Nature Features
Global warming threatens to devastate the Mediterranean
Feb 3, 2008, 11:25 GMT
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...we've had record cold all over the globe, record snowfalls in numerous regions and also found out Volcanism is now being studied as one possibility making glaciers in the Antarctic flow at much higher rates.
And notice, if you will, that the long litany of complaints listed in this article have little or nothing to do with 'global warming' and nearly everything to do with poor housekeeping and over-fishing.
Just for the record I will reiterate something that does not appear to sink through the thick skulls of watermelon greens. If you want to take care of the atmosphere, the very first thing you need to worry about doing is to start taking care of the water. The oceans are our only permanent carbon sink. I know that the treehuggers do not like to hear this, but it IS THE TRUTH. We will die shortly after the oceans die and that is not so terribly far off.
What 'record cold all over the globe ?'
1. There has been short term cold WEATHER (after all it is Winter) but this does not alter the trend of long-term CLIMATE warming.
2. Just how many cold records have been set ? Compare with over 1000 record high daily temperatures set in the USA in January 2008 alone. Funny how the anti-warmers only manage to see one side of the equation !
John,don't waste your breath on SP4,he is only demonstrating how stupid he is again,whenever he reads the word 'cold ' related to the weather ,he thinks climate is not changing.Apparently the word ' statistic ' wasn't taught yet in the kindergarten where he resides .As for noharness,does the fact that the article misquotes global warming as being the cause for the polution of the Mediterranean lead to conclusion that pollution or global warming are not important ?He is just being grumpy as usual.
Thanks Tonny.
Good to see Noharness has returned - I expect he has been preparing his promised apology for claiming the crashed aircraft at Heathrow was because of running out of fuel.
It was officially stated a few days ago that the engines were still running when the plane hit the ground, and as far as I know even the americans haven't managed to develop engines which run without fuel, so this is further evidence of Noharness jumping to the wrong conclusion
‘The oceans are our only permanent carbon sink. I know that the treehuggers do not like to hear this, but it IS THE TRUTH.’
Coal and fossil fuels are more permanent carbon sinks than then ocean until we started burning them on mass at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Fossil fuel the general theory is that it is formed from the preserved remains of prehistoric zooplankton and algae which have been settled to the sea bottom in large quantities under anoxic conditions. This is carbon that has been locked up in the under the earth in a solid form from the time of the dinosaurs.
This is has been removed from the carbon cycle for millions of years and has been released into the atmosphere and consequently it affects the way in which climate operates. You basically have had algae slowly accumulating carbon on the ocean floor, then mankind comes along collecting it up millions of years later as a concentrate. This is why it is such a good fuel source because it is very energy dense and you release it over a period of about 150 years into the air. So what you get is a situation were life has to adapt to atmosphere and ocean composition that hasn’t been seen since the Jurassic.
As mentioned the oceans represent the largest active carbon sink on Earth, The more C02 in the air and ocean means that the oceans are likely to become more acidic due to carbon dioxide forming carbonic acid which doesn’t bode well for well for corral reefs and other marine life sensitive to changes in PH.
Although generally true, the problem is that oceans are not absorbing CO2 fast enough. Since 1981, for instance, the Southern Ocean has not increased its capacity to absorb CO2, during which time atmospheric CO2 has increased 40%
Tonni, Where have you been hiding?, Gee no posts. John, Get your head out of the sand, or should I say Ice. We have been cooling since 1998. Just because the drive by media is ignoring all the record cold weather and snow doesnt mean it is not real. We are really cooling and you been duped by fake USA haters. Pretty soon with Cheney gone youll be back to terrorist attacks and you wont have to worry about bogus global warming.
OGDEN -- The snowpack in Utah's northern mountains is so heavy that state wildlife officials are taking the rare step of feeding deer.
More than 10 tons of feed have been spread over areas in Cache, Weber, Morgan and Summit counties since Saturday. A percentage of fawns die off naturally in the winter, but the snow is so deep this year that does and bucks are having a hard time getting to the foliage they need to eat.
It so happens that while we in China are mobilized to fight the worst snow disaster in memory. Snow in Bagdad,Iran, Kashmir, even Scottish ski resorts.
Rest assured, John. I will keep my word on BA038. I have bookmarked a site that should allow me to keep track of the investigation.
RE:'As mentioned the oceans represent the largest active carbon sink on Earth, The more C02 in the air and ocean means that the oceans are likely to become more acidic due to carbon dioxide forming carbonic acid which doesn’t bode well for well for coral reefs and other marine life sensitive to changes in PH.'
At about the same time that we began to industrialize, we also began inhibiting the ability of the ocean to take carbon out of the loop, starting with the decimation, perhaps near extirpation, of cetaceans. We have also polluted and otherwise destroyed littoral habitats with abandon. We are killing the ocean. Without a living ocean we WILL die. We will not bake, we will choke to death on our own breathe.
Coldest in India: January has seen 10.2 degrees Celsius twice—on January 15, 1967 and January 27, 2008. Interestingly, it's not just Santa Cruz that has sprung surprises this February. Colaba on Monday dropped to a cool 13.4 degrees Celsius.
Colaba's average in February is 20 degrees Celsius. In the last decade, the lowest that Colaba's temperature has dropped has been 15.3 degrees on February 22, 2005.
The China Meteorological Administration said the weather was the coldest in 100 years in central Hubei and Hunan provinces, going by the total number of consecutive days of average temperature less than 1 degree Celsius (33.8 degrees Fahrenheit).
Meanwhile, over 1000 record high daily temperatures were set throughout the USA during January 2008.
As predicted for advancing global warming, the extremes - hot and cold - of weather are getting larger
And todays forecast for part of the US -
'Providing the fuel for the severe thunderstorm threat will be UNUSUALLY WARM, moist air ahead of the cold front. Record highs will likely be reached across the Mid-Atlantic before the cold front sweeps through in the evening hours'.
If any anti-warmers want to try and link weather to climate, why pick a cold event - why not pick this hot event and claim global warming IS happening ?
Oh, I forgot, when limited to making political statements about global warming you have to ignore facts
Why publish studies to change and adjust to current weather to somehow prove global warming caused by man is real?...IE Hurricanes. Why only focus on droughts while many places are at 150% of snowfall already?Why no reports on snow in iran ,india, 100 year cold and snow in china?...Why are heat events and drought warming but cold and snow is not cooling just weather?...Why did Glaciers grow during the last warming phase but not this one?
There was some coverage of the chaos caused in central and southern China by their heaviest snowfalls for decades - but little attention was paid to the snow that last week carpeted Jerusalem, Damascus and Amman, none of them exactly used to Dickensian Christmas card weather.
Similarly, Saudis last month expressed amazement at their heaviest snow for many years, in Afghanistan snow and freezing weather killed 120 people and large parts of the United States and Canada have been swept by unusually fierce blizzards.
The biologist who took this picture says this pair were within easy swimming distance of the Alaskan coast
If the northern hemisphere's chilliest winter in a long time was bad news for the propagandists of global warming, they also had to face serious questions about some of the most iconic images used to support the claims that the world is hotting up towards disaster.
Last autumn the BBC and others could scarcely contain their excitement in reporting that the Arctic ice was melting so fast there would soon be none left.
Sea ice cover had shrunk to the lowest level ever recorded. But for some reason the warmists are less keen on the latest satellite findings, reported by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the website Cryosphere Today by the University of Illinois.
This body is committed to warmist orthodoxy and contributes to the work of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet its graph of northern hemisphere sea ice area, which shows the ice shrinking from 13,000 million sq km to just 4 million from the start of 2007 to October, also shows it now almost back to 13 million sq km.
A second graph, 'Global Ice Area', shows a similar pattern repeated every year since satellite records began in 1979; while a third, 'Southern Hemisphere Ice', shows that sea ice has actually expanded in recent years, well above its 30-year mean.
Still more inconvenient was the truth about an image that has been relentlessly exploited to promote this panic over the 'vanishing' Arctic ice. It is the photograph of two polar bears standing forlornly on the fast-melting remains of an iceberg which has been reproduced thousands of times to show that there will soon be no bears left (ignoring evidence that their numbers have risen recently).
Now, thanks to a Canadian journalist, Carole Williams the story behind this picture, which was taken in 2004 just off Alaska by a marine biologist, Amanda Byrd. As Ms Byrd is happy to point out, the bears were in no danger so close to the coast (they can swim 100 miles). She wanted a photograph more of the 'wind-sculpted ice' than of the bears.
The image was copied by another member of the crew and passed on to Environment Canada. Then it was eagerly adopted by the warmist propaganda machine - above all by Al Gore, who used it to powerful effect as an emotive backdrop to his highly lucrative lectures.
'Their habitat is melting,' he likes to declaim, 'beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet.'
As the old joke has it, it seems those famous bears were not drowning after all, they were just waving. But the BBC is no more likely to tell us that than it was to lead the news
Madison,WI If it pans out as predicted, the near-blizzard will push the seasonal snowfall total for Madison,WI into the top 10 for that city, exceeding the 66.2 inches recorded in 1922-'23.
Ottawa,CA It was another day of hard winter labour for Ottawans yesterday, as they shovelled their way out of the heaviest Feb. 1 snowfall on record.
When the snow stopped swirling at 3 a.m yesterday, 31 centimetres had fallen on the capital, with enough -- 27 centimetres -- piling up before midnight to best the previous record of 18.5 centimetres, which was set in 1951.
Vail,CO NEWS: Vail had another record month for snowfall in January — hey, where do they put all that white stuff?
Prospect,OR
All those storms have brought abundant snow all over the Southern Oregon Cascades and Siskiyous. The snow depth at the Siskiyou Summit (elevation 4,600 feet) on Jan. 31 was 65 inches, more than three times the average depth of 19 inches for the end of January, and the most ever measured at that site since record-keeping began in 1935. The water content of the snow (18.4 inches) also set a record: It was 347 percent of the end-of-January average.
Two other sites within a mile of the Mount Ashland summit had about 160 percent of average snow depth for the end of January and 140 percent of average water content, said Steve Johnson of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.
Johnson worked in blizzard conditions Thursday to measure the snow.
'It was quite a day, with snow falling at two inches per hour,' Johnson said. 'The road was like coming west in 1840.'
As of Friday, Crater Lake National Park had received a total of 348 inches of snow since October, 65 inches more than the average, and 127 inches of snow were on the ground at park headquarters.
On Sunday, the Rogue and Umpqua basins had a combined average snow water content of 152 percent of normal, and every basin in Oregon had at least 100 percent of average snow water content.
By Sunday morning, the Mount Ashland ski area had received more than 240 inches of snow for the winter, 80 percent of its annual average of about 300 inches, and there are 10 weeks of skiing still to come.
Global warming means that we have a more active atmosphere and that means more storms. If these storms arrive in winter that means more snow.
The UK and possibly Europe as well is having the mildest winter that I can remember. If it is extra cold in one place it is highly likely that it will be hotter somewhere else, it all depends on how the wind blows.
The most significant thing about global warming is that the Oceans are warming. This causes more evaporation which is causing more rain, more snow and disrupting weather patterns that are incidently causing more deserts as well.
Fool is a scientist, This is rocket science, Do you have a PHD?
Despite a warming Southern Ocean, the amount of ice surrounding Antarctica is now at the highest level ever measured for this time of the year, since satellites first began to monitor it almost thirty years ago. This represents a continuation of the record set last winter (our summer).
Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, we can also look at the departure from the average for ice mass in a given month. At present, the coverage of ice surrounding Antarctica is almost exactly two million square miles above where it is historically supposed to be at this time of year. It’s farther above normal than it has ever been for any month in climatologic records. Around now, because it’s summer down there and the ice is headed towards its annual low point, there should be about seven million square miles of it. That means, as data in University of Illinois’ web publication Cryosphere Today shows, that there is nearly 30% more ice down in Antarctica than usual for this time of the year.
All of the IPCC’s models of Antarctica in the 21st century forecast a gain in ice, as a warmer surrounding ocean evaporates more water, which subsequently falls in the form of snow when it hits the continent. It’s simply too cold for rain in Antarctica, and it’ll stay that way for a very long time.
Concerning Antarctica as a whole, the IPCC’s new climate compendium notes “the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region.” Other studies, such as Peter Doran’s in Nature in 2003, show actual cooling in recent decades. (There is a small area of significant warming in the peninsula that points towards South America, but this is less than 2% of Antarctica’s total land mass.)
There’s brand new evidence, just published in mid-January in Geophysical Research Letters, of a striking increase in snowfall over that peninsula. The few snowfall records that are available elsewhere in Antarctica show considerable variation from decade to decade, so discriminating the “signal” of increased snowfall caused by global warming from all the rest of the “noise” may be very difficult indeed.
We see the same problem with hurricanes and global warming. Their strength and numbers vary considerably from year to year. 2005 was the most active year ever measured in the Atlantic Basin, while 2007 was one of the weakest in history. How do you find the fingerprint of global warming amidst such variation?
So it’s not warming up, and the snowfall data are equivocal, yet the continent is experiencing a net loss of ice. How can this be, and is it even important? The current hypothesis is that warmer waters beneath the surface are somehow loosening the ice. That’s plausible, but again, there’s precious little proof of it.
And further, the bottom line is that there is more ice than ever surrounding Antarctica.
One of the tired tropes that reverberate throughout global warming reporting is that inconvenient facts get left out. In this case, it’s blatant. Midway through the Washington Post’s page-long article comes a statement that “these new findings come as the Arctic is losing ice at a dramatic rate.” Wouldn’t that have been an appropriate place to note that, despite a small recent loss of ice from the Antarctic landmass, the ice field surrounding Antarctica is now larger than ever measured?
This year has started with odd weather including a New Year cold snap in India that killed more than 20 people.
Light snow fell in Baghdad in what weather officials said was the first time in 100 years.
Rare snowfalls were also recorded in the west and central Iraq, plunging temperatures to zero degrees Centigrade and even colder.
Morning temperatures uncharacteristically hovered around freezing, and Baghdad airport was closed because of poor visibility.
The snow in Baghdad began falling before dawn and continued until after 9am, residents said. Iraqis welcomed snow as an omen of peace.
Although the white flakes quickly dissolved into gray puddles, they brought an emotion rarely expressed in Baghdad snarled by army checkpoints, divided by concrete walls and ravaged by sectarian killings - delight.
Meteorology department, director Dawood Shakir, said climate change was possibly to blame for the unusual event.
'It's very rare. Baghdad has never seen snow falling in living memory,' he said.
When Bancroft and Arnesen treked up to the Arctic last March to document proof of global warming’s impact they were stuck insuch terrible cold they had to abandon the journey. The Washington Post reported the two had “prepared to don body suits and swim through areas where polar ice has melted.”
Instead, the temperatures reached -100 degrees F.
Their spokesperson Ann Atwood said “They were experiencing temperatures that weren’t expected with global warming, but one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability.”
There is nothing unpredictable about -100 degree weather in the Arctic in early March.
There is also nothing unpredictable about ’strange’ weather occuring. One can look back in the weather record and see snow taking place in summer. Odd weather events happen all the time but now we pay attention to them as proof of global warming.
I suppose if ice sheets encroach upon Londo you will also say Global Warming. Oh yes… I forgot that is what Al Gore’s movie predicted.
Too bad the latest Nature article not only disproves that but shows the opposite will happen.
Oh and then there is the FACT that Global Warming will cause MORE Hurricanes and more intense ones like Katrina. Too bad that too now seems to be not only untrue but alledgely the opposite.
It seems… no matter WHAT the weather is it will be global warming… even if the temperatures fall… it is just another sign.
You said, “Really, the only thing you can say about your local climate is that the weather will become more volatile and extreme, which is already been seen and agreed upon by scientists.”
This doesn’t seem to be true does it. So many people, both scientists and politicians, put the blame for Katrina on Global warming. And yet, the more experienced hurricane forcasters said just the opposite. That hurricanes the size of Katrina was a natural phenomena and not related to Global warming. The pro-Global warming crowd compared these remarks to denying the holocaust.
Like you, the pro-Global warming crowd has been saying that local weather such as hurricanes are going to be worse not better.
However in a recent Nature article on the effect of global warming on hurricanes, it showed that historically speaking hurricanes become less and less destructive(powerful) as the global temperature increases.
So your statement “the weather will become more volatile and extreme” certainly doesn’t seem to hold water in terms of hurricanes does it?
What also bothers me is your other statement “Yes, the global climate is tremendously complicated and global warming will have sometimes unexpected consequences.”
In other words… any abnormal weather pattern can ‘proof’ that Golbal warming is happening and that it is man-made.
It is just like the what I said in the post above. When the arctic expedition to show global warming got completely frozen over the spokesperson said:
“They were experiencing temperatures that weren’t expected with global warming, but one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability.”
It is the biological pump in the Ocean that takes carbon out of the cycle and sequesters it on the sea bed. Without that biological pump, the atmosphere WILL go sour and that will kill every last one of us. Rats and cockroaches might make it, but damned little else.
This from the latest (released Feb5/2008) report from Antarctica -
Researchers have discovered that melting sea ice has created a pool of fresh water on the sea surface. Algal plankton growing in this pool started to decay and to sink to the seafloor .....
....This algal bloom measured 700,000 square kilometres, i.e. approximately twice the size of Germany. The researchers wanted to find out which physical conditions lead to such algal blooms, and how they affect the living and non-living environment. Their measurements demonstrate a significant decrease in the carbon dioxide content of the surface water.
Two things immediately strike one -
A. The ability of the ocean to absorb CO2 is being decreased, just when we need it more than ever.
B. Anyone with even the most basic scientific background will know brine has a lower freezing point than fresh water.
So those who prattle on about the sea ice around Antarctica increasing in area need to look more closely - the fresh water will freeze much more easily than seawater, so an increase in ice area cannot necessarily be interpreted as the temperature being lower in support of their anti-warming mind set.
I could take a picture from space showing that London has increased in built-up area, but that wouldn't prove the population has increased (as indeed it hasn't)
They call it climate change now, for a reason...Climate change is normal...it happens...glaciers melt...we get hit by meteors...yellowstone caldera will break loose one day...and if man made global warming is real then at the rate we are going we will be in a ice age quickly too.
URUMQI, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Taklamakan, China's biggest desert, has experienced its biggest snowfall and lowest temperature after 11 consecutive days of snow, local meteorologists said on Friday.
The snow started in the afternoon of Jan. 17 and lasted until Jan. 27, with the depth exceeding four centimeters, according to the Tazhong Observatory based in the middle of the desert.
Continuous snow also caused the temperature to drop drastically to minus 32 degrees Celsius, a record low since meteorological observation began in the desert in 1996, said Wu Xinping, an expert with the observatory.
The previous record was minus 26.1 degrees Celsius in January 2006.
Wu said snow was rare in the desert that covered 337,600 square kilometers, and never before had the whole desert been covered.
The snow was still 3 cm deep on Friday, despite sunshine the past four days. The desert has an annual precipitation of up to 100 millimeters.
And for those who seem unable to distinguish between short term WEATHER events (such as occasional snow in usually warm areas) and long term CLIMATE (such as a steadily rising average global temperature trend):-
Suppose I were travelling along a motorwway and overtook a lorry moving at 30 mph, then 50 lorries moving at between 50 & 60 mph, then another lorry at 30mph.
Which of the following could I reasonably conclude to be a valid analysis -
A. All future lorries I overtake will be at 30 mph
B. All lorries have now slowed down to 30 mph
C. All lorries on the motorway are coming to a standstill
D. The average speed of all lorries is now 30mph
E. The average speed of lorries is around 55mph and there will little change in this unless the next 20 or so lorries are all travelling at well below 50 mph
Rational observers will, of course, answer E
Those trying to disprove climate change with quotes of occasional weather events will probably answer otherwise. In which case they should put their selected answer on a postcard and place it in the back of their computer
By the way - the lowest record temperature for the Taklamakan desert, as quoted above, is only SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1996 - hardly a long term record to draw conclusions upon !
When Larsen B disintigrated it shattered like a pane of glass and the ice spread into the Weddel sea.
If a satellite purely measured the area of ice the result would be an increase in it's area when in reality it was disintigrating. This may be repeated in the whole of Antarctica.
A better measure of Antarctic ice would be the sea temperatures around Antarctica.
Oh, well hell! It doesn't look anything we try to do is going to work anyway. The greens flatly refuse to support the idea of building nukes, but now they aren't happy with bio-fuels, either.
www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?pagewanted=1& _r=1
The tempewrature in London today is about 20F (50%) above the average for February. Using the typical warped logic of the anti-warmers, does this show that the next ice age is about to strike ?
Sorry - now about 30F (75%) above the February average - ice age due tomorrow ?
It's a pity that the first victims of global warming in the Medeterranian are not those nasty little sea urchins that hide everywhere just waiting for you to put your foot on them.
If you go back over the last 1000 years of time we are in a cooling phase . Also any study of previous warming phases results in a rapid onset of cooling. Do you guys read anything beyond headlines or what Big Al Gore tells you? Why is any short term weather event global warming but cooling events are just weather?...I guess you see what you wanna see.
WIMB Report:Toronto, CA According to Mr. Coulson, the 30 year average for snowfall measured at Pearson airport is 90 cm. This average is based on measurements taken from 1971 to 2000 between Nov. 1 and the end of February. So far this winter from Nov. 1 until yesterday a total of 128.2 cm has already been measured.
'This is the lowest-ever temperature recorded in the city for the month of February,' said K. Sathi Devi, director of weather bureau here.
The minimum temperature recorded Friday at Colaba, in south Mumbai, was 13.4 degrees Celsius, while at Santacruz in north Mumbai it was 8.5 degrees Celsius. This is the coldest ever in the city of stars in the past 40 years. But the record low is 7.4 on Jan 22, 1962.
To - 40 Year Event - meanwhile I'm sitting here enjoying the sunshine day after day with temperatures at least 50% above the average for the month. Would you like to conclude that this is a sign of global warming or does it make you realise the stupidity of quoting a few individual WEATHER events in a few spots around the globe as being significant in terms of the long term CLIMATE trends
Sorry about the cold temperatures and snow folks but here in the UK it is so warm that on Sunday the local beaches were full and children were building sandcastles. Please remind me that this is the middle of Febuary?
Thanks for the Beach WIMB report, now we know gobal warming is real!... The average temperature in January 2008 was 30.5 F. This was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 49th coolest January in 114 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.
Arent you doing the same thing, with your weather in my backyard so global warming is real report?...Gobal right?...not USA or UK?
I had assumed, obviously incorrectly, that it would have been abundantly clear that my question
'Would you like to conclude that this is a sign of global warming or does it make you realise the stupidity of quoting a few individual WEATHER events in a few spots around the globe as being significant in terms of the long term CLIMATE trends'
was rhetorical.
Now your doing what the the wimb reports do?...Welcome to the program point out the moronic backyard weather reports as global events like most of the terror and cooling deniers on here.
WIMB report: It lived up to its name: The temperature in International Falls fell to 40 below zero Monday, just a few days after the northern Minnesota town won a federal trademark making it officially the 'Icebox of the Nation.
The previous record low for Feb. 11 in International Falls was 37 below, set in 1967, said meteorologist Mike Stewart at the weather service in Duluth.
The temperature also fell to 40 below in Embarrass, 80 miles southeast of International Falls. That's just one degree above the all-time record in Minneapolis, 250 miles to the south, that was set in January 1888, the weather service said.
Just 2.1 inches of snow is needed to tie the 1978-79 record of 76.1, and the inevitable march into the record books is expected to resume this afternoon, said Bill Borghoff, a meteorologist with the weather service 's Sullivan office. A snow advisory begins today at 3 p.m. and is slated to last until noon Tuesday.
'Madison will break the record, ' Borghoff said, adding that Thursday and the weekend offer chances to pad the record with yet more snow.
With unusually deep and unstable snowpacks in many areas of the country this winter, and more skiers and snowmobilers hungry to make fresh tracks, 30 backcountry users weren't so fortunate this avalanche season. The 30 avalanche deaths have this season nearing the record of 35 from the winter of 2001-02.
What a scam a new project to redo record books charting weather extrems, now that we are cooling down, what a coincidence?...Read about
this scam:Tim Owen, executive officer for the National Climatic Data Center, said that the North Carolina-based federal agency reopened the archives for more than 250 major weather stations around the country in order to achieve consistency and develop a more extensive understanding of local climates. Insurance and transportation companies, utilities and weather media -- primarily the Weather Channel -- advocated for the project.
Owen said that extending the weather record is also a way of building a bridge toward research into paleoclimatology, in which tree rings, corals, ice cores and cave formations -- including some in Minnesota -- have been examined to determine past climates.
The project's work has been included in the vast amount of research continually being reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But with a sense of urgency growing around global warming, why focus on extremes, instead of, say, long-term trends in averages?
'Extremes are where we have the greatest impact,' Owen said. 'We're all really focused on what kind of extremes we're going to be dealing with in the future.'
The ongoing project has involved deciphering literally millions of daily, quill-and-ink 'pioneer' entries from professional observers around the country, then keyboarding them, keyboarding them again, sorting out discrepancies, and digitizing those results.
The work came about as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Data Modernization Project, a much more wide-ranging reexamination of data on everything from pioneer fish catches and lake levels to early records of glaciers, sunspots and gas-well flares. Funding for the project, underway since 2001, has been about $15 million annually.
As a result of the weather project, the average 'period of record' for weather standards around the country has been extended from 60 years to 104 years, Owen said. For the Twin Cities, it moved from 116 years to 136 years. Records also have been extended for other regional ci
'So cold they are changing the books said' - 'now that we are cooling down, what a coincidence?..'
Where did this particular bit of mis-information originate ?
Worldwide, 9 of the 10 warmest years have been since 1995. So a portion of that small part (6%) of the world's surface that is america is having a cold winter - so what, that is what winter means. It is the height of stupidity to think these small scale weather events in a minor section of the world have any relevance to long term climate trends.
I have just walked along the river from Kingston-upon-Thames to Hampton Court Palace - bright sun beating down from a clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight, temperature at least 20 degrees above the norm for February, trees in blossom, ducks, swans, coots, geese, moor hens all preparing to nest and produce young, daffodils and other bulbs flowering in profusion. It felt like a typical May/June day - except of course it is February.
We all know that the seasons have advanced by several days each decade, but clearly this is an anomaly outside the parameters of the yearly figures that have established this warming trend, since this is about 6 weeks earlier than even the most optimistic date for these springtime events.
HOWEVER - I would not dream of claiming this is proof, as such, of global warming. The trend of rising temperatures established over several decades is a clear sign of warming, but a sudden jump in temperature is not - although if it was repeated for several years in a row, then a step change might well be indicated.
Equally a colder than usual winter in america (or China or whatever) can also be seen as an anomaly. If it is repeated for several years, then it might start being significant, but to go into headless-chicken mode and proclaim a cold winter means the world is cooling is the height of stupidity
So warming in one decade is a trend?...Did you miss the reports about the mistakes in the calculation and the warmest years were not in the 90's, Did you miss the info that since 1998 we have been cooling...Thanks for the wimb report throwing in a warm bone...There usually is some warming backyards before each ice age. Were you born in the 80's or something?
To 'Amazing lack of knowledge.. '
Indeed you have ! Here is the table (as of January 2008) for Global temperatures -
Average Global Temperature by Decade, 1880-2007
Decade Average Temperature
Degrees Celsius
1880-1889 13.81
1890-1899 13.69
1900-1909 13.74
1910-1919 13.79
1920-1929 13.90
1930-1939 14.02
1940-1949 14.06
1950-1959 13.99
1960-1969 13.96
1970-1979 14.02
1980-1989 14.26
1990-1999 14.40
2000-2007* 14.64
This doesn't look like 'a trend based on a single decade' to me, nor that the warmest decade was in the 90's, nor that we have been cooling since 1998. [1998 is acknowledged as high anomaly and later years were cooler than that, but the overall trend remains upwards. You have done what you accuse others of - picking a single year and trying to establish a trend from it]
I suspect your incorrect assertions about warmest years and warmest decades are based on figures for that little bit (6%) of the earth's surface called america. You need to take into account the other 94% of the world as well to get the global picture - not assume that events in your backyard apply to everywhere else
The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued.
For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.
The explanation for the standstill has been attributed to aerosols in the atmosphere produced as a by-product of greenhouse gas emission and volcanic activity. They would have the effect of reflecting some of the incidental sunlight into space thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. Such an explanation was proposed to account for the global cooling observed between 1940 and 1978.
But things cannot be that simple. The fact that the global temperature has remained unchanged for a decade requires that the quantity of reflecting aerosols dumped put in our atmosphere must be increasing year on year at precisely the exact rate needed to offset the accumulating carbon dioxide that wants to drive the temperature higher. This precise balance seems highly unlikely. Other explanations have been proposed such as the ocean cooling effect of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
But they are also difficult to adjust so that they exactly compensate for the increasing upward temperature drag of rising CO2. So we are led to the conclusion that either the hypothesis of carbon dioxide induced global warming holds but its effects are being modified in what seems to be an improbable though not impossible way, or, and this really is heresy according to some, the working hypothesis does not stand the test of data.
I might have been more impressed if you hadn't simply copied the above December 2007 item from the New Statesman. Rather than slavishly follow a single source, why not look at the data yourself and draw some personal conclusions ?
The snow is finally melting and the roads reopening in western and central Afghanistan, and the thaw is revealing the true impact of the worst winter in living memory.
Officially 800 people have died, but many more will no doubt have frozen to death when the snow fell heavier and the temperatures dropped lower than anybody expected.
Many were caught outside during a sudden change in the weather
Ahmad is 18 and he is lying in one of eight beds in a ward at Herat hospital. Everyone there is suffering from frostbite, and some are groaning in agony.
You can see the pain on Ahmad's face as he tries to move himself onto one side - learning to move himself now without his legs, as both have been amputated below the knee and are bandaged.
'I thought I was going to die in the snow,' he says. He is a shepherd and was out in the fields with the animals when the blizzard caught him.
'The cold has taken away my legs, and look at my hands - I have lost my fingers.'
He was trapped for six days and six nights without any shelter. His brother Abrahim, who's 20, was sent to look for him, but now he lies in the next bed, his legs also claimed by frostbite.
Watching over them is their father, Said Mohammad Sultanzai.
He is more than 40 years old and has never seen anything like it. His uncle, who is much older, says winter has never been as bad.
Said Mohammad explained that in his area, 85 people had been caught out in the open - 18 died and most of the survivors remain in their district, where healthcare is poor, as it is so difficult to get transport to the hospital for treatment.
At the weather centre in Kabul comes an explanation of why this winter has been so bad.
'There have been three problems in the last three weeks,' said Abdul Qadir Qadir, president of Afghanistan's meteorological service.
'The first was a low pressure area from Iran, and in this front we had 180cm [71in] of snow.
'Then another front came in from the Gulf, dropping 80cm more, and then a high pressure area from the North Pole - which passed through Siberia - took the temperature down to -30C.
'Our records only go back 10 years, but I have been here more than 30 and have never seen anything like this.'
Roads blocked
The extreme temperatures and heavy snow struck parts of the country that are not usually hit.
All that can be seen from the air is a vast blanket of snow
'About 800 people died, many around Herat and Herat province,' says Dr Abdul Matin Adrak, director of the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority.
'All the people were out of their houses with animals, they were busy with them on the land, but the snow struck and they died.'
Central and western Afghanistan are very remote and mountainous. Many roads are still blocked and it could be some time before the true extent of the crisis is uncovered.
'We don't have the transport to get to them, or the machinery to clear the roads,' Dr Adrak adds, appealing for the international community inside and outside Afghanistan to help.
But the United Nations and other organisations have already begun work.
'Currently we have assisted over 12,000 families in the west of Afghanistan,' says Dan McNorton, a UN spokesman.
'We provided them with food and non-food items, including basic shelter for those people who have been displaced as a result of dramatically low temperatures and an exceptionally cold winter.'
All that can be seen from the air is a vast and mountainous blanket of snow. Tens of thousands of animals have perished, and that will have a long-term impact on communities.
Then there is the fear of flooding as temperatures increase and metres of snow begin to melt.
The winter may have kept the fighting down to a minimum across much of Afghanistan, but it has still left millions of people in misery
If you can google so can I, Too bad you cut and paste the first thing you find at least go 2 the second page. If warming causes cooling what is the problem with the coming ice age as far as acknowledging it? I think you warmers are the real deniers, 2 decades fo mild warming and now nothing can change your mind?..Oh yeah no warming now for 9 years...
People have attempted to show that last year's numbers imply that 'Global Warming has stopped' or that it is 'taking a break' However, these comparisons are flawed since they basically compare long term climate change to short term weather variability. It should be clear that short term comparisons are misguided, but the reasons why, and what should be done instead, are worth exploring.
The first point to make is that the climate system has enormous amounts of variability on day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year and decade-to-decade periods. Much of this variability (once you account for the diurnal cycle and the seasons) is apparently chaotic and unrelated to any external factor - it is the weather. Some aspects of weather are predictable - the location of mid-latitude storms a few days in advance, the progression of an El Niño event a few months in advance etc, but predictability quickly evaporates due to the extreme sensitivity of the weather to the unavoidable uncertainty in the initial conditions. So for most intents and purposes, the weather component can be thought of as random.
If you are interested in the forced component of the climate then you need to assess the size of an expected forced signal relative to the unforced weather 'noise'. Without this, the significance of any observed change is impossible to determine. The signal to noise ratio is actually very sensitive to exactly what climate record you are looking at, and so whether a signal can be clearly seen will vary enormously across different aspects of the climate.
An obvious example is looking at the temperature anomaly in a single temperature station. The standard deviation in New York City for a monthly mean anomaly is around 2.5ºC, for the annual mean it is around 0.6ºC, while for the global mean anomaly it is around 0.2ºC. So the longer the averaging time-period and the wider the spatial average, the smaller the weather noise and the greater chance to detect any particular signal.
In the real world, there are other sources of uncertainty which add to the 'noise' part of this discussion. First of all there is the uncertainty that any particular climate metric is actually representing what it claims to be. This can be due to sparse sampling or it can relate to the procedure by which the raw data is put together. It can either be random or systematic and there are a couple of good examples of this in the various surface or near-surface temperature records.
Sampling biases are easy to see in the difference between the GISTEMP surface temperature data product (which extrapolates over the Arctic region) and the HADCRUT3v product which assumes that Arctic temperature anomalies don't extend past the land. These are both defendable choices, but when calculating global mean anomalies in a situation where the Arctic is warming up rapidly, there is an obvious offset between the two records (and indeed GISTEMP has been trending higher). However, the long term trends are very similar.
A more systematic bias is seen in the differences between the RSS and UAH versions of the MSU-LT (lower troposphere) satellite temperature record. Both groups are nominally trying to estimate the same thing from the same data, but because of assumptions and methods used in tying together the different satellites involved, there can be large differences in trends. Given that we only have two examples of this metric, the true systematic uncertainty is clearly larger than the simply the difference between them.
What we are really after is how to evaluate our understanding of what's driving climate change as encapsulated in models of the climate system. Those models though can be as simple as an extrapolated trend, or as complex as a state-of-the-art GCM. Whatever the source of an estimate of what 'should' be happening, there are three issues that need to be addressed:
Firstly, are the drivers changing as we expected? It's all very well to predict that a pedestrian will likely be knocked over if they step into the path of a truck, but the prediction can only be validated if they actually step off the curb! In the climate case, we need to know how well we estimated forcings (greenhouse gases, volcanic effects, aerosols, solar etc.) in the projections.
Secondly, what is the uncertainty in that prediction given a particular forcing? For instance, how often is our poor pedestrian saved because the truck manages to swerve out of the way? For temperature changes this is equivalent to the uncertainty in the long-term projected trends. This uncertainty depends on climate sensitivity, the length of time and the size of the unforced variability.
Thirdly, we need to compare like with like and be careful about what questions are really being asked. This has become easier with the archive of model simulations for the 20th Century (but more about this in a future post).
It's worthwhile expanding on the third point since it is often the one that trips people up. In model projections, it is now standard practice to do a number of different simulations that have different initial conditions in order to span the range of possible weather states. Any individual simulation will have the same forced climate change, but will have a different realisation of the unforced noise. By averaging over the runs, the noise (which is uncorrelated from one run to another) averages out, and what is left is an estimate of the forced signal and its uncertainty. This is somewhat analogous to the averaging of all the short trends in the figure above, and as there, you can often get a very good estimate of the forced change (or long term mean).
Problems can occur though if the estimate of the forced change is compared directly to the real trend in order to see if they are consistent. You need to remember that the real world consists of both a (potentially) forced trend but also a random weather component. This was an issue with the recent Douglass et al paper, where they claimed the observations were outside the mean model tropospheric trend and its uncertainty. They confused the uncertainty in how well we can estimate the forced signal (the mean of the all the models) with the distribution of trends+noise.
This might seem confusing, but a dice-throwing analogy might be useful. If you have a bunch of normal dice ('models') then the mean point value is 3.5 with a standard deviation of ~1.7. Thus, the mean over 100 throws will have a distribution of 3.5 +/- 0.17 which means you'll get a pretty good estimate. To assess whether another dice is loaded it is not enough to just compare one throw of that dice. For instance, if you threw a 5, that is significantly outside the expected value derived from the 100 previous throws, but it is clearly within the expected distribution.
Bringing it back to climate models, there can be strong agreement that 0.2ºC/dec is the expected value for the current forced trend, but comparing the actual trend simply to that number plus or minus the uncertainty in its value is incorrect. This is what is implicitly being done in the figure on Tierney's post.
If that isn't the right way to do it, what is a better way? Well, if you start to take longer trends, then the uncertainty in the trend estimate approaches the uncertainty in the expected trend, at which point it becomes meaningful to compare them since the 'weather' component has been averaged out. In the global surface temperature record, that happens for trends longer than about 15 years, but for smaller areas with higher noise levels (like Antarctica), the time period can be many decades.
Are people going back to the earliest projections and assessing how good they are? Yes. We've done so here for Hansen's 1988 projections, Stefan and colleagues did it for CO2, temperature and sea level projections from IPCC TAR (Rahmstorf et al, 2007), and IPCC themselves did so in Fig 1.1 of AR4 Chapter 1. Each of these analyses show that the longer term temperature trends are indeed what is expected. Sea level rise, on the other hand, appears to be under-estimated by the models for reasons that are as yet unclear.
Finally, this subject appears to have been raised from the expectation that some short term weather event over the next few years will definitively prove that either anthropogenic global warming is a problem or it isn't. As the above discussion should have made clear this is not the right question to ask. Instead, the question should be, are there analyses that will be made over the next few years that will improve the evaluation of climate models? There the answer is likely to be yes. There will be better estimates of long term trends in precipitation, cloudiness, winds, storm intensity, ice thickness, glacial retreat, ocean warming etc. We have expectations of what those trends should be, but in many cases the 'noise' is still too large for those metrics to be a useful constraint. As time goes on, the noise in ever-longer trends diminishes, and what gets revealed then will determine how well we understand what's happening.
Here is the truly dangerous thing we are doing:
www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008 /02/14/sciclim114.xml
More cut and paste off biased prowarming web sites, 1st listing page one of google, of course. Glad to see spin control starting as the evidence for warming diminishes, Everything stated above is also true for the opposite scenario of a cool down or stopage of warming. Why are you guys so afraid of a ice age, it is probaly a worse scenario than warming anyway and most likely triggered by warming as history points to with the exception of the sun's impact which is not well none. Again if you go back and look at longer weather trends you will see we are still cooling. The warming trend is what at best 20-100 years old?
Another Desert sees snow? PALM SPRINGS, Calif.—Rain, hail and snow fell Thursday in the Southern California desert, where temperatures had soared to 85 degrees just days ago.
Snow flurries dusted portions of the Coachella Valley, including Beaumont, Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs in the morning, the National Weather Service said.
'It was very, very light snow, but definitely unusual,' said NWS forecaster Noel Isla. 'Palm Springs is at 425 feet, that's pretty low to see snow.'
Temperatures in the area dropped to 47 degrees, he said.
Snow blew across a highway in Morongo, replacing the sand that normally covers the road, Jamey Finch of Twentynine Palms said.
The unusual weather was caused by a low pressure system that originated in the Gulf of Alaska, the weather service said.
San Diego:The surprise storm hit San Diego County with rain and snow Thursday. The CHP closed the mountain freeway just after 4 p.m., when blowing snow and ice made the roadway impassable. Cars spun out and hundreds of motorists were stopped in their tracks. As many as 500 motorists found themselves stranded on the interstate, which connects San Diego with Imperial County and Arizona.
'I've been here for a while and trying to get around, but there's no going around, so you just have to be patient,' stranded motorist Patty Kresin told NBC 7/39.
CANADA: It's been a season of relentless snowfalls.
Toronto has been blanketed by 145 centimetres this winter, 69 of which fell in February, says Environment Canada warning-preparedness meteorologist Geoff Coulson.
The February total has already eclipsed the monthly record of 66.6 centimetres set in 1950, somewhat uncharacteristic for a city that often sees heavier totals in January.
It's been a season of relentless snowfalls.
Toronto has been blanketed by 145 centimetres this winter, 69 of which fell in February, says Environment Canada warning-preparedness meteorologist Geoff Coulson.
The February total has already eclipsed the monthly record of 66.6 centimetres set in 1950, somewhat uncharacteristic for a city that often sees heavier totals in January.
Torontonians planning the Family Day long weekend should get ready for another deluge: Environment Canada has issued a winter storm watch beginning tomorrow afternoon and stretching into Monday. The weather system will gather over Texas and is expected to bring 'a mixed bag of wintery precipitation' that could include snow and freezing rain.
Mr. Coulson said he expects cold temperatures to prevail through the rest of the month, and the city could still be in for 'appreciable snowfalls,' though some may be mixed with freezing rain.
The forecast raises the possibility that two more records could be broken: the 1951 mark of 176.5 centimetres from the start of winter to the end of February, and even the full-winter milestone of 207.4 centimetres set in 1938.
But this season is set to be an unusually good one across Europe, and Scotland has rarely had so much snow this early. According to Jenny Glumoff, of Visit Scotland, 'this is one of the best starts to a season since the late 90s'.
Global Warming, cooling us down...But all we hear about is a drough in Georgia and a few warm related events and record snow and cold return to many areas...Get your jackets ready, The Ice age is coming...No global warming...No...Climate change
So the anti-warmers proclaim a cold winter means the end of global warming - quietly forgeting its a very hot summer in the southern hemisphere. On their logic, shouldn't that mean global warming is happening ?
And what will they say when next summer in the north is very hor - ah, that must be global cooling ?
So a little extra snow in Scotland signals the end of global warming ? How is it that an event of such worldwide significance has failed to make any impact a mere 400 miles away in London where we continue to have cloudless skies with bright sunshine ? Even in mild winters of the past we usually got a few snow flurries
It just shows the fallacy of using minor weather events to try and prove something about climate.
Actually, it is quite amusing to see the anti-warmers digging themselves into a deeper and deeper hole. As they stridently claim that every slightly colder, or even 'worst for 50 years', event means the end of global warming they are building a case against themselves for next summer. When we have a record temperature or an unusually hot period then - if they want to be considered logical - they will have to proclaim global warming is happening.
Its catch 22 - if they want to be taken seriously they have to be consistent - but being consistent will defeat their case
Just a couple more items to add to the anti-warmer's dilemma -
1. Last Tuesday was the warmest Feb 12th on record in the UK.
2. Sales of hay fever remedies are up by 25% because of the warm weather - they are at a level not normally encountered until the end of March.
Come on anti-warmers - here are clear examples of the type of 'evidence' you use to try and disprove global warming. Now reverse the logic - warming must be accelerating if the seasons have advanvced by more than a month
Why if we look at temps over the last 100o years do they point to a cooling trend. Phil, Which years in the nineties where thrown out as the hottest years due to miscalculation?...Why do you report warm temps in London as proof of warming????????
North Dakota: Whether it is tornadoes or warm Februaries, climate observers should remember there is no “normal” when it comes to weather, said John Wheeler, WDAY meteorologist.
“Weather is really a series of extremes,” he said, adding that it is not unheard of for the Red River to thaw in February.
It happened in 1987 and 1998.
Those winters, like 1958, were mild and fairly snow-free.
“The key is to have a winter with very little snow,” Wheeler said.
Several warm days will easily melt an inch or two of snow cover, and once the snow is gone, temperatures can “shoot into the 60s,” Wheeler said.
In February 1958, record-high temperatures were set on the 22nd with 49 degrees, the 23rd with 56 degrees and the 25th with 66 degrees.
The records stand today, and the 66 degrees on the 25th remains the record high for the entire month. It is also the only time temperatures in the 60s were recorded in February.
Wheeler said the warm temperatures were countered by cold earlier in the month.
“So, February 1958 does not rank among the 10 coldest Februaries,” he said.
Still, the ice doesn’t usually leave the Red River until late March or early April, according to Mark Bittner, Fargo’s city engineer.
David Ellenson remembers the warm spell that permitted Arden Gjervold to float a boat on the river in ’58.
Ellenson, a manager at Gjervold Motor for many years, said Arden Gjervold’s vehicle nearly went in the river along with his boat when the boat trailer was backed into the water.
Ellenson recalled there was so little snow that winter that workers at Gjervold’s marine business abandoned their shovels.
“We cleared the driveway with a broom,” Ellenson said.
That was then, this is now
Today won’t be as warm as it was 50 years ago, but the temperature in the
F-M area is expected to get into the 20s. Things will cool down to near zero on Monday, then warm up throughout the week.
Hilarious - why do you quote temperatures in america as proof of cooling ?
Hilarious - also - over 1000 record HIGH daily temperatures were set throughout the USA during January 2008.
This is what they have you all doing: arguing about the numbers while they institutionalize this as fact i.e. lawsuits, legislation, etc.
The fundamental concept of c02 driven global warming falls on it's face under the most basic of arguments.
(1) single source of climate change - This is presented by the nabobs who sell this as fact. If this were the case, the temperature must go up EVERY year, and EVERYWHERE. Otherwise, how can you rationalize it as 'global'? Thermodynamically, if the cycle works the way they say, this would mean no possibility of yearly droops in the average, which they acknowledge. Otherwise why would they NEED an average at all? Answer, to rationalize their position.
(2) multiple or even different causes of climate change - when you confront these wags that believe or hawk this nonsense, most of the non-scientists either get that 'he doesn't understand' look, or they launch into some misrepresentation of the statistical model or say something about 'contributing factors'. Understand, they suddenly think you forgot about the central premise of their argument i.e. the c02 single source they refer to. After all, if c02 is the driver, as they say, why would they need to add 'other factors' as contributing? If there are other factors, what makes us think THEY are not the cause?
Nonetheless, they are able to sell this, mostly to those who are determined to believe such nonsense as UFO's and other so called scientific myths. If someone wishes to believe in something not supported by fact, this belief is, by definition, a philosophy or religion. Whatever it is, it is NOT science.
Amen SP4.I thought since cooling and snow is warming these reports would make these warmers happy, guess not, I mean the only report I ever see is the man made drought in Georgia, Snow in the deserts, Nope, Snow in Bagdad, Nope, 330,000 Homes collapsed from snow in China, Nope, Warm in London...Yep
NMake the most of the unseasonal sunshine - Britain is about to be gripped by a big FREEZE.
Temperatures plunged well below zero all over the country last night with figures as low as minus 9degC (16degF) in the Pennines and Welsh Borders.
Today will be dry and bright again before temperatures turn Arctic tonight - with even London at minus 6degC (21degF).
A Met Office spokesman warned: 'There won't be any let-up.'
Experts say this month could now be one of the coldest Februarys in a decade despite the recent mild spell.
Not anymore:
And after much ill-informed and pointless discussion by those in the Northern hemisphere, the conclusion is: - It is Winter, so it gets cold.
For those in the Southern hemisphere, where it is Summer:-
Australia: Summer scorcher burns grape crops
Grape growers in Victoria's north have lost up to 30% of their crops to sunburn, after weeks of scorching temperatures. Some grapes have been burnt to the point of dropping to the ground, while vines have also been damaged. Farmers who have bought water have been able to minimise the damage, but those who haven't have struggled to keep grapes in good condition.
Mildura wine grape grower Fred Dowdy says while the region usually has a hot summer, the past few weeks have surprised him. 'It's burnt them,' he says. 'A lot of them are gone completely, they're not even filling out. 'They're shrivelling up to virtally nothing.
'We should finish up with 70 per cent, if we don't get any more hot weather. So we've lost about 30 per cent'.
Source: abc.net.au. Publication date: 1/10/2008
Lets see what the analysis of the World's climate is in 6 months time after the Northern Hemisphere's Summer
Rare Heavy Snow Brings Greece to Standstill - 18 Feb 08 — Heavy snowfall left about 200 villages cut off across Greece Monday - the second day of a winter storm. Between four to six inches of snow blanketed the center of Athens, an unusual occurrence in Greece. Near central Athens' snow-covered Acropolis, only cars using snow chains could use the roads. Dozens of international and domestic flights to and from Athens' airport were canceled.
Heavy snow fell also fell over much of Turkey on Monday. Snow was 5 feet high in the province of Van in eastern Turkey, and thousands of village roads were blocked off in the region. In Istanbul, snow was 9 inches deep, while the Mediterranean resort of Antalya had its first snow in 15 years.
Greenland:Svend Erik Hendriksen, a certified weather observer in the Kangerlussuaq Greenland MET Office, who is responsible for all the weather observations at Kangerlussuaq Airport (near to Sisimiut), says that the cause is too much sea ice: 'Several polar bears located (at least 6) close to Sisimiut town on the West coast ...Too much sea ice, so they are very hungry...Error number 36 in the movie An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore says the polar bear need more ice to survive... Now we have a lot of ice, but the polar bear is starving and find their food at the garbage dumps in towns. It's also influence the local community, polar bear alerts, keep kids away from the schools and so on.... The first one was shot at February 1st.' Sadly, that 'first one' is the poor female hung out in the newspaper photograph.
Afgananistan: More than 900 dead in Afghan winter - 130,000 cattle perish -16 Feb 08 - More than 900 people have died across Afghanistan as the country suffers one of its harshest winters ever. Below freezing temperatures and bitter snow storms have gripped the nation since mid December. Temperatures in the region fell to -22C (-8F); the coldest in more than 30 years.
Nearly half the villages in western Afghanistan have been cut off due to heavy snowfall up to two meters (79 inches) deep. More than 130,000 cattle have perished in the freezing temperatures.
Japan:On the hard-hit northern reaches of Sakhalin Island, sustained winds were reported to have been clocked at 60 mph, whipping up more than 15 inches of new snow into blinding whiteouts. Snowfall was heavier in the northeast. Nogliki received more than two feet, boosting snow depth to nearly four feet. Elsewhere, the far-reaching storm, much like a nor'easter along the eastern North American coast, dumped snow on Hokkaido, the northern Island of Japan. Also hit were the Kuril Islands stretching between Hokkaido and the Kamchatka.
'Cold is the new warm,London Warm?' - Thank you for your concern and weather forecast. True the forecast is for a cold night (actually only for -4C (25F) for London now), but the daytime forecast is 50F - which is still some 10 degrees above the average for February
Re: the item above about Polar Bears.
Anyone with any knowledge about them knows that they DO need ice to survive. Their annual gathering on the shore of Hudsons Bay, particularly at Churchill in Canada where the ice usually forms first, is to await the formation of this sea ice so they can get out on it to hunt seals.
They raid garbage dumps before that because they are hungry, but as soon as there is sufficient ice they go out onto Hudson Bay and hunt.
So Svend Erik Hendriksen may be a certified weather observer but he clearly lacks any understanding of Polar Bears and draws totally the wrong conclusion about the sea ice.
Knowledge of the Polar Bear's habits also show that Al Gore is correct in saying they need ice to survive
Just an update for those believing London is about to enter a new ice age - the temperature last night didn't reach the doomsayers predicted -6C but only went down to +2C (spot on the long term average for February).
Daytime temperatures will be up to +13C by the end of the week, which is 6C (about 12F) above the February average
Have a nice day !
Cold is Hot ? Winter is Cold?IceMelt is Warming? - this was a typical piece by anti-warmers searching the net for any item that they think will disprove global warming and then, without understanding the content, repeating it
The item about polar bears was a typical example - as correctly pointed out by Andrew - where a non-expert made a statement (which was obviously biased towards his personal viewpoint) without any real understanding of the subject and then also trying to link in Al Gore with the repeat of another incorrect statement.
These anti-warmers do seem to be getting increasingly desperate.
One thing they might like to explain - if, (as many of them claim), CO2 concentration increases are a result, rather than a cause, of Global Warming and rise with temperature and (also as they claim) warming is over and the Earth is cooling, why isn't CO2 concentration going down in line with theiir claimed lower temperatures ?
ST. PETERSBURG (RIA Novosti) - Temperatures on Earth have stabilized in the past decade, and the planet should brace itself for a new Ice Age rather than global warming, a Russian scientist said in an interview with RIA Novosti Tuesday.
'Russian and foreign research data confirm that global temperatures in 2007 were practically similar to those in 2006, and, in general, identical to 1998-2006 temperatures, which, basically, means that the Earth passed the peak of global warming in 1998-2005,' said Khabibullo Abdusamatov, head of a space research lab at the Pulkovo observatory in St. Petersburg.
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According to the scientist, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has risen more than 4 percent in the past decade, but global warming has practically stopped. It confirms the theory of 'solar' impact on changes in the Earth's climate, because the amount of solar energy reaching the planet has drastically decreased during the same period, the scientist said.
Had global temperatures directly responded to concentrations of 'greenhouse' gases in the atmosphere, they would have risen by at least 0.1 Celsius in the past ten years, however, it never happened, he said.
'A year ago, many meteorologists predicted that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would make the year 2007 the hottest in the last decade, but, fortunately,
these predictions did not become reality,' Abdusamatov said.
He also said that in 2008, global temperatures would drop slightly, rather than rise, due to unprecedentedly low solar radiation in the past 30 years, and would continue decreasing even if industrial emissions of carbon dioxide reach record levels.
By 2041, solar activity will reach its minimum according to a 200-year cycle, and a deep cooling period will hit the Earth approximately in 2055-2060. It will last for about 45-65 years, the scientist added.
'By the mid-21st century the planet will face another Little Ice Age, similar to the Maunder Minimum, because the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth has been constantly decreasing since the 1990s and will reach its minimum approximately in 2041,' he said.
The Maunder Minimum occurred between 1645 and 1715, when only about 50 spots appeared on the Sun, as opposed to the typical 40,000-50,000 spots.
It coincided with the middle and coldest part of the so called Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters.
'However, the thermal inertia of the world's oceans and seas will delay a ‘deep cooling' of the planet, and the new Ice Age will begin sometime during 2055-2060, probably lasting for several decades,' Abdusamatov said.
Therefore, the Earth must brace itself for a growing ice cap, rather than rising waters in global oceans caused by ice melting.
Mankind will face serious economic, social, and demographic consequences of the coming Ice Age because it will directly affect more than 80 percent of the earth's population, the scientist concluded.
There can have been few Februaries like it. Britons could have been forgiven for thinking they lived in two different countries in the past week, with unseasonable warmth followed by extreme sub-zero temperatures within a few days.
The Met Office reported temperatures ranging from icy sub-zero lows to a near-record-breaking 18.2C high in what it described as 'a week of dramatic contrasts'.
The weekend saw the coldest snap, with temperatures plummeting to -9C in northern parts of the country, creating frost and fog. But earlier in the week, people in western regions were donning T-shirts in disbelief at the almost summer-like warmth. And in Trawschoed, Wales, a temperature of 18.2C was recorded. On only three occasions since 1960 has it been hotter.
ice between Canada and southwestern Greenland has reached its highest level in 15 years.
15 Feb 08 - Minus 30 degrees Celsius. That's how cold it's been in large parts of western Greenland. At the same time, Denmark's Meteorological Institute states that the ice between Canada and southwest Greenland right now has reached its greatest extent in 15 years.
'Satellite pictures show that the ice expansion has extended farther south this year. On the eastern coast it hasn't been colder than normal, but there has been a good amount of snow.'
'Arctic - average January temperatures range from about −40 to 0 °C (−40 to +32 °F), and winter temperatures can drop below −50 °C (−58 °F) over large parts of the Arctic.'
So why do you think 'Minus 30 degrees Celsius. That's how cold it's been' is worth mentioning ? Its no big deal
This winter's deluge of snow in the mountain passes has put the costs of snow removal nearly 20 percent over budget.
Through Feb. 10, the state spent $6.5 million over its $35 million budget to keep the mountain passes open and roads in Eastern Washington clear of snow.
The state Department of Transportation (DOT), working with the Legislature and the governor's office, submitted a supplemental budget request for $6.5 million to cover the winter-weather costs.
'On Feb. 9 we had more snow on the ground than we had for 50 years,' said Don Whitehouse, regional administrator for the DOT. 'We've had as much snow as this, but we got it all at once.'
White Pass received 78 inches of snow in 48 hours.
Didn't you even read your own comment? -
'We've had as much snow as this, but we got it all at once.'
In other words the amount of snow is NOT unusual - it is simply the timing.
That this caused a budget overspend is irrelevant - probably budgets have been cut in previous year by being lulled into a false forecast when snow was lower than average for several years.
But behind this post is, I assume, an attempt to show climate change isn't happening. As has been said many time in many places, a short spell of WEATHER - hotter or colder than usual in one small part of the world like america - means absolutely nothing in terms of the long term CLIMATE trends.
If you really think a weather event is significant, perhaps you would like to interpret the extremely warm weather in London today - at least 10 degrees C above the average for the time of year, with flowers blooming 2 months earlier than normal. On your logic this must mean global warming is happening very rapidly !
South Lake Tahoe, CA/NV— 7 Feb 08 — Heavenly Mountain Resort received 167 inches of snow in January - 14 feet in one month! - marking the most snowfall in a single month since the resort began keeping snowfall data in the 1975-76 season.
'We’re in one of those epic snow cycles that the Sierra mountain range is famous for,' said Blaise Carrig, Heavenly’s chief operating officer. 'We beat the next closest month by 20 inches. There is no destination in the U.S. that has the kind of snow we have right now.'
In addition to the record snowfall, Heavenly’s snow pack is 23 percent higher than average, its base depth ranges from 78 to 100 inches, and it has received over 300 inches of snowfall to date this winter. May. The resort had planned to close for the season in April, but has extended the closing to May.
You dont read your own postings, London being warm has no meaning for Global temps right?
London being warm has no meaning for Global temps right?
Absolutely correct - I'm glad you understand it. I was pointing out the idiocy of people who try and use a weather event in some small part of the world - like snow in america - as having any influence on the climate trends. And, as I said, it would only be someone with that sort of misguided logic who would think that a warm London would mean anything for Global Warming.
This is what the drive by media has been doing with global warming, hying isolated warm events like droughts and hurricanes as being from warming and downplaying cooling events, it is most obvious this winter as we have had so many extreme records and events. This is what I mean by Weather in my backyard (WIMB) reports, these are frequently used by warmers to conclude we are warming, also all news before 2000 is old or oil spin.Haven't heard much comment about warming temps falling flat since 1998 this would go against current warming theory as more co2 is put in the atmosphere, why did take a year for you to figure wimb reports?
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