28th August - Today's News

A nice article worth reading by those who still think global warming = everywhere gets warmer and all ice melts: mysterious glaciers that grew when Asia heated up.

The story of these seemingly anomalous glaciers underscores the important distinction between the terms “climate change” and “global warming.”

“Even when average temperatures are clearly rising regionally or globally, what happens in any given location depends on the exact dynamics of that place,” Rupper said.

The findings come from a framework Rupper developed as an alternative to the notion that glaciers form and melt in direct proportion to temperature. Her method is based on the balance of energy between a glacier and a wide range of climate factors, including wind, humidity, precipitation, evaporation and cloudiness.

Must admit I hadn't thought about the cloudiness aspect. But basically this is what some of us have been saying for a long time: glacial advance and retreat is not just a matter of temperature.

Meanwhile, in China, global warming melts glaciers on Yulong mountain

A story from earlier in the week for those wondering where the 'BBQ Summer' has gone: It's a scorcher as Suffolk sizzles in the heat. East Anglia and the SE have had a very different summer to the rest of us, with Norfolk in particular recording a good many of the highest daily temperatures.

Wellington rocked by two earthquakes whilst six earthquakes hit Oklahoma and a small earthquake shakes Canberra. Of course there are hundreds of earthquakes around the world every day so I don't usually report them unless in an unusual location or they're big and destructive. And even these 9 were really nothing out of the ordinary. We live on a shaky planet!

The Met Office are under attack again - this time because, allegedly, the Met Office climate change supercomputer is polluting the planet. Basically, it uses lots of electricity. Probably nearly as much as the lights left on all day and night in Westminster do ..... But it seems it's more fun and easier to attack the MetO than our corrupt and inept government. Still, I suppose to keep people happy the MetO could always dump the computer and use a nice environmentally friendly abacus (made of wood from a sustainable forest) instead? Humans ..... are they really that stupid or do they just pretend to be?

The green league table of public buildings was published by the Department of Communities and Local Government.

The Met Office's HQ came 103 in a list of 28,259 public buildings which are responsible for the highest carbon footprint in the UK.

Top of the list was Manchester University's Oxford Road campus, second was the Royal London Hospital and the Scarborough Sports Centre came third.

What, exactly, are they doing to use so much energy at a sports centre? The mind boggles (and the conspiracy hat flashes! - perhaps the sports centre is just a cover for a secret UFO base?!!)

Finally I'm intrigued to see the media are still telling us Bank holiday weather could be last chance to get barbecues out - with the implication it'll be a warm sunny weekend across much of the country. Indeed, the Daily Mail state quite emphatically - and no less wrongly - that

The Met Office has predicted a scorcher which could see the country's beaches packed as four in five Britons stay in the UK this weekend.

The three-day weekend is due to be largely warm and sunny ...

In fact, apart from London and the SE on Monday, the weekend looks like being rather cool, cloudy and later on Sunday and through Monday quite wet in places. Much as I said earlier this week. The real MetO forecast reads:

Saturday - Windy, with sunny intervals and showers across the northern half of the UK, the showers heaviest and most frequent across northern and western Scotland. Southern areas mainly dry, sunny intervals.

Sunday - eastern areas dry, while rain spreads across western parts.

Monday - heavy rain for Northern Ireland and Scotland, dry elsewhere, sunny for southeast England.

So the only places that may have BBQ weather this weekend will be those that have had BBQ weather for most of the summer! Still, at least there'll only be scattered showers for the Runrig concert at Scone. It will most definitely not be as wet as Loch Ness 2 years ago!