Extreme Temperatures
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Igloo

After 32,000 Years, an Ice Age Flower Blooms Again


Eric A. Powell
Discover Magazine
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:50 UTC
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© AP/Institute of Biophysics of the Russian Academy of SciencesThis campion plant grew from a 32,000-year-old fruit.
Deep in the frozen tundra of northeastern Siberia, a squirrel buried fruits some 32,000 years ago from a plant that bore white flowers. This winter a team of Russian scientists announced that they had unearthed the fruit and brought tissue from it back to life. The fruits are about 30,000 years older than the Israeli date palm seed that previously held the record as the oldest tissue to give life to healthy plants.

The researchers were studying ancient soil composition in an exposed Siberian riverbank in 1995 when they discovered the first of 70 fossilized Ice Age squirrel burrows, some of which stored up to 800,000 seeds and fruits. Permafrost had preserved tissue from one species - a narrow-leafed campion plant - exceptionally well, so researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences recently decided to culture the cells to see if they would grow. Team leader Svetlana Yashina re-created Siberian conditions in the lab and watched as the refrigerated tissue sprouted buds that developed into 36 flowering plants within weeks.

This summer Yashina's team plans to revisit the tundra to search for even older burrows and seeds.
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Snowflake

US record low temperatures outpace record highs 127 to 4 this weekend

Anthony Watts
Whats Up With That?
Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:18 UTC
Since we were treated to scads of news articles by the MSM on how many record highs happened in July, it seems only fair that we report on the multitude of record lows that occurred this weekend in the USA, and I doubt we'll see the sort of coverage the highs got. A number of these record lows go back into the past 100 years or more.
Here's a map for the weekend:
US low temps map
Click here for interactive source data
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Igloo

Australia's Coldest August Night on Record

Robert
IceAgeNow.info
Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:36 UTC
A blast of polar air from a cold-front in southern Australia last week managed to push all the way up to the tropics. Darwin shivered through it's coldest August night on record Monday after the temperature dropped to just 13.1C Monday, more than seven degrees below the August average minimum of 20.4C.

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Igloo

Ice Age Cometh? Big Snow Forecast For Eastern U.S. Cities


Terra Daily
Wed, 15 Aug 2012 08:33 UTC
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After a 2011-2012 winter that saw little snow, the mid-Atlantic and southern New England states will get a snow dump this winter, forecasters say. Above-normal snowfall during winter 2012-2013 is forecast for the major I-95 cities including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, AccuWeather.com reported Wednesday.

"The I-95 cities could get hit pretty good," forecaster Paul Pastelok said. "It's a matter of getting the cold to phase in with the huge systems that we are going to see coming out of the southern branch of the jet stream this year."
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Sun

Little Ice Age Thermometers- Historic Variations in Temperatures Confirms Extended Period of Warming Before Rapid Cooling

Tony Brown
Watts Up With That?
Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:15 UTC
This short paper is a preliminary examination of BEST data to 1753, as compared to the Central England Temperature Record (CET) to 1660 (instrumental record) and 1538 (Extended by Tony Brown using thousands of contemporary observations).

CET extended and BEST temp graph
This extension to 1538 was a central part of my article 'The Long Slow Thaw,' which also examined historic temperature reconstructions by Dr Michael Mann and Hubert Lamb.

In the article, warming from the start of the CET instrumental record in 1660 to the present day was noted, albeit with numerous advances and reverses.

The extended CET record coincides well with a 2000 year reconstruction by Craig Loehle here.

And one by M. V. SHABALOVA and A. F. V. VAN ENGELEN : 'Evaluation of a reconstruction of winter and summer temperatures in the Low Countries, ad 764 - 1998' here.

According to studies made by a number of climate scientists, CET is a reasonable proxy for Northern Hemisphere -and to some extent global temperatures- as documented in 'The Long Slow Thaw'. However, as Hubert Lamb observed, it can 'show us the tendency but not the precision'. In that light there are a number of comments that can be made about the Combined CET/BEST graph which are shown above in two versions that, viewed together, provide the opportunity to follow the ups and down of the ever changing climate over the 350 years of instrumental records.

(Note; The BEST extension to 1538 and the extension to both trend lines after 2012 in the first graphic are merely a graphing feature.)
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Igloo

Ice Age Cometh! Rare snowfall stuns residents of Johannesburg, South Africa: first time in history all 9 provinces get same day snow


The Extinction Protocol: 2012 and beyond
Fri, 10 Aug 2012 04:34 UTC
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Not normal: people in South Africa couldn't believe their eyes as record snowfall fell across the whole country.
August 9, 2012 - Johannesburg, South Africa - People slowly came outside despite the cold wind Tuesday across South Africa, pointed their mobile phone cameras to the sky and opened their mouths to taste a rare snowfall that fell on much of the country. The snow began Tuesday morning, part of an extreme cold snap now biting into a nation still in its winter months. By mid-afternoon, officials recorded snowfall across most of South Africa. However, forecasters acknowledged snow remains so unusual that they typically aren't prepared to provide details about snowfall in the nation. The snow closed some roads and at least one high-altitude pass. The snowfall also closed several border posts in the country. As the snow fell, workers at offices in Johannesburg rushed outside. Some twirled and danced as the flakes fell. One man rushed to the top of a snow-covered hill and slid down, using a cardboard box as an improvised toboggan. Despite the cold and the snow, beggars who line traffic lights in the city continued to ask passing motorists for cash. The snow grew heavier in the afternoon in Johannesburg, covering rooftops and slicking roads. Snowflakes are a rare commodity in Johannesburg, even during winter. South African Weather Service records show it has snowed in Johannesburg on only 22 other days in the last 103 years. The last snow fell there in June 2007. In Pretoria, the country's capital, flurries filled the sky during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. It was the first snowfall there since 1968, the weather service said. The cold weather is expected to last a few days. - Huffington Post
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Igloo

First Time Ever in South Africa: Snow in All 9 Provinces


News24
Thu, 09 Aug 2012 20:41 UTC
JoBurg Snow
© News24Much of SA is covered in a blanket of snow as the latest cold front sinks its teeth into the country. Share your snow photos with us.
Johannesburg - It is probably the first time ever that snow has fallen in all nine of South Africa's provinces on the same day.

Kenosi Machepa from the SA Weather Service said this when referring to the vast cold front that brought snow to Pretoria for the first time since the late 1960s, reported Beeld.

In the Western Cape, snow fell on mountains in the Boland as well as in towns like Richmond and Touws River while snow was lying thick on the Matroosberg in Ceres.

In Johannesburg, snow was lying up to 20cm deep in some areas while Golden Gate in the Free State got the most snow in six years.

In Bethlehem, snow was up to 70cm deep and schools were closed due to the weather. There was also snow in Mpumalanga and Limpopo while light snow fell in the North West.

The weather office said the cold would continue for another day or two.
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Igloo

Johannesburg Marvels at Rare Snowfall


Agence France-Presse
Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:41 UTC
Snow in JoBurg
© News24South Africans have taken to social networks sharing pictures of snow falling in Joburg and surrounding areas. Share your snow photos with us.
Snow flurries blew through Johannesburg on Tuesday, dusting the city in white as residents poured into the streets to watch the snowflakes fall.

"It's amazing, Merry Christmas!" said Roger Gibbs, driving through a leafy suburb where the trees were frosted in white.

Snow falls annually in the mountains of South Africa and Lesotho, which even hosts a ski resort, but the high plains around Johannesburg haven't seen snow in five years.

The snowfall swept north across Johannesburg, coating southern neighbourhoods in the early morning and then moving toward the Sandton and Pretoria.

"Amazing! Never happened in my life," said Mizundile Eseu, 23, a security guard.

Authorities urged motorists to take care on the roads, with few drivers used to travelling on snowy streets, but no accidents had been reported by midday.
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Chess

Archaeologists discover Paleolithic Ice Age culture that flourished in Balkans 17,500 years ago


Horsetalk.co.nz
Sun, 29 Jul 2012 05:12 UTC
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© Rebecca Farbstein The leg and torso from the model of a four-legged animal, possibly a deer or horse. It is one of 36 ceramic items recovered from Vela Spila, Croatia.
Ceramics found on the coast of the Adriatic attest to a previously unknown artistic culture which flourished during the last Ice Age, thousands of years before pottery was commonly used.

One of the better-preserved items among the 36 recovered fragments seems to be the torso and foreleg of a horse or deer. Its creator deliberately minimised the number of joins in the model, perhaps to give it structural strength.

The evidence unearthed in modern-day Croatia points to the existence of a community of prehistoric artists and craftspeople who made ceramics during the last Ice Age - thousands of years before pottery became commonplace.

The finds consist of 36 fragments, most of them apparently the broken-off remnants of modelled animals. They come from a site called Vela Spila on the Adriatic coast.

Comment: Again we see that history is far from being a straight upward trend of 'progress'. What if the reason why artistic traditions can spring up, become lost, then re-emerge is because cyclical cataclysms periodically intervene?

The Golden Age, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction

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Igloo

Ice Age Beckons: Greenland ice sheet melted at unprecedented rate during July

Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian
Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:40 UTC
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© NASAThe Greenland ice sheet on July 8, left, and four days later on the right. In the image, the areas classified as 'probable melt' (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as 'melt' (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting.
The Greenland ice sheet melted at a faster rate this month than at any other time in recorded history, with virtually the entire ice sheet showing signs of thaw.

The rapid melting over just four days was captured by three satellites. It has stunned and alarmed scientists, and deepened fears about the pace and future consequences of climate change.

In a statement posted on Nasa's website on Tuesday, scientists admitted the satellite data was so striking they thought at first there had to be a mistake.

"This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?" Son Nghiem of Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena said in the release.

He consulted with several colleagues, who confirmed his findings. Dorothy Hall, who studies the surface temperature of Greenland at Nasa's space flight centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, confirmed that the area experienced unusually high temperatures in mid-July, and that there was widespread melting over the surface of the ice sheet.

Climatologists Thomas Mote, at the University of Georgia, and Marco Tedesco, of the City University of New York, also confirmed the melt recorded by the satellites.

Comment: Forget rising sea levels, what we should be worrying about is fresh meltwater diluting the salty North Atlantic, interfering with or even shutting down the conveyor belt cold-warm water mechanism of the Gulf Stream, which keeps the East coast of the US and Canada and the Northwestern Europe relatively warm. If that goes, we will enter an ice age.

Essential reading: Fire and Ice: The Day After Tomorrow

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© unknownA diagram of the Gulf Stream conveyor and related currents.

©
This image shows how the British Isles, Western Europe and Scandinavia are bathed in the heat of the Gulf Stream



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