Extreme Temperatures
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Igloo

Ancient ocean currents may have changed pacing and intensity of ice ages

Ocean Currents
© Kim Martineau Leo Pena (above) and colleagues analyzed fossil plankton shells to reconstruct ocean circulation over the last 1.2 million years.
For decades, climate scientists have tried to explain why ice-age cycles became longer and more intense about 900,000 years ago, switching from 41,000-year cycles to 100,000-year cycles. In a new study in the leading journal Science, researchers found that the deep ocean currents that move heat around the globe stalled or even stopped, possibly due to expanding ice cover in the north. The slowing currents increased carbon dioxide storage in the ocean, leaving less in the atmosphere, which kept temperatures cold and kicked the climate system into a new phase of colder but less frequent ice ages, they hypothesize.

"The oceans started storing more carbon dioxide for a longer period of time," said Leopoldo Pena, the study's lead author, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "Our evidence shows that the oceans played a major role in slowing the pace of ice ages and making them more severe."

The researchers reconstructed the past strength of earth's system of deep-ocean currents by sampling deep-sea sediments off the coast of South Africa, where powerful currents originating in the North Atlantic Ocean pass on their way to Antarctica. How vigorously those currents moved in the past can be inferred by how much North Atlantic water made it that far, as measured by isotope ratios of the element neodymium bearing the signature of North Atlantic seawater. Like a tape recorder, the shells of ancient plankton incorporate this seawater signal through time, allowing scientists to approximate when the currents grew stronger and weaker off South Africa.

They confirmed that over the last 1.2 million years, the conveyor-like currents strengthened during warm periods and weakened during ice ages, as previously thought. But they also discovered that at about 950,000 years ago, ocean circulation weakened significantly and stayed weak for 100,000 years; during that period the planet skipped an interglacial - the warm interval between ice-ages - and when the system recovered it entered a new phase of longer, 100,000-year ice age cycles. After this turning point, the deep ocean currents remain weak during ice ages, and the ice ages themselves become colder, they find.

Ice Cube

Freak hailstorm strikes Tokyo in June

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© Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesPedestrians walk down a hail-covered street following a hailstorm in a residential area west of Tokyo on June 24.
Heavy rain and hailstones hit Tokyo and surrounding areas on Tuesday. Tokyo's Mitaka City was hit by hail in the afternoon. Some residents say that hailstones of up to 3 centimeters wide fell for about 30 minutes.

It covered residential areas, accumulating up to 10 centimeters. Residents used shovels to remove it from around their homes.

Weather officials say that warm, humid air and a cold air mass made atmospheric conditions unstable, causing cumulonimbus clouds to develop over Tokyo area. Some clouds were more than 10 kilometers high. Powerful updrafts occurred, and that lead to the hailstorm.


Source: NHK

Snowflake Cold

Killing freeze predicted for U.S. Midwest this Fall

simon atkins weather
Simon Atkins
An early freeze in the Great Plains may cut corn production by 8%, according to Simon Atkins, CEO of Advanced Forecasting Corporation, who presented his long-range forecast in a webinar on Monday.

The cause: above-average volcanic eruptions around the world for the last nine months, including three in the last month - in Eastern Russia, Alaska and Indonesia. The release of sulfur into the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions reflects sunlight back out to space.

The meteorologist predicted cooler-than-normal summer temperatures "because of well-above-normal volcanic eruptions going back to the fall of 2013. We are not going to see many hot periods. Sure, there will be a few days here and there where temperatures reach 100 degrees in Oklahoma, but it's not going to be very common."

"What's going to be more common is more moisture coming in off the Eastern seaboard of the U.S., and it will be pushing frontal boundaries from east to west, cooling down even parts of the Midwest in July and August," he continued. "We think the first two weeks of September will be warmer. But then it will be getting quite a bit colder toward the end of September, and even into October."

These cooler temperatures could damage the corn crop, Atkins explained.

"We think there's going to be an early frost [in the Plains west of Kansas], which could reduce the number of bushels per acre of corn - maybe by around 8%, our current rate of prediction," he said. "It will be a killing freeze, at least 10 to 15 days earlier than normal."

Meanwhile, Atkins expects flash flooding in the Midwest this week, from Nebraska down to Arkansas, even reaching into parts of the Tennessee River Valley. "Some of these winds will reach 80 miles per hour with hail, producing lots of flash flooding. Some fields in the Midwest will suffer from too much rain," he said.

Comment: As happy as the increase in rainfall will make some farmers in the short term, this is one of the precursors of the onset of a new Ice Age. The increase in rainfall, coupled with temperatures that don't reach expected summer highs, means that winter snows never really go away. This increases the reflection of solar radiation away from Earth, further causing the temperature to fall. The cycle is self-reinforcing. Add to that the reflecting properties of volcanic eruptions, and the cycle speeds up even more.

Fire and Ice: The Day After Tomorrow
Volcanoes Played Pivotal Role In Ancient Ice Age, Mass Extinction
Forget warming - beware the new ice age


Snowflake

First June snowfall in Tromso, Norway since records began

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The northern Norwegian city of Tromso experienced a freak summer snowfall on Monday after freezing wind from the North Pole saw temperatures plummet.

It was the first time since records began that the city had seen snowfall in June. Local meteorologist Trond Lien said that sleet and snow showers hit the city on Monday night, and there has even been some snow lying on the ground. He said that the situation was "very rare", noting that it must have been a long time since it snowed on 16 June. He added that he had found records showing that Tromso had experienced snowfall in July, but he could find nothing to indicate snow in June.

Motorist Odd Arne Thomassen told reporters that he was driving over roughly four centimetres of snow when he was in Kvaenangsfjellet, in North Troms, early on Monday morning. He explained that it was not bad enough to make him feel he needed his chains on, but that there was certainly about four centimetres lying on the ground.

Yr.no, the weather forecasting venture between the Meteorological Institute and TV station NRK, predicted that other areas of the country would also experience snowfall. It said that high-lying areas of western and southern Norway would likely see snow, despite the fact that the capital Oslo is lapping up temperatures in excess of 20C.

Igloo

Receding Swiss glaciers reveal 4000 year old forests - Warmists try to suppress findings

Glacier
© Climate Change Dispatch.com
Dr. Christian Schlüchter's discovery of 4,000-year-old chunks of wood at the leading edge of a Swiss glacier was clearly not cheered by many members of the global warming doom-and-gloom science orthodoxy.

This finding indicated that the Alps were pretty nearly glacier-free at that time, disproving accepted theories that they only began retreating after the end of the little ice age in the mid-19th century. As he concluded, the region had once been much warmer than today, with "a wild landscape and wide flowing river."

Dr. Schlüchter's report might have been more conveniently dismissed by the entrenched global warming establishment were it not for his distinguished reputation as a giant in the field of geology and paleoclimatology who has authored/coauthored more than 250 papers and is a professor emeritus at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

Then he made himself even more unpopular thanks to a recent interview titled "Our Society is Fundamentally Dishonest" which appeared in the Swiss publication Der Bund where he criticized the U.N.-dominated institutional climate science hierarchy for extreme tunnel vision and political contamination.

Following the ancient forest evidence discovery Schlüchter became a target of scorn. As he observes in the interview, "I wasn't supposed to find that chunk of wood because I didn't belong to the close-knit circle of Holocene and climate researchers. My findings thus caught many experts off guard: Now an 'amateur' had found something that the [more recent time-focused] Holocene and climate experts should have found."

Other evidence exists that there is really nothing new about dramatic glacier advances and retreats. In fact the Alps were nearly glacier-free again about 2,000 years ago. Schlüchter points out that "the forest line was much higher than it is today; there were hardly any glaciers. Nowhere in the detailed travel accounts from Roman times are glaciers mentioned."

Snowflake Cold

Coldest June day in Finland for 50 years

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Along with summertime snow

19 June 2014 - On Tuesday, Northern Finland recorded the lowest temperature for this date since 1962, while large swathes of the country awoke to a blanket of white.

With temperatures running 10C (18F) below average for this time of year, parts of Lapland, northern Ostrobothnia and central Finland also saw snow.

The temperature fell to zero as far south as Virrat in Pirkanmaa.

The coldest June temperature in 50 years was recorded in Saanatunturi, Northern Finland, when the mercury dropped to minus 6.2C (20.8F).

During the months of midnight sun in Lapland, weather conditions are generally dry. However, snowfall was also observed in Yli-Ii, north of Oulu on Tuesday morning.


Igloo

Surprise snowstorm clobbers Rockies

Snow storm in Summer!
© Glacier National ParkGlacier National Park is notorious for unpredictable weather.
The summer solstice is right around the corner, but winter isn't going down without a fight this year: A bizarre June snowstorm hit Glacier National Park in Montana and parts of Utah and Idaho this week, leaving many residents and visitors in the northern Rockies wondering what season it is.

Glacier National Park saw almost 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain and more than a foot (0.3 meters) of snow, according to the National Weather Service. [See photos of the surprise snowstorm]

"Weather in northwest Montana and weather in Glacier [National Park] can be so variable, but it's always somewhat exciting, somewhat "wow," somewhat challenging to get this kind of weather this time of year," Denise Germann, a spokeswoman for Glacier National Park, told ABC Montana.

Now, as the snow melts and rivers spill over their banks, the area is at risk for flooding.

Cloud Lightning

65,000 birds and mammals killed by hailstorms in India

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Carcasses of rosy starling in Baramati, Pune district, and an Indian peafowl at Umarga, Osmanabad district
The hailstorm that hit Maharashtra earlier this year killed more than 65,000 birds and mammals in various parts of the state, according to a special report prepared by the Bombay Natural History Society.

A total 26 species of birds and nine species of mammals were killed in Marathwada and Vidarbha during the period from March 1 to 10 and on May 1 and 2, BNHS stated in the report that was released on Tuesday.

Mass mortality was reported in 27 areas with high mortality in 14 areas, each covering about 25 sq km.

"A high number of deaths were reported for birds that prefer residing near human habitation. Some of these are mynas, owls, parakeets and kites," the report states.

The highest rate of mass mortality was observed at the roosting sites of birds such as rosy starling, the house sparrow and rose-ringed parakeet. Birds such as coucal, bulbul, drongo, quail, lark, egret and bee-eaters were found dead across the study area.

Snowflake Cold

Winter snow storm in Montana, Utah and Wyoming in mid-June

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Winter just won't quit, even as summer is right around the corner. Cool, huh?

Snow is falling over the higher elevations, as an upper-level low swirls over the Northern Rockies. Alta, Utah reported nine inches of snow on Tuesday, which makes it their third highest one-day snowfall total in June. Glacier National Park reports about one foot of snow fell on Wednesday at Sperry Chalet (approximately 6,590 feet in altitude). Lake-effect rain and snow has also developed off the Great Salt Lake, with snow above 7,000 feet.

Mountain snow will continue through Thursday morning in parts of the Northern Rockies. Winds will gust up to 30 mph and visibility may be less than half a mile at times.

Closer to pass level, look for a mix of rain and snow, with no accumulation expected. But if you have an early summer vacation planned for Glacier National Park, remember to bring your snow gear as more than a foot of snow is not out of the question.

Plow crews began the process of digging out Logan Pass in Montana last week, and they hope to have the Sun Road open to Logan Pass sometime after June 20. Conditions across the region will improve this weekend. Temperatures will climb into the 70s with mostly sunny skies.

Snowflake

Summer snowfall in another European country: Snow in June raises eyebrows in Estonia

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© AFP
Living with sub-zero temperatures for several months a year, Estonians are no strangers to a little snow, AFP reported.

But residents of the Baltic nation were baffled on Tuesday when flurries of the white stuff fell in June for the first time in more than three decades.

"We last recorded snow in June 32 years ago and it was on exactly the same date: June 17, 1982," Estonian meteorologist Helve Meitern told AFP.

"Tonight, we could see temperatures fall below zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit)," she added.

The wintry weather follows a heatwave over the last month that saw temperatures spike to a toasty 30 degrees Celsius across this EU state of three million, where average June daytime temperatures range from 18-20 degrees Celsius.

The mercury soared to a searing 35.6 Celsius in August 1992, the hottest day ever recorded in Estonia.

Source: AFP