mike Meehan

Does that mean we are dropping in the kackie? It makes me one how many other gases we are producing - lets face it any molecule which has an uneven set up has the propensity to become a greenhouse gas.

Cold enough to make dry ice i.e. frozen CO2

It makes you wonder how the original inhabitants and the early settlers survived without the benefit of centrally heated homes and cars and they had to go out frequently, at times camping overnight, in their forays for hunting, trapping and foraging just to get sufficient food to survive.

Seems to be a duplication of threads here, so I will copy paste on here as well: What will they think of next? Although it's something I can't see the CAA approving in this country - the difference between this and the drones the police use is that at least there is somebody in control of it, albeit on the ground but at least somebody would be in a position to keep a look out for any potential hazards - telephone lines, power cables and other light aircraft which may be in the vicinity, together with the flight paths of commercial aircraft landing and taking off at airports. However with these they would be completely automatic, navigating by GPS and unless there is a sophisticated obstacle avoidance system built in able to detect and avoid obstacles which could be travelling at a speed at anything from nil to say, a couple of hundred mph at low levels, even a lot faster if the RAF are practising low level flying in the vicinity. I wonder if they will be fitted with transponders? However wouldn't it be great if they upgraded these machines to a capability of carrying a couple of passengers or so and their luggage - with the multiple rotors I expect they would be easier to fly than a conventional helicopter and short make short work of a family trip to the seaside without getting stuck in the traffic, though likely to be an air traffic controller's nightmare with all these things shunting around the sky, so perhaps not - we will just have to resign ourselves to that large car park called the M25

Yes, Hale-Bopp was the best I have ever seen and we were blessed with some clear skies at the time to get a good view.

So who's in a hurry for a flurry?

A pound to a pinch of salt there will still be portions left with the potential to cause substantial damage should they come our way and each of those portions could have its own particular trajectory and these will be more difficult to track and compute.

One of the most amazing clips of film I saw in relation to the under ice environment of the Antarctic was when a flow of fresh melt water flowed from the ice surface into the sub zero sea beneath - the fresh water being heavier than salt water caused it to sink to the bottom, just a matter of a few metres but as it did so, it froze taking on the appearance of a thick cable, down from the ice to the sea bed. No doubt this phenomena his a name but unfortunately I do not recall it.

Is that it at about 11 o'clock which seems to be a brightish spot with a bit of a tail pointing back towards the sun? but surely on its outward journey the tail would be pointing away from the sun.

It was misnamed - it should have been called Icarus. Edit - I wonder if something like this was the cause of the legend in the first place.

How many more times must I tell you Captain, steer well clear of the black holes until we get this problem solved.

Should be another day or two by the time it rounds the sun, so it's not out of the fire yet.

And no doubt the gravitational forces involved provide the energy to sustain our liquid core, as is believed to be the case with some of Jupiter's moons, whereas Venus which does not have tectononic activity and possibly a more solid core and no magnetic field to speak of does not have any moons.

I go with the theory that since Mars is so much smaller than the Earth, about half its mass, its core cooled much quicker than ours changing it from a liquid into a solid - once the whole planet became solid, it meant that different sub sections could not revolve at a different rate to each other which is an essential part of maintaining a magnetic field which is developed through this interaction. Some also say that it may have been involved in a collision with an asteroid some 4 million years ago which had catastrophic effects and that prior to this it was quite earth like. As the magnetic field dies away the planet was at the mercy of the solar winds which over time stripped a lot of the atmosphere away and a good part of that which wasn't stripped away combined with the rocks, for example the oxygen combined with the iron in the rocks, oxidising it, though water still exists there in the form of ice and that is why it became the 'Red Planet'.

As far as I recall it wasn't anything like as cold as '62/63 - big disappointment, mostly cloudy and wet - the nearest we came to a heavy snowfall at Watford was one day when we had a period of heavy sleet with large flakes but I don't recall it settling.

Fantastic Knocker, they bring out the otherwise secret world of a glacier out into the open - mind you, sooner them than me - such expeditions can't be without hazard with the ice moving - so cold as well but what else would you expect?

Such a pity I would have loved to have seen it - remember Knocker, you can't please all the people all the time.

Not altogether - the Med has the propensity to whip up some good storms - the one referred to here was a double whammy where a south east gale caused a storm surge pushing the water back up the Aude whilst torrential rain on the hills around its catchment area pushed the water down, so its level had to rise. http://www.corbieresweb.com/english/inondation.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/518748.stm Cuxac is just about 5 miles of so from our village but fortunately we are slightly higher. A couple of hundred miles to the west and this current storm could have caused devastation in the coastal areas around the Gulf de Lion - reckon we got away by the skin of our teeth, as it was last Saturday morning we just had some rain but no strong winds to speak of and the weather did not clear up until we were half way through the Massif.

Continuing the next leg of the journey, Issoire to Rouen - the journey continued cold cloudy with hill fog with visibility down to 50 metres in places above 500 metres but on the approach to Rouen the sky started to clear and temperature rose to a balmy 7 C. I agree with you about the way things change with height - I have had some interesting driving through the Pyrenees and as height is gained the vegetation changes as does the farming and in the Spring and early Summer part of what were the deepest Winter snows are about.

We started off from Capestang about 1330 hours today and after an hour had reached the viaduct at Millau. The journey started off overcast with some rain which gradually cleared as we headed north. Still cloudy at Millau but it had died out and we had a temp of 13C. After about a further 50 miles or so the sky cleared greatly to leave us with stunning views of the sunlight on the rocks,fields and woods.as we progressed further and rose in height to the 1000 metre level we started to see patches of snow in the fields and at the temperature started to drop, upper single figures when we first hit the snow patches, then down to 5C and as it did the extent of the snow increases. It wasn't deep, say about 2 cms. It was still great to see in the sunlight and as we got to the 1100 metre contour it was more wide spread but alas soon after that we ran into fairly dense fog and a temp of +1C. I wondered whether the fog would just be restricted to the snowfields but no, it continued after we dropped below 900 metres and the visibility on really improved below the 600 metre mark and by the lifting into stratus, but still cold. As we descended the other side it did warm up to +4C but it had the typical appearance of a miserable cold November day in England. And it was only last Wednesday we were walking around the village with the temp in the low 20's. Roll on Spring - my old bones can't take it any more, though I must say the snow looked lovely.

It's in the paper so it must be true

Sounds ok Phil but I have not been able to open up your charts - apparently I am not authorised to see them

Sorry, I forgot about Toad's mate (

I didn't know that that they had evolved to be so sophisticated that they now eat off plates - will they be using knives and forks next?

I never disbelieved this - the problem is that we are unlikely to make contact with each other - just imagine f we could develop Starship Enterprise technology we could have some marvellous holidays