Through the last several weeks in Britain, we’ve gone through probably the roughest winter weather for many years. Possibly the worst feature of these winters is that they ar not severe enough. If my theory appears to be a bit of a nonsense, just think about it for a while. A really severe winter for us in Britain is when the temperature stays below zero centigrade.

Accordingly our problems are dual. To begin with, we simply don’t invest in infrastructure to handle real winter weather. We have very few snow ploughs and gritters, and almost no-one, including the emergency services fits winter tires. Secondly, when we do have for us frozen weather, the temperature very infrequently falls beyond a few degrees below That consequently means that the humidity levels stay rather high, and that consequently brings frozen wiper blades, windscreens, door locks and door seals on our vehicles.

I first became aware of the oddness of our winter weather when I was visiting Sweden one year at the beginning of winter. Everyone complained of being very cold, and we had all those humid winter issues with the vehicles in the mornings. But, the locals surprised and horrified me with their insistence that it would all get better as soon as the temperature fell an additional ten degrees or so. At that time, they assured me, the sea would freeze over and the moisture level would drop.

As this comes about, there’s so little humidity in the atmosphere that there’s little or no condensation to settle and then freeze on your car overnight. This means that the windshield is clear and clean, the Wiper Blades are not to the screen, the locks all work, the door seals aren’t frozen, and above all, the ignition system is nice and dry. You don’t even really need winter screen wash additive, because there’s no nasty wet spray being thrown up onto your windshield by other cars. In truth the only issue you might have is that your wiper blades, if you are using rubber ones, may be frozen solid.

So, it appears that we English are victims of our own soft climate. Once I had understood this fact, I looked into what I could do to mitigate the problem. Preparing a car for the Uk winter is nothing like the same as preparing it for a real Nordic|Arctic|Alpine|Scandinavianrarely see temperatures as low as minus eight degrees Celsius, but we will often have humid weather during the day followed by overnight frost.

For all those reasons, I always carry out the usual pre-winter checks on my car: anti-freeze, drive belts, lights, windshield and wiper blades, battery, alternator and ignition system etc. On top of that, I make sure to lubricate my car’s locks with a good water repellent lock oil, then I clean and polish the rubber door seals with silicone wax. Most “Cockpit Shine” type products are an excellent source of silicone. Use enough to leave the rubber shiny black. Remember that lots of vehicles have 2 door seals: one on the door frame and the other on the door itself.

Lastl but not least, so as to avoid the risk of wrecking my windshield wiper linkage or motor, I have permanently switched over to Silicone Wiper Blades. These stay flexible down to -60°C so they give a clean sweep in even the harshest conditions, and they don’t crack or split with the cold. Additionally, silicone is more water repellent that rubber, so it ensures a much lower risk of your wiper blades being frozen to your vehicle’s windshield. Silicone wiper blades also have superb resistance to the chemicals used in winter screen wash antifreeze, UV and Ozone, making them an excellent choice for summer use also.

I found a brand called XOPC. These are designed for Russian winters. They are very competitively priced and come with a 12 month guarantee.

Last year, I wrote that Bill had this (let’s be honest) evil-genius style plan to weaken hurricanes before they make landfall. Sounded a bit fantastical at the time, but as it turns out, there are real scientists ready to rock and roll with these things. They’re so serious they even put together a video.

The idea is really pretty simple: by pumping warm surface water to the cool depths of the ocean, the temperature at the surface can be reduced by a few degrees, which is apparently all it takes to weaken a hurricane.

[via Gizmodo]

I know I waxed friendly on Gates yesterday, but this latest plan seems a little mad-scientist to me. Of course, he didn’t concoct it personally and it’s only possible to use it for good, but the sheer scale of the thing just screams “Dr. Evil.” The idea is that by changing the ocean’s temperature by a few degrees in the area where a hurricane is about to hit, they can slow or weaken a hurricane before it makes landfall. Of course, changing the temperature of the ocean is about is large-scale an operation as is possible on this planet.

Fortunately, they only need to change its temperature in a certain area, and only by a few degrees. This would create enough atmospheric something-or-other to affect the storm. A whole bunch of “sail-maneuvered barges” (why sails?) with pumps and 500-foot tubes would pump up cold water from the depths and push warmwater down. Of course, it’s going to be hard to staff a hundred ships that will be going straight into the path or eye of the hurricane. Not exactly the safest place to be, but on the plus side it’d make a great movie.

If you were to say to me “that’s madness,” I wouldn’t think less of you for it. But it seems that hurricanes apparently cost the US $10bn annually and Katrina cost us $81bn. A fraction of that would pay for this entire fleet.

My problem is this: the ocean is a very well-tuned ecosystem, and a temperature change of a few degrees might be negligible to us, but for microfauna or algae it may be fatal. Mess with the planet’s homeostasis at your own risk, my friends.