dorlomin

12 days to shortest day of the year. Roll on the lighter nights nights.

Its all very simple. The sun largely emits in shortwavelengths. This is due to its blackbody temperature. The atmosphere is pretty transparent to shortwavelength light so it quite easily reaches the surface as we can all see, the only exception being ultraviolet wavelengths that are absorbed by O3 in the high stratosphere. When this light reaches the surface it is partly reflected back into space as shortwave and partly absorbed. The ratio of reflection vs absorbtion is down to the albedo of the surface or how light it is. White like snow reflects almost everything. Black absorbs almost everything, this absorbtion heats up the body and it emits an increased amout of infrared radition. The atmosphere is rather opaque to infrared radiation as several key components H2O, CO2, CH4 and others absorb in those wavelengths. When a molecules electrons absorb light they become excited i.e. warm. They then transmit this energy to their neighbours. Easily done as they will experiance about 1 billion collisions a second. The upward infrared emitted from the surface (called upwelling) rapidly heats the atmosphere by this mechanism. Increasing the amount of molecules in the atmosphere that can absorb this infrared radiation effectively increase its ability to store 'heat'. This is the greenhouse effect. The electron states that complex molecules can exist at are complex to calculate as pressure and temperature effect them. But since the late 70s when the master piece by Ramanathan and Coakely was published we have been narrowing down those wavelengths to an increadible scale. We have a very good idea of what the first order changes (called a forcing) will be from a doubling of CO2. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. The issue emerges with the feedback. The most important by a wide degree is the water vapor feedback. This again is not particularly controversial. Warmer air holds more moiture. We can measure this by measuring the moisture conent of a column of air when the temperature changes through the day. It is really mid 19th century science. Increasing the amount of moisture in the atmosphere will increase the greenhouse effect. The problems come from understanding how much warming will happen how quickly when we raise the CO2 content of the atmosphere. The biggest uncertainty is the oceans, the slower the oceans are to mix the heat from the surface the quicker the atmosphere will warm. The two main mechanisms for heat to get from the surface of the ocean to the deeps are wind mixing and sea currents. The less wind mixing the quicker the surface layer will warm and so the quicker the atmospehre will warm. The more windmixing the longer it will take as the wind will mix warmer surface water deeper so keep it cool longer slowing the rate of warming in the atmosphere. This is the big problem that you will see quoted out of context. The next big issue is the carbon cycle. There is a huge amount of science here and its only really for the deperately nerdy. But again the simple explanation is the oceans. The amount of gas a liquid can hold is dependent on the temperature, and the quicker the oceans heat the quicker they will stop being able to absorb CO2 so the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will rise. Today about 40% of the CO2 emitted is absorbed by the oceans. If they warm quicker then the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will rise quicker for the same level of emissions than if they warm slower. The other area of uncertainty is clouds. Clouds can act as a positive and negative feedback depending on altitude and time of day. There is some uncertainty about how much feedback the clouds will provide, but this uncertainty is sold as a solid fact that it will stop all warming by those who have an agenda to distort the science. Simply put the huge swings in termperature between glacial and interglacial phases of the ice age show there is a very strong feedback mechanism in the climate system. It is unlikely that clouds will dampen the warming too much as they have not done so previously. You increase the amount of CO2 in the atmospehre you get a warmer world. That is well understood physics. Clowns like Monckton yapping away are just a distraction. who claims to be able to cure aids.

What a coherent and well referenced rebuttal.

Weird eh. How you have left out everything from 2007 onwards.Lets have a little look at the cryosphere today graph for nothern hemisphere sea ice anomaly. Deary me. That is 'not melting' is it. Lets now have a look at volume. (from the Univesity of Washington.)

A brief video on the history of the two terms, global warming and climate change. This was made as a response to people who claim that there was a dastardly switch to the term "Climate Change" was a recent thing by 'green' propoganda.

We have observed the expected changes in outgoing light from the planet consistant with increased optical thickness of the wavelengths associated with CO2 and other greenhouse gasses.We have observed an increase in the downwelling infrared light that would be consistant with an increase in the greenhouse effect. Dont ever try to go anywhere near the idea that an increase in infrared will not cause warming And here The stratosphere is cooling. This was predicted in the 60s as a consaquence of inceraseing the optical thickness of the atmosphere in the infrared wavelengths. The only mechanism that I am aware off that will cause both a cooling stratosphere and a warming troposphere is an enhanced greenhouse effect (or as sometimes refered to the Callendar effect). We know its not the sun Sea level rise due in part to thermal expansion rules out energy release from the oceans as a source of the additional tropospheric heat, although the cooling stratosphere also does that. It has been confirmed by every national science accademy in the developed world including the UKs Royal Society and the American National Accademy of Sciences. It has the support of nearly every major science body in the world. The only major dissenting voice, te American Association of Petroleum Geologists has moved to a neutral position. But hey what do I know. I am not an English Lord like monkey Monckton.

On Monday I was stopped at a traffic lights near Holborn when the old bloke on the bike next to me starts chatting to me. About a minute or so into the conversation I worked out who he was. Jon Snow. I was like Yassssss.

I pretty much swear by it. Keep it on my rucksack so it is eye level with drivers.

I cycled over 150 miles over the weekend and topped out a 41mph. Was awesome.

Bit naff but just over the L in BILL, thats me holding the banner. The demo was at Westminister bridge for about 3 hours on Sunday protesting at the NHS billing passing through parliament (and before anyone whines it was a notified demonstration so legal, and there were traffic warnings before the event)

That is where the cycle lanes goes. If there is no cycle lane I will normally take on the outside to get to the ASL (advanced stop line). That said I do cycle in a city where their is pretty high cycle awareness. Unleash the nade Some pictures of how they cycle in Hollandhttp://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/ Copenhagen rush hour Cycling safety is far more about numbers. It can be inherently a very safe thing to do when the drivers are aware of you. Id never say to people do not wear a helmet but I would be very strongly against making it compulsory. Compulsory helmets means fewer people take up cycling. Others will have their own views on the topic.

Got my new bike lock today. This beast. The Abus Graninte. Big heavy but Have to park my bike outside a London uni so its like thieves central out their.

The jargon and the local dialect take some time to pick up, but once youve stuck with about two or three episodes you can follow it easily.

You get used to it pretty quickly. Its the bleeding pedestrians that scare me the most. Around the city and that they just walking into the road without looking with their headphones on. They appear out of nowhere.Most of the traffic is very used to cyclists so they tend to be a lot more aware and generally check the left side mirrors and things like that than up the road. Besides the traffic in central London is rarely moving fast enough to do any damage if it did hit you.

Damn fine morning for a comute here in the south.

Great weather to be out for late September. got 70 miles in all round.

In terms of winter its normally only the snow that will stop me. When its lying too thick to steer I get off the road bike and only a wide tyred cheapie I have.

SPD's and I in my socks

I left my bleeding shoes at home. Got to work and realised I only had my cycling shoes to wear around. Teach me for getting so drunk last night.

Insane down hill racing in Chile.

If you are repetitively doing something that hurts the knees you really want to get it sorted. Its one of the few things that can cause injuries on a bike (other than falling off ). Do you know why you do it? Might be something easily fixed, most times its about the shape of your bike set up.

If you have run in the winter then you should be able to bike in it most weather. Really good overshoes can go a long way http://www.wiggle.co.uk/craft-neoprene-bike-bootie-overshoes/ (not recomending that brand particularly but giving you an idea) And really good gloves are a must Something like this http://www.wiggle.co.uk/sealskinz-extra-cold-weather-cycle-gloves/ The other thing that does get cold is the ears. If your ears hands and feet are dry to can brave out most weather. FWIW people cycle all winter in Canada and that gets hellishly colder than even Aberdeen

You might want to keep track of your resting pulse, I think its a better measure of health than weight or BMI or that. If your knees are giving you troubles take a real long hard look at your cylcing posture especially seat hight Also try to go down a gear or two when you are on any kind of hill, a higher candence (rate your turning the pedals) rather than a lot of power is often a good way of reducing knee pain.

I am 38, about 5'10'' and 18 stone. Before my accident in June I was doing about 150-200 miles a week and am slowly rebuilding the stamina

6.5k I have lived down here for a few years so have cheap digs and know the really cheap places (ie illegal parties and the like) so can live okish.