Describing seasonal variability in the distribution of daily effective temperatures for 1985-2009 compared to 1904-1984 for De Bilt, Holland

This paper proposes a method for describing the distribution of observed temperatures on any day of the year such that the distribution and summary statistics of interest derived from the distribution vary smoothly through the year. The method removes the noise inherent in calculating summary statistics directly from the data thus easing comparisons of distributions and summary statistics between different periods. The method is demonstrated using daily effective temperatures (DET) derived from observations of temperature and wind speed at De Bilt, Holland. Distributions and summary statistics are obtained from 1985 to 2009 and compared to the period 1904–1984. A two-stage process first obtains parameters of a theoretical probability distribution, in this case the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution, which describes the distribution of DET on any day of the year. Second, linear models describe seasonal variation in the parameters. Model predictions provide parameters of the GEV distribution, and therefore summary statistics, that vary smoothly through the year. There is evidence of an increasing mean temperature, a decrease in the variability in temperatures mainly in the winter and more positive skew, more warm days, in the summer. In the winter, the 2% point, the value below which 2% of observations are expected to fall, has risen by 1.2 °C, in the summer the 98% point has risen by 0.8 °C. Medians have risen by 1.1 and 0.9 °C in winter and summer, respectively. The method can be used to describe distributions of future climate projections and other climate variables. Further extensions to the methodology are suggested.

Mutated bodies: stage performances of Beckett's late prose texts by Mabou Mines (1984) and Gare St. Lazare Players, Ireland (2005)

An exploration of the stage adaptations of Beckett's fictional texts by the New York based Mabou Mines theatre company.

Why was urban overcrowding much more severe in Scotland than in the rest of the British Isles? Evidence from the first (1904) official household expenditure survey

This article presents an analysis of British urban working-class housing conditions in 1904, using a rediscovered survey. We investigate overcrowding and find major regional differences. Scottish households in the survey were more overcrowded despite being less poor. Investigating the causes of this overcrowding, we find little support for supply-side theories or for the idea that the Scottish households in our survey experienced particularly great variations in income, causing them to commit to overly modest accommodation. We present evidence that is consistent with idea that particularly tough Scottish tenancy and local tax laws caused excess overcrowding. We also provide evidence that Scottish workers had a relatively high preference for food, rather than housing, expenditure, which can be at least partly attributed to their inheritance of more communal patterns of urban living.

On the connection between the 1984 Atlantic warm event and the 1982-1983 ENSO

The warm event which spread in the tropical Atlantic during Spring-Summer 1984 is assumed to be partially initiated by atmospheric disturbances, themselves related to the major 1982–1983 El-Niño which occurred 1 year earlier in the Pacific. This paper tests such an hypothesis. For that purpose, an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) is forced by different conditions of climatic and observed sea surface temperature and an Atlantic ocean general circulation model (OGCM) is subsequently forced by the outputs of the AGCM. It is firstly shown that both the AGCM and the OGCM correctly behave when globally observed SST are used: the strengthening of the trades over the tropical Atlantic during 1983 and their subsequent weakening at the beginning of 1984 are well captured by the AGCM, and so is the Spring 1984 deepening of the thermocline in the eastern equatorial Atlantic, simulated by the OGCM. As assumed, the SST anomalies located in the El-Niño Pacific area are partly responsible for wind signal anomaly in the tropical Atlantic. Though this remotely forced atmospheric signal has a small amplitude, it can generate, in the OGCM run, an anomalous sub-surface signal leading to a flattening of the thermocline in the equatorial Atlantic. This forced oceanic experiment cannot explain the amplitude and phase of the observed sub-surface oceanic anomaly: part of the Atlantic ocean response, due to local interaction between ocean and atmosphere, requires a coupled approach. Nevertheless this experiment showed that anomalous conditions in the Pacific during 82–83 created favorable conditions for anomaly development in the Atlantic.

Glastonbury Abbey: archaeological investigations 1904-79

This volume reports on the results of the Glastonbury Abbey Archaeological Archive Project, a collaboration between the University of Reading and the Trustees of Glastonbury Abbey, funded principally by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project has reassessed and reinterpreted all known archaeological records from the 1908–79 excavations and made the complete dataset available to the public through a digital archive hosted by the Archaeology Data Service (http://dx.doi.org/10.5284/1022585). The scope of the project has included the full analysis of the archaeological collections of Glastonbury Abbey by thirty-one leading specialists, including chemical and compositional analysis of glass and metal and petrological analysis of pottery and tile, and a comprehensive geophysical survey conducted by GSB Prospection Ltd. For the first time, it has been possible to achieve a framework of independent dating based on reassessment of the finds and radiocarbon dating of surviving organic material from the 1950s excavations. The principal aim of the Glastonbury Abbey Archaeological Project was to set aside previous assumptions based on the historical and legendary traditions and to provide a rigorous reassessment of the archive of antiquarian excavations. This research has revealed that some of the best known archaeological ‘facts’ about Glastonbury are themselves myths perpetuated by the abbey’s excavators.