Winter deaths in Scotland at highest level in 18 years

Scottish winter forecast [credit: BBC]

Whatever the causes may be, an excess of mild weather and/or low heating bills can safely be ruled out.

The number of people who died in Scotland last winter hit a 18-year high, new statistics have revealed.

There were 23,137 deaths between December 2017 and March 2018, according to the National Records of Scotland – the highest figure since 1999/2000, reports BBC News.

It also revealed that the seasonal increase in mortality – the number of “additional” deaths in winter – was significantly higher than in 2016/17.

The main underlying causes of the deaths were influenza and pneumonia.

Nothing Unprecedented about The Sea Surface Temperatures for Tropical Storm-Hurricane Florence’s Full Storm Track

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The title speaks for itself. Bob Tisdale dismantles the extravagant climate claims…

Bob Tisdale - Climate Observations

It’s been a couple of weeks since Hurricane Florence made landfall as a Category 1 storm. The weakening from a Category 4 storm must’ve really tweaked alarmists.

NOAA just updated their much-adjusted ERSST.v5 sea surface temperature dataset to include September 2018 data. So let’s take a look at the September sea surface temperature anomalies for Florence’s full storm track. 

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UK: ‘Near normal’ September follows record-breaking hot summer

Forecaster highlights the jetstream over the UK [image credit: BBC]

‘Record-breaking’ turns out to mean ‘as warm as three other UK summers’, but now things have calmed down. Probably just a temporary return to sanity until the next weather event, however unexceptional for the UK, gets the usual suspects agitated again.

The UK’s record-breaking hot summer was followed by a return to more typical weather in September, the Met Office has said.

Provisional figures show last month’s mean temperature across the country was 12.4C – safely below the all-time record for September of 15.2C, set in 2006, says BT News.

The average maximum temperature last month is estimated to have been 16.3C.
This was also well below the 2006 record of 19.2C.

Hurricane Florence: climate dynamics context

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A sort of post-mortem look at various issues surrounding Hurricane Florence. If pressed for time, ‘the take home point is that convincingly attributing any of this to human caused global warming is very challenging’ – see the summary.

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

“Impending massive hurricanes bring the best out of weather twitter and the worst out of climate twitter” – Joseph Maykut

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US ‘monster’ hurricane set to strengthen

Image credit: sanibelrealestateguide.com

Right on cue at the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, three major storms are barrelling westwards. So far, the first one looks like being the most powerful. Mandatory evacuations for more than a million people near the US east coast have been declared.

North Carolina’s governor warns the state Florence will be a “life-threatening, historic hurricane”, reports BBC News.

Hurricane Florence – the most powerful storm to threaten the Carolinas in nearly three decades – is expected to strengthen, say forecasters.

Harry Wexler: Father of weather satellites

Tiros 1 instruments [credit: NOAA]

These are extracts from an ESA article. In 1954 British science-fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke wrote to Wexler promoting satellite ideas. In 1960 after years of work and lobbying the first weather satellite was launched.

Wexler was a man of vision, ready to face danger and to give his all to collecting useful data.

He was the first scientist to deliberately fly into a hurricane and also participated in polar expeditions.

His was the mind behind the very first meteorology satellite and even before it reached orbit, he was already dreaming of a global network of satellites to watch the weather worldwide.
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[He] gained a PhD in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939.

How a volcano short-circuited Earth’s ionosphere to trigger “Year Without A Summer”

Volcanic eruption

‘The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora was one of the most powerful in recorded history, with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 7’, says Wikipedia.

The unusually cold year of 1816 has been linked to one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history, and now we may know how, says New Atlas.

A new paper explains how electrified ash from the eruption could have “short-circuited” the Earth’s ionosphere and triggered the “Year Without A Summer.”

The year 1816 was a weird one, climatically speaking. Months that would normally be warm and pleasant were cold, rainy and overcast, leading to crop shortages across much of the Northern Hemisphere.

A new paper out of Imperial College London explains how electrified ash from the eruption could have “short-circuited” the Earth’s ionosphere and triggered the “Year Without A Summer.”

Five things we learned from last year’s Great American Eclipse

Credit: NASA

Temporary weather effects and more. For more background, there are several extra links in the original ScienceNews article.

A year after the total solar eclipse of 2017, scientists are still pondering the mysteries of the sun.

It’s been a year since the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, captured millions of imaginations as the moon briefly blotted out the sun and cast a shadow that crisscrossed the United States from Oregon to South Carolina.

“It was an epic event by all measures,” NASA astrophysicist Madhulika Guhathakurta told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans in December. One survey reports that 88 percent of adults in the United States — some 216 million people — viewed the eclipse either directly or electronically.

Volkswagen in dispute with Mexican farmers over ‘hail cannons’

Mexican VW [image credit: retro-motoring.com]

This sounds totally bizarre – a local version of geo-engineering?

Mexican farming communities accused German auto giant Volkswagen on Tuesday of “arbitrarily” provoking a drought in the central state of Puebla to protect its newly manufactured cars from hail, reports Phys.org.

Volkswagen, which has a major plant in Puebla, has been using “hail cannons”—sonic devices that purport to disrupt the formation of hail in the atmosphere—to disperse storm clouds menacing the thousands of new cars parked on its lots.

Historic space weather could clarify what’s next

Solar flare [image credit: NASA/SDO]

Quoting from the research article’s plain language summary: ‘We find that some aspects of the space weather climate are in fact reproducible, they can be inferred from that of previous solar maxima. This may help understand the behaviour of future solar maxima.’ Solar wind variation is highlighted.

Historic space weather may help us understand what’s coming next, according to new research by the University of Warwick, says Phys.org.

Professor Sandra Chapman, from Warwick’s Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, led a project which charted the space weather in previous solar cycles across the last half century, and discovered an underlying repeatable pattern in how space weather activity changes with the solar cycle.

Why is Heathrow so hot?

In the report ‘hottest day ever’ must mean ‘since the weather station was installed’, but we’re used to this kind of excitable exaggeration in BBC climate reporting. At least they are admitting the obvious here, that Heathrow has certain heat-related factors built-in.

It’s Europe’s busiest airport, says BBC News, and as well as attracting millions of passengers could Heathrow also be a magnet for the sizzling heat?

Booker: Yes it’s scorching, but not climate change

Credit: BBC

The occasional hot summer in the UK is nothing new. There was one in 1976 and, as Booker points out, a particularly hot one as long ago as 1846. As usual the behaviour of the jet stream is a major factor.

Yes it’s scorching, but claims that the heatwave is down to climate change are just hot air: June was even hotter when Victoria was on the throne, writes CHRISTOPHER BOOKER for the Daily Mail.

There is at least one thing about this summer of 2018 on which we can all agree: the past months have unquestionably been swelteringly, abnormally hot.

Forecast predicts below-average hurricane activity

Image credit: sanibelrealestateguide.com

US researchers who accurately forecast last year’s busy Atlantic hurricane season are not expecting a similar level of activity this year, partly due to lower sea surface temperatures as El Niño effects fade away.

Hurricane season didn’t officially start until June 1, but Subtropical Storm Alberto made an appearance early, causing more than $50 million in damage as it made its way inland and up the coast in late May, reports Phys.org.

Twelve people—seven in Cuba and five in the U.S.—died as Alberto’s fallout included flooding, landslides, tornados and mudslides.

Is Alberto’s early-season appearance an indicator of another active Atlantic hurricane season? Not necessarily, according to predictions by researchers at the University of Arizona.

Australian cold snap produces heavy snow, challenges some records

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Weather report speaks of ‘remarkably heavy early-season snow’ in parts of the Australian alps. Makes a change from tedious climate alarmist whingeing about bits of Western Antarctica ‘melting’.

New theory finds ‘traffic jams’ in jet stream cause abnormal weather patterns

Wavy jet stream
[image credit: BBC]

This could be a step forward in unravelling the whys and wherefores of the phenomenon of jet stream blocking.

The sky sometimes has its limits, according to new research from two University of Chicago atmospheric scientists.

A study published May 24 in Science offers an explanation for a mysterious and sometimes deadly weather pattern in which the jet stream, the global air currents that circle the Earth, stalls out over a region, reports Phys.org.

Much like highways, the jet stream has a capacity, researchers said, and when it’s exceeded, blockages form that are remarkably similar to traffic jams—and climate forecasters can use the same math to model them both.

Media starting to pick up on our Solar slowdown warnings: Food production could be hit soon.

As we’ve been warning for years on the talkshop, the incoming solar grand minimum is likely to hit world food production negatively.

@dbirch214 @GrizzlyGovFan @RogTallbloke @canberroo @andyoz2 @climaterra @climatempo @metsul @SMN_Argentina @ClimaFlorida @boleadorcharrua @CharlesAmorin @navegoYpirateo @Balinteractive https://t.co/z75RREF6Vd

— gddcunha1961 (@gddcunha1961) May 23, 2018

Politicians and policy makers have no excuses here. They’ve been enthralled by the scientists they pay to tell them what they want to hear for years.

Twisters missing from Tornado Alley

Location of tornado alley and related weather systems [credit: Dan Craggs @ Wikipedia]

‘Extreme weather’ doomsayers must be scratching their heads over this. Nothing to see here – move along.

In a twist that would ruin the storyline to the Wizard of Oz, the USA’s ‘Tornado Alley’ has been strangely quiet this year, says BBC Weather.

In fact, if there are none reported in Oklahoma or Kansas on Thursday, 2018 will officially be the quietest start to the tornado season in both states …on record!

Hunting mystery lightning from space

Sprites, elves and jets [image credit: NOAA / BBC]

While speculation about theoretical dark matter and big bangs may be more popular, there’s plenty still to learn about these observed near-Earth electrical phenomena.

A new mission aboard the International Space Station is taking storm chasing to new heights, reports BBC News.

Thunderstorms are some of the most spectacular events in nature, yet what we can see from the surface of our planet is only the beginning.

There are bizarre goings on in Earth’s upper atmosphere, and a new mission aims to learn more about them.

Launched to the International Space Station on Monday, the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) will observe the strange electrical phenomena that occur above thunderstorms.

China to build a rain-making network three times the size of Spain

Tibetan Plateau region

This is industrial scale geo-engineering. From one researcher: “Sometimes snow would start falling almost immediately after we ignited the chamber. It was like standing on the stage of a magic show,” he said.

China is testing cutting-edge defence technology to develop a powerful yet relatively low-cost weather modification system to bring substantially more rain to the Tibetan plateau, Asia’s biggest freshwater reserve, says the South China Morning Post.

The system, which involves an enormous network of fuel-burning chambers installed high up on the Tibetan mountains, could increase rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion cubic metres a year – about 7 per cent of China’s total water consumption – according to researchers involved in the project.

Extreme winter weather, such as ‘Beast from the East’, can be linked to solar cycle

UK winter weather forecast [image credit: BBC]

So says a new study, which also has the benefit of being topical. The current weak solar cycle is highlighted.

Periods of extreme cold winter weather and perilous snowfall, similar to those that gripped the UK in a deep freeze with the arrival of the ‘Beast from the East’, could be linked to the solar cycle, pioneering new research has shown.

A new study, led by Dr Indrani Roy from the University of Exeter, has revealed when the solar cycle is in its ‘weaker’ phase, there are warm spells across the Arctic in winter, as well as heavy snowfall across the Eurasian sector, reports Phys.org.