On 07/09/2012 12:42, Len Wood wrote:
On Sep 6, 9:00 pm, "Alastair McDonald"
wrote:
Last night, there was a report on the melting Arctic sea ice and how it is
affecting our weather:
It was followed by a debate chaired by Jeremy Paxman between the new leader
of the Green Party and a typical Conservative sceptic. The relevant section
starts 35 mins 18 second in.http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ht_05_09_2012/

Cheers, Alastair.

I did not see anything there about how the melting Arctic ice is
affecting our weather.
Adam Scaife UKMO talked about how it could produce wetter summers and
colder easterly winters.

If the melting ice changes the thermal flux balance and that shifts the
jetstream around then it is entirely possible. There are hints that more
than one mechanism can do this (eg solar UV flux).

Presumably he was referring to England and Wales here? A bit of
southern UK bias as usual.

I was amused by the Beeb showing a clip of the rather wet Jubillee
Thames river pageant.
This was surely a very normal wet summer's day.

Ugh. It was a bit worse that a normal wet summers day. It was perishing
up here in North Yorkshire but thankfully it did stay dry. If you look
at the photos you would assume the celebrations were held on her actual
birthday in February! Adults were in duffle coats and jumpers.

Peter Wadhams and the report was not particularly alarmist in my view.
Wadhams mentioned the possible ameliorating effect of clouds.

I think he was reasonably balanced on the whole. It is clear that there
is extraordinary melting going on in the Arctic recently.

I thought Lilley's stance was ridiculous, slavishly sticking to the
IPCC report.

It was rather funny that he couldn't even remember whether it was IPC,
IPPC or ICP but then insisted he knew more science than Peter Wadhams.

The only sensible thing he raised was the issue of subsidies for
things like wind farms.

I was hoping that he was going to demonstrate in what ways the Stern
Report was wrong instead he just went into an incoherent ramble about
why we can't do anything about AGW and should not try. There is a real
limit to what we can sensibly do to ameliorate climate change but he
didn't address that issue at all.

The one good thing that did come out of it was that Lilley looked
absolutely ridiculous just like the right wing dinosaur he is.

And he concedes that climate change is happening it is just that his
position is "eat drink and be merry because .... the kids can pick up
the tab tomorrow". You can substitute a more alarmist ending to taste.

I can't say I was impressed with the Green Party leader either.
She would have us all living as hair shirted subsistence farming
troglodytes given half a chance.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown