Extreme Temperatures
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Snowflake

Winter storm leaves thousands without power in eastern Canada


CBC News
Sat, 30 Jan 2016 08:00 UTC
Stormy Highway
© Andrew MittonWet, heavy snow cut power to many parts of Nova Scotia Friday night and crews are still trying to restore electricity in about two dozen communities.
Heavy snowfall has left thousands of people without electricity and Nova Scotia power estimates it could take until midnight before crews are able to restore electricity to many homes in the northern part of the province, many of which have been in the dark since Friday evening.

About 51,800 customers were without power at 7:30 a.m. Saturday. The outages affect about two dozen communities and range from Yarmouth to Dartmouth, Tatamagouche to Sydney.

While some areas such as Bridgewater are expected to see power back on around noon Saturday, service to parts of Guysborough isn't expected to return until 5:45 a.m. on Sunday.

The Department of Transportation says crews are working to clear and salt roads, some of which received as much as 30 centimetres of snow.

It is advising that the main roads in Cape Breton are still covered in snow and visibility is poor.

Friday night Nova Scotia Power said the nor'easter's impact was interfering with crews' ability to repair power lines as the heavy snow pushed trees onto them.
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Snowflake Cold

Cold weather and heavy snowfall continues in Turkey; 2,500 roads closed, over 2 meter snowdrifts and minus 27 degrees Celsius recorded


Today's Zaman
Tue, 26 Jan 2016 13:40 UTC
Uludağ, Bursa, Turkey
© DHAUludağ, Bursa, Turkey
Turkey grappled on Tuesday with cold weather and heavy snowfall that led to the cancellation of flights and ferries in İstanbul and that covered many provinces in the rest of the country, Cihan news agency reported on Tuesday.

The inclement weather caused a number of car accidents, and some schools were forced to close. Authorities warned drivers to take extra care due to the poor weather conditions.

Flights and ferries canceled in İstanbul

Snowfall hit İstanbul's higher elevations early on Tuesday and spread to the rest of the city by the afternoon. Teams from the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality and district municipalities salted the roads as a precaution against ice. Many İstanbul residents and visitors enjoyed the snowfall in historic areas such as Sultanahmet and popular tourism spots like Taksim Square.

Turkish Airlines (THY) and the İstanbul Ferry Lines (İDO) announced on Tuesday that certain flights and ferries were canceled due to the harsh weather conditions.

İDO canceled all its intra-city ferry services in İstanbul due to sea conditions. Some of the inter-city ferries, including the Kadıköy-Yenikapı-Bursa ferry and the Yalova / Kartal ferries, were also cancelled.

THY cancelled 143 flights to and from İstanbul and warned of further disruption in the coming days, as the city braces itself for heavy snow on Wednesday.

Pegasus Airlines, Atlasglobal and Onur Air also cancelled 22, 10 and six flights, respectively, due to the snow.


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Snowflake Cold

8,900 farm animals killed by cold weather in Vietnam


Viet Nam News
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 12:58 UTC
A buffalo is found dead due to the chill in Lao Cai Province
© VNA/VNS A buffalo is found dead due to the chill in Lao Cai Province
The number of farm animals killed in the record-low cold snap since last week rocketed to more than 8,900 - 11 times the figure released two days earlier, agriculture officials said on Wednesday.

Mountainous Son La Province replaced Quang Ninh Province in the previous report to become the hardest-hit locality with 2,756 animals frozen to death. This accounted for 38 per cent of the total.

Dead cattle, goat, horses and pigs were found across seven communes in Son La, one of which was Van Ho Commune, where snow fell for the first time in decades.

The northwestern province of Dien Bien was the second hardest-hit, with 641 out of 7,134 farm animals killed.

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Arrow Down

Climate fraudsters exposed by new monsoon study

G.S. Mudur
The Telegraph, India
Tue, 26 Jan 2016 00:25 UTC
Monsoons Clouds
© Wikimedia CommonsAdvancing monsoon clouds and showers in Aralvaimozhy, near Nagercoil, India.
India's monsoon is in no danger of catastrophic collapse in response to global warming and air pollution, two atmospheric scientists said today, refuting earlier predictions that the monsoon could shut down within 100 years.

The scientists at Yale University in the US who used computers to model the Earth's atmosphere, land and oceans have found that the expected changes in the monsoon will not abruptly alter their strength or their water volume.

Their results contradict earlier forecasts by scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany portending frequent and severe failures and even a breakdown of the monsoon, which is critical to India's food, water resources and economy.

"Our models show that monsoon rainfall will change smoothly in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, air pollution, and changes in land use," William Boos, an associate professor at Yale University told The Telegraph.

"We should expect changes in the monsoon rainfall in response to changes in the global mean temperature in the coming decades, but there is no reason to expect those changes to be abrupt," Boos said.

The earlier modelling exercises had predicted that the monsoon, under the influence of global warming and air pollution, would experience a "tipping point" that would lead to a sharp drop in rainfall over India.

Boos and his colleague Trude Storelvmo have now shown that the theory and models that were used to predict such "tipping points" had omitted a key term in climate behaviour, ignoring the fact that air cools as it rises in the atmosphere.

The scientists described their results this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a US research journal.
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Ice Cube

Incredible photos of fishing boats stuck in ice in China

Robert Felix
Ice Age Now
Wed, 27 Jan 2016 13:41 UTC
Ice trapped boats
Fishing boats trapped in sea ice in a port at Xikou Village in Yantai City, East China's Shandong province.

Under the influence of a strong cold wave, sea ice appeared around the Yantai sea area and affected maritime transportation.

Fishing boats trapped in sea ice, China

Fishing boats trapped in sea ice, China
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Roses

"It's bloomin' incredible" say botanists: More than 600 species of British flowers were in bloom on New Year's Day - usually it's 20-30

Michael McCarthy
The Independent (UK)
Mon, 25 Jan 2016 22:57 UTC
hawthorn
© AlamyHawthorn has been spotted in flower at New Year, a whole five months earlier than expected

Nature Studies: In a normal winter botanists would expect no more than 20 to 30 plants to have been in flower

It's unheard-of: after the warmest and wettest December on record, more than 600 species of British wildflowers were in bloom on New Year's Day 2016, a major survey has shown.

In a normal cold winter, botanists would expect no more than 20 to 30 types of wild plants to be in flower in the British Isles at the year's end - species such as daisy, dandelion and gorse.

But a survey by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) has discovered that on 1 January, no fewer than 612 species were actually flowering, including some from late spring and high summer - an occurrence which seems to be without precedent, and has left plant scientists astonished.

"It's incredible," said Kevin Walker, the BSBI's Head of Science. "I've never seen anything like it."

Just like December's astounding weather regime of record rainfall and warmth, the mass out-of-time flowering is suggestive of a substantial climatic shift. "It is what might be expected with climate change," Dr Walker said.

The appearance of many familiar and well-loved springtime species was a complete surprise: cowslips and cow parsley were both recorded four months early, normally appearing in April, while yellow archangel, bulbous buttercup and red campion are all expected in May.
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Snowflake Cold

Heavy snowfall and freezing weather strikes China


BBC
Sun, 24 Jan 2016 10:11 UTC
Freezing China
Heavy snowfall and freezing cold temperatures in China, Hong Kong and Japan have been breaking temperature records, as well as causing transport gridlock.

Camilla Schick reports.

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Snowflake Cold

Cold snap sweeping East Asia kills 85 in Taiwan


BBC news
Mon, 25 Jan 2016 03:03 UTC
Heavy snow in Taiwan
© AFPThis highway in Guangdong province was closed because of heavy snow
A cold snap sweeping across East Asia has killed at least 85 people in Taiwan and stranded 60,000 tourists in South Korea.

Taiwanese media reported deaths from hypothermia and cardiac disease following a sudden drop in temperature over the weekend.

Meanwhile heavy snow forced the closure of the airport on the Korean holiday island of Jeju, cancelling flights.

The cold spell has also hit Hong Kong, southern China and Japan.


'Sudden drop'

Many of those who died in Taiwan were elderly people living in northern regions such as Taipei and Taoyuan. Those areas accounted for 66 of the deaths.

Another 16 were confirmed dead in the southern city of Kaohsiung.

The temperature in Taipei city fell to a 44-year low of 4C (39F) on Sunday, and many homes in Taiwan lack central heating.

Many victims reportedly had heart trouble and shortness of breath.

"In our experience, it's not the actual temperature but the sudden drop that's too sudden for people's circulatory systems,'' said a city official quoted by AP news agency.

Comment: For other related articles pertaining to the extreme cold spell affecting Asia, see also:

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Igloo

The sun is cooling - Garbage science of global warming

Dr. Mark Sircus, Ac., OMD, DM (P)
Dr. Sircus.com
Wed, 20 Jan 2016 19:32 UTC
Ice_Age_1
© Dr. Sircus.com
Western government propaganda is increasing as the weather around the world defies global warming predictions. The latest publication insists that global warming is likely to disrupt a natural cycle of ice ages and contribute to delaying the onset of the next big freeze until about 100,000 years from now is utterly senseless.

In a new explanation for the long-lasting plunges in global temperatures that cause ice ages, scientists pointed to a combination of long-term shifts in the Earth's orbit around the sun, together with levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They forgot though to mention what every astrophysicist knows is that the sun itself has cycles of higher and lower output (sunspot, solar winds and movement of solar belts on the sun itself) and that these variations cause mini ice ages that occur frequently.

"Humans have the power to change the climate on geological timescales," said lead author Andrey Ganopolski. The findings suggest human influences "will make the initiation of the next ice age impossible over a time period comparable to the duration of previous glacial cycles."

We are being convinced at great expense in the global warming scenario. We need to be convinced because it simply is not true no matter how many times they tell us it is true.
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Smiley

Film of excited panda rolling around and absolutely LOVING the snow from freak blizzard

Paul Harper
Daily Mirror, UK
Sun, 24 Jan 2016 19:46 UTC
Panda
Loving it: Tian Tian can't get enough of the snow in Washington DC
Heartwarming video has been captured of a panda absolutely loving its time in snow.

The panda rolls around with a beaming smile, almost basking in the snow.

The footage was taken at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, DC, after the heavy snowfall today sparked by Storm Jonas.

The animal in question is Tian Tian, whose name means 'more and more'.

He excitedly rolls and slides in the snow as he enjoys the weather that has hit the United States Middle Atlantic region, causing a shut down in the nation's capital.

Tian Tian is playful and happy as he throws the white stuff over him.

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