essentially "Why was it so damn cold in Europe last December".  So, I've been waiting for the "global warming" reports for December to come out...  as well as trying to understand some of the local and global influences.

And...  to my surprise (in part)...  December actually had a lower Global temperature anomaly than previous months, although not enough to account for reports of it being the coldest month in over a century.   

And, obviously a few month long cooling trend isn't significant overall.

Yeah clifford, I agree a few months tells us nothing. ten more winters like this won't tell us a thing either. It's longterm statistics we need. What we can see if looking at such is that we've created an anomaly statistically, oceans growing due to meltitng ice, the mean heat in them rising unprecedentedly, acidity growing and oxygen disappearing worldwide in those same oceans, CO2 levels raising extremely fast etc etc.

And it all seem to happen at the same time as our 'mechanical revolution' came to be. So statistically I would say that's it pretty easy to spot what created the anomaly. We've just recently started to treat Earth as a non-linear system. with that comes the 'tipping theory' that states that a system can without warning change into a different equilibrium. to do it it will need 'stuff' pushing for it. We have created a lot of 'stuff' in the oceans, in our atmosphere and on land. Then we have the sun, it seems that it also is connected to how that one behaves. As for what equilibrium we will find in a tipping?

That's a hard one? It seems like we've had ice-ages ticking' fairly regularity on Earth, every 40 000 year until recently (geologically speaking). Suddenly we jumped to periods over a 100 000 years without any visible reason. That one is explained in chaos theory, check that up if you're interested, it's quite cool and applicable to every little thing we know, from that economic 'distribution curve' I wrote about to the stock market and whatever you might imagine. And if it so it won't necessarily be a hotter climate we will meet. In a Newtonian world it would be as we have created all the ingredients for it, but maybe there is a bigger 'rhythm' defining how the world 'tips' where our 'noice' like the CO2 only will accelerate that tipping.

It's very hard to say, I expect us to go to a hotter climate, with the ice disappearing, but I do not know what a true 'tipping' of the climate can do to us. You can guess that it will mean the end of us fouling up the system with CO2 etc and so one might expect the oceans to slowly be able to recycle it and maybe in some thousand years neutralizing it? But I don't really know.

And we have a really big problem in all the frozen methane that is coming lose from under our oceans, and the tundra too. They can accelerate the process like nothing we ever seen. But if they do we will be dead anyway. No way we're going to survive such a accelerated scenario as I believe. Although life as such will survive. Jelly fish, as Steve wrote might do it? Cockroaches might, rats? Microbes for sure. Methane is thought to have ended life on Earth before, check it up.

[CliffordK]

I've been looking at the maps.  Russia and Canada seem to have some of the largest temperature swings, both positive and negative, but often positive.
Many of the calculations are done on a grid, then corrected for the curvature of the earth, so a flat map will look bolder than the actual calculation weighting.

So the "risk" to the Russian eco-system may be as great or greater than other parts of the world, although I have seen questions about whether there are potential measurement errors.

Notes indicate that methane has a halflife in the atmosphere of 7 to 10 years.  So, if the methane is slowly released, then it will eventually reach a "steady-state", until the release rate is changed again.  If a bolus is released, then within a decade, it will be half gone, and in a few decades all but traces will be converted to CO₂. 

CO₂ is supposed to also be pulled out of the air, with a halflife of about a century, although I'm not quite sure where the century date comes from for the CO₂. 

Anyway, there do seem to be some major changes that are being observed in some areas, as well as many local effects that may confound the measurements.

[yor_on]

That's some pretty smart questions Clifford
Similar to mine.

But first methane.
And I'm quoting myself sort of, from another post (2009-10).

"All the energy America needs for the next 100 years lies under the sea off the coast of South Carolina." Just one problem: Digging it out might cause a global climate disaster.”

---Quote—-

Methane is the principal component of natural gas, and massive amounts of it are trapped in reservoirs beneath the sea floor and under a layer of the ice-like substance. The scale of the resource is spectacular. By some estimates, methane hydrates contain more energy content than all other known fossil fuels combined. Two small areas located roughly 200 miles off the coast of Charleston, S.C., contain enough methane to meet the country's gas needs for more than a century. And this is only one of at least two dozen similar reservoirs discovered in U.S. coastal waters since the early 1970s.

The paradox is that while gas can be extracted from methane hydrates, doing so poses potentially catastrophic risks. Methane hydrates are frozen water molecules that trap methane gas molecules in a crystalline, lattice-like structure known as a hydrate. Unlike normal ice, hydrate ice literally burns — light a match and it goes up in flames. As temperatures rise or pressure rates fall, the hydrate disintegrates and the water releases the gas. A substantial amount of evidence suggests that weakening the lattice-like structure of gas hydrates has triggered underwater landslides on the continental margin. In other words, the extraction process, if done improperly, could cause sudden disruptions on the ocean floor, reducing ocean pressure rates and releasing methane gas from hydrates.

A mass release of methane into the sea and atmosphere could have catastrophic consequences on the pace of climate change. More than 50 million years ago, undersea landslides resulted in the release of methane gas from methane hydrate, which contributed to global warming that lasted tens of thousands of years. "Methane hydrate was a key cause of the global warming that led to one of the largest extinctions in the earth's history," Ryo Matsumoto, a professor at the University of Tokyo who has spent 20 years researching the subject, told Bloomberg in December.

---End of quote---

Details:

Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 60-70 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a twenty-year period (or 25 times over a hundred-year period). Human-caused methane emissions are currently contributing some 20-30% of the observed global warming effects. These include: Energy, Landfills, Ruminants (Livestock), Waste treatment, and Biomass burning.

However, there are two additional sources of methane that are just now bubbling to the surface. One source is the methane hydrates (also called clathrates) that have been frozen since the last ice age in the permafrost lands of Russia, Alaska and Canada, but are now being released as the permafrost melts. In addition, the methane hydrates, which have been long stored in the cold Arctic Ocean seabed, are now being released as the ocean temperature rises.

Estimates of the land based hydrates estimates range from 0.8 to 1 gigaton, for the sea-based hydrates in the Arctic total 1.5 gigatons of carbon, Recent research carried out in 2008 in the Siberian Arctic has shown millions of tons of methane being released, apparently through perforations in the seabed permafrost, with concentrations in some regions reaching up to 100 times normal. Most of the thawing is believed to be due to the greatly increased volumes of meltwater being discharged from the Siberian rivers flowing north. Current Arctic methane release has previously been estimated at 0.5 Megatons  (500 000 tons) per year, but now it appears to be increasing rapidly. Shakhova et al (2008) estimate that not less than 1,400 gigatons of Carbon is presently locked up as methane and methane hydrates under the Arctic submarine permafrost, and 5-10% of that area is subject to puncturing by open taliks.

They conclude that "release of up to 50 gigatons (fifty thousand millions ton) of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time". That would increase the methane content of the planet's atmosphere by a factor of twelve, which is equivalent in greenhouse effect to a doubling in the current level of CO2.

----------End Quote…..By Jim Stewart, PhD, October 6, 2008,-----

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the concentrations of many of the greenhouse gases have increased. The concentration of CO2 has increased by about 100 ppm (i.e., from 280 ppm to 380 ppm).

The first 50 ppm increase took place in about 200 years, from the start of the Industrial Revolution to around 1973.

The next 50 ppm increase took place in about 33 years, from 1973 to 2006.

--End of quote--


If I look at the worlds coal consumption 2008 of 3 300 million ton, then 2 000 million ton was consumed by Asia. And you know what, we are coming out from our recession now says our ‘economists’. So now we can start all over again. The steel production is up as from August 2009 to 106.5 millions ton according to ‘World Steel’. And China have in ten years gone from 124 millions tons, to now over 500 millions ton steel yearly. And its coal consumption have raised from 1998, 652 million tons to over 1400 millions tons last year according to the oil company BP energy-statistics. And sixty eight  percent of the worlds electric power is generated by fossil fuels today, mostly coal and ‘natural gas’ (methane).

Anybody want to guess how long it will take for the next 50 Parts Per Million (PPM)
===

Then we have how long it stays in circulation in the air..


---Quote—Lisa Moore, Ph.D., scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.--

Here's a table showing a selection of greenhouse gases, their global warming potential (GWP), and their lifetimes:

Greenhouse Gas . . . . . . . .  .Lifetime years . . (100-Year GWP)
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) . . …. . . . hundreds .. .. . .1
Methane (CH4) . . . . . . …. . . .. . . 1 . . .  . . . .25
Nitrous Oxide (N2O) . . . . . . . . . .114 . . . . . . .298
Hydrofluorocarbon-23 (CHF3) . . . .264 . . . .. . .14,800
Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) . . . . ..3,200.  . . . .22,800
PFC-14 (CF4) . . . . . . . .. . . . . .50,000 . . . . .7,390

Notice that the carbon dioxide lifetime is "hundreds of years", rather than a specific number. The IPCC ‘Third Assessment Report’ defines a gas's lifetime as the amount of the gas in the atmosphere divided by the rate at which it is removed from the atmosphere. That sounds simple enough, except that not all gases are removed by just one (or mainly one) process. Ironically, the gas that accounts for the greatest proportion of global warming, carbon dioxide (CO2), is the hardest to pin down. When CO2 is released into the atmosphere, about three-quarters of it dissolves into the ocean over a few decades (- Acidity -). The rest is neutralized by a variety of longer-term geological processes, which can take thousands of years.

From IPCC Fourth Assessment Report:  About 50% of a CO2 increase will be removed from the atmosphere within 30 years, and a further 30% will be removed within a few centuries. The remaining 20% may stay in the atmosphere for many thousands of years.

From U.S Greenhouse Gas Inventory Reports: (CO2) Atmospheric lifetime: 50-200 years. No single lifetime can be defined for CO2 because of the different rates of uptake by different removal processes.

From RealClimate: “My model indicates that about 7% of carbon released today will still be in the atmosphere in 100,000 years. I calculate a mean lifetime, from the sum of all the processes, of about 30,000 years. That's a deceptive number, because it is so strongly influenced by the immense longevity of that long tail. If one is forced to simplify reality into a single number for popular discussion, several hundred years is a sensible number to choose, because it tells three-quarters of the story, and the part of the story which applies to our own lifetimes.” ("How long will global warming last?")

For other gases, a meaningful lifetime is easier to calculate because one process dominates their removal from the atmosphere:

    * Methane is mostly scrubbed from the atmosphere by hydroxyl radicals (a chemical reaction).
    * Nitrous oxide is destroyed by photolytic reactions (chemical reactions involving photons or light) in the stratosphere.

As you can see from the chart, some gases have extraordinarily long lifetimes. Because emission rates are vastly higher than removal rates, greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere and will affect climate for generations to come.

----End of Quote----

Also, the end-result of methane will become more CO2.

Then we at last comes to your thoughts about Russia. And I agree fully. At the same time as they attacked global warming (East Anglia) they have invested millions in looking at what Global warming will have for effect on their infra structure. All those pipelines laying on frozen bog (tundra) Soon to become just a bubbling methane bog. Those pipelines loses around thirty percent of its 'natural gas' aka methane in the transport between endpoints, without conspicuous leaks. And with the foundations for their pipelines sinking we will see a lot more methane leaking, as well as those working there will have to rebuild a lot as their houses etc start to sink. There is a famous Russian guy that have been living on the tundra (decades) studying and reporting on its changes, and he reports it bubbling up like carbonized water as the tundra get soft transforming itself into bogs.

Ah yes, and our friendly neighbors (Russia) have started to lay a underwater pipe trough the Baltic sea, with the Nordic countries smiling and applauding. Anyone more than me that wonder why it's under water Which means that we will have a lot more methane emissions world wide, both natural and man made due to our new pipelines (Nord stream, 'South Stream' etc.)Those underwater more or less 'invincible' to us and the land-slides only noticeable as bubbles by those working there. And who was the owners now again? Anyone that think the Russian mob will care about that? And Canada I won't mention, they are a joke environmentally already.

[yor_on]

So no, I don't think long term planning is humanity's forte

[peppercorn]

So no, I don't think long term planning is humanity's forte

Well, it's the best on the planet, but yeah I know what you mean! []

[Lynda (OP)]

Since I posted my initial enquiry two months ago it now appears our weather in the UK (Norwich) is warmer than expected - being 11 deg C - not expected for early February!

I am curious to know why our seasons appear to be earlier - in August the weather was more like that of Autumn/Fall now it is more like Spring!  Is our planet changing the way it orbits the Sun or is it something else?

[CliffordK]

Since I posted my initial enquiry two months ago it now appears our weather in the UK (Norwich) is warmer than expected - being 11 deg C - not expected for early February!

I am curious to know why our seasons appear to be earlier - in August the weather was more like that of Autumn/Fall now it is more like Spring!  Is our planet changing the way it orbits the Sun or is it something else?

Our Year is centered around the solstices... which should give stability of the seasons.
Winter solstice (for the North) is when the tilt of the axis is such that the south pole is closest to the sun and the north pole is farthest from the sun.
Summer solstice (for the North) is when the tilt of the axis is such that the north pole is closest to the sun.

Here is a good explanation of the Milankovitch Cycles.
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm

However, these are very slow cycles, with Precession being the quickest, with about 12,500 years for a half cycle and about 25,000 years for a full cycle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#Axial_precession
There are actually two types of Precession.  That around the ellipse as in the article above, called Apsidal precession.  The other type is Axial precession which is the precession with respect to the "fixed stars".  They both have a cycle in excess of 20,000 years.

According to the notes I'm finding, right now we are at a stage in Apsidal precession where the earth is closest to the sun during the Northern Winter.  This would also mean that it is the maximum velocity of the earth in the orbit around the sun...  tending to give shorter, but hotter winters in the North, as well as longer, but cooler summers.  The reverse is true in the south.

Since precession is a very slow process...  it is unlikely that one would notice a significant change in the seasons during a single lifetime.

Most people attribute the early spring-like weather to the apparent warming of the planet.

In fact, that is one of the big questions that people rarely discuss.  If we are in fact going through a long-term warming trend, are there benefits?

One of the benefits might be more temperate weather, and extended growing seasons in the more polar regions, especially Canada and Russia, but likely other regions too. 

There are also extremely complex interactions with our sun (as would be expected).  We are now entering into what may be one of the deepest solar minima since at least the late 1960's/early 70's when we had a decade of unusually cold weather, but likely a solar minimum similar to that over a century ago, perhaps a couple of centuries ago.  However, there are theories that during solar minima, there is a greater influence of cosmic rays from the rest of the universe. 

The last thing that is happening quickly...  is that there apparently is an oscillation of the Earth's magnetic poles.  The northern magnetic pole is rapidly approaching true North, while the southern magnetic pole is decelerating its movement away from true south (likely to reverse back towards the middle of Antarctica soon).  People are discussing a pole shift...  but little discussion is being made of this apparent normal oscillation, and its potential impact on the climate.

[graham.d]

Geezer, the stuff that Yor_on said about Greenland being positive publicity for people to emigrate is actually true as far as I know. I know its sounds like a joke. Greenland has not been Green at any time since it would have been named thus as far as I am aware. It is hard to see how the name stuck or whether it was planned by some devious person, but it did create an image and it was not that easy for anyone to come back and point out the falsehood - it was probably wishful thinking.

There is a big confusion here in comparing weather with climate. The local weather in the short term is not a reliable indicator of the long term effects of climate change. We have not yet got enough statistics over a long enough period. This does not stop people using the local weather as "proof" of arguments in both directions though!

The relation between climate change and the release of Carbon is certainly debateable though I would tend to err on the side of the assumption that there is a link and try to act on it rather than just ignore the issue and then have our grandchildren suffer the effects of our incautiousness and greed. Of course it won't be my descendents that will suffer so much but mostly those in places like Bangladesh.

1. Huge amounts of carbon are being released and this has happened all in the last 200 years.
2. The metrics for measuring the earth surface temperature have indicated a rise in the same period.
3. The ice in areas that have had stable ice throughout recorded history is melting.

The skeptics have moved in denying, then accepting each of these points. I think these are actually undeniable but if you keep saying some things enough people will believe it. The last fall back is to say OK, it's happening but it is not due to man and/or there is nothing that can be done. In any normal argument this sequence of fall backs would be not considered as a good defence. But when so much money is involved and there is so much vested interest by powerful corporations (who, surprisingly (!) influence politicians and the media) it somehow seems very reasonable!!

[yor_on]

Since I posted my initial enquiry two months ago it now appears our weather in the UK (Norwich) is warmer than expected - being 11 deg C - not expected for early February!

I am curious to know why our seasons appear to be earlier - in August the weather was more like that of Autumn/Fall now it is more like Spring!  Is our planet changing the way it orbits the Sun or is it something else?

What we see in Europe and also parts of USA seems to be a direct result of the way the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) climate index have had it's lowest value in 145 years for the Winter 2009/2010. The Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations can weaken westerly winds across the United States and make way for the jet stream to rush southward with Arctic air all the way to Florida and hang there freezing the Midwest and East Coast of America. "Also there have been a very strong La Nina that brought the coldest temperatures in the central Pacific ever measured. During La Ninas, warm Pacific waters move to the west coasts of Australia, South America and Central America leaving colder waters in the central Pacific. All that La Nina warm water along the western coasts south of the equator provokes heavy rainfall and flooding. And since this was a particularly intense La Nina, Australia flooded and even the Panama Canal had to close down December 8, 2010, for only the third time since it opened in 1914 because of heavy rains and flooding." 

And this at the same time as the last five years have been the warmest ever in the Arctic. Some few predicting that the Arctic may becoming ice free in such a short time as ten years, although most expecting it to happen inside a thirty year period. And the climate conditions over the Arctic cannot be ruled out as influencing weather in some sub-Arctic regions, making it relative colder for part of the winter. "There is observational evidence, supported by results from numerical simulations, indicating the potential for linkages between significant cold mid-latitude winter deviations from usual conditions associated with the decrease in Arctic sea ice cover in the preceding summer/autumn.

"Climate modeling of paleo observations indicate that 3 million years ago, mid-Pliocene, the average global temperature was 2-3°C higher than today, and global sea level was around 25m higher. Studies show that as the Pliocene ended, glaciation in the Northern hemisphere (north pole/Arctic) ice sheet began. One of the keys to what helped the world cool was the closing of the isthmus in Panama. When the movement of the tectonic plates moved and closed the isthmus, the Atlantic was no longer able to receive warm water from the larger Pacific ocean. This allowed the Atlantic to cool more in the winter and this played a large part in development of the glaciation. The formation of an Arctic ice cap was identified by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic and North Pacific ocean beds."

"While 2009 and 2010 did not meet or exceed the record minimum sea ice extent set in 2007, the summer sea ice cover remains relatively small. As noted in the Arctic sea ice section, September 2009 had the third lowest minimum sea ice extent relative to the period when observations began in 1979. The minimum sea ice extent in 2010 is similar to 2008, and lower than 2009. Nearly the same atmospheric conditions have existed in the summers of 2008, 2009 and 2010, helping to drive the characteristics of the summer sea ice season."

"Summer 2007 atmospheric conditions were extraordinary and helped lead to the record low ice extent in September 2007. This involved the development of a new climatic wind pattern, the Arctic Dipole Anomaly (DA) which has southerly wind flow from the Bering Strait across the North Pole and persisted throughout the summer of 2007. In May and June of 2009 and 2010, the DA was present again, helping to initiate rapid summer ice loss. Although ice extent at the end of June 2010 was in fact slightly lower than that observed at the same time in 2007, in July the sea level pressure (SLP) pattern shifted back to a more typical low pressure region over the central Arctic Ocean. This shift created conditions that significantly slowed the rate of ice loss during mid-summer 2010. As a result of the increased within-summer atmospheric variability in 2009 and 2010, we did not meet or exceed the record minimum sea ice cover extent set in 2007. However, these conditions have still resulted in a four year sequence of extremely low sea ice extent years."

But there are so many more factors involved, and when it comes to the local weather where you live? That one is very hard to know as it can change fast depending on purely local effects. Climate is more of a statistical 'game' than looking locally.Even if we had the possibility, which we don't, to probe all spots on the globe with say a ten km radius between probes it would be almost impossible to calculate the weather more that a few days, probably even harder than today as the information amount would be too huge for any computer to handle.
==

Some GW myths.

[Mootle]

Since I posted my initial enquiry two months ago it now appears our weather in the UK (Norwich) is warmer than expected - being 11 deg C - not expected for early February!

I am curious to know why our seasons appear to be earlier - in August the weather was more like that of Autumn/Fall now it is more like Spring!  Is our planet changing the way it orbits the Sun or is it something else?

We're not well placed to identify causes for localised seasonal changes. There are many factors which come into the reckonings for wide scale analysis. However, I would speculate that solar flare activity (recently featuring in the news,) could be a greater factor on our climate than is widely believed and may easily result in regional temperature spikes.

Natural variations in solar output are thought to be very small but as with many of the factors governing our climate we are now discovering that the systems are incredibly dynamic and interlinked in ways that are considered to be chaotic. In reality this is more likely to be due to our limited ability to monitor and understand these systems. Given time the input data and mathematical models will become suitably refined such that short / mid / long term predictions will achieve a meaningful level of reliability.

[Mootle]

Quote from Peppercorn
'The bit that truly irks me is that all the lovely tax revenue from motor-fuel disapears into the anonymous hole (or whole) that is the government exchequer - If people could see a direct link - say insulating older homes, etc - they'd be less bad feeling.  More windfall-taxes on the petrol companies wouldn't go amiss either!'

I agree.

It would be good to know were the revenues from green taxes are going.

If we were to write letters to our local MP's would it be within house rules to post any response here?