Cold again

and yet more photo spam:

Last week it was cold. It was warmer at the weekend. But this week it is cold again. Though as RC points out, its not going to be the coldest winter for a millenium.

We went rowing tonight. Oddly enough we were the only crew out. We had to stop past the Elizabeth way bridge due to ice on the river – not solid sheets at that point, but enough floating bits to warn us that worse was coming. Very cold, I rowed with a glove on my inner hand and only survived by sticking my outer hand down my trousers when we span. Still it was a good warm-up for a pint in the Fort. Christmas Head this weekend. We are “Rage against the machine”, apparently a popular beat combo.

The pic is out front-garden fennel, with those cute icy spikes that grow when it is substantially sub-zero (about -4 oC) and very still. Close-up of the spikes on a branch, though the light is poor.

In other news just in, our cat is cute.

Refs

* Amy is iced in
* Apparently in other bits of England its a bit more serious
* Hansen points out that while its been cold here it has been warm elsewhere.

Validating Climate Models

SE has an excellent post about Validating Climate Models. It is all good, but I particularly liked

when we ask climate scientists for future projections, we’re asking the question of the scientists, not of their models. The scientists will apply their judgement to select appropriate versions/configurations of the models to use, they will set up the runs, and they will interpret the results in the light of what is known about the models’ strengths and weaknesses and about any gaps between the comptuational models and the current theoretical understanding. And they will add all sorts of caveats to the conclusions they draw from the model runs when they present their results.

We did it (part 2)

We did it refers. Killed Linda Norgrove, that is. You can listen to Hague make excuses, if you can bear it. The foreign secretary said that with the agreement of the prime minister he had agreed to a rescue bid because of fears that Ms Norgrove’s life was in “grave danger”. Well yes, indeed her life was in great danger, from the Americans. Who said that yes, they did it, but since they were the Good Guys and the other side were the Bad Guys, clearly it wasn’t actually their fault, it was the other guys fault.

Oddly, although Hague says “a number of soldiers had been disciplined” (not for killing her of course, but for the heinous crime of not telling anyone they had thrown the grenade) the Us military link says nowt about this; so we are left to imagine the seriousness of the “discipline”.

Refs

* Close the Washington Monument