Author Topic: The Great British Weather Debate  (Read 200515 times)

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Offline Fester

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #525 on: August 11, 2019, 02:58:12 pm »
Sorry to hear you are housebound Steve, I didn’t know this.
However, I reckon this weekend most of us have been made housebound, by the weather,  and we get a tiny feel for what it’s like.
Fester...
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Offline SteveH

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #526 on: August 11, 2019, 04:48:57 pm »
Thanks for that, F.  Maybe housebound was to strong a word, I do get out, but I am a bit of a fair weather everything these days.


Offline SteveH

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #527 on: August 12, 2019, 01:16:38 pm »
Being housebound and a bit fed up with the weather, I felt rotten when I realised that both the Eisteddfod and Eglwysbach Show were on over the Weekend, and from experience, I am well aware of the difficulties involved in these conditions, rain you can plan for, but wind can be unpredictable and dangerous, I think a "Well Done" to all involved, is in order.

THE recent rain and mud did not dampen spirits at the annual Eglwysbach Show, which is a must see attraction for North Wales rural communities.

The show has been held on the second Saturday in August every year. Over the years the show has welcomed visitors and competitors from all parts of North Wales and other locations such as Manchester and Birmingham and further afield.

As in previous years it boasted many attractions for the young, the old and those in between, with numerous trade stands, and classes for cattle, sheep, heavy and light horses, poultry, flowers, vegetables, handicrafts, children’s classes, a speed shearing competition, a fun dog show, donkey rides, a local garden competition, tractors and classic machinery, a fairground, and an art exhibition. The horticulture marquee was a particular attraction and included a range of vegetables, flowers, farm and dairy produce, handicraft and photography exhibits. ref Pioneer



Offline SteveH

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #528 on: August 27, 2019, 10:01:09 am »
According to this, the council will definitely have to revise their 300mm plan on the cycle path ?

Pictures show how North Wales will be swallowed by the sea if levels continue to rise
Places like Rhyl, Prestatyn, Llandudno, Flint, Bangor and Caernarfon will disappear, according to these simulation images released by the Climate Centre

Full article.....
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/gallery/horror-pictures-show-how-north-16819642

Offline Hugo

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #529 on: August 27, 2019, 11:29:34 am »
According to this, the council will definitely have to revise their 300mm plan on the cycle path ?

Full article.....
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/gallery/horror-pictures-show-how-north-16819642

Perhaps CCBC  in its infinite wisdom is planning for the future, well September 2019 anyway and will then meet again on a monthly basis to discuss future increases in the height        &shake&

Picture the scene in the real world, a raised walkway made of either wood or recycled plastic under 5 feet of windblown sand and along comes Jennings Plant Hire with their heavy machinery to do the regular sand clearance        *tumble*


Offline Ian

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #530 on: August 27, 2019, 12:38:37 pm »
There are a lot of ifs and buts with regard to sea level rises. I doubt it's anywhere near as clear cut as the article suggests.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline DVT

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #531 on: August 27, 2019, 08:12:02 pm »
The sea level will continue to rise and the full cause is not global warming or melting of the ice caps.

We are continually being told that all of our plastic rubbish is ending up in the world's oceans so more and more solids going into the water.  There is a continual movement of silt into the sea as it is washed down the many rivers of the world.  On top of that ships are getting bigger and bigger and more of them.

Put all that together and you have a huge mass that simply displaces the water which only has one way to go ... upwards.

Silting will have been going on since the world began, ships have been getting bigger for the past few centuries, plastic is a relatively new thing.

Something else that is new is the fact that we can measure the changes a lot more accurately than in the past, but land has been lost to the sea since time began.

On a local note and for those who know Bodnant Garden.  Next time you're on on the stone bridge by the Old Mill look downstream and you will see a small weir.  The house next to it is where I lived for the first few years of my life, so that's over 60 years ago.  I used to play in the river a lot!  It was only on spring tides that the tidal water came over that weir.  Now it comes over nearly every time we have high tide, the river (Hiraethlyn) is tidal up to that stone bridge.  Certainly supports the theory of sea level rising.

Offline Ian

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #532 on: August 28, 2019, 09:36:54 am »
It's a fiendishly difficult topic, as I've said. It's only relatively recently that serious and long term studies have been done to determine potential sea level rises, and we still have no clear idea of how things will pan out over the longer term,

To illustrate the difficulties involved, this is an abstract from an academic site regarding the geological problems involved in determining potential sea level rise:

"The errors involved in attempting to correlate evidence of sea-level change gathered from disparate areas are discussed as follows:- 1. Errors due to levelling, especially in deep boreholes and at sea. 2. Problems of identifying the horizon to be levelled, and uncertainties that this horizon does represent the intended relationship to water-table. 3. Uncertainties in relating recognised changes in water-table, as indicated by vegetation or sediments to sea-level. 4. Errors in the estimation of present-day tidal levels, particularly in areas with a large tidal range. 5. Variations in tidal levels over time, especially in areas such as the English Channel and estuaries, where large changes in the coastline may have occurred. 6. The importance of the rare event, e.g. storm surges; and astronomical causes of variations in tidal levels. 7. Consolidation of sediments as a result of gravitational compaction. 8. Changes in the relationship of vegetation zones to sea-level, during periods of rapid sea-level rise. 9. Variations in the closeness of correspondence between sedimentation rates and sea-level rise. 10. Errors in radiocarbon dating. All the available ‘sea-level’ radiocarbon dates for Wales, S.W. England and the Channel Islands are plotted on the same diagram, as error ellipses. No significant difference in sea-level rise is apparent between S.W. England and Cardigan Bay. Only in the case of N. Wales is there a strong suggestion that isostatic uplift has had an appreciable effect in the last 8000 years. Important differences result from the use of M.H.W.S.T. or M.H.W.O.T. as the datum level. Any oscillations in the course of sea-level rise are smaller than the other uncertainties. No evidence of sea-levels higher than the present is seen."

The total amount of shipping tonnage world wide is estimated to be 186,000,000 tons while the total amount of oceanic water is estimated to be 350,000,000,000,000,000 tons, so to simplify that it amounts to less than 2 tons of shipping per 350 billion tons of water, which I'm reliably informed would amount to a displacement of around 0.0002 cm.

There are, however, lots of other factors, and the Pacific tectonic structure is far from stable, so uplifts do occur, sometimes with devastating results.

A holistic appreciation and study of the issue is mind-bogglingly complex, and I don't believe the Newspapers seeking to increase circulation and spark some panic is the best way to address the problem.  More worrying is the fact that for some time the Earth's magnetic field has been changing; the magnetic North pole is now somewhere in Siberia.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline Hugo

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #533 on: August 28, 2019, 09:52:57 am »
What you have said DVT is exactly what is happening around the world and those of us who are old enough can relate it to the changes in the River Conwy.      About 55 years ago I was in a boat on the river and we were fishing by Benarth Point at low tide.    The water was in fact under 2 feet deep at the time and the engine got stuck in the silt
Since then I've noticed the river is more prone to silting up with the inevitable flooding as a result.    A more extreme example is in Bangladesh which lies on a river delta and has serious floods every year

On a personal note that small weir that you refer to, was it anywhere near where the old A470  went over a bridge?       I remember the old road and that it was replaced by the newer and wider section of the A470 at the bottom of Bodnant Hill

Offline SteveH

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #534 on: August 28, 2019, 10:58:48 am »
More worrying is the fact that for some time the Earth's magnetic field has been changing; the magnetic North pole is now somewhere in Siberia.
A vague recollection of reading about the enormous amount of water the worlds population needs, and the increased use of dams, has resulted in the earth shifting, a quick search confirms my thoughts.........

https://www.google.com/search?q=have+dams+caused+pole+movement&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB813GB813&oq=have+dams+caused+pole+movement&aqs=chrome..69i57.36715j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Offline Ian

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #535 on: August 28, 2019, 11:28:07 am »
There's an interesting article in The Atlantic that shows just how complicated the entire global warming / sea level rise topic really is.  Parkgate on the Wirral is an interesting illustration of how rivers silt up over time.

But sea levels around the globe are not expected to rise consistently: "sea level will not rise uniformly everywhere on Earth, and it will even drop in some locations. Local factors include tectonic effects and subsidence of the land, tides, currents and storms."  If the climate warms significantly - and that does appear to be happening - then thermal oceanic expansion will increase the volume of water, which could precipitate rises.

Since Satellite data has been available, NASA has measured a consistent sea level rise of around 3.3 mm per year. The most accurate measurements show that between 1993 and 2017 there's been a rise that will equate to around 12" per century.

What's worrying climatologists and Geologists is the threat of a prolonged warm spell;  these have happened historically (the Earth was a lot warmer in the past) and all the evidence is that this would lead to greater and more severe incidences of major storms.

In the recent geological past, changes in land ice and thermal expansion from increased temperatures are the dominant reasons of sea level rise. The last time the Earth was 2 °C (3.6 °F) warmer than pre-industrial temperatures, sea levels were at least 5 metres (16 ft) higher than now: this was when warming because of changes in the amount of sunlight due to slow changes in the Earth's orbit caused the last interglacial. The warming was sustained over a period of thousands of years and the magnitude of the rise in sea level implies a large contribution from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

Sadly, until and unless humanity stops vandalising the planet by exploiting its fossil resources (the US is the worst culprit) we're all slowly burning the planet to death.  It's worth remembering that when you fill a car with petrol or diesel you're actually about to burn an ancient forest or group of ancient animals that locked away vast amounts of carbon millions of years ago. That's why the government has to start pushing EVs and PHEVs as the only option for all types of transport.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline DVT

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #536 on: August 28, 2019, 08:26:25 pm »
Quote - Hugo ... On a personal note that small weir that you refer to, was it anywhere near where the old A470  went over a bridge?       I remember the old road and that it was replaced by the newer and wider section of the A470 at the bottom of Bodnant Hill

Not quite ... the stone bridge is facing the Old Mill at the bottom of Bodnant Garden.  The weir is a few yards downstram and there is another one about 20 yards further down river, under the wooden bridge that leads to the cottages where I once lived.  I have a theory, unproven, that when the mill was operating as a corn mill back in the 19th century, barges would go up the river to deliver/collect loads.  My theory is supported by the fact that where that river (Hiraethlyn) joins the Conway there was once a quayside (Cae Cae Gwyn - White Field Quay), of which there are still some remains.

The "new" road (A470 but before that was the A496) was constructed in about 1965/1966 - at that time I lived in Conway Cottage which is the house next to the entrance to the Welsh Food Centre.  1966 is also when I started driving.  I certainly remember the old road and the bridge (which is still there) and how narrow it was as two lorries/coaches travelling in opposite directions struggled to pass each other.

Offline Fester

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #537 on: August 28, 2019, 11:27:32 pm »
Let me get this straight, toy dinosaurs are made out of plastic...... and plastic is made out of oil.
Oil is made from ancient forests and Dinosaurs.

So..... toy dinosaurs are made out of REAL dinosaurs!

I intend to sell lots of toy dinosaurs now that I can safely claim that strap line.
Fester...
- Semper in Excretum, Sole Profundum Variat -

Offline Hugo

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #538 on: August 29, 2019, 07:44:04 am »
Thanks very much for explaining that DVT,  I have driven on that old section of the old road but my memory of it is rather vague now.  What I do remember was a tragic accident there when a vehicle went off the bridge into the water and in the vehicle were two parents and their six young children,    The children survived but sadly the mother and father both drowned in the river and those children were sadly orphaned at a very young age
Many years later I became friends with one of the sons who was involved in the accident but we never talked much about the accident

Offline DVT

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Re: The Great British Weather Debate
« Reply #539 on: August 29, 2019, 09:02:17 am »
I don't remember that incident, but it could be that it was kept from me as I would have been quite young (born 1949) - certainly a major tragedy.

One thing I do remember about the old road was when the Milk Race (round Britain bicycle race) came round.  Smith's Crisps were one of the sponsors.  Myself, Dad and the family that lived in Furnace Farm were sat on the wall at the entrance to the Old Mill , right by the old bridge, when a Crisps van came round - in those days there were tins of crisps on top of the van.  As the van turned for the bridge a number of tins slid off ... the van didn't stop and we didn't have to buy crisps for weeks afterwards!!!