Whitey Grandad

The question is 'how significant'? Increased temperatures lead to more water vapour which means more clouds which reflect more sunlight into space. Earlier climate models took no account of this effect. The reason for this was 'we did not know what effect clouds had so we left it out of our model'. This is also why solar activity is possibly more important than previously thought. An increase in high energy solar radiation has been proposed as causing more cloud formation. There is plenty of food for discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation It's Wikipedia so the usual caveats apply.

No, water vapour and methane are many times more significant that CO2.

This is a good site for satellite images: http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/

It might be the reason now but it certainly wasn't in all the previous occasions so we ought to be sure what's happening and why. More about the Gulf Stream: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/08/news/adfg-gulf8

Ther'es a bit here saying that we have no idea whether it will stop or not. We always have to remember who is publishing this stuff, there are a lot of people scrabbling about for limited research money. http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=9986

Oh no, what have I done? Now I've got to go and dive through all those reports I've read over the last few years. Oh well, let's see what we find... (We don't actually get the Gulf Stream, just the North Atlantic Drift, but it's effect is similar)

The 'western' side is reducing but the 'east' is increasing. (I'm not sure how there can be an East and West in Antarctica but what do I know?) http://www.news.com.au/antarctic-ice-is-growing-not-melting-away/story-0-1225700043191

The latest orthodoxy is that the Gulf Stream has not, and will not change.

Not in Antarctica it isn't. Less ice at the North Pole can also be because less snow falls in winter, the same reason that glaciers in Norway have been retreating for over 150 years.

Common sense would be to open the schools. I've driven past Hamble Juniors this morning and it's still closed. They had a 'safety inspection' yesterday and decide to keep it closed. There's only a couple of inches of snow and all the rest of the world is carrying on as normal. This is an unbelievable sh!thole of a country.

You noticed! The point is that modern teaching methods are not as effective as whole class teaching. If you're talking to the class then it's the same for 20 or 40 pupils. Having dedicated classrooms for subjects is another problem. At the end of the lesson the whole class has to move whereas in my day it was just the teachers. We had our own desks where we stored the books so they didn't often leave the classroom and would last for 20 or 30 years. This modern free-for-all has a lot to answer for.

Does he ever send you a birthday card?

It's a World Cup year so FIFA want all leagues to be finished by May 10th

At university we had one lecturer to 280 students.

Wimps, the lot of 'em. The trouble is nowadays, too many people live too far away from their place of work. The cost of moving house is too so with HIPS, stamp duty, legal fees, that most people prefer to stay where they are and commute. It's no wonder that the roads are clogged and CO2 emissions are going through the roof.

I read somewhere that undersoil heating costs about £13,000 to operate for one game.

Yup, it's from the french 'marche'. The sledge driver is called a 'musher'

I saw a reference to the regulation some time ago and I think it was more than two clubs in the same country so on that basis he could be sold to a foreign club.

Indeed it was A mush-faker was a man who mended umbrellas.

In the Mail so it must be true: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1241186/Vincent-Pericard-tops-Alan-Pardews-shopping-list-Southampton-chase-promotion-push.html

But then they could not control who bought them, it might be an away supporter and they are supposed to control who sits where.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Very useful. But what they never take into account is that in winter this 'wasted' energy goes towards heating the house so reducing your gas bill, or whatever.

Can you link two STs so that you buy two adjacent seats for away games yet?

Every month they are falling deeper into the doggy-doos. I can't see anybody investing in them for football reasons. I saw today that West Ham might be available for £40m and even Leeds, after promotion, might be up for sale. Who is going to pay up to £100m for a club with nothing to offer?