Wondering about the miserable weather??

[Suff]

Here is an interesting explanation on what is driving it.

Looking at the comments, one of the commenters talks about the UK becoming a net exporter of drinking water. Seriously not joking either.

Which would mean that the current weather becomes the "new normal".

If you look a few articles earlier, you see them discussing the fact that current research believes that so long as we have a few million humans and few factories, there will never be another ice age again. The barrier between the ice ages being so flimsy..

If you are interested, it's very much food for thought...

[Workingman]

Well now, I did predict that the Siberian Blocking High, which has largely failed over the past three winters, could make a comeback this year, and it has. And as with many things that temporarily go out of kilter, certainly on a multi-decadal level, it has come back as an extreme - it is early and slightly further westward than normal. This could be nature's way of pressing the re-set button, because this imbalance has been going on since long before it became apparent to us with the winter of 2009.

It will be interesting to see what this does to the jet stream over the coming weeks and months. In theory a large and strong high should stop it meandering all over the place, as it has been doing, and direct it more to a path (or two) of least resistance.

We could have another 1975/6 on our hands.... or another 2012.... or a more normal summer.

[Suff]

We could have another 1975/6 on our hands.... or another 2012.... or a more normal summer.

In the end that all depends. The Kara and Barents seas are still pouring summer heat back out into the Arctic atmosphere. Until that stops, we can't have a normal anything as this situation is "not normal", at least as far back as we can easily record.

[KateLMead]

As a woman can I be allowed to think the earths axis has become out of kilt.. The above and underground tests of weapons, those space explorations, the drilling in the seas and elsewhere for oil, the devastation of lands and forests.. the earth has become destabilized
and we are seeing the results of mans folly.. My own theory that will undoubtedly raise suffs and Franks eyebrows!!

[Workingman]

Not raise them as much as you might think Kate.

We are so small and insignificant, us little humans, and the Earth is so big. We couldn't possibly hurt it: could we?

Have you heard of the Aral sea? In 50 years it has been reduced to 10% of its original size and the land has uplifted due to the weight of water lost and this is supected to have produced local earthquakes.

How about the Three Gorges Dam in China? A 660km lake of 40cu/km of water was created. The weight of this water has created a dip in the Earth's surface and is responsible for increased landslides and a reduction of downstream silt of the Yangtze. Shanghai sits on the deposited silt plain. If the silt washes away and is not replaced Shanghai is at risk.

What about the Arabian oilfields? Since just after WWII we have been extracting oil from underneath the Arabian plate. This plate sits between the Indian and Southern Eurasian plates. The Anatolian, Mediterranean and Persian fault lines radiate out from this plate. When we pump out oil we pump in slurry to replace it otherwise we would create a cavern - think mining subsidence - but the engineering is not available to bring the pressure up to its original level. Think of the earthquakes we have had in Turkey, Italy and Iran. Coincidence?

The rain forests, which once covered about 15% of the planet, have been reduced to about 40% of their previous area in post war times. Not only have we lost their biodiversity that could help us in more ways than we can imagine, but they are the lungs of the planet.

We punch outward holes in the atmosphere almost daily, and although we have always had inward punctures we have no real idea as to what the opposite does.

And on it goes...

[KateLMead]

Ah Frank. you have made me feel a bit better, when I have mentioned my own theories on what and why I believe the earth is suffering I have too oft seen that expression of what a "Nutter" on their faces..
Your reply has given me a boost, not that any of our theories will alter the way the universe is being abused or will change things!!! We are voices in the wilderness.. Happy Healthy New Year my friend"!!!

[Suff]

Kate, the position of most of the scientists in this field and in related fields is that the balance of the planet is very delicate, however, at the same time, it is quite robust. Make a small change and the planet will adjust it's environment to counteract it. Hence droughts, famine etc. Yet along come humans and they change the environment around them, constantly.

The environment changes and that chattering monkeys make new inventions and new methods of living with it. So we keep on going and push the environment further out of whack. Which causes bigger changes, so we start messing with the genetics of plants and animals to keep our harvests and foodstocks.

So the environment is knocked even further out of whack and we get even more drastic impacts. Storms, droughts, floods etc. So we engineer more and we keep on going.

The end game?

The planet wins and most of the humans die......

[KateLMead]

Happy New Year Suff to you and yours.. Yours and Franks replies have made me feel less of what some would refer to me as
"being kind " over imaginative.
I think what is happening on our planet is truly worrying those in power world wide
can put these catastrophe's down to global warming etc...you name it,name will be found in the attempt to placate what must be nations of gullible people.
No one really talks of the real causes of what is now truly climate change brought about in my opinion by mans greed,need for power and disrespect for our planet..

[Workingman]

Kate, notice that I am saying little about the CO2 thing.

Look at fish stocks. According to the UN 77% of all fisheries are either overexploited, depleted or making a recovery from depletion (only 1%). The seas are a major food source and it is not only the popular species that are affected. In some areas the whole food chain is at risk.

We also have to look at the huge mono-cultures created (mainly) on the Russian steppes, Canada and the US, where only the crop (usually wheat) is acceptable. These were once grasslands, in a meadow like sense, where wild flowers and weeds coexisted with the grasses and shrubs and allowed for a diversity of insect life - think bees. Not any more. Now they are artificially maintained plains stretching for thousands of square miles. In some places, and for some crops, bees have to be shipped in on a temporary basis during the growing season to pollinate the crops. Then there are the GM variants...

In India's bread basket, the Punjab, irrigation wells that were only a few metres deep in the 1970s have now been sunk a further 10 metres to access the water. The rate at which they have to be re-bored is three metres per decade. One day, nobody knows when, they will hit rock bottom - no more water. At current levels of extraction they are taking 1.5 times the amount of water that is replenished, and the extraction rate is increasing year on year. India is not unique in this.

[KateLMead]

Oh my dear friends, and those who tolerate me and my rants:( The world is being raped "in more ways than one".. And we will and are paying the price.
Fishermen as you say are in trouble Frank fighting over fish stocks.due to their decline.. I do not eat fish due to the contamination of the seas...We have as you say the indiscriminate drilling for oil. Who can create the most evil weapons of destruction designed to eliminate populations..
I did say when Blair invaded Iraq it would de- stabalise the whole of the Middle East.. This has come to pass, Iraq is in the throes of a civil war, and it will get worse as we are dragged into another war by those individuals "who supposedly look after our interests and welfare" .

The crops that are now destroying our bees and indeed our wild life that is dying off, like our trees that are contaminated and having to be cut down.
The future is bleak. just a small addition to yours and suffs ever informing posts... Due to this over populated Island over 60,000 individuals, the aged and infirm has been killed by Pathway without family or the individuals consent in the past year. Our planet has become an asylum, run world wide by a bunch of lunatics.