Temperature Analysis Chart for article: 'Global Warming in Buckley' by Neville Dunn SEARCH TERM: Weather"

Buckley

May 2007

see 96.37 for details of the first report, referred to below.

GLOBAL WARMING IN BUCKLEY by Neville Dunn

May 2007

Since producing my first report in May 2005 on the weather we have experienced in the Buckley area over a number of years, my continued weather recordings at Mynydd Isa seem to confirm some of the widespread fears expressed in the media that our climate is changing. Hardly a day goes by without alarm signals being given out by politicians and certain scientists that mankind is out to cause mayhem in the near future if the present output of carbon dioxide from industrial and commercial activities is not reduced drastically.

Certain of my recordings do indicate that there is a changing trend as follows:-

TEMPERATURE

I analyse my temperature recordings at the end of each month so as to produce an average temperature throughout the previous 365 (or 366) days and this is called a mean annual temperature. This figure has moved up and down regularly over the years up to 2001 but since then, apart from a small dip caused by the cool winter and spring of 2005/2006, the mean temperature has risen steadily so that it stood on 30 April 2007 at 11.14C (43.14F). This is more than 1.5C (2.7F) above the average long term mean as shown in this extract from my graph (see image).

The long term average has hovered around 9.5C (49.1F) throughout the 30 years of my local recordings and was also the figure quoted by the meteorologist at RAF Hawarden for Broughton airfield between 1938 and 1953. The winter and spring of 2006/2007 was particularly mild with the lowest number of air frosts I have ever recorded at 15 compared with the long term average of 50 and my maximum of 88 in 1985/6. Winter air frosts started to become scarce in 2002 with an average for the last five years standing at only 22. In walking my dog around the Trap Pool I notice that it has rarely frozen over completely recently.

WIND

With not having an anemometer to measure wind speed accurately I have never made a comparison of wind speeds over the years but I have made an analysis of wind direction. When there was a proposal to create an opencast coal site in Rose Lane, Mynydd Isa in 1994, I analysed the direction of the wind for the previous sixteen years to support opposition. At that time, milder winds from the west, southwest, south and southeast accounted for 63% of the total as one would expect with the south west wind being well known as the prevailing wind.

Out of curiosity, I have carried out a similar analysis of the wind directions since January 2006 and find that the 63% figure for those winds came down to 58% and that northwest, north, north east and east winds now accounted for 35% instead of the earlier 27% figure. The reason appears to be that, instead of a frequent succession of depressions rolling in from the Atlantic and producing south and west winds, we have had, particularly in 2007, more high pressure systems centred over the North Sea and Scandinavia that blocked off these depressions and gave us more northerly and easterly winds.

RAINFALL

Since I started recording rainfall in 1983, there does not appear to be any obvious pattern to my readings with a succession of some years with a near average annual rainfall of 715mm (28.1 inches) mixed up with wetter years of over 900mm (35.4 inches) and drier years with lower annual rainfall down to a low 505mm (19.9 inches) in 1992. We did however have three wet years in succession from summer 1998 to summer 2001 when the annual rainfall averaged 887mm (34.3 inches) and then three drier years in succession from summer 2002 to summer 2005 when the average dropped to only 632mm (24.9 inches). Since 2005, annual rainfall has climbed back again above the norm in spite of the exceedingly dry month of April 2007 when I recorded my lowest monthly amount ever at 5.5mm (0.2 inch). This latter amount came about because of a big high pressure system stationary over Scandinavia which blocked the wet winds from the Atlantic, but May 2007 has reverted to a more normal pattern of winds and rain.

THE FUTURE

It would seem that worldwide politicians are accepting the views of one group of scientists that claim mankind has contributed substantially to a changing climate by producing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from industrial and commercial activities and that these activities must be curbed drastically to avoid disaster in the coming years. There is however another group of scientists, including eminent climatologists, who say that the climate is changing because the sun is currently increasing its heat output as it has done before for thousands if not millions of years. I pointed out some Danish research in my earlier report which suggested that our climate had been on the move constantly.

The alternative group of scientists claim that this increased solar heat at ground level is acting upon the oceans and making them give up some of the enormous stores of carbon dioxide they hold in quantities greatly exceeding anything mankind is capable of producing. They say that their research in ancient ice samples shows that the increase in the atmosphere's carbon dioxide content always takes place after the increased solar output and not before. Their theory is that any reduction in our wasteful use of energy and its consequent production of carbon dioxide is laudable but that it will not halt global weather change.

Whichever group of scientists proves to be correct is for the future to determine and, although I will not be here to see it happen, this does not deter me from trying to save energy where I can. Why doesn't the government give low wattage light bulbs away free instead of using funds to support uneconomic windfarms which have not yet resulted in one generating station being closed down? There, I am just a grumpy old man!

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October 1st 2011 was the hottest on record for Wales at the Hawarden record station.

Author: Dunn, Neville

Temperature Analysis Chart for article: 'Global Warming in Buckley' by Neville Dunn SEARCH TERM: Weather"

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