mike Meehan

Do they power a lap top?

Normally I treat the discovery of new fuels with a pinch of salt since most of them are hoaxes or attempts to dupe gullible members of the public but I think there might be something in this. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-navy-game-changer-converting-seawater-fuel-140544115.html#qdzrnDm It looks like it will be a while before we can top up the tanks in our cars with this but from my reading, it looks like it will be a carbon neutral fuel - the oceans are absorbing CO2 all the time, so we would be taking out what is continually being put in. Apparently a lot of work yet to be done and also many a slip twixt cup and lip but if it does come to fruition. Since we are surrounded by the briney, it could solve the power problems of the UK, whilst making us carbon neutral, well excepting whatever power they need to produce and keep the catalytic converters but I would imagine with a warship they expect to gain more energy than what they put it, so it looks like a win win situation.

It's never happened to me

But wasn't 1954 the year of a crap summer?

It does remind me of the Spaghetti Tree which the BBC put out on 01.04.1957 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm

Yes, I saw some lying snow, only about 25 to 50 mms and it was when travelling over the Massif Central, France above 900 metres altitude during mid November - at the time it seemed to promise a good winter but alas it was not to be - the only other time we saw some wintry stuff was some sleet last weekend but neither of these episodes were in the official winter period. Now we are in BST, I don't want to see any but hope for a barbecue spring, summer and autumn.

As I understand it the process of subduction, the plates being absorbed back into the earth's crust takes the CO2 with it but it is so slow and it takes about 1000 years to have an effect, so there is no point in the Global warming deniers banking on this - I don't think I will be around that long, though it does explain the 'Snowball Earth' and reasons for this ice to melt a bit better.

It does depend a lot on the temperature of the originating air - I doubt that it would be cold enough this year.

If it is the place I am thinking of isn't there a waterfall on one side and on a fine day you can see the sea? Never got to the top; an old ankle injury forbids this but a lovely area and great photos but fear not, I suspect there is still time for a fresh layer of snow up there before winter is out altogether.

It is quite usual to get cold snaps at this time of year.

Not the 26th August 1976 - the heavens opened and it absolutely pee'd down - this was just after the appointment of the most effective minister ever - 'The Minister of Droughts'

I've noticed that quite often when we put our clocks forward to British 'Summer' time the weather invariably gets colder

I did not keep a record but it is my impression that over my lifetime we have had many more 'white Easters' than white 'Christmases' in the south of the UK, though any snow falling is not usually long lasting.

There's a thing - I must have plotted some of your obs

Gimme a warm sunny spring then a 'Barbie' summer after the miserable winter we have just had.

The level of CO2 in the atmosphere is not going to decrease in the next 1000 or so years unless we can find a way of effectively scrubbing it out so at the moment we are likely to keep our 400 ppm for the foreseeable future. If anything global temps will continue to rise since these lag behind the increase of this gas, so in all likelihood there will be an increase by the end of the century of +2C even if we managed to maintain the present CO2 level. However if we carried on with 'business as usual' the experts forecast a possible increase of global temps of some 6C by the end of the century, with possibly 'tipping points' reached through decreased albino effects by the loss of ice which can make the matter worse. In short there is no quick solution so all we can do really is to make sure we do not make conditions worse for future generations but at some time in the future there is likely to be climate change caused through natural cycles as they have done in the past though the hope is that by then we will have learned much more and in a position to moderate these.

April - Lovely clear blue skies with temps maxing at 25C. May - Lovely clear blue skies with temps maxing at 28C. June - Lovely clear blue skies with temps maxing at 30C. July - Lovely clear blue skies with temps maxing at 32C. Aug - Lovely clear blue skies with temps maxing at 32C. Sept - Lovely clear blue skies with temps maxing at 28C. Oct - Lovely clear blue skies with temps maxing at 25C. Nov '14 to Mar '15 - if the winter is going to be anything like this last one - hibernation! With occasional thunderstorms to replenish the rainfall and some fair weather cu from time to time but mostly we want to be eating outside in the garden with some barbies and a glass of wine in the evenings.

Was the severe cold this winter far enough west to kill off the little blighters?

Talking about the big bang there was an interesting program on BBC channel 4 Monday evening - now the scientists are not so sure about the big bang - the main reason is, 'How can you get a universe out of nothing', so they are re-visiting the theories with a vengeance, some of which include multiverses and another which suggests that in quantum mechanics gravity repels rather than attracts, so you get a prior universe contracting to such a point that the gravity works in an opposite way and repels everything back out again - fascinating. I commend you to check it on Iplayer if you have not seen it.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/nasa-telescope-finds-mother-lode-planets-024938549.html?vp=1#ATXbJs5 Nasa's planet-hunting Kepler telescope has discovered more than 700 new worlds outside the solar system. Scientists say the latest results push the number of planets discovered in the galaxy to about 1,700. Just 20 years ago, astronomers had not found any planets circling stars other than the ones revolving around the sun. "We almost doubled just today the number of planets known to humanity," Nasa planetary scientist Jack Lissauer said. Nasa scientist Douglas Hudgins called the discovery a major step towards Kepler's ultimate goal: "finding Earth 2.0". Astronomers used a new technique to come up with the largest single announcement of a batch of exoplanets - what planets outside our solar system are called. All the new planets are in systems like ours where multiple planets circle a star. The 715 planets were nearly all similar in size to Earth and four orbit their stars in "habitable zones" where conditions would support liquid water which is crucial for life to exist. :: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.

No that is nit picking - everybody has access to UK TV programs and I often listen to RTE Lyric - quid quo pro

Personally, I put it all down to the jet streams which have a mind of their own - some years we have had them south of us for a time and received some nice easterlies as a result, but this season it appears that it started off with a very wet spell in Indonesia with the jet stream taking a route NE over the Pacific, then SE over North America leaving much of Canada and the USA in the cold (but surprisingly there have been mild days in Alaska where on a number of days Anchorage has reported + values in temperature). Then it has continued across the Atlantic making a bee line for us, meanwhile the lows, as is their want, have followed this track, starting off as very cold Canadian air and voila, we have the march of pretty intense lows heading straight for our front door step after picking up lots of Atlantic warmth and moisture en route, the temperature differences between the cold Canadian and the warmish Atlantic air being just what they need to make them grow big and strong. They haven't just stopped there but marched straight on into eastern Russia where the first part of the winter was very mild for them with just a shortish interlude in between when the NW Russia Scandy high decided to try and put up a fight but alas the Atlantic was too strong for it, so now we are in the position where pretty well all of Europe is pretty mild for the middle of February and there no longer appears to be enough time for the cold to re-assert itself. It's a bit upsetting that the Middle East has seen something which most of have not this season - SNOW - but fear not, the advancing seasons will show these jet streams who is boss and as we advance into spring I expect to see these tramlines dismantled and with a bit of luck they will change to a more northerly track leaving us to cuddle up to the Azores High for the summer. Just because this winter has been mild it does not mean to say that next winter will be the same - Over a period of years, decades even, the weather tends to balance out. Just think yourselves lucky you are not living in that 'red spot' area of Jupiter - there has been a storm raging there for the last 300 years to our knowledge.

This looks like even more fun

He doesn't have a beard

I saw a big wooden boat floating down the road yesterday - there were lots of animals on board and a man with a long white beard. Any ideas what they may be about?