Gobal Warming - the Persian Gulf edition

Today's report from the United Arab Emirates on the ongoing effects of global warming climate change. -

Snow covered the Jebel Jais area for only the second time in recorded history yesterday.

So rare was the event that one lifelong resident said the local dialect had no word for it.

According to the RAK Government, temperatures on Jebel Jais dropped to -3°C on Friday night. On Saturday, the area had reached 1°C.Major Saeed Rashid al Yamahi, a helicopter pilot and the manager of the Air Wing of RAK Police, said the snow covered an area of five kilometres and was 10cm deep.

“The sight up there this morning was totally unbelievable, with the snow-capped mountain and the entire area covered with fresh, dazzling white snow,” Major al Yamahi said.

Brrrr

Think it's cold where you are? Check out eastern Siberia.

A cool year

I've seen a lot of newspaper stories about how this has been such a cool year. I was willing to nod knowingly and agree, while sweating. Then I saw this image.

Wouldn't you know it would turn out that I live in the one major area in the entire country that has seen significantly higher temperatures this year.

More Gobal Warming

While claims fly that the north pole could be iceless this year, there are different reports from nearer the other pole, in New Zealand.

Mt Ruapehu is claiming the biggest snow base ever recorded for a New Zealand skifield with over 4.5m of snow on the ground.

Ruapehu Alpine Lifts, operator of Mt Ruapehu ski area, was celebrating what it called a major milestone today.

The snow measuring stake at Turoa previously only stood at 380cm so had to be extended to measure today's 455cm snow base.

The Whakapapa side of the mountain also had 350cm of snow, the biggest since 1995.

For the metrically challenged, a 455cm snow base translates as 179 inches (about 15 feet).

So, anyway, how is that whole ice-free, basking on the beach, polar bear-drowning thing working out? Uh, not.

...data sources show Arctic ice having made a nice recovery this summer. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center data shows 2008 ice nearly identical to 2002, 2005 and 2006. Maps of Arctic ice extent are readily available from several sources, including the University of Illinois, which keeps a daily archive for the last 30 years. A comparison of these maps (derived from NSIDC data) below shows that Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007. (2008 is a leap year, so the dates are offset by one.)

Electric Cars

Hey, if you want to go green, how about buying a new Tesla?
It's all electric.
It does 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds.
Gets 220 miles on a single charge.
"Fuel" costs are under 2 cents per mile.

They're taking reservations now, and the first production models are delivering.

Cost? Oh, the base price is $109,000, and delivery is in 12 months. If you want to lock in an earlier delivery date, that can be done for an additional $55,000. Full payment being due 3 months before they deliver your car.

Arctic Ice Disappearing due to Bush Administration and Volcanoes, but mostly Volcanoes?

Yeah, volcanoes. Under the ice cap.

Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.

The eruptions -- as big as the one that buried Pompei -- took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge

Meanwhile, in the Colorado mountains...

...they're still skiing.

With an average of 3 feet of snow still covering the upper slopes of Aspen Mountain, the Aspen Skiing Co. will open the top of the mountain to midday skiing this weekend.

Seven runs and 45 acres of mostly intermediate terrain will be served by the Ajax Express lift, officials announced Monday.

The mountain will be open to skiing and riding Friday through Sunday; the Ajax Express chair will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily. Skiers and riders must upload and download on the Silver Queen Gondola, which will be running from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the last ride down at 4:30 p.m.

No, that's not a misprint.

It all evens out

It's been really hot here on the east coast, but on the west coast, all that climate change has people dying.

A Bellevue man who intended to spend only the day on the slopes of Mount Rainier has died after being caught in a blizzard.

Two others in the hiking party, suffering from frostbite and hypothermia, are awaiting rescue at Camp Muir at the 10,000-foot level.

What? It's June. Surely that can't be right. Hmmm, better check another story.

As Western Washington residents thaw out after the coldest June week on record, forecasters say drivers heading for the mountain passes could expect up to 5 inches of snow to fall by Tuesday morning.

What the hell? That can't be right. We were all supposed to be suffering the hottest temperatures ever seen. Well, I guess not in Washington.

With summer only 11 days away, what Seattle has is higher sustained heating bills from the unusually persistent chill of what is now the coldest spring on record for the Seattle area, traction tires required to slip through the passes Tuesday and a threatened growing season for local farmers.

Overall, daytime high temperatures in the region have averaged at least 10 degrees below normal -- while overnight lows have been only slightly chillier than normal -- translating into more gas and electricity use higher bills.

Whew! So I guess they'll be spared a little longer than us.

Gobal Warming Causes Volcanic Eruptions

You knew it had to come up eventually.

Increased volcanic activity is linked to ice melted by the effects of global warming, a study has found.

So much ice in Iceland has melted in the past century that the pressure on the land beneath has lessened, which allows more of the rock deep in the ground to turn to magma. Until the ice melted, the pressure was so intense that the rock remained solid.

Carolina Pagli, of the University of Leeds, led research which calculated that over the past century the production of magma had increased by 10 per cent.

The research team, reporting their findings in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, said an extra 1.4 cu km of magma has been created under the Vatnajökull ice-cap in the past 100 years.

Since 1890 the ice-cap has lost 10 per cent of its mass, which has allowed the land to rise by up to 25m (82ft) a year.

Son of a B! The area where this ice cap was has risen 25 meters per year for the last 118 years? Where there was a flat plain before, now there's a mountain nearly 10,000 feet tall? That in itself ought to pretty well accommodate a measly 1.4 cu km (0.34 cu mile) of magma. But what a great tourist attraction!

Damn that Global Warming!

It's just not safe to go outside anymore.

GILFORD, N.H. (AP) - Much of this week's winter carnival in Gilford has been canceled, due to too much winter.

Parks and Recreation Director Herb Greene notes that the cancellation of 2 events was due to poor road conditions and snow-filled parking lots.

Of the three events originally scheduled for Wednesday, the Cardboard Box Sled Derby has been rescheduled to Friday morning.

Renewable energy, but not very reliable

Windmills sound great, but not so good in practice at times.

A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather,
triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut
service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday.
Electric
Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in
west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as
colder temperatures moved into the state.
The grid operator went directly to
the second stage of an emergency plan at 6:41 PM CST (0041 GMT), ERCOT said in a
statement.

Global Warming Kills

I t was just a matter of time, wasn't it? They've been warning us all along, and now it's happened.

Six people have been killed in three days by icicles falling from buildings in a central Russian region, ITAR-TASS news agency reported Tuesday.

Global Warming

This is what happens when your global warming gets out of control.

The Arctic Icecap

Yes, it's true! The arctic icecap has shrunk!

The European space agency said its images showed the rate of overall ice loss had risen sharply to its highest rate since satellite records began thirty years ago.

That's opened up the historically impassable Northwest passage through the Canadian Arctic, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The famous sea-route has, until recently, been completely ice-bound throughout the year. Scientists say global warming is to blame for melting the ice and making the route navigable for the first time since records began in 1978.

OMG! The melting has reached the greatest rate seen in the 30 years of records!! Ice levels have reached their lowest levels in 30 years of records!!! Uh, wouldn't that mean that, on average, the icecap had been greater in the last few years than 30 years ago?

Global Warming - A Small Correction

We keep hearing about how every recent year is the warmest ever. NASA has just released revised temperature figures. The warmest year on record is no longer 1988 (it's #2). The warmest year is 1935. The "dust bowl", remember? The #3 year is 1921. #4 is 2006!! But #5 is 1931.

Now, this graph, for the U.S. alone, may not mean much. Or it may. How do you decide? The trend is "up", but with all of 125 years of data how useful is that?

Norwegians Announce Plan to Migrate to Reindeer Pulled Sleighs

OK, they claim to want to convert to biodeisel.

Norway's government is working on a proposal that could lead to a ban on the sale of gasoline-powered cars.

The parliamentary transport groups in the governing Labour, Socialist Left and Center parties have aired the proposal, and the Transport Ministry is now working intensely to determine whether such a ban is possible, newspaper VG reports.

"This is not a problem to arrange. In Brazil over 80 percent of cars sold run on bio-ethanol. Most of the major car makers are banking on flexi-fuel," said Labor parliamentary transport committee representative Truls Wickstrøm.

"Such a ban would pressure the automobile industry into developing technology faster than it otherwise would," said Jenny Klinge, the Center Party representative on the transport committee.

Yes, but where are you going to get the plant matter for this? Norway is not notes for its extensive vegetation cover.

Climate Change

OK, I swiped this from Lou Minatti, who found it on someone else's site. Hell, while I'm swiping his stuff, why bother to retype it:

Click the image below to enlarge.


There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.

...The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.

... Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

Take that you fascist Bush-loving climate change deniers. Whoops! Wait a minute. Cooling you say? Hey, no fair! This article is from 1975.

Getting a Grilling Over Global Warming

This may turn out to be a hoax, though it's posted several places. I swiped this version off of Fox News.

Local officials in Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia have a new tool in the fight against global warming. They have approved a tax on barbequing. Experts say that up to 100 grams of carbon dioxide are produced during barbequing.

Wow! That's seems like a really efficient way to fight global warming.

What's it going to cost me to BBQ a steak?

So Wallonians will have to pay 20 euros — about 27 dollars — each time they fire up the grill.

Uhh, that seems a bit steep. In fact it seems like a tax designed to keep restaurants operating, instead of folks cooking at home. By the way, how do you plan on enforcing this?

And the authorities aren't kidding around when it comes to enforcement. Officials say they will use helicopters with thermal sensors to detect illegal grilling.

Umm, OK, so you are going to use helicopters. Some of the smallest copters burn 28 gallons of gas an hour. So, you are going to wind up making about 200 kilos of CO2 per hour to find people producing 0.1 kilo of CO2. The break-even point is detecting 2000 backyard grills going per hour, or about 1 every 2 seconds.

Of course, that's only the CO2 break-even for the copter. It doesn't even consider the cost of operating the copter.

Those wacky French-speaking people! This story just seems like it has to be an April Fool's item.

UPDATE: Yup, it was a joke.

BRUSSELS, April 4 (RIA Novosti) - The government of Wallonia has refuted allegations of plans to introduce a tax on barbequing in this Belgian French-speaking region.

Reports appeared in local media earlier in the month that a law had been approved to charge residents of the 4-million-strong region 20 euros for each grilling session beginning in June.

"We have repeatedly denied this information, which is nothing but an April Fool's Day joke. But we never imagined it would create such a fuss," said the press secretary of Wallonia's minister for agricultural, rural affairs, the environment and tourism.

Kyoto Follies

First, the story...

VICTORIA–The B.C. government yesterday announced a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent – a target that appears to go farther than those recently set by California.

By comparison, under the Kyoto accord Canada is committed to a 6 per cent cut in greenhouse emissions from 1990 levels by 2012. Ontario has no set targets.

The Liberal government's plan aims to reduce B.C.'s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 33 per cent below today's levels by 2020.

The target will place greenhouse gas emissions at 10 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, Lt.-Gov. Iona Campagnolo said in a throne speech dominated by the new environmental agenda.

So, a 33% cut will reduce their emissions to 10% below 1990 levels, the Kyoto baseline year. In other words, in the last 17 years their emissions have climbed 23%. What do you think their chances of success are?