jethro

By the same token, if you're holding that gate open and they decline to pass through, should you push them, or accept that they may have plans to go another way, or perhaps sit and watch before making up their minds, or that perhaps they know of another gate on a path they prefer? Shouldn't they be left to make up their own minds?

I think today's a good day to go back to bed.....I wish. It's lashing it down here and has been for most of the night.

You sure you're remembering that right Pete? I seem to remember the claims were that it had been more active in the 20th century. To claim a 1,000yrs, then a sceptic would have to overlook the MWP - the MWP and LIA were the corner stones of the idea that Solar activity was responsible for recent climate change.

I'd testify in your defence! Surely he can run all he wants without clearing the garden? Put it this way, if he cleared my garden, he'd better be a damn good runner....

I don't care what the thermometer said today, it felt blinking cold in that wind. On a completely separate note, got to work today to find the barns adjacent to the garden had gone up in flames last night, a whole winter's worth of animal feed gone up in smoke just because some numpty fancied setting it on fire. What on earth possesses people to cause such wanton destruction? The poor farmer's at his wits end worrying how on earth he can feed his hundreds of pregnant Ewes over the winter. Makes oi cross!!

I think for me it has to be December 1981, we'd been forecast a bit of snow but nothing really to worry about. It began about lunchtime, by the time home time came it was already a good 8 inches deep, I got a lift home standing on the back of a tractor which already was about the only vehicle moving. I can't remember when it finally stopped snowing but it certainly wasn't before the end of the next day, we had at least 2ft of level snow and then the winds picked up drifting it everywhere, they were immense and still the biggest I've ever seen. There wasn't really much of a thaw before Christmas so even though there was no falling snow on Christmas day, it was a very white Christmas. I was a member of Young Farmers and annually we'd do carol singing for charity, we'd go around the various villages to pre-booked venues and that year we were also booked in to do a spot at midnight mass on Christmas Eve. There was no way we could all pile on the available tractors nor could we safely hook a trailer up and go in that so many of us skied our way round - it was quicker than trudging and when 'last orders' is looming, seconds count...Looking back on that Christmas Eve and the sight of dozens of pairs of ski's propped up on the walls of the church, knee deep snow everywhere and boughs weighed down to the ground with the weight of the snow, still rates as one of my most surreal moments, it was after all in the Cotswold's not the Alps.

That's got to be covered by 'unreasonable behaviour', I'd divorce him, just in case he did it again because then you'd be forced to shoot him instead.

IMO the only honest answer you can give a child is that CO2 has the potential to change the climate but we don't know how much, where will be impacted the most or in what way. The most important thing you can teach your child about this topic is to educate them how to live sustainably, with the minimum impact upon the environment and to only take what they need. I can hand on heart say that's how I've brought mine up, regardless of AGW and I'm absolutely certain Laser will have too - you don't need to believe in all the drama associated with AGW to want to live a green lifestyle.

But at work (where it matters most) it's only 63m asl. It's in the middle of one of those 7-7.5c bits - that tiny difference has a big impact early on in the season. As you know yourself, what we get up here on the tops of the Mendips is a world away from the weather at the bottom of them. Having said all of this, and despite my moaning, if I have to dig my way out for weeks on end, I'll be a happy bunny and whatever we wish for, the weather will do as it pleases. I did have a dream last week where the snow had drifted over the hedges and filled in all the lanes, that would make the drifts about 12 foot tall, wouldn't that be heavenly!

I'm not looking for t-shirt weather, just not wanting frozen ground, snow and harsh frost. Here in the SW with an average to warm March you can get a lot of things going in the greenhouse, the Apricot tree will be in full blossom any time from mid Feb - mid March, cloches on the veg patch would be warming the soil for an early crop too.

Absolutely agree. There have been posts here from folk who rarely, if ever venture into the climate area. It's clearly a topic of interest, you'd be more than welcome over in that part of the forum. This thread however is not the place to discuss the issue, please stick to the topic in hand, and try not to dilute the important issue of snow build-up with climate chatter.

To be honest GW, you're the only person I've seen who's postulated that a negative PDO would produce temps similar to the 60's. To be fair, I'm not a visitor of many climate sites, never set foot in the blogosphere land of climate bickering so I may have missed these claims; but on here, you're the only one who's made them. The globe and the climate isn't as simple as functioning on one driver, the PDO is simply one part of it. It seems to me that your repeated remarks on the PDO and it's failure to lower global temps is an effort to exaggerate warming and man's influence. Plus your idea that we're due to enter a positive phase of the PDO is simply inaccurate. The negative phase was confirmed (if memory serves me correctly) about 4 years ago. The positive and negative phases have historically gone in 20-30 year spans - that makes on average, another 20ish years still to come of a negative phase. You predicted repeatedly that the negative phase and La Nina would show signs of warming, that the cold water of a Nina would be less cold than in the past, that the Nina's of the current era and the future would be less intense - none of these predictions have materialised and to date, there appears to be no AGW signature evident in the PDO. As for the less dimming from China, I agree it's likely but that has to be balanced against the increase in albedo which will occur as a result. Like everything else in this debate, it's not as simple or clear cut as you would appear to want people to believe.

What a glorious day it's been - more of the same please.

In the Green corner we have team GB building windmills over beautiful moorland http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232594/12m-wind-farm-blight-Bronte-country-despite-pleas-ruin-landscape.html. I wonder, could they be tweeked so they whisper Heathcliff as the blades rotate? And in the Black corner we have team USA going hell for leather to extract every last drop of fuel from beneath the Earth http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232448/The-International-Energy-Agency-U-S-set-biggest-oil-producer-world.html Despite the risk that Emily Bronte may be turning in her grave, regardless of my brother's fury that they'll be in his back garden, personally I'd rather have the windmills than the shale oil - has anyone seen the devastation wrought on the landscape by this process? http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=tar+sands+usa&num=10&hl=en&biw=1152&bih=647&tbm=isch&tbnid=bVYIBCyb5jmu8M:&imgrefurl=http://ran.org/node/10042&docid=rrp9dgHBjnNdfM&imgurl=http://ran.org/sites/default/files/energy_tarsands_480x295.jpg&w=480&h=295&ei=_W6jULTGLerU0QXO5IHwBQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=123&vpy=129&dur=1555&hovh=176&hovw=288&tx=116&ty=65&sig=116756314030200072203&page=3&tbnh=141&tbnw=212&start=36&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:26,s:20,i:211

Call me an old cynic, but I can't help but wonder on the insurance issues. Most insurance policies have an opt out clause covered by 'Act of God', whereby some disasters can happen and the insurance company doesn't have to pay out. In addition to this, it is increasingly costly/prohibitive to get insurance for flood damage if you live in an area prone to flooding. With the modern malaise of everything can be blamed on someone else, damages and compensation can be claimed from numerous directions, I'm wondering if labelling lots of weather events as a result of climate change is an effort to shift the repair cost onto someone else's shoulders/get out of paying out millions in insurance claims.

Those big house spiders always appear at this time of year. It is however bad luck to kill them....

Goodo. Not bothered about Thursday, polling duty for me so stuck inside all day waiting for the occasional voter to turn up. I'd be deeply grateful though if Friday was dry too.

Bees respond to the weather in the moment, if it's cold or wet, they don't fly - if it's warm, sunny or dry, they do. As for Squirrels, I had a pet one which lived in the house all year round. The house is centrally heated and on the warm side of average, the Squirrel had a cosy bed to sleep in but year after year she moulted in the Spring and grew a nice thick Winter coat in the Autumn. She never had a shortage of food but she still always made stockpiles around the house - under rugs, under cushions, behind the sofa, you name, she hid it there, that's just what Squirrels do. Animals and insects react to what is currently happening with the weather, they don't predict weeks or months ahead.

It's been perfect weather for working in today, if this carries on all week there's a serious danger I may actually be ahead for a change. Mullender - where did you get those giant Reindeer from? They're brilliant, want one!

But to be fair, when those charts in the lead up to 2010 were posted at a similar time range, they were also dismissed by some. A once in a 100 year event doesn't mean it can't happen again until another hundred years have passed, it could happen again this year and there again, it may not. The past few years have seen weather patterns that haven't been seen for some time, decades ago these weather patterns were more common place - for some bizarre reason we seem to get clusters of years where one type of weather or another is more prevalent than usual. Add into that mix the continued quiet Sun (shown to make blocking and colder than average NH winters more common) and the speculation that the dramatic ice loss in the Arctic this summer may impact upon the weather, and I'd say the dice is loaded more in favour of the 100 year records becoming more common place. As ever, time will tell but none of us are able to say will or won't happen, until after it's happened.

They're all very happy in there at the mo, even talk of a Channel Low....go take a look before it all disappears on the next run.

Our man in the know is poised and waiting in Australia, they should arrive any day now...

Andy, I'm with you on those thoughts. What a grim, wet Monday morning it is, oh how I wish work didn't beckon and I could go back to bed.

I'm a model numpty, utterly useless at reading and predicting anything from the models, but even I can see that they give clues for future trends. Admittedly they can't accurately predict the weather to the point of being able to say there will be 6 inches of snow in my back garden on the 3rd of December - I wouldn't expect them to be able to either. That said, their accuracy at that range is probably greater than your statement of fact above. Why and how can you be so certain that there's no chance of a cold shot in the future?

When you work outside all year round like I do, cold and snow loses it's appeal after a few weeks. I've got an enormous wedding to plan and plant a garden for, could really do without a late, cold Spring. Snow and cold limited to the end of Feb at the latest is what I'm praying for, although I know I'll be in the minority looking for that kind of weather.