Extreme Temperatures
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June in Scotland on track to be coldest summer for 40 years

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Wet weather in Scotland
June is on track to be the coldest summer month for more than 40 years as the persistent rainfall and low temperatures blight hopes of a turn to warmer weather.

Scotland's average temperature up until June 15 was 9.3C, two degrees below normal and the coldest June, July or August since June 1972, Met Office records show.

Forecasters are predicting another 10 days of downpours from next week. But first, another cold front will bring cloud and scattered heavy showers tomorrow, followed by a wet Sunday with hail. Highs of 18C tomorrow will drop to 15C on Sunday.

Met Office forecaster Helen Roberts said: "An Atlantic cold front will bring a lot of cloud and showers, some heavy, on Saturday, and a cooler Sunday with showers."

Forecasters are predicting "generally unsettled" conditions from the middle of the next week for up to 10 days.

Attention

Record snow cover for June in Norway, 5 times more than normal

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© globesar.comThroughout Norway is the record amount of new snow in the mountains
Large areas of Norway still covered in snow - in June !

There is an extreme amount of snow in the mountains, both in the north and south.

Satellite measurements show that 23 percent of land area in southern Norway is still covered in snow, nearly five times more than normal in June, says senior forecaster Eirik Malnes..

In Northern Norway, the corresponding figure is 35 percent, more than double a normal year.

Daily satellite measurements from the research institute NORUT in Tromsø show that nearly a quarter of the land area in the south and one third in the north are still snowy.

Arrow Up

Researchers perplexed by 'unprecedented warming' of waters off northeast U.S. coast

US northeast coast water temp
© Forsyth, et al.A new study shows that water temperatures in this continental shelf region have been trending upward, with unprecedented warming occurring over the last 13 years. The research is based upon temperature data from the waters off the northeast coast of the US that were collected in collaborative effort between scientists and the operators of the container ship Oleander, which routinely travels between Bermuda and New Jersey (green line). The mean surface circulation in the northwestern North Atlantic is shown.
A couple of unexplained large scale changes in the waters off the northeast coast of the U.S. have oceanographers perplexed: an accelerated rate of sea level rise compared to most other parts of the world; and the disturbing signs of collapsing fisheries in the region.

A new study by physical oceanographers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, shows that water temperatures in this continental shelf region have been trending upward, with unprecedented warming occurring over the last 13 years. The study also suggests a connection between sea level anomalies and water temperature along the continental shelf.

"The warming rate since 2002 is 15 times faster than from the previous 100 years," says co-author Glen Gawarkiewicz, a WHOI senior scientist. "There's just been this incredible acceleration to the warming, and we don't know if its decadal variability, or if this trend will continue."

The scientists compared their findings with a study of surface waters using data collected by Nantucket Light ship, and other light ships up and down the East Coast between 1880 and 2004, previously analyzed by Steve Lentz of WHOI and Kipp Shearman of Oregon State University. The new study shows that recent accelerated warming is not confined to the surface waters, but extends throughout the water column.

"Others have reported on the temperature increase in this region," says Gawarkiewicz's colleague, WHOI assistant scientist Magdalena Andres, "but they've been confined to looking at the surface temperatures from satellites or buoys." And Gawarkiewicz and Andres wanted to understand how deep the warming went.

The research is based upon a rare collection of temperature data from the waters off the northeast coast of the U.S. that were collected in collaborative effort between scientists and the operators of the container ship Oleander, which routinely travels between Bermuda and New Jersey. The effort, which began in the late 1970s with funding from NOAA/NMFS, involved launching bathythermographs along the ship's track to collect temperature data approximately 14 times each year. Later the program was funded through the National Science Foundation and the University of Rhode Island and Stony Brook University. The bulk of the prior analysis has been on velocity data also collected by the Oleander.

Comment: Perhaps increased methane outgassing and undersea volcanic activity (it is estimated there are up to one million of these 'submarine volcanoes') are contributory factors to the "unprecedented warming occurring over the last 13 years"?

The significant increase of fish die off's and strange migratory behaviour of marine life could be considered other potential signs of such activity also.

As the number of volcanoes erupting right now is greater than the 20th century's YEARLY average, a comparable escalation in activity of their underwater counterparts seems logical.


Arrow Up

Alaska swelters in unusually hot temperatures

Alaska fire
© Alaska Division of Forestry via APIn this Monday, June 15, 2015 photo released by Alaska Division of Forestry, thick white smoke rises from the Card Street Fire near the community of Sterling on the Kenai Peninsula, about 60 miles southwest of Anchorage.
Anyone visiting Alaska this week would be wise to pack plenty of shorts and T-shirts.

The far-north state is sweltering under unusually hot, dry weather that has broken records and intensified conditions fueling two large wildfires in the state.

The tinderbox setting got an early start during a warm winter with comparably little snow. Here's a brief primer on this summer's baked Alaska:

HOW HOT IS IT?

Summers can get warm even in Alaska, but this week's temperatures set records.

Anchorage, for example, had a record high of 83 degrees Tuesday, topping the old record of 82 set in 1969. The normal high for Alaska's largest city this time of year is in the low 60s, National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Snider said.

Comment: Alaska bakes while other parts of the world experience unseasonal cold. Is the world's weather reaching a tipping point of some kind with these extremes on both ends of temperature? If you are interested in reading more about why this happening and what is to come, then read Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection: The Secret History of the World.


Snowflake Cold

Record summer cold in the Netherlands

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Last night weather station Twente measured minus 4,1 Celsius. It has never been that cold in the Netherlands at this time of year, summer.

For the coming night night frost is expected, too.

Normally there is no night frost after the Ice Saints (May 11 -15).

Thanks to Argiris Diamantis, Hans Schreuder and JJM Gommers for these links

Fish

Ice age warning? Ocean near Iceland unusually cold, no mackerel

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© Páll Stefánsson. A West Iceland beach.
The Icelandic Marine Research Institute's annual spring expedition from May 18 to 30 concluded that the ocean temperature off Iceland has not been lower in 18 years, or since 1997. The number of krill is below average and not a single mackerel was caught.

"In the past years we have always caught some mackerel, and especially last year. But now we didn't see any," Guðmundur J. Óskarsson, one of the institution's specialists, who took part in the expedition, told Fréttablaðið.

Guðmundur stated that the ocean temperature from Southeast Iceland to the West Fjords has dropped by one to one-and-a-half degree Celsius. However, it can quickly increase if the air temperature increases substantially, he added.

Last month was the coldest May in Iceland in decades.

The expedition is part of the institute's long-term study of the condition of the ocean around Iceland, the vegetation, krill and fish which exist there. Samples were taken in 110 locations.

Cloud Precipitation

Freak hailstorm turns desert white around Alice Springs, Australia

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The Red Centre was blanketed in hail on Saturday following a freak storm
In a bizarre but beautiful sight the Red Centre turned white on Saturday following a thunderstorm which blanketed the area in a sheet of hail.

Photographs show a stunning contrast between the bright earth and hailstones covering the ground in parts of Alice Springs.

While the area does see storms it's not often conditions are just right to deliver the spectacle it did at the weekend.

'This event was set apart due to the fact it was a slow moving storm,' Jackson Browne, a meteorologist at the Darwin Bureau of Meteorology explained to Daily Mail Australia.

'Usually these storm cells move with quite a lot of pace,' he said, adding that although hail is present in most storms it has often melted by the time it meets the ground.

As the hailstones were only marble-sized they weren't large enough to cause any damage, but they did provide quite a sight for locals, many of whom have never seen hail despite living in the area for years.



Snowflake

Heavy snowfall expected in Brooks Range, Alaska

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© WikipediaBrooks Range, Alaska
Visitors to Denali National Park may get more than they bargained for today, as the National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory for the area.

The weather advisory went into effect at 6 p.m. Wednesday and was scheduled to last through noon today.

Snow topped the list of concerns precipitating the need for a weather advisory, according to meteorologists at the National Weather Service station in Fairbanks. Meteorologists estimate the park will receive 4 to 8 inches of snow.

The Weather Service estimates the snow will fall about 2,500 feet above sea level, which would leave the visitors center and much of the beginning of the park road clear of snow. A significant portion of the park road lies above 2,500 feet, however, as the road's elevation begins climbing early and rises significantly near Sable Pass.

Arrow Down

Record cold night temperatures in June for Twente and Eindhoven in the Netherlands

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© Wikimedia Commons/ErkahaThermometer
Saturday night was a record cold night for both Twente and Eindhoven. But despite this brief bout of cold, warmer weather is expected for later this week.

Twente measured -2.2 degrees on Saturday night, the Gelderlander reports. The measurement was done at 10 centimeter height from the ground. According to the newspaper, the cold weather can partly be attributed to the cool sea air from the Northwest.

Eindhoven measured 0.2 degrees overnight on Saturday, also a record for this time of year. "For this time of year this is very exceptional", Dana Woei of Weerplaza said.

These cold records follow an extremely hot day on Friday, when temperatures reached above 30 degrees in some places in the Netherlands. Temperatures dropped again on Saturday, with some places not even reaching 20 degrees for maximum temperature.

The next few days are expected to be cloudy and cool, but the warm weather should return later this week, the Telegraaf reports. On Wednesday and Thursday temperatures are expected to rise to between 20 and 25 degrees, with an even warmer day on Friday. The weather will be cooler again over the weekend, with showers and thunderstorms expected.

Info

Researchers discover deepest high-temperature hydrothermal vents in Pacific Ocean

Pescadero Basin hydrothermal field
© MBARIThese delicate carbonate spires formed at an active vent site in the newly discovered Pescadero Basin hydrothermal field.
In spring 2015, MBARI researchers discovered a large, previously unknown field of hydrothermal vents in the Gulf of California, about 150 kilometers (100 miles) east of La Paz, Mexico. Lying more than 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) below the surface, the Pescadero Basin vents are the deepest high-temperature hydrothermal vents ever observed in or around the Pacific Ocean. They are also the only vents in the Pacific known to emit superheated fluids rich in both carbonate minerals and hydrocarbons. The vents have been colonized by dense communities of tubeworms and other animals unlike any other known vent communities in the in the eastern Pacific.

Like another vent field in the Gulf that MBARI discovered in 2012, the Pescadero Basin vents were initially identified in high-resolution sonar data collected by an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). MBARI's yellow, torpedo-shaped seafloor-mapping AUV spent two days flying about 50 meters above the bottom of the Basin, using sound beams to map the depth and shape of the seafloor.

The AUV team, led by MBARI engineer David Caress, pored over the detailed bathymetric map they created from the AUV data and saw a number of mounds and spires rising up from the seafloor. Data from the AUV also showed slightly warmer water over some of the spires, which implied that they might be active hydrothermal-vent chimneys. A team of geologists led by David Clague then used a tethered underwater robot, the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Doc Ricketts, to dive down to the seafloor, fly around the vents, and collect video and samples of rocks and hot water spewing from the chimneys.

Reflecting on the discovery, Clague commented, 'Before the AUV survey of Pescadero Basin, all we knew was that this area was really deep and filled with sediment. I was hoping to find a few outcrops of lava on the seafloor. But we got lucky. The vent field was right on the edge of our survey area, along a fault at the western edge of the basin.'

The AUV and ROV dives showed that the new field extends for at least 400 meters (one quarter mile) along this fault. Within this area the researchers found at least three active hydrothermal chimneys up to 12 meters (40 feet) tall, as well as dozens of low mounds that are most likely collapsed chimneys.

3D map of the Pacific seafloor
© 2015 MBARIThis 3D map of the seafloor was generated using sonar data from MBARI's seafloor-mapping AUV. It shows several hydrothermal chimneys rising up to 12 meters (40 feet) above the floor of the Pescadero Basin.

Comment: Recent reports show the Pacific Ocean is suffering unprecedented mass die-off's turning it into a 'desert'. As well as increased emissions from ocean floor venting, as Earth 'opens up', other causes include: Increased undersea volcano activity also has an effect: