mike Meehan

Most of the time a temperature of 25C with low humidity will do me fine, though I am ok up to about 30C - If we go to the other end of the scale i.e. winter, my preferred outside temperature is -5C, again with low humidity - sometimes a calm sunny day with a -5C temperature can feel surprisingly warm, much more so than the overcast drizzly blowy days we get at +3C.

Just hope this is not the start of a trend for dry winters with wet summers

Better luck next time!

Oh dear, Summer 2012, you were such a flirt , as a little girl back in March, you indicated that you would be well behaved but then your bigger sister, Spring 2012 decided to butt in giving us the occasional glimpse of what you could do at the end of May but otherwise being very standoffish - I fear you were led astray by her bad example for when you did come in June you were naught but tears and that didn't change too much in July either. I do believe that you tried better in August but you still had teary spells but then you could not keep it up to the end, you had to go early, so adieu, even though you have promised to visit us occasionaly when your other sister Autumn 2012 comes to stay with us. God only knows what effect your are going to have on your little brother Winter 2012/13, no doubt he will be fractious as well and make promises he can't keep. All I can hope is that your cousins, Spring and Summer 2013 will be much better behaved.

The mind boggles:)

Yes, but isn't that only if you stop at a specific point along the way?

As the program said - if you were to draw a triangle on the face of the earth with the base line was along the souther states of America and the apex was at the north pole, it would not be a true triangle and the sum of the angles would be greater than 180 degrees because the earth is a sphere and the lines would in fact be following great circle routes. After that it gets more complicated but is based on making measurements with a triangle - as light travels through space, it can be bent by various gravitational influences - by making an extemely thin triangle with the base being a line between two satellites and the apex at the end of the observable universe, they were able to differentiate between a finite spherical universe which is collapsing, or one which is expanding, then if the angles did make up 180 degrees their result was that the universe is flat and infinite. About this point I am getting completly lost, so I have to trust that they know what they are talking about. However I find the whole concept of finity and infinity, multi universes, parallel universes, fifth dimensions and more absolutely fascinating and believe that as we find out more we will understand some of the things mankind has wondered about since the dawn of time.

IMHO, not really being qualified at all and an absolute duffer as far as the maths are concerned, I think that very often progress can be made by thinking out of the box. Or what was it some said about when investigating something like this and all the lines are shown to be impossible, then the impossible becomes possible.

But if we were to divide 4 by 2 = 2, then divide 2 by 2 = 1 then 1 by 2 = 0.5, then 0.5 by 2 = 0.25 and so on, we never actually reach zero and this division could carry on for infinity, so mathmatically it must exist, or have I got this wrong?

According to the Horizon program on Aunty Beeb last night, the extent of the universe is infinite, we have both dark matter and dark energy in the universe - the dark matter is holding the universe together but the dark matter is driving it apart, however as it does so it becomes weaker because it is having to cover more volume - a bit like adiabatic cooling I suppose - so from that I take it that a point will be reached where the energy and the matter balance out and the expansion will stop? The other matter is that there may be an infinite number of other universes , which was no more than hinted at but it is suggested that as satellite observations inproves, more evidence to support this may be forthcoming and as it is there is a goods possibility that its authenticity could be checked against the 'background radiation from the big bang which could go towards supporting this theory. We really do live in exciting times as far as the subject of cosmology is concerned.

Don't you believe it - I think the furthest southern extent of glaciation was St Johns Wood in North London but in Herts where I live there are a number of gravel pits, remnents of terminal morains.

Rules are for the guidance of the wise and for the compliance of the foolish:)

Plus concreting your garden over makes it that much harder for the water to drain away when the heavy rain comes. The number of paved front gardens in urban area show this - hence more floods.

Interesting - it looks (on the 23k year cycle) that we are currently in a position where the northern hemisphere summers are slightly further from the sun than the southern hemisphere with the position expected to reverse in 10.5k years. However with cooler summers inhibiting the amount of melt and warmer winters increasing precipitation I would have expected a larger accumulation of ice in the norther hemisphere with the opposite occuring in the SH but the last ice age maxima was in retreat circa 10k years ago? Not only that I thought that the evidence was that both NH and SH experienced ice ages at the same time. No doubt a problem of looking at this in isolation, so there must be other factors involved. Looking at the ice age chart over the last 450k years it seems that our current inter glacial spell is not the norm and for most of the time it was quite a bit colder than today. Most of the time the warm interlude reaches a peak and almost immediately descends again but our current peak appear to have stayed at the same levels at the moment. The other interesting point is that whilst cooling towards a glacial period appears to be more gradual, the warming at its finish appears to be quicker. The most likely solution I can think of is an increase in greenhouse gases, carbon di oxide from volcanic eruptions, then once the heating has started, an increase of water vapour, which is also a greenhouse gas, though I can't think of a natural cause for suddenly increasing methane - if anything I would have thought there would have been less animals farting during the cold period but I suppose that undersea deposits of methane could be dislodged during earth disturbances but why should these follow a cycle?

It will have to be written in very simple language so that I understand - I appear to be in the minority here without an advanced educashun

Damn, I missed out whether changes in the Earth's axis may have an influence - I'm not sure it has changed that much though - is there anyway it can be calculated? Or are you going to let us know these alternative theories, or are you going to keep us in suspense Knocker?

The alternative is to hang around for a few millenia 'til they come back

I expect that the navigation lights on high flying aircraft could be mistaken for UFO's especially if they are hidden intermittently by patches of cloud but who knows? Personally I keep an open mind on the subject - it would be most arrogant of us to assume we are the only intelligent life form in the universe.

We don't really have a clear idea of what caused the ice ages and these could be an excess of volcanic ash in the atmosphere screening in part the sun's energy, or the eccentric orbit of the earth around the sun causing warmer and colder periods, the development of adverse weather systems producing greater winter snows and lesser summer meltings allowing the various glaciers and ice caps to extend over a period of time, the movements of the continents into positions which variously support warm and cold climates, low levels of carbon di oxide in the atmosphere, changes in undersea topography changing the direction and flow of ocean currents, or indeed there could be a cycle in the sun which we have not discovered yet simply because we have not been around long enough to find out. Or, it could be a combination of all or some of the above, though whatever is the cause I suspect that there is a trip point beyond which the system, whether for warmth or cold, intensfies until such a time as something else comes into play to reverse the process. At any rate I would dearly love to know, so keep cracking on with your research lads and lasses

I am not a specialist in this field by any means but from the reading I have done on the subject, rather than say the last ice age ended some 12,000 years ago wouldn't it be more correct to say that the ice age is still with us - it still exists at the poles - and that our current climate is due to an 'inter glacial period' and that at some period the glaciers will extend again in a similar manner to which the ice extended at the beginning of the last glacial advance. With the continued movements of the continents there may come a time when the earth is pretty well ice free, then we could truly say the ice age has ended.

Yes Nick, we had a load crawl out of a hole in our patio this afternoon and take to the air - just think out of all those hundreds or possibly thousands only one will get his wicked way with the new queen in waiting, then they will all die - and we think we'ver got it hard!

I like some of the comments there

I wonder with the low dam levels whether there is any of the white or wintry stuff on the tops of the mountains?

I will predict that one year we will get an absolutely great summer - the only problem is that I don't know when it will be.

If it's any consolation June 1815 must have been a bit soggy as well - on 18th when the Battle of Waterloo was fought the ground was very muddy, so much so that the French cannon balls just went splodge into the mud and had very little effect which helped towards the day going in our favour.