Study shows sharply accelerating trade winds have buried surface heat underwater, reducing heat flowing into atmosphere

The contentious "pause" in global warming over the past decade is largely due to unusually strong trade winds in the Pacific ocean that have buried surface heat deep underwater, new research has found.

A joint Australian and US study analysed why the rise in the Earth's global average surface temperature has slowed since 2001, after rapidly increasing from the 1970s.

The research shows that sharply accelerating trade winds in central and eastern areas of the Pacific have driven warm surface water to the ocean's depths, reducing the amount of heat that flows into the atmosphere.

In turn, the lowering of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific triggers further cooling in other regions.

Snowstorms moved further south on Sunday, battering parts of Central and East China, delaying flights and forcing road closures, as forecasters warned rain and snow will continue in those areas this week.

Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces were among the areas hardest hit, as dozens of flights were delayed and several highways closed.

Snowfall in those areas is expected to continue through Monday afternoon.

Rain prompted fire officials to lift ban on outdoor open burning in parts of state, but they warned of continued risk of wildfires

A series of storms has drenched California and even heavier rains are expected this weekend, promising a fleeting respite from the state's devastating drought.

Bay area mountains were expected to receive 152mm (six inches) of rain and the northern sierras two feet of snow, a welcome deluge after the driest winter on record.

A ridge of high pressure that has hovered over the west coast for months, blocking normal weather patterns, eased and allowed a weather system to break through, dumping rain across swathes of California on Thursday and Friday. Bigger weather systems were expected to follow in the next few days, bringing even heavier rain.

"Current satellite imagery depicts the early stages of what promises to be a significant precipitation event over the weekend," said the California Weather blog. "'Heavy' and 'rain' are not words that have been used in the same sentence for a long time here in California."

Areas with 20% normal rain levels since last July, the start of the season, could see that jump to 40% by Monday, said Jan Null, a meteorologist with the Golden Gate Weather Services. "It's a lot, but there is such a big deficit to make up. What we need - and I don't know if we'll get it - is half a dozen such weekends like the one we're going to get."

• Heavy rainfall of up to an inch forecast, threatening more havoc around already overflowing rivers
• Storms are expected to be at least as severe as last week which causes chaos across southern England
• The Environment Agency has issued more than 500 flood warnings and alerts, three of which pose 'a danger to life'
• The body is facing fresh anger after a senior official hailed its performance during the storms as a 'success story'
• Ministry of Defence has put 1,600 personnel on standby to assist in southern England if needed
• The Environment Agency say there is a significant risk of further flooding throughout Devon and Cornwall
• Flooding has now spread to the Home Counties - Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Hampshire
• Calmer conditions and some respite today and tomorrow, but 'deep depression' is likely early hours of Tuesday
• Much of Somerset has been underwater since December and there is more bad weather coming
• Records show that England faced the wettest January since 1766

Devastating storms continued to cause misery in Britain yesterday, forcing hundreds of people to be evacuated from their homes, while forecasters warned the bad weather could continue into next week.

But the Environment Agency provoked anger last night after claiming their response to the widespread flooding had been a 'success story', despite thousands of properties being ruined by the rising water levels.

Director of operations David Jordan told a press briefing that the 5,000 homes flooded during the winter storms were 'individual tragedies'.

Road crews and Carolinas residents began preparing Sunday for a double-barreled winter storm expected to bring several inches of snow to Charlotte on Tuesday and Wednesday and sleet and freezing rain in other areas.

The National Weather Service said it expected more than 3 inches in Charlotte from the first system Tuesday. Additional snowfall is likely Wednesday from the second system, forecasters said.

The N.C. Department of Transportation launched its trucks on the road at midday Sunday, when sunshine and southerly winds sent temperatures soaring above 60 degrees in Charlotte. Jen Thompson of the DOT said 22 trucks spread brine on major highways to prepare for the snow, which is forecast to begin late Monday or early Tuesday. By Sunday evening, state crews had progressed to secondary roads.

Sunday's mild weather was expected to end overnight. A cold high pressure system is forecast to bulge southward over the Carolinas, and a pair of low pressure systems then are predicted to track across the Southeast.

While crews were laying a coat of the salt-water mixture on the roads, Charlotte-area residents flocked into grocery stores and hardware stores. An employee at the Lowe's store at Sycamore Commons shopping center in Matthews said Sunday that business had increased in the afternoon for winter-related items.

Another winter storm is poised to move through the southeast U.S. between Monday night and Thursday this week. All weather models now point to a wintry recipe impacting a good portion of north Georgia, and it may dip as far south as Atlanta.

Winter Storm Watch

A Winter Storm Watch is in effect for Atlanta from 10 p.m. Monday night through 7 a.m. Wednesday morning.

A Winter Storm Watch means there is a potential for significant winter weather that may impact travel.

Timing

Rain will move into Metro Atlanta Monday night. The rain will change to a mix of rain and sleet Tuesday morning. The best chance of a wintry mix Tuesday morning will be north of I-20.

A mix of rain and sleet will continue, north of I-20, Tuesday afternoon.

A second band of freezing rain will move into all of Metro Atlanta Wednesday morning. This will produce the biggest travel hazard.

Gales have continued to batter southern parts of the UK, with coastal areas hit by wind and rain.

Gusts reached 80mph on the coasts of Cornwall, the Bristol Channel and west Wales and the Environment Agency says there is a risk of further floods.

In Surrey, the River Thames has burst its banks at Chertsey, with homeowners warned to expect flooding.

Landslips and floods mean all rail routes into south-west England are now blocked.

First Great Western said a landslip at Crewkerne in Somerset meant there were no services running between Yeovil and Exeter and replacement buses were in operation.

Utility crews restored power to thousands of Pennsylvania homes Saturday and early Sunday, yet some customers in the dark for days after a tree-snapping ice storm may not regain power until early next week.

About 78,000 customers in Pennsylvania and Maryland remained without power early Sunday, and faced the prospect of yet another day without electric heat or light.

The majority of them are in the Philadelphia area, with utility PECO reporting about 77,500 outages, as of 1 a.m., down from about 155,000 earlier Saturday.

The latest outages include nearly 39,000 customers in hard-hit Chester County, or more than one in five customers.

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The first in a new monthly series, the following video compiles footage of 'signs of the times' from around the world during the past month. From 'strange lights' in the skies to extreme weather events, from geological upheaval in the form of volcanic eruptions, sinkholes, landslides and earthquakes to loud booms rattling communities and meteor fireballs turning night into day, the Big Blue Marble is rocking and rolling!

High Strangeness

Some of the highlights in January 2014 include bizarre apparitions of 'UFOs'. Many explain away strange lights in the sky as 'Chinese lanterns' or 'optical illusions' from refractions of man-made or natural light sources in the atmosphere. Some of these apparitions may well be down to such things, but are all of them? Certainly, people making hoax videos with free CGI software have far too much time on their hands, but not everyone is able or willing to do that.

Fire in the Sky

Then there's that other subset of 'strange lights in the sky': meteor fireballs. Distinct in appearance from the largely stationary 'UFO lights', fireballs generally leave a brief 'flash' and trail in the night sky, illuminating the ground for miles around. But as you'll see, several in January appeared to move very slowly, and some were filmed during the daytime. Depending on the size, trajectory and other variables of an incoming space rock, its fragmentation in the upper atmosphere may also produce an audible boom, or series of booms. Something else to keep in mind, however, is that many of these 'mystery booms' being reported across the U.S. and elsewhere may be related to increased seismic activity...

Earth Changes

...which brings us to 'Earth Changes'. More 'long-dormant' volcanoes woke up along the Pacific Ring of Fire last month, another strong earthquake hit New Zealand, wildfires raged in record-breaking heat across Australia and a sinkhole swallowed a whole neighbourhood in Brazil. In the northern hemisphere, it was so cold in Norway that seawater froze, trapping shoals of fish inside the frozen ice... and yet it was apparently also so 'hot' that wildfires broke out near the Arctic Circle. While a succession of hurricane-force storms drenched the UK and Western Europe with giant waves and record flooding, cold temperature and snowfall records over 100 years old were broken across the U.S. as a 'polar vortex' gripped the entire Eastern half of the nation in ice age conditions.

Environmental upheaval, signs in the heavens, wars and rumors of wars, social revolution... it's nothing the planet hasn't seen before, but it's also something new to modern civilization. As the ancient Chinese put it, we certainly appear to be living in 'interesting times'...

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Forecasters have warned of another week of storms as the prime minister prepares to lead the latest emergency meeting about the flooding crisis.

Heavy rain and winds of more than 60mph are predicted to die down throughout Sunday but the brief respite will be broken by another storm arriving Monday night. More storms will continue to batter Britain until next weekend, it is predicted.

In Chertsey, Surrey police are investigating whether flooding was linked to the death of a seven-year-old boy, named in reports as Zane Gbangbola, who died after feeling unwell. An elderly woman was taken to hospital with serious injuries after a tree fell on to her car in Birmingham.

The West Country has been left completely cut off by rail and operators have put on replacement bus services and slashed ticket prices for passengers. Flooding at Athelney and between Taunton and Bridgwater in Somerset means that all mainline routes to the region from London have been closed. The diversionary route via Yeovil is closed at Crewkerne because of a landslip and is expected to remain shut for up to a week.

A stretch of the rail line connecting Cornwall to the rest of the country fell into the sea at Dawlish in Devon when a section of the sea wall was destroyed by high tides and stormy seas.