Dramatic slowdown in melting of Arctic sea ice ‘surprises’ scientists | Tallbloke’s Talkshop
The melting of sea ice in the Arctic has slowed dramatically in the past 20 years, scientists have reported, with no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005, says The Guardian.
via climate science
August 22, 2025 at 02:36PM
52.16272 1.27962 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 3 Temperature records from 1992
Charsfield weather station is quite a rarity in being CIMO rated Class 3, less than 8% of Met Office sites meet that standard and many that supposedly do, really do not, such as Heathrow and Charlwood. This is a long term rain gauge site operating from 1906 and presumably relevant for the nearby Potsford Brook. This is quintessential East Anglian countryside ( near Woodbridge) and numerous “English” pastoral setting films and books have been based on this area notably “Akenfield“.
In reviewing many weather stations I do feel it sometimes comes across that I am being overly critical. I make no apology for that as it is more important to be accurate than polite. In the case of Charsfield, I also have to admit to a personal affinity for the likes of the site’s owners whose endeavours, in my purely subjective opinion, are vitally important to the nation’s overall well being. These people have a remarkably difficult, but essential, job running both an arable and fruit farm.
This BBC article highlights both the farm and the varying difficulties they encounter throughout the season. It is very noticeable from the article that the farmers blame the water authorities directly for lack of storage for not allowing irrigation as and when required and do not resort to some amorphous blaming of “Climate Change”.
Looking at the site, firstly it is only a very gentle slope down to the brook so there is no issue there, the site is as flat as required. Proximity to unnatural extraneous heat sources is unlikely despite no visible enclosure. The 30 metre radius circle exclusion zone for Class 2 looks as below.
This must be a very narrow fail for Class 2 and largely based on the shrubs/trees to the south west. The low hedge to the north west is also not good but not overly detrimental from purely a solar radiation viewpoint but is a potential windbreak.
So often with these rural sites, the Met Office seem to employ very strict standards that do not seem to be applied in other more “favoured” urban locations. For example how would Charsfield compare if suddenly surrounded by a solar farm as at equally claimed Class 3 Chertsey Abbey Mead – {just look at how high those solar panels shown in the video clip actually are}.
Is the Met Office really claiming Charsfield is no more accurate than an enclosure being surrounded by jet blast screens and plastisol cladding viewing blocks on the perimeter of one of the world’s busiest airports?
Charsfield also has a very good manual observations record up to 22/06/2008 though it appears there were some problems with the conversion to automatic reporting that were only resolved 5/11/2010 whereupon normal reliable service was resumed.
In this report I hope I have stuck a balance between the subjective and objective views. My gut feel is that I certainly trust less fashionable Charsfield more than certain other, allegedly, equal quality sites in the Met Office’s “eyes”.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
August 22, 2025 at 02:04PM
Another steel mill just entered administration.
via Watts Up With That?
August 22, 2025 at 01:02PM
By Paul Homewood
It is a general consensus nowadays that gas prices are “high” and this is why electricity prices are also “high”.
But exactly how “high” are natural gas prices?
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/news-and-insight/data/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators
We all know of course that natural gas prices spiked just before the Ukraine war started, but they also fell back rapidly during the following 12 months or so.
In June this year, according to OFGEM, wholesale gas prices were 86.28p/therm, compared to 46.10p in January 2015, an increase of 87%. But we have also had something called inflation in the last ten years. Since January 2015, RPI has risen by 58%, so the real increase is much smaller than supposed:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/chaw/mm23
The following chart takes out the inflationary effect and shows some very interesting results:
As we can see, real prices this year are no higher than they were in 2018.
As with all commodities, gas prices are always volatile, following the vagaries of supply and demand. Prices fell sharply in 2015 and 2016 as a result of a glut of supply. You may recall the price spikes between 2012 and 2014 when demand exceeded supply. That led to wells reopening and a glut, the seemingly never ending cycle we see in markets like oil and mining.
Prices obviously dipped to ridiculously low levels during COVID lockdowns as demand evaporated.
But ignoring COVID and Ukraine, current gas prices are not excessive by historical standards, and therefore cannot explain why electricity prices are so high now.
Tomorrow I’ll do the same exercise with electricity markets.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
August 22, 2025 at 12:15PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 