Telegraph-The Met Office said average rainfall for January to June of this year was 356.8mm, the lowest reading since 1929 when 275.7mm was recorded. The start of 2010 marks the second driest period for a century. The figures may come as some surprise to those still reeling from the coldest winter across Britain for 30 years. Met Office experts said that the same high pressure responsible for the the “Deep Freeze” has blocked westerly winds that traditionally bring wet weather to Britain -Read Article
Wattsupwiththat-We have been hearing a lot about how the decline in Arctic ice is following the “steepest slope ever.” The point is largely meaningless, but we can have some fun with it. The Bremen Arctic/Antarctic maps are superimposed above, showing that ice in the Antarctic is at a record high and growing at the “steepest slope ever.” You will also note that most of the world’s sea ice is located in the Antarctic. But those are inconvenient truths when trying to frighten people into believing that “the polar ice caps are melting.” -Read Article
MSNBC-Seven-foot waves and 25 mph winds generated by Hurricane Alex, along with high tides, pushed more oil from the massive spill onto Gulf Coast beaches Wednesday. In Louisiana, heavy rains pounded the Grand Isle region, causing flash flooding in low-lying areas. Long bolts of lightning streaked the dark skies, keeping oil-cleanup operations locked down. A pounding surf had moved some of the boom that lines the beach -Read Article
New Scientist-The echoes of “climategate” rumble on with the publication of a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research in which some of the researchers involved take issue with a suggestion that greenhouse gases are not primarily responsible for global warming. A paper published by the journal in July 2009 claims two-thirds of global warming in the past 30 years was caused by the growing influence of the warm phase of the El Niño climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean – and, by inference, not by greenhouse gases -Read Article
BBC – Climate change is often presented in religious terms – believers versus deniers disputing the fate of mankind. In the last year it really felt as though the gods unleashed a plague of events to test the faith. Dodgy e-mails gave us “climate-gate”, the shifting jetstream gave us a freezing winter, United Nations-backed climate scientists gave us crass errors of glacial proportions and Copenhagen gave us, well, virtually nothing. Read Article
Guardian-Australia’s new prime minister, Julia Gillard, today moved to revive a stalled carbon trading scheme, pledging more consultation with industry and voters to win support for an issue that has divided the nation. Gillard, in her first comments to the media after former prime minister Kevin Rudd stepped down earlier on Thursday, said she believed in climate change, backed renewable energy and that the nation needed a price on carbon emissions -Read Article
BBC-The discovery of an underwater ridge in West Antarctica could help explain why there has been an acceleration in the ice flowing from a glacier in the area. Researchers suggest that the base of Pine Island Glacier once sat on the ridge, but recently became detached from the feature. The team made the discovery during surveys that used a unmanned submarine to examine waters under the glacier -Read Article
Millard Public Schools will stop using a children’s book about global warming — but only until the district can obtain copies with a factual error corrected. A review committee, convened after parents complained, concluded that author Laurie David’s book, “The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming,” contained “a major factual error” in a graphic about rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels -Read Article
The Times of India – A new study has found that vitamin D may help in reducing the occurrence and severity of influenza and viral respiratory tract infections. Read Article
Related article: Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D
Make a note and remember the Bilderberg 2010 agenda issues that are listed in the article below, not least “Global Cooling”, and remember where you heard it first when events start occurring. These issues will effect every single person on this planet, and this undemocratic secret meeting of the world’s most powerful business people and politicians has just set the agenda for the coming year. It is your world too.
The Guardian – A huge agenda of global issues was crammed into four days of ’secret’ meetings by a mysterious group of power brokers. But who elected them and why are we paying for them? Check out the agenda for Bilderberg 2010: “Financial reform, security, cyber technology, energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, world food problem, global cooling, social networking, medical science, EU-US relations.” That list is a window into your future. Don’t think for one minute that it isn’t. And don’t ignore it, because it isn’t ignoring you. Read Article
Weekendpost-HEAVY rainfall and snow across the Eastern Cape resulted in at least three serious accidents and forced the closure of several roads and passes yesterday.Snow fell over most of the province, with heavy rain along the coast. Heavy falls were recorded in the Baviaanskloof, George mountains, Queenstown, Grahamstown, Cradock and Graaff-Reinet. Arrive Alive said the Penhoek, Lootsberg, Wapadsberg and Barkly passes were all closed due to snow.The N9 between Graaff-Reinet and Middelburg and the R61 between Graaff-Reinet and Cradock were closed “to avoid accidents, but Penhoek and Barkly passes were reopened for traffic after the snow was cleared” -Read Article
Ottawa Citizen-An electromagnetic “bird” dispatched to the Arctic for the most detailed look yet at the thickness of the ice has turned up a reassuring picture. The meltdown has not been as dire as some would suggest, said geophysicist Christian Haas of the University of Alberta. His international team flew across the top of the planet last year for the 2,412-kilometre survey. They found large expanses of ice four to five metres thick, despite the record retreat in 2007. “This is a nice demonstration that there is still hope for the ice,” said Haas -Read Article
Nature-A widely used microbicide may not be as environmentally friendly as previously thought. The bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) is now the most commonly used microbicide to control mosquitoes worldwide and is considered to be the least toxic alternative to chemical pesticides. But a new study has revealed adverse effects on the reproductive success of birds -Read Article
ScienceDaily- A warmer Arctic climate is influencing the air pressure at the North Pole and shifting wind patterns on our planet. We can expect more cold and snowy winters in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America. “Cold and snowy winters will be the rule, rather than the exception,” says Dr James Overland of the NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in the United States -Read Article
Reuters- An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 jolted northern Japan on Sunday, the Japan Meteorological agency said, though there were no reports of damage and nuclear facilities in the area were unaffected. The quake, at 12:33 p.m. (0333 GMT), was also felt in Tokyo. The focus of the tremor was 40 km (25 miles) below sea level off the east coast of Fukushima prefecture, on Japan’s main island of Honshu, about 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo -Read Article
Nature- Natural climate swings have had a major role in eroding Alpine ice. The Great Aletsch Glacier is ill. Over the course of the twentieth century, the largest Alpine glacier, in Valais, Switzerland, receded by more than two kilometres, and Switzerland’s 1,500 smaller glaciers are not faring any better -Read Article
New Scientist-The Himalayan glaciers that feed Asia’s five largest rivers are in no danger of disappearing by 2035, as claimed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report. In fact, only the glaciers that melt into the Ganges are shrinking, according to the most detailed analysis yet of how climate change will affect key Asian glaciers -Read Article
NY Times- Ubiquitous in products from cookies to cosmetics, and increasingly in European fuel tanks, too, palm oil is driving the destruction of some of Southeast Asia’s last tracts of untouched rainforest and leading to huge emissions of gases that spur global warming. Biofuel goals meant to fight climate change are worsening the problem by giving growers an even greater incentive to destroy virgin forests and peatlands that serve as huge carbon sinks -Read Article
ABC-Emplacement of aerosols in the atmosphere has been suggested as a way of engineering the planet’s climate to stop warming But very little work has been done on the effects and David Keith says even if geoengineering were undertaken, its benefit would be ineffective if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase -Read Article
New Scientist-At the end of the last ice age, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels shot up by nearly 50 per cent. But where did the CO2 come from? This long-standing climatic mystery has now been solved.
Climate scientists have suspected – but never been able to prove – that the CO2 was the result of a huge belch of gas from the oceans. They predicted that the ice age had slowed ocean circulation, trapping CO2 deep within it, and that warmer temperatures reversed this process -Read Article
AP-Good news for asthmatics, children, the elderly and those who have breathing disorders.
For the first time in nearly 40 years, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued standards that lower the acceptable levels of sulfur dioxide emissions and increase the intervals the gas is monitored. Under the new rules, sulfur dioxide levels will be cut nearly in half from the current 140 parts per billion averaged over 24 hours to 75 parts per billion measured hourly -Read Article
The Telegraph-Low-lying Pacific islands regarded as “poster child” examples of the threat from rising sea levels are expanding not sinking, a new study has revealed. Scientists have been surprised by the findings, which show that some islands have grown by almost one-third over the past 60 years -Read Article
