Wind speed law

I decided to show something useful instead of waiting until perfect data is available.

Frequency plot of wind speed over the whole of the UK. The characteristic is logarithmic.

There are data problems, ignore this please[1].

The Met Office in common with all national meteorological services continue to use cup anemometers rather than eg. ultrasonic This is the advice[2] from WMO (World Meteorological Organisation) specifically to maintain continuity of data for climatic purposes since there are significant differences between cup and other types.

Forum on climate change postponed due to snow

Snow mountain [image credit: ibtimes.co.uk]

It’s not funny to be facing the result of massive snowfalls but this might be an exception.

BOSTON – A legislative forum on climate change has been postponed, ironically, due to the weather.

“I hope these repeated, severe storms serve as a platform for some important conversations around bolstering our natural and built infrastructure against climate change once a new date has been set for this discussion,” said State Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton), who chairs the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change and organized the summit.

The forum had been scheduled for Tuesday at the Statehouse, but the MBTA is shut down Tuesday as Massachusetts continues to dig out from an unprecedented amount of snowfall.

Pacheco’s forum was going to include numerous speakers from environmental organizations and academia as well as Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton, Senate President Stan Rosenberg (D-Amherst) and other legislators. Raymond Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center at UMass Amherst, and Richard Palmer, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass Amherst, were among those who had been slated to attend.

Report from masslive.com.

*****
Things are so bad they may have to dump cleared snow straight into the ocean.

Australians cool Melbourne

Mr Trewin also noted that the Bureau had recently changed its Melbourne monitoring site from the Royal Society of Victoria on La Trobe Street in the city to Olympic Park, near Rod Laver Arena. Maximum temperatures recorded at the new site were on average 1.2 degrees cooler, particularly on cool days, because air coming from the south and west was travelling over parklands rather than the through the city.

— http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-weather-summer-2015-still-hot-just-last-year-was-hotter-20150119-12tbhi.html

h/t to handjive at notricks

Head image from an article by Anthony Watts at Steve McIntyre’s ClimateAudit 2007 article 6 years ago. (I’ve add the red circles)

BOM report it here, no mention of why [wrong, see comment by jdmcl]. Above is how BOM show the station.

Even rainfall data will be wrong with those tall nearby structures and fences.

The Age reported the closure here. No mention of why.

Photography corner: Walking in the White

I took time out this morning to go on a walk round (and over) Baildon moor, with some friends and aquaintances. The weather was a mixture of sunshine and snow showers, at the top o the moor, it was a bit of a blizzard:

We were caught in another snow shower as we descended Sconce lane.

Yet another wind turbine catastrophic failure: Germany this time – Video

Caught on video, the total collapse of yet another wind turbine. The original facebook video is here. I have saved a copy.

Urban and exposure effects during windless nights near London, RHS Wisley

Maybe not an expected article from me right now but as things turn up…

During a recent cold snap there were at times clear skies and a calm. Here is evidence of a profound difference between Met Office sites when site exposure and UHI thermal mass can upset natural radiative cooling.

The Farnborough site is in my estimation WMO Class 1 whereas RHS Wisley is poor, in an orchard designed to make a microclimate. Wisley however has been cited in literature and government chambers (and by Phil Jones) in relation to UHI in comparison with a record setting London site, specifically a site I have omitted from the surfacestation work. Overloaded with too much information.

Did icing damage the Screggagh rotor head?

Roger asked about wind conditions, “I’d like to see the output from the site anenometer so we knew what windspeeds were up there when it went down.” … can’t do that but I can dig…

Bing aerial images of wind farm

A question arises on whether the rotor assembly was damaged during icing conditions, later failing under relatively simple conditions. Water ingress into composite blades is also possible.

SNOW, dated 11th December 2014 at a Met Office site not far away. The Met Office communications failed, quite common with Met Office sites. The wind at the 300 metre ground altitude Screggagh wind farm will have been faster, more so at hub height. Other met sites had snow and rain, wet conditions with a wind.

Cool weather

Been away for a variety of reasons, has been a horrible few weeks including frenetic work on software workarounds. Several personal matters were far worse. Lets hope that is the end of it, more stuff keeps on dumping on me.

The weather is a tad chilly in England, went down to -6.8C at Katesbridge Northern Ireland last night (27th into 28th) [UPDATE] and what happened next? See comments and link to another blog article with data, went off the bottom of plot shown here –Tim][UPDATE 2, -8.8C ]

It might drop further tonight, flat anti-cyclone calm over the UK, unusually clear skies but there is still humidity to freeze out.

We had a remarkable day today in southern England, clear sunny all day with flat calm, just right to look at insolation and radiation balance.

Paul Pukite: Sloshing Model for ENSO

Scientist Paul Pukite has built a simple model involving Total Solar Irradiance , the Chandler wobble and the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation which does an impressive job of emulating the Southern Oscillation index from Darwin and Tahiti. Here’s the result:

 

Geo-Engineering rent-seekers press on despite own models predicting huge downsides

Without comment, an extract from a Guardian piece:

Prof Piers Forster, at the University of Leeds, led a project using in-computer models to assess six types of SRM (Solar Radiation Management). All reduced temperatures but all also worsened floods or droughts for 25%-65% of the global population, compared to the expected impact of climate change:

• mimicking a volcano by spraying sulphate particles high into the atmosphere to block sunlight adversely affected 2.8bn people
• spraying salt water above the oceans to whiten low clouds and reflect sunlight adversely affected 3bn people
• thinning high cirrus clouds to allow more heat to escape Earth adversely affected 2.4bn people
• generating microbubbles on the ocean surface to whiten it and reflect more sunlight adversely affected 2bn people
• covering all deserts in shiny material adversely affected 4.1bn people
• growing shinier crops adversely affected 1.4bn people

Royal Soc Report Blames Somerset Floods on Climate Change – Ignores Env Agency Failings

The BBC’s Roger Harrabin reports on a Royal Society report into the Somerset flooding (with a straight face). We covered this extensively as it happened last winter

The authors of a Royal Society report on resilience to extreme weather have told BBC News that they believe the campaign to protect the Levels prompted politics to override science.

They say those resident on the Levels may have to get used to living with floods, and they question whether investment to protect farmland is the best use of public money.

“These so-called experts haven’t got a clue what they are talking about. We are used to being flooded – but we don’t expect to get ignored for so long”

James WinsladeSomerset farmer

Rupert Darwall: Energy policy and the return of the State

Reposted from Reform.co.uk

Energy policy and the return of the State
Rupert Darwall

Energy policy represents the biggest expansion of state power since the nationalisations of the 1940s and 1950s and is on course to becoming the most costly domestic policy disaster in modern British history. By committing the nation to high cost, unreliable renewable energy, its consequences will be felt for decades to come. Energy is an iceberg policy: its implications for the demise of a competitive market in electricity – the final achievement of the Thatcher years – are poorly understood and tend to be consigned to footnotes and annexes of policy documents.

Like its predecessor, the Coalition Government has three policy objectives:

Keeping the lights on;
Keeping energy bills affordable; and
Decarbonising energy generation.

These do not require the policies the Government is implementing. Indeed, energy policy militates against having cheap, reliable energy. Worries about the lights going out have intensified as the country becomes more dependent on the weather for its electricity. The market is the best way of providing reliable and affordable electricity. Converting the electricity system to wind and solar power does neither. Even on favourable assumptions, these are inefficient ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Met Office woolly forecast for Christmas 2014

Now the dank chill of late autumn gives way to winter frosts

Dusk in winter, England, 1980s. The author.

 

Met Office 16 to 30 day forecast now stretches to Christmas Eve, not that it has changed over the past few days. A sudden weather change without a glimmer of notice for the 25th or 26th, I very much doubt it.

Met Office forecast for period day16to30 issued at 2014-11-25T16:00:00

 

Forecast for All regions (shared forecast) day16to30, from 2014-12-10 16hrs (Wed) to 2014-12-24 16hrs (Wed)

UK Outlook for Wednesday 10 Dec 2014 to Wednesday 24 Dec 2014:

• There is no strong signal in weather patterns during this period.
• However, the most likely scenario is a trend towards more unsettled and, at times, windy weather, especially in western parts of the UK, with eastern parts seeing the best of any dry weather.
• Temperatures are generally expected to be around, or a little above, average for the time of year.
• There is a chance of some overnight and morning frost and fog in places – this will be more likely across northern areas where there is also a chance of some snow on higher ground.

 

“There is no strong signal”. Aerial riggers called out…

Jarl Ahlbeck: A link between Low solar activity, Easterly QBO, negative AO and cold NH winters

Future low solar activity periods may cause cold winters in North America, Europe and Russia.
Jarl Ahlbeck – Abo Akademi University, Finland

Historically, low solar activity periods like the Dalton and Maunder Minima have been connected to cold winters in Europe. It seems very possible that the low solar activity forced areas of low pressures into a southern route or caused a negative Arctic Oscillation, AO, which in turn allowed cold air from the North Pole to flow across Europe. But can we obtain from real measurements that low solar activity really is able to do that?

Walter Starck: The Climate Scam’s Meltdown

HT to the Hockeyschtick for spotting this essay from Marine Biologist Walter Starck at Quadrant Online. More scientists are coming out to call the alarmist position for what it is.

Walter Starck: The Climate Scam’s Meltdown

The rent-seekers, opportunists, third-rate academics, carbon-market scam artists and peddlers of catastrophic prophecy can see the alarmist bubble deflating, so they’re trying harder than ever to sustain the scare. Problem is, Mother Nature isn’t cooperating.

This doesn’t mean the climate change “debate” will stop, the news media will cease reporting weather as a dire threat, or that the true believers will no longer be obsessed by it. However, the ultimate arbiter, climate itself, has made clear its decision by ceasing to warm for over 18 years. Despite the ongoing use of fossil fuels, a proclaimed 95% certainty of 97% of scientists and the high-powered projections of the world’s most advanced climate models, the climate has refused to pay the slightest heed.

Contrary to all the confidence and predictions of alleged experts, storms are no more intense nor frequent, while droughts, floods and sea levels have declined to confirm alarmists’ barely concealed hopes of disasters. The simple fact is that the alleged experts and their high-powered models were wrong. The climate has ceased to warm and, with little or no [enhanced] greenhouse warming, the entire theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW), aka Climate Change (CC), aka Global Warming, aka Extreme Weather, is left with no basis.

Rain: Is this cause for concern?

A few days ago Paul Homewood picked up an item where the Met Office seem to make a fuss about UK heat and wet, although Robert Ward seems to be the one fussing. Since I have have the precipitation data on hand what do I make of it?

“More Misleading Claims From The Met Office” (7th Nov)

This cites Yahoo News.

I’ll ignore the temperature, here is the precipitious matter ‘since records began in 1910 it has been the second wettest.’ [1]
Presumably more than 194 million tons of water dropped on London according to calculations by the British Rainfall Organisation [3]

The Met Office ploy is add the data January through end October and make that a year by year spot value.

2008 110.07
2014 104.47
1927 103.47

Independently reproduced above. Seems a strange measure so lets look some more.

 

Exceptionally hot day at Gravesend Met Office site

Last day of October 2014 (31/10/2014) was lovely and warm over much of eastern England, particularly the south east. Mostly weak sunshine and a slight southerly wind. The Gravesend site has in the past been the subject of questioning why it is so warm, estuary, not in town.

There was a south wind too in the Cairngorms where the temperature gradually rose all day, with a twist, the wind was rising from 48 mph to 60+ mph, gusted to 84 before last thing the wind shifted and fell. This suggests a general flow.

This confusing plot shows an unusual situation. The highest temperature was recorded at Gravesend, logged by the Met Office as 23.6C, 0.3C above the hour mean. The oddity is this occurred an hour earlier than the other group of stations, or perhaps is an effect of quantisation.

Met Office did not see the storm of 21st October 2014 coming

I’ve started collecting a few of the Met Office published weather forecasts in addition to the weather station data, building an archive.

The UK Met Office are masters of obfuscation, vague language, handwaving yet for all the money poured in over the years their forecasting prowess is notorious. What follows is backed up by more details left for another time.

We have just had a minor blow in London, enough to cancel flights at the premier UK airport, brought down trees, at least one death. The BBC are going on about it as is the Guardian.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29685066
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/21/uk-storms-woman-dead-trees-fall-london-hurricane-gonzalo

[update: Met Office hourly data for the 21st is now in and plotted PDF here (1.4MB) –Tim]

Note for comprehension, 16 to 30 days means that is how far ahead it is from the publication date.

 

Met Office 16 to 30 day forecast

UK Outlook for Thursday 9 Oct 2014 to Thursday 23 Oct 2014:

• The broadly northwest-southeast split in the weather conditions is showing signs of persisting through mid-October.
• This pattern would leave southern, central and eastern parts tending to see the best of the weather with conditions often fine and dry.
• Occasional bouts of rain should still be expected, and mist and fog patches may be a problem during morning rush hours.
• Under the fine weather it should still feel pleasant with temperatures a little above average for the time of year.
• Further northwest, conditions are likely to be more unsettled with more frequent outbreaks of rain, these perhaps accompanied by strong winds.
• Temperatures here should be closer to average or perhaps even just below at times.

Sixth UK power station goes offline: Dungeness B nuclear power station shut down due to power cut

[edit: I have made the serious mistake of not checking the date of the news story, is actually 2013 although the page is (c) 2014, tweet items there mention 2013 and I did spot the 99mph gust which I knew from last year,  ought to have twigged. Sorry folks. Tim.]

The Dungeness B nuclear power station in Kent is using diesel generators to power its site after both reactors shut down automatically due to a power cut

— http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24700611

Logical, no ‘leccy so you can’t have any.

That’s six UK power stations now offline with unplanned stoppages.

A non story other than a defective infrastructure, presumably power lines were out. Is there no end to silly cockups?

Wrong kind of leaves on the line?

NOAA Report Destroys Global Warming Link To Extreme Weather

Not our fault
[image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]

One in the eye for ‘man-made warming’ blowhards…

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have demolished claims by global warming activists that global warming caused or worsened many extreme weather events last year.

According to NOAA’s new publication, Explaining Extremes of 2013 from a Climate Perspective, there is no discernible connection between global warming and 2013 extreme weather events such as the California drought, Colorado floods, the UK’s exceptionally cold spring, a South Dakota blizzard, Central Europe floods, a northwestern Europe cyclone, and exceptional snowfall in Europe’s Pyrenees Mountains.