The Adverse Weather thread.

johntheexpat

No hidden agenda here but I thought it would be 'nice' to have a thread about extremes of weather.
(If we could leave out any direct references to Global Warming, let people reach their own conclusions, but note the extreme weather events and their possible consequences, the thread should be more interesting)

Obviously the Russian record breaking heatwave is noteworthy, having seen temperatures breaking all records and staying there for weeks on end.  Then also throw in the devastating effect it has had on the harvest and the consequent hike in wheat prices.

Then there are the floods in Pakistan,

                                                                        The worst floods in Pakistan's history have hit at least 14 million people, officials say.                                Click to expand...       

Both these events seem to have another unusual feature in common, that is the longevity of the severe weather.  If the russian heatwave had been a few days of hot weather, it would have broken records and we could all move on.  But it went on for weeks and weeks.  So to with the Pakistan floods.  I realise it is the Monsoon season, but from what I gather, the record breaking quantities of rain are still continuing with no real sign of Mother nature reigning back the downpour to a 'normal' monsoon.


Then throw in Niger, where due to an extreme drought the crops failed and that was followed by rain so heavy that the river Niger reached its highest level for 80 years.


There is certainly some interesting weather around.

Wild Weasel

Guardian blogger and editor of its American version, Michael Tomasky hopes there will be much more adverse weather in order to push the global warming agenda:

But not too much. Which is jolly nice of him.

Russia, Pakistan and food for thought | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

deckingman

Always has been, always will be.

johntheexpat

Wild Weasel

Well you shouldn't have posted this thread in the Global Warming forum then.

Stephen Wilde

The recent adverse weather events are partly down to faster reporting techniques, a lot more media entities requiring something to say and lots more people in areas prone to be affected.

That said those recent events are severe and remind me of the prolonged atmospheric 'blocking' events that have occurred many times before in history.

The UK 1962/3 winter, the cold European winters of the 40s. the US Dust Bowls were all a result of just such a phenomenon whereby weather patterns remained in situ for up to months at a time.

Such 'blocking' seems to occur when the jet streams are free to loop about latitudinally instead of being compressed into a fast moving narrower band.

I have described my opinion of the causes of such changes at length here and elsewhere.

johntheexpat

As noted in the thread title, this is about weather.  Weather is not climate change.  Extremes in weather may in some quarters be reported as down to climate change, but realistically, only time will tell.  Records are always going to be broken, but when they start reporting that a record number of weather records have been broken in a given period, then the start of the proof may be in the offing.

Still, here's another record that has been broken.

From here

nickbat

In my humble opinion, there is no evidence to suggest that adverse weather is any more prevalent than before. Broken "records" are, very often, quite meaningless as the records in question often only go back a few decades.

There is a very good site here, where the researcher has done a great job in piecing together what evidence exists to produce a look back over [mainly UK, but also European] weather over many centuries. It really does make fascinating reading, but equally sober reading, as there is evidence that our forefathers endured very turbulent weather indeed.

Climate History in the British Isles

Here's one picked at random:

1236
Very heavy rain January to March: two floods in London in 1236. The first, which flooded Westminster Palace early in the year, was due to heavy prolonged rain.

The second was produced by a high (storm-surge) tide in November, drowned many people and a great number of cattle in the Woolwich area. An inundation in Norfolk by the sea destroyed flocks of sheep & herds of cattle, tore up trees and demolished houses. In one village alone about 100 people died. This must have been a major wind-driven event, caused by a violent depression, very low pressure & high winds.

However, the summer of this year was noted as dry/hot in London/South.

Enjoy!

TheForge

We live on a thin crust of solidified magma on the surface of a planet which is rotating around its axis at over 1000 MPH

While spinning at this speed the planet it self is orbiting a giant fusion reactor (Sol) at over 65,000MPH

All this while the Entire solar system is orbiting the center of the Milkyway Galaxy at almost 500,000 MPH!

And we are supprised when the weather gets a bit choppy!

A stable weather pattern is an illusion, beacuse the life span of humans is so short and the timeframe the world works on is counted in eons it appears to us that the weather we have today is how it should be.

What we have today is the calm before the storm, we are in the eye of the hurricane so to speak, between an Ice Age and a Global Tropical period.

I expect the weather to get much worse over the next 10 years with periods of calm and extremes.

The Forge
Get to Higher Ground then dig a bunker!

johntheexpat

Well, it wasn't adverse weather, in fact it was rather pleasant.  Today was the warmest November day ever recorded in France.  Not quite sure of the exact parameters of the statement, perhaps on average across the whole of France or   maybe just in Paris, but whatever, its another broken record.