Extreme Temperatures
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Snowflake Cold

SOTT Focus: Volcanic eruptions, rising CO2, boiling oceans, and why man-made global warming is not even wrong

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The spectacular eruption of an undersea volcano off the coast of Tonga in the South Pacific in 2009
Perhaps in an effort to ward off yet another long cold winter, officially-sanctioned climate science has been pumping out hot air at exponentially-increasing rates of late. An IPCC report in September told us that global warming "paused" unexpectedly in 1998, and shows no sign of resuming. Actually, the work that went into that report found that warming had stopped altogether, but the wording was altered to describe it as a "pause". You'd think that a pseudo-acknowledgement like this from on-high would dampen the Global Warmists' enthusiasm, but you'd be wrong.

Their driven need to 'fit the facts around the policy' is illustrated by a couple of recent articles that caught our eye. Here USA Today reports on the findings of a study that claims:
"The middle depths of a part of the Pacific Ocean have warmed 15 times faster in the past 60 years than they did during the previous 10,000 years."
Then this BBC article cites "the world's leading experts on ocean acidification", who claim that:
"The world's oceans are becoming acidic at an unprecedented rate and may be souring more rapidly than at any time in the past 300 million years, [...] causing a 30% loss of species in some ocean ecosystems."
And, as you can probably guess, these experts are certain that it's all your fault.

By now you know the drill:

You produce too much CO2 ---> this contributes to the 'greenhouse effect' --> planet heats up --> ice caps melt --> sea levels rise, etc...

Bizarro Earth

How Australian aborigines coped with the last Ice Age

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© Peter VethThis map estimates the areas in which Aboriginal groups congregated during the last Ice Age
A new study has revealed how indigenous Australians coped with the last Ice Age, roughly 20,000 years ago.

Researchers say that when the climate cooled dramatically, Aboriginal groups sought refuge in well-watered areas, such as along rivers, and populations were condensed into small habitable areas.

Professor Sean Ulm, lead author of the research at James Cook University in Townsville, says the vast majority of Australia was simply uninhabitable at this time. "Forests disappeared, animals went extinct; major areas of Australia would have been deprived of surface water."

Igloo

Heavy snowfall in the Balkans

Balkans Snowfall
© WorldBulletin
Heavy snowfall Monday night as a result of a low pressure front from Italy covers the Balkans.

After the Balkans, the low pressure front will move in the direction of the south-east Balkan peninsula, said meteorologist Ibrahim Hadzismajlovic.

"Snow will fall Tuesday and Wednesday. We can also expect it on Friday. Average temperature will range from -6 to 0 Celsius degrees, daily temperatures from -3 to 2 C. In the south we can expect temperatures reaching 8 Celsius degrees. On Thursday and Friday we expect lower temperatures. On weekend, daily temperatures will be above 0, while morning will remain low," said Hadzismajlovic.

The snow caused difficult and slow traffic flow. There is about 5 centimeters of snow on mountain roads in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some mountain passes required the use of chains for cars.

Snowflake

Record November snow in China leaves 9 dead after blizzard collapses factory roof

Harbin -- Nine people buried following the collapse of a factory building's roof in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province have been confirmed dead, local authorities said.

Officials with the emergency response office of Mudanjiang City said the accident, which happened at 1:10 p.m. in the city's Aiming District, was probably caused by blizzards.

The rescue work wrapped up early Tuesday with the bodies of all nine people found. Local authorities are now gearing up post-accident management as well as a safety check across the city amid heavy snowfall.

A new round of snow pelted the northeastern Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin from Sunday, closing highways and canceling flights in many places.

Snowflake

London, Ontario, hammered by snowstorm

London, Ont. - London is digging out after a snowstorm dumped more than 30 cm of snow on the city.

The heavy snowfall continued Sunday, with another 10 cm expected and winds reaching 50 km/h, as Environment Canada extended a snow squall warning for London and parts of southwestern Ontario.

Officials were asking drivers to stay at home while the roads are cleared.

Fall storms often pack more punch than their winter counterparts, Environment Canada meteorologist Mark Seifert said.

"These early season snow squalls are usually the worst because the lakes are still fairly warm," he said. "And the warmer the water is, combined with the colder air, the worse the snow squalls are."

Many London roads were impassable Sunday as city crews worked frantically through the night to clear the main streets.

"We've had crews running through the night. They running now, they'll be running through tonight," Dave O'Brien, the city's manager of emergency management, said Sunday.

The city brought in contractors, called in additional staff and rented extra equipment to help clear the streets, O'Brien said.

Two people were killed in separate crashes, OPP said, and some flights were delayed at the city's international airport.

Source: The Free London Press

Ice Cube

Shock 'snow avalanche' crushes car driving down street in China's 'Ice City', as country experiences 'worst blizzard in 50 years'

The giant sheet of ice crashed down on top of the 4x4 completely caving in the roof and showering onlookers with snow


This terrifying clip shows a Range Rover driving down a street when it is smashed by an AVALANCHE that appears to come out of nowhere.

Winter driving conditions are never easy to negotiate, but this shocking video shows what this Chinese driver in Harbin in the northeast of the country, had to go through.

Harbin is known as Ice City and true to form the huge sheet of ice apparently slid off a nearby roof and crashed on to the 4x4 causing a giant snow cloud which showered onlookers.

The force of the impact was so severe that the snow actually caved in the roof of the famously sturdy vehicle setting off the airbag.

From the after pictures it appears that no one was seriously hurt in the incident but the sheer scale of the damage is there for all to see.

Harbin is nicknamed the 'Ice City' for its extreme low temperatures, but it is currently in the midst of the worst blizzard in 50 years, a storm which has claimed four lives.

Ice Cube

Founder of The Weather Channel STICKS IT to Al Gore

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KUSI's John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel, makes a special guest appearance on the Rick Amato Show to debunk the latest spree of Global Warming claims in mainstream news.


Comment: John Coleman may be wise to the anthropocentric global warming scam, but appears to be unaware that other scientists are saying the real imminent threat from climate change is a return to an ice age:

Ice Age Cometh? Extreme Weather Events and 'Climate Change'

Fire and Ice: The Day After Tomorrow

New Ice Age 'to begin in 2014'


Snowflake

Winter-like U.S. storm lumbers east, threatening holiday travel

Thanks a lot, Mother Nature.

A deadly winter-like storm already blamed for eight deaths continued its trek east through the Southwest on Sunday, disrupting hundreds of flights in a possible preview of Thanksgiving travel hassles.

Meanwhile, an arctic air mass brought freezing temperatures to much of the Northeast and the upper Midwest in what the National Weather Service called the coldest weather of the season.

The wintry system slushed through New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas on Sunday, dumping heavy snow over several areas in New Mexico and sleet that forced the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to "pre-cancel" about 300 flights.
"This is more of a January, February-type weather event," National Weather Service meteorologist Dennis Cain told the Los Angeles Times, adding, "It's not rare, but it's not very common either."
Fortunately for Texans, Cain said, temperatures have remained above freezing as the area braces for a band of icy weather early Monday. "By Thursday, we should have quite a bit of sunshine," he said. "Should be no problem for people going to grandma's house for Thanksgiving."

Ice Cube

GISS data confirm winters definitely getting colder over northern hemisphere continents since 1995!

There is much denial disbelief going around about our ever changing world. Are the winters getting colder? Are the summers getting hotter? Are the ice-caps melting? What's going on?

Fortunately there are systems keeping track. And there are simple ways of plotting the data. One plot, available from Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS), is a temperature trend plot by month of the year. Here is a plot of temperature trend by month of the year (horizontal) by latitude (vertical) for the last 17 years.

Temperature trend since 1995
© Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS)Figure 1 is a zonal trend plot by month for the period 1995 to the present. Horizontal axis = months of the year Jan – Dec; vertical axis = latitude.

Blue Planet

A climate of fear, cash and correctitude plague environmental science

climate protest
© townhall

Earth's geological, archaeological and written histories are replete with climate changes: big and small, short and long, benign, beneficial, catastrophic and everything in between.

The Medieval Warm Period (950-1300 AD or CE) was a boon for agriculture, civilization and Viking settlers in Greenland. The Little Ice Age that followed (1300-1850) was calamitous, as were the Dust Bowl and the extended droughts that vanquished the Anasazi and Mayan cultures; cyclical droughts and floods in Africa, Asia and Australia; and periods of vicious hurricanes and tornadoes. Repeated Pleistocene Epoch ice ages covered much of North America, Europe and Asia under mile-thick ice sheets that denuded continents, stunted plant growth, and dropped ocean levels 400 feet for thousands of years.

Modern environmentalism, coupled with fears first of global cooling and then of global warming, persuaded politicians to launch the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its original goal was to assess possible human influences on global warming and potential risks of human-induced warming. However, it wasn't long before the Panel minimized, ignored and dismissed non-human factors to such a degree that its posture became the mantra that only humans are now affecting climate.

Over the last three decades, five IPCC "assessment reports," dozens of computer models, scores of conferences and thousands of papers focused almost entirely on human fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide/greenhouse gas emissions, as being responsible for "dangerous" global warming, climate change, climate "disruption," and almost every "extreme" weather or climate event. Tens of billions of dollars have supported these efforts, while only a few million have been devoted to analyses of all factors - natural and human - that affect and drive planetary climate change.

You would think researchers would welcome an opportunity to balance that vast library of one-sided research with an analysis of the natural causes of climate change - to enable them to evaluate the relative impact of human activities, more accurately predict future changes, and ensure that communities, states and nations can plan for, mitigate and adapt to those impacts. You would be wrong.