The media in Britain, as keen as mustard, are looking for every instance they can claim as proof of global warming. That said, the weather in Britain has been unusually mild. The winter has been the warmest since 1659. We have had but a short dusting of light snow. In this county people have found camellias flowering .The hedgehogs don't seem to have hibernated. They are toddling around without proper spines: they have soft spines in the Spring. There have been examples of birds nesting. Last night we did have a frost but it was only minus 2 Celsius (28 F).The weather has been sunny.

So, how's the weather been doing in your patch?

Hedgehogs without proper spines sounds pretty drastic. I guess our equivalent, after translation, would be procupines without proper quills. Here in the Mid-Atlantic part of the U.S, I have noticed that there seems to be considerable confusion on the part of the birds. The Canada geese seem to reverse direction every few weeks, and the bird feeder we have on our balcony/patio attracts whole flocks of what I think are Carolina chickadees, for what should normally be winter months and then abandon the feeder for weeks at a time, only to come back again. A lot of stuff has started to bloom, only to be killed by the current cold spell. We have yet to see our first accumulation of snow.

Here in the U.S. West and Southwest the weather has been colder than normal. It started right after Thanksgiving. A lot of citrus and other cold-tender plants have been lost because of this unusually cold weather. We had a snow storm in our area that is a once-in-20-year occurance.

DD

What a week to ask! After a relatively mild winter, the morning temperatures at my jobsite this week were 17 deg F (-8 C) Monday and Tuesday, followed by 23 deg F (-5 C) Wednesday and snow on Thursday. This is a very cold week for my location in North Carolina. This past summer was noted for its absence of hot days. According to some articles I have read, we are among the areas that don't seem to have been affected by global warming.

Here in almost the exact middle of the US, we've had, once again, a much warmer winter that the usual, with late spring/early fall weather for the most part. We've only had two cold snaps, compared with the usual dozen or more. I've also noticed that birds seem confused about which way they should be moving, and plant life seems to thinks it's April. (This cold snap, with its single digit F temperatures will show them!) I remember last year (or the year before) that Tree in British Columbia sent me pictures of her garden blooming in January. She commented on how unusual it was. In one of the recent news articles concerning the recent report of scientists about global warming, it was pointed out that the 10 warmest years on record (since 1850) have been the last 10. Things are changing, that's for sure, and the "normal" weather patterns are going to be much different than what was considered normal just a decade or so ago. But it's not global warming, and if it is, it's not our fault. (It's also not a civil war in Iraq; it's just two groups [maybe 3] of guys from the same country fighting each other for control of the country.)

But I haven't seen any animals with unusual spines. (But I'll be on the look-out.) I did notice a dog with a limp, though. Does that count?

Vancouver has had some unusually cold and stormy weather.

But the idea that unusual weather in one year, or one locality, can indicate global warming is a fallacy.

Global warming is a change in trends - in the average over much longer periods of time, during which of course there will be temporary highs and lows.

'...The forces that determine our climate system are part of an extraordinarily complex interplay among the planet's atmosphere, land surface and oceans, and are guided by a multitude of natural controls and feedback mechanisms. We see this complicated relationship manifested as weather — the day-to-day variation in temperature, precipitation, wind, clouds and so on. Although many people equate weather with climate, they are not the same. Climate is the average of these day-to-day conditions, as well as the fluctuations from that average, that occur in a particular region over a particular period of time.

So when you hear the term climate variability, says Henry Hengeveld, science advisor on climate change for the Atmospheric Environment Service (AES), "it really means fluctuations in weather, but you expect them to remain within a range around an average, and that they will return to that average." In other words, you expect the fluctuations to be temporary, says Hengeveld, "whereas climate change is a more permanent shift, where you do not expect conditions to return to that average."

The distinction may seem clear-cut, but it's not, because climate variability over the short term can look very different from variability over the long term. How much unusual weather we'll attribute to being merely part of our climate's natural variability all depends on the period of time we're using as our frame of reference. For example, within a thirty-year time frame, which is the typical stretch for human memory, we become accustomed to a certain amount and type of weather fluctuation in a particular climate region. Meaning that every few years it may be wetter, drier, colder, warmer, snowier or cloudier than what we perceive as the average. However, when something out of our experience occurs, like the ferocious snowstorm that hit the eastern seaboard last winter, we assume it must be out of the ordinary, that our climate is changing. But what if we pushed back our terms of reference to 50,100, 500, or 1000 years?

We may discover these extreme events are actually once-in-a-century events, as was that snowstorm, or once-in-a-millennium events, occurrences that, although rare, can be expected even while the climate remains stable. What looks like climate change over the short term may turn out to be variability over the long term, and because of this climatologists are loathe to leap to conclusions in their detective work...'
perc.ca

From CNN

Global warming is here and humans are "very likely" the blame, an international group of scientists meeting in Paris, France, announced Friday.

"The evidence for warming having happened on the planet is unequivocal," said U.S. government scientist Susan Solomon, who also is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"We can see that in rising air temperatures, we can see it in changes in snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere. We can see it in global sea rise. It's unequivocal," she said. (Watch scientist Susan Solomon deliver the grim news on global warming Video)

In a 21-page report for policymakers, the group of climate experts unanimously linked -- with "90 percent" certainty -- the increase of average global temperatures since the mid-20th century to the increase of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The report found it was "likely" -- "more likely than not" in some cases -- that manmade greenhouse gases have contributed to hotter days and nights, and more of them, more killer heat waves than before, heavier rainfall more often, major droughts in more regions, stronger and more frequent cyclones and "increased incidence" of extremely high sea levels.

The report noted that 11 of the last 12 years have ranked among the 12 warmest years on record with the oceans absorbing more than 80 percent of the heat added to the climate system.
********
I'll stay with what I said, especially when one remembers that scientists, aa a group, generally speak in conservative tones. They, like everyone else, don't like to be seen as wrong, so they often hedge their bets. If this report is truly a conservative viewpoint, them we (not the planet)m atrer in for a tough time.

This has been a strange season in Chicago. December and January were warm - I rode my bike to work for the first three weeks of January It is now cold here and everyone is complaining per a usual winter but this is not making it easier for me to be at ease. I live in Chicago and winter is supposed to be long and brutal. November and December are typically part of the cold winter season but definitely not this year and January for the past two years has been like spring.

It's very unsettling and it makes me very sick to my stomach to hear people chuckling and joking about it. I think we're in serious trouble and it's likely going to be too late to really jump on board to fix it.

People are going to hold onto their ideas about this subject and it's hard to shake them into looking at new information with some semblance of an open mind. It seems really obvious to me that we're setting ourselves up for disaster, but hopefully I'm wrong.

Just from observation, with the exception of this week's cold temps, it has been pretty much mild and snow-free here in the Northeast. Here is the cause: Ed killed his mini-snowblower last year, so this year he bought a huge snowblower. But I'm sure the tide will turn and we'll get a wet snow (not enough to close the roads but enough to make it messy and dangerous to travel) the minute I buy a new car.

Seriously, though, what can be done? We are switching to the efficient lightbulbs, taking shorter showers, and our house is a balmy 62 degrees. It won't do much good though. Armageddon is coming.

Hi Gang:

Global warming had been so bad in Temecula ,California that the cold weather here has completely wiped out virtaully every plant or flower on our property.

Oh ,where are the cow farts when you really need them???

hippolips

No hedgehogs in the USA ? (Except that some of you keep the African pygmy hedgehog as a pet).The European version was introduced to New Zealand where they prove friends to gardeners as they live on slugs and other pests.America has missed out Ours are much larger than the African ones: up to about 12 inches long and 4 1/2 pounds weight. They are very common in gardens but mostly nocturnal so we hear them snuffling around outside more than we see them. They provide great puzzlement for dogs, rolling up into an inpenetrable spiny ball when molested or alarmed. They hibernate from late Autumn to March or April. So it is odd indeed to find them active at this time of year.

Chickadees are rather like our titmice (blue tit, great tit, coal tit etc ). Here too the birds have been showing little interest in bird-feeders. Watching them it is obvious that they can find grubs and insect larvae as well as seeds in this weather.

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:

But I haven't seen any animals with unusual spines. (But I'll be on the look-out.) I did notice a dog with a limp, though. Does that count?

Only if the dog has just trodden on a hedgehog.

Bit surprised to find that there are no hedgehogs in North America, not even introduced by settlers. Householders often put out food for them ,to encourage them to stick around.

Hedgehogs are not native to North America, but we have a larger version, the porcupine.

quote:

Oh ,where are the cow farts when you really need them???

Maybe they will require catalytic converters on all cows behinds before it's over.

'The oil-based energy policies usually associated with Vice President Dick Cheney have just come under scathing attack. There's nothing remarkable about that, of course -- except the person doing the attacking.

Step forward, Jeremy Grantham -- Cheney's own investment manager. "What were we thinking?' Grantham demands in a four-page assault on U.S. energy policy mailed last week to all his clients, including the vice president...

..."Successive U.S. administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change," he writes, "and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain."

Yet "there is now nearly universal scientific agreement that fossil fuel use is causing a rise in global temperatures," he writes. "The U.S. is the only country in which environmental data is steadily attacked in a well-funded campaign of disinformation (funded mainly by one large oil company)..."

...As for the alleged economic costs of going "green," Grantham says that industrialized countries with better fuel efficiency have, on average, enjoyed faster economic growth over the past 50 years than the U.S.

Grantham says that other industrialized countries have far better energy productivity than the U.S. The GDP produced per unit of energy in Italy is 50% higher. Fifty percent. Japan: 60%.

And China "already has auto fuel efficiency standards well ahead of the U.S.!" he adds. You've probably heard about China's slow economic growth.

Grantham adds that past U.S. steps in this area, like sulfur dioxide caps adopted by the late President Gerald Ford, have done far more and cost far less than predicted. "Ingenuity sprung out of the woodwork when it was correctly motivated," he writes...' Cheney's Fund Manager Attacks ... Cheney

We had a much warmer winter than usual, right through New Year’s. We thought we might get away without once using the snow blower (like we did last year). Alas, ‘twas not to be. Now things are back to normal and according to the Weather Channel it “feels like” -5° out there right now. Ahhh, lake effect.

China may have better standards on fuel efficiency for cars, but it 'is the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases, after the US'. (In fact pollution is poisoning China's progress.)

A shortage of drinking water in north-west China is being blamed on global warming. Is that right? One warm winter does not add up to global warming. While the planet is getting gradually warmer, there will be unusually warm or cold winters in individual years.

Trying to gauge global warming from the weather any one year is like trying to calculate the curvature of the earth by looking at your back yard.

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:
No hedgehogs in the USA ? (Except that some of you keep the African pygmy hedgehog as a pet).The European version was introduced to New Zealand where they prove friends to gardeners as they live on slugs and other pests.America has missed out Ours are much larger than the African ones: up to about 12 inches long and 4 1/2 pounds weight. They are very common in gardens but mostly nocturnal so we hear them snuffling around outside more than we see them. They provide great puzzlement for dogs, rolling up into an inpenetrable spiny ball when molested or alarmed. They hibernate from late Autumn to March or April. So it is odd indeed to find them active at this time of year.

Three things Fred.
First I have to show this hedgehog hospital site. The hospital is located near my home town.
St Tiggywinkles near Aylesbury provides care for injured hedgehogs from all over the UK. An interesting little place!

Secondly there is no sign of global warming here in Ontario this week. Windchills near -30c.
It is so cold that I have to wear gloves to smoke outside, and have dropped so many smokes in the snow, that I have cut my cigarette consumption down by half!

Thirdly..I had to smile when I heard your expression, "keen as mustard" ...I haven't heard that one in years. My grandad used to say that!

Isn't extreme cold a sign of global warming, too? Isn't that what Dr. Dennis Quaid learned us? Doomed, we're all doomed!

I never liked Dr Quaid that much....didn't he sanction the burning of books to keep warm? Yes we are surely doomed!