Its spring ,its spring

[MuswellMetro]

its spring , its spring, i find my you tube video very uplifting after the long dullwinter

http://youtu.be/5EWe6kpJPaA

first sunny day 11c and my overwinter 6 frame 14x12 Nuc has come out to play

its now very light and has 1kg of neopol as feed and a jar of 5% syrup to dilute it

 

[For want of a better word]

This will be Mothering Sunday !
View attachment 8066

 

[johnandyrob]

Great that means just another three or four weeks till its spring here.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Turning to rain on wednesday, then much colder mid month, with risk of more snow, then a short dry spell, before turning to rain in April for the rest of spring and the entire summer months, another normal season.

 

[drumgerry]

You've cheered me right up there Hivemaker. Not sure I can take another summer like last years!

 

[MuswellMetro]

Turning to rain on wednesday, then much colder mid month, with risk of more snow, then a short dry spell, before turning to rain in April for the rest of spring and the entire summer months, another normal season.

So the end of the month is normal Easter Bank Holiday weather then gale force winds and rain....i was wanting something more exciting like snow it is just that i am sentimental and old , I remember those Easters I had as a boy in the 50s in bracing Skegness

 

[BeeJayBee]

Turning to rain on wednesday, then much colder mid month, with risk of more snow, then a short dry spell, before turning to rain in April for the rest of spring and the entire summer months, another normal season.

I hope not!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yep, more cold on its way with wintry showers possible right to the end of the month.

 

[meetballuk]

You've cheered me right up there Hivemaker. Not sure I can take another summer like last years!

sorry to say but we've lost loads more sea ice this year so gonna be another crap year sadly. according to my oceanographer friend.

 

[Polyanwood]

I guess that means that there will be more money in rearing bees for sale than for managing bees for honey.

 

[MuswellMetro]

sorry to say but we've lost loads more sea ice this year so gonna be another crap year sadly. according to my oceanographer friend.

it appers to have recovered to 2000 average ice cover this winter

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current.png

 

[meetballuk]

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

all these graphs say different

 

[MuswellMetro]

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

all these graphs say different

no it says the same thing, it has revived to the 2000 average, you are comparing it to the 1979-2000 average, i did not say that

your quote was "we have lost loads of sea ice this year" no we have not, the artic ice is greater than last year's winter extent http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png

we did loose summer ice but that was due to a wind shift

the anatartic ice is even more unusual as the summer extent is also higher than the 2000 averagea (agsin i am not saying the 1979-2000 average but the average of the years since 2000

 

[clv101]

no it says the same thing, it has revived to the 2000 average, you are comparing it to the 1979-2000 average, i did not say that

your quote was "we have lost loads of sea ice this year" no we have not, the artic ice is greater than last year's winter extent http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png

we did loose summer ice but that was due to a wind shift

the anatartic ice is even more unusual as the summer extent is also higher than the 2000 averagea (agsin i am not saying the 1979-2000 average but the average of the years since 2000

We need to careful about sea ice extent - winter extent isn't a useful metric. During the Arctic winter it will always freeze, it's dark with surface temperatures -20C and below. The useful metrics are summer minimum and volume.

We have lots a lot of Arctic sea ice this season a record amount, to a new minimum. This, from a fairly high winter extent illustrating how poor a metric it is.

Here's the chart of Arctic sea ice volume:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordp...olume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2_CY.png
Volume is more informative than area extent, especially winter area extent.

Regarding Antarctic sea ice the key thing to remember is that the north and south pole systems could hardly be more different. Pretty much their only common factor is that they are at poles. It would be surprising if they responded the the same way. We know circulation has a big role to play in regional temperatures. Without ocean and atmosphere circulation the equator would be a lot hotter than today and the poles a lot colder. What's happening in Antarctica is that the already somewhat isolated continent is warming slower than rest of the planet, increasing the temperature difference, which is increasing its isolation from climate dynamics (circulation). I read somewhere that the isolating circumpolar wind field has strengthen.

It's incorrect to suggest the growth in Antarctica some how nullifies the significance of Arctic ice loss, that would be comparing apples to oranges. The two systems are not commutable.

 

[meetballuk]

very informative clv
muswell which bit did you read:
"The average sea ice extent for January 2013 was 13.78 million square kilometers (5.32 million square miles). This is 1.06 million square kilometers (409,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for the month"

 

[Little John]

Perhaps we should always bear in mind that the planet hasn't always had an Antarctica - indeed it was the breaking away of the landmass that migrated towards the Southern pole during the Miocene Period and became 'Antarctica' that is thought to be responsible for the dramatic global cooling which caused mass deforestation and the subsequent evolution of the honeybee.

So it's not as if it should be preserved 'at all costs' - for once it didn't exist, and then it did - I wonder what will happen next ? The planet is constantly in a state of flux - but it seems that humans would like to control that dynamic, or if not, then worry about our inability to do so.

LJ

 

[meetballuk]

im sure the massive eco-system dependent on the ice would disagree. pritty sure that dumping massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and a correlating temperature curve is proof were not helping matters.
in constant flux, yer but a geological speed

 

[thorn]

So do I change my winter wheels the weekend after next or not?

 

[clv101]

in constant flux, yer but a geological speed

It all depends on one's point of view. The cataclysm that befell the dinosours was bad news for them - but good news for mammals. There's evidence that we are living through the sixth mass extinction event right now, bad news for today's biodiversity, but in a few 10s of millions of years we can expect a new abundance of diverse life.

The problem 'we' face is that the climate system has been remarkably stable for the last few thousand years. Some would argue it was exactly this recent stability that allowed us to develop agriculture and with it the rest of civilisation. We've spent a long time optimising civilisation to this unusually stable period and any change (hotter, colder, wetter, drier etc...) is more likely than not to have a negative impact. Not because it would be worse on any absolute scale, just because it would be different to what we're used to.

 

[madasafish]

It all depends on one's point of view. The cataclysm that befell the dinosours was bad news for them - but good news for mammals. There's evidence that we are living through the sixth mass extinction event right now, bad news for today's biodiversity, but in a few 10s of millions of years we can expect a new abundance of diverse life.

The problem 'we' face is that the climate system has been remarkably stable for the last few thousand years. Some would argue it was exactly this recent stability that allowed us to develop agriculture and with it the rest of civilisation. We've spent a long time optimising civilisation to this unusually stable period and any change (hotter, colder, wetter, drier etc...) is more likely than not to have a negative impact. Not because it would be worse on any absolute scale, just because it would be different to what we're used to.

Yes: time for the next Ice Age.