Old Weather Forum

Yes, I gather that results have been mixed.

Also, it requires enormous amounts of power to process the data and cool the machinery processing the data.
Washington Post: AI is exhausting the power grid. Tech firms are seeking a miracle solution.
As power needs of AI push emissions up and put big tech in a bind, companies put their faith in elusive — some say improbable — technologies.

Just did not want you to miss out on this today.

World Chocolate Day in 2024 is observed on July 7th

Enjoy

I was just about to get up and get a piece of chocolate --- before reading this!!!

Good job I made a chocolate cake yesterday. But also good that I froze most of it or I'd be using this as an excuse to eat the lot!

Alaska’s top-heavy glaciers are approaching an irreversible tipping point


Taku Glacier is one of many that begin in the Juneau Icefield.
(Credit: Mauricio Handler/Getty Images)

The melting of one of North America’s largest ice fields has accelerated and could soon reach an irreversible tipping point.
That’s the conclusion of new research colleagues and I [Bethan Davies, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography, Newcastle University] have published on the Juneau Icefield, which straddles the Alaska-Canada border near the Alaskan capital of Juneau.

In the summer of 2022, I skied across the flat, smooth, and white plateau of the icefield, accompanied by other researchers, sliding in the tracks of the person in front of me under a hot sun.
From that plateau, around 40 huge, interconnected glaciers descend towards the sea, with hundreds of smaller glaciers on the mountain peaks all around.

Our work, now published in Nature Communications, has shown that Juneau is an example of a climate “feedback” in action: as temperatures are rising, less and less snow is remaining through the summer (technically: the “end-of-summer snowline” is rising).
This in turn leads to ice being exposed to sunshine and higher temperatures, which means more melt, less snow, and so on.

Full article: https://arstechnica.com/?p=2035391

The latest results from Furnace Creek in Death Valley, California. If this is verified, it is the second hottest official temperature recorded on the earth. If an investigation of the 1913 Furnace Valley temperature discounts it, then this would be the world's record maximum temperature. It will be quite some time before this temperature is verified. It is, however, a Nation Weather Service automatic weather station. That 129.3 F is 54.1 C!

Observation Time UTC	Battery Voltage	Wind Direction	Wind Speed	Peak Wind Speed	Air Temperature	Hourly Min	Hourly Max	Relative Humidity	Precipitation
2024-07-07 22:52							128.90
2024-07-07 23:00	12.25	172.60	2.37	6.90	124.80	124.80		6.23	0.00
2024-07-07 23:01						125.20
2024-07-07 23:59							129.30
2024-07-08 00:00	12.15	190.80	1.85	4.30	129.10			5.33	0.00
2024-07-08 00:02							128.80
2024-07-08 00:49						124.90
2024-07-08 01:00	12.13	216.90	1.79	6.59	125.60			5.03	0.00

When you get to my age, Birthdays are a plus when ever they come.

Happy Birthday, mate!

I wish I was there to help you celebrate.

Happy Birthday, Stuart!

Happy Birthday, Stuart!!!

Happy belated birthday Stuart

Thanks to you all.
Caravan tea pot very appropriate at this time.

Happy Birthday! May you have another happy year of roaming!

A travelin' teapot for travelin' Stu!

An interesting update on the future of 'Endurance', Shackleton's old ship, is on the Beeb website this morning. At the end is a reference to a National Geographic film due to be released sometime this year (just before Christmas I suspect) which should be well worth a watch.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjr48y7n1r7o

Warming oceans are pushing harmful algal blooms into polar waters
Alaska’s Bering Strait was hit by an unprecedented bloom of toxic organisms, which cause paralytic shellfish poisoning, in 2022


In this satellite image of the Bering Strait taken on 2 August 2022, a harmful algal bloom appears in red.
Priscila Lange/Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Full article: https://www.science.org/content/article ... lar-waters

Earth is wobbling and days are getting longer — and humans are to blame

New studies, which utilized AI to monitor the effects of climate change on Earth's spin, have shown that our days are getting increasingly longer and that our planet will get more wobbly in the future.
These changes could have major implications for humanity's future.


Earth's magnetic poles (blue) will begin to wobble around the planet's spin axis (yellow) as the latter begins to move as a result of climate change.
(Image credit: ETH Zurich)

Full article: https://www.livescience.com/planet-eart ... ength-tktk