Seanlid

I guarantee you will be building a snowman within the vicinity tomorrow at some stage, lol

Living in Belfast and temp now is 4.2 so gradually the surface temp is dropping. For those Snow-lovers (like myself) the great news is that the 500-850hpa temp is also dropping further, thus the precipitation moving across the province tonight and tomorrow will be falling as snow to low levels. The 'dam' is already at -5 right across a large swathe of the UK, so rain and sleet are less likely. Since there isn't a weather front crossing Northern Ireland tonight and tomorrow means we just get the precipitation from showers (sourced from troughs). Will be good though to have some nice snowball fights.

Hey Will, just wondering if you've had any joy with the Wx station, or whether you got a new / better station for Christmas?

Yeah, definitely not a bad start to autumn, albeit a bit of unsettled weather as a result of the Low Pressure close by during the next few days. We never know where the Jetstream is going to wander from week to week. Thank god that during next week it begins to travel up and over the UK for a while, allowing a weak ridge of high to build - although there won't be wall-to-wall sunshine, more in the way of warmth and relatively cloudy conditions. There will still be some sunshine to be enjoyed too!

Yes, it will most certainly be interesting to see what happens during subsequent months; optimism needs to prevail...

For those interested in pursuing Meteorology, I have found the following option as a starting point: http://www.elearnuk.co.uk/course/meteorology OR - http://courses.independent.co.uk/training/oxford-college/level-3-diploma-in-meteorology-154943

@Spikecollie - how are your little green hoppers coming along? Got any picture updates? I love frogs, they're my favourite amphibian; the Fire Salamander is quite nice also, but frogs are more fun to watch.

Some interesting suggestions from folk on here, however, the cost would be considerably high for some of the aforementioned ideas. A short-term (albeit a big help) would be to reduce soot! Soot—also known as black carbon—heats up the atmosphere because it absorbs sunlight. Black things do. That is basic physics. For years the institutions that focus on climate policy have played down the role of pollutants such as black carbon that stay in the atmosphere for a short time, that soot has been discovered to be a leading cause of snow and ice melting in the Arctic and the Himalayas, soot has a much faster influence on temperature than CO2, and that it is relatively easy to reduce soot. At least then polar bear will stand a greater chance than if we don't act now! We need to begin somewhere.

This is so true, and it's having a major impact on much of the arctic mammals, particularly polar bear! The melting of land-based ice and the expansion of the oceans as they have become warmer account about equally for observed increases in sea level. (Melting of sea ice does not raise sea level, since floating ice already displaces its equivalent in melt water.) Sea level has risen by roughly 17 cm (7 in) in the past 100 years. Although this is a relatively small amount, historical data indicate that mean sea level had been virtually unchanged for the previous 2,000 years.