What on earth happened to Spring???

[eirish]

It's a new word I made up, just for that post. Sums it up.

Works for me!

[snohare]

I think Veggiechicken has the truth of it - summer is a-coming.
Unfortunately, I think it is going to be...ahem...challenging for growers.
Donkey's years ago, back in the 80's, the very first models of increased greenhouse gas levels showed that spring would basically disappear as a result. After all, what we call spring is very much due to many plants and other species being very well acclimatised to a short window of stable weather each year. Make the climate change in any way and that stability vanishes, which has a severe impact on species such as spring-flowering bulbs, birds and butterflies that rely on a specific concurrence of events. Models suggested that the end outcome was widespread extinctions with winter and summer weather separated only by spells of severe weather events. This is where we are now.
In the past, with both El Nino and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation going full belt as they currently are ("currently" - geddit ? ), we could expect a severe winter like that of 1963, with the ensuing scorcher of a summer. But the Rossby (high altitude pressure) Waves which affect the jetstream depend on the temperature difference between Pole and Tropics. Reduce that difference, the jetstream becomes less variable and no longer wriggles around, and if a meander develops to the South of us we end up with lots of cooler, wetter weather. (And to the South they roast...and toast...and burn.)
Add in the fact that the Gulf Stream is now feeding into the Arctic Ocean, which hasn't happened in three million years, and what will happen nobody knows - but the new normal in weather is going to be "abnormal".
Me, I'm making plans for growlights and polytunnels !

[veggiechicken]

The good news is the sun was out. The bad news - that was summer

You're probably right Ap - because its snowing and settling now. The first snow I've seen while you've been suffering oop North!

[sammy_roser]

Got to say where I live there has not really been any snow, just a dusting, and I was hidden away inside a hospital bed for that weekend so didn't really get the full effect.

Don't get me wrong it is freezing! And all my hastily planted early seeds are very unlikely to make it into the ground at the right time. Never mind there are always more seeds, it's Spring I'm more worried about.

[snohare]

Why is this Northern Hemisphere spring so cool? | Earth | EarthSky

Basically, if it is large snowflakes, it is Arctic air; if it is small fluffy balls of snow it is snowflakes that have fallen through warm air...and it won't insulate your plants from a hard frost nearly as well as normal snow. If it makes a lousy snowball, it's a lousy mulch.

[Martin H]

It's interesting that while Arctic ice has been contracting, the Antarctic ice cap has actually been increasing.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v.../ngeo1627.html

I wonder if South America and the Falklands are experiencing warmer springs? If so, I might have to move there to grow the vegs, provided that the waiting list for allotments isn't too long.

[Potstubsdustbins]

I remember back in the 60s our scientists were predicting a mini ice age. I hope they weren't right and this is the start.

Potty

[veggiechicken]

Basically, if it is large snowflakes, it is Arctic air; if it is small fluffy balls of snow it is snowflakes that have fallen through warm air...and it won't insulate your plants from a hard frost nearly as well as normal snow. If it makes a lousy snowball, it's a lousy mulch.

Definitely large snowflakes today - at first I thought they were feather's from next door's doves

[snohare]

I remember back in the 60s our scientists were predicting a mini ice age. I hope they weren't right and this is the start.

One thing that does seem to be associated with previous large swings in climate is regional cooling; by regional, think "UK and Western Europe". There is a theory that is due to interruption of the ocean convection currents, which normally take hundreds of thousands of years to circulate one cycle, due to melting of ice and/or changes in the North Atlantic Drift.
How long this lasted for and to what degree, is not yet known. This is the sort of statistical analysis that climate change sceptics love to point to as "Look they removed some data from the graph". Accurate, but as any data miner will tell you, not the whole story. Different sets of figures expose different factors to varying degrees; when the same factor keeps cropping up, that is pretty much a certainty, teasing out less noticeable influences is harder.
Back in the 1960s climatology was in the Stone Age. It relied very much on data collected by Scott and his men (!) and the International Geophysical Year in 1957, which saw weather balloons doing temperature measurements of the upper atmosphere for the first time. Now, with ice core analysis going back 300 000 years, carbon isotope analysis, widespread satellites and electronic technology, the problem is maritime data points (Bush had a good go at removing the networks) and having the brain/computer power to analyse the data.
But it's not the snow we need to worry about, Potty. It's the rain. Warmer air holds more moisture; moisture transfer is the energy transfer mechanism of our atmosphere. Try reading this week's New Scientist magazine - the article "Skyfall" on pages 38 to 41 - and you will understand, there are rivers of water up there, ready to fall...
Thank God I live at the top of a nice, gentle, extremely well-drained hill !

[binley100]

Gawd........it's all soooooo depressing

[Feral007]

Oi! Does this mean you lot have got my water Well that's not fair!

[alldigging]

Definitely large snowflakes today - at first I thought they were feather's from next door's doves

Some huge ones yesterday - looked like about 20 normal ones stuck together.

[Jimmy]

Looks better from within the Pub.
Jimmy

[redser]

Farmers selling their cattle early to save them from starving to death - Independent.ie

Incredible stuff. Hope this change isn't permanent.

[StaryD]

Just saw this on Facebook and thought I just had to post it here