Extreme Temperatures
Red shows the September 2012 minimum extent. Green shows the current extent, which is likely the minimum for 2015. The Arctic has gained hundreds of miles of ice over the past three years, much of which is thick, multi-year ice.
Nobel Prize winning climate experts and journalists tell us that the Arctic is ice-free, because they are propagandists pushing an agenda, not actual scientists or journalists.
© Agence France-Presse
The Kongsfjorden fjord in Norway. Scientists have for over half a century.relied on carbon dating to gauge the age of organic matter and help determine when some events happened.
The Kongsfjorden fjord in Norway. Scientists have for over half a century.relied on carbon dating to gauge the age of organic matter and help determine when some events happened.
Their recent analysis of sediment from the largest freshwater lake in northeast China showed that its carbon clock stopped ticking as early as 30,000 years ago, or nearly half as long as was hitherto thought.
As scientists who study earth's (relatively) modern history rely on this measurement tool to place their findings in the correct time period, the discovery that it is unreliable could put some in a quandary.
For instance, remnants of organic matter formerly held up as solid evidence of the most recent, large-scale global warming event some 40,000 years ago may actually date back far earlier to a previous ice age.
"The radiocarbon dating technique may significantly underestimate the age of sediment for samples older than 30,000 years," said the authors of the report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Germany's Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics.
"Thus it is necessary to pay [special] attention when using such old carbon data for palaeoclimatic or archaeological interpretations," they added.
Their work was detailed in a paper in the latest issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
For over 50 years, scientists and researchers have relied on carbon dating to find the exact age of organic matter.
Prior to that, they had to depend on more rudimentary and imprecise methods, such as counting the number of rings on a cross-section of tree trunk.
Crystal Mountain Resort welcomed several inches of fresh snow in the higher elevations late this week. It was bare at the base Saturday, but many visitors were quite surprised to see snow just below the 7,000 foot elevation level.
"It was a surprise. It was a little chilly," Sherri Luick said after stepping off of the resort's gondola. She's visiting the area from Minnesota.
"It's been cloudy ever since we got here. We were hoping to catch a shot of Rainier," said Tyler Paige, who moved to Seattle in early July.
"No such luck. No such luck," Paige Hall added.
A couple inches of snow fell on Friday, which added to the dusting that coated the higher elevations on Thursday, resort employees said.
University of California, Berkeley, seismologists have produced for the first time a sharp, three-dimensional scan of Earth's interior that conclusively connects plumes of hot rock rising through the mantle with surface hotspots that generate volcanic island chains like Hawaii, Samoa and Iceland.
Essentially a computed tomography, or CT scan, of Earth's interior, the picture emerged from a supercomputer simulation at the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
While medical CTs employ X-rays to probe the body, the scientists mapped mantle plumes by analyzing the paths of seismic waves bouncing around Earth's interior after 273 strong earthquakes that shook the globe over the past 20 years.
Previous attempts to image mantle plumes have detected pockets of hot rock rising in areas where plumes have been proposed, but it was unclear whether they were connected to volcanic hotspots at the surface or the roots of the plumes at the core mantle boundary 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below the surface.
Essentially a computed tomography, or CT scan, of Earth's interior, the picture emerged from a supercomputer simulation at the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
While medical CTs employ X-rays to probe the body, the scientists mapped mantle plumes by analyzing the paths of seismic waves bouncing around Earth's interior after 273 strong earthquakes that shook the globe over the past 20 years.
Previous attempts to image mantle plumes have detected pockets of hot rock rising in areas where plumes have been proposed, but it was unclear whether they were connected to volcanic hotspots at the surface or the roots of the plumes at the core mantle boundary 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below the surface.
© DPA
Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain.
Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain.
It might seem like summer was only last week in Germany - and that's because it was.
With blazing sunshine and temperatures topping 30C over the weekend, the onset of winter couldn't have been further from most Germans' minds.
But in the Bavarian Alps, autumn has been skipped out altogether.
At Zugspitze - Germany's highest peak, at 2,962m - seven centimetres of snow have already fallen, reports the Münchner Merkur.
Snowfall in early August reached sea level for the first time in several decades.
With winter coming to a close officially ahead of the first day of spring on Tuesday, the bureau's Debbie Tabor revealed it was the sixth coldest winter on record.
"It's been below average temperature and rainfall for Tasmania during this winter," she said.
"Preliminary analysis is all indicating that it's the sixth coolest on record, that's resulting in the coolest winter since 1966."
Heavy snow in August reached sea level for only the seventh time since 1986.
The dump in early August closed several schools and roads and stranded people in their cars.
Snow fell again in late August again closing roads and creating traffic chaos.
The snow was a welcome boost for the ski season at Mount Field and Ben Lomond but made it .
A child cools off in a fountain next to the Manzanares river in Madrid on July 15, 2015
The findings by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed a troubling trend, as the planet continues to warm due to the burning of fossil fuels, and scientists expect the scorching temperatures to get worse.
"The world is warming. It is continuing to warm. That is being shown time and time again in our data," said Jake Crouch, physical scientist at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.
"Now that we are fairly certain that 2015 will be the warmest year on record, it is time to start looking at what are the impacts of that? What does that mean for people on the ground?" he told reporters.
The month's average temperature across land and sea surfaces worldwide was 61.86 Fahrenheit (16.61 Celsius), marking the hottest July ever.
The previous record for July was set in 1998.
© William Kennedy
Picture of the mountains by Kiowa Camp Blackfeet Reservation
Picture of the mountains by Kiowa Camp Blackfeet Reservation
Jason Reid sent us a photo of the snow flying about six miles north of Babb, right along the Rocky Mountain Front.
The photo was taken at around 6:15 p.m. on Friday.
This is not unexpected, so let's not panic. We have been expecting some higher-elevation snow for several days now.
A cold front has moved through north-central Montana and strong northwest winds are carrying in much colder air.
Snow levels will fall to near 6,500 feet in the next few hours, with up to one inch of slushy accumulation in the mountains.
This includes Logan Pass, parts of the Going To The Sun Road, and Kings Hill Pass in central Montana.
I am NOT expecting snow in Great Falls or at lower elevations.
© Jason Reid
Viewer photo of snow flying near Babb, MT on August 21, 2015
Viewer photo of snow flying near Babb, MT on August 21, 2015
© skibanff.com
This is the image coming from Sunshine Village's Rock Isle Lake webcam at 12:58 p.m. MT on Friday.
This is the image coming from Sunshine Village's Rock Isle Lake webcam at 12:58 p.m. MT on Friday.
Environment Canada's Bill McMurtry says most of the snow was reported at higher elevations in the Rockies and Foothills.
"We are anticipating that snow will continue for the remainder of the afternoon and evening period," he told CBC News. "As the system moves off to the east towards Saskatchewan and Manitoba we'll see skies clear overnight and that will end the precipitation."
Webcams belonging to the Lake Louise Ski Resort and Sunshine Village show the snow already accumulating in higher elevations.
© Tommi Parkkinen / Yle
Residents of the Konnunsuo area of Lappeenranta experienced an unusual weather phenomenon on Friday when they had both the coldest and the warmest temperatures recorded in the country.
The Finnish Meteorological Institute measuring station at Konnunsuo recorded a temperature of 3.1 degrees Celcius just before 6 AM, the lowest anywhere in the country.
By afternoon, the thermometer had climbed to 25.6 degrees, the highest official temperature of the day.
Comment: All over the world 'extreme' weather records are being broken! See also: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - July 2015: Extreme Weather and Planetary Upheaval
To understand what's going on, check out our book explaining how all these events are part of a natural climate shift, and why it's taking place now: Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection.
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