Spring 2013 is arriving

Photographed 15th April 2013, Camellia “Mars”, colour rendition is reasonable, reds are always difficult to capture, is a little richer. To do this I had to click and creak down to lying on a mat, camera is looking slightly upwards. Windy day, camera on aperture priority, and this is hand held, hence not quite sharp. Lens is 28mm equivalent.

Post is an update on http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/i-hope-this-gcm-is-wrong-yet-more-cold-weather/

Where the same shrub is shown in flower 2nd March 2012.

Shodh ganga, a resource.

The Shodhganga INFLIBNET Centre provides a platform for research students to deposit their Ph.D. theses and make it available to the entire scholarly community in open access.

Note from Tim: the content is marked copyright, please respect this and I doubt hammering the server would be welcome.

The data format seems to be PDF as separate chapters.

Living on the Indian subcontinent brings great awareness of the Monsoon leading to many papers on all associated subjects.

Interesting thoughts at Klimaforskning

Talkshop contributor Jostemikk linked in Suggestions to Klimaforskning (a Simple Machines based Forum) where astute work is being done on climate problems.

Several of the recent threads there very properly look at the complex regime of climate data, cause and effect with their lead/lag, the way to sort out chicken or egg.

Real-world climatic significance of ’the enhanced greenhouse effect’ – a straightforward test toward potential falsification.

There is more there in a similar vein.

Mannington Hall thing

Okay folks, what the xxx is this pink thing? (or white)

Bing or Google can show the same aerial image.

52.84185430,1.17863789753

Earlier images show there are two pits/tanks without the top part. Might be small livestock close by.

WUWT suspend about US temperature data

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/

“A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.”

It’s a US issue, not terribly important to the rest of us.

I might comment later.

[update 31st] What I wrote above has produced an unintended reaction in comments. This was perplexing but I think I now realise my mistake, which was giving a  quick one liner without a reason or context, perhaps treading on international feelings as well. This was not intended.

I omitted to say what I took as a given: the work presented by Watts et al is very welcome and very likely excellent. I support any actions to move towards reality and truth. If you see this as not gushing please take as a combination of an unknown new work and a personal tendency to deadpan.

I also omitted to say why I think it is a US issue and will change nothing over here, meaning UK and Europe. Explaining poses a problem of length and completeness, so this is very incomplete.

A primary difference between the USA and Europe is the concept of free. With information this is nicely illustrated by UK data only available from overseas, often from the USA.

The US has wide public access to their meteorological data. In Europe the public have little if any access other than what is pushed by government. In the UK a lot more data is available commercially from government, they want money for goods we paid to collect. There is also availability to government itself and formal academia, often notionally charged using notional accounting. The US authorities do change for some data, primarily it seems when there is a significant delivery cost (example, very high resolution tidal data)

As a consequence of the above the US public have a far more accessible met. system where it is practical to see and address problems.

Also keep in mind that Europe and the USA are roughly the same size and population. This is where the federal Europe idea appears, where at the moment there are many countries but without a common federal overgoverment, where the EU gets accused of trying to take overall control. The EU apparatchik is extremely inaccessible and secretive. Those in the US need to note the small size of the UK:  “Area – comparative:  slightly smaller than Oregon” (CIA worldbook)

Finally, I see the whole “climate” problem as political and nothing to do with climate but about power and control by a secretive core which is cloaked inside the visible politicians. There a huge difference between the US States and much of the rest of the world, perhaps the US viewed as more genuinely of the people. Contrast with where the central state considers it owns, it controls with the people an annoying resource to be milked.

If I have upset anyone, sorry.

[/update 31st]

Answers this

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/wuwt-does-a-crazy-flip-shuts-down/

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Posted by co-mod

Radio Jackie, early London pirate radio, a sad tale?

An unusual Talkshop article, we have readers around the world. There is a twist at the end, get bored of me, skip to the end.

“Radio Jackie is South West London’s original pirate radio station. The first broadcast was in March 1969 from a studio in Sutton and lasted for just 30 minutes. Within a short while Radio Jackie was on the air every Sunday giving a growing band of listeners their first taste of truly local radio. On 7 March 1972 a cassette recording of Radio Jackie was played in Parliament, during the committee stage of the Sound Broadcasting Bill, as an example of what local radio could be like.”

The end: Studio after radio regulatory authorities raid in 1985.

“Sadly, Radio Jackie was forced to close in February 1985 following a series of much publicised raids by the radio regulatory authorities. Hundreds of people filled the Radio Jackie studios and offices in Worcester Park for the emotional final programme. The station vowed then to continue campaigning for a local radio licence for South West London. However, the opportunity to return legally didn’t arise until 1996 when a new FM licence for South West London on 107.8MHz was advertised. Radio Jackie’s hopes of a return to the airwaves of South West London were dashed though, when the licence was awarded to another applicant: Thames Radio. So, it looked as though Radio Jackie would become simply a piece of British broadcasting history.”

A sad story.

LoD linked to solar radiation proxy, polar ice

Figure 1

Linkage of LoD to annual earth mass redistribution by global sea ice extent as a proxy.

Author: Tim Channon

LoD (Length of Day) contains a strong annual signal which is good shape match (r2=0.91 at a time lag of just over 5 months) with global sea ice extent as a proxy for annual mass redistribution, ultimately driven by variation in insolation and earth movement.

This suggests no lunar involvement, a disconnected between this part of the dataset and the rest.

Strange things in the polar ice

Figure 1

The post a few days ago on the Talkshop Could Instrumentation Drift Account for Arctic Sea Ice Decline? has led to a little discussion but also pushed me to take a brief look at sea ice, a subject where I spent some time, although before I started posting here. My loss of interest, was partly having found out as much as I was likely to and partly the parlous state of the data providers, a mess which continues. On top of that there aren’t many people interesting in the information side, is mostly armchair politics.

What I am now showing is all based on dataset d02135, monthly.

X-class, nice try, missed

Image, thumbnail from Wired Science, click for story.

Sunday two flares launched, the second will near miss the earth; a mass ejection.

And an aside…

Granada demo open thread

There was a huge demo of around 15-20,000 people in Granada tonight, protesting changes to labour laws and working practices.

The march came down the main street right past our hotel, where I got some snaps from our balcony on the fourth floor. They were using flash powder to set off mighty canon-fire which shook our windows!