[alancalverd]

As I said earlier, no discernible trend. The closer you look, the more random the figures appear, which is normal, but if you scan through the figures year-by-year the only common factor is that it seems to rain more in the winter than summer, but not always!

[chiralSPO]

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-and/climate-lobsters

So far it has been good for Maine and bad for New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. But soon all the lobster will be up in Canada, and then I don't know where they will go from there...

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

We are sailing on a ship of fools.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_fools

Wot???

There was poor me thinking that science was about saying exactly what you meant and not spouting gibberish to try to look clever.

The problem is that no one is in charge. You tell me who exactly is in charge. It is either organisation by committee or by dictatorship.

Why do you need a particular person or group in charge?

What are you talking about appart from some sort of emotional search for leadership so you don't have to take responsibility?

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

If there is a particularly bad winter (that's cold = bad) or a particularly sunny hot summer like 1976 (hot = very good, we all liked it)

No we didn't.
It F***ked the farming.
Fortunately, we are a rich country and can buy food from elsewhere.

Yep, that's the sort of thing that you can do when you have all those fossil fuels to do stuff with.

Climate changes and you cope easily.

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-and/climate-lobsters

So far it has been good for Maine and bad for New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. But soon all the lobster will be up in Canada, and then I don't know where they will go from there...

Just watching the map graphic it looks like the lobster has started to recover from the huge over fishing that happened between 1850 and 1970. That is about when we started taking some steps to protect such things.

In the 19th century it was used to feed the survants because it was so cheap. They would refuse to eat it more than 2 times a week.

History

In North America, the American lobster did not achieve popularity until the mid-19th century, when New Yorkers and Bostonians developed a taste for it, and commercial lobster fisheries only flourished after the development of the lobster smack,[28] a custom-made boat with open holding wells on the deck to keep the lobsters alive during transport.[29] Prior to this time, lobster was considered a mark of poverty or as a food for indentured servants or lower members of society in Maine, Massachusetts, and the Canadian Maritimes, and servants specified in employment agreements that they would not eat lobster more than twice per week.[30] Lobster was also commonly served in prisons, much to the displeasure of inmates.[31] American lobster was initially deemed worthy only of being used as fertilizer or fish bait, and until well into the 20th century, it was not viewed as more than a low-priced canned staple food.[32]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster

[Bored chemist]

As I said earlier, no discernible trend. The closer you look, the more random the figures appear, which is normal, but if you scan through the figures year-by-year the only common factor is that it seems to rain more in the winter than summer, but not always!

Please show the results of your analysis- t test values, correlation coefficients and so on.
Or are you just looking at it and pulling a conclusion from where the sun doesn't shine?

[Bored chemist]

If there is a particularly bad winter (that's cold = bad) or a particularly sunny hot summer like 1976 (hot = very good, we all liked it)

No we didn't.
It F***ked the farming.
Fortunately, we are a rich country and can buy food from elsewhere.

Yep, that's the sort of thing that you can do when you have all those fossil fuels to do stuff with.

Climate changes and you cope easily.

No, it's the thing you do if you have energy.
You seem unable to understand that fossil fuel isn't the only source.
As I have said before; there is none so blind as him who will not see.

Also, please not that '76 was weather, not climate.

[alancalverd]

As I said earlier, no discernible trend. The closer you look, the more random the figures appear, which is normal, but if you scan through the figures year-by-year the only common factor is that it seems to rain more in the winter than summer, but not always!

Please show the results of your analysis- t test values, correlation coefficients and so on.
Or are you just looking at it and pulling a conclusion from where the sun doesn't shine?

You chose the data. You do the maths.

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

If there is a particularly bad winter (that's cold = bad) or a particularly sunny hot summer like 1976 (hot = very good, we all liked it)

No we didn't.
It F***ked the farming.
Fortunately, we are a rich country and can buy food from elsewhere.

Yep, that's the sort of thing that you can do when you have all those fossil fuels to do stuff with.

Climate changes and you cope easily.

No, it's the thing you do if you have energy.
You seem unable to understand that fossil fuel isn't the only source.
As I have said before; there is none so blind as him who will not see.

Also, please not that '76 was weather, not climate.

1976 was waether that was much further away from the average than the maximum predictions of the IPCC. That is the point. Our normal weather is far more variable than the difference between now and 2100 or even 2200 as predicted at maximum. The change predicted is slight.

And no. You will not be able to move vast amounts of food about the world without fossil fuels or having all ships nuclear powered. Not a solution I would want.

[Bored chemist]

As I said earlier, no discernible trend. The closer you look, the more random the figures appear, which is normal, but if you scan through the figures year-by-year the only common factor is that it seems to rain more in the winter than summer, but not always!

Please show the results of your analysis- t test values, correlation coefficients and so on.
Or are you just looking at it and pulling a conclusion from where the sun doesn't shine?

You chose the data. You do the maths.

No, this is science so:
You made the claim- you do the maths.
It shouldn't be hard.
After all, I'm just asking you to post a copy of the working you already did.
You did actually do the maths before posting- didn't you?

[alancalverd]

Intelligence is constructive laziness!

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/long-term-rainfall-trends-in-england-wales shows that winters in England and Wales have become slightly wetter since 1780, whilst summers have become slightly drier. Hopwever

www.ukcip.org.uk/wp-content/PDFs/UKCP09_Trends.pdf

shows more recent detail and adds Scotland from 1940, with similar results.

As I remarked earlier, there is no discernible trend in total annual rainfall for the UK that stands out above the noise and in the wise words of the Met Office Hadley Centre

The first characteristic to note is that of large year-to-year variability in both seasons; over the past two centuries winter totals have varied between 88.9mm (1964) and 423mm (1915), and those in summer between 66.9mm (1995) and 409.7mm (1912). Despite this variability, a general trend can be seen of decreasing precipitation in summer, although this is difficult to quantify robustly as it depends on the period used. In winter, an increasing trend can be observed, although there has been little change over the past 50 years. There is no discernable trend in annual mean England & Wales precipitation.

Apart from the spelling of "discernible", I have no argument with them. But they are scientists quoting pure unadulterated data, collected with the simplest imaginable apparatus over a period of 250 years by experts with no axe to grind, so they must be wrong. Obviously, their funnels are getting smaller. Or maybe larger. Whatever fits your hypothesis, good sir.

[Bored chemist]

Well, since you asked, and as I'm on holiday, I had a look at the Met Office data.
Since the use of fossil fuels really got underway in the last 50 years or so I looked at the "all season All UK" data since 1970.
To remove the effect of some of the noise I took a running average over 5 year slices.
Here's the graph
The trend is pretty obvious.
The vertical axis is 5 year average  rainfall in mm
The horizontal on is years since 1970

[alancalverd]

And had you chosen 1960 - 1980, when fossil fuel use was increasing most rapidly, you would have found a regression line inthe opposite direction.

And if you are really convinced that there is a causal relationship, what on earth happened between 1878 and 1886?

Anyway, you are to be congratulated on discerning a trend that Met Office professionals do not consider statistically significant. More power to your elbow.

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

Well, since you asked, and as I'm on holiday, I had a look at the Met Office data.
Since the use of fossil fuels really got underway in the last 50 years or so I looked at the "all season All UK" data since 1970.
To remove the effect of some of the noise I took a running average over 5 year slices.
Here's the graph
The trend is pretty obvious.
The vertical axis is 5 year average  rainfall in mm
The horizontal on is years since 1970

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[jeffreyH]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/jan/23/were-now-breaking-global-temperature-records-once-every-three-years
Pay particular attention to the fact that noise is still masking the trend. So cherry picking rainfall data is absurd.

Their attribution of a carbon cause is not fact at all.

[Bored chemist]

And had you chosen 1960 - 1980, when fossil fuel use was increasing most rapidly, you would have found a regression line inthe opposite direction.

And if you are really convinced that there is a causal relationship, what on earth happened between 1878 and 1886?

Anyway, you are to be congratulated on discerning a trend that Met Office professionals do not consider statistically significant. More power to your elbow.

OK, so I did
Here's the graph

rainfall 2.jpg (32.97 kB . 480x288 - viewed 6310 times)
If you have a look, you can see that the equation, and the correlation coefficient for the best line fit are included.

Now, there's a couple of differences to note.
The correlation coefficient is much bigger for the data set I   looked at and the slope is bigger (and in the opposite direction).
Any idea how that came about?
Here's a hint.
"underlines the fact that the smaller the sample, the less meaningful the statistics!"

So, perhaps the best thing to do is combine those data sets


rainfall 3.jpg (32.7 kB . 480x288 - viewed 6081 times)

Still looks like a trend do me (And I know what an r value means).

Re. "what on earth happened between 1878 and 1886?"
Among other things
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

Which is good and which is bad?

More rainfall is good or bad?

[jeffreyH]

Whilst plants and animal are a good sink for CO2 the same is not so true for deuterium. So that any increase will persist far longer.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012821X69900417
The trick is to determine how the increase happens in the first place.

[alancalverd]

Animals do not sink CO2. On the contrary, they are the primary source!

Biology 101: plants are defined as things that use solar energy to convert CO2 and water into carbohydrates, hydrocarbons and oxygen; animals are defined as things that generate energy by oxidising carbohydrates and hydrocarbons to water and carbon dioxide.

[jeffreyH]

Animals do not sink CO2. On the contrary, they are the primary source!

Biology 101: plants are defined as things that use solar energy to convert CO2 and water into carbohydrates, hydrocarbons and oxygen; animals are defined as things that generate energy by oxidising carbohydrates and hydrocarbons to water and carbon dioxide.

OK you got me there.