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Igloo

'Once in a lifetime' polar blast gives New Zealand taste of Ice Age to come


abc.net.au
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 06:56 UTC
Image
A polar blast has hit New Zealand, bringing freezing temperatures and the heaviest snowfall in 40 years.

Snow is even predicted to fall on the hills around Auckland in what meteorologists are describing as a once-in-a-lifetime storm.

Schools across the country have been closed for the day and most airports are at a standstill.

The bitterly cold southerly blast has now brought snow to most of New Zealand, closing roads and some airports and cutting power to thousands of homes.

Snow has made roads impassable in many areas of both islands.

MetService head forecaster Peter Kreft told the New Zealand Herald the polar blast was "of the order of a 50-year'' event and warned it could last for several more days.

"It's a once-in-many-decades event. We are probably looking at something like, in terms of extent and severity, maybe 50 years,'' he said.
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Attention

Dust is All That's Needed to Plunge the World into an Ice Age: Iron-rich Dust Fuelled 4 Million Years of Ice Ages

Fred Pearce
New Scientist
Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:12 UTC
Image
© NASA/SPL
Dust storms bring a cool climate
Dust is all that's needed to plunge the world into an ice age. When blown into the sea, the iron it contains can fertilise plankton growth on a scale large enough to cause global temperatures to drop. The finding adds support to the idea of staving off climate change by simulating the effects of dust - perhaps by sprinkling the oceans with iron filings.


Comment: This is an insane idea, especially when Mother Nature is about to introduce us to the next Ice Age without any human intervention.


Iron-rich dust falling on the ocean has long been known to spark blooms of plankton, and researchers suspect the process could have intensified the ice ages that have occurred over the past few million years.

The thinking goes that, during warm periods, much of the Southern Ocean is an oceanic desert because it lacks the iron crucial for plankton growth. That changes at the start of ice ages, when a wobble in the planet's orbit causes an initial cooling that dries the continents, generates dust storms - particularly in central Asia - and sends dust onto the surface of the Southern Ocean.

Comment: No need for any further experiments, because the process of changes in the layers of the atmosphere due to comet dust loading has already started. The next Ice Age appears to be on our doorstep.

Read the following articles to learn more on the topic:

The Harbingers of Change Can Now Be Seen All Around the World! Mysterious Noctilucent Clouds Brighten Up Night Skies
Are Ice Crystals Really to Blame? US: Halo Appears Around The Sun Over The Central Savannah River Area
Another spiral formation points to Earth's changing atmosphere
Chemtrails? Contrails? Strange Skies

      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Chile: World's driest desert hit by snow, rain - the Ice Age Cometh?


MSNBC /Associated Press
Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:05 UTC
Chile's Atacama was hit by four years' worth of rain in one day in July

This has been the wettest winter in decades for Chile's arid northern desert, where fractions of an inch of rain have done major damage in some areas and set the stage for spectacular floral displays in the weeks to come.

July came and went with major storms that together dumped more than five times the annual average of rain and snow on parts of the world's driest desert.


The past weekend's precipitation blocked highways, forced the cancellation of a top Chilean football match and damaged the homes of 1,800 people, said Vicente Nunez, chief of the Interior Ministry's national emergency office.

A similarly wet stretch in early July dumped four years' worth of rain in one day on coastal Antofogasta.
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Cloud Lightning

Extreme weather causes chaos in South Africa

Gabriel Manyati
The Southern Times
Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:50 UTC
Image
© Mitchell Krog
A massive swirling and circulating electrical storm cell rolls across the South African landscape and packs some massive lightning strikes along with it. This weather phenomenon is a common sight in the Highveld region of South Africa during the summer rain months.
Extreme weather conditions this week left a trail of chaos and confusion with snowfalls in three South African provinces leaving thousands trapped in their homes, cars and buses as emergency workers battled to reach them.

Major roads were shut in the Eastern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal after blizzards hit. It took emergency services more than six hours to clear through kilometres of snow and heavy wind to rescue trapped motorists and commuters. Netcare 911 spokesman Chris Botha said no serious injuries were reported.

The 5 South African Infantry Battalion of the defence forces was called in to assist motorists and three SANDF tankers provided water to the Masilonyana Municipality after service delivery failed.
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Igloo

Ice Age Threat Should Freeze EPA Global Warming Regs

Shannon Goessling
The Washington Examiner
Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:16 UTC
ice
© n/a
Rather than spiraling into a global warming meltdown, we may be heading into the next ice age.

The U.S. National Solar Observatory, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and astrophysicists across the planet report that the nearly all-time low sunspot activity may result in a sustained cooling period on Earth.

The news has sent global warming theory advocates scrambling to discount and explain away the impact on global temperatures. However, the "news" is not really that new.

Many reputable scientists have been warning for decades that we are nearing the end of the 11,500-year average period between ice ages. And the last similar crash in sunspot activity coincided with the so-called "Little Ice Age" in the 1600s that lasted nearly a century.
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Igloo

Prehistoric Dog Domestication Derailed by Ice Age

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:00 UTC
Siberian
© Getty Images
The 33,000-year-old remains of an animal in Siberia suggest it was partly domesticated. Its bones suggest it resembled the modern Samoyed dog, shown here.

Some dogs were domesticated by at least 33,000 years ago, but these canines did not generate descendants that survived past the Ice Age, suggests a new PLoS ONE study.

The theory, based on analysis of a 33,000-year-old animal that may have been a partly domesticated dog, explains why the remains of possible prehistoric dogs date to such early periods, and yet all modern dogs appear to be descended from ancestors that lived at the end of the Ice Age 17,000-14,000 years ago.

The ancient animal identified as being a partly domesticated dog was found in Razboinichya Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia.

"The Razboinichya dog find demonstrates that the right wolf/human conditions suitable for getting domestication started were present at least 33,000 years ago," co-author Susan Crockford told Discovery News. "However, such conditions would have had to be present continuously -- stable -- for many wolf generations, perhaps 20 over about 40 years for the domestication process to generate a true dog."

"It appears that such stable conditions were not present until after the Ice Age, sometime after 19,000 years ago," added Crockford, a researcher at Pacific Identifications Inc. and author of the book Rhythms of Life. "Even after the Ice Age, domestication of wolves could have got started at several different times and places, and still failed because the conditions were not continuous enough for the changes to become permanent."
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Snowman

U.K.: ATS Euromaster: Motorists Urged to Prepare as Forecaster Predicts the Worst Winter on Record


Reuters
Mon, 13 Jun 2011 07:22 UTC
Image
© Time.com
ATS Euromaster is urging motorists to pre-order cold weather tyres after a meteorologist predicted this winter will "break all records" in terms of snowfall and freezing temperatures.

Specialist long-range forecaster James Madden, of Exacta Weather, correctly predicted the harsh conditions experienced over the last two years and gave his forecast to ATS Euromaster as it prepares to fit cold weather tyres in the UK for the second year running.

He warns: "The UK is to brace itself for well below average temperatures and widespread heavy snowfall throughout winter 2011/2012 which will result in the fourth bad winter in succession, and will prove to be the worst of them all.
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Sun

Connecting the Dots: Cosmic Changes, Planetary Instability and Extreme Weather

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Sat, 23 Jul 2011 14:10 UTC
Image
© NASA / SDO
The Solar Dynamics Observatory's view of the coronal mass ejection of June 7, 2011.
With Earth Changes now clearly happening and time pressing, the editors of Sott.net are faced with the urgency of catching up with an avalanche of significant news items and trying to make sense of things! Recent weather events have been unprecedented: both spring and early summer have been bizarre across the globe, to say the least.

You name the weather or geological type of phenomenon; someone in the world had it: volcanoes, earthquakes, torrential rain, floods, sinkholes, tornadoes, droughts, wildfires ... even summertime snow! Let's review them all as best as we can, starting from the top: the cosmic factor.

Solar Activity
© Mike Borman
Image Taken: Jun 4, 2011
Location: Evansville, Indiana, USA
Cosmic Changes Are Under Way

Changes on planet Earth comprise such a wide variety of phenomena, from extreme weather anomalies to volcanoes and earthquakes, so perhaps it's a good idea to zoom back and see if we can make sense of any changes in the cosmic climate that may be affecting us. Yes, we are aware that this approach goes against the sanctioned narrative claiming that these changes are caused by carbon-burning human beings living in an isolated bubble that can only grow warmer. But the pieces of the puzzle on the table point to a different, larger picture.

A huge central piece is our sun, which is not surprising, since this ongoing explosion in space is what brings order to our corner of the universe and to life to Earth. For the last couple of years the sun was expected to go into high activity in accordance with its usual 11-year sunspot cycle. But scientists were left scratching their heads as our local star remained quiet. Now it's giving off such a display of flares that it has NASA scientists going 'ooh and ahh'.
      Read More...
Snowman

UK: Urge to binge on fatty food 'dates back to the Ice Age'

David Derbyshire
The Daily Mail
Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:41 UTC
Our frozen ancestors of the Ice Age needed plenty of fat in their diets to keep warm - and it seems we might still be carrying their genetic torch.

For British scientists have discovered a DNA switch in the brain that they believe makes Europeans far more likely to binge on fatty food than those living in the East.

The researchers from Aberdeen University made their discovery after comparing the DNA of people with the genetic code of birds and mice.

Image
© Alamy
Frozen food: Scientists think our love of fatty meals can be traced to the Ice Age

Comment: It seems like our ancestors knew a thing or two about proper nourishment. And we are not talking about a mere survival and preservation of body's heat during harsh periods. It appears that fat is the preferred fuel of human metabolism and has been for most of human evolution. It not only decreases inflammation and significantly increases energy levels, but improved and healthier brain activity facilitates creativity and human evolution.

Read the following articles to understand how currently promoted low-fat diets lead to slow degradation and danger, especially prior to the possible onset of the next Ice Age.

You've Been Living A Lie: The Story Of Saturated Fat And Cholesterol
A Metabolic Paradigm Shift, or Why Fat is the Preferred Fuel for Human Metabolism
Your Brain On Ketones: How a High-fat Diet Can Help the Brain Work Better

      Read More...
Igloo

Australia: Perth's on Another Record Cold Spell

Lucy Rickard
The Sydney Morning Herald
Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:02 UTC
cold graphic
© n/a
Perth is on track to experience longest cold spell in 13 years.
Perth is on track to breaking another weather record as low daytime temperatures continue this week.

Weatherzone meteorologist Robert Wood said widespread cloud cover was contributing to the "massive reduction" in day-time temperatures experienced across WA so far this month.

Perth is set to record its second day in a row where the mercury won't reach 14 degrees, which hasn't occurred for 13 years.

Despite the low maximums, Perth's overnight temperatures remained around 10 degrees for the past two nights, and today's highest temperature - 11.6 degrees at 12.30pm - is just 1.3 degrees higher than the overnight low recorded at 5.30am.

So far this month, Perth has had five consecutive days where the overnight temperatures dropped below five degrees, and on every day except one, the maximum had not exceeded 17 degrees.
      Read More...
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