A skier dies after an avalanche and blizzards paralyse towns and cities in parts of the western United States.
The 20-year-old skier died in hospital after she was buried by a rare avalanche at a resort in Utah.
The same storm front that created the avalanche conditions also brought blizzards to major cities, closing roads and halting transport systems.
Earth Changes
New record low temperatures in Denver for December 14th and 15th.
© Ohio State University
Eric Kendrick, a senior research associate at Ohio State, shown at a POLENET GPS site in West Antarctica. He is standing in front of solar panels, battery boxes, and wind generators used to power the GPS station.
Eric Kendrick, a senior research associate at Ohio State, shown at a POLENET GPS site in West Antarctica. He is standing in front of solar panels, battery boxes, and wind generators used to power the GPS station.
The finding will give much needed perspective to satellite instruments that measure ice loss on the continent, and help improve estimates of future sea level rise.
"Our preliminary results show that we can dramatically improve our estimates of whether Antarctica is gaining or losing ice," said Terry Wilson,* associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.
These results come from a trio of global positioning system (GPS) sensor networks on the continent.
Wilson leads POLENET, a growing network of GPS trackers and seismic sensors implanted in the bedrock beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). POLENET is reoccupying sites previously measured by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) and the Transantarctic Mountains Deformation (TAMDEF) network.
© AP
The cane toad is famed for its indestructibility
The cane toad is famed for its indestructibility
In a contest between a toad and a crocodile, it seems obvious the croc will win. Not, though, if its adversary is a cane toad - the poisonous pests laying waste to Australian wildlife.
Researchers have found that, in some waterways in the Northern Territory, numbers of freshwater crocodiles have more than halved over the past two years. The reason is cane toads, which are fatal when eaten.
Joined by people seeking shelter from the bitter cold, parishioners at the Jaffrey Bible Church on Sunday thanked God for a warm place to sleep and for the utility crews struggling to repair power lines snapped by New England's devastating ice storm.
"Your fellow Jaffrey residents have stepped up and made this a more bearable situation," Walt Pryor, recreation department director for the town of 5,700, told the congregation Sunday morning.
"Your fellow Jaffrey residents have stepped up and made this a more bearable situation," Walt Pryor, recreation department director for the town of 5,700, told the congregation Sunday morning.
Several places in the state have already shattered daily record lows, and more are expected to be broken as the sub-zero temperatures continue through Sunday night.
White Sulphur Springs reported 29 degrees below zero to the National Weather Service today, stretching way beyond the last daily record low of 17 degrees below zero set in 1922.
"We're waiting for a lot of reports to come in still," said Scott Coulston, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Great Falls.
White Sulphur Springs reported 29 degrees below zero to the National Weather Service today, stretching way beyond the last daily record low of 17 degrees below zero set in 1922.
"We're waiting for a lot of reports to come in still," said Scott Coulston, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Great Falls.
That's the number of scientists who are outraged by the Kyoto Protocol's corruption of science.
How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming?
The quest to establish that the science is not settled on climate change began before most people had even heard of global warming. The year was 1992 and the United Nations was about to hold its Earth Summit in Rio. It was billed as - and was - the greatest environmental and political assemblage in human history. Delegations came from 178 nations - virtually every nation in the world - including 118 heads of state or government and 7,000 diplomatic bureaucrats. The world's environmental groups came too - they sent some 30,000 representatives from every corner of the world to Rio. To report all this, 7,000 journalists converged on Rio to cover the event, and relay to the public's of the world that global warming and other environmental insults were threatening the planet with catastrophe.
In February of that year, in an attempt to head off the whirlwind that the conference would unleash, 47 scientists signed a "Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming," decrying "the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action."
© unknown
Freeman Dyson is one of the world’s most eminent physicists.
Freeman Dyson is one of the world’s most eminent physicists.
How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming?
The quest to establish that the science is not settled on climate change began before most people had even heard of global warming. The year was 1992 and the United Nations was about to hold its Earth Summit in Rio. It was billed as - and was - the greatest environmental and political assemblage in human history. Delegations came from 178 nations - virtually every nation in the world - including 118 heads of state or government and 7,000 diplomatic bureaucrats. The world's environmental groups came too - they sent some 30,000 representatives from every corner of the world to Rio. To report all this, 7,000 journalists converged on Rio to cover the event, and relay to the public's of the world that global warming and other environmental insults were threatening the planet with catastrophe.
In February of that year, in an attempt to head off the whirlwind that the conference would unleash, 47 scientists signed a "Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming," decrying "the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action."
It was a dying on a scale never seen before or since on Earth. The slaughter was everywhere; the fertile ocean and balmy supercontinent Pangea were transformed into killing fields, littered with the bodies of ancient animals. By the time the dust had settled on the Permian-Triassic mass extinction 250 million years ago, 90 percent of life on the planet had been snuffed out.
Now a new theory suggests the catastrophe was set in motion 15 million years earlier, deep in the Earth. On the edge of the molten outer core, a plume of super-hot material began rising through the mantle, upsetting convection in the core and throwing the planet's magnetic field into disarray.
Now a new theory suggests the catastrophe was set in motion 15 million years earlier, deep in the Earth. On the edge of the molten outer core, a plume of super-hot material began rising through the mantle, upsetting convection in the core and throwing the planet's magnetic field into disarray.
© Christopher Pledger
Deer graze in the early hours in Richmond Park, London, after a heavy overnight frost.
Deer graze in the early hours in Richmond Park, London, after a heavy overnight frost.
It is the coldest start to December since 1976, when the average was 33.4F (0.8C).
Arctic and continental winds have dominated the weather since mid November, bringing colder conditions than normal.
