Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Harshest Winter in 31 Years for Europe

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© AP Photo/Paolo LazzeroniSnow covers Siena's historical Piazza Del Campo, Italy, Tuesday, March 9, 2010.
The winter of 2009-10 in Europe will make its way into the history books as being the harshest winter Britain and Western Europe has seen in the last 31 years.

The wettest summer on record in Britain was followed by a harsh winter that took lives and caused millions of dollars worth of damage, both structural and economic.

January was the eighth coldest on record and the U.K.'s worst since 1987.

Precise snowfall records are notoriously hard to find for Europe; however, record snowfall affected London and parts of Scotland this winter. In one 16-hour storm Perth, Scotland, received 13 inches of snow.

Snowman

Updated Snowfall Record Information For Wichita Falls and Oklahoma City

Having experienced several significant storms this winter, parts of western and central Oklahoma and western North Texas have seen their seasonal snowfall totals for 2009-2010 grow to considerable levels. When we talk about seasonal snowfall totals we mean the amount of snow that falls over the course of the winter, rather than in a calendar year. Here at the NWS Norman forecast office, we have two sites with a reliable snowfall record that dates back many decades - Oklahoma City (OKC) and Wichita Falls (SPS). Below, you will see some of the statistics for this winter's snowfall at both of those sites. These figures will be updated over the next several months.

Visit event writeups for some of the significant winter storms we've had this year: the Christmas Eve blizzard and the January 28-29, 2010 winter storm.

Oklahoma City (Records back to 1892-1893 winter)
  • 5th Highest Total Seasonal Snowfall - 23.2"
  • The seasonal snowfall so far is the most since the 1987-1988 winter (22 years).
  • Snowiest December on Record - 14.0", breaking the previous record of 9.0" in 1914-1915
  • Record storm total snowfall - 13.5" on December 24, 2009
In order to break the seasonal snowfall record, Oklahoma City would need to measure an additional 2.1 inches of snow. Oklahoma City averages 8.6 inches of snow every winter, with 0.7 inches in March. Averages are computed using the 1971-2000 period of record. The latest measurable snowfall that occurred in a winter season was on April 14, 1953, when 0.8 inches of snow was observed.

Cloud Lightning

Spring snowstorm blasts Colorado

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© David Zalubowski, APPedestrians struggle to hold on to their umbrellas as they navigate through a snowstorm in downtown Denver on Tuesday, March 23. Almost 2 feet of snow was recorded west of Denver as of Wednesday morning.
Denver - A spring snowstorm that whipped though Colorado left the state a slushy mess Wednesday, with thousands stuck at Denver's airport or left without power or schools.

The heavy snowmaker dumped more snow than even some spring break ski vacationers bargained for.

"We were supposed to leave yesterday," said Jenny Gossow of St. Louis, who missed a flight out of Denver after a family spring break ski trip to Telluride, Colo. Gossow, along with her husband and three children, spent Tuesday evening snoozing on blue mats Denver International Airport provided for an estimated 5,000 stranded travelers.

Cow

Now it's CowGate: claims that livestock causing global warming are bovine excrement

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© Bok
It is becoming difficult to keep pace with the speed at which the global warming scam is now unravelling. The latest reversal of scientific "consensus" is on livestock and the meat trade as a major cause of global warming - one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to eco-vegetarian cranks. Now a scientific report delivered to the American Chemical Society says it is nonsense. The Washington Times has called it "Cowgate".

The cow-burp hysteria reached a crescendo in 2006 when a United Nations report ominously entitled "Livestock's Long Shadow" claimed: "The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents). This is a higher share than transport." This led to demands in America for a "cow tax" and a campaign in Europe at the time of the Copenhagen car crash last December called Less Meat=Less Heat.

Arrow Down

Russia's top weatherman says winter in Siberia may be coldest on record

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A cyclone extends Eastern Siberia's freezing winter into its coldest in modern Russian history
In a new blow to the climate change lobby, Russia's top weatherman today announced that the winter now drawing to a close in Siberia may turn out to be the coldest on record.

'The winter of 2009-10 was one of the most severe in European part of Russia for more than 30 years, and in Siberia it was perhaps the record breaking coldest ever,' said Dr Alexander Frolov, head of state meteorological service Rosgidromet.

Statistics are still being analysed in detail, but it is known that in western Siberia the mean temperature was minus 23.2C, with more colder days than in previous years.

Some 63 days were colder than minus 25C and 39 days below minus 30C.

For this part of Siberia, this represents the coldest conditions in 40 years and the second harshest winter in 110 years.

Equivalent statistics for colder eastern Siberia have not been issued yet.

The coldest recorded temperature in the recent winter is believed to have been minus 57.4C degrees in Oymyakon on 20 January.

The remote town in eastern Siberia is the coldest inhabited community in the world.

'When we say that this winter in Siberia was record breaking, we are aware that temperatures on some days of other years may have gone lower, but in the most recent winter the substantial cold was staying longer than usual and over larger regions than usual,' said Dmitry Kiktev, deputy head of Rosgidromet.

Igloo

Our glaciers are growing, not melting: More falsehoods from Al Gore

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Glaciers: Relentless growth
"Almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are melting - and seas are rising," said Al Gore in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on February 27.

Both parts of Gore's statement are false.

Never mind that Mr. Gore makes only passing reference to the IPCC's fraudulent claims that the Himalayan glaciers will all melt by 2035. ("A flawed overestimate," he explains.)

Never mind that Mr. Gore dismisses the IPCC's fraudulent claims that the oceans are rising precipitously. ("Partly inaccurate," he huffs.)

Never mind that Mr. Gore completely ignores the admission by the CRU's disgraced former director Phil Jones that global temperatures have essentially remained unchanged for the past 15 years.

Snowman

Snow prompts Ski Santa Fe to extend season

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Some might bemoan the end of the brief spring weather, but skiers will enjoy a longer season, thanks to the continued precipitation.

Ski Santa Fe says it is extending its 2009-10 season by an additional week, to April 11. The string of El Niño-related storms has left a 126-inch-deep snowpack at the ski area.

Spring hours start March 22. Chair lifts will open at 9:30 a.m. and close at 4:30 p.m. The ticket, rental, skier services, snow sports school and Wintermill Sports Shop will open on full days from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Half days will be 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., or 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Ski New Mexico announced last week that many ski areas were expanding their seasons in light of the heavy snowfall this year. Ski New Mexico is the nonprofit trade organization that promotes the ski industry in the state.

Igloo

IPCC scientist: We've entered 30 years of global cooling

According to IPCC scientist Mojib Latif the weather we've seen marks the beginning of a "mini-ice age". He claims that ocean currents have more to do with the trend than man-made greenhouse gas emmissions.


Bizarro Earth

Bay of Bengal: Disputed island disappears into sea

Lost Indian island
© unknown
For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone.

New Moore Island, in the Sunderbans, has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.


Comment: As it turns out, not exactly global warming, but global climate calamity due to cosmic threat and global cooling.


Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.

Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) annually, he said.

Comment: Sea levels are not rising, not even in this low-lying region:
"There is absolutely no sea-level rise in Tuvalo," Mörner insists. "There is no change here, and there is zero sea-level rise in Bangladesh. If anything, sea levels have lowered in Bangladesh."
This island's disappearance could indicate that the land is subsiding along the Indian-Asian Subduction line where the Indian plate meets the Eurasian one.


Bizarro Earth

Global cooling: What happens if the Iceland volcano blows

Volcano
© Science FairIceland's Volcano
The potential eruption of Iceland's volcano Katla would likely send the world, including the USA, into an extended deep freeze.

"When Katla went off in the 1700s, the USA suffered a very cold winter," says Gary Hufford, a scientist with the Alaska Region of the National Weather Service. "To the point, the Mississippi River froze just north of New Orleans and the East Coast, especially New England, had an extremely cold winter.

"Depending on a new eruption, Katla could cause some serious weather changes."

Eyjafjallajokull, the Icelandic volcano that has continued to belch lava, ash and steam since first erupting last weekend, isn't the direct problem. It's Katla, the noisier neighbor, that's the concern. If lava flowing from Eyjafjallajokull melts the glaciers that hold down the top of Katla, then Katla could blow its top, pumping gigantic amounts of ash into the atmosphere.