Weather/Climate 2024

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

On a bright sunny morning in North Wales

Spare a thought for Japan:

BBC Breaking News

https://apple.news/AT-3Fq2t5Rquj0-31Wej2XQ

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-67856144

 

… or your alternative source.

MichaelG.

 

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

I did Michael, When one seas the awsome power of nature one realises how insignificant the human race really is – what would / could you do faced with a 15′ surge ? Run ? Noel.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

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.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

That’s why I included Weather in the title, Nigel

MichaelG.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

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.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/weather-vs-climate

.

.

I give up !!

I was just trying to start a Topic to which people might contribute

… in the same vein as “what did you do today” and such.

Keep the forum active, without just posting even more complaints about it.

 

… FIN …

 

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

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

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

I’m busy splitting logs and moving them from the barn to the house – feels like winter might be coming..

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

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.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thank you, Nigel

… I couldn’t change the Subject-line even if I wanted to.

I have no doubt that your assertions were technically correct, but this ‘Tea Room Topic’ was only ever meant to be somewhere for people to do one of the things that we Brits feel most comfortable doing.

You will hopefully have noticed that my introductory line was exactly that.

MichaelG.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

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”

[Brian Baker 2Participant @brianbaker2]

Greetings, for “global warming” read “climate change”.

Regards

Brian B

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

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.

.

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.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Because we’re on the cusp of a sub-arctic zone (highlands, cairngorms) and I’ve done a dog for 30+ years and hillwalked every weekend for 20 years to 2005 I’m reasonably aware of my environment

The only really good year was around 2000 when we got an amazingly pleasant winter which was a wonderful experience, omg winter is a doddle if it gets a bit warmer

But that kind of winter seems to be like the summer of 1976, a once in many decades experience in a system that evolves extremely slowly

There’s less snow and ice now, but these were always a fleeting item apart from the upper levels on the hills over the 1500foot mark

Scotland is still the sort of place where a smart Roman would build a big wall and leave the smelly natives to get on with it

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

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.

[Ady1]

On Ady1 Said:

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

…

Funnily enough, I was chatting with a neighbour who denies climate change on the basis he personally hasn’t noticed any difference in Zummerzet weather.  Excellent news if he were right, but he’s wrong.

Not entirely his fault because the evidence for global warming is rather subtle.  People are poor thermometers, and our senses have no chance of detecting that the world’s oceans are warming up.  At the moment, the oceans are ‘only’ 0.93°C warmer than the 20th century average.  Detecting this level of temperature change needs instrumentation and statistical analysis, more data the better – millions of observations taken over the whole planet, including the geological record in ice cores and other techniques.  You and I looking out the window and applying “common sense” is useless.

Predicting the effect of an increase in average temperature on weather is also beyond personal experience, mostly.   It requires an understanding of the difference between temperature and heat.    A flaming match head burns at a very high temperature, but the amount of heat produced is low and a very large number of match heads would have to be burnt to boil a bucketful of cold water. That the whole surface of the planet being about 1°C warmer on average may not seem serious to Joe Public, but it represents an enormous amount of energy, billions of times more than all man-made sources combined.

What that extra energy does to our world, and the scale of those effects, is again not obvious in terms of personal experience, other than noticing perhaps the weather is a bit odd.  But the basic science is well-understood, and anyone with an interest in steam and internal combustion engines knows that heat can and does cause powerful physical movements.   Climate might be defined as ‘average weather’, and it will be somewhat warmer, but far more turbulent.

Ady believes climate science predicts Californian winters in Scotland.   It doesn’t!   The science predicts more severe weather, rarely beneficial.   Desert areas will tend to become drier and wetter areas will tend to experience heavier rainfall.   Icecaps and glacier will tend to melt, and there will be less snow than before, but individual snowfalls are likely to be heavier than before.  Violent peaks and troughs rather than the moderate weather we take for granted.

Average weather is also difficult for individuals to comprehend.  Experience is misleading. I have a vague memory of a lifetime of mild and harsh winters, dry and wet summers,  but without doing the maths I can’t say the average has changed, good or bad.   Therefore too many have chosen to disbelieve expurts.  However, more and more of us are having our noses rubbed in the evidence!  Plenty of people are having real problems due to climate change: rising sea levels, heavy rainfall and growing deserts are forcing communities to emigrate.  So far the worst has occurred abroad, but the pain is spreading.

Even in Scotland there is plenty of evidence!  Ady may not have noticed Scottish Winters are warmer, but the ski-resort at Aviemore  has.  Adequate winter snow was a safe bet when Aviemore first opened, but snow has become increasingly unreliable since about 1980.  At the same time Insurance companies are responding to increased flood and storm damage claims from Scots.   Folk who have repeatedly had their homes flooded find their insurance premiums go up, or no-one will insure them.  Uninsurable houses are difficult to sell, so their owners take big financial losses too.

Naturally enough, no one living safely south of the border worries about Scottish misery, unless they happen to live on one of the many English housing estates built on flood planes by builders and planning authorities who continue to believe in pre-climate change flood risk predictions.   Unfortunate for home owners who trusted them, because severe weather events that “should” only happen once a century are occurring every 10 years, or more often, and it’s happening worldwide.

And although science has identified the cause, this too is beyond “common sense”.  It’s not at all obvious that relatively small quantities of certain gases released into the atmosphere will increase the amount of solar energy being trapped.   Far from obvious on a cold cloudy January that the sun is still delivering a lot of energy.  Roughly a kilowatt per square meter, which is enormous.  The problem is the sheer amount of heat arriving at the surface and what happens to it.  Fortunately most is reflected or radiated back into outer-space, otherwise we’d cook.   Equally important, we don’t freeze, because the atmosphere acts like a blanket and traps just enough heat to keep us cosy.   It’s a delicate balance though, and burning huge quantities of fossil fuels has improved the atmosphere’s insulating properties enough to start us overheating.   Not good for the environment to be too hot or too cold because extremes reduce food and water supply, and that triggers conflict.   We are only 3 square meals away from anarchy.

Anyone who feels better when scientists get stuff wrong can be happy.  Average temperature is rising faster than predicted by the  scientific models!  Very bad news, because it means the consequences of climate change over the next half century or so cannot be avoided whatever is done.  Climate change deniers would have made an enormous fuss if the models had overestimated the problem, total silence when the facts show the scientists are under-estimating.  Ironic, eh?

Dave

 

 

 

[RobinParticipant @robin]

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.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Even the best satellite image cannot predict what is going to happen, for that you need a mathematical model. That is probably not perfect, but it’s a lot better than guesswork, or hoping for the best which is what climate change deniers are prone to. Theory says increased CO2 will cause the atmosphere and oceans to heat up, measurements say they are heating up. Theory says this will cause more extreme weather events, that’s what we are getting. Even then some people won’t accept there is a problem

[RobinParticipant @robin]

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.

[dodmoleParticipant @dodmole]

Quote : –  “Roughly a kilowatt per square meter, which is enormous. The problem is the sheer amount of heat arriving at the surface and what happens to it. Fortunately most is reflected or radiated back into outer-space, otherwise we’d cook. Equally important, we don’t freeze, because the atmosphere acts like a blanket and traps just enough heat to keep us cosy. It’s a delicate balance though, and burning huge quantities of fossil fuels has improved the atmosphere’s insulating properties enough to start us overheating. ”

 

I’m reading this and wondering at the effect of great quantities of these kilowatts now being absorbed by all these solar panels, are these going to have us heading towards another ice age?   Because the decreasing use of fossil fuels will erode the atmospheric insulating blanket and if we succeed in that then surely we will increase the rate of overheating and we will all be done to a crisp.

As a well known person on the telly predicted   WE ARE ALL DOOOMMED – DOOOMMED I TELL YE

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

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.

‘

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.

.

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.

[dodmoleParticipant @dodmole]

Quote :-

“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.”

Ah, that’s good news and bad news.

Good news – we shouldn’t worry about freezing

Bad News – we haven’t mastered eating electricity.

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

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)

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2023-hottest-year-record#:~:text=Data%20source%3A%20ERA5.,Credit%3A%20C3S%2FECMWF.&text=Global%20surface%20air%20temperature%20highlights,records%20going%20back%20to%201850

 

Announced on various News channels today

MichaelG.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On 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

 

 

[Author]

Posts