"Summer weather was miserable - now there's proof," says this article out of Sweden.
According to the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), on only six days this summer did the temperature reach more than 25 degrees Celsius in Stockholm.
Last year, Stockholm had 28 days with summer weather, ie days with a minimum temperature of 25 degrees. This year, just six days met this definition - 4 days in July and two in August. Recent summers have not even come close to having as few summer days.
Gothenburg had only five summer days this year. Malmo had nine, about as few as last year.
Extreme Temperatures
© AP/Institute of Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences
This campion plant grew from a 32,000-year-old fruit.
This campion plant grew from a 32,000-year-old fruit.
The researchers were studying ancient soil composition in an exposed Siberian riverbank in 1995 when they discovered the first of 70 fossilized Ice Age squirrel burrows, some of which stored up to 800,000 seeds and fruits. Permafrost had preserved tissue from one species - a narrow-leafed campion plant - exceptionally well, so researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences recently decided to culture the cells to see if they would grow. Team leader Svetlana Yashina re-created Siberian conditions in the lab and watched as the refrigerated tissue sprouted buds that developed into 36 flowering plants within weeks.
This summer Yashina's team plans to revisit the tundra to search for even older burrows and seeds.
Since we were treated to scads of news articles by the MSM on how many record highs happened in July, it seems only fair that we report on the multitude of record lows that occurred this weekend in the USA, and I doubt we'll see the sort of coverage the highs got. A number of these record lows go back into the past 100 years or more.
Here's a map for the weekend:Click here for interactive source data
A blast of polar air from a cold-front in southern Australia last week managed to push all the way up to the tropics. Darwin shivered through it's coldest August night on record Monday after the temperature dropped to just 13.1C Monday, more than seven degrees below the August average minimum of 20.4C.
"The I-95 cities could get hit pretty good," forecaster Paul Pastelok said. "It's a matter of getting the cold to phase in with the huge systems that we are going to see coming out of the southern branch of the jet stream this year."
This short paper is a preliminary examination of BEST data to 1753, as compared to the Central England Temperature Record (CET) to 1660 (instrumental record) and 1538 (Extended by Tony Brown using thousands of contemporary observations).
This extension to 1538 was a central part of my article 'The Long Slow Thaw,' which also examined historic temperature reconstructions by Dr Michael Mann and Hubert Lamb.
In the article, warming from the start of the CET instrumental record in 1660 to the present day was noted, albeit with numerous advances and reverses.
The extended CET record coincides well with a 2000 year reconstruction by Craig Loehle here.
And one by M. V. SHABALOVA and A. F. V. VAN ENGELEN : 'Evaluation of a reconstruction of winter and summer temperatures in the Low Countries, ad 764 - 1998' here.
According to studies made by a number of climate scientists, CET is a reasonable proxy for Northern Hemisphere -and to some extent global temperatures- as documented in 'The Long Slow Thaw'. However, as Hubert Lamb observed, it can 'show us the tendency but not the precision'. In that light there are a number of comments that can be made about the Combined CET/BEST graph which are shown above in two versions that, viewed together, provide the opportunity to follow the ups and down of the ever changing climate over the 350 years of instrumental records.
(Note; The BEST extension to 1538 and the extension to both trend lines after 2012 in the first graphic are merely a graphing feature.)
In the article, warming from the start of the CET instrumental record in 1660 to the present day was noted, albeit with numerous advances and reverses.
The extended CET record coincides well with a 2000 year reconstruction by Craig Loehle here.
And one by M. V. SHABALOVA and A. F. V. VAN ENGELEN : 'Evaluation of a reconstruction of winter and summer temperatures in the Low Countries, ad 764 - 1998' here.
According to studies made by a number of climate scientists, CET is a reasonable proxy for Northern Hemisphere -and to some extent global temperatures- as documented in 'The Long Slow Thaw'. However, as Hubert Lamb observed, it can 'show us the tendency but not the precision'. In that light there are a number of comments that can be made about the Combined CET/BEST graph which are shown above in two versions that, viewed together, provide the opportunity to follow the ups and down of the ever changing climate over the 350 years of instrumental records.
(Note; The BEST extension to 1538 and the extension to both trend lines after 2012 in the first graphic are merely a graphing feature.)
Not normal: people in South Africa couldn't believe their eyes as record snowfall fell across the whole country.
© News24
Much of SA is covered in a blanket of snow as the latest cold front sinks its teeth into the country. Share your snow photos with us.
Much of SA is covered in a blanket of snow as the latest cold front sinks its teeth into the country. Share your snow photos with us.
Kenosi Machepa from the SA Weather Service said this when referring to the vast cold front that brought snow to Pretoria for the first time since the late 1960s, reported Beeld.
In the Western Cape, snow fell on mountains in the Boland as well as in towns like Richmond and Touws River while snow was lying thick on the Matroosberg in Ceres.
In Johannesburg, snow was lying up to 20cm deep in some areas while Golden Gate in the Free State got the most snow in six years.
In Bethlehem, snow was up to 70cm deep and schools were closed due to the weather. There was also snow in Mpumalanga and Limpopo while light snow fell in the North West.
The weather office said the cold would continue for another day or two.
© News24
South Africans have taken to social networks sharing pictures of snow falling in Joburg and surrounding areas. Share your snow photos with us.
South Africans have taken to social networks sharing pictures of snow falling in Joburg and surrounding areas. Share your snow photos with us.
"It's amazing, Merry Christmas!" said Roger Gibbs, driving through a leafy suburb where the trees were frosted in white.
Snow falls annually in the mountains of South Africa and Lesotho, which even hosts a ski resort, but the high plains around Johannesburg haven't seen snow in five years.
The snowfall swept north across Johannesburg, coating southern neighbourhoods in the early morning and then moving toward the Sandton and Pretoria.
"Amazing! Never happened in my life," said Mizundile Eseu, 23, a security guard.
Authorities urged motorists to take care on the roads, with few drivers used to travelling on snowy streets, but no accidents had been reported by midday.
© Rebecca Farbstein
The leg and torso from the model of a four-legged animal, possibly a deer or horse. It is one of 36 ceramic items recovered from Vela Spila, Croatia.
The leg and torso from the model of a four-legged animal, possibly a deer or horse. It is one of 36 ceramic items recovered from Vela Spila, Croatia.
One of the better-preserved items among the 36 recovered fragments seems to be the torso and foreleg of a horse or deer. Its creator deliberately minimised the number of joins in the model, perhaps to give it structural strength.
The evidence unearthed in modern-day Croatia points to the existence of a community of prehistoric artists and craftspeople who made ceramics during the last Ice Age - thousands of years before pottery became commonplace.
The finds consist of 36 fragments, most of them apparently the broken-off remnants of modelled animals. They come from a site called Vela Spila on the Adriatic coast.
Comment: Again we see that history is far from being a straight upward trend of 'progress'. What if the reason why artistic traditions can spring up, become lost, then re-emerge is because cyclical cataclysms periodically intervene?
The Golden Age, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction