[Luchesi]

Friday was a cavalcade of weather madness. There was rain, but then moments of dryness and sunshine and then later on it started properly snowing. This held up as you'd expect given the temperature, with the next day projected to be sunny. Yet as opposed to one of those 'crisp' sunny winter days with a layer of snow, when I opened the back door this morning the heat of the sun was palpable on the outer door frame.
So I went about my business and had to go out. When I got back about 3pm I decided that I might even hang some clothes out to dry (on a rack at the front now the sun had shifted). So whilst there were patches of snow still on the ground the sun dried my clothes, including a couple of jerseys.

This is now the eighth time in the last few months I've put clothes out and had them dry on days you'd never expect it. Which I've never never done before. If I were to revive my deceased grandfather and tell him I dried clothes outdoors in December, January, February and March, he'd tell me to stop hitting the home brew.

Are you worried about global warming? Just curious.

 

[FrankE]

It has been 0°C down to -4°C here the last week or so.
I hate the cold, sick of it. I don't heat the place because I'd rather save my money than give it to energy companies so it's 11°C inside. Consequently I'm under my continental quilt much of the time.
If I did put the heating on the place is so leaky I'd be as well trying to heat up the whole of the Earth's atmosphere.

 

[Luchesi]

It has been 0°C down to -4°C here the last week or so.
I hate the cold, sick of it. I don't heat the place because I'd rather save my money than give it to energy companies so it's 11°C inside. Consequently I'm under my continental quilt much of the time.
If I did put the heating on the place is so leaky I'd be as well trying to heat up the whole of the Earth's atmosphere.

Paradoxically, AGW will likely make the UK colder in January, February, and March since the UK is already so mild at a northern latitude. We'll see.

 

[Chat Noir]

Are you worried about global warming? Just curious.

I don't understand the question in relation.

 

[Chat Noir]

Great weather today. It had forecasts of creeping rain showers (and even hail), but it never happened. Instead it was sunny and mild. As I was cycling back there's a large digital clock/thermometer along the way and it read 14.5°C. The difference is palpable here at home. Last night I had more of the chilly feeling and had to wear more clothes, though the windows are still generally open. This evening it's a pleasant 17°C indoors and the back door is open. Up to now it's the best March I've experienced in my lifetime. It'll probably rain like crazy next week. 😅

This winter I haven't had the heating on once.

 

[Luchesi]

Great weather today. It had forecasts of creeping rain showers (and even hail), but it never happened. Instead it was sunny and mild. As I was cycling back there's a large digital clock/thermometer along the way and it read 14.5°C. The difference is palpable here at home. Last night I had more of the chilly feeling and had to wear more clothes, though the windows are still generally open. This evening it's a pleasant 17°C indoors and the back door is open. Up to now it's the best March I've experienced in my lifetime. It'll probably rain like crazy next week. 😅

This winter I haven't had the hearing on once.

Interesting. I haven’t forecasted over there since the 1980s. It may be that the average latitudinal positions of the storms have changed (shifted slightly to the north) enough for you to notice. At the crucial temperatures for comfort, there’s a narrow range in what we will likely remember (what really happened).

I don’t have a memory of what the wave pattern looked like back then (we had so little polar planetary wave data in 1980s). A lot of money has been spent to collect data from remote locations (high altitude). Forecasts are better. Has it been worth it? That’s long been the question. Diminishing returns.

I think by 2030 enough good historical data will be available for AI to make better AGW predictions. Once nature reveals the most important forcers AND the complicated picture, then AI can run and run, and also improve models.

 

[Chat Noir]

I just checked through some past years and a few are equally warm. Like 1990, which has quite cold March years on either side. 2002 was also mild, which I recall because I remember us sitting out on a balcony. One difference then compared to now is that you never saw mosquitoes at this time of year. Nowadays they even turn up in January! Nicely evolved now to never go away. I got bitten on the right side of the forehead around December, which was unseasonably warm, and had a massive lump there for two months!

The temperatures barely shifted though between say 2005 and 100 years previously. So that new 'records' are measured in 0.1 increases. So 11.1 to 11.2. Only after then the temperatures fluctuate wildly, during the months. After that year it jumps each time: 12, 13, 14, 15. With the highest recorded temperature recorded as 20.8°C in the middle of March, which was unprecedented.

Generally since about 2011 March has felt more like April, and also been equally wet sometimes.

 

[Nate Miller]

I enjoy alot of weather related outdoor sports. I have for years. I surfed when I lived in Hawaii, went backcountry snowboarding every day that was even marginally survivable when I lived in Alaska, and I'm an avid cyclists here in Pennsylvania. I also live without air-conditioning or central heat, so I'm really living the outdoor temperatures all the time

What that does for me is give me a real sense of our weather and climate over the last 30 to 40 years.

Honestly, something I learned from the Pacific Islanders is that weather goes in cycles. Long cycles. Hawaiians talk about storms of the decade, storms of the half century and storms of the century. I think that is how weather works. It isn't linear, for sure.

The hottest summers I can remember were 1980 and 1998. That's over 40 and 20 years ago. Last summer was pretty benevolent. Only a handful of days did I have to decline a bicycle ride due to the heat.

I do agree that the world is getting warmer, but I am basing that on the fact that we all agree there was an ice age about 11,000 years ago. 11,000 years is a flash in the pan in geologic time, so since the glaciers have receded from where I live, clearly the world is warming, and thank God for it.

The trouble with the eco-hippies is that I have seen decades of weather on this Good Earth and you cannot expect me to believe that humanity is doomed in the next 12 years. And it is that type of insane rhetoric that puts me off. Also, being lectured by a young person about "science" when they cannot even tell me what the ideal gas law is...well, that's nothing but good hilarity at the expense of the young generation, isn't it? I dont need to trust science, I actually know science.

what "green energy" is all about is power and control. The oil and gas industry holds all the cards now, so if you want to de-throne them, then you need to push for green energy and get the government to stuff public money into the back pocket of your eco hippy buddies. Meanwhile, the dead whales have been washing up here on the east coast in unprecedented numbers. But it couldn't be the new off shore wind farms! those are...uh... "Green" 😧

today is March 20 and it was 18F at my house this morning.

not very warm at all, really, for this date

 

[Chat Noir]

The trouble with the eco-hippies is that I have seen decades of weather on this Good Earth and you cannot expect me to believe that humanity is doomed in the next 12 years. And it is that type of insane rhetoric that puts me off. Also, being lectured by a young person about "science" when they cannot even tell me what the ideal gas law is...well, that's nothing but good hilarity at the expense of the young generation, isn't it? I dont need to trust science, I actually know science.

This does however sound a lot like a common, actually anti-science, view which is easily debunked. The natural changes in weather over much longer than 30-40 years is well accounted for and lots of these 'eco-hippy' climate scientists are the very people who developed the understanding of them. The very reason the idea of anthropogenic-induced climate change exists at all is because the natural state of climate variation does not account for the empirical facts of the scale of change over a certain period as compared to long previous history of such change.

what "green energy" is all about is power and control. The oil and gas industry holds all the cards now, so if you want to de-throne them, then you need to push for green energy and get the government to stuff public money into the back pocket of your eco hippy buddies.

No government needs to push 'green energy' through the back door to alter the course of the oil and gas industry's policy. They can alter that tomorrow at the stroke of a pen. With the general public it's different, so that it's very easy to paint behavioural nudging as backdoor propaganda. Be aware that it is the governments spending or allowing issue of their own currency towards even fossil fuel energy currently. It is currently stuffed into the back pocket of the fossil fuel industry, not least because it has many representatives lobbying governments or sitting in them directly as representatives. This is not secret news. The fossil fuel companies are currency users and as such funded by government spending, people should worry about that whilst also digesting the fact that while public spending is for public purpose, it is not 'your' or 'taxpayer dollars' providing this money. The spending thing is a red-herring.

 

[Luchesi]

I just checked through some past years and a few are equally warm. Like 1990, which has quite cold March years on either side. 2002 was also mild, which I recall because I remember us sitting out on a balcony. One difference then compared to now is that you never saw mosquitoes at this time of year. Nowadays they even turn up in January! Nicely evolved now to never go away. I got bitten on the right side of the forehead around December, which was unseasonably warm, and had a massive lump there for two months!

The temperatures barely shifted though between say 2005 and 100 years previously. So that new 'records' are measured in 0.1 increases. So 11.1 to 11.2. Only after then the temperatures fluctuate wildly, during the months. After that year it jumps each time: 12, 13, 14, 15. With the highest recorded temperature recorded as 20.8°C in the middle of March, which was unprecedented.

Generally since about 2011 March has felt more like April, and also been equally wet sometimes.

It’s a huge project, trying to categorize what humans on the surface experience due to what science has discovered about high level global circulations. Surface weather is a haphazard reflection (because of what are called local features, they used to be called local weather windows which were attempts to strictly categorize local conditions across the planet. It was an ambitious undertaking and I haven’t heard anything more from the government about it.) of upper air disturbances (from the mean).
Imagine how complicated and diverse those local weather events can be, because I’ve wondered about data crunching all the local weather history, and using the closest causative (high altitude) events from the past to guide us - which all routinely result from recurring upper air patterns. …but there’s just too many possible outcomes for specific surface locations..
And as the planet warms there will more and more possible outcomes (which are so unlikely today).
Sorry, this is just me venting about the realities of the science.. We can’t expect much improvement, but meteorologists will be happy for any clever systems dreamed up which might help. This is the current view, but maybe AI will surprise everyone.

 

[Nate Miller]

This does however sound a lot like a common, actually anti-science, view which is easily debunked.


No government needs to push 'green energy' through the back door to alter the course of the oil and gas industry's policy.

then why does the local humidity have more effect on the temperature than carbon? watch yourself, there is some real science in that question....water is a dipole molecule


its like I said, its all about the benjamins

there's no science about it, its all about stuffing pockets with taxpayer dollars

 

[Chat Noir]

then why does the local humidity have more effect on the temperature than carbon? watch yourself, there is some real science in that question....water is a dipole molecule


its like I said, its all about the benjamins

there's no science about it, its all about stuffing pockets with taxpayer dollars

It's a false question though, because it doesn't have 'more' effect. Moreover it is a symptom not a cause. A direct result of overall warming with a distinct difference between how water is held in relative humidity on land in increasing temperatures and also how land is specifically managed and used. For example the moving of water in areas as e.g. irrigation or the creation of bodies of water has a direct, but local effect on temperature through local humidity, but none of that overrides total temperature. Increase in CO2 has a direct effect upon how much is released by plants in tandem with local humidity.
Measuring overall humidity accurately is not even easy.

I also specified that any money spent by central government is not 'taxpayer' dollars. Tax is currency cancellation (sometimes for fiscal space) not funding.

 

[Kreisler jr]

The almost complete dysfunctionality (to put it mildly, I'd get banned if I put it strongly, watch the Ferris Wheel scene in "The third man", multiply Harry Lime's deeds by a million and you might get close to the ruthlessness that has been at work here) of the "scientific establishment" in the last 3 years' health crisis has made me extremely skeptical about climate science (esp. if political action supposedly "following the science" is pushed by the same forces/foundations/media who orchestrated or facilitated what I mentioned above).
Of course, the interests of big oil are obvious, so they will do their own propaganda. But the other side clearly does it as well and many half truths and extrapolations with huge error bars are leveraged by politics and media for agendas that'll have winners and loser and some very doubtful outcomes (like everything does).

 

[Luchesi]

The almost complete dysfunctionality (to put it mildly, I'd get banned if I put it strongly, watch the Ferris Wheel scene in "The third man", multiply Harry Lime's deeds by a million and you might get close to the ruthlessness that has been at work here) of the "scientific establishment" in the last 3 years' health crisis has made me extremely skeptical about climate science (esp. if political action supposedly "following the science" is pushed by the same forces/foundations/media who orchestrated or facilitated what I mentioned above).
Of course, the interests of big oil are obvious, so they will do their own propaganda. But the other side clearly does it as well and many half truths and extrapolations with huge error bars are leveraged by politics and media for agendas that'll have winners and loser and some very doubtful outcomes (like everything does).

What are some of the many half truths you've heard about climate change?

 

[Roger Knox]

What are some of the many half truths you've heard about climate change?

Good question, because science is not such a monolith that we can make sweeping judgements.

 

[Luchesi]

Good question, because science is not such a monolith that we can make sweeping judgements.

I like to hear - because sometimes they're the result of misunderstandings, sometimes there's an intense agenda behind it from one side or the other.

 

[starthrower]

Really crappy here today in central NY. Cold rain mixed with a bit of wet snow. But I'm grateful not to be in parts of Mississippi devastated by tornadoes. I wouldn't want to be in California either. I no longer have faith in government to respond sufficiently to the needs of the victims of the extreme weather in many parts of the nation we are experiencing. Not to mention the corporate malfeasance, and governmental incompetence resulting in devastating environmental disasters, unsafe drinking water, etc.

 

[Chat Noir]

It's rainy here too and strong winds blowing (seemingly always in the opposite direction to which I happen to be cycling!). I expect this really for March which is a notoriously windy month.

 

[Waehnen]

There has been snow on the ground in Finland since November. For 5 bloody months already! I am sick of it!

 

[Luchesi]

Really crappy here today in central NY. Cold rain mixed with a bit of wet snow. But I'm grateful not to be in parts of Mississippi devastated by tornadoes. I wouldn't want to be in California either. I no longer have faith in government to respond sufficiently to the needs of the victims of the extreme weather in many parts of the nation we are experiencing. Not to mention the corporate malfeasance, and governmental incompetence resulting in devastating environmental disasters, unsafe drinking water, etc.

California will have to endure two more storms before April 9th. It is an unusual and energetic pattern. Extra energy than normal (coincidental collisions and AGW) along with the return of the sun (bad timing).