Extreme Temperatures
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Cloud Precipitation

Australian crop losses due to wet and cold, temperatures drop scientists terminated for speaking up

Photo: Taralee Orchard's apricot harvest was a seventh of the normal size crop after the unseasonally wet spring.
© Courtney FowlerTaralee Orchard's apricot harvest was a seventh of the normal size crop after the unseasonally wet spring.
Australian crop losses mount from cold and wet conditions across the agricultural belt. Although the BOM head meteorologists had forecast never ending drought. Which has turned out to be the opposite with record floods across the country this year. Additionally new ACORN data sets show Australia has remained the same temperature as 1920.


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Info

Study relates Atlantic hurricane frequency to sunspot activity

Annual hurricane count in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea
© Rojo-Garibaldi et al. (2016)Figure 1. Annual hurricane count in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea over the period 1749-2012. Red line indicates the linear trend.
Paper Reviewed

Rojo-Garibaldi, B., Salas-de-León, D.A., Sánchez, N.L. and Monreal-Gómez, M.A. 2016. Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea and their relationship with sunspots. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 148: 48-52.

Although some climate alarmists contend that CO2-induced global warming will increase the number of hurricanes in the future, the search for such effect on Atlantic Ocean tropical cyclone frequency has so far remained elusive. And with the recent publication of Rojo-Garibaldi et al. (2016), it looks like climate alarmists will have to keep on looking, or accept the likelihood that something other than CO2 is at the helm in moderating Atlantic hurricane frequency.

In their intriguing analysis published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, the four-member research team of Rojo-Garibaldi et al. developed a new database of historical hurricane occurrences in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, spanning twenty-six decades over the period 1749 to 2012. Statistical analysis of the record revealed "the hurricane number is actually decreasing in time," which finding is quite stunning considering that it is quite possible fewer hurricanes were recorded at the beginning of their record when data acquisition was considerably worse than towards the end of the record. Nevertheless, as the Mexican research team indicates, "when analyzing the entire time series built for this study, i.e., from 1749 to 2012, the linear trend in the number of hurricanes is decreasing" (see figure above).

As for the potential cause behind the downward trend, Rojo-Garibaldi et al. examined the possibility of a solar influence, performing a series of additional statistical analyses (spectral, wavelet and coherence wavelet transform) on the hurricane database, as well as a sunspot database obtained from the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center of the Solar Physics Department of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Therein, their exploratory analyses revealed that "this decline is related to an increase in sunspot activity."

Horse

Brutal Western U.S. winter weather has been terrible for animals

Two juvenile elk wander in a field
© Jerome A PollosTwo juvenile elk wander in a field
Antelope injured while falling on ice. Horses stranded in snowy mountains. Cougars descending from their wilderness lairs to forage in a town.

It's been a beastly winter in the American West, not just for people but for animals too. One storm after another has buried much of the region in snow, and temperatures have often stayed below freezing, endangering a rich diversity of wild animals.

In southern Idaho, about 500 pronghorn antelope tried to cross the frozen Snake River earlier this month at Lake Walcott, but part of the herd spooked and ran onto a slick spot where they slipped and fell. Idaho Fish and Game workers rescued six of the stranded pronghorn, but 10 were killed by coyotes and 20 had to be euthanized because of injuries suffered when they fell down.

Another 50 pronghorn were found dead in the small western Idaho city of Payette after they nibbled on Japanese yew, a landscaping shrub that's toxic. Tough winter conditions have forced some wildlife to feed on the plant in urban areas.

Heavy snow has forced the Idaho Fish and Game department to begin emergency feeding of big game animals in southern Idaho.

In this Jan. 18, 2017, photo provided by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, elk feed at the Wenaha Wildlife Area near Troy, Ore.
In this Jan. 18, 2017, photo provided by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, elk feed at the Wenaha Wildlife Area near Troy, Ore.

Comment: See also: Animals struggle with heavy snowfall, winter weather in Idaho


Igloo

Snowball Earth - Entire Earth covered by ice?

IceAge
© NeethisImagine the earth enveloped in ice, as it was during Snowball Earth times.
Imagine the entire Earth covered in ice. It's not that far-fetched. It actually happened - and more than once.

Was it because Anna got mad at Elsa? No - but the real reason is even cooler. Scientists figured it out only after a rather provocative hypothesis tied a bunch of bizarre evidence together.

The first clues were discovered on some desolate Atlantic islands. There geologists found layers of rock formed by glaciers, but sandwiched between tropical rocks. How had this happened? Did the islands tectonically drift from the tropics to the poles and then back?

Nope. Microscopic magnetic particles in the rocks showed that when they were originally deposited, the rocks were located near the equator. This could only mean one thing - that the tropics had once been covered by ice.

No problem, you say? There are glaciers atop plenty of equatorial mountains, like the ones that feed the Nile or that dot Ecuadorian rainforests. Maybe such high-elevation glaciers could explain the equatorial ice evidence geologists were finding.

Except that the tropical strata below and above the glacial rocks weren't deposited at high elevation. Rather they were deposited in warm water, near tidal flats and ocean beaches.

It gets even crazier. In other reaches of the globe, scientists scratched their heads about similarly bipolar deposits - in Australia, Africa, Asia and our own Rocky Mountains. Much like paleontologists figured out that dinosaurs all disappeared at the same time, it took a long time for geologists to figure out that all these glacial-tropical rocks were about the same age.

Meaning: Maybe the entire planet, even delightful places like Ecuador, had once been covered by vast sheets of ice. A Snowball Earth.

Bizarro Earth

Rainbow in freezing temperatures?

When the temperature dips below freezing, rainbows vanish, right? Rainbows require liquid raindrops, and frozen water doesn't do the trick. Yesterday in Alaska, however, a rainbow appeared that seemed to defy the simple laws of physics. John Dean photographed the pale arc over Nome:
Supercooled Rainbow
© John DeanI seen this at sunset this evening, I first noticed the left hand side then the whole bow, there is a second bow by the streetlight, this is facing north also. The sun had just broke through the clouds as it was setting behind me. I have never witnessed this before here in Alaska
"It was not raining," says Dean. "The temperature was 25 F and a light snow storm had just passed through about an hour before. This is a first for me, and it has me perplexed."

Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains what happened: "This is definitely a rainbow made by water drops, even though it was so cold. Ice spheres, hail or snowflakes cannot make them because a rainbow needs almost perfectly spherical, smooth and transparent water drops. This bow is broad, telling us that the water drops were small. They were also probably quite high up, and might even have been supercooled below the normal freezing point of water."

Supercooled raindrops can form when droplets of water fall through layers of subfreezing air. Droplets containing specks of dust or even microbes readily freeze as ice crystals form around the impurities. But when rain droplets are especially pure, they can remain in a liquid state even when the temperature drops below freezing.

Hence -- the "supercooled rainbow." High latitude sky watchers should be alert for these rare rainbows as strange Arctic weather grips the North in winter 2017.

Igloo

Ice age cycles linked to orbital periods and sea ice

Ice Ages
© Jung-Eun Lee/Brown UniversityThe Southern Hemisphere has a higher capacity to grow sea ice than the Northern Hemisphere, where continents block growth. New research shows that the expansion of Southern Hemisphere sea ice during certain periods in Earth’s orbital cycles can control the pace of the planet’s ice ages.
Providence, R.I. — Earth is currently in what climatologists call an interglacial period, a warm pulse between long, cold ice ages when glaciers dominate our planet's higher latitudes. For the past million years, these glacial-interglacial cycles have repeated roughly on a 100,000-year cycle. Now a team of Brown University researchers has a new explanation for that timing and why the cycle was different before a million years ago.

Using a set of computer simulations, the researchers show that two periodic variations in Earth's orbit combine on a 100,000-year cycle to cause an expansion of sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere. Compared to open ocean waters, that ice reflects more of the sun's rays back into space, substantially reducing the amount of solar energy the planet absorbs. As a result, global temperature cools.

"The 100,000-year pace of glacial-interglacial periods has been difficult to explain," said Jung-Eun Lee, an assistant professor in Brown's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Studies and the study's lead author. "What we were able to show is the importance of sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere along with orbital forcings in setting the pace for the glacial-interglacial cycle."

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Snowflake Cold

Second summer snowfall in New Zealand and helicopter downdraft to dry soggy fruit

Cardrona Alpine Resort in Summer
Cardrona Alpine Resort in Summer
This is now the second "Rare" summer snowfall in New Zealand.

The year has so far been below normal temperatures for several parts of the country, but the last out of season Antarctic low brought a foot of snow in the middle of summer.

Apple shortages across the country and out of season rains have prompted farmers to hire helicopters to hover over the fields to dry fruit.


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Snowflake Cold

Kashmir experiences record snowfall, 11-feet snow depth in avalanche-hit Gurez

Snowfall continued intermittently for the fourth consecutive day, virtually cutting of the Valley from rest of the country due to closure of Srinagar-Jammu national highway
© Shuaib Masoodi Snowfall continued intermittently for the fourth consecutive day, virtually cutting of the Valley from rest of the country due to closure of Srinagar-Jammu national highway
The snowfall in Kashmir in last few days has broken the record of over two decades.

A Meteorological department official said Kashmir has recorded heavy snowfall this year.

He said it was the heaviest snowfall recorded in the valley since 1992.

"We had witnessed major snowfall in 1992 and 2006 but the present snowfall has broken the record of last 25 years," the official said.
The upper reaches of the Valley including Keran, Karnah, Gurez, Machil, Tanghdar, Uri, Gulmarg, Yousmarg, Pahalgam, Sonarmarg have witnessed heavy snowfall. The ski resort of Gulmarg has recorded more than 7 ft of snowfall while Gurez, which has witnessed at least three snow avalanches in 72 hours, has experienced about 11 ft of snowfall.

The plains including Srinagar have also experienced heavy snowfall.

Binoculars

Tiny seabirds from the Arctic battered by storm rescued in unprecedented numbers on Cape Cod

Dovekie
Dovekie
The Nerf football-sized birds were scattered around Cape Cod.

Someone had located one of the black-and-white critters wandering aimlessly in the parking lot of a Shaws grocery store, in Orleans. A second Dovekie — a waterborne bird and relative of the Puffin — was found nearby, at the Barley Neck Inn. Others were stranded in Brewster, and parts of Eastham.

They were far from home. Dovekies are arctic birds typically found miles offshore, not anywhere near Cape Cod or any big land mass. They had been blown in by powerful winds and large waves produced by Tuesday's Nor-easter, which battered much of the state coastline.

With the help of volunteers and staff from Wild Care, Inc., a non-profit in Eastham that takes in sick and injured wildlife for rehabilitation, many of the Dovekies found along the beaches and marshes and those discovered in backyards or parking lots, were returned to their ocean habitat unharmed Thursday.


Binoculars

Unusually large influx of over 300 glaucous gulls from the Arctic hits the UK and Ireland

A juvenile Glaucous Gull announces its arrival
© AR Jones PhotographyA juvenile Glaucous Gull announces its arrival
From the edge of the Arctic, an influx of Glaucous Gulls has arrived this week, more than 300 recorded across Britain and Ireland.

These are big, beefy birds that spend the nesting season raiding colonies of other seabirds and frequently steal food from other gulls; I've seen one wrestle a fish from the bill of a Great Black-backed Gull, a slightly bigger bird.

Adult Glaucous Gulls are pale grey, with white wing feathers, but most arrivals here are immature birds the colour of slushy snow.

Most Glaucous Gull arrivals have been along North Sea coasts and in western Ireland, but a couple have made it into North Wales, the most showy in Holyhead Bay.

Thanks to the lettered ring on its leg, we know that this one comes from Svalbard (Spitsbergen), 2,000 miles to the north.