It's a good thing that pigeons are not the size of Canada geese as they regularly try to fly through my living room windows. The impact on the glass is enough to set off the burglar alarm system as well as leaving the impression of a very surprised pigeon on the pane. Only one survived - the good people of the RSPB revived and released it. Once got involved with a P&W JT 9 that took 3 geese in the fan at JFK - much bent and torn titanium.

Not to mention a certain Airbus taking off from LaGuardia.

Yes, but Abbeywood has no runway, nearby Filton's runway was broken up last year and they plan to build 2,500 homes on it.

I say again, who gives a rat's arse about geese at Abbeywood!

LJ

Ah, Ploce Deathcamp. Blue asbestos, rivers of turds and dead horses a go-go.

"Lets dig a bund into a landfill, what could go wrong?"

You are a bright chap. You know the difference between 'climate' and 'weather' don't you?

Climate change is happening. The MoD has to look at it with a view to future capabilities and indeed future conflicts. The US military got the message a long time ago because of the real risk to it's own capabilities.

What about Linton?

Although the airfield is mostly fine, the road access to it, particularly from the North West, and South East, is not good when the tide comes in.

"Meanwhile I was next door in Met O 11"


Mr Baston, I was on the other side of the quad in 08 and 19 at "Brackers" until I went off to do something more profitable.


The computers that predicted the dry winter in Somerset are using a very similar model to those predicting global warming. It speaks volumes don't you think !

http://http://i57.photobucket.com/al...pshttd4pew.jpghttp://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...pshttd4pew.jpg

http://http://i57.photobucket.com/al...pshttd4pew.jpg

Remember this USN proposal ? Lol :)

It's been happening for years...you'd think we'd be used to it by now! :ugh:

Look at the first graph below I wonder if it was King Canute that was using his gas-guzzling 4x4 to keep the sea back, or King Alfred's burning cakes that caused the last rise in temperature???

Or maybe it was the Caveman farts 8,000 years ago in the second graph that caused the 1.5 degree rise?

I'm not a climate change deny-er, but I don't quite have the same cataclysmic view that some of BEags' "Sandalista" would have you believe! :ok:

LJ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Comparison.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Variations.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...emperature.png

Yup, I believe it can go either one of 3 ways:

1. We'll all fry and be extinct within 500 years

2. We'll all drown because of a biblical flood.

3. The Earth will react to the increase in green-house gases and as long we get to a point of balance then so will the Earth and things will go back to the historical norms. Like it always has done following meteor strikes and huge volcanic eruptions.

LJ

Spot on LJ!
Palaeloclimatology is an absolutely fascinating subject and while there's no denying that the earth has warmed over the past 70 years or so there's still a lot of work to be done to work out why and what the future holds.
A Hampshire airfield's met station was moved a few years ago and the surroundings were different from the original location. No comparison was made over any length of time to work out what the effect on temperature, wind, rainfall was but the Station still claims to have weather records dating back 60 odd years. No doubt the effect of moving the instruments was small but there was no attempt to quantify it (care to comment Langley Baston?). Clearly alterations of the surroundings of many long-established stations will have had an impact on their readings...the so heat-island effect but also change of use of agricultural land are examples.
A further thought is that the Carboniferous period of geological history was was one of the warmest and yet the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was negligible.
Finally it looks as though ice ages commence with global temperature falls of about 10 degrees in the space of a few decades. I'm not saying it will happen but that would certainly make your eyes water!!

Lordy, people…

Predicting dry/wet winters is difficult. Atmospheric dynamics on day-month scales is chaotic.

Energy conservation on decade scales is easy. Knowing where warming will occur is difficult, but on average - it's getting warmer.

What happened 1000 years ago isn't of too much relevance. It's the 100 years in front of us that matters.

The condition for a starting an ice age is probably simple - winter snow stays through the summer in the high-latitude northern hemisphere. Off to on in a few seasons. Not so likely with current temperatures.

Awblain,

I'd love to know what the climate will be in 100 years but the simple truth is that our current knowledge/ technology is not up to that sort of prediction. Seeing how climate has changed in past and trying to work out why is part of the learning process to predict the future...and it's fascinating!

Ice ages commenced from just the sort of climate that we are currently experiencing. You've described the process of establishing an ice age but not the catalyst...we need to keep investigating the past to work out whether it could happen again. Remember that global warming is predicted to be of the order of a few degrees - I can't see that stopping the onset of an ice age.

Energy conservation has been known about for a long time.

It's all it takes to understand global temperature on climate scales, absenting the onset of an ice age. And that is not likely to happen at present, owing to unprecedentedly high summer temperatures over the whole Arctic. You need to make it through a whole not-completely melted taiga summer to set it up, and that's not likely.

Melting permafrost can change the current situation quite the other way.

Detailed predictions of weather patterns in 100 years from now are hard, but it's very very likely it'll be warmer than it is now.

Brize Norton to be flooded?
 

At 288 ft amsl how is that ever going to happen, never mind "by 2020"?

Well given that the rainfall that closed RAF Innsworth and caused the Gloucester floods in (was it?) 2007 also closed the A40 at Witney (fortunately just after I had driven through the flooded section) then maybe! Think rainfall not rising sea levels.

phew - with all the 'risk' of flooding, lucky the 'future of the RAF' whizjet boys are moving from Leuchars. Now as long as they don't somehow end up at another coastal low-lying base, they'll be safe for years to come...

Ahh BEagle old chap, you've confirmed yourself as a Daily Depress reader - the paper who persist with their not-in-the-slightest-bit-exagerated doom laden headlines from the bloke-in-a-shed weather "forecaster" that proved to be completely wrong on pretty much every occasion. Even seaweed would have given a better prediction!

The headlines do make us chuckle at work, although it worries us a little that people think it's us making those predictions!

As for the Daily Heil's and Depress' claims about the seasonal forecast being wrong, well, they're cherry picking from something they don't understand to make news out of nothing and find someone else to blame - oh, and coincidentally try to claim they got it right (they didn't - as you say, remember the aforementioned coldest winter on record headlines they ran?)

Hopefully not too many people believe every word they read.... Oh, they do? :ugh:

Awblain,

What would the scientific community's prediction have been for the climate at the height of the little ice age 300 years ago? No doubt they would have said it was very, very likely that we were heading for a full-blown ice age. I'm not saying the earth is not warming...and if it is warmer in 100 years you will write and let know, won't you?

Perhaps metman would care to post the exact wording of the official Met Office winter prediction?

here is one who would certainly understand it.

thinks ....... is this the same Met Office team that promised a BBQ summer? Thought so.

Regarding moving Met instruments on a military base, this is usually driven by customer requirements, which the SMetO should resist, but the bottom line is that he is only the hired hand.
The really nasty instrument to muck about with is the anemo, either moving it, or allowing new and large structures to be sited within a few hundred metres of the mast. Not good for the customer at all.
This happened at an Eastern civil airfield for which I had over-arching Met. responsibility, and I refused to sign the annual certificate of metworthiness [not that it was called that officially].
My boss signed it so that was OK., it was safe after all.
I have never ever flown out of or into that airfield since.

Thank you LB

Let's use less dramatic terms shall we? It was, on average, about 1 deg C cooler than it is now. That is all the change it takes to really mess with things.

If there was indeed a "little ice age", and it's not clear it's a global feature, then without a "white tundra summer", there would be no sign of an onset.

Currently, blue arctic ocean summers and melting permafrost are rather more of a concern.

There's also the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) to screw with our weather - this was only discovered 90 odd years ago. Plus the magnetic pole is due a flip as well as an ice age or a super-tsunami.

Finally, a large meteorite is overdue that could stop global warming; either by wiping out a large amount of the population (and their carbon emissions) or by throwing up loads of material into the atmosphere that will block the warming from the sun.

Finally, fossil fuels will dwindle and other sources of energy will need to be used. So in 50-100 years time when we all have cold fusion reactors powering our cars, ships, trains and planes, then the problems of the 'sandalista' will need to change tack.

I would rather bet on West Ham winning the Premiership 3 times over the next 100 years than try to predict what the weather/climate/environment has in store over the same time period.

LJ :ok:

I'll give you no better than evens on the Hammers, LJ, the future is almost impossible to predict, as your quick handful of variables so eloquently indicates.

You're very generous my friend - I'll take those odds! :ok:

Military 'may have to abandon flood-prone bases'
 

Langley old chap, as A non merman weather guesser who was mainly in Atlantic lows deep and far out giving good surf could you elaborate as to why moving or blocking your widget matters so much please

I am a curious george!

Let's put a tenner on it then. I'll buy a canoe with my winnings and I'm going to save a fortune on my heating bills by all accounts!

Well you might be a MetMan, but this is in effect the winter of 2013 as traditionally the seasons run Spring, Summer, Autumn ( or fall for the colonies) then Winter..
So you have about another 10 months until we actually hit Winter 2014, or does your piece of seaweed on the washing line predict that far forward? :p

International standard measurement of wind at 10m above ground [up a steel lattice mast in UK], ideally near runway ......... customer iffy about anything near runway so mast sited a LONG way from significant obstructions which could disturb wind flow. Obstructions certainly do give values untypical of those at the runway, sometimes blanking gusts, sometimes giving "false" gusts, and very often giving wrong wind direction, even reversal.
In extreme cases, the sudden arrival of a sea breeze or a storm down-draft may not be picked up in time. RAF Nicosia really needed two anemos, one at each end! The sea breeze was often massive, slamming doors and blowing off the staish's cap.

Yup can just see Hammers celebrating around Upton Park:E

LangleyB

Isn't the rule of thumb for obstacles from a windsock or anemometer 10 times the obstruction height? Ie. 6m obstruction must be 60m from obstruction?

Also, I seem to remember that there are factors to apply if your wind measurement isn't at the prescribed 10m. If it's less then you apply a factor of greater than 1 and if it is more than 10m then you apply a factor of less than 1. Ie. 8m wind measurement of 8kts is multiplied by 1.1 and so the actual wind is observed at 8.8kts? (My factor may not be the right factor, but you get my drift?)

LJ

In fact, I found the Met Observer's Handbook on the Met Office website and it is add 10% for a mast between 5-7m, add 20% for 3-4m and a massive 30% for 1-2m (ie. a handheld anemometer - I bet many didn't know that!).

LJ

LB - Nicosia would probably have been better without one at all! In the summer you could have the anemometer reading just about zero, and the windsocks at either end showing approx 30 - 40 kts - only 180 degrees different (the sea breeze from both east and west coasts and a temp of +40C or more)! However, about 500ft up you could almost sit in autorotation and still climb.

And the award for the most flood-safe airfield goes to - good ole Little Rissington, highest UK runway AMSL as I recall?

NutLoose said:
It wasn't me who said winter of 2014, it was BEagle! I'm innocent. Soooo innocent. Bah.

and LangleyB:
More than likely the same team, yes, but at least we aren't trumpeting research and experimental forecasts all over the news as fact this time... It doesn't mean they're not at least a little useful as a form of guidance and doesn't mean they shouldn't be used, but you and I both know, they're caveatted heavily and not really suitable for public or press consumption yet because, being probablistic, they're very much open to misintepretation, particularly by those with a long standing grudge. Maybe one day they'll be suitable, maybe not. So I guess we've learned something from the BBQ summer debacle!

And no, I don't care to post the exact wording... 1. I quite like my job, 2. its not my area of expertise, and 3. I'm sure you know what our intranet site is like and how hard it is to find stuff.... ;)

QUOTE:

Isn't the rule of thumb for obstacles from a windsock or anemometer 10 times the obstruction height? Ie. 6m obstruction must be 60m from obstruction?

From memory that may be the internationally agreed MINIMUM separation.

It takes no account of the width or density [think trees] of the obstruction, and is a long way from best practice. Height has a big effect on gustiness, width a big effect on direction and gustiness.

Regarding probabilistic forecasts, the great unwashed have a deep instinctive knowledge of probability, as witness racing odds, National Lottery and many life events. The great unwashed also recognise a lot of time and money being spent on unsound science.

FFF.

Little Rissington 730ft/223 Metres AMSL
Dunkeswell* 839ft/256 Metres AMSL

It may not be long but it is a surfaced runway

MadsDad
"Little Rissington 730ft/223 Metres AMSL
Dunkeswell* 839ft/256 Metres AMSL"

Aye, but that's at the threshold. What about the ruddy great hump in the middle!:)

FFF, to be honest never been to Little Rissington, but the drainage at Dunkeswell (200 foot + deep valleys to the North and South to provide drainage, with the runway at the top of the hill more or less) would lead me to believe that they aren't going to have flooding problems there* in the near future.

* Except for the potholes in the car park last time I was there, but that's a different story.