Sky Full

A All things considered, it’s been pretty nice weather this week with a lot of sunshine and light breezes. Not overly warm but maximum temperatures hovering around 19C - thats fine for me at this time of year. About 50% cloud cover yesterday kept the temperature in check but today has started with only very light high level cloud and it’s a lovely morning. Maybe we can rescue our Spring and have good start to Summer after all!

Come on guys! This IS the Model Output discussion thread and the GFS output is a very important source of information here. Even if it’s as little as 5% correct up to +240h and 1% out to +320h then it’s got to worth taking an interest. Most people are looking for summer-like weather in the late Spring and wintery weather in the late Autumn and when it shows up in FI we’re all watching for further proof of it arriving……. The very fact that the GFS is willing to show charts out as far as 384h is nothing if not entertaining and we all know that the charts will definitely change by the time the chosen future date arrives.

What have we got left if we haven’t got hope?

Yes - a much improving outlook between 24th May and the 1st June… Let’s hope similar charts continue to appear over the next 10 days.

You’ll be fine! You don’t want it too hot in Spain or you’ll have to stay in the pool all day

An improving picture from the GEM 0z looking from the 15th to the 21st May… Nothing exceptional, and still a way off, but from little acorns etc etc….? At least its on the right track for the start of summer.

Well, the GFS 0z manages to create the perfect ‘UK Low’ from the 15th - 22nd May….. Lovely. Still no strong signal for some proper summery weather then. EDIT: GEM 0z tends to disagree….!

GFS 6z now wants to bring us a nice cold snap in mid-May - lovely…. Potentially some very unwelcome late frosts if that comes off - we’ll have to wait a few days to see if it starts to show up in other runs.

There really doesn’t seem to be much in the model outlook today to suggest that May will bring us a warm and sunny prelude to summer. In a desperate attempt to find something positive to report I looked at the long term outlook as predicted by the CFSv2 and I’m sorry to say there’s not much to get optimistic about even there, until we get this chart appearing on the 31st May…. Don’t get too excited - the chance of this occurring exactly as predicted are well below 0.1% but at least it’s a possibility! I am well aware that the whole outlook for May can and probably will change in a matter of one or two days in model terms so I’ll just have to keep looking - I’m sure we’ll get a nationwide spell of lovely settled, dry, warm and sunny weather before the month of May is out!

The models this morning are in some disagreement about developments for early May. Here’s the GFS 0z: 2nd May - 6th May. 6th May - 10th May GEM 0z: 2nd May - 8th May ECM 0z: 2nd May - 8th May Three different solutions for the first week of May but no sign of a significant heatwave as far as I can tell…..

What time do you want us to arrive..?

Contrary to the output of the last few days, GFS 0z is now playing with the idea of a rudimentary Spanish plume by the 4th May….. ECM currently seems to agree…. Could we manage some summery weather for the coronation after all?

Hope you manage to keep your native bees happy. It’s amazing what damage some people unwittingly do in the name of conservation….

A miracle. GFS - 5th May….. 6Z: 0Z:

As we approach the end of April it’s finally clear how much damage was done in the garden by the extraordinary number of frosts we had here during the winter. I’ve lost a lot of shrubs including all the hebes, and most of the lavenders are dead. Even some perennials which should have survived underground have died and all the vulnerable plants I placed in the shed to protect them from frost (which I do every year) have perished. There’s a lot of empty space in the garden now after I dug out the dead plants so at least I’ll have some fun replanting but I think I’ll have to stick to heathers and conifers which are resistant to frost! It didn’t seem like a particularly severe winter but it must have been the strong winds which often accompanied the cold weather and caused the frosts to penetrate even the sheltered spots. From record heat in the summer to record frosts in the winter - 2022 was certainly a year of extremes.

Great pictures - your cat’s got the right idea though! Heavy intermittent rain here. All trace of snow vanished. Miserable morning for a journey….

Got a light covering this morning which then disappeared at lower levels but the second wave has now arrived. It’s light and not likely to settle around here but further inland and at higher elevations I think could get another covering overnight. I have to travel down the M4 tomorrow so I’m hoping it won’t be too serious, if I’m honest!

It sure where to post this or even if it’s been listed before, but it’s well worth a read. This report implies that achieving Net Zero will be unaffordable for the UK…. https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/03/Kelly-Net-Zero-Progress-Report.pdf

It seems that German car manufacturers have already started to resist the push towards all-electric cars…. Germany threatens to throw EU's electric car dream into reverse WWW.TELEGRAPH.CO.UK Veto threat leaves country looking like it is in thrall to its powerful automotive giants

Rather than make use of sunlight to generate energy and reduce fossil fuel use, this UN study proposes that we should consider reflecting some sunlight back into space……. It's time to explore reflecting sunlight back into space to tackle climate crisis, says UN NEWS.SKY.COM The UN looked at Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) technologies which aim to cool the Earth rapidly by reflecting a small amount of sunlight back into space... Space mirrors are just a sci-fi fantasy but there are many ways to increase surface albedo including simply painting roof surfaces white (expensive) or reforestation of grassland (impractical). There are other ways to theoretically reduce sunlight including injecting aerosols into the atmosphere (sounds risky) but none of the proposals can ever be a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. ‘Solar Radiation Modification’ could only make an insignificant contribution to controlling climate change so would it not be better to spend the time, money and expertise developing the use of sunlight to offset carbon based energy technologies rather than sending it back into space?

Good post, MIA. Thanks for your input. It truly is a great pity that the whole world cannot come together and work to resolve the challenging climate issues which face the whole world. WRT wind generation, I recently saw a program which showed spent wind turbine blades being buried just like landfill, rather than recycle the materials they are made from. Might have been an anomaly but it shows what irresponsible behaviour we are capable of in the name of financial profit.

Any proposal to extend the use of electric motors to power every form of personal transport must solve the question of electric power generation without using fossil fuels. There are already some alternative technologies available now which could, if developed with worldwide cooperation and investment, solve all our energy problems. For a start we should look to the sun for energy in more ways than just solar panels. “Solar energy is the most abundant energy resource on earth -- 173,000 terawatts of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That's more than 10,000 times the world's total energy use.” Electricity is normally generated by steam driven turbines and it is the generation of steam without burning carbon which is our goal. ‘Solar Power Towers’ might offer one solution if they were built in large enough numbers in the desert areas of the world where the sun ‘always shines’. Solar power tower - Wikipedia EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG Since these desert areas are mostly located in poor and under-populated parts of the world the residents would benefit from the revenue and the world would receive almost free energy once the power stations were built. The Middle Eastern oil producing countries could convert their income from oil to solar energy and the electricity generated could be distributed all over the world by means of a grid. The sun is always shining in one desert or another around the world so power would be continuous. Among other things we could also look towards tidal flow to power the turbines - the tides are free and continuous in every part of the world - and geothermal energy from the earths core. Sadly I don’t think the human race is anywhere near ready to cooperate worldwide in order to solve these problems because there are far too many greedy and self-seeking people in power who prefer to go whichever route makes them the most money. And even if the power problem can be solved, it still doesn’t overcome the need for the huge volume of rare metals and minerals required to produce electric motors, batteries and wiring. That’s why I believe that the future could see hydrogen being used as our fuel of choice for transport once the means to produce it inexpensively from sea water has been discovered…..

The change to electric cars will not impact the enormous emissions from commercial vehicles, jet aircraft, diesel locomotives, and the huge worldwide fleet of commercial shipping which belches out its pollution far from the eyes of land lubbers. There may well be a reduction in local air pollution in cities where electric cars become the majority but the manufacture of millions of electric engines and batteries will cause untold additional pollution in other countries where the mining of rare earth metals is carried out. It’s not the answer to climate change, that’s for sure.

I know I am not alone in wondering whether the electric car is going to be the salvation for our climate, not least because of the damage to the environment which is being widely caused by extraction of the minerals needed to build them. The number and volume of rare metals needed to build an electric car far exceed that for a conventional car but these rare metals are also needed to build wind turbines and manufacture solar panels. For example, (by one estimate) to satisfy the world’s increasing demand, the same volume of copper which has been mined by the human race since the metal was first discovered thousands of years ago will need to be extracted from the ground again in the next thirty years. The worlds largest open cast copper mine in Chile (2 miles wide, half a mile deep) is having to dig deeper and deeper to find the ore but all the while the surrounding countryside is polluted by spoil and precious water resources are depleted. But it’s not just copper. Rare metals such as indium, gallium, germanium, selenium and tantalum are required not only to manufacture electric batteries and motors, but also wind turbines to produce the ‘green’ electricity. These metals are produced in faraway places like China and processed in remote industrial complexes in places like Mongolia where we are not shown the enormous amount of pollution being created by the refinement of these metals. Clean energy's dirty secret: How push for modern technology has made Chinese pond toxic NEWS.SKY.COM A tailings pond lies on the west of the Chinese city Baotou, one filled with a black grey sludge of toxic and radioactive material. And they’re called ‘rare’ for a reason - they are not common in the earths crust and they will become increasingly difficult to extract as more and more electric vehicles are produced. I doubt that these metals will be efficiently recycled at the end of every battery’s life and there may well be increasingly harmful pollution resulting from scrapped cars and batteries in the future. If you are interested in this issue it’s worth watching this documentary: The Dark Side of Green Energy WWW.ALJAZEERA.COM As the world moves away from fossil fuels, we look at how greener energies are creating new environmental challenges. So I believe that although petrol and diesel engines have a detrimental effect on our environment and our climate, electric cars may not be any better when we take account of the damage being caused to the worlds environment far from our own country. In due course this headlong rush towards the use of electric cars will come back to bite us.

We are currently enjoying a gorgeous Spring-like day here with almost cloudless skies and, earlier, +13C. Likely to cloud over later but a sign of things to come?