"Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life here."
So goes the old Star Trek joke, and it sometimes feels true here on Earth. The Religionistas of Algore still assert that AGW is real, and "the science is settled," despite clear evidence of their fraudulent manipulation of data and the peer-review process, mounting rebuttals by scientific papers, and a strong slap by the Earth itself: record-breaking cold patterns for the third year in a row.
Here in Dallas, we've just inched up from a week-long dip into the low teens: our normal temperatures are 20 degrees warmer.
"Oh yeah?" say the Gorified Ones, "those are crank 'skeptics' and 'climate change denialist fringe' papers no reputable journal would touch! So it's a bit colder than usual in Dallas, or Peru, that's just an anomaly."
Okay, let's have A) the observations (and AGW spin to explain it), and then B) a look at the latest in a growing string of peer-reviewed, top-tier papers.
OBSERVATIONS
Of course, the most obvious place to start would be at the site of the Conference on Global Climate Change in Copenhagen... yes, Virginia, there is poetic justice.
DENMARK
THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS: BRRRRRRR!: RECORD COLD IN DENMARK...continues
Record Cold Hit Global Warming Conference (Copenhagen to Break Record by 7 Degrees!)
UNITED STATES
U.S. East Coast Faces Deep Freeze; Florida Oranges Threatened
By Dan Hart
Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. East Coast faces the coldest night of the season as frigid air spills south and threatens agriculture in Georgia, Alabama and the orange crop in Florida.
Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation.
Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. “This is a pretty significant cold snap,” Matt Keefe, a meteorologist withAccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. “This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop.” He said the jet stream, which normally keeps the coldest air north of the Hudson Bay in Canada, is centered over parts of Alabama and Mississippi. “The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week,” he said.
Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. The Miami area will see temperatures 12 degrees to 13 degrees below normal for this time of year, Keefe said. Tonight will be the coldest and offer the greatest danger of crop damage, Keefe said. The next chance for freezing will come next week.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month estimated Florida’s orange crop will be 0.7 percent smaller than earlier forecast because adverse weather reduced fruit size.
In New York, overnight lows may be 22 degrees, with wind chills dropping the experience to single digits. Philadelphia may see a low of 20 degrees, Keefe said. Washington may slip to 19 degrees, he said.
So is it just Dallas, or the East Coast? No.
Vermont sets 'all-time record for one snowstorm'...
Iowa temps 'a solid 30 degrees below normal'...
Or is it just the U.S.? No.
PERU
Peru's mountain people face fight for survival
Annie Kelly in Pichccahuasi, The Observer, Sunday 3 January 2010 [click on title for complete article - rated S for strong spin]
For alpaca farmer Ignacio Beneto Huamani and his young family, life in the Peruvian Andes, at almost 4,700m above sea level, has always been a struggle against the elements. His village of Pichccahuasi, in Peru's Huancavelica region, is little more than a collection of small thatched shelters and herds of alpaca surrounded by beautiful, yet bleakly inhospitable, mountain terrain.
The few hundred people who live here are hardened to poverty and months of sub-zero temperatures during the long winter. But, for the fourth year running, the cold came early. First their animals and now their children are dying and in such escalating numbers that many fear that life in the village may be rapidly approaching an end.
There have been warnings from meteorologists in Peru that this month will see the Huancavelica region hit by the worst weather conditions in years with plunging temperatures, floods and high winds. The weather is already claiming lives; last month seven people died and scores were treated in hospital after torrential rain caused flash flooding in Ayacucho, the capital of the neighbouring region.
More AGW Religionista spin (from the same article), complete with the usual Hurry! Catastrophe! For the Children!:
In a world growing ever hotter, Huancavelica is an anomaly. These communities, living at the edge of what is possible, face extinction because of increasingly cold conditions in their own microclimate, which may have been altered by the rapid melting of the glaciers.
The cold is tipping Pichccahuasi into a spiralling decline brought on by pneumonia, bronchitis and hunger. "All the children here are sick, they all have breathing problems. The problem is there is too much cold, too much rain. We have had no time to recover from last winter before it has begun again. There is nothing I can do."
Climate change campaigners and development NGOs say that the failure of Copenhagen has signed the death warrant for hundreds of thousands of the world's poorest and that a quarter of a million children will die before world leaders meet again to try to thrash out another deal at the United Nations next climate change conference in Mexico in December. Among them may be these children of the high mountains.
Click on the title of the article for the rest, a full 34 paragraphs of drivel and heart-tugging anecdotes after only 2 paragraphs of actual information about the climate.
Record snow in East Asia; 1400 trapped on train for 30 hours
Residents in China's capital Beijing started clearing away the blanket of snow that covered the city, while rescuers in Inner Mongolia saved 1,400 passengers from a train covered in snow.
Northern China is currently experiencing the heaviest snowfall in six decades.
Clearing Beijing with shovels, brooms
Beijing does not have the infrastructure needed to clear a large snowfall quickly - but what it lacks in machinery, it makes up for in manpower. With snow ploughs in short supply, more than 300-thousand people were assigned to clear snow in the capital with shovels and brooms.
Train trapped in Inner Mongolia
On Monday, more than 1400 passengers were evacuated from a train trapped by heavy snow for more than 30 hours, China's state television reported. The train from Harbin to Baotou ran into snow more than two meters (6.5 feet) high near Jining in Inner Mongolia on Sunday and the first group of passengers were evacuated on Monday.
The heavy snow led to the delay of 13 passenger trains in Inner Mongolia, and forced the closure of all four airports in Shandong, as well as 30 state highways in northern China.
Seoul snow, heaviest since 1937
In South Korea, residents in the capital Seoul were slowly resuming their daily routine on Tuesday, a day after the capital was hit by the heaviest snowfall in modern Korean history, paralyzing traffic and forcing flight cancellations.
More than 11 inches (28 cm) of snow fell on Seoul on Monday, the heaviest in a single day since Korea began conducting meteorological surveys in 1937.
Japanese Island Also Covered
Heavy snow also blanketed Sapporo on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, forcing the main airport to cancel nearly 80 flights since last Wednesday.
BRITAIN
Arctic Winds from Siberia to Scotland
Gale-force winds sweeping down from Siberia could result in temperatures as low as minus 16 degrees in the capital today, the Beijing meteorological station said. Freezing temperatures have also hit Britain, which is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century. Parts of Scotland have been under snow for nearly three weeks and temperatures are expected to drop to minus 16 degrees. Meteorologists predicted the freezing snap will last until at least mid-January, with snow, ice and severe frosts dominating. And the likelihood is that the second half of the month will be even colder.
The cold weather comes despite the Met Office's long-range forecast, published in October, of a mild winter. That followed its earlier inaccurate prediction of a "barbecue summer", which was marked by heavy rainfall and the wettest July for almost 100 years. Paul Michaelwaite, forecaster for NetWeather.tv, said: "It is looking like this winter could be in the top 20 cold winters in the last 100 years.''
A fleet of gritters in Perth, central Scotland, was grounded because of the cold, leaving roads untreated in temperatures of minus 10 degrees. Perth and Kinross Council said the gritters were unable to leave the depot after the extreme weather led to difficulties in refuelling. Perth resident Ian Thomson said: "I've heard of the rail companies blaming the wrong kind of snow and leaves on the line for disruption, but for the council to say it was too cold to get the gritters out is just ridiculous."
It's not just in Britain
INDIA
In the northern Indian plains, close to 100 people died in the cold wave keeping its grip with rain and snow in the mountainous regions, drastically bringing down temperatures.
The victims were mostly poor people forced to live rough, sleeping on the streets or in many cases out in the open with little or no covering. The majority of the victims, about 72, were from the poorest and relatively underdeveloped Uttar Pradesh province, north of the federal capital, New Delhi, where state help was limited.
RUSSIA
A country much more used to dealing with high levels of snow, Russia saw temperature lows of a chilling -20C in Moscow today.
Those travelling on trains at stations near the Russian city of Vorkuta, attempted to continue their journeys despite the freezing conditions.
A worker tries to clear the train tracks while a man, unaware of the train approaching him, attempts to cross
Workers also tried to sweep snow from the train tracks, but found it was falling too fast to clear.
However, two men making the most of the snow were Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who decided to take to the slopes in Krasnaya Polyana near the Black Sea resort of Sochi in southern Russia. The duo donned heavy jackets and goggles as they skiied together, with Putin looking serious as the pair indulged in some seemingly serious political conversations.
GERMANY
The snow caused more problems with flights in Germany, with one jet veering off the runway at Dortmund airport in western Germany. The plane was not damaged but flights from the airport were cancelled or diverted for a large part of the day.
Airline spokeswoman Diane Daedelow said: 'A combination of the snowy weather and the speed the plane was travelling at forced the plane to skid off the runway.'
Over 30 flights from Frankfurt airport were also cancelled this morning.
Arctic cold air invasion with snow and or ice spans worldwide
AUSTRIA
Native Austrians, who are much more accustomed to dealing with snow struggled to deal with the freezing lows of 17 degrees at night and 26 degrees during the day. More snow is expected over the next several days.
SWITZERLAND
Four people were killed and three more were feared dead after two avalanches struck at the same Swiss resort just minutes apart on Sunday. As an Alpine search team arrived to free one man buried under tons of snow, a second avalanche hit the slope 20 minutes later burying several rescuers and more skiers.
One person was found dead at the scene, while three more died later in hospital, including one rescue service doctor. Five others were injured, and three more were still missing in what police said was one of the worst avalanche disasters in Switzerland in ten years. Two skiers were buried in separate incidents in another avalanche near the town of Verbier close to the border with France and Italy. One person was killed while his guide was rescued alive. The start of the ski season and heavy snowfall in recent days have prompted officials to warn of a heightened avalanche risk in the Swiss Alps.
So, okay, it's cold in the Northern Hemisphere. It's January, duh, okay maybe a bit colder than usual... but this is due to Global Warming, erm, Climate Change!!
Right?
The latest peer-reviewed papers say no.
SCIENCE
The mini ice age starts here
By DAVID ROSE
Last updated at 11:17 AM on 10th January 2010
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.
Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.
The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise. They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’. This challenge to the widespread view that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible catastrophe is all the greater because the scientists could never be described as global warming ‘deniers’ or sceptics.
However, both main British political parties continue to insist that the world is facing imminent disaster without drastic cuts in CO2.
Last week, as Britain froze, Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband maintained in a parliamentary answer that the science of global warming was ‘settled’.
[The image at left is of the UK taken from NASA's multi-national Terra satellite on Thursday shows the extent of the freezing weather]
Among the most prominent of the scientists is Professor Mojib Latif, a leading member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been pushing the issue of man-made global warming on to the international political agenda since it was formed 22 years ago. Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start.
AGW Models don't include and cannot predict MDO
He and his colleagues predicted the new cooling trend in a paper published in 2008 and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva last September. Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent. 'They have now gone into reverse, so winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer.
‘The extreme retreats that we have seen in glaciers and sea ice will come to a halt. For the time being, global warming has paused, and there may well be some cooling.’
As Europe, Asia and North America froze last week, conventional wisdom insisted that this was merely a ‘blip’ of no long-term significance. Though record lows were experienced as far south as Cuba, where the daily maximum on beaches normally used for winter bathing was just 4.5C, the BBC assured viewers that the big chill was merely short-term ‘weather’ that had nothing to do with ‘climate’, which was still warming.
The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view.
On the one hand, it is true that the current freeze is the product of the ‘Arctic oscillation’ – a weather pattern that sees the development of huge ‘blocking’ areas of high pressure in northern latitudes, driving polar winds far to the south. Meteorologists say that this is at its strongest for at least 60 years. As a result, the jetstream – the high-altitude wind that circles the globe from west to east and normally pushes a series of wet but mild Atlantic lows across Britain – is currently running not over the English Channel but the Strait of Gibraltar.
However, according to Prof Latif and his colleagues, this in turn relates to much longer-term shifts – what are known as the Pacific and Atlantic ‘multi-decadal oscillations’ (MDOs).
For Europe, the crucial factor here is the temperature of the water in the middle of the North Atlantic, now several degrees below its average when the world was still warming. But the effects are not confined to the Northern Hemisphere.
Prof Anastasios Tsonis, head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, has recently shown that these MDOs move together in a synchronised way across the globe, abruptly flipping the world’s climate from a ‘warm mode’ to a ‘cold mode’ and back again in 20 to 30-year cycles. 'They amount to massive rearrangements in the dominant patterns of the weather,’ he said yesterday, ‘and their shifts explain all the major changes in world temperatures during the 20th and 21st Centuries. 'We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures.’
Prof Tsonis said that the period from 1915 to 1940 saw a strong warm mode, reflected in rising temperatures. But from 1940 until the late Seventies, the last MDO cold-mode era, the world cooled, despite the fact that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continued to rise.
Many of the consequences of the recent warm mode were also observed 90 years ago. For example, in 1922, the Washington Post reported that Greenland’s glaciers were fast disappearing, while Arctic seals were ‘finding the water too hot’. It interviewed a Captain Martin Ingebrigsten, who had been sailing the eastern Arctic for 54 years: ‘He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, and since that time it has gotten steadily warmer.
'Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended into the sea they have entirely disappeared.’ As a result, the shoals of fish that used to live in these waters had vanished, while the sea ice beyond the north coast of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean had melted. Warm Gulf Stream water was still detectable within a few hundred miles of the Pole.
In contrast, Prof Tsonis said, last week 56 per cent of the surface of the United States was covered by snow. ‘That hasn’t happened for several decades,’ he pointed out. ‘It just isn’t true to say this is a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while.’
He recalled that towards the end of the last cold mode, the world’s media were preoccupied by fears of freezing. For example, in 1974, a Time magazine cover story predicted ‘Another Ice Age’, saying: ‘Man may be somewhat responsible – as a result of farming and fuel burning [which is] blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the Earth.’ Prof Tsonis said: ‘Perhaps we will see talk of an ice age again by the early 2030s, just as the MDOs shift once more and temperatures begin to rise.’
Like Prof Latif, Prof Tsonis is not a climate change ‘denier’. There is, he said, a measure of additional ‘background’ warming due to human activity and greenhouse gases that runs across the MDO cycles.
But he added: ‘I do not believe in catastrophe theories. Man-made warming is balanced by the natural cycles, and I do not trust the computer models which state that if CO2 reaches a particular level then temperatures and sea levels will rise by a given amount.
'These models cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to give readings for 100 years.’
Prof Tsonis said that when he published his work in the highly respected journal Geophysical Research Letters, he was deluged with ‘hate emails’. He added: ‘People were accusing me of wanting to destroy the climate, yet all I’m interested in is the truth.’
The work of Profs Latif, Tsonis and their teams raises a crucial question: If some of the late 20th Century warming was caused not by carbon dioxide but by MDOs, then how much? Tsonis did not give a figure; Latif suggested it could be anything between ten and 50 per cent. Other critics of the warming orthodoxy say the role played by MDOs is even greater.
William Gray, emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, said that while he believed there had been some background rise caused by greenhouse gases, the computer models used by advocates of man-made warming had hugely exaggerated their effect.
According to Prof Gray, these distort the way the atmosphere works. ‘Most of the rise in temperature from the Seventies to the Nineties was natural,’ he said. ‘Very little was down to CO2 – in my view, as little as five to ten per cent.’
[TL: The AGW Religionistas are unrepentant, louder than ever, though their credibility rates about that of the fake picture at left]
But last week, die-hard warming advocates were refusing to admit that MDOs were having any impact. In March 2000, Dr David Viner, then a member of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, the body now being investigated over the notorious ‘Warmergate’ leaked emails, said that within a few years snowfall would become ‘a very rare and exciting event’ in Britain, and that ‘children just aren’t going to know what snow is’. Now the head of a British Council programme with an annual £10 million budget that raises awareness of global warming among young people abroad, Dr Viner last week said he still stood by that prediction: ‘We’ve had three weeks of relatively cold weather, and that doesn’t change anything.
'This winter is just a little cooler than average, and I still think that snow will become an increasingly rare event.’
The longer the cold spell lasts, the harder it may be to persuade the public of that assertion.
79 Comments
MikeinAZ
Great compilation TL, kudos. The best one yet!!
JennJohnson
I got cold reading it. I need to move south for the winters if they are going to keep being this frigid.
SanDiegoGuy
Here's someone who STRONGLY disagrees with your assertions, TLC:
Anonymous
TLaCour
Stolen shamelessly from StunckInNJ's PEAK ICE:
Gaze and wonder, and weep, for this, too, shall... melt.
Anonymous
More evidence that ACW is a Hoax: Mexico's peso hits a record low!
From Feb 20, 2009: Mexico peso hits record low versus the dollar...
Oh.
This article is about Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), not Adjusted Currency Whackiness (ACW).
Never mind.
Anyway, it'll probably scoot back up when the dollar resumes its plunge in time for the Global Climatge Change Conference in Mexico this year.
HansGruber
Even when the icebergs start floating by the Statue of Liberty, their will still be diehards screaming about the earth heating up. When do we start seeing the theories that the sun is actually the primary cause of global heating and cooling?
SSS
This post is smokin', TLC. Many thanks. My guess is that any global warming legislation is DOA.
Anonymous
Record cold has killed 49 so far this winter in Mexico
The national death toll due to the cold wave stands at almost 50.
A total of 49 people have died of the cold weather in Mexico so far this winter, authorities in some of the affected states told EFE Friday.
Thirty of the deaths took place in the northern state of Chihuahua, where the thermometer dipped as low as minus 20 C (minus 4 F) this winter, one of the severest the country has experienced in recent years.
The other victims succumbed in the states of Sonora, Puebla, Coahuila, Tlaxcala, Queretaro, Hidalgo, Zacatecas and Baja California.
More than half the deaths were due to carbon-monoxide poisoning from faulty gas heating in homes.
In some cases, authorities found the dead families had completely sealed off all their doors and windows to keep out the cold, and then they had fallen asleep with the heaters running - a deadly combination of mistakes.
In another fatal situation, it was found that a mother was cooking several pots of food on the stove, also in an unventilated home.
"When they don´t leave (proper) ventilation for the heaters, the flames can go out for lack of oxygen, and carbon monoxide or butane gas - both of them toxic - fill the rooms," Guadalupe Sandoval, fire chief in Ciudad Juárez, said soon after the cold wave hit in December.
In the western state of Jalisco, authorities declared Thursday a state of emergency in 29 municipalities due to the cold front affecting the central region of the country.
Anonymous
TLaCour
Cold Records in Cuba, Bahamas, Central America.
The WeatherMatrix Blog Jesse Ferrell [Bio] [Email Me] WeatherMatrix.Accuweather.com Tuesday, January 12, 2010 8:00 AMUPDATE: David Bernard, Chief Meteorologist CBS4 Miami emailed me - he got ahold of the Bahamians on thetelephone (now that's dedication!) and they say that their website is in fact incorrect; they said that Freeport was 39 in 1977 and West End of Grand Bahama had a reading of 35. As such yesterday's 41 did not break the record. Thanks David!
Also what a treat, there are a couple of excellent first-hand account of the Bahamas snow in 1977 and Key West record low in 1981 by my old friend Thomas Giella on my Facebook page:
"My first wife was born and raised in Key West. Her father was a retired Aeorgraphers Mate in the U.S. Coast Guardsmen. Their house sat on the largest private lot in the center of the island. On January 20, 1981 when Key West tied it's record low of 41 deg. ... See Morethe temperature fell to 31 deg at her dad's house and there was a thin sheet of ice on the bird bath. The location of the weather instruments at Key West AP stand/stood only 30 feet away from the Florida Strait and it's year round 80+ degree temperature. Also on January 18-19, 1977 I was in the U.S. Coast Guard as an Aerographers Mate. I was on an oceanographic vessel called the Evergreen. Were were probing the tongue of the ocean which lies in the middle of the Bahama Islands. I witnessed the air temperature fall to 34 deg with snow showers and wind gusts to 40 mph from the NW. It was the coldest I ever felt while underway."UPDATE: Some updates to the Cuba situation have been added below, along with a statement from Mexico about the winter being the worst in 124 years, plus news from the Honduras and El Salvador thanks to an email from Alexandre at the Metsul Blog.
So yesterday morning Key West, Florida got down to 42 degrees. In the over 50,000 days of historical records there since 1873, there had only been two mornings equal to or colder than yesterday morning. 30's were observed in the Keys and the freezing mark made it down to the southernmost part of Florida. I have annotated the AccuWeather.com graphic below with arrows pointing to the cities quoted (for those of you who don't know airport codes).
That made me think: what about the Bahamas, Cuba, and northeast Mexico - how close did they get to their records? The Bahamas Weather Service website says "The lowest recorded temperature was 41.4°F on January 20th, 1981." (1981 was also the last time that Key West set their record of 41). But yesterday morning Freeport fell to 41 degrees according to AccuWeather's climate database (available on our Pro Site -- the official station has not been transmitting observations very often so we'd need confirmation on that reading from the weather service in the Bahamas, I have sent them an email). If that's true, then they tied or broke their all-time record low for the country (data has been kept there since 1970). There are some related human interest stories at The Tribune and I have some emails out for further comment on the cold there.
Did it snow in the Bahamas yesterday? You may have noticed the persistent bands of clouds and precipitation on satellite and radar yesterday especially east of Miami (shown above). The clouds in general were formed by the extremely cold water pouring out onto the warm ocean (something that was caught on camera last year in North Carolina - yes I looked at the Gulf Buoy cam (link) hoping to see something interesting but it was too far away). Additional convergence of winds kept the band east of Miami going all night and day yesterday.
VISIBLE SAT ANIMATION | ENHANCED IR SOUTHEAST LOOP
These types of clouds (essentially causing "ocean-effect" precipitation, formed in the same way as lake-effect clouds) are not unusual on the mid-Atlantic coast but are rarely seen this far south. The band of precipitation never got close enough to Florida for us to see any observations of what was falling from it, and as noted the observations from Freeport were few and far between. But since our Snow/Ice/Rain radar chose to call it rain even during the night when the 41 was achieved at Freeport, I think it unlikely that any of it was snow. That occurrence is not unprecedented; again if we look to the Bahamas website they say "on January 19th, 1977... parts of the northern Bahamas experienced a brief flurry of light snow."
Now... the cold air didn't stop at Key West, it flowed on south into the Caribbean. Here is a map showing the lowest temperatures this month:
I figured the next stop was Cuba. The farthest north coastal station is Havana. Records for Cuba are harder to find but this website says that the all-time record low at Havana City was "6.0 (0 at Rancho Boyero)". That's in Celsius so that means 42.8 F. (I'll ignore the 0C/32F since it was at a different station location which was probably higher in elevation). Havana fell to 39 degrees F (4 C) this morning according to official observations (yesterday morning they had too much of an on-shore flow warming the area), so it would appear that all-time record low for that city was also broken. Here is a reprint of additional information translated from the MetSul Blog:
"In Ciego de Avila, with 5.2 ∫ C, recorded the lowest minimum in January to date since the beginning of observations, beating the record of 6.0 C in 1997. The same happened in Falla with 5.4 ∫ C, well below the lowest minimum in January so far of 6.3 ∫ C in 1981. In Caibarie, the minimum was absolute record for the entire series of the season with 10.7 ∫ C, below the previous mark of 10.8 C in 1996. This weekend, a new front in the Arctic comes to Cuba and not only extend the freeze to strengthen it. The record cold for Cuba date of February 18, 1996 with the record of 0.6 ∞ C at station Bainoa, province of La Habana."
Some more from Alexandres at Metsul: This article (en Espanol) says that local meteorologists have been having to explain that it will not snow in Cuba, despite the cold temperatures, but says that it was colder in 1970 and 1996 (Google Toolbar is a great way to automatically translate web pages if you have it). Mexico's NWS is calling this the "coldest winter in 124 years". In Honduras, one person died from hypothermia and parts of El Salvador are under "yellow alert"due to a cold front with high winds and temperatures between 4 and 8C.
Alexandre also says "according to a bulletin released by the Cuban Weather Service today, the low temperature at the Jose Marti Airport was 3.7C (38.7F) at 3:39 AM., even lower than the 4C indicated in the METAR ob. Today, there was a news piece in the Cuban media quoting a weather research that revelead it snow in the higher parts of Cuba in January 1852."
Then this morning I got an email from blog reader Luis who said: "Here, in Guatemala, I think we are not setting new low records, but it's really cold... There is in our country the tallest volcano in Central America, the Tajumulco, and it's the first time in my 50 years old that I have seen it snowed at the top." Wikipedia confirms this in December 2009. Looking at the only city that I have climate records for in the country on our Pro site, the Guatemala Airport, the coldest temperature since then was 46 F yesterday morning, which is confirmed with the NOAA obs. According to this website the coldest temperature ever recorded at the airport is 7C or 44.6 F; that city's all-time record may be safe (pending today's data), but it was close. As far as the entire country of Guatemala, Chris Burt, Author of "Extreme Weather" says that it has been as cold as 12 degrees in the mountains at Labor Ovalle but we have no way of knowing how cold it was there during this cold outbreak.
I also looked at Cancun, Mexico but it only got down to 55 F there this week (13 C), which is a far cry from the record of 7.2 C. Nearby Merida was 12C vs. 5C. The map above says Chetumal made it down to 50 F but I can't find records for that city.
So to summarize, this is what I would have appeared to uncover (assuming no errors, and pursuant to the records being made official from the respective governments and assuming this website is correct with it's records):
- The Bahamas broke their all-time country record low temperature
- Havana Cuba broke their all-time city record low temperature
- Guatemala City came within 1.4 degrees of breaking their all-time city record low temperature
TLaCour
Volcán Tajumulco in Guatemala freezes, with snow for the first time in history
Volcán Tajumulco is a large stratovolcano in the department of San Marcos in western Guatemala. It is the highest mountain in Guatemala and Central America at 4,220 metres (13,845 ft). Tajumulco has had several historical reports of volcanic eruptions, but none have been confirmed to be true eruptions.
The Volcán Tajumulco was declared a protected area in 1956 and covers an area of 4,472 Ha.[1]
On December 20, 2009 the temperatures dropped below zero and for the first time ever, a snowfall has been recorded at the top of the volcanoe, also affecting the highest town in Central America, Ixchiguán in the San Marcos department.[2]
TLaCour
Frozen Waves (frozen-waves)
Wisconin Living
Maybe Cuba and Venezula can send us some hot air, mostly from there idiot leaders, i *&%@! hate pinko communists.
Socratease
Obama's press secretary Gibbs:
Worldwide Record Cold Result of "Climate Change"
10 Jan 2010 - "I wish to personally thank him for verifying the idea that
someone would actually do that... amazing," says meteorologist Joe Bastardi.
See Obama press secretary Gibbs-
Worldwide Record Cold Result of Climate Change
"I didn't think it would be him, (press secretary Gibbs) but a lower level, perhaps epa or noaa spokesman," says meteorologist Joe Bastardi. "His (Gibbs) aides should make sure before he walks into it, they check things out so they understand that the same thing that was an ice age when he was growing up can't be global warming... oops I mean climate change now."
"I wish to personally thank him for verifying the idea that
someone would actually do that... amazing," says meteorologist Joe Bastardi.
ee video of Gibbs:
http://hotairpundit.blogspot.com/2010/01/robert-gibbs-worldwide-record-cold-is.html
See entire article by Joe Bastardi:
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp
Thanks to Emma Corry for this link
Socratease
Are sunspots set to disappear?3 Sep 09 – “Sunspot magnetic fields are dropping by about 50 gauss per year,"says researcher Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory (NSO). "If we extrapolate this trend into the future, sunspots could completely vanish around the year 2015."
See Are sunspots set to disappear?
The weather says NO to UN climate talks! –
Solar activity key determinate of climate
24 Sep 09 - "There is no evidence of any correlation between CO2 and
extreme weather events or that changes in hurricane incidence correlate
with world temperatures,” said astrophysicist Piers Corbyn.
See The weather says NO to UN climate talks!
Earth approaching sunspot records
21 Sep 09 - "The sun's recent activity, or lack thereof, may
be linked to the pleasant summer temperatures the midwest
has enjoyed this year, said Charlie Perry, a research hydrologist
with the U.S. Geological Survey in Lawrence.
See Earth approaching sunspot records
TLaCour
Ah, IceAgeNow.com! Thanks Socratease, I'd forgotten to see what they had to say lately.
Here are some oldies but goodies:
Russians order flight changes after huge magnetic shift downs airliners30 Jun 09 – Russian Air Force commanders have supposedly warned all aircraft to exercise extreme caution because geomagnetic storms "caused the loss of two major passenger aircraft during the past month."
See Russians order Flight Changes after Huge Magnetic Shift
Mystery of the Missing Sunspots supposedly solved
17 Jun 09 – Sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more
than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might
understand why. A jet stream deep inside the sun is apparently
migrating slower than usual, but "is now, finally, reaching the
critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months
and years ahead." How many months? How many years?
See Mystery of the Missing Sunspots supposedly solved
Diminished Solar Activity & Global Cooling
"A massive campaign of hooey"
30 May 09 - As more and more real scientific data comes in, it becomes clearer and clearer that the public has been fed a massive campaign of hooey for the past 20 years. Al Gore and his apostles have been shining us on with propa-ganda about climate change that doesn't even pass the smell test. See
Diminished Solar Activity and Global Cooling
JennJohnson
Nothing like hedging your bets...
“In addition to the global warming challenges, we need to address 'global cooling' effects and to do so promptly,” Putin said.
see article here.
Anonymous
List Of 2005-2008 Global Climate Change Freezing And Low Temperatures
Looking at Western Australia, Perth, Australia got it's first frosty freeze...EVER RECORDED. This happened in June 2006.
Heaviest snowfall in Southern Australia since 1951. This happened in August 2005.
Australian tropics affected by climate change? Record low temperatures reported from large areas of Queensland and in The Northern Territory. Retailers had a hard time meeting the sudden demand for warm clothes and heaters as low temperatures hit the area. Late June 2007. During the same time the long drought that had effected the interior were replaced by heavy rains and extensive flooding.
This PDF report from the Australia's National Meteorological Service document the exceptional nature of the weather event.
South America
Cold temperatures in the Andean mountains early in the season killed more than 200 people prompting emergency relief for Peru. Scientists blame this on"climate change"?..!!!!. Late may 2007
Southern South America is experience its harshest winters in living memory. It started in May with cold weather which led to energy shortage in Argentina and snowfall in the Andes. On the 9th of July 2007 Buenos Aires became covered in snow for the first time since 1918.
Persian Gulf
Hold on to your hat...or better still your "shimagh" or Arab head scarf because for the first time ever snow fell in one of the last days of 2004 in the United Arab Emirates. This country is located in the Persian Gulf and is more accustomed to temperatures above 40 degrees Centigrade.
The Middle East
Snow in Jerusalem in late December 2006.
Snow in Amman, Jordan and in Israel, March 2007
In 2007-2008 Iran saw its coldest winter in over 50 years. Global cooling deniers are not only limited to the west. Look at the interview with this Iranian lady who also are one of the authors of the IPCC rapport.
Extreme cool temperatures and heavy snowfall are apparently signs of global warming, Sorry--it is now called "Climate Change". -- Go figure!!
That winter saw northern and central part of Iran turn into an artic tundra.
On 11 January 2008, the people in Baghdad, Iraq were hit by bombardment of falling snowflakes. This was the first time this had happened for at least 100 years.
Northern parts of The Saudi Arabian kingdom was hit by a rare snowstorm by the same weather system that brought snow to Baghdad.
The Saudi King have to send help to snow weather victims.
---------------------------
The Artic
North Pole expedition to monitor Global Warming cancel trip due to severe frostbite...!!
In March 2007 two women on a trek to the North Pole had to stop their expedition and be rescued because the temperature sank to minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit, in March 2007.
Brian
Even Punxsutawney Phil isn't a believer in global warming. He's only predicted an early spring 13% of the time. If you can't trust a woodchuck, who can you trust?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punxsutawney_Phil
StuckInNJ
For your reference.
There is an exciting new article that was published today further demolishing AGW Truther claims. It starts out thusly,
"On Monday, scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute reported that they'd measured sea temperatures beneath an East Antarctic ice shelf and found no signs of warming whatsoever. "
Read the rest of this EXCELLENT article here; http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/antarctica_and_the_myth_of_dea_1.html
TLaCour
Great find, StuckInNJ!
Some pics and a bit of the text for the lazy:
American Thinker: Antarctica and the Myth of Deadly Rising Seas
For years now, alarmists have insisted thatAntarctica
However, there are several problems with their assertions, not the least of which is that all evidence of melting selectively focuses on the only area of the continent satellite evidence confirms is warming -- the western region in general, and the Antarctic Peninsula in particular.But as ICECAP's Joe D'Aleo observed in 2008 [PDF], the relatively small area of the peninsula offers an extremely poor representative sample, as it juts out well north of the mainland into an area of the South Atlantic well known for its "surface and subsurface active volcanic activity." And in the greater scheme, adds D'Aleo, "the vast continent has actually cooled since 1979."
Figure 1. Antarctic Temperature Trend 1982-2004 from Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors flown on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Of course, narrowly isolated melting doesn't support the hypothesis of widespread polar warming necessary to kindle such horrific images of metropolises submerged by anthropogenic impropriety. That's why locating and denouncing diminishing ice east of the Transantarctic Mountains ranks high on every green-funded researcher's to-do list. And that's also why it would appear that NPI scientists thought they had hit the jackpot when their models calculated that the ice shelves at Dronning Maud Land along Antarctica's northeastern border should be melting at the same rate as those farther west.
So last November, a team from NPI set out to investigate the status of just such a locale -- the Fimbul Ice Shelf. Their stated primary mission: to determine whether ice masses on the shelf are indeed currently on the decline.Figure 2. This graphic from the project’s website denotes the area of the Fimbul Ice Shelf within the red rectangle. That's the peninsula on the western border of the Weddell Sea
Last month, the expedition drilled its first borehole into the 250-to-400-meter-thick floating ice in order to study the melting and ocean circulation underneath. But readings revealed by the instruments they lowered into the water below were not quite what was anticipated.
In fact, contrary to the warmer, ice-melting temperatures predicted by models, NPI oceanographer and project leader Ole Anders Nøst reported that "the water under the ice shelf is very close to the freezing point." Furthermore, there seemed to have been no change in almost five years:We observed a roughly 50 meter deep layer of water with temperatures very close to the freezing point, about -2.05 degrees, just beneath the ice shelf. The highest observed temperature was about -1.83 degrees close to the bottom. The temperatures are very similar to temperature data collected by [equipment attached to] elephant seals in 2008 and by British Antarctic Survey using an autosub below the ice shelf in 2005. Nøst concluded that "This situation seems to be stable, suggesting that the melting under the ice shelf does not increase."
As to the ocean circulation models that incorrectly showed "warm deep water flowing in under the ice shelves," Nøst admitted that "as this is not observed, the models are most likely wrong and should be improved."
Translation: In contrast to model forecasts, Antarctic ice shelf collapse still appears to be isolated to a very tiny area in the western region of a continent otherwise experiencing continued glacial and ice shelf advancement.TLaCour
Observation trumps theory and models every time. When observation matches the predictions of theory or model... oh, dear. Predictions of 20–30 years of decreasing temperatures by the lead article's scientists reinforce those predictions of decreased food production raised elsewhere on this board.
Fruit in winter may become a lot less frequent and a lot more expensive.
Freeze may have damaged 30% of Florida crops
By MICHAEL SASSO | The Tampa Tribune
Published: January 14, 2010
TAMPA - Thirty percent of Florida's crops may have been lost in the cold snap, Florida's agriculture commission says, but for now it appears that the Bay area's strawberries avoided catastrophe.
Overall, certain crops in Florida were whacked hard by the sub-freezing temperatures, while others lucked out. Still, Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles Bronson said the crop losses probably run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Suffering the most is aquaculture, or the raising of tropical fish that are sold for homeowners' fish tanks. Among the industries affected by the cold weather are:
Strawberries: Plant City is the epicenter of the state's strawberry industry, which is worth at least $350 million annually, said Ted Campbell, executive director of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association.
Strawberry growers watered their crops around the clock to encase them in a protective layer of ice. However, they have pumped so much groundwater that geologists said they helped to cause sinkholes in eastern Hillsborough.
Still, the constant watering appears to have worked, though there is no estimate of damage yet, Campbell said.
"In terms of saving the crop, we feel pretty lucky when compared to some other crops in Florida."
Citrus: Florida Citrus Mutual, an association of citrus growers, doesn't have estimates of damage either. There has been some damage to the fruit, but even if oranges have frozen, many can still be squeezed and processed into juice. The industry is still studying how much damage has been done to citrus trees, which could be more problematic, said Andrew Meadows, a Florida Citrus Mutual spokesman.
Overall, citrus in Florida is about a $1 billion industry, not counting several billion more in ripple effects, Meadows said.
Aquaculture: Losses in this roughly $50 million local industry have run from about 30 percent to 100 percent, depending on the farm, said Marty Tanner, a local fish farmer and president of the Florida Aquaculture Association.
Fish begin to struggle when water temperature dips below 60 degrees, and in the recent cold snap most outdoor ponds fell below 50 degrees, he said.
Tomatoes: At this point in the year, most of the Ruskin area's tomatoes have already been picked, and the industry has shifted south to Homestead, said longtime grower Paul DiMare.
What tomatoes DiMare was still growing in Ruskin have died, as have his tomatoes in Immokalee. DiMare was able to save 80 percent of his Homestead crop, he said.
Earlier this month, Gov. Charlie Crist allowed fruit harvesting trucks to exceed their normal weight limits to allow them to harvest more quickly. On Thursday, Bronson asked Crist to request an agriculture disaster declaration from the federal government, which would let farmers receive emergency assistance.
Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865.
JennJohnson
Since when are earthquakes caused by global warming?
Actor Danny Glover believes that the Haitian earthquake was caused by climate change and global warming:
MRay
Danny Glover is a full blown idiot..
Next thing you know they'll be loading up Hatians by the millions and bring them to the US for .gov handouts and government housing. Instant Democrats, Obama would love it.
Global Warming just another way for government to lie, cheat and steal.
Flyguy
Danny Glover is so stupid, he forgets he's black and has to look in the mirror every morning to remind himself.
TLaCour
Speaking of fruits, and frigid fruities, two items of note: the NY/NJ Jets beat the Chargers (frigid East beats sunbaked Southern Cal, sorry SanDiegoGuy), and yet another shameless steal from StuckInNJ, Master of Cool Pics (actually, Master of IceCold-Brr-Dammit Pics) who posted this stellar scene of Florida's fruit fizzles in UNDENIABLE PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING:
Alessandro
Lets expand the discussion. Is it possible that any of the global warming or global cooling cycles have anything to do with man made events? 1918 would have conincided with the end of World War I. Could the fires caused from all of the battles have led to cooling for a while?
1974, end of the very long viet nam war. What about natural fires. Could we be having incidental influence on both ends of the scale and the earth eventually sort of evens it all out?
StuckInNJ
Here is yet another STUNNING revelation of AGW fraud that came out yesterday.
===================================================================
Published: Jan. 28, 2010Updated: 5:24 p.m. Editorial: Alarmists' credibility melting An Orange County Register editorial
Successive disclosures suggesting global warming science has been rigged to advance political and economic agendas is undermining the theory that manmade greenhouse gas emissions threaten the globe.
The latest revelation involves an Indian climate researcher admitting there was no scientific basis for his claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
In a British newspaper interview, he said his claim was mere speculation, after which he was hired by an Indian think tank to research the supposedly melting glaciers. Nevertheless, his bogus assertion was included in the United Nations' 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, and cited as proof that governments must crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Further, in an interview with the U.K.'s Sunday Mail newspaper, Murari Lal, coordinating lead author of the IPCC report's Asia chapter, admitted he knew there was no solid evidence to support the researcher's claim, but included it, anyway, to pressure world leaders into curbing global warming.
These are only the latest evidence of a strategy explained by Stanford University professor Steven Schneider, who said, in the nascent days of the global warming movement, that to obtain media coverage and win public opinion, "[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we might have."
Despite IPCC denials, analysis of 500 submitted comments suggests that reviewers of the 2007 report questioned the Himalayan assertion, but were ignored, according to former British chancellor Nigel Lawson of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
This follows December's "Climategate" scandal in which thousands of e-mails leaked from a U.K. climate research center indicated data were manipulated and skeptical voices silenced to advance the global warming theory. Afterward, a Russian think tank alleged climate researchers cherry-picked that nation's temperature readings to falsely show dramatic temperature increases. In the U.S. similar charges have been lodged about selectively choosing data later used by the IPCC to falsely show higher temperatures.
IPCC reports have been used to project economic catastrophe from global warming. But since last December's Copenhagen climate summit fizzled amid demands by poor countries that rich nations subsidize them to fight global warming, "banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market," which was intended to buy and sell credits issued by governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In an encouraging development, a high-ranking Chinese official Monday urged the United Nations to make its next report, "comprehensive by also citing contrarian views," noting climate changes can result from natural cycles. "We need to adopt an open attitude to scientific research and incorporate all views," Xie Zhenhua said. Not a bad idea because the science clearly isn't settled.
Anonymous