Topic: Your views on Climate Change impacts in gardening sought.

[ACulham]

The University of Reading and the Royal Horticultural Society are conducting a survey on how gardeners are preparing for climate change and even if they accept it is happening.  It would be enormously helpful if you were willing to complete our survey at http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/crg/climate-change-and-gardening/.  Some RHS Show tickets are available by prize draw to entrants who wish to leave their contact details.

[daveylamp993]

I have just completed the survey,some very interesting questions,good luck with the survey . . . Ian

[Paulines7]

I have also completed the survey.

[Digeroo]

I am feeling rather confused about climate change, is it getting warmer or colder.  Intesting questions made me think about some of the answers,

[Aden Roller]

Completed survey.

Interesting questions - looking at the published results will be even more interesting.

[winecap]

First mention of climate change I've heard in a while. Thought they'd all gone into hiding. Will go right away and complete the survey. You may have guessed I'm sceptical.

[Aden Roller]

First mention of climate change I've heard in a while. Thought they'd all gone into hiding. Will go right away and complete the survey. You may have guessed I'm sceptical.

Lots of people still are and it will take a generation or more for "proof in the eating" to show but one sign might me our unusual weather patterns of late. The Gulf Stream has been pushed further northwestwards so no warming currents from the tropics for us.....yet.

Predictions included: Heavy concentrated rainfall , drier seasons either side, lower winter temperatures. Sound familiar?

Notice I missed hotter summers..... they are to come I guess along with much more of the unusual.

It's all down to that thicker blanket of carbon-dioxide we're producing over head.

[sunloving]

More frequent storms and higher frequency of very bad storms, sea level rise for northern England of 40cm in 50 years.

Its definately been wetter and more stormy. Sea levels at blackpool have risen faster than the predictions so far.

Sunloving

[Aden Roller]

More frequent storms and higher frequency of very bad storms, sea level rise for northern England of 40cm in 50 years.

Its definately been wetter and more stormy. Sea levels at blackpool have risen faster than the predictions so far.

Sunloving

Sea-level rises should be higher in the south of Britain in theory. Isostatic readjustment continues so the north should be (very slowly) bobbing upwards now that the last ice-age has removed all the extra weight. The south should continue to dip as a result.

(Apparently it's like a plank of wood floating on water. Remove a heavy weight from the northen end and it bobs up making the southerly end bob down. Very slow "bobs" mind you! And... set to continue for a few more centuries when the south will bob up and the north has its turn to bob down. Eventually leveling out.)

Then raise the seawater levels and......... down here all of our promenade Victorian open railings have been replaced with solid concrete walls so you can no longer see the beach from the town's seafront road but it does help prevent too much shingle and sea water being washed annually into the shops and restaurants along the front. (It helps a little!)

Climate change? Ba humbug??? Oh right... tell us about it.   

I believe: This time round not a case of the tooth fairy.

[cornykev]

I filled in the survey and good luck with it, but it was all pointed towards tropical weather fronts, since I've had my lottie (8 years) the weather has got colder, more early and late frosts, wetter , shorter Summers, so I'm thinking more ice age or is there a wet age.                

[RobinOfTheHood]

Sea-level rises should be higher in the south of Britain in theory. Isostatic readjustment continues so the north should be (very slowly) bobbing upwards now that the last ice-age has removed all the extra weight. The south should continue to dip as a result.

(Apparently it's like a plank of wood floating on water. Remove a heavy weight from the northen end and it bobs up making the southerly end bob down. Very slow "bobs" mind you! And... set to continue for a few more centuries when the south will bob up and the north has its turn to bob down. Eventually leveling out.)


 

I believe: This time round not a case of the tooth fairy.

Erm, the sea is a liquid, not a plank? And unless gravity is somehow stronger in the north than the south or vice versa then it will level itself, and won't need centuries to do so as the initial change is a slow one, not an explosive event. The tides manage to sort themselves out twice a day, and presumably 'global warming' would affect both poles? If not then it's not global.

Don't you find it a bit strange that almost every year has a record breaking weather event nowadays? Even though I've never seen the Thames freeze, or had snowdrifts to the roofline of my house.

[cornykev]

I've never seen the thames freeze but it has on 24 occasions, but hey who's counting.        

[RobinOfTheHood]

I've never seen the thames freeze but it has on 24 occasions, but hey who's counting.        

When the ice was thick enough, frost fairs took place. Years when the ice was thick enough for this to occur were: 1408, 1435, 1506, 1514, 1537, 1565, 1595, 1608, 1621, 1635, 1649, 1655, 1663, 1666, 1677, 1684, 1695, 1709, 1716, 1740, (1768), 1776, (1785), 1788, 1795, and 1814, which was the last frost fair.

Must have been the cow farts.

[Old Central]

Hi Robin

Erm, the sea is a liquid, not a plank? And unless gravity is somehow stronger in the north than the south or vice versa then it will level itself, and won't need centuries to do so as the initial change is a slow one, not an explosive event. The tides manage to sort themselves out twice a day, and presumably 'global warming' would affect both poles? If not then it's not global.

This is because it is the land rising after the melting of the ice some 16,000 years ago. As the ice did not reach the south there is little land level adjustment there whereas in the north of Scotland under a lot of ice the unloading is still causing it to rise. It is rather like heave from clay soils. It is the eustatic sea level changes that come from the malting of ice sheets on land, when the North American ice sheet melted global sea level rose by many metres in less than 100 years.

I've filled in the questionnaire as well but agree it is all seems to lead to answers about a hotter climate rather than a more erratic one.

OC

[chriscross1966]

THere's a massive amount of misunderstanding, especially amongst people who think of themselves as sceptics regarding climate change... mostly they get it confused with weather... unfortunately Britain mostly has weather rather than a climate and most of our climate is defined by a warm current that makes us generally significantly warmer than we would otherwise be this far north.... unfortunately one of the effects of increasing sea-ice melts around the pole will be for a significant disruption of the Gulf Stream.... this will lead to Britain being cooler and with more extreme weather events as the shelter of the Gulf Stream is removed we will see increasing intrusion of continental weather patterns... such as right now when it's too cold to do the things we'd expect to be doing at this stage of March.... For Britain, climate change and global warming won't make us always warmer, but almost certainly occasionally colder, drier, wetter and occasionally warmer...which is why recent years have seen a general filling of the top-ten extremes for just about all categories... wettest months, driest months, etc.... It will make gardening more interesting, there'll be years you can't get a crop off anything tender outdoors, there'll be years when the weather will collude to give you a monstrous glut of tomatoes... or onions....  Rather glad I've got plenty of space to hedge my bets in and a greenhouse big enough to grow a lot of my own tomatoes..... but also, less cold please... I've got almond and peach trees to plant out.... though that said late cold like this might well push the blossom so late that there'll be no chance of frost catching it, I'm predicting a bumper year for soft fruit....

[Pescador]

I got part way through completing it, and then felt that all the questions were assuming it was getting warmer- Med plants, longer seasons etc. Don't think thats the case so pulled out.
Have I missed something?

[Chrispy]

I've never seen the thames freeze but it has on 24 occasions, but hey who's counting.        

When the ice was thick enough, frost fairs took place. Years when the ice was thick enough for this to occur were: 1408, 1435, 1506, 1514, 1537, 1565, 1595, 1608, 1621, 1635, 1649, 1655, 1663, 1666, 1677, 1684, 1695, 1709, 1716, 1740, (1768), 1776, (1785), 1788, 1795, and 1814, which was the last frost fair.

Must have been the cow farts.

That's interesting, frost fairs seemed to have come to an end at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

[RobinOfTheHood]

Hi Robin

Erm, the sea is a liquid, not a plank? And unless gravity is somehow stronger in the north than the south or vice versa then it will level itself, and won't need centuries to do so as the initial change is a slow one, not an explosive event. The tides manage to sort themselves out twice a day, and presumably 'global warming' would affect both poles? If not then it's not global.

This is because it is the land rising after the melting of the ice some 16,000 years ago. As the ice did not reach the south there is little land level adjustment there whereas in the north of Scotland under a lot of ice the unloading is still causing it to rise. It is rather like heave from clay soils. It is the eustatic sea level changes that come from the malting of ice sheets on land, when the North American ice sheet melted global sea level rose by many metres in less than 100 years.

I've filled in the questionnaire as well but agree it is all seems to lead to answers about a hotter climate rather than a more erratic one.

OC

So if I'm reading you right then Scotland is rising after the weight of the ice has gone from upon it? That would cause the sea to be relatively lower compared to Scotland, and is not sea level rise at all? And after 16,000 years? We hear about the water table being low or high year on year depending on how much rainfall we've had, if a year can make so much difference then why after 16,000 years is the land still rising?

And eustatic - compared to a fixed point - like Scotland which is rising? Nice buzzword anyway, sounds 'scientific'.

Seems to me that a) most people only repeat parrot fashion what we are force fed constantly by all aspects of the media - in this case global warming - and the presented cause - us of course, and
b) all these surveys and such like are mere propaganda to push us down a path of thought or opinion that suits whoever is behind these things. I'll leave you to make your own mind up on that particular one.

[RobinOfTheHood]

I've never seen the thames freeze but it has on 24 occasions, but hey who's counting.        

When the ice was thick enough, frost fairs took place. Years when the ice was thick enough for this to occur were: 1408, 1435, 1506, 1514, 1537, 1565, 1595, 1608, 1621, 1635, 1649, 1655, 1663, 1666, 1677, 1684, 1695, 1709, 1716, 1740, (1768), 1776, (1785), 1788, 1795, and 1814, which was the last frost fair.

Must have been the cow farts.

That's interesting, frost fairs seemed to have come to an end at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Ok, I'll bite again. The industrial revolution in Britain, you mean? The country that is 81st largest in the world? Try harder, Chris.

EDIT: I'd wager that a single large bush fire in either Australia or America would have equalled or exceeded the CO2 output of the first few years of the industrial revolution, as would a volcanic eruption. Can't tax us for that though can they?

[Melbourne12]

I got part way through completing it, and then felt that all the questions were assuming it was getting warmer- Med plants, longer seasons etc. Don't think thats the case so pulled out.
Have I missed something?

That's clearly what they want, so that they can report, "99% of gardeners are terrified of the effects of global warming, shock, horror!"

Back in the 1960s we were promised a new Ice Age by the climatologists.  Glaciers down to Hadrian's Wall by 2000, London by 2010.  I'll believe in global warming after I've had my promised Ice Age.