Weather... some hope at last?

[Poly Hive]

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience this week, scientists from Reading Uni reported that the spate of summer washouts began after a perioid of warming in the North Atlantic during the 1990's.

The increase in ocean temperature has a knock-on effect on the atmosphere, causing low pressure to set in over western Europe and directing stormy weather systems towards Britain.

Fortunately changes in ocean temperature are part of a natural cycle known as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation causing general trends in temperature, rainfall and wind over Europe to change about every 30 years.

Warm Atlantic waters that caused rainy summers during the 1030's, 40's and 50's made way for drier weather in the 1960's, 70's and 80's, causing hotter drier summers in Northern Europe.

With the atlantic's current warm state having begun in the 1990s researchers say there is every chance it cold soom begin to reverse, bringing up to three decades of better summers to Britain.

Professor Rowan Sutton, the director of climate research in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science said: "We saw a switch to a warmer North Atlantic in the 1990's and we think this is increasing the chances of wet summers over the UK and hot dry summers around the Mediterranean.

"A transition back to a cooler North Atlantic, favouring drier summers in northern Europe is likely and could occur rapidly. Exactly when is difficult to predict but we are working on it. "

More power to their elbows says I.

PH

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Did you mean during the 1930's?

 

[PBee]

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience this week, scientists from Reading Uni reported that the spate of summer washouts began after a perioid of warming in the North Atlantic during the 1990's.

The increase in ocean temperature has a knock-on effect on the atmosphere, causing low pressure to set in over western Europe and directing stormy weather systems towards Britain.

Fortunately changes in ocean temperature are part of a natural cycle known as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation causing general trends in temperature, rainfall and wind over Europe to change about every 30 years.

Warm Atlantic waters that caused rainy summers during the 1030's, 40's and 50's made way for drier weather in the 1960's, 70's and 80's, causing hotter drier summers in Northern Europe.

With the atlantic's current warm state having begun in the 1990s researchers say there is every chance it cold soom begin to reverse, bringing up to three decades of better summers to Britain.

Professor Rowan Sutton, the director of climate research in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science said: "We saw a switch to a warmer North Atlantic in the 1990's and we think this is increasing the chances of wet summers over the UK and hot dry summers around the Mediterranean.

"A transition back to a cooler North Atlantic, favouring drier summers in northern Europe is likely and could occur rapidly. Exactly when is difficult to predict but we are working on it. "

More power to their elbows says I.

PH

Sincerely hope you and they are right if only to justify the rather large layout of that which is dear to my heart on beekeeping equipment this year.
However, the difference this time could be global warming, loss of ice, subsequent heating feedback thingamajig etc..etc. Combine this with a seeming lack of interest at governmental level to make the substantial changes necessary to get things under control and my instinct says hold on tight!

 

[madasafish]

Sincerely hope you and they are right if only to justify the rather large layout of that which is dear to my heart on beekeeping equipment this year.
However, the difference this time could be global warming, loss of ice, subsequent heating feedback thingamajig etc..etc. Combine this with a seeming lack of interest at governmental level to make the substantial changes necessary to get things under control and my instinct says hold on tight!

You mean like telling the Chinese and Indians to stop industrialising and the Americans to buy smaller cars?

 

[PBee]

You mean like telling the Chinese and Indians to stop industrialising and the Americans to buy smaller cars?

See where you're coming from but humans in the main tend to learn by example so someone has to start somewhere. The consequences of doing nothing or too little too late are fairly dramatic. The Weathermakers and 6 Degrees are two books that give an idea although there may be more recent ones by now. A start that everyone can make is just to stop wasting energy and food day to day. My father lived through the second world war and he instilled the need to avoid waste in us. In the time of open access dumps we used to regard it as a day out and come back with more than we brought ... Happy Days.

The catchphrase was 'That might be useful sometime' ... he was right.

 

[For want of a better word]

When is Yellowstone National Park going to erupt?..... we can all blame a natural cause then !

 

[Into the lions den]

lol PH.only goes to prove it to be a load of nonsense,

In our enterprise the very best year ever.....a long hot dry summer.was 1955..................in the wet cycle according to that info.

Apart from current season, 2102, in the wet cycle, our most spectacular bad year (WET)was 1985, not far behind was 1986.............apparently in the dry cycle.

An exercise in straw clutching methinks. We get what we get.

FWIW, despite the last four seasons, we lose more heather crops to overly dry conditions than to overly wet. Plenty rain then we only need a warm dry week to break even, not enough then you need the pattern to change twice in a short window, which is pushing it a bit.

 

[PBee]

lol PH.only goes to prove it to be a load of nonsense,

In our enterprise the very best year ever.....a long hot dry summer.was 1955..................in the wet cycle according to that info.

Apart from current season, 2102, in the wet cycle, our most spectacular bad year (WET)was 1985, not far behind was 1986.............apparently in the dry cycle.

An exercise in straw clutching methinks. We get what we get.

FWIW, despite the last four seasons, we lose more heather crops to overly dry conditions than to overly wet. Plenty rain then we only need a warm dry week to break even, not enough then you need the pattern to change twice in a short window, which is pushing it a bit.

Must be a stressful time for you when every good day can be calculated in the 000's and vice versa .

 

[Into the lions den]

Must be a stressful time for you when every good day can be calculated in the 000's and vice versa .

lol, indeed.you got it. A warm dry and humid day at the heather is worth 25K or more. Watching rainy day after rainy day, followed by even worse.............all though August......apart from a few days in 09 and 10 for four years in a row now......very very depressing. If 2013 is the same again its 'hide the sharp knives' time.

Its not just the lack of crop................the 30K feed bill in June did not help either.

 

[PBee]

lol, indeed.you got it. A warm dry and humid day at the heather is worth 25K or more. Watching rainy day after rainy day, followed by even worse.............all though August......apart from a few days in 09 and 10 for four years in a row now......very very depressing. If 2013 is the same again its 'hide the sharp knives' time.

Its not just the lack of crop................the 30K feed bill in June did not help either.

You have a lot stronger constitution than me ..... the hair would turn white overnight with stakes like that!!!!!!

 

[gavin]

For those of you who don't know him, perhaps I could add that Murray has a fine head of impressively dark hair - for a man of his age! Don't know how he does it .....

 

[REDWOOD]

Don't believe everything scientists tell you, IMHO if they cant find a answer they will make it up using a well educated guess climategate is just one that springs to mind.

 

[PBee]

Don't believe everything scientists tell you, IMHO if they cant find a answer they will make it up using a well educated guess climategate is just one that springs to mind.

I think you'll find there is something to it. It is not that well publicised in a way that worries people because keeping the status quo is important to some to keep merry go round turning.

 

[REDWOOD]

So what happened to that expanding hole in the ozone layer that was all over the media like a rash a few years ago that was going to fry us all, it got smaller lol, so what scientist did not know they speculated and got it wrong again

 

[PBee]

So what happened to that expanding hole in the ozone layer that was all over the media like a rash a few years ago that was going to fry us all, it got smaller lol, so what scientist did not know they speculated and got it wrong again

Don't try to confuse me I was on a roll - I was just about to hit you with the polytunnel analogy

 

[REDWOOD]

Don't try to confuse me I was on a roll - I was just about to hit you with the polytunnel analogy

25,000 year cycle
sun spots
all natural
we have had 100 years of technology for testing such things, how old is this planet ?

 

[PBee]

25,000 year cycle
sun spots
all natural
we have had 100 years of technology for testing such things, how old is this planet ?

You're too good for me ..... all I know is we've had a monsoon for the last 4 years .... somethings up.

 

[REDWOOD]

You're too good for me ..... all I know is we've had a monsoon for the last 4 years .... somethings up.

They had them in Egypt once and there was no ice cap on the south pole but yes climate is changing well different and there is still droughts in Africa and starving people so nothing has changed there

 

[PBee]

They had them in Egypt once and there was no ice cap on the south pole but yes climate is changing well different and there is still droughts in Africa and starving people so nothing has changed there

Its such a complex system that anything could happen. What always strikes me is we usually relate things to a timescale we understand - an average lifespan. If it hasn't happened in the last 60yrs nobody takes too much notice.Fact is we are in an ice age at the moment - albeit a warm period - at some stage, unless oddly enough global warming intervenes, we will revert back. One km ice sheets over the British Isles - end of story. Time to get a place on the Algarve - get in before the rush

 

[Into the lions den]

For those of you who don't know him, perhaps I could add that Murray has a fine head of impressively dark hair - for a man of his age! Don't know how he does it .....

Yes Gavin, maybe it was the 1955 mention that ellicited that wise crack <G>...........yes, it was the year I was born, so we are talking my fathers figures. 1955 was however the stuff of beekeeping legends, but we have been close twice in the last 20 years, and 1984 takes a lot of beating as a heather year.

1984............long hot summer, enough rain, loads of honey
1985............seriously wet from June onwards, almost no honey, farmers still at the harvest in November

Its a lottery.

However, in calling the report nonsense I was merely saying that to predict summer type by where you are in the ocean cycle for any specific year is nonsense. I am NOT a climate change sceptic and do believe that it is, at least in part, of mans own making.