Former Environment Minister Sammy Wilson has joined criticism of the Met Office as it defended its failure to predict our wet summer - saying it has "egg on its face".
The East Antrim MP, who has been criticised for his disbelief in man-made global warming, accused the Met Office of losing credibility after initially predicting a heatwave summer which turned into a washout.
Back in April, it issued a seasonal forecast that sparked hopes for a warm and sunny season, described as a "barbecue summer", based on its long-range forecast.
But in an update yesterday the situation was rather wetter, prompting questions over the usefulness and accuracy of long-term forecasting.
While some parts of the nation experience record setting heat, Denver today had the opposite problem. The high temperature as measured at Denver International Airport reached a mere 64 degrees. This was two degrees below the previous record low maximum temperature of 66 degrees for this date set in 1925 and previous years. That is also an amazing 24 degrees below the normal temperature for this time of year!
Those who promote the theory that mankind is responsible for global warming have been working for the past 20 years on a revisionist climate history. A history where climate was always in a harmonious state of balance until mankind came along and upset that balance.
The natural climate cycle deniers have tried their best to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age from climate data records by constructing the uncritically acclaimed and infamous "hockey stick" of global temperature variations (or non-variations) over the last one- to two-thousand years.
Before being largely discredited by a National Academies review panel, this 'poster child' for global warming was heralded as proof of the static nature of the climate system, and that only humans had the power to alter it.
While the panel was careful to point out that the hockey stick might be correct, they said that the only thing science could say for sure is that it has been warmer lately than anytime in the last 400 years. Since most of those 400 years was during the Little Ice Age, I would say this is a good thing. It's like saying this summer has been warmer than any period since...last fall.
Next time you go for a dip in the sea, bear in mind that your deft front crawl is helping to mix up the waters. In fact, marine life may be stirring the oceans and moving nutrients around as much as winds or tides.
Brutal temperatures are predicted for the Seattle area on Wednesday as a record heat wave afflicting the Pacific Northwest continues, a National Weather Service meteorologist said.
The high temperature could easily tie or break the all-time record temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit set July 20, 1994, at Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport, the weather service's Jay Albrecht said.
"There's not going to be a whole lot of places to get away from the heat tomorrow," he said Tuesday.
Another day of high heat for the normally temperate region follows a Tuesday that saw the thermometer hit 106 F at Portland International Airport, just short of the 107 F all-time mark for the area set in 1981.
"The thing about a place like Portland is there are some buildings and residences that don't have air conditioning," said Andy Bryant, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service. "You go to Phoenix or Dallas, yes it would be very hot there, too, but they have more of a system in place to deal with it."
Julia Park Tracey Alameda Sun Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:02 UTC
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know it's not just global warming. It's climate change. It's affecting everyone, everywhere. Oceans are rising, icebergs are calving, tsunamis and hurricanes are ravaging the coasts, and the polar bears had better find a nice fat seal to use as a floatation device.
But let's talk about me. Number one problem: I wait all year for summer. Literally drag myself through winter days and chilly spring and beg on bended knee for a sweltering hot day or three.
Well, it's summer. It says so on the calendar (and God forbid we question the calendar). And the so-called marine layer won't go away. June gloom has crept into July and is heading for August. And how many tomatoes have I harvested? Um, like three cherry tomatoes, and I don't think they were even ripe yet.
Jake Grovum IndyStar.com Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:43 UTC
ExpSeveral hundred dead fish, one large algae plume and a "perfect storm" that led to it all have state officials and Rocky Ripple residents scratching their heads over what's killing fish in the White River.
Since July 17, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources has received reports of hundreds of dead fish alongside the White River near Rocky Ripple, just north of Butler University.erts puzzle over latest fish deaths in White River
From Maine to Florida, the Atlantic seaboard has experienced higher tides than expected this summer. At their peak in mid-June, the tides at some locations outstripped predictions by two feet.
The change has come too fast to be attributed to melting ice sheets or anything quite that dramatic, and it's a puzzle for scientists who've never seen anything quite like it.
An earthquake with magnitude of 5.1 rocked eastern parts of Indonesia on Thursday, no initial report of damage or casualty, Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said here.
The quake hit at 15:06 Jakarta time (0806 GMT) with epicenter at 210 kms southwest Saumlaki of Maluku province and at 87 kms in depth, the agency said.
Indonesia with over 230 million population is laid on a vulnerable quake-hit zone so called the Pacific Ring of Fire, where two continental plates stretching form Western hemisphere to Japan meet, a cause often triggers seismic and volcanic movements.
The course of life and labour reminds me of a long journey I once took on the railway. Suddenly, there was a breakdown ahead, and passengers took the event in various ways. Some of them sat still resignedly, and never said a word. Others again, went to sleep. But some of us leaped out of that train, and ran on ahead to clear the road of all obstructions.
- Michael Collins
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