Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate – first October Snow in over 70 years

29 10 2008

Two Stories for you, one about the snow itself, and the other about climate law being debated and passed in the middle of the unusual snow.- Anthony

London has first October snow in over 70 years

From the Guardian

Cold snap causes flight cancellations while a motorway accident kills one driver and causes severe disruption

Parts of south-east England had more than an inch of snow last night while London experienced its first October snowfall in more than 70 years as winter conditions arrived early.

Snow settled on the ground in parts of the capital last night as temperatures dipped below zero. A Met Office spokeswoman said it was London’s first October snow since 1934.

For greater south-east of England it was the first October snow since 1974. High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire had 3cm (1.2 inches). One of the coldest temperatures recorded was -4.1C in Benson, Oxfordshire.

“It is unusual to have snow this early,” the Met spokeswoman said. “In October 2003 sleet and snow was recorded in Northern Ireland, Wales, south-west, north-west and north-east England and the Midlands, but it was mainly over higher ground.”

read the entire story here

How Parliament passed the Climate Bill (in spite of the weather)

By Andrew Orlowski The Register

Posted in Government, 29th October 2008 12:35 GMT

Excerpt: Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.

In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : weather

UHI is real, in Reno at least

29 10 2008

A couple of days ago there was a guest post from Russ Steele citing a California study “Feeling the Heat” on global warming that just didn’t seem to add up.  One of the stations cited as having climate change related warming was Reno, NV. So, I decided to do a field experiment to test this. The results show clearly that UHI exists in Reno.

Here is what Russ wrote a couple fo days ago:

Feeling the Heat was published by Environment California a non-profit group a few weeks ago, claiming 2007 was the tenth warmest year on record and that the mountain west was experiencing above-average temperatures.  Full report here: Download feeling_the_heat_ca.pdf One of the examples given for the high western temperatures was Reno Nevada with a average temperature of 55.3 degrees in 2007, four degrees higher than the 30 years average temperatures from 1971 to 2000.

…Up front in the EC report the author dispatches UHI as having any influence on the climate change, citing studies by Easterling, PD Jones and Parker…

Well I decided to test this myself tonight, since I’m driving through Reno on my return home, I arranged an overnight stay. With me is my NIST calibrated data logger, NIST Calibrated temperature probe, a vehicle mounted Gill IR shield, my laptop computer, and my trusty vehicle. See my previous post “Road Kit“

I chose Virginia Street as the transect route, since it remains relatively straight, level, and crosses all of Reno, including the built up southern suburbs and downtown. It is the original “main street” for Reno.

Here is the result of my South to North transect driving Virgina Street overlaid on a Google Earth image oriented to match the timeline of the transect:


Click for larger image

The weather tonight was perfect. Light winds, clear skies.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Science, weather_stations