Indeed – we may still think we can somehow “conquer” or “tame” Nature, but no. The best we can do is try to defend ourselves from things we cannot stop, and that defence may well include running, or at least retreating.

The thread’s title is “Weather/Climate 2024”. Earthquakes and tsunamis are of course, nothing to do with the climate except in a very specific way not applicable to Japan; they are far less predictable, and they are totally out of human control.

The title is “Weather / climate 2024”. No other natural system.

Yet your BBC and Apple links both cover the earthquake and tsunami, in Japan.

That was a dreadful event, to be sure, but has nothing to do with either climate or weather, so those links change the subject.

Weather: Lovely sunshine here today 8 C but feels colder with 25 km/h average wind gusting to 50!

Climate: Awful. Total rainfall last year 260 mm so very near to being a desert (<250 mm).  The autumn, when we get most of our rainfall was very dry.

Russell

Don’t give up, Michael.

Your new link IS about the climate and weather.

Bright but cold today, and I spent only about an hour outside, cutting up and bagging shrub prunings. More like Winter though.

I would like to lodge a complaint about the total lack of global warming in Scotland over the last 12 months

This winter has been as cold and crappy as any I have ever experienced over the last 60 years and last year it didn’t even warm up until the third week in May

If the science is accurate I should been looking forwards to a future of ripping out my central heating and enjoying California style balmy winters at home and blistering summers on the beach… but it’s not even close yet

Every day for months on end I’ve got to stick my cold/wind/water proof goretex space-suit on three times a day just to take the dog out for a walk

The 2006 BBC had us growing wine on the banks of loch Lomond by 2020 according to one “expert report”

Indeed. That “global warming” phrase does have a real but rather vague meaning, as the agent of climate change, but has been seized on by journalists, politicians, campaigners and others who can not – or will not – understand basic physics and physical geography.

One effect is widespread bafflement by the concern for an apparently insignificant temperature rise – showing ignorance of, for example, the difference between heat and temperature.

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Perception plays a big part, too. We are hardly likely to notice a couple of degrees difference personally, and it will be highly individual anyway. Yet that couple of degrees can be very significant meteorologically.

So when Ady says Scotland seems no warmer than its apparent normal, but is it in fact warmer? Perhaps only by a degree or so on average, so not humanly noticeable and comfortable, but enough to keep the snow to the Highlands and bring the rest of the precipitation as rain instead at lower altitudes?

For only a 1ºC rise in its mean temperature means the atmosphere can hold significantly more water; and we learnt a few months ago that the Atlantic Ocean is warmer than it had been for a very long time. Warmer not “warm” like a lido- you’d still die from cold-shock or hypothermia if you fell in it. So a very wet, stormy Winter, with snow on high enough ground at higher latitudes, is hardly surprising.

I’ve often thought that with midges in summer and short cold wet days in winter, Scotland is unfit for human habitation which is why the Scots live there. Only joking honest, I have lots of relatives up there and had many family holidays up near Fraserburgh. Very pleasant in summer, but the sea was a bit cold. Uncle used to take us fishing in an open boat, launched off the beach on rollers that looked like giant cats eyes. Needed quite a few strong men, never clear how it was organised that they would be there at the right time.

I thought we had a splendid measure of climate from our satellites looking down into the troposphere and measuring the entire surface of planet Earth including the wet bits. There is no need to model anything, we already have the technology, we have the data, it is there for all to see.

The satellite “image” shows temperatures remain relatively constant until there is an el Nino event. The temperature spikes high and then quickly levels out at its’ new, higher plateau. It seems very consistent.

Is that quoted 1kW/m^2 a mean level of the full-spectrum solar energy or just the heat (infra-red)?

The quantity of light converted into electricity by a square metre of solar array only a part of the radiation impinging on it. If it was 100% efficient, we would not see the material within the frame! It appear as complete blackness, but it does not.

Even an entire pasture of arrays takes a miniscule amount of the total radiation received in its area. They don’t create a patch of twilight or cold air above them!

The reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere should do more than return it to somewhere near what it ought be naturally – so perhaps mid-18C level. That’s if the proportion is actually reduced, not simply stabilised.

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Most atmospheric carbon-dioxide is taken up by plants but put back by later processes: via post-mortem decay, fire or indirectly via animals including us lot eating the plants.

Some CO2 is trapped in peat, according to lots of worthy public statements… err, is it? The carbon, yes. Peat (and its fossil form, coal) is mostly carbon, so that’s the C but where has the O2 gone? Oxygen isn’t fussy – even at ordinary temperatures and pressures it will consort with all manner of other elements, so has it returned to the air or happily shacked up with other elements such as nitrogen?

Some atmospheric CO2 is taken up by water, acidifying it very slightly, and this “carbonic acid” will dissolve the carbonate rocks (Chalk and Limestone) and Gypsum (Calcium Sulphate). However, this is a two-way process and it does not take much for the resulting calcium bicarbonate to precipitate as calcite or aragonite (both crystalline forms of CaCO3), repaying the atmosphere the borrowed CO2 in the process. Hence “hard water” – the mineral makes beautiful stalactites but we do not want in our kettles and boilers.

Some of the dissolved rock ends up in the sea, for use as animal bone and shell material.  Unfortunately, a higher atmospheric CO2 level gives a higher marine CO2 level, disturbing the delicate balance vital for those organisms wanting the calcium-carbonate (as calcite or the similar aragonite). This on top of any problems posed by extra water warming, which will tend to release some of the gases dissolved in the water.

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To summarise then, I very much doubt the amount of energy converted into electricity or heat from solar radiation, or from winds or tidal flows, will be any more than a tiny fraction of the total energy being converted by the natural systems we are using… or abusing.

The more worrying point is just how much good-quality arable farmland is being covered with solar arrays; but that’s a planning, not engineering, matter.

Michael;

Over here in merry ole’ Canada, Ottawa has a reputation of having the longest outdoor skating rink in the world. Been up and running for 50-odd winters. Except last winter, and most likely except this winter. We do have a dusting of snow, and forecast for a big dump tonight, but the temps have been warm, and the Rideau Canal needs something like 300mm thick ice to support the machinery for cleaning/watering, and mass of bodies. Right now ice thickness at about 0cm.

Reminds me of the ElfStedenTocht in NL; last time it was held was 1997.

Now, the Rideau not freezing; last 2 winters might be abnormal, or the future pattern.

We also seem to be getting more tornados, but that may just be more focus on climate reporting than reality. (I don’t honestly know; the ice-thickness is black/white, strong winds damage in remote areas? not my area of expertise)

On 8 January 2024 at 21:42 Nigel Graham 2 Said:

Is that quoted 1kW/m^2 a mean level of the full-spectrum solar energy or just the heat (infra-red)?

The quantity of light converted into electricity by a square metre of solar array only a part of the radiation impinging on it. If it was 100% efficient, we would not see the material within the frame! It appear as complete blackness, but it does not.

Even an entire pasture of arrays takes a miniscule amount of the total radiation received in its area. They don’t create a patch of twilight or cold air above them!

…
The more worrying point is just how much good-quality arable farmland is being covered with solar arrays; but that’s a planning, not engineering, matter.

About 1kW per square metre is total energy of all frequencies.

I believe the value was first measured by the British physicist H.L.Callendar in about 1890.  As he was expert in thermometry, I guess his measurement detected heat rather than X-rays and visible light, but that would depend on the detector.  Visible light that’s absorbed rather than reflected is largely converted to heat, so his measurement may not have missed much. Good enough for engineering purposes, and for the scientists of his day, it put a number on the massive amount of energy output by the sun by an unknown physical process.  Led to E=mc², and an understanding of mother nature’s thermonuclear properties!

Bit of trivia; H.L Callendar is largely forgotten even though he made a massive contribution to the development of reciprocating steam engines and steam turbines.  His son Guy, an amateur scientist, is more famous than his dad today because he was the first to make the connection between global warming and man-made Carbon Dioxide.   This he did in 1938, so no-one can say we weren’t warned!

The conversion efficiency of a solar panel varies depending on their technology.  In the seventies they managed between 1% and 10%.  Today, the latest are nearly 50% efficient.  Most solar cells deployed at the moment are between 20% and 35%,  the lower efficiencies coming from ancient cells installed 10 years ago!   30 to 50% conversion efficiency certainly isn’t what Nigel calls “miniscule”.

I expect solar panels do create a cooler area above them because they convert a proportion of energy received into electricity, and then the energy is consumed elsewhere.  Translating heat into electricity and moving it down a wire doesn’t change the amount energy released on the surface: it reappears wherever the electricity is used in a motor, electric fire, or lighting system.   Works the same way as a fridge, where cooling is achieved locally by transferring energy to a distant radiator.

Nigel’s expectation of twilight above a solar panel is mistaken for two reasons; most interesting of which is we cannot see light!  Counter-intuitive, I agree.  Light passing through a vacuum is invisible; we can see the moon but not the energy en-route to it from the sun as it passes through space.

Light passing through clean dry air is almost invisible, and what we see is the effect of water, smoke and refraction on radiation, not the radiation itself.  When light encounters solid objects the eye detects the result of reflections and absorptions, interferences that the brain converts into edges, surfaces and colours.   Though we think this is real, it’s an approximation, and the brain is rather easily fooled; we call its mistakes “optical illusions”.

Hope I explained that with reasonable accuracy.  When the physics of energy is investigated it turns out to have remarkably difficult to explain behaviours.   Happy to be put right if my attempt is misleading!

Dave