Who said the science was settled?
Cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), both already implicated in depleting the Earth's ozone layer, are also responsible for changes in the global climate, a University of Waterloo scientist reports in a new peer-reviewed paper.
In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs - compounds once widely used as refrigerants - and cosmic rays - energy particles originating in outer space - are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. His paper, derived from observations of satellite, ground-based and balloon measurements as well as an innovative use of an established mechanism, was published online in the prestigious journal Physics Reports.
"My findings do not agree with the climate models that conventionally thought that greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, are the major culprits for the global warming seen in the late 20th century," Lu said. "Instead, the observed data show that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays most likely caused both the Antarctic ozone hole and global warming...."
In his research, Lu discovers that while there was global warming from 1950 to 2000, there has been global cooling since 2002. The cooling trend will continue for the next 50 years, according to his new research observations.
St. Johns, Newfoundland - The Canadian province of Newfoundland Monday was digging out from a record snowfall of 15.5 inches in St. John's, weather officials said.
The city's old snowfall record for Dec. 6 was around 8 inches, set in 2002, which Sunday's storm easily surpassed, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
The CBC said the snow, which was driven by wind gusts of more than 60 mph, tied up traffic Monday and forced residents to haul out snowblowers and try to navigate snow-packed roadways. Officials said a crane had to be brought in to pull a city snowplow out of a ditch.
Bone-chilling temperatures are being reported throughout the Sacramento region with widespread frost expected to stick around until 10 a.m. this morning.
In downtown Sacramento, the 27 degree reading ties the all-time low for this date, set in 1972. It was even colder at Sacramento Executive airport, where 25 degrees was recorded.
Elsewhere, lows were 28 degrees in Auburn, 27 in Stockton, and 28 in Vacaville.
As cold's grip remains, thousands of Pacific Gas & Electric customers remain without electricity more than 24 hours after Monday's snowstorm knocked out power.
TVNZWed, 09 Dec 2009 22:03 UTC
A massive winter storm covering nearly 2,735 km has brought Arctic cold, record snowfall and blizzard conditions to a huge swathe of the US.
Winter weather warnings have been issued from south western Utah, across the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains to north eastern Michigan.
In California parts of the Sierra Nevada saw up to 1.2 metres of snow and in Arizona the storm brought high winds to the Phoenix are, leaving 250,000 people without power as power lines were felled.
Forecasters warned that the large storm system rolling through the plains and the upper Midwest could be dangerous, the storm has been living up to its billing.
Schools throughout Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin and Missouri have been shuttered after the blizzard dumped more than a foot of snow in some locations.
White-out conditions, high winds and wind chills reading 20 below zero have made travel nearly impossible in the storm battered states.
Portions of I-80 have been closed in Iowa where a blizzard warning remains in effect until 6 p.m. Wednesday night.
Des Moines, Iowa officials have reported 84 accidents between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tuesday and the storm is responsible for one death in Omaha where a 28-year-old woman was killed by a private snowplow.
Southwest Saskatchewan residents are waking up to a second day of record breaking cold, as extreme wind chill values continue to grip the province.
Swift Current's temperature plummeted to -32.4 Celsius yesterday, breaking the previous record low of -30.6 which dated back to 1940.
Today, Swift Current has already eclipsed another long standing record, with morning temperatures of -33 Celsius dropping the mercury to -33, colder than the previous Dec. 13 record of -32.2 Celsius set in 1946.
Both dates are the coldest since Environment Canada began keeping Swift Current weather records in 1938.
Frigid air swept through a wide area along the Sea of Japan on Thursday, dumping record snowfalls and setting record-low temperatures for December in northern parts of the country, the Meteorological Agency said.
Local observatories measured 93 cm of snow in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, and 86 cm in the city of Akita in the morning, both breaking accumulation records.
The first snowfall of the season was recorded in warmer areas, including Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, and the cities of Hiroshima and Fukuoka.
In Memuro, central Hokkaido, temperatures dipped to minus 25, the lowest reading ever recorded in December.
A number of cities saw the lowest temperatures of the season, including Sapporo at minus 7.1, Tokyo at 4.6, and the cities of Niigata and Miyazaki, where the mercury fell to 0.2.
The number of those who have frozen to death in Ukraine due the current cold wave has risen to 27 as of noon on Dec. 21, the Ukrainian Health Ministry's press service told Interfax-Ukraine. The country has been suffering for 5 days under Siberian winds, heavy snowfall, and daytime temperatures as low as minus 20 C.
Eleven people froze to death in Donetsk region, three each in Luhansk and Volyn regions, two each in Sumy, Kherson and Cherkasy regions, and one each in Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Rivne and Chernivtsi regions. Seven of them died at home in Donetsk region and one in Ivano-Frankivsk region.
A total of 671 people asked for medical aid due to frostbite, and 465 of them have been hospitalized.
Sarajevo -- The bodies of three people believed to have frozen to death have been found in Sarajevo and Teslić, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The body of H.Đ., 55, was found in a broken-down house in Ilidža, Sarajevo, and the doctor confirmed that the victim had died of freezing.
Police also found a body of J.M., 74, from Sarajevo yesterday, while the body of M.P., 46, was discovered the same day by a local road near the town of Teslić.
Both victims were males and died from exposure to the freezing temperature.
Meanwhile, heavy snowfall has been paralyzing roads in Bosnia-Herzegovina for the last three days, with temperatures dropping as low as minus 25 degrees centigrade this morning.
Soldiers shovel snow in Milan. Photograph: Antonio Calanni/AP
More than 100 people have been killed in the cold snap across Europe, with temperatures plummeting and snowfall causing chaos from Moscow to Milan.
In Poland, where temperatures have dropped to as low as -20C in some areas, police appealed for tip-offs about people spotted lying around outside. At least 42 people, most of them homeless, died over the weekend.
In Ukraine 27 people have frozen to death since the thermometer dropped last week. Authorities in Romania said 11 people had succumbed to the chill, and in the Czech Republic the toll was 12. In Germany, where temperatures have fallen to -33C in certain parts, at least seven people are known to have lost their lives in the freezing weather.
