Weather has been massively over-dramatised since the advent of 24hr tv news.
Got to fill the hours somehow. ie live coverage of a news reporter standing on a slightly windy seafront.
What I find particularly amusing is how a few days of high, record breaking temperatures in the summer (and the usual doom-laden crisis pronouncements) this is cited as evidence of scary global warming.
Yet when we have a run of unprecedented very cold days in the winter, suddenly that's not contrary evidence about global warming, rather it's dismissed as "just weather, not climate". Go figure!
Am Yisrael Chai
Yes, but just think how cold it would have been without global warming. Keep running your cars everyone
Several days in a row now the overnight frost has been so heavy it looked, in Ambleside, like a light snowfall, but the last snow at this level was 9th/10th of December.
There is a small tarn near Lily Tarn that is only ever about 2 feet deep at the most. It is of course frozen over; the ice is broken in a couple of places, and it is about 2 and a half to 3 inches thick. People and dogs have been walking on it. I understand that ice needs to be at least 4 inches thick for it to be safe to walk on.
I remember reading in the excellent book Schott's Miscellany, of the weight bearing properties of different ice thicknesses. Thankfully someone on the UK hillwalking forums has transcribed it - thank you whoever Ron is:
Theoretically 'safe' thickness of ice for different weights; from Schotts original miscellany, Ben Schott. Not sure exactly how it was calculated, it assumes solid blue/black ice.
all values in inches
single person on skis 1.5
single person on foot 2.5
Group in single file 3
Snowmobile 3
Average car 7.5
Large car 8
Medium truck3.5 tons 9
7tons 10
15 tons 15
25 tons 20
45 tons 25
70 tons 30
I am not sure whether these values are factored.
Don't blame me if it isn't right.
Ron
Re Ice. It seems sea ice extent is on a gradual increase in the Antarctic while on a decrease in the arctic - since 1979. What's that about?
https://osisaf-hl.met.no/v2p1-sea-ice-index
Am Yisrael Chai
So how much ice is required for an overweight 14 year old, (so not me, then), riding a modified Raleigh Chopper across an East Staffordshire reservoir?Theoretically 'safe' thickness of ice for different weights; from Schotts original miscellany, Ben Schott. Not sure exactly how it was calculated, it assumes solid blue/black ice.
all values in inches
single person on skis 1.5
single person on foot 2.5
Group in single file 3
Snowmobile 3
Average car 7.5
Large car 8
Medium truck3.5 tons 9
7tons 10
15 tons 15
25 tons 20
45 tons 25
70 tons 30
I am not sure whether these values are factored.
Don't blame me if it isn't right.
Ron
The data in that webpage show no clear trend at all in the Antarctic, whereas there is a clear decrease in the Arctic.
In any case, increasing temperatures in very cold regions can lead to more ice. Air at -10C can hold more water vapour than air at -20C, so an increase in temperature in that range can lead to more precipitation, which would still fall as snow.
In his lifetime he suffered from unreality, as do so many Englishmen.
Jorge Luis Borges